Ep. 316: These Are The 2025 Cars That We LOVE And HATE!
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Car
Land Rover Discovery
The Discovery is a type of SUV made by the British company Land Rover. It’s big, can handle rough roads, and is often used for family trips or outdoor adventures.
Part
head gasket
A head gasket keeps the engine’s parts sealed so oil and coolant stay where they belong. If it breaks, the engine can overheat or lose power.
Term
torque wrench
A torque wrench is a tool that lets you tighten bolts to exactly the right amount of force. It helps prevent over‑tightening or under‑tightening, which can cause parts to fail.
Part
oil pump
The oil pump is like a small motor that pushes engine oil through the car so all parts stay slick and don’t wear out too fast.
Part
6L80
The 6L80 is a six‑speed automatic gearbox made by GM. It uses computer software to decide when and how fast it shifts, so fixing it often needs special tools and knowledge.
Car
Corvette C6
The Corvette C6 is a popular American sports car that was made between 2005 and 2013. It’s known for its sleek design and strong engine options.
Part
4L80
The 4L80 is a type of automatic gearbox made by GM. It’s used in many trucks and can handle a lot of power, so it’s popular for heavy-duty vehicles.
Term
manual transmission
A manual transmission is a car gearbox where you shift gears yourself with a lever and clutch pedal, giving you more control over how the car moves.
Part
suspension
It’s the part that keeps your car from bouncing too much and helps it stay on the road when you turn or hit bumps.
Car
Telluride
The Telluride is a big SUV from Hyundai that seats seven and has a comfortable, high‑quality interior. It’s popular for family trips.
Car
Palisade
The Palisade is a big SUV from Kia that seats up to eight people and feels like a luxury car for its price. It’s great for families.
Part
vented hood
A vented hood is a car top that has little holes or openings so hot air can leave the engine area. It keeps the engine from getting too hot and helps the car run smoother.
Term
remote start
Remote start lets you turn on your car’s engine from far away, like with a key fob or phone app, so the car is warm and ready when you get in.
Car
Mercedes S-Class (R107)
The R107 is a big, fancy Mercedes sedan that was made in the 1990s. It’s known for its smooth ride and high quality interior.
Part
integrated roll hoop
It’s like a built‑in safety bar that helps protect the car and its occupants if the vehicle rolls over or hits something on the side.
Car
Honda Passport Trail Sport
The Honda Passport Trail Sport is a type of SUV that can handle rough terrain. It has a strong engine and special features to help it go off the road.
Part
amber running lights
These are the bright orange lights you see on a car’s front and back when it’s moving. They help other drivers see the car better, especially at night.
Part
rock sliders
These are the small metal or plastic pieces that sit on the sides of a car to keep rocks and dirt from scratching the paint when you drive off‑road or on rough roads.
Part
skid plates
Skid plates are like a car’s armor for the bottom. They protect important parts from rocks or bumps when you drive off-road.
Term
all-wheel drive system
AWD means the car can send power to all four wheels at once, so it’s better on slippery or uneven roads.
Brand
Tesla
Tesla makes cars that run on electricity instead of gasoline. They’re famous for their high-tech features and fast acceleration.
Term
hybrid
A hybrid car uses both a gasoline engine and an electric motor to help it use less gas and produce fewer pollutants.
Term
digital instrument cluster
Instead of the old round dials, a digital instrument cluster shows all the car’s information on a screen inside the dashboard.
Brand
Jeep
Jeep is a car brand that makes trucks and SUVs that can go off-road, like the Wrangler and Grand Cherokee. They’re known for being tough and able to handle rough terrain.
Car
Silverado EV
The Silverado EV is a truck made by Ford that runs on electricity instead of gas, so it doesn’t need to refuel at a gas station.
Car
Sierra EV
The Sierra EV is a smaller electric truck from Ford, good for city driving and short trips.
Part
infotainment system
It’s the screen or panel inside the car that lets you play music, use GPS, and adjust things like temperature.
Brand
Volvo
Volvo makes cars that are popular for being safe and having a clean look. They’re also moving into electric vehicles.
Company
Whipple
Whipple makes small, powerful devices that squeeze more air into an engine to make it run faster. They’re popular with people who want a quick boost in power without changing the engine itself.
Term
supercharger
A supercharger is a machine that forces extra air into the engine, so it can burn more fuel and make more power. It’s like giving the car a bigger breathing room.
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So we have some great news to start out today. Case isn't dead. Yeah, I figured that's what your news was. Yeah, which is good news for me at least every week. It's good news for everybody every week. Case we like having you around. Now what I'm talking about is Case went on an epic South American paragliding safari. It wasn't that safari.
It was a safari. You almost hit a tree. Well, we were in a jungle. I didn't know most of the tree. We just sometimes when you're flying, you're not that far from trees. So pull up the video clip. You guys got to see this. So Case, you want to give some background as to what you're doing. Yeah, well my dad was a paraglider pilot a long time ago and pretty early days of the sport. So I grew up around paragliding.
And this past spring started flying myself. And yeah, we made a buddy of mine did a trip down to Columbia to go do some paragliding. We were at a place called Piedecinje.
And it's definitely a haven for flying. It's a really good location, favorable conditions. We were learning how to thermal. And yeah, we had some nice flights like two hour flights. Thermalins staying up, getting up to like 8,000 feet.
Cloud base being right there up against the clouds, which is kind of cool. Sometimes you're in an airplane. You look at a window and you kind of wish you could touch clouds. I got to say when you're face to face with a cloud that's kind of getting a little dark underneath.
They don't look as friendly and inviting as they do from the ground. But it's yeah, it was still really neat.
If you are listening to the podcast and you're like, what the heck are you talking about? Imagine the scene case right now, he looks like Sean Connery, soaring above the jungle. Not very hairy. Well, Sean Connery Harry. Yeah, is he massively.
Cole, you want any comments to say on this? Oh, Cole doesn't know if Sean Connery's Harry. You never met him. Well, yeah, no he is. So case looks like James Bond, soaring above like these mountainous mountains, mountainous mountains. And there's trees and there's like field and it is incredible.
It was cool. It was in the jungle at like, you know, in the Andes, there were 18,000 foot peaks looming in the distance. Clouds, rainbows and that's crazy. Yes, pretty, pretty incredible place. Why Columbia?
And they just got some really good flying. Really? Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Is that like the Moab Utah of paragliding?
There's a lot of really good places to fly. It depends on who you ask. There's a lot of people I love flying in the Alps.
There's a lot of sites throughout South America to go fly at, but definitely Columbia is a great spot for it. No, tell me, did you fear death?
No, not so much. There's definitely, there were a couple of points where a few thousand feet above ground level. And air is a little turbulent. You're getting pushed around a bit and you look up to see the piece of fabric that's keeping you a couple thousand feet in the air. And you're like, oh man.
How did I get here? So we were talking off camera and you said that like at one point you were 4,000 feet above the ground. Yeah, so the landing zone was like, so our instruments, we have set up to show us our altitude in meters.
But the landing zone, yeah, was was around 4,000 feet and highest point we were getting to typically was about eight. Whoa. Yeah, dude, that's crazy. Yeah, that's absolutely crazy.
And like, did you hit any of any of like the weather that you worried about that can push you down?
Sometimes you end up in in some sink where you're dropping faster than is ideal, especially if you want to be here like plummeting.
Now, if you want to find another pocket of lift and stay up, then yeah, you don't want to be in sync because the sink is just kind of ruining your glide.
So that considered a dangerous situation as like a plane crash where they're like, sir, we're plummeting faster than ideal.
No, I mean, your worst case scenario would be like landing in someone's backyard instead of at the landing zone. Okay.
The nice thing about where we were, one of the many nice things is that it's just all fields all over the place.
So you have a lot of options for where to land at is just there's places that are more ideal than others to land.
Well, like landing in someone's backyard or in the middle of the jungle or something.
Not great. Yeah. Then you really are a Sean Connery. No, I think this is incredibly cool.
I'm glad you made it out in one piece which is awesome. No trees were actually hit. No, which is great news.
I think what's crazy is about this to me is like going to South America which is already kind of an adventure and then jumping off a mountain in South America.
Yeah, we're running off.
Do you check your paraglider or do you bring it on the plane? Yeah, no, it was checked. It's a big bag.
The wing packs into a backpack but it's a big backpack so it would not be carry on.
That's crazy. So while case was jumping off mountains, running off mountains, excuse me, I was in New York eating hot dogs.
So I'm sorry if you didn't see me around much less week but I was with my wife eating some hot dogs and watching some shows which was awesome.
Yeah, you went to even some live taping. We went. Yes, I saw Seth Meyers recorded live which was cool.
It's pretty cool. Went to the nut cracker. Yeah, got some good food. Didn't even eat that many hot dogs. Only two to four.
Yeah, I kind of lost track a little in the middle there but it was awesome. Small number, I feel like that's pretty easy to count.
Yeah, two to four you think I'd keep track. No, but it was awesome. I did nothing car related. It turns out New York City kind of hates the car.
Yeah, but I haven't heard that. Yeah, although I hate to say after my trip I'm a little bit more pro train.
I do understand the merits of the train. In an urban environment they do a fairly good job of moving people around.
Call we can cut that right?
Oh, no. No, I mean it was I like the train a lot until I had to be similar like really on time and then immediately I didn't like the train.
That makes sense. But somehow even the bad train experience is better than a bad car experience because it took us 24 minutes to go the three quarters of a mile.
Yikes. Literally could have walked that faster at one point. Yeah, that's that's not great in a car.
So that's what I was doing last week. And we have some big updates about our vehicles as our friend David would say.
So a couple weeks ago, I bought this Land Rover Discovery one at the auction and had a nice bucket of coolants in the back, which I assumed the kind preview owner just left me.
Maybe he was getting rid of his supply of coolant. Yeah, when he was just diligent about making sure it was good.
Always talked off. Yeah, so it was very kind of him to give me so much coolant.
Unfortunately, I realized why there was so much coolant and that the car was consuming it at a prodigious rate.
Yeah, plummeting through coolant faster than intended generally not a good sign.
Right. So quickly big came clear, one of the big problems with these cars is they've had gaskets that go bad.
It had had guests that went bad. Clearly I'm an idiot. I've no idea how to fix that.
But I do have a friend that does know how our friend Joe who he met in Utah actually.
Yeah, absolutely. He's got a really cool channel called Lost Cause Rancher.
He makes videos about some really bad ass rovers that he's got. How many does he have?
He's got like 20 or something. Yeah, he's got a six by six discovery, two.
He's got that really cool range driven the back. He's got that yellow discovery one.
So there's typically one running at all times.
And what's nice about your disco one, honestly, it needs head gasket.
That's a bummer because it's not a tiny job.
Yeah, but the rest of the vehicle is really good.
The body is awesome. The paint's in good shape. The interior is great underneath. There's no rust.
So it's generally a very clean car. And once a head gasket is done on it,
it's going to be awesome because it's not even that high a miles.
No, it's like 130, which in Toyota miles is like 1.8 million.
But it was really well taken care of.
And the only other issue I really was worried about is that idle,
the oil pressure light would kind of flicker on.
A couple of things he noticed, the oil that the previous owner had used in it, a little too thin.
So it's the Land Rover recommended, a 5W30.
But these engines, he said like a 10W40, they just run a little happier.
And he also took the front cover off the engine and the oil pump had some scoring
and just started to go bad.
So he's putting a new oil pump in it. He's putting some head gaskets in it.
He's got a video over his channel at Lost Cars Ranch. We can watch that.
You're going to pull out the pictures, though, cool.
I talked him for a while on the phone and he said that as we kind of guess case,
this car is actually in really, really good shape.
So it's almost completely rust-free.
He said one of the running board mounts had a little bit of corrosion.
And he's like, you want me to weld it? I'm like, just get rid of the running board.
They look dumb anyway. So he's going to ditch the running boards.
But the frame is super solid. The axles of springs.
Like there's not even surface rust on stuff.
And he said the engine came apart really easily.
Now here's an interesting thing.
When he actually, he did a leak down test and there was a leak in the cooling system,
which makes sense because the head gaskets got bad.
But there was actually not an issue in the head gasket itself, like when he pulled the old ones off.
He suspects that they've actually been changed.
But what he was noticing is he actually used a torque wrench to pull the head gaskets,
the head bolts off because he wanted to see what they were torqued to.
And he said, like, a few of them were torqued to 160, 170 foot pounds where they should be.
And a few of them were torqued to like 40 to 60.
So his theory is that when someone had done head gaskets, they didn't properly torque the head bolts.
They missed a few.
They missed a couple of sequences.
Yeah, so they're like two or three that were like,
and it wasn't like five or ten pound feet off.
It was like a hundred.
Yeah.
Like more than what it should be.
Yeah.
And the ones at the back of the engine near cylinder eight, if I recall, those are the ones that were the loosest.
And you also notice that cylinder eight looked pretty steam cleaned.
Like it was getting a nice little bath every morning.
So he's going to put head gaskets in it.
He's going to put a new oil pump in it.
He's also, apparently, you get rid of the torque to yield head bolts on these.
Okay.
And you go to airp head studs.
Nice.
So he's going to put heads studs in it for me.
Look at that.
He even got some cross-hatching left in the cylinder there.
Yeah.
So overall, it's going to go together, again, pretty nicely.
Yeah.
Yeah, especially with some ARPs, you would imagine.
Is it an upgraded gasket that's in between as well?
Yeah.
It might be factory.
I don't know.
I have to ask him.
That's a good question.
He's going to send me a parts list today.
But even with the studs.
Oh, yeah.
It should be much better off.
Yeah.
Much better shape.
Yeah.
Nice.
So this is the big, big problem with these engines is the head gaskets are constantly failing.
But it's going to be a really good car when you get back.
Yeah.
And what's cool about this is the reason I wanted to put the money into this one is like the majority of them you see.
His words were either trailed out, which is essentially they got cheap and then used hard as off road rigs.
Yep.
And then they just get scratched and kind of beaten the heck.
Or they just get totally neglected and not maintained in the paint shot and then they need everything.
And this one other than the head gasket and that oil pressure look perfect for the most part.
So I think it's going to be worth it.
And then I don't even think I'm going to do much to modify it.
Well, no, I think you should keep it relatively stock because it's pretty rare to see, especially in good condition.
And it's cool.
The other nice thing is that once that motor is back together and happy, those transmissions are pretty solid.
Those transfer cases are good.
The axles are good.
So for the most part, it should be pretty not horrible.
Did I tell you about the tires about for it?
What did you buy?
I don't know if I'm actually going to end up using it like this.
But I thought it would be cool to be able to drive it around in the winter a little bit in Colorado.
So I found a set of all weather tires for it.
Right.
And they don't look as cool as an all-train.
But the reason I bought them, they were like a good year something.
They were $295 for the set.
Oh, for all five?
Four or four of them.
Oh, you're not getting the full one.
They didn't have a fifth one.
Ah.
They were date coded 22, which is why tire rack was trying to get rid of them.
But 295 bucks for the set.
And 22 is not old enough for that to be a problem.
So great.
So we'll see how my good year ditch finders end up working out.
I'm excited to see that.
Speaking of which, what's going on with your car?
Yeah, my land rover.
The difference between your land rover and my land rover is yours has a problem with the land rover part being the engine.
Mine, the most problematic thing in my land rover in the entire time I've owned it.
Is a GM transmission.
So there's quite a few people out there that would have predicted that.
So you're unaware.
Case had this really cool discovery too.
I still have it.
He still has it.
As far as we know, you still have it.
It's not currently in my possession.
And he went through this really cool project of L.S. swapping, L.S.
Two swapping it.
And you did so much work.
I mean, the difference between case and I is I literally shift mine off to Iowa
and let someone else do it.
And case and some buddies did this with some help.
So I mean, it's amazing what you did.
But it's not running anymore.
Yeah, the transmission is struggling again.
So I have it into a shop that does some swaps professionally because they know a lot more on the software side of things.
I don't mind turning bolts.
But I don't have the computer science degrees to mess around with all the programming.
I just don't know much about it because everything else I've worked on is old and carverated and that kind of thing.
So because the 6L80 is so heavily dependent on electronics and computers and that stupid techum that lives inside of the transmission,
I think that's part of the reason that this transmission has been as much of a pain as it has been.
It's 100% possible to get a 6L80 to work happily in a swap or in the vehicles that they came in originally.
But it is definitely a little tricky.
Yeah.
And it's, yeah, it's continuing to be tricky.
So this was a Corvette engine, a C6, right?
Like an early C6 engine.
Yeah, it's an LS2.
And when you first put it together, it was funny.
Like it actually came together pretty quickly with getting the engine lifted in.
And the motor, the motor's great, the motor's happy, makes good power.
I don't mean the thing is quick, it's got a lot of power.
But the thing which blows my mind is like, you bought a 6L80 for the project initially, right?
Yes.
And didn't you buy one that was quote rebuilt?
Yeah, so initially I bought a 6L80 that was rebuilt, except the guy who rebuilt it stacked some apparently.
Because I didn't take it apart again.
So I don't rebuild transmission, but nor do I.
Not a car guy.
Yeah, apparently.
Nor do I want to.
But apparently that 6L80, the initial rebuild, it was stacked wrong.
So you had a physical mechanical failure.
Yeah, it was assembled incorrectly.
So then you had another shop rebuild the rebuild.
Yeah.
And then mechanically it was good, but then you had all sorts of hardware issues,
or software issues getting into talk, right?
Is that kind of what happened?
Exactly, yes.
So the software was taken a long time trial and error to try and get sorted out,
which this is the first time I've done an engine swap, that kind of thing.
Sure.
So there's definitely been a lot of trial and error on my end of things,
and plenty of things that I didn't know and have learned and continuing to learn.
And the software side of it was one of those, and I got some help from some buddies.
We eventually got the software to a point where it was where the transmission works.
Yeah.
And then we took it to Moab.
Yeah.
Did the Moab video?
It was working fine.
But then it started losing gears, right?
Yeah, it lost reverse, and it just lost any forward movement at all.
So there's no line pressure at the moment.
Oh, really?
Yeah, which could be from a whole host of different things,
but the next step is pulling it out and digging into it to see what's up.
So yeah, it will, yeah, someone saying in 4L80 we trust,
4L80 seems to be in a lot of ways a better transmission, but living up here in the mountains,
having a 6-speed would be really nice.
And so I'm going to try and stick it out and get this 6L80 to do its thing.
Yeah.
But I have definitely many times considered giving up on that stupid transmission.
So what's the other option?
Would you have a third rebuild on it, or would you go a different route altogether?
I don't know.
I mean, theoretically, every manual that I've ever taken out and put back into something
is just so easy.
They're so simple, right?
They're not nearly as much to go wrong as compared to, especially a computer-controlled automatic transmission
that's got so much in the way of electronics and the valve body and these clutch packs
and everything that's going on with something like that.
So, you know, I mean, a manual could be fun.
I kind of prefer, as you do, rock crawling with an automatic.
Yeah.
For sure.
It's one of these things like, I'm so frustrated for you because, like, in theory,
the hard heavy lifting is done, right?
Yeah.
Like the car runs and drives, right?
Yeah, the motor's great.
You have heat in it, you're low range works, right?
I mean, all this stuff is working.
And then, like, the transmission, which seems like it should be, it's a Chevrolet engine
and a Chevrolet transmission.
Yeah.
Like, in my mind, those two work pretty happy together.
When it is frustrating because, at a certain point, you know, I get to this stage where it's
like, who do I have to talk to?
What do I have to do to get a fresh rebuilt 6L80 to just work?
Yeah, right.
Because I will spend the money, I will, you know, trailer it to someone who knows everything
about, I just, it's like, I need answers.
Yeah.
Yeah, so, no, it's definitely been tough.
But at the same time, that's kind of, I look at this as like, hot rotting, I mean, I'm
not exactly building a race car, but, for sure.
When you're taking on doing an engine swap and that kind of thing, you take on, take it on
with the idea that you're probably going to break stuff and things are going to go wrong.
You know, if I wanted something to just work, turn key, like, a vehicle that you can go
to a dealership and buy, that's what I would do.
But I wanted to build something and learn.
Yeah.
And you'll learn to have that experience.
So, yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I think the frustrating thing for me would be like, you almost prefer to be driving
it and then have it go bang, clatter, clatter.
And you know, for sure, like, something mechanically failed and like, all right, how do you address
that mechanical thing?
Yeah.
If you blow an axle, how do you, how do I fix that axle?
But with what you're dealing with is kind of this weird, like, software hell.
Yeah.
When something, I mean, if the software is not fully sorted out, then that can have hardware
consequences, you know?
Yeah.
Which is crazy.
Yeah.
So, everybody give case his good vibes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's funny.
I did with that rover talking about the challenges with it.
It was a funny comment that was like, why didn't you just get a Tahoe?
It sounds like that would have been cheaper and easier.
And it's like, yeah, well, cheap and easy was not the goal of doing this.
If cheap and easy was the goal, I definitely would not have bought a discovery and I definitely
would not have decided to do any engine swap in the world.
Engine swaps are in cheap and easy are not really compatible.
Right.
Yeah.
That's true.
It's for different reasons that you decided to do a thing like that.
Yeah.
And now you're exactly right.
Well, we wish you the best case.
We'll have updates on the podcasts as it comes.
Last land over story, I had a humiliating moment yesterday, which I will never be able to
live down.
Yeah.
I was coming home from our eight day trip to New York, drove my LR3 to the airport, which
I loved dearly.
And like I'm walking out of the airport to the parking lot, I'm like, where did I park
my car?
Like I'm pretty sure I had a picture of it like, oh, oh, number two in the spot, I can't
see my car.
Well, what had happened, this is just the worst thing to happen.
If you parked my car more than like four or five days, the suspension will air out.
Is it supposed to?
Probably not.
Does it have a leak?
Almost definitely.
Was it a $4,500 car?
Yeah, also, yes.
I don't really care enough.
But if you park it for more than four days, it does look like a dog that's just pooped
itself.
Because it just airs land.
Yeah, it's horrible.
The reason I couldn't find my car is because a guy in a lifted and like built out 200
series land cruiser had parked like six inches from it and was completely hiding it.
Oh, I was so upset because generally, I'm so pissed.
I'm like, oh, my arch nemesis has complete.
That guy pulled up.
Literally overcat him.
Guarantee he got out, saw my crouched ass dog and was like, look at this idiot that
bought this land cruiser.
He's like, look at me in my land Rover.
Look at me in my land cruiser.
I'm so much better.
And I just, oh, I wish I could talk to that guy and prove to him that my suspension
does work.
Well, we've done a lot of good work in this podcast to prove him wrong.
Brutal.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
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CCB-184-317.
So I thought it'd be fun as we're entering the new year to kind of do a quick reflection on 2025 and talk about some of the best and the worst cars that case and I've driven this year.
But what's a little unusual about us at least compared to like some of the big media outlets like Edmonds or KBB is that we buy a number of cars every year too that are old and janky.
So I thought it'd be fun to kind of walk through our experiences of the cars that we've bought this year as a company and personally give our highlights and low lights along with the new car that we've driven and stuff.
Yeah, so should we do a little back and forth?
We'll do five lights and then maybe we'll cut to some dislikes too.
So what do you want to start with? What's a car this year that you really enjoyed?
Let's go to the very front of my list. This one is going to be probably a bit of a surprise for you, but I really liked the final edition of the Supra.
Obviously the Supra has been around for a while, but especially a manual final edition. It just felt like a very special car.
We had one here at the office that we got to shoot some videos with and I brought that home with me one day after work and then drove it into work the next day.
And seeing it parked there in the driveway, it is a really cool looking car, great proportions, long hood.
I like the interior. I know a lot of the electronics and switch gear are BMW that doesn't bother me because I like BMWs as well.
But it sounds good, it handles well. It's fun to drive, nice, torquey powertrain. It's just a great car all around.
Yeah, I mean, I think what you said true is like this car really does make you feel special.
And ultimately for 2025 standards, I hate to say it, this is going to sound outrageous, but not for as much money as you'd expect.
So you can get these cars in the high $50,000 range for a manual transmission Supra, right?
So you can get these cars out there for a base model. And the thing is, is like you get into like, especially a challenger or a charger and you get into like a Mustang and they're very good at going fast and straight line, but they don't feel like a special experience, right?
They don't really feel that out of the ordinary, but this car really does feel like a baby race car when you get in it, it really hugs you and kind of conforms to you, the manuals incredible. And it's properly quick.
It is, yeah, it's, and again, it sounds good. It's a lot of fun to drive. And it's relatively analog compared to a lot of other performance cars these days. So it's one that I enjoy a lot like to have it around.
This is one of those cars, like the other new cars on this list for the most part, where driving it, I started to ask myself, what would I have to sell to be able to get one of these?
Yeah, and pretty much every car on, but yeah, no, this was an excellent choice. And it's going away, you know, as we talked about. And I think that ultimately, this car never really got the appreciation that it deserved. I agree. I think a lot because that BMW connection.
Yeah, right. But ultimately, like if you're going to have a company build you a car with an in line six, no one does it better than BMW. So why are we upset about it?
Yeah, plus the B58 is a great engine. Yeah, exactly. You're exactly right. It's a great engine, very tunable. Transmission was awesome. I see what you're saying about maybe some of the criticism for the interior. It's like a very 2015 BMW, but it still works on that interior. I don't dislike it at all.
It feels good. So I just drove a few weeks ago. I didn't do a video on it, but I just had 10 minutes in it. I know you've also driven it the Z, which is kind of the car's direct competitor.
It doesn't drive nearly as well. I like the super better. Yeah, I agree. I also like a straight six more than a V6. Pretty much exclusively. Oh, for sure.
The thing that I am a little conflicted about though is I do think the Z looks a lot better. You like the super. I think the Z is a great looking car, but the Supra is definitely not a bad looking car. And it looks.
It looks like something out of a out of a movie or a cartoon. It is very dramatized in its lines and the shape of it. It's like if you were to have some, I don't know, maybe cartoons a weird way to describe it.
But it's exactly what you would kind of expect the next generation of the Supra following up the Mark IV to look like because it's modernized, but it's got some similar details and proportions. So I like it a lot.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's an unattractive car. I do like the retro thing that Nissan's got going on. Yeah. And I don't know. I think that there's some weird proportions on the super, but as a whole as a thing to drive, it's so much crisper, so much more precise that engine is so much more responsive and gives a better exhaust note.
So it feels more more special to me as well for sure. Yeah, for sure. And I think that's kind of represented in maybe not all out sales numbers because they are both pretty low volume, but certainly use numbers. These cars really hold a value well. Yeah.
So I thought it would be fun for my number five car, maybe he's a car on your list too. The one of the bigger surprises I drove this year was a car that we actually bought, and that's our 94 Viper.
Yeah. And I'll go ahead and mention that that's on my list. Okay, it is on your list. It is. So we bought this car, I don't know, five, six months ago.
It was kind of like an on the wind purchase. That's my dad always gets where he's like, maybe we should try Viper. And I always looked at Viper is this kind of like kit cars and half developed in a little toy it like you were too good for a Viper.
Is that what you're saying? Well, they just too low brow. Well, they're a little redneck, right? Like they have a reputation and they're they're kind of I genuinely don't know what you mean. Okay.
But I think we both agree that this is a really phenomenal car. It's so good. This car leaves you with more of an impression. It's more of an experience to drive this car than just about anything.
But there's not many other cars that have as much personality as this one does and not only in the way that it drives, but the way it looks, the way that it's constructed, how poorly really it's constructed.
And some of the things that are missing from it, like exterior door handles, like windows that actually live in the door and roll up and down.
There's, you know, called holders. There's many, many things it doesn't have or airbags or traction control or ABS or yeah, things that keep you safe are unimportant.
No, I mean, I think like cases talked about this a little bit. I don't know if you guys are said to publicly, but we have like a lot of people and even in a personalized, we have like a lot of friends that come to us and they'll they'll like getting a big discussions about like, should I buy the rogue or should I buy the CRV or should I buy the RAV4.
And ultimately, it really doesn't matter because I mean, I hate to say that we're, you know, it's my job to say that it matters, but functionally those cars operate and will serve you in largely the same way.
If somebody bought a CRV instead of a RAV4, neither of us would be like, oh, no.
Well, some of a lot of Dodge Hornet.
Yeah, that might be a problem.
But yeah, those, those cars are so competitive and they sell in such huge numbers. You really can't go wrong. So really that answer the heck question when we're asked it.
Which one, which dealerships closer?
What's the best deal?
Which one is in a color you like?
Right. Because they're both good cars.
Because I think like back even when we started this in 2010, like there were cars that were objectively worse than other cars.
You know, like there were Nissan products that had fundamentally flawed transmissions that were going to be expensive in the long run.
Genuinely bad cars in this day and age are hard to find. They're, they're few and far between.
Right.
There's definitely vehicles that have issues. These are complex machines and there's always problems here and there.
But there's not a lot of vehicles manufactured today that are fatally flawed.
You absolutely shouldn't buy it and drive it.
But the problem with that is that you end up kind of with a very homogenized experience across support.
It's a little bit like cross-shopping white bread.
You know, I know there are flavor differences in some design differences and some color differences.
But it's ultimately going to be functional edible food.
That's not going to wow you, right?
This is like eating a rye bread full of razor blades.
Right?
Is that something you do?
Well, I try to avoid it.
But when you do it, it does lead to stories, right?
And I think that's, that's what this car is, right?
It's always an experience.
Yeah.
And kind of like what Keith was saying earlier, like the flaws that it has which are just ridiculous,
like the fact that the convertible top just flops around and you drive it along and then it doesn't have windows
and that the heat and the air conditioning, well the heat's okay but the air conditioning just sucked when it was new
and the dashboards made out of jelly rolls.
Like, they're bad things objectively but it all makes it a very exciting experience.
And it is so much fun to drive.
People say that they don't sound very good.
I think they sound better from the driver's seat than on a clip.
They don't sound good on a speaker.
Yeah.
You get this weird sensation in this car because it's got side pipes and there's no ex pipes.
You're only hearing every other exhaust pulse where it almost kind of sounds like a surround sound system in like a movie theater
where you get, you get the sound that kind of envelops you from both sides versus just being front or back.
And this is, the car is a hell of an experienced being.
And even people I've put in the passenger seat of that Viper who spend a lot of time in some genuinely very fast cars
are laughing maniacally when you get on the throttle, ring it out and shift it hard through the next gear.
It is such an experience in that vehicle.
It's unbelievable.
So cool.
So what do you think?
Does it deserve the killer reputation of being their neighbors?
Yeah.
So the thing that I've found and you have as well is in a straight line, you can manhandle the car.
You can launch it hard, you can ring it out, you can snatch the next gear.
All of that is fine.
What I wouldn't want to do is corner it hard because when you reach that limit, it's gone.
Right.
There's not like, oh, back in starting to step out.
You know, I'm gonna counter steer a little, hang the tail out.
Maybe there's somebody out there who can.
But for most people, for mere mortals, that car will make you realize just how mortal you are
if you choose to take it to the limit in a corner.
I had this distinct memory.
I'm pretty sure it was Gran Turismo 3.
I had on PS2.
And you could like set up a cobra with all the traction aids off on your little PS2.
And you'd be driving it around your little racetrack with your little joysticks.
And then you take a turn too hard or you get on the gas too hard.
And there was physically no way to catch it.
That's kind of what like a Viper is like.
But the reality is on a regular everyday standpoint, it's not like a scary car to drive.
No, right.
Like you could easily drive that car to work if you had to easily drive that car on the highway
and have no issues.
It's just like if you're pushing it, you can even push it on a canyon road up to like six tents.
But I wouldn't really want to go any higher than that on a public road without a lot of runoff.
I agree.
And at this point, I've been lucky enough to drive several hundred miles in that car.
And at no point did I feel unsafe.
I think a lot of the big problem with the reputation too is every Viper including ours when we bought it.
Tires are so expensive and hard to find.
There's a lot of them on old rubber.
Really old rubber.
Right.
It's kind of like that career GT issue where like people don't drive them a lot.
And then they don't want to pay for new tires.
And new tires are hard to find in the weird tire sizes that they have.
So then they just end up on 10, 15 year old rubber.
It's a bad, that's a bad combination.
I've heard a good word of wisdom, negative wisdom that if you can't afford to maintain a car,
then you can't afford the car.
Oh, good one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good rubber on a Viper is kind of a must.
It is interesting.
It is interesting though for like $40,000, it's hard to find a car that gets more public attention.
Oh my god, yeah.
So much.
I mean, to me like a Viper is a cool, as a very, very cool car but it's not like an exotic car.
A $40,000, $30 year old Viper is like it's cheaper than a RAV4 that we have on this list.
But like people still view it as like this crazy Halo Supercar.
100%.
Yeah, I think you would be hard pressed to find another car that gets as many excited reactions
for that amount of money.
Yeah.
So I think it's awesome.
Like Kase said, we've actually driven it quite a lot.
They're dirt simple to own.
There's not a lot to drink on it.
Yeah.
So really, really worth buying.
All right.
Let's keep going.
I've got some other cars.
Yeah.
I think we should do another on your list because we shared that one.
Yep.
So transitioning to something totally different, going back to the new thing.
A car I really liked a lot this year was the Hyundai Palisade.
Okay.
Right.
So the old Telluride did this thing when it launched.
Gosh, that must have been like seven, eight years ago, where it looked like a Range Rover,
but not in like a team who kind of way.
Sure.
So like it had that Range Rover like viewership experience, but it also had a really nice interior
and felt nice drive.
The new Palisade does that to like even the next level.
So it just is such a next level in terms of a premium feeling thing to interact with.
It is cool looking.
Yeah.
At a price that's a lot less than any of the competition from Mercedes or BMW.
Yeah.
I got to say Hyundai, Kia, Genesis are putting together some very appealing vehicles, especially price
considered.
Yeah.
And compared to the other things you would stack next to them, cross shop them with, they make some vehicles
are kind of hard to argue with.
And I think what we, you know, we were talking about like that white bread analogy.
A lot of it is that like Honda, Toyota, Nissan, these companies are so huge.
There's so many thousands of employees and they're so unwilling to upset the apple cart that
like every generation is essentially the same as the old generation with a bigger screen,
more LED lights and maybe some different angles, right.
But I feel like every generation of Hyundai or Kia product, they just, they are like, they sit down like,
this is what we did in the old Sonata.
Now we're going to do none of that.
I want you to take this paper and never look at it again and we're going to go in a completely
different direction.
And I think that hurts them sometimes like the Santa Fe, the new generation is so different
that a lot of people hate the way it looks.
But I also think that it means that they're not bounded by like those same constraints.
I feel the same way, especially about vehicles at the top of that food chain like Genesis
in particular where you get into a new Genesis and it feels like they're doing things
that are different and new because a lot of luxury brands have been making vehicles
that feel pretty similar to how they felt 10 years ago and in a luxury car,
you kind of want innovation and something that's new, exciting and different
because theoretically that should be what you're paying for.
And Genesis 100% does that.
They throw in features and design elements, color pallets, materials, all kinds of things
that you've probably never seen in any other vehicle.
For sure.
It makes them feel special.
But the same things are trickling down to other products that are more affordable.
So I think that this is a great example of exactly what you're saying.
Now it's not super cheap like this one I'm showcasing here is a calligraphy with the massaging seats
and the heated third row of seats.
So we're still looking at a vehicle that can be in the $60,000 range.
But you can get a really nicely equipped one for 50 or 48.
And for what you're getting there?
60 years.
Oh yeah.
In this day and age it was not that bad.
It cost you 110 in a Mercedes and a DLS, right?
And this is realistic then.
I mean, I did meet it in terms of material quality just as nice.
The one thing that I think they're still let down a little bit with this car is
the standard one is a pretty blech NAV8 V6.
But I just drove the Palsett Hybrid, which is only $2,000 more.
It's a Turbo 4 with the Hybrid system and it really fixed a lot of the issues.
Yeah. And then the Telluride is going to be coming as well.
Yeah.
Which is also exciting, really cool design on the new Telluride.
It looks great.
I'll go for that one.
Yeah.
And look, I understand that there's still this perception of quality issues surrounding some of these brands.
But if I was looking at shopping one of these, for my personal experience, Granted,
I haven't owned one for more than I think we had that newest Hyundai for like that Santa Cruz for 20,000 miles or something.
Yeah.
It was fine.
But even if I was shopping new, like these cars have a 10-year 100,000 mile warranty.
To that, I would also say, find me a brand in 2025 or going into 2026 that nobody thinks has any quality issues.
True.
That's a really good point, right?
Yeah.
So that was my next new car.
What else do you have on your liked list of this year?
I'm going to go with another one of the new vehicles that I drove.
New-ish, I suppose.
It's somewhere between new and old.
It's the Dodge Durango Hellcat, the jailbreak.
Ooh.
Especially.
So we got to see these vehicles pretty early on in Detroit, which was very cool.
And then we got to drive one that we had here at the office.
And I kind of say the one that we had at the office, it wasn't done up too spectacularly because on the jailbreak,
you can pick all kinds of crazy color combos on the interior and with the badges and the brakes and stripes.
And basically any color on the exterior.
The one we had here in Colorado was a little more tame in the way that it was specced out,
but it's so much fun to drive this vehicle.
I get that this has been around for a long time, but I still like the interior.
It's not a bad place to sit.
Yeah.
It feels dated compared to a lot of other things.
I mean, does it bug you that this car?
No.
If it was a person could almost have its own driver's license.
I get it.
It's very old.
The only thing I think about when I'm driving this is the wine coming from under that hood.
Yeah, yeah.
That vented hood with big nostrils.
You see heat rising up out of it.
Every single, I'm such a douche.
Every single time I walked up to this car because I took it for a weekend.
I took it back home.
And this is one of those I was driving thinking, what do I need to do?
Every single time I walked up to it in a parking lot, I would do the remote start.
Yeah, I could hear it from the outside.
That's awesome.
The case is so funny because I might actually do the exact same way.
I typically will never take a press car home.
And this sounds a little tidal, but it's just like the reality of having a lot of cars
and stuff like things around.
Unless there's like a car really excited about that, I'll make time over the weekend.
Also because it's a little stressful because now you're shepherding.
Yeah, I don't want the liability of a $80,000 car typically.
That's not mine.
So that's the main reason I don't think so.
But sometimes if it's special enough, I will do it.
I also took this home for a different weekend because you're really paying for that engine.
And it's so good.
And I feel so good.
The crazy thing is it's like this is an expensive car once again.
Yeah.
But I think the one we had was 79.
Is that some right?
Yeah, compared to so many other SUVs that we've tested this year that were updated much more recently.
I have better technology, better driver assistance features, bigger screens.
Yeah.
It's not that crazy.
But they're not that expensive.
I want to say when this car launched and it's remember when it was a one year only limited edition.
Yeah.
It's been limited very, very many times.
Yeah.
I want to say this thing was like 90.
And that was like five years ago.
So I think that the car is actually getting cheaper even with inflation and everything.
Which is the advantage of having a car that's 15 years old.
It's a lot of horsepower for the money.
Yeah.
Oh, it's a lot of horsepower.
Yeah.
And it does a lot of things.
You can pull a trailer.
You can put a lot of people in it because you can get it as a three-row.
Yeah.
It's spacious so you could haul around stuff with the seats folded down.
And it's funny.
Like it being old now is almost kind of a benefit because it actually has physical buttons.
Like I got that thing and I'm like, wow, it's got climate controls.
Yeah.
Like whoo.
Yeah.
So that's kind of a benefit.
And it's still got Apple CarPlay.
It's got a good stereo.
Yeah.
It's a great car.
That's a good one.
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This is a weird one.
This is a weird one.
This is where literally the two people will listen.
You're going to tune out now.
But it was one of the best...
It was a car that we drove this year that I actually liked a lot.
Coleshover and over it.
He knows what it is.
Yeah, I really freaking liked that a lot.
Yeah.
So this is...
We bought this.
This was a total win.
It was a $2,000 Cadillac for sale right now.
We're at Peacotta Watchens in Denver, by the way.
If you want to make it up.
Nice plug.
I swear I didn't do this just for the plug.
I genuinely like...
I found myself even on my free time driving this fairly clapped out 35-year-old Cadillac.
It was just a really interesting car.
And it was comfortable.
It had a pretty cool little exhaust note.
It was fast enough.
It was.
It was a bit of a moonshot.
Yeah, totally.
They made this car and you still sense that in it.
It's got some character.
It's very futuristic.
They tried really hard with this car.
And it's very much underappreciated.
But there's something special there.
So I 100% agree.
I actually think the Alante is awesome.
I mean my hot take on this car that everyone's going to just completely agree with.
It's so disagree with, disagree with.
Is that this car was targeting the Mercedes SL of like the 80s and then ultimately the one in the early 90s.
So that was like the R107 and the R129 is the car that everyone's wounds over now.
Which we actually also owned.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And that car literally put me to sleep.
Not literally.
It almost put me to sleep.
I think 29 was cool.
I was fine.
But I also felt like it was kind of like the issue I have with the Tunisers Land Cruiser
where they tried to do everything so perfectly and then what you ended up with was like,
it was pretty close to being perfect.
But it also kind of just flattened out the whole experience.
I think I can give some context to this that will help you get this point across.
Yes, please.
I'm drowning here.
Yes.
So Tommy is such a car enthusiast and has spent so much time in so many different cars.
He cares not about a car based on merit but rather how interesting the car is.
Yeah, okay, fair enough.
And I will agree that the Alante is in a lot of ways more interesting.
It's got a more interesting story than that SL.
I mean, the SL, I mean, it pushed the boundaries so much of the era in so many ways in terms of safety technology.
You know, it had that integrated roll hoop in the crash structure.
I had a 27-link rear suspension.
It really sophisticated traction control ABS.
The Alante was a reveal with some Italian bodywork is what it was.
But it was also like it somehow we've owned both the clapped out Alante and the somewhat clapped out of SL
because that one was a little tired.
And I felt more confident in that Alante getting me home every day than the Mercedes.
Yeah, which is fair.
I think I would feel the same way in general because that R129 SL is not the easiest thing to keep on the road.
But definitely, I think the story in the background behind the Alante,
how it was designed, why it was made and how it was manufactured is in a lot of ways more interesting than the SL.
The other thing about this car is that it was a massive flop in automotive journalists love cars.
That's true.
That flop.
You're right, exactly right.
No. I mean, the other thing too, which is also going to get me canceled immediately here.
And this is where I disagree.
Like Jason Camisa, I heard he's an amazing journalist.
I'll never be half as good as he is.
But you know, he's really good at analyzing like the driving experience of these older cars, right?
And talking about why they drive so well.
But the problem is like, in my opinion,
if you're comparing a 1990 Alante to a 1995 Mercedes Benz S-L500,
they're both at this day and age old cars.
Yeah, by modern standards, they both drive poorly.
Yeah, any number of modern cars are going to be faster, more efficient, probably handle better in most cases.
So the driving experience, yes, it's important.
But if it's a luxury cruiser like this, I almost just don't care.
I don't mind that the Alante was front wheel drive in a little floppy because I liked the way it looked
and I liked the digital gauges, which were way more interesting than the Mercedes.
And I love the insane stack of buttons down the middle.
And it's just an interesting car.
And I think especially for the price point of, let's say you can get a really good one for $5,000.
That's a pretty good option.
It is.
Yeah, some Alante's are a little too pricey.
Well, yeah, you got the old guys at $123,000 for a North Star Alante.
Which is not great.
That's not it.
All right, what else you got?
Let's go back over to my list.
I'm going to do the last new car.
That's on my list because you've been doing old.
Yeah, I've been doing new.
At some point we're going to cross over here.
We're going to flip flop.
Yeah.
The last new car that's on my list is one, you know, we won't talk too much about the price here.
But this is another car.
And well, and I am an automotive journalist and this car is in some ways a bit of a flop.
But it's the Mercedes G580, the electric G-wagon.
Now, I'm not saying I like the electric G-wagon more than a gas-powered G-wagon,
but as far as any EV that we've tested all year goes, this very well may be my favorite one
because it's still, it is G-wagon through and through in the way that it's constructed.
And obviously the styling is very much how it's always been,
which is part of the reason the range is not that good but whatever cares.
The other really cool thing about this is that we found it has a phenomenal four-wheel drive system.
So it's a G-wagon, not only in name and shape and build quality,
but the fact that they put some real engineering and effort into the four-wheel drive system
despite the fact that they sell it low to the ground on what look like autocross tires.
This is a quadelectric motor EV that has four individual low-range gear sets for each of those electric motors.
And you might be thinking, why does that matter?
Genuinely, we've had plenty of issues in the past with EVs
that couldn't send enough power to their electric motors on a trail to get up and over a feature
even though they've got a thousand pound feet of torque or something ridiculous.
You'll burn out those electric motors if you send too much power to them when they're not spun up.
So the low-range on this G580 genuinely makes it work really well.
And it can spin in place 360 tank turn.
What I've shown here in this video if you're watching live is even if you're not tank turning it,
it will not just drag the inside wheel like a Bronco or a Landcruiser will do to make a tight turn,
but it will overdrive the outside wheels to make super tight turns.
That's a really good point to bring up.
This is the first instance of any quad motor EV or really any EV I think of every different period
where the off-road crawling low speed torque delivery doesn't just suck.
And it's kind of intuitive, like you said.
Like we've had Hummer EVs off-road where they have 1,200 pound feet of torque.
We actually have a car coming up in the disc-like list which we can talk about
where they have a paper you're like, oh my god, it's got 2,000 pound feet of torque or whatever it is.
I think GM loves there.
It's got 28,000 pound of wheel torque.
But the reality is, like you said, it's really hard to modulate an electric motor
if it's not already moving.
And when you're off-roading, it's a lot of start-stop, start-stop,
where you're not moving at all or moving barely at all.
So having that low range is the game changer because you're allowed,
you're able to spin the motor up without spinning the wheels up
and then you get this beautiful kind of programming.
And it is a flawed vehicle, again, and it's incredibly expensive.
And the range is not that good, but it is so nice.
It's such a nice car.
It's really nice to drive.
It doesn't really feel like an EV when you drive it.
It's fantastic.
Yeah, not everyone's going to like it, which also is reflected in the sales
because they've sold very poorly.
Yes, and I think maybe resale is going to struggle a little bit,
but maybe that's the time to get one.
But then again, I think there's always a premium
of people are willing to pay to be in a G-wagon.
Yeah, and I also get the impression this car is incredibly well built.
So that was really good.
Before we go into my next one, I just want to give a shout out to our Patreon viewers
right now who are watching this live, patreon.com slash TFLcar.
We have a couple of comments.
For example, from Jeff who's watching live,
picked up my 2026 Explorer tremor last week,
living the snow belt, got two big snowstorms already,
and I blasted through the snow, 114 mile daily commute.
Jesus, Jeff.
It's a long time.
To use.
Love the altering tires, massage seats,
blue crews, and V6.
Yeah, I've never driven that, that just launched Jeff, congratulations.
I'm going out to Death Valley next month to actually go drive it.
Off road.
So that'll be really cool.
Yeah, and Ford is not shy when they're doing an off road event.
Yes, that's true.
Yeah.
So I'm sure you'll do something pretty good.
So Jeff, congrats.
I can't wait to give it a little sample.
I think that thing looks really cool.
Matt says, you both risk your lives one eating hot dogs
and the other gliding thousands of feet in the air.
Yes, thank you for pointing out my hot dog problem again.
You want to go to the live stream really quick, Cole?
We also have some people commenting on YouTube.
Yeah.
We've got our buddy, Tad is in the comments.
He said that the super is great unless you're tall.
That's somewhat true.
If you're really tall, it's pretty uncomfortable.
Yeah, high reduction surgery.
Yeah, that's true.
It doesn't seem like he's excited about the G-Wagon, but that's okay.
Yeah, that's a tough one to...
It's a lot of money.
You have to drive it.
Yeah.
If you drive it, I would have a hard time
picturing somebody who would get behind the wheel of that vehicle
and say, ugh, terrible.
It's nice.
I'm kind of with you in that...
If I had the choice between the V8 G-Wagon
and the electric one, I would choose a V8.
But if I had the choice between the new inline 6G-Wagon
they're pushing and the electric, I'd probably go electric.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree like it a lot.
Yeah.
Okay, so we'll blast through our likes
and then we'll just...
He just dislikes.
My...
I think the car I like the most this year
that I've been really surprised about is the...
Our long-term are actually the Honda Passport Trail Sport.
Yeah, it's great all around the car.
Because that's a car on paper in a category that it's kind of once again
in that bland milk toast segment.
But it has some interesting design elements
and some unique features that really make it stand out.
It's good looking.
I like the amber running lights a lot.
I prefer it with some cool accessories, including wheels,
ours has the little rock sliders that are kind of hidden.
Oh, yeah.
Pretty nice.
It's got skid plates underneath, pretty aggressive tires
for something rolling off the factory floor,
especially compared to what it competes against.
Good all-wheel drive system all around.
Yeah.
We put it through some difficult challenges
especially in the snow.
You know, it was a little...
You found the limit.
Yeah, yeah we found the limit.
And you can.
But it's a nice interior.
It's got a naturally aspirated V6,
which is pretty unusual these days.
Yeah.
So a lot of cool stuff.
I mean, I think...
You know, I was making fun of the cars earlier
for being boring.
But the good thing about boring is they're typically
usually just very good cars.
This car is very good like a lot of other
less interesting cars in the segment.
But then it also incorporates, like you said,
a little bit of offer capability
with the IVT-M4 system, with the tires,
with the skid plates.
But it also has just a really nice interior
and a perfect ride.
Yeah.
Like I brought this thing down to my in-laws house
for Thanksgiving, and I took them all around in it.
And every time anybody got in that interior,
they're like, wow, this color is beautiful.
And wow, the fit and finish is good.
And my wife that hates big screens and stuff
was like, wow, I can use this.
And it's really easy.
And it's very intuitive.
And then they also think, like,
oh, it looks kind of rugged.
Like a little forerunner.
Yeah.
But it drives better than a forerunner.
So it's just such a good car.
It is...
It's much better on road than a lot
of the more traditional four by fours.
So for somebody that's maybe shopping around
for a Wrangler or a Bronco or a forerunner,
and they never plan to actually go on a trail.
If you really like those vehicles,
you still go out and buy them.
That's not a problem.
But the Passports may be a smarter buy
because it is better on road.
Yeah.
It's got some nicer features.
It's more refined.
And that Passport will...
It's not really so much of a vehicle
to take to Moab and do hard trails on.
Even though you guys are going to do that in a couple days.
I mean, I think the thing with this car
is there's two flaws with it
that are directly correlated.
And unfortunately, the fixed one
would make the other worse.
But it doesn't have enough ground clearance.
Yeah.
It needs two more inches realistically.
When you combine the wheelbase with the eight inches,
it scrapes too much.
And the fuel economy is a little disappointing.
It only gets realistically 21-22.
When it doesn't have a low range,
that's always going to be a limitation.
True.
Yeah.
But if you increase your ground clearance,
you're going to make the fuel economy even worse.
I really do think this would be cool
with the V6 and the hybrid system.
That's what would make this,
just knock this car out of the park for me.
Yeah.
But the passport trail sport is excellent, excellent, excellent.
It's such a good car.
Matt said, Honda has been doing a great job
with three designs this last year.
So I knew passport trail sport.
And first of all, for the first time,
and it looked awesome.
It does.
I don't think that's controversial at all.
It's a great looking car.
Well, it's funny, because the old one,
the trail sport was like,
oh, they put a little bit of colors on a passport.
And the new one is like, holy crap,
it's square and chunky in his orange lights.
And it's really cool.
Yeah.
That's great.
All right, what's next?
What do you like?
All right.
I think this is the last one on my list of likes.
Oh, good one.
Yes.
So the last one I'm bringing up,
this was really kind of a bucket list thing
to drive this vehicle.
This is a 21 window Volkswagen bus,
which is an incredibly special vehicle.
They're very expensive.
They're six figure cars.
But that wasn't necessarily
well, not even necessarily.
That wasn't what made it special to drive.
What made it special to drive was the fact
that it's very, very pretty.
There's so much glass.
Put it on employees,
but me and Andrew are going to do a breaking news video.
Oh, geez.
Give us five minutes.
We'll be done.
Okay.
Yeah.
We can do our dislikes in another podcast.
We'll break them up.
Do it next time.
Okay. Yeah.
Sounds good.
Yeah.
So there's tons of glass in this vehicle.
It's actually a lot of fun to drive.
You're in a crazy seating position in it.
That VW bus was quite the experience.
Yeah, that thing was incredible.
I loved, loved, loved that thing.
And I drove it a little while back at a different event.
And it...
Talk about feeling special.
It's just so good.
It is so good.
So this is a great one case.
I'm so glad you remember to put this one on the list.
Here's what we'll do.
We'll cut and we'll let Roman and Andrew do the breaking news video.
And we'll come back tomorrow with our five dislikes.
And we'll include that in this video.
Like did we get through the last vehicle on your list?
My last like, which is ridiculous.
But it's a car I like.
Probably almost as much as any other car we've ever owned.
Is this dumb little fiat.
I don't understand why I like this car.
We bought this ridiculous $3,000 worn out, clapped out $124.
Was it that much?
Yeah, $3,800.
I thought it was less than that.
No, but it's this little two-seater.
I didn't have any interest in it.
I thought it would break down and be dumb.
And it is so fun to drive.
It's got the hideous malaise air bumpers.
But weirdly, like you drive around, everybody loves it.
I'm like, this is the worst of the worst version of this car.
It's got a great sounding exhaust leak.
It does have a great sounding exhaust leak.
Sometimes you can hear the exhaust note.
The engine is emissions coked to high hell.
But it just is such a fun little thing to zip around.
And I love it.
I take it everywhere.
I don't understand why I love it so much.
I haven't processed it.
I should probably get a therapist about it.
But this rusty, crusty, exhaust leaky $124
is a magnificent automobile.
Fair enough.
All right.
We're back.
So we had to cut the podcast because there was some breaking news.
If you're watching visually.
Did a little wardrobe change.
If you're listening, audio-ly.
I don't know.
Maybe audio-ly.
Yeah.
Maybe I may weedies in my voice dropped a little.
But that's unlikely.
But we're going to continue this podcast with some cars
that we didn't like this year, both new and used.
And we're going to start with the controversial one.
This is a car I really liked that we bought.
It's a car that I think case maybe didn't prefer.
And that was our 2014 Tesla Model S.
So you're saying that's one of your dislikes or one of mine?
It's one of yours, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It is.
I didn't actually put it on my list.
But it has a place on there because this car was just not very well built.
Tesla was definitely figuring things out at this point because this car was a 2012.
2014.
Okay.
So it was still pretty early into the production run.
Very early considering that they're still making this thing.
But the interior didn't hold up that well.
There were parts of it that were kind of coming apart.
It rattled.
There was quite a bit of wind noise.
And they smell weird.
Jen, our co-worker who worked at a Tesla service center
and has interacted with a lot of you said that the smell of ours,
which was reminiscent of like a urinal cake,
was very common in these cars.
It's, I guess, some glue that they use in the interior over time
starts to emit the smell.
So yeah, it smelled weird.
It made a lot of noises.
It was boring.
I didn't like it.
The urinal cake is a very good comparison actually.
It did smell a lot like it.
Yeah.
Clean and kind of a pee kind of way.
I actually like this car quite a bit because I think for the money,
which I think was $11,000 or $12,000 we paid for it,
you get a lot of range, pretty good performance,
and still very, very good tech, some of the best tech in the industry.
But objectively, you are correct in thinking that,
like I don't think it's not that the car gave us a ton of major mechanics.
Like it never left a stranded.
It didn't necessarily break down.
We didn't have an issue with the heater, which was annoying.
But everything is not really attached to anything else on that inside.
Like it just kind of goes down the road.
It shakes when you close the passenger door.
Oh, it sound like a car accident.
Yeah, it was bad.
Loud and clashy.
And kind of go bane clatter clatter.
So that's one that I wanted to put on the list
because it's one I did actually like quite a bit.
But objectively, it was very rattly.
So that's one of your dislikes.
It's one of my likes.
I actually liked it.
But I put on the list because I know you aided it.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Although you are, we do have an interesting contradiction going on here
because how do you hate rattles but also drive a Land Rover?
Personality goes a long way, Tommy.
That's like saying, how do you love dogs but you eat animals?
Okay.
Fair enough.
That was the comparison.
One of the comparisons of all time right there.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
So do you actually want to give one of the cars that you actually put on your list?
Sure.
This is a brand new vehicle that I didn't much like.
It was very expensive.
It's a silver Sequoia that we were testing recently with a few other SUVs.
And I had a few issues with it.
One of them being that this was more expensive than that very fun Durango that we had.
In some ways, arguably more practical.
But I don't think it was enough additional practicality in this Sequoia
to make more sense to me anyway than the Durango.
Definitely not nearly as fun or interesting.
Like I said, it was more expensive because it's, I think it was a capstone.
Yeah.
But even being a capstone, being a luxury trim,
it's not that it wasn't nice inside.
It had some good features.
But the interior doesn't look very premium.
It's just all monotone black.
There's no interesting accent colors.
To be honest, it was just dull.
I mean, I think I agree with you completely on this car.
This is not one of my favorite toy.
I do actually quite like the Tundra.
I really like the new Tacoma.
I think it's really good.
But the problem with the Sequoia,
and we've actually talked to the chief engineer at Sequoia quite a bit about this,
is it was a really hard sell for him to even get this car to exist.
As I understand it, Japan allegedly was like,
we don't want this car to keep going.
The sales numbers weren't strong enough to warn a whole new generation.
So they kind of had to make some we'll call it engineering compromises
to make this car a reality.
For example, the last Sequoia had independent rear suspension.
This new one's a solid axle,
and you're probably thinking, oh, it's tougher.
It's more truck-like.
But the reality is the reason that you want an independent suspension
in a big SUV like this is so you can maximize the trunk space.
And you can get the whole floor of the trunk lower.
And you're able to do that because you don't have to worry about this B-max
moving up and down.
So with the solid axle, it means that the trunk is really high.
Especially because this one was a hybrid.
Yeah, they're all hybrids.
They're all hybrids standard.
The third row sits really high.
So there's just some compromises in the engineering that make this not as good
as a Tahoe or an expedition.
Exactly.
I just think no matter whether you're shopping for something fun and frivolous
like the Durango or something maybe a little more practical, reasonable like a Tahoe.
This just didn't feel like the best option.
And it was pricey.
I want to say 80 in the neighborhood of $86,000.
If I remember right, so I just remember it being very pricey
and just not that impressive.
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So I think the next car I want to talk about is actually a car that I've driven
a couple times and a couple of different configurations.
And I drove them both this time, sorry, this year.
The new Audi Q5.
So Q5 is a huge seller for Audi.
And I've typically enjoyed the Q5 a lot in the past
because I've always felt that it offers some driving engagement
and sleek design that you wouldn't necessarily get in some of the Japanese competitors
like Lexus, like Infinity.
This new Q5 in my opinion is one of the more numb and frustrating experiences
I've had all year.
Frustrating how?
The interior layout with the complete lack of buttons is not uncommon in 2025.
The interior layout with the complete lack of buttons
and just some of the poor UI decisions they've made
this car unbelievably frustrating to own and live with.
So it's just not intuitive?
It's just menu after menu to get to very basic things.
Like I was driving one yesterday, actually the Q5.
And I needed to adjust the fan speed because it was really, really hot.
So I go into the climate menu and then it took me to like this quick
shortcut menu where I was like, well, do you want to warm your feet?
Warm your hands or cool your head?
I'm like, none of those.
I just want to turn the fan speed up.
Then I had to go into a separate menu to like click the fan speed.
It was unresponsive.
It was slow.
This car is just technology overload.
This is a classic example of what I'm talking about.
Instead of just giving you traditional mirror controls, a traditional lock and unlock,
you can actually see by the door handle where the old-style unlock lock would have been.
They give you like this.
It's a blank.
Haptic panel.
Like everything in this car is haptic.
The steering wheel is haptic.
The mirror controls are haptic.
The lock unlock on the driver side is haptic.
It's just like with way too much.
And then you combine that with the fact that like the Q5 has always been
the best driving car in the segment other than maybe the X3 in my opinion.
And this car just wasn't it.
It just feels very numb.
The Q5 is pretty quick.
It does sound good, but it just doesn't give you that driving pleasure that I found in previous ones.
Sounds good-ish.
Sounds like a V6.
I heard it from across the parking lot.
I've heard that some other conditions like a true cold start first thing in the morning
or maybe when it's under load and you actually go down the road, it sounds better.
But from across the parking lot,
yesterday, even lunch.
Sounds great.
No, it sounded like a big vacuum cleaner.
So I really think that if you look at what Volkswagen and Audi has done in this current crop of crossovers,
and I'm talking things like,
it really all did start with the I-D4,
but we've seen it in Q5, seen it in Q6,
and now it's trickling into some of the newer Volkswagen products too.
Like this UI system they're using with all this haptic stuff, it's just bad.
Right, and I know in the next generation,
because I've seen some teasers from Europe,
they're actually going back to physical buttons and controls.
But I think this is not going to be recognized long-term as a good era for these brands.
Do you remember back in the earlier days of like the BMW X5
when sportier dynamic driving SUVs were becoming kind of a popular thing?
How cool that was?
Yeah.
And really X5s are really awesome.
Yeah.
What happened?
I don't know.
That's a good point.
I mean, X5 was awesome.
When Q7 first launched, that thing was awesome.
It looked really futuristic.
It had the R8-style headlights in it.
Yeah, there was so much excitement in this category,
and now that's just completely got away.
It's like they've all just been kind of homogenized.
It's all screens, touch sensitive controls,
which a lot of times feel like, even though it's not the case in every situation,
a lot of times when you replace all physical gauges with screen,
and you replace all the buttons with touch sensitive controls,
it feels like cost-cutting.
I agree.
To me, that doesn't feel like luxury in 2025.
You're right.
And the problem is it really is cost-cutting.
It's a lot cheaper to put every climate control in a screen
than to develop the panel, develop the bezel,
develop all the buttons, build all the buttons to actually make it happen.
So, yeah, we're entering this era.
I remember the first time I saw a digital instrument cluster was on an L322 Range Rover
in 2009 or eight.
Whoa.
And you're like, whoa, that's cool.
But then that trickles down to not just Range Rovers,
but to the BMWs and the Lexuses,
and then it trickles down to the Mazda and the fours,
and then all of a sudden a Chevy tracks for $20,000.
Brand new has all screens because screens are cheap.
And now we're going back to the high, high end stuff.
These multimillion dollar supercars are going back to physical dials.
Yeah, and it's awesome.
Yeah, because they're very tactile.
Yeah, we should go back to that.
We should go back to that.
So that was one I didn't like.
What's another one you didn't like this year?
I'm going to say the Wagonier S, because it's a good choice.
Yeah, it feels like that should have been a Chrysler.
I don't really understand the Jeep label on it,
because nothing about it is very Jeep,
even though we did do kind of a slip test in some very light.
Did we do a slip test on it?
I think we just took it up some really light off roading.
Yeah, we took it on a really, really light trail.
And it actually the traction control system on it didn't do that bad.
Yeah, it was fine.
But it has four inches of ground clearance.
Or whatever.
I think it's probably a little more than that.
It's like 6.4, it's nothing.
Yeah.
Very, very little.
And it just doesn't feel like a Jeep.
It is very fast, but not in a sporty way.
In a slightly concerned,
whether you're going to be able to control the vehicle.
The vehicle kind of way.
So it's just a strange automobile.
And I've also heard reports like our friend has had one
and has had tremendous reliability issues on hers.
She's Nicole Wakeland at Wheel Bearings,
her 12-volt battery has gone flat so many times
and update after update in the car has bricked itself.
I just, this car feels both underbaked
in terms of a development standpoint
and just the wrong design decisions that went into it.
I mean, the word I've heard from folks at Jeep
that no longer work at Jeep,
what was supposed to happen is,
remember a while back when they launched the big wagon here?
Do you remember they didn't put a Jeep badge on it?
Yeah, they were going to have it be its own standalone.
Sub-brand.
So I think the plan was,
the reason they came out with this car
was they wanted it to be alongside the big wagon here
as its own luxury sub-brand.
But at the same time, if you're Stellantis
and you're looking for a luxury brand,
Chrysler is sitting there basically doing nothing
and Wagonier still has that Jeep association
for anyone that remembers the name Wagonier,
they remember it as being the Jeep and being slightly rugged
and I think that's fine on the bigger Wagoniers
because you can expect them with some pretty decent
four-wheel drive systems.
So I don't think it's out of place of there.
Yeah, this just doesn't work.
I think this should have been a Chrysler.
Yeah, it should have been a Chrysler.
And it should have been better developed and actually,
not that it being a Chrysler would have made it
a fantastic car.
No, because it would have been better marketing.
I was talking to Jeep at the Recon launch
about why Recon has taken so long.
And basically what they said is like,
we know we have to get this right.
And if you read between the lines there,
like this car has not been a success,
it's got a reputation already.
Look, I think the one that we drove was 60-ish,
$65,000 maybe, maybe a little bit less.
I think the one, this one was the limited as 55 or 57.
It's just not worth the money.
But I will say there are some incredible lease deals on these.
So if you can pick one up for 249 a month for a couple of years,
yeah, if you want to go really fast in a straight line,
this is a really fast car in a straight line.
And it's not a horrible interior
and if it's covered under warranty, then you know,
yeah, for sure.
I drive a worse car than this every day.
So.
Yeah.
Are you saying your Theot is not one of the greatest cars of 2025?
No, it has an open recall right now.
I need to get it to the dealer.
You get the headlight thing?
Yep.
In the mail, you too?
Yeah, I did.
Nice.
I don't know what that's about.
They forgot to install a plug in the headlight adjustment.
Yeah.
So it could come out of whack.
Are you going to do it?
It's a lot of drive.
I did.
Yeah, it is a long way to drive.
But there's a little icon in the corner of mine that says,
perform a service and that's annoying.
No, yeah.
I want to do it.
It's time.
All right.
What about you?
I got to pull out my list.
There's a couple others I wanted to put on here.
This is the tough thing.
For our likes, we didn't necessarily need a list.
For this list, we kind of do because part of the reason these cars
we dislike is a lot of them are very forgettable.
Oh, yeah.
This is going to be the probably another controversial take.
This is a car that it's not a bad car.
So like I hate to say at the wagon era is kind of a bad car.
This next car is not a bad car at all.
I'm just disappointed that they didn't do any big changes
for the new generation in my opinion.
I'm talking about the new RAV4.
Interesting.
RAV4, of course.
That is going to be controversial.
It is going to be controversial.
The best selling car in the USA by a big margin is a RAV4.
So I know that they weren't going to take any huge risks.
Exactly.
But if you look at the structure of this car,
if you look at the fact that I think the wheelbase is identical,
the overall length is pretty much identical.
This is more of a refresh than an actual new generation.
Yeah.
It looks like they stuck the new four-runners front end on it.
Yeah.
And that's pretty much changed up the interior.
Yeah.
I mean, look, they made it standard hybrid, which is great.
But like if you look at the individual trim line,
so for example, like this woodland trim,
doesn't really do anything beyond just some tires
and a bit of cladding and a refresh.
It's kind of half-assed.
Yes.
And if you look at the GR sports,
same thing like it's got tires and trim,
but it doesn't give you any more performance
and it really doesn't drive any different whatsoever.
It's at the top, cool.
No, that's the XLE.
There it is.
And then when you actually like interact with the car,
like it really doesn't feel in a substantive way,
any different or really that much better than the current one.
Which is especially disappointing in a vehicle
that makes as much money as this does
from a manufacturer that absolutely has the means
to do something with these models.
Like they could 100% develop a GR sport that has more power.
And they could absolutely make a RAV4 woodland
or TRD or whatever you want to call it
that could actually compete with like a Bronco sport.
Yeah, Sasquatch.
Sure.
Package.
Exactly.
They have the ability to do that 100%.
Or like from a powertrain standpoint,
like it's great.
It's all hybrid.
The plug and hybrid version goes 48 or 50 miles,
but that's eight more than the old one.
So it's not like it would have been cool
if they had done like a range extended one.
Right.
Where it's all electric,
but then there's a little gas generator on board.
So really kind of introduced from new technology
that we haven't seen.
And I know a lot of that is because like you were saying,
it sells so well.
They don't want to, you know,
upset the current customer base.
But I just don't think that they did enough
to really transform this car and push it into a new generation.
And honestly, in the past,
I feel like they've done a pretty good job of it.
You know, like we had the transition
from a really tiny two door to the four door,
introducing the V6s,
introducing the hybrids was a huge shift
and introducing the plug and hybrid was a huge shift.
And this new generation is just kind of as a whole new course.
Square.
Yeah.
They're not doing anything else.
Yeah.
So that's probably my most controversial take,
but that's how I feel about that one.
Fair enough.
My next vehicle is not so controversial.
It's a Silverado EV that we took to iron clouds.
Now, there are some things
that the Silverado EV does fairly well.
Yeah, it might be that video call.
Oh, yeah.
And this one was actually a Sierra EV.
The same thing.
Yeah.
So there are some things that this vehicle does really well.
We have pulled a trailer for distance
to see what kind of range we got.
And we pulled a decently heavy trailer
with a Silverado EV.
I think about 230 miles on a charge.
Yeah.
Which in an EV is pretty good.
Most people don't think you can do that.
And this has got such a massive battery.
It can really go a long way.
But we did this 84 Sierra EV on a very light trail.
And it was obviously it's not going to be that great.
It's a 9,000 pound truck.
So you wouldn't expect it to be super athletic.
But what was really irritating about this
is in its off-road mode,
it had this one pedal drive feature
that was not very refined.
Because especially going downhill,
you would let off the accelerator a little bit
and it would lurch to a stop.
So you would lean into the pedal just a little bit.
And then all of a sudden it would shoot forward
down the rocks bottom out.
And it was very difficult to control.
And you're like struggling to get up this really mild little
slightly off-camber hill.
Which I get that this is not designed
to be a moab crushing rock crawling truck first and foremost.
But it was just so irritating to drive all year.
This was the only vehicle that at the end of this shoot,
we got down our last little bit of filming and shooting b-roll.
And I put the truck in park open up the door.
And I said, Andre, you're driving this the rest of the way.
I am so irritated right now.
I will not drive this any further.
I mean, the problem too is if this was a street truck
and you're taking an off-road, I understand.
But ultimately, even though you keep saying this is not a rock crawler,
it's still like an 84 in a trail boss.
It's got bright red toe hooks sticking out the front of it
and these huge off-road tires.
Yeah, I mean, I think that especially this one is totally valid
and saying it wasn't very good.
If you're going to get a Silverado Vr Sierra,
just get the standard street going one.
And like it's honestly, it's a really good truck every day.
It's really good for towing a light trailer, like you said,
even longer distances, it charges really well.
Unlater, these things never seem to run out of battery.
Like you can go a week and a half to week without ever charging this truck.
It's true.
Like they go 400 miles on a charge.
But doing the thing that the off-road truck is supposed to do is terrible.
Yeah, it is.
That was probably the most frustrating experience I had
driving anything all year.
You crashed into a tree here.
Oh, I'm not touching a tree.
Thanks for having fun.
So the next one, this is not a hot take.
This is my most mild take.
The new car I think that's got most people upset right now
because very rarely is there a case of just such blatant badge engineering.
Okay.
You're not talking about the car.
I think you're talking about it.
Okay.
So back in the 1980s, right?
Like you could go buy a Cadillac Simmeron,
which was obviously a cavalier.
Like they didn't even, they put a different, slightly different nose on it.
Yeah.
And it was obviously a cavalier.
But now, even like cases of badge engineering,
aren't necessarily like that.
Like if you look at the Nissan Rogue in the Mitsubishi Outlander
or Simmeron in a Yukon now.
Pretty different.
They are pretty different.
Right.
Like I know, fundamentally, the mechanics are the same,
but they have a different look.
They have a different interior.
But there is one car that's the exception of that.
And that is the Nissan Rogue Phev.
You see this thing?
Yeah.
It is just the Mitsubishi, isn't it?
Yeah.
So basically, I was on this program.
Like the front end.
It's literally just the Mitsubishi.
Like you can see the headlight, the running light, the wheel design.
This one's got black wheels instead of silver.
But who cares?
What did Sophie on think of this?
Sophie on was even more mean to it than I am.
Because here's the thing about this, right?
Is this is clearly a stopgap model?
Yeah.
Because they know that RAV4 is kicking ass with their Phevs or plug-in hybrids.
Mitsubishi didn't have one.
Nissan doesn't have one.
Next year, Nissan is coming out with an all-new Rogue.
Yeah.
But this is the quick and dirty way to get it in their lineup.
This is like the stopgap of like, oh god,
just shove something out on market, let's see if it sells.
And I just, that feels just like a little ingenuous.
Not that the Outlander is a bad vehicle.
Outlander P has actually been fine.
It was really good when it came out like four years ago.
I actually thought it was quite a nice car, the current generation.
But you know, like it's its own thing, right?
Why try to sell it as your thing when it's very clearly not your thing?
So you don't like that they copied Mitsubishi's homework?
Well, it's weird because the Mitsubishi Nissan came out the Rogue.
Mitsubishi came out with Outlander.
And we're talking about the standard gas ones.
And yes, they were largely the same platform.
But Mitsubishi, we did a ton of things and looked the same.
Didn't feel the same.
Had a third row, right?
They came out with the Phev.
It felt very, very different.
And now they're just trading it back to Nissan.
Yeah, I just don't.
And then the dumber thing about this case is that Mitsubishi for this year's
actually updating the Outlander Phev.
So you can get this same car now with the Mitsubishi badge.
And the new Outlander Phev has gonna have a bigger battery, bigger screens.
And the Nissan is stuck with the old battery and the old screen.
So you could just get a worse version of a car that's still already sell.
So this is not it for me.
I understand like, you know, they're trying to capitalize on something.
This is a vehicle that you would say there's almost no real use case for this.
There is one use case.
If it's in fact a lot cheaper than the Mitsubishi.
True.
That would be awesome.
So I'm reserving all hatred until the pricing comes out.
But if it's price exactly the same as the Mitsubishi, just get the Mitsubishi
because the new one's gonna be even better.
So or wait for the new Rogue.
This is a really weird one for me.
So to your point, it's definitely not a hot take.
It's a mild take.
But it is good consumer advice for somebody that would be shopping around for this car.
True.
Exactly right.
Yeah.
You got anything else?
I do.
This one is...
It's tough because it's a historically significant car.
It's an old car.
And I have a hard time saying bad things about older vehicles.
Renegade.
It's not the renegade.
No problem saying bad things about the renegade.
It's the DeLorean.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Well, and you know why.
Tommy and I drove the DeLorean.
And to be honest, it is such a cool car in so many ways.
The design of it is still so futuristic.
There's a lot of really neat things about it.
But it is not...
It does not drive well.
No.
No, I mean like...
Even.
Even like Tommy and I are fine with slow cars.
We're fine with older cars.
Tommy and I have...
The most views we've ever gotten in a video is Tommy and I driving
a hundred-year-old Ford Model T.
So we have no problem with older vehicles.
We're not...
We're not the most discerning customers.
But the DeLorean drives way worse than it should.
There's plenty of other 80s cars that drive way better.
And the thing is we both have a really hyper-pensity for cars that drive badly.
And so the guy that lent us was a really nice guy named Mike.
And Mike, thank you so much for...
It was a bucket list to be able to drive it.
Absolutely.
But I mean, it was this really interesting mix of like...
It was very slow.
But it...
Really, really slow.
Like this one, Mike had done a tremendous and extensive amount of work
in this car in this condition.
Getting to 88 miles an hour.
It took over 4,000 feet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It took, I mean, pretty much a half a mile to get to 88 miles an hour.
The fact that in the movie, in back to the future,
they got to 88 in a parking lot.
Hilarious.
Yeah, right.
But it also had this really nasty feeling of incredible fragility.
Yes.
Like it felt...
So I know like the vibe...
We were making fun of the Viper for feeling half bait.
This feels like someone built it in their backyard, right?
Yeah.
I mean, it felt so fragile.
So so fragile.
And then what we didn't show after this shoot is brought at home in the next morning
and puked its coolant all over its garage.
And then I was pretty sure we were going to be on the hook for head gaskets
because that's a common issue with these boat anchor PRVs.
Luckily, it took to a shop and it was just some hose claps that came loose.
So the car, I'm trying to remember, brand new.
The car off the factory line had 130 horsepower.
Yeah.
So it is really, really slow.
The steering is vague and not...
Well, it's weird too.
Like it just has like a huge amount of just bump steer.
Like the suspension on...
I know Mike had done a lot of work to the suspension on this car
but like you'd hit bumps and it would react differently on every bump.
Like it was such an unpredictable driving experience.
Transmission felt bad, steering felt bad.
It was really, really slow.
I mean, it's a...
The thing about this car is it's a gorgeous car.
It is, it's very pretty.
The design is incredible.
But if I put myself back in the mid to late 1980s
or I think it came out what, 83, 84, something like that, 82,
you know, crash-offing this car with the Corvette.
Even a malaise, 82 Corvette.
I had the opportunity to drive this year a 1978 C3 Corvette automatic emissions showed
and that car was one of the slowest cars I drove this year
and it was still probably 40% quicker than the DeLorean.
And even 1970s GM build quality exceeded that of the DeLorean build quality.
Yeah.
So it's...
I think it is maybe one of the most stark examples of a car
that writes a check that its driving experience can't deliver.
And the crazy thing is, in my mind,
a nice DeLorean is like $35,000.
Yeah, it's...
It's double that.
A good DeLorean is like 80, 80 to 100 K.
It's a lot of money for a vehicle you get in and...
And the amount of work that you would need to put into this car
so like you could LS swap it but then you're still not addressing the interior
which is held together with little bits of sticky things.
And then you're like, well, then you got to do the interior.
Then you got to redo this.
I mean, you'd be in this car quarter million dollars before you'd have something that drives.
Okay.
Yeah. And Tommy...
Tommy is not at all a fan of engine swapping or making cars faster.
If anything, you want to make cars slower.
Yeah, this is a car if you want...
If you want to DeLorean, I say,
more power to you, just like build a nice plinth in your garage,
park it there, right?
Shine it up, look at it but it's not a good car to drive.
Yeah, even Tommy supports putting a different motor in the car.
I believe it or not.
I can't believe that you brought me to this point.
So another car, new car that we drove that I...
I think we're going to disagree about it a little bit but it's on my list
because your points are right.
And that's the Volvo EX30.
Yeah, yep.
Yeah.
It's one of the least intuitive cars I've ever been in.
Look at that sharp truce one.
Yeah.
You know, I don't hate the design of it.
I don't hate everything about the interior and it was very quick.
So there are some things that it does well.
But it was so frustrating to be in.
I got in this car from the office.
I actually started driving to the DeLorean shoot.
Oh.
In that car.
Yeah, it's a car about that.
I had two bad cars in the day.
It's a bad day for days here.
Although driving the DeLorean was not a bad experience.
But this was frustrating because I got in the car.
I made it about three quarters of a mile from the office after driving for three minutes.
And I had the audacity to yawn one time.
And the car pops up a message on the center screen to say,
you seem a little tired.
Maybe you should pull over and rest after I've driven less than a mile.
It's so irritating.
So it's constantly very sensitive and it's monitoring you.
And then the infotainment system is just impossible.
Well, this is the first rating car for me because it does a lot of things.
We were talking about a modular car.
This car is different.
It's got a lot of really interesting design elements.
It's got a lot of really interesting materials on the inside.
It's got like the single sound bar across the dash, which is a very innovative idea.
It doesn't use a key.
It uses the two windows switch thing, which is ridiculous.
But this is an example of like there's a lot that they do really right from a design
and build quality standpoint.
It feels like a rock.
It actually drives really well.
But the infotainment system, like there's changes for the sake of doing changes
and that's the EX30 problem.
For example, I was filming it on a short and I wanted to show the glove box.
Because the glove box isn't where you'd expect on the passenger side.
It's like right in the middle, which is kind of funky.
Of course, there's no switch for the glove box.
So like the glove box being the middle, that's funky.
Stop there, right?
Put a lever on it.
That's a cool thing, right?
You've made your car different.
But then they did a glove box and then they put the control for the glove box in the screen.
And I went to film my TikTok and I'm like, can you go here?
You click glove box and it opens and the glove box opens.
I'm like, ah, but I forgot to click my mic in and I didn't have audio.
So let me do it again.
So I'm like, alright, this is the glove box in this car.
You go here in the screen and you push the button and the button had literally moved.
Like it just changed where it was from one take to another and then I'm like, where to go?
And then it had buried itself three menus deep.
I'm like, why?
And I had other, talking to other journalists on this thing.
This car I think is using what's supposed to be very, quote, intuitive system where it's supposed to put.
The bubbles that it thinks you need the most where it thinks you need them.
But sometimes it changes its mind.
And it's like, oh my god, why would I want my computer to change my mind
where various features are at any given time?
Yeah.
If nothing else, you would hope that it's consistent.
Yeah.
And it's not.
This car, I think it, another way of describing it would be that it suffers from the cyber truck problem.
Where like you said, you're just doing a lot of things to be different.
Right.
When there are several things in cars that are the way they are and have been for a long, long time.
Because it works really well.
And then you go change that arbitrarily and it just makes things more of a pain to use.
So most vehicles, like we were talking about the Supra earlier,
and that BMW infotainment system is a little day that's not the best to me.
That's not a deal breaker at all.
The infotainment system is so difficult in this Volvo
that as good as a lot of the other things about this car are,
it's bad enough to be a deal breaker for me.
Yeah.
It's just so glitchy.
I mean, the real shame about this car is, like, I really love the design.
I really like the driving experience, the dual motors insanely fast,
the single motors relatively affordable.
If they had this interior design, the level of interesting materials on this
with get rid of that screen and just put like a stack of little buttons,
oh, it would be perfect.
Give it four window switches and a stack of buttons,
and I would have bought this car from my wife in a heartbeat,
because this is exactly what we need.
But as it sits with this infotainment, it's just a mess.
Volvo's really, like, I think in the EX90,
I just went on this Volvo trip.
They're scrapping the infotainment.
They're putting a new one in that car altogether,
and hopefully it's better because it has to be,
because this is just terrible.
Yeah, yeah, it's really, really bad.
Anything else?
No.
I think we're, yeah, that, I mean, it was pretty good here.
Like we said in other podcasts,
genuinely, for the most part,
it's very, very, very hard to find a bad car in 2035, you know.
For sure.
And there's the ones that we don't prefer ourselves,
but some of that just comes down to us.
Is there anything you're excited to drive next year?
Well, when's the scout coming?
Oh, you're after 27,
but it might, we might be able to drive it next year.
You're excited about the scout?
Yeah, of everything that's upcoming period.
The scouts, what I'm looking forward to the most,
would be really cool if we were able at some point
to drive that 900 horsepower Raptor R
that we saw at SEMA with the bigger 3-liter Whipple.
Really cool.
Supercharger on it.
That'd be fun.
I want to drive the Recon.
Yeah, that's going to be interesting.
They'll be an interesting one.
I think that's going to be a bit of a tough sale,
$65,000 and 230 miles of range.
But at least it looks, looks like a proper four-wheel drive
with doors that come off and a roof that folds back.
So I'm excited about the Recon.
What else am I excited?
Slate, I think, will be interesting.
True, yeah.
That's going to be very interesting.
I don't know if that's going to work as a vehicle,
but I'm excited to at least experience that.
Absolutely, yeah, yeah.
And then hopefully, I don't know.
I mean, I think that this year has been really tough on automakers.
We'll see what happens next year.
Also, the range of extended RAM, that'll be interesting.
Oh, yeah.
I'm really excited to see.
And I think that the 2023-2024 push of everything electric,
that is proven to not have worked for a number of reasons,
be it tax credits that have come and then gone,
be it consumer preference, right, whatever have you.
Now, I think 2026 is going to be the year of the range
extended or plug-in hybrid.
Yeah, which is not a bad thing.
Which is not a bad thing.
No, I'm excited about that.
All right, folks, let us know what you think in the comments below.
This has been Tommy.
In case, we'll see on the next one.
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About this episode
A lively discussion about the cars that the hosts loved and hated in 2025, featuring a mix of new and used vehicles. Highlights include the surprising enjoyment of the Toyota Supra and Land Rover Discovery, while the hosts express disappointment in the Nissan Rogue PHEV and Volvo EX30 for their lack of innovation and frustrating infotainment systems. The episode also covers personal stories, including paragliding adventures and experiences with various vehicles, making it a blend of automotive insights and entertaining anecdotes.
Original notes
( https://www.alltfl.com/ ) Check out our new spot to find ALL our content, from news to videos and our podcasts! On this episode of TFL Car Chat, Tommy and Kase dive into their most liked and most disliked cars of the year, based on real seat time and honest impressions. Some of the standouts that impressed them include the Honda Passport TrailSport, the Cadillac Allanté, and the Dodge Viper, each for very different reasons ranging from capability to character and driving feel.
Not every car left a good impression, though. They also break down a few models that disappointed them, including the Nissan Rogue PHEV, Volvo EX30, and Toyota RAV4. They reflect on what made certain cars shine, why others fell flat, and what makes a vehicle feel like a hit or a miss.
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