Episode 421: 2025 Toyota 4Runner Trailhunter, 2026 Audi Q3, Benjamin Bought A New Car

Hello, and welcome to the Unnamed Automotive Podcast. My name is Sammy Hajesad, and with me, as always, is my good friend and fellow automotive journalist, Benjamin Hunting. Say hi to the people, man. Greetings, human listeners. Greetings to everyone. I'd like to send a special thank to all of our new listeners this week. We appreciate you trying something new, and we hope you'll stick around because we've got a ton of podcasts. We've got a ton of episodes on this podcast every single week. There's something new going on.

We also have a ton of podcasts, which is, I wish you'd just gone with that. We have a ton of podcasts. That was a slip, of course. But you know who is doing a lot of podcasting? Ben, Ben, you're doing so much podcast. I can't even keep up with you. Sammy, I'm doing minimum three podcasts a week because of my comic book that's coming out, Model UN, www.modeluncomic.com. By the time this goes live, it will be two days away from the Kickstarter, which is October 7th at 8 AM.

And I've been doing all these Kickstarter interviews with a very wide range of people, people who are kind of on the hobby side, people who are straight up professionals, people who are maybe pop culture oriented, people who are comic book oriented. So I've been experiencing some very different podcasts. I guess, I don't know if it's styles or formats or whatnot. I'm not used to being a guest on a podcast. I guess that's what I'm saying. Right. But none of them are about cars, which is always my favorite thing about what

you do is that well, first of all, I love listening to your thoughts on cars. We talk about cars all the time, but it's always so important that here on this show, you are listening to someone to get like one glimpse of you, although I think that's enough. I don't think anyone needs more. I think actually you do give them more of a well-rounded view of yourself than I give anybody, but it's because you're a mysterious person who's very withdrawn. You have a rich interior life that few have ever glimpsed. That's right. And I try to keep it that way. And you on the

other hand are out there in all these different podcasts, platforms, and talking about everything other than cars. And now all the people who have listened to you talk about about comics are like, oh, this guy knows

the stuff about cars as well. And then all the people who are listening to you talk about cars like right now are going to these comic podcasts. And they're like, oh, yeah, this is all, this one's all about.

So anyway, this show is going to be about cars. Are you sure?

episode? I'm very sure. Mostly. I think we're going to center all of our conversation around cars. But if we go in a different direction, you're not

allowed to turn things around. Honestly, Sammy, I'm not sure because this is the fourth podcast in a row that I've done this week. So it could

literally be about anything at this point.

That was absolutely. Yeah, it's absolutely on like a CBC podcast about like climate change or something. And I would have no idea.

Well, speaking of which, isn't the car you're driving some kind of hybrid of some sort?

It is a hybrid, but it's one of those hybrids by default, you know, like when a company decides that everything's going to be hybrid.

No, it's not a hybrid by default. There are worse hybrid by default. Those are like the mild mild hybrid 48 volt mild hybrids. And we're like, I don't know if that's really a hybrid.

Well, you know, if you walk, if you walk into a Toyota dealership these days, it's pretty much oops all hybrids. Like that's just how they're doing things.

And I spent a week with the 2025 Toyota four runner trail hunter, Sammy.

Um, four runner trail hunter.

You remember how there used to be TRD and then TRD off road and then TRD off road pro will get ready for trail hunter, which costs the same in the United States.

Trail hunter is the same price as TRD pro for the four runner. And that makes it 67,000 I think right around there.

It's, uh, King Canada. It's a little bit different. It's like an $86,000 vehicle, which is $3,000 more than TRD pro.

And let me tell you what the difference is. I don't know if you're out there thinking, why does Toyota need three off road versions of a vehicle that's always supposed to be off road capable, right?

Like, yeah, the, the whole deal is TRD pro has kind of gone in a dune bashing direction.

They're chasing raptors and whatnot.

While trail hunter is more of a traditional off roader in the sense that you can climb rocks and go through mud and what and that kind of thing.

Without the same type of suspension, like the suspension on the trail hunter is from source from the aftermarket.

It's old band emu, which is a company that has long been involved in off roading, particularly with land rovers.

The suspension on the TRD pro is Fox shocks, which is what you would find.

Excuse me. I'm not sure where like use that kind of language on our podcast.

It's well, they're using it in Ford showrooms too, because that's the same suspension pretty much that you would find on a raptor art.

But Fox, Fox like the animal.

Yeah, Fox like the animal.

Exactly. Or, or Fox like Mulder.

Yes. I love it.

The, I resisted the temptation for an X file sting there. You're very welcome.

Well, yeah, you've got the soundboard that you keep playing during the pre show.

I only played during the pre show.

I'm sure about licensing. Yeah, it kills me so much.

Okay. So this is a lot of discussion about trim levels and equipment.

Well, trim levels before you've been getting into the equipment.

I appreciate getting into the equipment now. Fox, old man, emu, what else we got?

Well, other visually they're, they're very similar.

But the TRD pro and the trail hunter both have kind of the wider fenders and the bigger tires.

And I believe the trail hunters on 33 inch tires.

The one I had featured a bunch of aftermarket stuff that you can see in addition to the aftermarket suspension.

So it has a roof rack from ARBI believe it's like a roof platform and it can hold 700 pounds static load.

So you can, you can be up there.

You can be camping.

You can, you can pitch tent.

You're going to have two or three people depending on how, you know,

how well things go with the campground.

And then at the front of the truck, there's a whole bunch of lights.

Let's say there's a light bar that goes across the bottom that's integrated into the bumper.

And then there's two fog lights. They're all from rigid.

They're all LED.

What I thought was neat is the fog lights themselves have two colors.

You can do like a white light or you can do a yellow light.

And yeah, because yellow light is a filter or is it, I believe it's different colored LEDs.

Wow, that's where your money's going, baby.

Now, I want to say that this is a good idea because white light is great for when it's clear outside.

But if it's snowing or if it's foggy, I know you're thinking, I know what you're thinking.

Why are you driving with fog lights on if it's clear outside?

But when it's foggy and it's snowing, you get a lot of reflections from white light.

Yellow light is better at undercutting that and not having as much glare come back at you.

So I think it's a neat implementation that we haven't seen really on very many if any factory vehicles.

Okay, yeah, I agree with that.

Good point.

It's a shame we aren't not testing this vehicle in the snow right now.

But I do have fog out here because it's the temperature differentials are starting to get pretty extreme at night.

And with the moisture that's in the air, I'm sorry to get fog.

And we have a lot of deer out here.

So bright lights are always crucial.

Okay.

So man, you've talked to me all about these bits and bobs here.

What about the tires and these rugged off-roady tires?

Or yeah, I can't remember the brand.

But they're, you know, Navi 33 inch really big.

They came on like a bronzish rim.

My car, my truck was finished in a paint called Everest, which was kind of an aquamarine slash turquoise slash dark bluish green.

It's hard to describe, but it looked really good.

And I want to stress, this is the first time I've driven the 25 floor runner.

And it's been completely redesigned.

I mean, for the most part, it's the same as the Tacoma, which I drove last year underneath.

Like it's got the chassis and whatnot.

But the same platform as the Land Cruiser too.

Yeah, it's the TNG F.

I don't remember exactly TNG.

A it's some variation of TNG as are all platforms to the point where calling it TNG feels pretty meaningless.

That's right.

I agree with you.

At this juncture, but I think it looks really good.

I think it's a handsome truck.

And I was fully prepared to not like this vehicle, because we talked about it from the exterior design or everything.

Just from the fact that I'm tired of off road vehicles.

Yeah, yeah, I think that the trend is just out of control.

And only a tiny number of people are going to take this vehicle off road.

Even if they are spending nearly $90,000 Canadian to own it.

The pricing for this vehicle is super strange because it puts it in a position where it costs more than a Land Cruiser.

It costs almost the same as a GX, which are based on the same platform and are ostensibly aimed at the same customer.

So who wants to go off road question mark, but also wants an SUV.

They also have hybrid drive trains, just like this.

Well, not exactly the same, but very similar to the one in this vehicle.

And at a certain point, it's like, when you're in a Toyota showroom and there's a Lexus store nearby,

you have like four or five different options.

I think more than that, man, I think you've got way more than that.

I mean, the same price, you know, it's, it's, it's odd in Toyota's showroom.

You've got the four runner in Land Cruiser and you've got, I mean, there's also the pickup trucks, right?

Yeah.

And then when you go to Lexus, you've got GX and Alex and it's, I don't know,

you're going off road on a TX or an RX, but it just feels like, and each one of those trim levels,

as you're pointing out with the four runner, changes the direction of the, or the, the target,

you know, off road environment that is, that is being, like dealt with, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So it feels like it's too much.

It's definitely too much.

I also, there used to be a time when one off road vehicle could do it all.

Why are we know, man, Sammy, there used to be a child, but like a four runner used to be

able to handle both the dunes and the rocks, like down, down over there on that stump.

And I'm going to tell you about when you could go on the dunes and the rocks with the same vehicle.

Am I, I'm not, come on, I'm not totally off base here.

Now, hey, specializing it.

I do think the accent you were using was a little offensive,

but I agree to all of the old, old guy, the old folks, sorry, apologize.

I'll work on it.

Am I wrong? Come on.

You can still do that.

You can still, you could take a TRD, bro, wherever you want.

You don't have to lie into the marketing that you need the trail hunter, right?

But I think it's probably more comfortable.

I think the trail hunter, and you can probably go over landing at any car, like that.

Wait, you mean sleeping in your car?

You mean the current economy, making everyone into overlanders?

Yeah, I think that, but the, I think that the idea with the trail hunter is it's more comfortable

on the road and isn't going to be as jostly off road as well, because it doesn't have

that like long, I guess the longer travel suspension in the, in the pro, don't quote me on

that though.

I, but remember, I said it was prepared to hate it.

I really liked how it looked, and then I really liked how it drove it was comfortable.

It does, it does feel like a well put together vehicle.

The engine is the 2.4 liter turbo four.

It's hybridized.

You can get the non hybridized version in pretty much every model of the four runner,

except for the special one.

So like, bro and trail hunter come with the hybrid model.

That means you get a single electric motor that gives you another 48 horsepower.

There's a 0.9 kilowatt hour battery, which means you can't really drive around on electric

power for very long, although I was able to tow an empty trailer around my driveway

under electric power, like just the battery.

But once you're on the road, forget it.

Like it's, you're very much kicking in the gas engine.

And in total, you get 326 horsepower, 465 pound feet of torque.

This is important because the last engine in the four runner last year's four runner was garbage.

It was the four liter thick cylinder, the four liter V6 270 horsepower,

278 pound feet of the noisiest, clatteriest torque you can possibly imagine.

Being shifted through a five speed automatic transmission,

perhaps the last five speed auto on the entire market.

Did it have the five speed all the way to this new generation?

All the way to the end.

And you had a five speed for a long time.

I didn't realize they didn't pull a new sound and incorporate the new transmission.

Or rentlessly inefficient.

Yeah.

So you have tons more power with this engine.

You have a, I can't remember how much that how many speeds in the transmission eight speed.

Yeah.

It's a good transmission for the most part.

Yes, I had some situations at lower throttle,

where it did not necessarily shift as clean or as smoothly as I expected.

Now this isn't improvement last year.

I don't know if you people listening might remember.

I drove the Tacoma and I towed with it.

I towed with this vehicle as well and I had a constant shake at low throttle

from the same drivetrain in the Tacoma where to the point where it was distracting

and it was at all times, there was just something that was not right with the tune of that engine.

So fast flash forward a year to now, almost exactly a year later, that issue was gone.

So there was just the occasional roughness from the transmission while shifting,

but the engine itself felt relatively smooth.

And when I put the vehicle into tow haul mode,

the transmission shifting issues disappeared.

Okay.

So I think it's just a programming thing.

I'm sure they can dial it out.

I don't know why it's there.

It's important to point out that there is a turbocharged four cylinder non-hybrid in the lineup.

That means I did point that out.

Sorry, I did mention that.

I know we mentioned every vehicle except the Trail Hunter and the Tearity Pro.

This model, we mentioned the oops all hybrids.

This is the one area where you can be like, oops, I got a, I got a naturally,

I got a gas powered vehicle, I guess.

So why would you want to go with the gas power vehicle?

There are two reasons.

I mean, obviously you can't get the Trail Hunter with that package,

but the hybrid system in the Toyota, it has some issues.

The first is fuel mileage is not super great.

Do you want to guess what the combined mileage is for the Trail Hunter?

Let's go with 28, 23.

Oh my goodness.

That is, that's four miles per gallon, that's four miles per gallon better than last year.

That's rough.

Okay.

I could not beat 18 miles per gallon.

No way.

No, couldn't do it.

The other thing despite the, despite the on paper improvement,

it got the same mileage you got last year in the real world.

I saw that I saw not so great mileage, but the other issues are the battery.

So the hybrid system is heavy to the point where a Trail Hunter has 300 or any

actually hybrid version of the four runner has 350 pounds less cargo capacity

than the non-turbo, than the non hybrid.

300 pounds less than 350 pounds, like towing capacity.

No, hauling capacity in the inside the vehicle.

Oh, man, okay.

Yeah, that's not good.

No, not useful.

The other issue is, even though that you've got like this hilarious roof rack

like rating for static loads and all that, yeah, that's funny.

Okay.

The other issue is the battery takes up a lot of space in the worst possible place.

They put it under the cargo floor in the back, which means you have a four-inch bump

versus a non-turbo for runner.

So you have four extra inches to lift over way.

And the rear seats do not fold completely flat.

So how low do they go?

I can't remember.

Good enough.

I mean, good enough, I guess, but it's, it's just that combination of factors that

really kind of put the hybrid version at a disadvantage to other similarly sized SUVs.

The thing that I don't understand is they knew this was going to be a hybrid right

from the start.

So why was this design flaw kept in the mix?

Like, is it because they prioritized the Tacoma and the battery placement for the Tacoma?

And they just didn't want, they, they know they're going to sell twice.

Is it two and a half times the Tacomas that they are for runners?

It's, it's an odd choice.

Do you mind if I ask, I'm sorry to sound ridiculous here, but when you say the battery,

you don't mean the 12 volt battery.

You mean the, I mean, the 0.9 kilowatt hour hybrid battery, the hybrid battery,

because both vehicles have a 12 volt battery.

Yeah.

So I would just want to relocate it, but yeah, that's nonsense.

Okay, that, that, that is a strange question.

I'm starting to get worried about you.

I haven't been thinking straight lately.

And I'm glad that somebody's paid attention.

Well, I only pay attention for the hour.

So that we record it.

I just connect this is, that is infuriating.

Because I think an SUV is also meant to be practical and have some utility.

And when you're diminishing that utility for a supposed improvement in either

fuel efficiency or performance or just for like, yeah, efficiency in general,

all you're getting in this car is a more powerful vehicle.

But it weighs over 6,000 pounds now.

No, I don't think it's that much.

I think it's 55 500.

Oh, yeah, 55 hundred.

Sorry.

It can tow 6,000.

It can, it can tow 6,500.

Oh, sorry, it can, it can tow.

I'm looking at 6,000 only on the limited.

They can tow 6,000 trust brilliant.

And I told with it, I told my race car with it.

Okay, the, the, I want to stress, I do like this vehicle.

I think it's a really great effort from Toyota.

I think it's cool.

It looks cool.

It drives nice, even with the weird cargo thing at the back, it is useful.

There are two things about it that drive me crazy that are not necessarily

something that these might be deal breakers for some people.

The first is this vehicle comes with a snorkel on the side of the,

on the passenger side going up the A pillar.

It is not a waterproof snorkel.

It is not for driving through water.

All it does is grab non dusty air in theory from up high as opposed to like a

more mid-mounted air intake for an SUV.

The problem with it is it is the loudest thing you can possibly imagine

because the intake is directly beside the passenger window.

So every time you hit the gas, it goes, it is very loud.

You cannot have the window down while you're driving.

It's brutal.

Okay.

It's like a blow off valve inside the cabin.

Yeah.

And people might like that.

No, no one likes this.

And also it makes a ton of noise at highway speeds, even if you're not on the

throttle because it's a big bump on the side of the vehicle that disrupts air flow.

Does it, does it get in the way of visibility as well over there?

No, no, you can't see it.

All you can do is hear it.

It's like a, it's like a sonic boom.

It like you don't see the missile that kills you.

You just eat anyway.

The other thing about the, I don't know why I went with missile there.

The other thing that's weird about the Toyota is it has this pretty big

infotainment screen in the middle of the dashboard.

It works well.

It's fine.

It has almost no functionality.

All it does is show you Android Auto and Apple CarPlay and like a few settings

mostly for the infotainment system.

All the other vehicle settings in which means every single safety system,

all the towing stuff, when you're setting up trailer profiles, et cetera, et cetera,

is stuffed into this tiny screen on the gauge cluster between the

tack and the speedometer.

And you can only access it using like the toggle button on the steering wheel.

Now this makes no sense whatsoever.

I, I, I'm a professional automotive reviewer.

I went into the safety systems to try and turn various things on and off

because the refuse systems that were bothering me.

They don't explain what the systems are.

It's just acronyms, PKS, CKB, TTRS.

And it's like, what is any of this?

I can't, I had to open the owner's manual and look all of it up.

You know, all they had to do was put it on the gigantic infotainment screen

like every other car company so that you can explain what each of these

features are as you're turning them on and off.

I don't know, maybe that's a safety issue that they should have considered.

Like this is not a trivial thing here.

I also almost, I was saying 95% of the trucks I tow with have the

towing data and information on the center infotainment screen.

Why does Toyota have a beautiful screen that they do not use?

Yeah, it's baffling that they just don't have any like apps for

information on it's nothing for it.

It's that's really strange.

Like not even vehicle settings basics.

The safety stuff is basic stuff.

That's crazy, believe, I mean, it is hard to believe.

I can't figure that out.

I was looking at their feature list.

There's all sorts of really strange gimmicks.

Let me see if I can find some of them.

The worst fun was they have like an active driving assist,

which like automatically breaks from the vehicle in front of you breaks.

And it tries to intervene in corners.

It basically tries to drive for you without being an actual self driving

system.

And it's it was annoying.

I had to turn it off.

That's what the adaptive cruise control without adaptive cruise control.

That's on all the time.

That's so annoying.

Yeah.

So I had to turn it off and it's just not subtle, right?

I couldn't figure out what it was called because it was just accident.

I started turning off various things trying to get it to stop.

But it just slowly accelerating to cars in front of you to see if it'll

turn off and you're like, no, I eventually just opened the manual.

Okay.

So the one thing that four runners have had for a really long time is a rear

window that goes up and down.

This one still has it, right?

Yes.

Is where does the button for this?

Is it an inch?

No, it's not hidden.

No, it's not on the dashboard.

I believe it's on the overhead console, like where you would,

where if you had a sunroof, you would, you would find a sunroof control.

Okay.

The other thing I was curious about is that there apparently is an onboard

air compressor.

Is that a trim level thing or a, or a accessory thing?

I'm assuming it's part of the trail hunter package.

So you can air down at the wherever you're going off road.

How cool is that?

Is that useful?

I think that's kind of useful.

Sure.

It's different.

It's not that different.

It's, you know, I think it's cool.

I think a lot of off-roaders already have one.

So you can just leave yours at home, I guess.

And then the other thing is it has what they describe our pre-wired

auxiliary switches.

Yeah.

The old one had this too, right?

Almost every off-road truck has it.

Yeah.

And that's it for like, this is the cool things that a new forerunner or trail hunter

has also, I mean, it looks really aggressive.

It has the bulging fenders and stuff that you don't find on the normal forerunner.

Like it is, it is a visually compelling package, I think.

Those bronze wheels are pretty sweet.

Yeah, look, they look really good.

And I guess, you know, what they did to the roof rack in comparison to the

DRU Pro is also a neat touch.

The exterior, I think it looks pretty, it looks essentially like a, like a taco, I

think, with a, with a, with a, with a, with a trunk.

Like it looks like the Tacoma, sorry.

I don't know.

I, I think it's pretty much differentiated from the Tacoma.

I don't know.

And then I think the rear end looks very similar to the outgoing one as well.

Yeah.

So I don't know, we talked about this, we talked about this before the podcast.

When you have that, that rear window that drops it to the table, you're,

you're limited as to how things can look.

I'm looking at all the time.

You have to accommodate that mechanism and you have to make it so it's stable

and not going to break and all that stuff.

There's, there's like this neat slider on the website that lets you look at

all of the side profiles of four runners from 1984 to the current one.

It's pretty neat.

Okay.

Anything else on the podcasting was a visual medium.

Well, I would encourage people to go to the Toyota.com website and are you in the

pockets of big Toyota?

Absolutely not because I don't want this, this to be out there really.

I want something that's less, I want some that's more fuel efficient.

I want some that's more practical.

I want something that is cheaper.

That's what I'm looking for.

And when Toyota starts offering those kinds of cars, then we can start talking.

But so you want like a year is true.

Yeah, I want in Europe, they have a year is crossed.

What I need is a, is a, it's like a four on average cross.

Yeah, I need is a, is a boxier version.

Basically take the, the, the body of the Bronco sport shrink it down by like 30%

and then you're done.

That would be hilarious.

Don't be lining up for that.

We used to have those funny little, yeah, I know here we go again.

There used to be these really weird boxy offer.

Like the Suzuki like Samurai or sidekick, the sidekick and the geotron.

Perfectly dangerous cubes.

Yeah, because they were made with like tin foil rather than real bass.

The wheel based the length of a skateboard.

They were so good.

Let's all get one.

Anything else you want to tell me about your four runner experience?

No, that's it.

I'm good.

I'm sure I am sure.

All right.

So in addition to your four runner, I have another car that we need to talk about this week.

And that is the 2026 Audi Q3.

Audi sent me all the way to Scotland to test drive this new subcompact crossover.

Although I think some people call it a compact.

Sammy, was it your first time in Scotland?

No, I've been to Edinburgh before we were in Glasgow.

It was an interesting event.

They flew us over there.

They put us on the wrong side of the road, but with continental European like vehicles,

like German vehicles, I suppose.

And that means that the steering wheel was on the wrong side for that sort,

that side of the road.

And it was all disorienting.

They also had a night drive program because the Q3 has some pretty cool headlights

that Americans will not yet, but Canadians will.

So we got to experience that.

And quick question on the night drive.

Were you actually smuggling stuff?

Yeah, no.

I mean, I smuggled some stuff back, just a lot of chips and chocolate for my Irish wife

who misses the good stuff from back home.

And yeah, we had a good time.

It is interesting to talk about the Q3.

I originally found the Q3, I think this announced third or fourth generation.

I think third, actually.

And I've driven the first two generations obviously and found them to be really,

really difficult cars to talk about.

Things I don't love just recommending to people because I found them to be too small

for practical usage, too expensive for even for the size profile.

And then not luxurious enough to either justify the cost or the branding of the car.

Yeah, it really does seem like the Q3 has fallen through the cracks.

And you're talking about like a small premium vehicle.

And I was already, you know, going into this program, being like, here we go.

Another, you know, attempt to justify what this product is.

And I actually think that they pulled it off because for starters,

it looks much more refined and more like an SUV, I guess, in which they,

which the only way I can describe it is they've got more horizontal lines.

It makes it look bigger, wider, even though it really isn't.

So I think the exterior design, like redesign has really gone a long way

in making the Audi feel a lot, like significantly different,

like in terms of product placement.

And I guess if you discuss the other vehicles in its class,

I think a Q3 would go up against something like the, maybe the Lexus NX or even the UX,

it would sit somewhere between those two.

GLB from Mercedes.

GLB, which is a very like, it can feel a lot like a family vehicle,

mainly because it even offers a third row of seats in a small vehicle.

That's absolutely wild.

It is wild, absolutely.

And then the other one is the out, the BMW X1 and X2,

which are okay vehicles, but sometimes they're interior,

it can feel a little like empty.

I want to throw a wild card at you.

Hit me.

What about something like the Mini Countryman?

Yeah, that's a great, that's a great idea.

I think the Countryman, I got to double check the pricing on it,

but I do think the Countryman is cheaper.

It is cheaper, I think you're right.

But it is, it's one of the few vehicles that offers a lot of personality

in the subcompact, compact crossover segment,

the premium one especially.

So I think that's a wild card.

I think we can talk about that later,

but for now, let me just talk about this Q3.

Exeter design, I think they've done a pretty good job.

They've incorporated these OLED headlights and tail lights

that blend into the bodywork when they're off

and then kind of like illuminate.

So there's like this just hidden, however you want to describe it,

a hidden light bar that just illuminates

whenever you hit the brakes.

There's also an illuminated Audi emblem on the back

which I'm not sure I really love.

It looks kind of cheap.

Also makes people think that maybe you're driving an EV,

because that's been the calling card

for many of these electric vehicles.

Yeah, like a light bar.

It's a type of illuminated logo though.

Yeah, remember when the Lincoln navigator

had that gigantic illuminated logo?

It was almost like a third headlight.

Yeah, yeah.

It's insane to me the idea of illuminated emblems.

I used to think that was really tacky

and then now like everyone has one of them.

But at least on the Audi's, as far as I can tell,

it's only on the rear.

So it's not too gaudy.

What they've done instead, if they've put the front emblem

in the grille, they've like blacked it out,

at least on the model that I drove.

And then they put all these sensors

for the safety features.

They've kind of like embedded them around

in and around that area.

So the front emblem is blacked out and invisible

and the rear emblem is illuminated.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

They probably had two different teams working on it.

This was the compromise.

Inside is probably my favorite element to talk about

with the Q3.

It actually feels like,

I used to think that the Q3 felt like an elevated golf

in terms of its interior design.

Now I can truly say that it feels actually

like a smaller Q5.

Would you say elevated golf?

Do you mean like riding on a higher suspension

or do you mean like trying to be luxurious?

Trying to be luxurious.

And the golf, I think, already tries really hard sometimes

to justify being a little bit more premium

than other compact cars with their interiors.

But I just felt like the Q3 just couldn't pull it off

and it did feel like just a Volkswagen auto group product

just with more like stitching and leather.

And now you've got some of that feels a little bit nicer.

They emphasize a lot of sustainable materials now

in the premium class.

This one is loaded with them.

I don't know.

Me and you had a discussion about fake plastics

before the show started and that fake plastics are just

just as bad as like real plastics.

For the most part, yeah.

And I don't know how biodegradable

you really want your interior to be

when you're spending like $45,000 on a car.

Well, you certainly don't want insects

and squirrels eating your wiring harnesses.

I think that's something we've established

with these biodegradable products.

You don't even need, sometimes you don't even need

biodegradable products to get the insects in there.

I mean, do you remember these Mazdas

with all the spider webs going on with them?

It's a beautiful home for a spider web

in that gas tank exhaust valve.

But one of the things I do appreciate about the Q3

is that they've really tried to make it

a flagship for technology.

They've introduced the new generation

infotainment system on it.

It's an Android automotive OS

based infotainment system.

It does not feel as janky as the Volvo ones

that we've been talking about lately.

I really like the responsiveness of it.

It had all the same features

that you expect in an Audi product,

including a Google Maps satellite view

and really responsive.

And it also has Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, all that jazz.

There's also, of course, the virtual cockpit

which is a digital dash.

It worked really well.

I really liked all of this.

Do you think that when I drove the SQ5,

SQ6, sorry, last week that we talked about,

I found that the Audi infotainment and virtual cockpit

and all that was perfectly fine,

but it didn't strike me as breaking any new ground

versus what other car companies are trying to do.

Again, not a problem for me,

but did you have that same kind of feeling in the Q3?

No, they really emphasized it

in their presentation and their presentation

that this Android Automotive OS 1,

they've really changed the interface.

They've changed the way that icons are presented

or app shortcuts are presented.

So they're trying to make it more stylish,

I truly believe that they think that the consumer for this

is sort of like a young adult who's into the technology

and connected, maybe social media and stuff like that.

They even offer YouTube on an Audi application store.

I don't know why you really want YouTube on a non-electric vehicle

because that just seems like a distraction.

But then again, actually, the more I think about it,

they got rid of Google podcasts for YouTube music,

which is confusing,

but that's how people can listen to podcasts

on the Google platform now.

Yeah, it's been a couple of years, I think.

So I guess maybe that's what they're talking about.

There's also one of these voice assistants

that chimes in every time you say something like,

hey, Audi or whatever.

I don't care about any of that.

What a lot of people were curious about

is that Audi is incorporating a new control scheme

for their gear selection.

It's like this static column

that does not move with a little switch at the end of them,

where you would be...

Where is this column?

It's on the steering wheel.

Or on the steering wheel column, sorry.

So it's a...

I'm confused.

It's like a column-mounted shifter that doesn't move.

Is it a stock that comes off of the steering wheel?

Yeah, a stock.

Sorry.

A stock.

So it's...

It has a stock with a dial,

kind of like what you would use for, I guess, windshield wipers?

Kind of, yes.

It's not quite like the big chunky one

you used to remember on a truck

or the big...

Well, those don't turn.

Yeah.

Or the one that you would see on modern...

Hyundai's?

Or the Tiny Mercedes one.

Yeah, it's closer to the Tiny Mercedes one,

but it just doesn't move.

And at the end is a little square

that toggles up and down

and you push it in for park.

You know, Sammy, a lot of people

have been making a lot of noise about this,

but I don't think it makes that big of a difference.

Like every automaker now

is introducing its own way to change gears.

Yeah, the one thing I think about when I sit in a car these days

is I really wish they would be a different way

to choose drive, park, and reverse.

I'm so tired of a simple basic system

that has worked well for 70 to 80 years.

Yeah, I know.

I want something that's confusing

that I have to relearn

that means I can't loan my car to my elderly relatives.

You know, it's really an answer to a question

that had been answered decades ago.

Yeah, that's fair.

I don't think it's that big of a deal.

I think the moment you get into this car

you'll get yourself used to it pretty quickly.

You're not saying I'm going to put it in park

while I'm trying to turn the wipers on.

No, the wipers are just on the other side.

Oh, that's an easy thing.

That's an easy thing to do.

Just have two identical controls on different sides

of the steering column.

Do we not appreciate that with window wipers

and turn signals?

Yeah, but you know, a little less mission critical.

The other thing to talk about here is it's powertrain.

There's a two-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder engine.

It always feels like every single Audi ever made

has this EA triple-8 engine.

In this application it makes closer to 260 horsepower

which is pretty good because the outgoing one only made 220

which is kind of the, I think the industry standard

for this type of car.

But you have to use super gas, right?

Ultra super maximum gas.

Right, and I noticed that the car really did not feel

underpowered in any way.

It was fine.

One of the strangest things though is that in Europe

they sell this car as a plug-in hybrid

and that seems like a pretty cool

just like a determining factor

that would make this car feel more interesting

compared to the rest of its class.

I don't think there's a plug-in hybrid.

Maybe it's a cost thing.

Like maybe it would push it too far.

Oh sure.

So compact.

I think in Europe there's probably more of a tolerance

for expensive small cars.

In North America, I don't know,

people see a high price tag on a small car

and they start looking at a larger car for the same money.

I don't know, man.

It seems like car pricing in general here

has gotten out of control

and I think they can sell anything for any price they want to.

$87,000 Toyota Trail Hunter.

Yeah.

We're just talking about that.

That used to be, you know,

range-topping LX pricing.

I remember you sent me down on the stump

and you told me about back in the day.

$87,000 would buy you a Ferrari.

Was it a Testerosa?

I think so probably.

So I think, you know, they can probably pull that off.

There's a 420 watt sound system.

It believe it's a 12 speaker sound system.

Oh my goodness.

Can I tell you,

we get in and out of these press vehicles all the time.

And I find myself having to adjust my

my sound systems or the sound settings

so often now because it depends on what I'm trying to listen to.

If I'm listening to a podcast or from listening to a music,

there's very different, like some of these sound systems

are so either rudimentary or so powerful

that like a regular sound profile

just doesn't seem to work in.

Here's what I do.

Whenever I get into a press vehicle,

you turn the bass from max to something more reasonable.

What I do is I get out my little app,

the tracks feel mileage.

I write down the mileage that I'm starting at

then I connect my phone to the infotainment system

and then step three,

I go into the sound system.

I flatten the EQ.

I turn off all the 3D garbage stuff

that's not real, all the processing,

and then I'm happy.

That's what I do.

I go by into these random weird gimmicks

that they're programming into audio.

And I like this approach because

yes, the flattest one is probably the one that works

for the most amount of content

in terms of music or podcasts.

But sometimes I find myself on the road.

I can't quite hear what I'm listening to

and I have to do something with the speaker set up.

I mean, yeah, I'm going deaf

so it's hard for me to hear stuff.

Period.

This Audi comes with profiles

that you can just switch to

on this new podcast now.

It's just last past Ben revealing

that he's going deaf and talking about podcasts.

Oh, I've known this guy.

I've known this for a while.

Do you want to unleash this on the podcast

on the listening?

Yeah, moment is passed.

I also wanted to make it feel like

I'm also going deaf and just ignoring you.

I hope you're not.

I'm not.

Yeah, probably.

Wouldn't wish it on anyone.

The car also comes with all-wheel drive,

the standard stuff,

nothing to worth while to talk about.

My experience with it was pretty good.

I really did not feel like it was a cheap car

trying to be expensive.

But more of a premium car

just at a smaller size and price point.

That might be because we were driving

European smack vehicles,

which is what you said earlier.

They have a higher tolerance

for these kinds of elevated prices

and they have more features on them.

You're also driving on tiny European roads, right?

Yeah.

They're getting you into the mentality

of like, oh, this vehicle fits my lifestyle very well.

We've, I agree with you on that.

I actually really love the size of these cars

on those roads.

They feel right.

And I live in a,

like the city that I live in

can't feel kind of tight.

There's a lot of small roads.

The super advanced city of Hamilton?

Yeah, right.

Come on.

And I also feel like, you know,

a small car really works

in some of these denser city streets.

So I was happy with that.

The major thing that I think

Elie wanted to showcase

is something that might not apply

to some of our listeners

because it's not going to be offered

to you to US buyers

is the digital matrix.

Elie, the headlights,

which is a headlight system

that's made up of 25,

over 25,000

LEDs, which is too many LEDs.

No, it's a fantastic

instrument, something happened.

I'm willing to buy 12,000 LEDs.

That's my upper limit.

These LEDs are really,

they are by the,

you're laughing too much.

I'm laughing because,

I'm laughing because

I remember when like one or two LEDs

was like a really big deal.

And now they're like, well,

there's 25,000 LEDs

on this bottle cap

and you're like,

yeah.

Well, I actually think that's funny

because Elie must have been one

of the first automakers

to have LED daytime running lights.

And they used to be little dots, right?

Like, yeah, that was singular.

Singular LED.

Yeah.

Make the size of your fist.

Singular little dots

that they used to put around.

I think it must have been the R8.

I had them.

But now they got 25,000.

Well, I was going to say,

I feel like LED DRLs

are the 20 years from now

are going to be the feature

that dates designs the most.

That'll be so interesting.

It'll be like, I know exactly

when this car came out

because the shape of the LEDs

on its front end.

But these LEDs are informed

by the safety systems

found in on the vehicle.

So basically,

they can react to what the camera

and adaptive cruise control

sensors are seeing

and can change the direction

of the beam

and illuminate only the road

in front of you.

So you don't

in terms of low beam headlights.

Mainly you're not

blinding anybody.

And then in addition to that,

they can project

kind of like

they can enable and disable

these LEDs as needed

and project information

onto the light beam

which is both the most gimmicky

and most interesting thing I've ever seen.

So it's like a head-up display

that's going past the windshield.

Yes, it's like a head-up display

on the road.

And I know that sounds stupid

but here's what they did.

They made us drive these cars out in the road.

They made us turn on adaptive cruise control

and lane-keeping.

And the car,

so basically we could see

the light,

the road in front of us

between us and the car head

perfectly illuminated.

And then the system would put

these two lines,

they would basically

blank out a couple of LEDs

and put these two black lines

in that light beam

to visual lines

where you are in the lane.

And it's also worth pointing out

that this is not

illuminating the lane next to you

until you turn on the signal

which then it illuminates it

on a rhythmic

like TikTok,

like your signal.

So I'm still a little bit,

we've talked about this before off mic.

I'm still a little bit confused

by this because I need those lights

to illuminate the lane beside me

because that's where the deer are.

Yeah, I think,

I mean, there's a little bit of

like pattern,

like scattered pattern to it.

I think a much more controlled way

than the randomness of other

like high beams sometimes.

And if you ever look at like

IHS reports,

they can really peg

a automaker's headlights down

just based on their glare pattern.

And I think basically

what Audi's doing is they're

focusing their glare pattern

to what is essential

and can control it to such a

extent that it will not

interfere with oncoming motorists

or so I understand that for a high beam.

But for a low beam,

you're not going to be interfering

with oncoming motorists.

Yeah, no, it doesn't completely

like leave the other lane in shadows.

Because you need the,

you need full frontal illumination

once you're outside of a city

or your headlights are useless.

Right.

And I've driven some

of the cool matrix designs

like from Mercedes-Benz

where they leave the brights

on all the time

and then they carve out

the space for the vehicle

that's coming towards you.

And you can actually see

that dark zone move

with the vehicle

that's in the oncoming lane.

And that's available in Canada

for a few years now.

Yeah, I think that's I think that's

really cool technology.

This is doing something kind of like that.

It's not like I said,

it's not totally leaving an entire

thing in in darkness.

I'm going to the other thing

that it will do will

project a snowflake on the road

when it's I see out there.

I think that's really funny.

Like I know it's yeah exactly.

It's going to be funnier

when it's projected over actual ice.

Or snow yeah.

So I want to ask you,

how do you feel about augmented reality

because that's basically what this is?

Yes, I really like it.

I think it's really cool.

I think it is.

Look, all those features are already in the car.

Like the adaptive cruise control,

the makes use of these cameras

that can sense so much of the world around it.

And augmented reality,

I think typically uses

mapping mapping data

or vehicle to X data.

And this didn't quite have that.

I'm sure it eventually will.

It could put speed limits on that projection

or something like that.

I think that's super cool.

I really do love that.

I would love to see more of it.

One of the only issues it seems to add

a lot of complexity and data

to the overall vehicle.

And right now it seems like

we've gotten a lot of cars

that have been released lately

with unreliable infotainment systems.

And I'm worried that adding too many gimmicks

will take away from the basic functionality

that we expect from infotainment systems.

Also, maybe basic functionality of headlights,

which are key.

I mean, your headlights aren't working

because the software won't boot.

Yeah, that's a great point, right?

Like, what happens?

And I mean, sensors can be blocked.

They can be damaged.

They can something can happen.

What will happen to the headlights

when that happens?

Will they just

revert to a normal phase, hopefully?

Following on with that.

You never know.

The additional cost of this type of headlight

means that in an accident,

the repair costs are going to be

astronomical.

Absolutely huge.

It could be contributing to increased

insurance costs for motorists.

Absolutely, 100% it does.

But it's worth pointing out.

I'm curious as to what gets damaged more frequently.

A windshield, which needs to be,

which needs to have a special coating

in order for head-up displays to work.

Or the headlights.

Yeah, but this vehicle has both.

Yeah, well, it did not have a head-up display.

Okay, so like, I mean, I would say

headlights are at the front of the car.

Yeah, they're going to be taking more.

If you're in a parking lot, someone backs it

to your windshield is fine.

I guess that's my point.

Yeah, of course.

I think that's a great point.

I've damaged more windshields

than I have headlights.

That's my point.

Yeah, because you're wild.

Do just out there with no rules.

That's driving through Apple orchards.

Also, it's a crazy windshield risking activities.

Partially true.

We have these, it's like season now for these

I think they're called...

My wife calls them conquerors.

Have you ever heard of these?

You're gonna have to give me more than that.

It's a tree.

It's called a European horse chestnut.

And they make these massive chestnut

like seeds.

We have butternuts in Canada.

And they fall.

And we have a couple of roots

that I take that are covered by these things.

I mean, the day one of these trees hit me right,

like drop red on my windshield

and scared the daylights out of me.

I was like, what was that?

And I just thought stuck in my windshield wiper.

And I was like, oh man, one of these things.

Wow.

Anyways, the starting price for the Q3

has not been announced.

I would imagine it costs around 40 to 45,000 dollars

which is an average price of a compact car in the segment.

I would say that similarly the pricing in Canada

is not going to be going off any further.

Let me double check what I...

Love these typing cents.

Yeah, you should.

Why not?

No comment.

Let me get this in.

My expectation for the pricing in Canada

is that it'll be about 45 to 55,000.

So would you recommend this vehicle?

Yeah, right now I would assuming that that

is what the pricing will be.

I was very happy with the performance of it.

I'm happy with the design of it.

I'm happy with the technology that's offered in it.

And especially for Canadians who

I think that lighting technology is really cool.

It's one of those few features that makes me say,

oh, that's why you bought a luxury car.

That's why you bought a fancy nameplate.

And I think that there's so many vehicles

that don't offer a killer app or a killer feature

or something to point at and be like,

that's why I sprung for the

Audi, for example, I'm into that.

I really dig that.

I love it when an automaker tries

to make their vehicle stand out and pulls it off.

It might be a gimmick,

but those systems kind of functional.

So last week at the end of the show,

I mentioned that I had bought another car.

Yeah, you left us with such a teaser.

And I'm sorry to the people who reached out

online to get hints.

Well, people were like,

now they have to wait a whole week to find out what I bought.

So I hope you're not disappointed by what the answer ends up being.

But I want to just kind of walk through the process

that I've been going through over the last three months or so

because it has not been fun.

And normally for me, shopping for cars is fun

because I have a disease

and I'm almost always looking at online ads

for enthusiast-type cars

or at least vehicles that I find interesting.

Like the manual transmission pathfinder I bought

in back in June,

which is still serving me well.

But my wife has a commute that's about 260 kilometers

round trip that she does once or twice a week,

depending on weather and things like that,

whether she's actually needed in the office.

And it involves city driving and mostly highway,

but once you get to the city, things are pretty gnarly.

And it's a lot of bumper to bumper traffic.

So 260 kilometers, I guess, is like

160 miles, something like that.

Okay, it's not in substantial, but it means that

the vehicle that she needs a vehicle that's comfortable

needs a vehicle that's safe and needs a vehicle

that is relatively reasonable of fuel mileage.

And for parking, it can't be gigantic.

And fuel mileage and parking are kind of linked.

Like you can't have a gigantic vehicle that gets good gas.

It just doesn't really happen.

So the last two years,

she's been driving a 2024 cross trek,

which we leased for two years

because when we moved to the country,

we didn't have a lot of time to find a new vehicle.

It was 2022, 2023,

and the prices for use cars were horrible.

Like they were through the roof.

We were just looking at garbage stuff

that was the same price as this particular lease,

like 500 bucks a month, $12,000 all in.

So our lease is up in November.

And the last three months have been me trying to figure out

what we're going to replace it with.

And at first, I wanted to go electric.

And I was very convinced this is what we were going to do.

I was also convinced that EV prices in Canada

were going to start to come down

because the refuer incentives available

from the federal government got rid of its incentives

for electric vehicles.

The problems of Quebec still has one that's a little bit lower,

but it was still available.

And I was like, okay,

they're going to drop pricing to reflect this

because most of these companies were

relying on these incentives

to get people in the showroom.

That didn't happen.

It's happened in the States recently

because the $7,500 tax incentive is no longer available.

And as of yesterday,

I believe that Hyundai dropped the price

of the Ionic 5 between $7,000 and $9,000

depending on the trim level,

which is pretty dramatic.

It didn't happen in Canada.

That's it.

I don't think that price drop is coming to Canada either.

No, that's what I just said.

It's not happening.

I thought you were just talking about that.

Yes, go ahead.

So I was waiting for something that wasn't going to happen.

I was really had my heart set on an Ionic 6.

But I started looking around

and I was like, oh, maybe I can get a coin at EV

because on the used market,

the first generation coin at EVA,

well, the first generation facelifted one,

if you get one that there's two versions,

there's the one where the battery warranty is gone,

and you can get those for like 15 or 16 grand,

which is a pretty decent deal

for 400 kilometers of driving on a charge,

which again is a factor on this route trip in the winter.

My wife's going to lose like 40% of that capability.

So I wanted to keep her in the range

of being able to do it without having to stop

on her way home to plug in.

And then we would just charge it home.

And if you want one that has the warranty,

you're looking at around 25,000 for tax in.

And that didn't seem too crazy.

And then I started looking at lease deals for the Ionic.

And I actually, I looked at the Machee as well.

Ford was offering like $17,000 in rebates off of the Machee.

Ionic was offering all in tax included lease rate for four years

that was the same as what we were paying for the outback,

$500 bucks a month.

And it kind of seemed like that's where I was going to go.

I was like, all right, it's the same price we're paying now.

We're treating transportation as another bill that we pay every month.

And that seems to be a brand new car,

so theoretically less problems.

And let's just do that.

And then I kind of realized that this is a vehicle

that five days out of the week sits in the driveway.

When we drive together,

we're almost always driving one of my vehicles or a press car.

Because I have to drive the press cars.

And I usually have to drive the long distances.

So we're just going to take that if we're going on any kind of trip.

So I was like, why am I going to pay $500 a month for a car that we're not using?

If it was a car that we were either both going to be using every day

or she was going to be using every day,

then yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.

But I essentially talked myself out of leasing.

And I was really surprised by that.

Then I started to think about, well,

what's the upper dollar limit that I want to spend on a car that's going to sit five days a week?

And I was thinking, do I really want to spend 25 grand on a Kona?

I like the fact that we wouldn't be paying for gas.

But there's a few issues with the Kona out there on the used market.

They have there's some infotainment problems.

There's some cooling problems.

It's not big deals.

But they are things, sorry, when I say cooling problems,

I mean inside the cabin like the air conditioning system.

It's problematic.

I was like, do we want to pay a lot for a car where we're not really necessarily going to get the

savings because it's not going to be driven all that often.

So the fuel mileage savings are minimal, maybe $150 a month we would save.

And that would easily be eaten up by the purchase price of the vehicle.

So I started looking around at, you know, what's the $15,000 mark?

That seemed to be like, you know, which the Biden cash,

get something decent around that price and be happy with it.

And this is where the market got weird for me.

Like there's a lot of cars at price point.

Yeah.

Early contenders was the Subaru Outback

with the 3.6 liter flat six engine and the five speed automatic,

which was made until 2014.

And I was really set on finding one of these because it's the most reliable

Subaru that's out there.

Otherwise, I would have bought a used cross track.

But the thing is, the cross tracks of old all come with CVTs if you want an automatic

and it's not a good transmission.

It's not reliable.

I can't ask my wife to drive a five-speed manual in traffic every day.

It's not every day, but every time she uses it, it's just not fair to do.

So I wanted this five-speed automatic because of the reliability.

I quickly discovered there are no clean examples of this vehicle to be had in Quebec.

Everything I looked at was either rusty or had hidden problems.

I had a couple of vehicles inspected by a garage that I trusted and none of them passed.

Then, I moved on to the Golf Sport Wagon, which a friend of mine found a one-owner,

senior-owned 130,000-kilometer example of 2017.

It was affordably priced with like 13 grand.

It did not have adaptive cruise, which was kind of disappointing for my wife.

It did have Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, which is a bonus.

I was set to buy this car.

I was ready to go make a deposit.

A weekend visit from a friend of mine who was a Volkswagen service manager for like five years

during the period that they sold this car, talked me out of it.

He said that they used to keep five turbos on hand at any given point,

so they could get through Friday without having customer cars in the shop over the weekend.

He also said that I would be dealing with constant little problems that would drive me crazy.

I did some research and I discovered that unfortunately,

this Sport Wagon was outfitted with the panoramic sunroof,

which has a class-action lawsuit that Volkswagen had to settle for how much it leaks.

Volkswagen bought the sunroof from a third party and installed it, and there are non-stop problems

with it. It's problems in the sense that like the actual assembly that holds the class can

be cracked and let water in, and once water comes in, it destroys the headliner and all

associated electronics. And then even if you have, wow, we're talking about like a cascade of

events that makes a car that just destroys a car. And even if it doesn't leak the track for the

cover, my friend was like, look, he's like, either you leave it open all the time, or you leave it

closed all the time, but eventually that track's going to come off and you're going to have to

place the headliner because it will get snagged and tear and all this stuff. So I walked away from that

car. I then started looking at the Chevrolet cruise, the second generation. A car I've always liked,

and which I discovered is pretty reliable. The 1.4 liter turbo engine, they made a hatchback

version starting in 2017, I think 2016. Yeah. I'm on such a journey here. I love this. I know I'm

just taking a spores bin with it. I'm just monologuing here. I'm sorry about that. But I started

looking for a cruise because I, like I said, I always liked how it drove. I discovered the very

reliable. I ended up finding one about an hour from my house. It was one owner, low kilometers,

what reasonable kilometers. And the owner appeared to have taken care of it. When I showed up,

it had a check engine light, which he had not told me about. I did not bring my code scanner with me

because he did not say that I needed to. So I was like, look, I'm interested in the car. It drives

OK. It had a little bit of a hesitation around 3,000 RPM that eventually smoothed out.

And he had a stack of receipts for maintenance going back to over his whole ownership,

was mostly just oil changes. And he's like, well, my garage told me that the check engine light was

just because I didn't drive it enough at high speeds. So there was moisture building up in the

exhaust system. And I'm like, I guess that's kind of plausible if this is a CEL for like an oxygen

sensor or something. I said it to a garage for inspection. They pulled the code. And they found

a couple of things. There was like some oil leaking from the engine head. There was a torn CV

boot and some leaking. Those weren't big deals. But the the check engine light was for an

under boost condition on the turbo. Oh, God. Here we go. Okay. At that point, it could have been

many, many things. Sometimes for the crews, it's just either a cracked hose somewhere or a bad

PCV valve. Oftentimes you don't have to replace the turbo. But you might have to replace the turbo.

And the fact that this guy had driven the car like that for a year really made me wonder like

what, you know, how careful he really was about maintaining it and how he didn't notice that

is that there wasn't good power from the car. So I walked away from that. And at this point,

I'm so frustrated. Like I've been driving cars. They haven't been working out. The following weekend,

I go to a Subaru dealer that has a 2017 outback with the 3.6 because I'm so frustrated that by

this point, I'm willing to consider CVT equipped outbacks because the CVT for the 3.6 liter six is

a different part, different part number than the four cylinder, which is more problematic.

It's got stronger internals. I drive this car that had been trading in at a key dealership. It was

neglected. They didn't have any information about it. And I could tell, I drove it for a while and

when I brought it back, they wanted to make a deal. They were, I probably could have got it for like

three or four thousand less than they were asking. But there was all these issues that they had

documented and other people had driven the car and it had it inspected and walked away.

And I decided to do that. I was like, it's just too rusty underneath and I don't trust it. So

I'm at my wit's end. I see this pair of ads that show up on Marketplace. There's someone

is selling two outbacks, a 2015 and a 2017 both with the 3.6 engine. One has 200,000 kilometers.

The other has 120. The 200,000 kilometer vehicle is for 10,500. The other one with a much less

kilometers is like twice the price. And the other car also has iSight, which was not available

in 2015 with the flat six. So I contacted them. I'm like, hey, I saw you have these vehicles

were sailed and they're like, yeah, we we're a a psychotherapy company. We own four outbacks with

the 3.6 and therefore our employees, they drive up north into native communities and they do therapy

and they come back. And so we like these vehicles because they're reliable, they're safe,

and we over maintain them. If there's a problem, we just get it fixed because we can't afford to

have our employees not be safe. And I'm like, I'm liking all that I'm hearing here. So I go and I drive,

I don't even look at the 2017 for twice the price because like it's not worth paying that much more

for adaptive cruise. I drive the the 2015 model. It drives fine. They kept it very clean. There's no

obvious problems with the vehicle. And then they're like, you can go to the garage. Here's the address

where it gets where we maintain it. And you can ask to see the service records. And I did

and I looked at two years of service records. And every time there was any kind of problem, they took

care of it. It was they were up to date on fluid changes. It was in shop every four months for

preventative maintenance. I felt good about the vehicle. And I ended up buying it. So we've had it for

a week now. Okay. Immediately after buying it, I discovered there was paint work on one of the

fenders. Like someone literally the same day, I did not see it when I first drove it because you

can only see it on an overcast situation in bright light. You don't see it. It's like a sparkly

paint. And when there's cloud cover, it looks like someone sprayed a bit to cover a scratch. But

there's no rust there. And I talked with the the seller after that. They're like, no, we have a

clean car facts for the car. We didn't do that work. So we don't know the details of what that is.

But that has been the only surprise. I have a little bit of a clattering sound over some bumps.

And I've discovered that these vehicles have a spring in the electric power steering system

that very often clatters to the point where there's a TSB from Subaru and a replacement part kit

that has this longer spring with a slightly longer screw that I bought. And I'm going to put in this

weekend. And that will thankfully get rid of the rattle. But we haven't had any other problems.

It drives pretty well. It's comfortable. My wife's getting used to it's a lot bigger than the cross

track. And this is a little bit more gas but not a lot. But it's just a more comfortable quieter

car for her on the highway. And now I haven't owned an outback in 25 years, I think, or maybe 20 years

the last time I had one. And I had that was a 90s one. And I had it for a very repetitive time.

It's a car that belonged to my grandfather. It had not been well maintained. And I did not keep

it very long. But all this to say, I do not enjoy shopping for a quote unquote normal commuter car.

Like the process is difficult. You're dealing with dealerships that are often

if you're looking at a used car of a certain age, they're indifferent. Like they don't really care.

They don't know anything about the vehicles that come in. You have to really take on the burden

of inspecting and validating the cars in good shape for yourself. And it's stressful. It's really

stressful, especially since we had a ticking clock on this lease being done. But we were selling the

cross track to the same dealer that was selling that Volkswagen as a friend of a friend. They wanted

to buy our cross track from us before the lease was up because it has so few kilometers and it's

super clean. We put like 30,000 on it in two years. Yeah. So it's all working well. We're getting

a check instead of just sending the car back to Subaru. Love that. And we have a car that hopefully

will last the next four or five years without any issues given the small amount of mileage that's

going to be put on it. And I'm happy to be back in outback nation. And I'm already looking at

weird mods that I'm never going to do because it's just a commuter car. It has LED headlights that

were installed because of going up north with the car. It's often dark. There's not a lot of

it's seasonally darker than it is here. It gets darker earlier. So they wanted their employees

to be safe. So it's got brighter LED headlights. So that's nice for us out here in the country.

And I am considering ways to add Android Auto so that my wife can have easier navigation

than just your phone on the windshield. But so far happy with it. It's 3.6. I am in

driven one in so long. Like I might not have driven one since this generation was released.

And now Sammy, I have an outback just like you and maybe you'll respect me a little bit more

because of that. Yeah. Or maybe you'll I mean I've always felt like you don't respect me a lot

because I have the turbo CVT equipped outback. But you have the now automatic or is your CVT?

No, yours is. Yes, CVT. It's a CVT. But at least you're you're naturally aspirated six.

Now I'm going to tell you my turbo my turbo model the fuel economy is so bad

unless I really, really try. And it's just a different way of driving it. And I'm curious

to see how it's just such a bland boring way of driving it. You have to be so self conscious

of what your speeds are, how you're and how you're applying throttle or braking or coasting.

And as soon as you get in the city, just the fuel economy just tanks. So I'm curious to see what

your lifetime fuel economy will be like. Well, so far she's seeing nine just she's seeing just

under 10 liters per 100 kilometers. So about 25 hours per gallon. That's pretty good. That is

pretty good. She was the I'm not getting that the cross truck was between seven and eight. Yeah,

that's much better of course. Yeah. And then the other thing is the my my issue with all of the

Subaru's I've owned is that the paint is like non-existent. So they like scratch at the at the

slightest sign of like dust. Really? That's been my experience. Wow. I don't know what type of

paint they use, but it's super flimsy. I'm curious what other people have said about their

Subaru experiences. I feel like this like era of Subaru, this like past maybe 10 years,

they've really focused on making like really solid, mechanically solid vehicles that are

more reliable and safer. And I think you you found the main reasons as to why you would get one,

right? Like those are the main reasons that you would you would get one. I'm still very nervous

about the CBT for the four cylinder vehicles. There's like a hundred thousand mile warranty extension

going up to 2019 or 2020, I think, because of how many problems they had with it. So with the six,

it's a different transmission, but I'm still wary. We're going to try and stay ahead of things with

fluid changes every 30,000 kilometers or so. Yeah, which is not a cheap thing to do. Maybe it'll end up

being every two years, but it does seem to help keep these transmissions on the road. Yeah, I think

that's cool. I think that was really that was a really long journey to a to another Subaru.

Yeah, what is it about about this brand? I don't I like wagons. You know, I also briefly considered

a Genesis, Hyundai Genesis like the first generation, because there that with the 3.3 liter B6,

I think they're apparently quite reliable except for carbon buildup because of the direct injection.

But finding examples is tough. There was nothing close. There was stuff that was maybe an hour and

a half away that I could go look at. And it just doesn't have the functionality of a wagon. I

really like wagons. The outback is probably the most affordable way to get a wagon that is not

going to give you too much trouble from a maintenance perspective, because otherwise you're going to be

looking at European wagons up here. We didn't get the Buick version of the Regal wagon from the

last few years. We didn't get the Jaguar XF Sport break. You know, we're pretty limited when it

comes to wagons. And like all those carrier price or just a premium because they're premium badges.

I mean, even think about the Volvos, right? Yeah, the Volvos are just too complicated to own,

because if you start looking at the price point that we could that we would want to spend looking

around 15,000, you're looking at the turbo and supercharged four cylinder engine. Do I really want

to get involved with that? And then I think about how bad census is as an infotainment system.

And it's like the car is not compelling enough. Like it doesn't do anything better than the outback

to make me want to roll the dice. Yeah, exactly. That's fair. Like the outback feels like a known

quantity. The other thing I like about it is there's a huge community. So if I have a problem,

I just search online and like this whole rattle thing. I was like, I'm getting a rattle from the left

left front of the car. It seems like suspension, but there was no suspension problems reported by

the previous owner. And when I when I move this suspension, I'm not hearing it. It's only when I'm

driving. And then it turns out it's like, Oh, sit in your driveway and move this steering wheel

back and forth. Do you hear it? And I'm like, yeah, I do. And I'm like, it's definitely this

this screw in this spring. And it cost me like 40 bucks at the super report parts counter. And now

I have to buy a TS 40 torque head because I don't have the hollow heads for the safety screws.

And then it's it's literally 10 minutes under the car while it's on ramps. So yeah.

And all of that from just looking it up online, I can guarantee you the Volvo community is not as big

for DIY. I'm curious about that. But it's definitely not. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see all the

Volvo owners who listen to our Volvo listeners are going to message this far fewer volvos than

there are Subaru's. Yeah, but they're they're passionate bunch perhaps. Oh yeah, definitely.

I'm eager to see how many Subaru owners are going to message us compared to Volvo owners. And

this is a this is a shout out to our listeners. Head on over to our website, unnamed out of

motopodcast.com, go to the contact farm and let us know if you've got a Volvo or Subaru or don't

maybe don't don't play into Sammy's hands here. You don't have to play his game. Do I want to hear

or just give us whatever's going on. Tell us what's going on. How are you? What's what's been your

your your like? And we love hearing from you guys. If you guys want us to talk about whatever's

going on the industry or something that caught your eyes, let us know. We love doing it. So head on

over to our website or you can email us. It's Benjamin at Benjamin hunting dot com or you can find

us on social media. I think the easiest way to find Ben or myself is to go to Instagram. I'm at

Sammy underscore. Like you're laughing. You can find Ben. He's at hunting Benjamin. Sammy, what are

you going to be driving next week? I'm actually going on a little trip to Europe. I'm trying to get my

hands on a on a Jeep over there that we do not get in North America at all. It's called the Jeep

Avenger. So I'm trying to get my hands on that and hopefully I do and I can come back and report

on that. Otherwise, I'll just get some rental and we'll we'll talk about that as well. So while

Sammy is gone, we're going to have Fred at the show, Chad Kirschner come on and guest host for us.

So we will still we'll still be having episodes out even though Sammy is once again abandoning us

for Europe. I will be talking next week. It's a it's a tough call. I think I'm going to be talking

about the Nissan Versa that I drove, which oh man, I would love to talk to you about that. The most

I can't wait to hear this. It's the most affordable car in America brand new car by a large margin

and it is done by the end of this year. So that will be interesting to talk about. Very cool. I

look forward to hearing it and and check out check out my Kickstarter model UN comic.com this Tuesday

it goes live would love to have you get on board for my story of aliens high school kids in the 90s

and the fate of the earth head hanging in the balance. I love it. My you and comic.com go for it.

Bye everyone.

Episode 421: 2025 Toyota 4Runner Trailhunter, 2026 Audi Q3, Benjamin Bought A New Car

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