Estate Auctions, Hyundai, and "Right to Repair"

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Welcome to Switchcast Season 6.

I'm your host Doug Tabott here with my co-host Tyler Sanders and Ethan Huffnagle, the international

executive producer.

And recently married.

He's been married for at least three months now, I think.

Two months.

Look at this man showing off his wedding band like it's nothing.

It is two months on November 12th.

Was two months for us.

Excellent.

Thank you, Doug.

Switchcast is the automotive podcast that's not just for car people.

In fact, it's almost better if you're not a car person, because then you won't catch

me in my sins.

Yeah, you don't spend all of the, don't say one of the sins, my goodness.

You'll spend less time worrying about whether we're correct or not, and more time just enjoying

our fun banter and thinking we're hilarious.

If you do enjoy it, please help us out with the algorithms.

Like, subscribe, share, review on whatever platform you're watching or listening to this

wonderful show.

And if you want more of it, more of the morons, right?

There's a thing there.

Yeah, sign up for Patreon, patreon.com slash switchcast for exclusive bonus content behind

the scenes and enjoy it with us live as well.

Get to see all of our foibles that happen, you know, in between the takes that we cut,

you know, pre-editing.

Yeah.

I know the only thing much of that, right?

Lot left on the cutting room floor with switchcast.

You know, you'd be surprised.

I mean, even I were rolling in here for a good couple of minutes.

I'll let you in on something here, viewers and Tyler, I guess, and listeners alike.

The video versions of the podcast are not always the same as the audio segments.

So you want the best of both worlds there.

So make sure you follow switchcast on all platforms.

Yes.

Well, and honestly, there's not much that has changed with the in-between segment stuff.

I just make sure I talk into a microphone more.

Typically, I'd like lean back and pop on my phone.

I still pop on my phone and chat, but I'm just talking into a mic.

Yeah.

We have fun.

Let's see, warm-up lap, because you should always take a warm-up lap on track and in

life.

Yeah.

What are we, what's fueling this podcast, Tyler?

Some delicious gin and tonics, I'm assuming, made either by...

By myself.

Thank you.

By the Mr. Dugt habit over here.

Delicious.

Bonus gin.

Fantastic.

Wonderful.

Tyler, somebody came into our showroom the other day.

For those of you who don't know, Tyler bought a 996 GT3 and he traded in his dark teal metallic

over graphite gray, full leather.

Was it a full leather?

Oh, yeah.

996.

So good.

Tyler even trusts a dealership enough to pay a dock fee in, get ripped off on a trade-in.

He left money on the table for us to...

That's fine.

You got to buy a $4 bill and sell it for $5 or whatever you'd like to say.

But it was easy.

And I have to laugh.

So the buyer who bought your dark teal metallic car is like you.

I love some.

Somewhere else.

It's kind of crazy.

Same level of anxiousness, of excitement, of the whole thing.

Like I'm just like, Tyler's car went to another Tyler.

I'm so happy.

You had, I'll put on the Switch Car's Instagram story, the post that the new owner made about

it and they seemed to just, they wrote more than I did about my GT3.

Which it's saying a lot.

And I'm so happy.

That is exactly the type of person I wanted that car to go to, is somebody that will love

it and cherish it and just enjoy.

It's like automotive toasts that we write on social media when we buy a car.

Yeah.

And I mean, I did the same thing.

I can't, I can't, can't knock him.

It was a good post.

And I just love that.

I also love that that was his first Porsche because that was my first Porsche and it was

like, oh my God, I'm achieving something.

Like this is like, on some level, I've like made a goal in life and I love this so much.

So I love it.

Five years you should try to sell them your white GT3.

But anyway, when your car was in our showroom, somebody was in our showroom just like wandering

around, walked over to your car.

And the first thing out of their mouth, unprovoked, just walked up to it and they said, boy, someone

got the wrong interior color for this car.

No.

Then he follows it up with, you could have had black tan, anything else, but they chose

gray.

Because it looks good.

I nearly spit out my milk and I wasn't even drinking milk.

Holy crap.

I almost asked him to just be like, can you just start that?

Can you do that again so I can record it because it's so good.

Oh, man, brutal.

Oh, man.

That's right.

It was gorgeous.

Nobody likes traffic cameras, the traffic speed cameras or red light cameras, but especially

traffic speed cameras.

My wife got one.

I told her not to do anything about it, which she did not want to do.

But I think she finally caved, she was going to try to nark me and like turn me in.

So honest.

Yeah, right.

Because I was allegedly driving, but a Painesville man has challenged the Willoughby Hills Ohio

Traffic Camera Program and he's actually trying to turn this into a class action lawsuit.

Martin Speihar, this is courtesy of Cleveland.com, came up with some legal arguments that says

that there are systemic violations of Ohio traffic camera laws that Willoughby Hills

failed to follow multiple state requirements, including obtaining ODOT permission for free

way enforcement, posting proper warning signs and municipal boundaries, et cetera, et cetera.

One of the things that he brought up, now he is representing himself, which is interesting

for somebody who wants to turn something into a class action suit.

I'm not saying he's a sovereign citizen, but it's a common practice of sovereign citizens

to represent themselves in court.

Claims that the city didn't produce a valid certificate of proper operation or calibration

records for the handheld devices.

But one of the things he did come up with, he said, or no, this article says that the

Institute for Justice, which is a national civil liberties law firm, warned the city of

Willoughby Hills that drivers were required to pay a $25 fee before they could contest

a citation, a policy that the Institute for Justice called unconstitution and a violation

of due process protections.

So the municipal court did pause the fee after they got the letter, which makes sense, right?

You have to pay money in order to have due process.

No, you don't have to pay a fee.

So there have been a number of legal challenges in different cities.

Some people have won them, some people have not, but my wife, the legal research assistant

for this podcast, looked the guy up and apparently he's had some other somewhat dubious legal

claims in court as well, trying to go after the city, something to do with chickens or

something like that.

But it's, I was greatly encouraged by the initial article and then she burst my bubble

by saying, like, I don't think this is the guy that's going to, you know, put an end

to the Willoughby Hills traffic camera enforcement system.

So regardless, we've not heard from them about a vehicle which happens to be registered to

us allegedly speeding.

We haven't heard any more about that, which is what I said.

That's what I said.

I don't imagine you will not going to do anything.

We like talking about auctions here.

Yes, couple to talk about this week.

One of them bring a trailer has a challenge to dolly style 2000 Ferrari 360 Modena.

Okay, what makes it style?

It looks like some seats.

It looks like a lot of things, actually wheels, the interior.

Okay.

Do you remember when we did an episode about the challenge to dolly tribute on S B X cars

that only had like, I think the only actual challenge to dolly part was the transmission

control unit and like one other thing.

It was like the mirrors or something.

Yes.

No, but they weren't even mirrors.

He did aftermarket mirrors because the factory ones were so expensive.

Okay.

So it was like, it didn't have the body kit.

It had 18 inch wheels instead of 19s.

It didn't have ceramic brakes.

It had the wrong seats.

Like it was nothing like a tribute.

Well, this one actually has carbon ceramic brakes, 19 inch challenge to dolly wheels,

challenge to dolly ECU and TCU, challenge to dolly bodywork, windows, the carbon engine

panels, the side skirts, the rear deck lid, like all the nuanced stuff on a challenge

to dolly.

This has and they're still only calling it a challenge to dolly style Modena, whereas

SBX called a tribute that was nothing like a tribute.

The only thing I wish they had done is done this on a manual car.

If it was a manual car, I'd be all over this.

Yeah, this is amazing.

Because to manual swap a challenge to dolly is expensive.

And stradales have gotten so crazily expensive that, yeah, it's just it's just a big deal.

So, yeah, if this was manual car that was a stradale tribute, I think I'd be bidding

on it.

But it's already it's ending in a day.

It's already at 140 K, which I don't remember.

I didn't go back to my notes.

But the quote unquote tribute on SBX cars did not do particularly well.

I think it high bid to like what, 70 or 80 grand.

Yeah, it did not.

Yeah, did not end up very well.

Wow, this looks great.

It's amazing.

I do wish they didn't put the challenge to dolly badge on the rear grill, though.

I got to say, it feels like an up badge that I'm not a fan of because it's not real.

Although it is such a badge on my fake roof, Tyler, you do.

And it's it's fine.

I think the thing is, though, what makes it OK, other than the fact that we're

friends is that you don't try, you don't try to pass it off as a roof.

Oh, I denied instantly.

Yeah, you're like, no, it's cool the other day.

And the cop on duty was like, oh, you have the roof, right?

I was like, no, it's a fake.

Yeah. And I think now I guess I don't know about this owner.

Maybe the owner's the same way that like now it's a fake, now it's a tribute,

whatever. And in that case, I'm more OK.

I'm sitting here judging without the context of knowing how they carry

themselves with their car.

But I think, yeah, that makes it better.

I know it's like putting GD 350 on a GD 350 clone that's a base Mustang.

Like it's still a real Mustang.

I think I'm OK with that, but it depends.

I don't know. I just I feel like you're inviting the is it real?

And sometimes and I feel like more people are going to ask you,

is it real with a Mustang GT 350 than with a roof or even this?

Truthfully, you're going to get the like the factory five level

like Cobra of, oh, my God, is it real?

And you have to say no every time to everybody that would be depressing.

But then you explain why it's cool.

I don't know. I'd get so tired of that after like the tenth time

of somebody at a gas station rocking up and saying, oh, my God.

Speaking of Ferrari six speeds, this is depressing.

Another auction I want to highlight is a 98 Ferrari 355 GTS six speed color version.

That is going for Cray Cray money.

Oh, the spec, though, Doug.

Hold on, but it's in blue Tour de France with burgundy interior.

And it has. Yeah, the carbon Kevlar racing seats, which are crazy rare

on three fifty fives, especially in the US.

This is going to lead.

We have an interesting full segment coming up about the value return

on stick shift conversions.

I think this car will be an outlier because of the spec,

but we are going to discuss how worth it or not worth it.

It's going to be to convert manuals.

I mean, they could not have made many of these in.

This blue with burgundy.

I'm sure it's the only one like oh, my gosh, this is gorgeous one of one.

Um,

interestingly enough, our friends, quote unquote, over at Cario Motor Cars

up the bidding quite a bit to one hundred fifty grand.

The bidding is now one hundred sixty six.

This thing could go for the moon, which is crazy for conversion, but whatever.

Anyway, when Cario Motor Cars was winning it,

based on previous experience that we've discussed on this podcast,

my thought slash comment, which did not get approved on Bring a Trailer,

was coming soon to Cario Motor Cars factory six speed manual Ferrari

three fifty five.

Nice.

I'm not saying they would do that.

I'm saying they have done that.

Yeah.

And even when called out on it, they said, no, that's a different car.

Those aren't pictures of our car.

That's an e-gear.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

That's I'm I don't know.

I wish this car only would go for like a hundred K

because it wasn't a real six speed, but that's my pipe dreams.

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We've talked a lot about different types of auctions, but we haven't covered

estate auctions.

Estate auctions tend to be at least what people think they are is like

this hidden gem of I'm going to score a deal on a car because, well,

there aren't car people there.

It's not on Barrett Jackson.

It's not RM Sotheby's.

It's not on Bring a Trail or it's this small audience and most of them are

there for the wooden armoires or hand knit Vietnamese rugs.

Well, wouldn't you, I guess, is that not the case?

Like the market is infinitely smaller than something posted on the internet for seven days.

Is it, though?

I mean, I guess it depends on how.

Because, so I have a few anecdotes as data points.

The reason this topic came up is because I'm searching for a BMW Z8 for our Buy

Our Dream car challenge.

You're getting nervous.

I've talked about buying a Z8 for years and years and years and never have done it.

And I'm still talking about it.

We've had this challenge for three years now and I haven't pulled the trigger,

but I was $3,500 away from buying one this week and it was at an estate auction.

My friend Berkeley sent it to me and he's like, hey, maybe this will go for a deal.

And I said, probably not because it's an estate auction.

Based on my experience, there's this interesting phenomenon that happens

whereby people think that they're getting a deal and because of that assumption,

stuff goes for crazy money because they don't pay attention to the actual number.

So is there also a chance that they don't know what the real number is?

Yes, also.

So maybe there's just people there that are just like, oh, it's in a state auction.

I bought a car and an estate auction.

But I learned this when I first got into the car business.

I would go to the wholesale auctions and it was, I think, a Dessa Cleveland.

It was an off-brand manhunt and they had a repo laying there.

And the repo lane was open to the public.

Oh, is it still now?

I don't know.

Or like a dealer could bring people there.

So the guy who was training me taught me like you never bid on anything there

because you've got all these people that come in because it's open to the public.

It's like the biggest scam there is people go, well, I'm buying a car that's repossessed.

I'm buying it a repo auction.

And obviously I'm getting it way below value.

They don't actually know the value.

So they bid it up like crazy.

It's kind of like some foreclosure auctions.

People don't do their homework.

They bought a real estate course for $10,000 online.

Well, go buy foreclosures and flip them.

You'll make money automatically.

Not if everybody else that has no clue what they're doing bids it to the moon.

So we would never even go to the repo lane because it's just like stuff

would sell for over retail.

So it's like people were scamming themselves.

So when you also get kind of caught up in the whole thing and you're like,

well, I don't want to have it on one more.

That's fine. One more. That's fine.

It's got to be a deal.

It's a repo auction.

Same thing with the state auctions.

I've seen this hold true a number of times.

There was a local auction, I think last year that had a bunch of Porsches

and they were super low mile, but they were tiptronics like a tiptronic turbo

cabriolet. And I looked at them and I was like, eh, whatever, don't care.

They're tips. And I looked at the final values.

And I'm like, that's like they weren't for like 140 K for a turbo cab tip.

I was like, oh, what?

And it was a good spec in low miles, but I'm just like, that's that's crazy.

And then

Kiko auctions, who was also running the auction for the pit race.

Yes. Junk.

You have to say, if you want a bathroom, you can buy it, but you got to disassemble it.

Yes. Or or a half a gravel bin.

Yes, there's like eight barrels, half full gravel.

Yes, by responsible for loading.

One of the things that Kiko auction sold was a Porsche

nine, six, four, Carrera four wide body in 94.

They only made it one year.

There's only a few hundred of them.

It was midnight blue and it only had 700 miles.

Well, that had to how many of those are in midnight blue?

That had to be insane.

Very rare, probably the lowest mileage one out there.

But there is no service history.

There's no verification of the miles.

Nobody knew if the odometer worked.

No, they didn't post any paint meters.

They didn't have it professionally photographed, right?

It's it's not the level of exposure and level of presentation

that you'd expect from bring a trailer or Barrett Jackson or

any professional seller.

So you're thinking, man, we're going to scoop this

because we're not getting the answers that people want.

Well, in that scenario, I think because the market's so crazy,

people only look at a number on the odometer

and they don't want to know whether it's real or not

because there's so much profit to be had in this industry

by reselling that that people don't want the answers to those questions.

They just say, oh, well, I've got a 700 mile car.

But anyway, the car sold for $401,000.

Holy, that's more than a turbo.

That's more than a turbo.

Oh, there is an adjustment for miles,

but the car had some dings and scratches.

So even if it was original paint, it might not be

after it was like restored to a perfect 700 mile specification.

But looking at the 964C494 market,

the highest sale I could find in history was 330 grand.

And that seemed to be an outlier because that was a heavily modified car.

People say mods don't add value.

Well, every now and then the right ones do.

The second highest one, if we take like the one outlier out of the box

and whisker plot, the second highest was 250 grand.

So if anybody thought they were getting a deal

because this car was not super well presented at a Kiko auctions

that sells everything from farm equipment to low mile porches.

And barrels full of gravel didn't happen.

And I reached out to a number of serious Porsche collectors

that like buying low mile stuff and their bids were all much lower than that.

That's nuts. Yeah. Yeah.

So has it ever come back on the market?

Do you know, you know, that's a great question.

I have not seen it, but I also haven't Googled the Vin recently.

I have a feeling it went into a private collection of some sort

with that much money being paid.

But long and short of it is you either have the effect of a car that's that special.

Everybody finds out about it or a car that's not special.

People assume they're getting a deal because it's an estate auction.

I've seen that over and over again with like

automobilia and tools and lifts and like the gas pumps, you know,

the old snoco, whatever gas pumps,

Hess stuff. Yeah.

There was an auction a couple of years ago that had a bunch of lifts

and our friend Austin went because he was going to try to pick up some

equipment for his business and the lifts went for more than you could buy one new.

And why?

Because it's an estate auction, we're getting a deal.

It's here. Oh, yeah, I'm getting a deal.

We're going to buy all this stuff from an estate auction.

Oh, wild. It's crazy. It's crazy.

I was at a local estate sale recently at this like super kind of like MCM house that was.

It was interesting. Anyway, they had a BMW M3.

That's why I went. OK, nice.

And they had furniture, which is why I went because my wife wanted to look.

But anyway, I'm like, who wants you to go first?

They I like a state sale.

OK, I blame it on the wife.

But 15 grand they're asking.

I was like, ooh, E46 M3, 15 grand.

I like it. 250,000 miles and it was an SMG.

No pass. It's like five.

Good gravy.

So I like I asked the state sale manager.

I'm like, what really buys this thing?

He's like, well, you know, offers start at 11 grand.

Like, don't offer less now.

It's like, OK, I won't.

I who is offering insanity?

Yeah. So there's there's a there's a weird vortex around

a state and repo auctions where people just I don't know.

It's it's almost a brilliant strategy of like, let's post bad pictures

and say it's an estate sale.

And I wonder if it just like it's the thing you mentioned about

like, oh, it's an estate sale must be getting a deal.

I wonder if there's some component of, oh, they didn't take good photos.

This is probably better than it is in the photos.

Like people making up these stories to be like, I'm going to get a deal.

I'm going to go on, you know, if it was an arm worry, they'd be going on

Antiques Roadshow, you know, if it's I'm going to post this on the forums

or on bring a trailer and either make a killing or get to brag about it.

That's crazy. Yeah.

So back to the BMW Z8. Oh, yes.

Let me give you the details.

Is a 2000 or 2001.

OK, 40,000 miles.

OK. It was a Euro car.

Did those go for more or less? Does it matter?

I was struggling to find out there's a lot of opinions on why they're better.

But generally, Euro cars, until they're old enough, don't go for more.

They go for less than US cars.

Are there huge differences with the Z8s?

It didn't seem like it other than the rear taillights and a few other

nuanced things. They have the red and amber rear taillights as opposed to all red,

just like the Corvette C5.

Silver on black, which is, in my opinion, the least desirable color combination,

most common, it's definitely the least desirable for me.

But it is a single owner car.

So while he was married, but it was one owner since new.

So that person imported it full service records.

Hadn't had the performance package installed, but had all the accessories and stuff.

So I'd looked at similar high mile cars and figured this was like a 140 K car tops.

But I wanted to be in it for less because it's not the color I wanted.

Yeah. So ended up selling for 129 grand plus 7 percent buyers premium.

So basically $138,000.

So like not bad.

Yeah. Of all the ones I've seen, I felt like this was the one that was

maybe kind of a deal.

It wasn't a I stole this because it was a state auction.

Nobody's heard of it.

Yeah. Somebody was in there that knew what Z8s were worth,

but it actually didn't go for too much money.

Like that was the right money for that car.

Are you feeling like you missed out?

No, because it's silver black.

If it was a color I wanted, I would feel like I missed out.

I went to 125 five was my high bid.

Okay. And I thought about bidding again.

And I just said, no, I don't think it is because, you know, when I apply

the difference between, okay, if I buy a 15,000 mile one, if I buy one with

red interior, like, you know, you do all those things of you subtract

5% for it being Euro, you subtract 10% for it being black interior,

subtract 10% for the miles.

And all of a sudden you're up at there is a 16,000 mile silver on red one

that sold on bring a trailer US car a couple of weeks ago for 163 K.

So at 140 for 40,000 mile silver black, that's not a savings over that silver red one.

Yeah. And it's interesting that when you get to that level of car, you know,

because I saw some similar stuff with GT threes, like there was the gray one

that had a lot of questions about it listed for like 95 with 87,000 miles.

And then you compare that to what then I paid for the white car.

And it's like, we are entirely different worlds for not when you think

in the big picture price difference, not a huge amount of money.

Absolutely. So all that said, I guess this doesn't disprove my point.

I just this one was close enough to a deal to seem like a deal,

but I've never seen anyone score anything at an estate auction.

So be very careful.

Do your homework before you go into these things.

Don't assume you get a deal.

But if you have gotten some great deals or seen some way outliers

on the others, I would love to hear your stories about those in the comments.

So if you picked up something where everybody was sleeping at an estate sale.

Yeah, definitely interested to hear about that.

Like a promoted estate sale, not when I think that's the difference.

Because I'm thinking like if it's like just signs on the side of the road,

like nobody's going to know what's there, you could get a deal.

But if it's online at Kiko, this is going to get out somewhere

just like the storage auction where somebody had accidentally auction.

Yeah, that's probably that's our rules for the for the game here.

Yeah. But even that M3, that wasn't an estate auction.

That was a locally promoted estate sale.

They were just smoking something.

Absolutely. All right.

Let's go to, I don't know if this falls under shrewd negotiator,

but we're going to talk about a kick car because it's been a while

since we made fun of kick cars for sale on Marketplace that said

they were almost done, just needed brake pads or a battery or whatever.

I even issued a challenge for people to find me one that was for sale

that was actually completed.

Don't we see to like needs a fuel filter?

That's it. It'll be fine.

It'll be like, how often do you need to or a fuel pump?

Sorry, a fuel pump. How often does go out?

You'll pump in a battery.

I found a factory five GTM roller, quote unquote, on Marketplace the other day.

And it's sad when the term roller is being used generously.

Can it be used generously?

It was in this case.

What? So in the description, they said, quote,

all parts included, OK, but no motor or transmission.

I mean, that's significant, but that's a roller.

OK, but don't say all parts are included.

Quote needs new body, which I have.

What is left?

A fuel pump.

He also said the kit alone sells for 25 grand.

OK, this GTM was asking 27.

And after looking at the pictures, it looked to be slightly less than a kit.

And I went on factory five's website to verify.

Yes, you you could have bought a kit for 25 grand.

They don't have them in stock anymore.

They no longer produce them.

But the only thing separating a kit that you buy from factory five

and this one was this guy had obtained axles

and some of the suspension pieces and brakes, because that's not included.

But I feel like that's kind of the low hanging fruit.

Yeah. But he also had like Miss

like had less than a kit in other areas.

Like if I could buy a new one for 25, why would I buy one

that you've then like hacked up the body and needs more work

than one that you just get out of the box?

Any sense? Yeah.

From factory five's website, the GTM kit gives you everything you need to build

your car, except for running gear parts taken from a 97 to 04 Chevrolet C5 Corvette

and a Transaxial, which they often use a Porsche Transaxial.

Yeah. So and in this description, he also said it used to be

a running driving car featured on top gear.

And he had pictures of it there.

So he's literally gone backwards.

He took a running driving car and then turned it into a kit

that didn't have a motor or trans and needed the body installed

and needs a new body, even though that's basically what the kit is, is the body.

How do you go backwards that far?

And that brings me to a question.

OK. Listener had a great suggestion.

They took your hot crazy matrix from last week.

Yes, yes. And they said we should make that a permanent thing

like the top gear board and say, like, where do cars, the cool wall,

where do cars fit on the hot crazy matrix?

So kit cars, just immediate no go, no matter the danger zone.

Like they're never in the good parts.

You're always because they never work, Doug.

They're always in the like, wow, you you're really reaching here.

You've made a bad choice, finished super performance Cobra.

Yeah. But you're not like, I feel like that's the fun zone.

It's guilt free.

You're not paying a million or two million for real Cobra.

You get all the fun.

So don't you buy that finished, though?

Yes. That's OK.

So maybe that's the thing.

If it's bought finished, you're golden

because ones that you don't buy finished, you need to rely on somebody

to fit to actually complete and they're not going to.

Just like any project car never gets finished.

And I think anyone on Marketplace that's half done, no goes.

Yeah, no go. Absolutely.

This one's in the no goes.

Yes, 100 percent.

Sorry, bro, especially for twenty seven grand.

Gosh, well, they don't make it anymore.

Doug, it's worth more.

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It turns out that if you own a Hyundai Ioniq 5, you can't change your own brakes.

That's not wild, Doug.

I mean, I can't imagine any scenario in which I would own a Hyundai Ioniq 5.

That's true. So, you know, we've talked a lot about.

What's the difference between Ioniq and Iconic?

Well, I don't know if any Hyundai has been iconic.

So, there you go.

All right, so there's a whole lot of stuff surrounding this.

The drive has a great article that we'll get into a little bit on why, apparently,

you cannot change your own brakes if you have a Hyundai Ioniq 5.

But, Doug, do you know what right to repair is?

I do. And I've been following that quite a bit in the

eventuality of doing a podcast episode about this, because there's been a lot

of debate at the congressional level on whether or not this should be a law.

And I'm not sure that I've I'm not sure which side I come down on that.

Oh, really?

Honestly, I'm not sure, because on the one side I go, well, it is capitalism.

And if the manufacturer says, we're making these cars

and we don't want other people working on them, it's their product.

They can do that.

On the other side, I have owned an independent repair shop

and I support independent repair shops and I don't like going to the dealers.

And I don't necessarily believe in monopolies either.

So I don't.

He's torn.

I'm interested to hear you help me with this dilemma.

OK, so for those of you listening or watching,

right to repair is really it is what it says on the tin.

It is a legal right for owners of devices and equipment to freely modify

and repair products such as automobiles, electronics and farm equipment.

We don't have time to get into it.

But John Deere has been in the news a lot over the past decade or so

for practices that are looked upon poorly by those advocates of right to repair.

They've done a lot of locking down of systems and maintenance behind computer

software that makes it so you can't fix your tractor.

And that's kind of what has happened here.

So the like I said, the drive has a great article on it that kind of walks

through how we got to the point where someone was able to post on Reddit

that they high on Dianic five won't let you change your own brakes.

OK, so why won't it let you I can change brake pads?

Is there something what is computer related

that doesn't allow you to change brake pads?

Everything.

So, you know, a lot of modern cars have electronic parking brakes.

Yes. And you can't just, you know, move the handle down to disengage it.

You have to press a button for it to disengage. Yes.

There is some component of this car that has the electric parking brake

engaged like at all times if the car isn't running, I guess.

I don't actually know the full details on why that is.

But essentially, you have to disengage that parking break

in order to change the brake pads so that you can spread the calipers

enough to like actually, you know, move the pads around, take them out

in order to send this command to the to the brakes in the rear.

You need some OBD to device that can like talk to the car

and send the commands it needs. Sounds easy.

AutoZone has a bunch of code readers and stuff.

We can just do something, get one of those.

None of that works.

You need a specific device that is made to communicate with a Hyundai

or meets this J2531 protocol or application for this communication.

These devices are thousands of dollars.

I mean, Ferrari has been doing this stuff for like 25 years.

Sure. So you've got independence that need to save up the dough

to buy the computer that talks to the cars.

Like that's kind of sort of normal.

And Ferrari often won't sell them to them anyway.

So then they have to buy like jailbreak versions of it.

Pirated Ferrari computers.

This these tools are publicly available.

So at least it's not like the Ferrari situation where you could if you had,

I think it's like six thousand dollars for the Hyundai GDS system

that dealers can buy and mechanics can buy the gosh darn system.

Yeah, no idea what it stands for.

Even if you had the tools and even if you really wanted to shell out

that kind of dough to change your own brake pads,

you still can't use or log into this system

because you need a security credential from the NASTF.

I've not written down.

I don't remember what the NASTF stands for, but it is a governing body

that deals with the lock coding, car credential management

and a lot of the cybersecurity related stuff with cars.

There's a lot of computers and cars now, Doug,

and there's lots of data in these cars.

So if Joe Schmo mechanic gets access to your car system,

they can tell where you've been, how fast you normally drive,

you know, what are your common routes to get places, et cetera, et cetera,

to either, you know, I guess they could potentially track you

and your movements to know when you're not home

or try to sell you something.

I hate everything about this.

This is it's just a software application about this.

So this is why I just don't own newer cars.

The newest car I own is a two thousand fifteen

and it drives me nuts that it cost me four hundred dollars

to replace a dang fuel injector.

Yes, but it got done in the shop behind my building.

So you just popped one in and then it was good.

So I think, you know, I am glad that there is some regulatory

or governing or overarching body over that

helps the industry.

Ideally helps. We'll just leave it at that.

Be more secure.

I don't want people to be able to get the locking code for my car

so that they can unlock it in the parking lot and steal it

or steal my belongings or whatever, just because they can buy some,

you know, one thousand dollar device that can read that information.

That's good. OK, but that what that part is good.

I that wasn't a problem in the past.

Other manufacturers haven't had that problem.

Well, this is a problem we've created because cars need to

like we portion needs to know when you're coming up to a tunnel, I guess,

so that they can put down the windows and open a valve in your exhaust.

And cars need to read speed signs because we can't read them with our own eyeballs.

Wait a minute. So let me get this straight.

This the same manufacturer.

So I'm talking about both sides of my mouth in one sense, right?

Like, OK, old cars, you could very easily steal because you can hot wire them.

Yes. But then newer cars, most manufacturers,

you can't steal because you can't reprogram keys or whatever.

Like it's not a thing, but it has been a thing for key is

and Hyundai's they've been in the news a lot like some insurance companies

wouldn't even insure them because they're so easy to steal.

Same thing with Mopar products.

You're telling me the same company that insurance companies won't insure

because it's so easy for thieves to.

Plug in reprogram a key or program a key, steal them.

You can tell I'm not a thief because I'm like, how does this work?

Right. Whatever. It takes them like two minutes to program a key and steal your

Hyundai, the same one that is so accessible for thieves

isn't allowing customers to work on their brake pads.

That that same company is on both sides of this.

I think.

I don't actually think this is Hyundai's fault.

Maybe I don't think they aren't necessarily saying you can't do this thing.

There was a you can read the article on the drive about this.

There is a response from Hyundai where they say some things

I'm going to touch on in a minute that I think hints at a little bit of malicious

compliance, but the you just so happen to need access to a system

that also has access to all of this other highly sensitive data

and like security privacy data that you don't want everybody else having access to.

So because you need access to the car's computer to tell it to disengage the parking brake,

you also need access by virtue of that to everything else.

So is this solving the problem of thieves being able to steal Hyundai's so easily?

Well, I actually don't know if Ionic Fives are easily sellable.

Solve that problem.

I hope so. I haven't seen reports of Ionic Fives being stolen.

OK, so what's being done about it?

Like, so do we trust the government to fix this?

I don't.

Is this what the government is actually for?

Is to stop companies from being too monopolized?

Well, I think you could say that like if a company wants to have poor practices with

the data of their customers in the car.

Because so what I hate about the topic we're discussing is that we are talking about a car

and I'm only talking about the data that is in the car because cars are now pieces of software

that gobble up in data and generate data and have access to these things for

they need to do this for your for your lane keep assist, for your reading of stop signs,

for your navigation, for your auto ish pilot stuff.

For your tunnel mode.

We have turned cars into computer programs instead of that just happened to function as a car.

So there's a lot of stuff that we've caused we caused difficulty in because of this and this

just happens to be one of them like why did we need an electric parking brake?

The lever worked fine.

Why did we need to create this problem?

I don't I don't get it.

So I think to an extent it's good that there is some level of involvement from a body that

says we need to be secure.

So that's fine.

The level the lever, the parking brake lever gave too much autonomy to the driver who could

pull it in the middle of an intersection to slide through it whereas the electronic parking

brake does not allow you to execute such shenanigans.

So like I mentioned in the drive article, Hyundai did respond to they had reached out

to them to ask for comment and Hyundai said that they're committed to supporting both

their dealer network and independent repair facilities with safe, secure and accessible

service solutions.

The official repair procedure requires placing the rear calipers in service mode using our

GDS or the J2534 application.

This ensures proper functionality and customer safety.

What I where I think this is malicious compliance is they say well this is publicly available

but it is prohibitively prohibitively expensive and you need the certification that we don't

even tell you that you need in order to even log in and use the system.

So like yes it is available but not just to the person at home and some could argue that

this is a bit of a slippery slope even though maybe Hyundai isn't necessarily behind the

reason this is happening.

What if suddenly your car can detect what air filter you put in it and it's not a certified

part by the manufacturer.

You could put your car into limp mode.

It could do all like there's a bit of a bleak future potential in a lot of this stuff that

makes me pretty uncomfortable and makes me want to keep just driving old cars.

There are states that have passed right to repair laws to work against some of this stuff

and now this Hyundai situation is a bit doom and gloom and a bit significant but I've even

noticed with my fiancé's Acura the maintenance schedule is not in the owner's manual.

I'm trying to I do this thing where I like to have a maintenance schedule for all of my

cars so they change the oil and the transmission fluid and the brake fluid like when it needs

to be changed for the longevity of the vehicle. Acura doesn't let you do that and Acura dealers

from what I've read will refuse to service the car unless their internal computer maintenance

system says it's time for service.

They don't even tell you the mileage it just says there's an oil life that has a percentage.

Based on the mileage.

I'm guessing or like time or I don't.

Yeah mileage or time.

It's not like actually correct me if I'm wrong.

It's not actually measuring like the viscosity of the oil or how effective the color of it.

Maybe it is measuring the color.

I don't I don't know.

So there it even goes to things as small as that like I am now at beholden to

to a dealer to service this car because it has a warranty and they need to start this whole

business and it's like well I can't actually know when this needs done I just need to trust

that what the manufacturer says is correct.

And it's because they don't trust their own mechanics.

It could be that they don't even know what to do.

So like I said some states have passed some right to repair laws.

What I think is fascinating is that Massachusetts passed these laws back in 2017

and it has caused a lot of issues.

It's 2012 I'm sorry.

It's a long time ago.

Yes very forward thinking.

And this has caused a lot of problems for manufacturers that need to somehow

create and have an open source way to access this information.

And it got to the point where that open source system or that third party system doesn't exist.

So Subaru's in an article from the Wired actually will disable a lot of features of your car

if you live in Massachusetts.

If you live in Rhode Island or anywhere around features or the and it's stuff like

oil service reminders and there are some more significant things I'm forgetting at the moment.

But it's like you lose features of your car if your home address is in Massachusetts.

No remote engine start that's disabled for New England.

It's not a good no emergency emergency assistance.

No tire pressure warnings.

It's kind of crazy.

And like none of it is like maybe super essential but it's like you purchased a car with these features.

Wow.

So the the fight continues because the Repair Act was introduced this year in the U.S. Congress

and is currently undergoing reviews and investigations by various committees and

government doesn't move quickly.

We know this whole this thing started when Biden was president which was at least like

two years ago.

Yes.

Like things have been percolating for a while.

I've been reading about this for years in terms of working its way through Congress.

Yes.

So essentially I don't have all the details of the act but it would solidify

right to repair for you know automobiles electronics farm equipment etc in the way

that Massachusetts similarly has.

So proponents of this such as the car coalition you can go to the website to learn more about

their purpose and why they think this is important.

You know it enables consumer choice and access fair competition cyber security and safety

precautions or protections and safety and compliance stuff.

You know I am very far right to repair.

I feel like I have purchased a thing and I should be able to ensure the thing still works

even after the manufacturer doesn't want to support it anymore because what I worry about

is all of these vehicles with all these computer systems.

If we get to the point where the manufacturer doesn't want to support them or it doesn't

make financial sense they are dead and then people who have invested all of this money no

longer have a potentially working thing and it creates more waste.

That's the point though.

And that's why I planned up the lessons.

Yes exactly you know and so I want you know I like to drive you know old cars because I

like them for various reasons not just because they can be fixed why should a company not making

parts or not supporting a software application anymore make it so I can't still drive this car.

Now there are opponents of this of course.

Surprisingly NADA has a like little letter on their website saying why they don't support this.

Obviously NADA is new vehicle dealers they are only concerned about new vehicle dealers profit.

New vehicle dealers also lobby against the like Rivian and Tesla and all of that direct

sales to consumer and they lobby against anything that's good for the consumer.

Don't get me started on that.

So I think the fact that they support this is enough to say that maybe it's good for the common man.

So they allege that the info necessary to repair vehicles is already available.

They say the proposed legislation is not about repair and is instead designed to provide third

parties access to consumer data and enable auto parts manufacturers to reverse engineer.

No if they didn't store consumer data in our cars and just made them cars then it wouldn't

be a problem if they could access them. Our cars should be cars not.

They also allege it's going to create some massive regulatory framework and paperwork

that's going to cost 100 million annually pulled out of their bum.

Well it is it is but because you're storing consumer data on a car and it doesn't need to be

like I know this is a purely human created problem because we thought we needed all these

cool features to tell us when lane when we should stay in between the lines in a lane

or know what the speed limit is. So this is a symptom not the route the route of the problem

is that cars are computers that are storing our data a thousand percent. The fact that I

you know I first was exposed to right to repair in terms of the electronics industry and there's

a lot of in the effort to make devices and components more efficient and smaller it means

you can't repair them as easily. You know this phones I don't know hopefully y'all remember

you they used to have a battery that you could take out and replace. There used to be an SD

card that you could put into this and in making everything smaller you can't do that. It's very

hard to repair an iPhone or a pixel or whatever and you know that's where I first was like why

why is my agency being taken away from me for the sake of like making it a little thinner

and now it's come to cars because cars are just technology like software data computer technology

more so than just a piece of transportation. Okay well that brings us to the props and flops

brought to you by Switchcars. I feel depressed. Thank you Tyler. No problem. That's what happens

when I let him lead a segment. Switchcars is the enthusiast dealership where we buy, sell,

and cars that we like ourselves that are probably not new enough to be collecting data on you. Most

of them have manual transmission some of them unfortunately have electronic parking brakes.

We have an independent service shop that services these cars prior to sale. Yep and can service

them after sale. All the wonderful things about automotive ownership that is real. Check out our

handpicked inventory at switchcars.com and mention Switchcast for special pricing when available.

Our pick of the week this week is a 2005 Bentley Continental GT. Luxury for less. Baller on a

budget. Well a very large maintenance budget but a small initial purchase budget. Somebody else spent

the money on the depreciation the first 20 years of maintenance so you only have to pay for

the next 20 years of maintenance. I wonder when those lines cross. Like when do you spend the

amount that it had depreciated for somebody in maintenance? After like three years. It's a

cool burgundy with tan and burgundy interior 44,000 miles nice price point and serviced in

preparation for sale. Speaking of Volkswagen Bentley VAG product Volkswagen Auto Group our

flop of the week the old Bugatti factory had a I guess an impromptu party this via car vintage

uh Halloween night thousands of people entered the former Bugatti factory and organized an

illegal rave with loud music uh food trucks bonfires uh broken glass vandalized walls uh

graffiti etc um filled what was once one of the most important symbols of Italian automotive

engineering in the place where of course the Bugatti EB 110 was born so isn't it abandoned

though? Yes but it like they made it worse like just complete disrespect for that facility

I just I don't I don't like it I don't like it you shouldn't destroy things just because they're

abandoned um yeah created a mess for somebody else I mean it's like friggin the wood stock all over

again but not organized not like they actually cleaned up after themselves yeah just left yeah um

anyway uh our prop of the week is a 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera for sale

with 87,000 miles on it whoa not only is a Superleggera probably my favorite Gallardo

you know lightweight uh lots of carbon fiber uh more simple version of the Gallardo and probably

the later rear wheel drive cars are wait is a Superleggera rear wheel drive I think it is

I'm questioning myself there but anyway 87,000 miles somebody had a lot of fun with that car

and enjoyed it fully in all the posts that we see everywhere about low miles no miles there's even a

Facebook page dedicated to it look at how much I didn't enjoy this car we love seeing it when

somebody actually put the miles on and I'm sure they have a bajillion stories behind that so

probably the highest mileage Superleggera in existence Tyler tell me did I get it wrong or right

is not all of them our rear wheel drive but some of them the first gen ones first gen

that wasn't either or oh I actually don't know okay I didn't have enough time well somebody can

correct us something I should have known but just take my car guy card away because I didn't know

everything about every car but I like those I think they're fun and somebody had a lot of fun

putting that many miles on it thank you for joining us for switch cast with Doug Tabott

and Tyler Sanders produced by Ethan Huffnagle switch cast is an automotive entertainment

and opinion show and nothing we say should be taken very seriously we do not give tax investment

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the opinions expressed on this show are exclusively held by the people pontificating at that moment

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and ivory you can stream their full album on Spotify or SoundCloud if you like this show you

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