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Ford F-150 Tremor review and for something completely different a Kaabo e-Scooter review
Ford F-150 Tremor review and for something completely different a Kaabo e-Scooter review
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About this episode
A comprehensive review of the Ford F-150 Tremor highlights its balance between off-road capability and daily driving comfort. John Paul shares his extensive driving experience, noting its powerful EcoBoost engine, spacious interior, and innovative features like a foldable tailgate and advanced safety systems. The episode also includes a review of the Kaabo Urban e-Scooter, discussing its build quality, performance, and suitability for city commuting. Listeners can expect insights on automotive safety, battery technology, and practical advice for vehicle maintenance.
Topics:
ford f-150 tremor
kaabo e-scooter
battery technology
automotive safety
truck features
daily driving comfort
off-road capability
vehicle maintenance
Cars:
Chevrolet Nova
Chevrolet Silverado
Ford F-150
Honda Civic
Pontiac Firebird
Toyota Camry
Toyota RAV4
Volkswagen Cabriolet
Volkswagen Golf
In this episode (where we had some phone issues) we answered questions from the mail bag, reviewed the Ford Tremor version of the F-150 and also reviewed the Kaabo e-Scooter. Also celebrated with my co-workers the AAA Northeast Employee Service Awards and talked about the AAA Battery Service Provider Conference.
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Ford F150
"and do some repairs to my deck at the same time. So the vehicle was a Ford F-150 tremor. And so what is it?"
Car
F-150 Raptor
"...een a regular F-150 4x4 and the extreme F-150 the Raptor. So it kind of gives you the off-road capability"
Car
Chevrolet Silverado
"...compares to maybe the Ram 1500 Rebel or maybe the Silverado Trail Boss. I think the Tremor feels more refined"
Car
Pontiac Firebird
"and demolished the windshield of Sal Roseo's 89 Firebird. You just can't put a good spiral on a frozen duc..."
Car
Honda Civic
"...an intermittent starting problem in my 2012 Honda Civic. I had it in a local shop and had it repaired."
Car
Toyota Camry
"I should do this all the time. My 2019 Toyota Camry is six years old. I changed the transmission flui..."
Car
Volkswagen Cabrio
"...as back 20 somewhat years ago and you could buy a Volkswagen Cabrio for $16,999 and it was it had a manual top manual..."
Car
Volkswagen Golf
"...led me and has a question about a 2016 Volkswagen Golf. We'll see what this is all about."
Car
Toyota RAV4
"...rote to me today and said they have a 2020 Toyota RAV4 that the battery goes down every four or five day..."
Car
Chevrolet Nova
"..., they can plug into an iPhone. I have one from a Nova and you can actually use it. You can, you can hol..."
Select text to request an explanation
WATD presents John Paul, The Car Doctor, All Things Automotive.
Have questions? Call or text 781-837-4900.
Now, here's John Paul, The Car Doctor.
Good Sunday morning everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Car Doctor program
on 959-WATD. My name's John Paul, The Car Doctor here to help you with your car problems.
Well, we were supposed to be talking with Nick Waller. Nick Waller is from the Audrain group.
The big Audrain motor week is coming up next weekend, and not sure where he is.
But maybe he'll still call in. I told him we go live right now.
So maybe he's just running a little bit late. I mean, he does have a lot of things going on.
Speaking of things going on, it has been a very interesting week for me.
This week, I was at, I drove from here to Foxwood's Casino, where I did no gambling, by the way.
But AAA had what they called the Battery Service Provider, I guess, Workshop.
But it was a two-day event, and it went over some of the, we invited our contractors who sell our AAA batteries,
sell and test our AAA batteries, to learn some of the newest things about batteries.
Got to meet some people from Interstate and Clarios, who's the battery manufacturer that Interstate,
most of Interstate batteries are manufactured by Clarios.
It's a weird relationship. I don't fully understand it.
But it was a, Clarios used to be Johnson Controls, then became Clarios.
Interstate isn't really a battery producer at all. They're a marketing company.
They sell batteries. Most of them, the majority of them are Clarios batteries.
There are really only about four battery manufacturers in the United States.
Clarios is one, East Penn is another one. We used to have East Penn batteries.
We switched over to Clarios a few years ago. Good quality battery.
We have good luck with them.
And we require that they have a certain freshness to them.
So, unlike, I went and bought a utility battery from an auto parts store,
I don't know, four or five years ago, maybe, and it had a date, manufacturer date on it.
It was solidly a year old by the time I got it.
So you kind of wonder, well, if the average life of batteries three to five years,
this one year old battery, is it now more like two years? Who knows.
But ours are 90 days. We send them back at the end of 90 days.
We rotate them through. They go back to the factory.
They probably get re-done. I don't know what happens to them when they go back there.
And then they probably end up with somebody else's name on them.
But the AAA batteries are always no more than 90 days old, which is real nice to see.
Also, we had some safety workshops.
Some of the things that I was involved in years back,
trying to make our road service folks safer on the road.
And we have a kind of a motto, I guess,
that our employee safety is first, our member safety is second,
and both of those things lead to excellent service.
And we want to make sure that we keep you and our employees as safe as possible by the roadside.
And some of the ways we're doing that, we now have our trucks having electronic systems in them.
So if you use Google Maps or Waze, it's going to tell you that there's an emergency vehicle
by the side of the road before you can see it.
Also, we're looking into different lighting systems.
We have already looked into wheeling, which if you look at any of the police cars,
most of them have a wheel and badge on them.
We adopted the same philosophy that they recommend,
which is brighter lights in the front, dimmer, slower lights in the back.
So when you're approaching behind the back of a tow truck, the lights flash at a slower rate,
not as bright to keep you from getting hypnotized by the vehicle,
which is exactly what the state police do.
If you look at Massachusetts state police, it's exactly the same thing.
So they're way bright in the front, not as bright in the back
to keep you from kind of being a moth attracted to a flame.
So it was great to see some of the stuff that I was involved with years ago starting to come that way.
They asked me to be the emcee at the event.
I haven't emceed an event in a long time, but it was great to do.
They actually had me do a little bit more than that because some internal stuff had to happen.
And then that was, let's see, I arrived at Fox Woods on Tuesday,
stopped into there was a managers meeting, which I wasn't invited to,
but I crashed it anyway, just to go over and say hello.
And then on Wednesday, they had a run through meeting in the morning where we did a little dry run.
And then the actual event started around noon time.
And Wednesday night, I went over to a up in Lincoln, Rhode Island,
something called the Kirkbray Country Club,
where there was a AAA employee service award dinner.
And I haven't been to the office realistically since COVID.
When COVID happened, they kicked us out.
And then when they had us come back to work, that's about that time is when I decided to come back to work part time
and not ever come back into the office.
And I think I've been in the office once and that one time was because my boss at the time was retiring.
So I went in for, they had a luncheon for him, so I went in there.
So it was great to see this was my 40th anniversary with AAA.
And so they have every 5, 10, 15, 20, they invite people that have been there five years, ten years, whatever,
and come up and you get your picture taken and you get a little thing.
But it was great to see people that I hadn't seen in a long time.
The five year people didn't even know them because they haven't been in the office in five years.
But the other people, the 10, 15, 20 people did definitely know a good portion of them.
And it was great to see them and it was great to see my boss to see how she's doing.
And it was nice because when you're there for more than 15 years, you get to bring guests
so my wife get to come and meet some of the people that I worked with.
So that was fun.
And then turned around, left Kirkbrate, drove back to Foxwoods.
And when I was at, when I was to start day two where, you know, there was a breakfast
and you welcome everybody and have a few things to talk about,
send them off onto their various breakout sessions and workshops.
And then they come back a little bit later.
I do some chatting.
Then you do lunch and then you have them come back again.
And then there was some awards for a variety of different reasons.
And, and then the day was over.
So it's been a bit, it's been a pretty, pretty full week all in all,
plus, you know, the regular part of my job.
Jesse, any word from Nick Waller?
Guessing not yet.
Not yet.
Well, oh, well, maybe he's not going to call it.
Anyway, Newport Motor Week is coming up.
I went, I want to say I went seven or eight years ago.
I think it was the first year they had it.
And I was at the other radio station I was at before this one.
And I actually did a live broadcast from AAA actually had a booth there.
I did a live broadcast from the booth.
That was kind of fun.
And it was at their cars and coffee event.
And it was, it was a good time.
Jay Leno was there.
So he lives in Newport sometimes.
I don't know if he's coming there this week or not.
Probably because he's very involved with the odd rain.
And so, you know, that's probably going on too.
I did have the opportunity to take a interesting ride.
And that was the car that got me around,
which wasn't really a car at all.
It was a truck.
And I didn't get to use it as a truck munch,
although I did go to Home Depot and pick up some,
some decking boards, but not a lot.
I could have probably put them in the back of my car
if I really wanted to.
But since I had a truck,
might as well stop at Home Depot on Friday
and do some repairs to my deck at the same time.
So the vehicle was a Ford F-150 tremor.
And so what is it?
It's kind of a,
it's kind of between a regular F-150 4x4
and the extreme F-150 the Raptor.
So it kind of gives you the off-road capability
and makes it a nice everyday driver.
You know, drove it a fair amount.
You know, from here to Foxwoods,
from Foxwoods to Lincoln Road Island,
from Lincoln Road Island back to Foxwoods,
Foxwoods back to here,
here to Home Depot.
So did a lot of driving in it,
got a real good feel for it,
especially the on-road portion of it,
which is, let's face it, where most people go.
The tremor looks certainly tougher
than a standard F-150.
It looks bigger, even though it's not.
I think it has to do with the overall
kind of in-your-face styling.
It does have a two-inch lift over the stock version,
which again makes it look bigger.
It has big 33-inch tires on it,
on big 18-inch wheels,
body-colored grille.
They did, you know, they put small tremor decals
here and there without being too flashy.
As far as, you know, how it is on the road,
it does really well on the road.
It's relatively quiet.
It does have mono shocks.
It hooks up the bumps when you hit something even.
You know, most trucks ride better
when they have weight in the back of them.
This one rides pretty good either way.
The 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6,
it makes about 400 horsepower
and 500 foot-pounds of torque.
I think this thing could tow about 7,000 pounds.
If you don't want something quite as tough,
you can get the 2.7-liter V6.
I didn't drive it off-road,
but I have been told that it does extremely well off-road.
It also has an electric locking rear differential,
optional limited-slip front differential,
trail control systems, you know,
so it has a knob you can spin that, you know,
you can, you know, loose material,
snow, wet, all kinds of stuff.
They claim, and I would never test this,
but they claim it can handle 33 inches of water.
So if you want to go through 33 inches of water,
supposedly this can do it.
You know, the Raptor is an interesting truck
because it was originally designed for, like,
high-speed desert runs, you know,
because it's got great suspension
and all kinds of power and all that sort of stuff.
I don't know who drives it that way.
I mean, I probably saw half a dozen Raptors on the highway.
They're loud. Tire noise is loud.
Not at all. Not at all with the tremor.
Raptor, I think, is really purpose-designed for off-road use.
Still a workhorse.
It does have some of the cool features inside.
The cabin is big and comfortable.
The seats are, my wife always complains
about not enough under-size support.
So like, the seats are too short.
Absolutely not in this.
It has a big 12-inch touchscreen for, you know,
navigation, which makes it nice.
I have not been to Fox Woods in,
I think I stopped there once many, many years ago
on the right home from somewhere,
just to see what it was.
And back then, I think it was only one building
and a gravel parking lot.
That has changed considerably since then.
Like I said, I think it can tow up to 7,000 pounds.
Back seat, extremely roomy.
It has some neat features like the shifter,
where the push of a button actually folds flat
into the console, and then the center console
opens up to make like a work surface.
So you can have like a desk, so you can sit in there
and do work, I guess.
And the center console is huge.
You could put a tool bag in there.
You could put a purse in there.
You could put all kinds of stuff in there.
So really roomy inside.
Under the seats, under the rear seats there's storage.
They did a really nice job.
In the back, it has a pretty trick tailgate.
It has a regular conventional pickup truck-style tailgate.
But in the middle, about a 3-foot section of it
swings open from left to right.
So you can...
Or right to left.
Got to think now. I don't know.
It would make more sense that it swings open from right to left
because that would keep you from walking into traffic.
Which is nice, because that way,
if you're just trying to put something in the back
and you can't reach across the tailgate to stick it in there,
you just open this up, makes it nice and easy,
works out really well.
It also has places to mount clamps
if you want to use the tailgate as a work surface,
which is kind of nice.
It's also an assisted tailgate.
These tailgates are heavy.
This one is easy to open and close, makes it nice.
It had the factory hardtop bed cover,
which was nice and locked down.
It folded into four sections.
So you could leave it partially open if you want
when I was carrying the deckboards.
I just left it partially open.
The tailgate was all covered with plastic covering,
so it didn't hurt the tailgate.
It had the factory spray and bed liner,
which is nice because it protects against scratches and things,
but also gives you some traction.
If you're in there and it's wet, it gives you some traction.
Also, it had a fold down rear step.
So you can fold down the step,
which allows you to get in and out of the back of the truck
a little bit easier, which, again, is kind of a nice feature.
It also had running boards so you can get stationary
so you can get in and out of it a little bit easier
because, like I said, it is a little bit taller.
The Raptor itself is wider price here
and kind of built more for extreme off-road.
If that's what you do, that's what you want.
Or if you want to show off more, the Raptor is what you want.
Tremor is more practical, I think, daily use and towing,
but still, if you want to do something crazy, you can do it.
You know, it compares to maybe the Ram 1500 Rebel
or maybe the Silverado Trail Boss.
I think the Tremor feels more refined
than both of those, actually, although definitely more than Silverado.
I don't know, the Ram Rebel does really well, though.
I've got to admit.
So the Tremor works for people who want a full-size truck
that can handle off-road.
So if somebody goes camping, you know,
tows a camping trailer off-road,
tows a boat somewhere,
you want to be able to, you know,
handle most off-road, you know, trips
while remaining, you know, a practical,
drive it every day vehicle.
I think it can do it.
I think it's a well-rounded truck that balances off-road ability
with everyday functionality.
I think, you know, if you're somebody who's looking for versatility
in a truck, but all the creature comforts
that you would expect in a luxury vehicle, almost,
I mean, it does have everything in it.
I mean, he didn't cool seats, you know,
remote start, all that stuff, so it's good.
And, you know, leather interior, you know,
it's not, if you haven't been in a truck in 40 years,
trucks are as nice as any car these days.
So the Raptor, you know, more expensive,
but the Tremor, a little less still,
in the trim that our vehicle was in.
So pretty much, I don't know what feature it could be missing.
It had just about anything that I could look for,
trailer brake, power sunroof, pretty much everything.
They don't give these away.
$82,000 is what the sticker was on this Ford F-150 Tremor.
So there you go.
Why don't we take a quick break?
And, when we come back, we'll maybe talk about
another somewhat odd road test.
Also, during the break, I will email the PR person
for your drain and see what happened to Nick Waller.
You'll listen to the Cardocta program on 959WATD.
We'll be right back.
Even car geeks and do-it-yourselfers rely on AAA
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Oh no, someone ran a shopping cart in my car
when I left it unattended.
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My kid didn't see that giant telephone pole
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The chuckle head behind me was texting and driving,
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I don't even know how this happened,
but look, my bumper's dented.
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Your buddy just had a great experience fixing his car.
Who was that he recommended?
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You bend it, they mend it.
It happened at the supermarket
November 20th, 1993, a Saturday.
Most people do not buy duck.
We are not a duck-eating people.
Who thinks of ducks?
College quarterback Dick Wright did.
On impulse, he pulled a nice frozen duck
out of the freezer.
But then he noticed.
It had the shape and the feel of a football.
Cold as Green Bay, but a football.
So on his way out, there's his brother by the pickup
about 35 yards.
Bill gets a grip on that duck.
He faints toward the end zone.
His brother goes wide left,
and that frozen duck had the right of its life.
That wobbling duck just flew.
It smashed through the fingertips of the wide receiver
and demolished the windshield
of Sal Roseo's 89 Firebird.
You just can't put a good spiral on a frozen duck.
I'm Peter Brown from Tiny and Son's Glass.
We replace your windshield and insurance pays.
1-888-64-Tinies.
Just call.
And thank you.
This is my time.
Hey, guys.
It's Lexi James.
And we're Cryer Creek.
Twilight Showcase Radio.
Hosted by Sandy Stride and Keith James.
Tune into Twilight Showcase Radio Sundays
on 9-5-9-W-A-T-D and 9-5-9-W-A-T-D dot com.
Search for Twilight Showcase on Facebook.
And visit twilightshowcase.org.
Twilight Showcase.
Tonight from 8 to 10 on 9-5-9-W-A-T-D.
Make an appointment Sunday morning at 11
for John Paul, the car doctor, on 9-5-9-W-A-T-D.
Now, back to the car doctor.
And welcome back to the car doctor program
on 9-5-9-W-A-T-D.
If you would like to join us,
unlike Nick Waller from the Audrain Group,
you can give us a call at 7-8-1-837-4900.
Not sure what happened.
I'm sure they're very busy trying to put together this,
the car week in Newport this week.
It's a big event for them, so I'm sure they're extremely busy.
Donald Osborn used to be the person that ran Audrain car week.
He has stepped away, I think, back to his appraisal business.
And he was on one of his garage a lot too,
so probably part of that and doing some videos
about fancy cars and mansions and all that sort of stuff.
So I'm sure they're really busy down there.
My only experience with Donald Osborn was
I met him at the first Newport car week,
and he called me sort of.
No, let's see.
He got a flat tire on the highway somewhere in Connecticut.
For some reason his AAA membership didn't work.
I don't know why.
He called Wayne Carini, who he's friends with,
because I guess he was in Connecticut.
Wayne Carini called me.
I called Donald Osborn back, told him I see what I could do,
and we got his Alfa Romeo toad or something
because he blew a tire and, of course,
Alpha, why would they have a spare tire?
Because they don't.
Because they have big, fat tires, no place to put them.
Anyway, so that was my experience with Donald Osborn.
He sent me a hat, which was nice of him, I guess.
I get things to test periodically,
and there are a variety of different things.
Scantles, like to test a scantle.
I got an electric bicycle to test, more than one, actually.
Then what happens afterwards is, like, what do I do with it?
And I usually end up giving them to a charity or something.
But this time I got something called the...
It's an electric scooter, and it's a stand-up scooter.
The kind of rent you see from this here and there.
This one is from a company called Cabo, K-A-A-B-O.
It's called the Urban E-Scooter.
They call it a high-performance electric scooter designed for city commuting,
blending power, comfort, and durability.
Well, I don't know if it's a high performance.
It seems to be locked down at 15 miles an hour, which is plenty fast, by the way.
Maybe somebody like Jesse could make it go faster.
Plenty fast.
It's well-made.
I look at things like how well does it weld it together.
It uses a fairly lightweight aluminum frame.
I think it weighs a little bit under 50 pounds.
So it makes it fairly easy to carry in store.
The handle falls down, locks in the back,
so you can kind of pick it up and carry it with you.
I guess if you were driving it to work or school,
college campus kind of thing, you could bring it with you.
You could bring it with you and stand it up and stick it in a locker.
It feels solid and well-constructed.
It says it's capable of supporting riders up to 240 pounds.
I think it could.
It's powered by a 500-watt electric motor.
That's about the same size that's in my work bike.
So about the same output.
It has a top speed of 25 miles an hour,
although it was shipped with the top speed of 15 miles an hour.
I don't think people need to go 25 and 30 miles an hour on an electric scooter.
Electric scooters are very common where I am here on Cape Cod.
A lot of young people use them to get back and forth to work.
When you see them around,
I followed somebody on an electric scooter one day,
and I bet they were going close to 40 miles an hour.
First off, 40 miles an hour on little 10-inch tires is not a great idea.
It's limited to 15 miles an hour, stay at 15 miles an hour.
This one actually has a suspension, dual suspension system,
front spring and rear hydraulic.
It smooths out the bumps.
It makes it pretty comfortable to ride.
Some of the more inexpensive ones don't have any suspension at all.
The suspension is basically the tires.
The idea that this one has suspension makes it nice.
It uses a 48-volt lithium battery.
It claims to provide a real-world range of 22 to 28 miles on a single charge.
I would guess that's about right from the amount I've ridden it.
Charging takes 5 to 6 hours, which is pretty typical.
It has 10-inch pneumatic tires.
They give pretty good grip.
It has a dual braking system, so front and rear brakes, which is nice.
Not all of them do. Some of them only have rear brakes.
What I have found, though, if you are stopping on a scooter,
the best way to stop is to, as you apply the brakes,
lean back a little bit, get more of your weight towards the rear wheel.
Just stop smoother that way.
It has a wide deck, so my big, fat feet.
There are all kinds of ways to ride scooters.
Your dominant foot forward, your dominant foot behind you,
your feet side to side, which is probably the worst way.
I think having whatever foot you don't use to kick off with in the front,
kick off with the back, you don't need to kick off with this.
It's got plenty of power to get it moving on its own,
but it seems like when you kick off on the scooter,
you tend to go away balancing better, which I think helps.
Some of the extras and features that are nice,
it has a pretty good headlight and tail light for night visibility.
I don't know that I'd ride it at night,
but it has a really trick LCD display.
It has three speed modes, Eco, Standard, and Sport.
I sort of settled in at Standard.
I started off with the Sport mode because why not?
First time on it, put it in the fastest,
now it's kind of dumb, put it in Standard.
It has cruise control for longer rides.
People do ride them a long ways.
What's wrong with it?
It's a little heavy.
It weighs, like I said, close to 50 pounds.
It has no built-in locking mechanism,
so if you lock it up somewhere, you've got to bring your own lock.
It doesn't have an actual key.
It has a...
I don't know what to call it.
It has a thing.
It has a card.
It has a token.
Sort of an NFT, only it's a...
Jesse, help me here.
NFT non-fungible token, is that what that's called?
I think it's called scams.
It's a scam?
I don't know anything about this stuff.
You're young.
You're supposed to know everything about this stuff.
I'm getting old.
All right.
But we did have a good off-air conversation
about your favorite celebrity chefs, so...
True.
That was true.
Anyway, it uses a token rather than a key to start it,
so you take this token thing, you put it on the LCD display,
and it wakes it up.
So you turn the on button on, the display comes on,
you wave this thing in front of it, and off you go.
It claims to be able to handle a 20% incline.
I wrote up a pretty steep hill in it.
Yeah, it slowed down a little bit, but I think it did pretty good.
So the Cabo Urban e-scooter, I think it's a good choice
for commuters seeking a pretty comfortable ride.
It looks good.
It doesn't look so plain as some of the other scooters.
It gives decent range, good suspension, makes it stand out.
It's not the lightest, but I think its build quality is really good.
I think the performance is good.
You know, somebody wrote to me and they were talking about their kid
getting one for college, wanting to know what I thought about it,
and my initial thought was the first time I got on this thing
it's sort of scared the daylight side of me,
because I've ridden motorcycles all my life,
bicycles off and on, I guess.
Not so much scooters, but I rented one once to try it out years ago,
but that's sort of it.
If you want to join us and talk about scooters, trucks, car repair,
any of those kind of things, you can give us call it 837-4900,
and we can talk about whatever's on your mind about cars and so forth.
Happy to do it.
I did get a hold of the PR person for the Audrain
and just dropped a note that said,
Nick can call in anytime, give him the phone number to call in,
the special phone number, the person said they will do that.
So we still may be hearing from Nick Waller at any time now
just to catch up with him.
I want to talk about some of the questions that came in this week,
and these questions typically turn into what is my question-answer column
for the upcoming week.
I do three different, completely different columns.
I do one that's for the Providence Journal,
and that one gets picked up by the Providence Journal and projo.com,
but also because of who they're connected with.
Sometimes it ends up on the Yahoo page.
Sometimes it ends up on USA Today.
It gets picked up in a variety of different places.
Every once in a while I'll get an email from somebody in North Dakota
and I'm like, how did you find me?
And they're like, oh, you showed up on the MSN homepage or something.
And I do try to answer every single question I get.
So the first person says I had an intermittent starting problem
in my 2012 Honda Civic.
I had it in a local shop and had it repaired.
This is a breakdown of the repair, $260 for labor, $190 for a starter,
$48 for cables.
So it was about $515 total with a 10% senior citizen discount off of labor.
Does this look right to you?
It started right up.
They were happy with the repair.
The price for labor in parts actually seems quite reasonable.
A starter motor at a Honda dealer would cost over $500.
So getting that one saved a little bit of money.
And replacing a starter in a 13-year-old car is not unusual.
I expect a cable replacement.
A shop determined it was some voltage loss that caused a hard or no start.
Could the problem have just been the issue with cables?
Possibly.
Still replacing a 13-year-old starter on a problematic car to me is money well spent.
And what was good, I'm glad I read that because I found a bunch of typos in that question.
I should do this all the time.
My 2019 Toyota Camry is six years old.
I changed the transmission fluid now because of age, or should I wait until it has 60,000 miles on it?
Transmission works well, so I'm concerned about unnecessarily stirring up problems.
From the service manual, Toyota recommends changing the fluid every 60,000 miles or 72 months, whichever comes first.
So it is time.
When having a service performed, it is also recommended to use only Toyota transmission fluid.
Also, in my opinion, a drain and refill is plenty.
I don't recommend flushing fluid unless there's a real potential issue that maybe it's slipping, maybe it's doing something.
The idea that it's been studied a little bit, that the little bit of wear that happens in a transmission because of age,
a little bit of clutch wear, the friction material.
When it's suspended in the leftover fluid that doesn't get changed, it actually helps with the shift quality.
So, you know, just a drain and refill? Probably plenty.
Years ago, you know, there was some transmission that had drain plugs in the torque converter where most of the fluid resides.
So you would end up with, instead of draining four or five quarts of fluid, you would drain like 12 because of all the fluid in the torque converter.
Now you don't get that anymore, so you can't really do it.
That's where the fluid flush machines can take out all the old fluid.
I remember when I took my transmission course many, many years ago.
We talked about how fluid you could influence the transmission.
The instructor of the course rebuilt the transmission and this guy was amazing.
He was, you could hand him a clutch band or something and he would know exactly what it was, where it came from, what model it was in, all kinds of crazy stuff.
He said, I'm going to show you, and he must do this every class, he said, I'm going to show you, I'm going to rebuild this transmission
and get me the worst burnt up horrible smelling transmission fluid there is.
And we're going to fill this transmission with that fluid.
We're going to take it for a ride.
And it performed fine because the other parts were relatively new and the fluid actually helped a little bit.
So that combined with what I've learned in the past dozen years about a little bit of clutch material, probably not such a bad thing.
So there you go.
And what do I do a lot of times when people ask me questions like this?
I go to the owner's manual and say, okay, let's look at the owner's manual.
Let's see what the owner's manual says and then kind of go from there.
One of my favorite questions I was at the auto parts store as well as Walmart looking at oil filters and saw a dizzying array of brands and prices.
I saw filters for $5 and filters for $20.
Is it really a difference and do you have a brand favorite?
Well, I'm about ready to do an oil change on my own vehicle this week.
And I always try to get the factory filter when I can.
So I always like to do that and I always also like to get the drain plug gasket on my car.
It's a crush style metal gasket.
I've reused it a bunch of times, but when I can order a filter with a little gasket or have or stop at the Hyundai dealer and get a I even keep an extra drain plug just in case.
I remember years and years ago.
We bought a Volkswagen for my wife because she had never owned a new car before.
This was back 20 somewhat years ago and you could buy a Volkswagen Cabrio for $16,999 and it was it had a manual top manual windows power locks and air conditioning.
So and a manual transmission, but it was $16,995 and it was brand new.
So I had the dealer do the first oil change because I think it came with a complimentary first oil change.
So I had them do it.
And then when I did the second oil change, I found out whoever did the oil change was way too tough on the oil drain plug.
And I was pretty convinced it wasn't coming out.
And I probably should have just left it and taken it back to the dealer.
But no, I carefully put it in, took it out, put it in, took it out until I got it out.
Then I went down to the more close Volkswagen dealer and picked up a drain plug in a gasket and cleaned up the threads with a little pick just to make sure there was nothing stuck in there.
Put the drain plug back in and all was good with the world.
But don't over tighten stuff needs to be needs to be tight, not over tight.
So anyway, so I like to use the original filter when I can.
If that's not possible, I typically go to the Wix brand.
And I don't know why I mean that's kind of what I've used.
These filters are now part of a German company called Man and Hummel.
They manufacture many of the original equipment oil filters and air filters.
I remember I replaced the cabin air filter in my wife's other car and the factory filter was a Man and Hummel and the replacement was a Man and Hummel.
So perfect fit, always nice.
Man and Hummel, I think they make mobile filtered.
They make a bunch.
They're located in, I'm going to make it up, Carolina's maybe, is where their factory and distribution is here.
But again, I've found them to be a good quality filter and I've been happy with them.
So that's what I tend to use.
Same question comes up with oil sometimes.
What do you like for oil?
I was using the Penzoil made from natural gas synthetic.
I was real happy with it.
No reason not to use it.
It was different, so I liked it.
That's what I always use.
This car that I have, this little Hyundai that I drive every day, I've always used synthetic oil in it after.
I think it had three complementary oil changes when I got it and I replaced, I think, when I did the fourth one.
I think, yeah, I think when I did the fourth one, I started switching over to synthetic because it wasn't, the dealer might have used a synthetic blend.
I'm not sure.
I bought it at the Hyundai dealership that was in Rockland.
They went out of business.
The Volvo dealer next door did their service.
So I think the last service was done there.
And then I just went on my own and did it.
But I always switched over to that Penzoil and the stuff made from natural gas.
Now I'm using Valvoline Restore and Protect.
And the reason is these engines in this car tend to historically have the rings get gummed up.
And when they do, the engines start to burn oil.
Now my car doesn't have a lot of miles on it.
I would not expect it to have an issue.
But the Restore and Protect oil does wash away any built up sludge and that sort of varnish that builds up inside the engine.
The first thing I noticed was somebody else's car that had the end of the dipstick look kind of black from age.
And then after an oil change, it looked clean.
I always, when I did oil changes many, many years ago, if I got a dipstick that looked like that,
I always go over to the wire wheel and lightly wire wheel all the varnish off the bottom of the dipstick so you can read it easier.
Well, the chemicals in this seem to do that for you.
So I've been using the Restore and Protect the last couple of oil changes.
It is probably the most expensive oil that I've been buying.
I just got some. I ordered it from Walmart online maybe.
And somehow they lost it in transit.
So when I called up and it was sort of interesting, it was a little disheartening.
I called up Walmart and they said, oh, that product is neither returnable or refundable.
Hmm. Well, I didn't get it.
So that makes it hard to return or get a refund.
But no, I got a hold of a person, a real person at Walmart.
And they said, nope, we'll get you. We'll get you more.
And they did. So that's one of my little projects this week is to do an oil change and get the Hyundai ready for its long trip back to Florida,
which is where it's going to end up at some point.
So there we go.
Somebody else wrote in said, my car is my car engine is dirty.
Can I clean it with compressed air or should I get it steam cleaned?
I don't think air will do much other than blow the leaves off the car.
So if your engine has a lot of leaves stuck in it, yeah, clean it all off.
Leaves become home for homeless rodents sometimes.
So cleaning all that stuff off of there is always a good idea.
Also, and I hadn't thought of this until this year.
If you're storing a car for the winter, which a lot of people do,
and your car has a plastic engine cover, one of those appearance covers that tells you some stuff like how big the engine is.
Pop that off and put it in the trunk.
Sometimes that, because that will close an area between the top of the engine and that plastic cover becomes kind of a good,
again, good home for homeless rodents.
So if you don't want mice and stuff living in your engine compartment, take that cover off and store it in the trunk.
More times than not, I pulled those covers off and then found a problem.
Let's see, back to pressure washing.
I don't like to, I've seen people at car washes, you know, spray and stuff, you know, and yeah, it removes all the grease,
but it also causes, it can cause water to go places where water shouldn't be.
I mean, let's, you know, those car wash brushes, 2 to 3,000 pounds of pressure.
The electrical connectors aren't made for that.
They're made to get wet, but they're not made to do that, so don't do that.
So I like, you know, go to the auto parts store, get some foamy engine cleaner,
spray it all over it, let it sit, hose it off of the hose, that's usually fine, so that should be good.
Why don't we take another break, pay some bills and when we come back, we'll come up with something.
Something like someone emailed me and has a question about a 2016 Volkswagen Golf.
We'll see what this is all about.
We will handle that and more when we get back.
If you'd like to join us, our phone number 781-837-4900, we'll be right back.
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Hey there folks, it's Quinn Kelly reminding you to tune in Sunday night at 5 for the South Shore's first voice in sports talk radio, the Sports Exchange.
On match coverage of local high school action as well as a relatable voice on all things Boston Pro Sports,
we've got you covered live at 5 every Sunday night.
Have a question for our host, Miss last week's show or just want to share a great sports story,
you can find us on Twitter at SE on WATD, but remember mark your calendar folks
and we'll see you Sunday night at 5 for the Sports Exchange on 959 WATD.
Make an appointment Sunday morning at 11 for John Paul, the car doctor on 959 WATD.
Now back to the car doctor.
And welcome back to the car doctor program.
Well, somebody I will call Captain Keith, that's what I call him.
He texted me and said, hey doctor, I bought a 2016 Volkswagen Golf with what I think is a 1.4 liter turbo.
And when I'm in fifth gear and I'm cruising along the highway, the motor starts to shudder.
I get an EPC error and a check engine light.
But the check engine light doesn't give me a code.
What are your thoughts?
I don't know why I wouldn't give him a code, but didn't give him a code.
You know that?
That has everything to do with what's called the electronic, the EPC is electronic power control.
It indicates a problem with basically the electronic throttle body.
It could be the throttle body, it could be accelerator pedal, it could be a speed sensor.
It could be a variety of related components.
So I'm not sure why and he may be just using a code reader.
And maybe this is where an actual scanner would show pending codes and be able to figure out what's going on with this.
Maybe you're going to have to use a tool that's again more than a code reader because you want to look at live data.
You want to see when you push down the accelerator.
Is it showing the degree of movement it's supposed to?
So Captain Keith, there is more work in your future is all I can tell you.
We were talking about different things that I get to play with.
And the Innova Scan Tool, the scan tool that I like and use a lot,
they came out with their other company called CarMD, came out with something called CarMD Connect.
And basically you could just leave it in the car and you download the app to your phone.
And it can actually sort of tell you where your car is.
Need to find out more information about that.
But it also will read codes as you're driving.
And if something pops up, they'll store it.
And also it has this ability to, it has kind of an AI thing that can answer car questions.
And I've used it from time to time kind of playing with it a little bit just to see what it has to say.
And let's see what it, let's see, let's ask it.
What is a Volkswagen EPC error?
Oh, pretty much the same thing I just said.
Okay. Somebody wrote to me today and said they have a 2020 Toyota RAV4 that the battery goes down every four or five days unless they keep it under battery charger.
So I asked it, what's the most common cause of parasitic drawer in 2020 RAV4?
And the answer was very generic.
Maybe a relay that's sticking, maybe a faulty diode in the alternator, a short circuit in the vehicle electrical system.
Really didn't, there wasn't a lot of good information there.
I mean, not that any of that is wrong because it very well could be.
Also what I have learned, and I've tried this a couple of times and I haven't had a real bad case with this.
But I have a, you can buy these non-contact thermometers that work.
You can use them for all kinds of things.
What's the temperature of this heating duct?
What's the temperature of this air conditioner duct?
What's the temperature of my barbecue grill?
What's the temperature of my steak on my barbecue grill?
They have these non-contact infrared thermometers.
But they also have some that will actually are much more sophisticated than that.
So they can, you can actually see what's hot and what's cold and give you a picture of what's going on, what's going on with it.
So it uses terminology sometimes called FLUR, which is a thermal imaging type system.
And now you can get these thermal imaging cameras used to be really, really expensive.
They were in the tens of thousands of dollar range.
Now you can get them, they can plug into an iPhone.
I have one from a Nova and you can actually use it.
You can, you can hold it over relays in a car and see whether one of the relays is staying on and getting hot.
So if you're looking for a possible cause of parasitic drain, something is staying on all the time.
This relay that shows, you know, and, you know, the picture will show a red color because it's warmer than the surrounding area.
It'll give you, it'll give you an idea whether it's, you know, whether that really stuck on or not.
So, you know, just kind of another tool to use.
I was, when I was at the AAA Battery Service Provider Conference, I ran into a rep from Napa who they're using top-down tools.
And I said to them, I've, you know, never really heard of them until a few years ago when I bought one of their inexpensive battery testers.
I have the battery tester that we use at AAA here.
I got one of those, I don't know, 10 years ago.
And it's a great battery tester.
It's very sophisticated.
It's temperature compensated.
So you get a good battery reading when you read it in cold weather or hot weather.
So you get accuracy.
The top-down one was under 100 bucks.
So it does its job pretty much, not quite as accurate.
And it's because it can be fooled a little bit by temperature.
But other than that, I hadn't really heard of top-down stuff.
And I said, you know, there's a variety of different scan tools.
And this top-down scan tool looks suspiciously like some other ones.
And they said, well, there's a good reason for that.
The engineer that worked for this other company now works for top-down.
So that engineer started, I guess, the top-down company.
Which is why some of their stuff looks very much like some other more sophisticated scan tools and so forth.
And there's a bunch that sort of launch, which I believe is a company that makes the Harbor Freight one.
Because when I sent a message to register it or do something with it,
I got a message back from launch, from the launch team.
And I assume the launch team was not, I think that was the brand name.
There's something called King Bolin, which is another scan tool that looks like the same kind of scan tool a lot of other people have.
So I think a lot of these companies have started off in one place,
and then people left and started their own companies and kind of go on from there.
So it becomes a little bit complicated. So there you go.
Next week, by the way, we will be talking tires.
I always like to talk about tires.
My very first job, I don't know how many years ago now, 50 years ago,
was at the Uniroil Tire Store in Brockton next to Christos Restaurant.
So we worked on Chris's Cadillac a lot.
But that was my, so I kind of have this soft spot for tires.
And sort of like, you know, when they asked me to be the MC at this battery conference,
somebody said, well, you work in Public Affairs Traffic Safety Department.
Why? And I said, well, I started off in the Automotive Services Department.
You know, I ran the AAA Diagnostic Center, so I kind of have a soft spot.
So same idea, soft spot for tires, soft spot for that.
Kind of put it all together.
So there we go. There's some of the things.
Let's see if we can get one more question in that came in this week.
I'm considering a new truck. What are your thoughts on undercoding?
My last truck ran great, but at 15 years old, the frame rusted away.
The dealer is trying to sell me an electronic rust inhibitor.
Thoughts on that? Well, don't buy it.
Because I've seen a lot of rotted trucks with those things on there.
So I don't think they work. I think in theory, they work when you can do, you know, there's,
but I think in reality, they don't work.
Remember when there was undercoding? There was like all different kinds of companies that did undercoding.
I remember being up in Vermont and there was a garage up there that he would undercoat cars with waste oil.
And if you paid extra, he would undercoat cars with hydraulic oil.
He thought that was a premium way to go.
Not really good for the environment because it drips all over the ground.
Some people use fluid film.
I like wax oil because wax oil has been around forever.
It is a kind of a lubricant. It's not a rubber product.
I don't know quite how to describe it, but I have seen this on old restorations and they still look really good.
So it's this waxy base sort of stuff.
The other ones, New Hampshire oil, something, NH oil, real popular.
Like I said, fluid film is pretty popular, but wax oil, I've seen good luck with this stuff.
I did it on the Volkswagen we keep in Florida before it went down there.
I got a bunch of spray cans of it.
The best way to do it is professionally where you use an actual spray gun and spray a lot of it.
I just used three or four spray cans. I think it did a pretty good job.
But like I said, the restored vehicles, I've seen it.
Some like even high end restorations, they use it.
I think the long term results are really good.
The electronic rust preventative, nah, I don't think so.
Hey, I think we're out of time. Jesse, are we out of time?
Yes.
Yeah, well, well then. I didn't hear any music. There we go.
Until next week, make sure you wear your seat belt, drive safely, be good to your car.
If you see an emergency vehicle by the side of the road, slow down or move over. It saves lives.
Talk to you all next week. Bye-bye.
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