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Genesis GV 70 review, ICON T-10 review and a conversation with Jake Carvalho of Mastria Hyundai
Genesis GV 70 review, ICON T-10 review and a conversation with Jake Carvalho of Mastria Hyundai
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About this episode
A lively discussion kicks off with a review of the Genesis GV70, highlighting its luxurious design, powerful V6 engine, and advanced technology features. Jake Carvalho from Mastria Hyundai shares his journey from technician to marketing manager, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs and dealership guidelines. The episode also touches on the current state of car inventory, pricing, and the challenges faced by dealerships. Jesse recounts a late-night tire mishap, showcasing the unpredictability of car troubles. Overall, the episode blends insightful automotive discussions with personal anecdotes.
Topics:
genesis gv70 review
mastria hyundai
car inventory
tire change story
automotive marketing
v6 engines
luxury vehicles
customer service in dealerships
Cars:
Byd Seal
Chevrolet Suburban
Dodge Challenger
Genesis GV70
Hyundai Genesis
Hyundai Ioniq
Hyundai Palisade
Jeep Grand Cherokee
Jeep Grand Wagoneer
Porsche 959
In this episode a great employee story with Jake Carvalho of the all-new Mastria Hyundai of Plymouth. We also review the very nice Genesis GV 70 3.5, and my impression of the Harbor Freight ICON T-10 scan tool.
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Chevrolet Suburban
"...ook a little bit further down the street and it's suburban and Jeep Grand Wagoneer. There's some bigger SUV ..."
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"...bit further down the street and it's suburban and Jeep Grand Wagoneer. There's some bigger SUV type vehicles, ..."
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Jeep Grand Wagoneer
"...urther down the street and it's suburban and Jeep Grand Wagoneer. There's some bigger SUV type vehicles, but you'r..."
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Hyundai Genesis
"...ew of, well, it's not quite a Hyundai, but it's a Genesis, which is owned by Hyundai, which is, you know, p..."
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Genesis GV70
"Kia corporation. So we'll talk about the Genesis GV70 with the V6 engine when we come back. My name is ..."
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"...ll there is is a little air compressor and a tire seal kit, which if, by the time you shred a tire,"
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WATT 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.
And good Sunday morning everyone and welcome to this Labor Day edition of the Car Doctor program.
And like we are every Sunday, we're live as always.
But I will warn you, for some reason, I don't know, a couple hours ago I had this ridiculous cough.
So if all of a sudden the radio gets quiet, it's just because I stopped the cough.
Or something else, but probably that.
So anyway, I just started warning you ahead of time just in case.
Two weeks ago, I guess, we were at the Plymouth Seaside Festival.
And when we were there, we were next to the Chamber of Commerce booth, which was next to the Mastria Hyundai booth.
And Mastria Auto Group, which I have known those folks for a long time in Rainham, took over Mastria Hyundai and Plymouth.
And I have used Mastria Hyundai and Plymouth, oh well, before it was Mastria, I guess, in their old location.
And they have recently moved. And I met somebody while I was there.
I met Jake Covello, which I probably just screwed up his name.
Jake, how do you pronounce your last name?
It's Carvalho, but whatever you want to say, John.
Could it be Jake Carvalho?
That's a good one, Carvalho. I like that one.
Yeah, yeah. You know, when we were talking, you know, we were talking back and forth and you said, you know, at one time you were attacked.
But prior to that, Mastria is the only employer you've had, right?
Yes. So actually, when I was 16 years old, I applied.
And I got the job at a time that was a little different than now when there was too many techs.
And there wasn't a lot of job openings for technicians in 2015 when I applied.
And I applied with no experience, no in high school.
And they worked around me and they worked around my schedule and the story went on and I'm still here.
And, you know, as a former tech, were you a tech the whole time?
Or did you go into like service writing or something? Or did you stay as a tech?
Yeah, so actually when I was 16, I was a tech. I was very young. I thought I knew a lot.
I didn't, which I realized really quickly. And for three years, I worked my way up.
I was taking on a bigger job, bigger projects there.
And about three years in, I actually was pursuing a marketing career and a giftful service writer thing.
They had me assist the current marketing manager of Mastria at the time as his pretty much right hand man assistant.
And I learned from him and now I have his role and I have nobody under me. Now it's just me there.
There you go. And you said something kind of interesting that it took you a couple months,
but you learned that you didn't know what you didn't know yet.
Yes, yes. There's a lot to it that I think a lot of people don't realize.
I'm in the marketing side of things now.
And it's not so much just advertising and hey, put this ad up.
Hey, create this. Hey, like have all these great ideas and put them out there.
You realize very quickly there are obstacles from every direction from financial to OEM compliance.
There's a lot to it. And I didn't realize that. I took it on. I learned quick.
You know, as the marketing guy at Mastria, you say, you know, you have to kind of learn what to do and what not to do.
What has been some of your successes as a good marketing guy?
Well, I honestly, it's really knowing which we have eight brands, as you know, at Mastria.
I don't know. We have eight brands. And really the only way to get an edge on these things are to understand the guidelines,
the marketing guidelines, what you're allowed to do, what you're not allowed to do.
You can have a lot of great ideas, but they mean nothing if you aren't following their guidelines.
Knowing your company's guidelines, if you're working for Nissan, you're working for Mazda,
they each have their own rules. They each have their own colors, fonts.
I mean, it gets really in depth, but knowing your guidelines, studying them,
if somebody asks you a question, you should know right off the top of your head.
Hey, is this allowed? Yes or no? And here's why.
And that is really the key to success because the other key to success is how quick can I get something live?
How quick can I get stuff posted up? How quick can I get ads out? How quick can I get my specials page out?
And if you need to, you know, take an hour and, you know, flip through the guidelines,
you just wasted an hour. You've got to know that stuff right off the top of your head.
And I think that's an important part too, is knowing all the rules,
but it's also equally important to know the customers too, right?
Absolutely, absolutely. And I think a huge part of that in my marketing phase
when I was transitioning from assistant to management, Rudy Brito, the CEO,
insisted that I did about a year, I think I was there about a year in sales
to learn what customers think, what they say, and that was a huge piece of what helped me.
I wasn't happy about going to sales for a year, but the world about it now
has absolutely changed the way I do my job now.
Tell us, you know, you said the amount of line-ups.
I'm kind of going by memory as I drive down Route 44,
but you guys have what? GMC, Subaru, Mazda you mentioned, Nissan you mentioned.
Do you have Kia as well?
We have Kia, so we're heading down 44 toward Plymouth actually.
You've got Nissan, Subaru, GMC, Cadillac, Mazda, Kia, Volkswagen,
and then all the way down to Hyundai is the newest store.
And let's talk about the new store because that's kind of in our general area.
That store was sort of closer to, we'll call it downtown Plymouth,
but it moved and that was owned by the Roundtree folks, is that what that was?
The Roundtree family, great family and I think, I'm pretty sure our CEO knew their CEO prior
and due to some health complications they had a lot of plans for this new building.
They spent a lot of money on this new building and unfortunately with health complications
they had to sell. I know the family was a tough decision for them
and we had a good relationship and we were able to take on their legacy there with that building
and it's been great, it's a beautiful building if you haven't seen it yet.
It's amazing that you even drive by and it's even better to walk in on.
Yeah, give us the address where that building is.
I think it's, is it up off of Cherry Street up that way?
Yeah, it's right on Cherry Street, 299 Cherry Street in Plymouth.
About eight minutes from that downtown area. It's really conveniently located.
It's near a Dunkin' Donuts so you can stop for a coffee on your way in.
Perfect. And Hyundai's new to you, I mean similar to Kia,
I mean they're both owned by the same parent and company,
but is there a particular vehicle that's extra hot right now at Hyundai?
Yeah, it seems to be obviously that mid-sized SUV segment is absolutely killing it right now
for every brand, but especially Hyundai.
So we see a lot of Hyundai Santa Fe's coming out right now.
We see, I mean every SUV, the Hyundai's got kind of a big line up,
but that Santa Fe's pretty hot right now, the Ioniq series.
We're the only Ioniqs in the upper Cape Market area,
so the only Ioniq dealer.
That means we're the only dealer that can sell EVs pretty much all of the cake.
So that's what gives us an edge on Ioniq.
So I'd say Santa Fe's our biggest guy right now.
Obviously the Palisade, people love the Telluride.
A Palisade is a Telluride, but on another level for Hyundai.
So these are like the SUVs are where it's at.
That's the hot market right now.
Yeah, it really is although I live in kind of a touristy neighborhood
and I'm always interested in what somebody pulls up in.
And I'm actually surrounded this morning by Hyundai Elantris.
Yeah, well I will say this.
Hyundai Elantris, a lot of rental companies will buy base model Hyundai Elantris.
They're cheap, they're reliable, and they're easy to get through Hyundai dealer.
So you might be seeing some rentals when you see all those Elantris.
That very well could be the case looking around,
but it was sort of interesting because you're absolutely right.
I look a little bit further down the street and it's suburban and Jeep Grand Wagoneer.
There's some bigger SUV type vehicles, but you're right.
The Hyundai Palisade was sort of everybody's darling.
And at one point people were paying something like 10,000 over sticker to get one like a couple years ago, right?
Yes, that was a scary time.
We hate to talk about it as a dealer, but yes, that was very difficult.
We had a lot of difficult decisions to make.
You got to remember when you charge over sticker in a situation of crisis like that,
you charge over sticker, you're going to have to sort of deal with this in three years.
The average customer comes back in three to four years.
You say something about a sticker, you're going to be in a bad situation with that customer in three years.
They're going to owe too much.
They're going to be upside down.
So at Masteria before, I can't really speak to what Hyundai was doing at the time
when under the round tree group, but we refused to go over sticker at our current store, Masteria Kia,
which was like the telluride to the Palisade.
Those tellurides, they were tough to get.
We tried our best to never go over sticker.
We had one and it was a difficult situation for us.
We were ever happy about it.
And is that the same thing right across the lineup now,
or do you guys try to stay at MSRP or maybe even better than that for your customers?
Yeah, I mean, right now, especially with the new store, we got a lot of new inventory.
When you're a brand new dealership, they help you out a little bit
and give you a little boost of inventory.
So we're in that situation right now.
We have some of the best quantity and quality inventory.
And that being said, you get the best price too because we're not on a crunch for inventory right now.
Well, that's a really good point because it was just, I remember just two years ago,
you'd drive by dealer lots and it looked a little like a used car lot
because that was really the only thing that was available.
There wasn't a lot of new car inventory between the fallout with COVID
and then semiconductor shortages.
I mean, five years ago, I don't think I knew how to spell semiconductor.
And there was all those issues, and that took a while to ramp back up again.
So was inventory good right across all of your lines now?
Yes, inventory is pretty spot on right where we want it to be.
I would say our Volkswagen store and our Subaru store are the only ones
that you would call quote-unquote low inventory, but I survived COVID.
So low inventory now just means we have less than 100 cars.
Oh, okay.
Okay, so you're still in good shape.
And I guess there's the potential of tariff issues that can affect everything.
But I know Hyundai and Kia both said we will do our best to hold our prices irrespective of tariffs, right?
Yep, they're being very compliant with these tariffs and moving some infrastructure to the United States.
They are eating the tariffs on the cars that do have or are eligible for tariffs
and they are moving other cars to be built in America to waive tariffs completely.
So you can get a better deal right now like Kia and Hyundai and most other brands that are built outside of the country.
Some of the OEMs are eating up tariffs to help out.
But when you're building in America, you don't need to eat them.
You just keep baking them and sell them.
Obviously, there's a lot of plants throughout America for both Hyundai and Kia.
Is Mastery Hyundai and Plymouth open on Labor Day weekend?
We're closed today.
We will be open sales only tomorrow, 11 to 4 o'clock and I will be there.
Oh, all right.
Well, Jake, I want to thank you for taking a little time out of your Sunday and joining us.
More importantly, sharing that story about, you know, Mastery is going to be a great place to work.
If you've been there since you were 16, you've been, like you said, you kind of went from a lube tech to, you know, I don't know, a B tech, an A tech or whatever you were.
And then moved in to marketing and I really like the idea that you kind of said to your bosses at the time,
you know, no, I'm going to go to college and they're like, no, no, don't, you know, stay here.
We need, we need you.
We want you.
And that's, you know, that's an important thing.
And I think that talks a lot about the management and Mastery are kind of right across the board.
Oh, yes.
And honestly, my CEO Rudy Brito, he's the guy that sort of is the reason I am where I am today.
He's been great to me and he helped guide me.
I still got to go to college and he worked around my schedule for college.
So these do marketing and he gave me so many opportunities.
They are a great company to work for.
They care.
They care.
It does not a doubt in my mind.
I, our average employment, I think it's nine plus years and our longest employee's been there, 43.
Her name's Ray Ann.
And we, everyone loves it.
It's a family business.
It feels like a family that never once starts to feel corporate or never once.
You never feel like a number.
And I'd be would be here today without the great people that run it.
And I'm not sure.
I don't remember because I was, when we were talking, you know, week or so ago, I said something about, you know, at the time I was involved with
Bristol Plymouth Votech and a couple other Votechs.
And I don't remember if it was one of your service guys or they wanted to steal the idea from somebody.
But they, one of the instructors at Bristol Plymouth showed a picture of a oil filter.
And on the bottom of the oil filter, there was a sticker that said, tie it up, change an oil, give us a call.
And it was, and I want to say it might have been you guys.
It might have been Mastery's phone number on the bottom of it, which I thought was, which I thought was a pretty clever idea.
I hope, you know, if it wasn't, you know, take credit for it.
Yes.
That actually wasn't me.
Yeah.
That was us.
That was Mastery.
But I didn't come up with that idea.
I got to give all the credit for that.
He's our fixed ops director.
Another person who's been with Mastery at 20 plus years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just thought it was a pretty clever idea.
You know, all of a sudden you're working someplace and you're doing an oil changing.
You're tired of, you know, either being on a Lou Brack or you want something different.
You look up and you go to change oil and you go, huh, maybe I'll give these guys a call.
Yep.
Yep.
I think it worked for us a couple of times too.
Yeah.
There you go.
There you go.
And you guys still kind of across the board support all of Otec schools, right?
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
We are always taking what they call co-op programs where they bring people who work
half two weeks with us, two weeks back in school.
And we work around their schedule and we train them when they're with us.
And they're the first ones to get a job when it's time to graduate.
And they are first in line.
So if you want to join our co-op programs, always talk to an instructor.
They'll guide you to where to go and who to talk to.
And you are the first ones to be picked when it's time to enter the real world.
Well, Jake, I want to thank you for, you know, again, taking some time out of your Sunday
morning and we'll just call you Jake Carvalue.
I love that.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Take care, Jake.
Have a good day.
All right.
You as well.
Jake, pay some bills if you'd like to join us.
Our phone number is 7818374900.
When we come back, we're going to do a car review of, well, it's not quite a Hyundai,
but it's a Genesis, which is owned by Hyundai, which is, you know, part of that whole Hyundai
Kia corporation.
So we'll talk about the Genesis GV70 with the V6 engine when we come back.
My name is John Paul.
This is a car doctor program.
You're listening on 959WATD.
We'll be right back.
Hi there.
It's Paul Kabilian from Kabilian's Car Care at 104 Matakisa Street in Pembroke.
Vacation season is here and the time to take care of your car is now before those road
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Kabilian's is always here to make sure you're road-ready.
To schedule an appointment, call 7818346558.
Find us at 104 Matakisa Street in Pembroke.
Or find us online at kabilianscarcare.com.
Thanks a million, Mr. Kabilian.
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And welcome back to the Car Doctor program.
Yes, the Genesis GV70.
You know, in kind of that really, you know,
as Jake was talking, and his real name's Carvello,
not Carvello.
Tried to make it.
That was my attempt at comedy.
I'll stay doing this.
But the GV70 is in that competitive market,
just like he said, the midsize SUV market
is just really hot with, you know,
whether it's the Santa Fe or the Kia Sorento,
or in this case, the luxury end of Hyundai,
which is the Genesis.
And the GV70, I would guess, is built on the Santa Fe platform
size-wise.
In this case, though, it comes with a really potent
V6 turbo-charged engine.
And, you know, it's kind of funny.
Years ago, you know, V6 engines
or any 6-cylinder engine was like,
eh, today, pretty impressive.
So if you're looking for something that, you know,
gives you luxury and decent performance,
well, we'll get into it.
It has this, you know, it's a good design
that doesn't look futuristic.
Sometimes what happens is car manufacturers,
when they try design stuff, you know,
you look at the cars two or three years later,
or even worse, 10 or 15 years later,
the design all of a sudden is like,
ooh, that was very 1990s.
That was very 2010.
I think this is the design that's going to stay.
It has a really good-looking grille,
sleek headlamps the way they're designed into the grille.
It has what's becoming kind of more of a standard
than unusual, kind of a coupe-like roofline.
So, unlike the Santa Fe,
which is kind of a very boxy sort of style,
this has sort of a sloping rear-rear roofline,
which I think adds to a little bit of that luxury look
like some other cars have them.
The cabin's really a show place for luxury.
It looks pretty luxurious inside.
We have, let's see, we have what is called the
Sport Prestige Model,
and with that you get really premium leather,
you know, genuine aluminum accents,
really good attention to detail.
This morning I was drinking my morning coffee,
and I was looking at just the build quality of things
like how well the hood fits between the fenders,
how well door gaps are.
It looks really, really good.
I think craftsmanship on this vehicle rivals
vehicles costing more.
Under the hood lies a 3.5-liter turbocharged V6.
What's it make?
It makes about 375 horsepower.
Pretty potent V6 engine, certainly.
It's paired with a 8-speed automatic transmission,
all-wheel drive system.
It also has, unlike the Mini Cooper that I drove last week,
which was the S version that didn't have paddle shifters,
this actually has paddle shifters,
which I would have probably used more in the Mini Cooper
than I would in this,
but interesting that, you know,
it's the sport prestige package they put paddle shifters in.
I think the all-wheel drive system,
I mean, I didn't go off-road with it.
I was going to say it's not an off-road vehicle,
but it does have some capability.
It has settings for snow and, you know,
wet weather and that kind of stuff.
It also has several settings for sport,
bringing back that sport world.
I think it's...
Genesis did a good job of offering sort of a sports car-like agility
with good steering feel, good handling,
but yet, in comfort mode, it becomes very comfortable to drive.
It smooths out road imperfections.
I think the handling and overall ride
is as good as any European or Asian luxury vehicle.
And the idea that you can switch between performance
and kind of comfort refinement with the switch of a button.
There's, like I said, there's actually two sport modes.
The second sport mode shuts off the traction control
so you get even more performance out of it.
Performance SUV is sort of weird to me.
You know, whether it's something like, you know,
a Jeep with a Hellcat engine in it,
I guess you build them because you can.
But this is, if you want a little bit more performance,
click the performance button.
You want a little bit more economy, click the Eco button.
You want just normal comfort,
even normal comfort, which is where I tend to do it.
Technology is really thoughtfully integrated into it.
There's this huge widescreen display
that's one piece that goes from sort of where you would expect
the radio infotainment system over to the instrument panel.
And I think they did a really nice job
of blending it all together.
It looks like it displays as if it's two separate screens,
but it is one continuous screen.
It just looks good as opposed to some cars.
They add the second screen for infotainment.
It looks like they stuck it on there with Velcro.
This is not the case. This looks really nice.
Standard advanced driver assistance systems,
you know, lane departure warning and all,
you know, everything that we're starting to see normal.
What I really like and I think Hyundai and now Genesis
and probably Kia, I don't remember.
And I think originally Honda started with it.
The idea that when you turn the turn signals on,
in this particular case, the speedometer on the left,
the tachometer on the right, you go to turn left
and the speedometer turns into a rear view camera.
So you really can see anything that's in any potential
blind spots. Same thing on the right.
You flip it over, right turn signal, it comes on
and you see that in a lot of Hyundai vehicles as well.
Really, I think it was really a good idea
and probably not that hard to do.
And I think it just compliments the large side view mirrors.
It just gives you better visibility.
The other thing I like about it,
Genesis didn't totally rely on the touchscreen to do everything.
Too often now there's just, you know,
the Mini Cooper was the person who delivered the Mini Cooper
and picked it back up said,
so what was your problem with the Mini Cooper?
Was it something on Instagram about fun but frustrating?
What was your problem?
I said too much reliance on the touchscreen.
It looks fun, but there's just too, you know,
I want to be able to turn the radio up or down
or change stations without accidentally hitting the
seat heater button.
Where Genesis, you know, there's a volume button.
There's a channel change button.
There's control for temperature.
There's, they didn't put it all into the display screen
and I really liked that.
For somebody like me and especially when I used to commute
to work, I was, I almost kept the radio on scan
because I was bouncing around so many stations
between living in Abington and driving to Providence
every day.
You know, I was catching the news here, the traffic here,
you know, what was going on in this station,
what was going on in this morning show.
I was constantly bouncing around, trying to catch the news.
I'm not a sports guy as anybody who knows me,
but I did want to know what happened in overnight sports
so I could talk somewhat intelligently to coworkers.
So even if I did fake my way through it.
To me in a segment that compromises are sort of common
and to some extent really necessary, I think the
Genesis GV70 with all wheel drive and the powerful 3.5 liter
V6 engine stands out.
It delivers good performance.
It's a pleasant design to look at.
It's luxurious inside, although my wife found the seats
a little short on the passenger seat.
The driver's seat actually has an extendable
lower seat cushion bolster.
So I guess I didn't notice it, but she's like,
no, the seats too short.
So is it a sports sedan or a luxury car in an SUV design?
It manages to do both pretty well.
I think if you're looking at an Audi or Mercedes,
take a look at the Genesis GV70 with the V6 engine.
It provides more standard features, provides a better warranty.
And to me, at least in my opinion, it makes it a better value proposition.
So what is this top of the line absolute top of the line?
Genesis GV70.
The one that was delivered to us again, it is a sport prestige
all wheel drive.
I don't think you can get anything more crammed in this thing.
It's about 70 delivered with freight and handling $72,225.
But the stock price, you know, if you want just the four-cylinder version,
I think it's closer to $48,000.
So pretty close to the average price of new cars today,
which is right around $50,000.
It's kind of interesting.
We were talking about car prices the other day,
and the average age of cars today is just gone up.
It popped up to, I think, 12 years and eight months.
And that is something that is, you look at that, you know, 12 years and eight months.
Well, that doesn't mean people are keeping their cars 12 years and eight months.
The average length of time that vehicles, or the average age of vehicles on the road today.
So it's not like I'm keeping a car 12 years, although we have one that's 12 years old,
that I should have kept 11 years, but that's another story.
And I tend to keep cars still pretty much wear out.
That's sort of what I do.
But somebody said to me, well, people just not buying new cars because they're too expensive.
And I said, and this is where sometimes people don't like me at work.
I said, no, that's not really true.
I said, up in, you know, so far this year, there's been something like 16.5 million cars sold,
new cars sold.
And there's a couple of reasons.
Some people were rushing out to buy new cars because of what tariffs could do to car prices.
The other part of it is that people were rushing out before tomorrow when the EV tax credits were going to go away.
So people were rushing out.
There was sort of a rush.
Electric car sales were actually sort of up because of that.
So so people are still going on buying cars, even though they are outrageously expensive.
When I talked to Jake, initially, you know, his, you know, when he first saw me, he's like,
hey, do you want to buy a car?
And I said, yeah, I said, I'm actually at the point where I need to think about buying a car.
I can probably something like a Hyundai Tucson, but I'm looking for front-wheel drive because if my lifestyle sort of continues,
where I spend time in the tiny house here on the Cape and go to the Tin Shack in Florida,
I don't need all-wheel drive.
So the Hyundai that I have here that's all-wheel drive will probably end up in Florida as our spare car,
the Florida car that we have there, which is now 10 years old and will be 11 years old.
We will probably bring back up here and it will be the spare car here and then we'll have the newer car to go back and forth.
So the fleet is getting a little bit older, but all pretty low mileage except for the car that we have here right now,
which has over 120,000 miles on it, that I'm still trying to search out, finding the part that I'm convinced is wrong with the car,
which I was calling salvage yards the past couple days.
And one of the salvage yards I called said, we don't have it, but we can get that part for you.
And when he said, I'll get that part.
And then he's looking at prices with other salvage yards across the country.
This guy's out of his mind, he wants $450 for that part.
I said, yeah, that's what that part costs when it's new.
And more importantly, you can't get it.
So the new parts not available and used is the only way to go.
And I called a pick and pull, which I was really kind of interested in Rhode Island.
There's a couple of salvage yards that have gone to the sort of self-serve kind of way to do it.
And I'm like, well, maybe I'll take a ride to Rhode Island one day.
And the guy says, yeah, we don't have one in this yard, but over in Cumberland or Lincoln or somewhere,
Johnston, we have an 06.
And I'm like, you know, the one, the car we have is newer than that.
The part broke after about five years.
It was replaced prior to me getting it because when I took it apart, I'm like, somebody's been here before me.
And when I took it apart, I found out that it actually had a date code of 2016 or 2017.
So I might call that rules that out. That explains what's going on.
So the idea that 2006, which is the only one he had, first off is the part really there.
And secondly, is that broken? Who knows? So I don't know.
So we're dealing with the problem.
If you would like to join us and talk about your car, your car problems, whatever's on your mind,
you can do that by giving us a call at 781-837-4900.
I got to try out a new scan tool.
And as you know, I've been, you know, there's scan tools I like, the Innova brands I like because of the repair repair solutions app,
which I think is really good. I think it really helps.
The handheld scan tools, I literally carry one with me in my car all the time because it works easy and well.
But this one is from Harbor Freight, and it's from their ICON line, and it's called the T10.
And it does everything that scan tools are supposed to do.
It reads and clears diagnostic codes. It performs live data monitoring.
It does graphing with up to 16, we call them PIDs, which is sort of the individual program.
So you can actually graph a couple of things together to see if things are working.
So maybe you want to look at a air conditioner system, and you want to see if the,
when you push the air conditioner button, is the AC request coming on, is the fan coming on.
So you can combine things together, which is pretty handy.
It also has a bunch of special functions like ABS bleeding, injector coating.
It also supports some advanced driver assistance system diagnostics.
It has what's called topology or topology mapping, which gives you a visible display of the vehicle's communication structure
and module status, so you can run it and it'll tell you what modules have codes in them.
You click on that and it gives you more information.
Depending on which model, on this T10 model, it has something called TrueFix with code assist,
and it comes with a one-year subscription of OEM repair information.
And it's a, when you buy it, it's a $299 value.
And, you know, if you're a DIYer with one, you know, car,
you can go to AllData and buy a one-car subscription.
But I think that's about $100 now.
If you own a shop and you buy Mitchell or AllData, you're going to pay, you know, a couple hundred dollars a month for the subscription.
The one thing that's missing is Toyota Lexus.
Doesn't seem to be there.
But it seems to have everything else.
It has technical service bulletins, wiring diagrams.
It's powered by motor.
And if anybody, you know, you've been in the industry, motor repair manuals was the go-to manual years and years ago.
Anybody who owned a repair shop, you know, having, you know, you look up and there was a blue motor book because everybody had them.
And you needed them.
And today, you know, repair data is as important, if not sometimes more important than having the fancy shiny tools
because you need to sit down.
You need to look at wiring diagrams and things.
This also came with, and I guess it's a pretty unique selling point.
It has an integrated wireless 12-volt battery tester, which is pretty neat that it's wireless.
You hook it up.
It just looks like a pair of little jumper cables.
And you hook it up to the battery and it evaluates battery health, starting and charging systems.
And it has printable reports.
I'm, you know, because of AAA, I'm a big B2Q fan.
That's our battery tester that we've been using for eight or nine years now.
Very accurate, pretty foolproof.
It uses an app.
You hook it up to the battery.
You scan the battery code with your phone.
It matches up and it tells you how good the battery is.
I compared it to this.
Pretty spot on, pretty close to each other.
So very happy with the results.
We have tested the B2Q against a bunch of other ones and we found the accuracy.
We really like the accuracy of the B2Q.
And compared to this, I think it's good.
With any battery tester, the best way to test a battery and what is suggested by almost every vehicle manufacturer now,
in fact, I just looked it up the other day, GM says, take the battery cables off.
Clean the posts before you test the battery because testing through battery cable connections,
you're not going to get a good reading.
Same thing with like jumpstart posts and things like that.
You're just not going to get a good reading.
So it's important to, when you're testing a battery, yes, you can get your first test.
If you want to be a little bit lazy like I was the other day,
test it over the cables.
If the cables are good and clean, be very careful of some of these replacement cable ends.
Saw some the other day.
They look like the regular lead looking ones you cut the end off of and clamp it onto the cable.
But they're sort of the shiny, polished nickel look.
And the resistance on the outside of the cable,
they must be designed that way to try to cut down on corrosion,
but the resistance on the outside of the cable is ridiculous.
There is a pretty severe voltage drop when you measure at the top of the post
with a voltmeter to the outside of the cable end.
So be careful of those if you are testing a battery.
If you have a battery tester, maybe you went out and you bought the top-down battery tester,
which I was very happy with.
That's the one I have in Florida.
I think it was $50 or $60. It was pretty inexpensive.
I wanted it because the car we have that sits in Florida want to see how good the battery is.
I also, that little boat that I have in Florida,
it's one thing, we might tell the Jesse story a little bit later,
it's one thing to have a dead battery in a car, which can be really annoying.
It's another thing to have a dead battery in a boat.
So I like to test it to make sure it's okay.
The other thing that's came with is a boroscope.
So if you want to look inside things like down inside doors or look inside a spark plug hole
and you want to see what the inside of the combustion chamber looks like
and you want to see is there a lot of carbon around the valves
or, and this can sometimes happen with head gasket leaks.
Head gasket doesn't leak when the engine is warm, but when it's cold,
all of a sudden you get a head gasket leak.
And you can, and if you have a suspicion about that,
and there's a lot of ways to check for head gaskets.
I still, it's hard to do these days,
but when we used to measure tailpipe emissions, stick the thing, probe in the tailpipe,
that sensor was phenomenal to test for head gaskets
because it would detect hydrocarbons in the coolant,
so you would just literally hold it over the top of the radiator with the cap off
and if it detected hydrocarbons, you know, one or two hydrocarbons, parts per million,
not so bad, 20 or 30, something to worry about, 300, yeah, there's a problem.
So I used to like that, but you can sometimes take a pressure tester,
you know, pump up the pressure of a cooling system, you know, 15 pounds,
stick the boroscope inside the spark plug hole and literally look at coolant
dripping onto the top of a cylinder.
And, you know, that spark plug will give you an indication when you pull it out,
but you can confirm it with a boroscope.
And the idea that this comes with a boroscope, pretty good value.
It's powered by an Android system.
It has a 10-inch high-def display.
It's got a wand that you can scroll through things.
It's got, you know, fancy stuff.
You know, it's four gigabytes of RAM, 120 gigabytes of storage.
It supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth.
It has a pretty good battery.
They claim eight hours of runtime.
I haven't used it for anywhere near that long,
but it also has a dock where if you're a tech and you're using it
and you have a bench or a, you know, part of your toolbox you use,
you can leave the dock plugged in, drop it in the dock,
or you can plug in directly and recharge it.
But the idea you can drop it in the dock is pretty handy.
The other thing where it is a tablet, you know, whether it is,
you know, whether you are using the TrueFix program that came with it
or you just want to Google something to see, you can do that
because it is a Wi-Fi-compatible tablet.
So it works out good.
A guy that I probably watched too much on YouTube
is Eric from South Main Auto, smaller shop up in,
I think it's up in upper state New York.
And I'd like to get him on the program someday
because he's, he believes in a couple things.
He believes in repair data.
He believes in, you got to look at the repair data to fix stuff.
He really, you know, he also has an Icon T10 scan tool.
And he admits he's an Autel fanboy.
He loves Autel, which is a really good scanner.
Nothing wrong with it.
Expensive. They do, it does a good job.
But he's used the Icon T10 in places that the Autel disappointed him.
So he likes the, you know, he likes the bi-directional controls
and you know, a lot of the stuff that goes with it.
So, you know, he's a really good diagnostician.
He says, you know, he claims he's not the brightest guy in the world.
He's not the smartest guy in the world.
He fixes a lot of problems that other people haven't fixed.
But the idea there's, you know, wireless,
and that's a nice feature of it too,
that you plug in the OBD connector
and you can go under the dash and go behind the car.
You can go, you know, under the hood and you can,
and it connects to the tablet wirelessly.
A nice feature.
You know, you add in the boroscope, the battery tester.
All of a sudden now you've got a pretty full complement
of diagnostic tools.
And I think there's some good features in this.
You know, could the battery be bigger?
Yeah. But the idea you can drop it in the dock
and recharge it, really good.
I think it's got a lot of features.
You know, it's not cheap.
It's $1699.
But it's cheaper than some of the high-end competitors.
And I'm not sure if it's eligible or not.
But Harbor Freight apparently misses me.
And they sent me a, sent me an email
like Harbor Freight always does and says,
you can get 20% off of anything except gift cards.
So could you get this for $320, $340 less?
Didn't say you couldn't.
So also two years of software updates.
One year of Truefix.
Makes it a pretty good value.
I mean, you know, when I was looking at it,
you know, it gets good ratings.
Again, pretty easy use.
I don't know.
No Toyota coverage.
Yeah, if you're buying it just for Truefix
and you work on a lot of Toyota Lexus vehicles,
you're going to have to get something else for software.
But will the scanner work?
Absolutely.
Just that Truefix thing just isn't there.
But, you know, certainly you can scan.
You can do all the other stuff.
Just not there.
So it's an excellent choice if you're a pro
or a serious do-it-yourselfer
that has a fleet of family cars.
I would take a look at it.
So again, $1,700.
You know, any idea that you can do a lot of stuff?
I think it's pretty good.
So I think it's highly capable.
I think it's pretty user-friendly.
You know, you get the subscriptions included.
I think it's a real good quality tool
for somebody who needs a really good quality tool.
Why don't we take another break?
Pay some bills.
My name's John Paul.
This is a car doctor program.
And when we come back,
I think we're going to talk to Jesse about his Night of Terror.
Well, I don't know if it's a Night of Terror.
But Jesse, you up for that?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
All right.
You listen to the car doctor program in 959WATD.
We'll be right back.
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August 19, 1998, Bob Murphy finally took a vacation.
You just can't put in 18-hour days forever.
So Bob loaded up the tents, the fishing poles,
the firewood, camp stove, the stakes,
the soda, the beer, mattresses, sleeping bags, lanterns,
and the canoe.
It all fit neatly into the big van, even the canoe,
except it was sticking out the back a little too far.
Bob's daughter Mandy warned him,
Dad, it's going to hit the windshield.
Ah, just a little bit more, honey.
It'll be all right.
Bob's a gentle man.
But he is human.
So let's just say that Daddy doesn't usually say those things.
And we can add that Tiny will come to your home,
your work, or your campsite and fix your windshield.
I'm Peter Brown of Tiny & Sons Auto Glass and Pembroke.
If your windshield is broken, just call
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And thank you.
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It's the Brockton Rocks Revival season.
Enjoy professional baseball right here
in the South Shore all summer long.
Two for Tuesdays,
week here Wednesdays,
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Don't forget Sunday family fun day.
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Pro ball is back in Brockton at Campanelli stadium.
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This is Dan Cludier.
And this is Kim Jenney.
We're from Birch Bay Records.
We're hosted by Sandy Stride and Keith James.
On 959 WATD and 959 WATD dot com.
Search for Twilight Showcase on Facebook
and visit twilightshowcase.org.
Twilight Showcase.
Tonight from 8 to 10 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.
I was invited to something last night
and I didn't go and I feel a little bit bad.
But if you've been listening to me for a long time,
you know for 13 or 14 or 15 years,
I was on Salem radio, WRL AM950.
And I just broke all the radio rules
because you're never supposed to mention
another radio station.
But I was on just before six hours of Irish music.
Where I got to meet Paul Sullivan.
I got to meet Johnny Costello.
I got to meet Bob Brooks.
I got to meet just a good group of people.
And occasionally I got to hang out with Bill Bailey.
And Bill Bailey at one time owned the Bailey pub
down in Marshfield.
And he has been on the Irish hip parade
for a long time.
He called it the Bailey Kayleigh,
called it Chasing Shamrocks.
And yesterday, last night, was his final program.
He decided I guess to give it all up.
So Bob Brooks is taking over for Bill.
I just wanted to publicly congratulate both
Bill Bailey for all the years
that he brought Irish music to the area.
And also Bob Brooks for taking over.
Bob, he was there when I was there.
Good guy, loves the music.
So congratulations to both of them.
A regular listener, John says to me,
oh, if you're interested in buying that scan tool,
apparently you can buy it on time payments.
Which is, it says buy with confidence.
You can buy it a little bit at a time.
Kind of a good thing, I guess.
Anyway, so Jesse was in need of some help.
So what happened to you, Jesse?
Well, I was on my way home.
Life in general, yeah.
Middle of the night last night, driving back,
and I hear a terrible noise.
And I was like, oh dear, what is this?
And I looked down at my one working tire sensor
in the truck, and it said that my PSI was at one
on my back left tire.
I was like, oh dear, that's what that noise is.
So pulled off the highway, had my nephew with me
because he works with me on Saturday nights.
And started figuring out how to change the tire.
Luckily for absolutely no reason whatsoever,
I was on YouTube like a couple of weeks ago
and was looking into how to release the spare tire
in a pickup truck because I was like,
I don't know, if I ever get a flat tire,
I don't know how to do this.
So I knew what to do.
And yeah, like an hour later,
I got the tire all changed,
get back in the truck, and the battery's dead.
It was just one thing after another.
I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
I don't have any kind of jump pack or anything like that.
Luckily, like a couple minutes later,
just some random teenager pulled over to help out
and had to pull his car around
and managed to jump it and get us back on the road.
Did he actually have his car facing in the wrong direction?
No, well, kind of.
So he had pulled in front of me.
His jumper cables were pretty long,
but they didn't quite reach.
So he had basically, you know,
put his car right in front of my car
to probably look like I T-boned him
if people were driving by and looked like a car accident,
but he was right there,
and then we managed to get it hooked up
and got me jumped in on the road.
And then I was almost out of gas too.
It was just like everything that was wrong,
but I was in a situation before I ran out of gas as well.
I would have broken down for the second time that night,
but yeah, not the smoothest ride home.
Yeah, we need to either do two things.
We need to get you a AAA membership
or, in fact, a company called True
sent me a news release just the other day
and apparently they have about the size of,
I don't know, a small book.
It is an air compressor and a jump starter.
Well, an air compressor, well,
a jump starter would have been good.
Air compressor would have done nothing for me.
That tire was shredded by the time I went to the side.
Yeah, yeah, like just smoking
and absolutely torn to shreds.
Yeah, and that's one of those things that,
you know, the cars that I drive
and this Genesis, I was pleased to see
it actually had a spare tire.
I always have a little concern
and I look in the trunk of a car
or under the floor of an SUV
and all there is is a little air compressor
and a tire seal kit,
which if, by the time you shred a tire,
you know, all you can do is hope to sell
that air compressor to somebody
who can come and get you a tire
because it's not going to do you any good
when the tire's all shredded and smoking
and falling apart.
I assume this happened at one o'clock
in the morning or something?
It ended up being about one o'clock in the morning
so I was driving back around midnight
and then it took me a little while to get the
tire changed.
It's one of those situations where I kept thinking
I had the car jacked up high enough
and just never quite was.
And, you know, as your mother probably told you,
nothing good ever happens after midnight.
This is true.
Well, I think we're just about out of time.
I want to thank our guest, Jake,
for calling in
and telling his story and running the board
the way he does.
And hopefully, on this Labor Day weekend,
you're not doing any labor on this Labor Day weekend.
So until next week, make sure you're where
your seatbelt drives safely. Be good to your car
and if you do see an emergency vehicle
or Jesse by the side of the road,
slow down or move over. It will save
everyone's lives. Talk to you all next week.
Bye-bye.
you
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