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It's on you. If you don't do it, you'll have no one else to blame...and don't say I didn't warn you!
It's on you. If you don't do it, you'll have no one else to blame...and don't say I didn't warn you!
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About this episode
Lenny Lawson dives into the importance of proper car maintenance and the pitfalls of opting for cheap service options like quick lube places. He emphasizes the value of using quality parts and following manufacturer recommendations to protect your investment. The episode covers essential seasonal checks, including coolant levels, battery health, and tire pressure, while also sharing personal anecdotes and practical tips for car owners. Lenny highlights the benefits of building a relationship with your dealership for better service and potential warranty support.
Topics:
car maintenance
oil changes
coolant testing
battery health
tire pressure
wiper blades
service history
dealership benefits
seasonal checks
Email Lennie at [email protected]
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Ford F150
"But yeah, I'm not going to the Jiffy Loob place or the fast loop place or the Walmart to get my $82,000 F-150 oil changed. Or even my $10,000 10 year old car because my engine deserves better."
Car
Chevrolet Equinox
"...s you go to a, like if you're driving a Chevrolet Equinox and you take it to the Chevrolet dealership to ge..."
Select text to request an explanation
Hey, folks, Lenny Lawson here, the car guru.
I just wanted you to know that I understand totally why a person would take their car to
a quick loob place, to a big box store, you know, like Walmart, their auto center.
I understand why you would take your car there to get it serviced.
There is a perception of low cost.
I can get it done there, cheaper than I can get it done somewhere else.
How much did you pay for your car?
$20, $30, $40, $100,000.
And you're going to go to the cheapest place you can find that uses barken
basement oil, the cheapest filters that the Walmart buyers in Bentonville,
Arkansas can buy for all of their centers.
It's filled with, well, who knows?
Who knows what those filters are filled with?
It's not the factory, it's not the factory recommended filter.
That's why you don't go there.
And you know that technician that's working there?
Well, that's a bad use of the word.
That's not fair to call him a technician.
Because he was working at the McDonald's drive-thru window a couple weeks ago.
Now he's a technician, I don't think so.
But he's willing to stand in that pit.
You know, sometimes they work in a pit, especially at those fast loob places.
And stay there all day, and you know, the next car over his hit well,
the first car may be a Buick, the next car is a Chevrolet,
the next car is a Fiat, and all the filters are the same.
Well, I mean they're different sizes obviously, but the same brand.
Now, I guess there are Fiat dealers now.
Yeah, I saw one in Knoxville the other day, Fiat Maserati.
I bet they're really cranking out the numbers.
But yeah, I'm not going to the Jiffy Loob place or
the fast loop place or the Walmart to get my $82,000 F-150 oil changed.
Or even my $10,000 10 year old car because my engine deserves better.
You know, you don't have many responsibilities as a car owner.
You know, you got to keep airing your tires.
We've talked about that.
That's important so your tires don't wear out prematurely.
You've got to keep quality oil in there, in the engine.
Change it about every, well, not change mine every 5,000 miles.
And rotate my tires every time I get my oil changed.
It's just easy to remember.
You've got to keep antifreeze in it.
You know, we're getting ready to go into winter.
And going to be fall first though, so you have a little bit of time.
But you really need to get your cooling system checked out.
Pressure test it.
And find out the level of protection that your antifreeze is going to give you.
They have this little tester that will tell them that.
And so, you know, if it gets below zero, you're good.
But if it tests, well, if that's as good as it's going to get,
as far as the test is concerned, if it gets to 20 below, you're in trouble.
You know what happens to an engine block when the, you don't have good
quality antifreeze or it's watered down with water?
It freezes.
And when you put, well, I'll just give you an example.
My wife and I had this concrete water fountain out in our landscape,
one of our landscaping areas out here.
We love that water fountain, but we made a mistake.
We left the water in it in the winter and it got really cold.
And when it froze, the water froze, it expanded, and
cracked our beautiful water fountain in two.
That's exactly what happens to your engine block.
If you don't have adequate protection for your engine.
So you got to do that.
That's another responsibility.
You want to make sure your battery has got enough cold cranking
amps to get you through the winter so you can get that tested too.
You know, the thing is you go to a, like if you're driving a Chevrolet Equinox
and you take it to the Chevrolet dealership to get it serviced,
they're going to use the General Motors recommended oil.
They're going to use a AC Delco filter, which is General Motors.
And they're going to go through a checklist of things that need to be
done to that car at that particular time and miles.
And if you ever have an issue down the road, you're out of warranty just
barely and something serious happens, they're going to pull your service
records and see if you were a loyal customer.
Because if you were, they're probably going to take care of you.
They're probably going to cover that engine or transmission or rear differential
or air conditioning compressor or whatever is wrong.
And because you're a loyal customer.
But if you didn't show up at that dealership, not a single time after
you bought it and you have no proof.
Let's say you love to do this kind of work yourself.
You'd like to change your own oil.
You're one of those people.
You know, if you need new wiper blades, no, you're going to AutoZone to get them.
You're not going to go to the dealership and overpay for some wiper blades.
Even though they were designed for your vehicle, you're going to go
buy some off-brand wiper blades.
Yeah, because they're $10 cheaper.
That's smart.
Now, I know it may sound like I have a natural bias for this.
I think it's legit.
I really do.
I've seen it play out too many times.
I've seen so many people get refused by the factory for an after-warranty
repair because they never darkened the door of the dealership after they
bought the vehicle.
You know, with their 10-year-old car, they just went to the fast-loop place.
It was quick.
It was easy.
And the perception was that it was cheaper than it is at the dealership.
You know, that's not the case anymore.
And plus, the dealership uses a multi-point checklist.
I'm biased a little bit because I've seen it, like I say.
So if you have a major engine failure, first thing that the service manager is
going to do, if you go in and plead and beg for help, he's going to look up
your service history.
And if you have complete service history at that dealership or at a, well,
if you're driving a Chevrolet, at a Chevrolet dealership, he's going to go
to bat for you and he's going to pull all those records.
And he's going to submit that to the factory representative, the guy that
handles the warranty for Chevrolet.
That's the case.
And they're going to look at that and they say, you know, this customer's
been a loyal customer.
Let's just take care of this.
Or they'll say, well, we'll pay for the parts if they'll pay for the labor
or they might do a percentage split.
I've seen in many cases if it was a problem vehicle.
As long as the customer kept their car service there all the time,
they'll offer a buyout and help the customer trade, offer trade assistance.
Isn't that a wonderful thing?
Relationship does that.
You know, if you jump around from place to place when you're
getting your car serviced, you don't have a chance to develop any
relationship.
You don't know the service advisor's name.
You're just getting your oil change at whatever place is open.
Is that any way to treat a $50,000 investment?
I guarantee the people who drive Lexus, I never knew how to say that.
Do you say Lexi?
You know, the plural or Lexus is.
But anyway, if you drive a Lexus, if you drive a BMW, Porsche, Mercedes,
you don't want one thing those people all have in common.
They go back to the dealer for service because they know that if
they don't, it will impact negatively the value of their vehicle.
If you don't go back to the dealership for service of your Hyundai,
do you think that impacts the value of it?
Well, maybe not so much because the people who drive those cars don't
really care that much about regular maintenance based on statistics that
I've seen.
The people who care the most are people who buy the luxury division of
Japanese cars like, you know, Honda has the Acura division.
People who drive Acuras take them back to the dealer.
Toyota has the Lexus division.
Lexus owners, they take it back to the dealer.
And then you will have, what else?
Oh, yeah.
Nissan luxury car buyers take their infinities back to the infinity store.
And it's not just because they, you know, they want to pay more for service.
They just know that it's going to be done right.
And some of those dealerships offer some really good benefits for
them, you know, bringing their car back there.
They'll offer them loaner cars and stuff like that.
If you buy a Hyundai or a Kia or something like that, they won't, they
probably won't offer you a loaner car.
But maybe some will.
You know, I'm pretty hard on Hyundai and Kia.
Have you noticed?
I had to grin when ICE agents stormed of the factory in Georgia, the
Hyundai factory in Georgia and found, I think, is over 200 undocumented
Koreans working in the plant.
You know, I thought that when you built a plant in America that you would
hire Americans to work in the plant.
I mean, that's the concept.
That's the idea, right?
It's not to import your workers.
That's kind of defeating the purpose.
Okay, I'll take my first break.
I'll be back in just a minute.
Okay, I am back.
I don't know about you, but this Charlie Kirk thing hit me hard.
You know, I was just so impressed with that young man.
And whether you agree with his positions or not, he was willing to put
himself out there and go in front of folks who were adamant, you know, that he
was wrong about every one of his beliefs and he would debate them.
And he was friendly.
I mean, there was no anger coming from his side.
There was plenty of anger coming from some of the people who were debating him.
But this is how far we've gotten.
We have to be able to talk.
We have to be able to express our opinions without being canceled or
without being vilified in some way, called a Nazi or whatever.
So I don't know what's going to happen as a result of this, but
my hope would be that it opens people's eyes.
So we pray for his family and we pray that we can
start talking again, start communicating again.
You know, we really didn't have this opportunity because social media and
things like this podcast, which is typically about cars and car related things.
It gives very many people a voice.
Social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.
People can get on there and say pretty much whatever they want to.
And sometimes there's not a lot of thought behind it.
It's just designed to make people angry, you know, to get the other side riled up.
That needs to stop, don't you agree?
Okay, let's move on.
So I did kind of mention a couple of things that you need to be getting ready for.
It is September.
Cool weather has already started.
It's been in the 50s in the morning here at my house and
my grass is going, it's just stopped growing.
We're slowed down.
Thank goodness, just about over mowing it.
But yeah, I just, there are things that are your responsibility as a car owner and
a lot of people drop the ball, and this is not the time of the year to do it.
If you've got an oil change coming up sometime in the next,
well, during September or October, just make sure that they test your
coolant and pressure test your system.
A lot of, especially Toyota dealers, they're really bad about upsells.
And they're going to upsell you a coolant flush.
Well, if you got a three, four year old car, you don't need a coolant flush.
You know, maybe if you have a five or six year old car, if your coolant
really looks rusty or dirty, okay, I might go for a coolant flush.
But all those other flushes that they want to sell you, no.
No thank you, we don't need to flush our breaking system,
our power steering system, our transmission, that's unnecessary.
That's a service department trying to make more money.
So get your coolant tested, and if it's really bad, get it flushed and
get the coolant exchanged, get fresh stuff in there.
Okay, and your battery I already mentioned, you need to test your cold
cranking amps, they may come to you and you're in this customer
waiting area and said, yeah, Mr. Johnson, your cold cranking amps
are down to about 50%.
If they tell you that, just look at the report that they have,
they'll probably have something printed out.
And if it says that you're down half of what your battery came with,
then you need to replace your battery.
75% is probably okay.
But anything lower than that, then get a new battery,
because you're going to be stranded.
You know, these new electrical systems, it's not like they give you
any kind of warning you used to, they would drag a little bit
when you hit the ignition, and they would just go wrong, wrong,
wrong, and then they would start.
Well, today's batteries are either on or off.
They're either good or bad.
And it takes very consistent voltage to make everything work
in the vehicle like it's supposed to.
If the voltage drops, you know, even one or 2%,
you'll have systems that will fail.
You'll have lights that will come on.
And sometimes the car won't even start,
just because you've lost some capacity in your battery.
So make sure your battery's up to snuff before we get into winter.
Another thing is those nagging tire pressure warning sensors.
You know, if you have any modern car,
it's going to have tire pressure sensors in there.
And it's going to tell you a little light will come on
if your pressure falls below the minimum.
So you need to make sure those pressures are up.
You know, one thing that we used to do is we put nitrogen,
just pure nitrogen in every vehicle that we sold.
And the reason we did that is because now, again,
I'm not a scientist.
I'm not even a good chemistry person.
But apparently, nitrogen molecules
are fatter than oxygen molecules.
So if your tires have any bit of oxygen in them, which is,
you know, most of our air is nitrogen anyway,
but if it has the normal mixture of oxygen in it,
then those molecules are smaller and tend to leak out faster.
So we did that.
And it pretty much cured all of our tire pressure lights
coming on on cars that were on display on our lot.
Imagine we have 300 cars out there.
And all these pressure lights are going off
just because they're, you know, over time in cold weather,
the tire pressure automatically goes down.
But it will go down less if the tire has nitrogen in it.
So that's just something you can think about.
Otherwise, you just need to make sure
that you have adequate tire pressure
and that it's within the factory specs.
It'll save your tires.
It'll make them last longer.
I know a lot of people think that, well, you know,
getting around in winter,
I need to let some air pressure out of my tires.
No, you don't.
If you do that, you're gonna be looking at a pressure light.
So you don't wanna do that.
It's really not gonna help you that much anyway.
If you're worried about that,
put snow tires on your car or get a four-wheel drive.
Okay, what else?
Oh yeah, windshield wiper blades.
This is when I change my windshield wiper blades
on cars that I own and that I drive all the time.
I change them in the fall and I change them in the spring.
And, you know, a lot of people think,
well, you shouldn't wiper blades last longer than that.
Yeah, and if you have a harsh winter though,
then they won't.
And if you have a lot of snow and ice
and you know how when your windshield gets all covered
over with ice and you turn on your windshield wipers
and they're stuck and it's the plastic degree
or the rubber degrades over time.
So it's just better.
You're gonna get a much better wipe and face it.
Everybody wants a good wipe on their windshield.
Okay, what else?
Oh yeah, do you have the safety things in your trunk
that you need for breakdowns?
You know, what if you're outstuck somewhere
and you have no cell phone coverage
and you have a breakdown.
Your car won't start, you have a flat tire,
you run out of gas.
You need to have certain things in your vehicle.
You can find those things online,
but pretty much the list is gonna be simple.
You need a blanket, something to keep you warm.
You need a bazooka.
No, I'm just kidding, you don't need a bazooka.
Everybody should have a good quality set of jumper cables,
not the kind you buy at the $5 place.
You need to go to AutoZone or someplace like that
and buy the best jumper cables that they have.
The most expensive ones.
This is another place.
You don't cheap out on oil changes
and you don't cheap out on jumper cables.
You want as thick a wire as you can get
with good solid clamps and it'll make a big difference
if you have to get jumped off
or if somebody else needs you to get them going again.
You know, and it's never a bad idea
to keep some snack bars
and that type of thing in your vehicle just in case.
And of course a flashlight,
in case you have to get out and see.
You know, I don't really like flashlights
as much as I do some of those portable lights
that you can set down on the ground
and can adjust the lens so that you can see
to change a tire or do something like that
because a flashlight is.
And if you have somebody else there,
they can hold it of course, but if not,
and you're on your own,
that can be a very frustrating thing to handle.
I'm not real good at doing two things at once.
At once, as they say around here.
Okay, I'm gonna take my last break
and I'll be back in just one minute.
Okay, I am back and I have done everything I can do
to remind people about the My Car Guru guidebook
that is available for free.
All you have to do is send me your email address.
You can text it to me at 423-552-2020
or you can email it to Lenny Lawson, 2020, at gmail.com
and I'll send you a free copy.
It'll be a PDF file if you know what that is.
It'll be a PDF file if you know what that is.
And it's 26 pages long, so it's pretty easy read.
And it's got some fabulous tools in there
to save you money.
You could actually go back and listen to all the podcasts.
There are 450 of them online
or it's just a lot easier to read those 26 pages
and then fill in all the gaps
by listening to all of the podcasts.
I have had some incredibly positive feedback
so far from folks who have gotten it
and several people who have actually gone to buy a car
and used the negotiating techniques that I recommend.
And it's just so easy.
It's empowering, I've been told.
It's confidence building.
You go in and there's no fear
because you know what they're gonna say
because I've told you
and you know what you're gonna say in response
and you can even take the guidebook with you.
You can shrink it down and put it on your phone
or you can just roll it up, stick it in your back pocket.
Either way, they may question, what is that?
What are you looking at?
Sir, that's none of your business.
That's all you have to say
and they'll leave you alone.
But they'll be very impressed
because you will have gotten the deal of the day.
I can promise you if you use these techniques,
even the ones in the service department
or dealing with the body shop,
if you use the word power that I'm giving you
when you deal with people in the car business,
you will win every time.
So again, send me your email address,
423-552-2020 is my cell phone number.
Text it to me and you'll get it really quickly.
There's not a lot of wait time
because I always have my phone
and I've got it saved on my phone
and I can just copy and paste it and boom,
it's ready to go.
But if you are elderly like me
and you don't use technology very well,
just call me on my cell phone.
Don't text me, 423-552-2020, call me.
Give me your address and I'll run 26 pages
off on my personal laser printer
and I'll fold it up, put it in an envelope,
put a stamp on it and send it to you.
How's that for a deal?
Well, thanks for listening to this edition of My Car Guru.
Like I say, if you have any questions,
you know what to do and I'll see you next time.
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