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Subie Scoop - December 1

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Subie Scoop - December 1

Subie & YOU! Dec 01, 2025 14 min

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About this episode

The host shares personal updates including the repair timeline of their Subaru 'Pearl' after an accident and experiences driving a Chevy Trax rental, highlighting differences like missing grab handles and door unlock behavior. They reflect on missing their manual transmission and simpler analog gauges. The episode also covers ongoing podcast plans, upcoming guest episodes, and aspirations for 2026 events like Overland Expo and Subifest Texas. The host encourages early holiday shopping and teases future bonus episodes featuring trail stories and group trips.

Topics: subaru repair update rental car experience manual vs automatic transmission analog vs digital gauges podcast planning overland expo subifest texas bonus episodes holiday shopping

Cars: Chevrolet Trax

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In this edition of the Subie Scoop, I catch the listeners up on the status of Pearl and driving the rental car, as well as hint on what's to come for 2026.

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Chevrolet Trax

"...If you've seen in my stories, I'm driving a Chevy Trax and being that I mean I'm grateful for having a r..."

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Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of the Subi Scoop.

It's December.

This is kind of cool.

This falls on a Monday on December 1st, the start of a new month, the start of the last

month of 2025.

That's crazy that we're almost to 2026.

It seems like this year just flew by and we're going to be in Christmas time soon.

So it's just kind of crazy in here, right?

So I hope everybody had a happy Thanksgiving.

I hope you ate lots of food, got completely stuffed and took a good nap.

But seriously, I hope you had a good time and enjoyed time with friends and family

and good food and all that good stuff.

So we just went to my mom's house and ate some food over there, hung out for a while.

And then, yeah, that was it.

Then enjoy the weekend after that.

For those of you that got a four-day weekend, I know that was nice because typically you

get Thanksgiving Day off and some companies give the day after off and then of course

the weekend.

So that's always nice.

There's not a whole lot to update, I guess, on this Subi Scoop, but Pearl should be

done this Friday, December 5th.

After the accident, I called the other guy's insurance company.

His personal insurance company was Geico.

Then I got a call from Progressive later that afternoon to start the process.

And so the accident happened on a Saturday, called on Monday, got my car in the shop

on Tuesday.

And then on Wednesday, they said it should be ready December 5th.

So that was two and a half weeks from that date.

So now I've only got a week left.

But this past week and a half has gone by extremely slow.

If you've seen in my stories, I'm driving a Chevy Trax and being that I mean I'm grateful

for having a rental car because it's nice that I can go places.

Although I think I've had it for, I haven't had it for the full week and a half.

I've had it just for over a week.

I still haven't used up all the gas and the rental yet.

I probably would have filled up Pearl twice in this time frame.

But yeah, it is nice to have something to drive.

But there's little things that you realize, that you don't realize that you do when

you're driving.

And one of the things that I discovered is you have the little handle up on the

roof next to the top of the window and in a Subaru, at least all the modern

Subaru's from what I've seen, you have a handle at every seat.

So every seat has one of those handles.

And in this rental, in this Chevy Trax, when I get to stop signs or mainly when I

get to stop lights, I reach up and try to grab the handle.

But on the Chevy Trax, there isn't one there.

I guess it's just a thing that I do when I come to red lights and I don't realize it.

You don't realize it until you try to do it and it's not there.

So I guess when I come to red lights in Pearl, I reach up and hold that handle.

I don't know why.

It's just maybe it's a comfort thing.

Maybe it's, I don't know.

But I notice that I do that when I am not able to because there's nothing

there to grab onto.

The other thing that is kind of frustrating is whenever I turn my car off,

when I turn my Subaru off and I, you know, I'm getting ready to get out.

It unlocks all the doors.

So if I've got something in the hatch, if I have something in the back seat,

I can get out, open up the back door, open up the hatch and I'm good to go.

However, in this Chevy Trax, when I turn it off and it unlocks the door,

it only unlocks the driver's side door.

So several times I've gotten out and I'll go to open up the back door just out of habit

and it's locked.

And I'm like, because it's so frustrating because it doesn't unlock all the doors.

So then I like have to get the remote out and unlock the doors and then can get into the back door.

I haven't really had to get into the hatch.

I've just looked back there just to see what's back there.

But yeah, so that's that's kind of frustrating.

And then it has the auto shut off at, you know, when you come to a red light and you're sitting there for,

I guess it has to be like a certain period of time before it automatically shuts off and then starts up again.

So I forget to turn that off.

And when I'm driving, I just come to a red light and then I'll feel it shut off.

And I'm like, oh, come on.

So I turn it off that way.

It doesn't do it again when I continue driving.

But just a little things like that.

And then, of course, it's missing the third pedal, you know, that's my driving experience.

Every day is shifting my own gears and using my left leg to push in the clutch so that I can shift gears.

And now I don't have my third pedal there.

So of course, driving an automatic is convenient.

It's easy.

And it is nice at times, but I really miss shifting gears.

I miss my manual.

So I'm really looking, I'm looking forward to getting Pearl back for all kinds of reasons, of course,

just because it's my car.

And I love driving my car.

I love that it's a manual.

I love that it has the handle so that I can grab onto it when I come to a red light.

I love that it doesn't have auto shut off.

Also, the gauge cluster in the rental and this Chevy Trax is digital.

And the cool thing about that, though, is it has like three different options that you can choose from.

So you can change the display, but it's just not the same.

I love an analog display.

I like that my car is a base model because it has a lot of simplified things.

It's not fancy.

It doesn't have a lot of electronics.

And I really like that.

There are, of course, conveniences with a lot of the electronics and some of the newer cars.

But I like that mine isn't crazy with electronics.

That's a really nice feature of the base model.

And I miss that.

So I'm just looking forward to getting back into Pearl.

And then I realized, too, that I've been driving around with a busted hatch from back in January of 2021,

right before we left to go to Colorado, been driving around with a busted hatch.

So other than that, not a whole lot going on.

I'm still on the hunt for a job.

I've got a couple of prospects going on there.

But then I'm working on some other things, too.

But I really need to start working on the YouTube channel more.

I know I put it up there and I uploaded a few videos.

I uploaded all of the motorsports videos into a motorsports playlist.

But I still need to go back and put in the other two Overland Expo events that I went to

and then just put in some of my trip stuff that I've done, like personal trips.

But just haven't gotten around to it, but I will. I will.

I mean, that's kind of more for me anyway.

And then just to hopefully get some more eyes on what I'm doing

and what I'm doing with the podcast and events that I'm going to.

And then just fun that I get out and have with Pearl.

So just need to do more of that.

And I need to do a lot of things, I guess, but I'm still, you know,

cranking away at the podcast.

I've got two episodes recorded already and I'm planning a third and a fourth

and some other ones coming up.

So there's still plenty of guests.

I still have a list and then there's still plenty of people

that I need to reach out to to get on my list.

And like with 2025, when I started getting on some previous guests on the podcast,

I do want to do that.

I want to continue that in 2026 to have previous guests that were on the podcast

and like, hey, where are you now?

What's been going on?

And then I would like to try to pull together some more bonus episodes.

Back in mid 2021, I think it was in July of 2021.

I did a Tales from the Trails with Chris and Juan and me too

because I wanted to do it after I went out there

so that I could kind of be included in that and because we had some fun.

But I want to do another maybe one or two Tales from the Trails

over the next few months, you know, or in 2026.

So I did talk to somebody about that.

I don't remember who it is offhand, but did talk about that.

So definitely want to get that together.

And then maybe some other bonus episodes, like if there's a group of people

that like to get out all the time or have an annual trip or something,

you know, let's talk about that.

So and I want to try to get some more work done with SOA this year and all in 2026.

So lots of things on the agenda coming up.

And so we'll see what all we can squeeze into 2026.

And I'm looking forward to Overland Expo again

and seeing how we can make that better for everybody.

Not that it was a bad event at all, but there's always ways to improve.

And so I'm looking forward to that.

And then, of course, Subifest, Texas again.

And then maybe I can make it out to some of the other subi events.

Not sure, but we will see what can happen.

Either way, I'm looking forward to the new year, looking forward to seeing

what can come with the podcast and meeting new people

and having on previous guests and new guests, of course.

So anyway, that will wrap it up for this edition of the Subi Scoop.

Hope you all have a wonderful week.

Go out there and get your Christmas and holiday shopping done early.

So you're not waiting till the last minute to get it all done.

There's some great deals going on on Cyber Monday today on Amazon.

So be sure to check those out as well.

So again, have a great week.

We'll talk to you later.

See you next Monday on another regular episode.

Much Subi love.

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