Talking tires with Nokian's Wes Boling and a review of the Blue Tiger Storm Plus

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W A T T presents John Paul, the

car doctor, all things automotive.

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Now, here's John Paul, the car doctor.

And good Sunday morning, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the car doctor program

on award-winning 95.9 W A T D.

I think we won more awards last week.

It seems like every week I read it's like it's Oscar week around here.

95.9 is always winning awards, so congratulations to all the staff at W A T D.

Except for me and Jesse, where we don't win awards.

Yeah, it was weird. We didn't even win the award for having the best John Paul in the air.

You would think that, you know, class in itself.

I thought we had that one wrapped up.

I thought we did, but or the best Jesse Wilkins.

Yeah, that one shocked me as well.

Yeah, I know. Well, that's the way it goes.

Hey, with us on the phone is Wes Bowling.

Wes Bowling is the senior communications and content manager for Nokia and Tires,

spelled T-Y-R-E-S, like the European style.

Wes, good morning, and welcome back to the car doctor program.

Thank you. I applied to be the best Wes Bowling at Nokia and Tires,

and I've not gotten a trophy to mail myself.

Oh, I feel you.

Yeah, you know, well, you know, in this day where you think everybody gets a trophy,

you would think we would get one, but yeah, yeah, I know.

You know, here in New England, it is not quite winter yet,

but I was talking to some of my coworkers who live up in New York,

and they've already dealt with six inches of snow in the northern end of New York.

And it's wintertime, and I was just recently the website car talk from Click and Clack Guys.

One of their writers wrote to me and asked me about what I thought about all-weather tires,

and I gave them my thoughts on all-weather tires.

But, you know, a lot of times we think of all-season tires as just what it sounds like.

They're all-season tires, but the same tire that all-season tire that I buy in Massachusetts is the same all-season tire I buy in Phoenix.

So how can it really be an all-season tire?

It's not. It's a three-season tire unless you live in a Phoenix or I'm in Tennessee,

and I'm being honest with you here, I drive all-season tires from Nokia and tires on our car,

because I know that the two or three days a year that it snows, I'm just going to stay home, and that's fine.

I work from home. We can do that. But if you live in Massachusetts, an all-season tire is a three-season tire.

When it gets below around where you guys are now, like that 45-degree threshold, that rubber starts to harden.

It's not built from a tread pattern standpoint to carve through that snow and slush.

It's a really good, durable tire. It's good in rain. It's good in heat.

But when it gets colder, that compound becomes a hockey puck.

And the term all-season, you know, it is ready for the very mildest possible weather in all-season,

because it's not ready for Massachusetts winter.

Yeah, I remember years ago talking all-season tires with somebody, and it was sort of,

they said, well, you know, all-season tire does okay in a couple inches of snow.

But I've found, and I think it's because of exactly what you're talking about,

I found that when the temperatures are really low, you might not have snow on the road,

but the car just doesn't seem to respond the same. It doesn't feel sticky.

Yeah, essentially the softer the rubber compound, the better you're going to be when you need to break or turn laterally.

And, you know, cold weather hardens that rubber compound.

So a winter tire is going to have that uber soft compound.

That's why you don't drive a winter tire in summer. It's going to get torn to pieces in the heat.

But an all-weather tire represents that compromise option, right?

If you don't want to go for the dedicated winter tires, maybe you don't feel like you can justify that,

but you want that security in those weeks when it does snow and has to live your life and go places.

An all-weather tire is a softer compound than an all-season.

The tread is designed to carve through that snow and flush.

It's still not going to be, you know, a huge difference maker on like ice.

Then you need a winter tire, but for like shoulder seasons for, you know,

living in a city where the roads are generally decently maintained or south shore where that's the case,

an all-weather tire is a great compromise solution.

Something you can drive year-round, but still be safe in winter as well.

And no key in all-weather tires, and I guess to be considered an all-weather tire,

you need to have that three-mountain snowflake indicator thing, right?

That's right. The three-peak mountain snowflake.

I had it half-right.

Yeah, that certifies that the tire has been through a snow traction test.

It's the baseline. It's the starting point for an all-weather tire.

If it doesn't have that, it is not an all-weather. It is a three-season tire, as we call it.

But even after that certification, you want to make sure you're talking to the folks at the tire shop

to get the right all-weather tire because it is a starting point.

It's a baseline. It's really not an incredibly rigorous test. It's a bare minimum type of test.

So even from that, not all-weather tires are created equal.

If I'm... I'm trying to think where I would be.

If I was out where it's cold and snowy, rocky mountains, and I'm in one of those roads that say,

you know, snow tires required or chains required, does that three-peak mountain snowflake pass that test?

It does. Yep. It is, again, the bare minimum you would need to have in that situation.

I would recommend, if you really are driving on, you know, on I-70, going from Denver up to Breckenridge

for a ski weekend and it's just snowing buckets, I think a winter tire is still by far your best solution.

But we do talk to a lot of people who live, you know, in Denver, Salt Lake City, go skiing a lot,

or even live in Massachusetts, right? They're going up to Vermont.

They're going up to Killington for the weekend, right?

And in the city, they don't really need much snow protection, but up there, they're going to need it.

Then your all-weather tire is, yes, your baseline, legal, you're good.

You know, places where winter tires are required like that, that's the marker, is do you have the three-peak mountain snowflake?

And, you know, one of the... in the article, you know, one of the things that I mentioned was,

you know, like you said, winter tires are the standard.

That's the gold standard for the best traction in the wintertime.

But not everybody has the budget, not everybody has the room to store the tires,

not everybody has the time to go in and either mount tires on wheels, clone TPMS sensors so everything works,

or go in and do the snow tire winter, you know, snow tire changeover kind of thing and put the winter tires on.

Not everybody can do that.

So an all-weather tire gives you a lot of those advantages, and it's just a set of tires.

You don't have to worry about where to put them, where to put them in the nice weather.

That's it, right.

It's, you know, we always say that we would much rather upgrade a driver from an all-season to an all-weather than downgrade them from a winter to an all-weather.

And you're going to notice a difference on both sides of that, right?

If you're used to driving winter tires and you have just the ultimate grip and stability, then when you're driving in all-weather,

you're not going to notice that quite thin level of performance.

It is a compromise, but if you're driving an all-season, it is a massive upgrade.

It is an important upgrade to make.

And you're right.

I mean, I think I would argue that a set of winter tires, if you're driving in sustained with true weather, is an insurance policy.

And if you can at all afford the upfront cost, it is worth it.

But if you can't, if you're looking at one set of tires year-round, I would strongly, strongly urge in the Massachusetts area an all-weather over an all-season.

And, you know, it's sometimes people get a little bit too confident, maybe.

You know, the person who says, I just bought a, you know, 2025 Ford Explorer all-wheel drive, I'm ready for winter.

They're usually the first person to see stuck by the side of the road, but all-wheel drive doesn't replace good winter tire traction.

No, all-wheel drive is all-wheel drive and not all-wheel stop.

Yes, it is going to help you accelerate up hills and through tough places.

If you get stuck in a ditch, it might help you get out a little easier if you have the all-wheel drive.

But what about when you're trying to brake?

It's all about the contact point, right?

It's not about the power.

And in fact, you can, as you've mentioned, lead to overconfidence.

If you think you do have that security, then you're going to drive like it.

And yeah, I think that I would much rather be behind somebody going 15 miles per hour too slow in a two-wheel drive today on winter tires being extra safe

than somebody who's chugging along thinking they've got it made in all-wheel drive.

That is something that we are very adamant about.

And the ultimate beast of a car is if you have the all-wheel drive and you have the winter tires or the all-weather tires, you're going to feel untouched.

And yet people who feel untouchable without that contact point, without that one part of your car that touches the road being ready to go,

then yes, you're going to put yourself in some really precarious situation.

There's something called the law of physics. You can't beat, right?

Yes, and momentum is real, right?

I have a five-year-old son and I'm teaching him right now about momentum.

The bigger you get, the longer it takes you to stop.

And yes, especially with traction and all that in a car.

And especially when you consider, hopefully, tires are the only part of your vehicle that touches the road.

So you want to make sure you have good tires on your car, whether they're winter tires or all-weather tires,

or depending where you're listening to the program, all-season tires.

You want to make sure they're in good shape.

But one of the things, and we don't see it as much anymore, people have become a bit more educated about it,

but I still saw it here and there over last year.

You know, I have front-wheel drive, so I only need to put the winter tires on the front.

Yeah, all four tires need to be winter if you're going to do it, or all-weather, the same.

I think there are a few reasons for that.

Number one is, again, the braking, not just the driving.

Number two is going to be the stability of the vehicle,

making sure you have consistent grip with all four tires.

You avoid things like fish tailing and stuff like that.

And then even the wear of the tires is going to be different, right?

And we should be rotating our tires regularly, and we should have all four the same, the same process.

And, you know, it sounds nice, right? Save money. Get just the two instead of the four.

But in reality, you actually could be really costing yourself when it comes to things like alignment, tire wear,

and at the most basic level, safety.

You know, I think tires are an area where we all love to try to save money where we can.

I'm not suggesting you go in and say, give me your most expensive set.

I am saying this is a place where value is vital because safety is paramount.

There are a lot of things in your vehicle you can save money on, you know, when you're getting the oil change,

get all the coupons you can, and go find some deals, right?

But with tires, it's not a place where you want to, you know, get the cheapest option

or do the cheapest thing like two tires instead of four.

The stakes are just simply too high at this time of year to mess around with that.

And no key in tires, you know, people might not know the name,

but you guys have been in the tire business for 100 years or something?

Yeah, almost. 1932. We made the first winter tire in Finland.

People just didn't do anything in Finland for my understanding in their vehicles back in the 30s

until we had visited the winter tire.

And we introduced the all-weather tire to North America back in the late 90s.

Well, so, yeah, you know, Nokia phones may be a much more common household name than Nokia in tires.

Used to be the same company, actually based in the same city in Finland.

But I think the reason for that is, you know, we don't have a blimp or an arena or a mascot that you see on TV.

We pour our profits into R&D, and we are okay with being the boring tire company

that not everybody has heard of, if it means that we're also developing the safest tires in the world.

We can work on brand awareness, but it has to be from a foundation of making the best tires.

So we're the inventor of the winter tire. We're the inventor of the all-weather tire.

And our goal is to, you know, continue to build on that legacy of innovation.

And we are trusting that, you know, obviously folks like you who have big influence, credibility.

Once you know about us and you spread the word and people have great experiences,

we might be the hardest first tire for a tire dealer to sell.

We're going to be the easiest second tire when that customer comes back.

If you ever do get a blimp, can I go up in it?

Uh, yeah. Come on. You and I both. Let's do it.

Well, the folks from the radio station, Sullivan Tire, invited them up in the, you know, that blimp.

You know, and they said it was a pretty good time.

So, they somehow didn't invite me, but...

Yeah, yeah.

They're keeping on us over there.

I think it was only important for...

The invitation only went out to people who won awards.

Oh, is that what it was?

That makes sense. Yeah.

So, that's great. We do love the folks at Sullivan.

Yeah. Sullivan Tire has been around since 1955.

And now they're pretty neat. It's an employee-owned company, which is kind of neat too.

So, uh, but, uh, and no key and ties have some interesting features in them.

Uh, you know, you, you know, I've for years always said, you know, get a penny.

And, you know, when the tread gets down to Lincoln's head and then it's like, get a quarter.

That makes more sense because that's four 30 seconds of tread.

No key and tires actually have that tread wear indicator baked right into the tire where you can say,

Oh, I have eight 30 seconds left. I have five 30 seconds left.

Yeah. Broken down by percentage.

And then when it gets below like 40% and you see a raindrop or a snowflake and that's,

that's when, you know, it's time to replace the tires.

And what I use it for too is to make sure my tires are wearing evenly, right?

Look at each tire and make sure they're generally around the same place.

One of those inventions that I sit back and look at our R and D team are like,

Dang it. Why didn't I think about that?

That's, that's, I could have made some money off of that.

But, but our company, I guess that's anything we can do.

Yeah. Anything we can do to, to make the, the safety experience clear and simpler for our drivers.

We want to do that. That's an easy one that I think when we go to trade shows and things and we show that,

people are like, Oh, so simple and yet so useful.

One of the questions I get a lot and this can sometimes happen with winter tires is how old a tire,

how, how, you know, you have a tire that you've used on your car for a bunch of years and it still looks good.

And I remember talking to the folks from the Rubber Manufacturers Association and they said,

Well, you know, there's no real standard on that, you know, 10 years, you know, a few tires are 10 years old.

Unless it's a show car that only goes two or three miles to a car show.

You probably want to get rid of those 10 year old tires in Rhode Island where our main office is.

There was actually legislation filed that wanted to read date codes on every tire.

And if the tire was more than six years old, they wanted to fail it for state inspection.

That never went anywhere. Is there, is there sort of a standard that Nokean thinks about when you think about tire age?

Yeah, 10 years is generally a good baseline to start with, because at that point, even if you fairly driven it,

the rubber is going to degrade.

And so you definitely don't want to mess with something around that 10 year threshold.

Beyond that, it really does vary.

And it depends a lot on use, on how frequent tires are rotated, on storage, on maintenance, all those factors.

And, you know, we don't put a mileage warranty on our winter tires for that reason.

The rubber is so soft and used very so much and temperature can play such a role that we don't sit here and say,

this is going to last three seasons for you or X thousand miles like we do for our all season and all weather tires.

Because it is just so, it does vary so much.

I can tell you that if you see a set of winter tires, say at Sullivan Tire, and they were produced in 2022, 2023,

you know, they're two or three years old, that's not a cause for concern.

If you're buying from a reputable tire shop that's storing those tires appropriately, and of course Sullivan does and is,

then you're going to be in good shape and still get meaningful life out of those tires that you would need.

So, you know, I would say a good set of winter tires should last you at least three or four seasons.

If you're, again, using them correctly and storing them correctly.

But again, it depends on your use case and it's crucial to go back into the tire shop, especially with the softer compound tires,

winter and all weather, and frequently get them inspected and rotated just to make sure those tires are in good shape.

That's your cheat code, right? Because then your tire shop is going to let you know when it's time to replace.

And a good tire shop will also say tires look great, live them alone, you know.

I remember talking to somebody from a tire manufacturer years ago and he said to me,

I never rotate my tires. I'm like, well, you probably get tires for free, you know.

And he goes, no. He said, I check my tires all the time.

And he said, you know, I look at them every couple of weeks.

I check the tire pressure on them constantly.

And I don't bother rotating them because they're in overall, they're in good shape.

So I leave them alone. But that's not typical for most people.

So it is important to go into the tire shop and even to the point of, I can't find a place to get air in my tires.

Most good tire shops, like a Sullivan tire, they're part of an association where I think it's tire smart or something where,

you know, go in, they'll check the tire pressure.

They'll adjust it as needed and, you know, look at your tires and send you on your way, if the tires look in good shape.

The most basic thing you can do, and it's like anything else, like your health, like anything, if you're going in regularly for maintenance,

then the chances of a really expensive surprise are less. They're not zero, but they're less.

I'll confide in you right now. I'm actually at a tire shop as we speak.

Getting the car checked out and ready to go for a trip we're taking down to Florida for Thanksgiving with family.

So, you know, I would certainly recommend rotating them regularly, even if you're checking them regularly.

Just because there are, you know, factors based on where the tire is on the vehicle, that means it's going to wear differently

and you want to get that even wear. It's good for alignment. It's good for so many other things.

But yes, regular maintenance and most tire shops have policies that, you know, take it in, get it inspected.

It checks out, you know, no charge, cheap charge, you know, not going to cost you much to do it.

But it will, of course, cost you quite a bit, even just in terms of peace of mind, potentially,

and it's not an accident if you're not getting inspected and not taking regular care of them.

And, you know, today with, I think the last time I had a ridiculous amount of free time to think about this,

there was 120 or so makes and models of cars that didn't have spare tires.

Yeah.

So, looking at all of that and, you know, if your car doesn't have a spare tire,

you really need to rely on the tires on your car to know that they're in good shape.

That's it. You know, I recommend, certainly every year, getting the tires inspected,

but generally for tire rotation, you know, maybe every other oil change is a good time to do that.

That obviously depends on if you're following that schedule correctly.

But, you know, 6 to 10,000 miles generally is a good kind of reference point in time frame,

because you're right, the stakes are higher when you think about things like bears,

and even just winter weather and, you know, the havoc it can wreak,

you know, if your alignment's a little bit off, if your tire's a little bit unevenly worn and you don't catch that,

then, you know, it could turn, you know, a small issue into a very expensive and even dangerous one.

And one last question before we let you go, you know, a lot of times people, you know, they'll buy a BMW.

It's got run flat tires on it. And, you know, they're okay, but when it comes time to replace them,

they replace them with a non-run flat tire, and most of the time they go,

the car is so much better now because I don't put the run flat tires on there anymore.

What's Nokia's policy for run flat replacement? Is it a good idea to go with, is it okay to go with non-run flat tires?

Yeah, we generally don't make run flats with a couple of very narrow exceptions to that,

just because you have to sacrifice other properties of the tire to get, you know, that run flat compound.

So it's not an area in which, you know, honestly, I'm even really an expert because we don't do a lot of that.

I think in general, though, you know, run flats sound really nice.

You know, there are safety components to them, but I think you're giving up sometimes some performance characteristics,

some grip characteristics, and even some other areas of durability going that direction.

That's why we don't really venture too deeply into the run flat wall.

But you do venture pretty deeply into EV tires, and most of your tires are all EV rated, right?

All of them, yep. Every one of our most recent tires that we've made,

so the latest generation of all of our tires have an emblem on them called Electric Fit.

You know, we're a Finnish company, you know, it's no surprise EVs are huge in Scandinavia, the Nordic region.

I think it's Norway that has the most EVs per capita.

So for the last more than decade now, we've been testing even non-EV tires on electric vehicles

because we know that that's going to be a huge use case for them.

We do have EV-specific tires in the winter space, and they come with an acoustic foam on the inside

that decreases the noise level because we know, you know, tire noise is the main cabin sound in EVs that are so quiet.

But all of our tires are tested to have the ability to handle the added weight, noise, torque, and the range needs, of course.

We have extremely low rolling resistance tires.

So some tire makers have come out and said, we're doing dedicated EV tires across the spectrum, all season, winter, all the way around.

We've said at this point, the best thing we can do is just tell consumers, like, everything we've made is good for your EV.

It's already ready to go, and in winter there are some special needs that make the dedicated EV version that much more effective.

And I said just one more thing that was like two things ago.

You know, Jesse's 2025 Corvette he just bought, you guys have a winter tire for high-performance cars now too, right?

It's actually an all-season, not a winter, although our winters work great for that too.

So yeah, the all-seasons surpass ASO-1, what it's called.

So, you know, a lot of these high-performance tires are made to last like 10 or 15,000 miles, get great performance, and then before you know it, you're replacing them.

This one is kind of a more balanced option.

So it's a UHP all-season tire versus like a summer tire, which means you're going to get 55,000 miles out of this thing.

That's the warranty, it's a lot more.

It's also still going to give you, though, the performance and handling characteristics that you want.

And it's infused with aramid sidewalls, so the same stuff used in bulletproof vests, don't shoot your tires, please.

But it's meant to be durable when pothole feet can come around.

So the surpass is one of those that I'm going to tell you, like if it's 20 degrees and snowing and you're on those, you know, keep them at home unless you're driving to the tire stop to get some winter tires on.

But it's pretty good because I actually bought the Corvette just for the winter and I always wear bulletproof vests while driving it in the winter, so that should be good.

There you go, you're safe.

Smart move.

Well, well, Wes, always a pleasure talking to you.

We always learn, we always learn something, we like to share the information and now we know that Jesse wears a bulletproof vest when he drives his Corvette.

So, you know, whatever you gotta do to keep yourself safe.

That's right, that's right.

Wes, to you and your family, enjoy a happy Thanksgiving.

Have a great ride down to Florida on your, on your now checked over car that's at the tire store.

Thank you, John.

Thank you, Jesse, for talking to you.

All right, take care.

Bye-bye.

That was Wes Bowling, Senior Communication and Contact Manager for No Key and Tires, sharing his knowledge about tires and we need to take a break and pay some bills.

My name's John Paul.

This is a car doctor program.

You're listening on 95.9 WATD.

Our phone number is 7818374900.

7818374900.

Phone lines are open if you want to join us.

When we come back, we're going to talk about some of the questions that came in and I haven't reviewed a car in a few weeks because I haven't made that connection down here.

But every week, it seems like I get a new product to try out and we'll talk about the newest product, which could be handy if you're somebody who spends a lot of time behind the wheel of your car.

My name's John Paul.

This is a car doctor program.

We'll be right back.

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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 on 959-WATD. If you would like to join us, 781-837-4900.

Like I mentioned, I haven't done a new car review in a couple of weeks, just haven't made that connection with the folks here in Florida where I'm spending some time.

But I did get, I wonder if I talked about it, we had the Mosheon motion energy drink, talked about that last week, a USB-C little charging plug, a dash cam.

Well, this week it's the Blue Tiger Road Edition Storm Plus Wireless Bluetooth headset.

And, you know, if you're somebody who spends a lot of time in a vehicle, truck driver, delivery driver, something like that, you need to be in contact, but you want to do it safely.

So you want to be able to have two hands on the wheel, and I noticed when I'm using either, even on hands free with a phone, I tend to be more distracted, I seem to feel more connected when I'm using a headset of some sort.

Well, this is a one-sided headset, so it only has, you know, the earpiece on one side, so you're not violating any laws.

You see, and I'm still not sure how the earbud, whole earbud thing works, because in most states have a law that says you can't wear like headphones, even though people do it.

But you're not supposed to wear headphones because you want to be able to hear the outside sound around you.

But this company, Blue Tiger, a couple years ago I got a headset from them, and it was sort of interesting because the band that goes around your head actually had a little solar panel in it.

So you didn't have to worry about charging it up quite as often because if you let it sit on the, you know, dash of your car, it would get the sun and it would charge it up.

Well, this one's not that style, this is a rechargeable one, but it has a 45-hour battery life, so you're doing a lot of talking in 45 hours.

Two days worth of battery life, almost.

What's pretty novel about it, where the microphone is, it has a little flashlight.

So if you're out having to do something around your vehicle and on the phone with someone looking for advice at the same time, which happens, you know, you call your buddy up and he says,

no, do this or this or this, the little flashlight is pretty handy and it's pretty bright considering how small it is.

And I'm not, Jesse, do you get much stuff, electronic stuff?

Have you noticed that everyone seems to be copying Apple's packaging where the packaging is almost better than the products?

I have noticed that, yeah, like some of the package, and I'm like a bit of a hoarder when it comes to keeping boxes from expensive things that I buy.

And then I will notice that the wife throws them away, and then I get mad, and I'm like, why was I keeping it?

Like, I'm not going to return it, but the boxes are so nice, I almost feel guilty throwing them away.

I mean, some of them have like a little magnetic opening on the front so you can open it up and look at it.

I mean, people are putting a lot of thought into the packaging, and I think Apple really started that when you bought an iPad or an iPhone or something, and you're like, wow, this is well thought out.

You know what's crazy is even like, so in Boston we get a lot of the people that come through with knock-off products trying to sell them, and even the knock-off products have these really high quality packaging.

It's like, alright, you're selling this thing for ten bucks, it looks like the packaging itself might have cost ten bucks.

How are you making a profit these days, you thieves?

Well, I mean, it is kind of, you know, when you think about that, and I don't know who's coming in selling you stuff.

But I remember years ago, there was always somebody selling stereo equipment, and it was sort of like, well, we were just at a big show, and this is the stuff that didn't make it back on the truck.

And they led you to believe it was stolen, but when the police would show up, they'd actually have bills elating and everything, and it was just knock-off stuff.

It was, you know, it said morants on it, but it wasn't really morant stuff, and it wasn't stolen, it was just junk.

But it is sort of interesting that, you know, well, if you ever do get, you know, somebody comes in and tries to sell you a drone for like ten dollars, let me know.

Always wanted one.

I'll probably just buy it, but if I get two of them, I'll let you know.

Yeah, well, I appreciate that, yeah.

I would never die of stolen goods, you know, of course not.

No, because that would be wrong.

I just want to put that out there, it's on the radio, I would never do such a thing.

Yeah, that's good, that's good.

But you will buy an iPhone clone that was made in China or something.

Yeah, you know what, I've gotten a few like the AirPods, that's one of the knock-off things that people will sell if I were theoretically to buy them.

And they always work well, like you can hear it, it sounds fine, but apparently when you talk into it, so if you were to answer a phone call with these knock-off AirPods, you just sound terrible, apparently, on the other end.

Yeah, you're right, because I bought a pair from an actual store, and they were called like iPids or something, you know.

And it was, you know, people find this hard to believe.

If I'm at the gym, something I don't do very often, but if I am at the gym and, you know, trying to listen to music, it sounds pretty good.

But if, you know, somebody calls me, they're like, whoa, it sounds like you're in a tunnel somewhere.

And I'm like, yeah, well, it's what happened when you spend $10 for iPod, earpiece things, yeah.

But they work pretty good, they work pretty good other than that.

But anyway, this blue tiger, it's called the Road Edition, it's called the Storm Plus, I don't know why it's called the Storm Plus.

But it is, it's a regular headset, it's like, you know, with the strap that goes over the top of your head, a little microphone with a flashlight on it.

Before we went on the air, I used the app that I have used in the past to connect to the magic stuff at the radio station.

And I said to Jesse, how does it sound?

It sounds like you're on the phone. So not the same studio quality that, you know, what amounts to a couple thousand dollars worth of equipment gives you.

But one of the things about this unit is it does have really good noise cancellation so you can use it.

It has a three level flashlight, like I said, which is kind of neat.

45 hours of continuous use on a single charge.

So, you know, who talks for two full days without stopping, but claims you can do that.

It has two different kinds of ear cushions.

It has a vinyl-ish sort of one and a cloth one.

So kind of a cushiony velvet, I guess would be probably the term.

And the other one is called protein leather.

I don't know what protein leather is, but I'm guessing it's not leather.

Just a thought. I don't know. Maybe it is.

Also, it delivers something called 5.2 chipset for better Bluetooth connectivity.

It's got a 200 foot Bluetooth range, which is pretty impressive.

I didn't think Bluetooth went that far. I thought Bluetooth maxed out at like 120 feet.

And it's got noise cancellation, so it blocks out 96% of road noise.

So it's a pretty neat little unit.

It's not inexpensive. I think it's $180, something like that.

And if you are, and I don't generate any revenue when I talk about these things,

so I want to make that clear to anybody that thinks that, you know, like a lot of YouTubers,

you know, the link below, go to the link below and they generate income.

I don't do that. It's a pretty neat little unit.

And if you want to buy one, go to Bluetooth Tiger USA.

And when you go to go through the sales process, if it asks for a discount code,

go cardoctor10 and you'll get 10% off, so you save like 20 bucks.

So anyway, something to think about if you're a road warrior and you don't have Bluetooth in your car,

for instance, or you want to be able to feel more connected, you want to be, you know,

you see truck drivers all the time, they're getting in on their trucks,

but they're actually on the phone with dispatch or something.

So, you know, having the headset on makes it easier. So there you go.

And it's pretty comfortable. I wore it for a little while to try it all out.

I liked it. And I like the little flashlight idea. I think that makes it a little easier.

I can only envision people like, you know, somebody, I don't know,

making a delivery on an Amazon truck late at night when it's dark and, you know,

they want to look through and make sure they get the right products out.

Sounds like a pretty good idea. BluetoothTigerUSA.com is what it is.

And there you go. Really? Well, let's talk to Mike from here. Michael?

Hey, good morning. How are you, doctor?

I'm okay. I'm okay. I will, I don't know if I should share this or not.

But this week, I guess I became a Florida resident.

Oh, good taxes. Could be a tax account.

Well, it saves 5% because there's no state tax.

But I did it because, you know, being older, I, you know, have,

and I don't have my work health insurance anymore.

I had Blue Cross and Blue Shield and they canceled me.

And they said, we're not offering that coverage in your zip code anymore.

And I'm like, huh. And when I, when I put in my old zip code when I lived in Abington,

the coverage was still offered. But where I lived on the Cape, it wasn't offered.

And they said, well, we do have a product we can sell you.

It'll cost more and it covers less. And I'm like, well, that doesn't sound like a good value.

So I put in the Florida zip code and it offered more benefits.

And I'm like, yeah. So, but I feel, I feel like I'm cheating.

Not, not being a, not being a Massachusetts license driver anymore.

Well, if you want to come in and give us your money, probably twice what you're paying down there for everything.

Well, except for, except for car, car insurance is more down here.

But there's no, there's no excise hacks, no state inspection.

And oddly, even though there's no state inspection, cars seem relatively safe.

You know, I don't see ball tires, broken windshields, headlights out.

So apparently people keep, keep up their cars. Okay.

Great. Well, that said, hey, I'm calling about it.

I listened to a fellow on the internet called the car wizard.

Oh yeah.

Good. So he's preaching last week on his little clip.

I was listening to about German cars and he claims that since 2017 or 18 Audi's,

all of those German cars use aluminum block engines, aluminum block.

Okay. They don't put steel sleeves on.

He says what they're doing is they're putting a silicon spray inside, which is,

I remember Vega tried that in the 1970s, but they were first Vegas and they were disaster.

You know, what do you, is that true or what do you think?

It, they, it is an aluminum, an aluminized block with some, I don't, I don't know.

Maybe there's some kind of, now it could be there's silicone and silicon and silicon is hard.

So it could be some kind of silicon process, which might also be why that a lot of Audi's

burn a quart of oil in a thousand miles.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, a fellow went on to say, he said, listen, if these things are properly maintained,

he's like me, a big believer you change your oil every season in a car.

I'm a big believer of that. But he said, that's the promise that he sees a lot of them coming

like a day with smoke and stuff like that.

And just what the Vega did.

Yeah. And I enjoy watching all kinds of it.

The only thing, he never actually fixes anything.

Now, he has some code that goes like, fix it or form.

But, but, you know, it's, you know, you kind of, I'm watching it and he goes, you know,

we had this car come in and it's got this and this and this.

And then, you know, and then they never really go through the steps of fixing it,

which I like some, I like some of the other, but I mean, pretty exotic shop.

And apparently he, there's a, there's a very successful YouTuber called Hoovey.

And he fixes, he fixes, yeah, he fixes all of his cars.

And, yeah, so I mean, I'm amazed to this day that, like, and I'm not sure about their shop,

the car wizard shop, but, you know, some of these, some of these people who still have shops

have had to, like, almost shut their shop down a couple of days a week because they're so busy on YouTube

and they're making more money on YouTube than they are fixing cars.

So, yeah.

Hey, quick one.

I just heard that Tyler's going to stop, Lex is going to stop manufacturing the LS.

This is the last year for the whole LS line.

Yeah, I heard, I heard that too.

And I'm a little surprised because they still sell a lot of them.

So I wonder if they're going to come up with something kind of a stretch ES version or something,

you know, sort of, you know, and it would actually make me feel good if they, if they did almost like the Avalon,

you know, a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger than a Camry, but smaller than an LS.

So it wouldn't, you know, I hate to, you know, I like sedans and every time I hear a sedan going away

and it's kind of funny.

I was watching something the other day and I talked about, you know, I was probably in the 60s or 70s

and whoever was in charge of, and I don't even remember what company it was.

It might have been like Chevrolet, you know, they sold 1.2 million vehicles that year or that, that model of that year

and, you know, management was very upset.

It wasn't enough.

Now, if, you know, car companies, you know, sells 1.2 million of anything, they're really happy.

So, you know, the idea that the LS is going to go away when maybe they're, you know, maybe they're selling 100,000 of them.

Well, 100,000 of anything I think is still pretty good.

Yeah.

Well, hey, happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving.

You as well.

Don't, don't, don't eat too much pie.

Okay.

You got it.

Thanks.

All right.

Take care, Mike.

Bye-bye.

Our phone number 781837-4900, 781837-4900.

If you want to get through one, we take another quick break and when we come back, maybe we'll talk to you about your car, your car problems

and your favorite turkey recipes.

My name is John Paul.

This is a car doctor program.

You're listening on 95.9 WATD.

We'll be right back.

That's aaa.com.

Slash join.

Then on December 3rd, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy brings their wild and swinging holiday party to Plymouth.

And finally, on December 4th, the Vienna Boys Choir celebrate the holiday season with Christmas in Vienna.

Tickets for the Irish Tenors, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, the Vienna Boys Choir and many more shows are on sale now at Memorial Hall.com.

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.

Unmatched 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 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 95.9 WATD.

Make an appointment Sunday morning at 11 for John Paul, the car doctor, on 95.9 WATD.

Now, back to the car doctor.

And welcome back to the car doctor program.

Our phone number is 7818374900.

If you'd like to talk to Jesse and I about, I don't know, your favorite apple pie recipe, something.

Are you the chef in your house for Thanksgiving?

Me and the wife this year, yeah.

We're going to host, so we have a list of things we're going to do.

So what time should I be there?

Five o'clock.

Help me clean up.

Thanks.

Appreciate that.

I'll save you some leftovers.

I'm leaving the wine home then.

What about at your house?

I think it's just my wife and I.

Ah, nice.

Small turkey, you know.

Yeah, I got a small turkey because I wasn't expecting many guests because we thought that there was other plans going on, but then it turns out everyone's coming, so now my turkey is too small.

So I don't know what I'm going to do.

I'm not going to buy another turkey.

I'm going to smoke the turkey, which will be a first try, first timer for that.

I don't know, I grabbed a couple racks of ribs.

I feel like that's not normal for Thanksgiving, but everyone likes ribs.

So I'm like, all right, that's my backup plan.

There you go.

Perfect.

And you're a smoker, right?

You enjoy smoking things.

I smoke the meats.

Yeah.

But it's never, I've never smoked a turkey before, but it looks like it's pretty easy there, so.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll knock that out.

I would think.

There's a spatchcock.

That's the method that a lot of the premier smokers do.

That's basically you remove the spine of the turkey before you cook it, and then you kind

of, it kind of lays it more flat and cooks more evenly because the problem is the legs

and wings take longer to cook, like the dark meat, you got to cook it a little longer than

the breast.

And that's why a lot of times you end up with a dry turkey breast because you had to cook

it too long to compensate for getting the dark meat up the temp and then you dry out

the chest.

So spatchcock, take out the spine.

Well, I was watching someone brining a turkey yesterday.

You must brine.

They say it could be just as juicy if you dry brine, which is basically you just salt

it there before, but everything I've seen is like, if you want to guarantee that it's juicy,

you want to brine for at least 24 hours.

And don't be boring.

Don't just do salt water.

Add some orange peels, add some spices, add some herbs, give it some flavor.

Nothing wrong with it.

I don't think he's on anywhere anymore, but Alton Brown and he's kind of a scientist

chef and he talks about how things work together and when did this car program go into food?

But anyway, and he actually brines in like, you know, those big igloo cooler things you

see in the back of like a utility truck so they can keep water cold.

He brines in one of those.

So he takes his frozen turkey, sticks it in there with the salt and spices and all that

stuff, pushes something on top of it to squish it down, puts a thermometer in there.

So he watches the temperature so it doesn't get above 40 degrees.

And then if it does get above 40 degrees, like it's completely thawing out and you

don't want bacteria to grow, you know, he throws an ice on top of it to bring the

temperature back down.

So, you know, when he brines for like 24 hours.

So I was like, huh, that's a novel idea.

Yeah, you definitely want to brine at least overnight for a turkey anyways, but at least

24 hours would be ideal.

Yeah, I think where it was a frozen turkey, it was brining and thawing for like 48 hours

or something.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, you definitely want to throw that baby out.

Yeah, so anyway, that's all the turkey talk for today I guess.

Unless somebody wants to call in, talk about turkeys, I don't know, 718374900.

Don't eat too much because the trip to fan kicks in and puts you to sleep while you're

driving home from grandma's house.

Somebody wrote to me and they want to buy an old Dodge truck and they said they're thinking

about it and they're thinking about buying it as an investment.

And I don't think buying a car as an investment is a great idea.

I think you should buy it because it's fun.

This person is looking for a 1960s Dodge power wagon.

They have typically lost some money over the years.

Not again.

Buy it.

Enjoy it.

Buy it.

Drive it.

Enjoy it.

Yesterday I went to a classic car lot that also had a car show going on.

So I went for the car show.

Then I went inside the classic car place where they had 100 and something cars jam bumper

to bumper.

And I think the cheapest car on the indoor lot was about 60,000 and then somewhere in

the way over six figure category.

Can a car be a good investment?

Yes.

Buy it.

Enjoy it.

Don't buy it.

Save it.

Let's talk to Mike in Bridgewater.

Mike?

Hello?

Or not?

Hi, John.

There you are.

Good morning, John.

John, question about the type of car you want to drive.

How long in the thorough turkey?

Okay.

If I told you I don't eat turkey, would that be offensive?

I hope not.

No, a lot of people don't like turkey.

Some people consider it a tasteless meat.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, I was going to say I happen to like turkey, but not everybody does.

That's fine.

Yeah.

Not everybody eats meat.

I tried a faux turkey.

Turkey something.

It was awful, but yeah.

So, but again.

Yeah.

So, turkey is one of those that yeah, it's an acquired taste.

It's not something that has to grow on you.

Yeah.

I'll pass on that.

But back to your question.

What was your question?

Okay.

So, try a pressure monitor icon is on the dashboard.

Yep.

And it's, as you had said before, it'll sometimes flash go off.

And eventually you get it all the time because the computer figured out you're not doing

anything.

So that's when you get out the click and clack black.

Yeah.

From and put it on the desk so you don't have to see the icon question.

If they put a scan tool on that, are they able to actually go and say it's this tire

because on my, on my display, it'll show you each independent tire pressure.

Is that something that they're able to do?

Or just give a general code that might know it might not be a scan tool, but it might

be a TPS, TPMS tool, and they can go to each individual sensor and see whether it's

transmitting data.

Okay.

So they can, and they can look and usually what happens is.

TPMS doesn't really work at lower speeds, so it like 15 miles an hour doesn't really

work.

And then the little battery that's inside the monitors that you can't change.

As they start to age, you might, you might air up your tires, light goes out.

It's fine.

And you go on 150 mile trip.

Now it's working all the time.

And all of a sudden the battery goes out and the TPMS light comes on and it's on steady

or, and it's not telling you one particular tire is bad or another.

It's just, it can't read the signals anymore because the signals are too weak to read so

it flips the, flips the sensor on.

Now if it's a indirect style that uses the ABS brake system, which some of them do and

they just measure tire rotation, those are a little bit different.

And those can act, those can blink and flash, but it doesn't tell you which individual tire.

Where yours tells you which tire it is, that's the radio transmitter kind.

And they run on a couple different frequencies.

And yeah, somebody with a, somebody with a scan tool, you can read into it and see what's

going on.

But the other, but also the, the TPMS tool they use to read, you know, when you rotate

your tires they have to tell, you have to tell the car, well now the left front is the

left rear.

So it, you know, you tell it and the car figures it out.

So a scan tool can, a scan tool can tell you what's going on.

I can hook up a scan tool to my car and know that, you know, the left front tire is reading

this pressure and the right rear tire is reading this pressure.

And I can kind of figure out that, well, if I'm driving it and all of a sudden I see

one drop out, well I know that sensor is bad.

So kind of.

Okay.

Yeah.

So in, in my case.

Or put tape over it.

Yeah.

Well, the, one of the black electrical tape that was the solution.

Hard to collect.

Yeah.

So if at this point all I'm seeing is dashes.

So does that mean all four of them out or does that mean the ones out and it's just telling

you, hey, you got to look at this and so all four are out?

Usually when, usually when you have dashes right across it's just saying the system's

disabled.

So it's not.

Okay.

And it could be, it could be that two out of three are working, three out of five, you

know, three out of four are working or none are working, but usually when you see just

dashes it means it's, it's just saying the, the, the, the information's improbable and

it doesn't make sense.

Okay.

We're getting, getting close here.

So I just wanted to ask you about that, but I appreciate it and I just wanted to wish

you and yours a happy tea day.

Same, same, same to you and you know, whether you like Turkey or not, it's fine.

Still happy things.

Eat, have, have pie, have pie instead.

Have pie and stuffing on the side.

There you go.

Yeah.

All right.

Bye John.

Thank you.

All right.

Take care Mike.

Yeah.

Bye bye.

Let me put you on the spot for one second John and I don't know if you have an answer

because I don't have an answer.

I did get a caller that was asking if you know when during the week the car doctor repeats

on WATD.

I don't know if you ever got to the bottom of that.

I never did.

Hmm.

I want to say it's Monday night, but I don't know.

Hmm.

I just checked on Monday log because I had also suspected it was Monday night, but I didn't

see it on there.

But it might be.

Rob told me once and I forgot.

So.

Perhaps we ask him, not on the air.

Yeah.

But the other thing is if people want to listen to the program, if they find something they

want to listen to, you can always go to, you know, go to any podcast site and put in

car doctor radio or something like that and you'll find me or you can go to johnapol.podbean.com.

That's the regular Podbean site and you can find me there, but you can find me on iTunes

and Spotify and that's probably the best Amazon Amazon and yeah, that way they can just listen

anytime they want to listen to the car doctor.

Not that we wouldn't recommend just listening to WATD at all times so we can finally get

one of those awards, but that's right.

That's right.

Yeah.

You're absolutely right.

Yeah.

Hey, that music means we need to go.

Jesse, I'll be over to help you clean up around five on Thanksgiving.

Appreciate it.

Yep.

And for our listener family out there, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving and remember,

never, ever drink a drive or do anything else that impairs your driving.

And until next week, make sure you wear your seatbelt, drive safely, be good to your car

and if you do 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.

Talking tires with Nokian's Wes Boling and a review of the Blue Tiger Storm Plus

About this episode

Porsche 959

all-weather tires

all-season tires

Nokian

winter tire

three-peak mountain snowflake

three-season tire

all-wheel drive

Ford Explorer

momentum

front-wheel drive

braking

stability

fish tailing

tire rotation

alignment

tire wear

safety

Sullivan Tire

30 seconds of tread

tread wear indicator

date codes

tire pressure

maintenance

tire inspection

run-flat tires

EV tires

Electric Fit

Chevrolet Corvette

silicon spray

Toyota Camry

Dodge Power

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