The Secret to Making Reliable Cars: One Automaker Gives Us a Look Behind the Scenes

Hello, and welcome to the Truth About Cars podcast.

This week, we're talking with Mazda about how the brand works to keep its vehicles running

for a long time.

We're also talking headlight bulbs in the first-round in NASCAR's playoffs.

John Lovaret from Mazda swings by to discuss reliability in modern cars.

T-TEC contributor Matthew Guy and I discussed headlight bulbs, and we also chat about

the Mazda car at Darlington.

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We are your home for car news, car reviews, opinions, and so much more.

Here on the Truth About Cars podcast, we always talk about the stuff that we

use in our homes, in our cars, and on our cars.

Cleaning products, aftermarket parts, that sort of thing, whether it's a glass

cleaner or a wrench or a replacement part.

And today's topic is actually your replacement part.

We'll be talking with Matthew Guy, T-TEC contributor, or Matthew, how are you?

Pretty good.

How are you?

I'm doing well, doing well.

So we're talking about something pretty simple, headlight bulbs.

Yeah, and dead simple, but also important, you know what I mean?

Because not being able to see where you're going is tantamount to, you know,

being dangerous on the road.

Absolutely.

I know that a lot of cars, brand new cars these days, you know?

I mean, I don't know how we're going to be talking about this in 10 or 15 years,

but so many brand, brand new cars.

It's very difficult to replace the bulb, if at all possible, you know,

without replacing the entire unit of headlight.

So fortunately, that's a conversation for further down the road.

The car I was working on over the weekend was about 10 years old,

just an economy car.

Pretty representative of what a lot of people drive these days in and around

cities for their beaters and things like that.

And it had, I was unexpected, the person who was taking it as they were

backing out of the driveway.

I thought, oh, hang on, now you've got a passenger side bulb out.

And it was just the low beam.

This particular car had separate bulbs for low beam and high beams.

It was just the low beam that was out.

But that's one of the most important ones.

They're all important, but I mean, that one's on all the time.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah. So you'll get, there's a chance you'll get tagged for that

by the, by the constabulary more quickly than for high beam out, for sure.

I've never done that in a long time.

Right. So I just, yeah, so I just turned to e-mail builders

because I mean, they've got options over there for this,

all kinds of different ones.

I mean, as long as your arm.

And for any, you know, of our listeners who are gear heads

who are just starting to, you know, wrench on their own cars

and things of that nature.

Either look it up online, you know, go to Google, type in your

make and model and year and find out the type of headlight bulb

that your car takes.

If the owner's manual is still in your car, then that information

will be in there too.

Because there's three major types.

Two, look the same.

They're almost L shaped.

The part where you plug it into the wiring harness of your car

is bent like a hockey stick.

But then from that, there are two different types of pins

that are inside.

So there's a couple of different types like that.

And then there's one really big old school one

that just has a straight plug on the end.

And it's just like a big circle.

Those aren't as common anymore just because they take up

so much room, but they do exist.

So I just turned to e-mail orders and found, you know,

just ordered them.

They came super quick.

It was 20 bucks for a pack of four.

I mean, and that's going to last forever,

probably for the life of the car at this point.

And there's no reason to be driving around

without a burnt out head like these days.

And super easy to find these things on e-mail orders.

I just, they've got their perfect fit program, right?

So it really makes sure that you're getting the correct

bulbs so that you're not frustrated when you're doing

the install and find out that you've got the wrong one

once you've got things taken apart.

Yeah, that would be frustrating.

And also we're talking about headlight bulbs

that think tail light bulbs are kind of

in the same vein here, right?

They sure are.

A lot of cars, very easy to replace tail light bulbs.

They will be of a different sort, you know,

the base of them would be different

than these headlight bulbs.

And then of course the filament itself

would also be a little bit different, but it's awesome.

You know, it is important that these things

are working on your car.

And once a month or once every two months,

if you think about it, you know,

just get a buddy to step on the brakes

so you can see that both brake lights are working.

You know, turn on your signal lights.

A lot of cars, if one of your turn signals

is out, it'll blink a little bit faster, right?

Let you know that one is burnt out.

So if you see that happening in traffic,

fix that as soon as you can

because these indicators are super important

just for safety and for the flow of traffic.

And this car was about, you know, 10 years old.

The driver's side, I would have had to use

a couple of wrenches in order to get the air box

out of the way, the air cleaner out of the way

so I could reach the bulb, right?

So that I could access it where I needed to replace the bulb.

Passenger side was no problem, it was wide open.

So every car is different like that,

but there's all kinds of tutorials on YouTube.

And I saw someone sent me a meme afterwards.

They're like, hey, you know, it's always great

when your buddy knows how to fix a car.

And then it cuts to a person watching a YouTube tutorial.

And that's me most of the time.

Yeah, yeah, just to circle back real quick

to what you said earlier about police.

I think we all have been pulled over

for a tail light or brake light going out.

I know I have, because I didn't know it was out.

Vehicle I was driving, I don't think either the indicator light

either it didn't have an indicator light

or it didn't indicator light didn't work,

something like that.

Or I just was young and dumb and realized

that I was probably college age,

but definitely had a brake lighter to go out.

Sometimes, you know, your tail light works fine,

your brake lights are out.

So then, you know, you might not get a warning

in that case.

So definitely keep an eye on the tail lights

because headlights, you know, when they're not working,

tail lights, you don't always, unless you like,

you said you have a buddy, check your brakes or something

like that.

Yeah, and then the other thing I was going to say too

on this topic is these can be really easy to fix

on an older car, but you can sometimes run

into some problems.

The last time I replaced bulbs was on an older Ford Fusion

in Maryland in cold weather and parking lot.

Can't recall if it was headlights or tail lights,

but I'm like, it could be done by hand,

but it required some busted knuckles

and it required some pulling of carpet

away from the firewall.

I think it was in the trunk, it was tail lights.

So yeah, that's something to keep in mind too.

These bulbs can often be replaced by hand.

Sometimes you do use these simple tools,

but you might bust some knuckles.

And I would also add, if you can,

either aim your headlights at a garage door

or especially in older vehicles,

take things from cars from the 80s and early 90s

or have a friend look at them to make sure

that you're aiming correctly after you replace them.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's a really good point.

I didn't think about mentioning that

because if they-

I don't think it matters as much on the newer cars.

Not so much, but they're still with the,

especially when you're replacing just the bulb itself,

that can be cockeyed after you put it in there,

you know?

So yeah, aiming them is important.

There are small, oftentimes,

like just Philips that are adjustable

with a Philips head wrench, right?

There's a couple of different on the X and Y axis

that you can do.

And someone showed me ages and ages ago,

just a quick and dirty way of aiming your headlights

is bring your vehicle as close as you can, right?

Just nose it up very gently up to a wall

that's white to like say a garage door, white garage door.

And then you'll be able to,

because it's so close,

you'll be able to see where the center of the beam is.

And then once you back the vehicle away,

however many feet is recommended, I don't remember,

but once you've marked that center,

when the car has been up really close to the garage door,

when you move it back,

however many feet it's supposed to be,

and the light diffuses a little bit and goes off kilter,

you've got that mark then on your garage door

so you can use it to aim your headlights.

That's a great point, Tim,

I never thought about that.

Yeah, and I don't think you mentioned either

if you did and I didn't catch it, that's my fault,

but I would also say be careful

when you change bulbs to not get your greasy fingers.

And this is something that you should know

for your house too.

The oils in your skin can reduce the life of a bulb.

So, I don't know exactly how it happens,

I don't know if it just seeps through the glass or what

and it hurts the filament, I'm not quite sure why,

but I've always been told to be very careful

not to touch the glass of a brand new bulb

or to touch it very minimally.

Sometimes you can't avoid it,

but as you're screwing in and clipping it in

to try and touch the base.

And that's true of your both your house and your car,

because something with the oils in your fingers,

which you can't really do anything about

other than wearing gloves,

the oils in your fingers in your skin can really do some,

basically just shorten the life of the bulb.

Yeah, yeah, and that's a true,

that's absolutely, that's a great warning

because I've heard the same thing.

And I don't know if it's just been repeated so many times,

but there must be something to it.

Yeah, I'm not 100% sure it's true to be honest with you.

I might be one of those things

that we've just been passed down

from generation to generation of do-it-yourselfers,

but I've always tried to be careful anyway.

Yeah, don't grab the headlight there

on the glass part, you go blind,

or something like that, right?

So yeah, but do just hang on to the part

that you're gonna plug into the harness.

And that's just a really good thing to do,

just as an extra bit of security.

Same thing with, I don't know if it's ever true

that putting a car battery on concrete floors

makes it drain faster.

I'd never heard of that one.

Right, so I mean, so I just keep it off the ground

and then it's good to keep it off the ground anyway.

So it doesn't cost anything

to grab onto a headlight bulb by its base, so do that.

Yeah, is there anything else we should talk about

when it comes to light bulbs and safety?

Obviously, don't break the glass, cut yourself,

don't blind yourself by stirring into these lights,

anything else that we're missing here.

And now just don't mix headlight bulbs either.

Like if you've got an LED on one side

and an incandescent on the other,

that'll be very jarring, not just for the driver,

but for the people coming towards you.

So if you are gonna upgrade to an LED

or something like that, do it in pairs and do it right.

Make sure you've got all the correct tools

and things of that nature.

And you'll be good to go and be able to see

where you're going.

Yes, and seeing is very important,

especially at night, obviously.

So with that, I don't see anything else to add, Matthew.

We'll go ahead and wrap the, excuse me, this.

Wow, I was gonna try and I thought for a second.

This stuff we use second here on the truth about cars,

talking about headlight and tail light bulbs.

And Matthew, thank you so much for your time.

Thanks for having me, man.

No problem.

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On today's Truth About Cars podcast, we have John Leverett from Mazda.

He is the Product Strategy Launch Manager.

Did I say that right, John?

Yes, that's right.

Yeah, so what we're talking about today is we're going to get kind of an OEM

perspective on why some vehicles last and some don't.

We're going to kind of go into reliability, maybe a little bit of safety or performance

as necessary for that conversation.

And we're going to talk about what Mazda is doing, as well as what other OEMs might

be doing or not be doing, and how that sort of works.

Maybe talk about planned obsolescence and things like that as well.

So John, let's start by kind of going into what Mazda does or attempts to do in

order to keep its vehicles on the road as long as possible.

Yeah.

Well, there's a lot of things.

It's kind of a wide-ranging answer.

But I think the best way to kind of look at it, at least from our brand, is to look at

our car, the MX-5, our sports car, the MX-5.

Obviously, everyone knows that car.

And it has been ranked many years in a row as one of the most reliable cars in the world.

And what that car does that we obviously try to imbue in every other car, aside from

driving dynamics and things like that, is it's really reliable, and a lot of that is

due to its weight and how light the car is.

And I think that the MX-5 is a really good proof point of if a vehicle is light weight,

then that reduces the amount of stress on all the other components on top of really well

designed engines and platforms.

As you get to larger vehicles and with increasing safety regulation and even electrified powertrains

weight becomes an even more difficult thing to manage.

So then it becomes, okay, we still want a car as light as possible, but then we also

want the engine to be maybe overbuilt so that it's understressed in a heavier car.

So that's kind of the way we, as a brand, we start with lightness and then from

there manage as much as we can and then design an engine that can hopefully be

understressed in whatever application.

So it's interesting when you say lightness because people always think of lightness

as a fuel economy thing or a driving dynamics thing, you know, the lighter

car is typically the fuel economy is better, lighter cars typically the

better handles and the quicker it is. So I hadn't really thought of lightness

being a reliability thing as well. I'd always kind of thought of it more of

just keeping complexity down and that sort of thing. So I really hadn't thought of it that way.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and complexity is a big part of it too. Obviously, the fewer parts you need

to control a vehicle the better for reliability, but even things like maintenance items like brakes,

the lighter a car, the less often you're having to replace the brakes or replace the tires,

you know, the weight of a car really affects those wear items.

Yeah, and it makes sense in that context, because if you're just use brakes, like you said, if you're

using brakes, as an example, I have your cars are where the brakes faster, which makes sense,

but it's one of those things that makes sense, but people don't really think about.

Right, right. Yeah, exactly. Well, and especially, you know, in the current age where we've

obviously the EV market is has exploded and electrified vehicles out there,

their hybrids or whatever have certainly taken off and those vehicles are heavy.

And we don't really think about weight too much. We just think about adding power

to compensate for weight. But that does have a side effect

in terms of usually vehicle reliability and especially the maintenance upkeep

from a customer perspective. Yeah, so as things become more electrified,

what kind of challenges are you seeing as you work on building vehicles, you know, as you

product plan and and work towards the future? What sort of challenges are you seeing beyond

the obvious things such as weight or maybe some unknown things like how long electric motor might

last? Yeah, well, I mean, it's kind of a weird, it's definitely a weird time right now with

all the kind of marketplace dynamics and the political environment where EV incentives

are going to go away and things like that. So trying to balance, you know, or figure out what

the customers want and what is there going to be demand for that's certainly a big challenge.

And then for us in particular, you know, we have the CX90 and CX70 plug-in hybrids.

And I think there's still a challenge in terms of awareness around plug-in hybrids.

I think a lot of customers don't realize the difference between a plug-in and a regular hybrid.

And so for us, a lot of the challenge maybe isn't necessarily about the product itself as much as

it is, you know, customer education, because all of these new electrified power trains,

if you want to call them that, hybrids all the way to EV, are new and different.

So there's a big, the most challenging part is educating the customer or letting them know what

the options are, not necessarily the vehicle itself. Yeah, for sure. And then so let's switch gears

just a little bit. So we all know, or at least those who follow the industry most consume and

then I think a decent amount of consumers, especially those who pay attention to car

commercials, know as well that automakers do a lot of testing for reliability.

You know, we've all heard of the frozen North places in Minnesota and the Nordic countries

and places like that where you tested cold weather. I've been to several proven grounds

in the Michigan area, the Detroit area, as well as in California where it's hot desert conditions

and you get a chance for wide open land there. So you've obviously,

obviously every automaker does this, including Mazda. Can you walk us through your process?

I mean, obviously you're not going to give away corporate secrets, we know that, but

can you walk us through your process and what Mazda is doing? We also know,

just before you answer the question, we also know that not all testing is for reliability.

Some of it is for safety, comfort, convenience to meet government requirements.

So I understand that. But for reliability specifically, what are you kind of looking at?

Yeah, so I mean, I think longevity is a huge piece of it in terms of how,

in the way that can be measured a lot of time is the efficiency or something of an engine

at a constant state. So for instance, when you look at, well really any of our engines,

if you kind of compare our engine lineup with other brands, you'll notice that

the capacity, the size of our engines are a good bit larger than a lot of competitor

engine lineups, even though we're putting out similar power and that's intentional. So

we have a 2.5 liter four cylinder, putting out similar horsepower to a lot of other brands,

two liter four cylinders. And then with our new inline six, it's a 3.3 liter inline six

versus a lot of competitors with an inline six or around three liters. And that's very

intentional because kind of what I was speaking to you earlier, we want the engine to be under

stressed. We could squeeze as much power or much more power out of these engines if we wanted to,

but ultimately what that's going to do is cause more wear on the engine internally

and also reduce its efficiency, especially if you think about

just going on a long road trip or something like that. If your engine is able to kind of

easily maintain vehicle speed at a low RPM, that engine is very under stress and that does

result in better fuel economy. And I've definitely witnessed that myself. I've been pretty impressed

with my own CX 90s fuel economy on trips that like 28, 29 miles per gallon in this three row

vehicle. And I live in the mountains. So I've definitely seen that really play out. So that's

definitely something we look at. And when we're testing vehicles, we don't want

the engine to feel stressed. And that also has, you know, a big effect on you, the driver.

I mean, if you're driving around in a car that always feels like it's struggling or

always having to rev up to maintain speed or increase when you're already, or increase speed

when you're already moving, you know, that just wears you out too. So there's that effect too.

We don't want customers to feel worn out when they're driving one of our vehicles.

Yeah, you don't want anyone to be stressed just because the engine's stressed.

That makes sense. Yeah. So is there anything else you talked a lot about the engine and

make sure it's not stressed? Is there anything else you're looking for

in that reliability testing, whether it's damage from salt, obviously parts of the country,

either use salt on the roads in the winter or or or near salt water, is whether it's salt,

whether it's what dust and gravel can do, whether it's what the sun does, cold weather,

hot weather, is not just durability of like, say, engine parts or brakes or suspension,

but also how long leather can last in a vehicle, how long controls last, how long a dash goes before

it starts to fade or paint starts to fade. So are you guys looking for all those things too as you

do reliability testing? I know it can be really hard because you can do a lot of miles in a

short amount of time. You can you can do that, but you can't speed up the calendar.

Right. Right. Yes. No, I mean, we definitely look at all those things. And I mean, I think,

you know, one of the benefits of being, having been around for a long time is we do have

that data from history. I mean, we know, you know, what how to make our paint to where, you know,

it doesn't lose its shine from being out in the sun, you know, for too long, things like that.

And then we also have our vehicles that are kind of more aligned to different

customer wants. So for that customer who is more, you know, really focused on durability,

maybe because they are more, you know, doing more things outside or going camping or in and

out of the vehicle more where they're rubbing against the seat, we kind of have the CX-50 targeted

for that. And that vehicle does kind of have these more durable interior materials and plastics to

uphold to more, you know, more abuse than maybe your typical compact crossover would.

So, but yes, then with, you know, our other cars, we certainly kind of go through that

process with our interior materials, looking at things, you know, like double rubs, how won't

help, how much you can rub on a fabric or material before it wears, that's certainly all part of the

process. And then even with our cars, when they come over from the ship or come over from Japan on

the ship, you know, a lot of those engines or all of our engines and under the hood of our vehicles

have a special coating that does wear off within the first, you know, 1000 miles. And that

is to protect from that salt water, you know, on the boat, so that there's no premature wear

from any of that salt air while the while the cars are out at sea.

That's pretty cool. I never really thought about looking at it before the cars even,

you know, they're still in the cargo ship. That's pretty interesting.

Yeah.

Is there anything you do to extrapolate things that can't be measured by miles?

So obviously you can put 400,000 miles on a test vehicle within a year or two,

if you just keep driving it, keep driving it, keep driving it, but you might not be able to

extrapolate how paint is going to look or how a leather is going to look. I mean,

obviously you touched on it just a little bit a second ago with some of the stuff, but

there may be some things you just can't, even if you're checking how it is

on the cargo ship at sea. So is there anything you do, whether it's a computer model or

anything that just estimates things that get damaged over time, but it cannot be,

you cannot shorten that timeframe for testing?

Yeah. So we, and I'm a little bit removed from this part of it, but there is,

we do certainly model all of our vehicles to estimate, yeah, the wear patterns or the fail,

the failure points, especially, and that is all handled digitally now. So, you know, we construct

the whole vehicle in these programs and can test them that way to see where potential

failure points are or issues may be. And then there's also, I mean, just general,

you know, industry learning too. I mean, I think maybe, I mean, I'm a car guy and I think you are

too. So I think we all, we all remember the days, probably like from the early 2000s when,

you know, plastic gashes were just cracking left and right. So we learned from,

from those, we didn't remember those for sure. Yeah, we didn't necessarily have,

you know, too many of those, but I think the whole industry learned from that, you know, the

thickness of your plastic matters and the quality. And so there's those learnings too,

even if it happens outside of our brand that we, we certainly don't want to happen to our brand.

So we, you know, adjust accordingly. Yeah, then I'm going to have to switch gears

just a little bit more. So obviously you do internal testing. Every automaker does.

It's pretty much a well-known thing in the industry. Like I said, there's proven grounds

all over the country. I've been to I think all the Detroit threes in the Michigan area. I've been to

Hyundai in California. We know Hyundai is out there. Honda has either Arizona or California,

Nissan has. I believe Arizona, I'm not going to go through all of them because there's,

you know, how many, however many automakers, plus there's testing sites in northern states

like Bemidji, Minnesota is known for cold weather testing. I believe some of the automakers go

across the sea to Sweden, Finland, Norway, stuff like that. But that's the internal testing. There's

also the external side after the vehicle sold. So, and I'm a former dealership employees, I've

got a little bit of knowledge of this, a tiny bit. I worked in service briefly about 20 years

ago, just did it for a year or two. So we, I was definitely aware of what was going on with

warranty. So what are you looking at, both from the dealers, you're looking at warranty work,

especially, but also customer pay jobs. What are they seeing? Obviously recalls, whether it's from

the government or from Mazda itself. So, and obviously recalls are going to be done a lot at

the dealership level. So you might start seeing patterns there. And then of course, what you

hear from your customers, whether it's through surveys, whether it's through if they're a

returning customer and they're trading a Mazda in for a new Mazda, what are they telling

the salespeople? What are they telling their service people? So how much are you hearing,

and not just consumers, but also people like us, maybe T-TAC doesn't do long-term testing. We don't

have the resources for that. But we know that some of the bulk books like car and driver

will have a long-term 40,000 test, 40,000 mile test, excuse me, a place that I used to work

years ago. I don't believe they do it anymore. But Consumer Guide Automotive used to have a

year-long, year-long test for some models. Cars.com I think buys each vehicle,

buys the vehicle and has it for a year. That sort of thing. So how do you incorporate all that

different feedback from journalists, consumers, and your dealer network? I know that's a really

broad-reaching question. Sorry. I probably shouldn't have brought it up into each part.

But yeah, no. Well, no, it's a good question. I mean, part of my job is to make sure that

what our vehicles are and changes that are happening or that are done to them still adhere to what our

brand is. And so I think when it comes to customer feedback or dealer feedback or even media, whatever

it is, I think sometimes if you read all of that feedback, most customers and most of those

outlets are kind of honing down into wanting one type of vehicle, which is great. But that reduces

how unique a brand is to another brand. So one common critique for us, depending on the model,

maybe that has a firmer ride. And so we could easily adjust that ride to be very cushy

and much more comfortable. But then we lose kind of our brand

attribute of this more sporty, connected feeling. And we believe that through that more connected

feeling, you as a driver actually are more relaxed because you know what's happening around you,

how the vehicle is responding. And if we lose that, then that's a differentiator that we no

longer have against competitors. And I think right now, especially we've started to see,

people want not only vehicles, but in all things that people purchase, at least big purchases,

they want something that really has more personality and has something that's more unique

to it. And it's not just your cookie cutter car. So yeah, and all those things, we kind of look

at it through our brand lens of, okay, is that something we can change that

will truly make the car better? Or is that something that we don't want to change? Because

that is a differentiator for us. And ultimately, if a customer has a preference one way or the other,

you know, there are other brands that might serve their particular style if they don't

like what we're offering. But then of course, you know, when it comes to reliability,

or any vehicle issues, especially on those long term long term tests

that you mentioned, I mean, we want to address that immediately. So for us, you know, I keep talking

about the 70 and 90, because those are more, you know, recent vehicle launches. We've already done

a lot of updates to those vehicles to address some of the customer complaints in the media

observations when they've had these cars for longer, kind of updated tuning on transmission.

You know, we've updated just the smoothness of the engine, things like that. And, you know,

done some tuning updates to even the steering to make it a little bit lighter for customers

out there, because it did have a more heavy steering rack at the start. And then even like

CX-50 Hybrid, you know, we've certainly got, you know, we've had that on sale for almost a

year now. And we've already got some updates coming for it to kind of just add some more

feature content that customers noticed and asked for. So we're one of the benefits for us

being a little bit of a smaller company is that we can kind of make these adjustments quicker

than most can in our product cycle. So we definitely pay attention to that feedback.

Yeah. So you're talking about driving dynamics, but what I was asking too,

that's actually a great answer. But I was also trying to ask about particular problems

you might come across as you work as you work through vehicles that are two or three years old,

mechanical issues, maybe even a recall, things that like that you're seeing as a pattern,

like just as an example, and if you aren't allowed to tell me because of corporate restrictions,

I totally get it. But like, just as an example, maybe on whatever model, the rear,

the rear subframe has an issue. And dealers start seeing those that do warranty work,

because I know dealers will track across the network, they'll track warranty work,

or maybe you're seeing an issue with paint, or maybe you're seeing an issue with brakes.

So not so much feedback from media or consumers and how the vehicle drives,

but more so in terms of problematic parts or repairs. Maybe it's not part of your job,

maybe it's a little bit outside your purview. But have you really picked up on that as you

and how does Mazda deal with that when they start seeing a pattern going forward?

Yeah, so it is outside of my job. So I'm not completely familiar with that process other than

I do know that obviously once it reaches a certain sample size, we do take action,

whether it's a recall, a safety recall or otherwise. But in terms of how that data is

collected and at what point it becomes a trigger, I'm not close enough to be able to answer that.

That's a different part of the company. Okay, cool. And then yeah, so you mentioned also you have

some updates coming up. I think you said it was a CX-50 hybrid. And one thing we've noticed

with the industry over the years, and obviously this can only be done for certain things. Obviously

you can't do this type of update to fix, to change braking or suspension or steering,

for the most part, unless there's a little bit of a drive by wire component. But how much are

over the air updates playing into some of the feedback that you do, whether it's

comfort and convenience features, maybe anything that's electronically controlled in an engine that

can be adjusted to the electronic tuning, anything like that. I mean, obviously it's a little more

useful for electrified vehicles, I suppose, when you're talking about motors and that sort of

thing. But how much are over the air updates playing a role? Or is it mostly just like infotainment

and stuff like that? It'd mostly be infotainment. But our first vehicle with true over-the-air

capability will be the 2026 CX-5. So up until that vehicle, which will be

coming on sale next year, we don't really have to, we don't really do over-the-air updates on our

current lineup. Okay. Yeah. And I know, like I said, over-the-air and mechanical,

generally don't mix anything. I suppose maybe you could maybe, and I'm not enough of an

engineer in the tunnel for sure, you could maybe do some ECU stuff or suspension tuning

or maybe in a steer-by-wire or brake-by-wire situation with most cars. Even in today's modern

world, I don't think there's that many models that really use that. I could be wrong. But

I think steer-by-wire is getting a little more common, but I don't think there's a lot of

braking by wire yet. But anyway, that's good to know the over-the-air. So the next question

I have for you, and this is probably a little beyond your purview, but I'm going to

shoot it your way anyway and see what happens. Back in the 50s and 60s, we had what was

called, everyone knows about planned obsolescence, where automakers would say we're going to build

this. And we could probably make it last 10 years, but we're not going to. We're going to make it last

five. So that's been replaced. I think that has kind of gone away from corporate mindsets,

but the more cynical people out there still believe it was a thing. I don't know,

having ever worked for a major company, whether my phone or my car or my TV,

planned obsolescence, or whether the manufacturer has attempted to build something that will last

a long time. So as much as the goal to build a car is going to last forever, or as the goal to,

this car is only going to last five years, there's only a new one, or is it one of the,

or is it kind of in between? How does that work? How's the mindset there?

Yeah, well, I mean, I think, you know, for us, I guess, yes, ideally, the car can, could last forever,

but we also want our customers to come back and buy another car. So, you know,

I mean, I think the balance of it is, yes, we do design a car to last for as long as a car can

last. But that's also one of the reasons people come back and buy a Mazda because they know it

will last. So I think generally, at least in the States, you know, most people are not purchasing

a car, you know, to keep for more than usually, you know, maybe six to eight years. Now, there are

exceptions, maybe, you know, out there, of course, but generally when people say they want a car to

last forever, that's, that's kind of as long as they do end up keeping their car because then

there needs change or they just want something newer or, you know, whatever it is.

Yeah, not everyone wants to keep their car forever. I mean, I had next door neighbors growing up who

did, they wanted to keep their car forever, but some people are going to jump at the nearest

technology, the newest design, some people are going to lease, so they kind of have to make a

choice every three to five years. Like you said, need change too. You know, someone has a

Mazda CX-5 as their daily driver and all of a sudden gets married and has a baby and they're

going to need a back seat. So, yeah, obviously, you know, and these change the other way too,

someone who has a three-wheel crossover, kids are out of the house, I can downsize. So, yeah.

But it is good though for our brand, you know, we, to your planned obsolescence question,

that is certainly not part of our strategy at all because it's good for our brand to have

these older cars on the road. It actually kind of makes me think of Subaru's old commercials where,

you know, they, I can't remember, this was kind of a while ago, but it was something along the lines

of, you know, the average age of a Subaru still on the road is like 20 years or something like that.

And, you know, you could price the same thing for us too. So, it's good for our brand.

And a lot of Japanese brands, Honda and Toyota, they could claim similar numbers,

similar vehicle age. And that's good because customers see these older vehicles still on the road,

still going strong. And that can help create a sale for us now. And then our current lineup,

hopefully it's still on the road in 20 years and that makes us a sale in the future.

Yeah. And I think that, I think that makes sense. I think a lot of automakers

got away from the planned obsolescence model, or at least say they did, for the same reason.

At some point, it was like, well, you know, we can sell more cars than people think our vehicles

are going to last longer. So, you know, I think your point is as well taken.

And without being in a corporate boardroom, none of us can really know the true answer.

I mean, you'll be closer to it than I am, obviously. But I wanted to at least ask,

because I always find that fascinating. And then there's that whole like,

you know, there are some people who are like, oh, yeah, well, they were planned obsolescence,

but now they're not. And there's others, other people will be like, well, you're so naive, they

still are. You know, there's, there's people who are really cynical out there and people who like

also go the other way and just really trusting. And I'm not a cynic, but my job requires me to

be a skeptic. So I'm always kind of like, what's the real truth, right? Without going to work

for Ford in the C-suite or Mazda or Chevy or whoever, it's hard for me to really know.

So I want to at least pick your brain on that. So I appreciate the answer there.

We're getting a little bit tight on time. Is there anything else that we haven't really

touched upon that you kind of wanted to, to chat about?

Well, I think, I think, I think another kind of interesting or important point to make too is

like, you know, despite whether the car can last a very long time, you also want the customer

to keep the car a very long time. You don't, you don't want to become miserable,

but yet have this car that just won't die. You want a car that won't die that you

enjoy and that you still want to go back to. So, and I think honestly, a lot of what can play into

that is, is the styling of a car. And that's certainly one of our focuses. I think everyone's

pretty well aware, at least in the car world, you know, that, that we really have a focus on

design and are trying to carry this consistent design language through each generation of our

vehicle. But I think when customers are out there looking for a reliable car, I think

another important thing to look at is, well, am I going to continue to enjoy this car or continue

even like looking at it in five, 10 years, whatever it is. And I think there's some,

yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah. And I think there's some things to kind of look out for

in terms of, I think, you know, if you're looking for, there are lots of new cars out

there, but are there a lot of, you know, beautiful or good looking vehicles out there?

I don't know, maybe not. It's all subjective. But I think generally you can fall into the trap

of buying a car that just looks new because it looks cool, but it doesn't necessarily look good.

And then in five years, you have a vehicle that already looks outdated. And then that can

spur you to want to spend money to replace your car rather than fold onto it.

So, you know, part of our strategy is making these vehicles that are beautiful,

that customers want to keep by kind of reducing how much additive design language we put into the car,

reducing how much overly trendy, you know, flourish as we do, so that these cars are

just more sleek and more able to kind of reflect what's around them. So, I think that that's

a big part too of doesn't play necessarily into reliability or durability, but it does play

into you wanting to keep that car that's reliable. So, anyways, I just think that's an interesting

point too. Yeah, I think with Mazda specifically, I think, well, a lot of makers are trying to,

maybe not all, but most are trying to make cars that look good and look good timelessly. Obviously,

you can't predict the future and a lot of cars that look good now are not going to look good

in five years. I mean, I grew up in the 80s and 90s and a lot of cars that were on bedroom

wall posters back then look kind of odd now and for a variety of reasons. Taste change,

styling has to change should adjust to coefficient of drag and emissions and all sort of things,

but obviously the Miata has kind of a classic shape, you know, I saw, I think it's the third

generation, the NC on the road, not too long ago, a few weeks ago and it was kept in good

shape and looked really good, you know, so the Mazda Miata has always kind of kept that

timeless shape. I know other sports cars have the Corvette up until C8, which obviously was a huge

radical change, but even the C8 still looks good, or at least it does for now. So it's a

long way of saying that design can be something that's timeless too. And we can almost do another

whole half hour on just design as well. And like you said, it is subjective and it also

does change a lot. So, you know, I went into this with the thinking when you said test of

time and our pre show prep, I was thinking all more like reliability and keeping it running,

but yet design really does matter as well as anything else. So, yeah, John, is there anything else

we have like two minutes left? Is there anything else you wanted to go over or is that kind of

just cover it for today? No, I mean, I think I think I am happy. Yeah, I'm good.

Yeah, so even with John, let me try this again. John Leverett, is that correct?

That's right. All right, John Leverett, the product launch manager or product strategy

manager, I'm sorry, I blank on your title there. Yeah, you can product strategy manager or launch

strategy manager, both work. Perfect. For Mazda, so Mazda North America. John,

thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it here in the Truth About Cars podcast.

Yeah, thanks, Tim. Good talk to you.

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Dealer Services LLC in eBay subsidiary. Here on Truth About Cars podcast, we are always

talking NASCAR, usually with TTAC contributor Matthew Guy. Matthew, how are you doing today?

Doing pretty good, man, after watching the Southern 500, one of the crime jewels over

the weekend. And also the first playoff race, which is what we're talking about is

we are in the playoffs. Now we're in the thick of it. And we had talked about last week, I believe

it was last week. The holiday has me a little thrown off, but we talked about Shane van Gisburg

and how he's going to do in this first round of playoffs, but he didn't do so while the Southern

500. We also know now that Chase Briscoe was the winner. So in a tight race, just ahead of

Tyler Redick and Eric Jones, who's not a playoff driver. So you've got, which is always

kind of crazy to me that we have non-playoff drivers in the playoffs, but it makes sense because you

don't want to just watch 10 cars go around. You want to watch 33 or 40, whatever the number is.

But anyway, yes, we have Chase Briscoe winning and we can kind of go big picture as well as

talk of the race itself here as we get the playoffs going. Matthew, take your pick.

Yeah. I mean, with Chase Briscoe, one of the things we talked about last week is how

Darlington is such a tricky, tricky place to get around and that it would take someone who

is either very experienced or has had success at this track before to get it done. And I mean,

Chase Briscoe now is one of the 19 car is one of the few who's gone back to back at this track,

right? I mean, such as the, such as the competitiveness and the difficulty of getting

around this place. So it's great to see someone there who has had success there in the past,

has found success there again. And I think that's Darlington, right? I mean, you're either going

to have someone who's been there a lot or someone who's new and has found success for whatever

reason. So we end up with, yeah, so we end up with in terms of the, in terms of the playoff

standings, Briscoe there at the top right now, we've actually got four of the five are Toyotas,

because Denny Hamlin and Tyler Redick and Bubba Wallace, both of those from the same team,

are in the top five with Kyle Larson right there in the middle. So it was a good start to

the playoffs. I mean, not so much a good start to the race because we had why the lap one

crash, everyone went into a green flag and then coming down, I think it was turned three

and then caution almost right away for a whole schmazzle. And that really impacted a few chase

drivers. You had Alex Bowman who just snuck into the playoffs and now sits 19 points below the cut

offline because of that. And also he had a really bad pit stop as well. And that again,

that goes to show about how NASCAR is such a team sport. It wasn't any fault from what I could

see of the pit crew members, it was an equipment failure with the gun for one of the tire changers.

And so he spent 40 seconds, the 48 car on pit road and that just soured his day. He did get a couple

of laps. Yeah, that'll do it, right? I mean, 40 seconds on pit road, even, you know, 30 years ago

was a long time. And now it's a lifetime to spend on pit road. So they had some bad luck

there and they'll have to claw their way back out of that. So and, you know, this one is not the throwback

scheme. You know, they do that for some other cars or for some other races and they have to throw

back schemes on the cars. So, you know, there are some good looking hot rods out there, but it

wasn't a lot of classic, classic schemes like there is sometimes at Darlington.

Yeah, yeah. And so this last, excuse me, not last first lap crash must have been a theme Sunday,

because there was also that also happened in the IndyCar race as well. So and we've seen it happen

a lot in NASCAR this season, guys get a little bit antsy as they fire off for the green flag

and then we have an issue. So yeah, definitely interesting start of the playoff. We're already

rolling towards the next race in the playoff series, which is, I believe Madison, Illinois,

which is outside St. Louis. Yes, that's correct. That is the worldwide technology raceway.

I know we talked about it last week. I always find it funny because I live in the same state,

but it's like a different state. That part of Illinois is, that's Missouri. So that's St.

Louis suburbs, even though it's, you know, to a Chicago one that might as well be a different

state, even though it's the same one, but that's the part of the state you don't talk about, right?

We talk about it. We just consider it to be a different state. So anyway, or that'd be a fun

race. You know, that's the race where they always have, I don't know if they do it in the

playoffs, but I've seen previous races where they blow the fireworks off as the race is starting.

I think they've actually had delays and yellow flags because debris fell in the course. I

believe that was Madison last year. I can't recall if it was a playoff race or regular

season, but I didn't know that. That's wild. I remember, I vaguely, I could be wrong. This is

like one of those things where just have a kind of vague memory of it. And also it was,

it may have been Indy car or not mass car to be possible to be truthful. I'd have to go back

and look it up, but there was definitely a race at that track in the last couple of years,

a major race where there were fireworks at the start. And I think there was a slight delay

because the fireworks blew the wind blew some debris on the track. I can't recall exactly.

Or maybe there was no delay, but there were fireworks to start. I don't know if they

pay attention. I'll pay more attention this Sunday and not just go back to my shaky memory banks.

But yeah, this would be a fun race. I believe it's a mile or mile and a half, another intermediate

track. I don't remember the length of the track off top of my head, but then the race I'm really

looking forward to is the following week on Saturday, which we'll have a podcast episode

between the preview, of course. I don't want to talk about it too much right now,

but the Bristol Motor Speedway, because that'll be short track racing. So

we've always talked about on the podcast here about how much short track racing can just be

really fun entertaining in a battle of attrition, as much as it is speed, as much as it is,

as much as it is, that's a tough one to say, about passing or pit strategy. You know,

it's sometimes just attrition at Bristol. So looking forward to that, we only have

three races and one's already in the books before we cut down on 12 drivers.

So, and we talked again about Shane Van Gisbergen. Wow, a little tongue-tack today.

Shane Van Gisbergen last week, and he didn't do so well at Darlington. So he's going to have

a fight in his hands. If he wins either one of these races, he moves on. Otherwise,

he's going to need some serious points because we really do, at least I do,

and I think you do too, Matthew. I want to see him at the Roval, which is the last

road course of the playoffs and last of the season. That's in the next round.

It's in the round of 12. So he has to get there first, and that is Sunday, October 5th. So,

you know, he's got to get through two more races in this round to move on to the next. So

I'm looking forward to, it'll be a little bit, I'm going to wear the remote out because it is

the first weekend of football, but be watching the race on Sunday for sure. And then, you know,

that Saturday the 13th, that's going to be a big one as well. So kind of looking forward to that.

Matthew, do you have any thoughts of either of these two races coming up?

Yeah, you're right about SVG. I mean, he finished 32nd, and that really hammered his

point standing. He's just three points above the cut off line right now, which

I thought that he would be in a really good shape because he went into it in fourth, I

believe, in the playoff picture. So that 88 car, like you said, that 88 team is going to have to

claw back some points that way. And in terms of speed, you know, I mean, his fastest lap,

just looking at the stats here, was a 30.78, which was definitely well off the pace

from a lot of like-minded competitors up to a second off, which is a lifetime in NASCAR,

like Tata Redick, for example. Speaking of fastest lap, this was something that I noted.

Josh Berry in the 21, of course, it finished dead last just because of the incident.

He had the fastest lap. And I was reading that NASCAR, no one's really beaten down the doors to

change this. But NASCAR is considering offering the eligibility standings because you do get a

point, right? Drive for the fastest lap. But again, the last place car has earned the bonus.

And that might change a little bit, they're saying, for 2026. This is a conversation they

plan to have in the off season, according to one of the suits, one of the NASCAR executives,

they were talking on a podcast the other day. And they said, nothing's changing over the

next nine races. That's not, you know, that's not a thing. But it is something they plan to

look at moving forward into 2026. So I get why they want to do that, right? The last place

driver earning an extra point for being the fastest lap, but it is the fastest lap,

however you manage to get there, wherever you manage to end up. And I think there's an argument

for keeping it to a certain point. Because sometimes people are there just to watch a

certain driver, right? I mean, if someone like, if someone like Larson or someone like,

you know, Chase Elliott gets tangled up in a wreck early in the race,

they're more likely than not to come back out, whether they're double digit or triple digit laps

down to make up a few points and maybe get that fastest lap. And, or if they have, you know,

had the fastest lap already. So I can see why they would want to award that point. And I think

it's a really good one to award. I also, you know, I've had this conversation a million

times as well, about different bonus points and things of that nature. So,

right? I mean, he reckoned, Josh Berry, I mean, wrecked there in the second or third turn

of the race. He went to, went to the garage. I mean, he was in there for a long time,

but he set the fastest lap after he returned to the track, right? So despite only finishing like

240 of the, however many laps it is, 360, I think, and finishing dead last, he did set the

fastest lap after he came back after repairs. So it's interesting. I'm interested, very interested

to see what they're going to do. Some people would think this is a minor rule change, but

it might have some trickle down effects if they do change it, that you got to be 30th or

better or you got to be in the top 20 in order to get the point. It might

change how some drivers and some teams strategize after making a repair.

Yeah. And I can see a fairness aspect too. If your car is, if you have the fastest lap of the race,

but then you're taken out in an incident later, especially when it's not your fault,

or you have a mechanical failure that's no one's fault, bad luck, like your tire goes down or

something. I can see maybe, especially again, if it's a wreck, it's not your fault. If you're

just caught up in something, I can see maybe getting in special consideration for that. It's

tricky though, because sometimes the guy that sets the fastest lap isn't really in contention. And not

typically normally they are, and for obvious reasons, if you're in the, how do I say this,

if you're having the fastest lap of the race, you're probably in contention, but sometimes

you're not. Sometimes a guy has a really fast lap, but he's also stuck back in traffic,

or he's towards the back of the pack, and maybe whatever is clean air in front of him or

whatever. So I don't know. You don't want to give too much to a driver who's not

competitive, but if a guy has the fastest lap, it's got to be worth something, right?

Yep, I agreed, right? And especially at a place like Darminton, there's such an

unforgiving track, right? I mean, all the way back, you know, back into when I started watching it in

the 80s and 90s, you know, you think about, you think about all of the different million

dollar bonuses that have been given out there, just because this is one of the crown jewels,

right? So it is an extremely tough track. And if you do manage to crack off a fast lap

there, you should, the fastest lap there, you should get something for it,

should get a point for it, or, you know, maybe it'll be a monetary award, you know,

like when they used to have the contingency sponsors on the front of their cars back

in the day as well. Yeah, maybe sort of a few bucks away and not affect the

playoff standings too much or anything. Yeah, right. So anyways, I'm looking forward to

seeing what that's going to be. A lot of people will think that's a minor change,

but I'm interested to see how those minor changes they tend to stack up

and affect strategy for some teams. Yeah, yeah. And so again, I think we can go ahead and wrap

the segment in just a minute here. If you, unless you have anything else you want to add, but I think

we, we are in a situation where playoffs have begun and we have one race down. So we know that

Briscoe is moving on. You get a wing and move on. That's kind of how it works. So

yeah. And so now the question is how is, how are things going to go

on the seventh, Sunday the seventh in the St. Louis area, just outside St. Louis on the Illinois side

of the line. And then like I said, the race that we're looking forward to is not a Sunday,

it's a Saturday the 13th at 630 Central Time, 730 Eastern. That is the best pro shops,

night races, the official sponsor title and that's that for a similar speedway. So

looking forward to that. And I think we'll be kind of keeping an eye as we talked about last week

as well on Shane van Gisburgen as well as the other playoff contenders. And like you said,

in this particular race of Darlington, I think some guys who are shot at winning the

championship have had some bad luck. So we'll see if that changes going forward.

Absolutely. If SVG can make it through this first round, I think he'll make it to the

round of eight because I expect him to do very well at the Royalville.

Yeah, I do too. Right? There's that at the third race of round of 12. So looking forward to next

week as well, man. Yeah, yeah. And looking forward to it. And it's bittersweet. We'll go

ahead and end the segment in just a moment, but it is bittersweet. Now the playoffs have

started that we have a long way to go. We still have two full months of racing. We're

not we're not ending the season until November. So, you know, it's it's just it's early November

when the season ends on November 2nd is the championship race in Phoenix. So we have

in today's today's record is early September. So literally just about two months to go. So

it's not like the season's over, but you can start seeing the end from here. So it's always

a little bit bittersweet in any sport. When you start playoffs and you start the postseason

and you start seeing the end of the season in the distance. Now it's not just NASCAR. A hockey

and basketball are also two month long playoff situations. So baseball is almost a full month

now. So in football for those who like American football, the playoffs begin in around Christmas

time or depends on the year. Some years until January. Most years actually, I think early

January and you have a full month there. So it's it's one of those things where it

doesn't happen quickly, but you do start kind of getting a little bit of a bittersweet feeling that

before you know it'll be off season and we'll be having off season chats on this podcast and

looking forward to 2026. But we'll get there eventually. But right now we'll kind of be

looking forward to what's going to happen in the St. Louis area on Sunday and then back

to Bristol, one of the most famous tracks in motorsports the following Saturday. So

Matthew, thank you for your time. If anything else you want to add, go ahead and let me know.

No, man, this is great. I always enjoy talking about NASCAR and looking forward to the next one.

Me too. Me too. And yeah, like I said, we kind of burn in the remote a little bit on Sunday,

but definitely paying attention to what's going on at the worldwide technology raceway in 300 mile,

240 lap 300 mile race in the second playoff race. So with that, we'll go ahead and end our

NASCAR segment here on the Truth About Cars podcast. Thank you, Matthew.

Thank you. That's all for this week's Truth About Cars podcast. I am Tim Healy,

the managing editor, and you can find us wherever you're podcasts. You can also find us

online at ttac.com or the truth about cars all spelled out.com. We thank John Leverett and

Matthew Guy for their time and Matt Poskey for editing. Most of all, we thank you for listening.

We'll see you next time.

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