These Are The Best Cars For Your Money

Hello, and welcome to the Truth about Cars podcast. I am Tim Healy, the managing editor,

and this week we're chatting about the best cars for your money. We do so with Alex Quanten

from US News and World Report. I also chat about Waterless Car Wash with T-Tac contributor

Matthew Guy. Mr. Guy and I then talked about NASCAR gaining more power. The first, a word

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eBay, things people love. Here on today's Truth about Cars podcast we're talking with

Alex Quanten, the managing editor for Autos at US News and World Report. Alex, how are

you today? I'm good, Tim. How are you? I'm well. What we're talking to you about today,

the reason why we're having you on, is best cars for the money. US News best cars for

the money. Go ahead and walk us through that and start with your methodology and what cars

you picked and we'll go from there. Sure. Every year, US News issues the best car for

the money awards in January, sometimes early February. The purpose is highlighting the

vehicles that provide excellent long-term value and a top notch ownership experience.

It has to be something that's affordable, stays affordable and gives you a good experience.

If it's just cheap, that's not really a great deal. If it's cheap but breaks down over time,

it's not a good deal. If it's cheap and stays that way but you hate it, we don't want to

recommend a car like that. Absolutely. We don't want to do that.

You want people to have a good experience. I think sometimes people are tempted by really

cheap cars that are a little too cheap and they end up regretting those purchases. We

also recognize that there are some shifts in the market and also that affordability is top

of mind right now. This year, we expanded our categories to include more sizes and also more

differentiation of hybrids. In the past, we had best hybrid SUV and best hybrid car. That was

all the hybrids ranked. There are a lot more hybrid SUVs now than there were six or seven years

ago. There are so many that we have subcompact, compact and mid-sized classes. This year,

with the Subaru Crosstrek hybrid coming out, there are really three proper subcompact hybrid

SUVs and they're all pretty popular. We wanted to better reflect the range of choices. You can

recommend, oh, this is the cheapest hybrid and it'll cost you less than $30,000, but it might not

work for everybody. We wanted to give people a starting point of, these are affordable vehicles

that are going to stay affordable and you'll have a good time with them. We also brought back sports

cars this year after almost a 10-year absence because we do recognize that some people want to

spend their money on having a farm. I know it's hard to imagine these days, but some people are

looking for cheap speed and so we recognize them too. As for the winners, the big brand winner

this year is Kia. Yeah, I see that going through the list here. Yeah, they won seven awards, Toyota

13, Nissan Ford, Honda and Hyundai all won two each and Chevy and Mazda both won a single award.

The thing about Kia, and I think we talked about this the last time I was on the podcast, is

they have invested a ton in making their cars more stylish, making their cars more sophisticated,

in electrification. You'll notice on this list that we have gas-powered Kia's, hybrid Kia's,

plug-in hybrid Kia's and an electric Kia, but despite all that investment, and I think anyone

who looks at a Kia now, if you were time warping from 2008 to now and you looked at annoying,

that's a Kia, you'd be surprised, but they still haven't forgotten the core brand value of like

pile the car high with features, sell it for a rock bottom price, cost everything out,

and they have delivered really consistently good products for buyers on a budget, and a lot of

other automakers are kind of seemingly less interested in people on a budget, so I do think

those wins are deserved. Yes, it seems like Kia has kind of, like you said, figured out,

I'm trying to figure out if this is the correct phrasing or not, but kind of like figured out a

niche in the market almost, like you said, they kind of, they understand that there are people

who need or want to spend less money, but also don't want to be a poundy box, and it seems like Kia

and to another extent, I think Hyundai is not quite the same level because Hyundai is a little bit,

some in some areas a little more premium, but I think Hyundai has also gone that route as well.

Yeah, and I think Nissan is also having a moment where they are attempting to position themselves

more as a, you know, as at least catering to value oriented customers. They obviously have a very

diverse lineup, and you know, Nissan won two of these awards for best mid-sized two-row SUV and

best subcompact SUV for the money, but they also had two runners up. The Frontier is the

runner-up for a best mid-sized truck for the money. That's kind of crazy, that's not on its way out.

I mean, it's, you know, at least the generation anyway. It's generation, I mean, it was renewed a

couple of years ago, you know, there's still some ties to that old Frontier. Yeah, I shouldn't say

it's a dead model, but I believe there's a new one coming soon, but you know, like it is a pretty

good truck for the money. It offers a lot of configurations that you can't get from the domestic

trucks anymore, the mid-sized trucks, and you know, they, I think, are trying to speak to

value oriented customers. You know, one vehicle that didn't make our list, but did, you know,

did okay in our, in our scoring was the new Sentra, which obviously is a very affordable vehicle.

You know, did it out, did it out to the K4? No, but like, you know, there's clearly some

emphasis at Nissan on, hey, you know, people are really concerned about affordability. And

you know, I want to digress to affordability for like just two seconds.

Absolutely, take all the time you want. I mean, you know, the average new car transaction price

tops 50k a few months ago. Yeah, that's still a little bit shocking.

That is really shocking to me. I mean, I remember going $50,000, but you know, a really nice Mercedes

E-Class and not anymore. But you know, the prices have softened a little bit in Q4, but you know,

most analysts, you know, Cox Automotive said a few months ago, they expected MSRPs to rise like

four to 8% in 2026. You know, a lot of automakers sort of postpone the tariff pain as long as they

could, but you know, it's 2076 now, you know, like those, those tariffs and those new pricing

realities have been in place for quite a while. I don't think they can really do that much to

completely eliminate them, but you're seeing higher destination fees and slightly higher prices and

even writing some of these reviews. So I drove the Kia Niro a few weeks ago. And in the time between

when I wrote the review and when the, when I edited it, or when we edited it as a team,

you know, there was like a tiny little price increase on the Niro. I didn't ask Kia why it

went up like 300 bucks, but it's only $300, but it's still a little, you know? And I also see that

people are increasingly looking to sort of seven year loans, you know, seven year loans are like

20% of loans now. That's a long time. And anything we can do to recommend things from people that

are going to like not break the bank and have crazy ass car payments and like, you know,

you don't have, you shouldn't have to take out a seven year loan. I don't recommend it if you

can avoid it. If you get 0%, great. But like, you know, most people are just looking to get

transportation. I think, you know, you and I are enthusiasts and probably most of the T-TAC

listeners are enthusiasts, but most people they want to get from A to B comfortably and safely.

And they just feel stretched. Yeah, I want to go back to Nissan for a second. You actually kind of

teed me up for my next question. So I noticed the two Nissan winners were the Nissan Kicks,

which is much improved in second generation. In fact, I'm testing one right now. And it's the

third or fourth one that I've tested, plus the vehicles I drove on the launch. And the Kicks is

very good. And then I actually gave, I did a top and I didn't really pick a particular, no,

I think it was top five or top three, something like that. And it was top five cars I drove in

2025. And I gave the Murano a nod, even though the Nissan Murano, again, it's thoroughly redesigned,

but a lot of it is both the Kicks and the Murano, if you ask Nissan people, they will tell you

that they are more similar underneath to the previous generations than you would think. Most

of the changes are styling and interior, things you can see and touch. But mechanically, they're

not that different. And so those are two huge improvements for vehicles that, you know,

ought to go full redesign, but still stay 80% the same underneath, give or take. I'm kind of,

that number is ballparking inside. Yeah, I don't think anyone's going to quote you on that.

Yeah, but my point is where my question is, I guess my question is how well the Nissan really

do that. They charmed me with the new Murano and they put two of these redesigned vehicles on

your list. I have to say that the way to keep costs down is to reuse parts. I think many

enthusiasts don't understand that what gets built is what can be afforded to be built and

what will sell. And, you know, what they have done is on both of these models are a lot more

stylish than they used to be. They have much nicer. Murano, especially. Yeah, the Murano,

especially. I mean, you look at it and it almost looks a little bit premium, especially in some

of those metallic colors and colorful interiors. And, you know, Nissan has done a really good job

in making their designs attractive. And I feel like, you know, what the customer can look and

see and feel is really important. And most of them care a lot more about that plus fuel economy,

plus practicality than any other consideration. So you can do new and innovative things, but the

customer doesn't really appreciate them. It's sort of lost on them. You know, I think in both cases

with the Kicks and the Murano, style goes a long way, but they've materially improved the interiors.

You know, the old Kicks, I really didn't like the interior at all and a really tiny backseat.

The backseat is a little bit tight in the Kicks still, but it's not like before. And I think

that really helps when you're going up against, you know, pretty stiff competitors like the

Hyundai Kona and the Celtos. Now there's a new Celtos coming. So I think they understand like

who their market is and how they want to wow those buyers. And they've done a really good job of just

imbuing those vehicles with traits that customers can really appreciate right as soon as they walk

up to the vehicle. Yeah. And the old Kicks too, I thought the old Kicks was a really good idea,

and I actually liked the exterior styling, but it was, it was not, and no one expects any car

at that price point to be super fun to drive or super refined, but it was underwhelming even for

the price point, whereas a new Kicks, it's, you know, it still needs more power. It still has

some noise and stuff like that, that is not unexpected to that price point. It could be

a little more refined, especially since the top trims do get into the $35,000 range.

But that being said, it looks a lot better. I think the exterior styling is better than the

old one. The old one I like, but the old one was also kind of a bit of a styling risk. I think

this one looks better without being as risky. The interior looks better. Everything is a little

easier to use. You know, it's funny to saw. It's just a better car. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

I saw a bright yellow Kicks not long ago, and they were pushing the bright yellow,

I think it's one of the launch colors. It reminded me of the bright yellow on the Volvo EX30,

and they're similar in size. I was like, hmm, this Kicks looks like a little bit of a discount

EX30 in a way. They're very good vehicles to drive in and conceptually, but it's almost like

you're getting a little bit of that sort of like very modern, premium exterior design for that.

So, yeah. Yeah. And it's a better car. It still shows signs of being in an expensive car,

relatively speaking. And that's some of that's expected, right? You don't expect a ton of power

or a ton of fun and drive stuff in that price point in that segment, but it is a much better

vehicle. Now, I want to shift away from Nissan just for a bit. And I noticed the old stalwarts

are here, the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, but I wanted to actually flip that on its head a bit

and ask you the question I ask anyone who's going over a list of best or worst cars with us,

whether it's for the money, best performance, whatever the topic may be, what stood out as a

surprise that you haven't already covered, especially, or you can go back to it if you want,

but, you know, whether it was a car that did better than you thought it was going to do,

a winner or a finalist that you didn't think would be there, or a car that didn't do as well,

a car that you thought would be on the list and isn't, car, truck, SUV, anything that stood out to

you? Well, I have to say that we were a little surprised by the Volkswagen Atlas Crossport

coming in second for two-row SUV. You know, the Atlas Crossport is probably one of the most overlooked

vehicles on the market because most people are looking for that three-row Atlas. And, you know,

the Atlas Crossport, it looks sort of like a junior grade Audi Q8. It doesn't drive like a Q8,

but it does give you a pretty decent experience for what it is. And I thought it was nice that

we were able to highlight that one because, you know, there are only so many two-row midsize SUVs

and most people looking for an SUV that size, they do want third-row flexibility, but it's sort of

nice that automakers are sort of offering these very capacious and more stylish two-row options.

And so I was happy to see that there. I think many sports car fans will be, will debate us endlessly

that they will say Miata is always the answer and we have GR86. You know, in that case, it was mostly

down to the fact that we factory and cost total cost of ownership and purchase price. And, you know,

there are very cheap Miatas and every Miata is fun to drive. There's no such thing as a bad Miata.

Right. But the cost of the Miata RF, if you want a hard top, is quite a bit more than the entry

level GR86's. And, you know, the cost over time was a little bit higher, which is, you know,

one of the determining factors for all the other categories. So we can't really make an exception.

And we thought the GR86 is ridiculously fun. So we were pretty happy to award that.

You know, I think in terms of things that, you know, I expected to be on the list, which are not,

you know, the Hyundai Sonata is a runner up in mid-sized car, mid-sized hybrid car.

And, you know, I thought that would do a little bit better. And we didn't, you know,

see much of our performance from K5 on this, which, you know, the other key has really stand out. So,

you know, that seemed like a strange thing that K5 didn't rank as well as the others.

I'm trying to think if there's any other, like, genuine surprises.

Not really. You know, the plug-in hybrid thing, we decided to recognize plug-in hybrids

in two different sizes. There are too few plug-in hybrid cars to really have a ranking.

And, you know, if a class only has, like, two vehicles in it, like, let's say,

the compact pickups, it's really only Maverick and Santa Cruz. We're not going to give an award for

one of two. Like, the Maverick is a great vehicle and it ranks number one on our compact pickup list.

But, you know, we kind of need to be judicious about providing people with real, like, more of

an alternative. It's one or the other in that case. And I feel like the alternatives for

the pickup trucks, I was a little surprised that the Frontier got second. And, you know,

just because it is an older design, as you said, but it does have a lot of value going on,

like the value numbers were just there. Yeah, I got that. I got you there. I was going to say

the Volkswagen Atlas Crossport surprised me, but we need to take a break real quick and I'll

touch on that on the other side. Sure. Yeah, sorry, Alex. We're doing a new thing where,

with the guest, we had our ads were too close to the front. So with the guest, we're going to

insert an ad. So I'm just going to kind of leave it here for like a minute and then go back.

I will put it on K5 so I don't feel bad. What's that? I wandered around a little bit on K5.

No, no, it's nothing you did wrong. It's that we are moving our ads. So from now on, every guest

that we have, we're going to try and put a break in the middle at about the 10 or 15 minute mark.

And then we're going to, so what we're talking, this little crosstalk right here,

it'll be edited out. We'll have an ad inserted in its place. The ads, we're not going to hear the

ad right now because it's already, I did the read before and it'll be inserted in post. So I'll

bring you back in. I do want to make sure we don't run out of time. So I'll bring you back in in

just a second here, do a little bit of silence and I'll bring you back in.

And we're back with Alex Quanton from US News and World Report on the

Truth About Cars podcast talking about the best cars and the money from US News.

And right before our little break here, we were discussing the Volkswagen Atlas Crossport.

Alex had mentioned that, you know, it was kind of an overlooked vehicle and he,

it's funny, Alex, that you mentioned that because I had a conversation with some journalists

yesterday, some other automotive journalists, I was at a meeting and we were talking cars,

as we're wanting to do. And I actually had to ask if the Volkswagen Atlas Crossport was still on

sale because I could not remember up top of my head if it still existed in the market.

I hadn't driven one in a long time. I hadn't seen any advertising for one. I hadn't

thought about it in a long time and somehow we were talking about

two or five seat SUVs in that segment and I had to ask. So it's definitely a very overlooked.

Yeah, so that's just kind of a funny anecdote. Now back to your list, back to your best cars

for the money list here at US News and World Report. Kia did really well. We talked about that.

Is there any brand, you mentioned cars that, we just talked about surprises,

you know, cars that were a surprise whether they made the list or not. Is there any brand that

didn't do particularly well at all? I don't see a lot of Detroit 3 on here. I see a Chevy Equinox and

Ford Expedition. A couple of Chevys and a couple of Detroit 3 vehicles in the final list,

Chevy Trax and Chevy Suburban. But it looks like I don't see any Stellantis here at all. So are

those brands just not really good right now? You know, Stellantis is not competing in a ton of segments.

Yeah, I mean, like we don't give an award for heavy duty trucks. They obviously

have quite a presence there on the SUVs, you know, like they just got outscored in a variety

of areas. And also, you know, the plug-in hybrid Grand Cherokee is now pulled, which also is,

you know, like takes one out of our rankings. You know, I will also say that for quite a while,

the Ram 1500 was our best truck for the money, but the ownership costs of that seem to have increased.

The total cost of ownership and the ATP, the average transaction price, both seem to have

increased this year, which sort of knocked it down in the rankings. So this year, we'll see,

you know, for best full-size truck for the money, we've got F-150, and the runner-up is Tundra.

And, you know, those are very good vehicles. Obviously, we think the F-150 is the best one

for the money, and it offers tons of configurations. I don't think there's any vehicle in North

America that you can buy that has more configurations than an F-150. So there really is something

for everyone. And what's nice about that is Ford doesn't really like skimp on doing interesting

things with the lower-end models, like the STX has the Lobo package. And, you know, if you want a

work truck, it's excellent. And a lot of people are looking for that kind of capacity for something

they can use. Hey, it's part-time family transportation, part-time work truck. I will say that Chevrolet

had one-win Equinox EV, which we thought was an excellent vehicle. And, you know, the end of the

EV tax credits means that electrics are pricier to buy at least than they used to be. But the

Equinox EV is still pretty affordable, despite the fact that it doesn't have that incentive anymore.

And it's really not that much more expensive than, like, some of the sort of compact hybrid SUVs,

if you are talking about comparable equipment. And it has plenty of room. You know, it's

one of the big, it's like kind of big for a compact, but not quite a midsize. And it's roomy,

it comes with a lot of features and looks really good. It's pretty satisfying to drive. And I

wouldn't say it's the most, I would not say it's the sportiest vehicle to drive, but, you know,

neither are most family crossovers. True. You know, like, depends on what the customer is looking

for. And it has, you know, like pretty good range in every trim. You know, and that vehicle

actually beat out, you know, things like heavy hitters, like the Ioniq 5. So, you know, it won

on merit. Chevy also had three runners up. They had the Suburban for best large SUV and the Trax.

You know, the Trax is like one of the most affordable vehicles on the market. It's,

I think it's the basically is, if you want to saddle up with a Chevy, the Trax is great.

That's exactly how to do it. And, you know, I do think that, like, you know, we don't have a lot

of sedans or cars to choose from, from the domestic manufacturers. So they're going to miss out on a

bunch of categories just right away. But we felt that all of the Chevrolet's and the runners up

were pretty good. And, you know, I want to say we believe that the winners are the best cars for

the money. However, we recognize that there are people who are going to, car shoppers who are

going to come into this with prior experiences and be like, oh, I don't like this brand. I had

a bad one 10 years ago. I don't, you know, I don't want to have anything from this brand.

Well, that's what the alternatives are for. We want people to have a list of things that are

good experiences and affordable, even if even if they don't particularly like our winner. We

think the winners are great. But we did list out all of the alternatives and runners up on our,

on our homepage. So cars.usnews.com. You can look and just find best cars for the money.

And, you know, what's nice about that too is there is a link at the very bottom of that page.

You can see the winners for this award for the last 10 years. So let's say you're thinking about

best cars for the money and you're like, well, what if I can't afford one from this year? Well,

you can look back at, you know, what we did a couple years ago and see has that held up.

So, yeah, there's, I would like to see more Detroit vehicles on the list. Just, you know,

I mean, hometown pride, right? But that's, this is just the way the rankings shook out.

Yeah, the tracks is a very good vehicle. And it's kind of funny. I used to think,

and this goes back a decade now, but the previous generation tracks, the first,

the first one, which I drove on the launch way back in 2015, before I was at T-Tac and I drove it

in San Diego and I thought, oh, this is kind of a, kind of a not very good vehicle. And I drove

it again later and I'm like, oh, this is probably the worst car on the market. Yeah, the old track,

the old tracks was really pretty, pretty, pretty bad. And, you know, it's funny, you would see those

old tracks is all over the place for a while and I don't see too many of them now. But that new

tracks is a polar opposite. I mean, it's much, much better. You know, it's not exciting necessarily,

but it drives pretty well. It's roomy for what it is. And, you know, it comes with lots of stuff

for really a rock bottom price. Yeah, yeah, that's what I was going to say is the old tracks. It went

from worst car in the market or one of the worst cars in the market. And I mean, like the entire

market, not just the segment. And then the new tracks, I'm not going to say it's the best car

in the market. I'm not going to go that far, but it's one of the better ones in its segment and

it's one of the better vehicles for the money. And I'm glad to see it was a finalist on your list.

One thing I wanted to ask about too, it's not, I don't know how direct the correlation is because

you're talking about best car for money and obviously cost ownership plays a part of this.

And when it comes to recalls, a lot of recalls are paid for by the dealer and or excuse me,

by the manufacturer and not to the customer necessarily. But Ford has had a ton of recalls

in the past year and a half. And now again, a customer not necessarily paying for those fixes,

but has that played a part at all? I mean, you mentioned Stellantis

cost ownership. I imagine those are customer pay jobs, not warranty jobs. So do recalls,

whether it's with Ford specifically or the industry in general, do recalls play a part in this?

Recalls do affect the reputation of a vehicle. It does put you in the frame of mind,

do you want to recommend this to a consumer? I think relatively few of the vehicles on our list

are high recall vehicles. But it does play a part in, do you feel comfortable making this

recommendation? I mean, people come to us for expert advice. So if we know that something is

just getting recalled all the time, or we're hearing that it has trouble, we will factor that

into our overall evaluation. We have changed a little bit about our methodology in terms of

how we rate quality. So the overall road tests and the sort of regular reviews contribute to

our regular rankings. And then we cross-reference those things with the total cost of ownership

and the ATP and the costs of ownership over time for these awards. But our regular recommendations

are driven entirely by our regular ranking numbers. Now those are partly informed by our opinion

and partly performed by data. And we try to factor in information like that into the

overall opinion of the vehicle. Sure. That makes sense. What other factors that you don't really,

obviously you're going to talk about your methodology in the article and press release,

and you talked about a lot of it upfront. But what other factors are kind of like that,

smaller factors that don't play a ton of upfront consideration but still play a part?

You know, we have a number of different awards that come out throughout the year. So we also have

Best Cards for Families in which, you know, like the room in the vehicle and how versatile it is

plays a primary role. But that's also at work here to some extent because when we think about like,

oh, recommending a subcompact SUV, well, we've been in all those subcompact SUVs. And like,

if it's uncomfortable, we're probably going to note that in our review, which is certainly going

to affect its score. So we try to make sure that like, we also broke out, we score infotainment

differently now this year than we have in years past, we kind of had the infotainment being part

of the overall interior scoring set previously. And nowadays, we broke that out separately because

we think that most people want to know, is this infotainment system really comprehensive? Is it

hard to use? Is it easy to use? I'm going to pick on a vehicle for a moment and then please forgive

me, manufacturer. But the Acura RDX was a vehicle I was in not long ago. That's it's not in contention

for these awards because it's a luxury vehicle. But I don't know if you've been in the Acura RDX.

It's been a minute. Yeah, it still has that old touchpad infotainment system. And it's not a good

system. And, you know, that's a great vehicle with one bad system that holds it back in a way.

And if you, you know, you will acclimate to it if you drive it every day. But there are much

easier systems to use. So there are little things like that which play a factor in the overall score,

which then, you know, in some cases, you know, the difference between a winner and a runner up

may only be like fractions of the point, because maybe they're very close, like Miata and GR86

are very close. So every single one of those things goes into the totality of those scores.

Cool. All right. So with that, we only have a few minutes left. So

Alex, is there anything else you want to add before you sign off?

You know, I did want to talk just a little bit about those larger vehicles. I mean, I know some

people will say, oh, like, you know, the Ford Expedition starts at like $62,000. Is that really

affordable? But the point here isn't necessarily straight up affordability, although that is

who we're aiming at. You know, there are people who actually need a Ford Expedition or an F-150.

And like for them, we want to be able to present like a bunch of winners that are relatively

affordable or that are the best deal for what they're going to spend. And like we decided we

would run the gamut because there are just like lots and lots of car shoppers out there. There are

every different stripe we hear from them. And, you know, we see what they research on our site

and, you know, what the things that they buy. And so we did want to be able to speak to those

things. I don't think we did large SUV last year. And, you know, like in that particular case,

we have Expedition and I think the runner up is Suburban. Both great vehicles for the money.

They are not cheap, but they are vehicles for the money. And, you know, they also have lower

cost of ownership than things like the Armada and they're more versatile in terms of cargo than

things like the Sequoia and all those little things add up. Cool. Excellent. Thank you again for

your time. We've been talking with Alex Quanton, the managing editor for Autos at US News and World

Report. And we've been discussing US News is 2020. I don't know if you would call it 2025 or 2026.

2026 there it is. 2026. Best cars for the money. I wasn't quite sure if it was 25 because we're

early in the year. There's still some carryover. I still have 2025 model year test vehicles in the

press fleet. So I wanted to make sure we had that correct. But it is 2026 best cars for the money.

So I'm sorry. Yeah, it's 2026. We had to make sure that we knew everything about these 2026

models before they came before we ranked them. So we, you know, we do sometimes ask for, hey,

can you give us a little advanced information or something? We rarely get that. Yeah, I'm sure.

But, you know, like we were very fortunate that the 2026 Honda Accord came out in December. So

we were able to rank everything properly and get everything done. You know, we do it early in the

year because people are looking for a deal, you know, post Christmas. But yeah, I mean, everything

is 2026. We reviewed all these vehicles for 2026. If they are, you know, sort of 2025 carryovers,

there's not a lot that is going to change about them. And most, a lot of vehicles, more vehicles

than average are being carried over now. But yeah, you can find all the winners at cars.us.com.

Cool. Thank you for telling your listeners where to go. Check that out as well. And yeah,

I mentioned the 2025 only because there are still some 2025 car reviews this time of year.

It's not unusual because it does take a little while to transition from one year to the next. But

these are the 2026 best cars for the money from US News. And you said cars.usnews.com.

So excellent, Alex. Thank you so much for your time. And we appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks, Jim. Take care.

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Here on the Truth About Cars podcast, we're talking about the stuff that we use in our homes,

in our cars and on our cars, as the case may be. We do this just about every week courtesy of eBay

Motors. And we usually do it with TTAC contributor Matthew Guy. Matthew, how are you doing today?

Hey, I'm doing pretty good, Tim. How about you?

I'm doing well. I'm doing well. So we're talking about waterless car washes. So

can you kind of go ahead and walk us through what that is? I mean, a waterless car wash?

Yeah, of course. And it's not something that I was familiar with until a few years ago.

I've had, partly by design, but mostly by chance, I've had a numerous number of black cars in a row.

And at this time of year, it is so hard to keep them clean. I mean, you live in Chicago. I live...

Oh, yeah. Just so hard to keep a black car and clean them. One of my friends

has been using this stuff. And he said to me, he said, what do you need? You need to get some

optimum no rinse. And I was like, what's that? And so he sent me the link and everything. And this was

some stuff we got off eBay. And it shows up, it's a 32 ounce bottle. So it's not enormous.

And it costs about 30 bucks US. So it's also not overly cheap. But about two ounces of this stuff

works with about two gallons of distilled or non mineralized water. And the way I call it like

a waterless or no rinse solution is that you can mix it up and then put it into some spray bottles.

And then what I do is whether I'm just in the garage or I wouldn't do this below freezing,

but as long as the ambient temperature is not below freezing, where you're working like

in your condo garage, safety and more, in my detached garage next to my home,

I'll just soak down the panel of my car and then use a clean cloth, whatever,

your favorite cloth that you want to use, microfiber or whatever, and then just wipe it off

and then just wipe it off the panel. And normally you wouldn't touch a panel with a cloth

if there's a little bit of dirt on it because of scratches. But this stuff,

this optimum no rinse has something called hydrophobic technologies. And what it does

is the water, for lack of a better term, grabs onto the dirt, kind of wraps it up in this

optimum no rinse type stuff. So when you wipe it off with the cloth, you're just wiping off water,

you're not scratching the dirt over the surface. So I wouldn't use this if your car was filthy,

if you were just coming back in from a really long road trip and tons of slush in your car,

that type of stuff. But I've used it and used it safely on my Challenger and I have not scratched

up my paint. I've been the person who owned the car for a couple of years before me, did a really

good job of keeping the paint really, really shiny. And I've been trying to maintain that in the

six years that I've had it. And this optimum no rinse stuff has really, really helped.

Yeah. So speaking of no rinse car wash, we're in winter, will this stuff work in the winter outdoors

or will it freeze? So don't use it if your outdoors and ambient temperature is below 32 degrees

Fahrenheit. Because it is, you know, I'd say it's a waterless car wash, but you do use water,

you know, as mixed, I suppose you should call it like you're not spraying your car with soap and

water and those types of things. You don't need a bucket for this bucketless car wash is probably

there. Yeah. And so no, I wouldn't use it if you're outside in the freezing temps because the water

will freeze. But if you're anywhere, I mean, it's never much more than say 40 or maybe 45 in my

unheated garage, but it doesn't get down below freezing either stuff doesn't freeze inside the

garage because it's well insulated. But you know, it's cold. And I wipe this stuff off instantly

anyways, I just go from panel to panel to panel, quarter panel to door to hood to roof, you know,

although I must say I don't do the roof quite as much as the rest of the panels because you can't

really see it. So I confess to being a little bit lazy there. But this product has really,

really, you know, kept the car looking good. It's certainly not my daily the challenger is not in

the winter. But I have, you know, every now and then you take it out and just to keep it limber.

And sometimes I don't have a press card during the week. So I'll drive it then. And the car always

looks good. And people have come up to me and said, How, why is your car clean today in the middle of

a in the middle of January? How have you done that? So I am, you know, this is not sponsored or

anything by Optum and no rinse. This is just a product that I've gotten off eBay. And I really

like and I use a lot and just in just an evangelist for it, I guess, to use a use a term. And I hope

other people have bought it too. I know at least a couple of guys have. And, you know, my buddy who

said that I should try it. He was exactly right. And he's got black cars too. He's got a he's got a

viper. So he has been using this stuff for ages and ages and ages and I'll continue to use it

as long as I've got, you know, any color car, really, I mean, other black is just really hard

to keep clean. So it's really good for that. But, you know, anything else that I've got, I use it on

that and I like it a lot. Is there any safety concerns? I know it's kind of a weird question.

I would assume, obviously, don't drink the liquid, the mix, don't get it in your eyes, or if it's,

you know, wash your hands as soon as you're done working with it. Is there anything else you have

to worry about chemicals mixing together? Anything or not even safety, but, you know,

obviously, this is safe for your cars paint, but could it damage wheels? Could it damage

rubber on the tires? Or is it safe for your whole car? It says it's safe for your whole car. I wouldn't

use it too much on on glass, just just because it probably would create some sort of film because

that's it. Yeah, you know, that's its reason for being. That's a Windows before, I think, right

there. Yeah, precisely. One thing I have done just as a reminder for myself because this stuff is

blue in color. And then when you dilute it to the proper dilution ratio in and I do buy and this is,

I know this sounds ridiculous, but I do buy a gallon of distilled water from the store. It's

like, you know, it's like a dollar, right? The reason I do that instead of getting water from the

tap is that there's no minerals in distilled water or like reverse and minerals can create

with this optimum no rent stuff can create, you know, spots and those types of things. So

for the sake of a dollar, and I mean, I don't use a lot of this stuff. I mean,

you know, so anyway, so I mix it up and I put it in an old clean out spray bottle and I do write

on the spray bottle just in case, right? Just in case I write on it. Do not drink this. No, drinky.

Right. Just in case because it looks blue, it looks like Windex, right? It looks like

not that you drink that stuff anyways, but I do label stuff appropriately because god knows,

someone might wander out into your garage and you might have it mixed up into a bigger bottle,

right? You know, just mix it all up, which is a good idea. And I have done that in the past,

mix up an entire gallon of the stuff with an ounce of this optimum no rinse just to make it

easier to refill the spray bottles when I inevitably run out. So label stuff appropriately,

you'll be fine. Yeah, it's not really a safety issue, but I will close with this, too. I think

you raise, excuse me, a good point with the, obviously don't use it in glass, you can only

want to use Windex for that thing, for that sort of thing. But now I'm blanking on what you said,

you just said something else too about the mix and I'm trying to. Yeah, just mix it up because

there's all kinds. I mean, people can wander in and out of the garage, so they do in my place.

No, right before that you said something right after the glass. Okay, well, right after the glass,

like it creates, this stuff creates a film. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know if I'd use it on

like a surface on like a tire or something like that. Right. No, I'm just trying to think you

raised a good point. I just lost my train of thought, right? I was about ready to save and tip

my tongue. It was after the glass with the film and then obviously don't drink you don't don't

anything like that. Shoot, I was gonna, you had a really good point about not using it on the wrong

surfaces and I'm trying to think what I was going to say. One thing I have found about surfaces

talking about, and this is a different product altogether, but with tire shine, I found some

tire shines, for example, will leave a huge stain on your driveway these days, like, you know, on a

paved surface. Oh, yeah, yeah. Some stuff, I mean, some of the foams and things like that just

evaporate into the ether, which is cool. And some of the other stuff, some of the sprays I've been

trying lately, or, well, before the winter, just left crescents, right? Because it's like, you know,

they just spray around the tire. And so it would leave different like crescent shaped

black marks on the driveway until, you know, the rain washed it away. So, but with this type of

stuff, you know, I find that it's really safe, it's really good, not overly cheap at $30 US for

a 32 inch bottle, but I feel it's worth the investment to have a good-looking car.

And I just remembered what I was going to say, the distilled water, that was the point.

Tap water does have a lot of minerals, like, for example, I use a Brita pitcher in my home,

just to make the tap water taste a little better. The minerals are harmless, they're not going to

hurt you, but the water just tastes a little better. And when I pour water for my coffee maker,

I don't use the Brita for that. And you can see the cloudiness sometimes from the minerals.

So I think that's a really good point that you raised. If you have a humidifier,

some humidifiers will tell you to use purified water or distilled water, because if you use tap

water, you'll get a lot more white steam. And it'll be, you know, it's not, I don't think it's

harmful at all to people, but it's aesthetically not very pleasing. So you raise a good point

with distilled water. And I was about to say the words distilled water and my brain just

planned a vacation for a minute, but it came back. So yeah, distilled water, I think it's a good

point. Because for a dollar or two, you know, you don't have to worry about, in this case,

with paint, minerals could actually do some damage to the paint, or if they don't damage it,

they can just look a little ugly. So I think that's, and if it's looking ugly, that defeats the

purpose of the water in this car wash, right? So I think you raise a really good point there.

And that, I mean, that stuff is available just about anywhere. Super cheap.

Yeah, exactly. You know, dumping it into humidifiers or, you know, those sleep apnea machines,

a lot of people can't find it in your grocery store, go down to the, like a pharmacy section

of your grocery store. And sometimes the distilled water is down there because people use it in

their sleep apnea machines. So if you can't find it with everything else, look down there,

and you'll find it for sure. Makes sense. All right, so Matthew, we're going to go ahead and

close this, this week's Stuff We Use segment here on the T-Tec Podcast. Thank you so much

for your time. Thank you. This message comes from eBay, the worst part about loving cars,

might just be buying them, and all the parts. From Toyotas to Aston Martins, eBay has thousands of

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If you like what you hear on the T-Tec Podcast, please go ahead and leave us a review. You can

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

On this week's Truth About Cars Podcast NASCAR segment, we talk about NASCAR just about every

week. We are getting ready to start the racing season. But before we do, we're going to go over

a few more things that we have seen NASCAR change in the off-season. And as always,

I have T-Tec contributor Matthew Guy with me. Matthew, how are you? Hey, doing good, bud. How

about you? I'm doing well. So, for those listeners, first of all, a little bit of housekeeping. For

those listeners who want to know why we're not talking about the Bowman Gray race without getting

too deep into the weeds of timing, with the race being delayed due to poor weather, we just will

not be able to hit it because it's a recorded podcast. We will not be able to hit it in terms of

covering either a preview or a recap because just the way the schedule works out, it won't work

either way. So, we'll have to save our racing previews and recaps for the real thing in two weeks

when they did 200 to 500 picks off or a week and a half, two weeks and like that. So,

anyway, we're going to talk instead about horsepower and how there's going to be more of it

in NASCAR for tracks that are under 1.5 miles in length and as well as on the road courses.

I don't know if that includes the street course in San Diego, but we'll see. But the target

horsepower increases from 670 to 750. So, we're going up by 80 horsepower and then this is from

NASCAR's website, their top story lines to follow. Quote, the goal is to bring a greater

emphasis to off-throttle time, creating more passing opportunities and adding to the importance

of tire management. After a good year produced different tire compounds to generate a more compelling

on-track product last season, more horsepower is the next step to continue forward progress.

And then it finishes, quote, with extra horsepower on the table, it could favor certain drivers given

their experience with higher horsepower on sprint cars, the likes of Kyle Larson and Christopher

Bell could excel and increase their chances of winning at these tracks. So, I've got my thoughts,

but Matthew, I'm here to yours first. How are it? Go ahead and lay us out with your thoughts.

Yeah, for real. And I think this is a good thing. People have been asking for it for a while and

they're increasing from the baseline, you know, 670-ish in the current rules configuration for

2025. And you know, this is growing demand from drivers, from the industry, from fans, right?

They're just looking for a power boost from the next gen race car. So, this is going up to 750,

like you said. And real quick, you're asking about road courses versus street circuits.

This is here from NASCAR.com says tracks with 750 horsepower in 2026. Circuit of the Americas,

Watkins Glen, San Diego. Okay. So, the street course does count. Okay. The street course does

count. And interesting, they've got the Charlotte Roval here listed, but of course, this was

published in October. And since then, we know that the fall race, NASCAR playoff race in Charlotte

is going to shift off the Roval and return to the regular track. So, but then, you know, the other,

like you said, less than 1.5 or less. So, that's like all Darlington, Martinsville, Bristol,

all those, right? New Hampshire, Gateway, all of those are going to have the new higher horsepower

package. And there has been, I like, I like Brad Kozlowski, right? Just over at RFK. And

it's cool that he's driver co-owner, right? And quote, quote, I am definitely team horsepower.

And I would think that most of us are when it comes to this type of stuff. So, it's going to be

super neat for fans to watch because it has the effect of almost 100 more horsepower on some

tracks. And that is not an insignificant detail. There's an interview here from the dailydownforce.com,

the interviewed cop veteran, Eric Jones. And he described the amount of increase of horsepower

as noticeable, especially on the bottom end. And I think that that is really telling because when

we talk, because Tim, you test cars all the time too. Sometimes, you know, cars can have similar

amounts of horsepower, but how that is distributed. If there's more down a little bit further in the

power band, if the power comes on a little bit more quickly, whilst you're accelerating, it does

change how the car feels. So, this is going to, again, these professional drivers are going to

be adapting to that week in and week out, going to a super speedway. They won't have that type of

power band. They'll be dealing with something different. So, this, again, will not just make

the cars, I mean, maybe they'll sound better too, but it's not just going to make the cars

a bit racier, but it's also going to have the drivers, the drivers who can adapt more quickly

will be more successful. So, right, so it adds that level of competition as well,

which I think is a good thing. Anything, you know, just to separate the cream from everything

else, or separate the wheat from the chaff, or whatever sort of old school saying you want to

use is a really good thing. And I think it makes for better competition. So, I think that that is

going to help. You also talked about tires. Goodyear has been working a lot on tires,

you know, different compounds and things like that. So, the roughly 100 horsepower increase

is going to, is going to make tire management something new as well.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm not quite sure if it will cause more tire wear or not,

having a little more power, but a couple of things, I have a couple of things, a couple of

thoughts. So, first of all, more much power. I take the Tim Allen approach, more power, right?

That's always good. We're almost always good, especially in racing. But we do have to consider

that we all know everyone who's, everyone who's listening is a car enthusiast, most likely,

and you and I are both car people, obviously. We all know torque is the accelerating force.

So, I'm really curious, you know, when you're accelerating from coming out of a corner,

or on a restart, I'm pretty sure torque is more important than horsepower in terms of acceleration.

So, I'm curious to see if torque is going to change, it doesn't say in the press materials

that I read. But I'm curious, you know, how the torque versus horsepower, you know,

interaction or interplay right there. And like you said, too, you know, if the horsepower is

available a little bit lower in the rev band, that's also going to, you know, give a driver's

a different field than if they have to get harder in the throttle to get there. So, those are a

couple things. I'm a little bit surprised that they don't, well, I'm not that surprised. I guess

at first I thought, oh, that's kind of weird, they're only allowing you on the shorter tracks,

but it makes sense because you already have enough speed on the super speedways. And I think, you

know, we all want to see you guys go as fast as humanly possible. But there's also the consequences

of a wreck at a Daytona, or that's, that's why we've had restrictor plates for years

at Daytona and Talladega to kind of keep the speed down a little bit, because they're already going

over 200 miles an hour. And if something goes bad, something goes wrong, it's very, very dangerous,

obviously. So, I think it makes sense that they have a little more power on the bigger tracks,

just because, you know, there's already enough speed. And as much as part of this has let the

guys just go as fast as they want, take off the restrictor plates, let the cars let these guys

go to 220, 230, whatever, while they probably wouldn't, these NASCAR aerodynamics might not

allow for that kind of speed, they're not open-wheeled cars. But, you know, let them go as fast as

they want, let them go as fast as they possibly can. And then of course, like, you know, especially

when the cars are packed close together and drafting, you get a 20 car wreck and someone

might really be seriously hurt. So, I understand trying to, trying to, you know, not overdo it

with, with all-out speed. But, yeah, no, I'm really curious to see how it affects the on-track

racing. Obviously, I think the biggest, try thinking of the wording here, the most interesting

aspect to me will be on the road courses. And obviously, you're going to want torque, too,

to get yourself out of the corner quickly. But I'm really curious to see how straight, how straight

aways can get shortened. Obviously, in a place like Circuit of the Americas or Watkins Glen,

especially with longer straight aways, we don't have road America on the schedule this year,

so I would love to see on those straight aways. You know, these, like, Watkins Glen is a perfect

example of a road course with long straight aways and in places we can really get some speed

in between the corners. Even Sonoma, to an extent, especially on that turn one, going up the hill,

and then in the back half that track before you get down to the hairpin at the end. So, I think,

you know, seeing higher horsepower, yeah, get a little more speed. And I think, like they said,

in the materials here, too, the, the chance to pass more. We all want to see more passing

in racing, right? So, I think, I think having more passing is huge or having more opportunity

from our passing is huge. So, I'm a fan of that. I would love to see maybe some of the

slightly longer tracks, maybe not to, maybe not the super speed aways, also get this,

but I understand why not. And you're right. I didn't think about a place like Sonoma, for example,

because I don't often associate elevation change with NASCAR. But there you. Who does. Right? But,

I mean, you've driven on Sonoma, too. Yeah. Big elevation change coming at the turn one,

going up that hill. And, you know, 100 extra horsepower could make a big difference there

in how the cars get up that hill and how they respond. And you might get more passing opportunities

right there. Never thought about the elevation piece of this. But yeah, that's a, that's a really

good point. I don't, I don't think 750. I don't think that's going to introduce too many reliability.

Yeah, you beat me too. That was my next point. But go ahead.

Right. I mean, if they had gone up, I haven't seen anyone, any quotes on this or not, but

I'm going to guess that if, you know, they had gone back up to, you know, those 900 horsepower

engines, you'd see a lot more stuff go bang pretty quick early in the year, just because you're

putting so much stress on all of those, all of those internal parts and things of that nature.

But I think, you know, 750, they probably didn't have to

majorly redesign internal parts. And that was also, I would dare say a cost savings,

right? For, for all teams. And I know that there's engine suppliers, not everyone builds their own

engines and blah, blah, blah. But I would say 750 was a pretty good compromise. Whenever they came

up with that number, I would wager that reliability and cost with two things that helped dictate

this 750 number that we, that we have now coming in to some of these tracks in 2026.

Well, it's funny you mentioned that because NASCAR actually does, if you click through onto,

so I was referencing a piece they wrote about NASCAR had on their website for,

for, this is available to the general public, not just the media site. And I was referencing,

you know, the top story lines of 2026. And if you click through, there's a longer article.

And again, anyone can get, you don't have to be a member of the media or this is,

this is just type in NASCAR.com and dig around, you'll find it. So this is for fans to, to check

out. It's not just for, it's not behind a password or a paywall and put it that way. So anyway,

you know, there's an article and they ask Roush Gates, engines builder or the boss, Doug Yates.

Okay. And he, they, they were talking to him on NASCAR radio back in April.

And he said, to go back to that, like you said, the 900 horsepower engines would, he says to

decrease the life of the engine. So he's not talking about necessarily engines blowing up,

but wear and tear for sure. So he says that going up to 80 horsepower changes very little.

And most of the way they're doing this is just putting a spacer on top of the intake manifold.

So they're just really bringing in more air. And that's really it. And as we all know, if you,

if you take in basic auto shop, you don't need to be a mechanic to know this. If you took high

school level auto shop, which I did, and I assume a lot of our listeners did, we all know an internal

combustion engine is essentially a large air pump. And we all know that the higher, this is why

everyone with a Fox body must think spent $15 on a canine filter, right? It's the hot, you bring

in a little more air and you get higher power. So if you bought that canine filter, you, you

can theory, you probably got five to 10 more horsepower, right? And maybe the car sounded

a little better, you know, so that's basically what they're doing here is they're bringing in

a higher airflow or improving engine airflow to get more power. So they're not really doing a lot.

They're not, you know, they're not, it doesn't appear, I don't know. I know F1 and ND car kind

of black box their specs. I don't have NASCAR specs in front of me. I think NASCAR does too.

I don't think we know much about NASCAR beyond this. I don't know if we know the displacement

of their engines, but I don't think they're boring and stroking. I don't think they're

going to lightweight materials or anything like that. Obviously they're not doing any force

induction. So I don't believe these car, I believe this are correct. If I'm wrong, Matthew, I believe

I believe current NASCARs are naturally aspirated and not super charged. So

they're not really doing a lot of modifications. I don't know the displacement of the engines, but

yeah, they're just basically bringing more airflow.

And yeah, because you're right, an engine at its base is a big air pump, right? It brings in the air

and squeezes it and blows it back out of the exhaust. So the more efficient and the more

of it that there is, you increase one, you increase the other and you end up with a bit more horsepower.

So I don't know. I think displacement is around 5.8. I just looked it up. It is 5.8,

3.8 inches. And pushrods old school. Yeah, right. And that's another reason why I do dearly

enjoy NASCAR, right? You have these big old pushrod engines and there is technology in them.

I mean, it's not fair to say that these are big dumb engines because they're fuel injected, sure.

Right. I mean, I know it's different, completely different world way from F1 stuff and

things like that. But it's great that with some tweaks, you can eke out this extra almost 100

horsepower to completely spend millions on new Conrods or on whatever.

We're not going to overhead cam anytime soon or four fells per cylinder.

No, exactly. Right. And I mean, sure, just the fact that we're talking about

port fuel injection, which is basically just a carburetor but automated, right? It's got the

big change and the sequential transmissions that they have right now, right? That was also a big

change. So it's great that you have this blend of sort of new and traditional in NASCAR. It's

part of the appeal for me, that's for sure. Yeah. People are going to complain about the

single lug nut wheels and stuff of that nature. But I think those additions are fine.

And there's all kinds of different things. There's the big digital gauges that are in it now.

You've got a big tablet in front of you. There's all kinds of different. And sometimes you'll see

with the in-car cameras. You probably noticed this last year too, Tim, that those screens

sometimes are blurred out now, right? Because before, you could just look over the driver's

shoulder and see how many RPMs they were turning with the analog gauge and those types of things.

So, but yeah, back to the horsepower equation. I think it's going to be a really good addition

to this year. I think that it shows that NASCAR is listening. And just like,

we've got the new point system and we've got a few more horsepower. So I think 2026 is going

to be an entertaining year. Yeah, I do too. And I think just to clarify the engines, I agree with

you that the blend of old and new is a lot of fun. You know, and I was thinking when you

mentioned the EFR, I was thinking of the old, when I was in a auto shop in high school, the old

5.7 350 small block that Chevy used to have in trucks in the early 90s that were fuel injected,

but they were, they were throttle bodies. So they're really easy to replace fuel injectors.

And it was almost like having a carburetor, you know, the big circular air filter, and it was

really easy to reach and replace as opposed to now or almost every commercial engine is

direct injected. So just just kind of having a little moment of nostalgia there. But yeah,

I think it'll be really a lot of fun to see, see a little extra horsepower on track and certain

tracks. And again, I think the passing opportunities are going to be pretty awesome on the road

courses, if not at the short tracks. So unfortunately, I thought we would have,

there was, we spent more time in the segment than anticipated, I thought we'd be

kind of able to hit it quickly. There's actually a lot more in depth than I realized. So

that's a good thing and a bad thing. Good thing, because it's a really interesting topic and bad

because we are out of time. So with that, we're gonna, we will go ahead and finish up our NASCAR

segment here on this week's Truth About Cars podcast. Thank you, Matthew. Thank you, Tim.

The cars you'll find in eBay are just different. They come with a story that you can't wait to

share. Like this 1973 Dodge Charger on eBay that has been tucked away in an Arizona barn for over

40 years. Only 55,000 miles and somehow in great running order. It even has a rare sunroof. Suddenly,

a car that was hidden for decades is being delivered in just a few clicks with eBay's

secure purchase. All the paperwork handled. There are thousands of cars in eBay from

unique finds like the Pontiac Grand Prix, SJ to daily drivers, and now with a new way to buy them.

eBay, things people love. That's all for this week's Truth About Cars podcast. You can find us

wherever you get your podcasts, as well as online at ttac.com. That's ttec.com or the Truth

About Cars, allspulledout.com. We thank Alex Compton 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.

These Are The Best Cars For Your Money

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