These Are The Longest-Lasting Car Models
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Term
sealed beam headlights
Sealed beam headlights are a type of headlight that is all one piece. You can't change just the bulb; if it breaks, you have to replace the whole thing.
Part
headlight restoration kit
A headlight restoration kit helps make your car's headlights clear again. It usually includes special cleaners and polish to remove the yellowing and make the lights shine bright.
Company
McGuire's
McGuire's is a brand that makes products to clean and shine cars. Many people use their kits to keep their cars looking good.
Brand
General Motors
General Motors is a big car company in the U.S. that makes cars under different names like Chevrolet and Cadillac.
Brand
Lexus
Lexus is a luxury car brand that is part of Toyota. They make high-end cars that are very comfortable and have lots of features.
Car
Toyota Camry
The Toyota Camry is a popular car that is known for being dependable and good on gas, making it a favorite among many drivers.
Car
Honda Accord
Car
Toyota Sequoia Toyota
The Toyota Sequoia is a large SUV that can fit many passengers and has a lot of space for cargo. It's good for families and trips.
Car
Toyota 4Runner
Car
Toyota Highlander
The Toyota Highlander Hybrid is a family SUV that uses both gas and electricity to run, which helps save on fuel and is better for the environment.
Car
Toyota Tundra
Car
Toyota Tacoma
The Toyota Tacoma is a smaller truck that's great for both everyday driving and off-roading. People talk about it because it's tough, reliable, and can handle rough terrain well.
Car
Lexus RX
The Lexus RX is a stylish SUV that is comfortable to drive and has a lot of tech features. It's a good choice if you want a luxury vehicle that also offers hybrid options for better fuel efficiency.
Car
Toyota Avalon
The Toyota Avalon is a large car that offers a lot of space and comfort. It's a good choice if you want a smooth ride and plenty of room inside.
Car
Lexus GX
The Lexus GX is a fancy SUV that can handle rough roads and has a lot of room inside. It's great for families or anyone who likes to go off the beaten path.
Term
hybrid
A hybrid car uses both a regular engine and an electric motor. This helps it save fuel and produce less pollution compared to just using gasoline.
Car
Hemi Cuda
The Hemi Cuda is a powerful version of the Plymouth Barracuda, a car from the early 1970s. It has a special engine called a Hemi, which makes it very fast and popular among car enthusiasts.
Car
GTO
The Pontiac GTO is a famous car from the 1960s and 70s known for being fast and powerful. It's considered one of the original muscle cars, which are high-performance vehicles that are fun to drive.
Car
Toyota Prius
The Toyota Prius is a car that uses both gas and electricity to help save on fuel. It's important because it helps reduce pollution and is known for being very efficient.
Term
body-on-frame
Body-on-frame means the main part of the vehicle, called the body, is built on a separate structure called a frame. This setup is common in bigger vehicles like trucks and some SUVs because it makes them stronger.
Term
unibody construction
Unibody construction means the body of the car and the frame are built together as one piece. This is typical for most cars today and helps them be lighter and more fuel-efficient.
Car
Chevrolet Suburban
The Chevrolet Suburban is a big SUV that can carry a lot of people and stuff. It's popular for families and those who need a lot of space for trips or work.
Term
integrated body and chassis
An integrated body and chassis means that the main parts of the car are built together as one piece. This makes the car stronger and often lighter, which helps it drive better.
Term
chassis stiffness
Chassis stiffness is about how strong and rigid the car's frame is. A stronger frame helps the car handle better and stay safe during accidents.
Car
Honda Ridgeline
The Honda Ridgeline is a truck that's built differently, making it ride more like a car. It's talked about because it's practical and has some cool features that help with everyday tasks.
Car
Lancia Delta
The Lancia Delta is a small car that was really good at racing in the past. People talk about it because it has a cool history and a unique look.
Term
unibody stiffness
Unibody stiffness means the car's body is all one piece, making it stronger and lighter. This helps with fuel efficiency and handling.
Car
Ford F150
The Ford F-150 is a well-known pickup truck that can do many things, including driving on rough terrain, and it's built to be very strong.
Term
bent frame
A bent frame means the main structure of the car is damaged, usually from a crash. This can make the car drive poorly and can be unsafe.
Term
turbo
A turbo is a part that helps an engine get more power by using the exhaust gases to push more air into the engine. They were popular in the 80s and 90s but had issues with keeping cars clean enough for emissions standards.
Car
Toyota RAV4
The Toyota RAV4 is a small SUV that's popular because it's reliable and has a lot of room inside. People like it for everyday driving and for trips.
Car
Ram 3500
The Ram 3500 is a big truck that can carry and tow a lot of weight. It's popular among people who need a strong vehicle for work or heavy loads.
Car
Ford F450
The Ford F-450 is an even bigger truck than the F-350, built for really heavy jobs. People talk about it because it can tow and carry a lot more than regular trucks.
Car
Acura Ilx
The Acura ILX is a small luxury car that feels nice to drive and has some fancy features. It's talked about because it's a good option for someone looking for a luxury car without spending too much.
Car
Acura MDX
The Acura MDX is a nice, roomy SUV that feels luxurious and is good for families. People like it because it has a lot of space and nice features.
Car
Tesla Model S
The Tesla Model S is a fancy electric car that can go really fast and doesn't use gas. People talk about it because it has cool technology and is good for the environment.
Car
Tesla Model
The Tesla Model Y is a small electric SUV that's great for families because it has a lot of room. It's talked about for being eco-friendly and having smart features.
Car
Kia K5
The Kia K5 is a new car that looks good and has a lot of modern features. It's popular because it offers a lot for the price and is fun to drive.
Car
Toyota Land
The Toyota Land Cruiser is a big SUV that can go anywhere, even off-road. It's popular because it's tough and can handle rough conditions while still being comfortable inside.
LIVE
Hello, and welcome to this week's Truth about Cars podcast, I am Tim Healy, the managing editor,
and this week we're talking about the longest-lasting car models and more.
We have Carl Brower from ICCars.com to discuss the longest-lasting car models, and Matthew
Guy and I discuss headlight restoration kits as well as NASCAR and the Charlotte Roval.
So first, buying a car should feel secure, start to finish, that's why you should buy your
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hear in Truth about Cars podcast, please go ahead and give us a review, and also check
us out online at ttech.com, that's ttac.com, or the Truth about Cars, all spelled out
.com. We are your home for car news, car reviews, opinions, and so, so much more. Here
in the Truth about Cars podcast, we are always talking about the stuff that we use in our
homes, in our cars, and on our cars, as the case may be. And almost always, we
have ttech contributor Matthew Guy with us to discuss that. Matthew, how are you
doing today? Hi, pretty good, Tim. How are you doing? I'm doing well, doing well. So it
is fall, as we record this, and this episode will go live during early autumn
here in the United States and Canada. And of course, Matthew and I are both in
the snow belt. So it is that time of year where the weather will change for
us, unlike some of the so-called smile states on the coasts, who will
actually have, or the southern coast of America anyway, we will have some
weather changing here. So with that in mind, we'll be talking about headlight
restoration kits, and how to get your headlights, especially as it gets dark
earlier, how to get your headlights in tip-top shape so that you can see really
well what you're driving. So Matthew, go ahead and take us away. Yeah, for real,
because you're right, with this time of year, it does get dark earlier, and
nothing wrong with driving at night, but having a good set of headlights really
helps, of course, protects you in your car, but also other people can see you
a lot better. So having the best set of headlights possible is really important,
and we've talked about on the show before having good headlight bulbs and
the importance of that. But the headlight itself, the plastic on the
outside, you know? It's been, what, 40 years or so since we've had those
instead of the sealed beam headlights. So just like any other plastic in your
life, it's going to degrade, it's going to get yellow, it's going to start to
wear out, and especially on the front of a car, because it's constantly
being assaulted with road grime and dirt and all kinds of matter coming
back, being fired at your car. And I used a headlight restoration kit over
the weekend on a car. The car was about 15 years old, so it was definitely
due, and the person was heading off on a bit of an adventure on a three-hour
tour, hopefully they got on better than Gilligan. But yeah, but they took off
at night, so we were doing small changes, stuff like that, and I had
some of this stuff kicking around from a previous project, and I said,
let's give it a shot, it doesn't take very long. And the one I used got
from eBay, and it's a Maguire's brand, and Maguire's I find any of these
major brands, especially something like that, I've noticed other brands like
Sylvania, which is often associated with the bulbs themselves, right? Start
applying their name to some cleaning products as well. So that's another
one I want to try, but this Maguire's one, it was a two-step
restoration kit, and it came with like a cleaning solution, and then it came
with a coating, so those were the two liquids that were in the box, and then
there were a couple of pads that were circular in shape, and then there
was a little attachment there you could hold on to. And it worked really,
really well, what the instructions said were to wet the headlight, make
sure you got the big stuff, the big grit and grime off the headlight
itself, and then use these pads in progressive order. And really what
you're doing is you're sanding off a lot of the dirt and stuff that's
ground into the first little fine layer of that plastic. So it stepped,
you know, from 4,000 grit to 3,000 grit to 2,000 grit sandpaper. And I
mean, 4,000 grit is not much different than paper you write on. It's
almost flat, right? It's almost flat. So you start, I said that
backwards, actually, you go from the roughest, the 2,000 up to the
4,000. Okay. And yeah, and you just generally try to essentially
you're scraping off all the crud that's on the headlights. And
using these coatings and cleaning solutions that come with it
helped to create a little bit of a shine afterwards. And I was
really, really pleased with the results that I got out of this
McGuire's kit that I got off eBay, especially on the driver
side. And it makes sense when you think about it because
that side of the car is facing traffic, oncoming traffic. So if
you're on a two lane, so that one's going to be that headlights
is naturally going to be a little bit more worn out and blasted
with road grime than the other. So I was, I was pretty happy
with it. I was pretty happy with the results I got.
Very cool. Very cool. So these, these systems, not systems,
but these tools or cleaning products will definitely get you
to see easier at night.
Absolutely. I didn't do any measured distance calculations. But
also the quality of the light as well, even if you are seeing an
equal amount of distance, which you won't be you'll be seeing
more once you have clean headlights. But the quality of
light is not yellowed is not dim. It's almost like going
from, you know, having a couple of fireflies and
jam jars to having a couple of really good flashlights,
right? That's the, that's the difference you can
experience. So it's also doesn't, doesn't hurt to do this
frequently if you've got the time, if you've got the
opportunity to do it rather than like I didn't wait until
fall, right? When it's when it's super, when it's super
necessary to start doing these things. So you can, I
mean, this coding is dry to the touch in three to five
minutes. That's why we just did this before the person
went off on their long road trip, right? So it's fully
cured within, you know, a quite amount of short amount
of time. And some of the tools that you might have, you
know, it might say don't expose to water until it's
fully cured and all that type of stuff. So just read the
directions on the back of the box. And you'll have a great
experience.
Yeah, and these are all for mostly for older cars, right?
Or can they work on newer vehicles as well?
To my knowledge, they can work on just about anything
really. I mean, then theoretically, they should
also work on any other sort of plastic cover that you
might have. Actually, I think I'm going to try it out in
the back yard on some of the lights, you know, like the
garden lights that the person might have. There's a
couple out there that are pretty cloudy after all
summer. Maybe I'll give it a shot on those two. But yeah,
there you go. Yeah, so I'm sure there are some weird
edge case scenarios where it wouldn't be appropriate to
use this on a new car. But I think by and large, just
about anything that's on the road would benefit from
one of these kits.
Gotcha. Anything else we should add on this? Or
should we go ahead and just close the segment for
today? Yeah, I think we shine a pretty good light on
this today. Oh, nice. Got the nice pun going on. So yeah,
all right, with that, with that in mind, we'll go
ahead and wrap this week's stuff we use segment on
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On this week's Truth About Cars podcast,
we've got Carl Brower, the executive analyst
from ICCars.com talking to us that's IC
as in vision, so scecars.com. And if it sounds
like deja vu, we, yes, we did have Carl on
last week to talk about the longest lasting
car brands. And now we are following it up.
And normally we often space our guests a few
weeks, but I think in this case it made more
sense to do it back to back.
Because now we're talking about the longest
car models. So we can kind of piggyback
off that conversation from last week that
Carl and I had, and then go from there
and talk about the longest lasting car
models. So Carl, how are you doing
today? Oh, I'm doing great.
You know, this is kind of one of our big
deals at ICCars every year that we've been
doing for over 10 years. You know, Tim,
we've been doing this study since 2014.
So we've got
the data science pretty dialed
in now. Yeah, that's a long time.
Yeah, I know. I just think it's fascinating
to see. Over a decade.
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah, so speaking of data science,
why don't you walk our listeners, we'll get
into the top 10 and other models in just
a second. So why don't you walk our listeners
through the methodology of the study first?
Absolutely. So
when you think about it, there's all these
vehicles out there that are constantly
showing up on listing sites like
iccars.com. So
we realized over a decade ago that we
had access to all of this
information about these cars, you know,
from vins that show up
and reshow up to
mott makes and models and trims
and the miles that they're showing up with
are, you know, when you think about all the stuff
that's in a listing the year, make
model then
miles, you start to
really get a picture if you've got a massive
amount of data, which we do
as to how quickly the cars
are aging, how much they're being driven
and when they stop showing
up when they kind of, you know, what
year and or mileage do
certain models tend to vanish
because they're not, they're not
sellable anymore. They're not functional cars
anymore. So that's
the starting point.
But then there's a lot of data science that our
very talented data team goes into
and really tries to
manage
not just the hard data, but
a lot of what that data points to
and how to draw conclusions from
it. And that's where kind of the magic
happens in the secret sauce.
So we had 174
million vehicles that we looked at
for this particular study
and when you have that kind of
critical mass, you end up
starting to get fairly clear pictures when you know
what to do with it on
how long these cars will last.
Yeah. Okay. So with that out of the way
now we can kind of go into the
top 10 models
and I almost said brands. This is models.
So just for our listeners
to clarify brand is the company
obviously everyone should know this but
it's just or all the same page
brand is the company. So Toyota
Lexus, Ford, General Motors
and of course brand being
a different brand
obviously some companies are
you have multiple brands Toyota Lexus are both
different brands within the Toyota family of course.
So obviously we all know that but just
want to clarify these are models.
So these are like Honda Accord, Toyota Camry
that sort of thing and
looking at this list of top 10
is dominated
by Toyota and Lexus. So I'll
just run through it real quick and
get into the percentage chances and the comparisons
to average Carl and just a second
but I'm just going to run through the model list and it's
Toyota Sequoia, Toyota 4Runner
Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Toyota Tundra so
top four are Toyota's
Lexus IS, Toyota Tacoma
Small Truck
Toyota Avalon, Lexus GX
Lexus RX, you have parenthetically
hybrid so I think it looks like the hybrid
model only and then the 10th model
is the first non Toyota or non Lexus
and again Toyota and Lexus are the same company
and Lexus being the luxury arm.
So Honda is got
not the Accord which is a lot of people
who think are the Civic but the Ridgeline
the Pickup Truck, the Honda Ridgeline
so that's the top 10 vehicles
or top 10 models I should say
and this excludes heavy
duty vehicles okay.
So
that is a key takeaway of these models
and you have a few other key findings
we'll get into but right now let's kind of
go over those top 10 models and why
they dominate so much.
Yeah I mean
you know again when you look at like
what causes a vehicle to not
be functionally more and there's we
our data guys are always like there's two things that kill a car
time and miles
and time eventually kills every car
except like you know for our GTOs
and Hemikutas and stuff like that because
they're too valuable to let die
but those cars end up hardly being for sale
and they're very small volumes so they don't
pay or play any role
in the numbers you're seeing here
but most cars
94, 96, 98 some percentage like that
of cars
are killed eventually
you know they end up in salvage yards
and they're never seen again at some point
in their life
and if you don't drive a car
enough time will kill it
because the seats
and the interior will start to come apart
the paint will start to fade you know
class 5 tires yeah
tires you know everything that
plus plus
value too what's the other thing besides
how long you drive a car
how much does it cost to keep driving it right
if you've got a car that's got a
market value of $20,000 and you need to spend
$400 to keep it going
and you really like it you'll probably spend that
if you've got a car with a $4,000
market value and it cost
$3,000 or $3,500 or $4,100
to fix the transmission because it
just blew you probably won't pay the money
to keep it going so
that's why time eventually
kills every car because eventually
a car's value to
the marketplace and to the owner
versus the cost
to keep it alive don't match up
and it's not worth it any longer
so the more you drive a vehicle
aggressively and when it's
young and time hasn't worn
out and depreciation hasn't cost it to be
not worth maintaining the more likely it will be
to get to 250,000 miles notice
how there isn't a single sedan
until number 7
the Avalon and then not another one
until the Prius
at 15 those are
the first two sedans
on the list here because sedans
aren't driven as aggressively Tim you can't do as many
things with sedans you got you use them to
commute and you can carry some people in them
but the first car on the list toyota
that's like the most flexible car
you could buy what you want to do do you want
to go to and from work it'll do that
you want to go to soccer practice with all the kids
in the equipment it'll do that you want to take a long
vacation it'll do that you want to go off road
it'll do that you want to toss it
so that's where
SUVs and trucks have the advantage and that's why they
dominate the list because
they are they are so flexible
there are so many very things that
they can do that people do
them and because
they're doing so many things with them they're
wearing the cars out or sorry
I should say they're getting the cars to
250,000 miles before the car
would otherwise not be worth driving anymore
it's the interior is falling apart
the paint's faded the cost to maintain it
plus don't forget that toys and Lexus
also have great resale value so that plays
another role is if you've
got a car that's got all the high resale value
it's long it's going to take longer for its
maintenance costs and the cost to keep it
alive to eclipse the
rate at which you would want to spend that because
the value of the car is so low takes
longer for to just do that and that's why
it's a self-fulfilling proxy
because Toyota's lasts so long
they hold their value longer over time
because they hold their value so long over
time people could drive them longer because
they're still worth driving even if you have to put some money into them
so this is why Toyota
leads you could literally trace
its dominance on this list
among other things beyond its obvious
quality of engineering and
and build which are certainly
kind of the starting point
it's also the resale value that we
always see Toyota's leading act they're leading
in resale value because they last so long and
they last so long because they're leading in resale
value so that's it also one quick correction
I said the Avalon was first set sedan
I forgot that the Lexus IS at number five
is also a sedan so yeah
well I think
of the IS sports car even though it is a sedan
right
so that's that's it and
what's crazy is the rate Tim I mean
the average vehicle if you
take all vehicles and you average their
chance to get to 250,000 miles
4.8%
so it's less than 5% that the average car
would get to that but the Toyota Sequoia
the number one vehicle on our list has a
39.1% chance
it's got an 8.1
times it's 8.1 times
more likely to get to 250,000
miles than the average car
and even the top like 6 you know
5 it's 32.9%
for the forerunner it's 31%
for the Highlander hybrid it's 30%
for the Tundra and then 27.5%
for the Lexus IS
so those top five cars are between
like 5.7
and 8.1 times as likely
to get to 250,000
miles for all those reasons I just said
that's insane and you kind of
stole my thunder a little bit by getting to the
SUV thing I was actually going to ask you why
SUVs did so well but
one other thing too I want to think
I think I want to ask about SUVs
is
construction play a part at all too some
SUVs are body on frame which is
for those who don't know most cars
and some SUVs or what they call a
unibody construction or the frame kind of
integrates a little bit into the chassis
and all that sort of stuff I'm simplifying
by a lot because the engineering is complicated
whereas body on frame is more of a frame
kind of is constructed in the body
sort of bolted on top body and frame
construction is seen on certain older
SUVs certain more rugged
SUVs certain pickup trucks
body and frame is
a little more profitable for manufacturers
cheaper to manufacture but also tends
to be in most
cases a little more durable I think over time
so does that play a role at all the body
and frame construction well that's
an excellent question Tim because again
we've been doing this for 11 years now
and
it used to it used to be
that the body on frame cars
dominated the top and they were much higher
up trucks traditional like
full-size trucks that are always almost always body
on frame and also
body on frame SUVs
like Suburbans and all they used to be
at the top but
what I think has happened is
non body on frame
unibody as you as you directly call them
the integrated body and chassis
has gotten better like
there is they're just designing these things better
it's kind of like the Ridgeline which happens to be the only
non Toyota in the top 10
is not a body
on frame truck but you talk
to Honda about it's bending you know they have
this thing where it's like bending
flexibility of how stiff the chassis
is and what it takes to get it to bend
how much energy before the chassis bends
and Honda brags about how the Ridgeline
a non body on frame
mid-sized truck is
so strong and it can do such
good off-roading even though it's not like
say a Tacoma which
which is a body on frame
truck and the fact that the
Ridgeline isn't as capable as a Tacoma off-road
but the delta between the two of them
is much smaller than it used to be
because body on frame
and unibody stiffness
isn't what it used to be
we know that from like just the facts
of like you know they'll literally put these
chassis on like or these car
bodies on like machines and they'll
start putting pressure on them from
you know some amazing pressure from some outside force
something will be pushing on it and see how many
I think is it hurts or something like that
there's some number for how much it takes
to bend it a certain degree
and all the unibody cars just keep getting
better because the engineering is just always
improving to make them almost as stiff as body
on frame so the short answer is
it used to be a bigger influence
on this longest lasting list because
again if you have a body on frame
you're that much tougher
the car is that much harder to wear out
and what you find
with a body on frame vehicle is
you can drive it more aggressively you can
go off-road like in a suburban or
in of F-150 or
a Tundra
and it won't affect
its ride quality or its steering
or its handling whereas if you start
if a frame starts to slowly kind of
bend and get out of
you know alignment
everything starts to be worse
on the vehicle it's rattling more
it's alignments harder to get and
sometimes you see this you go down you'll be driving on the road
and you'll see a vehicle in front of you and you can see
like the front tires clearly
and the back tires when you're behind it
because the car is going down the road
you know some might say cock-eyed you know
but it's just going down the road now
that's an example of a bent frame
and that makes the car handle weird
it makes it worse fuel efficiency
everything's worse a reason you wouldn't keep driving the car
so there's an inherent advantage
to body on frame cars lasting longer
because of the stiffness of the chassis advantage
over a unit body but that advantage
isn't what it used to be and you can see
the 10 list has plenty of non body
on frame cars
yeah I noticed that too I was just curious
what the effect was and then
the other thing kind of jumped out to me a little bit
just going through your key takeaways here
kind of the bolded
bolded bullet points as you
as you were or as you will
hybrids you know
you see that they're proving to be
really durable and five miles are in the top 25
which was up from three last year
and none in
23
I was always kind of under the impression
and I don't have data
on hybrid reliability in front of me
I don't have JD power in front of me or anything like that
but I was always under the impression
that because hybrids have complex
more complex powertrains
I mean all powertrains are complex these days
but because hybrids have
more complex powertrains there's more things that can go wrong
they cost more to fix
when things do go wrong
so is that just not true
so hybrid drivetrains do cost
have more complex drivetrains
that have potential things that go wrong
and it does cost more
very commonly when things do go wrong
however I use the
comparison to turbos
turbos were huge in like
the 80s and starting into the 90s
and then they vanished why did they vanish
because they couldn't keep up with emissions
turbos and the fact they used the exhaust system
as part of the way to power the engine
and all that it caused a problem
with being able to keep the cars clean enough
so they vanished
then what happened computer processing
and fuel injection systems
and ECUs that controlled the drivetrain
got so advanced that they then
could keep up with emissions
and now it seems like every time
I look at a new car or an old new car
they're getting turbo engines
turbo engines are everywhere now because
the original idea that we've gotten back to again
is that you make a smaller engine
and yet you maintain both
efficiency and power and acceleration
because turbos can do that
and now they're everywhere why
because there was basically a technological fix
is the term you often hear
same thing has happened with hybrid technology
once upon a time hybrid
components if you put them on a drivetrain
they cost a lot they weighed a lot
and they weren't as reliable
because we were in the learning curve
we were in the early stages of hybrid technology
20 years ago was when the Prius had
it's like redesigned for 2004
when it kind of became mainstream
Leo DiCaprio went to
an awards show with it and I always remember this very clearly
and all of a sudden that was like the car to buy
but they were still early in the curve
on figuring that out and by the way
there's a lot of these original 20 year old Priuses
people are freaked out that have like their original battery
and are still on the road and are running
because even in 2004
Toyota was already you know
they had a standard they've always had a standard
that before they sell cars to consumers
they have a bunch of testing and a bunch of internal
like levels that these cars have to meet
for quality and reliability
and the Prius was meeting those in 2004
on that redesign and you still
see those on the road and that's helping them
get to the 250,000 number that
that model
but all Priuses are
sorry all hybrids are much more
efficient now in terms
of weight and size
weight size and cost of the components
and they're more reliable too Tim
they just don't break
as much as you would think they would
even though they are more complex just like they're not as much
they don't weigh as much more as they used to
and they give you great fuel efficiency
and they don't even cost as much more
so look at the RAV4
which a lot of us
are going to be driving soon because it's being redesigned
and they're launching it soon
there isn't a non hybrid version of the RAV4
Toyota has already done this with the Camry
there's no non hybrid versions of the Camry
so I look at hybrid technology
like fuel injection once upon a time
there was this exotic component of a
drivetrain and it was only put on
high-end expensive performance cars
because you couldn't justify putting fuel injection on
I'm just barely old enough to remember that
yeah, yeah
carburetors were what you used unless you had
some kind of specialized car that really deserved to have fuel injection
and again by the late 80s
you had fuel injection on everything, why
because emissions required
that you had more precise metering of the fuel
and now of course we got high pressure
fuel injection and we got all these crazy
things that the fuel injection system can do
that it couldn't do 40 years ago
to make cars more fuel efficient
and burn cleaner from their exhaust emissions
so you wouldn't build a car today
without fuel injection or you would never
pass emissions on that
we're going to see that happen to hybrid technology
hybrid technology is going to eventually be
on every car because it'll be so inexpensive
to add it and every car
has to slow down and hit its brakes
why are we turning that energy of slowing the car down
into nothing but heat on a disc
we should be turning it into
we should be recapturing it somehow
and then using it to get the car going again
it's zero to five miles an hour is the heaviest
fuel use of any car, the whole Newton
object and motion object at rest
so all cars are going to be hybrids soon
and this list the fact that we've seen
now we're starting to see a geometric rate
of hybrids getting to 250,000
miles just compared to a couple years ago
is proof A
that there's more and more hybrids that have been around
long enough for us to have data on
this study showing that but B
that hybrids are starting to permeate
every part of the market and eventually
that technology is going to be everywhere
yeah totally makes sense
anything else you want to kind of
get into it we have about ten minutes or so left
anything else you want to
chat about on this particular study
that we've not gone over that maybe
didn't make it into your talking points
in the press release
or on the website anything that you just kind of
like hey you know this little news
nugget or a little note
didn't quite make it into the main thing
but it is something we're talking about
anything like that do you have on your mind
yeah I mean I think it's interesting
that in the study we don't just have the top cars
that last the longest
but then we've broken them out by different
vehicle types and brands
now we had the brands last week
surprise Toyota was number one on the brands list
now we know why given the model list
but you know
a couple things first
the Chevy Silverado
is there in number 13 and the Chevy Suburban
is number 16
on the top 25 list
so again those were vehicles we typically
saw a few years ago in like the top
five or tops top
six but it's just again proof
that a our data science I think is getting
more more precise
in knowing how long the cars are lasting and be
more non-large
body on frame type vehicles which the Suburban
and the Silverado
both are
they're both chassis body on frame chassis
but they don't that's not required to last
long as we talked about
and then of course we see a couple high see multiple
hybrids in the top 25 but if you go down
to like trucks where we
did include heavy duty
because we figured truck people would want to see that then it's interesting
that of course you see a lot of heavy
duty vehicles in the
leading the truck list but you still see the Toyota
Tundra which is not considered a heavy duty truck
at number two so it's got that
30% chance of getting to
250,000 miles and it's not a heavy duty
truck number one is the Ram 3500
at 39%
and then number four is the F-150
sorry the F-450 which is
a super duty heavy duty truck
but then again number four that's number three
and number four is the Tacoma
which is another non
heavy duty
vehicle so the Toyotas
are basically slugging it out right
there with the heavy duty trucks
for their two trucks
which I think is again telling
and shows why they did
so well in the overall list and then
the other thing that's interesting to notice if you go to the car
list that IS is number one
and the Avalon and the Prius and the Civic
are all R at the top four
those all made the top 25 but
then you have things like the Acura ILX
which is essentially an Acura Civic
as we know you got the Canary
and the Avalon hybrids
which like the Prius which is number three
on the overall car list
the Prius with the hybrid technology is becoming quite reliable
and then you have the Canary in number
eight, the Accord in number nine
and the Lexus EF hybrid
in number ten
so it's worth noting that number eleven
on the car list is the Mercedes
Benz E-Class so
you know it made it
it's the first I think luxury vehicle
on the list
it didn't quite make the top 25 because it
still only has a six
percent chance of getting there
so six point
seven percent chance so it did make the top
25 which stops with the Acura
MDX at about
I think nine percent
and the Model S worth noting too
that the Model S
shows up on the car specific list
it's four point six percent
so it's still below
the average for all cars but it's above
the average for cars
specifically it's also worth noting
cars, just cars, no trucks
no SUVs have an average chance
of two point six percent of getting to
250,000 miles so a much lower
percentage chance that cars can get to 250
for the reasons we talked about they aren't
starting to use this aggressively
but within the car world
Tesla, sorry, yeah
the Tesla Model S is above the average
at four point six percent but
compared to all cars four point six percent is still below
the average for all cars so
so EV, there's an EV though
just show up, one EV
starting to show up and again Model S has been around the longest
of all the Tesla models so it's got the chance
the other thing don't forget like if you've got a newer model
you know the
the Kia K5 cannot show up
on this list because
it just got injured, how do we know how long
it's going to last when it just came out like
three or four years ago whatever
so that's the deal to keep in mind too
is that you need older nameplates
you're not going to see new nameplates because we can't have
data on how long new nameplates last
but around for any time
Makes sense, I actually
want to push back on something, let me push back
I had a question that popped in my head early
in this conversation and I just quite
couldn't quite formulate it and I just did just now
so
you mentioned the SUVs last long
they're typically because
they're driven more aggressively but also aren't they just
built for it whether they're body and frame
or unibody aren't they just
and I guess you kind of did say this
early so maybe I'm being a little repetitive
but I would say it's sort of like
you did mention they can go off-road and stuff like that
so if you have a vehicle that's meant for off-road
a little bit of light off-roading or
meant for carrying a lot of people
isn't there just maybe some
ruggedness built in
to Toyota Sequoia
or Chevy Suburban
or Toyota Land Cruiser that maybe is not built
into a Camry or Honda Accord
Absolutely, yeah there's absolutely
a confluence of
the use of SUVs
the durability
engineered into SUVs because of the use cases
you know they tow things a lot
they go off-road a lot
you need a stiffer body
whether it's unibody or body on frame
you need a stiffer chassis
to do all the things that an SUV does
and it has to be engineered for that
and if it's engineered for those things
it's going to hold up better over time
it's just not going to wear out as much
you're going to go over bumps
and the suspension is going to be more robust
it's either aligned or replaced suspension components
how long it takes to wear them out
it's going to take longer
and if that's true
if even wear items on the cars take longer
to wear out and need to be replaced
that reduces your running cost
that makes you drive the car longer
because you're not spending as much to keep it alive
and keep it on the road
Makes sense, Carl thank you so much for your time
thanks for coming out in two weeks in a row
which is a little bit unusual for us
but we do appreciate you coming out
with our last in car brands from iccars.com
and now the longest last in car models
and of course
anyone who was paying attention last week
probably would not be surprised
that Toyota dominated this list
especially the top ten
of longest last in car models because obviously
Toyota was number one on the list last week
so again we've been talking to Carl Brower
the executive analyst over at iccars.com
and it's a little cheesy
but I was caught like vision
I see so you see
things with your eyes so iccars.com
Carl thank you so much for your time
absolutely Tim always fun talking to you
and look forward to the next one
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as per usual in the truth about cars
podcast we were talking NASCAR
as we get deeper and deeper into the playoffs
and also as per usual
we have Matthew Guy with us t-tech contributor
extraordinaire. Matthew how are you doing today
pretty good how are you doing today
I'm doing well so we're getting to the point
where we are down to the final eight
and we are getting really close
well still about a month to go
believe it or not but
we're getting close to determining a champion
and last year's champion
is still alive in the playoffs
after the race
in Charlotte the Roval Race
the final turn right race
of the year so
we'll talk about what happened there
because Joey Logano got a bit of a gift at the end
and then we'll also talk about
what you and I predicted several times
in the past month and
how it came to
fruition but also didn't affect the
actual standings in the playoff
cut line so
or the playoff cut down I should say
so let's go ahead and just kind of recap briefly
for those who didn't see the race
the NASCAR playoffs
were in Charlotte, North Carolina this past weekend
and they were at what they called the Roval
the reason why they made up a word
called Roval is that
it's part road course part oval
hence Roval
I believe that Charlotte is not the only track that does this
Daytona has this for the 24 hours
although I don't know if NASCAR
raced on it and then Indy has it as well
for
previous NASCAR races although they were back to the oval
this year at Brickyard and I think
it's also been used for F1
at the Indy motor speedway
I believe there's a few other speedways I know
I think Vegas had or has
a similar setup I know that I've driven it on a press event
so anyway
Roval's do exist and it's part road course part oval
so that's where
NASCAR was this past weekend
and they were
moving up this particular round to the playoffs
the second round which would bring it down from
12 drivers to 8
we'll get into that in just a moment
we'll give you the 8 drivers who moved on
and this particular race came down to the very end
while Ross Chastain was in
position to win
he lost control took out
Tinney Hamlin in the process
Hamlin's moving on anyway so Hamlin didn't
to worry and then Julio Logano
who was last year's champ
snuck on through to get the victory
into the next round so
Matthew I want to hear your thoughts
on what happened and before
you get into that I also wanted to point out too
that Matthew and I had been predicting
that Shane Van Gisburg would win this round
or win this race excuse me and
he would
we were both kind of thinking
they'd be kind of cool if he'd make it to the second round of the playoffs
and have a chance to win
this would push him into the third round
well we were half right he won the race but he was not
a playoff competitor as he did not advance
in the past first round and obviously
NASCAR
you can be driving the race but not
a playoff competitor so
obviously we could talk about a little bit more
how a non-playoff driver can
affect the race but Matthew I want to hear what your thoughts are
on
what happened in Charlotte after I give that recap
absolutely
the thing with the
Roval is that it always
brings out when you're turning left and right
there's a lot of different things that can happen
in NASCAR anyways
but
you do have like you said leading up into the
last
last chicane there just before the start
finish line
when Chastain hopped over the curb a little bit
got into the 11 both of them went around
and just for the entire
race I mean
there are 17 turns in that Roval
and Logano and Chastain they were in terms
of points right I mean they were
just about inseparable
almost entire for the entire
race just at the cut line there
you know in terms of moving on to the next round
of these playoffs
you know one lap Logano would be ahead
then the next Chastain would slide
a little bit up the running order
into the eighth spot
and I found I don't know if
other of our listeners found this but
there was some pretty heavy tire fall off like the tires
in terms of falling off I mean
you're losing
traction very quickly compared to a
brand new tire is what I mean by that
and there were some pretty heavy tire fall off
and that really
hammered
the strategy and making sure you didn't
lose much on pit road and I think both
teams did fine for that
but where it went right into
NASCAR's wheelhouse
for
argument for having these playoffs is that
those two teams
the number one
car and the number
two car were fighting for that last
transfer spot to get on to the next
playoffs and
had Chastain not
spun out and finished
where he did
right and finished where he was going to
you know if he had gotten ahead of Denny Hamlin
and finished there he would
have beaten the 22 in terms
of points and the 22 would not
have moved on but of course
it would have been also a really
good post script because we know
that
Ross got into the final
four what was that two three years ago
when he rode the wall all around Martinsville
oh I remember him doing that
I don't remember when that was
yes those two or three years ago so we just
an absolutely bonkers move to get into
the
move on in the playoffs and had he been
successful here he would have literally
backed his way into the playoffs because
they spun and then
he didn't have time to spin
back around and just position
the car so he shoved the car into reverse
and crossed the finish line smoking the
tires backwards so
had Logano been a few more places
behind he would have beaten
there is a possibility
that he would have beaten Logano to the punch
backwards across the line so it would have been
two things that Chastain would have
done very very well that would be pretty funny yeah
that would be pretty funny to get into the next round
so it's still I mean looked
great on TV and I know that's part of
the players desire
for these playoffs so that they make these
moments but I think
it was a good race to watch and we're
on record as being fans of
of road courses
and I think this is another
good example I hope they don't get rid of it
you know I know that they went back
and are using the oval again
at Indy
that's a little bit different just because
yeah I think it's better
to be on the oval at Indy
and then I know there's so much history
NASCAR history at Charlotte
but we're there already
earlier in the year so I think there is an argument
to keep the roval here I hope they do
I really hope they do
because you've got some
you know you do have playoff ringers here
like with the 88
and you know and Chase Elliott
like you've said so many times as well
and Kyle Larson they're all great on road courses
and it requires a different level of skill
so I think this helps
to showcase
our drivers in NASCAR how good they are
because there are certainly other people
who watch other forms of motorsport
who are like oh well you know it's just NASCAR
they're going around in circles
and there's a lot more to it than that
even if you are on ovals for all 36 races
I hope we're not
and then I do think though
that this gives our drivers
a better opportunity
to put their skills forth right
on the big stage
so
but yeah but Logano I mean he grasped that final
semi-final spot by like four points
or something like that
it wasn't very much
he just squeezed in
so I mean if Logano does win the championship
and there's every chance that he will
because he's very strong coming up
for these races that we have
remaining in the
so there's three in the next round
then there's the final round of one race
which is another conversation all together
and I would say that this was the
TSN turning point
of the playoffs
for the 22 team
yeah yeah and I think
obviously you know Logano is a very good driver
this will give him
a chance to repeat
so that's huge
that's definitely big for him
so
you know
obviously seeing Logano give it a second shot
is going to be huge and he just got a little bit lucky
with
you know Chastain spinning out
so obviously you could take that
you know
very much so very very lucky in terms of
because if he had made that pass
against the
if he had made that pass against the
against the 11 car
then he would have been below the cut line
and we've talked about you know this so much
I'm looking at the number of
I'm looking at the number of
wins here
the numbers of road course wins
Chace Elliott has 7
right now Kyle Larson has 6
and then you're there with Van Gisburg
and also with 6 right because he was there
at Chicago there in 23 and 25
and then 5
5 races
he won 5 of those 6 this year so he's definitely
figured out the car don't you think
yeah the guys who always
make me
take notice on a road course
or a role role of Van Gisburg
Larson
Chace Elliott and
to a lesser extent Alex Bowman
those are the ones I was kind of
and Hamlin too I think has done a lot of road courses
you know but
it'll be interesting going forward
with this particular race
being the last road course
now it's going to be all
traditional NASCAR all ovals
the rest of the way so
I'll see who that favors
I mean these guys are
still as much as we
have seen expansion into
the street racing in Chicago and next year in San Diego
and we've seen
road courses a little more road course action
over the past 5 to 10 years
and we have in the past
in Road America, Sonoma
Watkins Glen thank you
I was trying to
think of it off the top of my head
Watkins Glen and then obviously these ovals
you know we've seen more road course racing
but you know
there is still
I'm not going to do the math on all 36 races
but it's still about 80 to 90%
ovals if you count
short tracks
if you take away the short tracks and just count the
super speedways and the intermediate ovals
the mile to mile and a half tracks
you're still looking at 85%
so it's just a rough guess
but it's still the bread
and butter of NASCAR
to run ovals
so the sport will be going back to its roots
as it always does for the final
however many races we have left
I think it's trying to do the math in my head
I want to say it's 4
can we go into like mid-November
so 4 races
we got I think 3 left in October
and 1 in November something like that
so yeah
it'll be kind of a chase
to the end here and then
looking at the cut line, Logano still has a lot of work to do
you know he is 8th
right now
so for those of
I think I finally figured out how this
works after a month of playoffs
but we have
the 8 drivers who are moving on
there are 4 who on points are above the cut line
now obviously with the 4 races left
and I think it's
3 to determine the championship
and then the championship race
you know Hamlin
Blaney, Larson, Byron
they're all safe on points right now
of course anyone who wins a race
anyone of these 8 drivers who wins a race
marks themselves safe for the final 4
but
Christopher Bell, Chase Elliott
Chase Briscoe and Joey Logano are below
the cut line now
Bell is only 4 points below
so William Byron and Kyle Larson
are only 4 points above
so Bell's got a shot to move back in on points
I
Chase Elliott, Chase Briscoe and Logano
probably need another win
to get this thing done
after the Martinsville elimination
October 26
if those guys don't have some strong points races
between now
and Martinsville in
3 weeks
then they're going to have to
maybe win a race here
you're right
and there's the 3 different
the playoffs are what they are
so we might as well talk about them
and maybe a little bit different next year
but at least for this year the round
will be situated
with these 3 races
they're all very different tracks
and I think that's a good thing
because Las Vegas you've got your intermediate
fast track but it is an intermediate
Talladega Super Speedway
anything can happen
and that's always the wild card
I am glad
some bright minds in NASCAR
put Talladega in the middle there
and didn't make it the cutoff
because for Talladega to be the cutoff
you can get caught up in someone else's mess real quick
at Talladega
putting that there in the middle you can have a real bad day
or a real good day at Talladega
and then Martinsville is just really close quarters
little tight little paper clip
500 laps
that seem to go so so fast
right and you've got
a lot of pitch strategy there
just the way that everything is laid out
you've got to have a really good head on shoulders
when you're in any of these
but I mean when you're in
there's a lot of stuff going on
there's not much room to move
so there's any of those
any of those variables
can make or break someone's day
and I
off the 8 that are here you're exactly right
I mean the 9 car is 14
points out and then they're tied with the 19 car
and Logano being there
in the basement at 24
but that doesn't mean he's out by any stretch
of the imagination not with this round just starting
yeah
and I'm just thinking ahead
to these next three tracks
and one thing that
as you were speaking
kind of struck out of me or struck out
stood out
I think it's the word I'm looking for
one thing that stood out to me is
you know these next three
tracks and we may have discussed this before
but I don't believe we have
these next three tracks represent
three of the main four types of NASCAR racing
so you have your super speedway
at Talladega on the 19th
this coming weekend
in Vegas on the intermediate
and then short track
the only type of racing not represented
is the road course which we just had
so you know
so that's kind of a
I think we've complained before about
the races that are part of the playoffs
I'm pretty sure we have
and it's suggested maybe we should move things around
or change things up
but I don't think the final race
track be part of the playoffs
but I think in this particular case
and this particular round
anyway
we have a nice representation
of each, a nice sample of each type of track
so I think the first
two rounds you can play with
you know these
I don't know
you really can't move a road course up because
the final race has to be the championship with the final four drivers
but
you can move
tracks around
for September
and early October
sorry late August
those early playoff races
but you know having these three races
as a nice sample
for the round of eight
I think is really nicely set up by NASCAR
it is, it's a good sample size
something that I
encountered over
in people doing postmortems and talking about
the track and people are actually involved in the race
and
calling the race with some
being spotters and stuff
they were suggesting that NASCAR is frowning
on telling
on people telling drivers and keeping them up to date
about where they are
in the points and how that came up
was that Denny Hamlin said afterwards
that he didn't know
that if Ross was ahead of him
that he would have taken out Lugano from
from the points right from
the playoffs
Denny Hamlin said that he didn't know that
and I highly suspect
I mean drivers are not one to give up
a place
but you got to think that if
Denny Hamlin knew
that he could deny
the defending champion
the chance to be in the next round
of playoffs
that might have happened right
it might have happened but the point was
that these people were talking about
different podcasts on really good podcasts
that are
reliable
saying that NASCAR is frowning on us telling
the drivers
where they stand and what they
or someone else needs to do right Lugano needs
two more positions right as an example
because of race manipulation
and they don't want that happening and we see that
happen all the time in other
other sports
in other series and we've seen
it happen in NASCAR blatantly sometimes
you see people trying to
impact the outcome of a race
so that's
NASCAR has boxed itself into
a corner with that because they've created
these playoffs
and they've created the opportunity for people
to speed up slow down
help their teammate etc
by
moving around on the track a little bit
and by creating
this playoff structure NASCAR has boxed itself
into a corner for that and I just found it
interesting anyways that you had some of these spotters
and some of these other guys
on different podcasts saying yeah you know
NASCAR is frowning on that
and telling us one guy said they told us
not to do it and then the other person came back
and said well we clearly heard the 22 talking
about it
and I thought okay well there you go
it's just how often is this stuff
policed? Well I'm glad you brought that up
because
you look at the other four sports
especially the four major stick and ball sports
hockey, football, basketball, baseball
I don't know how much manipulation
there really is when a team
is out of it and they're out of the playoffs
and it's late
September and baseball and they're out of the playoffs
a lot of it is just
if you don't make the playoffs
and you know that your season's over
but you still have games to play in the regular season
a lot of it's just playing for pride
as well as players who might be free agents
playing for their future contracts
and guys still want to win right
because you know we want to try and get
jobs for next year or just personal pride
so I don't really see a lot of
and obviously
some teams will be tanking for a draft pick
but any team that's quote-unquote tanking
probably has been doing it all season long
so it doesn't really matter
but so that's what makes NASCAR unique
is because you have got
teammates that might want to help each other
out as you said
or maybe in the
first season
or maybe in some cases heard another team
or heard another driver
but it's also unique
because in NASCAR
you can't scoreboard a watch behind the wheel
you can't see a scoreboard
you have to be told what's going on
whereas if you're a baseball player
and let's say you are an opponent race
and maybe you're in the fringe of the playoffs
and you want to see how the other team
that you're competing with is doing
you can check the out-town scoreboard
between innings when you're in the dugout
you can do that
on the bench and football and just by any other sport
most stadiums will show that stuff
so
you can't really stop scoreboard watching the other sports
unless you take away the scoreboards and the stadiums
but of course then people still have cell phones
and iPads and all that stuff
but with NASCAR drivers
when they're in the car
I don't know if there might be some tracks
where maybe the famous
pole at Indy where they can see their positions
and stuff like that when they're driving
I've never really
paid that close of attention to the
in-cars but most in-car cameras
shots that I do see
I'm trying to remember Indy at the top of my head I can't right now
but you can't see a scoreboard
you know what I mean
or if you can it might show
the scoreboards you might be able to see like I said like Indy
might show you that race
it might show you where you're at
and maybe you can get a glimpse of it as you pass by
but that's not going to be at most tracks
and it's not going to be really
helpful
you kind of already know where you are
so
no one was going on behind you
or way ahead if you're not in the front of the pack
you're going to have to spot her and crew chief
we're going to have to probably tell you
and again like I said there may be some exceptions
like again Indy might be able to see that pole
as you come around the front stretch
but most tracks you just can't see the scoreboard when you're driving
no matter how fast you're going
so
or if you're on a road course
you're done with road courses now for the rest of the year
but if you're on a road course
especially a large one you might not be able to see around the corner
to see where somebody is
so you have to have the information
from the spotters
and the crew chiefs
and I really think it is interesting that
NASCAR is trying to crack down on that
and I get where NASCAR is coming from
they don't want someone to
make things unfair
to punt a driver
you don't want someone to help his teammate
punting another driver
that's kind of unfair and cruddy
it's not part of the spirit of competition
but at the same time
I think drivers would like to know
even drivers who are not in the playoffs anymore
who have been knocked out
I think it would be nice for them to know what's going on
so that's a very interesting philosophical question
we can get into a little bit more next week
absolutely
I think that's a great philosophical question to talk about
because when you're in
your
allegory
your example
the example that you gave
in stick and ball sports
because you go back to the bench
with a tablet or whatever
and this is what we need to do
and then so when the captain comes
you know
the captain comes off the ice
and stops their shift
and they're on the bench for a minute
someone can relay that information to them
but that doesn't happen in NASCAR
driving 100, 200 miles an hour
you can't check the scoreboard
you can't take out the tablet
and look at it
a lot of these tracks don't even have scoreboards
you can really see from the track
even if you're going 20 miles an hour
you wouldn't be able to see it
sorry, go ahead
you're so right
I was just agreeing that
you don't have those opportunities
to see that on the fly from inside the car
and you can be guaranteed
that that's one of the reasons
why do you remember
when Juan Pablo Montoya
smoked into the
jet dryer all those years ago
at Daytona
and he
the race was red flagged
and I think it was Kazdowski was leading
he might have been leading or he might have been second
and he tweeted back when it was actually called Twitter
a picture
from inside the car
he was like well he said stop for a minute
and up until that point
no one really had thought about people having
phones on their
person in the car
he just tucked it inside his suit it's not a big deal
and then of course they don't allow that
because
now because you can get all kinds of telemetry
that you're not supposed to be able to get
from different apps and different things like that
so you can bet
with the different gauge cluster
that they have now is basically one big
tablet in the car
it's not impossible
it's anyone with
a bit of technology
knowledge any you know
a 12 year old hacker in a basement could figure it out
how to
get those screens
in the car to display
information such as that I mean if you're a cop
yeah that would be
that would be another conversation all together
but NASCAR has always been about
working around
the rules and not breaking rules
but making new ones right exactly
yeah right if one of the teams if there's no
rule right now that says
that those displays those computer
eyes tablets the displays
in the car that act as a dashboard
if there's no rule that currently says you cannot
display the points
standings on them if there's
no rule that says that right now then
someone can figure it out someone
with a brighter mind than I would be able
to figure it out need that information to
that tablet I guarantee someone
can figure it out and they probably are already
you just I mean how are you going to prove it
right other than the in-car camera
but then you just have some sort of filter on the lens
that's all right because we see
that all the time like we have a filter over our
computer screens no one can see what we're doing
yeah exactly so it is I'm
just I'm just a bit bald in here I'm just rolling with this
so if anyone's if anyone in
the in the halls of one of
these one of these playoff contending
teams is listening happens to
be listening to our podcast there's a free idea
for you as if you haven't come up with it before
yeah for sure
yeah we should probably
revisit this a little bit more next week
depending on what happens in the race
because
this is something I never really thought of before
I don't know why but
you know teams just being
how do I say this teams having
the information that they can give to the drivers
and I really am actually curious about
how it affects drivers who are not in
the playoffs anymore have been knocked out
but maybe like I said they may have a teammate
who still is in
or I think actually the one who said that or
maybe
there's another reason personal rivalry
money whatever
so yeah I'm very curious
to kind of we can dig into
this either in the offseason or next week
depending on how
the race goes so we were actually
a little bit tight on time Matthew is there anything you
wanted to add before we close the segment
no not at all thanks for having me on again this week
yeah absolutely so next week of course is
Las Vegas
I always
have mixed feelings about watching that
race because it's sometimes there's some really
fun racing at that track
but also we are kind of getting into the point
where it is going to be
another standard intermediate
track like Chicago land which they've
not been at for a few years or
Kansas so we're
kind of getting to that that's sort of
you know these next gen cars though
on the other hand do fit those tracks pretty well
so for the drivers have said
so we will
keep an eye on that and then
I think the more interesting races are in Martinsville
finishing
the finishing
the playoffs before
the championship race
with a short track and then of course
Talladega where luck plays
as much role of skill so I think Talladega
and Martinsville are going to be two to really watch
but Vegas will get us started so
with that we will go ahead and wrap this
segment for NASCAR
here on this week's Truth About Cars podcast
Matthew thank you so much for being on
with us this afternoon. I appreciate it bro
thanks man. That's all for this week's
Truth About Cars podcast I'm Tim Healy
a managing editor and you can find us wherever
you get your podcasts you can also find us online
at ttac.com or the Truth About Cars
allspodout.com
we thank Carl Brower, Matthew Guy
for their time and Matt Poskey for editing
most of all we thank you for listening
and we'll see you next time
About this episode
A deep dive into the longest-lasting car models, featuring insights from Carl Brower of ICCars.com. The discussion highlights the top ten models, dominated by Toyota and Lexus, and explores the factors contributing to their longevity, including resale value and construction quality. The episode also covers practical topics like headlight restoration kits and a recap of the recent NASCAR race at the Charlotte Roval, where strategy and driver performance played crucial roles in the playoffs. Listeners will gain valuable insights into vehicle durability and automotive maintenance.
bent frame
body on frame
chassis stiffness
General Motors
headlight restoration kit
hybrid
integrated body and chassis
Lexus
McGuire's
sealed beam headlights
Acura ILX
Acura MDX
Chevrolet Suburban
Ford F-150
Ford F-450
Honda Accord
Honda Ridgeline
Kia K5
Lancia Delta
Lexus GX
Lexus RX
Plymouth Cuda
Pontiac GTO
Ram 3500
Tesla Model S
Tesla Model Y
Toyota 4Runner
Toyota Avalon
Toyota Camry
Toyota Highlander
Toyota Land Cruiser
Toyota Prius
Toyota RAV4
Toyota Sequoia
Toyota Tacoma
Toyota Tundra
Original notes
This week on the TTAC podcast, we bring back Karl Brauer from iSeeCars.com to follow up on last week's longest-lasting car brands with the longest-lasting car models.
TTAC contributor Matthew Guy and I discuss headlight restoration kits and what happened at the Charlotte Roval during the NASCAR playoffs.
We thank Matthew Guy and Karl Brauer for their time and Matt Posky for editing. Most of all, we thank you for listening!
The Truth About Cars
TheTruthAboutCars.com
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