What are the best Cars for the Money 2026 ?

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

And good Sunday morning, everyone,

and welcome to another edition of the Car Doctor program

on 959WATD, your self-sure local radio station.

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Well, it's that time of year where we think about what

are the best cars for the money, the best new cars

for the money, and not necessarily the best new cars.

But really how they fit into your budget is important.

And today we're seeing the average price of a new car.

Now, average means a lot of different things.

But the average price of a new car being up around $50,000.

The idea that not that many years ago,

that the luxury tax used to kick in at $32,000.

So now you're looking at the average price of cars.

So it's really something that continues

to be a major investment.

And if you were listening to the program previously,

they were talking about what people get paid.

And in 1970, the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour.

It would take a lot of hours at minimum wage

to buy a $50,000 car.

Fortunately, cars weren't $50,000 in 1970.

But still, it was a big chunk of your paycheck.

And today, it is still a big chunk of your paycheck.

And Will, with us on the phone, is Alex Quanton.

He is the US News Auto's managing editor.

And he's going to help us make some sense of this.

Alex, good morning, and welcome to the CarDoc program.

Good morning, John Paul.

Thanks for having me.

Great to have you on.

Well, let's talk about, first off,

let's talk about how these numbers come together,

how you do this.

How do you come up with the best cars for the money?

Sure.

So we do the best cars for the money awards every year

right around Jan, February.

We've launched them at the DC Auto Show,

which was a couple of weeks ago.

And what they are is a combination

of the overall score from our basic reviews.

We review almost every car.

We don't review things like Rolls Royces,

but we review most of the cars that most people actually

buy.

And then we do a deep dive on the data

behind those cars when we formulate our own review score.

Then we cross-referenced that with the average transaction

price on those cars and the total cost of ownership

over five years.

So it has to be, to win one of these awards,

it has to be a pretty good car.

Like, we have to believe it's a good car,

so you have a good experience.

But it also has to be affordable up front

and affordable down the line.

So that factors in all kinds of things

like insurance costs, maintenance, warranty.

So we really try to look at the whole picture.

And it's sort of interesting that in that list,

there's a fair amount of key is in Hyundai's.

And I remember when Hyundai's first came out at $39.99,

I think, or something like that.

And cheap up front, expensive to own,

because they weren't very good cars.

But that's all different today.

And still popular cars are compact cars.

And can you take us through the winners in that category?

Sure, yeah.

I also remember those early Hyundai's.

My uncle Jean had one of those first excels

and wasn't anything but trouble.

But they've come a long way.

And they really invested in tech and quality.

And the best compact car for the money is the Kia K4.

There were two runners up there, the Honda Civic

and the Toyota Corolla.

Now, the K4, I think it starts at just a little over

$22,000.

And even the priciest one, if you buy the four-door sedan,

they have a new hatchback that's just coming online

this month and last month.

That's fractionally more expensive.

But even the priciest K4 sedan is under $30,000 out the door.

And those other two are also really good cars.

But they either have higher costs of ownership

or higher up front costs, or they weren't as nice a car.

So the K4, I mean, this is a direct descendant

of those early Kia's like the Fiat stuff like that.

But it's a really great car.

It has really nice interior technology

that looks really stylish.

Some people love it or hate it styling.

But it definitely looks distinctive.

It doesn't look like you settled for an economy car.

And that's another kind of value.

Yeah, and looking at the finalists in that category,

like you mentioned, the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla,

those are sort of always steadfast.

You can always count on those cars.

But it's sort of interesting that, and I'm sure

it's a combination of the great warranty that

comes with Kia that kind of steps it up a little bit

over that Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla.

Yeah, if you're buying new, like they have

the longest warranty in the class by far.

Mitsubishi has a warranty that's similar to Hyundai and Kia,

but they don't offer a car in this class anymore.

And we've been hard pressed in the past

to rank a Mitsubishi above a Civic, but it's possible.

But yeah, I mean, the car offers,

the Kia just offers a lot of style

and a lot of value, and it's gonna stay that way.

And I will say that you have

to keep up with maintenance to make sure

you get the most out of that warranty,

but it's a very hard value proposition to be.

Let's move down a little bit.

People look at hybrids, and especially,

we're looking at plug-in hybrids these days

as being the kind of more popular option.

But in a standard hybrid, we always just talk about

the Prius, how can you go around with the Prius?

It gets 50 miles per gallon.

In the compact class, the Hyundai Elantra hybrid

was the winner.

I don't know that everybody's not familiar with that car.

Sure, so that is a car that has been really dominant

in these awards for the last five years.

So, you know, about at that time,

I think it was model year 2021.

Hyundai redesigned the Elantra.

They made it bigger on the inside

and a little bit bigger on the outside.

I mean, I think if you haven't driven a compact car

in like a decade, go get in that car

and it'll feel like a mid-sized car did a decade ago.

That's how much room is inside of it.

And the hybrid powertrain, you know,

it can give you up to 54 miles per gallon.

It's at a lower price point than the Prius.

And so when you're thinking about the total value of like,

well, how much space am I getting?

How convenient the car is it?

Plus, you know, what's the miles per gallon?

Plus the warranty.

That is a really tough proposition to beat.

It's just a real power player in that segment.

As many hybrid cars as we thought there would be ultimately,

but you know, we actually expanded our award categories

this year in the hybrid SUVs

because there are so many more now

than there were 10 years ago.

I think when I look back at the best cars for the money

in 2017, we had like one hybrid class

and it had like maybe eight entries

and some of them were kind of an odd fit.

Like I think the Chrysler and Pacifica hybrid

was in there even though it's Minivan and it's not an SUV.

They just kind of, we just kind of lumped hybrids together

but now there are like two dozen hybrid SUVs

and they range from like really small ones

to compact ones, the mid-sized ones.

There aren't too many full-sized ones yet

but they're coming too and there is at least one.

So, you know, like people are really interested

in saving money at the pump.

And you know, it's not only about affordability

when you buy the car, but like,

if you're looking at your monthly payment

and you're also looking at your gas expenses

month after month after month,

there are all these new hybrids that aren't

hugely more expensive than their non-hybrid counterparts.

So if you're going to keep that car

and get like a five or six year loan on it, you know,

in that time, you're definitely going to see a fuel save

used by choosing the hybrid instead.

So one thing we noticed in the reason we expanded

was just people were just clamoring for hybrids.

Yeah, I've noticed that with people

that are asking me more questions about new car purchase.

And one of the cars that I think sort of shocked people

that it's only available in a hybrid now is a Camry.

And that did really well in your midsize hybrid category.

It did.

You know, that is the midsize,

the best midsize hybrid car for the money this year.

And you know, I will say that there are hybrids

that are maybe a little more refined than the Camry,

but you know, generally speaking,

there are only a few midsize cars now.

And I think, you know,

you've got the Accord hybrid is a runner up.

The Sonata hybrid is back in the mix also.

You know, if you want a car that size,

the Camry hybrid generally starts a little lower

in terms of MSRP than most of its competitors.

It has a really good feature set.

You know, the Hyundai has a great feature set too.

And so does the Honda,

but you're just paying a little less per,

you know, for the Camry overall,

the trims compare really well to those other two.

And it's a good car.

You know, it's roomy, it's spacious,

it looks pretty good.

You know, and it's just built like a tank.

So it's hard to argue with that.

Yeah, the Camry is one of those cars

that you just sort of look at it and go,

well, it's going to be a good car for 10, 15, 20 years.

You know, it historically always has been

and has been very popular.

Yeah.

Let's skip over, you mentioned SUVs,

let's skip over to SUVs

and some of the compact SUVs.

And compact SUVs to me and maybe in both the compact

and sub-compact category,

as people get a little bit older,

those SUVs make a great replacement for

that compact and mid-size in the end

because you get a little bit better,

you're sitting up a little bit higher,

you get a little bit better view.

They're a little easier to get in and out of.

So they can become a very popular new car

for somebody who's maybe getting a little bit up in age.

And you had some interesting winners in that category,

starting with the Nissan Kix.

Yeah, so the Kix, you know,

I drove the last generation Kix a few times

and I've only driven this current generation once,

but it is wildly improved over the old Kix.

You know, these very small SUVs

kind of have come online in the last 10 years

and they're tiny, the Kix is pretty small.

But what you get is like a really good

sort of economy car footprint with a little more room in it.

And I feel like as you said,

you know, the SUV form factor,

even if it's not, you know,

like a off-roading Toyota 4Runner type SUV,

I think it's a little friendlier to human shapes.

I think that's one reason

why we've drifted back to SUVs from cars.

If you look at like say the cars of the 1940s,

they all look like SUVs.

They have that same shape

because that's a good form factor for human bodies

and it's, you know, older people with mobility issues,

they, you know, they need a little bit more grace

in getting in and out and entry and egress in an SUV

is just easier.

But yeah, the Kix is a great little vehicle.

It's super stylish.

It has really nice tech features inside,

really good infotainment system and it looks great.

In fact, there's a new electric car called the Volvo EX30,

which kind of, you know, the Kix is not as luxurious

as the EX30 or as fast,

but it looks sort of similar,

especially if you get it in that bright yellow color.

So in a way, I kind of like it

that they've really up their design game.

But I have to say that my favorite

of these little subcompact SUVs

in this particular award set was the Kia Niro.

I know we heart on Kia a lot,

but I just drove the Kia Niro hybrid

about a month and a half ago.

And, you know, usually we are often given vehicles

to test that are fully loaded vehicles,

but we also at US News procure vehicles other ways.

And we chose to get an absolute base model for this

just to see what it's like to buy the one

that's actually less than $30,000 out the door.

And I have to say that despite the fact

that it has a small infotainment screen

and maybe it doesn't have all the bells and whistles,

I was extremely impressed with that car.

I got 50 miles per gallon out of it.

I'm six foot four and I can fit just fine

in the back seat with the front seat adjusted for me.

There's lots of cargo room.

It looks pretty cool.

And, you know, obviously the warranty of all Kia

has applied to that one, so it's another value add.

And I really was very impressed with that.

There's now three of those little subcompact hybrid SUVs.

The Corolla Cross Hybrid was our runner-up.

And there's also the Subaru Cross Trek Hybrid,

which I'm also a huge fan of,

but the Cross Trek Hybrid costs

quite a bit more than the other two.

Yeah, I want to get back to the Nissan for a minute.

I answered a reader question this week.

Somebody wanted to know about Nissan products.

And I forget exactly what model they were looking for.

And I said, I really like the vehicle.

I'm a little bit afraid of the company itself.

Nissan's made some major financial changes,

but they're still in a little bit

of financial difficulty, right?

They are, in fact.

I will say that Nissan seems to be mounting

a full frontal product assault with good products.

And I think if you're making good vehicles

that people like and that are a good value,

people will buy them.

So I'm optimistic about their ability to recover,

especially this Kix, the Murano,

which was our best two-row SUV for the money.

The new Leaf, which was up in the running

for best compact electric SUV.

It did not win, but it was up in the running.

And they also have recently redone the Armada.

And they are, I just drove the new Nissan Sentra

about three months ago, and I really liked it.

I thought it compared really well to the Kia K4,

which we were talking about before.

Obviously, we can't evaluate every car that's brand new

because we wanna make sure

that it has a track record of ownership.

And I do believe we did evaluate that one in the award.

So it didn't get runner up, but it's a great value.

I mean, even the priciest one is under $30,000 in.

It's a nice car.

It's not exciting to drive,

but most of them are really stylish.

And I think most people care more about,

is it a good value, is it convenient,

and does it get a good gas mileage

rather than zero to 60 times?

Yeah, absolutely good point.

And you mentioned, if you ever driven a compact car

in the past 10 or 15 years, you get in,

you're like, this is as big as a mid-sized car.

Whether it's a new Toyota Corolla

that you compared to a 15-year-old Toyota Camry,

you're gonna say, this is pretty big.

Same thing with the compact SUVs

that won the Kia Sportage Hybrid

and the plug-in hybrid Kia Sportage.

You get inside of those,

and those are about the same size

as the former Santa Fe Sport.

Yeah, I would say if you're someone

who's been in like a 2006 Toyota Highlander,

these are about as big as that is.

I mean, that's quite a long time ago,

but one of the things about the Kia Sportage

which is our best compact hybrid SUV

and our best compact plug-in hybrid SUV for the money

is that it has a huge back seat,

and so does the Hyundai Tucson's best compact SUV.

That Tucson has actually won almost all of our awards

because it's huge inside,

which is a big factor in terms of comfort.

So I think it has like 41 inches of legroom,

which is about, I wanna say that,

and I hope I'm getting my figures correct,

but it's about a half an inch

to one inch shorter legroom than a Chevy Tahoe,

which is a huge vehicle, right?

So you're really getting a lot of room

in a pretty small, manageable footprint,

and that matters.

I mean, not only do you get passenger space,

but you also get lots of cargo space.

I think the Tucson is one of the best

or most capacious models in its class,

and it's a huge interior.

And both of these vehicles, the Sportage and the Tucson

are full of good tech features,

and they're just comfy, you know?

And I think for a lot of people,

it's like I wanna be comfortable.

I don't wanna have a lack of backseat space.

And if you're buying an SUV,

I think that's kind of paramount,

especially for family buyers.

And there are a lot of families who kind of replace

mid-sized sedans with compact SUVs.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you mentioned tech features,

and for people that are going out to buy a new car,

and I stole this from a friend of mine,

it's important to road test the tech

as much as a car, isn't it?

Yeah, and I think that's where it can be hard

on a dealer like little short test drive

to really get a feel for the tech in the car.

I mean, even when we evaluate a car,

usually I get a whole week with a car to evaluate it.

And I find even that is sometimes, you know,

not enough time because you wanna learn every feature

and you wanna practice with the system,

and there are some systems which are really unconventional.

So like Mazda has this click wheel system,

and I think, you know, journalists

who get in and they're in it for one day,

they're like, oh, this is frustrating,

because it's not what they know,

but you will acclimatize to it,

and in some cases it might be better,

but you have to like get a feel for it

and get used to it,

and you may have to have a dealership employee

sort of take you through it.

In some cases, like at premium brands like Lexus,

if you buy one of their cars,

they'll have somebody sit with you

and go through the system with you.

I don't know that you'll get that treatment

on most of these volume popular brand vehicles,

but it is sort of important to take your time to see,

can I use this system?

Is it easy to use?

Do I like the fact that there are buttons

or are there are no buttons?

Some people really love screens.

You know, one thing that we're hearing from people lately

is that they hate that like,

oh, everything's on the screen now,

and they would prefer to have physical buttons on the car.

In most cases on the vehicles in this set,

they have physical buttons in addition to touch controls.

There are a few that have a lot of touch controls,

but it's also like,

do you want navigation?

Do you need it?

Or do you have to spend more for it on a higher trim?

You might not if you're willing to use

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto,

which can, they give you navigation by default.

So it's worth trying to pair your phone.

It's worth trying to just go through the buttons

and see how many taps do I have to get to

to change the menu on this feature or that feature?

Like, let's say you listen to a lot of music in the car.

You might want to see like,

is the audio tone button in the right place

where I can easily change it if I want to?

Or do I have to go back and dig through a bunch of menus?

Or in the case of some vehicles,

like there are some General Motors vehicles

where the headlight adjustment is on the menu.

There's no button.

So you have to navigate through a whole bunch of little taps

to get to that feature.

And I find that very frustrating.

I think it's worth testing out

whatever vehicle you're going to buy and seeing,

all right, maybe just sit on the lot

and just go through all the stuff on the dashboard

and go through the infotainment system

or even watch a couple of videos

or even read our site, cars.usdus.com.

I have to plug us.

Because we do take the time in our reviews

to go through whether the system's easy to use

and how comprehensive it is.

Yeah, it absolutely makes sense to be able to try

to get as much feel for all of that.

Like you said, people, and maybe it's generational

and I'm older and I still sort of like the Braille method

of changing a radio station sometime

where I can keep my eyes on the road,

reach over, find the radio button

and be able to change stations

without having to take my eyes off the road,

look over the screen, tap three times

to go from FM to AM or FM to satellite

or back and forth, whatever the case is.

I do like the idea of physical buttons

and again, you know, maybe somewhat generational

but it is what it is.

So electric vehicles have, they were kind of on,

everybody's list a few years ago,

they sort of softened a bit over the past few months

but still, and I go on to say that we live

in the golden age of the automobile right now

where you can go out and buy a gasoline car,

a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid, a fully electric car,

something that runs a diesel.

We have a lot of choices right now

and I love the idea that electric vehicles

are one of those choices.

Pure electric vehicles are fun to drive

and if it fits your lifestyle, it's a perfect vehicle

and the winner in that compact category

was the Chevrolet Equinox

and I drove that about a year ago at this time

and what a great little car.

You know, it's sort of an unsung hero in that class

and I feel like it deserves more attention.

I mean, that vehicle in the best compact SUV for the money,

that beat out like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6

so it was like real, you know,

really good vehicle that it beat

and it beat them basically on value.

You know, you've been in it too,

I've driven it a couple of times.

I wouldn't say it's the most exciting vehicle to drive,

it's good if you get the higher power one,

it's pretty quick, you know,

but it's really nice inside,

there's lots of room inside, it looks really good

and it comes with pretty good features

and you know, like, if your lifestyle will fit it,

it's a great option in terms of saving money

and I actually think Chevrolet has ladled

on a whole bunch of incentives on top of it,

even though we don't have the tax credits anymore,

they are incentivizing it

so it's actually even better of a value

than when we put it on the list.

You know, I think that you need to basically be able

to reliably charge at home

and that charging cost needs to be pretty reasonable.

I live out in Seattle, I'm originally from New York

but I live in Seattle now

and out here most of the electricity

is fairly inexpensive and it comes from hydroelectric

and if you own your own home and you park at home

and charge it overnight, you will save a lot of money

and also a lot of time,

like think about if you're a family,

you know, picking up the kids from school

and then you gotta go to the gas station

and fill that up and it's 15 minutes out of your day

or 20 minutes at the drive to the gas station,

suddenly you don't have to do that anymore

if you're just charging the car at home.

If your lifestyle doesn't fit it

and you are constantly at the fast charger,

I'm not sure that the equation is really the same

but I feel like charging infrastructure

gets better and better and better

and I know that EVs right now,

they've kind of taken a hit

because the tax credit ended, you know,

and so like people pulled their purchases forward

before because they knew the tax credit

was gonna go away.

So EV sales have dropped but I do think that

once you've driven one for a while or lived with one,

you can kind of see the power advantages

and the money-saving advantages

and you know, I know that a lot of people

have concerns about like,

oh, is the battery gonna go bad after a few years?

It probably won't.

It may not have the full charge

but I'll say I have a friend with a 2013 Nissan Leaf

and it still has about 60% of its range

and I have another friend with a 2013 Tesla Model S

and it still has about 65% of its original range

which is, you know, not great

but I mean, that's certainly much better

than some people predicted

that these cars would last five years and be gone.

So I also feel the same way about hybrid batteries.

You know, there were some early hybrids

where the batteries weren't great

but in general, the hybrid batteries

pulled up pretty well.

Yeah, every time I'm in a taxi or a Uber or Lyft

and it happens to be a hybrid

and especially taxis because they run 24 hours a day,

I always ask, what do you get for life out of the batteries?

And every Camry I've ever been in,

every Camry hybrid, they're like 350,000.

I'm like, geez, okay, I guess.

And you know, and that might only be four years old

at that point.

But yeah, you know, the idea of getting 350,000 miles

out of a hybrid battery, you know, is pretty phenomenal.

So yeah, the batteries, the batteries last really well.

Before we let you go, very popular category,

mid-size and full-size truck.

Full-size truck Toyota F-150,

I guess, no real surprise there, right?

Yeah, the Ford F-150, it offers the most

for the most people.

I mean, at this most configurable vehicle in America

and even the lower trims like the FTX

don't really skimp on the features anymore.

Like it used to be that if you bought the work truck

grade, you got really just no infotainment at all.

It's totally like the most bare bones thing.

And it's still bare bones relatively speaking.

I mean, these trucks go up to like,

you could spend 100 grand on the truck

if you really want to.

But in general, the F-150 just is a great value proposition.

And we, you know, some of the other trucks

had pretty big increases in their total cost

of ownership year over year.

Like the Ram 1500 seemed to be more expensive

this year than it had been in years past.

So, you know, the Tundra is the runner up there

and it's a hybrid.

And the real nice thing there is fuel savings.

But of course the F-150 offers non-hybrid, hybrid, V8,

whatever you want.

So there's just a lot of choices there.

And the Tacoma, no surprise there, just really,

it's like built of iron, you know.

It just has such a great reliability record

and it's a relatively affordable truck that,

you know, it's just great.

And you know, if you want to see the other winners

and even the finalists,

you can go to cars.usnews.com

and check them all out.

Yeah, and what's kind of also fun is, you know,

go back in the previous winners,

go back to 2016, 2017, 2018.

And you know, see how those cars compared to today's cars.

It's a fun way to go.

And on the cars.usanews.com site,

you have some new car rankings in there,

used car rankings, best cars for families,

which I, again, I just answered another reader question.

It was a family that got together,

they have a bunch of kids

and they're looking for the best vehicle

that would fit that category.

And then best vehicle brands are in there.

There's a lot of research information

that people can find on cars.usnews.com, right?

That's right.

Yeah, we review everything

and we hope to give you the best guidance you can

and go into the dealership.

We want you to be forewarned and forearmed.

There you go.

I think my fourth grade teacher said that on testing.

Well, you know, I think most people find going to the dealer

to be a little bit of a test.

And if you can go in there with the information you need

and we can give it to you, that'd be great.

You know, we just, our goal is to give people

the information that's gonna help them make good decisions.

So cars.usnews.com, that's it.

There we go.

Alex, thanks for taking some time

out of your Sunday morning

and joining us on West Coast time.

That's right.

Early here.

All right.

Great rest of the day

and don't know what your football affiliation is,

but we kind of want the pass to win.

Well, you know, I'm out here in Seattle,

so maybe the best team win, you know?

All right.

All right, take care, Alex.

Have a great day.

Take care.

All right.

Bye.

Why don't we take a break,

pay some bills if you would like to join us.

Phone number, 781-837-4900.

781-837-4900 is how you get through and talk to us.

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and discounts on 8,700 brands,

and you're covered on and off the road.

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I just wanna fly.

Hi, this is Liz Mones.

Tune into Twilight Showcase Radio,

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Tonight from 8 to 10 on 959WATD.

Make an appointment Sunday morning at 11

for John Paul, the Car Doctor.

On 959WATD.

Now, back to the Car Doctor.

And welcome back to the Car Doctor program on 959WATD.

Our phone number again, 71-837-4900.

Jesse, do you have a favorite chicken wing recipe?

Ah, recipe?

I mean, I make a good buffalo sauce.

I'm gonna try out teriyaki today.

I'm gonna make some homemade teriyaki sauce,

make some teriyaki wings.

What we're doing is for the Super Bowl party,

everyone's bringing their own homemade wings.

And we'll have a big variety, that's the plan.

And we have another one,

another little trick for today.

I don't know if we talked about this last week,

but we're gonna spin a wheel

and whoever's name it lands on,

they have to root for the Seattle Seahawks.

The whole game.

Yeah, we bought face paint for them, a shirt,

whoever loses, I hope it's not me.

They got a root for the wrong team.

Ooh, that is, can't you just eat

somebody else's hot chicken wings instead?

Well, I guess you could,

but unless you wanna watch the game from the driveway

because you won't be allowed in the house,

those are the rules.

Well, interesting.

Well, if listeners wanna share their Super Bowl party games,

I guess, I don't know.

But yeah, if you wanna talk about cars.

I write a variety of columns

and one of them is in the website for WPIX TV,

it's in New York.

And the person who goes back and forth with me

on the column said,

you seem to get an awful lot of questions about fluids.

Do they, how often do they need to be changed?

And can you put together a little fluid guide?

And they wanna do it for something called you ought to know,

which is a couple of the reporters,

take what I write and chit chat back and forth about it.

And I hate to say it,

but sometimes the most information just comes,

I don't know why I hate to say it,

but the most information comes from the owner's manual.

And I can give you advice,

your uncle Tony can give you advice,

people can give me advice,

but look in the owner's manual.

And sometimes you look in the owner's manual

and it will say something like,

and this was recently,

somebody with a BMW said,

how often should I change the transmission fluid in my BMW?

And BMW says it's good for life,

but if you look up the people who made the transmission,

they say change it at 60,000 miles.

So you can get some,

a little bit of conflicting advice,

but on the other hand,

if all you wanna do is be able to satisfy

warranty issues and things like that,

follow the owner's manual.

But sometimes, we think of fluids,

there's sort of the lifeblood of the vehicle,

your engine isn't gonna run without oil,

your transmission's not gonna run without,

transmission fluid, things like that.

So sometimes it's like,

do you flush out the fluid?

Do you top off the fluid?

Do you drain and refill the fluid?

Flushing the fluid removes all the old fluid,

at least in theory it does.

So we'll say a transmission, for instance.

Well, they force in new fluid,

it pushes out the old fluid,

and you end up with all new fluid in the vehicle.

I think the best way to do that

is still to remove the pan and remove the filter

if you're gonna go through all that work.

But it cleans all the contaminant,

sludge, even rust and metal that's in there.

I'm not a big fan of flushing transmission fluid

unless you've done it very routinely

because there are some tests that show

that the friction material inside a transmission,

the clutches, the clutch material,

having some of that material and suspension

is what helps the transmission as it wears shift properly.

So when you replace all the fluid

and you take out some of those contaminants,

it may not shift quite the same as it did before.

Maybe it's gonna shift better,

maybe it's gonna shift worse,

it's gonna shift better if there was sticky valves

in the transmission,

but it might not shift quite the same as it did before.

I prefer to flush transmission

sort of as a last-ditch effort.

If the transmission's acting up,

it's not functioning properly,

you've tried additives, fully flush it out

and see if you can get some more life out of it.

Let's face it, if it's not shifting properly,

it's slipping, it's slow to engage,

it's probably near the end of his life,

but maybe you can flush out the fluid

and maybe you can get a little bit more time out of it.

It's entirely possible.

Draining and refilling to me

is what most vehicle manufacturers recommend

and that removes most of the fluid,

depending on what it is

and it's probably the most common type of service.

Engine oil, I never recommend flushing an engine

and neither does any other vehicle manufacturer

that I know of.

Much better change it when it needs to be changed

depending on how you drive.

Most of the time you're changing oil

somewhere between 3,500 and 10,000 miles

depending on the car.

The only way I would ever go longer than that

is to have the oil analyzed.

So maybe you could go 20,000 or 30,000 miles

if you've had the oil analyzed

and showed that it hasn't,

there hasn't been any viscosity shear

so it hasn't changed its viscosity.

There's no contaminants in it

and that could be anything from fuel to coolant.

You could do that.

I was talking to somebody

with a piece of industrial equipment,

I think it was a big wood chipper thing

and I said something about it,

it was brand new and he was being very fussy with it

and I said something about changing the oil on it

and he said, yeah, you know,

I really need to change the oil.

Pretty often I want to make sure it lasts good

but the thing held like 20 quarts of oil,

ridiculous amount of oil.

And I said to him, you know,

maybe what you should consider is changing the filter

and just changing and then sending a sample

of the oil out to be tested for $25 or $30.

See how the oil is doing

and you may find that because you've had

the oil tested periodically, the oil's fine.

There's been no viscosity breakdown,

there's no contamination,

none of those kind of things you need to worry about

and maybe you don't have to spend,

you know, an outrageous amount of money

to change the oil on it.

Depending on when and how you drive,

you know, people that drive performance cars,

yeah, driven more aggressively, long distance commuters

because you're gonna be driving a lot,

long distance commuters that are stuck in traffic,

you know, sometimes you need to look

at that short distance drivers.

People only drive a mile or two a day sometimes.

You can get some gasoline contamination in oil

because the oil hasn't fully warmed up.

You haven't really got the engine good and hot.

It hasn't evaporated that moisture out of the engine.

So sometimes short distance drives can require that too.

I think every week I get an email from somebody

who doesn't drive a car very much,

maybe only a few thousand miles a year

and they're like, well, you know,

it cost me $100 to do an oil change.

Do I really need to change the oil every year?

In my opinion, absolutely.

A once a year oil change is very important.

I don't know that I've ever seen any vehicle manufacturer

with the exception of maybe a plug-in hybrid

that didn't have time and mileage together.

Usually what you see is on almost every vehicle,

especially the ones that have long intervals

between oil changes like 10,000 miles,

it'll still say if the oil reminder light

hasn't come on in a year, change the oil.

It's important to do.

And as important, especially with these long

oil change intervals, is check the oil level regularly

once a month or so to know how it's doing.

Some cars like Volkswagen, for instance,

consume more oil.

Audi's, the two-liter engine in Audi

can be an engine that uses oil.

We see engines that are considered normal

to use a quart of oil in 800 or 1,000 miles,

the manufacturers think it is.

So looking at that is also important.

Engine coolant, antifreeze, I have seen,

you know, it used to be every two years.

You drain the radiator, put new coolant in

and you're good to go.

Today we're seeing coolant Audi in some of their cars

considers your coolant a lifetime fill.

But most cars, you know, most conventional coolant,

you get about three years out of it.

Sometimes you get five.

The lifetime coolant, I suppose.

I mean, I look at my cars and I check the coolant

pretty regularly in both cars.

Both of them look good.

Do I need to change them?

I probably should.

One of the important things is brake fluid.

Brake fluid absorbs moisture over time.

I'm a big believer in changing brake fluid

every three or four or five years,

somewhere in that category.

Even though some manufacturers don't recommend it,

all the tests we've done at AAA shows

that brake fluid does attract moisture.

You can get this electronic tester

to test your brake fluid.

It looks for moisture in the fluid.

Also, you get these dip strip kind of things,

the same thing you would use in a swimming pool.

You dip it in there and it tells you

if there's fluid contamination.

Both of them, I think, work really well.

The last package of dip strips I bought

was pretty inexpensive.

The electronic tester, 20 bucks on Amazon,

something like that, it'll do its job.

Our phone number, 781-837-4900

is how you get through,

just like our buddy Tom from Kingston.

Tom, good morning.

Good morning, sir.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

Good, you're missing all the winter wonderland.

I hear that.

I hear that, but I'm here drinking cup of tea

because it was a little cool this morning.

I've had my sec, I had a cup of coffee.

I said, I think I'll switch to tea.

My brother went down there for a couple months.

He'll be coming back, I think, the end of March.

He wanted to come back early

because he misses his grandchildren.

Oh, yeah.

And he misses the snow.

He says, I'm crazy.

People want to come down here

and I want to go back to Massachusetts.

And he lives out in Yelpata,

in Neketa Woods there in Abington,

where you still live.

Yep.

I still think of myself as living there.

I don't know why, but I still do.

Well, you know it good enough, that's for sure.

You know where to get the best turkey sandwich around.

I do, I do.

And I have a pretty good idea

where to get the best pizza around too,

but we'll save that for another time.

That's it.

That's when Junior's around.

We'll talk.

I haven't heard from him in a while.

I gotta check on him.

See how he's doing.

Yeah, he's getting old and decrepit

like the rest of us.

Well, I don't know if he's getting decrepit,

but he's not in the shop as much as he used to.

He's got some stuff going on at home and all that.

So yeah.

He's got a great team there.

That's for sure.

Yep, yep.

Hey, I've got a couple of questions.

First of all, when the guy was talking this morning

about the different cars,

an average car going for like 50,000,

what is it, any idea what the manufacturer,

would it cost the manufacturer

to make a $50,000 car?

You know, probably in,

probably in the $30,000 range, I bet.

Okay, yeah.

Because by the time you build it

and the cost involved in building it

and then transportation, marketing,

all that sort of stuff,

I bet that from manufacturer to retail price,

I bet it's a pretty good spread.

Now, from what the dealer pays for it to retail price,

a little different story,

but I bet it's in that range, yeah.

Yeah, that's curious.

I have a Toyota Sienna

and I have to get in a little change

and I looked up the specs on it.

And you need six quarts of oil.

And it's like, what a pain,

because you use it by the container.

And then you buy the $9 quart of oil afterwards.

Thank you, exactly.

Yeah, both of, well, I should say,

the three cars that we currently own

all have odd amounts of oil.

The little SUV takes like five and three quarter quarts.

The Volkswagen that we keep up North

takes six and a quarter quarts.

And the Volkswagen, the little bit newer one,

seems like all of our cars are rolled now,

but the little bit newer one.

And what about the weight?

Yeah. The weight is the same

or all the weight all different?

Well, they're all different.

And the Volkswagen's use European spec oil

because they have to,

why they couldn't use any other brand oil.

And it's kind of interesting,

the Hyundai that we own very specifically

recommended zero, no, 5W20 oil when it was new.

And because Hyundai's had engine problems,

they switched it over to 5W30 oil.

So at least the oil's more available

than the 520, which was not quite as easy to get.

But yeah, I run into the same problem.

I go and in the Hyundai,

because Hyundai's had problems with a lot of problems,

but they've had problem with oil consumption

and carbon build up on the rings.

And some of the ones that burn a lot of oil,

they tried to do this carbon clean thing,

which didn't work 99% of the time.

So I've been using Valvoline Restore and Protect Oil,

trying to figure it will clean some of the junk

out of the, you know, that could build up in the rings.

And I think the single quart of that was like $10.

Oh, it hurts. Yeah.

So you stretched the oil changes at that point?

Well, you know, I don't.

I still do oil changes when they're supposed to be done.

But, and it's interesting that one way I've saved money

is buying the Hyundai oil filters,

because I go look at the shelf of, you know,

Pick, Purilator, Fram, which I'm not a huge fan of,

but, you know, Wix, and they're all Wix and Purilator

and some others all made by the same company.

You know, I look at those and those filters

are like $10 or $11.

And I can go online and buy the factory filter

for like four of them for 20 bucks.

And I'm like, well, that saved a little bit of money.

Oh, definitely.

You know, the weird thing also, new subject.

My son bought a Volkswagen, I don't know,

Jetta or something like that as a diesel.

And I always remember back way back

when a thousand years ago,

when diesel fuel used to be cheaper than gas.

And now, you know, diesel fuel is more expensive.

And with the price of oil coming down,

you think diesel fuel would come down at price also?

You would think so, but no.

And, you know, and it's sort of interesting

that, you know, I still need to be aware

of all the gasoline and oil prices in New England.

And I look at the cost of diesel in Massachusetts

and the cost of diesel at the local Murphy's gas station

near here.

And it is quite a bit cheaper here.

And the only reason I can think of that is

there's less of a market for it.

Because not that there isn't less of a diesel fuel market,

there's less of a market for, you know,

heating oil is kind of the same as diesel.

So it uses up all of the, you know,

when the crude oil is being made into gasoline,

it's also being made into all bunch of other stuff.

And one of it is heating oil.

And especially in the Northeast, it's been cold

and people are burning a lot of oil

and a lot of the energy plants, you know,

a lot of them are natural gas, but some are still oil

and some are still cold for that matter.

But, you know, you look at the overall energy costs

and, you know, part of it, you know,

part of it living in the Northeast,

you know, affects, you know,

heating oil prices affect diesel fuel prices.

And you kind of look at it and go, well, yeah,

but didn't the, you know, hasn't oil gone down?

It's gone down, it's gone up, it's gone down, it's gone up.

It's, you know, a reporter,

I did an interview on Channel 10, NBC Boston or, I think,

and this week, and they said to me, you know, what is it?

And I said, well, this time it's actually more geopolitical

than supply, because it seems to be every time

somebody shakes a saber somewhere, oil prices go up.

Right, yeah.

Again, I don't talk politics,

but I do see how politics will affect the market, yeah.

Oh, definitely, yeah.

Well, listen, I hope you have a good week.

You was well.

All right, take care, Tom.

Thanks, bye-bye.

Jesse, do you want to take a break?

Or do you want to go to Mike and Bridgewater?

Oh, we can go to Mike real quick.

All right, let's go to Mike.

Michael.

Morning, John.

Morning.

Hi, I called you a couple of months ago

seeking your counsel.

I was concerning the...

On my favorite chicken wing recipe.

We can add throw that in there too, sure, why not?

It was concerning the air pressure monitors,

icon coming on the dashboard,

and it was coming on, coming off every once in a while.

I have one of those cars that gives you

the exact readout for all four tires.

And as you said, it was gonna eventually

come on and stay on, and you suggested

that I get it fixed.

Well, just for the heck of it,

since I haven't gotten it fixed,

yesterday I just went to the page there

that shows you that on the monitor,

and during that they all came back,

and I'm looking at all the numbers,

and oh, wow, it's all fixed,

because the icon had gone off,

it wasn't looking at me every morning,

so, you know, out of sight, out of mind,

then I stopped, started the car,

and no more numbers.

Does that give you any clue anything about,

is this something related to the winter issues,

or is it, because it was a couple of months ago, John,

and it wasn't this winter time,

and I just was, hmm, yeah, that's the way it was.

Cold weather can have an effect.

Remind me how old the car is again.

Okay, so it's a 2016 Lexus ES300H.

Yeah, okay, that's the, yeah.

Yeah, and it could be just, you know,

when you don't drive, first off,

they don't really work until you get up

around 20 miles an hour.

The second thing is that once you get 20 miles an hour,

they start to, the radio signals from the sensors

start to beam over to the,

probably the antenna that's mounted in the side view mirror

and tells the body control computer

here's how much air pressure's in the tires.

Okay.

The longer you drive, the more that little battery

that's inside those sensors

is going to be transmitting that information.

So what, and the typical life is somewhere

between seven and 10 years.

So, you're probably at the end of the useful life

of the batteries inside those pressure sensors.

And, and if you go for, you know,

sometimes what can happen as an example,

you have a car that everything's working fine

and you go on a three hour drive

and all of a sudden the low tire light icon starts

to flash or just comes on and lets you know

that it's not reading anything.

That's because you've gone long enough

where one or two of the sensors have completely

blanked out and are not transmitting anymore.

So it's probably the sensors are just,

at the end of their life and they can't transmit.

So that's why it's showing them all as blank.

Could it be something related

to the tire pressure monitor module

or wiring or the antenna?

Maybe.

Could the cold have caused a, you know,

solder joint to act up?

Maybe.

But normally it's just, and what somebody will do

is they'll take the tire pressure monitor tool

and they'll read to see whether it's transmitting.

And, but chances are, and you can kind of do it

with the scan tool too.

Chances are it's probably not transmitting anymore

and it just shut the system down.

Got it.

And the fact that it came back on just for that,

I hadn't had it on there for a while,

it came back on yesterday, worked fine

and then stopped the chiron.

Next thing I came up with blanks on the four tires.

I mean, it's like, it's like no different

than your changing TV channels on your remote

and the remote's working fine

and all of a sudden you go to use it

and it won't work anymore and you're like,

what's wrong?

And then you forget about it for a little bit

and you come back and then the remote's working again.

The batteries are just on that edge

of working or not working.

Yeah, I hate when that happens, John.

All right, listen, I know you gotta go to break

but I will wish you a happy Valentine's day

because you've already got a Valentine

by not being here and freezing to death.

All right, John.

There you go.

Thank you.

All right, take care.

Bye-bye.

Why don't we take a break?

When we come back, we've got a little bit of time left.

If you wanna join us, 7-8-1-8-3-7-49-100.

You'll see us in the car doc program on 959-WATD.

We'll be right back.

Even car geeks and do-it-yourselfers rely on AAA

to give them extra peace of mind on the road.

AAA offers 24-7 roadside assistance.

Whether you're in your own vehicle, a friend's car

or even a rental,

combine that with great rates on insurance,

hotel, gas and buying savings

and discounts on 8,700 brands

and you're covered on and off the road.

Get a special membership offer today

at aaa.com slash join.

That's aaa.com slash join.

Well, Bethany Builder's podcast crew is out West.

Join host Sophia Bethany,

Principal Builder Chris Bethany,

WBC TV Sports Director Steve Burton

and former Patriots player, Christian Farrier

as they broadcast live from California,

bringing you on-site coverage

and a full preview of the big game

featuring the Patriots and Seahawks.

They'll have interviews, game analysis

and all the excitement leading up to the big game.

Don't miss the Bethany Builder's podcast

special reports from California

and a special Bethany Builder's podcast show

Sunday afternoon from 12.15 to one on 959-WATD.

Make an appointment Sunday morning at 11

for John Paul, the car doctor on 959-WATD.

Now back to the car doctor.

And welcome back to the car doctor program on 959-WATD.

Jesse, why didn't we go do a live program

from the Super Bowl?

We were left out again, we weren't asked.

I know, I know, sort of disappointing.

I'm surprised they didn't really want the hot sports takes

from the guy who talks about cars

and the guy who talks about ghosts, but you know.

Yeah, well, you know, it's all good.

But yeah, well, you know,

it would have interrupted your Super Bowl party.

So it's fine.

That's true, yep.

Yeah, yeah, so.

I was down on radio row years ago, actually,

for the, it was the Super Bowl in Miami

with the Colts vs. the Saints.

And we were down there for about 10 days.

It was pretty cool, pretty cool

to be among the Super Bowl celebrations.

I would imagine it is.

Many, many, many years ago

when I was on a station, four stations away or something.

The, one of the boardop engineer people was Dennis Knudsen

and Dennis is the tech guy

for one of the sports channels now.

And I think he was out there setting up equipment

on radio row on Monday

and kind of looking forward to it.

But I remember there was,

and it might have been the World Series or something.

And he said, I just wanted to get over.

I want to go home.

And because, you know, weather was nice still

and just wanted to go home.

So there you go.

So maybe it's not as much fun as you hope sometimes.

And maybe not.

I remember the one down in Miami,

there were celebrities everywhere.

Like you would just walk the street,

like, oh, that's that guy, that's that guy.

And remember, we saw just a mob

of security guards surrounding one guy.

We're like, oh, who is that?

Must be a real big celebrity.

And mind you, this is the only celebrity down in Miami

that was walking around with a bunch of security around him.

And that celebrity that required so much security

was Guy Fieri.

And no one was even trying to come up and talk to him.

We're like, why is Guy Fieri,

the only celebrity down here with nine security guards

just blocking the road so he can get through?

It's like, I don't think you're as big of a deal

as you think you are, buddy.

I like him though.

He gets a lot of hate for no reason.

Yeah, I mean, you kind of wonder

whether sometimes they do that just on purpose.

Yeah, just so people will pull out their phones

and take pictures and be like, oh, you know,

yeah, but I don't know.

You got him right there.

You got Scott Van Pelt walking around, Mike Vick.

Like all these big celebrities just walking around

and then it's just Guy Fieri, the inaccessible security.

You know, no one.

It's crazy.

I saw Madonna buying beer once.

Thought that was weird.

He doesn't look like a guy who drinks beer.

Madonna?

Madonna looks a little like a guy who drinks beer,

but no, it's Guy Fieri.

No, I'm just kidding.

It's beautiful.

I was a little shocked actually, but yeah, no.

No, and it always seemed like whenever I was in New York

for the auto show, I'd always run into celebrities

who lived in New York.

They'd be kind of walking around it

and they would be pretty well known

and you'd be like, they're just kind of by themselves.

I was in some little burger place in LA

and there was some relatively famous TV person

that came in and I didn't even really know who they are,

but they went over and people went over and talked to him.

I'm like, they're just hanging out,

getting a burger like me.

Yeah.

Yeah, so yeah, I don't think, yeah.

I actually approached, I actually sent Guy Fieri

an email once to see whether he would be on the program

to talk about his Camaro that he,

and he has half a dozen collector cars.

And just to see if he would do it

and big surprise, never heard back.

Ah, I bet he would though.

He seems like a cool guy.

Well, he's in Rhode Island a lot

because his in-laws live in Rhode Island.

Yeah, I hear that's where he frosts his tips.

Oh, could be.

Get that interesting hairstyle.

Yeah, could be.

Yeah.

Big sale on, what is it, visors?

Is that the kind of hats he wears?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, so yeah, no, it's just one of those,

you know, I just said, yeah.

And I think back when Facebook wasn't that popular,

he was, you know, it was really him on Facebook.

And I think I sent him a message on Messenger or something

and got nothing back.

Then I found his email and sent him an email message

and nothing back.

So it is, it is that.

And, you know, maybe someday I'll run into him

in one of his restaurants and ask him, who knows?

Sorry if that was a question of me, I missed that.

Well, that's fine, because you got work to do up there.

I do, I gotta play your outro song now.

I know, almost, almost time, right?

There it is.

Is this a new one, by the way?

Is this a new Jesse Wilkins original?

Kind of.

Well, I haven't been, Spotify hasn't reached out to me

and said you're playing copyright materials, so.

That's right, because I made it from scratch.

Yeah, in 13 seconds.

Yeah, me and my band of robots.

Yeah, well, you did a good job.

So, next week we're going to be talking to somebody

about a very affordable online database

where you can learn more about your car repair manuals,

all that kind of stuff that's coming up next week.

And until next week, make sure you wear your seatbelt,

drive safely, be good to your car.

And if you do see an emergency vehicle

by the side of the road, slow down or move over.

Super Bowl parties, please don't drink and drive

or be impaired and drive.

Stay late at someone's house if you have to.

And go Pat's.

Talk to you all next week.

Bye-bye.

Start the new.

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