What makes an award winning used car? The experts at https://www.wheelstv.net have the answer

W-A-T-D presents John Paul, the car doctor, All Things Automotive.

Have questions? Call or text 7-8-1-837-4900.

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

And good Sunday morning everyone and welcome to another edition of the car doctor program on award-winning 959 W-A-T-D.

My name's John Paul, the car doctor here. Someday I want to win an award on 959 W-A-T-D.

How about you, Jesse? Can we win it together?

I think that's the only way we're going to win one at this point. I have no awards.

I don't think they give out awards for a guy who works four hours on Sunday mornings.

Or a guy who works one hour on Sunday mornings. Good point.

As soon as they make up that award, we're going to get it though. We're going to lock that in.

I think you're right. Least amount of time on the radio.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

Well, we have a lot of questions to get into today.

But more importantly, we have a guest joining us.

This week I had the honor to be a judge at the Wheels TV, previously owned vehicle award.

Wheels TV has been doing this award for, I don't know, 15 years maybe.

And if you're not familiar with Wheels TV, Wheels TV has a lot of history in the automotive world, including, I believe,

they were the original company that started the speed channel, a speed vision or something like that.

But with us is Peter Siani of Wheels TV. Peter, good morning.

Hello, good morning, John.

Well, tell us a little bit about Wheels TV.

Am I hallucinating or was Wheels TV the original beginning for the speed channel, a speed vision or something like that?

No, we were on speed vision.

They were one of the first, if not the first, to produce a primetime automotive show.

So I don't remember a while about Wheels. That was on Discovery Channel.

I do.

Actually back way before, you know, it became all, we're going to save the shops like car shows, like Fast and Loud and stuff.

So it was more of, it was like a kind of like chronicle of car shows.

You know, you had different segments and got into different things.

And then they were involved with speed vision pretty early.

And they switched from Discovery to speed vision.

Did Wild about Wheels have Rex Trailer on it?

Yes, the original first season, I believe, had Rex Trailer. Jim Barrisano, who founded Wheels TV, started this whole thing.

He actually, Rex Trailer was actually his mentor. He worked with him in Boston.

We might be getting a little bit, I know, England centric with Rex Trailer.

But yeah, he was in the original, either the first couple episodes, and then they kind of switched to a non-hosted version of the show.

And it smooths out, you know, it was a little smoother.

But yeah, the early episodes, you can actually catch on.

If you remember Wild about Wheels, you can go on our YouTube channel, search out WildaboutWheels.com.

Where we've been putting episodes, we've been trying to clean them up and put episodes up as we go.

It's funny, it's nostalgic, you know, to watch now.

The car styles, you can see the hair styles and the way everything's changed over the years.

So it's a little bit of a time capsule if you've been in the automotive world for a long time.

Yeah, it is kind of neat when you look back at that stuff and realize how things change.

I mean, even if you looked at things like, you know, the Motor Trend Car of the Year, when it was, you know, the Dodge Aries or a Renault Alliance,

and you're like, what were they thinking?

I know, you go back and watch some of these. Yeah, there were no alliance.

My sister actually had one of those. It's interesting.

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, why we're here today is to talk about the previously owned vehicle award.

And I was guessing, 15 years, you guys have been doing that?

Yeah, close, 16. This is the 16th year.

Yeah, well, time flies.

And the idea behind it, and at least my thoughts behind it is, you know, especially today where new cars are costing, you know, 50, $55,000 on average,

and I'm old enough to remember when the luxury tax kicked in at $32,500.

You know, cars are just ridiculously expensive now.

And when you can point out a used vehicle as a good value, something that's going to be safe, something that's going to provide solid transportation,

and buy it at considerably less than the cost of a new car, it sounds like a win to me.

Yeah, I mean, the prices are, you look at some of the, there's great cars out there.

There are really bad cars, but when you look at prices, I was in an Explorer and it's like, oh, this is really nice.

Then you pull out the sticker and it's like $54,000 for an Explorer.

Yeah, so used car sales have always, have always sort of outpaced new cars,

but especially now people are just holding on to things longer and they're lasting longer.

So let's go over some, the way this works is there's categories for different types of vehicles,

and then eventually an overall winner.

Let's kind of go over some of the categories.

What categories were we looking at?

And I'm guessing you still have your notes from the other night.

Oh yeah, yeah, of course.

You're doing way better than me because I don't have them, so.

Oh, I do.

Yeah, I had to reorganize them.

So there's basically nine categories and they're kind of loose.

It's more of a round table type thing.

It's not, you know, we have a little bit of rules to it,

but you know, category, automotive categories in themselves become blurry when you look at crossover and so versus hybrid or versus SUV.

But the main categories are hybrid, electric, SUV, crossover, sporty, small car, family cars, light truck and luxury cars.

So you can see there is crossover between certain things, but.

Let's start with the electric car.

And they're still quite popular.

I still see an awful lot of electric cars, you know, here and there.

Tesla's are pretty commonplace these days, but what was the winner for the electric car?

Electric car category was the Chevy Bolt.

And, oh, sorry, go on.

And that was one of those cars that, you know, the Chevy Bolt, I liked it when it first came out.

Now, it isn't the fastest charging, although the new ones do charge pretty fast.

One of the things, and this is kind of a good and bad reason to like the Chevy Bolt,

chances are it's got a new battery in it because they had so many battery issues.

And I think for practicality, is it the most stunning looking car now?

Is it pretty practical?

Yeah, is it comfortable to drive?

Does it have decent performance?

Does it have pretty okay range?

I think it's got 250 miles of range.

Pretty good car all in all.

And, you know, the other thing too is that really the price of them, you can get them really decent miles for like under 15,000.

You know, I mean, like, I've seen some examples like 40,000 miles and, you know, 50,000 miles.

But you get a lot of, you look at the car itself, you get a lot of power for that money.

And, you know, like you said, they didn't charge.

Early generations were a little bit slower to DC fast charge.

But, you know, 250 miles is plenty for a lot of people.

And it is an extremely good value when you look at their used price.

If you go online and kind of search them out, you get a lot of cars.

Yeah, you really do.

And I think where, you know, the average EV owner probably charges at home either with just regular house corner or 240 volt charger outlet.

And for that person plugging in at night, even with 120 volt outlet, if they're only driving 40 or 50 miles a day and plugging in every night,

it's going to be fully charged when you get in the morning, which is better than what most people with gas cars get into it.

And they have a quarter of a tank and they run out of gas on their way to work.

Yeah, we have to stop the gas.

I mean, the nice thing is it fills up overnight, you know.

Right.

So the bolt was, I don't know if it was a unanimous vote, but it did pretty well with our panel of experts that we had.

And we had, we had we had some pretty good experts, including you.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, don't tell anybody.

We also had Rick to me from the member of the New England Board of Press who hosts Rick's Tech Talk.

It's like a podcast.

And Natalie Harrington, who's the host at PowerGurus, you can see her videos on YouTube.

I think she's also a senior staff writer.

Yeah, and she's also wicked smart.

Yes.

She has an appreciation of like older vehicles, but she's also pretty, you know, when it comes to new cars, she's pretty good.

Yeah.

And she's a she's a very, she's a very good writer.

She's a very talented writer.

And I had the opportunity to meet her dad one time who's a very talented artist so you can see where it all comes from.

Hmm.

Exactly.

Hmm.

So and we had you and you you've been in this business.

You've been in this business for a long time.

Yeah, I've been with Wales TV for almost as long as this award's been around, mostly quietly in the background.

I organize production and I, you know, for our videos because we produce a lot of videos per year and I also write a lot of videos.

But I've been around used cars all my life.

Ironically, my uncle owned a car dealership back in Lynn on the Lendway.

My father always worked.

He had a body shop and he would always work for our dealers.

He didn't work public.

He basically like Bob Restreverlay in Lynn.

You mentioned that before looking back on Lee.

He used to do a lot of business with them.

And so I've been around this business a long time, you know, a long time.

Yeah.

No.

And you know, it's actually worth pointing out what is Wales TV these days?

Wales TV has evolved.

It evolved a lot.

It actually started out like we were talking about with Wild About Wheels.

That's where it kind of hit.

But even before that, they were doing, they started out doing like corporate videos for like companies like 3M or whatever.

And they got into automotive auctions.

They would go down and film.

I don't remember what town in Massachusetts, but really early, I mean, we're talking mid 80s.

You know, mid early to mid 80s.

They were putting auto auctions on TV.

And wave before Ecom or anything became popular.

And then so after they did Wild About Wheels, they also produced Motor Trend TV for Motor Trend.

And then got into doing a producing automotive review videos for Time Warner Cable.

They used to have Backwood Cable.

They would, when they got into on demand stuff, they would have channels.

You could go into the menus and you could shop a car.

They used to do that back.

And they would produce videos for that.

And also Auto Trader.

Back when the internet, when YouTube started, we would be partnered with Auto Trader and we would produce videos.

But it slowly evolved from that to car dealership.

So now we produce videos for car dealerships.

So if you go on to certain car dealerships and you can, they have vehicle detail pages and you can, you'll find on a lot of car dealerships, our links.

And you can watch an overview video of, you know, that's whatever vehicle you happen to be looking at.

So we're in about 6,000 car dealerships now.

Wow.

And we're partnered with like, there's distributors like Carzing.

And I think they're in about, the last time I heard it was about 250,000 used vehicle pages.

So we're out there.

We're a little bit quiet in the background, but if you're shopping for used car, chances are you might have come across one of our videos.

Well, let's get back to the event.

I'm going to jump around a little bit just going by memory.

SUV, what was the SUV winner?

The SUV was Grand Cherokee.

And as you know, Grand Cherokee is always popular with the motor press numbers.

Yep.

It does pretty well.

Yeah.

So Grand Cherokee took it 21 to 22 generations.

Well, that era.

And that's a Grand Cherokee is one of those vehicles.

It has the ability to go off-road.

It's, you know, it can be the rough tough vehicle or it can be the, or it can be a true luxury vehicle.

And it has, you know what, it has a variety of engine choices, including way more horsepower than you probably ever need.

Right.

Especially that era you could get.

I believe you get the 4XE right around that point.

You know, the plunk and hybrid as well as, you know, they've done the performance version.

Yeah.

It really is one of those vehicles that you can get, you know, when you look at it from low spec all the way to high spec, the overland addiction.

Right.

It's something that can, something that can appeal to everyone.

And how about plain old sedan family car sort of thing?

I mean, we talk about SUVs and sports cars and trucks and stuff about like a family vehicle.

Well, family vehicle, I mean, that's moved on from sedan pretty much to SUV, but also minivan.

I think people kind of, I think minivans are sort of the, these days are sort of the underrated family car.

You know, I know a lot of people are like, I wouldn't be caught dead in a minivan.

But when you look at, I mean, I've had minivans.

I like them.

I guess I'm nerdy in that regard, but they're, they're super versatile.

So, and of course the Toyota Sienna was, was our choice in that category this year.

Yeah.

It's, it's, yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's a great minivan.

It's solid Toyota reliability.

Had, you know, had to go wrong and I owned a minivan once I bought it used.

And, you know, people like, what do you want a minivan for?

And I'm like, I don't know.

It can't be, you know, it is one of the most versatile vehicles I ever owned.

I could, you know, put, you know, a four by eight sheet of plywood in the back of it.

I could carry all kinds of stuff that I shouldn't carry.

And it was relatively economical to drive.

And it was, and it was people like, yeah, but it's a minivan.

I'm like, no, it's a, it's an appliance.

Just happens to have wheels on it and it does everything you ask it to do.

So, you know, good, good choice.

Yeah.

It's a weird thing that, you know, people have that sort of full view of a minivan because

it represents, I don't know, growing up.

But, you know, last year when there was a, was a minivan, it was the King of Carnival.

And, and, and weirdly enough, that's one of those minivans that is super handy and that

is a really handy vehicle.

Yeah.

But also trying to try to disguise itself, not to look like a minivan.

Well, it's funny you say that because a neighbor of mine was interested in buying one.

And I said, it's a really nice minivan.

And she's like, it's not a minivan.

And I'm like, well, yeah, kind of is a minivan.

I hate to tell you, you know, but, but it is again, a good, good vehicle.

Yeah.

They call it an MPV, multi-purpose vehicle.

Yeah.

Well, wasn't that, didn't Mazda coin that name when they came out with some?

Yeah, Mazda did as well.

Yeah.

In the early days of the minivan.

Yeah.

It was the Mazda MPV, actually.

I think that's what it was.

Yeah, it was, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

And the, you know, you have to have a sports car or a sporty car in there.

And I think this one was kind of almost a hands-down winner almost.

It was a Corvette, right?

Yeah, a Corvette C8.

You know, we've had the 20 to 22 range, which is the beginning of the C8.

Yeah.

A lot of people like the C8 and it almost, you know, it did pretty well.

It was a pretty close runner up and almost got the, it almost got the award.

Yeah.

And the C, the C8 was, you know, at first, because I think it's more of a generational

thing is like mid-engine Corvette, bad idea.

And then you drive one and you're like, good idea.

Here, you know, and, and I will admit that I like, you know, looking at generations

of Corvettes, I like the C6 and the C8, the C7 for some reason, even though it had a

nicer interior and better engine choices.

C7 never really appealed to me, but the C6, I like the body lines of the C6 better.

But the C8, C8's delightful car to drive.

I mean, even though, as Natalie pointed out, no manual transmission.

Yeah.

It's funny because style-wise, I really like the C7.

I don't know why it's something about it.

But I'll take a C2 if you want to, if you want to.

Yeah.

Or, you know, probably even a C1 with a blue flame six cylinder in it, right?

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So people would probably.

Yeah.

How about pickup trucks?

You know, you know, I, you know, you kind of look around these days and it seems like

every other vehicle on the road is a pickup truck.

What was our winner for the pickup truck category?

The winner for the pickup truck was the Ford F-150, 21 to 22.

Yeah.

And you talk about the grand Cherokee being versatile.

And now you look at the pickup for the F-150.

I mean, that just times that by 10.

You can, you can buy a rubber floor mat, no option F-150 regular cab two wheel drive,

or you can just go up to, I mean, really in the, in the high 90s, I believe I was looking

at, I was at a Ford dealership the other day looking at a Ford F-150 black widow who was

customized by a comp outside company.

It was 90 grand.

Yeah.

No.

And it's interesting too, because I remember many, many, many years ago with the New England

motor press and for, I don't know, 25 or more years, we always had the official winter

vehicle of New England and one year the Ford F-151 and probably with a push from John White,

the auto editor at the globe.

And it's like, how can you have, you know, the official winter vehicle of New England

be a pickup truck?

And he's like, it's practical.

It could go anywhere.

He can put, you know, a family of five inside of it.

You can do this.

You can do that.

And I'm like, you know, you're kind of right.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I guess it can be the official winter vehicle of New England.

And, and the F-150, I think, you know, looking at some of the other pickup truck categories

and, and I'm a, you know, in the full size category, you know, the Toyota Tundra is a good choice.

I've always been a fan of the GMC and Chevrolet's, but the problem is kind of in the last five

years, it seems like every other one's had an engine problem.

And it seems like the F-150s, even though some people kind of question EcoBoost and

all of that, they're holding up pretty well.

Yeah.

And they're powerful.

It's weird to think that, you know, an F-150 will have a small, a 2.7 liter engine, but

they, but they hold up, they seem to be holding up pretty well considering the size of it.

And also, they don't have to.

I mean, you don't have to get that EcoBoost.

That's the beauty of that, that truck is there is such a wide range of engine options.

And like I said, you go down from the base model up to you have your, you have the tremor,

you have, you know, the Raptor, if you want to go all full force there.

I mean, there's a lot of different options in that, especially, you know, if you're buying

a MUSE, and you said you can seat five, you can actually, I believe, seat six if you get

the right trim.

Right.

You can, it's a family.

There's not a lot of cars in that that can seat six, you know.

Yeah.

No, absolutely right.

And, you know, I'm a big person, but I kind of like small cars.

How do we do in the small car category?

Small car was another win for Toyota.

Toyota sort of, I don't want to say swept, but it had a strong showing this year.

It was a small car.

We had the Toyota Corolla 2020 to 2022 Toyota Corolla, which again is just a car that is

so versatile and efficient and you can get in a wide range of trims and also standard

safety.

Yeah.

It's that unbeatable.

Toyota, that era, you know, the safety that Toyota's put in the even small cars back then

was ahead of everybody as far as safety features though.

Yeah.

And that's one of those vehicles that, you know, when people, well, you know, there are

a few exceptions, but you look at a Toyota Corolla and, you know, people go, well, it's such

a boring car and, you know, life's too short to drive boring cars.

Well, you know, maybe it's boring like vanilla ice cream is boring, but on the other hand,

if you're looking for dependability, you're looking for something that holds its resale

value pretty well, something you can drive a couple of hundred thousand miles without

doing anything really serious to it.

Corolla's always a good choice.

Right.

And especially, you know, again, this generation, you can get it with a hatch.

Yeah.

You can get the Toyota Corolla hatch or you can get the sedan still.

But a lot of people don't even consider that.

You know, it's hard to imagine because I've been in the automotive business for so long

or around cars for so long that some people don't care.

They just want to get in.

It starts.

They drive to work.

They don't care.

Yeah.

They don't say that you buy this because you don't care, but it's reliable.

But at the end of the day, getting into a car that starts up and gets you back and forth

to work or to do your errands, that's really what you want.

And if you want something that's more fun, you know, and if you can afford it, go buy

the C8 Corvette or a Mazda Miata.

Yeah.

And you can go grocery shopping with the C8.

You have a trunk.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And let's get to the overall winner.

What was the overall winner for previously owned vehicle?

So this year was the 2022 Toyota RAV4.

You know, like I said, I don't want to give it away, but Toyota did pretty well.

Yeah.

Yeah, with our judges.

We didn't even mention hybrid, which was the Toyota Prius.

I'll just pick that in real quick.

So, you know, across the board, Toyota did well.

Yeah.

But the RAV4 is just, you know, undeniably one of the most, I mean, popular, best selling,

versatile, efficient, reliable faith.

I mean, what else do you need?

Right.

No.

And I seem to remember when I wrote, when I was writing notes about my picks and the

Corolla, is the Corolla nameplate been around for like almost 60 years?

Been around.

Oh, that's a good question.

And the U.S., it was early 80s, mid 80s.

Early 80s.

So early 80s.

Yeah.

But no, that's a good question, actually.

Not up on my U.S. Japanese car history.

Well, that's all right.

That's all right.

Yeah.

But I mean, just like you said, and let's, you know, let's talk about the RAV4 just a

little bit, you know, you talked about practicality.

It has a lot of the same safety features as say the, you know, say the Corolla that we

were just talking about.

Hmm.

Yeah, that's what, you know, it was impressive about Toyota at that point in time because

they just decided to start putting standard safety tech in everything.

And now everybody does.

You can buy the Kia, they all follow suit and now you can get right in the very base

model, you know, and there's also a versatility of drivetrains.

Again, with the RAV4, you can do hybrids, plug in hybrids with a RAV4 Prime.

You can get front wheel drive, all wheel drive.

Yeah, is a RAV, is a front wheel drive RAV4 really a RAV4?

Isn't it a RAV2?

Oh, that's a good point.

Yeah.

A RAV4 minus 2.

Yeah, there you go.

According to, I don't know, Google Gemini, the Toyota Corolla nameplate is 59 years old

as the first model was released in 1966.

It doesn't say where.

Yeah, I would assume in Japan.

I don't think they really, because they came over with the crown first if I'm not mistaken.

Right, right.

And it also says it has become the world's best selling vehicle nameplate with over 44

million units sold globally by its 50th anniversary.

So that's not surprising.

I know, yeah.

Exactly.

More than the Volkswagen.

Yeah, I remember when the RAV4 came over, that was the mid 90s.

And that was just like, it was like from another world.

It really, when you look at it, I mean, you know, look at Jeep was doing like the Cherokee

sale, and then you had this bubbly little RAV4 with the spare tire hanging off the back.

Yep.

And you could get it as a coupe, which is great.

You could get it as a three-door hatchback.

Yeah.

No, the idea that, you know, there's times when I think about certain things like, you

know, I make a recommendation on something and I look back and go, you know, maybe that,

you know, maybe that wasn't the best recommendation in the world.

I feel absolutely solid about recommending the RAV4 for previously on vehicle.

Yeah.

I mean, we've had, I think we've had some pretty good picks over the last few years.

But yeah, the RAV4, I mean, like I said, you can't, you just can't go wrong with, if

you're looking for something that just covers a lot of bases, you know, I mean, obviously

if you're on around a family with 10 kids, you know, not that kind of place.

But it's the most people to man.

Yeah.

No, if you're, you know, if you, a smaller family with, you know, one small dog and, you

know, wants to go camping on the weekends, you can do that.

You can, you can, you know, if you're, if you're a empty nester who says, well, we still

like going antiquing and, you know, all that sort of stuff that people do.

Yeah.

The RAV4 is a good choice.

So, so there you go.

Well, Peter, I want to thank you for taking a little time out of your Sunday morning and

joining us on the Cardocta radio program.

Well, thanks for having us.

And again, if anybody wants to check out, you know, you can search us on YouTube or Facebook,

wheels TV, or if you want to check out Wild About Wheels, you know, and Rex trailer.

Let's see, let's see.

Jesse, do you know who Rex trailer is?

I do not.

I didn't think so.

It's amazing how quickly time passed.

I mean, I was in the story yesterday with the kids and there was a, there was a Christmas

story lamp and they had the light lamp.

Yes.

And I'm like, oh, that's some Christmas story.

They're looking at it like it was the strangest.

I guess I failed.

I guess I failed as a parent.

They never watched it.

Well, well, well, buy him a, buy him a red rider BB gun.

No, they're going to get a leg lamp this year.

Oh, there you go.

Well, get that too.

All right.

Hey, Peter, thanks again for joining us.

Oh, yeah, thanks for having us.

All right.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

That was Peter Siani of Wheels TV.

We need to take a break, pay some bills.

We went a little extra long here.

Always good talking to Peter.

I've known Peter for, I don't know, as long as I've known about Wheels TV, I guess.

So there you go.

You're listening to the Cardocta program at 959WATD.

We will be right back with these, after these messages.

And if you want to join us, 718374900, we'll be right back.

We'll be right back.

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

to Plymouth.

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

in Vienna.

Tickets for the Irish Tenors, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, the Vienna Boys Choir, and many more

shows are on sale now at MemorialHall.com.

Hey, this is Kylie Evans.

Tune into Twilight Showcase Radio, hosted by Sandy Stride and Keith James on 959WATD

and also at 959WATD.com.

Search for Twilight Showcase on Facebook and visit twilightshowcase.org.

Twilight Showcase, tonight from 8 to 10 on 959WATD.

Honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,

he's John Paul, the car doctor on 959WATD.

Welcome back to the car doctor program on 959WATD.

Phone lines are open at 781-837-4900.

And in the weird things, and not weird, I guess.

You know, I get sent things to try out, like the Viewroid dash cam, which I have unboxed

and played with and hooked it up to power, but I haven't put it in my car yet because

I haven't had time.

You know, this week I also got a very simple little charging accessory.

And it is a thing you plug into your cigarette lighter plug and charge up your phone.

And what makes this one different?

Well, first off, love it or hate it, it uses a USB-C terminal.

So not the regular USB.

It took me a while before I started to embrace USB-C.

So that's the smaller style that's used in nearly every new electronic project these days.

But what is kind of neat about this?

It has two ports in it.

Again, not all that unusual, but it also has a built-in voltmeter.

So you can actually read voltage, which is kind of a neat thing.

And also it has the ability to charge really fast.

It claims that the two USB-C, each 36 watts with a total of 72 watt charging power,

perfect match for the latest iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air, break the speed limit,

simultaneously charge two devices for up to one and a half times faster than standard charges,

universal compatibility, superior digital display to provide real-time car battery readout voltage.

What's sort of interesting on the picture, it says 24, 24 volts.

Can't imagine what car they're plugging that into.

But anyway, to me it's kind of a handy little tool because you're actually reading,

a lot of cars today, the voltmeter is not all that accurate, you're actually reading the voltage.

But the idea that you can charge up something pretty fast, I think it was like 30 bucks or something.

But if you're somebody who lives in your car and you, and we were talking about this with the Viewroy dash cam,

if you're somebody who drives for Uber or Lyft or Uber Eats or Door Dash and you want to be able to document everything,

but yet you have your own phone, you have your maybe Uber phone and you want to keep everything charged up,

something like this plug-in from EasyQuest, that's the name of the company, E-Z-Q-U-E-S-T.

Ultimate Power USB 72 watt car charger dual port with display, looks like it could do the job.

And in that same listing of, huh, why did I get this in the mail?

Well, a company called, and Jesse and I were trying to figure out how to pronounce this, M-O-C-E-A-N.

Motion.

And it's motion?

Motion.

We'll go with motion, okay.

M-O-C-E-A-N is much more fancy though.

Is it? Yeah, it's like Tarjay.

That's if you add like a little bit of a champagne in it.

All right, well, it doesn't.

I don't think it does.

Not yet, but not yet.

It's almost noon.

Yeah, and it's basically a flavored energy drink, but it doesn't use taurine.

Jesse and I were talking about energy drinks, and maybe for the wrong reasons, if I go into a convenience store and grab an energy drink,

it tends to be a Red Bull.

It also tends to be the Red Bull with all the sugar in it rather than the Diet Red Bull.

That's the one that seems to perk me up the most as opposed to some of the others.

And I can tolerate the Red Bull taste.

This stuff, I've tried the peach flavor and the other flavor.

I don't remember what it was, but both of them were good.

I thought they were both good.

They're only 10 calories.

It's not, I don't even know that it's out yet.

But the founder of the company is a guy by the name of Tony Vieira.

His father, I guess, was one of the people who started White Claw, which I remember seeing an interview with them,

and they're like, well, no one's ever going to drink this in a bar.

It's just something you drink at home because in a bar, you could mix fruit juice and vodka together,

and you'd have basically a White Claw.

And every place I go, somebody's drinking a White Claw.

Yeah, it's like White Claws or High Noons.

But there's actually a huge drink company in Europe called Motion,

but they do like a fruit punch type drink.

It's actually really good, but I'm guessing that's why they spelled it differently most of all.

Well, and it's got, well, I guess I thought it had like a little accent,

but it's actually a little crown over the O.

But anyway, if you're interested, drinkmotion.energy is their website.

I don't know, they sent me a couple cans to try it, and I thought it was pretty tasty,

and maybe they'll come up with a White Claw version, you know, some kind of alcohol-based drink.

There you go, yeah.

And what's sort of interesting, this was kind of the...

I think the PR company was out of New Hampshire,

and the release took a little longer than they thought, and I said to them,

they're like, where do we send it?

And I said, well, if it's before this date, send it to Cape Cod.

If it's after this date, send it to Florida.

And I got an email the other day.

The release was a little slow, should we send it to Florida?

I said, yep, send it to Florida.

So a little box came in the mail with four cans in it,

and like I said, I drank two, gave one away, and I saved one for later today.

And it cut mail from literally like two miles from my house on Cape Cod.

So I looked at the address and it said South Dennis,

and I went, huh, why was that?

So apparently they got something, maybe they make it down there.

You could have just gone and picked it up before you left.

I could have, yeah. Who would have known?

And in my little town in Dennis, there's also a not-so-small microbrew there now, too.

And we're starting to see, they did really well.

They started, it's called Devil's Purse,

and they have a variety of beer that I don't particularly care for,

but they do pretty well.

And I went to the place where they make their beer,

and I said to them, why do you make beer?

And they said, because wine takes too long to make,

which I thought was an interesting answer.

I never tried to make wine, but I have made beer before,

and I could say it takes a long time to make,

so I can only imagine what the wine takes.

Yeah, yeah, well, there you go.

And so we're talking about energy drinks, beer and wine, and not about cars.

So we should talk about cars, because that's what the whole idea is,

and if you want to join us.

Energy drinks okay? Beer and wine? Not for the car.

Not for the car. Good point. Good point.

Little PSA for you. I'll shut up my mic now.

All right. No need. You could keep talking whenever you want.

So a couple of emails that came in.

That's just kind of a not using the right tool for the right job kind of thing.

Personally, I tried removing the lug nuts on my 2008 Toyota Corolla

using a 20 volt Craftsman impact driver with a 21 millimeter black socket

to remove tight lug nuts.

Is the 21 millimeter the correct size for the 2008 Toyota Corolla?

And the impact driver is a handy tool for removing small fasteners,

but it's not made to take lug nuts off.

I assume this is one of these things that's more of an impact screwdriver kind of thing

that you can buy an adapter so you can put sockets on it.

I used one just the other day. I have a really inexpensive one.

And I just wanted something that I could use a 3H drive socket on,

but they're not made for heavy duty use like that.

21 millimeters or 13 sixteenths of an inch if you're an SAE person

rather than an M&M person is what you want to use to loosen up the lug nuts

if you don't have any other tools.

A large breaker bar, a four-way lug wrench will work good.

The lug wrench that comes with the car is typically terrible.

It's usually you can't get enough leverage on it because it's sort of offset.

If you try to jump up and down on it, it falls off.

Use a four-way lug wrench or a breaker bar and a 13 sixteenths or 21 millimeter socket.

I would go with a six point rather than 12 point.

And when you get ready to put the wheels back on, tighten them by hand

and then best way is to use a torque wrench to tighten them to the proper torque.

I just bought something from Harbor Freight before I left to drive here.

And it was a digital torque adapter.

And I wanted it in 3H drive.

I have a half inch torque wrench here, an old one that's probably older than Jesse,

probably older than Rex Trailer.

That I have, but I wanted a 3H drive one because there's a couple of things that

I want to tighten properly without sort of guessing at it.

And this digital one that I bought from Harbor Freight, it actually works really well.

You just put it on the end of a ratchet or a little breaker bar and you're able to easily just torque.

It's actually in foot pounds, but it only goes up to I think 60 foot pounds.

And I wanted something, it was inch pounds, so you got to do a little math.

I was a little disappointed it didn't have an automatic conversion for that, but it worked pretty well.

I compared it, I tried to kind of see is it really accurate.

I think it really is.

And it's unlike some cheap torque wrenches.

I have a cheaper $20 torque wrench that I bought just to tighten wheels with.

It's pretty good when you're, I think it's really accurate, 70, 80, 90 pounds.

At low torque, you know, 10 pounds.

I don't think it's that accurate, but at higher torque to tighten wheels and get uniform tightness, it works really well.

So not in a, not a, you know, no one, no one from Harbor Freight sent me a digital torque adapter.

I bought it and I had a 30% off coupon.

So that's the reason someone wrote to me, someone who has a really good memory and they said,

I read a year ago, and this must have been from the email me this morning, I think.

I read a year ago, you replace the brakes on your own car with power stop and brake parts.

A year later, how are the brakes doing and is the rust resistant rotor feature still rust free?

Yeah, I did all four brakes on my car just before I drove to Florida last fall, I guess.

The brakes were about, the brakes were about half worn, maybe three quarters worn.

And I was kind of looking at it going, well, if I don't do them now, I'll probably end up doing them when I'm in Florida.

Maybe I'll have to find some place to do them or else I'll try to have to do them with the tools I have.

I have more tools at the cottage.

So why don't I do them here, a better jack, stuff like that.

But so far, power stop pads seem to be working out just fine.

They don't seem to be wearing quickly, no vibration, thousands of miles on them since they put them on.

And they seem to be doing the job just fine.

Rust resistance, not as good as when they were new.

If I leave the car parked for three or four days, especially on Cape Cod, there is a surface of rust,

but not as much as some of the new test cars that I drive that the rotors get rusty right away.

Kind of a light brown color, by the time I drive to the end, the street is gone.

So far, I don't have any issues.

If you're looking at break parts, power stop seems to be a good brand.

Some of the other popular brands, I always used Wagner and Ray Bestos years ago.

I always thought they were good products.

People really like Acabono for import cars, good product.

And there's another one that people use in a lot of German cars whose name escapes me.

But the power stop ones, I think, did a pretty good job.

I think they work out really well.

Why don't we take another break, pay some bills.

I'm going to go get a drink of water because I lost my voice at one point.

If you wondered why, did you just go off the air for a second?

No, I just turned my microphone down for a second.

But why don't we take a break, pay some bills.

I'm going to go get a glass of water and when we come back, maybe we'll talk to you about your car,

your car experiences at 7-8-1-8-3-7-4900.

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 of 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 Joy.

That's AAA.com slash Joy.

It's time for the Fall Jury Art Show at the James Library and Center for the Arts in Norwell.

Showcasing the best in local and regional art, the Fall Jury Art Show at the James is open now

and will be on view through November 22nd.

Generously sponsored by the Norwell Chamber of Commerce,

the show will be free and open to the public during the James regular business hours.

This year's juror is Nancy McCarthy, professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design

and co-founder of Black Pond.

Visit the Fall Jury Art Show at the James Library and Center for the Arts at 24 West Street in Norwell.

Open now through November 22nd.

And keep your car in tip-top shape at Joseph's Garage.

Have your oil changed, tires checked, get an inspection sticker, or just gas at Joseph's Garage.

Write down the street from the James in Norwell.

Joseph's Garage now offers Gulf Pay at their pumps.

And we'll see you Sunday night at 5 for the sports exchange 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.

If you'd like to join us, our phone lines are open at 781-837-4900.

You can call in and get right in and talk to you about your car and car problems.

Let's see.

Somebody wrote in and said, today in the newspaper, you had a reader ask about a wheel restoration.

A while back, I recommended the wheel fix in Waltham Mass.

Two of my 10-year-old alloy wheels have become pitted to the point where they have constant slow leaks.

The wheel fix restored the beads for about $75 a wheel.

They did it in a couple of hours.

There's a Duncan's around the corner to kill time.

Again, I only had the beads resurfaced.

But while there, they were doing full restoration of wheels, positive experience.

And I'm guessing you may not be able to recommend them in your column, but I thought this might help.

I think I can.

So.

And let's see.

I can't read that for whatever reason.

I'll have to read that one a little bit later.

It took too long to load up.

But also, kind of in this morning's mail.

The people from Smythe Performance, you know, they're the people that make the Volkswagen conversion kit cars,

to turn a Volkswagen Beetle into a pickup truck or a Dodge Charger into a pickup truck,

which I really like.

Apparently, they're having a scratch and dent sale.

So it's just a quick note from the shop floor.

Price announced that new numbers you see on the side are locked in.

Aluminum, resin shipping, everything has been creeping up in the past month.

We held the line as long as we could.

And we reset the dial.

Let's be real.

Stack one of our kids begatting things out there.

You'll still see we're coming up miles ahead.

But apparently, they have some scratch and dent sale stuff going on.

It says eligible for the Chargers, Smythe, scuffed aluminum, zero bends or cracks, something to buy.

One of their hottest things when we're talking to Mark Smith is this trailer.

So you go to Harbor Freight, for instance, and you buy their trailer chassis.

And then you take their aluminum kit and you build a little teardrop style trailer

that a lot of people are using them for things like drag and drive events

where you take a sort of street legal race car to various racetracks.

And you can try it out and you can only bring so many extra parts with you.

And you can use this little trailer to carry all the little extra parts.

So kind of a handy little trailer you can build.

And they look really good and it looks like you assemble them pretty easily.

So something to try out.

Anyway, so what we do, well, let's talk to them then.

Good morning.

Tom.

How you doing?

Tom.

Tom, what's up?

Not much.

I just wanted to get your opinion on the dealership and how they give you a little offer.

Or if you do all the service there and it's thousands of dollars, you know,

boil changes, tire rotations, fluid changes in order to stay in that program.

Subaru calls it the passport program or something.

But it's so ridiculously expensive and if you miss a service, you're screwed basically.

Yeah, I mean, I remember my wife brought her a car when it was new to the local Volkswagen dealer.

And while she was there, they tried to, they said, you know, we have this program where you can come in and it covers all the routine maintenance.

And, you know, it's going to be, I don't know, it was like, it seemed like it was like $1,500 maybe or something like that.

And it really was just to the end of the three year warranty period.

So I'm like, we're probably not going to do $1,500 worth of maintenance to the car over three years.

So to me, I'm like, it didn't make any sense.

And they're like, well, you know, it covers the air filter and the cabin air filter and we'll do this and we'll do.

And I'm like, yeah, but that stuff's relatively inexpensive.

So to me, it didn't seem like a good value.

And, you know, all of these programs that have schedule maintenance where they want you in at certain times,

it's all about trying to, you know, to some extent, try to sell you extra stuff.

You know, and maybe it's things you need, but maybe it isn't.

I mean, I just answered a question for somebody who said they were at the dealer for an oil leak and it was a 10 or 15 or 20 year old car.

And they first off, they weren't 100% sure what it was.

And then, you know, they didn't tell them about the rest of the car.

You know, how's the rest of the car? Is it worth putting the money into it?

And then someone else just said they were going in for a 35,000 mile service on a Honda Pilot and they wanted to sell them a front differential service and a transmission service.

They did the rear differential service and a brake fluid change like six or eight months ago.

Well, there is no front differential service.

The front differential is lubricated by the transmission.

So the idea that we're trying to sell two separate services that are, there's only one drain plug.

There's no differential drain.

So I question all of this.

My answer to all of these things is look in your owners manual, read what needs to be done, what it needs to be done.

You know, some of these are just glorified oil changes.

I mean, yeah, it does it.

Can it hurt to put the car up in the air and check the, you know, all the fuel lines, make sure nothing's leaking, you know, transition lines, make sure nothing's leaking, you know, do a safety check?

Always a good idea.

But some of these, you know, included in that, that big labor number is really just nothing more than, you know, somebody walking under the car with a flashlight and taking a peek at stuff.

Yeah, yeah, and put it this way.

They wanted almost $800 for oil change, tire rotation, and a brake fluid change or whatever, you know, pump out the oil and put in some new...

Yeah, and I was never a big brake fluid flushing fan.

I've kind of swayed over to it a little bit.

In Europe, when they do a motor vehicle inspection, they actually test the brake fluid to see if it's any good.

So maybe that makes sense when you drive on the Autobahn.

It's kind of funny, though, and I may have this backwards, but Lexus recommends changing brake fluid every three years or 36,000 miles.

Toyota does not recommend changing brake fluid or every three years or 36,000 miles, and it's exactly the same brake fluid in master cylinder.

So why is it in a Lexus that wants you to do it and in Toyota that could care less?

We found doing testing at AAA that brake fluid after it gets to be three to five years old does start to gather moisture and can start to become contaminated.

So, you know, it does make sense to change it, and I still go back to the old way of cheating.

I take a turkey baster and I suck out some brake fluid out of the master cylinder reservoir and then add some fresh brake fluid to it.

And when you step on the brake pedal, fluid kind of circulates around inside the brake system.

And yeah, maybe it doesn't get everything out of the brake system down at the end of the calipers where it would be if you flushed it out.

But you are replenishing the brake fluid, and if you do that at every oil change, you end up with basically good clean fluid when you're done.

So, you know, if you change the oil twice a year, suck out a little bit of brake fluid, not all of it, because then you have to bleed it.

But suck out some brake fluid, add some fresh brake fluid, and it's done. It's easy.

Yeah, but how much should that cost just bleeding it out with it in a haul for wheels?

How much should it cost or how much does it cost?

Well, it cost me almost $500.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, and you think about it, it's less than an hour's worth of labor to do a brake fluid flush and then add the brake fluid.

So, a couple hundred dollars, maybe, yeah.

And I look at it that when you have brakes done on your car, chances are they're going to put fresh brake fluid in it anyway.

So, I'm a little, like I said, I was a little slow on it, and it seems to be, it is one of those services now that seems to be trendy,

and some dealerships have said, hey, if we do brake fluid services all the time, we're going to make money.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

That bothers me. I had one guy email me one day, he said, you know, six months ago he was at a dealership in Arizona or something,

and he had his brake fluid service, and then when he got back to Massachusetts,

they said, oh, you need a brake fluid service.

He goes, I just had it done six months ago, and they went, oh, we didn't realize that because we didn't really look at it.

We just recommended it, so there you go.

Hey, Tom, we got to get going. That music means they're kicking me out, so.

All right, thank you.

All right, thanks, Tom. Take care.

Well, that music means we need to go.

Next week we're going to be talking tires with the folks from No Key and Tire.

So until next week, make sure you wear your seatbelts, 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, save lives.

Talk to y'all next week. Bye-bye.

What makes an award winning used car? The experts at https://www.wheelstv.net have the answer

About this episode

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from The Car Doctor Podcast