Auto Insights: Ford's Threat, GM's EV Boost, and Six-Stroke Engines!

Music.

It's time to buckle up for this week's Let's Talk Wheels with Mike Herzing and Jeremy Bierenbaum. Ford CEO says their business is threatened. About that, certain GM owners are getting some really needed help. And a six-stroke engine? Are you kidding me? Buckle up, folks, to learn about these news stories and much more.

Welcome to your favorite auto show, Let's Talk Wheels. I'm Mike Hersey, and every week we give you the automotive and power sports news, interviews, car reviews, and classic car information from my co-host, Jeremy Bierenbaum, based right there in Southern California. How you doing, Mr. B? Yeah, I'm doing well. I'm actually recovering from a bachelor party while I was in Vegas last week, but I still managed to find a car show while I was out there, so it's a win-win.

I saw the movie, Bachelor Party, or was it Hangover? I don't know if it's Hangover. I'm going to say Hangover movies, either way. But yeah, you look like part of that. At least nobody got arrested, or did they? I got a face for radio today, that's for sure. I always have a face for radio. All right, before we get ahead of ourselves, let's get started with the News and Notes segment and talk about our friends over at Cobb Tuning. Man, the EPA kind of spanked them, didn't they? Yeah, definitely.

And the EPA has been cracking down for a while. And if you're a company like Cobb, I mean, they've probably been in it for a bit, but you're kind of waiting for, or when are they coming for us, right? If you're selling these defeat devices that they were selling. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that they were defeat devices all that much. They were like, it was just, it was a tuning, but, you know, they say they didn't compete, but they're, you know, handles with the Clean Air Act.

And so, and they got to pay $2.9 million and all the ones they sold, they have to offer to buy them back. And then they can't do any kind of warranty on them. So basically they can't do any kind of support or to the people that did buy them. The one thing I can't hold them as accountable for is they were getting kind of cracked down on that they were selling exhaust systems that had less catalytic converter than other companies or OEMs. And to me, that's a choice on the owner.

It's not like they talked them into doing that. The owner came in with the idea, hey, I want to upgrade my exhaust. So they definitely have the intention behind it, and it's not just Cobb's fault. Well, you know, I agree. And they're always, they're not like defeating, as far as I know, they didn't sell anything like for the diesel, for diesels to delete the system and things like that.

I mean, as it is, you can go on Craigslist, you can go on eBay, you can go on all these different companies and see all these things to delete the diesel particulate system, the filter system. I think the issue here is it was bypassing emission controls for the vehicle. And I don't know exactly how that works because I'm in a place like California where you just don't touch any emissions, anything.

Otherwise you'll never pass smog. But I'm assuming, you know, the emissions controls tracks the emissions as you drive the car. And nowadays they don't put something in the tailpipe. They just plug into your car and your car gives them all that information. So, you know, maybe it's telling them something that's not happening on the car is happening on the car. Well, in California, when do you have to go for smog? Once a year or once every two years?

When you buy a new car, you don't have to do it for five years, and then you have to do it every two years. Oh, okay. So right now, if I had a vehicle and it had this, I could drive around like this and uninstall it and then have it smogged and then go back again to it. Yeah, I mean, that's quite a headache. I'm sure people do that. But what happens is you sell your car within five years. It goes to some, you know, unknowledge party who doesn't even know what what modifications you've done.

And then they go to try and smog it and they fail. Ah, well, that's true. I mean, California is a little tough. I mean, I know they're really trying to help the environment and things like that. But, well, I just hate to see all that. And they're going after some shops and people that are doing these things that are just, you know, something like these guys made a gazillion dollars doing this stuff. I mean, they say they made some good money, but they have a really great tuning system. They do.

And Cobb is a well-known name, especially like if you have a Subaru, you kind of, you want to get a Cobb tune in on your car. So I don't think it discredits the work they do, but I think you have to be careful in how you modify your cars. Yeah.

I mean, they're like, you can't, they have all the employees forfeit any aftermarket defeat devices in their possession and require that its officers of the company forfeit, permanently delete and uninstall and destroy any aftermarket defeat devices in their possession. Come on. I mean, they're acting like the guys are handling C4 or something, explosives. No, it's just a tuner for your car.

But it's once again our government coming up you know trying to save us from i don't know what they're going to try to save us from i wish they would save us from all the people pouring across the border but we won't go into that they need to save us on a lot of the stuff so actually our friends at gm are saving some of their ev owners aren't they gm is finally switched to the a Tesla-style charger, and that gives all the GM owners the use of the supercharging network.

So they're able to take advantage of that. It's not totally free. You do have to buy an adapter. It's the SAE J3400, which is the common name for the adapters that go for the GM cars to Tesla. They're about $225, and that's just so that the GM vehicle can talk to the Tesla charger. Well, you know, all it is is basically an adapter. And, you know, it's funny. When they came out with all these EVs, you know, Tesla was the first one to really hit the EV market hard.

And, you know, they had their own plug. Okay. And then all the other companies came out with a different plug. I remember when Apple had one plug, everybody else had the other plug. Yeah, they're just trying to be different. But the thing is, you get to a point where Tesla's not just making cars, they're making a supercharger network. And now all these other manufacturers are looking like, hey, where are we going to charge our cars?

And their customers are saying the biggest issue we have is charging our cars. So what's the solution to that? You make an adapter so your cars can work with Tesla's supercharging network, which is by far the most successful network of chargers out there right now. Yeah, folks, Mike Herzing, Jeremy Vierbaum, Let's Talk Wheels. We're talking about the EV plugs.

And yeah, you're right. I mean, so if I go to, if I walk up to a Tesla supercharger, which are all over the place, I can actually, with a non-Tesla, with using this adapter, I can actually go in there and use it. I think they'll probably pay a little bit extra. I'm not sure. And one thing about Tesla, I like the fact that they're telling you that if your car is charged and you leave it on the charger, they charge you a dollar for every minute you leave it there. I think that's great.

Don't you get frustrated at the gas station when there's a long line and there's someone that's just doing something at the pump, which isn't pumping gas? Or walks in and buys, goes to the bathroom and buys pork rinds and beer and stuff like that and then comes in and then pumps the gas? No. Are you kidding me? That makes me crazy. Yeah. Either way. There's another cool thing, and that's the app acts like in a Tesla car, it'll tell you where the nearest supercharger is and how to get there.

And if you have the app for your GM car with this new adapter that will lead you to supercharging networks as well so that's kind of cool well I know the Ford's going to go to their system too their plug too and eventually I think everybody is going to and it's real funny. You know, why not? They're the guys that sell most of them. So what the hell?

I mean, that's all right. Speaking of selling and EVs, Jim Farley, who is the CEO for Super Nice Guy, he tells everybody what the biggest threat to their business is. And it's not GM and it's not, you know, whatever. It's Chinese EVs, right? Yeah, totally. I mean, the market in China is crazy hot right now with a ton of new entrance to the landscape, I think, out there. There's a lot less government regulations as well as the government is investing in these companies.

I read somewhere like $230 billion in grants and subsidies come from the government. So the biggest thing holding them back is they're not really sold elsewhere in the world. Right now, there's a lot of tariffs and whatnot in the U.S. and Europe that are preventing those cars from making their way. But they're saying like 20% of new cars in Mexico are going to be EVs from China, which is really surprising. Yeah, yeah. That makes it a little bit tough. And hopefully they'll get this

stuff straight. I mean, would you buy a Chinese car? I wouldn't. I would have to, you know. I don't know. I would make my decision when I see it and it's available, you know, until then I don't need to make a comment. All right, folks. Coming up, our car review on the Toyota Corolla. And we also have Mike Fry from GM to talk about safety features on the new Traverse. Keeps you from getting run over on your bicycle. How about that? All of this on today's Let's Talk Wheels, coming up next. Music.

Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. Mike Herzing and Jeremy Bierenbaum. This week, I'm going to talk about the Toyota Corolla. You know, this is kind of like an unbelievably huge seller for Toyota. Not really their number one seller, which is the RAV4, the number one selling vehicle on the planet, but it's pretty darn close. And this is a four-door hatchback, and it's the one I had with the SE. Now, they have so many versions of the Corolla. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

I'm looking at eight different versions of the Corolla where you get a sedan. You can get a hatchback. You can get a hybrid. You get the XSE. And then they also have another one called the GR, which is their race version or performance version. But this one here was anything but performance. It's 168 horsepower, two liter, four cylinder with a CVT transmission, which I absolutely disliked because I'll dislike all CVT, but Toyota, they kind of make it work.

This thing is, if you're looking for a rocket ship, this isn't it. Zero to 60 is probably, you know, eight or nine seconds. The vehicle gets killer fuel economy. They say it to get 41 on the highway. I never came close to that. I ended up getting about 33 on the highway and overall I got like 31, but I drove it like I stole it now. And this vehicle was safe and reliable. You know, it's a little boring, but it's okay.

You know, I had a best friend that had a Corolla in high school and it's like the perfect car to give someone that's, you know, new to driving or even someone that's just. On the lower end of the skill level, I think. Well, if somebody is not a car person, okay, and they just, you know, my sister-in-law, she's not a car person. It's a vehicle. I mean, my wife has a lot of friends that drive Camrys and Corollas, and they're just like, well, it's just a way to get from point A to point B.

They don't love to drive. They don't love to hug the curbs. They don't accelerate hard. This is just an appliance to them. Yeah. And as we talked about, you know, when you had the Sequoia last, it's like they're bulletproof from the bottom of their lineup to the top of their lineup. They're, you know, they really stand behind their product. And so if you want a car that you don't have to do much maintenance on and things aren't too expensive, this is one of those for you.

Yeah, this one was a nightshade black and it had the bronze wheels, 18-inch wheels, which look throwback. And so the wheels they used to sell in the 90s for all the little rice rockets we used to call them and everybody would hop up their cars and put these sexy looking wheels but they really look great but they're bronze, kind of a goldish and the vehicle's black with all these blacked out things on it because this is the nightshade version and it is really kind of good looking, you know.

The SE is the little bit semi-sporty version. They make a sedan on this one and a hatchback but i this one is the hatchback and it had a fair amount of room in it and but the main thing is when you get in it's comfortable and it's it's very simple on the dash and things like that eight inch screen it does everything pretty well i mean it if you if you're going to look at this you're going to look at maybe the the civic or the mazda 3 or you know but i mean this is a really a nice car it really

is i mean i would think i would probably have the highlander or something like that but i mean this one or or hhr or that would be probably the the version of this but it's like i said it's it's just does everything very well and the sticker on this one with with some of the options on it with the black roof and the carpeted floor mats and the the TRD air filter and the special colors and things like that, the blind spot monitor, rear crash traffic alert, and wireless charger.

All this stuff was $27,673. That is worth $1,095 worth of delivery, processing, and handling. So it's really priced real well and...

Just does everything very well okay maybe you can find some more fun to drive maybe you can find some you know sexier looking but this one is is like i said safe and reliable it's in and it's pretty hard to beat a corolla you know what i mean corolla or civic or mazda 3 right yeah definitely and i think the interior is is done really nice that's the it's where you spend most of your time and i and i think they did a good job on it well you can get certain models

well you know when you get to the higher end they have heated seats and things like that but you know it it handles pretty good and it drives pretty good it's a little noisy on the highway but that's just the tires that were on it and there's some dunlops on it and so but but you know it's crash ratings are awesome it's got it had adaptive cruise control it's got the lane divergence it's got all this stuff you know it tells you hey are you you think you're tired you're weaving around

a little bit but but all All these little things that has, you know, a blind spot monitors and things like that. I mean, it's just got everything that anybody would ever want on a car. And it's reliable. So maybe for your first or second car, or maybe a car pulled by at a motorhome, or maybe you're retired and you just want to drive. And this is great because it gets a gazillion miles a gallon, you know, it really is.

So check it out, guys. It's Corolla's, like I said, it's, I think the dinosaurs used to drive Corollas, I think, something like that. And next week, I'm actually going to look at a camera. We've got to run a Toyota, so that's all right. Next week, I'm going to have a camera, so we'll have something a little bit longer. Now, we have a question of the day. Let's answer that real quick. Why don't dealers want to perform certain maintenance items like transmission and coolant flushes?

Well, because dealers would rather than do a transmission flush, they would rather sell you a transmission. And a lot of it has to do with the manufacturers. I know that Chevy and Toyota and certain brands, and even Ford to certain extent, they don't like dealers telling their customers that, by the way, you need to flush the transmission at 50 or 60,000 miles. It'll cost you 250 bucks. And they want to say, well, wait a minute, our transmission will last the life of the vehicle.

No, it doesn't. We all know that. You know, I need this vehicle to last 250,000 miles and that transmission will not. Now, if you flush the transmission out at every 50 or 60 or 70,000 miles, you do an actual flush, it will actually make the thing last that long. Yeah. So if the dealer's not recommending it, where's the best place or source of information to find when you should do it?

Well, everybody should do it by 60. And the same thing with a coolant flush, every five years or four, probably every four years, I would do the differential flushes and things like that. that, oh, there's Jiffy Lube's, all the different independent shops will do it. I had a friend of mine had a BMW and he took it in because he wanted at 5,000 miles, he wanted to change the oil. And they said, no, we're not going to change the oil. It does not do till 10,000.

He goes, I want to do a change at five. They said, sorry, we're not going to do it. So he went to an independent place and they did it for him. Because if you don't, it's going to sludge up. I mean, it's going to end up.

So when it's going to be 100,000 or 110,000 miles or something, something he's not going to have a problem and other people might you know when you don't do that maintenance it comes back and bites you in the rear end and the dealer's not there to help you by the way mike herzing jeremy bierenbaum let's talk wheels we're talking about maintenance on your vehicle you know bg products is a great company and they've been making

stuff since the 70s early 70s and i really think that they're probably go to bg find a shop.com it's kind of fun. For me, it's not going to do anything worse to your car. It can only do better. That's right. You're exactly right. All right, folks, coming up next, GM Systems Engineer is going to talk about Mike Fry. He's going to talk about some new safety systems available in the new Traverse. Mike Fry is a super nice guy, and his claim to fame is he's on a bicycle when he got run over.

He got backed into on his bicycle, and it happened to be a GM owner, so it was okay for him. He said it was all right. So we're going to talk about that. Coming up next, right here on Let's Talk Wheels. Music.

Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels, everybody. Mike Herzing, Jeremy Bierenbaum. The last couple of weeks, we've been talking to folks at General Motors a couple of times, and we've got them back because it's a big safety push. You know, it's the fall. A lot of people are out there. A lot of kids are going to school. Everybody's driving around. It's not so darn hot where you can actually enjoy yourself on your bicycles or whatever you have, motorcycles and things like that.

We're talking to Mike Fry today. He's a GM systems engineer and Mr. Science when it comes to all this stuff. and he's going to tell us about some new features on the new GM Traverse that really will, it's a big safety thing. So it's a big bump. So Mike, welcome to Let's Talk Wheels, buddy. Hey, Mike, thanks for having me. Well, good. Only people with Mike names can come on this, you know, so I'm just kidding. Yeah, see, it's an exclusive.

There we go. So tell us about the new Traverse or what the new features you guys have that keep us from getting run over. Yeah, absolutely. So So the whole point is, right, to help with a lot of the distracted driver initiatives, we have some new features called the Side Bicyclist Alert. So it's designed to help you avoid crashing into a bicyclist once it's detected on your side blind zone. Cool. Yeah, very, very, very cool.

So there's icons that are in your side view mirrors, and there's audible alerts, and there's seat vibrations that will notify you when there's objects. So, you know, for example, if you're parallel parking and there's a bike lane that is just to the outside of your driver door, you know, the system will detect that there's a vehicle coming up and we'll give you the warning. And this is even when your car is in park or turned off, right?

That feature remains active. Also, if there's a, so if you're driving and for example, if there's a cyclist on the sidewalk and they're going to cross and you put your signal into turn right, you're going to get notifications that, Hey, you passed a cyclist. It's going to give you this alert that there's something there. Yeah, kind of like the blind spot alert. Yeah, yeah. Or you're backing into something full alert.

That's the same kind of alert? Right, like your garbage cans when you're backing out of the driveway. Yeah, yeah, I've done that. Oh, man, are you kidding? I'm the king of that. Luckily, they're all plastic now instead of metal. Yeah, you're right. And there's always something. I remember when they came out with this backup warnings, I was like, this is the coolest thing ever.

You know it's just it's going to save so many you know visits to the body shop you know but you know of course there's bicyclists running around especially after covid everybody got a bike, and and so in the summertime it's kind of cooling down a little bit it's not a gazillion degrees here and actually been across the country it's been really warm people getting out on their bicycles i mean i go to back out in my neighborhood and i'm like okay there's there's

people walking there's people you know jogging and then there's and then there's bicycle people and scooter people and of course i remember that the 80s and 90s when it was rollerblade people you know and so, it's just kind of nice to have some kind of warning because we've got so many things going on in our brains and and cars are so tech and and you're just overwhelmed and just to have it go off going holy crap i didn't realize that person was

behind me if you think about low light situations as well. I live in a community where a lot of our cyclists will ride at 5.30 or 6 o'clock in the morning, you know, before work. So if it's mid peak summer before it gets to be 90 degrees. So if you're in those low light situations, this radar and this technology is always on. It doesn't care about, you know, the ambient light or sunlight, right? Like when I got hit, the guy couldn't see me because the sun was right in his eyes.

Had he been driving this new to traverse, he would have, you know, had all these detections that said, Hey, something is coming across the front of you and would have alerted him. And saved me a little bit of a hassle. Yeah. Luckily, you're okay. Thank you. It was all in a neighborhood and things like that. A person, somebody backed out of a driveway and right into you. And it's so easy to do.

And I know these people have the tinted windows because they're trying to keep the interior or their bodies warm. And it's so difficult at certain times of the day and the morning and the evening. And it's just sometimes where there's the glare in your eyes or the fact that you just can't see somebody because it's dark. By the way, folks, I'm talking to Mike Fry. He is a GM Systems Engineer. It's Mike Herzing and Jeremy Bierenbaum of Let's Talk Wheels.

I hate the new cars because they do so much in a way. They're so expensive. But then again, I love the new cars because they do things like this that keep people from getting run over. And, you know, Mike, like you said, you've been backed into when you're on your bicycle. Luckily, it was another Chevy. So that was okay. I think you're only allowed to get hit by people of your own brand and, you know, drivers of your own brand. But I mean, you didn't, obviously you survived.

And, but, you know, you might be the exception rather than the rule. You know what I mean? People get hurt bad on bicycles. Yes. You know, and the nice thing is that we have a lot of data to prove that this technology is helping, right? So we've been collaborating with the University of Michigan, the Transportation Research Institute to gather the data to show, right? And it is an overwhelming task to make sure that, to prove that this technology is effective.

But, you know, the enhanced emergency braking has already reduced crashes by 45%, right? Including cars, pedestrians, and cyclists. Okay. Explain to folks what enhanced emergency braking is. I know the emergency braking is somebody stops in front of you because you're getting on the freeway and you're trying to merge and the idiot in front of you hits his brakes. Well, this is... Is that what that does or what does that do?

So I believe with this particular feature here is the automatic enhanced emergency braking is when you're going to back out of your drive. Ah, okay. And there's something behind you, your brakes are slammed on. And so, okay, Mike, on the Traverse, you've got this, there's all these new systems where there's somebody's backing up and there's a bicyclist there or something like that. So the enhanced means it's something smaller rather than something big, right?

Well, I think even if it's another car, right? So I think it's, it's not related to the size. I know with, I drive a Silverado and there's a blind spots. I have a huge Sycamore tree that is to my driver's side and I've had my brakes lock up because there's a car that has slipped by there. Right. Or if I backed out in my garbage cans are there and I go to make the turn and it detects it and then stops.

Right. The first time that happened, I was unsure what happened, but then I realized and look at the, if you look at the alerts on the dash, it tells you, you know, there's a system.

Or something behind you so having this technology to give you some assistance right it doesn't mean you become more relaxed of a driver it just means that we're here to help you become a better driver and save lives well you know folks were talking to mike fry he's from general motors he's a system engineer there we're talking about safety and it's mike herzing and jeremy bierenbaum let's talk wheels you know mike you're right but even the best drivers i don't care who it is you have a you

have these little, I call them little brain farts. You know, you're kind of just, like you said, I'd lost my train of thought of this or that. I'm trying to back up. And all of a sudden you just, you didn't, the one time you don't look, the one time you don't double check both ways three or four times. And then somebody goes riding, flying behind you on a bicycle or walking or whatever. And you're like, man, don't you see me backing up? Can't you, you know.

Have a little bit of, you're invested in this just a little bit. You know what I mean? As a bicyclist, you have to be so defensive. As a motorcycle rider, like I've been my whole life, I have to be so defensive when I'm driving. I have to assume everyone's trying to kill me. And every bit of help that they could get to see me there, I am all for that. So kudos go to General Motors. Exactly. It even goes to like distracted driving is a big pet peeve of mine.

I see a lot of it when I'm on my bike and I'm riding around and a lot of people are always on their phones. Yeah, I know. You're right. It makes me crazy here in Texas. They need to have laws against that. As much as I really dislike the state of California, their government, how's that? I love the state. I love the people. I hate the government. They do a lot of stuff like that. And one of the things they have is a lot of penalties for distracted driving in here.

There's really not any of them except for maybe in a school zone. But Mike, is there a way we can find out more about the new Traverse and some of these new safety features? Absolutely. You can go to chevrolet.com and select through the models and find Traverse. And from there, you can find all the new features added and shop for a new vehicle, do a custom build, or it's all right there at your fingertips. Great. And now, is Traverse the first one with these new extra features?

Do they have, obviously, some more vehicles planned? Yes, the Traverse is the one that for sure has it. And then there are plans to roll it out to all vehicles in the very near future. Perfect. All right, folks, go to GM.com, Chevrolet.com, look for the Traverse, and you will see what it is. Mike, thanks for joining Let's Talk Wheels today. I appreciate it, Mike. Thanks for your time. All right, folks, that's Mike Fry from GM.

We've got a lot of great stuff coming up, classic car information coming up in our next segment. Be right back. Music.

Let's talk wheels my cruising and jeremy ferenbaum jeremy we got some classic car questions and this is something i've actually been running into there's so many classic cars available, on you know facebook marketplace and all these other things and craigslist and just everywhere everywhere, but they say, I'm selling with a bill of sale. I don't have a title to it. How hard or expensive is it to get a title? I know in Texas, it can be a pain in the butt. And then you've got emissions.

I don't know if older cars in Texas, it's not a big deal. If it's over 25 years, there is no emissions. California, not quite that way. But tell us about it, man. So what do we do? Yeah, it's really tough. That's a hard way to buy a car sometimes, especially if something that's a project and you're going to end up investing money into. You want to make sure that, you know, someone doesn't come knocking on your door and say, Hey, I'm the legal owner of that car, which could totally happen.

A lot of times, if you buy a car that's bill of sale or has no title, they're going to give you a bonded title, which means you have to put some money up and you have to wait some time. So anyone can claim if that car is theirs. And then eventually you can get his title. Now I've, I've heard there are other states outside of California that you can go that make it a little bit easier. I'm not too privy to those, so I don't want to inform on it. I know for California, it's pretty tough.

And it really depends, you know, to me at least, what kind of deal am I saving by buying this car without a title versus, you know, one that does have a title? Yeah, because I was talking to the folks at Dirt Legal the other day, because I found an older Corvette, a C2 Corvette that is really a a cool car. And it's still a project that isn't all put together. I mean, it needs a paint job and interior and things like that, but it does run.

And it doesn't have any numbers on it because the guy put it together out of parts. It's got a 67 front end and a 63 interior and a 63 body or a 64 body and so-and-so this and so-and-so that. And so, all right, so where can I find a title? So I can take it in Texas. I can find out there's no, if I can't find a VIN number, I can take it to the DMV. I have to make an appointment, which is normally a couple of months, several months in advance from now.

So if I make an appointment right now, I might not get an appointment till January or February. Then I take it in, they inspect it, and then they'll give me a VIN. They'll assign a VIN to it, and then I can get it, get a title for it. I know that some people are talking about Vermont for up until just last year, they had a lot of things where you could just, you didn't have to, they have to live there, but you can get plates there.

You can just tell them it was a, this is the VIN numbers I've got, and they'll make a title. Now, like I said, bonded titles, I've used it with my title. I have a title lady that I use and she's awesome, but bonded title is basically an insurance policy. So if somebody shows up and and said, it's my car, it'll pay for them. It'll pay for what it's worth. And so the more the car is worth and you get a bonded title, the more the bond's going to cost you.

Usually it's a couple hundred bucks, but it's, you know, they usually don't, it's not a problem. But it's just so hard. And somebody goes, they think it's that easy. It's not that easy to get a title. Now, in some states, you don't have to have a title, do you? Jersey and stuff for classic cars, they don't have titles. I think New York is one of those. And it makes it tough when you go to try and buy a car that's quite old and you have this very old title on the car.

Right. You know, in California, there is one other way you can do it. I thought about it while you were talking is you can go to DMV and Highway Patrol and register the car as like a special construction and they give it its own VIN. This is for cars that don't have VINs. Happens a bunch in dune buggies. For kit cars. For kit cars, dune buggies, you know, even Cobras, they'll have special construction numbers.

And a lot of times what that means is you will have to get the car smogged and you do have to jump through a good amount of hoops in order to get that done. It might be multiple trips to a DMV or highway patrol. Yeah. I've seen people that have cars for sale for like $2,000 or 1500 bucks and the car is literally nothing. It's just a set of wheels that's rusted to nothing, but the frame is there and

they have the title, you know, and that's what they're selling you is the title. Yeah. No, totally. Because talking to the dirt legal people, these guys, some of them are in California. They specialize in stuff like getting your dirt bike legalized, doing this, doing that, converting your dirt bike over to a street bike and getting plates for this kind of stuff and all these little bringing in key cars and things like that. But I have a feeling that their prices started at like $1,500.

Yeah, it's one of those things. If you're not knowledgeable and you buy a car by accident, you go, oh, this is a great deal. And you don't realize like, hey, a title is a big deal. Or like you're mentioning on a dirt bike, hey, this isn't plated and I want to ride it on the street. For a dune buggy. Yeah, you know, all of a sudden the thing that you thought was a deal ends up being a lot more expensive because you have to jump through all these hoops.

And then you have to think about what your time is worth to do all of that. Now, there are some people that are bringing in these cars from Japan and, like you said, the key trucks and whatnot, and they've done it multiple times before and they know the process and you only get better every time you do it. So it's nice to find those people to get advice. There are message boards, Reddit forums, that sort of thing.

And if it is something you think you want to do, I would really do the research ahead of time. Yeah, absolutely. Of course, it's hard to do research on a vehicle when you see it on Marketplace or eBay and you go, oh, man, this is really cool. Of course, by the time you've done your research, it's gone. Well, with bonded titles, I feel like they do sit around the market a little bit longer. They're not as quick to be sold as cars with clean titles. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Because in some states, it's really hard to do this. And they do that.

OK, I don't blame them. you know but and the same thing with it with a kit car the problem is when you do a kit car if it's a 65 volkswagen like a dune buggy somebody builds a dune buggy and it's got a 65 volkswagen frame or floor pan and you're like so it's a title is a 65 or you know everything else is brand new or almost new or three years old you know what i mean and but you want it to title as a 65 because then you don't smog it you don't have to worry

about seat belts you don't have to worry about.

The flashers and this and that and all those so many things that you don't have to worry about and that's kind of nice you know what i mean yeah definitely you know the smog is the biggest thing and i was very conscious when i bought my dune buggy and what the title was and that it said it didn't say dune buggy it said volkswagen beetle and that's what my title says and that's because the frame in the pan is from a volkswagen beetle and if you believe it it actually changes the value on some of

these cars because if they're a special construction and they don't say you know say it's a cobra it doesn't say ford it says special construction like nobody knows that until you show them the title but it still changes the value of the car oh yeah if i was somebody i didn't know you and i'm buying a car for twenty thousand dollars or thirty thousand or whatever and somebody says by the way the title says special construction it doesn't say that it's

a corvette or it doesn't say that it's a mustang or it doesn't say this and you'd kind of go well Well, nevermind. I don't want to buy it from you because it's going to be a hassle. You have to get insurance. How's he going to get insurance? You're not insuring a 65 Cobra you're buying, you're insuring a special construction. And so that makes it a little bit more, you know, a little bit more of a hassle and more red flags come up and you're right. Maybe they don't sell it for as much.

You know what I mean? But if you've got a vehicle for sale and it's got a clean title, you need to say it's got a clean title because it'll make it worth more. By the way, this is Mike Herzing and Jeremy Bierenbaum. Let's talk wheels. We're talking about buying a classic car or buying a car that has no title or the time. I mean, I bought a Jeep M38A1 military Jeep and it was a 53 model. And come to find out when I got the title from the guy, I said, by the way, my name isn't on the title.

It was my uncle's name or basically he bought it, didn't want to work on it and ended up selling it without transferring the title.

And so it was a hassle. I had to get a bonded title. So that cost me an extra 300 bucks, you know and it was a hassle and I wished I had not bought the vehicle from him if I'd realized the title wasn't in his name and he can't just sign it over to me it's some was it had somebody else's name on it it was supposedly the guy had passed away so that makes it a lot harder guys so make sure your paperwork is right before you buy a car I don't care if it's classic

or not right yeah no I mean that's the most in part important part is the paperwork in my opinion in. Yeah, either way. So it's a great show. Thanks for that information, Jeremy. We'll probably follow up on this again in a couple of weeks. But folks, if you enjoyed our show, tune into the same station next week for the next episode of Let's Talk Wheels. And if you missed part of this show, you can catch the podcast on all your major podcast platforms. Just search for Let's Talk Wheels.

The podcast contains this show in a bonus segment with an extra car review. So be sure sure to subscribe so you don't miss out. And if you have any topics you want us to cover or questions you need us to answer like we did today in the show, email mike at letstalkwheels.com. We love to hear all your car questions and we'll always respond even if you don't want to hear it on the radio. That's right. We can always send a private message as always.

As always, folks, on behalf of Jeremy Bierenbaum, Matt Peralta, and myself, I want to thank you for joining us today on the Talk Media Radio Network. I'm Mike Bersing. He's Jeremy Bierenbaum. Have a great week, folks. Thanks for joining us on another edition of Let's Talk Wheels. We'll see you next week. Music.