"Car Recalls, GPS Trackers, and Classic Talks with Ford Historian"

Music. Guess what company just issued their 90th recall this year alone?

Is your EV making you sick? We also got this really juicy hidden GPS tracker story. And then we've also got reviews of the Ford Explorer and the Chrysler Pacifica people haulers. Really cool people haulers, but we're going to talk about them today. We're also answering a ton of your car questions and talking with Ford Motor Company historian, one of our favorite guys, Ted Ryan, over at Ford. So buckle up for a fun and informative day.

Welcome to your favorite auto show, Let's Talk Wheels. I'm Mike Herzing, and every week we bring automotive and power sports news, interviews, car reviews, and classic car information from my co-host, the infinite Jeremy Berenbaum, who's based right there in Southern California. How you doing, buddy? Is it nice and chilly over there? It's doing all right. I actually wasn't in Southern California. I did a quick trip to Colorado the other day with my wife to go see a concert at Red Rocks.

I hate you. It was a bucket list venue for us. And now I'm back here. I don't know where I was. It was such a whirlwind, but it was such a good time. And Colorado has the most beautiful driving roads, whether you're going 35 or 105. It's gorgeous out there. Isn't it great? It's a great state. Too bad they're a little strange, but that's okay. Before we get under ourselves, let's get started with a news and notes segment.

Find out who has gotten 90 recalls this year alone. Okay. I mean, I'll give you one guess at this point. We've been hammering them this year, not by our faults. We love Ford, but 90 recalls in seven months, that's crazy. Yeah. This one is a little weird. This is a recall that fixes a couple of recalls. We've done that before, too, with Ford. The first one in November of 22, they did 521,000 vehicles.

It was leaking injectors. And obviously, they're leaking outside the engine because they did a software update to detect leaking injectors and then a drain tube to get leaking fuel away from the engine. So obviously, it's leaking externally, not internally. Honestly, I think you and I were joking about this last time. We were saying this is not a fix. This is, you know, a Band-Aid on a big hole in a dam, right?

You know, just to get the gas away from the engine doesn't really stop the actual problem. Well, yeah, no, Ken, it's not the root cause of the issue. And they've done a couple of these recalls where they did a couple of things and put a drain to them. Well, wait a minute. You've got to fix the actual problem. And I know there's really not many vehicles really affected. You know, there's 500 and something thousand they've got to look at. But how many of them are actually leaking?

And I understand that. But come on, guys, you've just got to actually fix it. I know it's one of their vendors because they don't make injectors. People make them for them. And that vendor probably doesn't want to spend the money, but they're going to have to. And it's the Bronco Sport, and they actually escape. You know, Bronco, Fort, and Cape are basically the same vehicle. It's just the Bronco Sport's just a sexier-looking escape.

But, I mean, that's a lot of vehicles. I know, they're predicting this is going to cost half a billion dollars when it's all said and done. Well, at least it's, I mean, there's two sides to look at it. One side is like, at least they're fixing it. And the other side is, well, I wish they didn't have to, but oh well. Ford is saying of the 700,000 cars that are recalled, 0.3% are affected. So I'm sure they're a little hurt by this.

Yeah, no kidding. All right. So EVs, they're making everybody sick. What's up with that? Yeah, you know, it kind of seems counterintuitive when you think about it at first, but I guess There's a lot of issues going against them when you talk about car sickness. And one of the big ones is regenerative braking, you know. Your body gets used to being in a car and how it reacts. And then when the car reacts differently, your body gets thrown,

you know, for a loop. And that's what motion sickness happens. You get it in turbulence on airplanes. You get it, you know, on rough seas on boats. It's in your brain. It's not something that is that's actually getting you sick, you know? Yeah, but, you know, it's real funny. It's kind of like I remember when my kids were little and you're getting ready to deal with this soon.

But you know it could be really noisy in the house and it was all noisy and they're asleep they're out the noise stops all of a sudden they go and they wake up and i'm like are you kidding me it's now quiet and now they wake up let's get used to the noise just like we're used to car engine noise we're used to you know the the brakes and this kind of stuff because it brakes on on evs are a little bit different they break a little harder than cars you want to coast to a stop but But on an EV,

you're regenerating a lot of the electricity. So what do we do? It brakes harder. Some of these cars, even the ones with one pedal driving, as soon as you come off the pedal, your car is braking, even if you're not on the brakes. Right. So you get this back and forth feeling all the time, where in a gas car, you let off the gas pedal. Coast. Your car just cruises and coasts. Yeah. Well, you know, a lot of that has to do with just the fact that what we're used to and right or wrong.

This is what we've been dealing with since we were little kids. Yeah. You know, another big factor is the screens. They're just packing these cars with these big screens and, you know, that's getting people carsick. You're reading this stuff rather than driving. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's kind of like people that are driving in the car and they're reading. Oh, wait a minute. That's going to give you a headache in getting carsick.

Guess what? You are. By the way, folks, if you just tuned in, Mike Kersing and Jeremy Berenbaum on Westock Wheels. We're just doing our news and notes segment. AirTag story. Tell us this cool AirTag story. You love this story. Oh, I do. You know, AirTags could be used for great things. They can also be used for some bad things. This is a pretty funny story where two mechanics were working on one of the mechanics' car, and they found an AirTag.

And the mechanic said, it's not my AirTag. So they figured it was his girlfriend's that could be the only, you know, culprit of this. And they said, oh, I'm going to play a joke on her. And the other mechanic says, I'm going to take the air tag in my car and go drive around and we'll see what she does. And of course, she called her boyfriend to see where he was. And he said he was at his mom's house and she didn't believe him because the air tag was somewhere else.

Little did she know. He's not supposed to know about this air tag either, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. She said, I have a feeling. I just have a feeling you're not where you're supposed to be. No, you don't have a feeling. You have an air tag. But we won't go into that. I would, what would you do if Grace did that to you or if my wife did that to me? I mean, I got nothing to hide, so it doesn't really matter. That's not the point. But it would irritate me if she didn't trust you in a way. I mean.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The lack of trust is definitely there. You know, you're supposed to have a notification on your phone if an AirTag that is not yours is following you. Right. But I wouldn't, you know, you can't count on those sort of things. And there are apps you can get on your phone to scan for these type of things on your car. But who has the time to do that? Right. Who wants to go and scan our car for this or that? I mean, it's just wrong.

But all right. So real quick, let's talk about the stupid study. That LendingTree, you're right. We talk about LendingTree. We've had them on the show several times. They're very nice people. But they have a lot of data. They have tons of data. When you buy your car and you finance it through them or any of their financial stuff, they have all this information. And they just buy data. They can get it from anywhere. It's online. And so they have worst cities for drunk driving.

And it goes through a list of, you know, the worst cities to get a DUI, what it's going to do to your insurance. BMW drivers have the highest DUI rate among the car brands analyzed. So I thought that was a kind of funny subsector of data that they're pulling. Yeah, I mean, but it's like, okay, when you get a DUI, in what city does your insurance go up the most? And what city does your insurance go up the least? And they did this for 50 cities.

Are you kidding me? Who has time to do all this stuff? It's a click of the butt. You know, nowadays it's the click of the button and the computer does all the work. Are you kidding me? Why waste your time? I mean, is this a DUI? Is a DUI something that everybody gets now? Have I missed out on this? Did I miss the memo? Do I need to go get a DUI or something? I mean, come on, I've never had one. You are a dummy if you get one. That's what I say.

I'll probably use some worse words if we weren't on the radio right now. I mean, what kind of idiot? I mean, I'm going to look up where I can get a DUI. not get my insurance not go up as much that's not how I pick places to live no and I don't think that's what this this list is compiled for and hopefully people aren't thinking about that we're gonna review the Ford Explorer coming up next we'll be right back after this quick break. Music.

It's Mike Herzing and Jeremy Berenbaum. This is our part review segment. And this week, I want to talk about the 2025 Ford Explorer. Now, I had a 2015 Ford Explorer, and I loved it. My son has a Ford Explorer. His wife has a Ford Explorer. He has an older one. She has a newer one, an ST. They're great vehicles. I mean, Ford has been selling these things for years, you know, since the 80s or late 80s or 90s. and they've been a great vehicle for them from day one.

And they have several different versions of the Explorer. I mean, my daughter-in-law has got the ST, which is 400 horsepower, all-wheel drive, badass. They make this in the ST with the trimmer, the platinum, and then the ST line, and then the ST. So basically they start in the low 40s and they go up to the upper 50s. And that is loaded with everything. Now, the one I have is the absolute base model called Active.

Base price on it was $41,000. I know that doesn't sound horribly expensive, but it doesn't sound cheap either. Great vehicle. I mean, this is three rows. Everything folds down into the floor and all that kind of stuff. Got a nice trailer hitch. It has a good tow-y thing. This model came with a EcoBoost four-cylinder with plenty of power, 2.3 liter with a 10-speed transmission.

Plenty of power runs good it really i mean it's just got tons of torque i had i have no problem granted the st is super fast don't get me wrong but this thing is is really a nice car okay and zero to 60 this thing but this engine is 300 horsepower 310 foot pounds of torque. It really does run good you know they say that it's going to get good fuel economy i think i I, you know, I think I got 20 or 22 on it. It was the best I did on it. They say you can get a little bit better than that.

But yeah, I just love the way it drove. It's quiet. It's comfortable. We had the dogs in it. We have, you know, all this kind of stuff. I love mine. And these new ones, this one's all-wheel drive. It had a couple of options, which was special star white metal tricot paint. It had 20-inch wheels on it, really nice wheels.

It had what's called the Active Comfort Package, which is $3,000 extra dollars, which was remote start fog lamps universal garage door opener heated steering wheel signature special lighting eight-way power seats these other goodies but this thing you know it it had heated and cooled seats it's got power driver seat passenger seats got all kinds of 12 volt power plugs and all this other stuff it's just it's great for moving people it really

is i mean if you don't want to own a minivan this is the actual thing you want and if you can get this thing for you know now this is sticker You can get these things off the sticker price, too. So, I mean, it's got a nice 13.2-inch LCD screen, push-button start. It's got all kinds of really neat stuff. But, I mean, and I like it. It's got a little rotary shift knob, which I like those. It's got room in the center console. It's got a nice place to put your phone.

It's just a real comfortable car. And I can see why Ford sells so many of them. They're a great vehicle. Don't count out the Explorer when you're looking at other stuff, you know.

But there's a lot of vehicles out there like grand highlander the telluride you know mazda cx70 or cx90 either one whether which is you know that those are it's a great vehicle and they hold their value there's a reason so many other manufacturers have entered this segment because it is the biggest one of the biggest segments for the buyers and in the u.s yeah ford has been in this segment since day one they've been building this explorer since what what, the 80s?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying, the late 80s. And, I mean, they're great cars. It's tried, true, tested. It's been well-developed. This car, from the one Mike has, the base model, all the way down to the ST. The ST is, you know, the quick sporty version. They got the Platinum as well. These are great vehicles. And the price range just works for so many people. I think that's why they're so popular. You can tow a trailer with it, even with the four-cylinder. I mean,

these things will tow good. I mean, it's just, it's really great. I mean, they used to call them the limited, the base, King Ranch, I remember when it was XLT, XL, and all those different, you know, trim levels. But they all change a little bit. But it's family-friendly. It's great interior. The third row actually works. Maybe not forever, but, you know, not the tallest people can fit. Jeremy and I have fit in the back, but most people could. And it's, you know, seven-seat. Just great.

Nice, you know, captain's chairs on the second row and things like that. But this, you know, the Trend Turbo V6 is my best. The ST is my favorite one. But I love the fact that it's all-wheel drive. But it's really great. It's really great. It's like the family truckster. So check out the Explorer from Ford because I think you're going to be really happy with it. By the way, if you just tuned in, I'm Mike Herzing. He's Jeremy Berenbaum.

This is Let's Talk Wheels. We're just doing a quick car review of the Ford Explorer.

Let's answer a car question, Jeremy. Why don't we do that? Donna is inheriting her dad's 66 Mustang. What a cool car to get passed out, right? She's got a couple of things she needs to do to it, but she's curious, should she upgrade the brakes from drums to discs? I would if it was my car. I think you and I are both in the same sentiment here that we look at cars that we want to make them so they're drivable and so they're safe.

Upgrading brakes is probably one of the first things I would do on a classic car nowadays, just with the way people drive, how fast and how well cars stop nowadays. And just so I'm feeling confident in traffic. Not to say that drum brakes are bad, but you just get a little bit more bite, a little bit more stopping power with discs. Right. And if you're driving, of course, it's not a classic car, but back when it wasn't a classic car and it was an actual everybody drove them to work.

I mean, if you're in a lot of rain, a lot of stuff like that, on wet roads and stuff like that, the drum brakes are a little bit, I don't know, drum brakes are a little bit touchy. How's that? And when you drive through water and things like that, and you get them wet, the drum brakes will fade. You know, when they get wet, they fade. Discs, not so much. And discs will last longer and they'll work better and this kind of stuff.

Now, if her brakes, what I would say is if her brakes are in really good shape and the drums have been replaced, not like her dad, maybe he did a brake job a year or two ago. And, you know, it's a classic, so you don't drive it. So say he only has a few thousand miles on it. I would not upgrade him. You wouldn't. I would say. I would wait until you have, you know, a reason to go to work on the brakes. And then I wouldn't fix them.

I would just replace it with that. because you're going to have to go master cylinder and a bunch of other stuff too. Fair. Agreed. Yes. It's not just swapping out the brakes. You're going to need a new master cylinder. If you were debating it, I would say just do the fronts. The fronts are really where you're going to see the biggest difference anyways. You don't have to always go four wheel. A lot of cars that I've driven and that I've owned, I just do the fronts.

Yeah, I would. I would do the fronts and I think you'd be fine. Now, if it's like, I have to do this or this, like maybe the heater doesn't work or this or that. What am I going to spend my money on? Okay, if they don't need it, don't upgrade it then. But when you're going to have to spend any money on it or you have the extra money, I think it's not going to make it lose value. It'll help it with the value. It'll help it with resale and also help it for drivability.

Just keep the old parts. And keep the old parts. Absolutely. Okay, folks. Coming up, we got Ford company historian, Ted Ryan. He's always fun to talk to. Man, what a job. Dealing with all of the history around Ford. Man, can you imagine a company like that with that kind of history? That'd get much better than that. All right, so hang on. Hang on.

Coming up next, right here on Let's Talk Wheels, Ted Ryan from Ford Motor Company. Thank you. Music. Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. Mike Herzing and Jeremy Beerenbaum, as we talked about earlier in the show, we've got Ted Ryan, who is our favorite guy from the Ford Heritage Vault. Ted, the guy with the greatest job in the industry. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. It's an exciting time for Ford as we're pulling together, for the first time ever, a heritage fleet of American vehicles.

So, it's been quite the year getting this baby off the ground, and it's an exciting project to talk about. Well, it is. I mean, Ford is so great. It's one of the few manufacturers that really go back and embrace their history. I mean, you have such a rich history. You and GM both, you have such a rich history. Well, even Dodge, you're right. But it's just, you know, Ford was Ford. I mean, for God's sake.

You could think of all the stuff, the places where you're at in your offices, you know, where Henry Ford used to walk in. And just, I mean, it's just, wow, there's a lot of ghosts in your building, aren't there? There are. And what's interesting on this particular project is that Henry Ford II had sort of mandated that Ford wasn't going to collect vehicles. We were going to build vehicles. We're not going to collect them.

And they donated a number of them, including the VIN number one Mustang to the Henry Ford Museum. Okay, that's all right. They're publicly available. A lot of what we've been doing in the past year are vehicles that, for whatever reason, the museum didn't want to take. You know, all of them significant vehicles, but the Ford Museum is its own private entity. Well, it's not private. It's a nonprofit.

And it's a museum for innovation, and they take vehicles from all the different manufacturers, and they won't just be Ford's attic. So over the past year, we had a fleet in England of about 150 cars, had a fleet in Germany of about 111, 120, had one in Australia of 30 or 40 cars. And then Jim Farley, our CEO, about a year and a bit ago, challenged us to find the American vehicles that were still in the Ford system and to bring them to life in a new way. So we've done that.

I've worked with partners like marketing, Ford Performance, product development, and communications. And each one of them had special little stashes of cars. And, you know, it's amazing how... How many cars have been saved in the Ford system because the passionate Ford people wanted to save a car. So for a great example, and I know I'm going along in this answer.

That's fine. The very first F-150 and the last Mustang produced a Dearborn truck, actually Mustang at Dearborn Assembly in 2004, and it shut down in May and reopened back up, I think, in July of 2004, And it was now a Dearborn truck. And that's where the F-150s are made. So the very last Mustang and the very first F-150, the plant manager just sort of hit them, put them in an annex next to the glass factory. And they've been there for 20 years now.

And I just found out about them about a year ago. We had to go back and reinflate the tires. But those are vehicles that are special and will mean something to the Ford family, greater Ford family, not Bill Ford's family, but the Ford Enterprise family as we have our employee days and the different activations. So it's finding vehicles like that throughout the fleet that have made this so rewarding over the past year.

When you've got a company that big with so many properties and things like that, stuff gets kind of pigeonholed and you get a chance to go and see it and go, you know, this means a lot. I mean, sure, Henry Ford Museum is one of my favorite places to go. It is my favorite place to go in Michigan. I've been to Henry Ford at least 10 or 12 times. And each time I come back shaking my head going, this is the coolest place. But you're right. It's not Ford's, you know, garage. It's not their attic.

But you have so many cool things. And to be able to bring this to the forefront, start showing up at auto shows and things like that. My gosh. I mean, now when you launch the next Mustang, you'll have one of the old Mustangs with it. What a great idea. I mean, the original Explorers and all this other stuff. You have so much history, you know. The Granadas and all these cool cars that were around in the old days. I just love all the old brands.

One of the big categories that we have on display and that we've pulled together are concept vehicles. So with the concept vehicles, we have about 17 of them at world headquarters right now. And it's everything from the 2004 Bronco, the Dwayne Johnson, the rock I used in the movie. And we have the Airstream, which is one of my favorite, you know, is the combination of Ford engineers and Airstream engineers, imagineering what a.

An Airstream-tinted, you know, or inspired minivan would look like. And it looks so cool. It is. Oh, you guys have got so many. By the way, folks, if you just tuned in, Mike Herzing and Jeremy Bear on Let's Talk Wheels, and we're talking to Ted Ryan. He is from the Ford Heritage Vault, and he is the historian for Ford, and he has the absolute coolest job out there.

So you're now going to have a fleet of vehicles to go with all your other brochures and all the other things that you provide for your Ford owners. It's, it's such nice that the brand will support vehicles they've already sold and, and, and all this other stuff. They made, they made the money, but it's, it's a family thing. So it's great to be able to pick up. I love to be able to go through there and pick up brochures from cars that are 25 years old. You know what I mean?

And, and the quality that you guys provide is, is unbelievable. And the fact that it's all for free, my gosh, it is awful. Pretty soon in the Ford Heritage Vault, all of these 500 vehicles from around the world will be a separate search engine within the Heritage Vault. So you'll be able to click on a button on the front page of the vault. It isn't ready yet. We're going to have it ready by June 16th, our birthday.

But you'll click on a button, and then you'll be able to scroll through the 500 vehicles that Ford has in its fleet. And, you know, for a U.S.-based person, it's great because you'll see some great German cars and some great Australian. Most Americans aren't going to know what an Oot is, but an Oot is essentially, that's part of the Australian personality. It was a hybrid. Think of it like a Ranchero, but it developed in the 30s.

So, and then the Falcon, the Falcon became for Australia what the Mustang became for America. You know, you're right. Everybody goes, oh, I had a Falcon. I had a couple of Australian buddies and they were like, man, I had a Falcon. It was the greatest hot rod. It was like, a Falcon hot rod? Wait a minute. And they're going, yeah, the Falcon that we had is not the Falcon that you had.

No, in fact, there was an issue in Australia because they were too fast, and the police asked Ford to tone down the horsepower because they were considered to be too speedy, too sporty. But you'll be able to explore the fleet online. One of the other really cool ones we have came from our communications team, and they hit it. Once again, they hit it. We had the Mustang that was cut up and put on the Empire State Building in 2014.

Oh, yes. But the 50th anniversary, if you go Google that, you'll see some great videos of this Ford Mustang that they cut into six different pieces and took up an elevator. And the elevator only opened 36 inches wide, so the pieces had to fit in and took them up to the 86-4 observation deck. And the communications team kept that vehicle tucked away in a warehouse in Clinton, Michigan, for the past 20 years, or for the past 10 years.

And it's great to get it out and to make it available. These will be activated with our employees at different employee events, and they'll show up at Cars and Coffee, and we'll make them as publicly available as we can so that the general public will get to enjoy them as well. Well, they're all significant. They all mean something to the Ford family. Then maybe not as significant as the first one or the last one, but the first one from one plant.

And, you know, they'll have some significant meaning. They'll be not along just with the vehicles, but all the articles and brochures. Folks, if you haven't gone to the Ford Heritage Vault, FordHeritageVault.com, you got to do it because it is the coolest thing. God, this guy, you guys have worked so hard. Your whole team, we've had a couple of your people on before, and they were all great. It's great to be able to see people that enjoy their job as much as you do.

Well, it is. We love it. And the Ford Heritage Vault, the numbers are staggering now. We have more than 20,000 assets in there, and we've hit 40 million searches, and we've hit 10 million downloads. And that's all in less than three years. So it's an amazing site. Fans, go check it out. Download your favorite brochure, your favorite image, and take a trip down Ford memory lane. I went down a rabbit hole the other day with your concept cars because I was looking at the Batmobile, and it was this.

And I was like, oh, look at this and look at this. And I was posting pictures of it on our Facebook site, and it was this. And I'm like, oh, my God, it's been like 45 minutes, and I've been here. And it's like walking into a time capsule. It is. It's a great site. It is so great. We're very proud of it. Fordheritagevault.com. You've got to do it, folks. Ted, once again, you always come up with something really cool to talk to us about. Thank you for joining us today.

Thanks for having me on. I love my job, and I love getting out to talk about it. All right. That was Ted Ryan. And back with more Let's Talk Wheels after this quick break. Music.

Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. Mike Herzing and Jeremy Berenbaum. In this segment, I want to actually do another quick car review. I was driving the 2025 Chrysler Pacifica Limited all-wheel drive. What do you think about minivans, Jeremy? Tell me the truth. What did you say about your car? I personally wouldn't own one, but the times I've rented it and the friends that I've been in, I can't complain. Well, I got three friends right off the top of my head right now.

Absolutely love their minivans. Two have families, and one is just a surfer guy that loves to throw all his gear in the back. Is it a Chrysler Pacifica? I think two out of the three are Pacificas. They're great. I mean, that's funny. That's one thing that Chrysler does really well. And the magic they have is the stow-and-go seats. Now, that's funny. You can buy this as a gas engine or a plug-in hybrid, okay? Now, the advantage of the gas engine, well, the plug-in hybrid is great.

It gives a little better fuel economy and this kind of stuff. That's all great. But the disadvantage of the hybrid is that you lose your stow-and-go seats ability. You have to take the, if you want to take the seats out, you got to take them, unbolt them or unlatch them and put them in your garage. I love the fact that with one hand, a person, female, male, whatever, you know, a 12-year-old can actually lift the lever and the seats will go down on the floor.

Touch this little lever and the seats come up. I mean, once you put the seats down on the floor, it's just a big empty box. And if you want to, so I know people that abuse these things for everything, but my sister-in-law uses it because she does animal rescue. She does collie rescue. It's called Freedom Collie Rescue. That's what Pat works for. And she runs that rescue and she'll go and pick up two or three collies and has these kennels that are in the back of the van.

What perfect for that. And then if you want to put some people back there, just, you know, pull the seats back up. It's really neat. It is a family hauler. I mean, they get, you know, I think I average about 24 miles, 25 miles a gallon on the highway. It's seat seven. It's got a good warranty, man, because Chrysler invented the minivan segment in the 80s. But the big thing is you can get a built-in vacuum cleaner.

You can hang your grocery bags on the back of the seats. All your Walmart bags have little plates for the kind of go. You can get it set up for seven or eight passenger. It drives like a car. Pacifica with a V6 is 287 horsepower, and it really runs fine, okay? I don't think, as far as the Honda Odyssey, the Kia Carnival, or maybe even the Toyota Sienna, I don't like those near as well as the Pacifica. That's one thing Chrysler does very, very well.

Like I said, they make it in, they make it, they start, these things start in select, which is the base model, in the low 40s, $44,000. They make a limited, a hybrid select, a hybrid FAV edition, okay? The pinnacle, the hybrid premium S and the hybrid pinnacle. Give me a break. They need to cut down on how many they're selling, okay? But basically, the loaded one gets these around $60,000. And I mean, loaded with vacuum cleaner and everything else. The one I had was $59,000.

That's with safety spear, which is a special around Ukraine, a camera system. And also, and you can sit there and drive along and the kids could be watching video games and this other stuff in the back. And you could push a button and on your screen, you can see pictures of what the kids are doing. So if they're doing something they shouldn't be doing, then you bust them, right? Because there's cameras all around there.

You know, this one's got parallel and perpendicular parking assist with stop. If you connect, which is the audio system, infotainment system, it's very good. It's probably the best one out there. But this is a $3,300 upgrade, 19-speaker Harman Kardon audio system with a subwoofer, which is 760-watt amplifier, Amazon Fire TV built-in, seat-back video screens, hand-free sliding doors. I love they just put on the key fob. You can open the side doors.

Stow and go. I think they're just so well thought out, start to finish, every option, every feature. It's got a Blu-ray DVD player with a USB ports, 115 volt auxiliary power outlet, which is great because I have a cooler that's a freezer, okay? And we carry it to the lake back and forth. I plug it in and it's got 110 volts. It's, you know, I have to run the battery like that. It's really great. I mean, I see it drives good. It's got heated and cooled seats. It's got dry zone cooling.

It's just all kinds of stuff. Is that what your friends like about theirs? They just, you know, it's a Swiss army knife. And I think they've gotten their fix out of driving, well, to quote unquote cool cars or different cars or whatever. But they realize how reliable, how practical the car is, the minivan is, you know. And what you get for what you pay for is just, you can do so many things. I even drove a minivan when the kids were young. We had an Astrovan.

Chevy Astrovan and we would, you know, had the two car seats in there and we'd have the motorcycles on the back, you know, on the trailer and we'd be dogs and going out riding dirt bikes, you know, and just, you know, this is what this is for. There's a million cubby holes, there's storage under the floor, there's storage everywhere. And it's just, it's just nice, man, be able to push this button when you're walking up there, opens the side doors, the kids can load up, they get in there easy.

You have car seats, they have dogs, you have this kind of stuff. It's just so neat to have a family truckster, you know? I mean, you had a Tahoe for years, which is similar to that, right? Very similar. Aside from the doors, you know, it's basically the same size and shape, but I'm really passionate about that style of car for a family car. I think, you know, when you start doing stuff, you kind of need that space and the minivan really provides it for you.

Once you start loading up, you know, these giant bags of baseballs and baseball gloves and all kinds of chairs and everything else going to watch the kids play Little League or going to swim meet or this or that. I mean, it's just huge what you can do with it. So check out the minivans from Chrysler. They still make, I think, the best one. Everybody else has their own opinions. And I don't see the Chrysler minivan people blocking the left lane, driving below the speed limit.

Like the Honda minivan people do that make me crazy. So it does, there's always somebody in a minivan in the left lane that's slowing everything down or a Prius, either way. So I love these vans. I think they're great. And I recommend them to anybody that was, and I would recommend to you guys. So, all right, we got a car question or two to answer. It's along the lines

of, would you buy a car with a salvage or branded title? Well, we're talking a classic car, not any other car. Excuse me. Okay, so if you're buying a new car, it's financing is a pain. Insurance is going to be no fun. None of that stuff is good. You can't see it. I'm shaking my head while Mike's saying all these things. I would not buy a salvage branded title in a new car unless it was really what you could afford and you gave it a really good once over.

You had a mechanic give it a once over and everything check out. Okay. But to be honest with you, on a classic car, it doesn't make that much difference. Yeah, you know, you don't want to buy a car that was completely smashed up into a wall or a tree. But at the same time, you know, you got some of these very valuable cars, you know, like a 70 Roadrunner, say, that they still have that value, even if they are smashed, because you're really paying for that VIN number.

I laugh at that because it's kind of crazy, but that's really what it is at some point. Some states don't even have titles for classic cars. I mean, you go to New Jersey, buy a car from New Jersey, there is no title. And sometimes these classic cars, they get salvage titles, branded titles, really easy because they are a classic car. They make it into a small accident. But the accident, because of the paint job and the parts involved to fix these

cars, they total them out. They get a salvage title. Someone buys it, fixes it. And it's not an issue. You know, I had a Triumph Spitfire that I ended up, during Hurricane Harvey, it had about an inch of water in it. That's it. There are no computers. It was a 71 model. There are no computers, nothing like that. It's not a fancy car. It needed some carpets. And Hagerty totaled it. And I'm like, why? Losing a flood. It's a quarter of an inch. Let's just, let me put carpets in it.

You know, and I know we're talking about cars, but I've heard these stories on motorcycles. You know, the frame gets the smallest scratch when the bike falls over and they total them. They total them. You know, the hard thing when you have a car with a salvage title is insurance. So you always want to look into that sort of thing before you make your purchase. Absolutely. All right. If you have any more questions, let us know. And if you enjoyed the show, tune in next week.

And if you missed part of this show, catch the podcast on all major podcast platforms. Just look for Let's Talk Wheels. The podcast contains this show and a bonus segment with an extra car review, so be 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, email mike at letstalkwheels.com. We always respond. We love to hear your car questions. As always, folks, thanks for tuning in to Let's Talk Wheels.

Have a great week. See you next time. Stay tuned for a quick car review for our reporter, Matt Braw. Thanks for joining us on another edition of Let's Talk Wheels. We'll see you next week. Music.

The machine of a dream Such a clean machine. Guys, this week I was driving a Lexus ES350 F Sport sports sedan that you don't get a lot of these days. Really a fun drive with a 3.5 liter V6 engine, 302 horsepower with an eight speed automatic transmission and a front wheel drive performance. Ultra white was the color that I had it in this week. It looked gorgeous. Price tag of just short of 55,000. So it's not extraordinarily expensive.

The F sport is obviously whenever I have a chance to review a Lexus, I'm always wondering, is it going to be F sport or not? And this is an F sport and it is a vehicle that. At $55,000, if you're talking about a luxury sedan, a V6 on top of that, you might think it's in the $65,000, $75,000 range. So I thought the bang for the buck was pretty good in this vehicle when I saw the sticker of it.

I was like, okay, $55,000, that's not horrible for your F-Sport because you get your wireless phone charging, your F-Sport suspension, your tuning and your performance. You get your aluminum pedals, you get your 19-inch alloy wheels when it comes with F-Sports and the front bumper, the grille, the rear spoiler, all the things you're expecting to come with F-Sports, your heated leather steering wheel with memory on the steering wheel as well.

You've got all the things that you would expect to ventilate, you know, power front seats and your driver's seat memory, the things that you would expect to come here. The one thing that I was a little bit, you know, not blown away by, the engine's not the most explosive.

It's gets decent gas mileage and maybe that's why it's kind of key you know keep the gas mileage in the 20s and in the mid-20s on the highway i got like upper 28 29 on the highway it's not going to you know pin you to your seat it's not going to blow your hair back and make you go oh my gosh but if you're driving this thing and buying this vehicle chances are that you're looking for more of a luxurious ride more of a comfortable ride so the f-sport maybe not is that important to you Maybe that's

not something you're really looking at. You're not going to drive this thing till the wheels falls off, which is kind of what, you know, when I'm driving these vehicles, what I'm sort of looking for is in the performance area. But the Blackline Special Edition gives you some really cool things just in the aesthetics, in the look of the vehicle. You have your black rear lip spoiler, your black lower rocker panel, and your F-Sport puddle lamps, all things that sort of stand out.

Heads-up display, which I always love when it's that. Your power rear sunshade. It's not something that you would think you want until you have it. When you have it, once you have it, you're like, oh, I really want that. Your smart access key card and your 12.3 touchscreen display. All the tech features that you would expect from a modern vehicle. Your power trunk with kick sensor to open, which is nice.

Panoramic view monitor gives you a nice view of everything around you if you're inside of a tight space, inside of a parking garage.

You have all of that which is really nice so these are all kind of the extras that are added in here with this so it's 15 like the the base is 48 5 for this vehicle if you add the black line which i think is pretty cool because it does stand out 1500 bucks other things like the infotainment the lexus interface with 12.3 inch touchscreen display that's an extra thousand dollars and then a couple other things you know like

the heads-up display is 500 bucks and your power drunk with Kickstarter's 550. So it all just kind of adds up from that 48.5 to be just short of 55,000. If I'm looking for a luxury sedan that has performance handling, that is really sharp and really nice to look at, and I'm going to be test driving other vehicles in the same class, I think you're going to be really surprised and really happy if you go with this vehicle. Front wheel drive, it's got, it seats five.

I mean, you can put five adults in the back, three adults in the back and not be completely and totally squished. Eight-speed automatic transmission is going to do what you ask it to do. So it's going to come through and perform well enough that will justify the sticker. Again, I wouldn't call this a sports sedan per se, but it's not horrible. It's not a horrible vehicle from an engine perspective and a performance.

It's a luxury mid-class sedan that I think you would like it more than, say, half the competition that you would get behind simply because of the price. Because you're coming in under $55,000, which I think is a really good thing here. Bang for your buck on a Lexus luxury car, F-Sport. Kind of hard to say that, but I do think that's what you're getting here with this vehicle. Check it out. It's the Lexus 2025, the ES350 F-Sport. We had it in a couple of different extra options.

The Blackline Special Edition, the trim was pretty nice to look at.