"Drive with Confidence: New Engines, Car Tech Updates and More"

Music. It's time to buckle up for this week's Let's Talk Wheels with Mike Herzing and Jeremy Bierenbaum.

All right, we've got Nissan Infinities getting new engines. Ford is having more backup camera problems. We've got Pete Cerullo from Genis Auto Lab. He's going to talk to us today. We've got a lot of stuff happening. And I tell you what, we're answering a ton of your car questions, and we're looking at the popular Nissan Frontier, the Pro 4X model. So buckle up for an informative and fun day. Welcome to your favorite auto show, everybody. Let's Talk Wheels.

I'm Mike Herzing, and every week we bring you automotive and power sports news, interviews, car reviews, and classic car updates from my co-host, Jeremy Bierenbaum, based right there in Southern California. Come on in, Mr. B. What's happening? It is hot in California. And I went to like three car shows this last weekend, saw some really cool stuff. You'd think for 4th of July, you know, it'd be kind of slow out here, but people were, people were bringing the heat for sure.

You know, out here, the car shows are going on. They've got a great Saturday night drive-in car shows every Saturday night. All nifty fifties. I'm going to have, the guy's been doing it for 25 years out here, and they have a hundred cars every Saturday night. People just go out there and pay ten bucks, show your car, and enjoy the neat, cool weather. It's in a nice big parking lot. It's well lit. It's in the evening. They got fifties and sixties music playing. It's fun.

You know, a lot of nice people. A quick plug, because we always talk about it after the fact. If you haven't been to hot August nights in Reno, you're taking a go this year. That's the place. That is, you know, when Mike and I talk about car cruise nights and big car shows, that is the epicenter of it all for one weekend. Well, you know, I'm tempted to go. I keep wanting to go every time. There's always something that's horrible comes up. All right. Let's do our news and notes segment.

And, you know, around here in Texas, we've had this bad flood thing. And up in West Texas in Hill Country where everybody got killed. It was just terrible. And it just rained so hard. And it's all about being prepared. I've got a lot of friends that were stranded in it. And they were going to the 4th of July stuff. They were headed there. And they ended up getting flooded. And they couldn't get there. And it's, you know, and it was the Lord's will.

They didn't get, you know, nothing happened to them. They came back home. And they could have easily been right there. So it's so weird over there. Flash floods happen everywhere. And it's terrible. But let's talk about it. So you got a Nissan. We're going to put an engine in our Nissans? What's happening? Nissan is recalling half a million cars for Altima Rogue Infinity QX50 and QX55 over some faulty engine bearings in the 1.5 and 2 liter engines.

So these engines are the variable compression engines. You're saying that the bearings were manufactured poorly, and they're going to inspect half a million cars. So basically, you're going to bring your car in. They're going to drop the oil pan. They're going to check the bearings, check the metal shavings. If you don't have any issues, they're going to send you on your way. If you have issues, depending on how severe they are, you could win the lottery and get a new engine.

Well, you know, Toyota did it with a hundred and something thousand of their V6s. Ford's had a problem. GM's had the problem. Honda's had bearing problems. Seems like everybody's having engine problems. It's the last four or five years. It's like, it's never anything big. It's some kind of huge blow up the engine thing. You know how powerful that is? That's tough. By the way, folks, Mike Hursing and Jeremy Berenbaum, this is Let's Talk Wheels. We're just doing some news and notes segment.

Well, Ford, they've got a recall. that they've been trying to recall this a couple of times. What's up with that, Jeremy? I think we're having deja vu or I'm having deja vu. All over again. It's like every week or every other week, we're talking about a Ford recall. And I promise it's not the same article that we keep pulling up. They have another recall, 200,000 vehicles. And the funny part is, it says, here are all the makes and models affected.

And I'm not going to read this list for airtime, but there's like, it's basically all the cars that Ford has. this is going to be a software recall. You know, some of the other ones that we have talked about with the backup camera have been hardware. So all these cars are going to come in, download some new software, hopefully send you on your way. And hopefully this will be the last time we have to hear about these backup camera recalls from Ford.

If you've got a 19, I mean, excuse me, a 2018, anywhere from a 2018 to 2024 Ford, you need to check with your dealer and find out if you're on, or Lincoln, I don't care if it's a truck, I don't care if it's a Bronco, I don't care if it's an Escape, Expedition, Ranger, Mustang, F-150, Fusion, Edge. Transit, any of those, you're going to have a problem. So check with your dealer, see if they can take care of it for you.

They might even be able to do it over the air. Who knows? You know, what do you think? It is kind of wild that there's just, they've had so many issues with this. You know, you think this stuff is, is, you know, they put thousands of miles on these cars before they sell them. And clearly this one fell through the cracks, but what a frustrating one, right? Yeah, it really is. You know, not from, from, from a Ford standpoint, from this, like, come on guys, can't you get it right?

Yeah, I know. I know. But just, it's funny thing. We've got a lady that's asked us a question, and she is wanting to go on a trip, and she's worried about a breakdown. You know, this bad weather in Texas that just came up and flooding and just like that, boom. They got, you know, the river went up 30 feet in just a matter of minutes. That was terrible.

And so you've got to be prepared for everything. You know, like when I drive, take my vehicle and I'm, we're going to, you know, even up to the lake, I carry stuff like a little floor jack. I carry extra tools, a jump box, you know, a lot of emergency things like water. What if you get some of these, my friends were stuck in this flood. Now, granted, it's flooding, but it's not clean water. And they're near it, but they were in the higher ground. They were getting stuck

on the other side of Austin and they had to turn around. But, you know, they got stuck in traffic. Roads are flooded. You can't go anywhere. You're on a high ground, so you're okay. But you're stuck there for hours. Yeah, you know, I would be hard-pressed to find a single person that was actually prepared for that type of flight. Right. But I agree with you 100%. You should rely on yourself and not rely on AAA or your neighbor or your friend to come out and help you.

I carry far too much stuff in my truck that hopefully I'll never have to use. But if I need it, I have it. Right. But, you know, I've been in that situation in 12 hours of traffic in the snow where they don't even have gas at the gas stations. And that's one of those things you just be fair. I'd never get under a quarter tank. That just doesn't happen in my car. No, no. Those are the things.

But those are the things, you know, carry a fire extinguisher, a small one, like maybe like for a boat or something like that. Just a small kitchen fire extinguisher. But things like little moving blankets they sell for five bucks at Harbor Freight. Actually, they give them away a lot of times. You buy this and you get a moving blanket. They're $5. It's a nice, big, thick moving blanket. You can lay it on the ground. You can do anything you want there. So all those kind of things.

Think about it, folks. It's all you got to do. I bought road flares after you told me about your son's incident two weeks ago or last week. I just went out and bought a set. You don't know. You need them. Just don't underneath the back seat of your truck. Hopefully, you won't ever need them, but they're there. I've always wanted a light one. I never have. So, you know, it's cool. Yeah. It's like a Roman candle that doesn't shoot out. It's really fun.

But I've used them a lot of times. You can sit there and wrap it around a vest and tell everybody you got dynamite around you. See how that freaks out your neighbors. Like Tommy Boy right there. Like Tommy Boy. That's exactly right. But we got a fun show. Pete Cirillo is always fun to talk to. He was working with Jeremy when they were at Classic.com. So Pete's going to help us a little bit. But he works with dealers and he helps them sell cars.

And he's going to help us sell cars. He's going to tell us a little bit about how we can get our car ready for sale and maybe where the best place to put it. He's going to talk about that. He's going to talk a little bit about pricing it. Because there are so many people that just, you know, see a car that's four piles of rust, looks like wheels, and all of a sudden they say, you know, I want this much for it. I don't have a title. It's been sitting for 25 years and it's just a rust bucket.

But I want $10,000 for it. all those jokes that we have they came from real people we didn't just make them up, some of these things you don't believe are true but it's true all right so coming up we also have a review of the nissan frontier more car questions we're going to answer all this stuff coming up so we're gonna have a great show so hang on for more less sock wheels after this quick break be right back. Music.

Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. I'm Mike Herzing, and he's Jeremy Bierenbaum. We're your auto people today. We're going to talk to you about this. It's really fun. I'll be your waiter today. No. So this week, this is our review segment, and I want to talk about the Nissan Frontier. I love this truck. A friend of mine said, what truck should I get? I need a truck, and I don't really like trucks. I've never owned one. What should I get? I said, go get a Frontier.

They've been building them the same way. They're super reliable. He said, well, but I always had Toyotas. I said, well, right now the Tacoma's having lots of problems. So Nissan right now, they're okay on this motor. They redesigned this a couple of years ago, made it really, really nice. But they never lost track of people wanting stuff simple. And don't change it too much. It's got a 3.8 liter V6, and it's got a, it's 310 horsepower.

It's got a nine-speed automatic, shift on the fly, four-wheel drive, two-speed transfer case, typical truck, rides like a truck. It'd be better than that. Mid-size trucks have just gotten so nice. This thing just feels solid. The steering is a little heavy. As a matter of fact, when I go to steer it, I was like, is the power steering not working? But it's heavy steering. But that's okay. when you're driving on the road on the freeway, it feels like a big truck.

And they are kind of big trucks. But for 2025, they changed a few things. They refreshed it front end just a little bit, different front and fascia, a little bit grill, bumpers a little bit, tweaked a little bit, and got some new Pro 4X and wheels. Pro 4X is the off-road version that is so popular. I'm going to tell you what, it's a great looking truck. And these things, the base model, which just like a delivery truck. It starts in the low 30s, like 33.

Then they got, that's the S. They have the SV, the Pro X, Pro 4X, then the SL. The most expensive one is about $44,000. You could add a few things to it. And then you add stuff because that's what people want you to do. You never buy this thing stock, but it's really nice. One thing about Nissan versus the other brands, when they have a midsize truck, they have different, you know, you can buy it as a king cab or you can buy it as a crew cab or you can buy it on a shorter bed and a longer bed.

You can actually buy this as a crew cab with a six foot bed. That's a long wheelbase truck. They don't sell that many of those, but it really is neat. They could have bigger screen in it, like 12.3 inch screen on the upper trim levels and stuff. They have nice big wheels and tires on it, things like that. And a lot of cameras all around it. Really neat that you can also tow up to 70, 150 pounds?

And really, there's a lot of neat driver-assistant tech standard, late departure warning, automatic high beams, adaptive cruise control, all that comes with standard on this thing. Very nice truck. It had heated seats and power seats and things like that. It's got big 265, 70, 17 all-terrain tires. This thing is, you run over a curb, you don't even notice it. It's just really a nice truck.

But it hasn't you know they haven't gotten too full of themselves they still are pretty, uh nissan is still pretty i don't know i just they're just confident and they're just they're just sure of themselves that's it's really kind of nice you know what i mean but there's off-road mode it's got all this crawl control and hill descent and all those all those off-road features now this one had a base price this was the this one had all of the skid plates

and it's all the off-road goodies and special shocks and suspension and things like that. But it also had a deal where they wanted the convenience package. So basically the base is $4,170. Then there's a pro convenience package, which is $2,190, which is your TiloTrac for the bed, a bed liner, 120 volts, and the plug in the back in the bed, which is really neat because I have a refrigerator cooler that I'd take. It's kind of nice.

The trailer hitch wiring and all of the hitch controls and power brake, things like that. It's got off-road mode, moving object detection and things like that. Then for another $3,080, they've got the Fender audio system with 10 speakers, the leather seats, auto-dimming inside mirror with all of the HomeLink and all of their. You know, Remote start on the key fob, which is really nice. But the nav system and traffic side, I got everything. So out the door, what are we talking? 50.

With delivery and everything else. That's cheap. I hate to say that's reasonable because that's ridiculous. I know, but it is. It's cheaper than the Toyota and cheaper than the other one. It's far cheaper than the Toyota for what you get, especially when you compare it to, this is their top off-road model. Right. The Trailhunter and the TRD Pro are in the 70s and 80s at this point. You look at the Canyon and the Colorado, they're smaller than this car.

This car is a little bit bigger and I think it's more comfortable. I like to have in the long bed available. It's kind of nice. This is such a sleeper car or sleeper truck that you just don't see so many of on the road. But it's really done so nice. And there are so I hate to like compare it to the Toyota, but I think that's his closest comparable car. And there are so many things that I just don't love on the new Tacoma that I think this car does great.

Especially, you know, it has the same size screen, but the Tacoma sticks it up in the dash where this is flush in the dash. It's not sticking up in your view. Right. It's just done better. And, you know. Yep. And it's also a naturally aspirated 3.8 liter V6 with 310 horsepower and 281 pound feet of torque. So much issues with the iForce Max, the four cylinder iForce Max that's in the Tacoma. and, you know, you're not really getting that good a gas mileage for the hybrid.

Believe it or not, I got over 20 with this. And that is amazing. That's incredible for this. I drove up like I stole it. You can't get a Tacoma over 20. No, you can if you're being towing it with a Nissan, but that's the only time you weigh. But, I mean, this is a great truck. But, folks, if you haven't looked at these things lately, go to a Nissan dealer and say, look, let me look at the Frontier. They're great. They have this new color. It's orange and it just...

It's just really a cool orange. So check out the trucks from the Nissan, your Nissan dealer. Or I still want to call them Datsun, but that's all right. We won't even do that. All right. Yeah. We've got a quick car question. Let's answer that. Yeah. This is in regards to synthetic oil. Can you use synthetic oil in your old cars? Sure. Sure. Somebody looks at their whining, it's going to cause a leak. No, it's not. If it's going to cause a leak, it was going to leak anyway.

No, it has nothing to do with that. But a Nissan, I mean, synthetic oil is basically oil that's been enhanced. And all the molecules are the same size now. So they work better. Now, if you've got an engine, I've got a car that is hard on oil, like maybe a Mercedes or just a performance car that really kind of runs hot and this kind of stuff, use synthetic oil by any means. If you've got an old truck like my Willis or stuff, you don't have to worry about that. Just run anything.

Anything will work. You can run, I could run Crisco in my Jeep and it'll run. But the best oil you can get is always good. Synthetic oil will work fine in your classic cars. You can even drive it farther and abuse it more, and it will work better. So absolutely use synthetic oil, and it won't start any leaks, and you won't have any of those problems. And you can always go back to regular oil if you want to. It's not like that. You know what I mean?

I don't know where that came from. You know, I heard that myth a long time ago as well, that it causes leaks. Yeah, I know, but it actually, I think, originally they did, but they don't anymore. How's that? How's that? So we won't have to worry about that. All right, guys, coming up next, we have Pete Cirillo from Janus Auto Lab. He's going to be coming up next telling us about how to sell our cars.

Be right back with more Let's Talk Wheels. Let's Talk Wheels. Music. Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels, Mike Herzing and Jeremy Berenbaum. As we talked about earlier in the show, we have Pete Cerullo, a great guy. We've talked to him before. He's been on the show when he was with Classic with Jeremy. He has a great new company, and he does a lot of neat things for dealers, and he's going to talk to us about it. Pete, welcome to Let's Talk Wheels, and tell us about your new company.

Hey, guys. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me on again. I'm excited to be here. So I run a company called Genis Autolab. We're a full service marketing partner built specifically for the automotive space. We work with dealerships, restoration companies, custom shops, and performance brands to help them grow through content strategy and smart digital systems.

That includes everything from short form video and professional media production to lead generation, lead generation campaigns, ad management, website design, email automation, and brand development. Wow, that's a lot of stuff. You know, Pete, it's funny. People use the word content all the time. And people in the auto world or in the car or, you know, mechanics, what is content? And it's really just anything that you have that you can market your car with, right?

And we're coming to a new age where people are just using anything and everything, any way to market their car. So this is what you guys are bringing to the dealer level, correct? Yep. Yeah, exactly. And we actually just introduced our, or will be introducing our new AI agent, which is called Axel. Super excited to get that pushed out here soon. So the whole idea of it is that these dealerships, they won't have to be answering the phone all the time.

It'll actually be an automated system that will take a lot of these questions that are coming in for them. And then just put it into their CRM so that they can quickly, you know, either be on the floor working with customers that are in the shop or whatever it might be. But it's just so that they don't have to be on the phones all the time. Now, you're working at the dealer level where they have, you know, 20 and 30 cars that they're trying to sell at a time.

And you and I work together in a way where we are trying to help individual people sell their car, which is what a lot of the listeners are. Now, what would you say to some of those people and how they can market their car better from what you see the general population doing right now? Yeah, so I would say what I see most or, you know, most private sellers, they're really undervaluing the importance of presentation and trust.

I think the biggest mistakes I see are poor photos, vague descriptions, and really a lack of transparency, all of which drives down value and creates hesitation in the buyer. So, you know, the number one thing I would say is high quality photo and video. If you think of like dealership level presentation, clean the car, shoot it in natural light, include interior, exterior, engine bay shots, even a driving video would be great.

And then, of course, a walk around video, which really adds, you know, huge amount of credibility. And you can, you know, you can go further. You can get a video of doing a cold star. You could do one of actually like inside the vehicle, a POV of it, of it driving. There's just so many different things that you can add. And then another thing, too, is detailed and honest descriptions of the vehicles. Mm-hmm.

Don't just list specs you know you can you can tell a story of the vehicle of the car mention, service history ownership details recent work that it's had what makes the vehicle special and special to the to the current owner i think just transparency builds trust and in this industry really trust is trust is what sells so i i totally agree with you especially now when we're selling to not only a national audience, but a global audience.

You know, I sold a car and bring a trailer to a person in Dubai. And in order to do that, you need to present the car in the most honest light. So someone feels comfortable in purchasing your car, whether it's $5,000 or $500,000. Yeah, 100%. And I think too, another thing that people overlook is just the proper overpricing strategy. So many sellers either overshoot or undercut the market.

So I think using comps from similar vehicles that have actually sold, you know, not just ones that are currently listing or listed, and then adjust that based on the mileage, the condition, and of course, you know, the location of the vehicle. Folks, we're talking to Pete Cerullo, and he is a wizard on buying and selling cars. And he's got a company that that's what they do. Now, Pete, When we take photos and stuff, can we use our cell phones and we need special, we need to get a photographer?

What do you think? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of these companies out there, like Bring a Trailer, that will actually send out, you know, depending on what you're paying, they'll send out a professional photographer that's using a DSLR, a really nice camera, to get you top-tier photos. But you don't necessarily have to do that. If you have... Somewhat of an up-to-date iPhone or just phone in general, cell phone, you can still get great quality photos and video.

So you don't need to pay a bunch of money. Another thing I will say is if you are not too tech savvy and don't really have the capability of getting good quality photos yourself, I then would definitely invest in having someone come out and help you get those photos. But if you have a good phone and you take enough photographs, you can definitely do it yourself.

I totally agree. And, you know, you and I work together for this on so many occasions where people would send us five photos of their car in a garage, you know, not where you can't even see one side of the car and they go, I want $80,000 for this. And I'm going for $80,000. You got to do a little bit of legwork as a seller. You know, we're not in this market anymore where people can just post a couple photos like a auto trader back in the day and someone's coming to buy your car.

Yeah, no, it's so true. And especially if you're, you know, if you're buying, if you're intending to have someone purchase your vehicle sight unseen, it is so important to really showcase the car in a good light and just be honest about it because you don't want to have to, and Jeremy, we dealt with this all the time, but you don't want to have to, you know, deal with someone purchasing the vehicle, actually then receiving

it in their driveway and calling you up 24-7 complaining about little things that weren't shown or you weren't able to see in the photographs. So yeah, it's extremely important. Yeah. And the other thing you bring up is the transparency and price. You can put some crummy photos up if you're going to be below market value on a car, but if you're going to ask more than what you think the car is worth, because that's a lot of people's strategy.

Oh, I'm going to list it, see who's interested, and then I can negotiate on the side. But nowadays we're not seeing that. We're seeing people compare prices and when they see prices that are too high, they just go, I'm not messing with that guy because there's three other cars that are more realistic, especially when they have bad photos and they have the attitude of, what do I need to take better photos for? I know what I have.

Yeah, no, it's so true. And then I think too, another thing I would say, a response time, you know, if someone is calling you or if they're commenting on whatever platform that you're selling it on, the quicker you're able to get back to them, the better. Because if you sound hesitant, a buyer is going to really pick up on that and they're just going to move on, like you said, Jeremy, to another vehicle. So treat it like a real transaction.

I think just be professional, prompt, and as clear as possible. You said something interesting. We only got a couple of minutes left, but you said on multiple platforms or on other platforms. So you're suggesting people sell their car or market their car in multiple places instead of just putting it in one place. Yeah, I mean, I would definitely do that. If the platforms that you're selling on, if they allow that, then why not?

You know, the more eyes that you get on the vehicle, the better the chances are. Of course, I know with Classic, for example, we asked sellers not to then list their vehicles on other sites. You know, they give us the six weeks, I think it was, to try to get their car up and through auction. and it was always a bummer when they would come in and let us know that they sold it somewhere else once we had put money and time into all that.

So yeah, I mean, if you're able to list it on multiple sites, go right ahead, but obviously check with those sites and make sure it's okay. There we go. I have a question. I know as we're getting a little bit low on time, you do this for dealers, you've dealt with people for so many years when you were at Classic and doing some other stuff. It's kind of great that you're helping them. We have to get you to come back on and talk about how a dealer is,

how they upsell you and things like that. So we're going to, at that point, that's kind of interesting. We can go on your website and maybe look and see some of your services, which you do. And maybe if somebody's got a dealership or wants to sell a bunch of their car collection, you would help them, right? Yes, not so much with the car collection, but we can definitely help dealerships, restoration companies, just with marketing and getting their name out there. Yep. Okay. And the website?

The website is Genus Autolab. It's G-E-N-U-S Autolab.com. G-E-N-U-S Autolab.com. Jeremy, you want to close it out? No, there we go. Thanks, Pete, for joining us today. And stick on by for our next segment.

And in a little bit, we're going to have a great time. Be right back with more Let's Talk Wheels after this quick break. Music. And Jeremy Bierenbaum. All right, folks. Jeremy, I got some questions. We all love classic cars. We've had a couple people email some questions about them. And they said some of them have aged better than others. Some of them age like milk instead of fine wine, okay? There are some of these forgettable classics and some that are that way.

I mean, some of them just haven't been like Vegas. They haven't become classics. You know what I mean? And will you think a P2 Cruiser or a Chevy H8R will ever become a classic? You know what? I see a lot of Vegas that people make into drag cars. I don't know if it's the size. But they're not as classic cars. No, no. There's no one that's like, let me show you my prized possession Vega in the garage. Or my Granada or my Gremlin. I'm a Gremlin, they might.

Yeah, I would be happy to have a Gremlin. What about, you know, like a PT Cruiser? Or HHR, what was the Chevy truck, the SSR? Yeah, the SSR. I'm sorry, I'm laughing at the PT Cruiser because, man, that car just didn't have anything. It had such cool looks, but they just put... But they came out and people were like, man, it looks so cool, I'm going to buy it, I just got to buy it so cute. And they put this fake wood grain on the side and did all this ugly stuff, and I'm like, oh my God.

Then the Kia Soul came out, and that was even uglier. Every once in a while, I will see a pristine PT Cruiser, and I kind of like, okay, I want to wait around and see who the owner of this car is. I never do, but it's just, yeah. You know, the Plymouth Prowler is another one. You see them for sale all the time. Multiple owners who've put, you know, a few miles on it in between. They think they're going to appreciate crazily in value, but it just never happened. It never took off.

I think it's the performance, because the car, the looks were there. But the performance was just nothing to really, you know, write home about. And I think if you're going to get a Dodge car of that era, you're going to go for the Viper over a Prowler. I don't know. Viper or PT Cruiser? Gee, what would I want? No, I would put it on the Prowler, not the PT Cruiser. You don't see anyone doing those anymore.

You know, another one is when it came out, the Dodge, I hate, we're just talking about Dodge cars, because this wasn't the segment, but the Magnum. I thought that car was so cool when it came out. You just don't see any of those around, and they're not really on the resale market. I mean, they made an SRT8 version, but even then, you go to your car shows. Yeah, but they were great cars, and I thought, I mean, this is going to be a classic. Yeah. And that wasn't. They didn't catch on.

They didn't, you know, it's funny what ignites and what doesn't. And then even what gets picked up 20 years later. And maybe in 5, 10 years, we'll be talking, we'll be laughing at ourselves for talking about the Magnum and the PT Cruiser. But right now, it's just not there. But I remember when the 70s, I think 71, 72, the Opel GT came out. People thought, I love that car. That is a poor man's Corvette. I mean, this is such beautiful life.

You'd never see them. They didn't catch on. And then I'm like, where are they? They're nowhere. And I was like, and people still like them, but I thought that car was sold like crazy, and it didn't. And I'm just like, you're kidding. I had a friend of mine, one of my students, when I was teaching school a few years ago, it's just like 2016, 2017. And one of the students came in for parent-teacher night, and the parent comes

up to me. He goes, I got, you know, my son always talks about his auto class and he loves you as a teacher and I listen to your show and other stuff. But I just want to tell you, I finally broke down and got a middle-aged crazy car. And I was like, really? He's a good looking guy. You know, he has a couple of high school kids and his wife is really nice and they're active and he's a golfer and, you know, he bicycles and this kind of stuff.

And I'm thinking, oh, this guy probably got a Mustang, a Corvette, something like that. He went and got a Nissan Juke. And I started, and I did not laugh. I'm so proud of myself. One of my co-teachers was over there listening to me and he turned around and walked away and he started smiling and giggling. And I had known him for 30 years. And we were both, I was dying. I had to wait till the guy left. And then the bell rang and he had to go to his next, see the next teacher.

And I was just laughing. I laughed my butt off because I was like, a juke? But you know what? It's somebody's, there's a, you know, the head for every hat. I mean, it's just a hundred percent. I once went to this suit place. I started talking to a guy and we, you know, cars came up on the subject and I said, I'd do some restoration and whatnot. And he goes, oh, can I show you this car? It used to be my grandfather's. I'd love to restore it one day.

And he brings me down to the garage and he shows me this car with great pride. And it's like a mid seventies Triumph TR6. Cool car. but at best worth, you know, maybe 15, maybe 20. If it's like a primo, primo, primo. And he's going, well, what will it cost to restore this? And I'm going far more than it's worth. You know, at this point, you know, the car is so gone, you know, to restore it just to say it was your grandfather's car. It just depends on

how much money you want to throw at it, right? There's that nostalgia versus is it worth it? And the Triumph, it's a cool car, but the TR6, it didn't catch on. No, you know, I needed the CR7. I thought it would have. But, you know, you're right. All these cars, like the spacer and stuff like, you know, I remember the Volkswagen thing. I thought, man, they're going to sell every one of these. And they didn't. They're more popular now than they were when they came out.

You know, Volkswagen Carman Ghia. It's another one. Great car. What a wonderful car. Especially the convertibles. I would love to have a Carman Ghia convertible. I would absolutely just eat that up. And then you've got cars that are like.

Nizuzu a suzuki samurai how'd they even sell one much less although that they sold you know what but there's a there's a little bit of a market for it a small market for it but i once in a while at a car show i'll see a samurai and i have a good friend that was what he learned how to drive a manual transmission on so he has a very soft spot in his heart for the samurai but you know we talk about like dodge made a dodge dakota rt that car never caught on but there's a gmc cyclone basically

same size same style right that went bonkers went crazy and they have the typhoon as well you know it's it's hard to sometimes say you know the porsche 914 for a long time was just i thought that was going to be absolutely the nuts i thought that was going to blow away the 911 everything else and it never did only now only right now is it starting to appreciate a little bit in value and i think that's just because 911 prices have gotten so high and this is basically it's a mid-engine car it's

people haven't really put two and two together that they handle almost better than a 911 when you set them up right there's just so many cars that that may be worth more to people than they are to the market you know amc eagle all those indy amc cars you know well and you talk about low production cars you know it's harder to find parts for so So, you know, does someone really want to go to that hassle to restore this type of car?

You know, you're right. And do you? So the whole point is, folks, if you get a car like this or if you always wanted one, if you go into it right and you pry it right, you'll be fine. But don't go into buying a juke just to thinking it's going to be worth a whole lot of money if you keep it, because it might not be. And some of the weirdest things are becoming worth a lot. And like I always thought a Mercury Cougar was an awesome vehicle, but they, Mercury never sold any of them hardly.

I never see them at classic car shows. Yeah, the only ones, the only ones that are desirable is going to be like 66, 67, where they're sharing a lot of, or no, 69, where they're sharing a lot of Mustang stuff. Right. You see that a bit, but later on, who wants a Mercury Cougar from the 70s?

That's the whole point. but it's a great vehicle and you can get them at a really good price it's only different than being an old Cutlass instead of getting a Chevelle everybody wants a Chevelle, you know 70, 71, 69, 70, 71 Chevelle and they always want that and they cost $1,000, $40,000 when you can go buy an Olds Cutlass that's in probably better shape, the same year model, basically the same car, and it's $8,000 or $10,000 less. Same thing with a Buick.

There's some thoughts about that. And if you enjoyed our show, by the way, and I hope you did, tune in to the station next week for another episode of Let's Talk Wheels. And if you missed part of this show, you can catch the podcast on all major podcast platforms. Just look for Let's Talk Wheels. It's very easy. I love getting people advice on what cars to buy when I don't have to spend the money, right? Yes.

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 that's for free. If you have any topics you want us to cover or questions you need us to answer, like we did in today's show, email mike at letstalkwheels.com. We'll always respond. We love to hear all of your car questions.

That's it. As always, folks, have a great week. hope you have a have a good golf good tennis good motorcycle riding good anything just appreciate being alive on behalf of Jeremy Bierenbaum and myself thank you for joining us today and stay tuned for another car review from our reporter Matt Peralt coming up next have a great week, thanks for joining us on another edition of let's talk wheels we'll see. Music.

All right, guys, this week I was driving a 2025, the Santa Cruz from Hyundai. I had it in the limited trim level, all wheel drive for a unique vehicle. Now the price tag for this vehicle comes in at just a little over $44,000, which is an interesting price tag because if you're going to go get a truck, you know, a full size truck, you're going to pay a lot more. And this vehicle comes in, I'm calling it a truck.

Other people have called it sort of like a tweener. This is a car, but it's got a bed on it. I really like it. Now, I haven't test drove the Ford Maverick, which is the main competition for this vehicle. So I don't have a comparison to say, all right, the Maverick does X, the Santa Cruz does Y. All I can tell you is what the Santa Cruz will do. And I had a friend of mine stop me while I was driving this, And we literally opened up this entire vehicle and we ripped it apart.

And we look at every little thing that is in this vehicle. And he came away with it going, you know what? I need to buy this thing. A fully loaded vehicle at $44,000. You can get this stripped down under $30,000 if you want. It feels like a car. It drives like a car. But you have the bed in the back. When you're walking around and looking at this vehicle, it makes you go, what is that? I love that. I absolutely love that.

It is a car, a pickup truck. If you're in a city, if you live in a city and you love trucks and you're like, man, I wish I could drive a truck. This is your car. This is your truck. This is it. It's easy to park. It can tow, not heavy things, but it can tow. It gets you where you need to go. And it puts you into a price range that's far less than what you're going to see with a Silverado or an F-150.

The bed's not enormous, okay? It's not the biggest vehicle from a truck perspective, but it's big enough. I mean, I put a bunch of stuff in it and I put a bunch of stuff out of my garage that I just took it and I rolled it up to the dump. I love the sliding top on it where you can open it up and it gives you a lot of extra air space, obviously, but if you need to just close it and then be able to drive and then the storage, that comes with it is awesome.

You get an opportunity to put a bunch of stuff in and then this sliding gate comes down and it locks and you don't have to worry about anybody getting inside of it. And you can store stuff overnight. You can store bags, luggage. It's awesome. I mean, a lot of these SUVs, in particular SUVs that have like third rows, don't have enough storage. Like the cargo space is not big enough for big bulky suitcases. This thing's got you cover. It's tremendous. It's tremendous.

It's got everything you need. 2.5 liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. It does enough. And the gas mileage on the highway, it's pretty good. 28, 29 miles per gallon on the highway. That's tremendous. Eight-speed dual clutch transmission. Rolls to those gears really, really smoothly. All-wheel drive. No worries about snow or rain or any problems with this vehicle. I wouldn't necessarily go in like completely off-road with this thing, but it's going to get you where you need to go.

If you're going on dirt roads, you're going on, you know, unpaved roads. It's going to get you where you need to go. The safety features on this vehicle, what you would expect, high, very safe. Hyundai's got your warranty, America's best warranty as they call it with a five-year, 60,000 mile new vehicle warranty and a 10-year, 100,000 mile powertrain warranty, which is clutch to have. You've got your proximity key with push button start. I love it. I love it.

I love it. These are things that I simply always look to. If I can push button start a vehicle and they're in the cold or the warm and the heat of Vegas, I love it. Did not use much with the smart cruise control, but the highway driving assist was nice and the surround view monitor made it really easy to back up. And it's not, you know, sometimes with trucks, the size of them make it very difficult to put it in reverse and back around. You're worried about hitting something.

Not gonna happen here. Vehicle's not huge, but you've got that very cool surround view monitor that gives you completely, you know, a 360 view as to what's around you. Leather trim seats. You've got power front seats, heated and ventilated front seats. I sound like a broken record here when it comes to what I'm talking about when let's talk wheels. But like, if you give me great connectivity, you give me push button start and ventilated front seats, I'm going to most likely love your vehicle.

I'm going to be, I'm going to be at least going into it very excited for it. You got your front and your rear USB porch, which is great for the kids in the back seat. The back seat's big. I mean, it's big. It's good. I mean, it's not like a full-size cab, okay? It's not like other vehicles that are gigantic, but it's big enough. It's absolutely big enough for you to drive this thing.

If you love trucks but don't want a big one, don't have a huge amount of space, live in a highway, if you're looking for something that drives like a car, but has truck capabilities, the 2025 Santa Cruz from Hyundai, limited on the all-wheel drive trim level. Definitely check it out.