Exploring the Mazda CX-30, a NEW Cummins Engine, and Ford F-150 Problems

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

Autoshop is now in session. And how are you, folks? What famous diesel engine builder just built a gas engine? How about that? Ford's F-150 problems are continuing, and this one's with the transmission. And is the Mazda CX-30 worth it? These are just a few of our topics today. Welcome, folks, to your favorite auto show, Let's Talk Wheels.

I'm Mike Herzing, and every week we give you automotive and power sports news, interviews, car reviews, and classic car information from my co-host, Jeremy Bierenbaum, based right there in Southern California. Let's bring him on right now. Mr. B, come on in. Hey, hey, hey. It's feeling like summer here in L.A., and last weekend I went to an incredible, like, impromptu car show at the famous Helms Bakery in Culver City.

I don't know. You're not an L.A. guy, but growing up around here, especially 50s, 60s, you would have been seeing these Helms Bakery trucks. They built their own trucks and they would drive around town, deliver bread. A lot of people of that generation I talked to really cherish those memories. And it was really cool to have a car show in their parking lot. And they actually had one of the old Helms trucks parked there. So that was pretty neat.

I remember the Rainbow or the Mrs. Bear's bread trucks, and then it was Wonder Bread and all those. There you go. Man, you see those trucks and you could just kind of stick your head in there and you stick a whiff and all the freshly baked bread. Oh, my gosh. I guess the only equivalent we have in today's world is like the ice cream man that drives around. No one else really does that type of thing anymore. I remember I used to see mail carriers that would walk from house to house with

a big deal over their shoulder, a satchel. and it had all the, everybody's mail in it. And at the end of the block, then they would go ahead and go to their truck and then get more and then do the next block. I remember those. I remember the milkman. I remember the guys that would deliver the chips, Charles's chips and all those kinds of stuff. There used to be some ice cream stuff, but that wasn't real popular, but we had the ice cream men come by. That was very cool.

But I mean, wow. I mean, those are just bringing back the days. I remember growing up when I was like four years old, we had a neighbor that worked at Frito-Lay which was not too far from us. It's used to bring these warm bags of Fritos every week, you know, every seat. Hey, Mike, come on. And that's like- Fresh off the line. Oh, God. You know, it's like driving, we used to drive past Maxwell House Coffee and you could smell the coffee.

And then people complained. I said, how could you complain about smelling freshly roasted coffee? It just, oh, it was just a great, those kinds of memories, you can't beat them, you know? Yeah, I guess at 8 p.m. at night, you're probably like, okay, I need this coffee smell to go away. Well, yeah, it might get old after a while. All right, before we get ahead of ourselves, let's get started with the news and notes segment. Talk about Cummins.

Everybody brags, I've got a Cummins. You know, they make the great diesel engines, don't get me wrong. So does Mac and Caterpillar and those type of Cummins. They built some great engines, and now they decided they're building a gas engine. Yeah. People are so mean to diesels. I mean, come on, let's build a gas engine. Yeah, well, and it kind of makes sense. You know, you're spending all this money on the technology to develop a diesel engine.

Why not see if you can make a gas motor out of it? And as you told me offline when I was talking about it, I was like, why would you do this? You know, diesel engines are known as being more robust, a little bit more heavy duty, especially in the short block and all the components. And so if you can transfer all that, keep the robustness of that block and have a gas engine, you're going to have a really long lasting motor.

Yeah, diesel engines are dramatically heavier duty than a regular gas engine because it has to be. They just, you know, instead of being 8.5 or 9 or 10 to 1 compression, these are like 19, 20, 21, 22 to 1 compression, things like this. And it's just, they just, it's so... Powerful that they just get beat up. Well, guess what? Let's take that engine and make it into a gas engine. I bet you it's going to hold up. This is going to be one of those 500 or 600,000 mile engines easily.

Oh, for sure. And so the diesel engine we're talking about is the B6.7 diesel, And now they're transferring it to a B6.7 octane. It's going to have 300 horsepower, 660 foot-pounds of torque. And they joke that, you know, the torque curve doesn't hit as good as the diesel, but it's as low as 1,600 RPMs. Yeah. I mean, come on, all the power come out at 1,600 RPMs. What a great deal. And they're going to start, they're putting these in right now, these medium-duty commercial vehicles.

Kind of like not an 18 wheeler necessarily that's a class 7 or class 8 depending on whether you know what it is based on but these are like penske trucks the bobtail trucks box trucks the big vans and those kind of stuff and it's going to be this is going to be great because i know they're working on on hydrogen based engines they're transferring the diesel over to hydrogen and that's going to be working on that but in the meantime man i would

buy this engine in a heartbeat I think it'd be great. It's going to be a great engine, and it's going to hold up forever. And gas is cheaper than diesel. There's no death fluid. There's no all the diesel particulate problems that you have with diesels, all that stuff. None of that. Perfect. Okay, real quick. F-150, Ford's having no problems with their transmissions again, aren't they?

Yeah, NHTSA said on Monday that the 2015 to 2017 Ford F-150 is being investigated over a possible transmission defect. What's happening is when the vehicle is at highway speed, the transmission can suddenly shift to lower gears, even down to first gear, which causes a sudden rear wheel lockup and a loss of control on the vehicle. So, that's supposed to be the 10-speed, which is in 1,270,970 vehicles. So, 1.2 million vehicles. It's actually the 6-speed. It's the 6R80.

Oh, okay. If anyone is familiar with that transmission, Ford actually recalled it in the 2014 F-150 model for the same issue. And now it's being recalled in the 2015 to 2017 models. What a pain. And in 2018, they went to the 10-speed. But some of these, it's not just necessarily the F-150. Some of the expeditions may have it. There's a lot of vehicles that'll have that transmission. So if you've got that one, they're worried about it, so they want to work on it.

So, yeah, it's not good if the transmission downshifts from sixth to third or second at freeway speeds. It's going to lock up the wheels, and it can easily crash besides, you know, have to empty your pants. It would be a bad thing. All right. Yeah. Cars. We always talk about cars and vehicles this year over the last few years have just gotten stupid expensive. And people think, man, that car is $100,000. That truck's $100,000.

Well, you know what? They're selling that hell out of $100,000 vehicles right now, aren't they? Yeah. So six-figure car sales have exploded, 333% increase over 2020. I know we're just getting into 2025, but looking at the first few months of 2025, over 52,000. So 52,000, are you kidding me? Yeah, that's insane. 13% increase from the year before, which was 56,000. So we're talking about in the first two months, we've already done 8,000 cars more and we still have 10 months to go.

Oh my gosh. folks mike here's saying jeremy beer bomb let's talk wheels we're talking about, the stupid prices of cars let me tell you but range rover is the top selling model in the hundred thousand dollar club so far as far as not land rover but range rover that that that's their street cars that's all the expensive ones and they start at a hundred thousand but you know you get the escalade you get the even the very expensive suburbans might be high but escalade the Yukon Denali.

I mean, Navigator said a couple months ago, they're going upstream, they're ditching their lower trim levels because people aren't buying them and they're realizing they could push that MSRP up even higher. That is just absolutely, I just can't get over it. All right, coming up on Let's Talk Wheels, we have car reviews of the Mazda CX-30, which is a great vehicle, and a visit with Jason Turnbull from Ford. He's got some information, new information on the F-150 Lightning.

They're changing that around a little bit. They're going to do some more stuff to it. And of course, we'll tackle questions sent to Mike at Let's Talk Wheels. We've got some really great ones this week. Boy, we got some tough questions. I'll tell you what, all of this is coming up on today's Let's Talk Wheels. We hope you enjoy it. I think you will. Hang on.

More of it. This is Tom Foolery coming up right after this question. Music. Welcome back to let's talk wheels mike cruising and jeremy berenbaum uh this is our car review segment and this week i was driving the mazda cx30 which is a uh subcontact suv slash cub, fun vehicle to drive that's the one of the coolest features about it you know it'll it'll seat five a little bit cramped for very comfortably got lots of room in the back it's got fold down back seats and a little bit.

It's, you know, the base price on it, on the entry level, there's like eight different trim levels, but it starts at a little bit under $25,000 and it will go up to probably in the $37,000 when you've added a few things to it, $37, $38,000. The one sticker that I had on mine after all of the shipping and all that good stuff was $38,955. That's $1,400 worth the shipping. You know, I enjoyed driving it. Mazdas are always fun to drive. I mean, that's the coolest part about them.

They look good and they drive. They're just fun and they're very reliable. So that's not it, you know, but there's lots of reliable subcompact CUVs, SUVs on the market. There really are. Why would you get this one? Well, first of all, the dealers treat you well. It's this one's got a very upscale interior and it's got a great look to it. It's got a great profile. It looks all the different colors you can get. This thing is so much fun to drive.

The only disadvantage is, is you look down and you're doing 90 and you're like, oh gosh. And it's not real loud that it's pretty, you know, most of those cars in that segment are real noisy inside and, and the interiors are kind of plasticky and stuff like that. This was not this way at all. Granted, I had the nicest, nicest version of it, but you know, everybody that I talked to a couple people that owned them, I said, how do you like this thing?

And they just absolutely adore them. They've had, you know, one guy's like, I'm already on my second one. Somebody stole my first one. And, but he, he loves it. And everybody, and I agree. All the nice things about it. It's got a nice audio system. It's got all the neat safety features.

It's got a lot of that stuff. But the one cool thing about it, you know, Mazda, they don't need, you don't need, like I see a 10 speed transmission or nine speed, you know, this has got a six speed and that's all it needs. The engines, these Skyactiv engines, it was their technology they use. These engines have a lot of torque. You don't need a whole lot of gears. You don't need one of those gazillion gears on your transmission that's going to fail.

I mean, Toyota, look what, you know, they came out with some more gears and everything else on the Tacoma and it's been nothing but problem. They should have stuck with their six speed they had for a million years, but no, they changed it. But like I said, the most fun about this thing, it's just fun to drive. It's got a nice screen. It doesn't take over the car. The instrument cluster is really good. The center stack and the dash are designed very well.

I'm just, I'd be surprised. I'm surprised about how many things this. The one thing is it's got knobs and a touchscreen. Used to be they didn't have touchscreen. They went to a touchscreen finally because people wanted it. Okay. But you still have knobs. So it's very redundant. So if you don't want to use a touchscreen, you can just use a knob but you can use the switches on the steering wheel and things like that.

We've said it time and time again, every time we're reviewing Mazda cars, they're a driver's car. And in this segment, which is the small car segment, one of the biggest out there, you know, there's so much competition. I think Mazda really stands out in its driving performance. And the one place it kind of, I wouldn't, I'll say lacks, but it's in the technology

suite. And that's because they want to be driver focused And they don't want you messing around with all the things in the screens and the buttons. I think the fact that they went to the touchscreen was like pressure. But at the same time, it's not really practical because that screen is kind of far up on the dash. You really have to reach for it to touch a button. But it's a driver's car. And in that, it really succeeds. It's really a pleasure to drive.

Well, you can get it as a non-turbocharged. The lower trim levels have the non-turbocharged engine. The upper trim levels have a 2.5 turbo, 227 horsepower. People think it's not that much horsepower, but it's got so much torque because it's called Skyactiv, their technology. It's almost like a diesel. The way it's set up, it has high compression ratings, and it's a really nice engine management system where it just gets good fuel economy.

And this thing, it said you can get—this is all-wheel drive, too, by the way. It says 22, let's see, fuel economy is 22 city, 30 highway, 25 average. I think I averaged right at 25. And I drove it like I stole it. When this thing accelerates, because of the torque of this engine, when this thing accelerates from like 50 to 75 or so, it just pulls like a freight train. And I'm just like, oh, yeah, this is great. I looked down and went, oh, crap, I'm going way too fast.

It's great. But it really is, it's got 310 pounds. Pound feet of torque but it's got nice 18 inch wheels black alloy you know it had the 215 55 18 tires which are low profile led lights got daytime running lights adaptive front lighting system it has very good lights front rear signature illumination you know it's a mazda when you see it coming at night but it's got a good looking black grille got a little spoiler it's kind of Neat and roof spoiler, leather trim seats, heated front seats.

It has memory seats. The driver's seat is a power seat. It's got all of the keyless entry overhead console. It has sunroof, heated leather steering wheel, leather-wrapped shift knob. How about that one? I love that one. They always mention that. Come on. What are you going to do? Make it plastic? By the way, this thing is five-star overall rating, okay? So it's like five-star plus. But it's got all of the adaptive cruise control.

It'll keep you in the lane. If you're backing up, it'll stop you if you do something stupid, if you're going to back over something. If there's pedestrian walks out in front of you, it stops for you. It's got all the safety features you want. It really is. It's got a setup where it's got high beam control, automatic high beams. This one had automatic light, windshield wipers, driver attention alert. It does have a real annoying chime. Reminds me of the one that Subaru has.

It just goes, bring, bring, bring. And it even starts chiming when you get and start up the car before you even put your seatbelts on, it's chiming you to put on your seatbelt. I want to take an ice pick and smash the dash with it, okay? If I had a 12-gauge, I'd shoot the dash. But if I owned this, I would probably find a way to disconnect that chime. But it's got all the best blind spot monitoring and the round view cameras.

And it's got all the vectoring controls for all-wheel drive, which is really nice in the rain. Dual zone, dual on the AC with rear vents, which is nice. You don't usually see rear AC vents in a car that's small like this. I think I like the CX50 because it's a little bit bigger, but CX30 is really close. It's a very nice vehicle, and you're crazy if you don't. The cabin is so nice inside. You're crazy if you don't buy it. All right, let's answer a quick car question.

Yeah, Julie has a 2018 Accord that uses oil a lot. Last week, she was in a pinch, and she accidentally added Valvoline conventional oil to the engine that was already filled with Quaker State synthetic oil. Should she change the oil now? No, she shouldn't. It doesn't have to change the oil at all. You know, all synthetic oil is is regular oil that's been refined down. It's just a little bit heavier duty.

It'll do something. So what you're doing is putting conventional and you're just dropping it down to the level of conventional oil. If you had an engine that absolutely demanded synthetic, I would, you know, maybe get it changed, but no, I wouldn't do it. But you need to start changing it early if it's using oil. So if he's got an oil consumption problem, change everything around a little bit. Maybe change brands of oil. Try, you know, maybe adjust the weights a little bit. See what you can do.

Because I think his lady said she's using a quart of oil like every 500 and 600 miles. Now, two things. You would go up a little bit in weight, right? I would. I would just try it. Yeah. And see. But I wouldn't panic too much about it. So either way. All right, folks.

Hang on. We've got Jason Turnbull from Ford coming up next. Let's talk about the lightning here. Music. Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. Mike Herzing and Jeremy Berenbaum. As we talked about earlier in the show, we have Jason Turnbull. He is the guru, as far as forward is, on the F-150 Lightning. He's got some news about some changes coming up. Jason, welcome to Let's Talk Wheels, buddy, or welcome back. You've talked to us before.

Tell us what's going on with the Lightning or what the Lightning is and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, well, thanks for having me. So we launched F-150 Lightning almost four years ago. And, you know, it has been a game changer. People have loved the product. And every year we try to improve the product. We give the customer more range, more technology. We come out with cool new variants. For this year, so our 25 model year, we're coming out with the cool new enhancements.

One is what we saw kind of in the marketplace is a lot of customers like to kind of have blacked out their vehicle. So they have black wheels. They're really cool options. We're now launching. It's going to hit dealer lots in the next month or two. It's called a dark elements package. So on our current Lightning, you can option up to a dark elements package. And what that gives you is a full black leather interior, 22-inch black rims, and then really cool badging.

So our Ford ovals are now black. The front side and rear, all the badging from the series to the name Lightning is all blacked out. So it's a really cool kind of blacked out kind of basic version. So that's kind of a new product that we're really excited about. Another key enhancement is we have this thing called Blue Cruise, and that's our hands-free driving on the highway. We are now launching our version 1.4. And really what that means for the customer is it improves when you're on a highway.

In the past, our Lightning kind of has to disengage when it's a really sharp kind of curve. Like, let's say you're going through Toledo or you're going through like a troop bike, where now that Blue Cruiser can basically stay on. It's giving more basic confidence to the driver. And then also it has basically better stability to keep it in the lane, as well as with lane change. Where you can just put your turn signal on and it will automatically go to a different lane.

So it's just kind of our next version of Blue Cruise. So if you're going across the country, going across Texas, going anywhere in the United States, it's a really cool feature where it reduces your fatigue driving and really it's kind of drives itself. So it's really neat. And then one of the last cool features is charging is really important to our customers. So we've made DC fast charging faster. So we've increased our capability from 450 amps to 500 amps.

So that means instead of charging 200 miles in 30 minutes, it can charge now in 25 minutes. So it is that faster charging. And then last year, we announced a really cool, basically, partnership with Tesla Superchargers, where with an adapter, you now can charge at any supercharger. Okay. We finally have, a lot of people use Apple Maps instead of like our native navigation. Now in full Apple Maps integration, you can basically say, hey, I have this adapter.

Route me to NACS charting stations or route me to CCS. So it's a little more user-friendly and it makes you planning a trip and wanting to use this Tesla Supercharger more. Now it's native in the Apple Maps basically integration. Well, that is awesome because, you know, it's funny. is it's like go back to to the blue cruise it is it's it's, It's pretty common, or it just seems natural that it would be a little bit more mature.

And you're going to have a few more, you know, it's like until you get it out there, people are going to go, what do we have to do next? You know, your developers are just kind of chomping at the bit going, I need some input from customers. Do we need to change anything? And you tweak it just a tiny bit, and it makes such a difference. The fact that Blue Cruise works great. I mean, Super Cruise for GM was great. Blue Cruise is great. Both of these products, I think, are very good for customers.

And I, you know, every time I had, last time I had a Ford, I was like, I was amazed on how many more roads it's available on than it was just a year ago. Okay. And now there's so many more of it. And it seems to hold you a little bit better in the lane. Not that it was bad before, but it just seems to be a little bit more natural. And I think that's good that you guys are tweaking it and learning. This is all about almost like AI, but your developers are smart folks.

I mean, let me tell you, you guys, these guys are brilliant. And just give them a little input. You know, hey, what can we do to tweak this? You know, we should talk about stuff that Ford or any manufacturer would come out with something and it would be perfect. But just give it to a customer. Let them screw it up. And that's what happens. We'll give it to the public. Then see what problems you can fix. But it is such a nice feature to have on a trip, period.

I mean, yeah, granted, around town, it's great. It's okay. But on a trip, you can kind of relax just a little bit. And it just makes the trip so much more easy. Because an F-150 drives like a car. I mean, it's just, they're great. Trucks are not trucks nowadays. And to have this, this is awesome. So congratulations. I mean, I know you. So do you like the Blue Cruise especially? Yeah, so I love it. So it was interesting how you commented.

Our goal is, you know, to get it into customer hands and it was to use them as, you know, to learn. And it's kind of a two-step approach is where we want to give confidence in our technologies we're giving to customers. So we're slowly rolling out, you know, better technologies and really more confidence. But then also it's human nature. So four years ago when Blue Cruise came out, if we would have just said, hey, it drives itself, go, people would be like,

are you sure? I've never experienced that. Where we kind of slowly took them along the journey. Nope, it's hands-free highway driving. It works in these kind of 100-mile stretches. And then over time, it's been approved. I just had a buddy drive from Detroit to Orlando last week, and he primarily is Blue Cruise the entire way now. So it's a game-changer, you know, that cross-country kind of journey.

Well, you know, when you're tired and your eyes are bleary and it's just kind of like I need to go stop and get a cup of coffee or something –. Your reaction time is just a little bit off, just a little bit. And sometimes that can come back and bite in the rear end. And to have technology like this that can help you. Granted, you still have to pay attention. You still have to look forward. You can't fall asleep.

Otherwise, it turns itself off or pulls over on the side of the road and sends electric shock to your rear end. But either way, but I mean, it is a very helpful technology. And the fact that we have electric cars. By the way, folks, we're talking to Jason Turnbull from Ford. About the F-150 Lightning and some of the improvements for the 2025.

And, you know, when you start a vehicle like that and you come up with a vehicle that's so game-changing, it's so different, you've got to know that as it's out there and you get more input from customers, I wish we had this, or I really don't use this, or this or that, then you guys use that information and make the next version of it better. Sometimes you'll even put updates in the middle of the year, and you guys are so good about that.

And I know that the first, I mean, you can't take it out as much as customers can. You know, you can't put the miles that a customer can. But having that, Jason, is that, and the fact that you're going now with Tesla charging systems, oh, my gosh, that's great. Yeah, and then another great example is we launched with more of a traditional kind of offering. So we had our Pro Trim, we had our XLT, and then we had our high-level Platinum Trims.

And really, at launch, we said, okay, people that want the best of the best, here's the highest trim series. More work clock. And then we have Larry next thing in the middle. But what we found is there's a lot of customers that were willing to pay for range, but they didn't need all the luxury. So really, even after two years of in market, we said, hey, there's a market, you know, between that $60,000 to $70,000 price point where they don't need

massaging seats. They just want more range and more technology. So, right. So we launched a flash trim. So it kind of brings down B&O audio, it brings down the bigger display, the HMI, and then also gives you that maximum range of 320 miles. So we're learning from customers and even from a price point and payload and kind of what capabilities that they want, it's continued kind of a customer loop that we're kind of learning from.

How can we find out more about the Lightning and some of the changes? Where we go online? Yeah. So if you go online to Ford.com, we're launching our 25 model year building price. So what you can do is go in there, kind of build what you want. You can see what inventory is on dealer lot. So we still have 24 models year two. From a price point standpoint, they're about the same. And then there'll be as we launch more 25, you know, it depends on the region.

But really, if you want to know more information, go to Ford.com and we're kind of updating it. And that darker elements package, we are launching also with a brand new color called Space White for Lightning specifically. So you'll see a really cool kind of more creamy white color with all those dark elements on it. So it's a really cool gig. I tell you what, I'm excited. I'm going to go online and check it out right now.

Jason, thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me. Hang on for more Let's Talk Wheels after this short break. We'll be right back. Music. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to let's talk wheels here's mike herzing and jeremy bierenbaum, jeremy i see there was an article on road and track the other day somebody mentioned one of the people asked me about it and uh about the best-selling sports cars and are maybe your video i'm going to be future classics what do you think i mean like anything we've always talked about in future classics there's.

Different trim levels in specific models that you want to target, you know, cars that are in fewer production runs, special editions, things like that, you know, first of anything, last of anything, low mileage, blah, blah, blah. We've kind of listed that all in the past. But the reality of that is if you're buying a car to hopefully make money in 20, 30 years, I think there's better ways you could do it.

I think you need to buy something that you're going to enjoy through that time you can put a little bit of miles on you're not going to lose money on it that way because at the end of the day i think a driven a lightly driven car is always better than a low mileage car if if in in the resale world well sure my personal opinion a lot of people target low mileage cars but at the end of the day i think you're handcuffed to the mileage where you can't drive the car because of the price you paid.

And you're stuck doing services on the car to keep everything up and up on a car that no one's ever going to drive. Yeah. And the problem is cars deteriorate when you don't drive them. It's mad. They really do. They do. Yep. But right now, the number one selling sports car in the country is the Mustang. And actually sales were down in 2024. They sold 44,000. But it had its first worst year in a long time. But it's still the overall leader. Number two is the Corvette.

And of course, C8, they're selling as many as they can build. They sold 33,000 in 2024. 2023, they sold 34,000. These cars are absolute monsters. I can't believe the performance and power they're putting into this chassis. We've seen like, what, 1,020 horsepower with the new... Yeah, ZR1. ZR1. And then we know there's a Zora coming. We haven't seen it yet, but we know it. When they first came out with this a few years ago, and they said, all right, we're going to start this off at $59,995.

Less than $60,000 for its base Stingray, which is a wonderful car. And it's still close to 500, like 495 horsepower. And it's still mid-engine, and it's still everything you'd want.

There's a few extra goodies, don't get me wrong. but it has more than enough horsepower to do to kill your three times over so it doesn't matter the point is there i hear that the sales are dropped enough and they're producing enough of them that the prices are coming down dramatically and you can actually buy some of them for sticker price for the for less than you know like sixty thousand dollars i did see something similar there's a lot of cars sitting on lots right now

corvettes in particularly and you can get a good on some of these cars that are insane performance-wise. Yeah, I mean, that's a great deal. Now, the next vehicle on the list is a Porsche 911. Of course, it's going to be there. But they only sell like $14,000. So it goes from $30,000-something, $35,000 or $34,000 for Corvette. The next one down is $14,000. Half the amount of cars, but double the amount of price. Yep.

And then the next number four is a Toyota GR86, which is basically built by Subaru. I think the reason, you know, something like this is so popular is it's a great performance level car in the entry level market. You know, you get kids. They only sold 11,000 last year, you know, so it's not like it's, I mean, I think they would, I figured they would sell three times that. Really? The Mazda Miata is number five. They sold only 8,100 of those last year.

I'm just like, you're kidding me. Well, you know, you're talking about segments that's two-seater cars, right? It's a pretty small segment in itself, and it's sports cars. So these are not cars. Typically, people are daily driving. It's usually second cars for a lot of these people, unless you're buying, you know, the Miata or the GR86, you know, some of those cars.

Folks, Mike Herzing and Jeremy Birnbaum, this is Let's Talk Wheels, and we're talking about the most popular sports cars in the country last year. You know, it's funny, number six is the Camaro, which they quit building in December of 2023, but in 2024, they sold 5,800 of them. And that's still number six on the list. And I think that's really because they're winding down sales, and these are all the special editions that they're putting out in the last year of production.

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, because it ended in 2023. All right, and the next number seven is Porsche 718. They only sold, they sold 5,600 of them in 2024. And the next one is funny. It's the GR86's cousin, the Subaru BRZ. It's number eight. They only sold 3,300 of them. That's nothing. I hear rave reviews about these cars. I know. And the number nine is the Z, Nissan Z. And I love that car. It's the, this is the closest thing they've had in years to the original Z. It looks great.

It drives great. The prices are not bad at all. And it was really, they only sold 3,100 of them. That's nuts. Yeah, but it's one of the few that it's increased in volume from 23. Yeah, it has. It has. And then the last on the list is the Toyota Supra, the GR Supra. They only sold 2,600 of those. I don't know why. It's a really good looking car, but they don't seem that popular on the roads. I know. And last but not least is the BMW Z4, which I used to see the Z3s all over the place.

I don't ever see any Z4s anymore. obviously since they only sold 2,100 of them last year. And Supra is falling off. The Z is coming on its own. So it's doing better. We're dramatically better than that. But I mean, I'm disappointed. The Z is a shared platform with another car, another brand. And I can't remember it right now. I'm blank. I don't know. But I can tell you that the Z is going to, and the Supra, and even the Z4 BMW are all going to be classics. They really are.

And they're going to be worth a lot. Yeah. You just want to be careful in what you're buying. Yeah. And like you always say, enjoy it. You're buying it. And if you happen to get it and it's happened to gain in value dramatically, so be it. But don't sit there and set your whole expectation so high that you don't drive it and it's like in a cocoon. No, enjoy the car. Have fun with it.

The best thing in my eyes you can do with a car is buy it, enjoy it for a number of years, put some money into it, and then sell it for what you paid for it. I think that is to the break even is the best thing you could do. That is, that is like Valhalla. I mean, that is, that's heaven. We're there. I mean, that's everybody prays for that. You know, please, you know, get me, get me out of this car. I just want my money back. I remember the Z4 shares a platform with the Toyota Supra.

Doesn't really. Yeah. Well, either way, neither one of them are selling very good. But all right, folks, Mike Herjian and Jeremy Beerbomb, let's talk wheels. We were talking about some of these vehicles that that but, you know, some of these future classics, I've seen more and more people that are buying classic cars and using them for daily drivers, but they're buying like early 2000 Chevy trucks and Tahoes and Suburbans and and Expeditions and things like that that.

You know, these things last a long time. They don't change a whole lot. I think there's a slight movement to those cars because they're reliable. There are still ones you can find that are low mileage. And people are kind of getting adverse to all the technology that's getting packed in some of these modern cars you're buying today. Because that's what screws up the quickest. Yeah. Is the technology. I mean, I had one of my buddies. You know, he doesn't talk to him.

I'm calling him and I can barely hear him. Let me take my car off my speaker. And he says, he's got a 2018 or 2019 Honda CR-V. And his Bluetooth doesn't work very well at all. You can only hear about every third word. And then you think about, I at least think about what's going to happen in 10 years when, you know, your phone keeps upgrading and you keep getting new phones, but your car stays the same. Are you going to still have that connectivity issue?

I always laugh when I go back to, you know, Ferrari in 2009. They offered a little iPod touch as the head unit. You could pull it in and out. And at that time, that was the coolest, craziest thing. And now you look at that and you just laugh and you go, I can't believe that it's a dead technology. If you have that car with that style head unit, you're not listening to the radio. Who has an iPod Touch anymore?

If anybody's got any questions on that or any comments, be sure to send an email to Mike at Let's Talk Wheels or go on our Facebook site, which is Let's Talk Wheels on Facebook, Instagram. Send us a quick message and just say, hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? We'd be glad to answer it. And if you enjoyed our show, tune in to the same station next week for the next episode of Let's Talk Wheels.

And if you missed part of the show, heaven forbid, you can catch the podcast on all 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 to subscribe so you don't miss out. If you have any topics you want us to cover or questions you need us to answer like we did today, email Mike at Let's Talk Wheels.

We'll always respond. We'd love to hear your car questions. Even if you don't want to hear them on air, we can get back to you via email. Absolutely. On behalf of Jeremy Berenbaum, Matt Peralt, and myself, I thank you for joining us today on the Let's Talk Wheels radio network and the Talk Media radio network. I'm Mike Herzing. Have a great week and stay tuned for a car review from our reporter, Matt Peralt. Adios. Thanks for joining us on another edition of Let's Talk Wheels.

We'll see you next week. We'll be right back. Music. All right, Mike, this week I was driving a 2022 Toyota Venza, the limited version of this vehicle, this price tag, but $44,000, little on the steep side, but a vehicle that Toyota has come out with here because it's one of their midsize SUVs, very safe vehicle, government five-star rating. This is something that, you know, front crash, four-star, passenger side, five-star, side crash, five-star.

I mean, that rollover, four-star, very, very safe vehicle. This is going to appeal a lot to families. I'm not going to say that it's the most exciting drive. But a great gas mileage on this vehicle. You get up to 40 miles per gallon on this 2.5 liter four cylinder engine. The hybrid system comes in and gets you really what you want. It's got three different modes, your eco, your normal, and your sport drive modes.

I'm going to say this. I spent most of the time driving in sport mode because I think I needed to drive in sport mode, not the most powerful of an engine, not the fastest of engines. But again, I'm not really the target market for this vehicle. It's much more for somebody who wants to have a people mover, young, small families, perfect vehicle for it. Incredibly safe. It's got a ton of safety features.

Toyota's got a just, it's a safe vehicle. We know this, the repetition alone, but all the different options have got the lane tracking assist and the automatic high beams and the road sign assist are all really nice. Eight airbags in this vehicle, backup camera with dynamic grid lines and rear camera washers, which is really nice to have these things available to you. Blind spot monitoring with front and rear parking assist with automatic braking, which I absolutely love.

You've got a bird's eye view for the camera that gives you this panoramic view of around the vehicle, which for me, it's really good because in Vegas where I live, you have a lot of times where you're driving and parking in garages and there are tight spaces. Beams and cars are close by. So it's great to have that 365 view all around you so you can see what's going on and making sure you're not going to bump into anything or hit anything and cause damage to the vehicle.

So that I think is a really nice feature. Now, the overall criticism or anger people might have, not anger, but disappointment they may have on this vehicle is that it's not the most exciting of drives. Okay. The RAV4, people talk about other SUVs that have more pop, but it looks good. Fuel economy is phenomenal. And I think people are looking for this vehicle to fit in sort of where, you know, Nissan and Hyundai and Honda have and Jeeps have different types of vehicles.

So it's not huge, but it's going to be, you know, a pretty nice rear. I found like you had some good space. Three adults can sit in the back for the Venza and you can get this thing as low as like 33,000. You get a little more bang for the buck on this thing. As I said, I am a dream vehicle I was driving much more expensive price tag about $44,000. So you can find your way down. There are optional equipment. We always get these vehicles that are fully loaded.

We had a optional equipment packages that put this thing at about, you know, an extra $1,500 or so. The Stargaze panoramic roof is an option feature, which adds about $1,400 onto the ticket. So you don't really have to have that if you want. You've got some, you know, advanced startup features and advanced technology features as well, which is about. I had about $1,000 with a speedometer and hybrid system indicators and rain sensing, intermittent windshield wipers.

You can not have those as well. So you can play with the price tag and the LE, you know, about $34,000 level of this vehicle if you want. So this vehicle is only offered as a hybrid. So that's one thing to take a look at. All-wheel drive is standard as well on this vehicle, which is really a big feature.

I'm a big fan of all-wheel drive vehicles, in particular where I live in Vegas, because the rain, you know, when it gets rainy here in Vegas, people drive like crazy and the roads really aren't equipped for it. So it's not a vehicle you're going to take off-roading, right? If you want to off-roading, there are, you know, the RAV4 is where you want to go with this. This is pretty much an on-road people mover type of situation for this vehicle. But I really like the interior of this vehicle a lot.

I think it does appeal to a lot of people. I think the exterior of the vehicle is a little bit plain. I'm not going to say it's, you know, some people have said that it looks a little bit like a Lexus. I don't know if I fully agree with that, but it does have some of the lines that you would assume or you've expected to come to expect with a Lexus SUV. It's very roomy. It's very comfortable to drive this vehicle.

I think that's one of the best features about it is that the gas mileage, but also the ride is really smooth. The handling is really smooth. The touchscreen information is really easily seen, but it's not the biggest. And I still think Toyota is a little bit lacking when it comes to the info technology that we see.

But overall, I think if you're looking for a very safe SUV, a automatic vehicle that comes just standard as a hybrid, great gas mileage, and something that is comfortable to drive and you will find it fun or at least get the job done as to moving your family around, Check it out. Get behind the wheel. The Toyota Venza Limited, the 2022 edition. It's worth the test drive.

Okay, guys, this week I was driving a 2022 Tundra from Toyota 4x4, and this was the Platinum Crew Max 6.5, beautiful vehicle. It's over $60,000, okay? This is not a cheap truck, but it is worth the bucks you're going to spend for this vehicle. This thing was a lot of fun, big, beefier, more powerful. It's been a long time since the new Tundra was going to hit the marketplace,

and now we've got it. And man, they have done exactly what you would want them to do to put them right in line with other vehicles that we have seen. Ram has gone through a very similar refresh with how do you take these vehicles and bring them into the 2022 area? It was gorgeous. Now, I've got the CrewMax model. It's got a six and a half foot bed, big truck, 21 feet long, okay? This is a big vehicle, bigger than your standard. It has got a monster grill.

And I mean, this thing stands out. If you like your vehicle to look tough and big and physical, this thing really does it. Tundra and Toyota written right across the front of this vehicle. Really nice. Really cool to see all over it. The branding is right there so you can see it. You're like, hmm, what is this thing? It is an absolute beast on the road.

389 horsepower 479 pounds of torque in this 3.5 liter twin turbo v6 engine it gets the job done now there is a hybrid model of this if you want to jump in i was not driving the hybrid model for this however this thing does exactly what you'd expect it to do from a truck perspective and look it's a vehicle that if you go well matt you know i yeah you know how is the gas mileage it's not horrible about 1920 miles per gallon that's not bad okay it's a real rear wheel

driven car okay so there's no full-time four-wheel drive system on this but it's you know i didn't find it to be all that horrible driving this thing i liked it it's fast it's not slow it's quick off the line it gets to where you want it to go it's got 20 inch dark painted alloy wheels which was awesome to see the interior 12 speaker jbl premium audio pumped wireless carplay thank the heavens we're seeing these newer trucks hop into the modern

world with wireless apple carplay which i loved a gorgeous 12.3 inch digital meter. You've got a very nice, comfortable seat structure, heated and ventilated front and rear seats. For us in the desert, that is such an incredible thing to have. The rear seats being ventilated as well as the front seats being ventilated. It's very, very comfortable. And then the safety that comes with this vehicle.

I mean, you've got your Safety Sense 2.5, which is their pre-collision system with pedestrian detection, full-speed range, dynamic radar cruise control, which is nice. Lane departure with steering assist is actually needed because the truck is pretty big. So you can find yourself wandering a little bit in the lanes, which I really did like. Automatic high beam assist and road sign assist, which is awesome. Trailer braking, awesome.

Trailer sway control, awesome. Your trailer backup guide with straight paths to help you when you're towing, which is really, really good. This vehicle, definitely something people are going to throw a boat on. You're going to throw a trailer on. This thing is meant for towing, but it's so comfortable. Really, really liked the insides, which has always been my big knock on Toyotas. I've had this conversation going basically since we first started.

Let's talk wheels about like how Toyotas disappoint me with the interior. That is not the case with the new Tundra, man. The 12.3 inch gauge cluster is really nice. The screen, the telematics, monster, just really a 14-inch central touchscreen infotainment system. It's not too big, but it's right there and does everything you want.

When the vehicle turns on, your dash right in front of you, your gauge cluster, it all lights up with all these really cool dynamics and cool little, you know, like it's almost like a movie, like a beginning that comes up. It says Tundra in the beginning. It's really cool. I mean, it's a really fun truck to get into and to drive. I love this vehicle. The 2022 Toyota Tundra, I highly recommend it. It's going to pull 11,000 pounds, 1,600 pound payload. That's plenty for most people.

I mean, you got to go a little higher if you want to go for more, you know, typical work type trucks. But if you like big trucks and if you think this truck is done or old, check it out. The new Toyota Tundra 2022 Platinum Crew Max, really a fun ride.