Recalls, Reviews, Direct Injection Engine Problems and A Trek Through the Ford Heritage Vault

This is the let's talk wheels radio network here's jeremy bierenbaum and mike herzen, hi everybody welcome to the latest edition of your favorite auto show let's talk wheels i'm mike herzen and today along with the awesome jeremy bierenbaum we're going to talk about car we're going to talk about trucks we're going to talk about suvs rvs motorcycles if just if anything with an engine and wheels preferably if it doesn't have wheels hey we're going to talk about

it too. We're going to have fun doing it. Every week we've been doing it. We're doing this for almost 10 years and we're having fun doing it. Mr. Berenbaum, how are things in Southern California? Can't complain. Nice and sunny and just another day in beautiful Los Angeles. Another day in paradise for you. I understand that. Of course, here in Texas, we've got Southern California weather. It's really nice. It's been in the 70s and in the 50s at night and it's just It's been really, really great.

And of course, we've got some rain coming up next week. So that's going to kind of mess everything up. But, you know, it's really great. You know, folks, every week we're going to give you automotive news, interviews, car reviews, and classic car information from Mr. Hollywood there, Jeremy. He knows everything about classic cars. What's your latest project, by the way? Right now I'm working on a 55 Mercury Montclair that is not running correctly.

We had a clogged carburetor and I unclogged the idle jets or the actually unclogged the main jets. And I think I got an issue with the idle jets right now because that idle, I'm only running on four cylinders. Whoops. Well, that's, that's not too good, but it makes it sound really lumpy. You know, it's, it's, it's a little bit too lumpy and I'm learning, you know, the difference between dual plane and single plane intake manifold, which is part of the issue I'm having.

Yeah. Well, you know, I'll tell you what, who else is going to have having a big issue? is the Kia people. Kia is going to recall 427,000 vehicles here in the U.S. And the problem is they can roll away. And it's the big Telluride. And that kind of sucks. Really, the 20 to 23 Telluride, that's some of their most popular, if not their most popular vehicle. I mean, that thing had won every award in the world. And what's the problem with it? What's it doing where it makes it roll away?

Yeah. I mean, in LA, it's like every, every third Kia is a Telluride. I feel like I noticed, but the NT NHTSA warned that an intermediate shaft and right front drive shaft on the vehicle may not be fully engaged due to suspected improper assembly by the supplier. Whoops. Well, in other words, they didn't pop it all the way in the drive shaft in the, into the, into the transmission or something. And so it, yeah, but if it pops out, yeah, it's going to roll.

It's going to roll, go into neutral and roll away. And so, yeah, that kind of sucks. So if you've got one of these, you might want to talk to your Kia dealer and find out what they want to do. There haven't been any crashes or fatalities related to this issue. But I tell you what, I would hit the parking brake. I would put the parking brake no matter where you parked it. And if you've already had it fixed, they're going to give your money back.

They're going to reimburse you or anything like that. And so Kia's pretty good about that. So that's kind of cool. Now, GM has got a recall. We've been talking about this tailgate issue because, I mean, it's nothing worse than if you're following a pickup truck and the tailgate happens to open up. That stinks. What model truck? I think it probably includes your truck, too, doesn't it? GM is recalling 820,000 trucks. 2020 to 2024 Chevy Silverado, 2,500, 3,500.

GMC Sierra, 2,500 and 3,500 models. Yeah. Yeah, they've got that little electric. That's about 570,000 trucks in the U.S. And another 250,000 in Canada. And I was just talking to someone the other day, you know, how nice it is that you can, you know, pop your tailgate open from the clicker on your remote. But I think that might be part of the issue. It's the switch on the outside on the tailgate. Evidently, water can get into it. And if it does, it can activate it and the

tailgate will open. And that is not a good thing, you know, and GM is, is, you know, they're going to have to replace all of those things. And I guess you can disable it until it's fixed because you really don't want the tailgate to open. I mean, unless it's definitely, I don't, I don't know if, you know, nowadays the tailgate locks with your remote as well, but if, if it has a sec separate lock, like a key lock, that might be smart to, to lock shut.

Shut yeah yeah yeah you don't want to pop open i remember ford having that problem before i had i remember seeing a ford pop open on the freeway and it was next to me it opened up and a bunch of stuff came out now if you don't if you don't carry any junk in the back of your truck it's not as big of issue but there are a lot of people that carry you know everything in the world back there, and of course then they whine about fuel economy being terrible but you know

that's something you're going to fix so if you've got a problem with your gm truck and it's later model like that But you check with your Chevy or GMC dealer, and they'll tell you how to disable it and take care of that. And because, you know, that's a big deal. It really is. And it's ugly. So what do you think about that? I mean, have you ever had any trouble with yours, Jeremy? I've had some issues with my tailgate, and I personally lock it every time.

It seems like sometimes if I go off a curb funny or something, my tailgate will pop open. I've heard it. I've heard stuff fall out of it. It's not a fun feeling. Yeah. And, and the other thing is, you know, you don't want it to pop open and you just walk away from your truck. You think it's locked and someone can go back there and take all your expensive stuff that you've been storing in the back of your truck. Yeah, yeah, that kind of stinks. But it's kind of, what can I say?

Either way, folks, if you have any problems, just call your GM, your Chevy or your GMC dealer.

Nobody take care of you. They're really good people, and they'll take care of it. Speaking of good people, later on in the show, we're going to talk to Shelby Long. She's from the Ford Heritage Vault there in Detroit. We usually talk to Ted Ryan, and Shelby is the visual archivist from Ford. You know, she has a master's degree in this, and she had to get that to get the job. And they're bringing back the Ford Times magazine.

They're going to take and scan them all in, and they're in high res, and it's just so cool. So if you're a Ford lover, especially a classic car Ford lover, this is a great magazine they used to use. I remember all through the 60s and 70s, that thing was around in the 80s. And it's such a cool magazine. seen. And so now you can go back and reprint it and have all these great stories and stuff and all these really neat stuff. So we're going to talk about that later on.

And then we've got a question of the day is problems with the direct injection. So if you've got a later model car or truck or SUV, and it's got a direct injection engine, you know, you've got to look out for some stuff. There's some things that you need to be doing that you might not be doing maintenance wise. And it can cause you some stalling and some check engine lights and some problems like that, We're going to talk about that and we're going to help you with that.

So it's going to save you a lot of money.

So that's really good. And my review, which I'm going to do, I should might as well just knock that out real quick, is the 2024 Subaru Crosstrek, the Wilderness Edition. You know, people that buy these Subarus, they do all kinds of nutty things with them. They use them as trucks.

They use them as off-road vehicles. And, you know, it's Subaru is kind of a half part car, part Jeep, part truck, part everything, you know, you know, for the longest time, it was the only car that you could get that was all wheel drive. Now that, you know, there's a lot of them out there, but people take these things in crazy places and Subaru is happy to let you do it. And they go to just all kinds of distances to make a car as capable as it can to do off-roading kind of things.

And the Crosstrek is kind of a very compact little SUV. And it's all-wheel drive, obviously. And Subaru's got a great all-wheel drive system. It really does. And this thing has got a bunch of this, you know, it's, it's got a lot of ground clearance, a little, little four cylinder flat opposed engine, you know, and it's really cool. A little car really is, you know, it's hatchback.

You know, it's in the $20,000 range in the upper 20s. And it's really, you know, you can load this thing up, of course, you know, I mean, several different things. But the Wilderness is really neat. It's got a lot of cladding and a lot of, you know, a luggage rack and everything else. It's compared to the Bronco, you know, you can get it's actually $33,000. I take that back.

The Wilderness is about $1,100 more than the Limited model. But it's much cheaper than like the Jeep Compass or the Bronco Sport or things like that. It's not going to do what a Jeep does or like a Bronco, but it's got a 2.5 liter engine or cylinder and not a rocket ship. OK, it does have a CVT transmission, which allows it to do a lot of things. I wish it didn't have the CVT transmission, but it does a lot. It really does. You know, it's got a great audio. Go ahead.

Sorry to cut you off. This is the exact same car my sister has. She moved out to Ohio to go to college. There you go. And, you know, California girl moving to the snow. Yeah, she needs it. This was the perfect car for her. It's safe. It's got tons of safety features everywhere. And it's nice. You don't have to, you know, add them on after the fact they come with the car. And then like you said, it's not a Bronco, it's not a Jeep, but it's great if you're a city person and you'd like to get

out on the weekends. And it's not going to stop you from getting anywhere. It's got good ground clearance, great traction control. Taking this thing off-road is a non-issue. Yeah, five-passenger, four-door wagon, basically, what it is, hatchback. It's really neat. 182 horsepower, 178 pound-feet of torque. It gets decent fuel economy. It's got some Yokohama Geo Lander all-terrain tires on it. It's just really a nice vehicle. It has the chime from hell on it. It has the most obnoxious chime.

I hate it. We both knock. You got to get your seatbelt on before you put the car in drive. Oh, God, yes. You're just going to hear it. Yep. You can't even put a box on the back seat without the chime coming on that says, put on your seatbelt in the back seat. I couldn't find a way to turn that off. I couldn't even put – I had to put a bag. I put a suitcase in the back seat, and it kept telling me to put the seatbelt on in the back seat.

I finally had to just move the suitcase and buckle the seatbelts in the back seat because it thought somebody was sitting there. It was making me crazy. But, you know, this thing has extra cladding and the wilderness has some extra features that was really kind of neat, you know, and it's just... It has some 17-inch wheels. It has the better tires, better tread and things like that. It has a little bit better suspension, just better setup for off-roading just a little bit.

I mean, like I said, it's not a Jeep, but it's just set up for off-roading a little bit. And the steering is a little bit better. It's got X-Mode and Hill Descent Control. Control and it's just it's just you know that that the x mode when you put it in there you change the throttle and the torque distribution calibrations and the transmission settings.

And it's kind of like use has deep snow and mud mud mode and and it's really it's really neat i wish it would have a little more horsepower could probably use another 30 40 horsepower, tow rating it's will tow 3 500 pounds got a new oil cooler and some other goodies you know know and you can act small carry pull a small little camper a little pop-up camper be really great the roof rack will hold 700 pounds which is which you want to put the mother-in-law up there or something like that you

know be kind of cool i got a friend that makes these really cool off-road pop tents and oh there we go get up to your trailer hitch and it's set up you know the subaru is set up for that you take it out and you go in the wilderness set up wherever you want you're good to go. Like I said it's got a nice interior this one has some really cool this one was kind of an, Kind of an olive drab green that had this really gold badging on the side and had wilderness.

And it has this black cladding all over the bumpers on the side, you know, where you fling mud and everything over the side. It had this plastic there that kind of protects the paint, which is kind of cool. It really is. It had the big, thick rubber floor mats. And in the cargo section, the seats will fold down. It had these big, thick rubber mats there. So if you have snow or sand or dirt and everything like that, that was really cool.

Its gearing is a little bit different than your standard Subaru. So it hurts the fuel economy, you know, a little bit. Instead of getting like in the 30s, it gets in the upper 20s, but it's lower gearing. So you can off-road with it and you can also tow a little bit better with it. But the interior is really neat and it's comfortable and it's got a really nice big screen.

The infotainment system is easy to use. it's it's very comfortable they had heated heated seats it had a heated steering wheel it had all the cool stuff that you would ever want i mean this is a great car and for the money like i said you couldn't get a better car for your sister you know what i mean this is what i would want for my daughter this is what you know this is just what a great car this this is a trust the car to get

you anywhere you want to go you know what i mean unless you're stupid you could really do unless you do something really dumb this is a really great car for you can get anywhere you want to go i mean it's not going to take you where bronco or a jeep is going to go but for 99.9 of the people it's wonderful. And you know, we talk a lot about a lot of brands and recalls and maintenance and things that happen along the lines when owning a car. I would say Subaru rarely comes up in those discussions.

And when you talk to owners of them, you know, they're almost Toyota-esque in how well they're able to run with such low maintenance.

Improvements yep yep and it may not be the most exciting car a little bit the cabin is the dine is a little bit i can say boring but subarus is one of the latest late you know they kind of let everybody do stupid stuff and then they'll kind of go yeah we don't want to do that they're they're not going to be the first ones to come out with electric car they're not going to be the first ones to do this they're going to make sure everybody

else does all that stuff and then they'll do it they're like i said they're more their owners are a little bit more tried and true Subaru, let's go with what works. And Subaru does that. So if you want a great car, go to your Subaru dealer and they're going to set you up with this. It's a great car. Talk about a wonderful car to give your kid if they're going to school in Colorado or like your sister going to school in Ohio.

She's a California kid. I mean, this is the perfect car for that. It really is. So you want a great car. For anyone starting out to drive or even someone with a small family that's driving around town all the time. Great car. It's a great car. All right. Speaking of which, let's talk about direct injection. Direct injection has been real popular because it gives you a little bit more horsepower and it gives you better fuel economy and it gives you less emissions, all those wonderful things.

And what it does, it... You inject the fuel directly into the combustion chamber, similar to the way diesel does. You know, instead of the injectors are being, you know, in the intake manifold or, you know, this kind of stuff, you don't. The injectors go directly into the combustion chamber. That's all cool. What it does, it bypasses the intake valves.

Valves so the air and everything comes in there and and you end up with carb end up with you know one of the things that fuel does with all the additives and stuff in it is when you run a lot of good run good fuel it cleans the back of the intake valves and you know people will run i want to put some additive in my fuel to clean clean the intake and clean the back of the valves and all all that other stuff, right?

Well, direct injection doesn't do that. Direct injection goes in the combustion chamber right there on top of the piston. It doesn't go back behind the valves or anything. So part of the combustion happens is you end up getting carbon and things on the back of the valves and the top of the pistons and things like that. And you don't clean it off. Well, when people don't use good fuel, okay, let me back up a a little bit. There's different types of fuel.

People think it's like regular and mid-grade and premium. Well, there's top-tier fuel and then there's not top-tier fuel. When you go to a big box store or you go to a grocery store and they sell fuel and it's five or six or seven cents a a gallon less than, you know, Exxon or Texaco or Shell or Mobil or Chevron or Valero, it's cheaper. Okay. Well, fuels are not that much different. Gasoline is pretty much the base gasoline is the same.

You know, the stuff you buy at Kroger or, you know, Uncle Bob's grocery store or, you you know, the stop and rob around the corner, it's just cheapy fuel. Okay. What makes it different between, you know, Exxon and Kroger, I mean, Exxon and, and the stop and rob or whatever, stop and whatever is the additives. Okay. That's the difference. Okay. A top tier fuel or the ones that, that not only meet the government standards for fuel, but they go past it. Okay. Okay, they have all the additives.

We're talking about like Shell, you see them advertise V-Power. Is that part of the additive that's inside the gas? Or like the Chevron Tecron and all the different additive packages that help your fuel economy. They help clean the valves. They help clean the pistons. They help clean the ring lands. They help with all this stuff. There's all kinds of additives that make fuel fuel, okay? Well, those go past the government standards, okay? Way past it.

You pay for it. They cost a little bit more money, but you get better fuel. Well, when you buy the basic fuel, the cars run. Okay. When you buy the better fuels, they run maybe a tiny bit better. But the main thing you'll notice is you don't have the carbon on the pistons. You don't have the carbon behind the valves. The engine is cleaner inside. Okay. Well, now with a direct injection, that's a big deal. Oh, the way to, and so people, so I'll just pour additive in my fuel.

That doesn't fix it anymore. You have to go to some place that has, that will fog it, will take the intake off of the intake off the throttle body and clean the throttle body. And then they will go and they'll get, start the engine and disable the fuel system. And they'll run it off of a fog that goes into the intake. That was all kinds of chemicals that will run it. That costs you two or 300 bucks. Well, think of I save $0.05 a gallon or $0.03 a gallon. You didn't save any.

When you have to go add additives. Right, because you can use that in maintenance later. Right, you have to add these additives. So there are companies like BG and WINS and all these other companies will make all these additives. Now, these services now that will go and clean all this stuff. My daughter-in-law, Samantha, she had a little Jeep Cherokee, and it's got a direct injection engine. It only has 45,000 miles on it. Well, guess what?

It started stalling and not running well. It didn't idle real well. Well, the fuel economy wasn't very good. She goes, this doesn't run very good. And I realized how carbid up it was. So then we pulled a plug and we looked in it with a borescope, which is a little camera. You go in there, I can see the valves, everything, which is terrible. I went and got, had it serviced with a, with a, my nephew is a BG rep from BG products. And she went and fogged it and ran it. They runs great.

Idle's perfect. Fuel economy economy gained three miles per gallon. Wonderful. It's $200. Okay. Now, granted, it didn't cost me that because I did it myself and I bought the chemicals from him and he had the tool. But if you went somewhere else, it'd be two, $300 to have it done. I tell customers, look, go try to use a top tier fuel, Valero. Even Costco is a top tier fuel, believe it or not. Okay.

I don't think Sam's club is but you know look on the side of a of a fuel of a pump it'll say top tier fuel see a big sign it's a top tier fuel that's a much better fuel and i mean exxon is like two cents a gallon more than a kroger around here it's two or three cents if you were if you were pinching pennies and you were trying to save some money could you would you suggest possibly mix it going to a top tier fuel maybe every other time or something like that right you can do that before

you can that but the difference is only like two or three cents a gallon really is so you can get you know a, shell makes a deal we can get their one of their credit cards and you get five cents a gallon off. So that's a pretty good deal. So I would recommend that.

But if you're running and then you also have a problem with your oxygen sensors, you'll end up pulling the oxygen sensors and you'll see a yellow, sulfury-looking coating on them. And you'll have to buff that off and you have to clean up. I have a guy that's just one of my guys, just one of my really good diagnostician buddies of mine. He'll just say, you know, look at the oxygen sensors, have an oxygen sensor code, and he'll ask the customer, have you been running

after crummy fuel? He goes, yeah. My wife does it. You know, she'll just go wherever it's closest. And I said, don't, because you're going to end up having to replace these oxygen sensors. I will clean them up. I will try to run some cleaner through there. But it's going to cost you more than the fuel saving you, the cheaper fuel. So you're kind of like robbing Peter to pay Paul, as my dad used to say.

So you're much better off running better fuel. And I'd have to assume that this issue gets worse when you run a car that's got more horsepower or supercharger or turbo charge. It's putting off more heat. Actually, it doesn't make that much different, really. When they're running hell out of it, it actually runs better. It's the idling. It's the short trips. It's going to the grocery store and coming back. The short trips make it worse.

When you drive on the freeway like a wild person, it's actually better for it, for this particular problem. But it's the main thing is just, is it just. Adding additives to the gas tank doesn't really help much. It does a tiny bit. But the main thing, it just takes forever to get this stuff clean. So you're much better off just running a better fuel. It's just very slow to repair it. So the way to fix it quickly is to use this fogging system.

So you're just much better off to just go ahead and just bite the bullet and just find a gas. You can use GasBuddy and just find. There's an Exxon station that's the same price as most of the cheaper convenience stores. They really are. I mean, it's amazing. Some of the Exxon stations here have great prices. You just got to find them. You know, look around. They're really good folks. All right.

Speaking of really good folks, coming up in just a few weeks, April 25th, 6th, and 7th at Texas Motor Speedway up in Fort Worth is our favorite folks at Pate's Swap Meet. 18 miles of parts if you walked every every road every trail 18 miles of parts and accessories and signs and motorcycles and cars and trucks and classic this and classic that so many cool parts and stuff oh it's just great i have to go there and leave my credit cards and wallet and cash and home or in my car because i

will spend something you know good guys is going to be going on at the same time inside the track and outside the track is going to be paid swap meet on their like their 52nd year and it's just like a giant garage sale with nothing but cool parts and stuff if you go to paid swap meet on facebook you'll see all the cool pictures i just posted photos the other day and some really cool stuff i mean i bought a i bought a red light there there, you know, and just,

you sit there on the back porch of the lake and it has, you know, it'll be, you know, red, you know, it'll be a green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red flashes, you know, I got all kinds of cool stuff. You can get there. Matter of fact, I met Mike Wolfe there. And one of the guys, some of the guys from American Pickers there, it was just, it was just, and Frank and Mike were both there a couple, three or four years ago. They were just nice folks.

And Danielle, I met her and they were all really fun to talk to. And they buy a lot of stuff there. They fill out half of a bobtail truck. They probably spent $10,000, $20,000 in just a little stuff. And they were great to talk to. Pate on its own, I would push someone to go to. Good Guys on its own, I would push someone to go to. But the fact that they're together makes it even more enticing for anyone. Yeah, and Pate's free. All you got to do is pay for parking.

$10, I think, to park in Texas Motor Speedway. Good Guys, I think it costs $28 to go in, but it's a heck of a deal. Just go to PateSwapMe.com, or you can also go to Facebook or Instagram. I think I just opened an Instagram page for them. They're really cool. Cool. But speaking of really cool, you know, the Ford Heritage Vault is one of the coolest things I've ever, it's one of those rabbit holes. I go to fordheritagevault.com and I think I've ever left there.

I think the soonest I've ever left was like 30, 40 minutes. What about you? Yeah, no, same. I waste way too much time when I should be, quote unquote, working on the Ford Heritage Vault website. I know it makes me crazy, but unfortunately, Ford does that to me because I'm always looking at classic cars or looking at some of their brochures and commercials and stuff from that. I can credit them all out on this really glossy stuff, and it's all high-res, and it's free, folks.

So if you've got a Ford, you want to see some neat brochures from the 60s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 40s, whatever. They've got thousands and thousands of them scanned in in high resolution, and it's free. Now they're going to do some stuff with the Ford Times. And we're going to talk to Shelby Long. And she's going to talk about that.

And it's coming up next. How about that, Jeremy? This is going to be fun. We had a good time talking to her. So, all right. Hang on. Shelby Long from Ford Heritage Vault. And she has their visual archive. She's coming up right now. All right, folks. As we talked about earlier in the show, we've got Shelby Long from the Ford Heritage Vault. default and she's one of Ted Ryan's folks. Shelby, welcome to Let's Talk Wheels. How you doing? I'm good. Thanks for having me. How are you?

This is great. You know, Ted's a great guy. He's been on the show, poof, six or seven, eight times. And I hear that you are bringing back the Ford Times. Some of the folks are not around, been around long enough to remember the Ford Times. It was great magazine. You and I were just talking off the air about it. Tell us about what it's, what's going to happen with it. Yes. So this is our newest iteration of materials for our public-facing website, fordheritagevault.com.

This is a little bit different from the materials we've been showing before. So more product imagery before this, brochures, again, more focus on the product. But this is more of a lifestyle magazine. Originally, when it was created in 1908, it was more internal. So for employees, dealers, that sort of thing. And then it shifted gears and. Much later, post-war, around 1946, it was reinvented into a consumer-facing publication.

So that meant fun road trip ideas, restaurants, recipes, fashion tips, literally anything. So while we love our car enthusiasts, we love our Ford enthusiasts, this material is a little bit different because there's something for everyone. It covers a lot of ground. That's pretty cool. So you're telling us there's stuff that we can see that wasn't really meant for the general public that was basically meant for Ford internal. And now you guys have digitized it and we can go out and view them.

So this, so this span is all public facing. This was all meant for general consumption. The original publication, the early 1900s was a little bit different. That was more internal and honestly not as fun. This stuff is more fun. It's from, so we're doing from 1964 to in 1981. And the reason why we picked this span was to help with celebrating Mustang 60th.

So we're starting with the first issues that introduced the Mustang and covering it into the 80s and all of the fun design changes that come with the Mustang and the different generations. If anyone's not familiar... Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. Go ahead, Jeremy.

I was just going to say if anyone's not familiar with the Heritage Vault, you and I have talked about it before, but you can go back and use and see catalogs, brochures, anything from some of your favorite Ford products throughout time, which is really cool and invaluable information.

Absolutely. Yep. And the best part about this magazine is I remember telling Shelby off the air that when I worked at a Ford dealer back in the mid-70s, you would go up on the showroom floor and you would see this Ford Times. And it was this really nice, glossy, kind of looks like a fancy brochure, but it was about all the different models. And they would take an article about somebody that could cook a road trip in a van or a station wagon or a Mustang.

And it was just really cool. And it would need this really neat article about somebody. It was like a Texas Monthly or it was like a National Geographic, but it was a Ford. And somebody did this article about this. And I was like, what a neat magazine. It was really cool. And I would always grab one of them and take it home and read it and everything. Because I drove Fords and I still do. And, you know, it was just a great magazine. I was like, man, it's a shame they don't just sell this.

But guess what? They still don't. They're giving it away. And you guys are making these things available. And you're basically making it so we can go online and print them again, right? Yes, yes. So this is the first time it's been made available publicly online. All of these are downloadable. They're scanned at a high res, just like the product imagery that's already on the site and the brochures. So anyone can go to fordheritagevault.com, use the general search.

You can also use an advanced search and you can look up any year. We also have multiple regions. So it's not just the US. We also have UK and Canadian Ford times on here as well. And you can make a little collection and download all of them and peruse them at your leisure. Wow. That's pretty cool. You know, you bring up a really a key word in that and it's high res.

And, you know, a lot of times when you go online and you're trying to find these images or even even if you do find a scan from maybe a Ford Times that was published previously, most of the time they're not high res. You can't zoom in. It's very hard to read the text. And what you guys have done is spent a lot of time, Ted and his team, to make them high res, which is which is a big undertaking.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, no. The cool part is for us, we get to, you know, blow up and dissect these photos, anyone that's trying to do a restoration or anything, and just look at it like a key little small thing you can, you can zoom in and zoom in and zoom in on these photos. And it's great. Especially with the artwork. So there's a lot of original artwork that was created just for the Ford Times.

And you really get all of the detail on these. And some of them were used for all of the covers or original art. But then what I found to be really cool when I was looking into them a bit more was they would do local articles about like fishing somewhere in Ohio, and then they would hire a local artist to paint something for that particular article. So that stuff is really cool and again the high res really helps with understanding like you can see every detail.

Okay and because it's high res if there is a piece of art you like you could you could print it and put it in your house right yeah absolutely you could especially if you have that particular mustang or that van or that torino or that or that whatever or that granada or that cool car that you're you know just something different and you say i had one of those i had a green That one, you can find one of those. You can find a story, a really unique story about it. And it's Ford Heritage Vault.

Okay, we go to there.com. And then we, okay, once we get there, what do we do? Okay. So right when you get to the landing page, it says something like you're in the driver's seat. You can immediately, you can just search anything. And so that's going to catalog all of the assets in there. But if you want to have more of a specific search, go to the top right corner. It says advanced search, and then you can narrow it down from there. So you could just select, I just want to look at publications.

I just want to look at Ford Times from Canada. Okay. Ford times is the key word. We look at the Ford times and then we can look at different, different parts of the Ford times that are interest us. Right. Absolutely. So we can do that. Well, so Shelby, Shelby Long, Ford Times, those are the key words, right? Yes. Remember those. All right. Mike and I, go for it. I was just going to say, Mike and I have spent way too much of our own free time on the Heritage Vault looking at cars we've owned.

It is, it is a rabbit hole. I have, I've had a 63 van, a 71 F-100, a 63 F-100. I've had, I've had Mustangs. I've had, you know, had all these things. And they're just such great cars. But to be able to look at those things brand new right there, just like when I was at the dealer, I watched the things, do pre-delivery inspection on these things. And I'm like, there's the car. I tell my son or my granddaughter, I said, I used to work right next door to

right there. I watched them put those things together. And it was so cool. I watched them install stereos and those kind of stuff on those cars. So I can go to Ford Heritage Vault. I can go to the publications. I can look for Ford times and just see whatever version I want to see and what, and maybe I can even find out an article on a certain model, but I'm looking for that would be really cool. All right, Shelby, thanks for joining us today. It's really important. It's really interesting.

And you are the archivist, you're the visual archivist. That's even better. And you are so much more visually pleasing than Ted Ryan. So thank you. I don't want to be sexist, but that's just how it works out. So thanks for joining Let's Talk Wheels today. Wow, that was super cool. I really like talking to anyone involved with the Heritage Vault. It seems like they have the coolest job with the manufacturers.

Yeah, I know. I think we're going to talk to Ted Ryan. They've got the 60th anniversary of the Mustang, and they've got a bunch of stuff happening with that. But, you know, what a cool job to dig through all of those negatives and all those things from a company that's that's so I mean, they got hundreds of thousands of stuff walking, you know, spending all day digging through stuff and scanning it in and doing that. Just don't tell them what you find there, you know.

It's amazing, but it's, it's really fun folks. All right. You know, it's been a great show, but don't forget it's not over. We've got our, our co-host, one of our co-host, uh, Matt Peralta. He's got a quick car review. As a matter of fact, we've got a fun car review. He's going to come it up next. So hang on. We got a car review from Matt Peralta, host of the Bostonian versus the book coming up now.

All right, guys, this week I was driving a 2024 Hyundai Kona N line all wheel drive trim level here this week. All right. This is one of the first times I've sat in a vehicle and I'm a big fan of Hyundai's couldn't figure out what was going on. Now you can tell this vehicle was initially designed as a fully electric vehicle, but this is not a fully electric vehicle. It kind of plays tricks with your mind because you get in the console, the minimalist console of it.

When you sit down in the vehicle, you're like, okay, it's electric, but then you hit the gas and it's fully gas and it's not an electric. So you want that push. Like when a vehicle is this light, when a vehicle has this type of, you know, you're looking for the torque. When you sit down, you push the gas pedal. You think you're going to get a very quick response, not a gas lag of response. And that's what this vehicle has.

So initially when I first sat down and I first started to drive the vehicle, I was confused. I was like, huh, like this thing should be electric, but it's not. It's not electric. This is a front wheel drive vehicle, a 1.6 liter turbocharged engine, eight speed automatic transmission. It's a smooth ride. There's no debating it. It's a smooth ride. It's a sharp looking vehicle on the exterior. It's nice. Comes in with a sticker price just a little bit over $34,000.

It's got a couple of bells and whistles, but nothing too out crazy. But the N-Line, the last time when I drove an N-Line Hyundai, it was a sport designed vehicle. Like you saw the N-Line trim level. You saw it in, you know, it was on the seats and it was around the steering wheel. And you just, it had some, you knew you were driving something different. You knew you were driving something that was going to be high performance.

Not this vehicle, it wasn't high performance, but it wasn't what I had driven in the past. They've made some changes to this, which I was somewhat surprised when it came to what they're looking to produce here. I think they're trying to get after like the first time car buyer. And I think they're trying to find a way of saying, okay, you can. Try, you know, in, in, in do different things with this vehicle, light off-roading with this vehicle.

If you want, it's, you know, got some performance features, but some of the stuff, which was kind of strange to it, that like, you know, you need to get the power lift gate. You have to go all the way up to the top trim level. This vehicle does not have a power lift gate. And that's not really that big of a deal. It has some really nice, you know, cargo space in in the back, but not the things you would expect here when it comes to a Hyundai and how big the Hyundais are.

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are not wireless. They're plugged in. You got to plug in. I don't hate that. It's not the worst thing in the world to have to plug in on these things, but I don't know. Hyundai does a lot of stuff with wireless Apple CarPlay and other trim levels and other vehicles. So I was somewhat disappointed when it came to that. This was a different type of ride for me. I was, I had to kept on like checking

myself going like, this is different. Like what, what are we trying to target here? And I think I would recommend if you're looking at a Hyundai Kona and you're looking at, you know, the all wheel drive, the end line, I would definitely drive it. You got to figure out maybe it fits you and maybe it just didn't fit me. And maybe what I like and what I drive, you may love it and like it. You may like the minimalist style and you may really find it to be fun.

My vehicle did have wireless phone charging in it, which is tremendous. The digital key that it's got, it has a lot of features on it, which is really nice. You've got a powertrain that I think people will be attracted to, but maybe not what they would have expected in the past. Safety features are always there for Hyundais, right?

They're always really safe. Highway driving assist, smart cruise control, The 12.3 inch digital instrument cluster is really bright and really well done, really put right where you need to be in the eyes. Auto dimming in your rear view mirror, LED lights. You have your proximity key with push button start. And I tell you right now, push button starts for people who live in Vegas like me. When it's the summertime, everyone thinks about push button starts when your car is cold. cold.

I think about it when your car is hot. And when your car is hot, that is a huge selling feature to me. And not every vehicle at this spend at under $35,000 on a sticker price come with this remote start. I love remote start. Power driver seat with lumbar support, very comfortable. You do have your heated seats, front and rear USB ports, which I think is something that Hyundai does a really good job with.

And two in the front, a couple in the back, which is really nice for if you have kids in the back and you got to charge their vehicle tries our phones and whatnot so i would definitely get in and look at this thing on the outside the wheels i love the wheels like straight up the the wheels are really really cool they have these nine 19 inch n-line aloe wheels that really do pop it's like what is that grill is really nice.

Spoiler on the top of the vehicle. It's roomy on the interior, on the inside. It's, it's really fun, you know, just to kind of sit and have a lot of space to yourself. You're not like all over each other. It has a front that looks like the grill looks like an electric car. I kept on coming back to that going, this is electric car, right? When it was designed for electric, but this version was gas. You may love it. Check it out, drive it, make your own opinion.

2024 Hyundai Kona N line all-wheel drive. That's what I drove this week. Now that was fun. You know, always listen, great to talk to Matt. He's got such a great voice. He's, I don't know if anybody knows sports better than he does. All right, folks, that was a great show and I hope you enjoyed it. And Jeremy, thank you for coming again today. And I hope we need to find out more about your projects. I mean, I love listening and reading about your projects and I hope you post

more pictures about it. Would you do that for us? Yeah, I can do that. I'll share it on the Facebook group. All right, folks. Once again, thank you for joining us. And we appreciate the time that you take. And we hope that you have a chance to subscribe to our podcast. We really appreciate it. And we hope you subscribe. And we also tell your friends. And also, check with us next week. Have a great week, folks.