Revving Up: Huge Recalls and NASCAR Comebacks

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

Well, we've got several huge recalls to talk about today. An iconic grand that's returning to NASCAR's About Time. And what's the bad blood between auto builders and Apple and Android Auto? We're going to answer that today. We're going to also have a ton of your car questions today and a quick look at the 2026 Honda Passports for our review jam-packed show today, folks. So buckle up for some fun. And as always, welcome to your favorite auto show, Let's Talk Wheels.

I'm Mike Hirsing, 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. How are you doing, buddy? Hey, I'm doing well. My wife has actually been gone for the week, so I've been up to my eyeballs in car stuff. I've driven everything in my garage.

I messed around with all the things that I haven't had time to do in the last year, car-related, as well as just go for a couple drives, which was really nice. You and the dog are batching it, huh? No, no dog either. It was literally just me. I ate pizza and drank beer. Stayed up late and all that stuff? Yeah. You looked at PG movies and everything, huh? It wasn't as cool as when you were a bachelor, but you know what? It was still a good time. Well, over the weekend, I had a great time.

I had some young men over, my wife's niece and her husband, Ian, and they came over and they brought their sons, Landon and Liam Fulmer. Great young men. We had a great time jet skiing and UTVs and ATVs and fishing, and we just did all kinds of stuff and just want to tell those young men, thanks for coming and I hope you can come back to the lake again. So either way, all right. Sounds. It was fun. Sounds like you're running a summer camp down there. It almost is and it was really fun.

So before we get ahead of ourselves, let's get started with a news and notes segment and talk about it's back. Tell us, Jeremy. Ram brings back the Hemi V8. I was kind of shocked to see it, but not really surprised. I think they were a little premature and all their announcements, you know, we're canceling this, we're doing that, we're going electric, blah, blah, blah. Anyways, they bring back the V8. They call it a symbol of protest.

I don't know if I need that. That's Tim Kaniskis. He does that. He's okay. He's a great guy. So basically, it's an option now on the 2026 models. They'll get the 5.7 liter. That's really not changed much from before it was dropped, except it's combined with a mild e-torque. I have that. We have that truck. Thank you. It says mandatory equipment. I wonder why it's mandatory, but maybe that's just through God. They only sell it with the E-Torque now. They don't sell the plain Hemi anymore.

I couldn't get it either, but I wanted a Hemi. Ours is a 2022, and it's a great, great engine. I think the E-Torque is a really cool idea, and it really makes sense when you look at it. You know, what's funny is, you know, the Hemi is not as good an engine as the Hurricane engine that replaced it, which is a straight-six, three-liter twin-turbo. It has more power. It has more torque. It has, you know, it's lighter. It does all these things better.

But you can't beat a Hemi. Those commercials where the guys come up and go, hey, that thing got a Hemi? You know, those kind of things. I hope they bring that back for this round of advertising or marketing. They probably will. If the actors are still alive, they probably will. Because it was a great commercial.

And, you know, Dodge is all about horsepower. It is, but, you know, you're getting 395 horsepower with this V8 Hemi, 410 pound-feet of torque, compared to the Hurricane, which you get 420 horsepower, 469 pound-feet of torque. I'm not quite sure who's going to be making that noise. Just sounds better, and it dries better, and has nothing logical to do with it, okay?

So forget logic. Because then you could— It's just a Hemi. It's kind of like having, you know, all I need is a V6, but I really want an LS, you know what I mean? Or, you know, that's kind of stuff. I want a V8. And that's what people that just want a V8, they're tired of the government telling us what we can do. And what happened is as soon, and it was the, and it was the CEO at the time of Stellantis that now is gone.

And Tim Kaniscus came back to RAM and he said, okay, first thing I'm back, first thing we do is bring back the V8, which is.

Awesome you know and it's going to come back on the charger daytona and it's going to it's going to come back they won't sell that many of them but it's just the fact that you can get it and i think it's great yeah you know i i do love the little logo they have it's like a little va with short short headers yeah it's a ram head it's great and so that's going back on the the fenders so there we go rush with the with the woodpecker you know the cigar in his mouth yeah that kind of,

But all right, now, Kia Recall.

What about that one? Tell us about it. Yeah, Kia's recalling 82,000 2025 Kia K5s for parking lights. I guess they're flickering. It has something to do with the controller software. So for most cars, it's going to be an over there update. You might have to bring your car in, but it's just an update as well. Pretty quick and easy. I think that's the one benefit. We kind of hate on these tech-heavy cars, but it is kind of nice when you get these over-the-air updates

and you just don't have to go in. Yeah, software updates and everything. But the trick is if we didn't have all this software BS, we wouldn't have to have the updates. And you have less problems. I agree. But, you know, I'm looking for the silver lining. I agree. But, I mean, what came first, the chicken or the egg? And that is the silver lining. All right. Let's talk about four. They've got close to 500,000 vehicles they're going to recall.

They've got a couple of them. We may have talked about one of them, but what are these? This is the opposite of a silver lining. And this has to do with, you know, a trim piece on the A pillar, on the front A pillar that's fastened on with, I think, either a glue or a tape. And it's, I'm sorry, it's the B pillar. Excuse me for my incorrectness. Yeah, the B pillar is the one between the driver's door and passenger door. The A pillar is the one right next to the windshield. Yeah.

And so that's the B-pillar. So this is on the B-pillar. It's a trim piece and it can fly off while the car is driving. I've seen one fly off. I was a couple months ago, I was driving up the freeway at the lake house and I look over and I looked at this thing flapping on this lady's car. And I told my wife, I said, honey, that's going to fly off. And that's a recall that they needed to do. And they had recalled one a couple of years ago or a year or two ago.

And now they had to recall more of them. But it was, I watched that thing fly off. Now, it's not going to kill anybody necessarily unless they're on a motorcycle behind it, you know, and it could hit you in the face and knock you off. But other than that, it's probably not the most dangerous.

It's a free fix. Just go do it. Just go do it. Absolutely. Because it will come off and it will make a mess. By the way, if you just tuned in, let's talk wheels. Mike Herzing and Jeremy Bierenbaum. We're just talking about some recall. Let's let's round this up. Who's coming back to NASCAR? Ram's coming back to NASCAR in the truck series. And if you didn't see, they released a prototype. They had it doing donuts this week in a simulated trailer.

Oh, it's going to be great. It looks really cool. The truck series is some of my favorite series because the cars are a little bit slower, but the guys are all trying so hard. Boy, I tell you what, they have some serious wrecks in the truck series. Because that's like double A ball, not triple A. You know, the Infiniti series is the triple A. But I mean, this one is, it's great. But once again, Tim Kaniscus, he says, we're going to do it.

He's also, you know, hinting they might try and get in the Cup Series later on. But we'll see right now. They don't even have a team that's purchased this Ram truck. That will happen before he listed a date. But, you know, hopefully in the near future. Yeah, he will get it out. I mean, I'm sure it's not, it's probably for next season, I'm sure. And it's going to be great. You know, it's going to be, it's going to be a fun

thing. So we've got an awesome show today, and we're going to talk about a lot of things.

We've kind of let some of these car questions kind of build up a little bit. So what we're going to do is one of our segments that we do in the interview, we're going to actually just answer car questions and just get caught up on some of these. I've emailed a lot of these people stuff back. I always will email you back, by the way. You sent me an email to Mike at Let's Talk Wheels. If it doesn't go into my spam filter, I will get it, and I will read it and

answer you. And if there's any kind of car questions, I'll be glad to answer for you. And we're also going to do a review of the 2026 Honda Passport. And so we've got a lot of stuff happening. So hang on for more Let's Talk Wheels after this quick break. We thank you so much for tuning in, and we hope you do it again next week. Music.

Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. Mike Kersing and Jeremy Berenbaum. This is our car review segment. And this week I'm going to talk about the 2026. How about that? Honda Passport Trail Sport. Now they make, the Passport came out a few years ago. They brought it back. It was something they had, you know, back in the 90s. And the name, they brought the name back. It's basically, you know, their big halo SUV is the Pilot, and it's a three-row, nice, nice SUV.

Well, they decided to take one of the rows out there and make this one the Passport. They kind of changed everything a little bit. For this year, they've upgraded it for 2026, and it's really a decent vehicle. It's perfect for a lot of people. You know, it's a little bit manlier. How's that? But I think that's kind of a different way to put that. It definitely has a grittier teeth look to a Honda than you're accustomed to seeing. I think it's cool.

There's a little hood scoop. It's got yellow DRLs, red toe hooks up front. It's definitely suited to a specific type of crowd. No kidding. It's got better suspension for 2026. They beefed up everything underneath it. So you can actually kind of abuse this thing a little bit. And this is a two-row instead of a three-row. It's got the 285 horsepower, naturally aspirated 3.5 V6 with a 10-speed transmission, runs good. It's got all the different drive modes and things like that.

And that's kind of neat for 2026. That's really kind of nice. It comes with these big general grabber AT sport tires, off-road type tires. It's got this plastic body cladding and everything that's kind of shows that it's off-road. Like I said, the beefier suspension that they all have, but this one has skid plates and, you know, it's got some pretty deep, nice approach and departure angles so you don't, you know. Drag your bumpers and things like that going down across a ditch or something

like that. That's kind of nice. I mean, this is not going to be a Jeep or a Bronco, but it's going to be one step below that. You know what I mean? On off-road. Because not everybody likes the way a Jeep or a Bronco drives, you know, on the road. Off-road, they're awesome. They can't beat them. But... As far as just day-to-day driving that most people do, they're not the best. This one is a great, this is kind of like buying a dual sport Honda.

You know, it's not the greatest street bike, not the greatest off-road bike, but it's just a nice combination of both. And it's got, especially if you, the model they have, the Trail Sport comes with the standard Trail Sport. It costs, you know, just under $50,000. And they make the Trail Sport Elite, which is just under $54,000. And it comes with the 12-inch screen. It's got this called Trail Watch camera system, which kind of like four different views and it stays on below 15 miles

an hour. Then the government tells you to turn that kind of stuff off. And it does, but this is really suitable for off-roading. I drove the 300 miles on it over the weekend, going to the lake and back, and it's great on the highway. It's great. It's got a room in the back. It's got power plugs in the very back. It's got, you know, tri-zone AC. So everybody in the backseat aren't going to burn up and this kind of stuff. If you have your dogs in the very back of the section, they're going to have

enough air back there. That's kind of nice. There's just a lot of nice. This thing is very livable, okay? Because they put bigger brakes on it. This thing has got all-wheel drive with torque vectoring. It's all that standard, you know, but it has a 12.3-inch screen and these kind of stuff. But one of the things that's kind of weird that I noticed on a bunch of these Hondas and Acuras is they don't have Sirius XM, XM radio. You have to download it as an app.

But as far as it being on your typical, you know, on the screen, I guess because Sirius XM didn't want to pay Honda's price to putting it in, putting it there, right? And so it's all about money. And so they don't have it. Like I said, you can download it as an app and things like that. But it's a very practical, drivable, livable vehicle. It'll, you know. Is this about the same size as the Escape? No, it's bigger than the Escape.

It's bigger than the Escape. Is it more like an Explorer? Probably like size. Yeah, but size of an Explorer. Yeah. Okay. But it's only two rows, which means you have a big section in the back. Don't forget the Pilot is basically similar vehicle, same platform, and it's a little bit bigger, but it's got three rows. Right. But this one has plenty of room in the back. You can put your coolers. Because we have this big cooler that you plug in, and it has a freezer on one

side and a cooler on the other. and it's really kind of handy for taking frozen stuff up to the lake or if you go camping or something like that. And it fits perfectly back there. You can tie it down. It's got storage underneath by the spare tire and all this other stuff. It's got a great audio system. It's just a very nice and drivable vehicle. So before you're out looking at your Explorers or the Bronco Sport, this is much bigger than a Bronco Sport. What about compared to a 4Runner?

This is probably about right as a 4Runner. About similar to a 4Runner. People like the 4Runner, but, you know, they're hesitant with the new four-cylinder turbo iForce Max. Yeah, this thing will tow 5,000 pounds. And it's naturally aspirated V6. Yes, no turbos to deal with, none of that stuff that will cost a lot of money to fix. This is the engine that Honda's built for so many years that's just a great, great V6. The 10-speed should hold up just fine.

And I said, I get 20 miles a gallon with it, and it's a big vehicle. So, you know what? I think it'd be great. I do chuckle a little bit. I think that these tire manufacturers have to be laughing to the bank because this new off-road segment has really, you know, started booming. And all these people that don't drive off-road are getting off-road tires, which wear quicker and they go through them faster. And the one that wins is the tire companies. Yeah, no kidding. They do.

Or, you know, but then if they don't put these kind of tires on it, then people will take. And the first thing you do is, in 20,000 miles, I get that tires halfway. They go out and buy bigger wheels and tires. But this way, you don't have to. So might as well. No, you don't have to. And it looks good. And the tires, these tires are not noisy on the road. That is a very, very good thing. So if you get a chance, stop by your Honda dealer and check out all of their stuff. You might want to pilot.

But I happen to like the Passport better than the Pilot. I think it's a great thing. And if you're going to look at the Passport, look at the Trail Sport. That one's got all the skid plates and all. You could do stupid things and not hurt the vehicle. So that is kind of handy. If you ever want to go off-road, you want to tow, you want to do this kind of stuff, let's have something that's a little bit heavier duty. So every time you do run over something, you don't just strand it.

So check that out. By the way, Mike Herzing and Jeremy Berenbaum, Let's Talk Wheels. We'll be just tuned in. We were just doing a quick car review. Now, let's answer a quick car question. Dwayne. Dwayne says, act about the feud between car builders and the Apple and Android. And so some companies have kicked out Apple and Android out of their Apple CarPlay and Android Auto off of their software. You can download it, but it doesn't come stock anymore. And a lot of that has to do with data.

Because, you know, you've got Android Auto and you've got Apple. One of the reasons they have all that is so they can get your data. They want to find out where you're going, where you're shopping, where you're traveling, this kind of stuff. And they sell that data. That's how they keep their costs down. And if you do it through your Apple or your Android Auto, all of a sudden that data is being collected by Apple and Google instead of the car manufacturers.

So what the car manufacturers are trying to do is make their own native system. That way they can track you better, basically. And they say it's not for making money. It's to build their system better. And I kind of understand that because when you look at brands like Tesla and Rivian, who are always updating, always changing, they have a better product. Yes, they do. That's right. All right, guys. Coming up, we're going to open up our mailbag and answer several of your car repair questions.

So hang on for the mailbag segment coming up next right here on Let's Talk Wheels with Mike Herzing and Jerry. Music.

Welcome back to let's talk wheels mike cruising and jeremy barenbaum this is our normally our interview segment we're going to catch up on some of the emails that you guys have sent the mike at let's talk wheels.com because we answer a lot of car questions and i just got to the point i these are so good i just i'd hate to just answer them and not have do it on the air so we're going to talk about our friend duffy who does emails occasionally what he wants to know

what the best bang for your buck on a used motorcycle is. He wants to get back into motorcycles. He had them when he was in high school and college, and he kind of got away from them for 20 years. And I was wondering, you know, can you get deals? And I was like, yeah. As a matter of fact, I was looking at just a couple of things, and it's really, they've got some great bikes. Did you see that article, Jeremy? Yeah, I did see that article. And, you know, I'm always looking for bikes.

I shouldn't be riding anymore. But, you know, I'm always curious and you find deals all the time. And, you know, I think the biggest thing to look for in bikes when you find deals are what are the miles? But, you know, that's a conversation for another day. Well, yeah, but also, you know, it's kind of like, are there any deals like that? Kawasaki had this big 2000 CC V-Twin that they came out. It was a great bike. But guess what? It didn't sell.

They were trying to go after Harley and Harley kind of just, you know, Harley people buy Harleys. You know what I mean? And that's just the way it is. And what would, you know, so why would they get anything else? So they end up buying, there's some bikes out there that are just deals. Everybody wants a Ducati. Gosh, they're expensive. But you can buy an MV Augusta, which I think is just as sexy, if not sexier,

You can kill yourself on it just as easy as a Ducati. And it's cheaper, you know, but there are- It's cheaper, but it's still Italian. So the maintenance is, you know, Italian prices versus, you know, Japanese prices. I think Japanese, you're going to get the best bang for your buck, in my opinion. That's why, you know, my list is going to be a lot of Honda bikes. Well, a lot of them will buy, you can get cheap. For example, I love BMW, I ride BMWs a lot. Okay.

I hate BMW cars, but I think their motorcycles are awesome. Well, guess what? They sell for $25,000 or $30,000. Well, after they're about, you know, four years, five years old, they drop down to like $6,000. Okay, that's much better to you. And these are 150,000-mile bikes, 200,000-mile motorcycles. Because you see the cops riding them, and you see all this other stuff. California Hybrid Trail rides a BMW just like mine.

And so... Yeah, but when you talk to the people that buy BMWs, they're either the ones that ride them a lot, or they stay in the garage and they ride them very little. That's right. And you can pick up those ones that are ridden very little for really fair deals. But there's something like the Honda RC51. You can get it, you know, early 2000s. Oh, my God. When I was in high school, that was a dream bike of mine. You can pick them up for four or five grand now. Easily, you know.

BMW, the 650 Dakar, which is their 650 twin. And it's a... That's a Rotax motor. It's a Rotax engine. You can't kill it. Very well built. Very well built. You pick these things up.

And, you know, they don't weigh that much. a little over 400 pounds and they really do really well you pick them up for you know 2,500 3,500 what is it it's a deal the Kawasaki Vulcan 2000 that was the one I was trying to figure out what it was you could pick these up before anywhere from four to six thousand dollars it's a great motorcycle if you looked at it and he's allowed that's a nice looking Harley and you have to look and go wait a minute that's a Kawasaki

but it doesn't say Kawasaki on it you know what I mean? And that's where they did so good. I mean, that's some of the things that you see. You know, there's a lot of adventure bikes or dual sport bikes. I mean, you can pick up motorcycles. I mean, they get a price. Like, you know, I can go pick up a BMW like I have. Mine's a 2011 R1200RT, which is a police bike. And it's a sport touring bike. But like I said, it was like $26,000 brand new.

I, you know, I think I picked it up for $7,000, but that was like five years ago. I've only put a few thousand miles on it because I keep having knee replacements, but it's a wonderful on the highway and it's light. I mean, a gold wing, those things are great. Those things are, you know, great on the highway too. Harleys are good, but they don't, they're not as good as a Honda or BMW on the road.

Yeah, definitely not. You know, and Harleys are expensive inherently in their self and all their parts. It's because of the name and the stigma and it's like a jeep. Jeeps aren't worth what they charge for them but guess what? Everybody wants them because it's a cult. And I think the move is definitely to buy secondhand. Right. You wait a couple years because the hit that motorcycles take, they're always evolving. And, you know, the hottest one is always going to be the most expensive.

But when it's not the hottest one anymore, they drop pretty quick. There's not a real big collector market on motorcycles until you move to really old classic stuff. I liked the, you know, Honda GB500. You could buy those bikes for about $4,500, little 500cc.

Cafe racer looking bike you know simple easy to work on really easy to move around throw around when you're riding and i like the little cafe racer look well yeah i mean you know aprilia makes some really neat bikes the price is just tank the original owner pays such it takes a beating and you know one thing about harley's they don't lose their value i think that's because you know i think that's because it's

it's like the envy augusta their italian bikes the service is really expensive and technical, and that's why I think the bikes drop. Yeah, they do. You know, you're right. They do. And everybody wants the latest and greatest. Amazing. And this kind of stuff. And sometimes they don't hold up as well as you want. My neighbor just picked up his third Tuono, 1,000cc bike, just, you know, the six to eight K range. Yeah. A friend of mine had one. He got it cheap, you know, and he loved it.

It was Italian bike. It still had Italian bike problems, but not any more or less than a Ducati or anything else. Yeah, the nice thing is when you go to a motorcycle show or you go to the rock store and you park your bike, you're not going to lose it in the sea of Hondas and everything else. That's why I drive a BMW. That's exactly the reason. Aprilia, the MV, they're a little bit different.

I'm on my fourth BMW and that's because I just, I mean, I remember coming out on my Honda 750 and I looking around and there was like five of them. I'm going, which one of these is mine? You know, and I just kind of got crushed. You know, I just like, I'm just another Honda guy. You know, I'm just like, hmm. Then I had a Yamaha. Then it was like, so, you know, there are still fun bikes out there, you know. But I still love bikes from the 70s. I really do. I like bikes from the 60s.

You know, a nice English bike. You have Husqvarna's and things like that, don't you? Yeah, we have some old school dirt bikes, but those are, you know, kind of on the collector side and nobody rides them, which is sad. But I think the condition they're in, it's kind of worth keeping it like that. Okay, so that's our answer for Duffy. Yeah, there's an interesting one, Harry, which is also my dad's name, and he always harps on me on this exact same thing, asks, is it okay to leave

a car battery on the garage floor? Will it damage it? In the old days of wooden battery cases, yeah, it would damage it. In the old days, even maybe the lead cases they had in them, It would probably bleed out a little thing, but, but they, they had the cases on a battery now or polycarbonate or, you know, and, and so kind of a heavy duty plastic, they don't, it doesn't matter. I talk to battery manufacturers all the time and ask them that question. He said, no, it's a myth.

It's, you can. Growing up though, I got harped on anytime I put a battery on the garage floor. You're right. You know, and I said, that's probably from my dad, you know, my dad's dad giving it to him And not realizing the technology has changed. Right. It has changed. And yeah, I mean, it's always good to set it on something. I just happen to do that because I don't want, but it won't matter.

But what people don't realize is that you really need to make sure that the top of your battery is clean. That's because it can, if there's a bunch of dirt on the top of the battery between the two posts, it can leach some of the current out. It can short itself a little bit and lose power. Okay. Lose voltage. Okay. And the other thing is when people go to install batteries, they put the battery cable end, you know, the, the, uh, end and they,

they don't loosen it up. So they tap it down onto the battery. Never tap the battery. Every tap that you put on that post tapping that thing down cuts down on the battery life. It'll mess up the seal. Yes, it will. And also you'll notice how some batteries may be working. Okay. But they're just all kinds of fuzzy acid and corrosion on that stuff.

Like calcium, yeah. All that, all the corrosion on the terminals, that's because the seal between the battery and the battery post has been compromised, mainly from people banging on it. Yes. So I've had to replace batteries, even though they worked okay and they passed the test, but they were just dripping so much acid out that I ended up having to replace it because I didn't want to destroy the car. So, all right, we got to run. We've got to have to finish this up in our next. Music.

Segment. So hang on. We ran out of time. We'll be right back with more. We'll finish this conversation after this quick break.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. Here's Mike Herzen and Jeremy Bierenbaum. Okay, we just ran out of time in our last segment. So let's finish this story about batteries. Okay. Don't ever, when you want to clean off the battery, don't use Coca-Cola. All that does is bring ants and stuff into your car. What you do is bacon soda and water. Bacon soda and water, just a couple spoons of bacon soda and a glass of water, pour it on the battery.

It'll, and then rinse it all off really good. And that will neutralize the acid. Then you can spray either paint or put some grease there, or you can buy a battery sealant stuff, battery protector and put that on there. And that will help. But if you're... I've seen people do it inside their car. Don't be lazy. Take the battery out of your car to clean it up. If you want to do it in your car, that's fine.

I don't care, but it's just... And actually, in a way, that works because it'll neutralize any of the acid that's already leaked out of the battery. All right. I'm wrong. No, no, you're not wrong. It's just a different way of doing it. Because once you take it off and take the battery cables off, then you're liable to have to go ahead and reprogram the cars, flash the computer, and this kind of stuff. Now, if it's an older car, absolutely.

But a newer car, it can be bad. All right, now let's finish one more question. Yeah, one more question. Jimmy wants to know if those cold air intakes like K&N filters are worth the price. Oh, I don't think so personally. I know people have tested them and things like that. The problem with K&N is we used to have customers come in all the time when I had my shop. And even when I was teaching, the kids were bringing their cars and they have the K&Ns.

It's a great filter, okay? The problem is you've got to oil it with a special oil, a very tacky oil, and that's what it's. It's basically a cotton film, and it's loose weave, and then when you put oil on it and you oil it, then that oil traps the dust as it goes past. That's great. And it really can, if you have a performance vehicle and you've hopped up your car a lot, you've added turbos or this or that, and you need more air, then, you know, it's kind of handy to do.

And then also don't forget a lot of diesels and stuff have expensive air filters. You know, air filters like 30 bucks. Well, you don't change those every 15,000 miles. You change that, all of a sudden it adds up. But the problem I have is 80% of the K&N filters are over-oiled. And then they don't work good. And then all of your sensors and stuff get coated with oil and things like your mass airflow sensor, which is right there in the air filter box. It will get coated with oil.

And then it won't read right. And then it'll fail on this problems. And so it's really better to just go with a stock filter. Now, if you've got, you know, if you've upped the horsepower and done a lot of performance upgrades, you might consider doing a K&M. But you've got to oil it right. Because you'll notice there's a little fine dust on the intake. You can just wipe your fingers off and you go on, all that stuff is going in my engine.

The dirtier they get, the better they filter, which is wild. And so if you put too much oil, they don't filter very well and they cause problems. If you put not enough oil, they don't filter well. So like I said, only 20% of the people that I've seen do it right. You're much better off just going with a stock filter. You don't need the performance. It's not going to really make any difference at 1%.

And I think if you're going with the stock intake location, changing the filter is not going to do that much difference. If you're going to reroute, you know, the plumbing to a colder location in the engine compartment. That's a little bit different. A little bit different. But also, don't forget, if a colder intake would help your engine and get better horsepower and better fuel economy and things like that, the car company would do it.

Trust me, that's cheaper than some of the other things they go to. They'd rather do that than put in stop start or this or that. All those different things that they do to try to give you that tenth of a mile per gallon because it all adds up. Now, people blow that out the window when they throw, you know, 100 pounds of stuff in the back. Or you're carrying the mother-in-law and you wonder why your fuel economy is, you know, oh, we won't even go into that. But the whole point is,

it's just not worth it. It's just better off just stick with the stock. But get a good quality one. Good quality builder makes a huge difference. That's what I highly recommend. All right, what's next?

Yeah, so there's this interesting story that happened over the weekend in terms of, if anyone is familiar with the movie Gone in 60 Seconds. Who is that? Eleanor Mustang. Yes. Copyright. So basically what was happening were these companies were making recreation Eleanor cars and the wife of, I think it's the director, the director's estate, the wife controls it.

And she was going after these companies saying that those companies remaking Eleanor, they wanted money because it was protected as a copyright for the film. And this has gone back and forth through court. Shelby did, you know, they paid the family estate for a while to make a couple of Eleanor copies, but this went to a court in Pasadena and it looks like they're saying that you can't do that.

There are certain ways that you can judge if a car can be copyrighted, and I can give you three questions. The character must have physical as well as conceptual qualities. The character must be sufficiently delineated to be recognizable as the same character whenever it appears and displays consistent, identical character traits and attributes. And the character must be especially distinctive and contain some unique elements of expression.

And I think the big problem with this was there have been multiple Gone in 60 Second movies and in each movie, the Eleanor car has been different.

Oh, okay. So it's not, you know, we all, a lot of people recognize it from the Nicolas Cage Gone in 60 Seconds version as the silver, I think, 68, a shelby car with some added features silver with black stripes but in other movies it was a different different color different car and so i think that was one of the big things one of the other issues is like kit from night rider is an actual character right because it interacts

with right sure oh that would be a case of that would you can't make a kit car without paying somebody. Correct. Okay. Well, all right. I can see all that. But how does that affect anything? Like, but people ask you about kit cars all the time, Jeremy, and you, you're an expert on this. So you drive a kit car, you have a dune buggy. And, and so. So it does in a way that somebody can sell this kit for anybody who owns a Mustang, right?

But for the overall, you know, Bradley GTs, Meyer Manxes, that sort of thing, I don't think it really does too much.

It really has to do with if you want to make your car look like the movie car if you want to have that i don't even like that car that much so so herbie if you wanted to do a herbie i don't think they they press you know too much on the herbie but herbie's a character right so if you wanted to have a herbie car do you have to go to a licensed company that sells it yeah but and that's just a volkswagen that somebody put

some wheels and tires on and some stickers you know and that's what herbie and I've seen a lots of them, but, but they aren't sold that way. You don't see somebody go up to a showroom at a kit car place at a custom car place and say, I want that Herbie right there. Right. So if you're talking about a kit car, like a Porsche or, um, yeah, you know, that sort of thing. No, that doesn't really matter.

It only is going to matter if you, if you want to build the Batmobile per se, or you want to build the, you know, something like that style. That's the only time when you're going to get it. It's, it's actually a replica, not a kit car, right? Got it. Right. So it makes a difference, but I, I personally don't like, I have never really liked the Eleanor car.

I mean, I think it's, it's too much, too much, but you know, like they see the stuff on John Wick, you know, you see those, you, you see, you know, there's, there's a lot of things like Shelby Cobras and stuff like that. I mean, nobody can afford to buy a Shelby Cobra anymore. The real ones are. They're just out of reach. I mean, I don't think that, what are they, at least half a million dollars for one? Yeah, they ebb and flow, and it depends what model you're looking at.

You can buy a kit car and build it yourself and do all the cool stuff, and you'll have a driver, and all of a sudden, you can pick those up for $35,000. And they're great. Correct. And they have better brakes. They have better suspension. They start easy. They're just a great car. And the big thing is you're not married to keeping it exactly as it is. If you want to change it or modify it over time, you can. Whereas if you have this exact replica, it can only be that thing.

Yeah, that's exactly right. So, all right, folks, I appreciate everything you did and I appreciate your questions and hope you send more. And if you enjoyed the show, tune into the station next week for another episode. If you missed part of this show, heaven forbid, you can catch the podcast on all major podcast platforms. Just look for Let's Talk Wheels. The podcast contains this show and a bonus segment with an extra car review, so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out.

And if you have any topics you want us to cover or questions you need us to answer like we did today, email mike at letstalkwheels.com. We'll always respond. We love to hear your car questions. Absolutely. And on behalf of Jeremy Bierenbaum, Matt Peralta, and myself, thank you for joining us today on the Talk Media Radio Network. Have a great week. Music.