The Secret Behind "Stolen Durangos" and Electronics Repair Solutions

Music. Buckle up for Let's Talk Wheels with Mike Herzing and Jeremy Bierenbaum.

All right, folks, Auto Shop is now in session. Who's been stealing Durangos and a lot of them? You want to know who can repair your car's electronics? You don't have to throw them away or buy new. You can have it fixed. What's the most reliable car? That's just a few of our topics today.

Welcome to your favorite auto show, Let's Talk Wheels. I'm Mike Hersey, and every week we give you the automotive and power sports news, interviews, car reviews, and classic car information from my co-host, Jeremy Berenbaum, based right there in sunny Southern California, or actually this week it's been a little rainy. Come on in, Mr. B. What's happening? Hey, hey, hey, what's going on? Not too much has been happening. Just getting ready to check cars with you.

Oh, man. Yeah, it's been crazy this week. The weather here has been 30 degrees, 80 degrees. It's just, you never know. I mean, one day you walk outside, it's freezing cold and you're going, oh my God, get me back in the house. And the next day it's like 80 and I'm out on the boat, you know, and I was like, I mean, it's so, March and April are so crazy here, but you know, tonight, daylight savings time. How about that? Yeah.

I don't like this portion of daylight savings. I like it in November or whatever, when we get to gain an hour of sleep. Yeah, but I mean, I like being able to get home at six o'clock and it's still a little daylight. That's kind of nice, you know, but that's okay. It's just starting to be light when I wake up in the morning and all of a sudden it's going to be dark again. But what can you do? Well, you know, you guys in California get up at the crack of noon, you know.

I wish. You know, it's all right. But hey, by the way, I've had a whole home week. I've got a couple of friends that I've been talking to. My buddy Greg Davidson and his wife Jan, they've been friends for 50 years. And it's funny, Greg is a great guy and his wife. and they were great people. And I remember years ago, he came up to the races one time at Texas World Speedway when we were racing and he brings this buddy of his, a guy named Billy Gibbons, and they started a band called ZZ Top.

And I said, man, I probably won't make it. What do you think? I joke and say who's easy top, but I definitely know. Yeah, I know. But I mean, it's just, it's just funny. It's just the great people. And, you know, and I went to lunch the other day with some friends from high school and we all used to ride motorcycles, you know, James Ballard and Ed, you know, Ed Williams, Buddy Scott, all my friends, we had lunch, you know, all talking motorcycle, swapping lies.

You know, the older I get, the faster I was. Yeah. The faster I was. Isn't that funny? It's funny how that is. It is. But let's get started with a news and notes segment. Talk about Durangos. I mean, it's not that Durangos aren't bad, but why would these guys go into these dealerships and steal just Durangos? What's up with these guys? Yeah, well, two thieves steal 25 Durangos from dealers across Michigan. You know, I don't even say it's a car ring. It's two guys.

They figure out how to do it, and then they go, oh, well, we can get more, right? I guess that's really it, you know? It's not maybe that they really like Durangos. Now cars are so sophisticated in how they're secured, you find a way into one. It's not like you've cracked a code for all of them. So you might as well keep doing what you know and just get better at it. But these guys were in Detroit. They got busted on a scheme that spawned three counties, Macom, Oakland, and Genesee.

25 Durangos. They used a tool called an Auto Pro Pad. I'm sure this is something that you can buy, you know, commercially for good. And these guys have figured out a way to use it for bad. Yeah. I mean, it's funny, but why steal that? Why wouldn't they steal like, you know, a Grand Cherokee or, you know, something that's, or one of these things like a Wagoneer that's $105,000. Why didn't you steal one of those rather than steal, unless they just take it over to Mexico or something.

Of course, one of the guys was arrested here in Houston. So they might've been on their way to Mexico. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, nowadays it's so hard to steal cars and keep them in their entirety. Like most of the time I figure they're getting parted out really quick. And Dodge, we've talked about it before, you know, is always at the top of the list with some of their cars in most thefts.

Everybody wants a Hemi. Yeah, and the parts are so desirable on some of these cars and people want to make their car look like a Hellcat or whatever. When you don't change a car all that much for several years, the parts become very interchangeable. Yes, correct. Oh, I can have a, oh, I just, and so I know people that usually do that. Mustangs and not steal them, but swap parts around. And I'll put a later model of this. This Corvette I'm working on has a, you know, a 67 hood and a 65 front end,

you know, 65 Corvette front end. And so it's all put together. It's like that Johnny Cash song, you know, where they've got a 46, 47, 48, 49. It's like that. But that's crazy. Well, they caught them and that's the best part about it. Hopefully they'll figure out what they did and be able to stop it. We've got a recall. What's this one? The BMW. Yeah. 40,000 SUVs for a potentially faulty rear door lock.

It's kind of, they've figured out a small batch of cars that has this issue with the rear door lock, I guess not locking correctly. If your X3S or X3X3i was built between August 11, 2021 and August 27, 2024, those are the ones that are in this recall. NHTSA has published that 100% of the recalled models may exhibit a faulty rear door locking module. Yep, they're just going to switch them all out. It's electronic. It's magnetic.

You don't know when it's going to work and when it's not going to work. I used to have a car that did that. you'd have to thump on the door and all of a sudden it would open. And I was like, you know, the power locks and it's just like, This could be bad. People can't get out or they have worse than that. You lock it, you walk away and your back doors are unlocked. That's what they mean. It's a safety risk. It's a safety risk. And I saw an interesting stat. It was like 60% of stolen cars.

Over 80% of stolen vehicles were unlocked at the time of being stolen. So that's an interesting fact right there. I mean, this goes back to what you were saying about, you know, this is the COVID era of car right now, 21 to 24. Yep, 21 to 24. Just another recall. You could kind of get that up to COVID, you know, either way. But here's a cool thing. Florida, by the way, folks, if you just tuned in, Mike Herzing and Jeremy Bierenbaum,

we're on Let's Talk Wheels. We're just giving our news and notes segment. They've got a bill in Florida coming up that's going to allow UTEs to run on some public roads. You say it as cool. I don't know if I agree with it as cool. I mean, I went out to Arizona and they allow it. And, you know, there's some areas and whatnot. But from a safety standpoint, I look at these things and I go, man, if that thing was in an accident, you're toast.

They're just they're going to bury you with the car still around you. It's like being in your dune buggy. How dangerous is that? A hundred percent. And I agree. I know. It's dangerous, you know, like, but I get it. There's some areas that are really rural and people might not see another car. You're going from one trail to the other, you know, in, you know, going through the city, I get that it might be legal.

It might not also be safe. And I think that's what Honda is doing is saying, I don't know about this because if now all of a sudden they make these cars legal, what does the government have to say to these manufacturers in terms of, okay, you have to bring them up to this standard or we're going to do crash testing now. And some of these manufacturers don't want to do that. Oh, heck no. I mean, there's, I mean, I could see where Honda's just going, oh, no, no, no. This is opening a bag of worms.

You know, maybe in a couple little instances in Texas, I remember when I was younger and if I took a golf cart, if I took a little dune buggy or a UTV down the street in my neighborhood and turned around just to check it out, make sure the brakes worked or this or that, and a police officer saw me, I would have been nailed. Tickets for no insurance, ticket for, you know, whatever, no lights. Just unregistered vehicle, the whole bit, all these tickets.

Now, here in Texas, if you're in a neighborhood where the roads are, where the speed limit is 35 miles per hour or less, you can put a slow moving vehicle triangle reflector thing on the back like the tractors have. And you can put that on the back of your vehicle and drive it around. I don't know if people take their kids to school, you know, and they're in a golf cart or they're in a UTV or this or that. As long as the speed limit of where you're going, it's not over 35.

Okay. And I could see that. Okay, at 35, if you have an accident, it's not so bad. Anybody speed. We've never seen anyone speed before, right? No, never, never. All right, coming up on Let's Talk Wheels, we have car reviews of the Mazda 3. And we have a really great interview with a guy, Ed Edwards. He is CEO of Circuit Board Medics. And he's going to talk to us today about how I've been repairing some of your electronics.

All of this coming up on today's show. folks we'll be right back with more of this tomfoolery with mike herzing and jeremy bierenbaum let's talk we'll be right back. Music.

Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. I'm Mike Herzing, along with my good friend, Jeremy Bierenbaum. This is our weekly car review, and I want to talk about the Mazda 3 I was driving. I mean, you remember the 80s and 90s? You know, Jeremy, you were a kid, but everybody had these hot hatchbacks, and they were awesome. You know what I mean? Everybody had a Honda, you know, the Civic and the Civic Si, and then Toyota had the Corolla, and I had a bunch of all these other,

you know, all these little silicas and all these different cars. Nissan had the cars. Even in the early 2000s, when I was in high school, these were cool. I remember the Mazda 3-speed. You had that car. That was a cool car. That was fast. That was a cool car. Five-speed transmission. Yeah. And this has a lot of that ethos. It does. It's lowered. It's very low to the ground. It's got this really cool spoiler in the front, you know, and everybody would put 18-inch wheels on them

and then they would put low-profile tires. They'd put really kind of sports suspension. They'd put the cool steering wheel. They'd put kind of a nice exhaust. And all of a sudden, you've got a hot rod that you go zipping around and still get 30 miles a gallon. That's the best part about it. I could do stupid, crazy stuff and still go fast. Well, Mazda's kind of done that with the Mazda 3.

Mazda's always fun to drive. and this is a sport compact vehicle this is the hatchback and it's a little four-door hatchback and it's so cool you know these things start at 26 000 20 you know upper 25s 26 000 and you could build them up like this one was loaded with everything and it had to be with after the delivery charge and everything else and it could be 38 720 but, This is the ultimate hot hatch. And we've seen it. The base model is cheap.

This thing gets 31 miles per gallon on the highway, 23 city, 26 combined. And it pretty much gets it. It's got a 227 horsepower turbo, 2.5 engine, 5 liter, 6 speed with paddle shifters and the best sounding growl from the intake. You know, everybody has that, whoa. It's got this really deep growl and really sounds good. The exhaust is quiet. but I'm sure if anybody bought one, they put a little bit noisier muffler on it to make it just a little bit more sporty.

But this thing drives around like it's on rails. It's so much fun to drive. And I'm thinking, wow, but I mean, this year, Mazda actually dropped the price on the base model a little bit, but they just make this so many different ways. You can get this thing, you know, with the turbo or the non-turbo. You can get it with, I think you can still get it with a manual. You can do so many things with this vehicle.

But this one here, you know, it's a four seat. Maybe you could put five, maybe squeeze five people into it, but it's got that Skyactiv 2.5 liter double over can turbo. It's got 18 inch wheels with little low profile 215, 45, 18 tires. So very low profile. Really think automatic on of headlights. It had wiper de-icers. They have all these really cool. LEDs that kind of come out there when you open the doors and stuff like that.

It's a power driver seat with lumbar. The seats are very comfortable. The seats are heated. It's got dual zone climate control for you and the passenger, a heated steering wheel, leather wrapped steering wheel, auto dimming internal mirror, auto dimming headlights, and it's got the best headlights. Oh my gosh. You know, you get in the cars and the headlights, they're okay.

These are so good. Now, Now, unfortunately, this car is so low to the ground, everybody with the pickup truck behind you, that's some idiot that didn't have the lights aimed right, or they decided they went around with their fog lights on, will irritate you. So having that auto-dimming headlight really actually, auto-dimming mirror really makes a huge difference. It's got all the airbags and all the safety stuff you'd ever want. It's got all of the lane divergence and all of the side, you know,

the blind spot mirrors and the monitors and the backup. I'm not going to back up into anybody type monitors. And this one had the extra optional with around 360 degree camera, which is kind of cool. You're pulling in a parking spot on my straight. Am I how close am I in the car in front of me? Well, OK, I can sit there and look at the camera. It's so handy. This one had leather seats, leather trim seats.

And this one had the optional front and rear parking sensors and the monitor and the kind of traffic support on the infotainment system. It was so nice. It's a 10 and a quarter inch screen. Got a 12 speaker Bose audio system. That would be, it's really thing. Now that's, and like I said, it handled like rail on rails and things like that. It was just very nice vehicle. And I just loved it. And you can drive it like you stole. It's got a wireless phone chargers.

Got an awesome audio system and a nice touch screen. It's all got a little, got a little setup. You can put it in the sport mode, all the different modes for driving. It's really, it does, all these guys that built up all these hot hatches and stuff and spent all these thousands and thousands of dollars in the old days, it's all done for you. You know what I mean? Isn't that cool? Yeah, in a much cleaner package.

The thing that really impresses me the most, and this is because I have a lot of experience with a Mazda 3 hatchback, my best friend in San Francisco, Chad, he had one. And he worked as a cinematographer. So he was always carrying around cameras, like lots of cases of cameras and tripods and dollies and whatnot. And I was always amazed by how much he'd be able to fit in this car comfortably. You'd be shocked, like a clown car as he's pulling stuff out. Right, I was just thinking the clown car.

He could even fit his 9'6 longboard surfboard inside the car, you know. So from the outside, it looks small, but it really packs a mighty punch in terms of space and usability. Well, it's got all kinds of nav system, and they made it to where it's all updated over the air now. So when your nav starts to get out of date, it can update it for you. And that's the best part about it. So it's a very wonderful car. If you're looking for a sport compact vehicle, guys, you got to check out the Mazda.

I mean, everybody wants to look at the Corollas, and everybody looks at a lot of these other than the Honda Civics and stuff like that. But man, this is the driver's car. This is the driver's car. Yep. If you don't like that, the Mazda's got all kinds of cool stuff for you. I mean, I like the CX-50, the CX-5, the CX-7, the CX-9, all the CX numbers. We all love them. They're great vehicles. But check out from your friends at Mazda because they are fun to drive.

But by the way, it does have the most annoying chime. It's right up there with the Subaru chime. So when you don't put your seatbelts on, it will drive you freaking crazy. All right. I got a two-part car question for you today from Sue. 2. Why do cars? Why do some cars have a gas cap that says premium fuel required versus other cars that say premium fuel recommended? And then the second part is, why in some cars do you have to use synthetic oils?

She obviously, I believe she has a BMW or Mercedes and stuff like that. And some of these vehicles, they're performance vehicles. And the timing and everything else is set for this. You can't run regular fuel. Of course, you're buying an electric car, a performance car.

You know some of the some of the challengers and some of the hemis and things like that that are the hellcat and stuff like that they need premium they just won't run very good on regular so when they do fuel economy testing when you put premium in the car the computer can advance the timing and do some things when it has better quality fuel okay we can see that but what happens is if you don't run it it's gonna car's not going to run as good the fuel economy is not going to be as

good and things like that. On some vehicles, it's got to have premium fuel or it's going to, it could damage the engine. So that's the required. The recommended is, by the way, if you want it to run like it was when you test drove it or got it, you need to put premium fuel in it. I think it's going to cost you some stupid money.

As far as oil, it's the same thing. When you've got a high performance engine, you need synthetic oil because it will hold up the higher demands that you want or these engines that run hot and they are also performance. All right, so coming up, we're going to talk to Ed Edwards, great guy from Circuit Board Medics, and it's about repairing electronics and saving you a lot of money. Be right back with more Let's Talk Wheels. Mike Erzinger, Jeremy Rundbaum. Music.

Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels, everybody. Mike Herzing and Jeremy Barronbaum. As we talked about earlier in the show, we're going to help save you some money. We've got on the line here from Greenville, South Carolina, wonderful place. God, it's gorgeous. Ed Edwards. He is the head cheese over there at a company called Circuit Board Medics.

You know, when you've got a circuit board and you don't make this stuff anymore, if you've got a classic car, you know, and it's all you've got this stuff, and it's just like, man, where can I get this fixed? I got to buy a used one. No, you don't. You can send the circuit boards out to get it fixed, and we've got Ed here to talk about it. Ed, welcome to Let's Talk Wheels, bud. Well, thanks, Mike. It's good to be here, and it is beautiful in Greenville, South Carolina.

It's about 70 degrees outside today, which is a very nice recrieve from a very cold January and February. I mean, I say very cold as a Southerner, but when we see 20 degrees outside, our 20s and 30s, it is very cold to us. So it is beautiful here. Boy, no kidding. I tell you what, it's a good motorcycle weather. You need to get your motorcycle out, and I'll meet you somewhere. There we go.

Absolutely. That's always a good time. Yeah, except the only problem with my motorcycle, my BMW, it's I have an R1200 RT, similar to the police drive, unfortunately. But it's a great bike. But what you have is the GS. It's a great model. And I tell you what, man, that's a beautiful place in the country to have a nice, well-handling motorcycle. But you know what? Even these BMWs have problems with their anti-lock brake modules and things

like that and circuit boards. and they're really problematic on an older models where you can find the stuff. If I had known about that, I could have sent stuff off to fix with you guys. I mean, tell us how your service started and what you guys do for people. So the service started back when I was... I say newly married. We've been married for several years, but I had two small children. And as soon as my second child was born, we had a washing machine problem.

I mean, you can kind of know where this is going, but I probably shot it down to the circuit board. I've always been an electronics guy. And I was just very frustrated to find that the circuit board was $400 on a $500 washing machine. And this was, you know, 16, 17 years ago. So I took it upon myself just to take the, you know, the main control module apart, figured out what was wrong with it.

Long story short, fixed that module and then realized that there was a better way to offer a service for this. When I fixed the module, I realized that I'd actually upgraded it. I used better parts. I used, you know, parts that were much higher rated. And I knew that I was not going to have that problem again with my washing machine. So I offered this service on eBay, which was and is still not a great place to sell remanufacturing or repair services.

You know, it's actually good for selling a product. Right. And was just overwhelmed with a response from people that were happy that because people figure out that this is a common problem and they don't want just a solution. It's just going to start the clock over again and get another three years off something. Right. So I'm happy to say over 15 years later, Circuit Board Medics has been founded. This is our 15th year in business. So like I said, this was around 16, 17 years ago.

You know, that control board's still running strong. It's far outlasted the original. Well, you know, you're right. But circuit boards are everywhere in our lives, whether it's our watch or whether it's our phones, whether it's this or that. But, you know, the new stuff is better in some ways and it's not, but the old stuff is where you can't find it anymore.

I mean, if you somebody comes up with a Corvette or an early Corvette, a C4, for example, which is, you know, the 80s, basically late 70s and early to mid 80s, they have a circuit board problem with something on the dash or whatever. You can't just run up to the Chevy dealer and buy those. And to be able to send it off to you guys just a couple of days later, you get it right back. It's a quick, quick turnaround. I've talked to people that use your service and they love you.

And to have that, I'm like, OK, I don't have to go buy junkyard stuff. I don't have to go, is this going to be good? Is it going to be some Chinese copy that's not going to work? Or it's going to, my gas gauge isn't going to work or this or that. I can send it off to you. And you guys have a quick turnaround and it'll come back better than it started, right? Right. Yeah. Now, just to clarify, we do focus on a lot newer technology.

Of course. More so than classic stuff, just simply because as they are releasing, you know, new technology, we live in a fast-paced environment where they're just not getting it right. And if you want to be an early adopter of things, especially with all of the ADOS technology that's out right now, the drivers, since all of these cameras, all the blind spot monitoring, the lane correction, everything that's going on, this kind of cutting edge technology.

I mean, we're on the cusp of, you know, driverless vehicles. Right. So as we are, as you're looking at that, you got to understand they are going to get things wrong. They're going to, you know, undersize components. They're just not going to be able to predict the real world stuff. So we do focus a lot more on the newer kind of cutting edge technology type stuff. Now, that doesn't mean we've got a catalog that spans decades.

So if it's on our website and all of our repairs are listed at circuitboardmedics.com, if it's on our website, we guarantee that super fast turnaround. We guarantee that it's going to be better than new when we get done with it. We've done a tremendous amount of research and development at that point to just understand what that circuit board's doing and why it's failing and how we can make it better. Well, that's great. Folks, if you just tuned in, we're talking to Ed Edwards.

He's the head of a company called Circuit Board Medics. And I highly recommend you write that down or at least put it in your phone or something. Circuitboardmedics.com. They can fix stuff that we don't have to replace. Isn't that great? And I never dreamed, Ed, that you could do the later model stuff. I thought that was impossible to fix.

But if you can do later model stuff, oh, my God. But in just the automotive industry alone, you'll have to open up 350,000 square feet places just to do this stuff because, I mean, your business would be berserk. Stuff fails all the time on the newer stuff. Oh, my gosh. You probably have a full-time person just sourcing out parts, don't you? Several of them. We have two facilities, but our main facility where we do all the manufacturing and remanufacturing is 60,000 square feet.

Everything's done in Greenville, South Carolina. So we vertically integrate as much as we can. And we have, you know, all the manufacturing support there. We create all of our own fixtures. We do a lot in-house. And, you know, the new stuff is what's exciting to us. It's the challenging stuff. It's things that I can't tell you how many times we have heard this cannot be fixed or this cannot be repaired, even by the manufacturer.

We had a transmission control module last year that was a very high runner for us. And the original manufacturer of that module actually met with us and said, we made some mistakes when we manufactured this, prevent it from being remanufacturable. And that just was a challenge to us. We said, hey, what do you mean prevented it from being remanufacturable? We feel like we can fix that. But, you know, we have a team of people there that understand what it takes to fix things.

And it's a different mindset to fix things than it is to create things and to manufacture and to design from scratch, you know. Some people just, I mean, they get in his head that it's just everything throwaway. And it's not. It doesn't have to be. How's that? I'm from a generation that we fix stuff. When my dad, when the refrigerator went, asked it up, he went and tore it apart and figured out what it was. You know, the same thing with washers and dryers like you. I mean,

and I grew up that way. I raised my sons that way. And so they fix stuff. And so I just hate throwing things away when I know the rest of it is so good. You know, and so I'm like, if I could just find this one part, sure enough, here's a company. Like, for example, I have folks, I have a farm truck that's a 2008 F-150. Well, when I bought it, I noticed a few days later, and it was used, obviously. We use it because it's a 4x4. We use it dragging tractors out of the mud and

things like that. And I looked up for it, and my brake light was on on the dash. Well, that's kind of odd. It's full of fluid. I checked everything. I did all that stuff, and I realized that the circuit board for the instrument panel is bad. It's got a problem with it. And I was like, and I go online and sure enough, it's a known problem. They all do it. You know, anywhere from 2004 to 2009 F-150s, they have this problem.

And sure enough, that's one of your featured things that you have in stock. And you can just, I can send mine in. You can send me another one. You can do whatever you do. If you've got an LED that's not reading out right, all these things, you don't have to throw them away anymore. You can fix it with good stuff instead of going to a junkyard. Tell us a little bit more. If somebody has a problem, they want to get with you guys, what do they call you? Go online. How's it work?

You can go online at circuitboardmedics.com. You can get in touch with us through chat on our website. You can text us at the 1-800 number that you see there. You can obviously call us. You're going to talk to someone in Greenville, South Carolina that understands our product. We don't outsource any of that. English might be Southern English, but it's English, right? Or Spanish, right? It can be English or Spanish, whichever you choose.

But you're talking to someone in our office that is connected to repair technician, most often that has already been a repair technician and understands these repairs. Ed, thanks for joining us today. Circuit Board Medics, folks. Ed Edwards, great guy. and a good motorcycle rider, so we need more of those. All right, we'll be right back with more listeners. Music.

All right, Jeremy, we have a car question about reliable cars. And we get these car questions like every week. So there's an article that came out the other day on Motor Biscuit, which is not a bad little site. And they were talking, they ranked the eight cars are ranked the most reliable and they aren't Toyotas. Toyotas have been struggling the last year or two, even Honda. And they made a lot of changes and they've upgraded a lot of things.

You know, Toyota is so good at leaving cars the same for as long as they can. And that's why they're so reliable is because when you keep building the same thing, just like when you keep stealing the same thing, you get better at it. So, and I'm going to preface this list first before anything and say, I think the most reliable car is going to be the ones that are well-maintained and that you take care of. And there are going to be some brands that last better and some brands that

don't last as well. but it's the ones you actually take care of and you care about your car and that's the ones that are going to last the longest. That's right. You're exactly right. But you know, but this article was like, when you're a kid, you want to buy a most reliable car. So what do you want to look at Toyotas? Well, nowadays that's not really true. Yeah. We're a nation of people that needs lists and rankings and someone's got to be the top, someone's got to be the bottom.

So let's crack into it with nissan yeah they make a a reliable suv and once again it's things like the centra and and recording the kbb and jd power and consumer reports it's a very nice car but you know they haven't changed they've changed some of the looks of it but as far as the actual design everything it's pretty been pretty much they kind of like the frontier and they're not tech heavy And they're not tech heavy,

which is, I think, the detriment to a lot of cars when we talk about reliability, because you get these people, especially when you look at, you know, J.D. Power and how they do their rankings. A lot of people just like to complain about their cars and that hurts the reliability scores. Right. I've had people with with with Toyotas and Hondas going, well, I'm not going to tell them I had problem with it because I want the car company to get in trouble.

I'm like, come on, man. That's not how these other things work. But, you know, these things are just so, there's a lot of these vehicles are so reliable. And so changing so much every day is not always better. And, you know, some of the biggest problems with all these kind of people. So this car has so many recalls. It's all electronics. And it's all, I can't, I've synced my phone, my iPhone to every car I get every week. I always do that, that glue tooth.

Some of them, it takes me 15 minutes to sync it. I've got to restart the phone, turn off the Bluetooth, turn it back on. Finally, it'll see it. Left blinker, right blinker, windstrel wipers. Yeah, left blinker, right blinkers, stand on one foot. So I can see the frustration when people have. And it's just, I had a Tundra last week. It was so hard to sink. A week before I had a Tacoma. It was easy to sink. I don't know, but good for folks. I mean, Nissan needs a break.

They're building a nice car, you know, and, but the Sentra is really good. And the, and the road, the Murano, excuse me. And Murano had, had a great reliability score. And that's, and the cost per year to maintain was like $507. That's not bad. Of course, that's just basic maintenance, but still. Hyundai, they're kind of coming up, climbing up to the top. Yeah, they were kind of known as, you know, the entry-level car.

And I still think they're in that same category, but they're a very elevated brand in that entry-level. Well, they still make an entry-level lineup. A lot of these car companies have dropped the cheaper cars because they don't make any money off. But one thing that's interesting about Hyundai being reliable in this reliability list is that they're pretty tech-heavy.

And I think it's cool that they are able to be so reliable while utilizing so much technology, because one of their things is whether you get top of the line or bottom of the line, it comes with almost all the same tech features, especially in the safety categories. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Hyundai and Genesis and Kia, they've all done really, really well. And that's kind of cool. But, you know, moving on, the most reliable American car was the Ram 1500 pickup.

It scored a score of 89 per one, 89 problems for 100. And as long as it's got the Pentastar V6, you know, I mean, the average repair bill for this full-size truck is only $690. It has two recalls, and the V6 runs great. It's a great, I have a RAM with a Hemi, and I wished I'd gotten the V6. Let's say it's an easier engine to work on. But isn't that amazing? And then there's a Chevy Equinox. Now it's the gas-powered version, that's the EV.

And it's scored right, pretty much almost there with RAM, 88 out of up for 100. And it has the lowest estimated repair cost for the first 10 years of its life at $8,929. That's impressive right there. Yeah, I mean, that's tires and doing all the services and all that kind of stuff. So 10 years is a lot. That's putting hoses on it. I mean, there's a lot of things you've got to do in 10 years.

Yeah, I have all that listed. It's crazy. In these light cars, these small light cars, I think maintenance is a lot easier than, say, some of these 6,000 pound cars that eat through brakes and tires, you know, left and right. Yeah. And I see that. By the way, folks, Mike Herzing and Jeremy Berenbaum, this is Let's Talk Wheels. We're talking about the most reliable cars. a Bronco Sport is up there, even though it does have some transmission issues, not much, but a score of 88 per 100.

And it's comes from its engine choices. Both of the 1.5 liter three cylinder and the two liter four cylinder are very reliable. Although they don't have a lot of power, maybe that's what makes them reliable.

You know, when you start getting 300 horsepower out of some of these cars with a 2.5 or a 2.7, and you're like, okay, wait a minute, that sure has taken have a lot of power out of a little engine yeah i mean going down this list we're looking at very practical cars very daily driven cars you know there's no evs and there's nothing in the performance category which is which is fine that's not what this list is here for but i find it interesting that you know that

that is the most reliable cars is these small light duty you know cuvs. Yeah, but I just, like, I had a neighbor just recently say, I can't believe this car has enough, what was he driving at? It's a Chevy something or other. And he said, well, this transmission's gone out. I said, really? He said, it's got 125,000 miles. It's gone out. And I was like, how many times did you flush the system, flush the fluid out? Well, I haven't been doing anything to it.

Well, you pull trailers. You pull a camper. And you do, you know, even, it's a Chevy SUV. And I'm like, you're doing all this stuff. You've got to maintain your vehicle. And like you just said, the most reliable cars are the ones that are maintained. And I just, it really makes, kind of catches in my craw here that when somebody will be whining about their car doesn't last very long, but they haven't done any maintenance on it. Yeah. Come on.

It's like saying my teeth are having a problem, but I've never brushed my teeth. But a lot of people look at a car like an appliance. You don't take your toaster in for maintenance. You don't take your blender in for maintenance. It either works or it doesn't work. And some people, that's their mentality and how they use cars. We, you know, treat cars and respect cars almost like a child and probably baby them a little bit too much, right? We also thrash them.

Well, when they need to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, we're able to fix them and that's kind of part of our hobby, right? But, you know, a lot of these people, you know, their mentality is I bought this car to get in and drive. And that's what I'm going to do. And they don't realize sometimes that, you know, there are some things that need to be done on a car. It's not bulletproof all the time.

Well, you know, some cars like a Toyota Camry or a Prius, those are like an appliance because they're really not fun to drive. But for people that like to get from point A to point B, all they need is wheels and it's semi, it's comfortable and it's quiet. It gets decent fuel economy. That's all I care about. You know, they don't sit there and go, I'm going to drive my car to have fun. I'm not going to enjoy it. They don't, it's, to me, it's a chore.

They'd rather be on a bus or a train or public transportation. But no, we have to get a car. That's the kind of person that will never do maintenance and whine about it. Then the people that love their cars and name them and do all the other stuff, then they're the ones that are like, man, it's just not running right. I know I'm going to need a battery soon. So rather they get stranded, they go get it checked out. If you take care of your car, folks, it's going to take care of you.

Maintenance is everything. And we're going to start talking about that. Summertime is coming. We've got ACs to be checked out. We've got cooling system to check out, you know, all this stuff. And by the way, daylight savings time tonight, I'm going to call you at 2 a.m. And get you to move your clock forward, Jeremy. Okay. No, no, no. Please don't. They're smartphones. They do it all themselves. Darn it. All right. All right, folks. If you enjoyed our show, tune into the same station next week

for the following episode of Let's Talk Wilton. If you missed part of the show, I'm so sorry. You can catch as a podcast on all the 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. And if you have any topics you want us to cover, questions you need us to answer, more stories you just want to tell us, email Mike at Let's Talk Wheels.

We'll always respond. We'd love to hear your car questions. On behalf of Jeremy Burenbaum, Matt Peralta, myself, thank you for joining us today on the Talk Media Radio Network. I'm Mike Herzing. Have a great day and hope to see you next week. Hey, stay tuned for a car review from our reporter, Matt Peralt. Be right coming up next. Happy motoring. Thanks for joining us on another edition of Let's Talk Wheels. We'll see you next week.

All right, guys, this week I was driving a 2023 Lexus ES350 F Sport, and this is another F Sport review. I've done a bunch of these over the years and you guys who have listened to Let's Talk Wheels for a while, you know that I love sport sedans. I love the F Sport models, whenever that's on a trim level for a Lexus. I'm a big fan, but I was a little bit, I don't want to say disappointed, wrong word. I think I was a little bit underwhelmed is a better word on this vehicle.

302 horsepower gets the job done with this eight speed automatic transmission. The look of the vehicle is absolutely gorgeous. Ultrasonic blue mica is what they called the color of this vehicle. I mean, it stands out. I'm a big fan. Blue is my favorite color. So I'm a little bit of a mark. If you give me a blue car, I'm going to like it. I love the Lexus grill. I love the headlights. I love the look.

The aggressive look is really, really nice. This is a fun ride, but I don't know if you're looking for a sport sedan that's got, you know, high level of performance and you're going up against some of the other vehicles in this price range. Like this is where I struggle because, you know, the Genesis G80s, you know, the G70s, these vehicles are less expensive. and I feel like they deliver a little bit more than what this vehicle does.

So I think some people might be a little bit underwhelmed with it, but it is an F-Sport vehicle. So this is a luxurious sedan.

There's no debating that. But at $54,000, I'm a little bit hesitant going, man, I'm looking for a little bit more bang for my buck at $54,000, given the fact that you could go ahead and drop down to a Camry and pay less and maybe get a similar type of performance out of the Camrys, and they've started to really try to up the Camrys and make them more of a sport sedan as well here with Lexus Toyota.

But it has, you know, all the trims you'd expect, the trimming out for an F-Sport, the suspension tuning, which is really nice. Obviously, the aluminum panels, which F-Sport delivers, and obviously you can drop the vehicle into the sport mode in Sport Plus, and this thing goes. I mean, yes, it's a fun ride. It's a fun drive and something that I'll always really enjoy whenever I have it. Ventilated power seats in the front. Thank you. Huge.

Wireless charger. Thank you. Also something I very much look for. This is a big, big, for a performance vehicle for me. Okay. I want to see what this vehicle does off the line. One of the bigger things that one of the bigger disappointments is I didn't find this vehicle to be incredibly fast, but the 10.2 inch heads up display right in front of me made it very easy to drive this vehicle. 12.3 inch touchscreen, easy to use.

Again, I'm not the biggest of fans when it comes to the touchpad for Lexus. It does take a little bit to get used to, but once you are used to it, it's pretty easy.

You have this panoramic view monitor that all Lexuses have when it comes to these upper trim levels, which makes it very easy to know what's going on around you don't have to worry about it the kick center for the trunk kick sensor excuse me for the trunk makes it very easy they do charge you for the paint color i think it's worth it because it's a premium paint but it looks really really nice it's a very safe vehicle with 10 airbags what you

know are going to look for for a vehicle that you might be driving a little bit at higher speed i don't know that's just me maybe you don't but i do you have your pre-collision detection system which is great pedestrians detection as well. Looking for that lane assist, which is nice. Your intelligent high beam and headlamps, for me in the desert, we're driving on dark roads all the time, so it's nice when the vehicle can know when to go high beams and know when not to.

If you're going over and seeing someone coming the other way, it'll drop down your high beam so you're not blinding the person that's coming back the other way. I was pretty surprised with the gas mileage. Over 30 miles per gallon for a vehicle with 300 horsepower is pretty nice. I liked it a lot. That 19-inch alloy wheels gets the job done there. Looks sharp as well. Your rain-sensing wipers and windshield detectors, which is nice to have that.

All the exterior styling and the rear spoiler that comes with the F-Sport trim level, equally something that you're going to look for and you're going to be excited about. It's a vehicle that I think you need to drive. Maybe you find things that I don't. Maybe you'll like this vehicle more than what I thought of it. I didn't hate it, obviously. But you can get this thing all the way down to $43,000, just the very base model of this thing.

I was driving the F-Sport model, which comes in with a sticker of about $53,000, a little over $53,000, nearly $54,000 on this thing. So it's, you know, the fully loaded vehicle is like we drive. You don't have to drive something as expensive. You can get it trimmed down. But I'm telling you, the color of the vehicle, definitely one of the highlights. The grille, one of the highlights, and obviously the engine with the F-Sport

with 302 horsepower is something that I do enjoy driving quite a bit. Check it out. It's the 2023 Lexus ES350 F-Sport sedan. All right, guys, this week I was driving a 2023 Mazda CX-5. Every once in a while, I get a vehicle that I tell my family about. I drive it and I'm like, you know what? You guys need to go do your due diligence when it's time to get a new vehicle. You need to go check this out. Now, I had this vehicle in the 2.5 turbo all-wheel

drive. It came in a deep crystal blue mica color, black interior, total sticker price at about $38,000. Now, you can get this vehicle, you know, take some of the bells and whistles off this vehicle and make it a little bit cheaper. But I don't think if you can afford it, I don't think you should. The safety features in this vehicle, five-star overall safety rating, 25 miles per gallon. Those are the things that you want, but the vehicle performs in such a fun drive.

Now look, Mazda's done this whole like zoom, zoom thing for a while, right? But this vehicle is extremely athletic. It's a ton of fun. The turbo engine flies. It gets you exactly where you want it to be. If you're in the highway, on the highway, you got to punch it. You got to get in front of somebody. It reacts really, really well for a vehicle with only 227 horsepower, 310 pounds of torque.

Front ventilated disc brakes brings this vehicle to a quick stop when you need it to, which is really, really nice. It has an off-road mode, okay?

Now, while I wouldn't be driving this thing through, like, huge rocks in the desert, like I take trucks to go out, off-roading it i took it on a light off-road trail here in vegas and it performed wonderfully didn't even skip a beat it was awesome i was very impressed with that 19 inch black alloy wheels pop this vehicle looks sharp this vehicle drives really well and i understand why it's so highly rated by people who drive this vehicle they're like look at you got to get behind the

wheel and drive this thing because it's not a luxury vehicle. It's priced in this like entry-level luxury range, but I've driven RAV4s. I've driven CRVs. I like this thing way more, like way, way more than those vehicles. It's got a good size to it. It's not overly big. Okay. It's not the biggest of SUVs, but it's big enough. It gets the job done. If you're looking for transportation, If you have a family, you've got a couple of kids in the back, it can get it done.

I found it to be a very quiet ride. I found it to be a very comfortable ride. It's got five passenger seating and maybe it's four big adults or five people, two adults and three kids, but you have a very comfortable seat, which I really liked a lot. Ventilated front seats, which here in Vegas is so important because yes, heated seats, most everyone has heated seats, but in the summertime, you need ventilated seats here in Vegas. It gets extremely hot.

The steering wheel, very comfortable to drive. The rear camera, crystal clear, keyless entry. I like that a lot as well. Your typical safety features as what you have seen in other vehicles with your blind spot and your lane detection, lane departure warning. Tire pressure monitoring system, all the things that you would expect. But the suspension for this vehicle really, I think is what separates it because you have the sport mode, which I always drive in.

And then you have the off-road mode, which is also equally fun to drive. The 10.25 color display, awesome, multifunctional command and control center. Look, Mazda, what they have built into the center console, I, I, I just, I have it in my BMW. The, my, my, my car that it's I feel like every car needs to have just copy what Mazda has done for the interior because the ability to just use the wheel to skip through wherever you're trying to go while you're driving is awesome.

Four USB inputs in the front, which I absolutely love. The wireless phone charging system is so required now for today's technology features. Apple CarPlay, which is absolutely awesome. You have to have that. Android Auto as well. You have your Bluetooth hands-free phone system, which is there as well. But I mean, that command center is such a huge selling point for me. You know, sometimes cars are sold when it comes to cup holders, right?

Well, cars are sold to me with the command centers and my ability to use Apple CarPlay while I'm driving and not taking my eyes off the road. They do this. Mazda's interior is just absolutely awesome. I love Hyundai's interiors. I love Mazda's interiors. Both those brands are doing a really good job when it comes to technology and keeping their driver's eyes on the road, but also being able to use the tech packages that are available.

You have a lot of safety features in this vehicle, like I mentioned with the frontal crash, you know, frontal crash five-star for driver and passenger, side crash five-star, overall star is a five-star safety rated vehicle. It's an awesome vehicle for people who want performance, who are going to do some light off-roading, who have a family, but you want some pop. You want this vehicle. It's not a boring drive.

That's the one thing I could say. It's not boring at all. It's a fun vehicle to get behind and drive. And it looks nice. It just, it looks really cool. And I think it's, it has some features in it that feels like a luxury car. I'm serious. It's not a luxury car, but it's got some very luxurious features. I am extremely high on this. Definitely check this thing out. The 2023 Mazda CX-5. I loved it.