Discover the latest trends in automotive technology and winter prep tips that keep your car running smoothly no matter the weather. Josh and Justin delve into listeners’ most common queries, provide solutions for everyday car troubles, and share expert advice on ensuring your vehicle and home are ready for the colder seasons. Whether you’re a car enthusiast or simply a cautious commuter, this episode is packed with useful insights.
SPEAKER 13 :
It’s 106 miles to Chicago. We’ve got a full tank of gas. It’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
SPEAKER 15 :
Hit it. Our lady of blessed acceleration, don’t fail me now.
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It’s time for Drive Radio, presented by Colorado’s select auto care centers.
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Ba-ba-da-ba!
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Whether you need help diagnosing a problem. I want to ask you a bunch of questions, and I want to have them answered immediately. Or just want to learn about all things automotive.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, how exactly does a positrack rear end on a Plymouth work?
SPEAKER 06 :
It just does. Then you’ve come to the right place. So start your engines, buckle up, and get ready to ride. Drive Radio starts now on KLZ 560 The Source.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good morning. It’s Drive Radio on KLZ 650. And you’re here with Josh and Justin from Legacy Automotive and Ridgeline Auto Brokers. How are you doing today, Justin?
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, good morning, Josh. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m doing good.
SPEAKER 08 :
Good.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s a nice Saturday.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, it’s really nice to… I don’t think there’s been a live show for a couple weeks, so…
SPEAKER 05 :
There hasn’t.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s nice that they invited us to have a live show. So whether you’re working in the garage or working on the yard or maybe getting a final road trip in, we’re glad you’re all listening. And we’re here to answer any questions and, as always, kind of learn from our listeners as well.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. And today’s a good day to get out there and get that final drive in or road trip before the winter weather comes upon us.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s funny, I think the last show we did together, we were talking about prep for the summertime, and man, time flies now. We’re going into winter season, I guess fall.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s fall already, yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Got a little chilly last night.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, the last show that we did by ourselves was a 100-degree day.
SPEAKER 05 :
I remember it was just going to be a melter that day.
SPEAKER 08 :
The wife and I were going back and forth. She wanted to turn the heat on last night in the house. I think it’s a little early for that.
SPEAKER 04 :
It is a little early.
SPEAKER 08 :
You always get that first smell when you turn that heater on, too.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, I hate that. I hate that part.
SPEAKER 05 :
Always wind you, put the new filters in and all that good stuff. Getting the house ready for winter.
SPEAKER 08 :
Getting the house ready, too.
SPEAKER 05 :
We’ll start talking a lot about getting the cars ready for winter, but it’s also time. Same thing with the house. Yeah. When do you put your front yard to sleep and start turning off the sprinklers and all that good stuff?
SPEAKER 08 :
I just did a lot of that preventative maintenance both with the house and with the cars that save you some money and maybe save you some brain damage come springtime, summertime.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Get ready for it now because it’s always the coldest day of the winter that the car decides it doesn’t want to start. Oh, always. Yeah. Always the worst time. Same with the house. That tends to be when the heater wants to go out too. Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, it’d be fun to get into a little bit of winter prep and tire prep and also maybe a little bit of the technology stuff that’s coming along. It seems like the automotive industry is changing faster and faster.
SPEAKER 05 :
It does.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’m having trouble keeping up with it myself, both from a business standpoint and… you know questions from you know our our customers as well i mean now we’re getting into all this different technology that’s in the cars i think it’s part of your question of the day
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so the question of the day is, you know, which smart feature would you actually want in your car and which ones do you wish you didn’t have or you don’t want in your car? So, you know, and we have all kinds of smart features, you know. And for years, even like today I was driving in and, you know, your radio turns up the volume the faster you go to make up for the increase in road noise, you know. And just it’s amazing the technology we have in these cars anymore. They’re rolling supercomputers.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s funny. When did the tire pressure sensor come? Was that 20 years? 25 years?
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s getting to be about 20 years because it was about 2005, I think, it came out in the Corvette. It was one of the first U.S. cars to have it.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, we kind of started with some of that, you know, a radio in a car, power windows in a car. Now tire pressures, now tire pressure sensors seem like a norm. Now we have cars that are driving themselves.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Still a little scary to me. But some of these features, I mean, we’ve got blind spot monitors for changing lanes. We’ve got adaptive cruise control. We’ve got active braking, rain sensing wipers, And all this technology is increasing the price of a car overall as well.
SPEAKER 05 :
It does, and we’ve always had to pay as the safety features come on. I mean, I remember when I first started driving in high school, ABS was kind of the new technology coming into the everyday car. You know, the luxury cars, Mercedes and all those had had it for 10, 15 years already. But in the late 80s and early 90s, that was a new feature. Now you can’t even remotely think of having a car without ABS on it. We’ve just been paying for that technology.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’m trying to think what feature could I not live without? First world problems. I cannot live without heated seats. If I’m going to buy a car and you live in here in Colorado, I have to have heated seats. Is that considered a smart feature or is that a dumb feature now?
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s kind of a dumb feature now, but, you know, it used to be a smart feature because, you know, they have variable ranges and temperature and everything like that.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s faster than the heat actually picks up in the car.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. You start warming right away instead of waiting for the engine to finally warm up and start blowing some heat on it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Wait for that coolant temperature to finally come up, especially if you’ve got a big cooling system in the car. Oh, yeah. It’ll take five, ten minutes to bring that up, or a diesel. Diesel.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, diesel. Well, you know. Do you even make it to work before that truck’s warm?
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, with the Ford, I do. With the Dodge, I didn’t. With the Cummins, it’d take 15 miles before that thing came up to temperature. But I don’t know what Ford’s doing with that new 6.7, but that actually comes up to temperature about as fast as a gasoline car does. I don’t know how they’re doing it because it is a huge cooling system.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know the older Dodges took all day to get there.
SPEAKER 08 :
Is there a smart feature that you can’t live without?
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, a lot of them. I really like CarPlay. That’s one of my new go-tos is cars with Apple CarPlay because I hate to say it, but it puts your phone on the big screen in your car.
SPEAKER 08 :
Makes it easy, especially as a business owner.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, because, you know, we’ll sit there. If you’ve used it, you know, you sit there and you tell you’re going someplace new. You tell your phone where you want to go. The second you walk into the car and plug it in, your car’s already giving directions to where you want to go to.
SPEAKER 08 :
I will say with the CarPlay, it is nice that it mimics what my phone is. So if I want to listen to a podcast, I’ve got that right in front of me. If I’ve got people texting me, I can see who’s texting me. It’s easy to respond to them. And instead of having the car map, like the car maps get outdated so fast.
SPEAKER 05 :
They do, yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Where I can pull up, I don’t really like Apple Maps myself, but I can pull up Google Maps, and it’s active. It’s fast. tracking traffic as well. Police officers, if you’re someone that likes to speed a lot. If you’ve got a lead foot. I agree with you. I think the Apple CarPlay, that’s a big one.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now that we have the hands-free law in Colorado, it keeps you from picking up your phone and getting a ticket. Let’s go to Mike in Littleton.
SPEAKER 16 :
Hey, fellas. A great subject. I was just talking with Larry I just had my furnace checked out by my HVAC guys in preparation for winter. And I was listening to your discussion about time to get the car in and checked and, you know, how’s the battery, what’s the condition of that, how about the antifreeze. You know, what are you doing with your tires? And another interesting one I noticed on my daily driver is my floor mats on my driver’s side have worn to the point where I need to replace it. And because, you know, we all get in and out in snow, and I use a WeatherTech ribbed one that, you know, when they wear out and they wear, you get a nice buildup of water there that’s slick as heck, and it’s tougher to get any kind of purchase on the brake pedal. In the winter, I don’t worry about purchase on the accelerator. But just out of curiosity, what do you guys, your kind of winterizing list goes to? Obviously, oil change filters, et cetera. But what are you looking for in radiators? Do people still test the fluid to see if it’s good to a certain degree below zero, or is it almost all universal, you know, that it’s good? And I know that I change mine out every four years just out of an abundance of caution. But What do you guys kind of show as getting ready for winter here? What are you suggesting?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, you know, oil change, making sure your tires are ready for winter, making sure the coolant is at the right level and can handle the cold of the winter. But most of the time we don’t see that as much anymore where the antifreeze is too weak unless it’s a car that has had some sort of leak in it. And then usually we recommend a coolant flush that will get the coolant ready for winter. You know, the other thing that’s, you know, talking about your home heater is most cars have a cabin air filter. And we want to check that and make sure. Because, you know, during the summer, you’ve been parking under trees or, you know, all the grass and everything. And it’s all kind of gotten sucked under the top of that cabin air filter. And now the flow through there isn’t, you know, nearly as well as it should be. And now we’re, you know, we’re kind of in the stage, this is always the weird stage where everybody forgets about maintenance because we’re at, you know, we’re out of the summer heat where the AC was working as hard as it could. And we’re not into the winter cold where the heater side needs to work as much as it should. So, you know, all that stuff is built up on the cabin air filter and things like that. So it’s good to kind of, when we, you know, to bring it in and that’s part of the winterizing thing I would add that most people I think forget about. We’re all used to hearing about, well, make sure you’ve got enough tire tread depth and make sure your coolant’s ready, and especially the battery because it, again, is in the zone where it’s not being tested. In the summer when it was 100 degrees, a lot of batteries failed, and then when we get in a real cold, the batteries will fail. But now is the time to make sure it’s ready when we do get those good cold snaps.
SPEAKER 16 :
Those are all good points. That cabin is a good point. Personally, I try to buy windshield washer fluid minus 30. I’ve noted through the years most of it is minus 20, but I have to chuckle because if I took in the… The temperature, let’s say it’s 5 below or it’s 0, but at the speed I’m traveling, the wind hitting the windshield is probably minus 40. Exactly.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, the lines, I agree with you, Mike. Those rubber lines are very thin lines, and they are. They’re exposed. You’ve got air flowing against them, and, yeah, at 60 miles an hour when it’s negative 15, I know we don’t have a lot of those days when it’s negative 15, but that’s a really good point, Mike.
SPEAKER 16 :
No, no, it’s interesting because, you know, I experienced it firsthand by hitting the fluid, and I went, oh, my gosh, it just froze on the windshield. And then it dawned on me that there’s a windshield factor out there.
SPEAKER 04 :
It is.
SPEAKER 16 :
I had to chuckle. I didn’t, you know, I learned a valuable lesson, you know, the hard way. So what you guys, just out of curiosity in your business, So usually the antifreeze is pretty darn dependable these days. I think at least the other one that I found interesting is I have tried to tell me what you think of this. I have tried to run my air conditioning from time to time throughout the winter. Of course, it’s a dehumidifier, so I can do that. But I want to run it from time to time. 15, 20 minutes driving just to keep the fluid circulating to keep those seals moistened throughout the winter when normally you wouldn’t be using it. Is that needed in…
SPEAKER 05 :
in modern vehicles these days or am i being overly cautious i think it’s a little overly cautious because most modern vehicles the second you hit that defrost button it turns on the ac because it wants to dry that air that’s being blown on there so even though you don’t notice the ac is coming on the computer is cycling that ac and turning it on especially on pretty much every manufacturer i know when you hit the you know front window defrost it immediately turns the ac on to do it. Older cars, it did not. If you have something early 90s and below, only a few manufacturers were doing that, but all 2010 and above, all modern cars with AC, which pretty much everything does. I can’t think of anybody who doesn’t have AC on them anymore. They automatically turn on the air conditioning because they want dry air hitting that windshield because nothing worse than that humid air hitting the windshield and fogging it right up.
SPEAKER 16 :
Gotcha. No, my daily driver is a 2020 4Runner. Excellent. Okay, that’s good to know. All right, well, have a great show. You too. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mike.
SPEAKER 05 :
And we’re going to go on a little break here.
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SPEAKER 05 :
And we’re back. It’s Josh and Justin from Ridgeline Auto Brokers and Legacy Automotive here today. I’m talking about cars and everything car-related and weather and all the good stuff.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, that was a great call from Mike.
SPEAKER 05 :
It was.
SPEAKER 08 :
That was good. Just getting into something as simple as the washer fluid.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. How many? Yeah. We spend a week at the shop, it seems like, bringing cars in overnight because people didn’t have the right washer fluid in there. And then it’s froze up. And, you know, we’ve all lived in Colorado for a while, and we know what happens. We get the snowy day, and then we get the day with the slush where you’re just hitting the washers all day long. And if it’s during a cold snap, they quit working.
SPEAKER 08 :
And if you break one of those rubber lines, that may not be an expensive repair. But if you’re breaking the bottle, the seals in the pump, the pump itself, depending on where those are located in a vehicle, that could get plenty expensive in a hurry.
SPEAKER 05 :
it does yeah especially the pumps anymore starting to become expensive you know they used to be not too bad but now they become more high tech because they want to run the front washers and the rear washers and the the squirters on the you know the headlights and everything else with one pump instead of multiple pumps and they decide they need a module for the washer pump to run so
SPEAKER 08 :
What about recreational vehicles? Now you’re talking something that doesn’t quite have as much insulation. At least my living quarters horse trailer doesn’t have that much insulation. It’s not that nice. It’s not a million-dollar RV. But with those, you’re dealing with something that’s off the ground that you can have wind hitting it. At what point do we start thinking about… Putting some antifreeze in that system before we run into a problem. Maybe early October, maybe end of September just in case. We kind of have volatile weather patterns here. We don’t know when that first cold snap is going to be.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and I know you’ve probably seen it firsthand. I’ve seen it, you know, where you get that first cold snap early October, and somebody didn’t get their lines on their RVs, you know, with antifreeze in it, and it starts breaking stuff.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and RVs are not built like a car that comes down an assembly line. However that guy wanted to build that RV that day, that’s how it got built. And you don’t know where those lines are running, and you don’t want to have to chase a problem in an RV.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, you don’t.
SPEAKER 08 :
Or you better be a carpenter.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 08 :
Because you’re going to be redoing a whole bunch of woodwork after you fix a line that’s in a precarious spot.
SPEAKER 05 :
That and the water heater, you know, is always on the outside panel with the lines going to it and right there in the open on those, and they’re not necessarily the best quality water heaters.
SPEAKER 08 :
And a lot of these RVs, they make it very simple now. You know, they’ve got a spout that you put, you know, your hose right into the RV antifreeze. You turn off a couple other pumps. You turn on the water pump, and you just start running it through stuff, running it through the shower. Run it through all of your faucets. Run it through the toilet system. And also keep some antifreeze in your tanks as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
In your gray tank and in your black tank. I usually throw a gallon of just straight antifreeze into both of those tanks. I don’t want to have to replace a cracked tank or something like that. Maybe I didn’t get all the water out or maybe the water settled into a corner because of gravity. So start thinking about RVs too for anyone that’s got RVs.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, RVs are definitely, you know, that’s a lot of money that you spent to have that. And like you said, it takes a carpenter to put them back together.
SPEAKER 08 :
It does. You don’t know what guy built that thing or what he was thinking when he built it that day.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. That’s why I love the electrical on them because they just got wired by that shift, that guy on that shift.
SPEAKER 08 :
But getting into winter prep, you know, when it comes to cars, RVs, boats, about protecting the paint. What are we doing? Are we doing a good clean, maybe a clay bar, getting a fresh coat of wax on it? I’ve tried to pitch this to a couple of our customers, our good customers. I’ve got customers that have hard water spots on their cars or they’ve got some faded paint. I’ve been telling them, hey, we’re getting into the winter season. It would probably be a good idea to let’s do a paint correction. Let’s do a wax and buff on it. And I get a lot of pushback. I have a lot of customers that are like, oh, no, I’ll wait until the spring to do this so that my car looks good. But when your car is really taking the hit, when it comes to the cosmetic side, is in the wintertime.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, exactly. Because we have the mag chloride, we have the snow, the ice, everything, and all the gravel that’s on the road hitting it all the time. Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, if you’ve got the money for a ceramic coat and you’ve got a nicer car, that is a great investment into a nicer vehicle to protect that paint. It even protects against rocks.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it does.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s a nice thick coat to protect that car. So I would start thinking about some of that stuff now. Maybe not a hard detail on the inside. Obviously, we’re going to be tracking snow and mud and all that grime into the inside. So I think keeping it clean enough to deter pests. You still want a clean interior, especially us with kids. The kids like to eat snacks in the back seat, and some of that stuff gets under the seat, and we don’t pay attention to it. It is good to just vacuum out the car, keep the pests out, because pests in the wintertime in cars…
SPEAKER 05 :
This is when they want to move in because it’s warm and there’s water. You know, that’s what mice and everything else want. They want some heat and something to eat. Insulation. And insulation. They want to be warm. They want to be out of that cold wind and out of the cold snow so they easily find their way into your car. And once they get in there, all those goldfish crackers your kids left behind, they get to eat those.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, they got a nice place to stay. They got a snack. They’re set.
SPEAKER 05 :
McDonald’s french fries, all the good stuff.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and it seems like all these direct injection cars, those direct injection pumps are really noisy.
SPEAKER 05 :
They are.
SPEAKER 08 :
So we’re putting these insulated engine covers on top of all these cars. They do a good job of keeping the rodents nice and warm, too.
SPEAKER 14 :
They do.
SPEAKER 08 :
It seems like we always find these nests, like, in the valley of the motor. Valley of the motor or the cabin filter area.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, the cabin filter. Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Cause it’s, I don’t know why they like that cabin filter.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it’s the easy way in.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s like a hairdryer. Is that what it is?
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s just easy. It’s the easy way in. And they find that nice, you know, what do they do are they they’re obviously not going up through a drain are they going into the the top vent to the top vent yeah because usually you know your sill right by your windshield right there that’s where the fresh air comes in so if you don’t have it on recirculation they just come they wiggle their way past some even though all these manufacturers put all kinds of screens and stuff like that they find their way in there next thing you know they’re building nests and
SPEAKER 08 :
That is incredible that they’re crawling all the way up the side of the car, down through that vent. God, we see it all the time. We see mouse drop-ins and nests. Napa even has a competition every year. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Who has the worst cabin air filter?
SPEAKER 08 :
Whoever has the worst cabin air filter. And some of those pictures are gnarly.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, they’re terrible. Yeah. Oh.
SPEAKER 08 :
And that’s one of the things that, you know, you as a listener, you can do yourself. It’s not that hard to do. Well, I say that. Most. On most vehicles, it’s behind the glove box. It’s not that hard to do. There are some that I think are like European cows where they’re You know, underneath the cow in a European car.
SPEAKER 05 :
They are. Some of those get a little trickier, but… And some of the Volkswagens and Fords, they’re in the center console up against the firewall, so you gotta, like, pull the carpet out and all these panels to get to it. And some of the original ones, like with Honda, we used to actually have to cut the box out. Like… They’d put a filter in it and build it and then ship it, and then if you ever wanted to replace it, you had to go in and cut a bunch of plastic and pull these.
SPEAKER 08 :
What are you going to do? You re-epoxy a cover on it?
SPEAKER 05 :
They’d sell the cover in the kit with the filter.
SPEAKER 08 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 05 :
So you kind of break it and cut it apart. And also it had a support that when they built the whole glove box support, they didn’t put the cuts in it. So you had to cut it apart. And then they even had the bolts there, but they never made the cut. They were like, oh, it’s cheaper to just ship the thing instead of making those two cuts. I don’t know. They probably saved a million dollars a car, or not a car, but a year for not having somebody cut these two pieces. We’ll just let them do it later.
SPEAKER 08 :
That is crazy.
SPEAKER 05 :
So it was always, you know, a two-hour cabin air filter. And it took a lot of work to get those done the first time. But you’re always happy when you got that job again and somebody had done it once.
SPEAKER 08 :
And you’d hate to be the customer that’s got to pay for it the first time. You’re a little pushback when you try to sell that job.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, especially, you know, this was like the early 2000s, you know, several hundred dollar cabin filter. They’re like, what? They weren’t happy with that one at all.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, maybe after break we can talk about maybe cars that are going into storage, maybe cars that are not getting driven or equipment that’s not getting driven. The stuff that we drive every day, that’s one thing. We’re getting some heat into it. We’re getting things flowing. But I’d love to get into maybe what we need to do with things that are going to be going into storage here soon.
SPEAKER 05 :
And even the electric stuff. So with that, let’s go on a little break and we’ll come right back.
SPEAKER 13 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
And we’re back. It’s KLZ 560 with Drive Radio with Josh and Justin from Legacy Automotive and Ridgeline Auto Brokers. And just a heads up, our phone number is 303-477-5600. And the text line is 307-200-8222. So give us a text. I am getting texts from John. And we’ll go to the next section. John just sent me a text that somebody texted in. So as we were talking with Mike about the antifreeze. So you have to remember that antifreeze can become acidic over time. And when it becomes acidic, you actually have electrolysis going on in the radiator. So it will actually start to produce current. So they send a nice, you know, steps of how to test it. So set your voltmeter to 20 volts DC. And then you take and you put your ground lead on the block of the car. And then you actually put the red lead deposit lead into the antifreeze. And if you have any, you know, more than pretty much 0.3 of a volt, you need to replace your antifreeze.
SPEAKER 08 :
And this is car off?
SPEAKER 05 :
Car off, not running. Yeah, exactly. So cold, you know, just so when you pop the cap, you don’t get burnt. Yeah. So car off, engine not running. Make sure it’s cooled down so you don’t injure yourself when you pull the cap. But, yeah, anywhere between, you know, half a volt, 0.3 of a volt means that it’s basically making electricity because the acidic coolant is actually eating the metal components in there and causing just like a lead-acid battery does, so.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and this is going through the head of the vehicle. It’s going through water pump. It’s going through radiator.
SPEAKER 05 :
And what that – Heater core. All that does is that – so with that electrolysis going on, it’s actually pitting and eating up, you know, all your metal components in there.
SPEAKER 08 :
So I’ve seen – Is this a cavitation problem that we’re hearing about?
SPEAKER 05 :
Cavitation is different than this, but it’s kind of like the same. You know, it’s actually removing – it’ll actually sit there and thin down the metal in your heater core and your radiator, so it’ll become so thin that it starts to leak from this. Cavitation is where the fluid bubbles. It’s like when you look at the stream and it goes over a little waterfall, you know how you see all the gurgling and the bubbles, and that’s what cavitation is. So cavitation is literally the coolant eroding the metal or the plastic, which is why we have a lot of trouble with cars nowadays. They have plastic impellers. on the water pump, and the cavitation will actually just shear and make the plastic break.
SPEAKER 08 :
And for someone that wants to do their own coolant exchange at their house, is it okay to just do a drain and fill out of the bottom of the radiator? Or is actually doing a proper flush probably the better way to go?
SPEAKER 05 :
I like to do a proper flush because a drain and fill, you usually only get the fluid out of the radiator. You don’t get the block, which is where all the stuff likes to live, too. In the block, if you can… most of the coolant flush machines that we use, you know, you’re actually moving the coolant and it’ll pick up a lot of the sediment in the block and get it to move out.
SPEAKER 08 :
What are we seeing? Are we seeing a breakdown of the metal components? Are we seeing a breakdown of the rubber hoses? What is the sediment that’s getting in there?
SPEAKER 05 :
All of that is. So it’s, you know, one, the coolant’s probably starting to come apart too because it’s, You know, we took water and ethylene glycol and added it, packaged it, and all that stuff and mixed it together. Well, they all want to go back to their natural state. You know, they don’t want to stay together. So they break down over time. And then, you know, the radiator hoses, they erode and they also wear. So we get the hoses, pieces of all the plastic in there, you know, they all start to fall apart too over time. and all that and so they find the lowest point that’s kind of it’s like if you’re in a river what the eddy you know the eddy is always the part of the river that you’re not in the main channel where you’re getting pushed along it’s that calm little area over the side so they like to find the eddy and then they just build up in the eddy
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. All right. So all that, it’s probably a whole lot cheaper to do a coolant exchange than even radiators now. I’m seeing prices of a radiator exchange. That used to be a couple hundred dollars thing, and now it’s not uncommon to see $800 to $2,000 to replace a radiator.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know.
SPEAKER 08 :
And God forbid let’s even talk about a heater core.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, yeah. Yeah, heater cores are through the roof because we have to take the dash out every time.
SPEAKER 08 :
It always seems to be the lowest flow point to, like, the smallest, like, ports when it comes to coolant flow is the hardest part to replace on the car and the cooling system. So…
SPEAKER 05 :
coolant flush getting some of that stuff out of there that that debris seems to to clog up the heater core faster than anything else and you know with the coolant flush you got new coolant so you’re not going to have the electrolysis you’re not going to have it getting acidic you’re not going to have all these things happen so and you know it’s got a you know new the main thing is if you do do it at home get the 50 50 the pre-mix because they’ve already put the right water in it you know not just tap water with whatever harsh stuff you might have in your tap water you know a lot of calcium or whatever your local water is like. So they’re putting a distilled water in it usually, you know, and using good water to mix it with. And it’s already mixed, so you’re not making it too strong or too weak.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I have a question. So if I own a Toyota, do I have to use the pink Toyota coolant?
SPEAKER 05 :
You need to use the coolant that meets Toyota’s spec. Why? Because they’ve gone through the vehicle and they know that, you know, say, just hypothetically, GM doesn’t use a certain metal. Say they don’t use copper in theirs. But Toyota uses copper. So Toyota’s ad pack will be able to blend with the copper when if somebody’s not using copper, their ad pack might become acidic and start eating the copper.
SPEAKER 08 :
And can we trust the auto parts store to send us in the right direction? Do we need to call the dealership for this?
SPEAKER 05 :
The best thing to do is look at the back of the bottle, and it’ll have – so first, you know, go to your owner’s manual, and it’ll say what the spec is, you know, like Dexron 3 or whatever. You know, they’ll have a spec, and then go to the back of the bottle and make sure it has that spec on it. So no different than an oil. Yeah, same with the oil.
SPEAKER 08 :
Make sure we’re meeting the spec for the coolant that’s supposed to go into it. But this is an important thing. It is an important thing. We want to make sure we’re using the right stuff and not mixing. I always hear that you don’t want to mix –
SPEAKER 05 :
I don’t like to mix. No, you can have… I have seen back in the day when we had green and when people were putting DexCool in, you know, some issues. I haven’t seen it as much now, but, you know, there was a lot of issues back then. It would start to make bad things happen. Let’s go to Mike in Littleton.
SPEAKER 16 :
Fellas, thanks for taking my call again. I just forgot that you guys are in the… the business of evaluating cars and selling cars, I just, you know, the Pebble Beach Concourse, the Elegance I try to do every year, and there’s a few others that I go to, Emil Island, et cetera. But I’ve noticed a trend that we’re seeing some price decreases in collectibles, And I recognize that that’s a real generalized statement. I think that some collectibles, particularly old American muscle cars, have taken a little bit of a hit and others have not. Of course, there’s the classics like convertible Hemi Kudas that probably aren’t going down because there’s so few of them. But just as an overall trend in your industry, are you seeing some decline in the values? And, of course, that, by the way, I will preface my remark with I know that collector cars go up and down. I mean, you know. you know, Cobras were X amount for a while, and then they went through the roof, and now they’re back, or then they went back down. So like any market, you’re going to have bumps in the road. What are you guys seeing in the American car, muscle car markets, the American car collectible markets, and then the foreign car collectible markets as an overview of what they’re doing?
SPEAKER 08 :
I think we got two things that are going on here. I think the first thing is a lot of people are worried about our economic situation. So there’s a lot of people that are holding on to that money where when they feel like the economy is good, they can buy something that either will be fun for them or they think we’ll appreciate over time. I think the other thing that we’re getting into is some of those muscle cars, we’re losing the buyer for that car. Um, some of those people are passing away or they are keeping that money for retirement purposes and they’re not spending it anymore. Um, you know, a lot of, a lot of the stuff that, you know, like my generation, my generation is not as much into the muscle car as so um i’m 38 i’m more into supra i’m more into nissan gtr right right maybe some of the the 911 stuff so me personally the muscle car thing has never you know been intriguing for me and as i’m going into my 40s it’s my generation that now has some of that
SPEAKER 05 :
expendable money to spend on some of these cars at least that’s my opinion right and i’m a gen xer i’m 51 and and you know my group is you know grand nationals you know and the turbo cars and you know and also the supers and stuff so justin’s kind of still in the same that’s the cars we want and we’re you know when you’re in your 50s you start to have some expendable cash that’s you can spend and those are the cars that we’re buying we’re not buying the muscle cars and we’re definitely not buying the t-buckets or the 57 chevys that’s that’s wasn’t that was our grandfather’s car or dad’s car dream cars you know we’re buying the cars that when we were in high school or younger we couldn’t afford you know and that’s that’s the the cars weren’t into yeah when we were using we were going through magazines right exactly out of the magazine not online right long before online
SPEAKER 16 :
That’s both intriguing and very, very good observations. I think that that makes a ton of sense. Of course, as a… car nut myself i tend to i mean who doesn’t love the skyline gtr oh yeah if you could ever get your hands on one of them for crying out loud and and certainly there’s a tremendous amount of stuff out there now that i think is absolutely remarkable regardless of my 74 years old and growing up in the muscle car era but i i think that there’s there’s uh You’re absolutely right. I see lots of intriguing cars now that I think are going to be really, really collectible. And certainly things like the early Mitsubishis that evolved into the Subaru STIs, etc. I was quite surprised at the renaissance in air-cooled Porsches. But that’s an older generation, too. What do you see as modern collectibles, gentlemen? I’m real curious.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think you brought it up. I think the STI is going to become a modern collectible because what we’re seeing is, you know, part of the reason why it’s so hard to get a Camaro from any time is that it went to a kid at one time and they destroyed it. And that’s what we’re seeing with the STIs. I think an STI, you know, that’s made it through not being destroyed by somebody at some time is going to be worth a lot of money.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, in some of those early rally cars, even prior to the WRX and the STI, when you’re looking at the Mitsubishi Lancer and you’re looking at the early Subaru Imprezas, those early rally cars, even before they were turbocharged, those vehicles are bringing crazy, crazy money, especially if you had one that was a rally car at some point. I think that is starting to become more of a collectible than what we used to see before.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, this is interesting. I’m enjoying this conversation. So the other question that evolves out of what you just mentioned is that these young people tend to get them and modify the heck out of them. I mean, you know, we all know the, you know, the… What’s the name of the movie series? The Street Racers. Okay, that’s great. I tend to think that an all-original car during those times may be worth a lot more, but how in the world do you find them? They’ve got to be extremely, extremely rare.
SPEAKER 05 :
They were because it’s usually what everybody does. I mean, look at the muscle cars. The same thing happened with the muscle cars or even going back to the 57 Chevys or T-Buckets. It’s always been the modify it.
SPEAKER 08 :
You want that matching number car.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s no different when you’re getting into some of that newer stuff too. I agree. I think you want to find something that’s an original condition. Light modifications, I think that buyer is okay with. When we’re talking a rally wheel, tire, maybe a bar with some of your big lights, I think that stuff is okay. But I agree. I think a stock car is always going to bring more money.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, it is. I think that’s intriguing because I don’t disagree. You can put in a little sway bar here or a wheel or tire there and dot it up, but you’re not getting into the mechanics of the motor and the matching number thing is intriguing. So once again, modern collectibles that you see, Civic Type R,
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, somewhat. At least I think they’re going to be harder to find, you know. Oh, no way. Even like an early Acura Integra GSR, you know. You don’t see those anymore. No, I know. I mean, at least with my age group, we did have those cars, and we kind of missed those cars. They were fun back in the day, you know.
SPEAKER 16 :
They were wonderful back in the day. I can’t agree with you guys more, even though we’re many, many years apart. But if you like cars, you’ve got to appreciate what they were when they were built. Right. They were great, and it was intriguing to see how they did that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 08 :
I can’t agree more. Every generation had great cars, and every generation had some bad cars too. They did, yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Some had a lot better cars than others.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, Mike. That’s a great question. We appreciate the support. Appreciate the calls in today. I’ll let you go.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you. With that, we’re going to go on a little break.
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SPEAKER 05 :
And we’re back. It’s Josh and Justin from Legacy Automotive and Ridgeline Auto Brokers. And we’re going to go right to the phones because we kind of have a short time this time. So let’s go to Eric. Good morning, Eric.
SPEAKER 15 :
Hey, morning, guys. Morning. Morning. So you guys said something a little bit ago, and it kind of set me on edge for a minute in a good way. And the caller a little while ago was asking about coolant, about changing the coolant, about doing a flush versus drain and fill. And you guys were commenting about, you know, the drain and fill is just kind of not really worth it because you’re only really getting the radiator. And maybe a little bit of everything else. And I see this all the time in discussions online, especially with transmission services.
SPEAKER 1 :
Oh,
SPEAKER 15 :
That’s utterly ridiculous to spend $450 every 30,000 miles to take it in and have a fluid exchange. I’ll just go and buy transmission fluid and do it in my driveway. Huh. So you went and bought three quarts, depending on the manufacturer. If you bought three quarts from the dealer, you’re paying $20 a quart, depending on the manufacturer. Uh-huh. I know with Nissan Matic S, and I think it’s Matic P now, it’s $20 a quart. So now you’re out $60. Some of these fans are not easily spot-dropped. Some of these newer vehicles don’t have a dipstick, so you’re going to have to go and make sure you have a pump so you can pump your biopump so you can pump the fluid in through the hole. You might spill a little bit. You might not. What’s your time work? What’d that take you? Two hours?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 15 :
Three hours to do? Meanwhile, I just went to the dealer every 30,000 miles, spent $450, and I kicked back in the waiting room and played a couple games of Candy Crush on my phone, and they said, hey, Eric, your car is done. You’re good to go for 30,000 miles. I don’t have to worry about it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 15 :
And like Larry and I were just saying, so he changed it, and some of these guys said, well, I’ll just do it over the course of two months. I’ll do three fluid services. Okay, well, I’ve asked this before. How much fluid do you think you actually swapped out? What percentage of that nine quarts do you think you actually changed?
SPEAKER 08 :
No, no, you’re just mixing good with bad.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
And on a drain and fill, you usually only get four quarts out of that nine quarts.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah, I love that you bring this up, Eric. I think we all need to understand that the cost of everything is going up. The grocery store, we feel like it’s out of control. But to protect our…
SPEAKER 08 :
$8,000, $9,000, $10,000, $11,000, $12,000 transmission, $400 is too much money.
SPEAKER 15 :
And that’s the thing. I see these comments all the time. People say, well, the book says, the owner’s manual says that $30,000 is just look at it. And I’m like, well, what are you looking at? It’s a hole in the side of the pan. So what are you actually looking at? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just spend the money and change it?
SPEAKER 05 :
And the reason it says look at it is because they want to inspect it, but then they’re going to sell it. They’re selling it every time. If they said replace it, that goes into the average cost for repair, which brings that up, which they, in theory, in their mind, makes the car less valuable. So they always say inspect. I can bring up Subarus. I can bring up timing belts on Audis and Volkswagens that say inspect at a certain time, but pretty much 100% of the time they’re trying to sell that service because it needs to be done.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah. You know, and the other thing is… Like I say, you know, if you’re only doing a drainage bill, like on a transmission, and it holds nine quarts and you’re only doing three quarts, well, you’re never going to fully change all nine quarts. And at the same time, you have the ones who say, well, I’ve got 90,000 miles and I’ve never served the transmission. Why should I have… And it’s like… Well, if I’m buying your car, if you’re selling your car to me as a private seller, and I ask for service records, and you say you’ve never serviced a transmission, well, yeah, there’s somebody who’s probably going to buy it, but it’s not going to be me.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I think that’s an important thing to look for.
SPEAKER 15 :
I mean, even if you’re doing the proper service, there’s still no guarantee. I mean, I’ve been almost $200,000 on my Frontier. I…
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, well, awesome. But I think that’s a good point. I mean, looking at transmission fluid services before you buy something, you’re probably going to prevent at least 90% of the time you’re going to prevent an instant transmission issue. You know, like he said, you can’t ever predict when that’s going to be. But the one thing that we talked about, and I’ll just say this real quick because I know we’ve got to go to break soon, but… Here in Colorado, I tell my customers all the time, look, we don’t have short rolling hills.
SPEAKER 1 :
No, we don’t.
SPEAKER 08 :
Transmission fluid starts to break down at 240 degrees. It doesn’t take long to get to that 210, 220, 230, 240, especially if we’re pulling something, especially if you’ve got a heavier vehicle. And we’re doing long drives up Eisenhower, Vail Pass. Raton Pass. And if you get stuck in traffic on one of those on a hot day, is the transmission still working while you’re sitting there on an incline?
SPEAKER 05 :
It is. If you’re in gear, things are still happening there.
SPEAKER 08 :
So especially here where we live, it’s even more important that you’re doing frequent transmission services to protect that transmission. We don’t live in Kansas.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, we don’t. And, you know, the other thing is, before we go on break here real quick, is that, you know, he just said it. He has 200,000 miles on that transmission because he did his services.
SPEAKER 08 :
And everyone tells us that these Nissan transmissions are prone to failure.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. But he’s got 200,000.
SPEAKER 08 :
He’s got 200,000 because he serviced it.
SPEAKER 05 :
We need to go on break. So we’ll see you in a bit.
SPEAKER 14 :
Still haven’t had enough? Go to drive-radio.com, email your questions and comments, download previous programs, and find lots of useful information, including your nearest Colorado Select Auto Care Center. That’s drive-radio.com. Thanks for listening to Drive Radio, sponsored by the member shops of Colorado Select Auto Care Centers. On KLZ 560.
