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Whatever that is.
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Now, Drive Radio on Klz560.
All right, we are back. Rush, sorry, Drive Radio Klz560. Myself, Mark Guernsey from Accountable Auto Care up in Broomfield with me today.
Lots of questions coming in. I’ve got some text questions that I’ll answer as well, but let me get Travis in first. Travis, go ahead.
Hey, good morning. I’m enjoying the program. Thanks for taking the call.
Thank you.
I’m calling from Nevada. Yeah, thank you. I’m a small town guy.
Drive an old diesel truck that I enjoy maintaining, and I’m currently driving an EV to pick up parts for that truck. Listen to the program, thinking about how this was a choice that I made, and I’m happy I did. And as I look at the numbers, right, we got about five or six million EVs sold in the United States, and about two of those million sold just in the past year.
And I wonder how many of those people felt forced to buy that EV?
It’s a good question. And or were lured into buying it because of tax incentives or whatever the case may be there. So you’d have to kind of ask, was it a forcing or a luring of?
In other words, if I’m a big believer, Travis, if the tax incentives weren’t there, that about million five that were sold in the last year, year and a half or so to your point, would they have sold that many? And I highly doubt it.
Probably not. But that would be a financial choice.
And the reason I say that, Travis, is because if you look at the average cost of an EV in Colorado, for example, you add that $11,500 back on to the total price of the car. So if you buy a $50,000 EV, it doesn’t cost you $50,000. Take $11,500 off of that and that’s actually your net price.
If they had to pay the full $50,000, would they buy that or its ICE counterpart that in a lot of cases is about $11,000 less money anyways?
I think you’re right. I don’t think they would have. I think that was a ploy to increase adoption.
And I think through adoption, we have innovation and take, you know…
No, and as you know, I’m an EV owner and I love the technology side of it. I love the performance side of an EV. And if anybody hasn’t driven one, they don’t really know what I’m talking about.
But yes, they are a performance machine. Even a… How do you want to say this?
So take what would normally be a small car that would not perform well, give it an EV platform and it performs extremely well. It’s night and day from its counterpart. And for me personally, that’s part of owning an EV is exhilarating part of it.
Very good. Thank you so much.
No, you’re very welcome, Travis, and I appreciate the phone call. And yeah, for a lot of you that are listening, I mean, I’m one that just let the free market do what the free market does. And if EVs are going to be adopted, they’ll get adopted.
Now, am I for incentives to develop technology? I think as a country in general, yes, but we have to be careful how we do that. So, for example, you know, you look at back in the day, the space program, and you look at all of the innovations that came out of the space program, different types of aluminum, titanium, ceramics, on down the line we go, computers even.
You look at where we’re at because of a lot of what was going on in the space program and what just naturally developed out of that was huge and we benefit today from it. And for the most part, none of that was incentivized on the consumer side to buy. For example, I remember as a kid, and most of you guys do as well, when microwaves first came out.
Now, the radar range itself came out in the early 60s, but wasn’t really heavily adopted until about the mid to late 70s when the average household had a microwave. Before that, it was really a luxury item, sort of like EVs. You only owned an EV or a microwave radar range was the technical name back then.
You didn’t own a radar range unless you had a lot of extra disposable income because they were super expensive and nobody could afford it. Well, when they got down and around, and I say down and around because even in the late 70s, they were 750 bucks or so for a microwave, which was a lot of money at that time. But they still sold them based upon convenience and other factors and so on.
In fact, most kitchens even had a microwave stand where the microwave sat apart from everything else because it was sort of the centerpiece in this new technology in the kitchen that had never been seen before. And they sold because people wanted them. When the iPhone came out in 2008, no one had to subsidize Steve Jobs.
In fact, Steve Jobs went out and put a deal together with AT&T, whereby AT&T subsidized the phones to a large extent because you had to have a two-year minimum contract with AT&T to buy an iPhone. So Steve Jobs figured out a way outside of government to incentivize people to buy his product. And now the world over, for the most part, has a smartphone.
I mean, I guess there’s a few people still running around with flip phones. But for the most part, most people have one, if not more than one, smartphone. And it can be iPhone, Android, whatever.
But point being, that whole market was developed out of just what the free, you know, give the free market what it wants and people bought it. My problem with EVs is they haven’t done that. Manufacturers have been forced to buy or to develop and get into the EV market, and they forced quote unquote consumers to buy them through tax incentives.
They didn’t do it in an organic way, allowing people to buy what they wanted in the first place. They forced fed it. And now what’s happening, as I mentioned a few minutes ago in the last hour with Gary, we’ve got Hummer EVs, $120,000 EVs that literally right now, and I get these ads all the time from GM.
You can buy a GMC who sells Hummer EV $699 a month, with I think like $49 down is all. I mean, it’s a heck of a deal if you want a Hummer EV. Now keep in mind charging that and so on, it’s like feeding a monster, because they’re extremely heavy.
Yes, they’re fast and they articulate, do the crab crawl the whole nine yards. They’re very cool as far as all that goes. It’s a very nice vehicle, but they’re darn near giving them away.
Not that $700 a month isn’t, you know, isn’t expensive, but for $120,000 vehicle on a two-year lease, do the math, that’s pretty expensive. And they’re figuring a high residual. And I’m here to tell you, that residual’s not gonna be there.
So really, the only way to buy that vehicle right now is go do that lease deal. Because if you figure the payments on that, knowing what that vehicle’s actually gonna depreciate to, you might even be able to buy it for the depreciation side of it after you’ve driven it the two years on the lease. In the end, not a bad deal, providing there’s some value there.
My fear with some of these EVs is unless you’re buying them really cheap on the front side right now, don’t, because the value down the road’s gonna be minimal. They’re not gonna hold their value mark. That’s the downside.
Nope, that’s fair. It’s gonna be hard to resell and, I don’t know.
And most people are looking down the road, well, you should be looking down the road at the resale value of that car, because otherwise you’ve bought a total depreciating asset that if you even do a four or five year loan on, you do a 60 month loan on, and in most cases, there’s still value left at the end of 60 months. Mark, you know that as well as I do. For a lot of vehicles, there’s probably half of that value of that vehicle still left five years from now, depending upon the vehicle and so on.
But in a lot of cases, that’s not far. If you take care of the vehicle, maintain it well, go to shops like yours, get all those things done through that maintenance period, keep up on everything, don’t let it all get dinged up, dented up and so on, keep up on the vehicle, chances are you’ll get at least half of that money back five years down the road. That’s not going to be the case with EVs.
That’s a real problem right now for EVs, and people are looking down the road at that, and that is affecting their sale on the front side, because a lot of people do look at what’s the value of this vehicle going to be down the road. Why do you think, I just had somebody text me on, yeah, we own a 4Runner and a Tacoma. Why do you think people buy 4Runners and Tacomas?
Folks, it’s not because it’s the best SUV on the market.
It doesn’t lose its value.
But they hold their, thank you Mark. They’re popular and they hold their value very well. And it’s the reason why a lot of people own Tacomas and 4Runners.
And I’m not against them because it’s a great financial move buying a car because that’s a vehicle that once the thing’s paid for four or five years from now, probably worth 70% of its value. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that. Because if you really keep that vehicle up and maintained well and looking good, it’ll bring top dollar.
It’s one of those vehicles that just doesn’t depreciate much. So people do look at those things on the front side and why they buy certain vehicles. And I encourage each one to do that before you buy a vehicle.
All right, I’ll come back. I’ll get some text messages answered as well. Mark and I both have lines open, 303-477-5600.
Again, Mark Guernsey with me from Accountable Auto Care up in Broomfield. This is Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
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And we are back, Drive Radio, Klz560. Myself, Mark Guernsey from Cannibal Auto up in Broomfield. Anything you need up that north end of town, please give Mark a call.
You can find him right on our website, by the way, driveradio.com. Soren, you’re next, go ahead.
Okay, well, I was gonna ask you, how do you get really stuck in stains out of seats?
Cloth, seats?
Yeah.
We were talking to Roy last week about this from ProTech AutoShield. Best thing to do if you have one, and if not, go pick one up, is use a steamer on it. So they make clothing steamers now instead of irons.
Best thing to do is get it heated up with the steam, and then take a terry cloth towel and try to suck that stain out after you’ve steamed it, and just try to get the stain out that way. A lot of your car seats will have some built-in, I know I’m not using the right terminology, but some built-in protectant. And the last thing you want to do is to try to ruin that seat by putting chemicals on it.
So the best thing to do is to try to steam it out first.
Okay, what about a pressure washer? Would it damage the electronic seat?
Yes.
The electronic component?
It could, yes. Yeah, you could end up with, that and it could also damage the material, and you’re gonna get water down in the foam, it’ll take a while to get out. The steam won’t put as much water into it as a pressure washer.
Okay. And on the question of the day, I don’t really know, but impact wrenches are pretty good to keep in your car.
Oh yeah.
They help.
Yeah. And in today’s world, with all the battery cordless, you know, cordless powered ones, most shops have even gotten to the point where hardly anybody’s using compressed air to run air tools anymore.
Yeah. Impact wrenches, electric ones, you can put those in there. Yep.
They’re really powerful.
Absolutely. Great idea.
Oh, and on team driving, since I’m kind of a team, why do you think that it’s really good to put them in their own car? Because around here, we have a lot of different cars that you have to learn how to run. You’re unique.
I mean, I think so, and again, you’re an exception. You’re kind of like me. I drove so many cars as a kid, it really didn’t matter what you put me in because I started driving around the dealership when I was 12, 13 years of age and was in all sorts of different vehicles.
But I, like you on the farm, are an exception. The average teenager, though, keep in mind, Soren, doesn’t have that ability and that familiarity. And I just think when you’re putting a new teen driver out on, especially in our Colorado area with so many other drivers on the road, I want them to be familiar with the vehicle so they can pay attention to what’s going on around them in traffic and so on.
And the more familiar they are with the vehicle, the easier that is for them to do, I think.
Well, the other thing I’ve noticed is that there’s so many more stupid drivers driving around.
You are correct.
We’ll not argue that one. Well, and I’ll be nice in saying this, but we’ve had so much population growth from folks that come from other countries that frankly don’t know how to drive. And I’m just going to be straight up honest.
They don’t know how to drive. In fact, if you see a vehicle driving around with its hazards on and there’s nothing wrong with the vehicle, that’s a pretty good indicator of where that driver has come from. And yes, I’ll just say it straight up.
They don’t know how to drive. Stay as far away from those vehicles as you can because they have no clue what they’re doing. So you’re correct, Soren.
They don’t know what they’re doing.
But one thing I’ve also noticed is that people even from our area, like if you’re driving a piece of farm equipment down the road, they’ll do anything to try to pass you, even if it’s almost running them into somebody else.
Right. Dumb. Dumb.
The other thing they do is they pass on the left and you may be very well turning left. Stupid.
Yeah, we just had a big wreck outside our feedlot the other day. I sent you a video of it.
Yep.
That…
There’s no excuse for those things, Soren. Those are people that are either impatient or they just… They haven’t been around the farming world enough to even know what equipment’s doing.
And yeah, you need to give those guys room. It’s dumb.
Yeah. I know we go slow, but it’s getting fast.
It is what it is. I mean, that’s what we do. So what?
Get used to it.
Yeah, but driving a tractor down the road at 25 miles an hour kind of feels like driving a car down the road at a hunter.
True.
It’s insane, the difference.
Good point. Good point. All good stuff, Soren.
Keep it up, man. Appreciate you. I’ll do it, man.
You do the same. Rob, you’re next. Go ahead.
Nice to talk to you again, John.
You too, Rob.
There’s a window, I don’t know, as the car ages where you can get a lot of the dealer accessories that they sold for somewhat cheaper. I was in the Broadway Dodge dealership at just the right time to pick up a reduced price rear bumper backup sensor from my mother’s 2008 Charger. And that’s a very handy thing for an old person to have.
You just beep, so there’s something behind you. Just that is a very useful thing to have.
True.
And with older drivers, everything you can have to make their experience safer and better is a better deal. Of course, we’re all becoming older drivers ourselves.
Yeah, and you bring up a great point when it comes to some of the model years as they start to wane or change out. The dealer will have, in some cases, those accessories. Some of those accessories are non-returnable.
You may very well find some good deals you don’t know until you ask. Good idea, Rob.
You’re lucky they’ll put them up on eBay or so forth.
Yeah, and this is sort of like when I was talking in Drive Radio or in Fix-It Radio about the big box stores and asking. You know, Rob, you don’t know until you ask.
True. And that was just sitting in the display case. I thought, well, that would be a damn good thing.
It wasn’t very expensive to have it installed. Just plug it in and everything else. A lot of the things I like, you talked to me to getting one of those battery jump start kits.
This one’s an LED little nickel-hide, metal-hydride battery thing that I keep in the house. And if the car doesn’t start, I have an option. And it’s been very useful.
It’s also kind of handy if you’re not sure what’s wrong with the battery of the car system. You can just put it in the trunk and have it in case you get out and it doesn’t start that time. So, that’s a very nice thing to have.
Peace of mind is a very fresh commodity. I put in a backup camera on the van again and I’m still having some issues with trying to get the hang of it, but it’s nice to know that you can look back and see what’s behind you. Looking over your shoulder is not the easiest thing to do sometimes.
Yep, I hear you.
But the question I have for you, and this is a serious one, is that speaking of that 2008 Dodge Charger, I have Haynes manuals for the Saturn, I have a Haynes manual for the Dart, they’re really quite good, they’re very helpful to figure things out, and one for the Vatican too. I thought I’d get one for the Charger. I’ve never done much on it, it’s such a huge and powerful machine, it’s the 5.7 RT, that I’ve been kind of a little intimidated by it, but on the other hand, the Haynes has the troubleshooting flowcharts, and just changing the oil was something I could probably figure out on my own, but I just have some details on it.
So I’ve been looking for a change manual, and all the ones I’ve found so far say not for all wheel drive models. So is the thing any use even if it’s not for all wheel drive models?
The all wheel drive models on those cars are definitely different than the non all wheel drive models, so I’d want to make sure I was specific on that, because yes, there is a big difference. Things like an oil change might be same, but even that’s going to be different, because there’s different components on the front end than there would be on a regular two wheel drive car.
Well, if anybody has an idea what manual I might want to get for that.
I can give you the idea. It’s not very expensive. Go to the manufacturer’s website, buy the two or three day subscription, and then download on a jump drive or your computer hard drive, however you want to do it, download the complete regular repair manual from the manufacturer.
Well, if you can actually get that, that’s a great deal.
What year is the car, Rob? What year is it?
2008.
You should still be able to get that one on there. It’s getting older, but you should still be able to get that on the manufacturer’s website. And now, the other option you’ve got is Mitchell All Data.
All of them have a consumer site where, again, for a short subscription or even a per car subscription, you can also get access to what they have. It will not be as intensive as what the manufacturer has. It will suffice, but that’s the other option you’ve got.
So, you’ve got two choices electronically on that.
Thank you. Is that because of the right to repair laws?
Yes.
Fascinating.
Yes.
I will say that I had a chance to download the one for the Dart. Somebody had digitized the whole thing on the end of this page, thousands of pages, but that thing was wonderful. I had to admit that.
Any of you that do any of your own work and you’re driving a vehicle that you know you’re going to keep for some time, I would highly recommend going to the manufacturer’s website, get the two to three-day subscription. Most of them are going to be 25 to 40 bucks, somewhere in that neighborhood for two to three-day subscription, and then download the entire manual, which you can do legally. You’ve paid for it.
You can do it at that point. Then you’ve got that manual from that point forward for that car.
That’s wonderful, John. Thank you very much.
You’re very welcome, Rob. Appreciate you on that one. For those of you that do your own work, that have a specific vehicle, and you’re looking for that future repair manual, do what I just said, and you’ll always have the access that you need then to all of the specific things for that car.
Sorry, Chilton, Haynes, whatever, they’re not going to have what the OEM has on that. Rand, you’re next.
My question is, I wonder if you could enlighten me on the available tax credits and programs for plug-in hybrids.
Plug-in hybrids should be the same. It’s $7,500 fed, and you’ve got to check the car for Colorado because there’s some limitations on the state, but it can be up to $5,000 on the state, but you’ve got to check the state website to see which ones qualify, which ones don’t.
So, you’re talking $12,500 for possible?
Possible.
Okay, and does that include like a trade-in vehicle?
No.
You might get some, no.
That’s not, whatever you would trade, of course, would be outside of that, and I’m sorry, I was backwards. The state, it’s $5,000 no matter what. It’s the fed.
It’s the $7,500. You’ve got to check to make sure the car qualifies on the fed side. Sorry, I was backwards on that rant.
It’s the fed side that certain vehicles qualify for that whole $7,500. Some will only qualify for 5.
Okay. Is there any one particular you might recommend in terms of like a smaller SUV, like a RAV4 CRV or…
The RAV4 is a great plug-in hybrid. They have a great one. If…
I don’t know if that one’s still made new though. I’d have to double check their website. I got to check that one.
I don’t know if that’s still a new model for them. Okay.
Another question. Is that only on new vehicles?
Yes. Well, yes, only on new. Now, you can get some credits on the used side.
You gotta go to the website and check. I don’t remember how the state does that, but there are some used credits available even in the state of Colorado, but you gotta double check. Don’t quote me on that.
I’ve not looked those up for a while.
Okay. And the reason I was asked about the trade-in is I heard that there was a program where you could trade your existing vehicle for a hybrid or electric and that you would get quite a bit of a credit for that more so than what the car was actually worth.
Colorado has a program depending upon your income level. It’s sort of a cash for clunkers, for EVs, they call it for Colorado. You gotta check the qualifiers on that because you have to make under a certain amount of money to qualify for that.
Okay. But could you combine all three of those, the state, the federal, and the clunker?
On the Colorado one where they’re trying to get low-income families into EVs, yes, you can combine. Again, that has to be as a fund that the state of Colorado put together. I can’t remember how they’re funding that.
I looked it up the other day. I should know that and I apologize, Ram. But it’s being funded here in Colorado out of some of the other fees and stuff that we collect.
They just refunded, in other words, just added to the fund here recently where there’s money in that program available to do what you’re talking about. Again, there’s qualifiers for that. You got to make sure you qualify.
Right. Do you know of any websites that might collectively have this information?
There is a state website for this that you can actually go to the state website and yes, it’s there. So, go to the Colorado State website and it’s all there.
Okay. Sounds good. All right.
Thank you. You’re very welcome. For those of you that, again, I can’t remember what the income level is.
I talked about this on my daily program and, Charlie, it’s like $46,000 or less. Guys, don’t quote me. I think your gross income can’t be more than that, but don’t quote me.
I would have to go look at the program in Colorado specifically to know what that is. I think it’s $46,000 and some change, but again, you gotta go look that up yourself. But if you make less than that, at that or less than that, yes, there’s some big credits and you in some cases can end up getting a vehicle for almost free.
Really, if you buy like a Nissan Leaf, for example, with everything you get, trade, etc. and there’s qualifiers for all of that, even on the trade-in, you actually end up with a vehicle for almost nothing. But it’s not something everyone will qualify for.
But go check that out on the state website. We’ll come right back. Drive Radio, Klz 560.
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All right, a question came in also. Why don’t the manufacturers, when it comes to direct injection vehicles, put something upstream to help do some cleaning of the valves and so on? Well, two things affect that.
Number one, cost, and you’d have to add a fluid on a regular basis to make that happen, much like diesels do with DEF, diesel additive. The other reason why they don’t is the emission side. Keeping emissions at a minimum is already difficult for those guys.
The last thing they’re gonna be doing is adding anything upstream that would affect that quality of the exhaust pipe, the tailpipe emissions. They’re just not gonna do it. The other question came in, well, is that something I can do on my own?
No, you can’t. I don’t know of a single type of additive you can put in the intake side of a direct injection engine that’s gonna help with what we’re talking about. That needs to be done on a professional basis.
You doing that yourself could end up harming more than you’d ever help at the end.
You’d have to buy some pretty nice equipment, and it’s not cheap.
No, so doing that on your own, no, it’s not a possible thing to do. Wayne, you’re next.
Hey guys, John, years ago, maybe a couple years ago, you recommended a replacement tire. I have that F350 diesel, and I’ve had BFG All-Trains on there the last couple times. I haven’t been very impressed with them.
They haven’t been as good as I thought.
You don’t balance for crap. My biggest issue with BFGs and the All-Trains especially is they don’t balance for crap, Wayne. They suck.
Well, I haven’t had an issue with that, but I gotta tell you, with the exception of the way they track nicely in snow, other than that, they’re not very good. So what do you recommend as a replacement tire?
Toyo ATs.
Toyo, okay.
I run those on our fleet. In fact, I just had somebody ask about that specific tire in a text message a few minutes ago. It’s a tire I run in my fleet.
I like it. It works well. It balances out well.
They wear long in my fleet, Wayne. I’m getting an average of 45 to 50,000 miles out of that tire in the fleet, and that’s on things that are pulling and are heavy and so on. In my opinion, that’s really good performance out of that tire.
Okay. So Toyo AT.
Yep. You can run MTs if you want, but they won’t wear as well. Well, they’re noisy.
All right. Next question. I have a utility trailer that I’ve had several blowouts.
I replaced the tires and they go a couple of years and don’t, and the trailer doesn’t get used very much.
Okay.
It’s never loaded very heavily. The trailer probably weighs 1200 pounds and the, what I carry on it usually is about 1500 pounds. It’s 3500 pound axle.
And are you buying trailer specific tires or are you buying car tires?
Yes. Yes. Trailer specific tires.
Perfect.
But I can’t seem to get any decent ones. I’ve been going to Big O, which is here in Castle Rock, and Discount didn’t have any. I needed tires right away, so I went to Big O and they had some.
But they were the cheap Chinese knockoffs.
Yeah, that’s part of it.
And that’s happened twice now. So what do you recommend for a brand for trailer tires?
I don’t have a specific brand preference other than make sure they’re not an import tire. So I don’t care. I mean, honestly, brand-wise on a trailer tire, I don’t care as long as they’re not the Chinese imports.
Okay.
Now, one other thing on trailers. If you’re not using it on a regular basis, Amazon sells them inexpensively. Put a cover on that tire when you’re not using it.
Oh, okay.
Because the UV rays in Colorado especially will eat those tires up.
It’s kept in a covered, enclosed area. Well, not enclosed.
Does the sun get to them at all?
No.
Okay, as long as the sun’s not getting to them, you don’t need to cover them. But for those of you with trailers, even though some of you that have boat trailers and RVs and you go park them over the winter months, cover them. You’ll get a lot longer lifespan out of the tires when you do.
Okay. Now, in your case, you’re just not buying a quality tire. I hate to say that, but you’re just not.
That was my guess. But I wanted to hear from you because that was definitely the feeling that I had.
Yeah. And that’s one where, you know, most and I don’t know what you got down the Castle Rock area, but, you know, you could even order those tires online and just have them installed, Wayne, that would, they’re not that heavy. They’ll ship them right to your doorstep, tire rack, etc.
You could order tires right online.
That’s an idea. I prefer to buy locally. I like this.
I agree. But in this case where you’ve gone through two sets and hasn’t panned out, I’d do that differently.
OK, all right. Thank you for your input.
You’re very welcome, Wayne. And yeah, for those of you on trailers, a lot of guys will make the mistake of putting passenger car tires on a trailer. I’ve made that mistake in the past.
Yeah, to use a set of tires kicking around, they were the same size that go on the trailer, so you go throw them on. Problem is, in some cases, you might get by for a while if it’s a light trailer, you don’t put much weight on it, you may get by for a while and think, hey, that’s the way to go. And then you’ll make that mistake on a tandem axle trailer.
The problem on a tandem axle trailer, especially with regular car tires, is they don’t have the sidewall necessary to handle the flex of that tandem axle trailer turning tight corners. And you’re breaking the belts and doing all sorts of things in that tire when you do so, and they just won’t last very long. So yes, you need to be buying specifically trailer tires for trailers, and Wayne has been, but unfortunately, there’s a lot of guys out there that will just find whatever the cheapest trailer tire there is, and a lot of those, yes, are coming out of China and places like that.
And you do need to go to a regular name brand, what I would say, American made tire for that trailer, and trailer tires are unique, by the way. It’s something that a lot of people don’t think much about, and a lot of guys will just throw whatever tire you can find on the trailer, and no, that is not the way to do it. And there’s nothing worse, Mark, I’d rather have a flat on the car as opposed to the trailer.
Nothing worse than having a flat on the trailer. It stinks. Most of them don’t have a spare either.
Very few guys will put that third or fifth tire on a trailer to have a spare, and now you’re really dead in the water. Yeah, you’re stuck. You’re stuck.
And in some cases, limping, this is where it gets dicey. Limping that one to the next exit may be really difficult because depending on how much is in that trailer, how much you’ve weighed it down and so on, running flat and then trying to get everything back on track once you get to the exit and so on becomes very dicey. So yeah, trailer tires are a big deal, and it’s one of those things where I see this posted on a lot of the Facebook pages and stuff that I belong to.
Guys will blow tires on trips, not thinking about having a spare, and it gets really messy because trying to find some of those trailer tires at that time, especially if it’s a Saturday or Sunday when you’re traveling becomes very, very dicey. So yeah, those of you that travel at all with trailers be thinking about, do I have a spare? Do I even have a spare tire?
Not necessarily rim and tire, but do I even have rubber to put back on this thing if I have any kind of a problem? All sorts of guys will come out and change tires. There’s plenty of those guys running around, by the way.
Even mobile tire repair guys. But you gotta have the rubber.
You gotta have the tire.
Yeah, and if they don’t have the rubber, you’re not getting fixed. So that’s something to think about on the trailer side. One more segment left.
Myself, Mark Guernsey from Accountable Auto. We’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.
Drive Radio, Klz560.
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All right, we are back, last segment. Drive Radio Klz 560, myself, Mark Guernsey from Accountable Auto Care up in Broomfield with me today. Chris, you are next, go ahead, Chris.
Okay, yes, got a double axle car hauler, and I think the tires got scrubbed a little bit by having the brake controller too high when the trailer was unloaded. It bounces a bit, and I can feel a flat spot on the front axle tires. The tires are relatively newer.
Is that just new tires, or is it possible to re-round tires?
No, new tires. Okay. Unless you want to put up with the problem on the trailer is it’s just going to bounce all over the place.
You’re never going to get rid of that. You have to just put tires on it.
Okay.
Now, one thing you could do, back to our last conversation, you could save both of those as a spare if something came up to where you actually needed another tire. You could put a spare tire, even make a mount for it and so on, and use it for that if you had to so you don’t have to necessarily get rid of them.
Okay.
Yeah.
Because it’s better than nothing.
Exactly. Because most trailers have no spares as you know.
Yeah.
This one does, but it might be aged out anyway. Time to change.
There you go. You could take one of those, throw that on as a spare, save the other one, just keep it hanging around. But yeah, there is no re-rounding of tires that I know of.
If somebody out there is listening that knows how to do that, let me know, but I don’t know of anybody, Chris, that does that.
Okay, I figured I would ask the dumb question for everybody else.
It’s not a dumb question at all. It’s a good question.
While I got you, can I ask one more?
Of course, absolutely.
The decking on a car hauler, you know, it’s done. Should I go with the synthetic boards or like regular pine? Do I need to do oak?
Oak. Okay. The pine is too soft, as you know.
I mean, even just throwing a chain on it or anything will just dig into the pine. You need the oak. I’d be worried even on the synthetic stuff.
Number one, the traction, you know, rolling up and up and down on it. Your traction is not going to be near as good. The synthetic decking can still get damaged, as you know, heat, things like that.
And they’re a booger. The problem with the synthetic decking that I hate is unless you’ve got it shaded somehow, it is hot as all get out. You go to lay on that and put a chain or do anything underneath it at all, it’ll burn the living daylights out of you.
Okay, so just go to my lumber yard and tell them I’m looking for oak.
You got it.
Thank you.
You got it. No, Chris, appreciate you very much. Unfortunately, that’s a little more expensive way of doing it.
But yeah, I’ve never seen anybody do trex decking, the poly decking on a car trailer or a flatbed trailer. And I’m guessing because of everything I just said, they would be a booger to work with and slicker than snot. That’s a problem.
Great for a deck, I’m not against them for that at all. Most of those, they’re shaded and you can do things to cool them off and so on. But when you’re trying to lay down on that decking and hook up chains and do all different things and so on, the oak decking is honestly about as hard to beat as it gets.
And a lot of cheaper trailers, by the way, this is a trailer quality conversation, you’ll see different pricing on different trailers. And there’s a reason for that. A lot of it is how they’re made.
Even the way the welds look, what pound axles are they actually using? What brake configuration? Is it four or two?
What kind of decking material are they using? Is it good solid oak or have they thrown some cheap pine in? Because by the way, there’s a huge difference in price of those two boards.
I don’t think I’m exaggerating in this. The oak boards are probably triple the price, if not quadruple the price of pine.
There’s a lot of ways to cut corners on a trailer, and you may not know for a couple years.
Ramp quality, how the ramps slide in and out, the wiring itself, is it hidden underneath or is it all exposed? Are the lights itself wrapped with any kind of a metal to where they don’t get bunged up if you back into something? Where are the marker lights positioned?
Where are the tie downs positioned? How are the tie downs made? What’s the ball mount like on the front?
The tongue itself. I mean, Mark, I can go down the list. And unless you’ve bought some trailers in the past, a lot of times you’ll look and say, well, gosh, this one’s five grand and this one over here is $7,500.
How can there be that much difference?
There’s always a reason.
Oh, and to your point a moment ago, there could be a lot of differences to the point where you can a lot of times go buy a used, high quality trailer, a little bit of depreciation in it, but have a better trailer when it’s all said and done than buying that cheap new trailer.
I see cars the same way. I’ll take the higher quality used car every time. Same with the trailer.
Yeah, and again, this is this. I’ve never had this conversation when it comes to trailers because not everybody does this. The other thing you really need to do on a trailer is a pre-inspection just like you would on a car.
Now, some of that can be done yourself, but in some cases, you really need somebody that has the ability to, for example, how good are the brakes? Like the last caller, was the brake controller at one point set too high and did somebody burn up the drum brakes that were on it? These are things that you don’t know unless you actually pull a wheel.
In that case, you literally have to pull the hub assembly off because you’re not going to know any other. You’ve got to pull the wheel, then you’ve got to pull the hub, which is a wheel bearing pack at that point. I mean, you’ve really got to look at what’s going on.
And unless you do that, you may have no idea what’s really going on with that particular trailer. And you can, you know, somebody can say, well, I’ve done XYZ. How do you know?
Right.
You don’t until you get in and look at it. Now, that doesn’t mean to say that I’m against used trailers. Back to Mark’s point a moment ago, there’s some great deals on some used trailers.
So I am by no means against buying used trailers because in a lot of cases, you can save a lot of money. Now, here’s the other thing I will tell most people when it comes to trailers, especially utility trailers like what we were just talking about a moment ago. If you buy a really good, solid, high quality trailer new, when and if you go to sell that, you’ll get almost dollar for dollar back out of it.
Because with appreciation, you know, inflation on new trailers down the road, if you keep that trailer long enough, you will most likely get almost every dime you paid if you buy a good, high quality trailer that people know, yep, that’s a good quality trailer. I know the name, I know the brand and so on. And the other thing that happens with trailer manufacturers, not to get off on a tangent here, but one thing you got to be aware of is, just because they made a good trailer 10 years ago, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re building a good trailer today.
That’s true. Because there’s been consolidation in that world. Where they may have been a standalone company 10 years ago, they may have been bought out two or three years ago, and it may not even be the same company.
It’s the same name, but may not be the same company that it was, say, 10 years ago. Now, how do you know all of these things? You gotta investigate.
Go online. Who owns that company today? Was it bought out several years ago by one of the conglomerates?
Camping trailers especially. There’s not that many camper trailer manufacturers. The majority are made by one of two companies outside of Airstream.
There’s only a couple of companies in Indiana that make by and large almost every single RV trailer on the market. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that. You may think you’re buying a high-end trailer.
It’s made by the very same people making that low-end trailer because it’s all the same manufacturer. It just may have some different fits and features and so on. But underneath, the things that we’re talking about right now, frame, axles, tires, brakes, etc.,
none of that’s any different. It’s all exactly the same. And if you don’t believe what I’m saying on this, go out on the Internet, start doing some googling around on all these different trailers and manufacturers and so on.
There are some folks on social media that do nothing but go in and review some of these camper trailers and so on to tell you the things that I’m telling you now. They literally do this for a living because they know there’s so much misconception out there when it comes to buying. Trailers are not like automobiles.
It may have one name brand on it and you think, oh, that’s the best. What you don’t know is the one next door is exactly the same trailer, just a different name on the outside. It’s not like Chevrolet versus Toyota versus Nissan versus you can name down the list, Mark, of all the different car manufacturers.
In the trailer world, it would be like Chevrolet and Toyota building everything.
Interesting, and they can still build trailers at different specs for different levels, but yeah, you really have to be careful.
Yeah, and in the trailer world, yes, they can. In the trailer world, though, unfortunately, they typically don’t.
They really don’t.
The underpinning of that trailer for the most part is almost identical from one camper to another, even though it may come with different floor plans, and it may have this, and it may have that, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The underpinning of it.
Same quality.
Is almost exactly the same from one unit to the next. And that’s one of those areas where you really need to do your homework, know what you’re buying. By the way, the same is kind of true even now when it comes to some of the car trailer manufacturers and so on.
There’s a lot of really good high-end product on the market, and there’s a lot of junk on the market, just like anything else. So really watch what you’re buying there. If you have any questions on that, you can always ask me directly.
Our text line 307-282-22. That’s wrapping it up for today, though. Mark, as always, thank you very much.
Well, thank you for having me. I enjoy being here. You know, call me 303-460-9969.
Go to our website, Schedule Appointments Online. What is that website? www.aacare.net.
There you go. And by the way, if you miss any of that, you can go to driveradio.com. Everything hyperlinks right back over to Mark, and you can find him that way.
And yes, you can make appointments online and do what you need that way. So guys, have a great rest of your day. A little weather change tonight, so be safe out there.
This is Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
Still haven’t had enough? Go to driveradio.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 driveradio.com.
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