It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
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All right, Drive Radio Klz 560. Thank you all for joining us today. We appreciate it very much.
Don’t forget the main line to call in, 303-477-5600, 303-477-5600. You can text us questions as well, 307-282-22, 307-282-22. Mark from Accountable with us this morning.
So Mark, how was your drive in?
Good morning. Pretty uneventful, so I’m happy about that.
Good, yeah, beautiful day out today. So those of you that are getting ready for the weekend might have some rain later tonight, but I would say when it comes to being out and enjoying yourself today in the car or whatever, have fun. If you’re going to football games or doing whatever, enjoy the day.
And most of all, just be safe. Okay, question of the day. And this one’s interesting.
We’ve done this one, but it’s been a long time since I’ve thrown this one out there. And this could be, what we’re asking for is something that didn’t come on the car. Okay, so what’s the most useful car gadget, accessory, whatever you want to call it you’ve ever purchased?
So it doesn’t come on the car, but something that you’ve bought that you’re just like, this thing is dynamite. So what’s the most useful car gadget you’ve ever purchased? That’s our question of the day.
303-477-5600. You can text us that as well. 307-282-22307-282-2230.
What else do I got? Questions? Again, questions, we’ve got answers.
You name it, give us a call. And this time of the year, too, one of the things that we typically get a lot of questions on is used cars. People are buying them for, you know, Mark in some cases, teenagers start driving.
So people start looking at vehicles for their teen driver. You know, they’re now in school. They’re looking to get that teen driver, you know, driving.
Now a tip on teen driving. And I know that everybody has differences of opinions on this. But when I had my kids at that age, and granted, it’s been a long time ago now, 18 years ago was the last time that happened for me.
So it’s been a while. I was a big one on as they were learning to drive, have them in the car they’re going to end up with. A lot of mom and dads will teach, you know, junior how to drive in the family car.
And then a month or two before, or even sometimes on their birthday that they turn 16 and they get their license, they present them with a new car. I wouldn’t do that. Honestly, I think that’s a really bad idea.
I think you should have your teenager as familiar with the vehicle they’re going to be driving on a daily basis as possible. So I’m one that says, if your child is gonna be in a permit and start driving when they’re in their age 15 or so, okay, to start them out in the family car maybe, but I frankly would be driving with them in whatever car they’re going to be driving and have them learning on that car versus having them learn on your car and then down the road switching them over to the car that they’re gonna be in. And there’s a couple of factors here.
Number one, mom and dad’s cars use a little nicer than what you’re gonna give junior. I don’t want them getting used to driving the luxury car mom and dad may have. And now all of a sudden, they’re gonna be in the cracker box that you buy them because they’re 16 and the chances of them having an accident from age 16 to 18 is pretty high because that’s when most accidents happen.
So the reality is most people don’t put their kid in a new car, and I don’t blame them because in a lot of cases that just doesn’t make any sense. On the same token, they get a downgrade when it comes time to be driving because they’ve been used to driving mom and dad’s car. Now all of a sudden, they’ve got the car they’re gonna be driving daily.
In some cases, there’s a little bit of a let down there.
Well, and the car that they’re gonna get isn’t gonna have the backup cameras, the extra stuff. It’s probably gonna be older.
Good point, Mark. Yes, in a lot of cases, it doesn’t even have the same quote unquote safety devices on it, and I’m not sure that it needs it. And let me explain.
When you’re teaching a young driver to drive, I really want them to learn how to drive properly. In other words, looking out all the mirrors. Looking behind them, not relying on a backup camera, not relying on blind spot monitoring, and some of the things that your car may have that you have right now.
And again, that’s not to say that you can’t start training them that way, the first few weeks of them driving, but I’m a big one on as your teenager starts to drive, which means budgetarily, those of you that have 13 and 14 year olds right now, you should probably be looking at, what am I going to own in a couple of years? Now, in some cases, you may be passing your vehicle down. I’ve seen a lot of families do that.
Okay, fine. And by the way, I have no issues with that. If that’s what you decide to do, so be it.
Just remember that your purchasing decisions will be based upon what I just said, and not many people think about that. Again, a lot of people will train their teenager to drive the family car, and then around the time they turn, whatever age it is, they’re gonna start driving, which in my day, it was 16. Now, in today’s world, there’s a lot of kids that don’t drive until they’re 16 and a half, 17, 17 and a half, sometimes even 18 years of age, but at that point, you then start deciding, okay, what car am I gonna put them in permanently?
I would not do it that way. Now, I also believe, this is me, I’m unique, I think every kid should drive at 16. Now some would say, well, it depends on their maturity level.
Well, you know, I think part of the problem we have in today’s world is we’re not making them more mature in the first place. They need some responsibility. They need that ability to be able to drive.
They should be driving and helping out even in the family. Hey, I need you to run to the store and get me such and such. I mean, there’s no reason why they’re not participating in that.
Now, I get it, in some cases, there’s some budgetary constraints and so on, and every family is different, and I fully understand that, okay? I get that. But if you have the ability to help your child drive earlier, the earlier the better, in my opinion.
Mark, your thoughts on that?
Well, I mean, the younger you are, the faster you learn. But the more experience you get is your biggest advantage. I mean, I grew up in the country, so I was driving tractors at 10 or 12, and cars out in the fields at 10 or 12.
So it’s a huge advantage to learning how to drive in this traffic. It’s tough. So the more experience you can get, the better off you are.
I had a listener just text in, when I was a new child learning to drive, had to close my eyes and know where all of the switches were.
I love that.
That’s a great idea. In other words, can you grab everything while you’re still looking down the road without it glancing over to do so? Can you turn the heater up and down?
Can you turn the volume up and down?
Sure.
Some of those, of course, are now on the steering wheel as far as the, and have been now for a long time, even on the radio. But here’s something else to think about too. This is one thing I did.
I didn’t do this with all of the kids, but with some of them, I pulled the radio fuse for the first month. There was no radio for the first month. And some of you are saying, well, why?
Well, think about it. I wanted the least amount of distractions inside the car as possible, and I wanted them to get in that car and drive for the first month or so before putting the fuse back in so they could get used to all of that without having to be distracted with radio noise and all of that.
So something that would be nice is give them their old car, let them get familiar with it, and then when they turn 16, then give them the upgrade of a Bluetooth radio.
There you go.
And make it nicer because their old car is going to have a cassette or CD player.
Good point. All right, Jerry, you’re up first today. Go ahead.
On the question of the day, some years ago, I had called asking advice because I couldn’t find any camper shells for my pickup that didn’t have tinted glass, and I couldn’t see at night through the tinted glass, and you recommended a tonneau cover, and that’s worked out great for me. That’s been tremendously helpful. So anyway, but my question today is about overfilling automatic transmissions.
I heard somebody saying that you could ruin an automatic transmission with too much fluid, and I guess I just don’t understand because I know the box has to be vented to allow the air to push out when the fluid expands. So I don’t know what happens when you overfill an automatic transmission with too much fluid.
It’s kind of similar with the engine, only not quite the same. An engine, of course, it’s got internal parts that are rotating around, i.e., you know, rods and so on, and you don’t want those splashing in the oil, so it’s a big deal, especially on an engine.
A transmission, although it operates differently internally, Jerry, still same principle. We don’t want to overfill it to the point that it is coming out the vent tube. One, it makes a huge mess coming out of the vent tube, and every transmission from the manufacturer is designed to have a certain amount of fluid in it for relation to pressure, which is what the transmission is actually operating off of.
There needs to be headspace in the transmission, heat generated, the fluid transfer to the cooler, on and on we go. So I’m not saying that it’s as detrimental in an automatic transmission as it is in an engine when you overfill. In a lot of cases with an automatic transmission, it’s going to puke it out the vent tube anyways.
Let me tell you what, Jerry, the mess that that makes and cleaning that up is major. And in today’s world with the cost of fluid on a per-quart basis, you just don’t want to spend the extra money in the first place. So is it detrimental to the transmission?
I mean, you got to really overfill an engine even have it be detrimental. So I don’t want to say that it’s detrimental per se, but in both cases, can there be adverse effects? Yes.
Okay.
Does that make sense?
Yes. Yes. I was just curious in theory.
And by the way, I think all of us, my technicians, I have overfilled an automatic transmission back in my day, two full. This was back when they just had turbo 350s, turbo 400s and so on. And yeah, back in those days, if you overfilled it, it just puked it out right off the bat, made a huge, tremendous mess that you had to then go clean up.
And then on top of that, had to figure out, okay, how much do I drain out of this to get it back down to where it’s supposed to be? Because the other thing that can happen on automatic transmissions is not so much as it is now as it used to be. But back in the day, they could foam up, cavitate, all sorts of other things that would start to impact the performance of the transmission.
That’s why you want to keep it at the correct level.
All right. Well, thank you very much, John.
You’re very welcome, Jerry. Now, I will also say this, on most, and Mark, you would know this, on most modern transmissions, it’s kind of hard to overfill because they don’t even have a fill tube anymore.
Right. They don’t have a dipstick. They don’t have anything, and it is more detrimental on newer ones because they are sealed.
Yep, and you don’t want to blow any of that out.
It is so hard to get that right level because it’s got to be the right temperature. Your scanner’s got to show what that’s at, how full it is.
That’s why, and folks, a lot of you listening, you’re wondering, well, why did they take the dipsticks out? For all the reasons Mark just said, because the new transmissions are even more sensitive, maybe is the right word I should use, Mark, to having the proper fluid level, and in turn, they’ve taken that completely. Now, some of that they took out because they want you to think the transmission is non-serviceable, there’s that, but they also realized that too many people were messing with things, and in some cases, even putting the wrong things in the wrong area, so if they make it quote unquote non-serviceable, you’re never putting engine oil where the transmission should go and vice versa, so in those things in the past, yes, they have definitely happened.
But transmission fluid types are very critical, so you can’t add the wrong fluid ever.
More so today, Mark, than probably ever, yes. I mean, at one time, you made a little mistake, and you put Dextron in a Type F or vice versa, was it detrimental to the transmission? It might change the shifting of it a little bit here or there, but probably, in fact, back in the day, if you really wanted your GM transmission to shift hard, or you put Type F in it.
Right, yeah, you can’t make those changes now.
You can’t do that today. You just can’t. No, those days, and this is true with anything on the car, by the way, we can talk engine oil, we can talk transmission fluid, brake fluid, we can go down the list, coolant.
You cannot mix and match the days of just topping off with whatever, Mark, because it used to be you could just keep whatever you wanted to in the garage, and oh, if I need to top off, I’ll top off. No. Sure.
Those days are gone, and I will tell you that even as shops, it’s getting hard to even inventory and stock all the items needed for all the makes and models that are out there because there’s so much variation today. It used to be, Mark, you could stock a couple of different engine oils, a couple of different transmission fluids, and one coolant, and one brake fluid, and you had it all covered.
Absolutely.
You had five, six products total as all you needed back in the day. You can add a zero to that now and not even get close.
I’ve got some bulk synthetic transmission fluid, and I’m excited that it works in 60% of the vehicles, because I’ve got to buy quarts of everything else for every other car.
For the other 40%?
Yes.
And 60% is pretty good, folks, if you really think about that.
And that’s going away, but in the meantime, it still covers 60% of at least American cars.
Great point. All right. Lines are open.
303-477-5600. Mark Earnsey joining me today. We’ve got plenty of answers for you, so whatever questions you’ve got, please let us know.
We’ll come right back. Drive Radio Klz 560.
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All right, we are Back Drive Radio Klz 560. Myself, Mark Guernsey from Accountable Auto Care up in Broomfield with me today as well. Somebody texted in also and said that all six of the kids that they had, they made learn how to drive a stick shift transmission.
Great idea, by the way. But Mark, you looked up during the break, how many cars today, and I get it, there’s still some used cars out there, but how many cars today are made with manual transmissions?
Oh, 1.7% in the United States. Less than 2%.
So 1.7 and 2%.
Yep.
That’s it.
In the last three years, it’s been less than 3%, so they’re just not available.
We don’t have as many here as we used to. Now, I still think you need to learn how to drive a manual transmission, but…
Oh, I don’t disagree.
Yeah, finding one might be a little more difficult. Jeff, you’re next. Go ahead, sir.
Hey, good morning again.
Yeah, I’ve had all my kids, five daughters and one son, to drive standards. To understand that that’s harder to do now. The other thing I taught them was, especially my little girls, how to change a tire because when you’re out there, Smart.
You need to know how to do that. Particularly, it’s how to break those lug nuts loose, because a lot of people try to twist them using body strength and stuff, and I’ve showed them. Now, really, all you have to do is position the lug nut wrench so that you can stand on it, step, even jump up and down on it using it.
They were amazed at that, but they all know how to do that now.
Makes sense.
Regarding the overfilling of engines and transmissions and such, you know, fluid isn’t compressible, gases are. So the best thing I can think of as an analogy is, if you’re running along a beach and you’re not in the water, or you’re running along a hard path, and then you get in sand, you try to run in sand, and then you try to run in water, even if it’s just up to your ankles, it slows you down because you just can’t go as fast and it’s in greater resistance. That resistance generates pork and that’s going to come out some place.
Unfortunately, sometimes it’s things failing because you can’t compress it enough. So if you try to run through water way steep, good luck.
And to your point, Jeff, everyone of these manufacturers has made engine, transmission, even other drivetrain components with a particular level that they want the fluid to be at. And by the way, for everybody listening, this isn’t some random, oh, let’s just add six quarts, or hey, let’s just make sure it’s a transmission and it’s 10 quarts. Trust me, they don’t come up with this just arbitrarily.
They go through, to your point, Jeff, figuring out exactly how much do we need, what’s our best efficiency, we don’t want to be under or over that, but how do we get everything we need to do inside of this particular box efficiently, cooling wise, et cetera, and that’s the fluid level you need to run at because of that.
Yep, I think my ridgeline says 5.7 quarts of engine oil.
Yeah, it doesn’t say six, does it? It’s 5.7.
That’s right, so that’s important to remember.
Which basically means five and three quarter quarts, meaning when you’re all done, you better have a quarter quart left over.
Yep, exactly.
Yeah. But yeah, Jeff, I guarantee you most of just put that other quarter quart in and roll off with it. Don’t worry about it.
Yeah, don’t worry. Yeah, I probably lose a little anyway, so it’s just insurance.
Yeah. But point being, what you’re saying, what Marcus said, being exact is done on purpose and the manufacturer set those for a reason and I’m one where that’s what it says, that’s what you need to be doing. If it says six and a half quarts, it’s six and a half quarts.
It’s not six, it’s not seven, it’s six five.
Kentucky Windage was really good on a Musket. It’s not so good on modern player arms.
Good point.
Good point.
And then regarding the favorite accessory, it’s not really on the car, but battery maintainers, over the last couple of years, I’ve just become such a fan of those and what they do for me that I can’t stand up. But earlier, you were talking about the little junk kits.
Yes.
And one thing I would like to see the manufacturers do, I don’t know if you thought about it, but somewhere under the back seat or in the trunk or someplace, just have a little port that you could plug that sucker into. And so it’s just charging up your car system all the time.
Most of them have adapters now, you can plug them into the phone charger.
And you just want to do that once every three months. That isn’t always on port.
Sure.
I’ve had a few cars where, to your point, Jeff, there’s a cigarette lighter, quote unquote, adapter for your battery tender. But you got to double check because if that’s a port that’s not always live, if the ignition is cutting that off, that does you no good. So make sure that if you’ve got one of those, and some of the battery tenders come with that, you got to make sure that it’s one that’s on all the time.
Or charge it while you’re driving.
Yeah, I relayed my dumb experience when I started using battery tenders.
Well, I mean, it wasn’t. But yeah, I would like to just see a little port back there in, you know, just a little USB or whatever the standard is for those charging now. Just something you can plug into, just in your trunk.
Yeah, you can do it in your passenger compartment, but that’s kind of awkward to get out there.
I agree with you on that. I mean, as far as the battery tender goes, I would love that. That’d be awesome.
Yes, can’t argue that.
Yes, so maybe somewhere down the road, you can use your vast influence and experience in the auto industry.
All right, I’ll do that. Jeff, appreciate you, man. Have a good one.
We’ve got a special guest here at 1030, but let’s get a call in before that. Go ahead, Mark, you’re up next.
I’ve got a 2012 Ram truck with the Cummins engine in it, 2500, that I bought brand new. I’ve used it for work. I’ve got a little over 200,000 miles on it.
All I’ve ever had to do to is change fluids. Transmission guy says, yeah, it’s still shifting good. Just getting a little worried as I continue to travel on the road.
Should I proactively have the transmission rebuilt or am I wasting my money? Is there other things I’m not thinking about that could go wrong that I have total confidence in the engine?
And it’s a 2500?
Yeah.
OK. So that had the lighter of the two. The heavy duties later on had the ASIN heavier duty transmission, which are pretty bulletproof, similar to what the Allison’s are.
They’re not necessarily an Allison, but they’re still fairly heavy. Yours is a little lighter duty. I will tell you that.
So what all do you do with the truck, Mark? Let me ask you that next.
I pull a trailer for stuff we manufacture here, and I take it to other states. But it’s never been like max loads. It’s 7,000, 8,000 pounds, sometimes 10,000.
But then a lot of times, running empty on the highway to jobs. So I’d say 80% of the miles is all highway miles because I don’t live in town.
Okay. What I would tell you to do, personally, if it were me, if you’re going to keep the truck, which it sounds like you are, I would buy an aftermarket heavier duty. They’ve made upgrades to that transmission where you can just buy straight up a transmission for the truck.
I would probably save up, buy that, and as you get closer to where you know, hey, I’m at that point where I want to get it swapped out, have somebody swap it out, you then have a good core, you can sell the core, trade that back in, do whatever you need to. But I would do that versus having yours built. There’s plenty of diesel manufacturers that will do an upgraded transmission on that, and that’s what I would do.
Okay. Yeah. So part of my issue is I like not having the death systems.
I have a lot of people in the trade that have said they’ve had lots of problems with that, or off and on, they have trouble with one complexity.
But in the meantime, with that transmission, get that fluid flushed pretty regularly, and you’re not going to have much for issues. That thing’s going to last you longer than you think.
Okay, that’s kind of what I was wondering is, if I’m living on borrowed time, or if I…
Well, the way I’ve always looked at highway miles is cut them in half, and that’s about where you are on city miles. You’re a little different because you’re hauling a heavier load, so you can’t quite cut it in half, but you could probably go two-thirds. So in your case, if you’re over 200, figure about 150 is what, if you were in town driving around city-wise, is about what you’d compare that to with another truck.
And I will just tell you from owning some of those trucks and having to do some transmissions and stuff in them. But granted, we’re plowing snow and doing a lot of heavy things with them as well. And plowing snow is probably the hardest thing you could ever do to a transmission, period.
But I will tell you that you’re kind of in that area. I agree with Mark keeping it maintained and serviced and so on. And I’m not saying you gotta go out and do this tomorrow, but I would say in the next year, Mark, I would budget buy an aftermarket heavy duty transmission that’s got all the good upgrades in it, the converter, et cetera, and just have it sitting ready to go.
And you’ll know when you’re getting close.
Okay, so like transfer case and…
Transfer case will be fine. It’ll run almost forever. You’ll be fine there.
Oh, awesome. Thanks so much for your help.
No, you’re very welcome, Mark. I appreciate that. Derek Rich, you guys hang tight.
Derek’s our special guest. We’re gonna talk about some stuff going on in Elizabeth with him in just one moment. Don’t go anywhere.
Drive Radio, Klz 560.
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All right, we are Back Drive Radio Klz 560. Myself, Mark Guernsey from Accountable Auto Care up in Broomfield. Derek from Elizabeth High School joining us.
Derek, welcome, how are you?
I’m doing really well, John. Thanks for having me on.
How do I pronounce your last name, Spahn?
Spahn, exactly true.
All right, Derek Spahn. So talk to us about Elizabeth High School, what’s going on out there. You guys have a great auto tech program, but you need some help as well.
Exactly true. We’re just starting our third year in existence. Starting it from the ground up, we’ve been working out of a modular classroom, essentially a double-wide, for two full years now.
It really limits us. And last year, we got a federal grant, put up a building, and we’re stalled right now. What we’re looking for is a little bit of help from the community.
We’re trying to finish it out. We’ve already done some fundraising. We’ve done our part of it.
We just need a little bit more help.
All right, so what do folks need to do? Those of you guys, by the way, that are either in our industry or you love our industry, you want to see it grow, this is how we grow it. I mean, guys like Mark that are in the industry and are looking for a new techs, Derek, if we don’t train techs even at your level and start them out then, we won’t have a future of the industry and it’ll just get harder and harder and harder to find technicians.
You’re helping out with that, so folks that are listening that have a desire to help, what do they do?
Well, it’s really simple. They can go to our, we have a variety of different places to go. We have a run of Facebook page called Elizabeth High School Auto Shop.
That way you can look back in the history and see what we’ve done, what’s happened. You can also go to the Elizabeth School’s Facebook page and there’s a link for donations. You might have to scroll a couple pages down because we’re always keeping up to update in the community what we’re doing.
The other way is they can reach out directly to the school. They can send us a check if they choose to. We’re trying to make it as easy as possible without making it a burden.
I know it’s a tough time to ask people for money.
Well, I also want to make sure that we highlighted that even though it’s a public school, the funding for what you guys are doing in the AutoShop program, you’re not getting the same funding that would normally come through the district to do a math class or an English class or whatever. This is a separate thing, correct?
That is correct. We are an elective. We’re not part of the core learning.
So this is something that we’re doing, the district is doing, the school is doing, because there’s the interest. We’re a school just under 700 students. And this year we have 166 signed up for AutoShop.
That is really cool. We need all we can, and I understand, as anybody, as Mark would as well, not every one of those kids will end up in the industry. Some of them might go do other things, but they’re still learning some valuable mechanical skills.
On the same token, a percentage of them will head into the industry and go to work for guys like Mark.
Absolutely true. What the focus of the program is, I’m a retired technician myself, the focus of the program is to introduce students to an alternate pathway to success. Not every student is going to choose to go to college or a university.
We bring in trade schools like WIOTEC, Universal Technical Institute and others, as well as employers that have an apprenticeship program. We invite them to come talk to the students, tell them what a day in the life of a technician looks like. We’ve even had companies, well, two years ago, Four Rivers Equipment brought out a little mini excavator and had the kids operate it.
And we’re just trying to expose these students to some different opportunities that they didn’t know existed originally.
Awesome.
And that’s the big part. We want to open up their eyes.
I’ll tell you what, and I had a question on this the other day, and I think Mark would probably agree with me. If you give a student, male or female, a really good foundation in a program like this, and Derek, I mean this sincerely, and I’m not just saying this because you’re here, I’d be saying this, period. You give them a really good foundation at that 16, 17, 18 year mark in their life, they then take that skill and just straight go to work for a guy like Mark, because a lot of people are thinking, well, I got to go to some of the other big tech schools.
And by the way, no, you don’t. In fact, you could take that skill set that you guys are giving them, then go to work for Mark as an apprentice learning all of the day-to-day things. And the reality, Derek, is those kids avoid a lot of debt from not having to go to the additional trade school because you guys are giving them all the foundational skills they already need.
They move into working for somebody like Mark right off the bat, and by the way, by the time the other guys are graduating tech school, these kids would already be that much further ahead in earning twice as much money as the kid going to tech school would. My point is, if you guys give them a solid foundation, they can take that and go right into the industry.
In a lot of cases, that does happen. Our goal, again, I keep going back to my goals, I’m sorry, but we want to teach the kids not only those hard skills, how to set timing, how to understand an ignition system, how to disassemble brakes, steering suspension, et cetera. But we also want to give them those soft skills where they learn how to work with others.
They learn to work. They learn to show up early. They learn to be an employee that is not just saying, oh, I know how to do that already when they don’t, but they’re accepting the knowledge and they’re going to really internalize that and make it part of their skill set.
Absolutely. And again, Mark’s over here nodding because the reality, Derek, if you can teach them as many of those soft skills as the hard skills, a guy like Mark, if they’ve got the soft skills, he’ll teach them all the hard skills. The industry, by the way, will teach them.
The other technicians that will mentor them will teach them the hard skills. The soft skills, they need as much as the hard skills.
Absolutely true.
Our training never stops for anyone.
Yeah, you’re doing it forever anyway.
We’re going to pay to send people training to get to whatever next level they’re at.
That’s right. My point is, for a lot of you that are listening that maybe even have kids out there thinking, what am I going to do after high school, for example, there is a huge future in the automotive world and despite what some would say, no, you don’t need the fancy and I’m sorry, I’m not trying to throw the big trade colleges under the bus, Derek, but a lot of these trade colleges are there for profit. Nothing against that, by the way.
I’m a capitalist myself, nothing wrong with making money, but I’m not so sure at the end of the day that that student is any further ahead than going through your program and then hitting it hard with somebody like Mark right afterwards. I think in the end, they’re just as far ahead.
I’d like to address that, actually, because one of the parts that I like to continue with is touring trade schools, touring apprenticeship opportunities, so I can see firsthand what’s happening and what the result is. Right now, my program can’t provide those hard skills as much as I would like, because we’re working in the dirt. We’re working outside in a 25-year-old gravel parking lot, where the buses pick up the kids.
So, there are things that, these kids have never worked around a lift. So, I have to then bolster the continuing education to replace, I toured Universal Technical Institute, down in Phoenix.
You taught UTI, yeah, absolutely.
UTI, a wonderful school, and one of the things I do want to address, yes, they’re for-profit, but a school like that doesn’t have a giant football team. They don’t have all the, of course, it’s a $50 million facility, but everything’s top level, and what they do is a tuition reimbursement incentive program.
Nice.
They partner with 700 different companies, of course, like Penske and the larger ones, but also smaller ones as well, and they’re going to insist that these employers are gonna reimburse monthly for their student loan payments if they take them out.
Gotcha.
So, it’s a stopgap for now, because my goal is to become…
Yeah, part of what you’re raising money for is to become that full service here, where they don’t have to, you know, if they want to, fine, but if they don’t want to, they could just immediately go right into working for somebody like Mark right off the bat after you guys are done with them.
That’s the goal.
Absolutely.
If we get stuck in the problem and don’t start looking at solutions, we’re not making any headway. We’re just spinning our wheels in the sand. So, our facility, it’s 4,000 square feet.
We’re going to have a classroom. Of course, we have a 4-bay shop with an alignment machine, all the tire equipment, all the basics where a student can come in. We have a 4-year tiered program where they can come in as a 9th grader, be exposed to all 8 areas of automotive service excellence, and we’ll just touch on each one.
We do a little bit of welding. We do a little bit of fabrication, teach them some other skills that are ancillary. But we also have adult volunteers that come in after school for our SkillsUSA organization, the Zika.
Yeah. And they’re teaching them different skills from a different point of view from someone who’s been there, done that for 25, 30, 40 years, whatever it might be. And we have a tremendous community involvement because people are always donating equipment and cars and stuff to help the program.
We’re at the point now where our little modular classroom is overflowing with donated tools and equipment, not to mention some of that that we’ve purchased with state-earned funds as well through the Career Development Incentive Program.
Gotcha. Again, folks, Elizabeth Schools, you can reach out to them directly. I’ll tell you what, too, Derek, send me some links.
I’ll put that directly in my notes. That enables my producer to put things up on our website accordingly that way to make it easy for folks if they want to get involved, donate, help out any way possible. I’ll definitely do that for you.
So, send me back some of that information. I’ll put that up on our end as well.
Yes, sir. Thank you very much.
You’re very welcome. Derek, I appreciate you. Stay in touch as well, please.
You know I will. I’ll keep calling in every so often. All right, man.
We appreciate it, Derek. Thank you very much. Derek Spahn, again, Elizabeth High School.
They are building their tech program up even larger. And Kurt Rogers, we’ll have him here in just one moment. Rich in Nevada, I’ll tell you what, Rich, let me get you in before we take our next break, make this a little bit faster for you.
Go ahead, Rich.
Yes, I’ve got a question on this engine performance restoration. What’s involved in that?
That is a product from BG that is done at an oil change. It’s put in prior to the oil dropping out of the engine. You want to put it in when the engine is cold or lukewarm, at least, Rich.
You actually add that in, the engine comes up to temperature 10-15 minutes. You don’t want to go drive the vehicle. It’s not something that you’re going to put in it and then drive it to the place and get the oil change.
It’s meant to be done at the time of service, you know, either in the bay or out in the parking lot. Pull it into the bay, do the oil change and off you go. So it’s a pre-oil change product that’s cleaning that old oil and other carbon deposits inside of the engine where the oil touches.
That’s what the EPR does.
How much does that usually add to the cost of oil change if they’re letting it set the running effort?
Yeah, it makes the oil change more involved. And on a direct injection engine, if you’re doing everything the way you’re supposed to, EPR, full synthetic, high quality filter, and then adding the MOA product, which is an after product you put into the new oil, which is recommended from BG as a full service, you’re gonna be, you know, at most of our shops in the, you know, in your case, our VAT area, you’re gonna be a minimum of about 180. And in some cases it can go over that depending upon the type of oil that’s required and the filter required for the vehicle.
And I have to be careful on that because some of these vehicles, the oil filters can get really expensive. So I have to be careful when I say 180, because it can go over that depending upon the car.
Really? And how often should that be done?
Every oil change. On a direct injection engine, every oil change.
Every oil change?
Every oil change. If you’re, if you have an direct injection, so for example, 354 EcoBoost, every oil change, it’s a must.
And now we’ve got an F150, it’s got like 175,000 miles. Nothing like that’s ever been done. If I had that done on it, would that loosen things up and cause problems?
No. No, it’ll be part of the maintenance package. And despite what the dealers will tell you, that’s something that should have been done on that truck a long time ago.
It’ll actually, you’ll see a noticeable difference in performance and gas mileage when it cleans off some of the carbon on those rings. If it hasn’t been done in a while. I don’t recommend waiting a long time to see a huge difference, but you’ll notice a huge difference the first time if it’s been a while.
Yes.
Yeah, okay. Yeah, it’s never been done. I just kind of want to…
It needs it. In Arvada, that’s something Arvada West can do for you, Rich.
And then, on the, I’ve got a new car that has a turbocharged engine. How often should that be done on turbocharging?
Same thing. Turbocharged engine today will be direct injection. It’s just like your EcoBoost in the 4 is the same way, so same applies.
Uh-huh. Okay, then.
Okay. Rich, appreciate you very much. Kurt, we’ll talk to you in a moment.
Don’t go anywhere. This is Drive Radio Klz 560.
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All right, we are back, Drive Radio Klz 560. One of our great sponsors, Curt Rogers Affordable Interest Mortgage joining us. Curt, how are you today, sir?
I’m fine, John, how are you?
I’m doing great. All right, the feds made a move this past week. I know some of the mortgage world had already anticipated that, but they’re also talking about some other rate cuts later in the year.
What will the mortgage world do in response to all of that? Or what have they done in response to that, I should say?
I think people are starting to reanalyze whether it’s time to refinance, pay off some debt because the rates are coming down. And there’s lots of people that wanted to buy a home. But when the rates were up and the price of homes, it kind of put them out of the market.
That’s starting to bring them back in. So we’re seeing more activity on purchases, especially for first-time home buyers.
All right, the other thing too, there’s a lot of folks listening where, in fact, we’ve been talking to some today. They’ve built barns, they’ve added additions, they’ve done outbuildings and so on. Do you have the ability when somebody’s looking to do something along those lines to help them finance that?
Yes.
We’re doing a lot of those debt consolidations because when those folks normally do that, they will go out and get a higher interest rate second or they’ll put it on a credit card. And when you do that, you’re paying in excess of 20%. You’re paying it all off.
You’re actually able to lower your payment, five to $700, and shorten the term on your mortgage at the same time.
All right, let’s say somebody’s got low credit card debt, they’re looking to build an external building, add on to the garage, whatever, they’re looking to fund that. Can you do a HELOC, or do you do a new loan? How do you approach that with those individuals?
If you want to do some modification, we have worked, depending on the cost, there are some that you can get it done for 20, $30,000, pretty cheap. If you’re going to stay under 50, I would normally recommend getting a home equity line of credit. It’s less expensive, it’s easier.
And just make sure you’re disciplined enough to pay it off, and you’ll be fine. If not, you could package it in. You can do as much as tear out walls and expand the footprint of the home on some of the rehab loans that we have available.
All right, so some of you that are listening or you’re thinking, hey, I want a bigger shop or I want to build a shop, I’ve always wanted to have a garage out back, you’ve got the property, the space to do so, you know that it’s going to add value to your house, to its footprint. Kurt, one thing I want to throw out there is for folks that haven’t remodeled, maybe ever, I will tell you that that affects the resale price of your home greatly and for a lot of the remodeling that you would do, you will get almost in some cases, not only dollar for dollar back, but maybe even a little bit more than that because your house now becomes more desirable than the neighbors.
Yeah, we talked about that on the show on Thursday, John, about you know, you’re looking at it, I’m looking at, and when we look at a remodel on our own homes, we’re taking into consideration that we’re going to make 70 to 80 cents on the dollar. So I’m really not spending the money, I’m just putting it in the bank. And when you start thinking of it that way, and then you get to enjoy that modification you did, it definitely has the value.
Right. And again, I never want to promise anybody anything, Kirk, because I know each individual situation is a little bit differently, but typically speaking, a lot of what you can do remodeling wise, even adding shop space and so on, it’s not only a dollar for dollar back, in some cases, it just makes your home that much more sellable and desirable to the next guy that wants to come in and be the buyer.
Yeah. For those people that don’t want to do the work and they like the way you’ve done it, yes, I agree with that. We’re seeing more of that more.
All right. How do they get a hold of you, Kirk?
720-8950-500.
Always. And for those of you listening, if you miss that, you’re driving, you can always go to driveradio.com, find Kirk there. He’s one of our great sponsors.
And Kirk, I always appreciate you joining us. I always learn a wealth of information. For those of you that want to hear an entire in-depth hour with Kirk, you can go to our other website, rushtoreason.com, which we do daily.
Listen to our daily show. Kirk joins us once a month. We just had him on this past Thursday.
You can go back in and listen to an entire hour where Kirk and I went over, really, Kirk, everything from the feds, what they did, what are mortgages going to do down the road? You know, what’s the housing market going to look like moving forward? And so on, you and I covered all of that last Thursday.
Yeah, we did. And some of the changes are coming. Now is actually a good time to refocus on your mortgage, whether you want to buy or refinance, because there’s going to be tremendous opportunity out there.
Exactly. So, Kirk, as always, I appreciate you, man.
Thanks, John.
You’re very welcome. Have a great rest of your weekend. Somebody also said, hey, why do direct injection engines, you know, have more issues with carbon?
We were talking to, you know, Rich on that a moment ago. It has to do with the way the engine is made. And I realized that on some of the new engines, they’re trying to solve that by adding an upstream, you know, an injector in the intake to also help with some of that wash.
Because if you think about it, a direct injection engine has an injector in the combustion chamber itself. So there’s no ability to get to the backside of the intake valve with normal additives in the in the gasoline or even additives that you would add into the gasoline. That gasoline is never hitting the backside of the valve, therefore causing more carbon.
And as that carbon is there, it works its way down into other parts and direct injection engines are just prone to have more carbon buildup. Yes, the manufacturers are working on ways to try to resolve that. But Mark, you even know they haven’t yet.
It’s still an issue. It’s still something that needs to be addressed. And anybody driving a current model vehicle and older, those problems have not been solved.
No, there’s definitely advantages to a direct injection engine, but they haven’t solved the issues to make it…
Full proof.
Yeah, it doesn’t take care of itself. It needs a lot more work until they redesign it.
That’s right. Alright guys, we got another couple of hours coming your way. Don’t go anywhere.
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