This week on Drive Radio, John Rush and the crew cover everything from buyer’s remorse to shop safety—and a few stories that might make you think twice before turning a wrench alone.
The Question of the Day sparks plenty of reflection: What vehicle do you regret buying? From gas-guzzling classics to financing mistakes that doubled the cost of ownership, callers share lessons learned the hard way.
The show also dives into:
How to vet a mobile mechanic—insurance, tools, liability, and red flags to watch for
A suspicious parking lot repair involving a Toyota throttle body—scam or coincidence?
The real story on using 85 octane
SPEAKER 14 :
It’s 106 miles to Chicago. We’ve got a full tank of gas. It’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hit it.
SPEAKER 09 :
Our lady of plastic acceleration, don’t fail me now.
SPEAKER 13 :
It’s time for Drive Radio, presented by Colorado’s select auto care centers.
SPEAKER 01 :
Ba-ba-da-ba!
SPEAKER 13 :
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 17 :
Hey, how exactly does a positrack rear end on a Plymouth work?
SPEAKER 13 :
It just does. Then you’ve come to the right place. So start your engines, buckle up, and get ready to drive. Drive Radio starts now on KLZ 560 The Source.
SPEAKER 18 :
And it’s Drive Radio. Thanks for listening. KLZ 560. Beautiful Saturday morning, February the 28th. Tomorrow starts, well, we talked to Jeff in Montana a moment ago, spring. I think most people look at the first of March as being spring. That depends on how you look at it. I know it’s not until the actual equinox, which I think is like the 23rd or something. But anyways, beautiful outside. If you haven’t been out yet, I encourage you to get out and about. It’s just gorgeous out. Leigh Unger answering phones today. Charlie Grimes, of course, our engineer. Dietze from ProTech Autoshield with us. And good morning.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good morning.
SPEAKER 18 :
How are you? pretty good it’s a beautiful day it is yeah it’s so nice outside again guys if you haven’t been out get out our lines by the way are open 303 477 five six zero zero three oh three four seven seven five six zero zero the text line always open three oh seven two hundred eighty two twenty two three oh seven two hundred eighty two twenty two and question of the day We haven’t done this one for a while, so I resurrected this one. Vehicle you regret buying, which some of you may have, you know, right at the top of your head. Others maybe not, but a vehicle that you regret buying, and it could have been any kind of a vehicle any time ago. So that is the question of the day, vehicle that you regret buying. Eric in Denver is next. Eric, go ahead. You’re up.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, you guys. How’s it going? We’re good.
SPEAKER 18 :
How are you?
SPEAKER 09 :
Pretty good. Sir, I have a question about something that I think a lot of people might be interested in, especially non-mechanical people. Anyway, I have an older car. It’s a 79 Le Mans 231 V6, and it is parked in an underground garage. I live in a condo tower, and it needs a starter. And I’m wondering… I was thinking about calling a mobile mechanic to do it because it’d be hard to get out of there. It could be towed out, I guess. But I looked on the Internet, and there’s gobs of them. And I was just wondering if you would give me some general pointers on how I would go about, you know, picking one of them. There’s a zillion of them.
SPEAKER 18 :
Great question, by the way. Sure. and this is one where we this is a topic thanks for asking eric i don’t know that we’ve ever really covered the mobile mechanic thing mainly because you know the sponsors that we have here they all have shops and you know it’s my encouragement always if you can get into a shop do so nothing against the mobile techs i think they serve a purpose at times this being you know one of those examples whereby uh they could serve a purpose eric now how do you determine who’s good versus who’s bad because my feeling on mobile mechanics and i’m not trying to step on toes here but There’s a lot of mobile mechanics, Eric, that are mobile doing their own thing because it doesn’t take the same amount of tool investment. And they may even be technicians whereby they couldn’t make it in an actual auto shop. And, again, those of you that are mobile techs, I’m not saying this about all of you. I’m just saying this as a generality. that a lot of times guys will go mobile because in a lot of ways, Eric, it’s easier than being in a shop environment where there are daily requirements and challenges and performance things you have to do and so on. And yes, it can be high pressure at times being in a shop, making sure customers’ vehicles are leaving on time and so on. And it’s a lot different than being a mobile tech. And again, the investment of tools and what you do and so on. And it’s not to say that… that all mobile techs are bad. And what you need to do here, Eric, is really do some research, reviews. Be careful of reviews because there can be a lot of fake Google reviews. So be careful of the reviews. But really just go through, look at the reviews. I think one of the questions I would have for a mobile tech would be, what kind of a setup do you have? What do you work out of? What kind of tools do you have? If you were to come and do this particular job, what would it look like? Do you have the ability to get in the underground? How would you go about doing this job and so on? way okay to see if they have the right uh ramps to raise the car and all uh that kind of stuff then well in that case in your case really all you need is a good floor jack and and of course a jack stand so you don’t have the car falling on you but that car needs to be lifted up probably about a foot where you could slide underneath and get to the starter. It’s not a hard job to do, but yes, you’d need the ability to actually get the vehicle up off of the ground to do that. So he needs a floor jack and a jack stand, and in your case, a 9-16 socket and ratchet and a few other tools to take off the battery terminals and so on. I mean, no offense, Eric, you don’t need a whole lot to get that one changed.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right, yeah, I would do it myself, but in my left arm, I have a partial disability in my left arm.
SPEAKER 18 :
That would make it really hard, especially when you’re working underneath, upside down, you’re going to be laying on a piece of cardboard or a creeper or something. Yeah, those are always tougher in your particular case to do, Eric. I absolutely understand what you’re talking about.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, because that’s a fairly easy fix. I’ve done it before.
SPEAKER 18 :
It is, it is.
SPEAKER 09 :
Let me ask you this. The other thing I was concerned with was the liability if the guy hurts himself or something.
SPEAKER 18 :
Thank you for asking that as well. Thank you. Yeah, that’s another thing you need to ask. Do you have business insurance? Is there liability? Can I see a copy of? I mean, I don’t want to get sued if the car falls on you. You know, things like that. Yeah, you need to be making sure that they’re fully insured and so on. That’s a great question because it would come back on you if they’re not.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. Because I think the HOA requires any repairman to have all these documents, too. So, you know, I’d have to get those from the guy first.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, what you’re saying. And, by the way, most of these guys should have that listed on, you know, a website or something along those lines where you can see what they’ve actually got, Eric. And if not, I’d probably move to the next one.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, because it’s a huge liability.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, it is. It’s huge.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m sorry, the phone cut out. What did you say, ma’am?
SPEAKER 18 :
It’s huge liability, she said, as we just said.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, we do mobile services for collision centers, but we do not go to a customer’s house.
SPEAKER 18 :
Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s a complete liability.
SPEAKER 18 :
It’s a whole different deal when you do that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, I can look at that. And then you said all they really need are jack stands. They don’t need ramps? No, they don’t.
SPEAKER 18 :
I hate ramps, by the way. I’d rather see a floor jack and a jack stand. Ramps are awful. I will not use a ramp.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, I see, because I thought maybe they’re safer.
SPEAKER 18 :
No, actually, and this is where I’m talking, and some people might differ with me on that, but, yeah, I don’t like ramps. I’ve never been a fan of ramps. I don’t know why. I guess in my world, Eric, because I’ve seen so many of them fail and so many more injuries than, you know, you get the right floor jack in the jack stand position correctly, and the car comes back down on the jack stand correctly, That car, typically, if you do things correctly, that car is not going anywhere. Where ramps, I just don’t trust the ramps at all. Never have.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh. I have a lot of experience with ramps.
SPEAKER 18 :
I do not like them.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, that’s a good thing to know then. Okay, it seems like a fairly straightforward repair. It is. It’s just that it’s disabled in an underground garage and there’s a big old ramp to pull it out, you know, so I thought, well, geez, it’d be easier to get someone to just come in here and do it, you know.
SPEAKER 18 :
No, I think you hit the nail on the head. In fact, the other problem that you’re running into and a lot of folks with older vehicles like that is even finding a shop that will work on the older vehicle. So if you can find a mobile mechanic that will come out and actually do that starter at your place and you’re covering the bases like we’ve just said, by all means, go for it, Eric.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, okay, okay. One more question. I’ve seen some of them that have pictures of these cars. Vans, sort of like the plumbing vans, you know? And they would have to spend more money to buy that. And they got their logos painted on there real quick and everything. And I was just wondering, would that one have more… money to buy a better run outfit?
SPEAKER 18 :
Typically, yes. Thank you. And I think that’s another way to look at it is what’s the rig look like that they’re actually driving? How well is it outfitted? A lot of these guys have even gone as far as getting an oil change type van set up where they store all of the oil. They’ve got the ability to even suck things out and do things that make it very neat and clean and mobile. And again, nothing against these guys. I think they serve a great purpose at times. providing you’ve got all your bases covered like you’re talking about, Eric.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, well, that makes sense. Thanks a lot. That’ll help me a lot. And then I wanted to throw in my two cents on the vehicle I wished I hadn’t bought. It was about a 73 Ford pickup, and it had a straight six in it, you know?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
And it had a one barrel. I think it was like a 296, but I bought it because I thought it was going to do good on gas, and guess what? It did. it uh that thing just sucked gas like you don’t even believe man and it was a one barrel it was like a 296 one barrel three-quarter ton but um that thing just ate gas like you don’t even believe i could have just got a v8 you know you could have you know why would that engine suck gas like that
SPEAKER 18 :
Oh, a lot of those older vehicles were that way, period. The technology we have today, Eric, has become so much better with what we can squeeze out of a gallon of gas that it’s no comparison anymore.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, that’s why I bought it. This was years ago in the 80s. But anyway, that’s the one. I like the truck, but that thing just sucked gas like you don’t believe.
SPEAKER 18 :
They did.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, buddy.
SPEAKER 18 :
Eric, thank you, man. I appreciate it. Great questions, by the way. Robert and Mike, you guys hang tight. I’ll come right back. Myself and Dietze from ProTech Auto Shield, Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 18 :
And we’re back. Drive Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for listening to us. Dietze from ProTech Auto Shield with us today. If you’ve got questions on PPF or window tint or ceramic coating or anything along those lines, please let us know. Okay, Robert, you are next. Go ahead, Robert. What’s up?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I got scanned last weekend, but I want you to tell me how they did it.
SPEAKER 18 :
Okay, let’s hear it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, my friend went to Walmart Saturday over on 72nd and Sheridan.
SPEAKER 18 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 08 :
It was kind of cool. It wasn’t real cold, but it was cold. She called me up, and she says, your car won’t start. It’s a 26 Toyota. And I got an interstate battery and put it in, what, two years ago, three years ago, one of them $250, $300 ones, you know, one of the cheapies. And I says, well, yeah. I says, okay. I’m 80 years old. I said, okay, I’ll get dressed. I’ll come there, and we’ll jump it. She said, well, these guys next to me in this truck, They said they can jump it. Well, this is scary, but yeah, okay, red to red, tell them to give it a try. So they jumped it and started. Okay. So she says, but I have no throttle. It won’t back up. I says, well, I think I better come there then, because I’m not sure whether it’s got a cable or it’s electric on that throttle body. So I get there, and the truck is left. And this guy is there. He don’t speak English, but he’s got a one of those iPhones you can convert all the language and all that. And he says, it needs a throttle body. And I says, yeah, you’re probably right. So he turned the key on, nothing, you know. He says, I can get you one from NAPA, and it’s like 500 bucks. I said, well, I’m not sure I’m really ready for that today. He said, you can’t find a cheaper one? So he says, well, I can get this other one for $313 or $24 from someplace. I’ll have my wife go get it. Well, okay. So we take that thing off and four screws and it took about 10 minutes. And about 20 minutes later, his wife showed up with it and put the other one back on and plugged it in and it worked. And fine and all that. But how did this guy fix it so that car would not start?
SPEAKER 18 :
Hmm. That’s a great question, Robert. That one I do not know the answer to. I have no idea.
SPEAKER 08 :
And the guy must have been a Toyota guy because he had the tools right there for it and all that. Do they watch these shopping centers and do stuff like that and look for people with Toyotas or something? It just don’t make sense to me.
SPEAKER 18 :
Hmm. That one I don’t know. Again, not being there and you not being there and really seeing what he did or what he could have done, I have no idea, Robert. Who knows? I mean, did he unplug the throttle body and that’s why it didn’t want to operate as he was jump-starting it? I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I didn’t see that. But why wouldn’t, how did they keep it from even turning over without even opening the hood?
SPEAKER 18 :
Great question. Great question. Don’t know.
SPEAKER 08 :
The cops, right? The cops need that to shut off the cars that are driving away.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, and again, Robert, I don’t know. I mean, again, that’s a question that I don’t know. Not being there, who knows?
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, well, I’ve been wondering about it quite a while, too, and I have no idea.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, that one I have no idea.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, 450 bucks later, but the car’s still running. The car don’t have 50,000 miles on it, so the car’s not abused, you know. Right. Kind of bugs me.
SPEAKER 18 :
Right. Makes no sense, Robert. That one I don’t have an answer for. I’m sorry.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 18 :
You betcha, Robert. No, I appreciate it. I wish I did. I don’t have that one. Guys, I don’t know. I don’t know. Mike and Greeley, go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, hi, John. Thank you so much for your show. I really learned a lot from it. I have a 2019 Honda Ridgeline, and the manual says I should use 87 octane, and I usually get my gas at Costco, and they only have 85 regular and 91 the premium, and I’ve always used 85 and haven’t had any issues.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, you’re fine with 85 at our elevation. There’s no issues there.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, okay, okay, good. Yeah, someone said, well, that’ll increase carbon buildup, and I should use 87 no less, but you think it’s okay then, right?
SPEAKER 18 :
You’ll be fine with that. You’ll have no issues.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, okay. Can I ask one more?
SPEAKER 18 :
Of course you can. Absolutely. Go ahead, Mike.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’ve been kind of reading online that there’s been, for the 2019 or a couple years, there’s a lot of transmission issues with the, I think it’s a six-speed automatic. Have you run across that at all?
SPEAKER 18 :
No, I don’t want to say that there’s a plethora. Have you had any issues with yours at all? Has there been any issues with it?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, no issues, but I was just kind of looking online when I should change the transmission and all that, and I just ran across a thread that says, boy, there’s a lot of trouble with those transmissions, and I kind of got concerned.
SPEAKER 18 :
Well, and again, some of that you always have to wonder, are they doing the services on them like they should be? As you know from listening to us on a routine basis, that would be something that I would be servicing every 50,000, 60,000 miles. You’ve got to start asking all these people having problems, have they done that?
SPEAKER 13 :
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER 18 :
And I don’t know the answer. And that’s where you have to be careful of some of the threads and so on because it’s like, okay, well, what’s the maintenance history on these ones they’ve had problems with and what have they been doing? I mean, are they having problems 100,000 miles, 50,000 miles? Have they serviced the transmission? Have they not serviced it? These are questions that most of them won’t tell you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. And I usually change all the, like the transmission and the differential at 30,000. Is that a good practice? Yes, you’d be fine with that. Okay. Okay. Thanks again, John, so much. Your show is always so fun.
SPEAKER 18 :
Well, I appreciate it, Mike. No, thank you very much for listening. I do appreciate that very much. Let’s get Jeff in from Montana before the break. Jeff, go ahead, sir.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I just got a real quick comment on your story about ramps.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 10 :
I briefly worked for the Boys and Girls Club here in the area on Flathead Reservation, and The idiot director had another guy changing oil on all the vehicles, and he was using ramps. And one of them was a huge 350 Ford Econoline. And he drove it up on the ramp, and then he went to get all of his stuff. And while it was on the ramp, the ramps collapsed.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 10 :
And had he been underneath it, he’d have been dead or maybe serious.
SPEAKER 18 :
And I get it. And let me make sure I clarify things for everybody listening. I know there are some like race ramps and so on where I think they’ve got a little better technology and the way they work is much better than the old steel ramps, which the ones I’m mainly talking about are the old steel ladder type ramps. that, in my opinion, should have been outlawed eons ago. I hate those. Some of the newer, you know, ramps where they’re all one piece and you drive up on them. And, you know, Race Ramp is one of the actual name brands. I think it worked fairly well, Jeff. And they’ve even got a notch where the tire sits in it. And I think those are fairly safe when it’s all said and done. But the old ladder-style metal ramps, yeah, they’re an accident waiting to happen.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, they are. Amen. That wasn’t the reason I stopped working for them. They were a whole host of them. That just reinforced the stupidity of the leadership for letting people do dumb things like that rather than spending extra money.
SPEAKER 18 :
The ramp thing, even as a kid, I remember being around some of those even as a kid, and a lot of guys used them. They’d put them in the driveway, and especially on a sloped driveway, they’d put the car in. It would make the car level. I always looked at those, Jeff, as it was just, again, it was just an accident waiting to happen.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, because folks don’t bother to take load ratings into effect with those, you know.
SPEAKER 18 :
Load ratings, chalking the wheels to make sure they’re not moving, on and on we go.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, it’s just… But we’re never really under the vehicle.
SPEAKER 18 :
Again, if you’re going to use any, for all of you listening, if you want to use even a race ramp to get the vehicle up off the floor a little bit where you can work on it a little better or whatever, those I don’t mind, Jeff. I think they’re, well, if you go look them up and you realize what I’m talking about, those of you that maybe don’t know what the race ramps are and they make different forms of them, that’s a whole different way of doing it, Jeff, than what you and I are talking about.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, and I guess I’d just say if you have any of those at home, they’re probably the cheap, pressed, molded steel kind that are a piece of China, as we said earlier, and get rid of them. Invest in something. Your life is worth it.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, and for those of you listening, again, I still am one where just go buy a good floor jack, buy some good heavy-duty jack stands, which plenty of people make. NAPA has everything I’m talking about, by the way, in stock. You could go buy a jack and jack stands today, and for the majority of vehicles, not heavy, you know, diesel pickups and so on, but for the majority of vehicles, Jeff, you could spend $300, right? on a good jack and jack stands, and I might be even high in that figure, and do everything you want to do that way and be way safer.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yep, and is your life worth $300?
SPEAKER 18 :
In my case, yes. I think everybody’s is, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yep, I agree. So everything comes down to cost-benefit ratio.
SPEAKER 18 :
That’s right. You’re exactly right, Jeff. No, great point, great point. Cheers. Appreciate you, Jeff, and we will be back. Again, you’ve got a question for Dietze, let us know. We’ll take a quick timeout. We’ll come right back. Lines are open, 303-477-5600. This is Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 14 :
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SPEAKER 14 :
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SPEAKER 18 :
Drive Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for listening. Again, Dietze with us from Pro-Tech Auto Shield. If you’ve got questions when it comes to paint protection film, we call it clear bra back in the day, kind of where it got started. But now you can literally use it anywhere on a vehicle that you would like. Window tinting, of course. That includes the front windshield, any other interior window or any other window, I should say. And then the ceramic coating. And paintless dent repair is another one that we should probably talk about here at some point. But they do all of that, plus you guys do full detail work and all of that as well. Yes, we do. And when it comes to PPF, for those of you listening, they can do as little or as much of the vehicle as you would like. In other words, you may want to do just some small parts because you want to protect that, or you may want to do the whole thing. You do it all, don’t you? All right. Question of the day. Let me throw that out really quick. Lines are open. 303-477-5600. Vehicle you regret buying. And a couple of you have already sent in some things and messages and so on in the text line. Again, 307-282-22. 307-282-22. And… You know, here’s another. Thank you for mentioning this. This is a good one, really quick. Home alone most of the time. I promise my kids I won’t work on my trucks or go into the attic or do any stupid things that would risk me being alone. One of my kids’ buddies was crushed a few years ago by his F-350 while working on it alone in his barn. So paranoid having grown up in a shop environment, too. I won’t walk in front of an old truck while it’s running or blah, blah, blah. And, again, you know what? You’re basically talking about being safe when you’re by yourself and so on. You know, I run into the same things a lot of times where I’m at home doing some things on my own. There’s nobody else there. You know, I’m home alone, essentially, and I’m out working in the shop and so on. And, yes, for those of you listening, I and you also should be extremely, extremely careful. And, yes, there’s a lot of things we can still do on our own with no issues and everything. The biggest thing is just being safe. It’s the horror stories in this particular text message I can relate to. I’ve heard and seen some of the horror stories where things just kind of go awry for whatever reason. Farmers working by themselves or construction guys working by themselves or technicians in a shop working by themselves or carpenters or whatever the case may be. It’s always more risky when you’re alone than when there’s somebody with you. It’s why in my shop— As time went by and I got smarter, I never allowed anybody to work after hours or the weekends unless two people were there. For the liability side of things that even Dietze was talking about earlier. If somebody wanted to use the shop, one of the techs or service advisors or whatever, our standing rule was that’s fine as long as there’s two people there while you’re working. Because, again, if something were to happen, I want somebody there that can help out so that there’s no problem. You know, real emergencies. And if there is an emergency, there’s somebody there to actually help with that. But there are times with me where there’s no one else around to help with whatever. And there are times where it’s like, hmm, should I be doing this right now or should I wait for more help? And to my credit. If it looks like it could get way over my head, I will stop and back up a moment and say, okay, yeah, this isn’t that big of an emergency. I can wait and have some extra help. And I have one of my boys come over or whatever the case may be to make sure that I’m getting things handled correctly. Because, you know, it only takes one little moment. in time to all of a sudden now have one major ordeal. And we know we got started on this talking about, you know, ramps and, and I got a picture in of some ramps that like the race ramps that are very good, heavy, sturdy, and those I have no issues with folks. It’s the old, and you guys know what I’m talking about. They were either yellow or red or orange back in the day. They were these flimsy, you know, metal ramps and they literally, you know, you could almost lift them up with your finger. They were so lightweight and they, Oh, I’d see things on those. I’d see, you know, different vehicles and things parked on those ramps. And I would just shudder sometimes with with you’re really not going to get underneath that. I mean, I’m not getting under that vehicle. I don’t know how you would get into that vehicle. And I would just those things. I don’t know why they just scare me to death. I had this question a while back as well. And that is, in all of the years of me doing all the different things that I did in the shops and so on, did I ever lose a car off the rack? Did anything ever fall off? Anything along those lines? And knock on wood, to this day, nope. I never had any single issues where, you know, I mean, I had issues at times, even different texts would where maybe an arm moved or something along those lines happened on, you know, different above ground lifts and so on. But never had anything where anything, you know, fell off or tumbled over. You see some of these videos online of things happening with vehicles and so on. And no, we never had issues. anything like that. We had some moments whereby, yeah, that probably should have been a little bit different. We should have set things up differently on the front side. But for me personally, working under cars for a long time in my life, You learned a lot of respect for being under a vehicle. Whenever you’d get one, at least for me, I’d get one on the rack, and I guess I was taught this even as a young boy. You’d get the car on the rack, and literally you’d go to one end or the other, a truck or a car or whatever, and you’d shake things to no end just to make sure with all the movement that nothing else was going to move because when that thing’s up in the air, things could move and shift a little bit, and I wanted to make sure that if I was underneath that thing, I’m safe. And you get very comfortable after a while when you do that, but, man, if you’re – If you’re not doing some of those things and you’re not being safe, and this is something that you have to teach even young technicians that are coming into the business, because if you start taking things for granted and you lose that respect for some of the things that we’re talking about right now and that text message a moment ago kind of started all of that. Yeah. Thank you, by the way, for the mention, because, yeah, if you’re working alone by yourself, you really have to be careful. And by the way, there’s just times of having an extra hands really helps out, especially for what you guys do.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, but we’re never really under the vehicles.
SPEAKER 18 :
No, and again, for all of you and what different things you’re doing and so on, but it’s even in the shop environments. This is true for a lot of you where you might be doing some things at home and so on. You have to be so careful. Those of you that have, for example, little kids that run around or grandkids that run around, you have to be so careful of where is everybody at any given time. Is there anybody behind a vehicle as you’re backing up? Yeah. Or even pulling forward, for example, you know, kids can be really small and they are small. They’re kids and you may not be able to see them even over the hood of the car and things like that. You know, do you know where everybody’s at at all times? And you just you want to be careful not only with yourself, but with all the people that you’re. involved with and around and having all the safety equipment around fire extinguishers and so on so if there’s anything that happens you know you can deal with things quickly promptly you know the last thing I want for any of you listening is to be doing some work at home or in your own shop and all of a sudden there’s some sort of a catastrophe and it just doesn’t it doesn’t end well when you do that so yes by all means be safe don’t do things that that you feel like you should be doing when there’s somebody else around and And I think last, and this is something we haven’t talked about a ton on this show. We’ve gotten into this before in the past, even Larry and I have at times on Fix It Radio and such, but the tools and the quality of. And while a lot of the off-brand tools have gotten much better as time has gone by, reality is there is a difference in the quality of tools and how they perform and what they do. And what I mean by that is, you know, things breaking and slipping and, you know, injuries around those things and so on. Yes, you get what you pay for in a lot of cases when it comes to tools. So use those tools in the right manner. And there’s an old saying, there’s the right tool for the right job. Make sure you’re doing that. It makes everything go so much better. The ramps, by the way, fit right into this. No, those aren’t the right tool for the right job, especially those particular types of ramps. 303-477-5600 is our phone number. We’ll be right back. Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 17 :
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SPEAKER 18 :
All right, we are back. Drive Radio, KLZ 560. Question of the day, by the way, is what vehicle do you regret buying? Now, some of you have made really good car purchases throughout the years and maybe don’t have any regrets. I was trying to think back on cars that. I’ve owned a lot over all the years that I regret buying, and I don’t know that I have any one particular vehicle that just automatically floats to the top. I mean, all when I bought them had a purpose at that time. I don’t know if I ever bought a, you know, well, I did have one lemon. Only car I’ve ever had bought back. I owned a diesel Jeep Liberty back in the day when they had the little diesel engines that they put in them, and the car was a piece of junk. It just was. It was an absolute piece of great idea, but just an absolute piece of junk. And it’s not that I regretted buying it because they bought the car back, and I was made whole, so it wasn’t any big deal with it when it was all said and done. Yeah. You know, when it was all said, I was made whole, not a big deal, but was that a car I regretted buying? Yeah, because it’s still the hassle factor of just going through everything.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, you know, like I said, I don’t regret riding my RAV4. I regret the whole experience of purchasing it.
SPEAKER 18 :
Well, okay, so explain.
SPEAKER 04 :
It was my first vehicle that I bought at the dealership, and I got killed with the interest rate. I ended up paying about twice as much for the vehicle. Wow. Yeah, it was bad. I was young.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, and again, some of this, how should I say it, sometimes our age and the decisions we make at different times when it comes to vehicles and so on can come into play, and that’s a great example Deidre just gave. And again, car purchases, you can make mistakes and have regrets and so on, but that’s the question of the day is what car do you regret most? Buying, 303-477-5600. You can send us a text message as well. And the text line, 307. Got messages coming in. 307-200-8222. And somebody said, I also agree about working alone or being in front or behind equipment when it’s running. Here in farm country, we’ve had folks pin between a running truck and an implement. I can’t imagine being crushed by a Super Duty or any full-size truck, but know many… who have used bottle jacks to swap out transmissions and so on. Yeah, those are just not good things to do. And here’s something Charlie recommended. So for all of you listening, and this is a great tip, by the way, and something that you should just set up anyways, but always have your cell phone with you if you’re working in the shop. Sometimes you could have it in your pocket. You could have it on a nearby bench. And do it in such a way where you guys all have the, you know, Alexas or Series or whoever they are. And depending upon what platform of phone you’re using, whether it’s an Android platform or the iPhone platform, and make sure you have all of that set up so that if you really had a situation, and I can’t say this right now or mine will dial it, but you could say, hey… call 911, and it will do that for you. And then through the speakerphone, you would be able to hear the phone call and so on and be able to tell people what’s going on and where you’re at. So yeah, those of you that are working alone, by all means, have your cell phone near you, have it handy, have the voice capabilities on, turned on, making sure that that’s working correctly. And these are things that we just typically don’t think about. You take it for granted. You don’t think anything’s ever going to happen until it does. And like this last texter, I have read many a story and heard many a story of people being alone where things have happened. And it’s just, yeah, it’s not worth it, folks. Be extremely careful. You know, you don’t want to have any of those issues happen. And there’s some times where it’s just, you know, hey, if you’re alone, just wait until you get some help. And if you don’t have help, then don’t do that job until you actually do. And some would say, well, gosh, what if I don’t have anybody around that can come help? Folks, there are temp people out there. all over the place, day laborers and so on that you could hire for a day even. Have them come in, give them a little bit of cash, and they would help you do any number of things that you need done. So believe me, there’s always help. It’s just a matter of how resourceful are you in finding that help. But there’s ways to actually do that. All right, let’s talk for a moment here before we go to the top of the hour. Aditsa, you recommended a moment ago we had somebody call in and talk about, okay, should I PPF my Chrome door handles? Or will it make them look weird and cloudy and so on? And by the way, this is if they’re a plastic type door handle. Regular chrome, you can PPF regular chrome, correct?
SPEAKER 04 :
It still leaves the cloudiness.
SPEAKER 18 :
Because you’re on a shiny surface, right? And it’s not completely see-through, right? Because the PPF… It has a little bit of a – how should I say this? It’s not clear like glass.
SPEAKER 04 :
It has an adhesive on it. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER 18 :
There’s glue on it. That’s not exactly like glass because it has to have that adhesive to be able to stick to whatever it’s doing. That’s what gives it some of the haziness, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. So when you put it on chrome, which is extremely, extremely shiny, especially if it’s like multi-haze. It’s reflecting back, right? It’s reflecting back. You’re going to see some imperfections, some cloudiness, some haziness. Yeah. So, pros and cons.
SPEAKER 18 :
Okay. Okay. Now, when it comes to other things that you can, I guess here’s a question for you. What can’t you PPF?
SPEAKER 04 :
Um, I mean, I guess it would really depend. I mean, Chrome would be the haziness that you would fall into. Um, anything that the, the, where the surface is not adhesive friendly. So like if you have, um, let’s say you fix the panel and you have Bondo on it and it’s not primed or anything, the PPF won’t stick to it.
SPEAKER 18 :
Because it’s going to lift up whatever’s underneath it, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Okay. So it depends on the surface.
SPEAKER 18 :
So the underlayment has to be correct, otherwise you’re not going to be able to get PPF to stick and stick.
SPEAKER 04 :
Exactly. That’s kind of true even with wraps, too.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, the vinyl’s the same way, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, so if you have failing paint, if the paint fails, the PPF is going to fail.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, or even the vinyl. So some of you are thinking, well, I’ve got paint failing. Paint’s all flaking off. I’ll just wrap it. Be careful of that because the wrap has to still stick to something.
SPEAKER 04 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 18 :
And if the paint’s coming off already, what you’re sticking to is already coming off, meaning that’s going to come off.
SPEAKER 04 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 18 :
Right?
SPEAKER 04 :
And a lot of people don’t really make that connection.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, they don’t understand that part. It makes sense. John and Cheyenne, you’re up. Hey, good morning.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back.
SPEAKER 18 :
Good morning.
SPEAKER 06 :
So here’s a quick question. I don’t know if… I’m not looking for a exact price, but a ballpark price to detail the inside of a 2015 Ram 1500 crew cab. What is something like that ballpark run?
SPEAKER 04 :
So it’s going to depend a lot on the condition, but you’re probably looking between 500 upwards to a thousand, depending on how and the condition of it and how deep you want the detail.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. All right. Well, that makes sense. Hey, I’m just looking. My wife’s truck needs it, and I’m just looking for different prices. And it’s hard to get a price without bringing it to somewhere. So I was hoping you’d give me a ballpark before I start. Yeah, and it really depends on how…
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and it really depends on how deep of a clean you want because a lot of detailers will do like a basic clean, and they’re usually for 200, but it’s not going to be like brand new.
SPEAKER 06 :
Perfect. Right. Okay, John, quick story. I might have told you this one before. We were doing quarterly maintenances in a motor pool, and the crew had to break tracks. So that was crew job. We found some bad track shoes. They had to break the tracks and replace them. That was their job. So guy takes, if I remember right, it was a 5.8 socket on a half-inch breaker bar. Couldn’t break it. So he put a six-foot cheater pipe on it. And here was the mistake he made. He pulled it towards him.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, you don’t want to do that.
SPEAKER 06 :
And when it slipped off, it knocked him unconscious.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 06 :
We got lucky because part of the company maintenance was the medics were there, so we had medics close by. But what was funny is after that, unless you were a mechanic, if you were doing any work inside the motor pool, the battalion commander gave an order that they had to wear a Kevlar at all times.
SPEAKER 16 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 06 :
Just, yeah. But this is how people just… And we had the big… You’ve seen the big… recovery vehicle the 88 oh yeah cutting torch on the back impact hydraulic impacts every tool all they had to do is come over and ask us hey kid we can’t get this apart could cut it could you break it and we would have said yeah we’ll be right over you know it was one of those things that could have been done but people in a hurry don’t want to you know they’re always in a hurry and that’s when you usually get hurt
SPEAKER 18 :
You know, it’s funny, John, you say that and we talk about during the day, especially plane crashes and things like that. And the biggest thing that usually causes death in airplanes and so on is lack of patience, getting in a hurry, trying to fly through weather when you shouldn’t be, so on and so forth. Joe and I have talked about many times from Jersey. Yeah. This isn’t any different, John. Same thing applies. Now, it may be not quite as life and death as what flying an airplane in that situation is, but same situation. I mean, if you get in a hurry and you’re not doing all of the safety things that you ought to be, that’s when things come back to bite us.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yep, and the prime example for me is I don’t use a ladder if I’ve got to do something. I bought those scaffolds just because of that, so I don’t have to stand on a ladder. Yes, it takes 10 minutes extra to set them up, but you know what? I can climb up. I can get up to a 10- or 12-foot ceiling. I don’t have to worry about the ladder being shaky or anything. because I have that. So it’s little things like that, but when you talk about safety being home alone, if I’m using any sort of cutting tool, I’m like looking exactly where everything is if I’m home alone, or even if I’m not home alone. Before I ever even engage it, you know? Yeah. Anywhere close.
SPEAKER 18 :
That’s right. No, I’ve got many a story along those lines, John, where, you know, you just think, oh, this will be really quick. I mean, I had a situation one time, I think I’ve got enough time to shove this in, where I was working on a battery on one of my old cars. And something slipped. I cut my thumb wide open. Nobody’s home. I’m there alone. Now, granted, it wasn’t life and death, but before it was all said and done, I still ended up going to urgent care some four or five hours later to get the bloody thing taken care of because I was stupid and didn’t do things right in the first place, and I was just in a big hurry. No gloves on, nothing, just was in a hurry.
SPEAKER 06 :
That was the other thing I was going to say. The one thing I always wear, no matter what I’m doing, is safety glasses now.
SPEAKER 18 :
Safety glasses and I’m gloves anymore, John, just because all the years of doing stuff. Gloves and safety glasses, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Those Kevlar gloves, they’re called Maxi Flex. Have you tried those?
SPEAKER 18 :
I have not.
SPEAKER 06 :
The company I work for, safety is the number one priority. And our bosses have said, safety glasses, safety goggles, safety gloves. Whether you need them at home or at work, we want you to be safe. Take a pair of gloves. Take a pair of safety glasses, take them home, use them when you’re home. And these Maxi Flesh, if you have a chance to look them up, they’re great because they’ve got Kevlar in them, and they really are nice.
SPEAKER 18 :
I’ll do that.
SPEAKER 06 :
John, I know you’re at the top of the hour. No, no problem.
SPEAKER 18 :
I’ll look them up, John. Appreciate you, man, very much. Have a great rest of your day. We’ll come right back. Two more hours left. Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 11 :
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.
