On this week’s Drive Radio, John Rush and guest host Pat Schneidt from Alltech Automotive tackle everything from insurance headaches after an accident to whether it’s worth dropping $10,000 on a new Audi engine. Listeners call in with tough questions about diminished value, ABS module failures, frozen motors, and everyday maintenance. John breaks down why some “good-looking cars” were absolute lemons, explains what manufacturers do (or don’t do) to make cars quieter, and even dives into tire-buying secrets Costco doesn’t want you to miss. Plus, practical advice on keeping older vehicles safe, efficient, and ready for Colorado’s changing seasons.
SPEAKER 17 :
We’re 106 miles to Chicago. We’ve got a full tank of gas. It’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
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Hit it.
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Our lady of blessed acceleration, don’t fail me now.
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It’s time for Drive Radio, presented by Colorado’s select auto care centers.
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Bop-a-da-bop!
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Whether you need help diagnosing a problem. I want to ask you a bunch of questions, and I want to have them answered immediately. Or just want to learn about all things automotive.
SPEAKER 13 :
Hey, how exactly does a positractor in on a Plymouth work?
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It just does. Then you’ve come to the right place. So start your engines, buckle up, and get ready to ride. Drive Radio starts now on KLZ 560 The Source.
SPEAKER 16 :
And it is Drive Radio KLZ 560. Thanks for joining us. Beautiful day here in Colorado. September the 20th. Pat Schneidt with me today from Alltech Automotive up in Fort Collins. Good morning, Pat. Hey, good morning, John. How are you doing? It’s good to have you. I’m doing well. Appreciate you coming down and taking time. And it is. It’s a beautiful day. So thanks for taking time out of your day.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely gorgeous day. No traffic this morning. The car was clean all the way down.
SPEAKER 16 :
Having a good day. It’s a very nice day. Now, with all that being said, you guys may be out there looking at either doing some different things as far as your own vehicle is concerned and you’re trying to get things ready to go for fall and winter. Fall starts Monday. We’ll talk about a lot of those things today, but ultimately we’re here to answer questions. Whatever that question is, you might be having a problem. with something you may need advice on something you may be looking to buy a car maybe there’s a teen driver coming up you name it we’re here to answer all those questions our number 303-477-5600 303-477-5600 you can also text us a question we’ll answer that on air as well 307-282-22 307-282-22 all right this comes from joe jersey joe for a question of the day Worst car ever made. By the way, not the worst-looking car, but in your opinion, worst car ever made. Now, here’s where this gets a little interesting. There’s been some really – because the list that I have, I’m going to not go off of. I’ll mention some of the cars that are on the list that Joe sent me, but I’ll get off of that a little bit because there has been some really good-looking cars – that were not very good cars to own is where I’m going with this. And Pat is over here. He knows exactly what I’m talking about. In our automotive history, even mine, even while I’ve been alive, there’s been some cars where you’re like, man, that’s a really good-looking car. But it’s not a good car. So it’s like, yeah, that’s a great car looks wise, but I’d never own it because that’s what I’m talking about. So it’s not necessarily the worst looking because we did that question of the day a few weeks ago. This is what is one of the worst cars you’ve either owned or know of. And then tell us what that is. 303-477-5600. Jack, that was going to start us off today. Jack, go ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
I have a question. I was in a car accident earlier this week. Somebody hit me. Sorry to hear that. Pretty black and white that he did it. He admitted it. Lease report said he did it. But the car is already getting repaired. And I want to see how I can get money for the diminished value of my car after the repair. What steps do I have to take? I mean, right now the estimate is – around $6,000 or $7,000 to fix it. So it’s not like, Huge repair. Doesn’t matter.
SPEAKER 16 :
You’re going to have diminished value. By the way, great question. I’m glad you called in. And the way to do this, and for all of you listening, it’s really simple. Call Burke Payne with BP Appraisals. You’ll hear his ads even throughout the program today. Burke will help you with everything you’re talking about, Jack. In fact, he’ll go to bat for you even with the insurance company themselves. You don’t have to do anything. He literally will take that ball and run with it. and get you what diminished value is there, and there will be some there. He’ll figure out exactly how much that is, and when it’s all said and done, you’ll get paid for that.
SPEAKER 04 :
The fact that it’s already in the shop and so forth, I mean, he can do it when it’s all said and done.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, here’s the key. Do not accept a final settlement claim from that insurance company, and you’re not right now because it’s still in the process of getting fixed. So you need to call Burke today or Monday, let him know where you’re at with things, and get him going on this on Monday morning.
SPEAKER 04 :
So it’s BP Appraisals, Burke Payne, and it’s 720-
SPEAKER 16 :
295-0108.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, Burke Payne, I got it. Burke’s a great guy.
SPEAKER 16 :
We’ve had him on air many, many times. Just talked to him a couple of weeks ago. And he does this on an ongoing basis. And for our listeners, Jack, I’m not exaggerating, probably weekly with as many listeners as we have and as many things like this that happen. And every one of you listening, every single vehicle involved in an accident, if that’s reported to Carfax, which yours will, Jack, it’s going to have diminished value, period.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Okay.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. I appreciate it. Great phone call.
SPEAKER 16 :
Thank you, by the way. That is a great phone call, a great way to start things off. So, yes, BP Appraisals, Burke Payne, 720-295-0108. And the other thing that Burke does is some of you guys that have, you know, classic cars or you’re looking to buy a classic car or you’ve inherited a classic car and you’re trying to figure out some values estate-wise and so on, Burke will help you with all of that, even to the point of, hey, I’m looking at buying XYZ car. I need to know values of this. Burke will help you all the way through that and tell you, yep, this is a pretty good deal, or yeah, you’re overpaying for this car. He’ll help you with all of that as well. So it’s a great resource. All right, Chris, you’re next. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I’ve got a 2018 SQ5, 106,000 miles on it, and I was driving, just pulling up to a stop sign, and the car quit and wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t start again, and so I took it to the mechanic, and he said the engine’s frozen. And I’m just trying to decide if I ought to just sell it and let it go just like a junkyard, or if there’s something that you guys know of that maybe I could do to figure it out. New engine, a used engine, whatever.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, and this is a tough call. Good question, by the way. And Pat can chime in here as well. What I’ve always done in the past when I own my own shops, even if something like this would happen, is first things first. A, what’s the condition of the rest of the car? How good is the car?
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s in great shape.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay. So paint’s good, interior’s good, all of that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, excellent. Okay.
SPEAKER 16 :
Then what you do is, and this becomes math, simple as this, Chris. You look at what is the price of, and I would not do a used engine. I would only do a new engine if it were me. I would do a long block from Audi in this particular case is how I would do that. So in this particular case, you do all the math and say, okay, if an engine costs me, I don’t know. 10 grand, using round numbers, but let’s just say it’s 10 grand. How long do I need to drive the car to get my 10 grand back? Because you’re still going to have more money in it than probably the car’s worth when all’s said and done. But if you drive it long enough, you get that value back. And if the car’s in great condition elsewise, in other words, drivetrain’s great, interior’s great, paint’s great, because as you know, to replace that car is what, 70 grand or so? Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, new, it’s $70,000.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, so $70,000 for a new one, meaning if I put $10,000 or $15,000 in the one I have now, and I can drive that for another five to seven years, which you easily could, and then you start doing the math, it makes sense. If you’re going to just do an engine and flip it, no, it makes no sense. Yep.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. I didn’t know if you do have any kind of a trend to why that car would freeze up or anything like that.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, my next question was going to be, has it had all of its proper oil changes done, all of that? I mean, it’s not common for those to do that. So that’s where I would be wondering. And I guess, did the shop give you any indication as to why it locked up?
SPEAKER 06 :
They haven’t really dived into it yet. They just said that… You know, it could be a variety of things. So they said, do you want to pay us to jump into it or do you want to put a new engine in? What do you want to do? And so that’s what I’m deciding.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, and I, you know, again, at this point, if it’s locked, it’s locked. They could do a little bit of tear down to determine why it locked up. But at the end of the day, it’s locked up. I mean, no offense. I wouldn’t spend more than, you know, 100 bucks or so to maybe determine why it locked up. But at the end of the day, it’s locked up. So at this point, does it really matter?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think the only interesting point would be, is there something that we did wrong, either the shop or the owner? And what could we learn and do differently? That’s the only point. Only other reason to know. Yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah. Other than that, not worth knowing.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. All right. I didn’t own the car previously, and so I’m sure that whatever happened was because of somebody else’s neglect.
SPEAKER 16 :
Very potential on that. Yeah, and that’s one of those things where, yeah, you don’t know what its history was. But again, now the one thing I would do, Chris, with the shop, this would be with any shop, whether it be Pat’s shop or anybody else’s shop that’s out there, have them give you complete check over on the rest of the car even if you have to pay for that inspection a lot of shops will give you the free courtesy inspection I would do like a used car inspection go ahead and pay whatever they’re looking for to do a full used car inspection giving you a complete rundown on every single thing else on the car so you know here’s where we’re at with brakes here’s we’re at with the rest of the drivetrain here’s what all the CV axles look like a On and on we go. Now, some things are going to get replaced when you do the engine. They’re going to go through the cooling system. They’re going to go through all of the engine and electronics and ignition, and all that stuff’s going to get taken care of. So we’re not necessarily worried about that, but I’m worried about everything else on the car get a complete rundown so we know, okay, down the road, you’ve got basically a year left on brakes, or you’ve got X, Y, Z left on this, and get a good idea of what else you might be looking at so you can put all of that into the same equation.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. All right. Sounds good. Have you ever heard of a new engine just straight from China?
SPEAKER 16 :
I would not use that. If there is one, I would not use it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 16 :
In your case, and I think on an Audi especially, in fact, most cars, I would do a long block from Audi if it were me. Which might raise the price a little bit.
SPEAKER 03 :
It will. It will be higher, but I think you’re getting a better product by doing so. To your point, John, if you really like the car, it’s just a math exercise at this point. That’s right. Yeah.
SPEAKER 1 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate your help.
SPEAKER 16 :
No, great question, Chris. Appreciate it very much. Two great questions to start the day off with, so thank you guys very much. Eric, hang tight. We’ve got a couple of lines open, 303-477-5600. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back. Myself and Pat Schneidt from Alltech Automotive, Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, John. Good morning. Good morning, Eric. I have a 2006 Toyota Highlander Hybrid. When I press the brakes, I hear almost like a muted seal chorping sound. The dealer says that the ADS module has an internal leak, and it’s building pressure dropping, building pressure dropping. That would make sense. Module itself is over $1,000, plus you’ve got your man hours. Right now, that’s not in the budget. What are my risks of delaying that should that actually fail?
SPEAKER 16 :
Sorry, I’m thinking. Go ahead, Pat.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, my first thoughts are you won’t, if it does fail, you won’t have the anti-lock brake system, but I do believe you’re going to have regular braking. So then it comes down to a question of how comfortable are you with that, especially as we approach winter and icy roads?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, most of my cars are older than ABS existed, so. Right, okay. My Hilux and others have never had ABS. These are, you know,
SPEAKER 03 :
my better cars okay so this might be a question back for the dealer if the abs continues to leak the abs module and it does actually fail will i still have regular braking because i i believe that’s true and like you i would say i’m fine with that what year was it again i missed that 2006 2006 okay I do also think, though, you know, of course, Colorado being very emissions friendly and we have to get our emissions every first or second year, it might be the case that if you go to the Air Care Colorado station and that ABS light is on, they won’t let you put that on the dyno to run the IM240 test. And that may prevent you from getting your tags at some point.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. Actually, that one is registered in El Paso County. So you’re fine then. Where I’m moving to. So you’re good. And they don’t have Air Care Colorado, thankfully.
SPEAKER 16 :
And I did double check. Pat’s dead on. You’ll have regular braking, have no issues at all stopping. You just won’t have ABS. In fact, you could probably disconnect ABS. Even the module itself, of course, the light’s going to come on when you do so, but you could probably even disconnect it if you don’t like the sound and just don’t like that end of it, Eric. You could even disconnect that, and you’ll just have regular braking.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, yeah, and I just wanted to double-check that I wasn’t…
SPEAKER 16 :
Really quick, the other thing, too, that you probably will end up on on that that I didn’t think about, but because it’s a hybrid, you’ll probably lose your regenerative braking with that also, which right now you get some of that out of it going back into the battery. When that module fails, you’ll probably not get that either. So you’ll have regular braking, but no regen braking.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. Okay.
SPEAKER 16 :
Again, probably not a huge issue, but just something to be made aware of.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, no, since most of my driving is highway, I don’t use the regen feature as much as the around town commute.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, okay. Well, yeah, and again, I think now the other thing you could do while you’re going through this process or what I would do is You’ll be looking out there to see, is there any cheaper units on eBay, carpart.com, places like that? Are there any other used units that you potentially could get off of another unit that you could swap in?
SPEAKER 08 :
I had thought about going to U-Poll and pay. Obviously… Being a hybrid, I think you still have to stay with a module that comes off of another hybrid.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yes, that’s exactly right. And what I was going to say is, to your point, you’re not going to find as many of those out there because they didn’t build as many of those back then as they even are today, as you know.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and it’s ironic. We ended up with two of these. And secondhand just happened to be that they were both 2006 hybrids.
SPEAKER 16 :
And they were great cars. So, I mean, I’ve got nothing against them. And for all of you listening, this is what happens on a lot of the older vehicles, period. This particular area, these ABS modules specifically, that’s one of those areas, Eric, that on any vehicle, not just yours, gets very expensive very quickly.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it’s over $1,000 for a brand new module. Yep. And it’s been, you know, I’ve talked to you about these cars in the past. I have the OBD2, say that correctly, analyzer that actually can go and monitor my battery pack. These battery packs are amazing condition for their age.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good. Nice.
SPEAKER 08 :
And if, you know, but obviously if one fails, you’re talking over $5,000 right there. Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s an interesting question. If that happened, would you replace it? And if that’s the case, then you might also want to do the brakes. But if you’re saying, no, I can get by with these brakes as is because at some point when the battery fails, I will no longer own the car.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right, right. And those are some of the things I have to keep in mind. My son actually wanted to buy the car, one of the two cars from me. And I just told him, you know, given the age of the battery pack, I don’t want to sell him one, you know, just because I don’t want it to be where he gets it and then it just happens to be the battery pack goes and he’s stuck with a car needing $5,000 worth of repairs.
SPEAKER 03 :
So he might be better off without a hybrid of that age.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, we have a CRV that’s low mileage that we tried to convince him to take, but he wants a slightly larger vehicle. Gotcha. No, that answers my question. I appreciate it. Great question. That’s what I suspected would be the case, but I would rather get a more informed opinion.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, appreciate it, Eric. As always, thank you, and you’re always a great call, so appreciate you very much. Thanks. You bet. Take care. Let’s do this. Rich in Arvada, you’re next. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. Hi, John. I had the privilege of meeting you about three or four weeks ago at Malone.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yes, I remember, Rich. Good to hear from you. Absolutely. Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’ve listened to you for years, and I was just glad to say hi. Well, thank you.
SPEAKER 16 :
And I now have a face with a voice, so thank you for that as well. Sure thing.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’ve got two questions. One is, I’ve mentioned before, I have an F-150 2011, F-150 with the four-liter engine. a 5-liter engine in it, and I’ve never had the radiator hoses replaced. Probably a good time to do that, even though they do look fairly decent. How about any other hoses on that vehicle? Is there anything else that works?
SPEAKER 16 :
Heater, radiator. I mean, if you’re going to do 2011, number one, so you can already do the math and know how our age is. And I didn’t get mileage. What’s the mileage, Rich?
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s 176,000. Yeah, they’re due. So all hoses are due at this point. And what are there besides the radiator hoses?
SPEAKER 16 :
You’ll have upper-lower radiator hoses. You’re going to have two heater hoses. I would even go as far as double-check all of your other rubber, quote-unquote, that’s in there. So everything that’s coming from the air box in, double-check, make sure all of that’s good and soft. You don’t have anything that looks like it’s cracking or degrading. And I would go through just all. Everything under the engine compartment, if it’s got any kind of a rubber to it, hoses especially, I would be looking at all that, Rich, with that kind of mileage and time.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, then. Okay, great.
SPEAKER 16 :
And do coolant, you know, at the same time, whoever does this is going to be doing, you know, if you go over there to Arvada West, for example, they’re going to be doing a complete, you know, coolant flush and all of that at the same time, which you also should be doing at the same time.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Okay. Just a quick Google search here does show that there is a T-connector and like a, In other words, it’s not just a straight upper, straight lower hose. There’s a T-connector going to the thermostat, so there might be one or two supplementary hoses when you do those radiator hoses. All those need done, Rich.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, then. Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. And then also, I had the misfortune of buying a 2025, I think it was, Toyota Grand Highlander. uh it looked nice i liked the size and everything but it was noisy inside and uh just uh not a very good ride in it and i was very disappointed in the thing so i ended up trading it off after a couple of years about in 24 it was a 25 traded off in a couple of years uh for the base level alexis of the tx uh 350 you know and if And it’s a world, to me, it’s a world. It’s much quieter. It’s got those noise-canceling microphones inside. You don’t hear the wind, you know, going down the interstate. But I think a couple weeks ago you mentioned that it has a decompression braking system or something like that, similar maybe to… The hybrids are dead. I understand that.
SPEAKER 16 :
I don’t think the GXs do. There are some cars out there that do now have that, but I don’t believe that GX has that, Rich.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, this is the TX.
SPEAKER 16 :
Oh, the TX. Yeah, actually, I think the TX does have that. Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you said G, but actually Gs were ended several years before that, so I should have known just from the year. So, yeah, the TX, I believe, does.
SPEAKER 05 :
How does that work? Do you have any idea?
SPEAKER 16 :
They are, in the TX, it’s not a hybrid. You just bought the straight version, or did you buy the hybrid TX?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, just the straight version.
SPEAKER 16 :
Just the straight version. I’ll be straight up honest. I don’t know, Rich. I’ve never studied exactly how they’re doing some of that extra quote-unquote compression braking. I’ve driven the cars. I know how it feels. I know how it works. As far as that is concerned, I’ve never looked at the technical side of it, to be honest with you. I don’t know.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 16 :
I can do some research and find. I’ll be honest. I’ve just never taken the time to research it to see how they do it. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER 05 :
And I do notice that when you lift off the accelerator, particularly at slow speeds, it seems like it is kind of bringing itself.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, as you know, the reason I talked about that is I drove one of those, oh gosh, I want to say probably, I don’t know, Rich, I lose track of time in my world. Time goes by fast. I want to say about six weeks or so ago is what I remember doing it. And Pat just brought something up. It does not primarily rely on compression braking. Instead, it uses traditional vacuum brake systems for refined control or pressure-on-demand systems with high-performance pump motors. On and on we go. So they are basically acting like it’s regenerative, but it’s not, and they’re not using the engine to do the compression braking. They’re using the brakes themselves to do so.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, then. Makes sense.
SPEAKER 16 :
Now that Pat brought that up, thank you, Pat. That makes total sense.
SPEAKER 05 :
Would that save on the brakes any at all?
SPEAKER 16 :
No, that’s probably going to add to the brake wear.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, really?
SPEAKER 16 :
Is that right? Okay. It’s actually going to do the opposite. It’s going to make it worse. Now, I will say this. It will be more controlled in the way that the brakes are being used. So instead of somebody, you know, a regular driver just, you know, slamming on the brakes as they would come to a stop or something like that, it’s going to be a more controlled brake. But no, they are going to have… more wear than a traditional vehicle that the compression braking is adding to it and that’s the one thing that i’ve not studied i don’t know why they’re doing that my gut feeling is the way that some of these new engines are designed and how they’re trying to do things with variable compression and so on they’re losing some of the quote-unquote compression braking although you think they could program that back in and still have it although I’m not on that technical side enough, Rich, on the design side to know why they do what they do. I wish I did, but I just don’t. And I don’t know any Toyota engineers. We used to have one that came on the program on a pretty regular basis. I used to learn a lot from him, but he hasn’t been with them in probably, I don’t know, seven or eight years. And since we lost him, I don’t have any internal contacts anymore.
SPEAKER 05 :
And again, what was that called again, that braking system?
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, it’s a form of regenerative braking. It’s sort of what they call it, but it’s not.
SPEAKER 05 :
Uh-huh. Okay.
SPEAKER 16 :
Because regenerative braking is typically putting electricity back into, you know, through a motor system is putting electricity back into a hybrid battery. But in your case, that’s not there. So they’re simulating regenerative braking through the braking system itself.
SPEAKER 03 :
On the Internet search, they’re using the terminology pressure on demand, and they’re saying that it’s more effective than a traditional vacuum brake system. There you go. So pressure on demand, it’s not probably a manufacturer-specific term, but it’s more of a technology with these extra pumps that they’ve got.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, then. Okay, great. Well, thank you very much for your help there on that.
SPEAKER 16 :
No, Rich, thank you. And again, it was really great meeting you. I always enjoy meeting people and putting faces with voices and so on, and it was really nice to meet you.
SPEAKER 17 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 11 :
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SPEAKER 17 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
All right, we are back. Drive Radio, KLZ 560. Myself, Pat Schneid, Alltech Automotive up in Fort Collins. Of course, Charlie Grimes, our engineer, Larry Unger, answering phones. We do have lines open, 303-477-5600. Before we do our next break, I’m going to squeeze something in here because… We were just talking through the break, Pat was, asking me different vehicles and sound deadening and noise and so on, and why are some cars louder than others and so on, and back to our last caller, Rich. Let me explain some of this, by the way. Now, Rich was exactly right. In some cases, like Lexus, not only do they do a really good job on some of the sound deadening, thickness of glass, by the way, All sorts of things along those lines. They even cheat a little bit and use the radio stereo system to help drown out some of that wind noise and other things as well. Now, let me explain, though, how certain manufacturers can make cars quieter versus noisier. I’ll give you a great example. So my Chevy Equinox EV, which, by the way, great car. I can never drive it because my wife’s always got it, so it’s a great car. That car, which, by the way, costs significantly less than its Tesla counterpart, is half as noisy as a Tesla, and I’m not exaggerating. Teslas, by the way, are not very smooth suspension-wise, and they’re noisy. And part of that, I believe, is because Tesla’s, I mean, it’s a car company to a point. It’s really a technology company is what it really is. And that’s what their focus really is on. And they’re not really a car company. And the way you make cars quieter going down the road, there’s lots of things, by the way, that go into that. It can be everything from the suspension, how it’s manufactured, what type of bushings are they using, how is it mated to the subframe of the car itself, how is the subframe then connected into the rest of the unibody. Folks, I could go down this list for the next hour and explain all of the little things that manufacturers can do to make a car either noisier or quieter or don’t care. In some cases, honestly, I believe in some cases and some makes and models, they just don’t care. They know they’re going to sell the vehicle because of what it is, and they don’t go through some of the things that I’m talking about. Even windshield slope, side glass, is it laminated or is it straight glass? Is it straight tempered glass? What kind of sound deadening do they put in the doors itself? And Pat knows what I’m talking about. You can take a door panel off of some cars, and you’ll notice a – Let me say this correctly. A layer inside the outside skin of the door that you know is sound deadening material. Sometimes it’s sprayed in. Sometimes it’s stuck on. And sometimes there’s nothing there. Correct.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I think what you’re getting to at the end of the day, John, is to make a car quiet costs money. It does cost money. And so the manufacturer has to know who’s the demographic of the people that are selling this car to you. And do they care about quiet or do they care about technology, as Tesla would, right?
SPEAKER 16 :
Or is it fuel economy? Or is it, to Pat’s point, is it just a price point and so on? Although, I will tell you this, and I may get time today to actually review this car. I drove a Kia K4 the other day, which is a car that is in the high 20s that, I will tell you straight up, is quieter than a Tesla. So you can still build a car that isn’t extremely noisy without spending a lot of extra money by just taking a few small things into consideration as they go to build a car. And folks, what I mean by that is even how is the A and B pillars designed? Are they catching air or are they diverting air? How are the mirrors made? Are they catching air or are they diverting air? I mean, folks, I can go down the list of all sorts of little things that manufacturers can do to either make a car noisier or quieter. And the reality is, yes, there’s some fine tuning that needs to be done in those areas to make the car quieter. But it’s not that hard to make a car go down the road and have less noise than what maybe its counterpart would be. Totally agree.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I think a company, again, like Tesla, the longer they’re in the market, the quieter their cars will get. But they’re probably just not focusing on those features at the moment. They’ve still got their braking systems, their battery systems, their artificial intelligence, which they’re world-renowned for, right? So they are pushing other things where a Kia or a Chevrolet might be saying, hey, it’s time for us to focus on the quietness of the car. What can we do to tune this car?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, the drivability, quote-unquote, on that side. Not drivability as in I can go from A to B and be just fine, have good power and all that. But no, what’s the actual comfortability, agronomics, what’s all of that like on the inside of the vehicle, and how does that feel when it’s all said and done? And I have yet, and I probably should start doing this, there is now apps where you can even do decibel meters on your phone and so on. And what I should be doing, and I will make a commitment to do this, On all of these new cars that we drive, I will start using some decibel meters and start explaining to a lot of you, you know, this particular model is X noisy and this particular model is X and Y and so on. And we can start doing that. And I’ll put a note in and do that because anymore with the apps and the phones and so on, it makes it very easy to actually make that happen. And I really should be doing that because there are some cars that I literally, to Pat’s point, I’ll climb in them, and it will be like, this thing is so noisy, I don’t think I can own this car.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, John. So I just made a note here in my little book, September 20th, 2025, John has committed to measuring the acoustic noise in road tests and will report that in the future.
SPEAKER 16 :
And I will do that, folks. In fact, I’m driving a Volvo right now that I will definitely do that, which in this case, I’ll give Volvo a hand. This is a smaller EV car. car of theirs and by the way evs tend to be a little noisier on the inside because there’s nothing to drown out the noise with an engine you sometimes don’t hear as much noise in the car because there’s engine noise and so on an ev it’s harder to make those quieter because you have nothing else to absorb or to distract maybe that’s the way to say it pat to distract from the noise that might be inside of the car
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and to Rich’s point, our last caller, he bought a new car and was disappointed with how noisy it was. So having a car that’s too quiet will not be a disappointment. Having a car that’s louder than you expect will disappoint you to the point that you might actually sell the car before you need to.
SPEAKER 16 :
And I’m one of those. I can understand exactly where Rich is coming from. The last thing I want to do is have to turn the radio up. because the road noise inside is so loud now one other thing when it comes to road noise this is something that you’ll typically find any of the vehicles and mostly going to be heavier suvs and trucks where it’s body on frame so there’s a frame and all the suspension is mounted to the frame and there’s big bushings that are between the frame and the body we call those body mount bushings those are always naturally going to be less noisy than unibody cars are. Because on a unibody car, it’s a tub, literally, with those components now mounted to the tub, meaning your noise transfer is going to be much louder in a unibody car always than it will be on a body-on-frame car.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you lost all those rubber isolation bushings, and that is the trend now. They’re much cheaper to make and probably safer, stronger, too. The new technology is awesome, but they’re louder.
SPEAKER 16 :
They are. They crumple easier, is what Pat was getting at, making them safer. But the harmonics, if you would, what actually is transferring into the rest of the car is always louder on a unibody car. than it is on a body on frame so for example you could go out and drive a full-size chevy tahoe yep and it will be half as noisy as that highlander that rich was talking about just because of that alone even if gm didn’t do anything else and they do of course but even if they did nothing else that car will you know that truck i should say will automatically be less noisy than a lot of the other unibody counterparts that might be out there just because of that fact alone. So a little bit of instruction on how different manufacturers can make cars quieter or noisier or whatever, and this also goes into this, or this also comes into play. A lot of people will say, why did they put those tires on that car? Why didn’t they put a more aggressive all-season or mud and snow or whatever on that car? And the reason is everything that Pat and I just got done mentioning. If they can put more of a highway tire on the car, in fact, a lot of manufacturers will even design their own tread design and say, I want this tread design. So we’ll put an RFP out, which is a request for proposal to all the different tire manufacturers. I want this tread pattern. We want a bid for this particular tire size with this pattern. So give it to us. And then whoever builds that tire, it’s pretty much done off of what I just said. And that’s why a lot of factory tires, A, are hard to replace because they’re typically only made for the factory for that particular… that one coming from the factory may be slightly different than what you’re buying in the aftermarket. Right. Because of what we’re talking about. Yep. And in a lot of cases, it’s the factory trying to make that vehicle quieter on the inside to get that initial sale. There you go. We’ll be back. Big business. Yep. Oh, it’s huge. All right. We’ll be back. I went a little long on that. We’ll come right back. Don’t go anywhere. Drive Radio KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 13 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
All right, we are back. Drive Radio, KLZ 560. Now, I wanted to add something Pat said during the commercial that you guys couldn’t hear. Sometimes I wish we could just keep talking and you could hear everything we talk about. Pat also mentioned that tires are made in basically three different categories is maybe the best way for me to say that. The original equipment, like I mentioned a moment ago. The aftermarket, which is what you would go and buy from all of the tire places. Tire rack, discount tire, etc., And then Pat reminded me that there’s one other category, big box stores. So you go buy tires at Sam’s or Costco, it could very well have a different tread pattern, its own tread pattern, I guess you could say, that’s different than what you’re going to buy from… say, you know, Firestone or Big O or any other tire dealers, even some of our shops internally sell tires, it will be a different tire than that. And what the big box stores do is similar to the OE, they will say, okay, we want this particular tire, this particular size, these particular qualities, and they’re going to be slightly different than than what you would normally go and buy someplace else and they do that because of course they’re going to buy a million plus tires probably i’m not exaggerating when i say that by the way maybe not a million but they’re buying hundreds of thousands of tires in a lot at any given time because they’re filling every store across the country and and as you guys all know they’ll typically run that lot and once that particular size of tire is gone It may be gone forever. It may be back. It may be not. It just depends on what they decide to do. And that’s how they get their price down. And where I’m going with that is a lot of times people will say, well, you know, I can buy the same tire at Costco for X. Well, you can get the same size. tire at costco but it’s doubtful that it’s the same tire doesn’t mean it’s a bad tire at sam’s or costco or walmart or wherever what i’m getting at though is it is not the exact same tire that you may be buying in the aftermarket from again say from you know tire rack or the other tire stores or whatever are out there so those tires could be the same but most likely they are not because costco is doing something that’s just slightly different that is giving them a pricing edge. And this is where you have to really be careful. Some of it could be the tread compound. It could be the tread design. It could be its wear number. Every tire has a wear number on it. And as we get into that time of year where some of you are thinking about replacing tires, these are just things to know. Now, does that mean I wouldn’t buy a tire at Costco? Absolutely not. That is not what I’m saying. For some of you that are listening, that may be your best deal to go and do. handle and I’m not trying to take anything away from our shops but every one of our shops knows that you don’t make a lot of money in tires anyway so typically they would be telling you the exact same thing I’m telling you at the end of the day just remember that you’re most likely not buying the exact same tire from Costco even though it looks the same it may very well not be the exact same tire you’re gonna buy someplace else so just just a little note there when it comes to tires and how that works so thank you Pat for that John and Cheyenne go ahead
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, so I’ve got a toy-built lawnmower with a Briggs & Stratton engine, and it won’t stay running. Like, if I was troubleshooting an old car, I’d say I had a clogged fuel filter.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know what I mean? Yep, yep. So it’ll start, and then it’ll just die out. I took a little bit of starting fluid, had the air filter off, As it was dying, I squirted it into the air intake and it revved back up and ran. No, if something like that has a built-in fuel filter in the carburetor or anything.
SPEAKER 16 :
No, what’s most likely, and this is very common on small engines, take the bowl of the carburetor off, which typically they’ll come off. It’s either got a little screw in the bottom that holds the bowl on or the bowl itself will twist off. Normally there’s a little screw in it. Take the bowl off. You’re likely to find some gunk, debris, and junk that’ll be inside of there. Take some carb cleaner. shoot it all the way up inside, rock the float up and down some while you’re squirting it, get the needle and seat good and cleaned out. Most likely there’s some junk that’s got caught in there that’s either making that needle and seat stick, whereby it’s shutting the fuel off, not allowing that fuel to come in and keep filling the bowl up.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, because I haven’t done anything on a carburetor since I had a full head of brown hair.
SPEAKER 16 :
These are easy because there’s not much to it.
SPEAKER 03 :
So I was first thinking a fuel problem also, but what is the spark system on an engine like that? I’m not sure.
SPEAKER 16 :
Usually it’s a magneto type system is the way they work typically. Because there’s no battery on it. Normally they just run off a magneto.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, no. Yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
And normally in your case, if you’re continuing to spray carb cleaner and it continues to run, probably not spark related. It’s lacking fuel is what it is. It’s a fuel problem, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and considering it was $6 for a new spark plug, I just changed that out just to be sure.
SPEAKER 16 :
Oh, sure.
SPEAKER 07 :
$6 and a two-minute change, you know what I mean? So that was an easy fix. And then it keeps doing the same thing.
SPEAKER 16 :
And most people think that those things have fuel pumps and stuff on them. They really don’t. Some have little diaphragms that kind of act like a fuel pump, but the majority of those are working off of gravity and some vacuum coming through the carburetor that’s then going to suck some of that fuel in as well. And again, typically on small engines, when they do what you’re talking about, John, it’s because something has gotten all crudded up in the carburetor itself.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Yeah, because there’s some stuff I’ve got to mow before some grass that creates snow fence that I’ve got to mow before the end of the year. Yep. All right, well, I guess I’m taking a small engine apart this week.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, and that one should be fairly easy. Sometimes you’ve got to take a cover or so off to actually get to that. And it’s a brass screw, typically. It’s at the very bottom of the bowl. Sometimes you might have to remove something to get to it. But typically, once you get the shields off, it’s pretty simple. It’s usually a flathead screwdriver. You take that off. And sometimes it’ll be a nut. So it’ll either be a flathead screwdriver or it’ll be a half-inch wrench. A 716 is a half-inch wrench. It’ll take that off one or the other. It depends on the… the size of the engine as to how big that bowl, you know, that bowl nut and stuff is, John, but it’s pretty easy to tell.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, there is a little, I thought it might be a drain plug. That’s why I was asking if there was a fuel filter.
SPEAKER 16 :
No, and it looks like a drain plug on the bottom of the bowl of the carburetor, but that’s what’s holding the bowl on. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, okay, because that’s a number 10 metric.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, yeah, metric, same thing. Okay, yeah, that would make sense. So, yeah, take that off. The bowl will come off. There will be a little either O-ring or gasket. Make sure you don’t drop that or mess it up, or it will leak when you go to put it back on. So just make sure that’s in good shape. But, again, just clean all the insides of that needle and seat area and all of that out. And you’ll typically, on almost every small engine, you’ll typically find some debris in the bottom. Just clean all that out.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. And John, I saw one of your favorite things on the way home from town this morning.
SPEAKER 16 :
What’s that?
SPEAKER 07 :
Right in front. Oh, a trailer that blew a tire and the guy had to pull off on the shoulder.
SPEAKER 16 :
Because they don’t pay attention to trailers.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. All right, John, you have a good day. You do the same, man.
SPEAKER 16 :
Appreciate you very much, John. And yeah, for a lot of you that might be getting snowblowers out, for example, some of you will be making that switch over here in probably the next three, four weeks. And what I will tell you is it’s always easier to get those out and work on them when it’s 70 degrees. than when it’s 35. So yeah, my recommendation is if you’re thinking about getting the snowblower out and getting it fired up, we’re not that far away, you could easily get that out and get it ready to go. And a little secret to that is BG makes their supercharged product If you’re worried about the fuel going bad, which it won’t in a month anyways, but if you are worried about it, just do the measurement. Put a little bit of supercharge in with the fuel. And by the way, for a lot of you that have gas cans kicking around, just put some supercharge in your gas can, and then that can is good to go, and you’re not going to hurt a thing with that supercharge. And you’ll get things up and running and rolling, and it’ll fire up again when the snow does start to fly and you need the snowblower. But yeah, always work on things when it’s nice and warm versus when it’s cold as snot out. So little recommendation. All right. Pat and I will be back here in a moment. Don’t go anywhere. Two more hours coming your way. Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 10 :
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.
