Join us in today’s episode of Drive Radio on KLZ 560 as we delve into the challenges faced by mechanics when dealing with rodent-infested vehicles. Discover why some damage is beyond repair and the bold decisions made to send certain vehicles on their way. We’ll discuss an intriguing listener question about exorbitant repair costs for high-end labor on a Toyota 4Runner and arm you with the knowledge to approach such dilemmas.
SPEAKER 18 :
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SPEAKER 19 :
There’s no such thing as a stupid question. This is Drive Radio. All of your automotive questions are just one phone call away. 303-477-5600. Drive Radio is made possible by the member shops of Colorado Select Auto Care Centers. To find one near you, go to drive-radio.com. Now, Drive Radio on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, hour number three, Drive Radio, KLZ 560. Myself, Mark Guernsey from Accountable up in Broomfield. Appreciate you all listening. Text line 307-200-8222. And you can call in directly. We have lines open right now, 303-477-5600. Got a question on the text line a moment ago that I thought we would answer. openly, Mark and I can do this, that basically ask the question, will a shop or have I ever refused to work on a rodent-infested vehicle? And the answer is absolutely. Yeah, I’ve had some in the past, and Mark can chime in on this as well, but yeah, I’ve had some in the past whereby you looked at it and it was just an absolute, I mean, basically the car is wiped. It’s totaled. Especially if it’s an older vehicle, it’s the point where you’re going to spend more money fixing this than the car is actually worth. So at the end of the day, you know, no offense, why bother? And you just ship it on down the road because it wasn’t worth attacking any way, shape, or form. And to the last caller that said, you know, $2,000 on a – basically, it’s a Max 4 Toyota 4Runner, meaning it’s the hybrid version of the 4Runner, $2,000. Keep in mind, folks, $2,000 in today’s world on an intensive high-end labor repair, which this is, you could easily be paying $250 an hour. So if you think about that and the hours that they would spend, two grand is really no offense, not out of question at all. It really isn’t, Mark.
SPEAKER 16 :
No, and it’s a tough job, and you give one of these jobs to a technician, they’ll turn their nose up. They don’t want to work on that. It’s not a pleasant job.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, in this case, most likely the dealer working on it, and again, I don’t know for sure, but typically speaking, you’re going to get a technician that’s going to want to do things, especially on that dealer level, that that vehicle now will still last the test of time. Meaning? they’re either going to put in some complete harnesses, depending upon what actually was chewed through, or the repairs that they do are going to have to be very, very high quality, meaning there’s a lot of time taken to make those repairs so that you’re using the right tooling, if you would, and heat shrink and so on to make sure that when everything is done, it’s solid, you’re not going to have any issues on down the road, we’re not going to have any rubbing, chafing, breaking, and so on. I mean, if the repair is done right… and you’re fixing everything that that rodent chewed up, you’re going to take more time. And I want to make sure I’m trying to explain this correctly. Not that you wouldn’t take time in a normal repair mark or even a normal wiring repair. But in the case of this on a newer vehicle, this technician most likely is going to take extra time to do a job versus even another repair that you would be doing, electrically speaking, because wires have been chewed through, meaning You’re really going to have to take a lot of time to make sure you’re getting that back to factory specs because it’s a new vehicle.
SPEAKER 16 :
And these are wires that aren’t under the dash. They’re out in the atmosphere.
SPEAKER 04 :
Correct. Great point.
SPEAKER 16 :
They’re going to get corroded. They’ve got to be right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Great point.
SPEAKER 16 :
And they’ve got to handle vibration and the weather and water.
SPEAKER 04 :
Water wicking, snow, ice. All that. Yes. Thank you, Mark, for saying that. It’s a big deal. A lot more to it than just, you know, a lot of people think, well, you could just cut that and butt connect it back together. No. In fact, that’s the worst thing you could ever do in a situation. You’re not using butt connectors. Hopefully you’re not using butt connectors.
SPEAKER 16 :
That might work for three or four years and then it’ll corrode and be a bigger problem.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. We don’t want that being used in this. In this case, you’re going to do some heat shrink, some soldering. You’re sealing things back up. Yeah. There’s a lot going on in that particular repair. So to answer the question, Is there ever a rodent problem whereby a shop might say, no, we’re not fixing that? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely they might. If they have literally destroyed a ton of things, that shot may very well just say, yeah, we’re out. Yeah, we’re not going here.
SPEAKER 16 :
And that’s usually a car that’s been sitting for two or three months.
SPEAKER 04 :
Or years in some cases.
SPEAKER 16 :
But yeah, you hope you want to catch it when there’s only two or three or five wires chewed through and that’s all. And then try to find them and repair them right. But they’re in spots that are hard to get to that only mice can reach.
SPEAKER 04 :
I just had a shop text me. I won’t say who this is because I want to protect them. But we just had a car yesterday that smelled, because of the rodents, that smelled so bad that we shouldn’t have turned it down. Now, in this case, it wasn’t rodents that was making it smell bad. It was some other substance. But basically, they should have turned it down just because of how it smelled. And, folks, yeah, I can’t stress this enough. If the shop doesn’t like the atmosphere, the vehicle, I should say… I mean, I had some vehicles back in the day where why I worked on them, I have no idea. I’m not joking. I was telling the story at Bear Jackson. I had some vehicles back in the day, and Mark, you could probably chime in on this one as well. I’ve had vehicles in the past. This is not a joke, folks. We used to keep a shovel in the shop. And there were cars that would come in where you had to do a heater core or something like that where you were literally getting a trash bag and a shovel and shoveling out the passenger seat. throwing everything in the trash bag just so you could get to the dash so you could work on the heater core or the fan or whatever you were doing underneath the dash at that point. And literally we’re taking that, throwing it in the trunk of the car or the back of the bed or whatever it happened to be. And I wouldn’t put all that stuff back in. I was literally shoveling it in just so you could get to the part that you needed to work on. And those were cars looking back on it. I should have just said. I’m done. I’m not doing this.
SPEAKER 16 :
Right. You feel like you have to wear a mask so you don’t breathe something. You got to wear gloves so you don’t catch a virus.
SPEAKER 04 :
I have cleaned out dirty diapers underneath seats and done things that I look back on and say to myself, you know, I mean, I did it back then because I was a business owner. I needed the revenue. So you did what you had to do. But looking back on it, should I have maybe made a better choice? Maybe I should have. Right. Eric, you’ve got a good story on rodents. Hang tight. I want to give you plenty of time. We’ll take a break and come back. That gives you plenty of time that way. Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 04 :
All right, we are back. Myself, Mark Guernsey from Accountable up in Broomfield. Eric and Aurora, you’re next. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 14 :
Hey, John. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 04 :
Good, Eric. How are you?
SPEAKER 14 :
Doing well.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 14 :
So, years ago, as a package deal, I bought a 48-inch Mahindra tractor and an old quarter-ton 87-point pickup. Okay. And the guy had had that pickup stored for a while. Actually had it parked out in the grass. And we opened up that hood, and, oh, yeah, every wire was skewed.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, I’m sure.
SPEAKER 14 :
Every wire.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
And, you know, of course, carbureted, so you don’t have as much of the requirements of a fuel injection and everything like that. So we wired enough to get the thing to run. And it’s a cool, cool day. My younger son and I decided we were driving it back up to Aurora and set out, and it’s like, well, you know, it’s pretty cold. We’re going to turn this heater on, see if it works. So we flipped it over to heat, throw that blower on, and we got stank out because the rodents had fallen in there and died in there. Gross.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I was just telling Mark, Eric, during the break that over the years of doing all this sort of stuff, yeah, I mean, I had everything from finding live ones to dead ones to the nest of to pinkies for little mice that were born to you name it.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, yeah, no, he put mothballs all throughout the thing and You know, other stuff, you know, still wool in places, trying to keep them out. And actually, I just, you know, before calling you or while waiting, I went and opened the hood to the thing because I still haven’t done the repairs on it. And even the windshield fluid hoses are chewed out and everything. I mean, the whole thing is just. it it will i’ll have to buy a new harness and actually one of my nephews says he wants to take it off of me and do the rebuild on it but some of these some of these connectors um The wires are so short, you’re just going to have to replace the entire parts and everything. It’s not just a matter of a connector, and it’s where it enters into the unit. But no, it just made me kind of chuckle a little bit, remembering driving up from near Calhoun up to here. and flipping that heater on, only to be stunk out by a dead rodent in it. It wasn’t funny at the time.
SPEAKER 16 :
No, but you figured out real fast what happened. Right.
SPEAKER 14 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
Get those windows rolled down.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, we did. We had the windows rolled down, and we just decided we’d be cold.
SPEAKER 04 :
Amazing.
SPEAKER 14 :
And that’s not the only time I’ve gotten stunk out, but that’s fully non-car related. Wow. So, yeah, that’s one of the things I need to do yet, is I need to get under the dash and pull the blower and get whatever is still in there out before I worry about doing the wire harness and everything. But, yeah, no… I kind of wanted to inject a little bit of humor on all of these wiring things. I’m sure somebody’s going to have a laugh at that one.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m sure. Nope, that was all. You’re a good man. Nope, that’s good. Good story, Eric. Yeah, and I’ll let you go. But no, Eric and everybody else, yeah, rodents can do some tremendous damage. Again, as I said earlier, yeah, I’ve seen vehicles whereby at the end of the day they were so far gone, you would have had to do a complete harness or something along those lines to even get fixed what was going on. It wasn’t even worth messing with. Got a question a moment ago. This is something I don’t know anything about. I’ll have to do some research on this one. So this is easier for me to talk about than to text a response back. And that is a it’s called Hot Shots Secret Defender Crystal Eliminator and Def Booster. So for def systems on diesels. And I don’t know. Excuse me. I don’t know much about this. product it’s supposedly as i’m reading through the description of it it’s a it’s a additive that you put into the def that’s supposed to basically clean the def system keep the crystal build up down and so on and honestly folks i’ve never used anything like this and In our fleet of vehicles running DEF and so on, no, I’ve never used it, don’t know anything about it. I have no idea if it works or doesn’t work. I do know this, that you have to use fresh DEF. DEF can go bad after a length of time. It will crystallize even over a length of time. So, yeah, it’s something that you’ve got to be aware of and stay on top of and make sure that the DEF that you’re using is nice and good and clean. But I’ve never used a DEF additive. So this is news to me. I don’t know much about it. This is a product coming out of Tractor Supply. Thank you for sending it, by the way. But, no, this is not a product that I am at all familiar with. So I have no idea how that particular product works. Never even.
SPEAKER 16 :
If it works, it could be a good benefit. It’s a useful thing.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, again, I will do a little bit of research on this. I know nothing about it. They’re basically claiming that if you’ve got even a check engine like this come on because of a deaf problem, this could potentially help with that. I don’t know, folks.
SPEAKER 16 :
That’s unlikely, but it’s possible.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, again, without knowing the product, using it, trying it, and so on, I’m always careful not to criticize something I don’t know anything about. Although, and by the way, the claims, I don’t know that I can deny their claims, because yes, DEF can crystallize and form deposits and do some things, but I will say this, if you’re using fresh DEF and you’re keeping it fresh, chances of you having to do anything along these lines is pretty slim. It’s sort of like, because I’m not a big fan of this, if you keep oil changes up on your vehicle, and you don’t go longer than you’re supposed to when it comes to changing oil and so on, engine flushes, which I’m not a fan of, you don’t need. If you keep that oil fresh and you do what you’re supposed to, doing a quote-unquote engine flush, which some folks will even advertise, and I’m not a fan of because I think they do some damage at times, which I’m not a big fan of engine. I’m not talking the engine performance restoration that we do with BG. That’s not an engine flush. That’s a direct injection decarbonization and we’re doing some things to the rings and so on i’m not talking about that i’m talking there are places out there that will sell you on a machine that does a quote-unquote oil engine flush and no i’m not a fan again if you keep your oil changes up and you do what you’re supposed to with high quality filters and so on not needed In fact, I will tell you that I think some of the chemicals and things they use in the engine flush itself aren’t good for the engine, so I’m not a fan.
SPEAKER 16 :
You’re also bringing up another point. Cars are not designed to be stored or sent around, and the more they get used, the better off they are. You’re right. And fluids keep updated, and things get used. Even gas gets old, and diesel.
SPEAKER 04 :
By the way, somebody just texted in on this topic of this particular product, this DEF product, that if it’s a truck that sits a lot, doesn’t get driven much, it might be something to use in that particular truck if you’re not going through a lot of DEF like most guys driving diesels do. And by the way, maybe. Again, this is not a product that I’m super familiar with, and for a truck that sits a lot, possibly. Although… Again, typically the deaf system, if it’s sealed and it’s not getting air into it, which that’s the way the system is designed, it shouldn’t be crystallizing anyways. Somebody also just asked me, this is a question I’ve ever been asked before. This is a great question, by the way, because I have strong opinions on this. What little tree air freshener is my favorite fragrance? None. Zero. Zilch. I am an anti-fragrance-in-the-car person, and here’s why. Number one, they put out so many carcinogens and junk, and no, I’m not a greenie, but you shouldn’t be sniffing that stuff, period. It’s not good, especially in a hot car. That stuff just propagates and even makes things worse. And here’s my feeling on smells in a car. Again, I’ve been around new used cars and so on, have classic cars, etc. If you keep your car clean… If you don’t eat in your car, if you vacuum it regularly and wash it regularly and you wipe out the door jams and you keep the floor mats clean and so on, you don’t need a fragrance. You just don’t. If you keep the car clean and you take care of it the way a car should be cared for, which I do, there’s no need for air fresheners. In fact, you can get in one of my cars that is several years old, not exaggerating, several years old, and it’ll smell new. because of how I take care of the inside and outside of my vehicle. I don’t eat in the car. I don’t let things build up in the car. I don’t keep a bunch of trash in the car. I don’t keep a bunch of old, nasty, stinky gym clothes and things like that in the car. Again, I don’t keep things in the car that change the smell of the car, so I don’t need an air freshener because there’s nothing to freshen because it’s already fresh.
SPEAKER 16 :
That’s a good point. Does that make sense? There’s nothing in a car that gets old and starts to smell. Nothing original, nothing that should be in there.
SPEAKER 04 :
The new car smell will diminish as time goes by because those plastics and the materials and the carpet and so on, they’re leaching, no doubt about it. In fact, there are studies that say even driving a new car can be somewhat of a problem, especially if you’re sensitive to certain things, because all of those things are leaching off when it’s hot out and so on. I get that. And that’s where that quote-unquote new car smell is coming from. It’s like putting new carpet in your house. It gives it that smell that you wouldn’t get otherwise. Now, much like your house, if you keep your car clean, back to my point, if you keep the car clean, and to Mark’s point, there’s nothing in the car that’s going to make it stink. What makes cars smell is the things we add to the inside of the car. You know, stinky tennis shoes and stinky gym clothes and food that either goes bad or isn’t bad. And even certain foods, just carrying it from the takeout to home can make things smell and, and, and. There’s things that you’re adding to the inside of the car, which is where that, quote, unquote, fragrance inside is changing from. And the reality is if you keep everything clean – And believe me, I can attest to this. If you keep everything clean, the inside of the car never changes. Correct. And I can prove that through the car I drove in high school. My 68 Buick Grand Sport, which I drove, had 29,000 miles on it. I drove it to about 49,000 miles, sold it, bought it back. I’ve now owned that car for, I think I saw a Facebook post the other day. I’ve had that car for like 12 years. And I’m here to tell you, and I’m not exaggerating, people that have been in the car will attest to this. It smells just like it did when I started driving it in 1980. And it smells the same way today. It’s exactly the same. Why? Because of everything I just said. Even when I was a kid, no one ate in my car. No one smoked in my car. No one did anything in the car that would have changed anything in it smell-wise. And it smells to this day exactly like it did back in 1980, which, by the way, was probably the same way it smelled in 1968. Yeah. So it hasn’t changed since day one, meaning, no, I don’t like car fresheners because I’m one of those that believes you shouldn’t have them because if you keep things clean, like I just mentioned, it’s a non-necessity. So, all right, we’ll come right back. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back. This is Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 04 :
All right, we’ve got two calls. Real quick, I got a text message that came in. 22 Telluride, so 2022 Telluride, that I went to change the battery. Has a battery management system which needs a scan tool reset. Is this a correct assessment? It seems like gone are the days where you can just drop a battery. Yeah, you know what? I don’t know about that particular vehicle. Does not shock me. That would make a lot of sense. A lot of late model vehicles, when you go to change a battery, there is a reset procedure because what happens is the alternator needs to know, am I keeping a new battery charged or an old battery charged? And it will change its settings accordingly. And, yes, it needs to know if, in fact, you’re putting a new battery in. So that is not out of the question, and that would make total sense. Nick and Aurora, go ahead.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yes, sir. Hi. I currently have a 2013 Toyota Camry. 110,000 miles roughly. Very well taken care of, and I like the car.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 12 :
I’m thinking of getting another car, and I’m considering a hybrid, a Toyota hybrid in this case. I drive approximately 5,000, 6,000 miles a year. Okay. Is it worthwhile to get a hybrid?
SPEAKER 04 :
All you can buy in a Camry now is a hybrid. So if you go buy a new Camry, that’s the only version they offer now. They’ve since, I believe for 2026, Nick, that’s all they went to. Now you can buy some used ones on the market that you’ll have the option of either doing hybrid or the gas engine. In your case, you could do either or. But I will tell you that the Camry hybrid is probably one of my favorite vehicles, period.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, worthwhile. I mean, as far as maintenance and things of that sort, a
SPEAKER 04 :
pretty well maintenance you on a camry hybrid for you at 5 000 miles a year and you would do this on a regular vehicle as well but especially on that vehicle once a year oil change and that’s about all you’re going to do tire rotation and that’s about it that’s about it for you no okay i appreciate you it’s a great vehicle nick it really is i mean i and i’m not joking when i say it one of my favorite vehicles they work really really well
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, again, I’ll definitely consider it and micro-hybrid all the way.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. All right, Nick. Good question, by the way. And, yeah, no, I appreciate that very much. Bob and Thornton, go ahead.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, John. Hey, Bob. I’m an Uber driver, and I got a problem with, yeah, I don’t like these air fresheners that have a scent. But I get people in my car that smell like, A, cigarettes, B, marijuana. And if I have Indian, you know, whatever. riders in there they smell like a combination of curry and celery and veal so I use a little 4×5 cheap sponge and I spray it with Febreze and I also take my cabin air filter out and spray that with Febreze and it doesn’t have any scent but it tends to take that out of there but if you’re an Uber driver you’re going to have smells in your car that you don’t like
SPEAKER 04 :
There is, and you’re right, and for those of you that are in that situation, there are these, and I’ve talked about these before, even folks where you might have, you know, smells in the car, smoke by a used car that has some of that in it. There is a product, and I’m trying to find it on Amazon, but it’s a – I saw it at SEMA years and years ago. I’ve recommended it for years. It works fabulous. It’s basically a can that you put inside the car. You open the lid. and it’s a bio-type product, and I’m not joking, Bob. You let that sit in there for about 24 hours, and it’ll take every smell out.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I get subsequent riders a lot closer than 24 hours. I get a bunch of those little cheap sponges sprayed with Febreze. Leave them in the car if you’re an Uber driver. Hey, I got to go. I got to ride.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, you got to ride. Go for it, Bob. And off you go. No, and I will look that up. If any of you that want to know that, there are these odor eliminators. Again, it comes in a can. It’s like a bioabsorbent. You can look them up on Amazon. They sell them there as well. But I have actually used those in the past myself. They make them for the house. They make them for the car. And yes, in fact, they do work. In fact, they work extremely well. So if there’s something you’re trying to eliminate odor-wise, they work great. Buck and Cheyenne, go ahead.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, good. Hey, Buck. Good afternoon, John.
SPEAKER 04 :
How are you?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, I’m still laid up, so I missed part of you because they were doing a new Wi-Fi installation.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, no problem. I got it. I hear you.
SPEAKER 11 :
But anyway, I wanted to talk a little about Barrett-Jackson.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sure, go ahead.
SPEAKER 11 :
I had a It appeared to me early on, since I can’t do anything else, we watched them on the Internet for a while. In the first two, three days, cars seemed to sell about like they did last year. And then later on, it seemed to me as a whole, the cars brought more money than they did last year. Yes. It appeared that there is no recession after if you watch Friday.
SPEAKER 04 :
There isn’t if you watch that. You are correct.
SPEAKER 11 :
And you talked about it appears that, oh, shall we say the 50s, unless they’re restomods, those cars are kind of going by the wayside.
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re correct.
SPEAKER 11 :
But the pickups, shall we say 55 on a pickup sports or Chevys, especially Chevys or GMCs really seem to be popular.
SPEAKER 04 :
They’re doing very well.
SPEAKER 1 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
The Mopar and Chevy products seem to be pretty good. And Ford, if you’re into their performance, was good. But you were talking about the generation difference. I’m wondering, it seemed to me, just looking at the crowd, I was there last year. just looking at the TV crowd, there seemed to be more a younger, maybe not a real young group, but overall maybe a little bit younger group purchasing Yeah, I can’t argue that.
SPEAKER 04 :
I think that’s correct. Which, by the way, as I said earlier, Buck, I know you didn’t hear me, but that’s a good thing for the industry in general. And you’re right on especially the truck side. And as I explained earlier, I believe the reason why the trucks do fairly well is… is, number one, they can be built to what somebody’s, you know, likings is, if you would. There’s not much when it comes to trucks with, you know, number matching this, that, and the other, and how was it built originally, and even color-wise. You know, a thing could have been, you know, yellow, and now it’s red, and really as long as it’s done well and painted well, no one really cares at the end of the day. Where you take some of the early models, You know, hot rods, you know, muscle cars, I should say, Buck, if the car was, you know, was yellow, it needs to stay yellow. If it was a white, it needs to stay white. If it was blue, it needs to stay blue to keep its value. The trucks aren’t that way. No one cares.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, and I guess it looks like quite a few of the rest robots are built on frame-on chassis where they have a frame on them. you look at, should we say, the cars that have been out since, oh, after 2000, maybe 2010 or so, when they started putting the unibodies on them, those cars are going to be a little harder, should we say, in 20 years, which I won’t be around to see, but they’re going to be harder to make a restomod out of.
SPEAKER 04 :
True.
SPEAKER 11 :
Would you agree with me?
SPEAKER 04 :
I agree with you.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I agree with you.
SPEAKER 11 :
I hope you had a good time.
SPEAKER 04 :
I did. It was great. I really did, Buck. And to your point, it was fun to see all the things, the activity, the folks that were there, the auction itself and the sales. And really, to your point, there was no recession there, I can tell you that much.
SPEAKER 11 :
And it also appeared like the crowd was larger than last year.
SPEAKER 04 :
It was packed. Saturday evening, jammed, packed, yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
My wife was watching. She was watching with me. And she says, it’s a good thing we went last year because she said we couldn’t get our scooters around.
SPEAKER 04 :
It would have been really tough this year. No, you are correct in that. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 11 :
But they are so superb at showmanship. I don’t know if anybody else does a better job of… showmanship than they do at least on their January sales.
SPEAKER 04 :
Are you there? Yeah, I’m here. Again, Buck, you know what? I should have looked to see exactly what the sales were this year versus last, but I’ve got to believe they superseded it by a long shot.
SPEAKER 11 :
Oh, yeah. I’m sure they did. They had some Corvettes, I believe, and a Matching Camaro last year that I can’t think of his name, the NASCAR guy bought that were up there. But there were especially a lot of the charity cars, the earlier ones, they did some charity ones on Thursday or so. They weren’t up there quite as bad. But, boy, the ones on Friday and Saturday, they really did a good job on.
SPEAKER 04 :
Awesome.
SPEAKER 11 :
But I just… Wondered if you and I kind of thought the same.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, nope, we were on the same page. Absolutely, Buck, 100%.
SPEAKER 11 :
You have a guy that advertises with you that does appraisals.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, BP Appraisals, Burke Payne, great guy.
SPEAKER 11 :
Does he do automotive appraisals?
SPEAKER 04 :
He does.
SPEAKER 11 :
Does he come to Cheyenne?
SPEAKER 04 :
He will.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay. Okay. I may get a hold of him. I want to find out what my car is.
SPEAKER 04 :
And he’s listed on our website, Buck. Just go to the Drive Radio website, and you’ll find BP Appraisals there, and just call Burke. Great guy.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, I knew he was on your website.
SPEAKER 04 :
He’ll take care of you. I just talked to him this last week, so yep, definitely.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay. Okay, well, I’ll let you go.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, Buck. No, appreciate you very much. All right, we’ll take one last break. Ralph, Albert, both you guys hang tight. We’ll come right back to you. Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 04 :
All right, we are back. Drive Radio, KLZ 560. Albert in Denver, you’re next. Go ahead, Albert.
SPEAKER 05 :
How you doing, John? Good. Enjoy your show as usual. Thank you. Talk to you guys in a while. You guys were talking earlier about vehicles were rotting skin and just really destroying. I’ll give you a story of a friend of mine. That was my nephew’s father-in-law. He bought a late 70s Thunderbird. Okay. I mean, it was pristine. He got an excellent deal. You know, he was telling us he paid five grand for it, whatever. And I saw it in that. And I mean, it was all original. So he lived out near Strasburg. So he drove it out there. In fact, that’s where I saw it. Well, he just threw a tarp over it and left it out there for about a year. Well, when he pulled the tarp off, it was like a horse show. I imagine.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
mean the front seat I mean he didn’t really wanted to spend the money to fix it he finally got rid of it but they can do some damage oh yes they can destroy a car yeah I was just listening to the stories you know some of the people that called in and just one more quick one that we were out in Florida and my sister-in-law she didn’t drive her vehicle too much she had a little Ford Escape But, man, a rat got into the engine and started going to town on a few wires. And, I mean, it was driven, you know, not every day, but, you know, every once a week or so. But that was amazing. Then we saw the rat. That joker was huge. But, anyway, I got a question for you, John.
SPEAKER 01 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 05 :
I got a 2011… Ford Ranger. I just picked it up about six months ago. It’s been a pretty good little vehicle. Gino’s flushed the transmission. He said it looked pretty good. I was really satisfied with that. I need shocks, rear shocks. I know I need them, but my rear end is kind of sagging a little bit. What kind of – I mean, OEM, would it be doing the same thing, leaving it at a sag, or would it lift it up a couple of inches?
SPEAKER 04 :
No, the shocks won’t lift it at all. That’s in the springs itself. So you either need some sort of an additional spring to raise that back up. Airbags can help with that as well. Shocks will not do that. Shocks won’t do it? No.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. It will – not even air shocks?
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re saying that – You could do – well, I don’t know if they’d make an air shock for that. On a truck, I wouldn’t recommend that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. So it’s just a whole deal. I might need new springs.
SPEAKER 04 :
Might need it, or an additional leaf you can add into that if you wanted to. Okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, Albert. No, good questions. I appreciate it very much. Thanks for the call. Ralph, you’re next. Go ahead, Ralph.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, John. Love the show.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
I want to ask you your opinion about me doing breaks. Okay. It’s a 2017 Ford Fusion.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
And I like the way the Ford tells you your braking’s gentle on them, and they’ve gone a long way, but understand, or at least my understanding at this point, without too much research, is that hybrids have a lot of extra sensors, and they need to be reset and some things like that. So question me your opinion on me redoing the pads on my brakes or actually having to take it to a shop.
SPEAKER 04 :
You could do it yourself as long as you’re buying the right components anymore. Buy rotors. Don’t buy just pads because the rotors are going to need replaced as well. So as long as you’re doing rotors and the pads and then making sure everything’s lubricated properly and handled correctly and on that car… or on that truck, and I’d have to look it up, or that car, I should say, look it up and make sure some of the caliper bolts are a one-use only, and you can’t use them more than once because they’re a torque-to-yield caliper bolt. Make sure that’s not the case, because if so, you need to buy new caliper bolts. And a lot of technicians, Ralph, don’t even know what I just said.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, well, I can understand that. I guess my concern was more of the There’s possible sensors on that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and again, if you buy the right brake pads, it’s all going to come with that anyway, so that’s not an issue. That part’s not. I don’t think on that 2017 Fusion you have to do any kind of a calibration or reset.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, because, I mean, it’s trying to recover the energy, so I didn’t know how it really did that.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, and that has undo the pads. That’s all done external of that, so that won’t have anything to do with that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Thanks very much.
SPEAKER 04 :
You bet. Nope, Ralph, thank you very much. I appreciate it as well. Jeff is next. Go ahead, Jeff.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello, John. What’s up?
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m good. How are you?
SPEAKER 06 :
Good. We’re running out of time. Hey, on the Barrett-Jackson, you said you went out to that?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I did.
SPEAKER 06 :
Did you go? Were you just kind of farting around looking, or did you guys bring a car to sell?
SPEAKER 04 :
No, I just went as media.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. What, okay, my old man’s got a bunch of, we’ve got a bunch of cars, right? We have, you know, he does. And so what is your break point there? Like for a guy to go through the whole process of getting them out there, like what kind of car do you not want to bring out? I mean, he’s got a 60, one of them, I’m thinking a 67 Mustang. It’s a German built that doesn’t say Mustang. It’s a rare car. German-built Mustang, I guess they took them out there.
SPEAKER 04 :
The bottom line is, I saw cars out there that were in the $4,000 or $5,000 range. You can literally take any car that you want. A Barrett-Jackson, one of the only auctions, it’s no reserve. So whatever it sells for, it sells for. You’re paying anywhere from 8% to 10% on the seller’s side. The buyer’s paying 10% on their side. That’s how Barrett-Jackson makes money, but you can roll anything in there you want.
SPEAKER 06 :
How far is the tow? Where are they?
SPEAKER 04 :
Barrett-Jackson, I think, does three auctions. This one is in Scottsdale. That’s January. Scottsdale in January. I’d have to look at Barrett’s, which I can do really quick. Their next one, I think, is Palm Beach, April 16th through the 18th. That is their next one.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Okay. Okay, so you’re going to get $4,000 or $5,000 to get it out there. So it’s not too expensive.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it depends. Per car, you can get them out there for $1,000, $1,500. Right. Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
Did you talk about the $130,000 lightnings today yet?
SPEAKER 04 :
I did not. No, didn’t get a chance to. Sorry. Didn’t get that far.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, whatever.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s all right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Let people know about that. Anyway, yeah, I was just curious on that about how much that does cost to bring those cars out there. So you’re going to, yeah, $1,000.
SPEAKER 04 :
Shipping only. There’s no cost to put it in the auction. They make all the auction money off what they sell. Oh, okay. Yep, that’s how it works. Jeff, I appreciate it. I’m going to squeeze one more call in here before we go to the end of the show here. Sharpie, you’re next. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, how are you guys doing?
SPEAKER 04 :
Good, Sharpie. How are you?
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, not too bad. I was just enjoying your conversation about some smelly cars and… I just remembered back in about 1980, we were cleaning out a 1973, the last big Mach 1. It was a totaled car. We were just parting it out. It smelled really bad, so we ended up, my dad says, clean it out, get everything out there. So we threw out a tennis shoe underneath the seat, and I threw it out, and my brother goes, what in the world is that? Anyhow, it ended up being somebody’s big toe.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, no. No. That’s nasty.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, it was terrible. And so we called Adams County Sheriff’s to have them come and get it, you know, because we didn’t want to. We didn’t know it should be part of the investigation of the car. And it was rolled and hit. It was broadsided on the driver’s side and rolled over and hit. Yeah, that was the worst one we found, but we used to do a lot of totals and rebuild them before the S titles, you know.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
But that was the worst one we ever saw, but me and my brother still laugh about that.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s funny. Yeah, you got me. I’ve never had that, Sharpie. You one-upped me. Never have seen a body part in a car. You’re one-upping me.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, at least it was just a toe, not anything else.
SPEAKER 04 :
Still, I don’t need anything like that.
SPEAKER 08 :
I feel bad for the guy that lost his toe. Yeah, me too. I’m surprised that somebody didn’t come and get it or do a little more research, you know?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, that’s awful.
SPEAKER 08 :
We had the sheriff come out, and he says, well, just throw it in the trash.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Okay, then.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s disgusting.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sharp, Emily, you’re old.
SPEAKER 04 :
Finish out the show. No, that’s a good story. You wound up to be on that one. And really quick, Bear Jackson, let me say this. Palm Beach, April 16th through the 18th. Columbus, June 25th through the 27th. And then Las Vegas, September 10th through the 12th. So, yeah, Scottsdale is their biggest auction of the year. We’re going to get out of here. Mark, as always, appreciate you very much. Accountable Automotive, you can go check him out online, drive-radio.com. Find him there along with all of the other people that make this show happen each week. Larry Unger answering phones today and Charlie Grimes, our engineer. Guys, have a fabulous weekend. Don’t forget the text line, 307-200-8222. This is Drive Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 19 :
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.
