Latest / In Wheel Time Podcast / Mastering Used Car Research with Carfax's Faisal Hassan and Reviewing Subaru Crosstrek

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Mastering Used Car Research with Carfax's Faisal Hassan and Reviewing Subaru Crosstrek · In Wheel Time Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another In Wheel Time Podcast, a 30 minute mini version of the In Wheel Time car show that airs live every Saturday morning 8 to 11am.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Central Podcast Channel From the world famous sugar shack in Texas, usa.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's the In Wheel Time car talk show and coming up.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We're going to speak to Car Facts about getting the most out of available data.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: We'll have the upcoming events calendar.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Mars reviews the new Subaru Crosstrak.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: At the bottom of the hour we talk about the upcoming Texas Mile event.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Plus, you'll hear the stories making automotive news headlines today.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: We've got Hemmings sold cars round up.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: It's always fun and a pleasant Saturday to you.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Howdy Along with Mike out of this world of Mars King Conrad DeLong.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: We always need more Jeff Zieken, he's a time down.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Armstrong gargling his way through the intro.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: There you go here on the In Wheel Time car talk show.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, we have an hour to go.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: You know this is a three hour show.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Theoretically, that's theoretical.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Theoretically.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Theoretically Mars is theoretically.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: You know, if I were him, I think I'd come over here and slap.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: So so, so I'm just proud he got the wording right.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: The pronunciation with the emphasis on the right, so libel.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so libel, but we didn't get the last guest's name correct, I guess.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Well, you asked Gee Gee.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: And I would have said Alex, alex is right.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we got that part of it right.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: What a great interview.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a good stuff.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Fascinating stuff, isn't it?
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Well, we're going to have another fascinating interview right now.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: His name is Faisal Hassan and he's the general manager of data at Carfax.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Good morning, sir.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: Doing well.
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: Good morning, gentlemen.
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: Great to be on again.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good to have you with us again.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So here is the subject at hand All right, how consumers, car buyers, can do better used car research.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, I don't have an answer to that, but I think that you probably do.
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: I mean, look, today, with so many resources available to consumers, we know that they'll go to the internet, they'll go to Google, they'll do a search and there are just so many resources out there and first of all, the consumer has to decide what kind of car they want.
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: They want an SUV, they want a sedan, they want a pickup truck.
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: And then they want to go and they want to look at the reviews on those cars.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: Which one do they actually want?
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: What year, make, model are they looking for?
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: If they're looking to buy a used car, obviously I'm with Carfax and I highly recommend they go to Carfaxcom.
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: We have literally millions of used cars that dealers from all over the country thousands of dealers have posted the car.
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: You get the free vehicle history report there and literally millions of them that you can find.
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: But you need to narrow down what you want to look for.
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: You can use our site.
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: There are great websites like consumer reports that you can also use to look at reliability and ratings and then you can also use Carfax.
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: Once you pick a car and you find it on a dealer site, you can actually look at the ratings and reliability of working with that particular dealer.
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: We collect that information specifically from consumers who have been to that dealer.
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: But today you go to the internet.
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: There's just endless resources.
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: I highly recommend Carfax places like consumer reports as a starting point.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, what am I looking for specifically?
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Let's just take, for instance, a car that's an SUV that's four years old.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Let's just pick a suburban Chevy suburban it's four years old, it's got 60,000 miles on it.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Well, okay, so here's the data, but what part of?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Because there's lots of data what part of the data am I looking for?
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: What do you?
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: think or should be looking for, or should be looking for.
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, if I'm buying a four-year-old car that's got 60,000 miles on it, what's the first thing that tells me?
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: It tells me car has been driven about 15,000 miles a year, which is about average usually around 12,000, 12 to 15,000 is average.
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: I'm going to look for how many owners has it had.
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: It's four years old.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: Am I buying it as the second owner or has it had three previous owners?
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: I'm going to look for what was its previous use.
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: Was it a taxicab in its previous life?
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: Was it a rental car?
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: Did it come off a two-year lease or and then go to another two-year lease?
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: So I'm going to look for those kinds of things.
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: But the number one thing we know consumers look for dealers, anyone is was the car in an accident?
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: They have a damage event in its past during those four years, and that is really key and using a car fax report, getting a mechanics inspection, is really crucial for that.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: Then you want to know has the car been well maintained?
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: Has it had all of the key service at events that it was supposed to have during that time?
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: And if you do those things with a mechanics inspection and a test drive, you should be in pretty good shape with that four-year-old suburban.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: If you're looking at four or five different ones at different dealers.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: Now you have that ability to compare all of them against each other, for which one is meets all of those criteria the best.
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: And if you're comparing them side by side and you're looking at their vehicle history reports side by side, you're also going to be able to see the vehicle history adjusted value on there, which is the specific value that car fax places on that specific car Not all cars and not all of those four-year-old suburban, but that specific suburban based on its history.
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: And from there you've got all of the information you need.
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: But you're exactly right you want to compare cars at different dealers and then put yourself in a good position to negotiate and try to understand why different dealers are pricing them differently.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: How far back?
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: We're talking about a four-year-old car now.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: How far back does your data?
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: How far back can I look?
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: 1981, when the begin, when the Vin became standard.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, I don't know of a 1981 car I'd want to buy.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: No, no.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: But let's say, let's say, your, your, your Corvette 2001, 2002, 34, 45 but a 1981.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Corvette Stop button.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: There's nothing there.
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: No, but it's a, it's a great quite.
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: We actually see cars all the time with, you know, model year 94, model year 95.
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: People are running vehicle history reports on them.
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: You guys probably know this.
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: The average age of the car on the road today, the vehicles and operations about 12 years, yep, and it's growing.
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know, if we get this strike that takes place and you have less new cars flowing in, people are going to keep their cars longer and and we're seeing that quite a bit now especially used car prices.
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: We put out a press release a couple of weeks ago because we saw used car prices trend down about $600 on average per car.
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: Now that might change if a strike takes place and lasts say three, four months.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Well, but, by the same token, the the truck I'm driving is a 2015.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I like driving that truck.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: It drives good, it does everything.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: What it's missing, though, is the new technology, and the cost to upgrade it to from from a number three to a number five system, for example is just it's a bunch of money, but the truck is holding its value because of the used car market and stuff.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: So I'm nine years into it and I got no, I'm not looking at a new one, okay.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm just saying that there's a lot of reasons to keep it, but, and if I could figure out a decent way to upgrade the technology as far as the screen and interface to it, I wouldn't even think about it.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I want to shift gears a little bit and ask you there are a lot of cars on the market that are for sale, that are have been wrecked in the past.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And when I say that, that's a general statement, because a wreck can mean it wiped off the entire front end, that it's been rebuilt or it could have had a fender bender where they crushed the right front fender.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: He got it repainted, no structural damage to the car.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Would you buy a used car based on that and people do and what is the percentage of that?
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: Believe it or not, about 50% of all the cars on the road have had some sort of damage events and we see regularly in our data that about 30 to 40% of the cars that people run vehicle history reports on have had some sort of damage event.
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: And the great thing is what Carfax is able to do.
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: We're able to put about a severity and a point of impact on about 95% of all of those damage.
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: Oh wow.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: That's sick yeah.
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's right on our report.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: Now I will buy a used car with a damage event.
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: I will be totally honest with you.
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: My very first used car ever, my very first car ever, was a 1980 Honda Prelude that had a huge dent in the side and I bought it anyway because it ran great and the guy told me it had been in an accident and he told me what happened and he gave me a great deal on it and I had a mechanic.
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: There was no Carfax, unfortunately at the time, actually no 17-digit VIN either, and I drove that car for 10 years all through college and graduate school until I had my first kid.
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: So you can buy a good used car that's had a damage event.
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: Now if it's been a total that's got a salvage brand on it, I would steer away from those cars.
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: And today, with all of the flooding that's taking place, you're getting a lot of flood vehicles that are coming back in the market from Vermont and California and Florida.
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: So being really careful is important.
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: But there are good used cars that have had damage sustained and have been repaired the right way Can you walk me through the process of getting a car on Carfax.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: And the reason why I asked this is we just recently purchased a car and you're out on the lot.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: You're looking where's the Carfax report?
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's just came in.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: It's going to be on next week.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: What about that one?
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, that one.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: We didn't have a Carfax report, so is it garbage in, garbage out at the dealer?
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: So look, we've got 31,000 dealers who subscribe to our service.
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: It's rare that you could go to a dealer and not find a dealer who's providing a car fax report.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: I can take you to four today.
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: And let them call me.
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: I'll get them on the program.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: The reality is today, most people who start their car search it's not like the old days where, when I bought my first car, I'd go look in the paper, I'd drive out the dealer's lots and try to figure out what they had.
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: People are going to the internet today, right, they're going to the dealer's website, they're going to Carfaxcom and they're seeing the cars and the vehicle history report is right there.
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: It's there because the dealer purchased it and asked us to put it there and you'll see it everywhere.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: These dealers are on the Carfax.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: They have the signage, they've got the big banners, they've got all that.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: They're signed up.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: They just don't know.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: It was a new car, right Well, no, no.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: We searched for pre-owned first.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: There's not even Moroni's on some of the new ones.
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: We work with these dealers and the dealers pay for Carfax the vast majority of dealers.
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: One of the first things they're going to do, they're going to say, hey, I looked at this car, I inspected it, I ran the Carfax, it's got all its one owner, it's got all its service and repair history and, yeah, it had a minor damage event.
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: It was a fender bender.
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: Carfax shows you exactly right here, because it helps them sell the car, and so if a dealer is buying Carfax reports and not showing them, they're probably doing themselves a disservice.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Let's talk just a moment about all of the service on a vehicle.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I've got a car that's 22 years old now and, yes, I get it serviced.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I don't drive it very much at all, but at least once a year I take it in for its maybe 3,000 mile oil change and inspection and that sort of stuff.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: How does Carfax know that I've taken it to a car maintenance facility and had the oil changed?
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: So we work with about 76,000 service and repair facilities across the United States and even in Canada, and we actually go and work with the principal, the owner of the facility, with the dealer, and what we do is we tell them look, you've got this piece of metal that's coming in and you're doing work on it and you're making it better.
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: You're putting a new transmission in it, you're changing the oil, you're putting new brakes in it, you're updating the tires.
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: Put that on the Carfax report.
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: Let's show that there's value that you're bringing to this car.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: And so we work with all of these entities.
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: We have a team and I started the program with a couple of other people back in 2002 and working with dealers and aftermarket facilities.
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: And today you go, a car goes, gets its oil changed, maybe gets new tires, gets the tires rotated.
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: That night the aftermarket shop will hit a button and send the data to Carfax.
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: We'll put it on our report and we'll brand them on the report and then we'll turn around and we'll send you a note and say, hey, how was your experience?
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: And you'll rate and review that particular shop, whether it's a dealer or an aftermarket, and we've got right there, verified reviews, so it ends up not just helping the shop but it helps the owner of the car and when they go to sell their car it's got that fast service and repair history showing the car's been well maintained.
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: Carfax's history-based value just goes through the roof for that car.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: How do I know that the place that I'm taking my car for the oil change is doing that?
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: That's a great question.
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: One of the things you can do is download the Carfax Carfax Carfax app is in all of the app stores.
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: It's completely free.
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: You put in your VIN and we will track everything for you.
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: But when you're in there, you're able to put in your zip code and we'll show you all the shops in your zip code that participate, whether it's dealer or aftermarket, and you can choose where you go and what service that you want.
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: You can price the service for parts and labor, all of those things.
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: You can make an appointment and it's all completely free, and that's usually the easiest way to do that.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: And that's how my repair facility or maintenance facility actually sends the data on my car too.
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: Thank, you, that's correct.
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: They're just sending the VIN.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: They, you know, hey, this VIN got an oil change, you know, got a tire rotation, you know any?
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: Whatever happened to that particular piece of metal?
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: They'll share that and then we'll make it available right back to.
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: If the owner has signed up for car care.
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: It'll show up, usually within a few hours, and they can keep track of their service and repair history.
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: We'll let you know when your car needs to be re -registered, we'll let you know if you have an open recall, just about anything you need to know about that car.
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: And this is all free.
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: We provide this completely for free.
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: We have about 35 million consumers who have downloaded the app and are using it every single day, put in their VIN and we help them track the history of their car.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So I can go on this app and log in my VIN number.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Will I be able to see any information about my car?
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: That's already in there.
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, absolutely Any service and repair history, if you have an open recall if your car needs to be re-registered any of those and it's updated automatically.
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: As soon as new information comes in, it's updated.
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: And the really cool thing is your history based value sits there and you go get an oil change.
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: You know scheduled maintenance.
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: You'll see it move up a little bit.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: And that's pretty cool.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: And if you're dealing with a dealership or a used car operator that advertises that he has Carfax, and you walk in and you say well, I don't have it on that one yet.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: How long does it take him to produce that document?
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: Well, if it's a Carfax Advantage dealer, the reports are generated automatically, so it's usually available.
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: Independent dealers some of them do what we call a paper VIN, so they may not be running Carfax on every single car on their lot, they may be running it on specific cars or they may only be running it when they're buying a car wholesale.
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: But our advantage dealers, which is the ones who, when you walk in, they've got Carfax everywhere because they want you to know that they're being transparent, that they want the process to go well, but my gut is based on your question that that might be one of those dealers who's only running Carfax on very specific cars.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Well, that brings to my point, because the one I'm talking about, they had all that.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: They had signage, they had it on the door, they had a puppet or something of that nature and no, they were clueless.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: Absolutely clueless.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: But it only takes the minutes to get the report.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: I mean I've done the paper VIN and I mean it doesn't take very long to produce the report.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: So I don't know why anybody would say oh, we can't get it.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Well, somebody's dropped the ball somewhere.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: There's maybe a newbie that doesn't do it Doesn't want to admit it.
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: If you go to a shop, if you go to a dealership, used or new, and they don't want to show you the Carfax report you probably might want to run Exactly, that's for sure.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Put on those new run and shoes you got.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Faisal, it's great to talk to you, my friend.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: As always, we appreciate it.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Great information, carfaxcom.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: Who doesn't know?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: about Carfax.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you again.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: We'll talk to you again soon.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Absolutely Take care of yourselves guys, you too.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: You bet Nice.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I know All right Time now for the events calendar.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I know of an event that we've got coming up, two of them actually.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: We've got Woody's Waterfront Car Show down in San Leon that's coming up, and then we also have AutoRama.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: Thanksgiving weekend.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Those are two that I steal all your thunder.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I admit mean to.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: No, you're okay, you're okay.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: He's true, he's got them on the cruise in Northside Mustang Club.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: They're on their cruise.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: A few of them had chimed in earlier saying they were listening to us while they were on their cruise.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's cool.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: Hello, northside Mustang Club, enjoy yourselves as well.
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: Cruise in Sillsby 2023, september 29th through the 30th, friday and Saturday night at the Kirby Memorial Stadium in Sillsby, texas, mars.
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: You need to be there because September 30th you can start off in Niederland Avenue cruise and cruise from Niederland to Main Street and go to Sillsby.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Now I'm going to cruise to San Leon, to Woody's, okay.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: Well, we'll see you at Woody's.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: It's only three blocks away.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: And yeah, join us for Woody's for his fifth ever show put on by Michael Woody at the what's the restaurant I don't know Topwater Grill.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: Topwater Grill in San Leon right out there on the on the water Salads are awesome.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: If you can get one, get one.
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: Also October 14th is the all British car show at the Butler House off of Gosling Road.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: October 20th is the 38th annual Wolf Creek car and truck and bike show in Cold Spring.
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: The Clear Lake car show with the Elks Lodge and Kima is on September 23rd and Saturday October 28th is the Oak Turbo Fest at Carrom Springs in Waco and then the 17th annual Hot Rods Heroes and Hot Rods Veterans Day show in downtown Bastrop.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: We had Bill Zleg on last week talking about that and you know that's always a good show.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: I think they have a limit of 400 cars.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you that the only time that I've ever been to downtown Bastrop was last year for the Corvette Extravaganza, and it's a cute little town, but I'm always on my way to Austin.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: You're on the interstate, you drive by on the highway.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never gone to downtown Bastrop.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I was at Bastrop, I just thought it was the highway.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Junk shops along the way, along with some gasoline stations.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: No, it's a real honest to God town.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: It's like three blocks north of the Water Burger.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: When you're driving by on the highway and you see the Water Burger, you just miss the exit.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: It's about three blocks short from there.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: There you go, cute little town.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, time now for this hour's car review.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: I have a chance to drive the Subaru Crosstrek, which I'll steal.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Your thunder is a gussied up impressive, oh did you know that Mars?
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Well, it is.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: It's, it's, it's a they've turned.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Now you do.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: They turn the impressive in me, right there SUV.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: He called them Gussie.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Gussie, go ahead that name, gussie.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: So we're talking about the 2024 Subaru Cross Trek premium.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: This is the third generation of the Cross Trek and it's available in five trim levels.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: You've got a base, a premium, and then you get to the sport.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: The limited and new this year is the will, wildness, wilderness.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: I can't even read the wildest, I can't even ride and read my own riding here.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: It's the wildness, yeah, the wildness, so, anyway.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: So this is a compact crossover SUV and a lot of things are carried over.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: It's kind of a refresh this year and you got front.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: You're going to find that there's a frameless hexagonal grill with some compact headlights.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: You're going to find steering hexagonal steering, responsive.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: LED headlights with LED fog lights, got a heated windshield, heated side view mirrors on it, raised roof rails, got a sunroof and it rolls on some 17 inch alloy wheels.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Now this is an all wheel drive vehicle and so a lot of this is set up for this.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: The reason, one of the reasons this vehicle is so popular because of all the all weather that it can handle in the all wheel drive mode with the things that it's got Now ours by being the premium.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: It wasn't the base model, so it's up one notch.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: So we had the cloth interior seating level set covers and it was the heated front seats.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: There was a problem down there.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a problem over here.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: Did you just eat some peanut butter?
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: So we had a really nice 11.6 inch touchscreen infotainment system that was in this car.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: It was kind of it actually seemed really big for the vehicle that we were in and that's where you're going to find your Subaru Starlink system.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: It's going to be the infotainment system, the nav, all the things that they've got in it which is new for this year.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: You're going to find your Apple CarPlay, android Auto.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: There Now under the hood, this is a boxer engine, so it's a flat type engine.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: We had the 2.0 liter.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Now if you step up into the upper trim levels it is a 2.5 liter.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: So we had the smaller engine 152 horsepower, 145 pound torque, backed by a CVT.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Now this particular vehicle is rated to tow 1500 pounds.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: You get the bigger engine in the upper trim levels.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: It'll tow a little bit more.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Epa says you should be looking for about 27 in the city, 34 on the highway combined for 29.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Now I drove this vehicle 342 miles and I got 27.5 miles per gallon over the course of that week.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Pretty good for your feds.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: I thought it was a real good and it's a smaller engine, but I thought it handled really well as far as the power levels on it.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: This is a kind of a firm ride.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: It's all wheel drive standard.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: It's not a race car, but it's a very confident, inspiring driving experience.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: You drive it, you know it's not going to be exciting, but you know you feel good about it when you're driving it.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: It's going to go where you want it to go and how you want it to go there.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Part of that is it's got to me a taller roof line, so it seems like you've got a little more headroom on the inside of it, particularly in the driver's position.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: So the driver's view, the span of view in it, I really like that a lot better.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Now, the base trim price is $27,440.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: The base model, which we were one up off of that, is $26,290.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Did not have a Monroni with this one, so I don't have an exact price for this particular vehicle I was driving.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: If you're looking for something to compare it to, though, you're going to look over possibly at the Ford Broncos 4th that Don was talking about earlier.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: $31,230 is what I had down on it.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: The Jeep Compass is another one in that category for $28,000, and the newer Mazda CX-30 is $22,950.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: But again, that compact crossover SUV segment is a pretty popular segment.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of competition in there.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of variance in the horsepower that you can get as well as the features you can get in the car.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: But again, if you're looking for that all-wheel drive vehicle that gives you that confidence, inspiring driving experience the Subaru Crosstrek is one of them.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: You can look at Hexagonal grille.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: The hexagonal grille.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: The hexagonal grille.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: I'm going to have to improve my riding.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: I may have to start typing it, or at least your vocabulary.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: And don't be eating peanut butter just before you read that you going to send that to Subaru.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: I may have to edit a little bit, just a little Clean it up a little bit.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: I generally don't edit it very much.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Very much.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: I think is the key word.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: Exactly that's what we say during it.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: That's right how we can screw up his car review.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: We don't do it intentionally, it just that there are things.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: It just comes too easy.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does come easy and I appreciate all the help I know you do.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: We wouldn't all be here if it weren't for things like that.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: It wasn't funny.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: It was Okay.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Well, we got 30 minutes left.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I'm ready to go now, but I guess we'll stick around, suze is out, it's a bad day to quit drinking, is she?
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: out Did.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I let her out.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: No, she's out, oh, she's knocked out.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Suze is snooze.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's over there.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Notice that she's found a nice place underneath the camera that you're looking at, on the cold concrete.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: On the cold concrete because it's cool.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: It's kind of like you Don.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: She walked around here earlier and then just headed that way.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to make sure everybody was in their place yeah.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Make sure you still are.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: All right?
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Hey, not that you'd ever do this, but I just thought I'd let you know that this program is available 24 seven through iHeartRadio.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Just search in wheel time car talk.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: We also video stream on Facebook, youtube, twitch and in wheel timecom, and 30 minute podcasts are at your fingertips on over a dozen of the most popular podcast outlets, and I know that that's the one that you pick.
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: And available for free in the App Store.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: The In-Wheel Time Car Talk Show continues right after this quick break.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: The original group of loopy tortilla restaurants will have you telling your family and friends just what the original recipes mean when it comes to the best fajitas in southeast Texas.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Founder Stan Holt invites you to visit the original loopy tortilla near I-10 in Highway 6.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: The original house that inspired the design of all the rest and the original charm that helped make loopy tortilla the go-to destination for Houston Tex-Mex.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Speaking of original, nothing can compete with the original lime pepper marinade.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: That everyone will agree makes loopy tortilla award-winning beef fajitas the best anywhere.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Loopy Tortilla Katie is another location that gives you the same quality and service historians have come to expect at loopies.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: It's located just off I-10 of the Grand Parkway.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: At Kingsland Boulevard in Katie, find yourself an ackee land.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Head to the loopy tortilla college station, located just around the corner from Kyle Field.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: It's a great place to enjoy those famous frozen margaritas before or after the game.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Head east to Louisiana.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Stop in at the loopy tortilla in Beaumont.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: It twos on I-10.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: You can't miss it.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: The original group of loopy tortilla restaurants invites you in for the best Tex-Mex anywhere.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: You own a car you love.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Why not let Gulf Coast Auto Shield protect it.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Houstonian John Gray invites you to his state-of-the-art facility to introduce you to his specialist team of auto enthusiasts.
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  Speaker 1: Whether you're looking to massage your original paint to a like-new appearance, apply a ceramic coating, install a paint protection film, nanoceramic window tint or new windshield protection called ExoShield, gulf Coast Auto Shield is where Houston's car people go.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Curb your wheels Instead of buying new.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Why not have them repaired?
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: How about a professionally installed radar detector?
• 29:47
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• 29:49
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• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Better yet, stop by their facility at 11275 South Sam Houston Tullway, just south of the Southwest Freeway.
• 30:01
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• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Gulf Coast Auto Shield is your place to go for all things exterior.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Call them today 832-930-5655 or gcautoshieldcom.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: The award-winning in-wheel time car talk show is available on the most popular podcast channels out there in 30-minute episodes.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: We realize our three-hour live show can be difficult to catch in its entirety, so now you can listen every day to a convenient, fresh 30-minute episode.
• 30:26
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• 30:32
  Speaker 1: In-wheel time is the most informative automotive guest interviews and new car reviews, along with popular features, including Conrad's car clinic and this week in Auto History, along with automotive news headlines.
• 30:43
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• 30:50
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• 30:57
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• 31:00
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• 31:06
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• 31:11
  Speaker 1: That's it for this podcast episode of the InWheelTime car show.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I'm Don Armstrong, inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning 8 to 11 am central on Facebook, youtube, twitch and our InWheelTimecom website.
• 31:26
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• 31:32
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