Episode 1018 – Why Jeep?
Why Jeep?
There are other off-road capable vehicles. Why did you pick the Jeep?
Grew up in a Jeep family?
US history?
Military?
Is this like being loyal to Coke, Levi, or any other brand you pick over another?
New Jeep CEO has a plan to double volumes
Jeep’s new CEO, Antonio Filosa, took the helm in November with a mandate to overhaul Stellantis’ off-road brand, which has lost market share in Europe and, critically, in its biggest market, the U.S.
Filosa comes to Jeep from top posts in Latin America, where he helped make the region a success story for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and later Stellantis.
For his first major interview as head of Jeep, Filosa spoke with Automotive News Europe Associate Publisher and Editor Luca Ciferri about his “road map” to double volumes and increase profits.
Filosa has a clear vision for Jeep: Stellantis’ most global brand has to become even more global, adding Jeep products to the group’s plants in markets where local production would give a cost advantage.
At the same time, new products that increase market coverage will improve sales, particularly in the midsize SUV segment, whose 4-million-unit annual volume in the U.S. alone equals annual sales of Germany as a whole or the entire Latin American region.
Jeep will also keep a pragmatic approach to electrification: Its next two crucial new models, the Wagoneer S, and Recon midsize SUVs, will launch globally as electric only, but opportunities for ICE variants could appear, Filosa said. “If we don’t grab those, somebody else will,” he said.
Ford Bronco sales have been down 25.8% in 2024.
Could it be that Jeep will be coming out with a tiny Jeep? A small very capable Wrangler style CHEAP 4×4 Jeep would certainly increase volumes. Is Stellantis smart enough to make this a reality? It would devastate Ford Bronco sales and the side-by-side market.
Newbie Nuggets with Wendy
Using A Spotter – part 2
On last week’s Newbie Nuggets (episode 1014) I discussed using a spotter and this continues that topic.
Last week we talked about paying attention to the spotter. Now when you use a spotter, there are some commands that you should be aware of. Some spotters use verbal commands and others use non-verbal commands. Both have pros and cons, I tend to prefer the non-verbal which I will explain in next week’s episode.
Let’s start with verbal commands. These are probably the most commonly used. You can look up any YouTube video and find all kinds of verbal commands given at almost any obstacle in the country. It seems that most people are good at speaking their directions and most of the time, drivers listen. But sometimes the verbal commands can get “lost in translation” especially if a newbie isn’t familiar with what the spotter actually wants them to do. The tone of their voice and patience are important here for the newbie. Verbal commands can be misinterpreted, not heard, and/or confusing. Verbal commands can also lend themselves to allow the driver to look away from the spotter while they “wait” for the next verbal command.
I have a few examples of verbal commands most often used;
Driver, or turn driver: turn your wheels toward the driver’s side.
Passenger, or turn passenger: turn your wheels toward the passenger side.
Easy: easy on the throttle or brake
Control your rear: when coming off an obstacle, slow down and ease the back end off the rocks so you don’t bounce your bumper off the rocks.
STOP: Very important for you to STOP & FREEZE if you hear this command. You may have no idea what is about to happen if you don’t STOP.
The issue I have with verbal commands is that for most, and for Newbies, you may not understand exactly how much “driver” to turn. Or exactly what does “easy” mean? Once you wheel for a bit and have several obstacles under your belt, you will get a feel for what these verbal commands mean. But as a spotter, being able to communicate to the driver exactly what I need them to do is important to the newbie’s success. So for all of you listeners that help spot, think about your verbal commands and try to limit the words and comments so that the Newbie driver can get the most out of the experience. This is especially true if husbands are helping their wives/significant others through. Sometimes “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” shows up and all kinds of “verbal” communication starts to happen. I know, I’ve been at major obstacles and watched the frustration of a driver when the spotter loses patience and starts over correcting or yelling the commands. That is clearly not the way to help a newbie through. Patience is key.
Now some spotters use a radio to give the commands. This has pros and cons but mostly it’s a con. – the time it takes the spotter to open the mic, say the command, then the driver hears the command and tries to implement the command could be the difference between staying on your line and getting stuck.
If you use verbal commands PLEASE do not say the command over and over and over again. Usually, one time is all you need and it keeps the driver watching you and paying attention to what they are commanding. Too many commands can drive some drivers nuts and it can be very confusing. Likewise, if you are the driver and need to hear the command again or get a clarification on what the spotter meant, the driver can always ask for more direction, or explanation at any time.
And I’ll state it again, one spotter for the driver, remember that we are the eyes for the driver and they only need one additional set. LOL
Next week I’ll share the non-verbal commands as we continue on using a spotter series.
You can also review past episodes #638, 428, 433 & 466 if you can’t wait for the episode.
(https://www.youtube.com/user/backcountrydriver)
Fabrication Freezy, with Larry, JeepingMo
Do You Like to Repair Your Rig?
Jeepers and anybody who works on older vehicles knows that working on your own stuff is part of everyday life.
But as you get into the newer Autos, some of those options are being taken away from you.
And this is also true on many of your normal, day-to-day items as well.
So I’ve spent a little time looking into right-to-repair laws, what is right-to-repair and how does it affect you.
Right-to-repair affects just about anything with data, and I was a little shocked by the way laws have segregated different products.
It’s funny how they break out phones, computers, wheelchairs, farm equipment, and Autos. Each has their own right to repair legislation actions on them. But this is a Jeep show so how does this affect your Jeep? It really comes down to access to the data your car produces as it controls its self, and how you interact with it. A lot of times now they call it telematics. What the manufacturer is trying to force, is that you have to take it to a dealer in order to do any kind of engine control module reprogramming, or adjusting.
And from what I have read, they really don’t want outside shops not to mention the normal shade mechanic in their systems.
And if you look into this, you’ll see a lot of reference to Massachusetts legislation that passed in 2020 and it has been updated that forces manufacturers to give basic access to the systems so that you can work on them. There are many components and modules in a car that you have to access to calibrate or just change components.
Something as simple as a radio is a prime example most of those are coded to your Vin number.
You would be shocked that you can’t take most radios from one vehicle to the other because you’re programmed for your vehicle. One thing we all do is use programmers like Taser Minis, J scans, and several others and we manipulate the data sent out and fed back. We’re not reprogramming, the main system just masking the data in some cases.
So what does that mean? The goal of the manufacturers is, you must bring it back to them if you want any kind of repairs. Yes, you can turn the wrenches, but if you have to access the electrical system that will all be them.
One big twist of this, the Massachusetts law forcing the right to repair was initially struck down because of the Safety Act. The telematics in the car could be hijacked and the driver could lose control.
If you don’t know, a lot of the new cars are all steered by wire. Your steering wheel is not connected to the steering box, and your gas pedal is a potentiometer that feeds the data to the engine. And when it comes to everyday appliances, ironically, California has some of the better right-to-repair laws that I have seen.
An i said that I was going to talk to SEMA. Well the group at SEMA is one of the big groups that are fighting for the right to repair and many other automotive rights laws. They do much more than have a yearly show.
I plan on talking more about the right to repair. hopefully, I’ll have some more on this topic in future segments.
Must-Have Stuff for Your Jeep!
Hi-Lift Jack Bed Mount for Jeep Gladiator (2020+) $73.45
Mounts to the Mopar Trail Rail system on the 2020+ Gladiator
I have this mount thanks to HiLift and it’s made it through trips to Hidden Falls and two Easter Jeep Safaris. It’s very solid and no noise.
This episode of the Jeep Talk Show is brought to you by realtruck.com with over 1 million plus parts and accessories for your Jeep truck and life.
More later on realtruck’s latest off-road trail repair at Easter Jeep Safari 2024. You guys have heard of EJS, right?
Couple times.
I’m Tony and welcome to the Jeep Talk Show, the premier show for Jeep enthusiasts and hardcore off-roaders. Whether you’re new to the Jeep world or a seasoned jeeper, we’ve got you covered with the latest news, tips, and advice to help you get the most out of your Jeep.
Well, Howdy, it’s Wendy and it’s part two of using a spotter and those verbal commands you might hear.
I am Larry and if you’re at the Moore Overlanding Expo, stop by. I’ll be in the Hello Lighting booth and say hi and maybe get a sticker.
And wear your sunglasses. I would think that they’re going to have some examples of high beam lights.
All right, so this is a bit of a, I guess an internal perspective or something.
I’m curious of both of you, why you have a Jeep. Why did you go with a Jeep? Either there are other off-road capable vehicles. Some people are gasping because they didn’t realize this, but there are other off-road capable vehicles out there. Why did you pick a Jeep? Wendy you go first.
Partly because Bill had an experience with his mom who had a Jeep. I think she had a little TJ and they camped a lot and did stuff. So he wanted to get a Jeep to get back into it. I had no clue. Honestly, I didn’t even probably realize there were off-road vehicles until I met Bill.
So that would be why we ended up with the Jeep. And for me personally, I can’t imagine not owning a Jeep and or why would I have any other off-road vehicle? I don’t think there is capable.
So I personally wouldn’t even recommend any other off-road vehicle. So there you go. Yeah, Larry, what about you? Why a Jeep? And you’re relatively new to the Jeep world, right? Because this JLU that you have is your first Jeep. Oh yeah, that’s the first one. Well, looking for something that’s capable, Penn Scour wasn’t in the budget or a juice and a half. So you know, seeing back, that’s what everybody was using.
And so I just kind of went with the crew, if you will.
And then I’ll uphill since then. So Wendy, you really, Bill chose the Jeep and then you learned about off-roading. So it makes sense. So you kind of had a family connection for the Jeep. And that’s happened to some people like Chuck, for example, his parents were big time Jeepers on the Rubicon. So it’s absolutely understandable why he would continue with the Jeep. I mean, it’s not like it’s a bad decision, but sometimes people like going with something else that isn’t the popular thing. They’ve got to do it their own way. Now I think you’re in a relatively unique position here that you’ve actually, since you’re a spotter and you work with Don Alexander and show people how to do off-road stuff, that you don’t, it’s not just Jeeps that you, people in Jeeps that you train. Correct. Yeah, we do vehicles, trucks, vehicles. Yeah, of course there are vehicles. We do trucks. We’ve done, I don’t know, give me any kind of a vehicle. Well, Rivian, for example. Rivian, we’ve done the Forexies, we’ve done. Toyotas. Toyotas, Ford trucks. How about Subarus? How about Subarus? You ever had any Subarus out there? Yep, we have. Those are all capable vehicles and for what they’re doing, they’re awesome. But me personally, I would just stick with the Jeep because it’s so capable to do multiple things with the Jeep. Would you say that it is, that out of all those other vehicles you’ve seen, and maybe you’ve even driven a few off-road, that Jeep is significantly better or significantly more likely to succeed? I don’t want to put words in your mouth. I just want to know, I’m trying to understand and trying to get the listener to understand why Jeep, why you guys went with Jeep. Yeah, it’s definitely more capable for more things. So obviously a truck is maybe limited by its ability for clearance. But yet we’ve seen very capable Toyotas out there, very capable trucks that can do obstacles like John Bull.
But for being able to do everything like on the highway, do any kind of trail from Black Diamond on down to easy, camping, even towing, Jeep just offers all of those varieties of being able to do that. So a truck might have to be lifted. It may not work as well on the road to do everyday driving. I don’t know. But for me, everything that I’ve seen, yeah, it’s kind of, you’re going to be limited on other vehicles. The Jeep just offers so much more possibilities.
Larry, have you had any experience with any other off-road vehicles besides the Jeep that you have? Yeah, the only other one I’ve had is I had a rail buggy, but it wasn’t made for rock climbing, per se, more for sand and trails and stuff like that. No rocks or anything like that. So no, the Jeep I have is the first one I’ve ever been out onto rocks with. Oh, and you forgot the most important reason for the rail buggy, getting chicks, because those are really cool. And they, “Hey, can I have a ride?” “Oh, sure, honey.”
And that was the one with the VW engine in the back, right? Because those things were real popular way back when. They were really cool, but they were two-wheel drive. But even that kind of off-road, like what he was doing, and we do quads and motorcycles and different stuff, you can only do off-road. The Jeep offers everyday driving. It offers highway. It offers going and traveling and seeing this whole entire country. And then, “Oh, by the way, I can go off-road and see even more.” So to me, I think the Jeep really does offer every possible option. So would you guys say it’s like the Swiss Army knife of off-road vehicles? Yeah. Or not necessarily off-road vehicles, just vehicles. Yes, I would. Yeah, because very few vehicles, you could go beat on it all weekend and then drive it home a thousand miles. And well, maybe you just blew a brake line and it was it. But it’s very versatile.
So I know that our audience are Jeepers, but we do have people that are listening to the show that haven’t purchased a Jeep. And maybe they’re thinking about getting a Bronco or a Toyota or something other, some off-road vehicle other than Jeep. And I think there’s a fair amount. And I like being unique as well. I just don’t like being stupid unique. So if you’re going with something else just because you want to be unique, you may be traveling a harder road than what you have to, so to speak. Well, I think it’s also we go back to talking about to people about what do you going to what are you going to do? Right. You know, if you’re just going to do some basic roads or you’re going to be all in the desert sand, if you’re going to be thrashing on the rocks and you got to decide what vehicle works, there’s a lot of capable trucks that are set up that do great stuff in the desert, basic rocks, climbing and all that stuff. And maybe they’re not good for a daily driver, but that’s OK for those people. You know, that’s what they want to do. Maybe a Subaru works for you because you know, you’re committing all the time and you want to get off on the road sometimes, but you don’t have the clearance to do a lot of the rock climbing. But I’ve seen some Subaru set up where they can do some pretty awesome rock climbing. So I think it goes back to what do you want to do in your off-road world or in your camping or overlanding or whatever. And you pick that vehicle that works best for what you want to do. My only caveat to that would be is, you know, you buy a vehicle. So I just want to do some light trails or just maybe some camping before you get bit. Yeah. Yeah. All of your buddies are going out on these really epic trips all weekend long. But I doubt that I’ll ever get there. Yeah. I’ll buy this for now. And then you’re at the dealership, you know, not quite a year later trying to unload that thing so I can buy something else. Right.
And I don’t mean to pick on the modern day Renegade owners, but this is what my problem with people buying Renegades or I think to a lesser degree, Compas is because I don’t think anybody thinks a Jeep Compas is an off-road vehicle.
And I don’t know what the aftermarket is like for those other brands, but certainly the Jeep Renegade, the aftermarket is not really, there’s not as big an aftermarket as there is for the Wrangler and the Gladiator.
And I would suspect that the Subaru aftermarket isn’t nearly as big as Jeep. And I think that the Ford Bronco market aftermarket is growing certainly for tie rod ends. Yeah. But I don’t think that it is as big as it is for Jeep. So I think that not only is the Jeep more capable off-road, on-road, all things for all people, but it’s also a great platform to have for modifications, bolt-on modifications,
which means cheaper and easier to install and cheaper to install. Yeah. And from what I understand, men love the bolt-ons. Oh yeah.
I’m not going to say it, Wendy. I knew it. I actually got Tony to be speechless. No, I’m not. I’m just trying to be polite.
Here’s the drum sound, sound-affecting. Exactly.
I had to go there. You started, I had to go there.
So anyway, we think obviously Jeep is the best vehicle to go with. But you should do you, whatever it is that you want to do, that’s fine. And you can learn the hard way like some of us have. And when I say learn the hard way, it’s not like I didn’t go with a Jeep, but it’s like modifications like when you go, well, I don’t need anything more than a four inch lift or I don’t need anything more than a two inch lift. And then like Larry was talking about, you wind up having to do by another lift because you learn what you’re going with. So, and that’s one of the things we like to do here on the show is give you an idea of what you may be in for and maybe save you some money in the long run. You know, go ahead and go with that larger lift, go ahead and go with that larger tire. Bigger tire, yeah. We want you to be informed about you can’t just go with bigger tires because there’s other things that you have to do to make that a reality. And especially if you’re going to go off road, you may not want to be putting 40s on a Dana 30, for example. And yeah, because it’s your next upgrade because it will break. It may be, it may break to sitting in the garage because that’s a lot of tire for a Dana 30. And you otherwise wouldn’t know about this. We all had to learn this when we got into jeeping. So hopefully we’re saving you some time and money.
All right. On tonight’s episode in our news stories, new CEO of Stellantis is going to double volume. So this isn’t like, yeah, it’s not like he’s turning it up to 11 or anything. He wants to double the amount of sales of Jeeps, which sounds great. Yeah. I like it. But I don’t know how he’s going to do that with interest rates because I think interest rates are really killing the sales right now. I wouldn’t get one. That’s right. What is that? Not FIFO. What’s it called?
BOGO? BOGO. Yeah. BOGO. Is BOGO still a thing? I remember when the, when my daughters and my wife were saying that a couple of years ago, maybe longer than that. In Newbie Nuggets, Wendy continues to share how to use a spotter and an illegal friendly way. So fabricating frenzy with Larry, do you like to repair your stuff? No, but yes. Like when it’s done and it works.
Pinnacleity is there. Yeah. And if in your must have stuff for your Jeep, a mount, a high lift mount for your gladiator high lift. Larry, where would you think you would put, and maybe you already know the answer to this, but where do you, where would you put a high lift on a gladiator?
I would think on the rails of the bed. Yeah, I would go inside. Yeah. Cause you really, I mean, you could put it on the side door cause I think you can still use those ones like they have for the JLs to mount the high lift on the side of your Jeep or the, the, the, I think the worst place to put a high lift Jack is on the hood. You know, where you mount that thing on the hood. Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, especially, I mean, if you’re, if you’re six foot or a five 10 or something like that, or maybe you got a stool that you can use to get to it, depending on the size of the lift. Uh, and it’s not like it’s super heavy, but it’s long and it has some weight to it. So how many times are you going to hit the hood while you’re taking that thing off? Yeah.
And at what angle and everything else that’s going on. So I think it has to be in a good location for you to be able to get to it. And also too, I think several people have told me high lift Jacks are dangerous when they’re not out in the weather.
You keep them out in the weather. Then they, they really get dangerous. So yeah. Uh, so yeah. Uh, we’re going to talk about a, uh, a trail, a Mopar trail rail, a mount kit, uh, for the, the high lift Jack, uh, which is what I’m using on the 2021 Jeep talk show cloud eater.
Are you ready? It’s time for the Jeep talk show with host Tony, Josh, Wendy, and Chuck.
All righty. So, uh, the, the new Jeep CEO, Stellantis, yeah, I guess it’s Jeep CEO says that he’s going to double sales volume. That’s his goal. What do you guys think? You think it’s possible? I think he’s good to have goals. Oh, you have to. Yeah, absolutely. You have to. It’s right. I like consultant playbook. Yeah. Especially when you get a new job. Yep. I can do that. So I think we’ve talked about this gentleman before, uh, jeep’s new CEO, Antonio, uh, tell me about Antonio, Philosa. Does that sound right to you guys? Philosia is never coming on the show now. You butcher. Yeah. Well, it’s not like I’m picking on him. I can’t pronounce anybody’s name. I’m lucky I could pronounce Bob. So he took the helm in November with a mandate to overhaul Stellantis off road brand.
My God. Can you imagine overhauling the Jeep, the off road Jeep? I mean, that’s dangerous. I don’t think it’s a problem in the States. I don’t think our, that brand is needed to be overhauled, but maybe it does. Who knows? Well, the article goes on to say, uh, the off road brand, which has lost market share in Europe, no surprise there, and critically its biggest market, the U S. So is it because the trails are being closed everywhere and there’s less to do off road?
I’m going to guess it has to do with the electrification of Jeep’s. Of course. Yeah. That would have been the 392 costs a hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, baby. Well, they’re all very expensive, aren’t they? Oh yeah. I mean, uh, and I think that’s one of the reasons with the interest rates being higher than what they’ve been. Uh, and if you, if you lived in the eighties, this, these interest rates are nothing, but it’s true, but it doesn’t have to be horrific for it to keep people from buying things. Um, and I think that’s what the, why, one of the reasons why the gladiators or prices are down, you know, Larry, I don’t, I think you decided not to go with a gladiator, but have you still been looking at prices for gladiators? You know, I still get the emails and I had put it in a, in the chat group the other day. One a Mojave came through brand new, it was in Florida, 35 and change. Oh my God. That’s a great price. That’s at least that might be $10,000 less than what I paid for my sport. Yeah.
Obviously really nice rig too. It is.
Uh, well the problem I’ve always had with it, and this is a rabbit hole. The problem I’ve always had with it is it’s a, it’s an off-road like high speed desert type thing, which it’s not IFS. It’s not, I mean, to each their own, but if I’m going to, if I want to Jeep, I did not want something for high speed off-road. Uh, that’s, that’s an IFS, you know, the types set up and yeah, uh, it’s nice. I mean, and you do have a locker in the rear if I remember that correctly. Yeah. Yeah. So the knuckles, all the good stuff. Yeah. And it’s pretty, especially the orange one. Um, so, um, so obviously this guy is coming in and he has a man that you, and you have to wonder how long he’s going to be there, uh, if he’s not successful with this, but, uh, Follosa comes to Jeep from a top post in Latin America where he helped to make the re region success, a success story for Fiat Chrysler automobiles, and then later Stellantis. So he is, he does, um, he has, uh, succeeded in Latin America. Um, I don’t know that the problems that they were having back then are the same problems they’re having now though. I think the problems they’re having now are different. Like Larry, you said the cost of these, these Jeeps is very high. Well, you figure, you know, Latin America, all I envision, you know, Fiat 500 little cars that, you know, they’re not as expensive and it’s a total different economy, but if you, if you enjoy your Jeep, I mean, you’re in for, I’m going to call it almost 40 grand plus upgrades. Right. And the upgrades can be, uh, can easily be half of that. Oh yeah.
So, uh, Follosa has a clear vision for Jeep Stellantis. Uh, most global, uh, brand has become to even more global adding in. And I, I, I think that’s fine. I kind of see that as a downside because I don’t need a Jeep. That’s a beloved in Europe. I need one that is an American Jeep. It started out as American vehicle and I think that’s where the focus needs to be. Uh, but anyway, I digress, uh, adding Jeep products to the group, plans and markets where local production, uh, would give a cost advantage. So this kind of sounds like they’re, they’re looking at, uh, building Jeeps, uh, other than in the, the U S, um, which is, which potentially could hurt, uh, people in Toledo. I mean, I don’t know anything. I didn’t read anything about that in here, but if they’re looking at building them, uh, in the, the countries where they don’t have to ship them, uh, or they, they ship them a shorter distance, then that certainly makes it, uh, easier for them to make profit on those. And it does make sense, but, uh, I don’t want a China Jeep. Uh, I don’t want a French Jeep. I mean, just the cigarette smoke alone. I would not like the smell of those Jeeps. All the people in France stop listening to the show just now. Exactly. They went, that’s it. Well, you know, one thing would be nice if you could, if you could a la carte a Jeep, right, because you know, the sport or even just a plain old sport. Yeah. You can buy that for the low thirties. But I mean, and you can go do things with it, but you know, if you want Dana 44 front and rear and you want lockers, I mean, if you could go through an a la carte instead of having to buy this package or that package, it might be more attractive people who want to have a platform to start with the, on their build. I remember, I remember, uh, somebody, uh, asking Jim Morrison when we had him on the show, uh, man, a couple of years ago now, uh, not two years ago, but a while back and they asked him about, uh, you know, how could we just order what we wanted on there and like, instead of having to buy a Rubicon, I want the lockers, I want the heavier duty axles, but I want lockers in them. Why can’t I just order a sport with lockers? And I remember Jim saying something along the lines of, uh, it makes it a lot more difficult to actually build the vehicles that way, take some more time. And certainly that it would require, uh, more people checking to make sure the right Jeep is being built. I mean, as, as it is right now that they built X and X number of Rubicons, X number of sports, X number of whatever, uh, based on where sales are going. So I can see how it would be easier and actually could lower the cost for them. Um, so I’ll, I’ll look heart may actually increase the prices. If not that just come up with a builders model, if you will.
Right. Which is just like a sport ass with lockers. Four to one transfer case called a builder’s kit or whatever. And other than that, it just stripped down and you know, there’s always ways. Oh yeah, absolutely. And who’s the, who’s to say that this isn’t part of the plan. It very well could be. We don’t know yet. No, exactly. So, uh, this is the part I liked the best and I suspect you guys are going to like as well Jeep will also keep a pragmatic approach to electrification. Pragmatic.
What is pragmatic make make to you? To me, it means a sensible approach, a logical approach. Yeah, that’s what I would think. Yeah. So, uh, it’s next, uh, two crucial new models, the Wagoneer S and recon mid-size SUVs will launch globally as electric only, but, uh, this gentleman goes on to say, but opportunities for ice variance could appear. So we may have somebody that thinks the way we do that’s now in charge of Jeep. Yeah, because he’s not saying it’s going to be all electric. He’s saying, but these vehicles may be ice vehicles.
So people that, you know, need to drive further than 250 miles and then start panicking cause they can’t find a charger. Don’t have to worry about it. Yeah, but, but you know, all, all the way through the vehicle, the vehicle Yeah, but, but you know, all, all of the auto manufacturers are all complaining that people are not buying the electric vehicles like they thought they would. They don’t want to. It costs too much range anxiety. Yeah. I mean, you can, as, as a government, if you will, you can try to dictate how everything’s going to be built, but you can’t dictate what you’re going to buy unless you make everybody turn into vehicles.
Yeah. Uh, so, um, yeah, it just, it makes me nervous because with all we’ve seen in the last several years, that’s always a possibility too.
Um, so anyway, uh, the, uh, in, uh, in, uh, Filoso goes on to say, uh, as far as the ice variants, if we don’t grab those, somebody else will. So somebody’s going to be making ice vehicles. Uh, you may not be able to buy them in California. I wonder if they’ll actually outlaw, uh, internal combustion engines in California altogether. I’ll be screwed because I’m not, you know, who, who can afford that? That’s the problem. Yeah. The, the rates, the way they are. There’s no way I could get out of my vehicles and do that. It doesn’t matter if you can afford it or not. I mean, uh, Wendy, I mean, you know, that they, what was it on April Fool’s day? Maybe not, but I like to say that on April Fool’s day, all fast food workers, uh, got a raise to $20 an hour. That’s not an April Fool’s joke. So now these fast food restaurants are closing or going full automation and firing all their employees. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s so funny. I’m telling you. Who’s going to pay for that? He’s going to increase our costs to go to darn McDonald’s. I’m telling you these stupid, uh, politicians cannot play chess. They are playing checkers and poorly. Uh, and I said it before, I think some of them, some of them would lose in a, a one player game of tic-tac-toe. But you know how, how to get rid of small business. That’s what you did.
Well, small businesses help people to get a job to start maybe while they’re through college or they’re getting a degree or they’re going on to whatever they’re going to do, it’s impossible to compete. And what’s to say? Other companies aren’t going to say, well, I’m an employee. They got $20, you know, schlepping hamburgers at McDonald’s. I want $20 an hour to do my job. Yeah. It’s a, it’s going to be awful. So the, the mandating your, the vehicles to be 100% electric, you know, by a certain date is all front page stuff. They, they never pull out page 35 when they walk back.
I mean, that’s the oldest one in the book. They walk back and later, later pages and no one ever goes back and reads those. I think the biggest downside, and I know that you, you should pay attention and you should listen, uh, but I think the biggest downfall for the American public is actually listening to a politician speak because it’s, it’s crap. It is absolutely 100% crap. But they’re, they’re, most of them lie and they’ve convinced themselves. It’s the truth. And then the people follow it going, that has to be the truth. Well, you know, one of our greatest presidents said, one of the worst things you can ever hear is I’m with the government and I’m here to help. That’s right. I’m with the government. I’m here to help. That guy was hilarious. Uh, he was a kinder, kinder, gentler Trump. Uh, I like to say, cause he wasn’t a troll like Trump is, but yeah, he was a lot of fun. I had no idea that he would be such a good president as he was, but he had his, he had his issues as well. Uh, but, uh, yeah, they all do because politicians have to play a game. They have to tell people what they want to hear so they can remain in power. Um, and, uh, I just, I don’t like the idea of a King unless I’m the King. And then, then it would be fine. I would just make all the best decisions. Uh, and I would accept Jeeps to help influence me. Um, so you might be wondering, uh, well, okay. Jeep is having a hard time selling, uh, selling their vehicles, but, uh, I suspect other manufacturers are as well. And you probably have heard about it, but I thought everybody would like to know that Ford Bronco sales have been down 25.8% in 2024.
That’s a lot. It is a lot. Uh, now it, 2024 is not over, uh, and it could go up, but I don’t think so. And I, and again, I think it has a lot to do with the, uh, the concern over the economy, the inflation, uh, rampant inflation and, uh, the, uh, the interest rates being high.
So this may be a way to increase the volume of Jeeps. Now, drastically lowering the price of the Jeeps certainly would, uh, could, I wouldn’t say would, but I suspect it would, uh, help increase the volumes. But what about if, uh, Cilantro’s Jeep was coming out with a tiny Jeep?
Or they came out with 0% financing. Oh, yeah. That was, they always get you on that though. They, they increased the price. It sounds good. It gets people started. Yeah. You got to look at the numbers for that. So there’s, there’s been some, uh, some talk and we’ve mentioned it here on the show a few times, uh, about a tiny Jeep that looks just like a Wrangler. Except it’s shorter. Uh, it’s basically the, the, uh, uh, is it shortcut? I think it was called shortcut in 2016, the Jeep, uh, Eastern Jeep Safari concept vehicle. It is a very capable four-wheel drive Dana 44 is front and rear, uh, open, open, in other words, no lockers, uh, no doors, uh, no top, uh, with a, uh, uh, the 3.6, uh, liter engine in it. And it is a, it really goes back to more of a, uh, a Willys or Willis Jeep, uh, or, uh, maybe even a Mahindra. I would say a Rockzor. Yeah. So although I think the Rockzor is actually bigger than the Jeep, it’s actually bigger than, uh, than what this Jeep is. And, uh, the rumor is, is that it would be in the, uh, 12 to $15,000 price range. Hmm.
So you could get a no frills all very capable off-road vehicle, uh, and, uh, for, uh, let’s say 15, let’s say 20, maybe 20, 25. So, uh, you know, $10,000 cheaper than a full size Jeep. And I think the aftermarket would go wild on these things. And you could see, uh, very small, nimble, uh, very capable off-road, uh, wranglers, uh, and I think they’re all going to be red. Uh, don’t quote me on that, but I think the ones I saw were red. Uh, and that, and that’s, that’s a winner right there. So, uh, and if that happens, uh, and I’ve mentioned this before, that’s going to really hurt Bronco sales and it’s going to hurt the side by side sales. Yeah. I think there’s your big, your big competition right there on a smaller version of the side by sides and significantly cheaper than a side by side, which amazes me that anybody would spend that much money, 40, 50, $80,000 on a side by side, I don’t see this incident, but you know, it’s, it’s all what you like to do. Um, but, uh, yeah, so it’s, I don’t know. I I’m just guessing here, but what if they came out with a mini, a tiny Jeep? I don’t want to say mini Jeep because the, there are many Jeeps out there, but, uh, that aren’t from Stellantis, um, uh, a tiny Jeep that’s cheaper and, and is definitely 100% a off-road Jeep vehicle. You can look at it and just tell that it is. And, uh, that way people could still buy the big Jeeps if they wanted to, but it certainly increased volumes. Cause whenever he doubles volumes, he didn’t say double profits. He just said double volume. Correct.
It’ll be interesting. Yeah, it’s going to be, it’s going to be fun.
All right. So we want to talk about real trucks, EJS 3d heal project, uh, with tread lightly. Now I was confused by this, whatever I was looking this up. Uh, I don’t know if you guys had a chance to look at this story from a real truck, real truck.com, a slash blog. Uh, but, uh, the, uh, this is tread lightly out at EJS real truck was there. I mean, I saw Greg Henderson. I saw a Charlotte, uh, with ladies off road network, Charlene, Charlene. I’m sorry. And, uh, she’s going to beat me up next time she sees me. She is.
And, uh, of course, Matt, uh, with, uh, tread lightly was there, uh, in the pictures that I saw in this article, but it wasn’t the tread lightly event that all those same people were at with, uh, these, the Jeep talk show team that went on a Monday morning to a tread lightly event. I’m wondering if this, that maybe happened before, uh, like on the Saturday or Sunday before, uh, but they were definitely out there. They were at 3d Hill and they were building fences. Uh, Larry, you did, you were at the, the tread lightly event last year, weren’t you? Yes. They were building the little fences around the dinosaur footprints. Yeah. I was neat to be able to see that too. Um, so, uh, during the 2024, uh, Eastern Jeep safari wheel truck had a unique opportunity to join the tread lightly team and Moab Utah and see first town, how they maintain and protect some of the most beautiful spots in the valley. And the cool thing is, is that you, it doesn’t keep you from seeing it. It just keeps you from, uh, walking on stuff that you shouldn’t be walking on. Yeah. And the other big thing there is you don’t want to give the other groups the ammunition or the power to say, see, that’s why we need to shut this down. Right. Right. Which is, which is one of the big things about tread lightly, you know, it’s trying to preserve, preserve the landscape and the environment so that, you know, we can continue to be out there and not give the other groups the fire power to say, see, this is why everybody out. This is why we can’t have nice things. Yeah. I, yeah, exactly. Uh, which is their ultimate goal. I don’t think that there being some of them, I’m sure are, but I don’t think they’re being genuine about, uh, protecting, uh, uh, sharing, I should say, not protecting, but sharing the, the, the earth with everybody. They just want to keep us off. Uh, and, and that also includes hikers and bikers and motorcycle riders and ever, they want everybody off. Yeah. So, and that’s a shame. And I don’t think that’s, that’s fair, uh, for a small group of people to do that. And tread lightly helps keep that from happening. So tread lightly based in North assault Lake, Utah was initially launched by the United States forestry service in 1985 as a campaign to mitigate the impacts of off-road vehicles. By 1990, it had involved, uh, evolved into a nonprofit entity supported, uh, supported by member, uh, members and industry partners like real truck. And I just think it’s really important that you guys know whenever you’re dealing with real truck, you’re going over to the real truck.com and looking at their products and purchasing their products, you’re helping them to support, uh, these, uh, these groups like tread lightly. And I think it’s really important that it is, uh, you’re helping indirectly, uh, real trucks support those groups. Well, if you’re not familiar with tread lightly, you can go to their website, but they have an acronym for tread, which is travel responsibly, which means looking and staying on those trails, not going off-road respect the rights of others so that you’re not infringing on rights as in property owners and not going, we’re not supposed to educating yourself on what is the correct thing to do. Avoiding sensitive areas is huge. Um, especially that’s what they’re doing with those fencing. They’re trying to protect stuff for our future and to do your part, which means pack it in, pack it out. And to be able to understand what that means. So you can check that out tread lightly.com if you’re not sure what that means. And then of course, supporting, um, real truck. Yeah. And you guys can see this, uh, this article yourself. If you go to Jeep talk show.com, look for episode one, zero one eight. And if you’re, if you feel adventurous,
you can go to realtruck.com slash bog and look for 3d Hill project, Eastern Jeep safari tread lightly. It just rolls off the tongue and the fingers. Yeah.
Where’s the new new new new new newbie nuggets. It’s time for newbie nuggets.
Well, if you caught episode 10, 14, it’s hard to say that a thousand 14 and it was way to do it weird. Um, it is weird. And then in newbie nuggets, I was talking about actually using the spotter. This means you’re sitting in the driver’s seat and you’re using a spotter. Um, it is kind of a two part section cause there’s quite a lot to talk about. So I talked to it last week about paying attention to the spotter. Um, and when you use them, there’s going to be commands that they’re going to give you as far as what that you know, means that’s what you kind of have to learn. Some spotters use verbal, some others, others use nonverbal commands. Both of them have pros and cons. I tend to prefer the nonverbal, um, which I’ll explain in next week’s episode, but we’re going to talk this time about the verbal commands. Um, it’s probably what’s most commonly used. You can go to any YouTube video if you’re trying to understand what that spotting means. And if you’re a new driver, what do you need to look for? Um, and it seems that most people are pretty good at speaking their directions and most of the time drivers listen. And that’s kind of a key to this whole thing, but sometimes the verbal commands can get lost in translation as I call it, especially if you’re a new driver and you’re not familiar with what that spotter actually wants them to do. Uh, the tone of your voice is important to if you’re giving those commands and patience, of course, is really important, especially with a new driver. Um, it’s easy for verbal commands to be misinterpreted, not heard and, or confusing. So I highly recommend if you’re the spotter to take the time to explain to that driver what it is that you’re trying to communicate. Um, basically verbal commands can also lend themselves to allow the driver to look away. Um, because if you’re somebody who’s barking orders and you don’t connect with your driver, um, the driver may lose interest or not feel confident with you. So that’s something that if you’re going to be spotting to think about, so here’s a couple of examples of what verbal commands might be. Um, driver or we’ll hear a turn driver basically means to turn your wheels toward the driver side. Same with the word passenger or turn passenger. You turn the wheels toward the passenger side. Um, easy. You’ll hear that a lot sort of easy on the throttle of the brake. Um, controlling your rear is a word that I actually use sometimes when I’m teaching. Basically when you’re coming off an obstacle, you want to slow down and ease the back end off the rocks. You’re not bouncing your bumper off the rocks. The word stop. Very important for you to stop and freeze. If you hear this command, um, you may not have any idea what’s about to happen if you don’t stop. So that’s super important to keep that in mind. Stop probably is universal for everybody, even in nonverbal commands.
Now the issue I have with verbal commands is that for most of the new drivers, they may not understand exactly, well, how much is driver? When I hear the word driver and I’m trying to drive, is that a little bit? Is that a lot? What does that exactly mean? And how about easy? What does that mean? So once you will forbid and have several obstacles under your belt, you kind of understand what those mean, but as a spotter being able to communicate to the driver exactly what you want them to do, it’s important for that newbie success for you to let them understand what you mean by that. So for all you guys listening and you spot, think about how those verbal commands could be communicated to your newbie driver and get the most out of their experience. Um, I see this a lot with husband and wives that wheel together. Um, that’s kind of fun to watch sometimes. I’m sorry to say that, but it’s, that’s interesting, but it’s, but it’s kind of sad. Um, it’s like 90 day fiance or real life, real wives of North Carolina or whatever it is. As I always say, there’s some special kind of verbal communication that starts to happen. You just got on my last nerve. Damn it. Exactly. Yeah. So just know that if the spotter loses their patience or starts to overcorrect and yelling commands, it’s really not going to be beneficial for that driver. I don’t care if you’re new or not. So patience is super, super key. Now, the other thing I’m seeing a lot of is some spotters are using the radio to give the commands. Um, there’s some pros and cons on that too. Mostly it’s a con in my opinion, the time it takes a spotter to open the mic, say the command and the driver hears the command and tries to implement the command could be the difference between staying on your line and getting stuck. Um, so there’s some pros and cons on that. Sometimes you may be far away and your verbal command doesn’t work. Because they can’t hear you. I could see where there might be a possibility of using the radio. Um, we just don’t usually recommend it. I don’t, especially in my training. I just don’t recommend using a radio. It just takes too long to get the command to that driver. Um, and if you use verbal commands, please, please, please, I just said it three times, do not say the command over and over and over again. Um, I see that a lot too on YouTube videos, you know, driver, driver, driver, well, wait a minute, driver. Are you saying driver? Yeah. Okay. Three times. Uh, you know, it doesn’t work for that, that newbie driver. So please try to understand that you need to keep it down to one command. If they don’t listen to you, then you know you have to do something different as a spotter, but it also by saying at once, make sure the driver’s paying attention to you as the spotter. Well, I was just going to say in a group of 75 spotters, which we all know happens.
You’re doing three drivers and there’s a combination of ghost, right? And, uh, no, yeah. Asinjure everything else. And what the hell is wrong with you? Listen to me. I know. So that’s the other thing I talk about is this one, one spotter per the driver. Um, we all like to help. We all like have an opinion, but please, they just need to hear that. So if you’re the driver and you need to hear the command again or get clarification, definitely ask if the drive, if the spotter said you to do driver and you’re not clear, stop and ask, Hey, can you come here? I don’t understand what you want me to do. Um, that’s hard to do as a newbie driver because you feel maybe somebody’s watching you. You’re not sure if you should say something. It’s your experience. It’s your vehicle. You have the ultimate command as the driver of what you want to do. So if you’re not sure and you’re not clear, please, please, please ask for more clarification and spotters, please understand if that driver needs to ask you for additional help. It’s not criticizing you. They’re not trying to figure out, you know, what you don’t know. They’re just asking for more help. So it’s really important one spotter for that driver. And then the driver, please know that you use a spotter because they’re your eyes and you just need one set of eyes folks. So please keep it to that. So next week I’m going to get into the nonverbal commands, um, what I like to use and what I do and how effective it can be. You as a driver can decide what you like to do. And there’s all kinds of spotters out there. So anyway, I don’t, I don’t want to ruin your segment for next week, but is any of the nonverbal eye rolling?
I’m not going to share that. I love all my drivers.
Yeah, I would say when you do one, the big one I think a spotter should ask is a manual or automatic. Oh yeah. Absolutely. You know yourself. We’ve been out there. I’ve been out there with you with people with automatic versus stick. And you know, you spot them differently. And well, sometimes you don’t want to be standing right in front of the guy with the, with the manual when he launches it. Yeah. Well, and now with electric vehicles coming into play, let me tell you how different that is. Oh, wow. Because you cannot hear what they’re doing with that throttle. Right. So there’s a whole level of safety that has to come in. There’s a whole level of understanding how that electric vehicle has great torque. Um, you could launch that thing, couldn’t you? If you’re not careful.
So there’s a whole nother. Yeah. I’ll be adding that toward the end about those electrics because, um, what we’ve known all of us that have been out there and even those of you, they’re more experienced and have been out a long time. You know, we really can read and hear what a vehicle’s doing. I can tell you what a, what a driver is doing with their foot, with their gears, what they’re thinking because I can hear it, see it and do it. Well, electric takes a little bit of that out of the whole process. So, I want to hear more about that. I didn’t think about that. That would be a vastly different kind of experience, both for the driver and the spotter spotter really needs to be super aware when they’re dealing with electric of any kind, because it is, it puts you in a whole different light of some possibilities of some things going wrong pretty quick. So, yep. Stay tuned. Got to check out my episodes because I’m going to continue on with this series in the next couple of weeks. So very, very cool.
And see, we didn’t interrupt you. And I want to say we, I mean me, we didn’t interrupt you as much this week. Well, you can at any time. It’s a great topic and I love to talk about it. I know, but we, we broke up your, uh, your, your episode last week and made it into two. Yeah. Let’s, let’s just chew on more to absorb. There you go. Welcome to fabricating frenzy with Larry, also known as keeping Mo whose hair is not curly. All right. Jeepers. Everybody who works on older vehicles know that working on your own stuff is part of everyday life. But as you get into newer autos, some of these options are being taken away from you.
And this is also true if your normal day to day items as well.
But I spent a little time looking into the right to repair laws.
So what is right to repair and how does it affect you? Well, right to repair affects just by anything with data.
And I was a little shocked by the way the laws had segregated into different products. Now it’s funny how you, they break out phones, computers, wheelchairs, farm equipment and autos each with their own right to repair legislation actions on them.
But as this is a Jeep show, how does it affect you when you’re Jeep?
Well really comes down to access into the data your Jeep produces and when it’s trying to control itself and how you interact with it.
A lot of times now they call it telematics.
What the manufacturer is trying to force is that you have to take it to the dealer in order to do any kind of engine control module, reprogramming or adjusting.
And from what I’ve read, they really don’t want outside shops, not to mention the normal shade tree mechanic intersystems either. So basically they’re trying to shut anybody out but a dealer.
And if you look into this, you’ll see a lot of reference to a Massachusetts legislation.
It was passed in 2020 that has been updated that forces manufacturers to give basic access to the systems.
So you can work on them a little bit here and there. Right. Now there are many components and modules in a car that you need access to to do some calibration or just to change component. Cause a lot of times you change a component, you have to go back in there and calibrate it and do all that.
Now something as simple as a radio was a prime example that most of those are coded to your VIN number.
Now you’d be shocked to have told you that you cannot take out most radios from one vehicle to another because you have to program it to your vehicle.
Now, one thing we all use programmers like Taser Minis, Jscans, and several others, and we just really manipulate the data that’s sent out and fed back. We’re really not reprogramming the system.
Now the main system is just primarily just masking. So those Taser Minis and all that, they’re just kind of masking what you’re trying to do with the increased tire size or the regearing and that kind of stuff.
So what does all this mean? Well, the goal of the manufacturer is you must bring it back to them. If you want to do any kind of repairs, yes, you can turn all the wrenches,
but if you have to access electrical system or any of the data, well, you have to take it back to them.
Now one of the big twists of this is the Massachusetts law and the Hoosier like me trying to say Massachusetts all the time, it doesn’t work out very well. But you’re doing okay, Tom. But what if you were trying to use a washer in Massachusetts? That would be really, really cool.
Now the Massachusetts law is forcing the right to repair was initially struck down because of the safety act and the telematics in the car could be hijacked and a driver could lose all control of the vehicle.
Now, if you didn’t know, a lot of the newer vehicles are all steered by wire, meaning that your steering wheel is not connected to the steering box and your gas pedal is just potentiometer.
See there it is again, the Hoosier coming out. Volume control. It just feeds the engine and you know, that all could be hijacked and you could lose all control. And that’s what the, one of the big concerns is that if someone were to hack in, you could totally lose all control of the vehicle. And that’s one of the big pushbacks with legislation is reason why they don’t want to give the right to repair away because they also don’t want people in their hacking into the cars causing safety issues versus just hide the damps of the steering wheel into the box and be done with it. But you know, I digress. Kids these days. Yeah. I remember Josh used to go crazy with stuff like that.
Now when it comes to everyday appliances, ironically California has some of the better right to repair laws that I’ve seen.
And as I said, you know, I was going to talk about SEMA. Well the SEMA group is one of the biggest groups that are fighting for the right to repair and many other automotive legislation laws. And they do much more than just have a very cool show once a year.
So as, as the time goes on, I plan to do a few more segments and really dive into, you know, what does right to repair mean to you? But I think if you look into it, it’s going to affect everybody’s day to day life because you’re getting more, more devices, vehicles with data, you know, electronics and well eventually you’re going to want to fix some of that stuff.
I do not like anything having to do with restricting me from being an idiot.
If I want to do something and it’s dumb, then it should be my responsibility and nobody else’s. I understand these companies can get sued. And it at least from what I’ve seen on some of these things, it’s clearly an issue from the driver and not the, not the company. What was it? I think a couple of years back, Jeep was being sued for the grand Cherokees bursting into flames. When they were hit from the rear by a vehicle doing 80, 90 miles an hour. Oh, wait a minute. It’s, you’re telling me that if you get hit something hard enough, it might cause a spark and burst the tank and it catches on fire. Uh, and these, these grand Cherokees weren’t modern grand Cherokees. They were like the nineties or early two thousands and stuff. So it’s like, why, why are you guys even entertaining a lawsuit for this? It’s, it’s not designed to be able to withstand that kind of crash. And it wasn’t, that wasn’t the law at the time. So, uh, but anyway, to get back to my point, I want,
vehicles are very expensive and I do not, I mean, I’m already forced to buy liability insurance, which I think it’s a good idea to have liability insurance, but I’m already forced by the government to have liability insurance. So I am being, it’s being dictated to me that I have to give a company money. And that’s what we’re talking about here. If you’re being dictated to that, you can’t work on this. You have to take it to the dealer and in news flash, the dealer, sometimes the, and it may not be the whole dealership, it just may be the technician that’s working on it. Doesn’t know their ass from a Hona ground. Yeah. Right. But in essence, I mean, if you’re, if you think you’re buying something and you don’t have total control of it, you’re really just renting it. Exactly. It goes back to, well, I mean, I don’t know if you guys are familiar with this. Adobe went from a software ownership model to a software rent model. And why did they do that? Because they wanted, they didn’t want it to come out with new product every couple of years. They could just charge you every month for it. Now they have a good cash flow and everybody wants to do that. Everybody wants to have a good cash flow. They’re you’re in business to make money. So it’s not a bad idea for the company, but I’m not buying Adobe products.
Right. That’s, I’m sorry. I’m not renting Adobe products. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. A lot of vehicles now. And I think Tesla is one of the biggest ones on this, you know, their subscription services, depending what you would do with your vehicle, you know, everything’s there, but if you want certain things turned on, well, now you can answer the IDS description for that module.
Including full self-driving.
Including starting it and being able to drive. Well, we’ve, we’ve made jokes about that too. Oh, you want your windshield wiper to fluid to come out? That’s right. Put 25 cents in the slot.
Yeah. Well, I mean, uh, and I’ll tell you, I’m all for that for Tesla because I’m a Tesla stockholder,
but I don’t own one.
So it’s all about perspective, right? Yes, sir. Yeah. But no, we should always be able to work on our own stuff. And I was actually telling Dan of motor built at EJS. I said, I think you guys, uh, cause it was the, um, oh, not Chupacabra. It was the YJ that they built and virtually the entire vehicle was built by them. There was only a little bit of actual YJ in that build. Uh, LFA, I believe is what it was. And I said, I think you guys are going a good direction here because if they keep on going, if Jeep and the electrification, all that stuff going is going, we’re going to have to build our own Jeeps because it’s not going to be a Jeep that we want. And I think you guys are, are doing a good positioning here because we’re going to need to build our own stuff. And if we build our own stuff, uh, I mean, the government can make any law they want to, but if we’re building our own stuff, it’s almost like a, uh, kit plane and experimental plane, uh, we’re responsible for it. And that’s the way I want my vehicle to be. I want to be responsible for it. I think that I have enough smarts that I can build something where I do not need to go to a dealership to have it worked on. Yeah. That’s why I find as I get older, I, I, I’m migrating to the older vehicles or I need three things, spark fuel air. If I can solve those, we’re good. Exactly.
From the mind of Nikki G.
Hey, this is Nikki G. I just want to remind everybody to just say no to drugs. And the fact that you were talking to drugs means that you probably already said yes at some point around. I’m calling to tell you that Wendy, my lovely wife, not the lovely co-host. A little lovely co-host could be my wife. My wife could be the lovely co-host. I’m not picky about who’s telling me I’m loading a dishwasher long, wrong. Yeah. She said she didn’t really understand what cloning was all about. I was looked at her and said, yeah, that makes two of us.
Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. All right, boys and girls, I’ll chat you later and you have a good one. Bye.
The cover joke was better. The main event.
All right. So we’re excited to announce in our next interview episode, we’ll be featuring a special guest interview with Sam of Off-Road Air Buddy. You guys remember Off-Road Air Buddy? Yeah. Good. Met him. That’s right. He did come to one of our Jeep events. Well, I needed to make sure he knows about the one coming up on June the 8th. So he’s actually local to me. He’s in the Houston area. So it’s, you know, it’s, it’s always an hour away. Even if you’re in Houston, it’s an hour away. But he is, he’s within driving distance. You can go check out offroadairbuddy.com and keep in mind that the, the, the power power tank, the, the tank is air tank is not their primary business. Off-Road Air Buddy is not their primary business. They go and install and fill the CO2 at bars, businesses, you know, restaurants and stuff like that. That’s their main business. And if I remember right, it’s a 70 year old business. It’s, it’s been a long time, business. And, and I’ve already made this, this announcement. When I go to get an air tank and I’m going to get one, I’m going to go to Off-Road Air Buddy because Sam’s a great guy. He’s got a good product and it’s half the cost of a power tank. I love Steve. I love power tank. But this guy’s close. Oh, and when I go over there to get the air tank, it’ll be filled with the CO2 cause he’ll fill it up for free. Oh, and you’ll like this Larry. I can get a 50, a 50 gallon air tank if I want to. Oh my gosh. You’d be more shocked for that. I was just going to say, where are you going to drive that? I’ll just sell it. I’ll just drive around. You don’t need your air up. Yeah. Here’s the hose. There you go. That’ll be $3. Oh my gosh. So you’ll have to catch this interview on our YouTube channel. Yes. Every episode that we do is on YouTube now so you can see what you’ve been missing or missing what you’re seeing. And Sam is going to show off the tank mount and accessories in the back of his Jeep in his interview, which you’ll only be able to see, of course, if you’re watching the interview on YouTube. All right. And our what we threatened to tell you about our must must have stuff for your Jeep. And then this isn’t really a threat. I think this is a good thing. And I told Chris about this. Now, Chris, his 2020 gladiator that he that he bought traded in the JK, got a 2020 gladiator. He’s really excited and really happy with it. He does not have the Mopar trail system trail mount system like, like mine didn’t either. So I bought that off of, uh, uh, off of Amazon installed at super easy to install that. And once that was installed, I was able to put a high lift, uh, jack bed mount for the gladiator in there. Cause you have to have that, uh, I don’t know if you have to have, it’s, I think it is designed for the Mopar trail system. Uh, but, uh, it may work with others. I mean, specifically, they don’t specifically say that you have to have that, uh, for, uh, in this Amazon link that I’m going to provide you here in the, in the show notes, but the high lift, uh, Jack bed mount for the Jeep gladiator 2020 plus it’s $73 and 45 cents. It mounts, uh, to the Mopar trail rail system. Uh, and, uh, I have, uh, this mount, thanks to high lift, they sent it to me and it’s made it through trips to hidden falls and two Easter Jeep safaris. Uh, it’s very solid and no noise. And this is, this is a testament to the, yeah, this is a testament to the Mopar trail system as well, but, uh, it, it just, it’s just there. Now it does come with two, um, not really thumbscrews, but, uh, you guys can see it in the show notes here. Uh, it, uh, the, the twist ons that hold it in place. And you may notice that the one up front looks different than the one in back, the one that’s closest to the camera or cited versus three. Yeah. So that three sided one is actually a lockable one. So yeah, I bought that in addition, uh, to this, uh, this setup because I wanted to be able to lock it in place. Now, now, when I go to use it, I’ll have to try to remember what damn key it is. Well, that should be under key ring. Yeah, absolutely. But which key is it? So you’re trying all of them, you know,
hopefully it’s not an emergency. Uh, but, uh, yeah, this, actually, this whole thing that you’re seeing, I just asked him if they wouldn’t mind sending me the, uh, the Mount, and they wound up sending me the, the high lift, the cover, uh, and the Mount. Uh, and she, it seems like something else. They, they, they sent me on there as well, but, uh, super nice and, uh, it’s there and it’s ready to go. And with the locking thing, which is also a high lift deal, uh, I, I’m more assured that it will still be there. I mean, you see the, the bolts holding it to the, uh, um, to the trail rail system, you could just, you could just unscrew those and take it with you and then work on the lock later. But at least it’s, you know, all, all security is a matter of inconvenience. Yeah. So that’s what you want. Slow it down. Yeah. So I really like it. It’s great. It’s out of the way. Uh, I have a bed cover, so it is covered from the, uh, from the elements, uh, and the, all the, the massive amount of dust, which I don’t know that that’s initially bad for high lift, but it didn’t get any dust on it from EJS. So it’s there, it’s ready to go. And I’m probably going to be able to count on it being there when I need it. So, uh, yeah, I think it’s a great set up and high lift, the high lift, this makes great stuff. You can’t go wrong with a high lift. Oh, I get it. I got to mention this. Do you guys know Chris Collard? You know who he is? Gone Jeeping, uh, a lot of publications, magazine. So, uh, Chris Collard, I went on a Gone Jeeping, uh, deal with Greg and Chris, uh, Chris Collard and, uh, Rick payway was on that as well. Anyway. So Chris was actually leading the adventure and he’s got a, uh, Jack on the front of his, I had a like a CJ five or something. I’m not really knowledgeable on over Jeeps and we were just standing there talking and, uh, I appointed to the, to the, the Jack on there, the, which, which I was sure it was a high lift, but I asked him, I said, uh, so is that a Harbor freight, uh, Jack you get on there? He goes, screw you.
So if you don’t know, you don’t want to get one of those, uh, cheaper, non high lift Jacks. If you’re going to get it, you know, the high lift is going to be upset with me, but high lift Jacks are dangerous enough as they are. Don’t get a knockoff. Get the, get the, the original one. And spend the money. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you guys agree with this too. Don’t get the, the, uh, Harbor freight or whatever fly by night, uh, Jack manufacturer is farm Jack manufacturers out there.
All right. Well, thanks for listening to this episode of the Jeep talk show. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. You know, I read that and that’s when I remember I should go and check out the Apple reviews. Have you guys done an Apple review recently? I mean, I need to go have a look and we don’t want nothing. No, no flowery thing. I mean, if you believe that that’s fine, but you can put anything you like in there and actually we kind of have some fun with the negative reviews. Exactly.
So, uh, yeah, we like to have your feedback. Also, don’t forget to find us on Instagram and sign up for our email newsletter to say up to date with the latest news, uh, Jeep news events and how to join our round table, uh, recording every Tuesday at 7 30 PM. It’s a zoom meeting. It’s really easy. Uh, and the newsletter will remind you weekly about that. Finally, if you have any questions, comments, or ideas for future episodes, we’d love to hear from you. Go to jeep talk show.com slash contact to find your multiples or to find your multiple ways to find multiple ways to contact us. You know, the words are right there and that just kind of, I just kind of go off on my own. I’m, I’m wandering around while I’m, while I’m reading. Thanks again for listening. And we’ll see you on the next episode of the Jeep talk show.
Broadcasting since 2010.
You’re my friend. You’re my new friend. No audio lead Larry.
I’m not getting any audio from you.
Nothing. Oh, I think I heard something there at the end.
This is my fault. We’re asking him to adjust his microphone.
Oh, I guess if I wasn’t on mute, I would be okay. Yeah, that’s fine. That happens to me a lot of times. I’ll be talking to you guys, trying to figure out why I can’t hear you. And I’ve got muted on the, on the mixer. Larry’s having a complete part over there. I’m sorry. Let’s blame it on Duke. Did he pull the cord? I love blaming it on Duke. Oh yeah. That happens to me. I have to tighten mine up occasionally. I have to, I have to look at for the liens. Actually. Are we, are we still recording on YouTube? Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, this is great. Well, it’s not, we’re not on YouTube, but we’re recording the video audio and video. Right. But can you do this out? Are you going to leave it in there? I probably edit it out. Okay. I mean, I think it’s funny and stuff, but I hate, I hate making fun of somebody else besides myself. I know it’s hard. Oh, I’m okay.
He’s like, dang it, Dick.
Fell into the sock void.
And Larry take, don’t, don’t rush. Take your time. I mean, it’s fine. Yeah. Of course Larry. Oh, we’ve all been there. It’s crazy stuff.
I like it best when it happens to Josh though. Cause you know, Josh is just like a perfectionist about stuff. So
that’s what I’d be. I’d be more worried about. Oh man, I can’t believe I’m holding everybody up. Yeah. No, that’s, that’s the stuff. That’s why I always say, take your time. Don’t worry about it. Cause it’s, uh, I know I hate it when I have a technical issue and I’m holding you guys up. It’s all right. You’re right. Better. Well, we’ll see if it stays, the mount stays up, but yes, I can, we can hear you. All right. So, uh, let’s take about a five second pause and then you do, do yours Larry and I’ll just, uh, cut it into the video.