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Jeep Talk Show

A Show About Jeeps!

Episode 1052 – Off-Road Insurance?

On tonight’s episode we’ll be asking you…

If two Jeeps crash into each other on a trail ride or while rock crawling, who pays for the damage?

How do you hold the wheel (steering) thumbs in or out?

What size group do you like?

This episode is sponsored by the Toledo Jeep Fest, a fun downtown event for the whole family in the heart of Jeep Country. August 1st through 4th, visit ToledoJeepFest.com right now, your adventure awaits. You know, it is this week, the fourth annual Jeep Talk Show off-road event Texas. Are you going? It’s not too late, June 6th, 7th and 8th. Bill and John take you on a Texas adventure on the 7th, and then the main event is on the 8th. Come out and meet the people you talk and hear from the show. Most importantly, wheel with them. Bill and John will be there on Thursday, and rumors are there may be some wheeling on Thursday. Join our Discord server to find out about more information on this annual event. Just go to JeepTalkShow.com slash Discord, or the one we always talk about, JeepTalkShow.com slash contact.

I’m Tony, and I wanna welcome all of our weekly round table episode folks. So we appreciate you being here every week, and hello to any new people that are joining us. On tonight’s episode, we’ll be asking you, if two Jeeps crash into each other on the trail ride, or while rock crawling, who pays for the damage?

No, it’s not the trail guides. How do you hold the wheel, the steering wheel, thumbs in or out? What size group do you like? And I would assume this could be anything. You know, it’s whatever you wanna answer, but I’m thinking it means like off-road, like on the trail, how long a Jeep trail is too long. You know, you can submit your questions for a round table. Just go to JeepTalkShow.com slash contact to find out how. Are you ready? It’s time for the Jeep Talk Show with hosts Tony, Josh, Wendy, and Chuck.

Hey, if you’re new, the Jeep Talk Show or new to the round table, you can join us for the recording of the round table every Tuesday at 7.30 PM Central Time. Just subscribe to our newsletter to find out how to join. It is a good reminder as well. Just go to JeepTalkShow.com slash contact to subscribe.

All right, for a limited time and a limited number of subscribers, we’re running a 30% off sale to become a Patreon subscriber. $3.50 gets you started on the Travis plan. It’s an unofficial name, but we like it. If you get, if you get it, you get it. Subscribe for a full year to lock in this rate. All right, Zoom people. This is one of those things that, one of my favorite parts of the show where I get to say hello, but before that, I wanna remind you guys that please say your first name and location whenever you’re, this is just the first time you’re talking. You can do it every time if you want to, but that’s kind of overkill. But just the first time you speak, just the name and location, we’d really appreciate it. Hello, Zoom people.

Hello. (mumbles)

Oh my God.

(laughing) – plastic.

– That’s a good shot of Steve. So if you guys don’t know, I mean, I know you get frustrated. I know you get frustrated. – Oh, you mother fuckers. (laughing) – Hey, leave the short fat man alone. He was hungover, man. Come on now. – I know you guys get frustrated when we talk about things that you can see on the round table, the Zoom meeting here. – I’ll be a part of the round table. – Well, that, and you can also watch the episode on YouTube. Just go over to JeepTalkShow.com and find the YouTube link or go straight to YouTube and just do a search for Jeep Talk Show. You’ll find us. Every episode we do is now with live video or recorded live video on YouTube.

All right, so if some of you guys might be remembering some of these questions from last week, well, that was because we didn’t get to all the questions. I think we did one question last week.

But it was great, because it was a great conversation. It actually wasn’t just about that one question either. All right, so I thought this was kind of a cool question. I’ve thought about this before, but I don’t know what the answer would be. If two Jeeps crash into each other on the trail ride or while rock crawling, who pays for the damage?

– I’ve always been told the guy going uphill has the right of way.

Because it’s easier to roll downhill than it is to go uphill. So if two Jeeps are coming face to face and one guy’s going up, you got to get out of his way and just be courteous and know that he’s having the hardest time. So don’t be a D-bab. – Well, I mean, that might keep the accident from occurring, but what if the accident does occur? That might be a way of establishing who’s at fault.

– Yeah, I don’t know. – Might be a solution from the Discord channel. I would say whoever’s got the most trail cams to catch the footage.

(laughing) – This is Larry’s fault. – Oh my God.

– This is Matt from North Carolina. He’s both have steel bumpers, so it shouldn’t matter.

– This is Larry from St. Louis. I would say it just depends on how much damage we’re talking about. You guys bump each other on the trail, then you just go about your own way. We talk about you really destroyed somebody’s Jeep because you were being an a-hole on a trail. That’s all yours.

– Right, but how do you establish fault? How do you establish who’s going to be paying? I mean, there’s a possibility that there’s the person doesn’t even have liability insurance for an off-road only vehicle. They should, but there’s always a possibility they don’t have that. – Well, an off-road, you don’t have to have a street legal vehicle out there on the trail. So there’s Jeeps 24-7 where we are in URE. There’s Jeeps that are not legal on the road, but they’re on the trail. I was actually with Matt a few weekends back. We’re going up backside of Diggy Bell, I believe, and we’re in a traffic jam, and there’s Jeeps coming down above me on not so much a trail, but above me to my driver’s side, and I’m just watching this guy, and I’m like, he’s going to roll over on me. It’s just going to roll down into my Jeep. Nothing happened, it didn’t, but at that point, I’m sitting still just waiting for traffic. They decided to go around every which direction, and yeah, I do have dashcams. I have everything set up. I was sitting still, but it would have been on him. I’ve also seen side by side jump on top of the Jeep in URE, just literally being jackass idiots roll over on top of the Jeep. – Sounds like a good old ass and an ass-flustered man. – Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Whoever’s the better fighter. – Yeah, for fun’s sake, just beat the fist out of him. I mean, you might lose, but you might win. – Right, so it’s in situations, it’s life. Had that Jeep rolled over on me on that point? Yeah, he would have been at fault.

Just don’t be an idiot. Chuck was saying, you see the trail, the trails are marked. If you’re going around or you’re doing something stupid, it’s going to be on you for doing something stupid. – How do you establish that though? If they do have insurance, how do you establish that they’re going to pay? I mean, it’s not like you can call the police to come out there and write a report.

– Well, Tony, Tony, I apologize. This is Chuck from Candor. I mean, it’s just like the guy that keep your hood. Did he ever pay?

No, like my understanding is like, you’re just going to deal with it yourself someday. You know, like you never can make somebody else pay for them mistakes, but it’s jeeping etiquette, right? That’s what you have to just don’t be the asshole that drives on top of somebody else. – All right, so I mean, I’m not, this is just a question I’m using. I don’t have a big concern about this, but if I’m out on the road, the legal road, and there’s an accident, I certainly expect somebody to pay for the problem if they cause the issue. And often they lie so that they don’t have to get a ticket or pay.

So I’m thinking off-road, my God, are you taking your 40, 50, 60, $100,000 vehicle off-road? And it’s just, I mean, it’s like Mad Max out there where you just do whatever the hell you want to do.

– Yeah, that sounds a lot of fun. – Yeah.

(laughing) – So there’s nobody here that’s concerned about taking damage from somebody doing something stupid. It’s obviously their fault, and you’re not concerned with your vehicle being damaged. – All right, Tony, if you remember on the second annual deep talk show event, that side-by-side would be in an absolute retard between my son and I. I just threw the hammer down on the scrambler and just smoked around him. And he was being an asshole, like, I don’t care.

If you’re gonna be a jerk, I’ll be jerked right back to you. Like, I don’t have a problem with it. And if something happened, like, all right, we’ll just figure it out like men and drive on. I think later that day, I mean, later that night, when you watched it, I just went up and talked to a bunch of guys and side-by-sides, it’s like,

“No, you’re not gonna be a jerk on the trail around our kids and our families and think that it’s okay. It’s not okay. I don’t care who pays for the damage, but I’m not gonna be all right about it.” – Right, no, I understand that. I just think right is right. And taking personal responsibility is something that we don’t see a lot of these days. – Yeah, just how big of a, oh boy are you?

(laughing) – I mean, if I come up against you, Rick, I’m gonna let you win. (laughing) – Touché, brother. If I have to look up to a guy like, “All right, we’ll let you win today.” – So if you’re in parks, legal liability is gonna be a bitch to sort out.

Like, I think if you’re in a park, or you’re gonna try to get somebody to pay up, they may be there in like a home-built garage item. There’s no way they’re gonna afford to be able to fix your $100,000 Land Rover that somebody just rolled out to do, whatever it is. So parks are kind of a crapshoot. You’re not on a public road or anything like that. So I think it’d be tough to get legal accountability. I think what Chuck’s talking about is what should be done, who should be the one responsible for it. But that doesn’t mean- – You can just beat the piss out of people. – Yeah, that doesn’t hold up in court a lot. – What?

– Yeah, it’s pretty much just gonna come down to the honor system.

I mean, if there’s two, if it happens, somebody, generally, somebody knows whether they’re wrong or not. And if they’re just flat out denying it, I mean, there’s really not a whole lot you’re gonna do. I mean, in a park, I would think it just comes down to, who’s gonna be a standup guy? And if somebody’s not gonna be standup, I don’t think there’s really a whole lot you’re gonna be able to do about it. – Yeah. – You’re not gonna get the police out there with measuring tapes and white chalk lines and stuff. That ain’t gonna happen. – That’d be cool if we could, though. – I know. – Steve from Chicago, that’s where it becomes more dangerous because you don’t have anybody validating the scene of the accident with all the cops there. Now you get the lawyers involved, right? First rule of an accident is you say, you don’t admit fault because it could come back to bite you in the ass even if you weren’t at fault. – Right. – Right. – Don’t ever apologize. – Yeah, because it’ll come back to bite you in the ass.

– So I think somebody made a joke about dashcams and stuff or an array of video cameras on your vehicle. That would certainly be a way. I mean, you may not be able to have it like a regular traffic accident or something, but if you wanted to do, if it’s big enough, it would be worth, at least in Texas, the $90 to sue somebody to get the money back. Although, I was just thinking about this, if you provide information to their insurance company, and you can find out their insurance company, even if they don’t give it to you, then you may be able to get a settlement that way from the two insurance companies. – Unless you’re in a park. That’s why I keep saying, like parks are a lot more dangerous because most of the time you’re not covered under insurance in that park. It’s not a roadway. It’s not a public roadway. It’s just like driving your Jeep on a private property. Some policies you are. – Okay, good. Because I was gonna say, how do you– – This is the city in Southern Utah. – Well, all of them. – There’s a lot of the trails out here marked with numbers, and those are actually roads. And if you have an accident on those roads, that insurance will pay.

Other option would be put signs everywhere it says drive at your own risk. – Yeah, that’s what parks do. So parks have to drive at your own risk, and it’s basically, like you can get a rider. And so I think that anybody that’s out there gonna be doing a lot of off-roading in parks, it’s just a catch-all kind of thing. So if you roll yourself into a tree, no one else involved. – So, John, you had mentioned that before about the riders. And before I went out to MOAB, I called State Farm and asked them about that. They said, under my regular policy, I am covered. As long as I’m not doing off-roading for like a professional, like a commercial usage where I’m making money on it, or I’m promoting anything. As long as my personal vehicle, they said I was covered under my regular policy. – Yeah, that’s how State Farm covers you anywhere that you’re not in a sanctioned race or making money at it. So other insurance companies are completely different. State Farm is one of the good ones that does it that way. – That’s what I was about to say. – See, why aren’t you USA-ing? – Because State Farm has saved my ass all my life, and I’ve had good results with them. – All right. – They’ll be monetized on YouTube, because then you’re doing it for profit. – Yeah, well, that’s exactly it too. But John, you’re absolutely right. The rider is an absolutely way to go for some people. I think you have to look at your individual policies and find out what you’re covered. Don’t take it off what we’re saying here. – The other part about the rider is that insurance company, you know, they’re not gonna pay you for those fancy axles or all the, you got it on there, unless you put it in the gas sheet. – Well, so I got one for you on that too. Frankenbrute, which is my Jeep, is covered by State Farm. I do not have a rider. I do not have anything else. It was just insured as a 2006 Jeep Wrangler.

But because I could prove all the modifications to it, and it had been a SEMA and other stuff, when I rolled it, State Farm stepped right up and wrote me a check for over a hundred grand to make the repairs. – Yeah, I mean, State Farm told me the same thing when I was asking them about the XJ, because I was putting a bunch of stuff on there. And I was just curious about what, if I broke something, if the add-ons were just, you know, too bad for me. And they said, no, all you need is a receipt showing the, you know, the part and stuff, and then they’ll cover that. So just point of correct. – Yeah, and now, like my insurance company, they didn’t even need a receipt anymore. All they needed was photographic evidence that it was an installed part. – Good. – I think the key point there though is, on this show, if you’re listening to this show or whatever, results may vary. – 100% because every state, every state can be different. – Yeah, contact your insurance report, you come up with that. And then if you’re at a park or somewhere like that, and somebody in a broke down XJ,

I had to say that because that was his picture,

I’m reading it, then, you know, it could be any, I’m just trying to pick one actually. So if somebody rolls me in the park and they don’t have that kind of insurance or insurance involved, right? Then, you know, you can develop that.

– Yeah, so State Farm replaced my engine that I lost in the park.

– Really? – Yep. – Holy shit. – Now they were gonna give me a junkyard engine, which would have been insured through the junkyard. I told them to get bent, and then I paid $1,200 difference for a crate engine versus the junkyard, but no, State Farm replaced my engine. – So you guys correct me if I’m hearing wrong here. What we need to do is encourage a Bronco owner to come out to one of our events and just ram the shit out of it and get it on there for YouTube.

– Chris and I are going out. – No, because it’s on YouTube, so it’s for profit, so they wouldn’t cover you. – Wait for it. (both laughing)

– Chris and I are going to the Black Hills in three weeks. He’s got a Bronco.

I’ll let him know. – Hey, Rick from Arkansas, something that Greg said kind of hold over from the motorcycle era when you’re building a motorcycle is you get a three ring binder and you make a build book, and that’s something to do for your Jeep as well. – Hey, you want to hide it somewhere where you want to get it, find it. – Oh yeah.

(both laughing) – Use codes for the prices.

– There’s actually online tools that do that now. There’s one I know called like a Revkit or something. – Yeah, Revkit. – Yeah, but you actually put all your build specs on there, copies of invoice receipt, whatever you want to put on there, pictures, all that kind of stuff. Basically a biography of it.

– The story of my Jeep. – I just want to add, is any of this because of what happened by Jeep? – Did you send in this question? – No. – That’s the only way I could think it would be.

But you went on the trail, right? I mean, you got knocked into the trail, but. – Yeah, pretty much.

– How’s that going? If you guys don’t know, it’s a WJ, right Chris? That’s what you had? – It’s a WJ. – So the WJ was hit in the rear by an elderly lady driving a car at speed. No brakes. – No brakes. – No brakes and you were sitting still at a light or a stop sign or whatever. And I mean, you’ve done several modifications to this Jeep, including long arms. So it was a very nice, well built Jeep, including fixing an engine that dropped a valve at one point. – What I want to know, does the piston go shooting out when you got hit? – No. – Not this time? – It still drove, by the way. – Oh, wow.

– It was a very bumpy ride, but it. – Even more flexy. – No, it’s not flexy.

The gas tank skid plate is sitting on top of the differential. So it is flexed out as much as it can at that point. But right now I’m going, it’s been over three weeks. There’s another car involved. So they’ve been going since he made the claim, they’re going through him first to fix his vehicle because it’s newer.

And since there’s only 25,000, they say, to fix both of our vehicles.

– So that’s a load of crap.

– Oh yeah, it’s a load of crap, but it’s so that they probably don’t have to pay as much. But his car was a little, probably a 2013, 2014 cruise. And he got like a scuff on his bumper and he pushed it back together. And that’s probably all he’s going to need is a bumper and a re-spray. But mine is probably going to be a total loss. I just got in contact with the adjuster Monday. And they sent me a link to an app style thing where they want pictures of the odometer. They want pictures of the front, the left front, the right front, and the rear end, left rear, right rear, and all that crap.

So I had to take pictures of all those after it already sent them pictures anyway.

– Does it move like an inchworm now? Front axle, back tuck, or front axle back? – It looks like it.

I’ll put a profile picture up. But for the most part, I haven’t heard back money-wise what they’re going to give me. I did send all the receipts that I did,

purchased all that stuff with, and send it to them.

I sent it to them and everything, so we’ll see what happens.

– I don’t know if it will work this late in the game, but every vehicle I build, and a lot of people in the area, I do appraisals for Jeeps that have been modified. – Yeah.

– And I purely do them for insurance purposes, but if you sent me, you know, I don’t know if it will work, you can ask the insurance company that, but if you send me all the information and pictures before and after, I can give you a true Jeep appraisal of your vehicle.

Normally, when I do a build, I charge for that, because then if I have to go to court,

it costs money. – It don’t tell the truth now. – But for a couple people on the Jeep Talk Show, if they really needed it, I’ll just, I can write a couple just because.

But ask them if it would help or not, because if it would, I’d be more than happy to write you an appraisal.

– Okay, I’ll hit you up. Will you let me do it on Instagram or something? – Yeah, hit me on Instagram. – Okay, I’ll do that. – I mean, I don’t know if it’ll help, because usually it’s good to have it before you get in the accident. – True. – But sometimes, because a lot of the, the insurance companies typically like it because they don’t really understand what we do, for the most part, right? They don’t understand how a 2004 Jeep can be worth $100,000.

But once an accredited person like myself

and a business puts it in writing, it’s really hard for them to refute it. – Yeah. – Yeah, I’ve heard like third party, yeah, appraisals like that are the only way to get the like actual value of an off-road vehicle because insurance companies don’t wanna pay you, like John said, they don’t wanna pay you, but stock prices for aftermarket axles. So you’re gonna need a third party appraisal anyway. – Yeah, and the best part with the, when I do it, I do it as a shop, right? So it’s not great, well, it’s Greg Henderson, but it’s Greg Henderson, that unofficially is only, and it’s on my letterhead.

And I’ve done, I’ve literally done, I don’t know, probably well over a hundred appraisals, but it’s, I do it for every customer, that way they can insure their vehicle properly.

But then for other people, because you don’t want,

not everybody installs their own axles. So, a set of ultimate 60s might cost somebody or a set of Dynatrex might cost, and this is just a random number, but let’s say 15,000. But then with that, you also need another $1,500 in drive shafts and you need brake lines and you need possibly wheels, so it’s a snowball effect. So a pair of axles might retail at $15,000, but you really got well over $20,000 to make them function

in a shop setting. And then if you have installation as well, you’re paying somebody at least a hundred bucks an hour for at least 10 to 15 hours. So that’s another 1,500 bucks, right? It adds up.

And we reflect all that in the appraisal that way,

because not everybody does it in their driveway at home. So if it’s on the appraisal, it’s very, very hard for the insurance company to refute it. – Right, okay.

– That’s nice. I never thought about that. – Since I haven’t really gotten an estimate of what they’re gonna give me, it would probably still help. – Yeah, and it might even help when they give you that. And I know I can backdate it, but yeah, if they low ball you, you can be like, no, no, look, this is the appraisal that was done on my vehicle.

You can’t give me $3,800 when it’s worth 15,000.

– Yeah, and remember that they’re gonna come to you with an offer, right? It’s any business transaction, right? So they’re in the business of saving their company money. So they’re gonna come to you with an offer. You just say nicely, get fucked. And then you can start again from there. I mean, we do it all the time because we have a lot of pieces of equipment, right? So we’re constantly dealing with our insurance company. And at this point they know they’re gonna come to the first offer, no, get fucked. We’re gonna counter offer on a high note and then we come to the middle, just like buying a car or anything. That’s exactly what’s happening, is they’re trying to buy your vehicle from you at a lower rate. – Right. – Yeah, I was thinking the appraisal can be, you can always say no, because that’s not enough and this is why. And then you can either you say this, this and this, or Greg Henderson says, and then they’ll recall. – Who’s that? – Or recoil in fear. No, they’ll recall in fear and go, okay, any money you want. (laughs) – Well, the first thing that, so the best part is the first thing that they do,

that they’ll look at it and they’ll be like, yeah, get fucked. And then they’ll Google unofficially use only and Greg Henderson and then they’ll go, oh shit. (laughs) – Yeah, that’s about how I figured it would go. – Because right at the bottom of the appraisal, it says, if I’m needed in court, I will make myself available. And they really don’t like that because that means wherever you are in the country, if I have to fly in, you’re gonna pay me to fly in. But if I have to fly in, they’re gonna eat crow because now they have a certified accredited expert in court and they’ll really get fucked. It’s then the judge always sides with the expert. – Will you wear your kilt? – I will.

(laughs) – Even Ben. – I’m totally gonna go wreck my Jeep tomorrow. – I’ll have ducks with them too. (laughs) – Oh God.

– All right, well, that’s some good information. And you did that, you know, it’s funny. You never know where the conversation’s gonna go on with this. And this is some interesting information that I never even thought about, about where you get involved in an accident and now you’re trying to get the insurance to pay. And we all know, in very rare cases, the insurance companies don’t pay what it’s gonna cost to replace or repair or anywhere close to what you have invested in the vehicle. And I would think nine times out of 10, if not 10 out of 10, you’ll never get back the amount of time and effort you put into building that Jeep.

– No.

– It is, since a couple of people have USA, I know my USA policy has a $5,000 max custom part rider on it. – Interesting. – I don’t think USA will change it to modify that. But that doesn’t mean that if you total it, you can’t go get your parts. – Yeah, they definitely won’t.

That’s why I got the rider in the park. I’m USA as well. I was talking to them was why I kind of went out. They do it through Progressive though, which I’m not a big fan of Progressive, but that’s USA has a lot of partnerships with them. So that kind of worked on that. And I think from the other thing to look at that, as we’ve been talking about, what if somebody slashes into you or what if, something like that, if it’s your fault and you’re liable, you wanna ask your insurance company about that too. If you’re in a park, you’re gonna be covered. If the insurance company says, yeah, you’re covered, but likewise wherever you hit and damage, they are claiming $100,000 of parts and you have USA or whatever, they’re like, we’ll give them the value of the vehicle, but not 100,000. This year max coverage is 25 or whatever it is on there.

That extra policy kind of helps cover the difference on there sometimes, but be careful because they can come after you.

– Hello, this is Bob in Colorado. There’s another advantage to having your own rider on your vehicle. I do that with everything that I build. And the reason is, if somebody does hit me, I’ve got it in paper. My insurance company is insured my vehicle, my $7,000 Wrangler is insured for 22,000. So when the progressive or somebody comes in, yeah, you just have a 2005 Jeep, here’s your five grand or whatever, I can say, so we have, this is the value put on it by my insurance company. – So we use Haggerty on stuff like that for stated amounts, like for the lock rods and stuff that we have here, you just do a stated amount and it doesn’t really matter. I mean, and like the dad’s deets on it, the sevens on it, the scrambler was on it. And you just go, because you can never really replace it. And stated amounts are kind of hard to do. Like we use Farm Bureau here, because of course we have the ranch, but we go through Haggerty for all of that. And that is the way to go really. – Yeah, I was about to say, Haggerty, I think Hemings had a couple of, there’s a couple of them out there that specialize in like the custom car world, about rod world or whatever. And if you need nature, you ahead of time agree upon the appraisal and your premiums based off of whatever you all agreed it was. – And that doesn’t mean that other companies gonna pay all that, but your company will pay for it and then go after the other company and they’ll send the lawyers after them. – But it’s no longer your headache. – Yeah, exactly. – It’s that they’re gonna go fight with it.

– And just another thing you can do if you’re worried about,

like if you hit somebody and who knows how crazy those health bills can get and if you had a helicopter come out and get it, one thing you can do beyond your normal auto policy too is get an umbrella. Something like we do the same thing on the corporate side is we’ve got millions of dollars in GL insurance, but we also have $10 million of umbrella insurance over that. And that umbrella insurance will cover if you go over your property, your house insurance on something, it’ll cover it if you go over your auto insurance, stuff like that, it’ll cover everything. That’s another option. – This is perfect. I brought up a question a number of shows ago about driving over a rock slide. So I could get a rider and then drive over that rock slide and I’d have to wait for the county to come clear the trail. This is great.

– Yeah, that’s called insurance fraud. And it’s totally fine.

Yeah, I mean, prison is really not that bad. For those of us that have been to prison, I can tell you it’s really not that bad, as people say. – That’s like insurance. – Assert dominance really, and you’ll be fine.

(laughs) – You were just there for the cordial vision day though. – But I asserted dominance early, so it was so fun.

– Gosh, Nicole. – Thank you.

Illinois.

– Steve-O knows.

– John, you said we weren’t gonna talk about that.

Hey, it’s Ex-Day.

– What the hell’s wrong with you people?

– I hear one that. – And he’s been in the military and he asked that question. – Twice.

– Don’t ask, don’t tell.

– We still know. It doesn’t matter if you ask or not, we know. – So let me, I’m not trying to put you on the spot, Larry, but do you know if you’re going to the event this weekend or not? – No, I’m not gonna be able to make it. I drove to work today at half hour.

That was about all I could drive in the Jeep today with it. – Yeah, I didn’t think you were going to be able to, but just in case, I was just gonna check.

– You got like three days to train Duke how to use a clutch pedal. – I told him. It’s time for Duke to earn his snacks.

(laughing)

– Someone in the room needs a bunkhouse, let me know. – It’s actually a good deal because I don’t know if anybody saw the weather. Hopefully you got a really well functioning cooling system on your rig.

It’s probably gonna be about 10, at least 10 degrees hotter than what’s last year on top of that. And it’ll, so. – Yeah, that’s gonna be terrible. – Well, we’ll just get over under the falls and cool off.

– Yeah, the hidden falls. – The hidden falls, yeah. Well, you gotta know where it is, so. – Well, pretend to cool off, we can all quite make believe. – Did you guys see that Zabow said that he’s got four, four Jeeps coming from his part, his neck of the woods? – Yeah, I did. Are we still gonna have Todd showing up with the operating one on one? – I haven’t heard anything from Todd. I copied him on email that I sent out about the event. I believe Greg from Underground Graphics will be there. He’s been to every one of them. He was real anxious to know about it this year because I hadn’t sent out the information. And he asked me about it at that,

Katie event, Jeep Meets event. And so I don’t know about Todd. I’ll send him an email.

But you know Zabow has already said that he could lead a more aggressive group. So even if Todd doesn’t come. – I think we got enough people that know that weren’t well enough now. We will have no problems getting people down the trails.

– So you’re saying we’re gonna need air conditioning?

– No, Rick, you’re a man. You’ll be fine. – And there’s no large bodies of water to cool yourself off, Rick. – There will be a down in my seat by the time the taste is done. – What’s gonna be nice Rick is there’s not gonna be any chiggers. – Yeah, that’s the thing. – I would not say there’s no chiggers in Texas. As a kid, I got chiggers all the time.

– Oh, it was pretty bad for Rick and I.

– Yep, and I’m figuring out that I think I’m kind of allergic to them. Hey, yeah, I’m not gonna get a chance to go get my hardtop before I head down there. So I’m basically gonna be open air. – Oh my God.

– Real man. – You’re gonna be losing hair follicles on the drive. – Like I told you, Rick, you’re a man, you’ll be fine.

– It’ll be like Rick’s weight loss plan. You should document it the whole time and post on Instagram constantly. Like an influencer, like this is the quickest way to lose 30 pounds. – But it all sound like wind as he’s talking. – There’s lots of sunscreen. – You might wanna order one of those overnight covers for the top of the Jeep just to help with the sun a little bit. Even when it wasn’t hot there, that sun’s pretty intense down there. – Oh yeah, you gotta keep your hands in otherwise you’ll touch the sun. – Yeah, I’ve got a Sephora top on it. But you know, still we open air. – You’ll be fine, you’ll just have to hydrate.

– Yeah, I thought I hear that Coor’s Light is the number one hydration for most Jeepers.

– Then it turns you into a Fearing.

– You might go buy a plastic Jeep and not have to worry about this shit anymore. – Chuck, we all know that you drink Bud Light.

– Oh, I had a Bud Light today. I don’t have a problem with it. I fucking like it. – I thought I noticed a little lisp, so that explains it. – I got my hearing aid, so I lisped with a hearing aid. – That’s the echo. – I’m pretty sure AutoZone sells those little 12-bolt fans in Clif on your dash.

– Perfect.

– So I don’t know, Chuck, are you coming to the event?

– No, Chris from Michigan is actually coming down and I’m gonna hang out with him for the weekend. – So Chris has been to one of our events. – Yep, yep. Yeah, we’re actually gonna start planning our Black Hills event. So he’s got his Bronco, I’ve got the Gladiator and we’re gonna go wheeling for 14 days. – My goodness. – And take all the gear with us and I don’t know. I need to call Chip, I don’t know that I have his number anymore, but I’m gonna call him and there’s, I don’t know, 100 and something miles and we’re just gonna go and fuck off and go wheeling for 14 days. – Very cool. – With all of our shit.

Yep, hopefully. – Well, we’re gonna miss you and a bunch of people are gonna miss your beer, so.

But. (laughing) – Perfect. (laughing) – All right, I think we beat that one to death. So how about this one? How do you hold the steering wheel thumbs in or thumbs out? Is this like the earring on the right side, left side? I don’t know what this means.

– Do not put your thumbs on the inside of the steering wheel. – You can do it with a frickin’ power steering unit all day long. That was an old school, like manual steering thing.

Like I’ve never had any issues with power steering. Old manual steering, absolutely, it’ll whip you around, but power steering, not even a little bit. It’s a non-issue. In my belief. – Well, I had a guy that I wheel with, his son,

about broke his finger, because he did that.

– What I like to do is hold my pinky. I like to hold my pinky out while I’m doing it. (laughing) – But this kid had a LJ and he hit a pretty big hole

at speed, not like at 40, but he was like doing four low, hit a hole and it whipped the, there was a rock in the hole and he didn’t see it. And it whipped the steering wheel around and it caught his thumb.

It didn’t break it, but it did some pretty good damage to his hand. – I don’t know. Is that a one-off thing? – It might be, but I’ve had a couple of guys that were, like, just pulls the steering wheel out of your hand, but other than that. – He had really, really weak hands and wrists too. – Maybe. – Yeah, that’s kind of what I’m thinking. – He drank the Bud Light just like Chuck. He’s not old enough. – Hey, hey, my wrist might be weak, but my hands are strong, okay? – Oh Lord.

Don’t tell the guys that. – Chuck, now that you’re in the plastic Jeep, you know the answer on this is you only need like two fingers of the steering wheel. – I drive with my left knee. I don’t know what your fucking guys are from.

(laughing) Anyway, when I’m smoking a ball, you just drive with your left knee and keep on going boys.

– That’s good. – I think JL’s better than himself though, don’t they?

I got a button for everything. – Download that software package. – Yeah, right. – That’s a good job at it, huh?

– It’s only a matter of time before full self driving is installed. – That’s gay.

– Yeah, usually I thought you saw the buttons on the steering wheel.

– Hey Chuck, I sent you some info on your phone.

– Okay.

– This way over there. – I already sent you a message, by the way. – Be careful when opening things from Rogers. – Sometimes it’s not just a message.

(laughing) – I was a medic in the army. You know how many male wieners I have seen because I was a medic in the army? Like it doesn’t bother me at all. – I didn’t think you could charge for service. I thought you had to do it for free. You were being paid by the army.

– Oh Jesus. – I don’t know how many times it was like, “Hey, dog, what’s this?” Like that’s herpes, soldier.

Put that away, we’re in public. – I think it was winning. Were you the one asking about the buttons on the steering wheel?

– I just said you gotta have your thumbs out to push the buttons on the steering wheel. – Well, if I drive a JK, so my buttons don’t work. – Of course. – God, you must be hard-repping it. – They haven’t worked, they stopped working like a year after I got it, man. Like none of the buttons on the front of the steering wheel. – Really? – The back ones still work just fine. I can do the radio and all that stuff, but the button that changes between like the compass and the fuel, like you just have to mash it like a thousand times until it goes to when you want and then like jump around and everything. Yeah, they don’t work. – Hey, I got a JK with a 11,000. – I’ve got a 2012 JK with a 211,000 miles on it. So my buttons still work. You must have an issue. – I got one of those specials. – Hey, John, I can send you. – I got 250,000 on mine and they work. – Yeah, see? – Oh my God. – Everyone’s trying to one up each other now. – I know it. – All right, where’s the 40,000? – I feel like an option.

– John, I can send you a new set. – I’ve gotten used to not having them anyway, so me. – Well, I changed mine out on my left side, which is the pad you’re talking about. I changed mine out because of, well, that caribou de d’ac that I have came with a different set. So I got the old ones that’s hanging out in the garage. I can send them to you. – Yeah, I don’t know. – Maybe we should show Bill to upgrade his buttons on his steering wheel and then you’ll do yours too. – No, he’s got a jail.

– I just thought if you want them, you can have them otherwise, nevermind. – Well, maybe if you ever come down to the Texas event, I’ll be out before it. – Oh my God, man, it’s arts.

– But no, mine haven’t worked in a while, but what was the JK thing?

– Well, it’s because you drive that old shit, you’d fucking come into the 21st century, John, and quit being an old fuck, you’d be fine. – This is coming from a guy who owns more metal Jeeps than he does a plastic one.

– I’m telling you, we’ve had a, we really have had an effect on Chuck whenever he first got here to now. It’s just, this amazing. – It’s been a lot of stock starting treating you. – I’ve always wanted one. – Chuck’s giving you that you’re driving old shit talk. – You know, I think that gladiators become a whole personality for him now, right? Like, how’s that? – How’s that person?

– How’s those fuel leaks going?

(laughing) – Hashtag lights before lockers, get fucked.

– So mean. – How’s that auto stop start?

– I have a button that turns it off. – Oh, by the way, that’s the other thing, you need a Taser Mini for us because you can disable that shit. – So mine’s already disabled. Like it’s got a thing on the dash that you just push it. But my understanding is by the 14th, I have to have a Taser because if I’m gonna re-gear and lock this thing, like I’ve got to override a bunch of shit in the transmission hence the Greg Henderson friendship. – No, you can turn off the auto stop start with that button, but you have to do it every time you get in there, every time you start the vehicle, because it resets back. Okay, that’s what I was gonna say. I was gonna ask you if what you’re saying is that you don’t have to do that. – No, it does not auto reset.

I guess it’s something about the 23 maybe. I mean, it’s over my pay grade, so I don’t know, but. – I would check and make sure you don’t have a Taser installed. – Bill, verdict, the 24s, you still have to push it every time.

– Yeah, my 22 and my 24.

– You have to push it every time? – Well, I have a Taser, no, not now, but without the Taser, yeah, you would have to, it would reset every time. – No, I would check, it’s really easy to check. – I wonder if I have a Taser. – I would, I would check it. – You probably do. – Yeah. – Either that or just can. – Where do I find this out? – Just can’t walk to the other stuff. – OBD2. – So you’re area. – Go to the dash and look for a dongle. – The sink there, the security module. – What the fuck is a dongle? Like the way, man, when you talk to a dongle, it’s like a dongle. – And you’ve been, and you say you’ve been a medic. I just, I don’t know. – You’re hitting more dongles in your day than you have, right? – Is that a dongle, it’s like?

– All right, all right, I’m going on the driver side. – It’s under the dash. – Open the door. – It’s under the dash on the driver side. – The other option, the other option is you could check the center console if you go to the media screen and you hit the, what is it? There’s like two buttons on the steering wheel. – It’s audio and it’s the left one on both sides. It’s like, just cancel. – Does he know how to use real audio? – I swear to God, I remember the first time I was ever on this thing and I’m confused just as fuck (laughing) I’ve opened the driver door. – Did the light go on?

– There’s a bunch of wires.

– I forget how to use it. – It’ll be behind the OB, it’ll be behind the OBD sensor or plug. – Plug. – What’s more underneath the steering wheel behind the dash?

– Yep. – I don’t fucking know. – I’m not. – Who has a jail that can show check? – Does anybody remember how to turn on the Taser where you get it up on the screen? – That’s what I was saying, you go to the audio screen.

– Yeah, so you go to the audio screen, cancel and left.

Both left. – Yeah, the one person I’m not gonna take this advice from is you Travis.

(laughing) – I got my Taser and I know how to work. – All right, Matt. – You’re awesome. – I’ve got a script Taser if you don’t have it. – Listen to Bill here.

– Why did I all of a sudden I envisioned a cheat codes for Nintendo coming up real quick? (laughing) Up, down, up, down, over. – Yeah. Travis, I can see you fucking with me just to say, oh, I’m not listening. – So Bill, later whenever you’re going over this with Chuck on the phone, set a pin code. So– – He doesn’t have my number. – He deleted all his numbers. – I did. Well, not, I mean, it was because I needed to do a touchdown thing with my phone. So I did it, I slammed it on the ground. I felt really good about myself for about 37 seconds. And then your contact’s not in the cloud. Like what kind of fucking phone are you? – What the fuck is a cloud? What the fuck are you– – Oh God. – I hear you’re saying the same thing in the cloud.

– I hate everybody on this fucking show. I swear to God. (laughing) – For the fucking reason I’m not here every day. – All your shit comes back. – You really want to blow it up. – Don’t you have to pay for that crap? Don’t the Russian pay attention to you? – Well, you have to pay for it with your privacy data. But other than that, – I’m not gonna fucking pay for shit like that. I don’t give a fuck about my kids. Let them grow up. That’ll be fine.

– Hey, Chuck, what did you find out about fuel injection? (laughing) God damn it. – He put fuel injection on his scrambler. – Yeah, he did. And then it didn’t work. – It did. Oh, I mean, it works. I mean, kind of. (laughing)

Whatever.

– All right, so as we were talking about, do you steer with your thumbs out or in on the steering wheel? And if you don’t know, I just want to make sure that anybody that doesn’t know, because I really wasn’t aware of this, that you can damage or break your thumbs depending on what’s going on. And the manual steering makes a lot of sense. You probably don’t have to worry about it as much with automatic, but according to what we heard, it can happen. At least you can be, maybe not thumbs broken, but at least it hurts.

– So Dan from Illinois, the first time I ever heard about that was an interview with some 20 year old driver of the World War II ducks up in the Wisconsin Dells.

And the one thing she pointed out is the first thing they teach you is never drive with your thumbs to the inside and why. But then again, that’s also a World War II duck that they’re driving. So the whole manual steering thing kind of makes sense. – There ain’t no power steering on those things. – No.

– There’s power, but it’s all external.

– It’s the triceps. – Yeah. – It’s armed power.

– All right, so it’s a good, just keep it in mind. You might want to, especially off-road when you’re driving on rocks and stuff, it’s always a possibility that the steering wheel could get jerked and you may pay for it. Certainly wouldn’t be a happy day for the rest of the wheeling. Hopefully it’s just a short-term hurt and not a long-term hurt.

All right, this is a good one, especially with the event coming up this weekend. What size group do you like? I know this means different things to different people, but I’m thinking it means how many people do you like on the trail with you? – 10 is a good number. Too many after that. – I think it depends on the trail. – And the level of experience of everybody, but I would say 10 is probably a pretty good number. – It’s a good average. I’ve had 14 and I’ve had 20. And even though everybody knew what they were doing, it just takes too long. And then you got people in the back yelling. I don’t see that. And then 10 minutes later, it’s like, oh, that’s what you were talking about? – Roger, things and things. – Yeah, well, Steve and I were talking about that just last night, because I was just at Badlands in Indiana with a group and group got separated and I’m here and you have to turn there. Well, you don’t know who’s where that’s even talking in the first place. Where the group got lost,

where the other groups are. I had one group to my right that we were supposed to go straight. The group that I thought was behind me actually passed in front of me. So, when you get a group that’s too big and you don’t know who’s where, it gets to be KS.

– Oh, I didn’t go to that. – I’d say 10 is like absolute max. And I’d say like three to five, three solid, experienced people to five is probably a good one to run a hard trail. – Here’s the most important part though. If you go off in supper groups, you got 20 people, you break up into three groups, make sure you’re on different radio channels. So you don’t hear Roger from four trails over. (all laughing) – I’m definitely a rabbit ears type of guy. Like two dudes that know what they’re doing. You can have so much damn fun.

Yeah, three is a company. Or what two is a company and three is a crowd in that the word.

I don’t know. – Minaj et toi. – Yeah, well, those are fun.

Yeah, I’ve always had a blast just with one other guy. You just go out and have a good time. Like you just, but you got to jive. I mean, we did the, I’ve done the Jeep talk show event a couple of times and that’s really, really fun. But mostly I just, I find myself just gravitating towards one person and then I just hang out with them and everyone else is just tertiary.

– Well, I think a lot of people don’t like waiting and whenever you have a group like that, it’s fun to get to meet people and do things with other people, but I get it what you mean Chuck. I think that at EJS, that was one of the reasons why you and Bill had so much fun is because there was no slowing down. There was no kicking the tires or bullshitting. It was just wheeling.

– Yeah, and it’s, I mean, it’s 50 year difference between the two Jeeps, but they still wheeled side by side the entire way, right? – Two guys that have probably the same amount of wheeling experience and you just have a good time. Once you start adding a bunch of people, it’s just too many variables and maybe I just, I don’t have the patience for people, but I always just really enjoyed it. But I did do the Jeep talk show event and I chose to be in Bill’s group last year, had an absolute blast with him. I have no idea who else was with us and I didn’t really care. I just had a good time with Bill. So, I almost got to be part of the cool kid club. – You chose your whatever.

You had that chance and you didn’t want to do it. – I think you can have fun if you have a slightly larger group, I will say I prefer like five or less is kind of where I fall out. But last year at the event, before the event we did the FMTRO run, I think we had probably what? 10, 11 maybe with us. It was more than what you would do like a normal, but everybody had a blast. Like we’re going down there, we’re moving along, having a good time. So, I think a lot of it, if you’re talking about how many people are in the group, it’s what are the people in the group trying to get out of the ride? If they’re just trying to get down the trail and just trying to scoot, then yeah, that’s 10 is way too many. But if you are like getting out, having fun, kind of shooting the shit or whatever, like so it depends I think on what the group is trying to get out of the trail. – That TRO run with a large group that we had was still a lot of fun. – Was that the run that you wouldn’t wait for Andrew and I? And so Andrew and I went out by ourselves and said, fuck you guys and had a blast too. – That was before you all were just taking too much fucking time. But the– – Really, unloading my fucking Jeep from a trailer is too fucking long? Like, it’s fuck. – That’s me. I was already in my Jeep, man. I couldn’t wait for that. – I’m sorry. I had to undo two ratchet straps. – That’s a good problem. Stop projecting. Get your shit together.

(laughing) – The nice thing about that TRO run was we were all just wheeling. We didn’t have to stop for spotters and everything else. It was just– – We could have– – Just drive through the obstacle and go. – We fucking started about spotters. – What was that? – I think that’s a– – We did have to go and stop. – That’s a huge deal, Larry. I think the whole spotter deal really just muddles up the trail so much. Like, if you have to depend on a spotter for every frickin’ rock, like, probably go back to driving school. I hate to say it like that. Like, I do not like spotters. Like, I think that’s why Bill and I get along so well and John and I get along so well. You just–

You did the little trail here. Like, I didn’t spot you. You just did it. And it’s pretty hard. You just fuckin’ go along. And, you know, you got hung up. That gave me an excuse to get out and get another beer or vice versa. I didn’t tell you what to do. I was just like, “All right, perfect. “Beard time.” And you keep going. I don’t need to tell you how to fuckin’ turn your steering wheel. – And that’s what I was saying. At TRO Run, we were all just pretty much moving, right? Every now and then, someone got hung up and they worked through it, but it was just a group that was outgoing. – I will be honest. Matt and I were not doing a lot of moving because we were out front. We had to keep stopping and waiting and going back and seeing. – Yes, John, yes. – You know, so it was the middle of the pack was having a blast. Like stacking rocks for the TJs, you know, trying to go and stuff.

(laughing) Out front, we were doing a little bit of waiting.

– Well, that’s why you have beer. – Well, like I always like to say, you never know what you’re gonna hear on the Zoom Room meeting, the round table. We really appreciate you guys being here. And believe it or not, these guys are all friends. These guys wheel with each other. We’ve wheeled at Easter Jeep Safari. We’ve wheeled at Hidden Falls, the off-road events, like we’re getting ready to have at this coming Saturday. And it’s just a blast. And we give each other just a really hard time, anytime we can. Of course, that’s all part of the fun, right?

(laughing) All right, so hopefully see you out there at Hidden Falls Adventure Park on June the 8th, Saturday. There will be a group of people out there on Thursday. I know Bill and John from the Jeep Talk Show team are gonna be there. So there’s probably gonna be some wheeling on Thursday. There’s definitely gonna be a little bit of taste of Texas driving around up to 160 miles around the park and that general area with Bill and John. And then I think it’s gonna culminate into going to a barbecue place that if you would like to have some, you can get some barbecue there with Bill and John and probably eat barbecue with the group. It sounds like a great adventure. I know that I enjoy the main event every year and I definitely am gonna be there on Saturday.

So yeah, check it out. If you’re coming in from out of state, this’ll certainly make it worth the drive in because it’s not just one day of wheeling. Although I think that’s plenty, but I certainly understand if you’re driving 15, 20 hours, it makes it a little difficult to do that, get there, drive off-road for one day and then head back that 15 or 20 hours. So this is a great idea that the Jeep Talk Show team came up with. Let’s make this a multi-day event.

It’s not anything fancy. We don’t have a band or anything that we gotta set up. It’s just Jeepers, Jeep Talk Show listeners coming together to do some off-road stuff. Very purist type things.

All right, coming up this Friday on our interview episode, the day before the off-road event, you guys really should just go to your podcast listing app and set the Jeep Talk Show to automatically download the five most recent episodes. That way, if you’re out on the trail and maybe you didn’t have the GMRS radio with you or you wanna listen to it anyway, you can sit there and listen to the Jeep Talk Show without internet access. So just a little forethought and you can always have the Jeep Talk Show right there at your fingertips and your phone. But anyway, Whitney from Toledo Jeep Fest, ToledoJeepFest.com coming up, a great interview with her and Jerry, also doing the ToledoJeepFest.com thing.

And that brings us to the end of another exhilarating Jeep Talk Show round table episode. I wanna express my deepest gratitude to our incredible panel of Jeep enthusiasts for sharing their valuable insights, experiences, and expertise with us today and using so many colorful words.

Big thanks to Toledo Jeep Fest for sponsoring this episode of the Jeep Talk Show. Get more information about this big Jeep event coming up August 1st through the 4th at ToledoJeepFest.com. Remember to support the companies that support the show you love, the Jeep Talk Show.

So until next time, keep those Jeeps running strong, hit those trails with confidence, and remember, it’s not just a vehicle, it’s a way of life. This has been Tony hosting the Jeep Talk Show round table episode, and we’ll catch ya on the next ride.

Broadcasting Sense 2010.

You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.