Tire Tread Depth for Lockers: How Much Difference is TOO Much? | Jeep Talk Show

**Jeep Talk Show: Tire Tread Depth for Lockers, GoPro Struggles, Jeep Sales, Maserati Drama & Josh’s Parking Rant!**

Join Tony and Josh for another no-holds-barred episode of the Jeep Talk Show! This week they dive into real Jeep maintenance, industry drama, and plenty of unfiltered banter.

**Key Highlights:**
– Tire tread depth guidelines for 4WD vehicles and lockers (quarter to half-inch circumference difference tolerance)
– Why deeper tread matters for off-road traction in mud, rocks, and snow
– Practical replacement recommendations and the penny test
– GoPro’s financial troubles, competition from DJI/Insta360, and the rise of affordable alternatives + drones
– Jeep brand sales under Stellantis (Q2 updates and broader industry trends)
– Maserati partnership talks instead of sale — luxury EV strategy with Chinese firms
– Show updates: Remastered classic XJ Talk Show episodes now on YouTube (with Grok reviews!)
– Josh’s legendary “Get the fuck out the way” parking rant

**Timestamps:**
– 00:00 Intro banter and rest-stop musings
– 01:02 Tire tread depth and drivetrain lock
– 04:23 Differential heating, fluid limits, limited-slip diffs
– 06:39 Tire wear limits and replacement advice
– 07:34 Dangers of shallow tread and traction loss
– 08:59 Common-sense tire maintenance reminders
– 11:10 GoPro struggles amid competition and AI costs
– 12:36 Drone rise and phone camera alternatives
– 14:28 Multi-angle off-road video strategies
– 15:36 Show distribution, links, and new features
– 17:28 Video editing and GoPro sync challenges
– 18:36 DIY overhead camera mount with Hero 3
– 19:30 Early rigs before drones and concluding note
– 21:48 Jeep sales trends and Stellantis overview
– 25:12 EPA standards, diesel fluid, and regulations
– 28:49 Maserati’s future and Stellantis partnerships
– 35:34 Wrap-up and audience engagement
– 37:27 Show upgrades: Grok reviews and tech
– 40:44 Parking etiquette and driver responsibility
– 44:03 Call-out for better parking behavior
– 46:01 Proposed windshield stickers for safe parking
– 46:25 Voicemail submissions and community interaction
– 48:55 Voicemail promotion, milestones, and thanks
– 50:23 Final farewell and friendship

If you enjoyed the episode, please **like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell** so you never miss a new one! Drop a comment below with your tire maintenance tips, GoPro horror stories, or your own parking lot rage moments.

🎙️ **Listen/Watch on your favorite platforms:**
– Full show notes, transcripts & links: https://jeeptalkshow.com
– Spotify: https://jeeptalkshow.com/spotify
– Discord: https://jeeptalkshow.com/discord
– Newsletter: https://jeeptalkshow.com/newsletter
– Patreon Support: https://jeeptalkshow.com/patreon

**Support the Show & Shop Jeep Gear**
Thank you for being part of the Jeep community! Shopping through our links helps keep the show going at no extra cost to you.

– Tire Tread Depth Gauge: https://amzn.to/4boyMh2
– Full Amazon Store: https://jeeptalkshow.com/amazon

Whether you’re wheeling a Gladiator, XJ, or anything in between — stay safe, keep those tires deep, and we’ll see you on the next one! 🚙💨

#JeepTalkShow #JeepLife #OffRoad #TireMaintenance #Gladiator #XJ #JeepNation

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00:00 – 00:00:02:23]
(Music)

[00:00:02:23 – 00:00:10:13]
And we’re back. This is Tony and uh, I’m sorry, your name is Josh.

[00:00:12:20 – 00:00:23:06]
Yeah, I know. We just met recently. It’s kind of weird. I’m horrible with names too. Well, you know, you’re doing such a great tap dancing job in the, the public bathroom. It was just, uh, it was bound to happen.

[00:00:26:06 – 00:03:11:10]
That was so strange for that story. That’s hard. That story was so strange when it came out years, uh, years ago. And thank God, I don’t remember anybody tapping while I was in a public bathroom. I hear rest areas are really bad. No, I know those long drives. Well, I should say this. I’ve, I, I’ve been on some of those long drives and I’ve had to stop in the rest, uh, those rest stops before. And, uh, uh, this is something that’s always crossed through my mind is like, okay, while I’m in here, it’s something to get to start doing a tap dance, you know, what’s going on? It’s a little sand. You got a great place there for some little soft shoe, a little tap dancing. All right. So last week, last week we teased about measuring your tread depth on your tires. And I’d always wondered about, uh, four wheel drives, especially when you have lockers, uh, just, uh, to be safe. I was always thinking to be, uh, really critical of the size of your each tire, because whenever you lock the axles, uh, together, the left and right front and rear tires, then lock those two axles together, it’s, it’s really important that you don’t have, uh, slip issues where the tire actually has to speed up or slow down, uh, and chirp a little bit. Uh, and I mean, a little bit of that stuff is okay, but if you’re really out there, especially if you’re driving highway speeds, uh, and maybe just two wheel drive, it’s not as important, but you know, it’s, it’s the downside when you go to buy new tires or you are worse, you damage a tire and now you got to replace it. How many tires do you buy? Right? Yeah, exactly. And especially if you’re way down on tread and I mean, that could be, you know, close to a half inch difference. And I always thought that that, that was kind of like the line of demarcation. You know, you get away with an eighth inch, maybe a quarter inch, you can do a half inch or more. And that’s, that’s tire size difference at that point. And that, that could cause issues, but I was kind of surprised to find out that there’s a little bit more of a, a leeway room in tread depths. And, and I won’t go so far as to use the term tire size, but yeah, if you’ve got, you know, 10% on one side and 80% on the other, it’s not going to be the end of the world. Well, we kind of teased this last week. I actually have the exact measurements or the, we’ll say a ballpark measurements that I was able to research and find out. It can be a one quarter inch to one half inch in circumference, not diameter, but in circumference, because diameter that would be a much bigger difference. So, you know, if you take the tape and go around the tire and measure one tire and measure the other tire, if you’re within a quarter inch and a half inch, interesting or okay. And it depends on the air pressure. Also wouldn’t,

[00:03:13:12 – 00:04:31:15]
wouldn’t air pressure also come into, into play here? I would imagine that a difference of 15 or 20 PSI could change that number as well. Um, I don’t think it’s hypercritical. I didn’t see any, any mention of tire pressure in my research. I mean, certainly if you’re, if your tire is very, very low, you don’t want to stay aired up on one tire and air down to five PSI on, on the opposite side. I mean, I think, I think that makes sense. Uh, but uh, I think the most, we’re going to assume that the tires are, are aired up equally, uh, between them. So, uh, this is basically say that, you know, you need to make sure your tires are pressurized properly, equally and might make sure they’re pressurized equally front to back as well. Um, and, and I think that, uh, the Jeep engineers, I think the Jeep engineers allowed a little bit of play in there so that you don’t have to be, uh, dead, uh, dead nuts on, on the mark. So you, you know, you get a little, a little, uh, a play in there. So also too, you can wind up heating things as you could well imagine, uh, the, the gears, the ring opinion and stuff. You can actually cause heating in those things if you’re binding your, your drive tray.

[00:04:33:24 – 00:07:23:23]
Yeah. And, uh, you get that differential fluid really hot and, uh, and yeah, the same kind of thing can happen with like your transmission or any other kind of lubrication is once that fluid reaches a certain point, what we’ll call it like the smoke point, if you will, um, you’re going to start burning that oil, that fluid, and it’s going to lose its viscosity. It’s going to lose its lubrication properties and you’re actually going to do yourself a quite a disservice to your differential. Uh, if you let those overheat like that, especially if you’re running something like a limited slip differential and you’ve got traction modifiers in that fluid, uh, temperature sensitivity in that stuff is, is, is kind of critical. Um, and so you don’t want to let that stuff get too hot. Yeah. Yeah. The friction modifiers are there because there’s actually, uh, clutches, uh, inside of there that kick in depending on whenever you, uh, you need that extra traction and it doesn’t always work exactly. It’s not that’s, that’s one of the reasons why we like selectable lockers. You hit the button for the selectable lockers. Uh, uh, you got a good 99% chance that you’re, you got that, uh, that axle locked together. All right. So, um, so we’ll say that I’ve, well, hang on real quick. Yeah. I was going to say real quick that, uh, I will, I will say that I have a lot of people who have, who’ve ran, uh, and sworn by limited slip differentials and, uh, and seem to have done quite well with them. Uh, and as long as you stay on top of maintenance in the differential and every so often are, is, are replacing that fluid and the friction modifiers that go in it, uh, the clutch packs inside those clutch discs inside the limited slip differential can actually live a very, very long time and give you very good performance, uh, and longevity. Well, I know, um, my sport S, um, whenever I’ve taken it off road, it does very well. And I, I believe I’ve done some stuff that was really easy for me to do when other gladiators were having difficulties, but I have the sport S max. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They have the sport S max. So, cause so it has a, uh, uh, limited slip differential in the rear. And I think having that limited slip in the rear really has made a difference on things because I’ve done some stuff that’s really easy and you know, I haven’t been off road a lot and certainly, I guess, really, I’ve been off road in the gladiator more than anything else. And it’s, it’s almost point and shoot. Uh, it’s really, really, it’s a very nice vehicle. All right. So, so, uh, ideal for strong off-road traction, keep tires at six, 30 seconds or deeper. So we mentioned that there’s a tire tire depth, uh, gauge that you can get five, six bucks at Amazon. We’ll have the link here in our show notes. Um, and you can just take that little thing out. It’s a very simple little thing. Has a pin on it and it will tell you, uh, what the, uh, the depth of your tread is. And you want to check those, uh, Josh, if you’re ready seconds, six, 30 seconds seems pretty low.

[00:07:25:05 – 00:07:33:06]
That’s what my research is telling me. Uh, practical replacement point. Many experts recommend replacing around four 30 seconds for safety.

[00:07:34:12 – 00:09:06:21]
Oh my God. I’m not thinking at that point, you’re below the tread bar. So on, on your tire, on every tire, whether it’s a highway tire, whether it’s a semi truck tire, whether it’s a mud terrain tire, all train every tire manufactured has what is called a tread bar. And there’s a small little bar in between the lugs in the middle of the, in the middle of the tire that sits just up from, from the casing, if you will. And so imagine your tire being completely bald, not a single pattern of tread on it. You’re going to be past the tread bar at that point. You’re, you’re basically just running on the casing of the tire. Almost the tread bar sticks up a few 30 seconds up from the casing itself and gives you that like, Hey, at this point you reach that mark. You know, there’s almost nothing left of that tire. You’ve got maybe a couple of few 30 seconds. If that, now let’s, let’s look at, you know, at percentages, 16, 30 seconds is going to be 50% tread, six 30 seconds is going to be what, less than 25% tread. I think once you’re down to that point, you’re, you’re needing to, to replace it. You get down to four 30 seconds, dude, that, that’s on the where bar, if not beyond that, I think at that point. Um, so I mean, we’re talking what a four 30 seconds, that’s less than an eighth inch of a tread. Good Lord, man. You’re, you’re, you’re playing with danger. I don’t know. You’re not going to get a whole lot of off-road traction with that tire. That’s for sure. Well, as always, I recommend you do your own research. This is the research that I have here and you have your opinion from Josh.

[00:09:06:21 – 00:10:14:16]
All right. So why, why tread depth matters for four wheel drive, uh, max traction tires, uh, deeper grooves dig into the mud, rock, snow and clear debris better, uh, shall over, um, tread loses a shallower tread, loses a bite quickly. So, uh, again, do your own research on your tread depth. I don’t think it is tire specific. Uh, I think that these are, uh, uh, general numbers that are used on all tires. Probably. I don’t know if anybody does state inspections anymore, but, uh, the, uh, they may actually check your tread depth, uh, at a state inspection. Oh, I think you mentioned this last week, Josh, the, uh, the penny test, uh, Lincoln’s head in the tire groove and see if the top of the head, uh, if you’re below a two 30 seconds, which according to you would be very, very low. So I always thought it would be a little different with a maximum traction tires, uh, that it would be say, uh, an 80 or a standard, uh, ice cream truck tire, uh, a civilian tire is what I would also call it.

[00:10:16:15 – 00:10:17:02]
All right. There you go.

[00:10:20:24 – 00:10:26:01]
Yeah. I like that terminology civilian tire that, uh, that this sort of puts it into perspective. Right.

[00:10:27:07 – 00:10:35:03]
All right. I don’t know if you heard anything about this or not, uh, Josh, uh, did you have anything you wanted to add to the, the tire, tire depth stuff before we move on?

[00:10:36:11 – 00:11:07:03]
No, I look like with just about anything, uh, common sense goes a long way. Uh, and so if your tire looks like it’s bald, it looks like it doesn’t have a lot of traction. Well, maybe it’s time to do something about it. You know, don’t wait until it’s too late and you’re, you know, you’ve got belts showing on the tire or it won’t hold air anymore before you, you know, you finally do something about it. So just, you know, like I said, common sense goes a long way. If you’re looking at your tire and you think, you know, I need to put a baseball hat on my tire. It’s probably bald.

[00:11:09:24 – 00:12:05:28]
All right. So I don’t know if you’ve heard about this or not, Josh. I, I was surprised by this. Uh, when you think of off-road, doing off-road videos, action videos and stuff, uh, what’s, what’s the one name you always think of the device that you always think of? GoPro. Do you know that GoPro, you know that GoPro is having problems. Um, they, uh, they’re not out of business. I’m not surprised. Look, they’re trying to, they’re trying to release a thousand dollar camera every other year and, and, and keep trying to make it bigger and better in the three sixties and you know, all that sort of stuff. And look, I get it. Social media is definitely driving a lot of this technology and the demand for it. But I think that they’ve tried to do too much too soon. And, and it’s just like, you don’t need to be Apple. You don’t need to come up with a new phone every year so you can increase the bottom line or something like that. It’s just like, I mean, look, I,

[00:12:05:28 – 00:12:37:06]
still rocking the hero three. So, you know, what, who am I to talk? Oh yeah, absolutely. Those things are very expensive. So, uh, GoPro has faced significant financial challenges, declining revenue, a 26% drop in Q1 of this year. Yeah. Uh, due to competition and you mentioned one of them from brands like DJI Insta360 plus rising and I didn’t think about this, rising memory chip cost tired, tied to AI demand. Those AI

[00:12:37:06 – 00:12:38:22]
are hurting us again.

[00:12:41:02 – 00:12:46:02]
Well, and let’s, let’s take a look at the drone industry as well. I mean,

[00:12:46:02 – 00:12:50:21]
everybody has a drone now five, five, six, seven years ago. Nobody had

[00:12:50:21 – 00:14:27:20]
drones. And if you had one, it was just like, Oh my God, that’s the coolest thing ever. But now, you know, DJI has what 10 different models out now and stuff, and you can get drones on Teemu for Christ sake that have 4k cameras. So it’s like, well, why, why would I spend seven, eight, $900 on a GoPro and then have to do another two or $300 in batteries and chip and, uh, memory cards and accessories and everything else just to make it work for what I need to make it work for. Or I can go in and on, on the internet or on Amazon, spend a fraction of the price and get a drone that has follow me technology and things like that. I mean, it’s, it’s, yeah, I think that GoPro has, they set themselves into a niche and, and they, they are just sort of becoming like CDs and eight tracks. They’re just getting phased out because technology is overwhelming them. And there’s so much other competition that does more than what GoPro can do. And so if you can get something for a fraction of the price that does everything you need it to that a GoPro does and more, well, I think the decision becomes almost self-evident. Well, I mean, and also to where you use a GoPro, uh, I think we all know from watching many, many, many off-road videos, it’s only so interesting looking from the viewpoint of being inside the vehicle because you can’t tell the obstacle. You don’t get a good sense of the obstacles danger or even the off-camber thing. So you’re taking, basically taking video inside the cab, maybe it’s a little outside. You can set your phone up to do that and it has a wonderful camera.

[00:14:27:20 – 00:14:49:25]
And really that’s where it’s going to come into play. Tony is, is in these kinds of situations where if you want to produce an off-road video, it’s like, well, okay, you just want to record yourself going up this one trail or over that one obstacle. Okay. That’s fine. Have somebody, you know, hold your phone, make sure that’s holding it the right way. People rectangularly. And no matter what happens, if there’s a rollover, keep it on me.

[00:14:51:17 – 00:15:28:22]
Oh God. And, and you know, get, get the outside angles. Yes. There’s only so much that can be communicated through video with the camera inside or attached to the fender or up on the hood. You need multiple angles and that’s where multiple cameras come in. And if anybody is spending any time watching off-road videos, the ones that grab your attention, the ones that you watch the most, the ones that you’re going to stay engaged with the most are the ones that have multiple video angles of the same obstacle or the same trail, the same vehicle going over the same obstacle or on the same trail. And so just the one, you know,

[00:15:29:26 – 00:15:46:20]
single view is just not going to do it anymore. We, we have seen so much else out there. Production capabilities are now at our fingertips. Everybody can be a video editor now. And we certainly have the technology available to us through multiple sources, you know, even

[00:15:46:20 – 00:16:20:04]
Walmart, you can go down and go get some stuff. So it’s just, it’s a changing, it’s a changing world. That’s for sure. As far as the, you know, off-road videos and stuff like that’s concerned. So they issued a growing concern, a warning in June, 2026 with their auditor expressing substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue operations over the next year without additional financing or successful sale slash merger. So, I mean, GoPro has been the big dog for years.

[00:16:22:04 – 00:16:45:06]
But honestly, their, their tech, what do they have to offer? Let’s, okay. So let’s, let’s explore that just a little bit is, is who would, who would be the parent company, who would be the merging company? I mean, DJI, they have their own lenses, their own camera technology. I don’t think that GoPro is going to be able to offer them anything worthwhile as far as, you know, attractive technology to make their, their brand better.

[00:16:46:24 – 00:18:42:19]
There really isn’t another direct competitor outside of maybe the 360 cameras who would be interested in, in, um, GoPro’s technology. But then again, it’s sort of antiquated. GoPro was the, the initiator. They were the, um, well, I think Oregon scientific came out with an action camera before they did. But, um, aside from that, uh, GoPro really was the originator. And like with anything, when you’re the first and something else comes along or something else better comes along, either have to innovate, improvise, or get out of the way. I think GoPro is facing that decision right now. Yeah. Uh, now I didn’t research this. I didn’t think about it till we were talking about it. Um, when you, when you get into video editing, especially if you have multiple streams, it’s like, how do you overlay those streams properly? You can guess at it. I don’t know if they have timing marks and things that the video editing software can use to synchronize the multiple streams. And beyond that, if you’ve got, I mean, you can grab four or five, eight GoPros and put them all over your rig like a professional, but boy, when you’re pulling in, you got to take those little cards out or hook the USB up or whatever to transfer those things. It’s a very daunting procedure. I think that if GoPro hasn’t already done this and they may have, uh, they, they need a way to transfer easily, transfer that stuff off and have it synchronized, uh, for, uh, for video editing. You need to make the, the job of the video editor easy if you want to have, if you want to sell your product. And I wonder if this hasn’t been part of the problem, uh, that, uh, that they’ve run into as far as, uh, I know that the GoPros, cause I have three and I know that that’s been kind of my, uh, my, my problem with the GoPros, but I have the hero three, like you do, they may have come out with something with the hero 29.7 or whatever they’re up to.

[00:18:44:19 – 00:19:01:27]
Well, so my hero three, it’s like a hero three plus or whatever, even with that, it’s so old that most of the apps out there now, the GoPro app doesn’t even recognize the camera anymore because it’s like on what the GoPro 10 or 12 13 now. Yeah. Like you said, 29.7.

[00:19:03:00 – 00:19:15:20]
So it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s antiquated technology as far as what’s out there and what can control it. Because as soon as I found the ability that where I could control my GoPro from my phone, well, then it’s like, well, I’m going to mount this

[00:19:15:20 – 00:20:32:26]
to the top of the Jeep. You know, I’m going to put a stick on this thing. I’ve actually done that before. I had like a three foot piece of PVC that I put the camera up on and mounted that to my, uh, to my, uh, the rack on top of my Jeep and got a really nice overhead view. Now, this is of course way, way before drones were even around or anything like that. And so it was, it gave me a cool perspective, but you know, without that kind of, without that kind of ingenuity and stuff, um, or the ability to control a camera from, uh, from your phone, uh, dude, it, it makes it almost pointless. Well, I mean, let’s be honest for the, the really interesting videos, you really need a third and fourth person outside of the rig, uh, that’s given you an outside shot and the, the, the B roll stuff from the drone gives you an overview of the site. So there’s a, there’s amazing things that you can do now with this stuff. Uh, but, uh, I don’t think GoPro is where it needs to be to make the job easier for the, videographer that’s trying to document this stuff. Uh, I wonder what, uh, I wonder what Brad’s using at trail recon now where Brad has done some amazing things and he was doing it back whenever the, the technology was older. Uh, so I can well imagine there’s some, some good ways of doing it. Maybe the DJI, the DJI stuff is amazing.

[00:20:34:09 – 00:20:37:21]
All right. So, um, it is, I think any, any more,

[00:20:39:16 – 00:21:45:00]
I was going to say any more nowadays, you get, you have to have multiple cameras. You have to have multiple angles. You have to have an outside the vehicle, you know, somebody sitting on the ground or something up in the air looking plus what you have on the rig as well. Um, otherwise it’s, it’s just not as entertaining as it used to be. Yeah. It’s really, it’s really what can I put on the screen that makes it interesting or even, that’s an interesting angle, you know, like the ones that are down under the rig and you’re looking at the rocks coming up. Yeah. No, I’ve, I’ve mounted a camera on top of my rear axle before and it’s an, it’s an amazing view. Um, but, uh, again, there’s only so much of that you can watch. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and it’s, it’s, and then you can’t, you know, it’s like you love it. It looks so wonderful. And if you leave it on there longer than five seconds, it’s too long. And it, you know, and it took you 30 minutes to get it mounted and get all set up. Yeah. So it’s fun, but there’s a lot of, a lot of good work. So you guys, next time you see a good video, make sure you comment on it because audio is tough. Video is harder.

[00:21:46:11 – 00:22:15:27]
All right. So, uh, speaking, speaking of sales, I heard recently, there was some, uh, some good news about sales at Jeep. I heard they were up 10%. Uh, but, uh, let’s, let’s, let’s get into this. So, uh, the Jeep under Stellantis has been a mixed sales result in 2026 so far with some increases, but overall brand softness in the U S. And boys and girls, we all know how the softness is not a good thing. Um, the, uh, but it’s, it, but it’s not dead, you know, I think a lot of that has,

[00:22:18:17 – 00:23:31:22]
I think a lot of that might have to do with the current gas prices over the last, you know, several months. Um, as we, as we get into the, uh, this quarter of sales, uh, I think we’re going to, we’re going to continue to see, uh, third and fourth quarter sales drops. Um, I think probably across the board, um, uh, Jeeps lineup and other auto automakers as well. Well, according to the research I have here, Stellantis overall, including Jeep, Ram, et cetera, strong rebound, uh, Q2 shipments up, uh, 10% year over year. Of course last year, wasn’t good, but that’s an increase, uh, driven heavily by North America, 38%, up 38% North America first half of us sales up 5%. So the Jeep brand is down slightly Q2, uh, sales, 140,699 units, uh, 5%, uh, I’m sorry, down 5% year over year first half, uh, 285,394 units. So, uh, I mean, if you get a pin, I should have told you to get a pin before I went through that stuff. Um, so it’s, it’s better being a man. So it’s better folks, which is always good.

[00:23:33:25 – 00:24:59:25]
Well, so here’s the thing is that we’ve been talking about Jeep for well, well over a decade. And, and, uh, as somebody who’s been a Jeep fan for a long time and of course, you know, coast of the show, uh, these are numbers that I, I wouldn’t say I have my finger on the pulse of, but certainly something that we’ve watched Jeep has gone into sales slumps multiple times over the last couple of decades. This isn’t going to be like, oh my God, are they going to have to close up shop? Are they going to have to sell? Is there going to be another parent company? What’s going to happen with Stellantis? You know, all this, I don’t know if we’re quite to that point yet. Uh, I think we are getting close though. Um, there has been talks years past about Jeep becoming its own brand, not having a parent company. And I think, God, I don’t know why it hasn’t happened before, but I think it needs to happen soon. Um, and, and this latest sales slump may be enough for the executives and the people around the board room to maybe start entertaining that idea again. Well, I mean, when you’re building Fiat five hundreds and selling them to people, uh, you may need a Jeep and a Ram just to keep you afloat. And I think this is the case that Jeep and Ram keep, keep getting purchased because, uh, companies with big money that don’t know how to build a

[00:24:59:25 – 00:25:10:27]
car or our off road vehicle need Jeep and Ram to keep them afloat. Uh, I don’t have the numbers for that, but that’s my feeling. And I think that’s, that’s been true for decades.

[00:25:12:28 – 00:26:53:11]
Well, what it was the, the whole EPA standard thing is that you have to reach a certain nominal average number across your entire lineup. And so if you’ve got something like a gladiator, uh, or a Wrangler, that’s only getting, you know, 10, 12, 14 miles to the gallon, but you need to average 30 or 35 or 40, I don’t know what the EPA standard is nowadays. Um, you got to have other vehicles in your lineup that have significantly more, uh, significantly better, uh, MPGs, uh, to offset that difference. Uh, and without that, um, yeah, I’m not sure what, what, what they can do, but I heard that I thought Trump was sort of taking away a lot of those EPA standards and reducing some of those to make it more realistic for car companies to have a more balanced lineup. Yeah. Uh, that’s very true. And I think that, uh, especially on the EPA side of things, uh, they’re doing stuff. In fact, I think that the, uh, what’s that diesel detergent, uh, the, is it now for, uh, what do you, what do you have to put in the diesel? Diesel exhaust fluid. Yeah. So I think that, I think that it’s actually going away. I think that that’s not going to be required in newer vehicles, but in, of course it will depend on future elections. No, I’ve, I’ve heard, I’ve heard the discussion about this. Well, I’m I’m, oh really? Yeah. Because I’m driving a 2025 right now and it, it’s diesel and it has deaf. Yeah. No, but I don’t think it’s happened yet. And I don’t know that if the vehicle has to change for it to not require, uh, deaf fluid, but I’ve definitely heard discussions about that. The thing was, it was to, to reduce the black smoke and the smell of diesel. But the kids love that.

[00:26:53:11 – 00:27:01:27]
Yeah, exactly. Well, it, it, it all goes back to people. Yeah. It all goes back to people making decisions about things they don’t know a

[00:27:01:27 – 00:27:12:20]
thing about. Uh, they’re, they’re pushing a narrative, uh, that they, they, they want to control and do things that doesn’t have to do with science. It has enough to do with science that they can

[00:27:12:20 – 00:27:24:02]
their way through, get the law passed. Uh, so, uh, America, America, I mean, it’s all, it’s wonderful being able to breathe clean air and drink clean water. But if you don’t have a

[00:27:24:02 – 00:27:26:26]
job and you don’t have a

[00:27:26:26 – 00:27:58:11]
house, what does clean air and water do for you? You need to have a job. You need to be able to get the job done and, and diesels are have been getting the job done for years. Now, I have no problem switching to EVs. Yeah, I have no problem switching to EVs, but let’s be realistic. Batteries don’t magically sprout from the ground. Uh, there’s a lot of nasty things, uh, that, that, uh, are, are, are in batteries and getting them as nasty too. That’s right. All right. So, so it won’t get there. Yeah.

[00:28:01:13 – 00:28:33:17]
And so that’s one thing that people like to like to ignore. It’s the inconvenient truth is, as, uh, Al Gore once said, is that, you know, the inconvenient truth is that your electric battery vehicle, uh, may not have any emissions, but I guarantee you the emissions that were, uh, exuded from the manufacturing of that battery long outweigh anything that that vehicle would have produced if it had an internal combustion engine. Yeah. And the inconvenient truth for Al Gore is you don’t always get a happy ending on request. Sometimes they say, no, thank you.

[00:28:36:08 – 00:28:41:07]
You know, there’s a big sting that happened in my area here about that very, very thing. Oh, I didn’t know. I didn’t see your picture.

[00:28:45:01 – 00:29:21:01]
Wasn’t me. That was in the news. Oh, okay. I thought you were going to do an exclusive here. All right. So, uh, one, uh, one other thing about the Stellantis, I had heard rumors that they were going to sell off one of their, uh, what’d it be? Groups, uh, uh, subsidiaries, uh, whatever it’s called. And it was Maserati. They were talking about selling off Maserati. Now, my research says it’s not true, but I wanted to talk about it anyway because if you’re going to lose some dead weight, I think Maserati would be, uh, we’d be considered a dead weight, at least to a jeeper.

[00:29:23:13 – 00:31:16:20]
Well, certainly you, well, yeah, I mean, as far as the, from the Jeep perspective goes, but you know, as, as a, as a multiple automaker owning company, you got to look at where your loss leader is and a luxury sports car brand that, that probably is, is losing you some money. Maybe the most attractive one to cut first. Um, and, and, and let’s just, let’s just look at units. I mean, I’m sure they’re selling a lot more Fiat, Fiat’s and they are selling, um, uh, whatever the Maserati. So yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, it’s, it’s one of those things where look, we’re selling, you know, 2% of these out of our, of our, you know, our gross overall sales. Um, you know, it’s not really making us any money. It’s costing us more to manage this brand than it is, you know, producing any kind of revenue. Let’s just dump this vehicle brand that is losing us money. I mean, I don’t know if Maserati is actually in the green or not. Um, or if they’re in the red, I don’t know. Not a heat. There’s not a lot of Maserati around here in the Northwest. I’ve never been a huge Maserati fan. Yes. They’re nice cars. They certainly are attracted to look at, uh, but I, I wouldn’t probably own one. Um, well, I probably never would just be able from the Costa standpoint alone, but, uh, but that being said, you know, you got to look at, at protecting your, your overall image and brand. And Maserati, uh, isn’t, isn’t coming along green enough. And you’re trying to, uh, to really push that whole greeny weeny thing. Um, Maserati may have to go. So, I mean, this may be the, you know, it’s might, might go the way of the Studebaker. Who knows? So this is what I’ve found. Maserati is struggling with very low sales. So Stellantis is seeking partnerships, not a sale,

[00:31:18:10 – 00:31:31:17]
with two unnamed major partners to bring technology, development and new models. Likely candidates discussed in the reports include Chinese firms like, uh, who is it? Who way? Uh, or

[00:31:31:17 – 00:32:54:02]
yeah. Uh, Jay that that, that’s it. That’s it is, is, is Maserati doesn’t have a big EV or hybrid lineup. And so let’s combine them with what China is doing. China is dominating the EV market globally right now. And, and so if they could attach Maserati to some of those sales by incorporating some of the technologies between the two companies together, well, that would obviously be a huge win for Stellantis. And let’s not call it a sale. Let’s go ahead and start redefining things. And we’re going to call it a merger or an acquisition or a changing of technology or emerging of technologies, if you will. Uh, but yeah, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s all about what we’re going to call it and what’s it going to look like in the end. And I think ultimately the, uh, the, uh, the green weenies are, are what’s driving this is, you know, they’re all about the CO2 and, and emissions and EPAs and, you know, MPGs and all that sort of stuff. And, and Maserati just isn’t producing. Yeah. Yeah. So like I was saying, Chinese firms like hallway and JAC for EV slash tech, as you were mentioning, Josh, uh, that collaboration and a dedicated Maserati strategy update is planned for December of 2026, just in time for Christmas. Um, the goal is to keep Maserati,

[00:32:55:27 – 00:33:06:24]
Maserati as a luxury Italian brand while using partnerships to help revive it, revive it. So that tells you how bad the sales are.

[00:33:06:24 – 00:33:50:03]
So this fits Stellantis is broader strategy strategy, focus heavy investment on core brands, Jeep, Ram, a Peugeot, a Fiat while repositioning others like model Maserati through partnerships rather than divestitures. Maserati remains part of the portfolio with refreshed models. A grand Turismo. I think I’ve heard about that one. Uh, grand Caprio. Uh, I’ll have it you these are Maserati models and stuff. Uh, recently unveiled in the leadership, uh, strategies, new CEO for the brand. No sale is on the table. So they are not, and it seems like they’re pushing the, we’re not selling it. We’re not selling it. Really, really hard.

[00:33:52:17 – 00:34:23:20]
So I don’t know why people are so afraid to get rid of baggage. I mean, clean house. Why not? Why would, what would be the big deal about Maserati going away? How many brands over the last hundred years have come and gone? Yeah, I think it has to do with stock prices. I think that they’re probably concerned that it’s going to look as overall weakness in Stellantis and that they’re panicking and getting rid of spinning something off. Uh, and it probably would hurt their, their, their stock price.

[00:34:23:20 – 00:35:33:03]
So anyway, it sounds like they’re making a big deal about not selling Maserati, which you got to wonder. And, uh, uh, and also to, uh, why are they worried about it? It probably has to do with stock prices for Stellantis as a whole, but we’ll see. Uh, and I mean, you never know, there could be a bunch of, uh, uh, politicians, a politicking going on inside the company, uh, as far as losing Maserati. I can’t remember there was somebody that was put in charge of Jeep that came from Maserati. Uh, and I don’t remember if they’re still in that position or not. So, Oh, that does ring a small little bell. I don’t think that they, it wasn’t like, you know, head of the North American brand or, you know, a major position. It wasn’t like a CFO or a CEO position, uh, like that. It was, it was, it was an executive level position, but I don’t think it was one of the upper upper echelons, but yeah, that does ring a bell. So you never know what kind of politics is going on in there. What kind of deals, the background deals are being made. I’m not saying it’s nothing that’s not on the up and up. It’s just, you never know about, uh, the politics behind stuff that are going on and especially multi billion dollar companies.

[00:35:34:26 – 00:36:33:17]
All right, Josh. So, uh, the, uh, we’ve, we’ve talked about tire tread today. We’ve talked about Maserati, maybe going away, which, you know, you and I, we’re jeepers. We don’t care. Get rid of them, lose the dead weight, keep going. Uh, we, actually, we’d, we’d like to see a Jeep Ram spun off into their own, uh, their own brand, their own, uh, entity, single entity. Yeah. Uh, I think that would be, uh, that would be nice. And it would be, it would be really cool to actually have a be part of a company. Uh, uh, but how do I say part, uh, somebody that owns a Jeep, be part of a company that succeeding instead of having ups and downs and highs and lows. I don’t think that you can make, uh, the Jeep better. Uh, I think that you can just, uh, I think they they’ve done an excellent job over the years of keeping the jeeps Jeepie, uh, as I like to say. And, uh, you know, I bet you there’s some engineers and, and some backers that have had screaming matches, especially with the Europeans

[00:36:35:12 – 00:36:38:28]
about what this Jeep is going to be to be a fly on the wall.

[00:36:40:00 – 00:36:50:27]
How’s, how is this Jeep going to be made? Oh, can’t we just put a, like a one liter with a 27 turbos in there? And then we, it’s really popular in the narrow streets and, uh, and Paris. Oh,

[00:36:50:27 – 00:36:51:27]
you.

[00:36:54:03 – 00:36:58:14]
So, uh, there’s somebody fighting for us, Josh, uh, at, at Jeep.

[00:37:00:24 – 00:37:25:07]
Well, there is a degree of heritage, uh, and history that Jeep sort of has to adhere to. And without that, I think they lose a massive amount of their customer base, um, and just overall sales ability. Um, and so if they don’t stick to what they’ve done and what they’re good at, then it’s not, it’s not ever going to work.

[00:37:27:17 – 00:38:50:17]
All right. Well, let me give you a few updates. Uh, this will be new for you too, Josh, as we haven’t spoken since last week. Um, uh, the, the Jeep talk show is, uh, remastering the original XJ talk show episodes and you can see them on YouTube. Now they are audio only. We’ve got some pictures that change on there, but it’s, it is just audio only so you can listen to the original. No. On a few shows we have that because we were using Ustream, I believe at the time. And, uh, but, uh, yeah, so we’ve remastered them. It’s a episode one through 31. And, uh, I’ve also introduced, um, uh, unhinged grok reviews at the end of the videos. So if you listen all the way to the end or skip, if you want to, but the last thing you’re going to hear is, uh, grok, um, creatively reviewing the show, the episode you have just listened to. And it’s just funny. The, some of the stuff that that, uh, that grok comes up with on the reviews is just hilarious. You know what we were talking about the tires and the fender sizes and how you got the front rooster tail rock referred to that rock referred to that as a bidet. Uh, and I thought that was hilarious.

[00:38:52:26 – 00:38:54:05]
That’s awesome.

[00:38:57:12 – 00:39:55:26]
So aiming is very important. So on top of that, uh, we, we’ve added more things, uh, to YouTube, our new shows like this one, uh, on YouTube actually has links in it that you can, uh, it will take you to the Jeep talk show.com website, uh, to the actual episodes. So you can review the show notes, uh, the episode transcript. Uh, you can actually find more places to listen to the show like Pandora, uh, I heart radio, uh, Apple, all those places just to click and it takes you straight to the episode. Everywhere. Yep. But the, the, the, the click, it takes you straight to the episode. So if you’re a big Pandora fan and you hadn’t found us, just go to Jeep talk show.com, click on the little Pandora icon and they’ll take you straight to us and you can subscribe over there. So we’re doing a lot of things to make it easier for you guys to, uh, um, not encode what it’d be to, uh, uh, like eat the show to, you know, so that you can devour it and consume it. So,

[00:39:55:26 – 00:40:41:27]
So we’re doing a lot of new things on the show. Uh, as we’ve always tried to add things, uh, to it, you’ll, uh, you’ll hear a grok review at the end of this episode, which I highly recommend. They’re, they’re short 30 seconds to a minute. And I think they’re, they’re just so funny. Oh, and, uh, we actually have the ability to get rid of bad words, but of course, not all the words get, get bleeped. Some of them sneak through. Uh, but, uh, very rarely, but we do have an explicit rating. Uh, so keep that in mind if you’re listening, uh, or viewing this with the kids. Um, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s really amazing technology is helping us out and we’ve always tried to use technology to make this a more interesting show for, for you, the, the viewer and the listener.

[00:40:45:03 – 00:40:48:22]
All right. Josh, the new fan favorite is

[00:40:48:22 – 00:40:49:22]
you. You

[00:40:49:22 – 00:41:05:22]
Uh, apparently there’s a lot of angry people out there and they’re just not in a position to be able to release their, uh, I’m just going to call it their inner Josh. So, uh, uh, what’s, what’s, uh, what fucking fuck are you fucking today? Every now and again.

[00:41:08:07 – 00:42:49:03]
So there’s been a, there’s been a team I’ve, I’ve gotten a couple of remarks. Uh, people have said that, Hey, it seems like you drive fast and awful lot and all your complaints about people who drive as fast as you, you know, and it’s like, well, okay, I’ll switch it up a little bit. Yes. I drive fast. Okay. I’m typically anywhere between five and 15 over the speed limit at any given time, unless I’m towing a big trailer or something like that. And then online my P’s and Q’s a little bit, but yes, I would consider myself one of those people who drive offensively. Um, and yes, you got to have some defensive driving too, but if that’s all that you do is defensive driving, you’re going to be part of the problem, not part of the solution. You’re backing up. And so it’s, it’s one of these things, one of these things to where, yeah, it’s, it’s, uh, there’s, there’s a lot of complaints that I have revolved around people and their speed or their attention to detail and things like that. So this week, I’m going to switch things up just a little bit. And this is going to apply more to, uh, people and, and their parking abilities. Okay. Um, and their ability to actually control their vehicle and know where their corners are and things like that. And look, not everybody drives a Jeep and sits up high and can see the rig around them and stuff like that. Not everybody has the situational awareness that a lot of Jeepers and off-roaders have that come with a lot of trail riding and line selection, wheel placement, things like that. A lot of that stuff actually increases your driver ability and makes you a better overall without those kinds of, uh, of supplemental educational opportunities. Well, you’re not as good of a driver in my opinion. And in this example, I’m going to highlight that when you’ve got somebody who absolutely does not know how to

[00:42:49:03 – 00:43:35:28]
park, they’re typically either three feet away from the curb and they’re blocking part of the lane of traffic. They’re taking up two or three spots. They’re even parked sideways in a parking spot or they’re parked somewhere where you’re not supposed to park at all altogether. I ran into this recently where somebody decided to park their truck and trailer out in front of a home depot. And it was not in a parking space or in a loading zone or anything like that. And I had a truck and a trailer I’m trying to come through. They had just gotten out of their rig and walked in the store and just left their rig right in the middle there. Somebody pulled up behind me and now we’re stuck. Traffic jam. I had no room to back up. I’ve got no room where to go. And I’m kind of in a hurry. I’ve got people at job sites waiting for me. I’ve got things to pick up. I’ve got things to deliver and you are seriously

[00:43:35:28 – 00:43:49:03]
with my game. So look, if you don’t know how to park, if you don’t know some situational awareness, you don’t have two brain cells to rub together for a little bit of common sense to understand that, Hey, maybe my vehicle might be in the way in the middle of this

[00:43:49:03 – 00:43:50:17]
driveway. Well,

[00:43:50:17 – 00:43:51:07]
you, you

[00:43:51:07 – 00:44:17:28]
Just stay out of the rig altogether. If you can’t actually put your vehicle where it belongs or actually know how to park it, where it belongs, then maybe you shouldn’t be driving at all. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. I get really mad about things like this. When you impede my progress, when you make my day less efficient, when I’ve got to actually get out of the rig, go talk to other people, and we’ve got to figure out how to move a bunch of rigs around because you are in the way now,

[00:44:17:28 – 00:44:19:10]
you. You

[00:44:21:25 – 00:44:49:00]
So I don’t know. You know about Bucky’s, right? I mean, of course you do. I remember one of the Jeep talks on events. Yeah. You learned about Bucky’s. I heard Bucky’s is going to be, Bucky’s is a, they were in the news recently. They’re going to be building the largest Bucky’s ever here really soon. And I don’t know which state it’s in though. I just know, I saw that story here recently in the last couple of weeks and it made me think of you and it made me think of Beaver Nuggets. And I just, I love Bucky’s and I wish they’d bring one to Oregon.

[00:44:49:00 – 00:45:17:11]
it. Yeah, exactly. So one of the complaints at Bucky’s, you know, they have a hundred pumps and they’re, they’re all full. And one of the complaints at Bucky’s is people pull up to the gas pump to get gas and they fill up their vehicle. Then they walk inside leaving the vehicle in front of the pump so they could go shop and then they come back out to the vehicle and then leave. So move your

[00:45:17:11 – 00:45:19:27]
truck, move your

[00:45:19:27 – 00:45:38:09]
car. And I hear about this happening at gas stations too, where people will pull up and kill two birds with one stone. It’s going to take five minutes to pump your 14 to 25 gallons of fuel. Okay. Get the pump going, get your happy

[00:45:38:09 – 00:45:40:04]
and moving and get your

[00:45:40:04 – 00:46:00:09]
into the end of the store to go buy your Fritos or whatever you need to go buy and then come back out. And by the time you’ve made your transaction, guess what? Your pump’s probably going to be done or just about finished up and you can get in, somebody else can come in and get some gas. Get out of the way of other people. You’re going to sit there. Seriously, get the

[00:46:00:09 – 00:46:12:14]
out the way. It’s not that hard. I think that should be a giant sticker, a windshield banner that I’m going to, I’m going to start making those and in, in, in reverse letters too. So when you look at it in the mirror, it says, get the

[00:46:12:14 – 00:46:23:17]
out the way. Yeah. Get, get out of the way. Don’t make the beaver angry. Nobody likes an angry beaver. All

[00:46:25:06 – 00:46:33:16]
Hey, this is Nicky G and you know a lot of people ask me, how did you learn to work on exhaust? And my answer to that is, I don’t.

[00:46:43:17 – 00:46:45:17]
Some people should just learn to keep their mouth shut.

[00:46:47:12 – 00:46:51:18]
That’s not why I’m calling. I’m calling to tell you that. Did you know some people say nothing is impossible?

[00:46:52:19 – 00:46:57:07]
Where I beg to differ. I’m doing nothing right now and it’s possible. It’s very, very possible.

[00:47:00:15 – 00:47:04:18]
All right boys and girls, let’s chat later and have a good one. Bye. That was a waste of banana.

[00:47:08:18 – 00:47:13:06]
All that carbon.

[00:47:15:08 – 00:47:15:22]
It makes it.

[00:47:17:06 – 00:47:18:00]
There’s a chunk in it.

[00:47:19:23 – 00:47:24:15]
It probably wasn’t a good idea. All right boys and girls, I’ll chat you later. Have a good one. Bye. Bye.

[00:47:24:15 – 00:47:49:27]
right, Josh. Well, that’s it for today. Thank you so much for making time for us. I hope all the, the fans are appreciative of all the stuff that you do for the show. We really appreciate it. Glad you’re back. Uh, and if, uh, if you’d like to find out more about the show, you can very easily go over to Jeep talk show.com slash contact and see all the ways that you can contact us. Uh, Josh, how can they leave us a video voicemail?

[00:47:51:25 – 00:49:41:01]
Oh, these are so much fun. And I really want you guys to start getting in on, on this action. Okay. You head over to Jeep talk show.com slash voicemail. Really super easy, right? It will ask you to download a little bit of an app on your phone. Okay. It’s just a camera app. It’s all it is. It’s all only going to enable you to record a video through an uploading platform. And, and all, what that’s going to do is directly send us a three minute video that you can record in direct response to anything that you’ve heard on the show, whether it was in this episode or one of the first episodes that were, that we’re currently remastering right now from the XJ talk show. If you’ve got a response to anything that you’ve heard on any one of the shows, we definitely want to hear it and we want to see it too. So if you want to share something with the show, the best way to do it, the most fun way to do it, the most interactive way to do it would be to use that link Jeep talk show.com slash voicemail. I’ve already done a couple of them and I want you guys to do a few too. So let’s get creative and let’s have some fun. Jeep talk show.com slash voicemail. Josh, I’ll take it a step further. You know, we get hit up for people about announcing events and stuff on the show and we always tell them leave a voicemail about your event. Well, now you can do a video voicemail and advertise your event. If you’ve got a business and you’d like to advertise your business more than happy to put your video up on the show. So this is a real easy way for you to get on one of the most popular shows. Oh, Josh, I almost forgot. We have hit 3000 views and listens. I’m sorry 3000 3 million. It just rolled over. I was going to say, just rolled over the other day. That bar a long time ago. There was a few podcasts out there. Go. There was a few podcasts going all 3000. Thank God I’m close.

[00:49:42:29 – 00:49:52:16]
Yeah. Yeah. 3 million. Very, very happy about that. And of course, we always think it should be a lot more than that. And maybe it will be someday, but, but

[00:49:52:16 – 00:50:10:13]
it, we’re, we’re doing this for fun. Not the downloads. But yeah, so, oh, and if you could tell a friend about the show, especially that Josh is back, it should be a real easy sell and encourage people to, to check out the show. Josh, thanks so much. Have you heard this

[00:50:10:13 – 00:50:14:13]
on his podcast? I’m listening to this guy’s an absolute nut.

[00:50:16:09 – 00:50:21:07]
Josh, thank you so much and have a great weekend and we’ll, uh, we’ll catch you next week.

[00:50:23:10 – 00:50:23:25]
Always a good

[00:50:25:23 – 00:50:27:20]
You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.