Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 02-12-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Morning news, the NMHS roof collapse, Eric Peters talks transportation and a bunch of listener calls and questions for EP Autos dot com

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clouserdrilling.com. Welcome to Wheels Up Wednesday. Join the conversation at 770-5633, 770-KMED. My email is bill at billmyershow.com. Read them all. Try to answer as many as I can this morning. And of course, you know know it's just me. Eric Peters is going to join me about a half hour from now. We're also going to talk with Bob Hart, the retired land use planner. And he's going to dig more into the fire map issue.

Maybe we can get a few questions, listener questions answered. I know there's been still a lot of drama flowing in and around the fire map issue and what's going to happen with that. We'll have a conversation on that. And I haven't had a chance to talk to Dr. Bill Forstin for probably a couple of years or so. Remember, he's the one that really put the electromagnetic pulse into the nation's consciousness. Remember the book you first came out one second after, a number of years ago? A book I passed around to friends and the kind of book that keeps you up at night with the concept of civilization being taken back to 1850 really quick just with some air-exploded nuclear weapon type things, right?

You just have to do airburst, do air bursts in certain areas, and you take down the grid, and then all of a sudden, boom, you know, you thought it was rough last week, right? You thought it was rough last week with the power outages. Oh, boy, you know, EMP, that's a different kettle of fish for sure. But really interesting. And Bill is working harder, ever harder now, to get an audience with president trump

and raising the issues because he's kept talking about the need to harden the nation's electrical grid and if anything we seem to be doing everything possible to put more intermittent and chaotic power onto the grid and we haven't really been investigating or investing much in trying to make sure that it is staying safe, that we can actually keep the power on in the event of various attacks. And it wouldn't take that much money in the grand scheme of things. $100 billion was the last number that he had mentioned. $100 billion, that's a lot of money. Don't get me wrong.

But when you're talking about taking care of 360 million people and making sure that the lights are able to stay on, it's pretty small insurance when it comes right down to it. So that's what he's been talking about. And we'll get his latest. He's also a college professor, too. And he teaches on history and a lot of other things. Good guy. And so we'll have him on and discussing that. And speaking of, well, stuff from last week that has kind of come around to bite us

we had the north medford high school gym destroyed yesterday they had the roof collapse yesterday and they knew on monday that they had some uh cracking beams there was a beam cracking and then yesterday the whole thing gave way and fortunately fortunately, nobody heard. They canceled classes for today. Buffy Pollack writing in today's Rogue Valley Times, it collapsed Tuesday morning amid a cloud of dust and loud cracking and rumbling sounds. Now, they were kind of concerned this was going to happen in the first place. This was about snow on the roof, the weight of the snow on the roof. This is exactly what Brad bennington was talking about

remember he used to be with the builders association of southern oregon and so he's been all over this thing he said bill you know this sub we're going to have to look out for because the standard roof is designed to hold about 20 pounds per square inch per square foot rather of of water or snow weight that's about what it's built to take. But this really heavy, wet snow that we had could be 40, maybe even more. Now, the question that we all have, now, I'm really glad that nobody was hurt and school's going to be able to go on and they're going to rebuild it. Mr. Havner is talking about, yeah, we're going to have to tear this down and rebuild it and move the athletic activities to, what is it, Oakdale Middle School is where they're going to do that for North Medford.

My question is, why wasn't there a greater sense of urgency to get the snow off the flat roof of the gym a little earlier? Because we're going on what, about a week later? Wasn't most of the snow in place Wednesday, Thursday of last week? I know the schools were closed, but does that mean that the adults in charge are closed too? This is just something kind of running through my mind because this is going to be a lot of money to rebuild this and probably a lot of time before this ends up getting done too. So I really can't say. So they talked about there being 700,000 pounds of snow piled atop the gymnasium roof.

And on Tuesday morning, there was beams just breaking loose. And the video was just pretty impressive, too. So, like I said, I'm glad that nobody got hurt. But this was something that we could have seen coming, isn't it? If I had a flat roof building, I would have been watching out for all that kind of stuff. And I'm just trying to figure out why there wasn't any hiring of some crews to move some of that snow to the edges and just shovel it off the edge. It is a flat roof.

Yeah, I guess there must be some kind of a lip up there. I'm not exactly sure what the uh what the ledge is but i'm i'm i'm kind of um i don't know maybe it was considered too dangerous to do anything to it even at that point which i i don't know i i have more questions than answers on this one i'm hoping that when the school closes, that doesn't mean that all the adults that are in charge of trying to keep the school building operating are also sitting home just checking their Facebook feed. I hope that's not the case. A lot of us ended up going to work during those storms, including yours truly. I was here every day.

I'm sure the crews could have shown up at North Medford High don't you think that's just down the street from me yeah i know there was some snow in the streets and it wasn't a lot of fun but you get along i now i might be i don't want to be unfair about this but when you're talking about multimillion-dollar facilities and something that you realize the snow is really wet, really heavy, don't you think there should have been a little more sense of urgency in planning to get the snow off rather than, well, let's figure out how we're going to rebuild it now that it's collapsed. I don't know. I recall North Medford, though, also being the same school a number of years ago that wasn't maintaining. Remember, they weren't maintaining a lot of the facilities and all of a sudden they had to go for the bond measure to the voters. And a lot of the voters are kind of like going, OK, right.

So you never take any money and put it, you know, the school board, the school district will never put any money into real reserves. You know, every time you need to replace the HVAC system, you have to go to the taxpayers, that sort of thing, rather than just knowing you're going to have to replace the HVAC system every 15 to 20 years, you know, that kind of thing. And maybe there was no budget item for shoveling snow off the roof. It could have been something that simple. I don't know. But it might be worth asking the school board and the district folks about that. And, you know, maybe there's a reasonable explanation, but we were talking about this last week. Get the snow off your roof. Why didn't the school district do it? I think it's a reasonable

question to be asking because now it's going to have to spend a lot of money to get the uh get the gymnasium back 19 minutes after six at km ed 99.3 kbxg you're on the bill meyer show when it comes right down to it.com hi i'm paul stradler with valley nursery and i'm on km ed oh by the, I just wanted to add one little note about the collapse of the North Medford High School gymnasium roof into smithereens yesterday. There was someone who apparently made a worker that was there as they were trying to get some work done on that roof. And he ended up getting blown out from the air through a doorway, I guess, as the roof collapsed. So he was taken to the hospital under an abundance of caution, but it doesn't appear that there were any serious injuries. But I did want to note that.

I do find it interesting that District Safety and Security Director Ron Havner says, is asking community members not to speculate on the cause of the collapse until the full assessment could be made. I don't know. I think we could, I don't think we have to speculate too much, Ron. It's because the snow wasn't taken off the roof. I'm just saying that, and I don't know, maybe there was just no way to do it. Maybe there was no availability to get up there and get it done.

Maybe by the time even five or six inches of snow came down there, it was just too dangerous to do it. I don't know. But I do find it ironic that they'd spent all that money on the seismic retrofits, right? And the school district is very proud that the walls didn't explode out and hurt anybody like it would have in an earthquake before. So the walls didn't explode out, hurt anybody like it would have in an earthquake before. So the walls didn't explode out, but the roof did come crashing down.

So I guess, but yet they're going to have to tear the whole thing down. I would just be asking questions, why wasn't something done sooner? Because it was a clear and present danger. It was known that it was coming, that you knew the snow was really wet, and the schools were closed, but wasn't there anybody else working on the uh getting the roof cleared even back then i know it's a big area i don't get me wrong i know you're not it's not like you're going to take a um you know a bobcat and throw it up on the roof maybe you would i don't know no i probably couldn't handle that that kind of way but it would certainly handle some people with some shovels up there and maybe you could have done some of that early on or, you know, some snowblowers at

least. Yeah, you could probably do that. You know, the weight of a snowblower, you'll work around the edges and blow it off the roof. Just musing. It just seems to me that this was an unforced error. But I know Ron says don't speculate, but we can't help but speculate. There were other homeowners around here in Southern Oregon that also had their roofs collapse,

and some of those were just because they couldn't get to them. But I have no doubt that you have the ability to get to the roof in such a structure. You have to be able to service the HVAC and the ventilation systems and the electrical and all the other kinds of stuff there. But all right, I guess, uh, don't speculate.

Just be glad that nobody was really seriously hurt. It's like, yeah, and we are, but now there's going to be millions of dollars to rebuild the gym. And that perhaps could have been, that perhaps could have been saved by a $10,000 crew of roof clearers. Just speculating here.

I know I'm speculating. Ron, you don't want me speculating, but I have to speculate because I think everybody else is going to speculate. And when you tell the public not to speculate on the cause of the crash or the collapse, rather, that's not going to work. Okay? All right. So we have that story. We also have one of the best stories in Washington over the last 24 hours, and this has to do with Mark Fogle, a schoolteacher that had been working in Moscow who was popped for having a small amount of medical marijuana.

The devil's lettuce. They don't take kindly to that over in Vladimir Putin's Russia. And so he'd been in prison over the last three and a half years. Well, he came home yesterday. He was in the White House. I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now. And I want you to know that I am not a hero in this at all. And President Trump is a hero.

These men that came from the diplomatic service are heroes. the senators and representatives of past legislation in my honor to get me home are the heroes i am in awe of what they all did my family has been a force. I think my 95-year-old mother is probably the most dynamic 95-year-old on earth right now. And I am so indebted to so many people. I think I remember a Churchill quote that he said when the RAF was fighting the Luftwaffe, and he said that never have so many owed so much to so few. And I put myself fortunately and unfortunately into that category, and I said never has one owed so much to so many that this super organism of people that came to my support and the love that I was given sustained me for three and a half years. Wow. Great story that he's back. Bad story what was happening. He had talked about having been injected 400 times, spending 100 days in the hospital in Russia.

President Trump talking about this as actually having been a good move, that things are starting to... Well, there's more conversation going on between Vlad and the United States right now. Maybe they can start leveraging this to end the war in Ukraine or do some sort of a settlement. And, you know, that's where this is eventually going to be going. The other part to keep in mind is that apparently we have returned one Russian prisoner that

was unnamed and supposedly another one coming this morning, if I recall, on some of the reporting. So that's where we are at the moment. So essentially a prisoner swap is what was going on here. Shortly before it came on the air, inflation news came out. Stock markets are probably not going to like this because inflation coming in hotter than economists had predicted. And, of course, people like you and me who actually go to regular grocery stores

and pay energy bills from Pacific Power or Avista Utilities and pay insurance bills and all the rest of it, we knew that insurance was a lot hotter than what they've been claiming. Well, you know, we always strip out, you know, energy and food, you know, the stuff that all Americans have to spend tons of money on. We strip that out from the stats. So, you know, they're lying to us lying to us you know we always know this but even the stuff that they do count is up and it came in hotter than expected so got 2.93 inflation they don't want to see this stock market's not going to like this because they want more financial heroin they want the interest rates cut so that they can you know dance around the punch bowl and that doesn't appear it's going to happen.

So markets are about to open in about a minute or so. Chances are we're going to see a bit of a sell-off today in a reaction to that because they know the Fed is not likely going to cut interest rates at this point. I imagine real estate not real happy about that either. But it's funny. Grocery prices climbed one-half percent just in December alone, and that was driven in large part by a nationwide egg shortage. It's from the bird flu, right? But, you know, a half percent rise in grocery prices overall, that's inflation running at about 6%, 7% a year, if you keep that up. I see no evidence of that slowing down.

It's more than just the bird flu. Although I read that the Waffle House, you know, that Waffle House chain is now doing an egg surcharge. If you buy an egg breakfast or any dish that has an egg in it, 50 cents extra per egg. I don't know how that's going to be received or if that's going to be the trend that we see or not. We're going to start seeing egg trucks around Southern Oregon being hijacked, hey, I got some eggs. You know, you have the truck idling in the Rogue Valley Mall parking lot, got some eggs here, got some eggs, a buck a dozen, you know, that kind of thing.

No, don't trust those people, okay? I'm not advocating it, just understand. But inflation's always hotter for the regular folks than what the federal government claims because it's the last thing they want to do. Yes, even under Trump's America, they don't want to admit this because it causes the triggering of all sorts of price increases or benefit increases. And so the whole deal is to try to fake people out that it's much better than it is. So we will see where this ends up going. But we'll probably see a little bit of sportiness in the markets this morning.

We got a line. I don't know. We got a couple of calls. I only have time for one. Let me grab this one. Hi, who's this? It's Joel from the Iron Gate. Hey, Joel.

How are things this morning, huh? Well, not so good. It's four degrees outside. Four degrees? Holy moly. Man, it's only 17 here, but, yeah, we're in better shape than you are, man. Wow. I'm running.

I'm down to the last of the propane, so, yeah, call to anyone in the neighborhood. I could use a pipe-down bottle. Now, the thing is, though, don't you guys store a bunch of propane bottles, or what do you do to live out there? Yeah, propane bottles, and we fill them up at the Chevron station. Oh, okay.

And then, of course, the rich people have a truck show up and fill up their big tank. Yeah, at five bucks a gallon, right? You know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Oh. Actually pretty reasonable. It's $3.59 right now. Yeah.

Joel, I had someone who wrote me last night that said that i should come over and see what you guys look like they say that uh that um you know the way uh every folks like you are describing it is not the way it is what is the real problem with access to the iron gate could you explain it to me in your own words there well copco road which is a county road, has been patched up about 15 times, but it looks like something I wore to harm Beirut. And then when you get off of that, then it's this, quote, county slash private road. Like I was saying, over in Miner Dave's side, they've started to improve gravel. At least, you know, nothing else is happening over there but but they at least put a bunch of gravel down what role does the county play in this and what role does krrc play in it because

another time i've heard that there was a gate that was uh blocking that was locking up one of those roads which is causing a long detour for many residents there yeah it makes no sense it's access over to the other side of the river. There's a big old wood bridge there and wooden steel. And that's right where the fish hatchery is. And hearing this then is that um it's not that you're expecting the county to patch the road up likely shouldn't krrc have patched up the road given that krrc trucks are what ended up doing the damage to the road or what's the i mean we did give them uh what 400 plus million dollars uh-huh i mean do you think there'd be money in some account to fix the damn county well i would doubt though that Siskiyou County would have the money. It's a big area county and probably not a lot of tax revenue.

So I wouldn't expect that from the county, but I would think that they would be trying to find out why KRRC hasn't fixed that road, I would think, given that they arguably damaged the road with all those trucks for the dam destruction. Yeah, I don't know what law firm is on our side here, but it's a joke. Okay, well, that's what I was asking. And that's what I was trying to explain to this person. I don't think they were expecting anybody there around Copco and Iron Gate is expecting the county to make everything whole, but you would think they would at least make sure that people aren't getting screwed by the dam removal aspect any more than they already have been. I appreciate the call there. Good luck there, Joel. It is 6.33 at KMED and KBXG.

Wheels Up Wednesday with Eric Peters. He's going to join me here in just a few minutes after news. If your home computer has issues, call Tech Nomad. Tech Nomad is your look. Sketchers.com or wherever stylish footwear is sold. This is Views Talk 1063 KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. I'm just lacking the groove here. To me, I just picture with Joe Satriani playing this song. By the way, it's Summer's song.

I picture Eric Peters out in his Tramzan, his Transam rather Am. Is that a 76 Trans Am? What year is that again, Eric? It sure is. Yep, it's an oddball year. It's a transition year. It was the last year for the round headlights, and it was the last year for the big 455. Yep, the big 455. Now, was that the 455 that they had taken down to about 50 horsepower or was it not quite that bad okay it only made 200 horsepower and it's factory trim but you know the nice thing about cars of that period is you can remember as well as i it was just a matter of a weekend's wrenching to uh add another 100 horsepower for not that much money and of course removing the catalytic converter that was included stock too right that was a rite of teenage passes

passage back in the day yeah absolutely uh what do they use oh yes the uh the catalytic converter test pipe i recall well do you remember those old gm catalytic converters they were pellet style and they had that plug on the bottom yeah so all you had to do is punch out the plug and all those little pellets would drop out and then you'd put the plug back in and you were good to go and nobody knew in those days oh well what can we say hey so i understand uh now we just got off of a pretty heavy duty week of weather we had the roof collapse on a high school gymnasium here after it was really really heavy wet snow i must say it was that it was a it was kind of an anomaly you know for our particular area. It was a dump. And so everybody was shut down, it seemed, last week, except me and a bunch of other folks that would still go to work.

It's amazing how that works. But now your world is shut down in Virginia? Oh, yeah, because we got maybe three inches of snow. And it's of a piece, I think, with this just incessant hystericization of everything. It's no longer, well, we've got some snow coming in. It's always some, what do they call it, like an Arctic bomb or something like that. Bomb cyclone, snowmageddon, right? You know, all that kind of stuff.

We've been taught, trained, conditioned to be afraid of everything. It's not just the snow. We saw what happened during the pandemic, whether it's climate change, whether it's masks, viruses, or snow. And we're now at the point where if there's even a hint of it might snow, they will close the schools down peremptorily in my area. Remember when you and I were kids, we'd be sitting there looking out the window in the morning, and there'd already be several inches of snow on the ground, and we'd be praying that there'd be more so that they might close the school down, but it took a blizzard yeah we had a joke in our high school in in school in milan ohio it's where i was uh as a kid at that point that the superintendent

cj lindecamp would go up into the attic of his grandmother's home and look out the window and if he saw anything other than white, the school stayed open. We almost never closed. Now, to be fair, though, I don't know what it's like in your – I think you do have some mountainous terrain where you are. In Ohio, it was relatively flat. The one hills we had were relatively rolling hills. Around Oregon, you know, southern Oregon, we have actual, you know, big hills and serious ice problems on some of that. And, frankly, not a lot of snow plows because we just don't need it that often.

We just don't have that kind of weather in the valleys usually. Well, a couple of points. First, they will soak down the roads with brine before anything even comes down. Oh, that's what they do in Virginia, in your town, right? Yeah, I was out driving yesterday, pretty much the only guy on the road, even though the roads were pretty much clear. There was a little slush here and there, but no big deal. And the other thing that just makes my teeth ache is that now practically every car on the road is either front-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, or has four-wheel drive. In other words, it's not like it was back in the day when most people were driving a rear-drive car with bad tires and didn't even have a locking differential.

And somehow we managed to get to school and work. And now we've got these vehicles with all this additional built-in capability, and people are even more afraid to go out in the snow than they were 30 years ago. Yeah, there's some irony there, isn't it? It's quite interesting. I remember that with the rear-wheel-drive cars, a lot of things you had to do, like throwing bags of gravel in the back or sand. You know, that kind of thing to give you some extra weight because you didn't have much weight on the driving tires.

Thunderblocks, bags of cement, or you put chains on the tires, stuff like that. Yeah, and now you don't have to do nearly as much of that, but you're right. Maybe all of this capability hasn't taken care of the fact that most people aren't really all that experienced in how to handle a vehicle in snow or ice these days because of the fear factor. Maybe that's part of it. They're just thinking, why bother? That's definitely part of it. And I think for what, probably two generations now, people have been born and raised in a culture that teaches them to be terrified of cars and of driving. And here I bring us full circle to the whole mandatory child safety seat thing. You know, you put kids in these strapped-in seats,

and implicit in that is, oh, this is an unsafe place to be. You've got to make sure you're safe. Maybe you have to blame Volvo for that. Weren't they the ones that first started training people on the safetyism of the car world? They were, and there were a few people who were sort of the leading edge of this movement. But the point I want to make here is, like you and I and people who grew up before all of this, we loved cars. You know, the parents would open the door, you'd jump in, and whenever you got to where you were going, you'd typically throw open the door yourself and just run out.

And we saw cars as liberating, as free, as freeing, and certainly not as things to be dreaded and feared. But now we've got two generations of people who have grown up fearing cars and regarding them as unsafe, and the propaganda is relentless. And on top of that, destroying the climate, Eric. You forgot about that part. Oh, sure. Absolutely. So what you've got are people who are afraid to drive and encouraged to be even more afraid to drive when there's any kind of inclement weather about, and also who have been conditioned to rely on advanced driver assistance technology. And the irony of that, when I was out driving the other day in the Nissan Rogue that I've been test driving this week, because it was snowing and there was some ice, the cameras that form the crucial element of the advanced driver safety systems weren't working.

So I got the pop-up thing in the dashboard that said, you know, your driver assistance technology is temporarily disabled. Oh, no, no, no. Wait a minute. The driver assistance is disabled. I'm going to have to pull over. We can't go any further. Exactly. Exactly.

That's my point. Like if people have gotten to the point where they can't control a car without assistance, well, if the assistance doesn't work, then they're not safe to drive. And then take that a little farther down the road, and we're going to get to the point where if it snows or it might snow, maybe they're just going to send out an update over the transom that will disable all the cars because it's not safe for people to drive. Eric Peters with me, automotive journalist, and he has an article up there called,

It Snowed, It Shut Down the World, or Shut Down the World, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, you kind of chuckle about it, and then it's sort of a sad commentary. You think of how part about making America great again, I think, also needs to be making America brave again, making America competent again, making America capable again, I think, also needs to be making America brave again, making America competent again, making America capable again, I think, would be a big part of it. And I think first things first is that we have to destroy all importation of soy. All soy-based products need to go away, Eric, because too many man boobs out there. Totally. Absolutely. All right.

EPautos.com. By the way, if you want to talk to Eric about something related to transportation, join in at 770-5633. We'll get to your car calls here in just a moment. I saw something yesterday, though, that cheered my heart on the road, and I wanted to share this to you. I was on Highway 62 on the way home, and there was a person who had a vintage international travel law. Do you recall those? Sure, of course. All right. international travel all. Do you recall those? Sure, of course. All right.

International travel all. I looked it up. It was a 1963 international travel all, a 4x4. And it was interesting. It didn't have 25-inch tires like all the vehicles do today, for some reason. But it was getting around just fine. And what a great vehicle. But what struck me, Eric, is what a great vehicle but what struck me

eric is what a joy it must have been to have been a family in that old travel all back in 1963 because there was so much visibility it just struck me how glass everywhere you could see everything coming and going and that is something that you do not get in today's cars because of the safetyism and the rollover ability etc that's all gone for that reason that very reason isn't it yeah isn't it ironic like you can put it this way maybe the most unseen safety feature that has been taken away from us being able to see i, I mean. You're right, it is striking. If you ever have the opportunity, people listening, when you're out and about and you see a car from the 70s or the 60s, notice how much glass area there is. There used to be sedans that didn't have a

center pillar. And so it was just a big sheet of glass from the driver's door all the way back. And you had a huge windshield and a huge rear glass. And, of course, the trunk wasn't raised up so high that you couldn't see what was behind. You didn't need a backup camera in those kind of vehicles. You could actually see. You had a panoramic view of the world around you. Now it's like you're driving a Panther tank from World War II, almost, you know, with like a little gun slit, and you're relying on the external cameras to give you a view of the outside world. And the problem, one of the outside world.

And the problem, one of the problems with that, of course, is that that's not the same as being able to see things with your own eye. You're looking at kind of a weird, skewed, and inherently limited image of what's going on outside around you in the car. Well, you even think about the DC helicopter plane crash of the other day. They know that the crew on the helicopter was wearing night vision, night vision goggles. And one of the challenges with that is that yeah you can see but it's a narrower field of view that kind of thing yep all right eric with me we'll take your calls on wheels up wednesday 770-5633 eric we'll be right back this is the bill myers show rev up your engines folks american renter garage is putting on the brakes this season ending the high cost of vehicle repairs with their exclusive offer discounted oregon e-deals certificates good for a whopping 75 bucks off any service whether it's a routine checkup oil change brake repair

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The Bill Myers Show is on. News Talk 1063 KMED. Talking cars, talking snow. Eric Peters with me. Of course, the world is shut down where he is today, kind of like what we were experiencing last week, but only on three inches of snow. John.

John, you're on with Eric. It's on your mind today, huh? Yeah. You mentioned last week that you had trouble with your driving up your driveway. Well, I have to bonsai up my driveway, and when I get to the top, I have to make a strong left. Well, I had to do it three times because if I get to the top, the automatic would shut everything down and die right there. Well, that's not the consideration. I finally made it up. But when I was learning how to drive, I used to have a big clear space and I would skid purposefully, do a 360, and come out straight. Yeah. Just drive.

Yeah, to learn how to steer into it, which you really have to. It's hard to do, to learn how to do that at first, right? I got it down. I could come out straight. But with all this automatic computerized everything, I wonder what the hell would happen if I did that now. You know, John, that's an hell would happen if I did that now. You know, John, that's an interesting question. Thanks for sharing that story. Eric, what would you say about what John was saying? Well, the car will try to maintain the car's line and it

will brake and do other things. But I think the key point here is if that technology glitches in a situation where it's likely to glitch because there's snow and ice out or even fog, I've experienced this in fog. Then what? Now you've got a driver who has never learned that because they were never encouraged to go out in a parking lot and get a feel for it, which is really the only way that you can learn that, by going out there and actually experiencing what the car will do when it loses traction and what happens when you apply steering and so on. Yeah, and understanding the— Car control.

They teach you that in car control classes. But now that's not taught. People are expected to rely on this technology. And the paradox is the technology really only works when it's nice and bright and sunny and dry out. When it's not, it doesn't work so well. Yeah, forget about it. It's interesting.

I was talking about last week how I had trouble getting into the driveway, and it's because of the traction control that they build in all the vehicles. And, you know, once a tire starts spinning, then you've lost it. So I had to turn off the traction control. Then I was able to get up. Yeah, you spin the wheels a little bit.

So what? You get a little momentum. Boom. You made it. And sometimes the tech is not very helpful. But at least I'm able to turn it off on my older car. I don't think you can on some of the new ones, can you? Increasingly, that's exactly right.

You know, it's always incrementalism, isn't it? First, they bring it out and they put it in and then you can turn it off. And then it's partially off. And then you can't turn it off at all. And that's where we are now. And one of my big objections with the technology is that in the first place, they are effectively making it standard in all the vehicles. You can't avoid it. And then secondly, you as the owner and driver don't have the option to turn it off when in your judgment it's not necessary or it's counterproductive to have it on.

They're taking that away from you. And I believe that all of this is designed to incrementally get people used to the idea of being driven rather than to be a driver, with the end goal being you're going to sit in the back seat of a Johnny Cab and the thing is going to take you to your destination, maybe. You're a good boy. But then, of course, think of all the time you have to be able to be online and talk about services and all the rest of it.

Sure. Okay. All right. Let me go to Brad. Brad, on family transportation, let's hear about it, buddy. Family transportation. Let's hear about it, buddy. Family transportation. And Eric, really loved your comment about the whole seatbelt thing because, yeah, it's the government telling parents, we know how to take care of your kids better than you do, so you're going to do it our way. So we lash our kids into these cars, and what we're really telling them is that the government compliance is more important than anything else.

Okay, thanks for letting me stick that in there. Best family car ever, Chevy Suburban. And 1988 through 2005, iron 350, small block, throttle body fuel injection, water pumps for under $100, totally repairable. And here's the deal. 17 miles a gallon carrying eight people. So you take the purchase price of the car, right? You add in the cost of fuel and maintenance, and you divide it into the number of people that the vehicle will transport. And you're going to find that that Chevy Suburban is the most economical vehicle per person, even more than a 40-mile-per-gallon diesel,

because they are so economical to maintain. The parts are readily available. Eric, I have a question. What is the possibility in the Trump administration that a new category of vehicle, a family vehicle, could be created where the mileage, the cafe mileage numbers, could be adjusted differently for vehicles that hold five or more people. That's an interesting question. What do you think, Eric? Well, effectively, that already exists in the sense that vehicles that are not considered, quote-unquote,

light-duty are subject to a much more lenient CAFE standard. So 2,500 and up, for example, trucks, heavy-duty vehicles, 2,500s, 300s, and all of that, don't have to comply with the same standards that apply to 1500 or half-ton vehicles, something like a Tahoe or something like a Silverado truck that the Tahoe is based on. My preference would be that the government get out of the planning business and let the market determine what's available. What are you hearing from the Transportation Department at this point? Well, so far, so good. You know, I have nothing definitive, but it just seemed, it does seem to me that the attitude has changed markedly. Now it's a question of implementing it. What I don't want to see happen, because I think it's going to be very

counterproductive, is for Trump and the new Transportation Secretary to not challenge the premise of these regulations and instead, you know, just get rid of them entirely because it's going to kill the car industry. They can't do a parking brake 180. I've got an article about this that I'm going to publish later today or tomorrow. You know, OK, so that Trump changes the regs or dials them back for now. Well, four years from now, another administration comes in and changes them again in the other direction. The industry can't operate on that basis. It needs certainty to be able to bring some reasonableness back to all of this, right? Well, it needs non-chaos. It needs to be able to make strategic decisions based on what the market

is doing, not what a random arbitrary government decides to tell it to do. All right. Great call there, Brad. Thank you. Let me go to Jeff in Selma. Hey, Jeff, go ahead. What's up? Hey, I hear Ford's coming out with a new car called the Fairweather. That's a good one. The Fairweather. That must be an old joke, but it's a new one to me, Jeff. That's all that matters. Actually, he's already in my head. What was that now? He's anticipating what they've already got embedded in vehicles, by which I mean they actually can send out an update right now if the weather isn't fair and to disable your car because it's not safe to drive it. They could do that. No kidding. Wow.

Oh, yeah. Now, Jeff, you were telling me back in the day when you were kids what – Oh, yeah. We had a – the couch was next to the picture window, and we'd have our knees on the cushions and our arms on the back of the couch watching it snow. And as soon as it got to four inches, yep, let's go. My brother had a 69 Nova, and you just go out there and play in the snow with the car. Yeah, doing donuts. The other guy was talking about learning how to do the 360s. Yeah, that's what you did. And back in that era, you also fought over who was going to take the grocery cart back into the store. Thanks, Jeff. Let me go. We'll take another call here before we get to Eric's

latest review here, which I'm really going to enjoy here. Hi, good morning, caller. Who's this? Welcome. Good morning, Bill. Bob Shanton, Medford. Good morning, Eric. My most favorite part of Super Bowl was not the halftime show itself, but it featured an 87 Buick GNX in it, which was way cool. And the twin-turbo V6 in 87, how much was that foreshadowing today's horsepower versus displacement in the vehicle? Well, very differently, because, of course, the GNX was a performance car, and the turbo was added to get even more power out of the 3.8 V6 that was the engine in that vehicle. Whereas today, the turbos are being used to make up for the absence or diminishment of what's under the hood. This Nissan Rogue that I reviewed this week, for example, it has a 1.5 liter three-cylinder engine, which of course has to be turbocharged, because if it weren't turbocharged, it would not be adequate to move the vehicle.

So it's really a different kind of, different priorities and different results. All right. Thank you for the call there. Always good to hear from you. Great calls this morning. We really appreciate everybody joining in here. Eric, I have a listener question that was sent to me yesterday from John. John had a question for you about wheel bearings.

And he says, about 10 years ago, I had new front wheel bearings installed on my 1998 GMC Sonoma. And when I got new tires for the truck over a year ago, one of the local tire dealers recommended servicing those bearings, saying that they had slight play. And the question for Eric is, how long should wheel bearings last, and how can you tell if wheel bearings need to be serviced or replaced? Well, it really depends how long they last on, you know, what kind of service the vehicle is subjected to. And also, periodically, they do need to be greased and adjusted. And if you don't do that, they're not going to last as long as they might otherwise. Yeah, I guess the question would be on a 98 GMC Sonoma, is it a, you know, a solid type of bearing, which does not have any adjustment capability, you know, one that's just, you know, put into the race, you know, like a full roller bearing, or is it like those cone type bearings,

like I have on my Volkswagen that you do have to kind of, you know, you take out the cotter pin and then you adjust the torque on the nut there so that you can just move the washer on it slightly, and then you're right. Yeah, you know, that's typical. You want to make sure there's no wobble or excessive free play on the spindle. But again, you have to look into whatever the maintenance and repair procedure, adjustment procedure is for the particular vehicle. The main thing is that you do get them checked periodically. And if it specifies that they be greased and cleaned periodically, it's important to do that. If you don't, you're going to get less service life out of them.

Aren't most of them sealed these days? Some are, some aren't. They have gone in a lot of ways to these lifetime so-called suspension components that can't be greased. Oh, the lifetime of the spindle, in other words, until it catches fire when the grease runs out. It's kind of greasy because people hear lifetime and they think basically forever. But lifetime means a specific set duration. And after that, basically because you can't service it, you just have to replace it. And the replacement cost is typically a whole lot more than whatever it would have cost you just to maintain that component over the same period of time. I wanted to ask

you about your Harrison Ford ad. A lot of people were telling me how much they liked the Harrison Ford Jeep ad. And you have an article up there called What Harrison Ford Says and Does It. Pretty insightful. Yeah. Well, it was really interesting to me because the whole commercial was kind of a pay-in to the freedom to say yes, no, and maybe. That's what Harrison Ford talked about. And we like that. That's kind of like our American ethos, you know?

Yeah, we do like that. But, you know, Harrison Ford, who's a big climate change guy, doesn't want you to have the freedom to say no to the roar of an engine. That's another term that he used. He wants you to be pushed into an EV, and they kind of made that clear in that commercial. Now, I read it another way, too. I thought that maybe Jeep slash Stellantis did this as a kind of way to sort of tentatively poke their toe in the water and think, look, maybe we're going to go back to making vehicles that people actually want, as opposed to the ones that the government is making us make. I hope that's the case. I hope they dip their toe and dive full in, is what I'm hoping they'll do. Me too.

Meanwhile, what about the Nissan Rogue? You talked about that, mentioned that this was going to be the review for today. What's up? Yep. Well, let's see a couple of things. One, it actually sells. You know, Nissan is not in a good place right now, but they do manage to churn out and sell close to 300,000 of these things every year, which is quite something. And I think one of the main reasons that they're able to sell that many of them is because Nissan dealers really want your business. So the odds are probably pretty good that you'll be able to get a Rogue for less than you would have paid for something equivalent like a Toyota RAV4 or a Honda CR-V.

The other thing that's interesting about it is what I mentioned just a minute ago. It has the smallest, biggest engine of its type that you can get right now, I think, a 1.5-liter three-cylinder. So that's a mighty small engine. Now, the cylinders are bigger than the typical three cylinders that you would find in, say, a 1.5 liter four. Yeah, and they also have like the one, don't they have like General Motors has a 1.3 liter three cylinder? So even smaller, yeah, the Buick models. Yeah. But, you know, in order to make this tiny, tiny little engine, which really it's not that much bigger than some motorcycle engines, and motorcycles with engines that size typically weigh about 500 pounds maybe, maybe 600, 700 pounds.

Now you've got a nearly two-ton crossover SUV that has this tiny little engine in it. And in order for it to be able to move at all, it needs a turbo. So that little engine is huffing, huffing, huffing under that boost trying to get going. And it actually does a pretty good job. I just wonder what's going to happen to that thing after 10 or 15 years. It's about the longevity. That's the question that a lot of folks are having about the heavily turbocharged small engines these days. And there's been mixed results. Some of them have done really, really well. Others, not so much. I guess it sort of depends at this point, right?

Well, sure. There are a lot of factors, including how the individual owner treats their vehicle. You know, if you don't have a heavy right foot and you maybe are a little bit, what's the right word, you change the oil more often than the service manual recommends just to err on the side of caution. You do those things and, you know, probably you're going to have fewer problems going down the road than somebody who drives with a heavy foot and maybe only changes the oil once every 10,000 miles. That will be the deciding factor then, the day of trying to get a new car then, and just because it says, oh, yeah, 15,000-mile oil change, don't believe it, right? Don't.

Okay. Would you go even down to 2,000 in the wintertime, 2,000 miles? I don't know if I'd go down that far, but I would before the weather changes, make sure that you've changed the oil because the cold weather is hard. And then again, come spring, it starts to get hot again, and the hot is just as hard. So I personally typically will change the oil in my vehicles twice a year, irrespective of mileage. Okay. When do you got coming in next week, you think?

I'm not sure. I know I do this to you all the time. That's okay. I haven't had a chance yet to look at my schedule to see what's coming. I'm praying it's not another crossover, and I'm praying even harder that it's not an EV. You know, I'm surprised that they send you EVs after everything you've talked about over the years. Well, I've thought about that, too. And maybe maybe they're doing it because they kind of want me to say what they are afraid to say, you know, for reasons of political correctness. You know, I can I can tell

the truth about an EV, whereas if they were to say something particularly before the last election with with Biden and all these people in charge of things, you know, there might have been holy hell to pay if they'd come out and said, well, you know, maybe this isn't such a good idea. Maybe we shouldn't be putting these things out on the road just yet. Yeah, and so maybe the car guys and the car girls, right, they're all going like, okay, we're going to give him the dog, right? And so he's going to say what needs to be said about this dog so he can take it to the suits, right, and say, we've got to kill the dog. Exactly. They've got plausible deniability.

I love that. Eric, let me grab one more call, and then we'll cut you loose for your day job. Hi. Did you want to talk to Eric? Good morning. Yes, sir. It's Deplorable Patrick. Wonderful to talk to you guys.

A while back, a good while back, Eric mentioned something that I was horrified with. He said that the federal government had told some of these parts manufacturers to stop making certain parts because they want to force us off the road with our older cars. I'm not intending in any way to stop driving my 40-year-old diesel van, Chevy diesel van. I'm just wondering if this foolishness of telling the private market what they can and can't make, can that be reversed under the Trump administration and does it need to be and what's your

thoughts on that? Now, Eric, wasn't that about overseas in Europe that they were actually telling the matter? Exactly. But the point is, of course, those kinds of things can be reversed just as easily as they can be imposed. It's just a question of politics. Don't we all wish that politics would just stay out of these kinds of things can be reversed just as easily as they can be imposed. It's just a question of politics. And, you know, don't we all wish that politics would just stay out of these kinds of things

and people could be free to buy the kinds of cars that they want and buy the parts they need to service them? Yeah, but just understand, Patrick, that what we were talking about was actually the rules in Europe or in some countries there that were – was it the UK, Eric, if I recall? I think it was actually EU wide. Oh, EU, okay. Yeah, but they're trying to say essentially if a car needs a major component that, you know, you won't be able to buy it if it's over. I think 15 years old was the cutoff.

Yeah, and so the EU is not a free land. I mean, that's really what we're talking about, Patrick, okay? I thought it was our country, I'm sorry. Yeah, okay, but still, hey, you have to figure that they would love to do it if they could get away with that at this point. Okay. Appreciate the call. Yeah. That's a big call.

The free market. Yeah. All right. Eric, stay free, my friend. We will talk next week. And thanks so much. epautos.com. Great talk.

And I always appreciate you taking listener questions and calls and all that stuff. And actually, you take questions on your website, too, don't you? Oh, absolutely, yeah. You know, there's a little button at the tail end of every article that people can push, and that'll take them to a pop-up screen where they can just enter their question. All right. I will try to get to it as expeditiously as I can. Well, lots of fun, and you be extra safe in the three-inch of snowfall. Never. Thanks, Eric.

We'll see you then. Thanks, Bill. This is KMED and KMED HD1 Eagle Point Medford. KBXG Grants Pass. Town Hall News on the way. We've heard it all.