Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 04-09-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

04-09-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Clauser Drilling dot com. Here's Bill Meyer. Ten minutes after six wheels up Wednesday. That means Eric Peters is going to join me about a half hour. Yeah, about 25 minutes or so. We're going to have a good conversation, talk about some car reviews, some politics,

politics and cars. It's all kind of involved this morning. I ended up getting a an email from a listener. Let me see if I can find that briefly. Just reminded me what happened yesterday. Oh yeah, Betty, Betty was writing me saying, hey Bill, and this of course is due to tariff wars. Tariff wars, it's nothing but tariff wars. But Betty writes, Bill, a friend of mine went pickup shopping in Medford yesterday

and the dealer has already jacked up the pickup truck by 25 percent. And my friend left without a new rig. I hope everybody does the same thing. You know, Betty, no, I wrote Betty back, but I'll say the same thing on the air that I said here. You have to understand the way that retailing works. It's no different for a pickup truck than it is for gasoline. Because you know what happens when the price of gasoline goes up, even the price of all the gasoline which is in the storage tanks or the diesel that's in the storage tanks

at the service stations has to go up at the same time. It all goes up at the same time and the reason for this is that the retailer has to be able to have enough cash on hand to be able to purchase a replacement for what you just sold. And if you were to take a let's say there was a pickup truck which is a tariffed and goes up in price 25% the dealer would have to sell that truck at that same kind of tariff price at this point otherwise the dealer doesn't have the cash flow to be able to buy another pickup truck which would cost 25% more because of the tariff. You see what I'm getting at? The car dealer does not want to go into debt to

be able to purchase the replacement truck that they just sold on the lot that day. Now you may not like that as a consumer I get that nobody likes that but yeah it would be great when the price of gasoline goes up that you are able to go to the gas station and say well listen I want that that gallon of gasoline in the tank rather rather than all the other gallons of gas that you are able to go to the gas station and say, well, listen, I want that that gallon of gasoline in the tank rather than all the other gallons of gas that you're going to be pumping in there the next day or so, you know, that kind of thing. That's just the way it works. That's just the smart retailing.

It's the way it always has to work that way. Okay. All right. So just understand car dealers not ripping you off. Car dealer is saying, well, you know, my margins are kind of thin. And actually, car sales at most car dealers are very thin. It's not a huge, huge profit.

A lot of times it's designed to, hey, we want you to have a great experience here. So you come back and you do the unlimited oil changes and all the other things that we tack on. And oh, would you do an extended warranty? Would you like some extra sealant put on the paint and the carpet has the stain guard? All those other things. That's why there's so many of those little extras that could get tacked on there, because

the actual profit margin on many cars, not all that high. It's not low either, but that's why so many places love used cars. Used cars have a higher profit margin on them, as I'm told by most dealers. I think that's why they want your trade. They do, all right? And God bless them all, because without them, nothing happens. And nobody's going anywhere, much of anywhere fast. So that's one of the reasons why we do that. Just thought it's good to say this. God bless them all because without them, nothing happens and nobody's going anywhere, much of anywhere fast.

So that's one of the reasons why we do that. Just thought it's good to say this. Now Trish Reagan found a great clip and my boss George just sent it over to me the other day and it was a clip of Donald Trump, way, way a much younger Donald Trump. We're talking about an even more studly young Donald Trump with, well, Oprah as she's always been. Had to been back in the 80s. You look at the hairstyles and everything else. Yeah, this is a long time ago and we should not have been surprised about tariff wars kicking off today. This

is what he had to say then. Criticizing US foreign policy, what would you do differently Donald? I'd make our allies, forgetting about the enemies, the enemies you can't talk to so easily. I'd make our allies pay their fair share. We're a debtor nation. Something's going to happen over the next number of years with this country because you can't keep going on losing 200 billion. And yet we let Japan come in and dump everything right into our markets and everything. It's not free trade. If you ever go to Japan right now and try to sell something, forget about it, Albert. Just forget about it. It's not free trade. If you ever go to Japan right now and try to sell something, forget about it, just forget about it. It's almost impossible. They don't have laws against it, they just make it impossible. They come over here, they sell their

cars, their VCRs, they knock the hell out of our companies. And hey, I have tremendous respect for the Japanese people. I mean, you can respect somebody that's beating the hell out of you, but they are beating the hell out of this country. Kuwait, they live like kings. The poorest person in Kuwait, they live like kings. And poorest person in Kuwait, they live like kings. And yet they're not paying. We make it possible for them to sell their oil. Why aren't they paying us 25% of what they're making? It's a joke.

So you can see why President Trump is doing what he's doing now because he always said he was going to do it. He was saying it 40 years ago on the Oprah show. He's been consistent. He really has been consistent about this. I was reading a piece on Armstrong economics. I'm going to share that with you here in a few minutes. That explains what is really going on here, what he thinks

is really going on here. And Martin Armstrong, he's the guy that has that Socrates software, that artificial intelligence. he's had that for a number of years, that even the feds tried to steal from him. They threw him in prison for a while over it. Remember, I talked to him a few months ago about these various things. But he says there's a specific reason why we're having what appears to be a controlled demolition of the current economic order, the World Trade

Order. And I'll tell you more about that here in just a minute. In other Trump news here, you've got to love this one. Department of Homeland Security is going to start enforcing a law that will allow them to fine illegal aliens up to $998 a day for failing to self-deport from the United States. So a $1000 a day fine if they don't deport themselves. I don't know how you'll collect, but it's a 1996 Bill Clinton era law that will also allow the feds to seize property for non-payment of the fine.

How many people even remember that Bill Clinton signed that into law? I didn't know that. This is about anybody who defies a deportation order. Didn't realize that was on the books, but yeah, apparently there is this law on the books. It's been sitting there. We have 20 to 30 million illegal aliens in America, mandate to deport them. Running them down to deport them is hard, expensive work, so I guess they're trying

to find a way to make deportation pay. Make deportation pay again. You know, that sort of thing. By the way, I was watching KOBI 5, a little bit of news yesterday before I got off onto some other things. You know, you watch the first few for the local stories and things. And I don't have the story in front of me, but I remembered

that people were wringing their hands because there was a multicultural some sort of fair going on in the Bend area in the middle of the state and they're afraid that people people don't want to show up for the multicultural fair the the big thing because they were afraid they're going to be deported well if you're afraid of being deported it's because you're not supposed to be here, but then I'm just a Simple thinker on such matters. It's that if you are here legally

You don't worry about being out there at the multicultural fair. They figure that ICE agents will be hiding under the pinatas It's a 18 minutes after 6. How are you doing this morning? Yeah, I know that these are the kind of stories you're going to be hearing from the television stations I'm sure over the next week. Oh my goodness. My husband was deported. He's an illegal cartel gangbanger that has been bringing in. Yes, but he's a good husband. We're going to be seeing those kind of stories.

So just gird your newsloins for that, okay? You're on the Bill Meyers show. When the IRS comes... Hi, I'm Charlene, owner of American Industrial Door, and I'm on 106.7 KMED. 21 Minutes After 6. Join the conversation at 7705633. Eric Peters joins me soon for Wheels Up Wednesday, cars and politics and reviews. And I think we're going to be talking about one of the new Volkswagens, the Taos that

he has been driving the last few days, along with others, along with other vehicles, that sort of thing. Daily Courier has a story this morning. I'm not exactly sure. I always have mixed emotions about this story. This story about the former JPR, Jefferson Public Radio reporter, suing Medford police. And according to Chris Bristol of The Courier, a judge says to a jury to resolve whether the arrest by Medford police of a radio reporter covering a homeless sweep at a public park stemmed from a genuine concern for safety or an attempt to avoid bad press.

See, that was always the charge. This was always the charge. And Mark D. Clark, who's the judge over at the district court here in Medford, issued a ruling last week, questioned every single argument brought by the city of Medford justifying police department's arrest of Jefferson Public Radio reporter April Ehrlich in 2020. Now remember it wasn't just a standard homeless sweep. You remember what was going on at that time? Remember what was going on at that time? I do find it interesting that that sort of part got swept under the rug or not.

But remember, this was when the Antifa bus in was happening here in Medford in southern Oregon during the All-Net-Of-Fires. Remember that? Remember how there is just a surprising and puzzling bus in of all sorts of homeless dirtbags. Many of them radical leftist activists of some sort and they all happened to converge on Hawthorne Park. And apparently the police told April, the reporter, to stay over here in the safe zone. Now that safe zone kind of reminds me of the same sort of BS of when George Bush came to town a number of years ago and I was relegated to being out in the free speech zone outside of the expo when

George Bush came to talk because that's where there was free speech and there's not free speech you know when the when the presidential limousine or helicopter comes rolling into town you know that kind of thing. Yes, the free speech zone. This is where your speech is free anywhere near the president. It is not... I don't know, maybe Medford police did the wrong thing on this one. Judge seems to have some... cast some doubt on it. And yet I'm also remembering this through the lens of the hardcore leftist dirtbagginess that came into town in the wake of the Almeida fire and the surprising number of arsons that cropped up around that same time but I almost can't blame the

Medford police I can't blame Medford police for what they did because let me tell you, there was a lot of dirtbagginess going on in town. And yet there are rules about the Constitution and where we're able to go and you just can't do anything to keep reporters from watching bad stuff. I get that. So I have mixed emotions. But I have to tell you, given everything that has been suffered in Oregon ever since that time, I think I lean more and more on the Medford police side of this one

because they were one of the few people that were recognizing, yeah, these are not just regular homeless people. These are dirtbag antifa types, just regular homeless people, these are dirtbag antifa types. Maybe without wearing the masks at this time. That's about it. But you know, that was the sort of crowd that was hanging out in Hawthorne Park. Can anyone, you know, dispute that at this point from what we know? All the talking that went on? Yeah, a lot of disorder. Yeah, these were, well, I guess that, well, what happened, I guess a whole lot of homeless are democracy with a little trademark thing. They ended up showing up in southern Oregon at that time. And it

just happened to be during a 60 mile an hour wind event that all the dirt baggy types show up in Hawthorne Park and then Medford police trying to clear that out and then, oh, there's the poor JPR reporter there. My rights were violated. Yeah, I get it. Maybe they were, but I don't know. I would almost call that an emergency situation, what was going on in Hawthorne. That could turn into more of an emergency over the years, hasn't it?

We might talk about that, 7705633-770KMED. Speaking of Medford, not an emergency, but it could be on your pocketbook, depending on what kind of creative financing gets talked about. Do keep in mind that later today the city of Medford is going to be getting together with the people from the Eugene Emeralds. Eugene Emeralds was not able to get the voters of Eugene to go in on the grift and give them a hundred million dollar ball field. So they're hoping that Southern Oregon will give them a very nice ball field, I'm sure, in exchange for moving down here. and the good old boy network would go, we'll have a big ball team finally here. All we have to do is tax the people in order to get it.

That's where the grip is going to come. And when you hear this talk about creative financing and everything else, call them on their BS. I can almost hear, I can see the propaganda that will be spinning through the various media organs here of southern Oregon. Ultimately, it's more sports team socialism that they're trying to bring. Eugene wouldn't foot the bill, so they want to leave Eugene. So please stay in close touch with your Medford City Council. I'm going to drop a comment to them later to just resist this deal. Welcome the Eugene Emeralds. Have them pay their own freight.

Okay? That's all I'm saying. You know, if you wanted to find a nice inexpensive piece of property that they could go to, that would be fine. If there's some city surplus property, I could see something like that. But protect the taxpayer city of Medford because everywhere it's done, they always do this economic impact. All we have to do is tax ourselves a hundred million dollars and we'll have a half billion dollars of economic input. Here is the deal. Public-private always means public pays the bill and the private sector,

being the team owner, gets most of the money. All right? All right. We'll make this really, really simple. No other business here in Southern Oregon comes up and says, you know, well, let's say as an example, you're the Jimmy Johns company and you would like to open up another Jimmy Johns. Do they go to the Medford City Council and say, you know, we would really love to open up a Jimmy Johns here in southern Oregon. It would be really great for your people here. By the way, the sandwiches aren't bad. I know that. But I digress. All right. So we're hoping that maybe you could float a bond measure to bring more Jimmy John restaurants here. And of course, people would laugh them out of the city. Just

get out of here. Build your own restaurant. But for some reason, people lose their mind when it's a sports team. So don't lose your mind. And don't let the city be a moron, okay? Actually, they're not morons. They're just thinking about growing the grifting infrastructure. Well, we'll build this and then we'll be able to do so many things with this piece of infrastructure and we'll have a ball team also. I didn't move here for a ball team, did you? Good morning, this is Bill.

Hi, who's this? Good morning, Bill. Tom here. Hello, Tom. Hey, I was looking at the R.B. Times and this big article, Senate votes to outlaw discrimination against Oregon tenants. So as a landlord, you're not supposed to be able to ask them about their immigration status or their question. No, no. You're not supposed to be able to ask them about their immigration status or

other questions. Isn't that a restriction of the First Amendment that you cannot simply talk to someone? Of course it is, but remember it's a fascistic rules that come up here in which if you own property and try to rent it, then the state owns it with you. It's a public-private partnership, okay? Okay. You know I'm being sarcastic when I say this. Yes, of course. I always say it about both the right and the left, they can't see their own fascism. They can see it in the other side, but they cannot see it in

themselves. But this is fascism. Yeah. Now another one now since I was picking on the Rogue Valley Times just a moment ago we were just talking about that my favorite stupid headline of the day was in the Rogue Valley Times yesterday I wanted to share this with you okay okay headline in the Rogue Valley Times yesterday quote Saturday's protest may not change policy, but that's not the point, experts say. Now the reason it's a stupid headline is that first off, I want to vomit every time I hear or see or read something in the media saying, experts say this, experts this, as if we need experts, Tom, to tell us how to think about the day of rage or the hands-off rally.

We need experts to tell us what we're supposed to think about the day of rage or the hands-off rally. We need experts to tell us what we're supposed to think about this sort of stuff. Right? Well, you know, it was the worship of the expert that enabled the whole pandemic and the COVID mandates and the forced vaccinations and so forth. That's right. Experts say, follow the science. Follow the science, Tom and Talon. What's wrong with you? Follow the science. So I just have a visceral hatred, a revulsion when I see this thing about that experts say. It's always about pushing a particular agenda and that you're not qualified to come to your own conclusion about something which may have occurred in our community. That's all.

Well, that's the whole idea of the rogue ballot times and I'd say the mail tribune. You're only allowed to think within certain parameters and beyond that, you're out of luck and you're not being compliant. Yeah, you're pretty a narrow Overton window as they would call it here. And I would say the same thing in the Ashland Inn and Daily Courier too for that matter all right but anyway thank you very much point well taken Tom Eric Peters is coming up and joining me next Wheels Up Wednesday on KMED and 99.3 KBXG. At Father and Son Jewelry we now have Lashford.com. You're hearing the Bill Meyers show on 1063 KMED.

You're hearing the Bill Meyers show on 1063 KMED. I know normally I do crazy train from Ozzy, but I don't know, there's just been so much craziness I just had to just go with Church of the Poison Mind instead, which I think is a, I don't know, it's kind of an allegory of the world condition right now. What do you think, Eric? Eric Peters, automotive journalist. Well, boy, Bill, that's a tune that I have not heard since I was in college, I don't the world condition right now. What do you think, Eric? Eric Peters, automotive journalist. Well, boy, Bill, that's a tune that I have not heard since I was in college, I don't think. Yeah, and that's why I brought it out. I kind of like it for a bumper. It's kind of a, you know, bouncy sort of thing. Boy, George, of course, just weird freakoid. Of course, he wouldn't be

considered a weird freakoid today. He'd just be part of the island of misfit humans that are in charge of everything, you know, in this country right this country. Yeah you kind of been an anticipatory freakzoid let's put it that way but hey I'm in a good mood today I've got some good news you want to talk about it? I would love to hear some good news especially coming out of the automotive world because gosh so many of the things we've talked about have been all right here's the latest attack all right here's the latest thing all right what are they gonna do about this all this is going this company's going under,

blah, blah, blah, et cetera. What do you got? Well, this is about hopefully a company not going under and it's about Stellantis, which of course owns the Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and Ram brands. And the word is out that they're going to bring back the Hemi and not just the ultra exclusive six four supercharged Hemi that they put in their

$100,000 unobtainium vehicles, but in the mass market vehicles and in particular in the Charger, which is a fine looking car, you know the Charger device that's been out there. Nobody buys them. Nobody's buying them. That's the problem. Do you know how many they've sold so far? How many?

About 1900. And if you work that out, it comes to about 13 per state. Oh my gosh. Well, 19 header, well 13, no it'd be more like 20 per state, I think. It gets even better. The number of 2025 chargers sold so far is less than the number of holdover 2024 chargers that were still sitting around on dealers' lots. In other words, it's been getting worse for Stellantis Chrysler. Yeah, so they've got a vehicle that looks nice but you know it's got this battery-powered drivetrain that people just don't want. That's the

bottom line. Well, nobody goes down to the Chrysler dealership to buy an electric car. They just don't. The whole idea, the whole point of Chrysler is the experience, the motor, the throb, the visceral experience. They don't go there for devices, Eric. That's why. The other thing too is I hope they bring back the V6. I haven't had any word yet on that. But why do I say that? Well, because when you could last buy a charger with an engine, it came standard with the 3.6-liter V6 and it cost about $33,000. That was in 2023. When they brought out this new battery-powered charger, the price had increased by $33,000. That was in 2023. When they brought out this new battery-powered charger, the price had increased by $24,000.

Whoa! And that just prices people out of the market. Irrespective of whether you think a battery-powered drivetrain is good or bad, most people just cannot afford to spend $57,000 on a car, period. Well, it's like buying the car twice, really, for many people. Yeah, sure. I mean, what is the... I don't know, though.

What I've been reading here recently is that the typical transaction price for an American car now, or a new car these days, isn't it close to $40,000 plus now, in many cases? The average transaction price, which encompasses not just cars, but crossovers, SUVs, the whole gamut, is nearly $50,000 now. Yeah, that's a tough sell for for some folks. I mean the people. It's an impossible sell and particularly with regard to cars you know they kind of pushed this lump under the rug for many years you know you and I can remember when a typical car payment was three or four years. As prices began to escalate the

monthly payment became basically unaffordable for the bulk of people. So the way they masked that was to extend the payments. And so now it's common for people to spend six to seven years paying off a car. But we've even reached the end of that. You know, you get to a point where you just can't do it anymore because cars do depreciate. You know, and you get to a point if the car, say, were purchased on the basis of an eight or nine or ten year loan, well, you know, by the time you get to six or seven years, the thing's worth a third of what you paid for, but you still owe half the money and so you're probably going to walk away from it.

Yep, yep, serious thing. You have an article about that, Payments for the Next 20 Years. We'll talk about that in just a minute. I wanted to just, because you were talking about how long we used to have car loans. I remember when my parents bought a 1971 Pinto, that was the very first year that they came out. Now people left. But I have to tell you, it was for our use and for what we did to it, we beat the death out of that thing. It was a good solid little car for its day.

Yeah, and Lido Ayacoco, who was the guy in charge of that project, specified that the thing come in at $2,000 was the price point. Yeah, 1919 was the advertised price, and I think we paid a little bit more because it had the AM radio built into it. That was back in the day when people lived within their means, more or less. Well, you had to. We had no choice. But you were talking about the loan payments.

I remember my mom and dad would pull out the coupon each month from the bank and they would send it in with a check for the car loan. It was a 24-month car loan. That was it. And that was considered pretty standard in those days. Sure, it was. But we got addicted to debt as a culture, as a society, and to living beyond our means. And people became comfortable with mountains of debt that our parents and grandparents would have blanched at. And it has enabled this financialized economy in which everybody appears to be more affluent than the people who lived in the 50s and the 60s because they're driving around in these

$60,000 vehicles. But most of them are dead broke and couldn't come up with a thousand dollars in cash for an emergency if they had to I'm glad you brought this up. I was driving in a What I would say is a relatively low income area of the city the other day And I was surprised to see kind of broken down rental houses With with brand new with brand new very nice cars much nicer cars than I drive, you know And in front of course than I drive. Absolutely. In the front.

I don't know, maybe this is one of those things where you've kind of given up, all right, I can't afford to buy the house because of the mortgage rates, etc. So I'm going to get something nice in my life so I get the new car. That could be something which is going on too. I understand that, but still it is an attitudinal change, isn't it? Yeah. I'm old enough to remember when most people were cherry of buying into something that was beyond their means. They were worried about that,

of being insurfed, but now I think people just don't care. And in a way I get it because okay, so the dealer writes you the loan on this truck that you can't afford, but you get to drive it around for a while before they repo it. So why not? Looks good. And I've read that repo rates have been going up the last few months too. Interesting. Well, that is something this brings me then to payments for the next 20 years. And we've already seen something of this happening. It's in the RV world, isn't it?

Yes. Yeah, well, it's kind of hidden in the RV world. You know, this is something I've kind of gotten into lately because I'm'm attracted by the idea of having a small camper i think that would be fun uh... so don and i would we sometimes go window shopping and uh... you know i noticed that they you know they'll have a placard on the side of the thing that says you can drive this thing home or you can tow it home i know for only a hundred ninety something dollars a month and i thought well you know much as i have

don't like getting into debt it's kinda tempting you think well it's not that much i could maybe manage that until you look and you see that the payments are for the next 20 years. 20 years in that modest payment. Yeah. Oh my, it's astounding. They typically will push these payments out to just like the event horizon of insanity because, of course, not only are these basically vehicles and so they depreciate, but they depreciate far faster than a car or truck because of the construction.

Now there are some exceptions. Airstreams are very well made. But by and large, most of these travel trailers are glued and stapled together. They're not designed to last 20 years. Some of them fall apart at 10. Now, I know that after 15 to 20 years, we find a lot of them set on fire out on forest roads here in southern Oregon, if you know what I'm saying, Eric. Of course. You know and if you want to get an idea of just how bad the depreciation is,

pick an RV, anyone, and go to say Camping World which is one of the big websites that has these things and look at the 2025 version of it and see what the price is and then search around for one that's two years old and you'll find the two-year-old one which is often exactly the same other than it being two years older is available for half what the new one is sold for. Okay, well, I understand the appeal though, of course. Around here, people use their campers a lot though. So I could see in certain areas of the country, you probably get a lot more use out of them. Here in southern Oregon, I think you do. So that might make up for the fact that, yeah,

it's a highly depreciated item and they're kind of expensive but boy you can get a lot of fun when you contrast it with going everywhere and then paying hotel fees. Oh my gosh. Well sure and the other thing is yeah I put myself in the shoes of somebody who is a college kid today you know say 23 or 24 years old something like that. If I were that age I think you know maybe I could live in this thing for a few years and hoard my money you Because it's a lot cheaper, even if you buy one new, spend $25,000 on one of these RVs. And they have their own bathroom and shower kitchen. You could totally live in one of these things year-round if you wanted to and save money that way rather than

paying $2,000 a month for a rental little apartment somewhere. There are a lot of reasons that this sort of thing can make financial sense. As long as you have a decent place to be able to park it because most cities will crack down on you. Of course, I don't know, out here in southern Oregon, out in Oregon, because we're having such lawsuit happiness among the homeless community, I'll put that in scary air quotes, that I don't know if there are any rules for anything. You could probably take anything and park it in a park these days and what are they going

to do? Just say, I'm homeless! Well, sure there's that. But you know, a lot of people in my area, I live in the rural South, and sometimes what families will do, you know, people here typically have acreage, and if they have a kid and the kid is trying to become an adult and establish their independence, they'll say, you know, you can park something out in the backfield. You can do that in Virginia, huh? Yes, exactly. And so, you know, they've park something out in the backfield. You can do that in Virginia, huh? Yes, exactly. And so, you know, they've got their own space, they're not in your house, and it gives them the opportunity to sort of take that first big step toward being an adult,

you know, and it's these days, it's not an indulgence. The cost of housing is insane. And most people in their 20s can't come up with 10% on a $400,000 loan. Absolutely. So it's a great way to keep a roof over someone's head. Now here in Oregon, that is usually illegal to do something like that. There's all sorts of permitting and there's land use laws because we're more progressive than you in Virginia. That sort of thing is so despicable, particularly since it's touted by the very people who will preen and say how much they care about the poor.

Yeah, and you know, meanwhile, these people who are literally on the lower end of the economic spectrum, they're denying these people the opportunity to live with a roof over their head and pushing them essentially to live on the streets, and it's just awful. 647, talking with Eric Peters, epautos.com. It's the Wheels Up Wednesday segment. If you have a question or a comment on something we've been talking about or you want to bring something in about some vehicle you're looking at or just a comment on a vehicle, 7705633. Eric's always happy to take your call. We'll do more of that next.

When was the last time you had your well water tested? The EPA recommends that all private wells be tested at least once a year. If you can't remember when you had your water quality tested, it's time. Terms apply. Good morning. This is News Talk 1063 KMED and you're waking up with the Bill Myers show. I always enjoy Wheels Up. Wednesday we get a chance to talk with Eric Peters and talk about transportation, politics and so much more. Eric, we got calls for you this morning. I think we have Vicki here. Heyicki is that you okay Vicki your brother has a

truck needs a seat and you're looking for some advice go ahead A seat or a seat cover is a 94 Chevy truck and the front seat is 60-40 and he is having a really hard time finding a seat cover for it? Well, there's a couple of options you've got with that vehicle. One, you could just go to any upholstery shop. They generally will do automotive upholstery and interiors, and they can work with pretty much any seat that you have. If you're a little more ambitious, a truck that vintage, unless it has power seats, pretty easy to unbolt the seat tracks.

And you could go to a salvage yard, and you can find a seat that physically bolts up and put anything in it that you like provided it physically bolts up. That's harder to do with the new cars because the airbags are in the seats now and there's all these electronics that are plugged in so it's not a matter of being able to just you know replace one with another thing. All right very good so Vicki hope that helps and a couple of ideas there. And let me go to Steve in Sunny Valley. Hello, Steve, you're with Eric Peters. You have a question or comment. Go ahead. Yeah, what I've noticed is that if you're a taxpayer, you have some income, you're a

responsible citizen, they will tax you, they will inspect you, they will prosecute to the full extent of the law. But if you're not, you can't get blood from a turnip, so you can do whatever you want and get left alone. And that's why we have the bums in the parks and we have the campers on the sides of the roads full of illegals and and ne'er-do-wells. You know, in a sub-exteme, I guess it's kind of like, yeah, if you're actually plugged into the system like you are even in your home, right, if you're actually plugged into the system like you are even in your home, right, Eric? They've got you in some ways. Well, sure.

And that's one of the things that helped to elect Trump. It's so aggravating that, for example, you and I and everybody else that the caller talks about who are responsible people, we're forced to buy liability car insurance, right? That's right. And part of the reason it's so high, they tell you, oh, well, we can't allow people to not have insurance because then they'll drive without insurance. And yet they do. And a lot of them, of course, are these illegals and there are no consequences for them.

So they pile into your car. And then we have to pay extra money for uninsured motorist coverage, right? Right. Yep. As you say, it makes your teeth hurt sometimes. It really does. Now I say bring back the chain gang. I'm a very live and let live kind of a guy and I you know I

think that if you haven't harmed anybody you should be left alone. On the other hand you do harm somebody, you destroy their property and you say oh I have got no money I can't pay. Well go clean up trash by the side of the road with the sheriff holding a shotgun over you. Yeah it works for me too Eric. Let me go to John. John is here about motor homes. Go ahead ahead, John. You're on. Yeah, I have an 88 Leshawro. It's famous for being the Spaceballs vehicle, if you remember the movie. How could you not? Yeah. But anyway, it was, I think it was a, because it was a motorhome, I think it was a 15-year contract we paid it off earlier. But I'm in sort of the same situation as your Panagon. Oh yeah. It has

14-inch wheels and it gets 25 miles per gallon and has a shower all the facilities. But the tires are a low-range C and they're very hard to find. What is the size on those because I just bought some tires for the van again this week because they were just sun rotting you know and starting to crack so what size? I think they're like a 185 R14, 195 R14, something like that. 205 75 14 low-drain seat. Yeah, so it has to be like a six or eight ply rating on that. It's eight ply rating.

Yeah, eight ply. Yeah, that's a heavy vehicle. Eric, this is a common problem. Oh, yeah. I was able to get some pretty reasonable tires this week, but I had to do an online search. It's like nobody locally was carrying anything from my vehicle. I bet probably for John's too. What would you suggest?

Yeah, and for a lot of classic muscle cars too. For example, my Trans Am came with a 15-inch rim. Most of them did. It's getting hard to even find 15-inch tires these days. So, a lot of people who own these cars will go to a 17-inch rim, rim and at that point a whole world opens up to you and you've got all these other tires. I would look in as far as the caller's question goes to see whether he could potentially put a 15 inch wheel on that on that vehicle that he has. Is that an unusual bolt pattern you have on this Lasharo? Yeah, it's four bolts. Oh, they have

four bolt thing becomes hugely problematic. Yeah, wow. That's some nice aluminum wheels, I don't know. So, okay, so 20570R14 six ply rating, right? I'm gonna- Eight ply. Eight ply. Yeah.

Okay, I'm going to- You probably have each- There are specialty- I put a set on the other uh... uh... p few years back probably tool but they've been in a garage so i had to go one-size-fits-all right they could work at ninety five or something like that have you looked at their specialty car suppliers

you know in my area for example muscle cars uh... coca tire makes reproduction tires for the old muscle cars under more expensive obviously but at least you can get them. You might be able to find a specialty manufacturer that makes tires for vehicles like yours that have the 14 inch wheels. Right, because make sure to quit making them. It took me a lot of nursing around, or noodling around online online going into Vanigan chat rooms and things like that in which people have been talking about these same kind of things.

They feel your pain out there John, I really do understand that. And so I would get friendly with your search engine and start looking around. They do exist, it's just hard. It's just a much harder. You may consider doing and it may or may not be I don't know exactly how involved it would be but in some cases you could change out the hubs you know go to a five lug pattern and at that point then you could probably use a variety of different wheels with that

vehicle all right John I appreciate head best of luck and hey feel your pain we've all seen that I wanted to mention that here because I bought a set of tires actually pretty inexpensively this week because the manufacturer was closing it out which tells me, uh-oh, you know the size for my Vanagon tires is there's one less place that's going to make it but I got them very inexpensively. But I'm surprised how quickly tires are deteriorating these days, Eric. I don't know if you've noticed a change. Oh it's everything. It's not just tires, isn't it? It's not my imagination. Whatever youating these days, Eric. I don't know if you've noticed a change. Oh, it's everything. It's not just tires, isn't it? It's not my imagination. Whatever

you buy these days, it seems that the quality is much poorer than it once was. Whether you're talking about tires, tools, appliances. You remember when, you know, your parents bought a refrigerator when you were a kid and they still had the refrigerator when you were, you know, a young adult going off to college? Yep, I do. You know, those days are gone. You buy these things and they work for about eight years and then you have to throw it away. Yeah, and most of the car, the appliance manufacturers say, hey, that older refrigerator you have,

which is working, hang on to it. You know, exactly. That's what they always tell everyone. I've noticed that, you know, my Vannequin tires, just to close that out, didn't have a lot of mileage on them, but they've been outside for a number of years. And then you just get to the point where you can run your finger across the tread and you can start feeling the

crumble happening. That's when you know. And it's just time, OK, we're just going to get rid of it and bite the bullet now. Of course, I was able to replace tires this week. I don't know if I'll be able to next time. Let me go... I haven't looked into this, but I suspect that one of the reasons that the tires don't last as long probably has to do with the environmental stuff. You know, the regulations that have made it more

difficult to manufacture petroleum-based products. And they probably have had to change the formula, the vulcanizing process, something that is causing the rubber to have a shorter service life. I'll bet you're right about that. Let me go back to the phones here. Happy to take your calls with Eric Peters on EP Auto. Hello, who's this? Good morning, caller. Good morning, this is Francine. Francine, what's your question or comment for Eric? Well, I'd like to know, Eric, if you offer any sort of either, you know, kind of consulting or whatever services for somebody trying to sell a somewhat semi-vintage vehicle. I'm happy to help any way that I can. I mean, you know, if you email me or there's a

button on the site if you want to go that route, which will send me a link to or send me your question. And I'm, you know, I'm happy to do whatever I can to help you. Okay, because I need some guidance. I had somebody helping me that he turned out to be a whack job. Eric's not a whack job, okay. I'm a kook, but I'm not a whack job. I would feel really, really confident if you could help me out. And, you know, I don't know whatever your services are charged for, you know, we can work it out. No, nothing. I'm happy to do it for free. Just, you know, just shoot me an email or

shoot me a visit. Hit the Ask Eric button. You go to any of my articles. If you scroll down to the end, there's a little button that says Ask Eric and you can write your question on a form there and it'll get to me and then I'll write you back. All right, Francine, thank you for your call. Really appreciate that, and like I said, Eric's very communicative. You know, you could actually make this a side hustle consulting people. I just enjoy doing this and I'm not going to make it into a mercenary proposition. I feel like if I do it this way, you know, it's not like I'm trying to make a buck off of people. And, you know, I just like,

I prefer to go that route. All right, fair enough. Let me go to next line. Good morning. You're on with Eric Peters. It's Wheels Up Wednesday. Who's this? James Insullman. I got a question for Eric about, is Germany not going to make cars anymore and they're making tanks now? I read some kind of james and so i got a question for eric about uh... is germany uh... not going to make cars anymore and they're making tanks now i read article about that yellow cut looks like that doesn't it you know when the volkswagen first came out i think it was in nineteen oh thirty six or something like that and we know what happened in nineteen thirty nine

and so there was an interruption of volkswagen production for a number of years and yeah i mean it seems that the German government is determined to first of all destroy the German car industry, you know, Volkswagen and Mercedes, BMW, they're all in deep, deep doo-doo right now. And Germany itself is in deep doo-doo because of all of this green stuff and this energy diet that they've put both the populace and the industry on. And also importing a whole bunch of violent third-worlders into their population too. That hasn't been helped.

Yeah, and now we want to do... I mean, my God, had they... I guess it's been 80 years. So they forgot what happened the last time they marched east. And it looks like they're thinking about doing that again. Okay. All right. Hey, thank you, James.

Appreciate the call. Let me grab one more. Hi, good morning. You're on with Eric Peters on Wheels up Wednesday. Who's this? This is minor Dave. Yeah, Dave. I wanted to say I got my 15 inch tires At Les Schwab. Uh-huh. They can get them. They may have to order them, but they can get them It is more expensive though, isn't it? It's surprisingly expensive in some cases well, they were $3.29 a tire and like $16 a tire to put on.

Okay. But the guarantee is wonderful. Appreciate the call there, Minor Dave. Good to hear that. Yeah, yeah, it's really weird that the 15-inch tire is now getting really rare. And I remember back in the days here, back in the old days here, Eric, when an LR7815 on the 1969 Cadillac, that was a huge tire back in those days. And those things look like pizza cutters compared to, you know, what are on vehicles these days for sure. Yeah, my 76 Trans Am, which was basically one of the highest performance cars you could get in 76, the original tire size was a 225-70-15. That's not a big tire at all by today's standards. And remember the Prius we were talking about last week? Yes. That comes with, I can't remember the size of the tire, but the wheel is a 17-inch wheel. All the cars look like they're

puppy dogs with big paws, right? Yeah, the Beetle that I used to drive back in the day, it had a 13 inch wheel. That's right. No, sure, that wasn't a 15? No, you're right, it was a 15, but it was really skinny. Very skinny, like a 165-15 I think is what the... Yeah, exactly. It was very smart because it cut through the snow right to the ground, and even though the beetle was not all wheel drive, it was rear wheel drive, rear engine. The thing was really good in the snow.

Now, when you got the Rabbit, I think they had 13 inch tires. Yeah, that's right. That's where I'm sorry. I had a Biden moment. Yeah, that's that's all right. We're all we're all qualified to hit that every now and then. Speaking of Volkswagen, though, you reviewed the TOWO's. The TOWO's. Is that how you pronounce it there? Oh, yeah, it's a little hard to pronounce, kind of like the Tiguan. And the two are interrelated. And that's what I was focusing on in the article. The Tiguan used to be Volkswagen's entry-level, small, compact

sized crossover. In 2022, Volkswagen brought out this Taos, which is in a lot of ways very much like the Tiguan. It's essentially just a little bit smaller on the outside, but on the inside it's virtually the same. And the chief difference between the two is that the Taos costs about $5,000 less. So it's one of these weird situations where, it seems to me, Volkswagen is undermining one of its own existing models, but that's not necessarily our problem. It's good for people who are looking to get something like a Tiguan, but pay $24,000 rather than $30,000. Sure, big difference, you bet. What did you think about it overall?

I really like it. Crossovers, as you and I know, like to talk about, are often really boring, but they do serve a very useful purpose in that they're useful. They're utilitarian little vehicles. And when they're inexpensive utilitarian little vehicles, I like them a lot.

You know, for $24,000, here's a really decent little family kind of vehicle. I like that a lot. Once they get over $30,000 I like them less. Okay yeah I understand because a lot of other people can't like them as much for that reason. Yep. Because of the price. I wanted to touch on something. I had a listener, Betty, who wrote me and said that already the tariffs were showing up on the auto lot. Sure. Because they went in then was looking, a friend of theirs was looking for a pickup truck and the pickup truck had a 25% tariff price increase on it. And I was explaining

that I think what's going on it's just like when the gasoline price goes up and even though there's fuel in the tank of the gas station they still charge you the higher price because you have to replace it. You have to be able to replace it. And if the tariffs are going to be there, you have to have enough cash to be able to buy new ones. Is that a fair way of looking at it or are they taking advantage of us right now? Well, no. And also the mania drives it. Everybody now understands because it's all over the news, you know, we're going to be paying more for this stuff. So naturally, they kind of expect and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, oh, we're going to have to pay more.

And sure enough, they do. Okay. That's just the way it is. Okay. What you got to review for next week? What do we have to look forward to? Well, Honda Pilot is coming today and it still has a V6. It has the V6 you used to be able to get into the Accord before they replaced the Acc cord with a 1.5-liter, four-cylinder turbo engine. Okay. A V6, you've got to love it. I never thought we would be talking about, wow, Eric, it has a V6 in it. Six cylinders. Yeah, does that remind you of that scene in the movie adaptation of 1984 where Parsons

goes, oh, the chocolate ration has been increased by five grams this week. Yay! Oh, gotta love that. Let me see if we can grab one more call before you take off. I appreciate you, you know, wasting your morning with us here, okay? Really do. Let's go to line two. Hi, morning, you're on with Eric. You get the final bite of the apple. Who's this? Yeah, this is Wayne, Central Point. Yeah, Wayne, what are you thinking? Yeah, Could you turn your radio down, Wayne, please? Yeah, sorry. That's OK. Go ahead.

The explanation on your gas and the ground, and that the dealer needs to upcharge it when the price goes up, because he can't go into debt to replace it. Yes. That's a reasonable explanation, but we get screwed when the price goes down. That's true. They don't reduce the cost of gas.

They lean on the customer as long as they can, I guess, before they reduce it. I imagine that's true. Yeah, well, it's the new normal. We get used to it. The Hegelian dialectic is applied to economics. The price of something, let's say eggs, it goes up to eight dollars and then all of a sudden after a while it goes back down to six and we're grateful and we forget that it used to be $2.99. We appreciate your call there, Wayne. Eric, appreciate your time and you have a great weekend. We will talk more

next week and always appreciate the reviews too. Good stuff over at EPautos.com. Be well. This is KMED, KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass, Town Hall News is coming up. More of your calls also available as we noodle around the news.