Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 10-08-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

10-08-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausordrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. 11 minutes after six, it is Wheels Up Wednesday. Eric Peters will be joining me in about a half hour. Always a great conversation on what's going on. And I can't wait until we talk about all the rules that are coming out now

in which it is the hands-free, supervised but self-driving car kind of, We'll talk about that, his latest reviews and a bunch more. And, of course, of politics involved in a lot of what's going on in the automotive world, too, for that matter. You can join the conversation here, though. It's 7705-633-770 KMED. Man, what a story, that guy that took a dive over the cliff in prospect. Wow, just all over. Road Valley Times, K-O-B-I, various other folks reporting this one.

And they had Jackson County Fire District 3 and 4, Jackson County Search and Rescue, rope rescue over the weekend. And, you know, the story came out about this guy, they rescued in Prospect. And he fell, this is a man who fell over the steep river canyon near Prospect just after two in the morning on Saturday. Wow. And they don't have his name at the moment. Maybe that'll come out a little bit later.

But he fell 300 feet by Jeff's view. That's the scenic overlook at that they call Jeff's view. But a bunch of people showed up there, and he was in critical there for a while with some pretty severe injuries, but they got him up. 300 foot. That is a – I imagine it's one of those kind of falls in which you go over, and then it's like, don't, don't! You know, you're hitting boulders, and then you're hitting a tree, and nothing that you can necessarily grab onto. I don't know if it's a sheer drop or kind of a half drop and roll, but still, Thank goodness for search and rescue and people willing to do it.

I'm glad someone heard him, too. Someone heard him. Maybe been there a little while. So it's going to be okay, though, from the looks of it. Stable condition in the hospital. But, boy, that's going to be something to tell the grandkids. Of course, we don't know how old he is. Maybe he already has grandkids, but still, what a story there.

Christy Knoem, DHS Secretary, visiting the Portland Ice Facility. Ice, Ice Barbie, some have nicknamed her. I don't know I like Christine Domit's just fine but I do think that the Marie Osmond hairstyle I don't know

maybe just put it in a bun or something it's sometimes a little hard to take that look seriously but be that as a may I know I'm engaging in in male chauvetist's pig behavior a little bit there right now

I'm just saying if you're going to be in the part you know you have to kind of look the part in my opinion, but be that as it may, Christy Noam was out there, Oregon awaiting for more clarity from the Federal Appeals Court, Oregon Capital Chronicle, reporting that DHS Secretary Christy Noem went to ice yesterday, ice processing in South Portland, of course, and of course this is the way they report it, mostly small protests for months, mostly small protests. The funny thing is that I've noticed is that they always have the officials there.

in the middle of the day in the middle of the day is very different from in the middle of the night or late in the evening when they the antifa types tend to uh to come out but anyway she's out there and um federal district judge karen emigate of course um block trump from mobilizing they're still uh working to get that happen tomorrow is going to be the appeals by the way that's the rumored uh court date for an appeal with the trump administration saying, hey, they want to be able to get those troops in there around ice. Why do you think that the hive minds are so absolutely terrified of some National Guard around one building in their city? Why do you think that they have, I mean, just such a flipping losing

their mind over something like that? Do you ever thought about that? I know that what they're always going to say is, well, it's because of our democracy, protecting our democracy, and we don't want to normalize troops in the street. Well, I don't know. Would they be okay? Would they, would ICE? Okay, maybe put it this way. Do you think the leftist, hive mind would be okay if it was just 200 heavily armed security guards around ICE authorized to put things down if there's a problem? Do you think they'd be okay with that?

or is it the National Guard thing? Or is it that they don't want Daddy being there to inflict any kind of discipline? Do you have a theory on that? That's something I'll keep open this morning. Tell me about it. Give me your take on why is it that they are so flipping, flipped out over this particular situation?

ICE. No, we're not talking about patrolling the streets because I agree with the left in this particular case that I don't want to normalize National Guard patrolling streets, but they're not talking about patrolling streets. streets. We're talking about patrolling around one federal facility. One federal facility. That's it. They're not talking about going out there and having National Guard, you know, arrest all of the, you know, the naked dudes on bicycles riding around, you know, they're not talking about

doing anything like that, just allowing ICE to do their job. What is it about that? Maybe you could tell me, I'd love to get your theory. 7705-633. 7-7-O-K-M-ED. Meanwhile, in The Hill, the Hill.com, Oregon Attorney General's Dan Rayfield, he was talking about this the other day, says that actions made by President Trump could be part of an effort to keep the commander-chief in power. The commander-in-chief in power, among other things you'd expect in a different country. Oh, all right, so Trump, once he's in his 80s, he's going to want to keep doing it. But anyway, Dan says he's weaponizing the Department of Justice. He's normalizing the military.

Rayfield tells NBC, MSNBC, rather. He's talking about rigging our elections to maintain power in November. He's talking about cutting down on the free press. This is not America. This is our attorney general, by the way, who is making this. Now, let's see if we can translate this. normalizing the military I agree like I had mentioned before

that's something that we do have to be concerned about but at the same time the blue hive mine cities you guys have kind of walked into this trap you're the ones that have decided that it's not worth arresting people you're the ones that have let people take their cars and ram them into ice agents

and try to block them in and various other things so you know you're kind of bringing it on I guess in in some respects here. But I love he says talking about rigging our elections to maintain power in November. This is alluding, I think, to the lawsuit demanding Oregon's voter rolls. And I just want to translate there. They don't want to give up the Oregon voter rolls.

They're saying, well, it's very sensitive information and privacy. Social security numbers, which, by the way, the federal government provided, right? So it's kind of silly when you hear them, you know, bleed about we don't know if the federal government that creates social security numbers can be trusted with looking at voter data that has social security numbers on it because of the social security numbers. It's like I said, this is this is the thinking, though, in our democracy, a little trademark next to it. Really what it comes right down to it is they're concerned about looking at the voter rolls, looking at the voter rolls and seeing how dirty they may or may not be. in the state of Oregon, I think, is what has Dan Rayfield really upset. Just my opinion. The news continuing to come out, Oregon Governor Tina Kotech calling for those National Guard troops to demobilize.

She has a command of them once again and to go back to their families. Interesting story that was in Oregon Live. state lawmakers are pondering federal funding cuts. Of course, we know about this, blowing holes in the Oregon budget. Kevin Mannix, you know Kevin Maddox, one of the state representatives, was a gubernatorial, Republican gubernatorial candidate. Definitely what I would call a moderate, moderate capital M Republican. But he's pushing in advance right now.

or initiative advancing, rather, that would end the estate tax. Initiative petition 51, it's moving forward. Governor Tina Kotech, state lawmakers are not real happy about this from the sounds of it. Oregon's estate tax generates $423 million every two years. That's pretty big money, even in this state. Big jump from $339 million the previous year. The lawmakers will, especially the Democrats, counting on that money more than ever, amid a slowing economy and federal budget cuts.

And during the last week's legislative days, Oregon's nonpartisan legislative fiscal office, by the way, circulating the latest estimates of the impact. They're expecting to lose about $15 billion in federal money all the way between now and 2031. 95% of those cuts coming from two big ones. Medicaid, that's Oregon Health Plan, and SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. otherwise known as the Oregon Trail Card. So they're thinking that this is really, really going to be really bad,

and now Tobias Reads gets a certified ballot title for Initiative Petition 51, gets rid of the estate tax. All right. So no local estate tax, no state estate tax. I think that would be a good thing. I think the estate tax is one of the most evil, one of the most evil taxes that has ever come. I mean, right up there with the income tax, frankly. Well, there's no talk about getting rid of our income tax right now, but this idea that you have

at a state which has been taxed for years and years and years and will continue to be taxed in one form or another, and that by nature of somebody dying, the state gets a cut of what's already been taxed. It's just, to me, it's evil. And it also breaks up farms, too. Everybody knows that game, too, in which you'll have a family farm that gets sold, and then it's very difficult to keep it because you would have to pay the service. state even more money tens of thousands of dollars maybe millions in some cases in order to

keep what you already had before so anyway we'll see what that happens i think that's a that's a plan that i think that would actually get a lot of support i think it would and that's uh from kevin manix's people and that's what they are doing right now no estate tax and the state the state of course is shaking in its boots even more what i find interesting when you hear all of this concern about, oh my gosh, $15 billion in federal money is going to be missing over the next 10 years or whatever it is because of what we're doing and yada, you know, all this kind of shaking in their boots from the state of Oregon government. The part that they never talk about, have you noticed that they never talk about increasing economic activity?

Everything is about what are we going to do without this tax money? Nobody's questioning why Intel left or why Dutch bros left and took its corporate headquarters elsewhere to Arizona, right? They don't talk about this. All they're talking about is wringing their hands over how much money is going away and is disappearing. And oh my gosh, if we have the estate tax go away, there's going to be even a bigger hole in the budget, but not no real conversation coming from anyone except some Republicans about what about the economic act? What about actually being friendly? What about being friendly to businesses?

What about actually getting rid of that corporate activity tax, which taxes unprofitable businesses? There's very little self-awareness in the state of government, or in the state of Oregon states government. Really? Very little self-awareness. It's just like, well, we have programs, hence we need the money, and the money should be ours. That really is the way they look at things, at least in my... in my worldview, at least. And it would be interesting to hear Governor Kotech actually talking about increasing economic activity and health in the state of Oregon.

It's just like when she talks about, well, we need to have more affordable housing. All right? Does that mean that Governor Kotech will actually go to the point of looking at Senate Bill 100 as the root of the problem of why maybe we don't have good buildable land or another? of it, the very nature of having an urban growth boundary. Of course, that goes in the middle of, kind of goes against her activist take on climate and carbon dioxide. You know, she wants you living in a stack and pack, little habit trail, you know, the climate-friendly, equitable community, you know, that sort of thing. But no, talk about how you actually increase the economy so that Texas would just naturally flow because of productive activity.

Really weird, but everything's about how little money they're going to have. Oh, how badly they're hurting. And nothing about how to actually make Oregon perform economically. It's kind of sad, really. This is the Bill Myers Show. Compassion. It's a lot like empathy, but it's fueled by action. At pressure point roofing, compassion means listening to...

Priority first for more information. Hi, I'm Steve Potter, Body Shop Manager of Lithuania Body and Paint, and I'm on 106.7, KMED. 27 after 6. I was talking about how it seems that Oregon is always focused on mostly, where is our tax money? Where's our tax money? And never about where are the businesses and the jobs that actually help generate tax money. It's always like a cart before horse sort of thing.

And an example of this is a conversation I think I'm going to be having at 810 this morning with Juan Carlos Ordnyes. He's a communications director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy. Now, that's a bunch of lefties over there. I'm going to be talking to a lefty. And I've had good conversations in the past with Juan Carlos. We've not necessarily agreed on things. But they put out a piece the other day that I thought was kind of interesting and had to do with Starbucks. And Starbucks is shutting down a bunch of stores in the state of Oregon and a lot of other West Coast states here, too.

And what they are talking about is corporate tax transparency. and they're making the case, they being the Oregon Center for Public Policy. Remember, I used to make fun of them a little bit, you know, Joshing, like, because facts matter. That's their, you know, that's their nickname there,

or their little subtitle underneath their articles. But yeah, it's a left-wing think tank, but I want to talk with them, too, see what they're thinking, because just because their lefty doesn't necessarily mean they're always wrong. Just like with Bernie talking about the AI thing the other day.

I want to listen to him also. And Juan's good enough to come up. on, so we'll talk at 8-10. But they're kind of making the case that Starbucks is engaging in, essentially, using a subsidiary in Switzerland, Switzerland and notorious tax haven, is how they term Switzerland. And then they jack up the price of green beans to the affiliates or to the subsidiaries here in the state of Oregon, and they're making a lot of money on that subsidiary in Switzerland. I think is kind of the way he's talking about it in a low tax area.

And then we don't get to tax them in the state of Oregon because the income that actually came from paying for those coffee beans, if I understand their story correctly, was really, you know, kind of, it's a shell game, in other words. Yeah, we'll sell the green beans out of Switzerland, right, even though they're probably, you know, sold right to San Diego and then processed it and then sent to the Starbucks around here. or wherever Starbucks ends up doing their roasting, that kind of thing. And so they're saying that they're avoiding taxes here, except that avoiding taxes are perfectly legal activities. You know, we do this all the time. Everybody tries to avoid it. It's whether you're trying to evade it, which is the legal part.

But they're claiming that, oh, this is just horrible because of these tax loopholes that Starbucks is using, and then Oregon is poorer because of it. But once again, the lefties' stuff. tend to put cart before the horse. It's like, well, have you noticed how good the business is in Switzerland? Because of them being a tax haven, scary air quotes, all tax haven means is that you treat the businesses better and you would like them to locate in your area. And because of that, you cut them a break. You work it on volume, right? Instead of taxing 10 businesses to the

Hilt, you'll tax, you know, a thousand businesses lightly. You know, it's kind of the way Switzerland tends to look at it. But the lefties in the state of Oregon are always, oh, man, you know, you're not paying your fair share. Oh, they're using a tax haven to do this. Oh, my goodness. Oh, no. And then the Trump administration is not doing this.

Never talk about how can you get more than that. Why can't Oregon be a tax haven? Switzerland seems to be doing just fine. They're not exactly right-wing conservatives over there in Switzerland. They seem to do just fine being a tax haven't. Tax Haven. Couldn't Oregon do something like that? A fella can dream, eh? It's 631 at KMED. All these nasty tax havens. And boy, we're going to fix that here at the state of Oregon rather than becoming a tax haven ourselves. Funny, isn't it? This is the Bill Myers Show. Eric Peters joins me. We'll head out in the open road. 631 news on the way. When Italian food sounds good. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 K. KMED. Now Bill wants to hear from you.

541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. Playing guitar hitting the open road. Eric Peters joins me. And Eric Peters is, of course, automotive journalist and genius at E.P.O.com. Eric, welcome back. How are things for you today, huh? Welcome. Well, well, they're good, but they're busy. There's so much to talk about, including I haven't had a chance yet to write anything about it. But did you catch the reveal about Tesla's new, much-promised local? cost model. Yeah, I did. I think that Tesla Model 3 is down to about 37,000, right? Isn't that what they said? Yeah, they decontented. It basically ripped everything out of it that might make you want to buy

the thing, including a radio, doesn't come with a radio. Oh, okay. Then they basically figured out a way to cheap out on whatever suspension parts they could cheap out, put in a less effective battery with even less range. And you only pay nearly $40,000 for it. Oh, and there's a tire charge, too. A tire? No, hold on. Wait a minute.

A tire charge? They charge for the tires now? What? Well, a tire charge, not, you know, not for the tires per se, just a tire charge. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm having difficulty with it. Okay.

Now, why, every time I've ever purchased a car, and I bought a few cars over the years from dealers. And every time that I bought the car, the car just came with the tires and the price of the car in tires. Is there something special about a Tesla tire that requires an extra special tire charge? This is a serious question, Eric. It gives the lie to the nonsense that we've been hearing for years now, at least a decade about how they're going to bring the cost down. It's going to be really affordable very soon. Well, it isn't because, you know, batteries just aren't by the nature of the things.

So they're having to figure out other ways to lower the cost. One of the ways is they're doing it with this so-called tire charge. Another that's really obnoxious is that they're making you pay extra for the home charge quarter, not just a little bit. Like in the case of the Volkswagen ID buzz that I had a couple of weeks back, $700. So if you want to charge a dumb thing at home, it's going to cost you $700 plus paying for the electrician to come out and wire up the special circuit that you need to do that. Okay, well, yeah, certain people want to do that. I understand that. You know, if you're an in-town driver, I could see it makes a lot of sense for you that particular thing.

but it would seem to me that the home charging cord should be, once again, included with the car purchase, much like the tires, the tires from the factory should just, they shouldn't be broken out as a separate line item. That's what you're saying, right? Yeah. And the wheels are literally coming off. I don't know whether you caught this, but there is a New York Times article. It just came out that talked about the rising cost of drum roll electricity and how now the cost of fueling an EV with electricity has reached parity. with the cost of fueling a pretty gas-hoggy combustion engine car and isn't significantly more expensive than powering a hybrid electric car. In other words, one that has a gas engine.

That is really interesting. I've not heard that story. I'm going to have to take a look at that. Very interesting. Yeah, well, I'm going to be writing about it, and I'll have all the information in the article. But, yeah, you know, if you go to the New York Times page, you can find it. But you remember the day for years we're saying, oh, this is going to be wonderful. It's going to reduce your cost of driving. Never mind that you're paying, you know, a 30 to 40 percent premium for the vehicle. never mind that, but you're going to be paying less to put electricity in it than you'd be paying for gas. But, Eric, we're also being told that because of renewable energy, our energy is practically free here in the state of Oregon. It's like it's all we have to do is just keep adding more solar cells and more wind, and it'll be practically free.

It will be able to drive around and won't cost anything. And there's no carbon either for that matter. Everybody knows this. All you have to do is look at your utility bill, which for most of us has gone up by, what, 40 or 50 percent in the last several years and just wait. until the data center charge comes online. Yeah. Well, I know that the state legislature is trying to protect. Well, of course, this is scary then because they are talking about finding a way to protect us,

protect us from being screwed over by the data centers. I've just said that we should all be declared data centers, so that way we have access to the good cheap power first. What do you think about that? Well, we effectively are, aren't we? I mean, we're being data mined everywhere we go constantly. I'm a data center. You're a data center, too.

We're all data centers. Okay. Oh, man, I'll tell you. It's one of the... You want to talk about that other thing that's related to Tesla with the supervised self-driving? Oh, yes. They say, what is it? They're now calling it, what?

It's hands-off, but supervised, but self-driving. Tell me about that. I want to hear that latest one, too. Well, I mean, just try to parse that out. Supervised self-driving. So, in other words, the car doesn't actually drive itself because you have to supervise the driving. They want to have their cake and eat it. And to put it more finely, what they really want is to not be sued.

They want to market this technology as implying that, yeah, you know, when you're tired after a long day at work or you're headed out for a long trip and you just don't want to deal with it, why you just push that button and you can take a nap, you can read a book, make phone calls, whatever you want to do. You have a self-driving car. But wait a minute, no, you actually don't. You have to constantly keep your eyes on the road and your hands ready to grab that steering wheel and your foot ready to jam on the brake because, you, as we all know, the self-driving tech glitches. And sometimes the programming doesn't account for unexpected

developments and it can't deal with it. Yeah, and it runs the car underneath the semi in front of it, killing the occupants. You know, we've had those kind of stories. It's happened. But you know, you've got to break a few omelets to make a self-driving utopia. Yeah, so the article that I've got on the site for those who are interested gets into this, this Catch-22 situation that they're putting people in. And really, it's just all about deceptive marketing. And it's also about the insusience and maliciousness of the government, because everybody understands, you know, when they're saying self-driving, the average person hears that, think, self-driving, sure, that means I don't have to drive. Yeah. But, of course, you really do, you know, and even then, it's still unsafe because there's going to be a lag time.

You know, if you're driving down the road with a self-driving car, and you're kind of, you know, just sort of sitting there at your hands not on the wheel and your foot not actually, you know, on the pedals or whatever. And a situation happens in a split-second, well, there's a portion of that split-second reaction time that it's going to happen before you. you actually put your hands on the wheel and intervene, and that lag time could be critical in determining whether you actually hit something or don't. So it's obviously unsafe. And if safety is the most important to finding principle of our time, how come the government is allowing us? Because the government wants to find a way to get us out of driving cars, ultimately. Precisely. You know that's what's going on. And that's the good news this morning, by the way. Eric Peters with me, EP autos, we're continuing to fight for this right to drive. This

ability to control ourselves. And it is like we're at war with our own government and not even with our necessarily our president, but as you have mentioned before, President Trump hasn't probably driven himself around for a long, long time, or maybe not if ever, you know, having been a New Yorker, so maybe doesn't quite understand the attacks that are being attempted against us, really, when you say? Maybe. I don't know. You know, I'm increasingly disinclined to give the man the benefit of the doubt, and I know that sounds cynical to some, but, you know, I go by actions rather than worse, and I'm tired of talk. What do you think about the 25% tariff on heavy trucks?

That's the latest one which came in, and that is a big deal. You know, when you're talking about something, it's a half million dollars or something, and you take a 25% tariff on top of that. That could be a lot of money. Yeah, well, let's start with it's just another tax. You know, and this is an example of the etymological jujitsu that's used against us, where they get people to believe that a snake is a dove by calling it's something else. A tariff is just a tax. It's just passed along differently. So

Trump, on his unilateral authority, which he hasn't got, by the way, because the president, supposedly under the Constitution, doesn't have the power to impose tariffs. That's Congress's job. Anyway, well, he's claiming authority with, you know, that emergency, that emergency tariffing authority. Everything's an emergency. Yeah, that's, now that's going through the courts at this point, and it has not been decided at the Supremes yet. It will be. I'm going to tell you right now, Eric, I think that President Trump will end up keeping his tariffing authority no matter what. You know why? Because he's the decider.

No, it's not about that. It's because even the Supreme Court understands that if they end up reversing that and saying that he doesn't have the authority, that presidents don't have that authority, it will be so disruptive into the system. It would be a bit chaotic, paying everybody back and doing all those kind of. of things. I will make that prediction right now. I think the courts will back him. Okay. I don't disagree with you, but I think it's equally disruptive for him to just almost on a weekly basis say, I'm going to impose tariffs on this, and then he pulls it back, and then he says something differently the next week. It's the chaos of an authoritarian system where businesses can't plan for the future because they don't know what the future is going to hold

for them. And that is a challenge. It really is. Of course, Congress could rein them in if they, you actually felt like getting together on something like that. They could. They don't want to, obviously. The last thing they want is to be held accountable for anything. But to get back to this tariffing. So 25% on commercial trucks, meaning, you know, the heavy over-the-road trucks is what we're talking about. Freightliners, Max, vehicles like that, Beardville's.

If they're foreign. And by the way, some of the American names are owned by the German conglomerate, Daimler, A.G. And also Volvo. Yeah, you know, so Daimler and Volvo. Well, Daimler is Mercedes-Benz, right? So, which American trucks do they own? I think, well, freightliner, which sounds American, and I think, but I'm not sure others who are listening to this will know better than I.

Maybe it was Kenworth or Mac. I can't remember which one of the two formerly American brands is owned by Daimler now. Okay. So overall, though, you could say, all right, well, Eric, I don't need to go out there and buy a foreign truck. I can just buy a freight liner, right? What's wrong? But you've got to buy stuff at the store, don't you? And how does the stuff at the store get there? It gets there by over-the-road trucks. So by increasing the cost of new trucks significantly, and it's not just going to be the imported one.

This is one of the fallacies of the tariff argument. You know, this is simply going to result in cost rising across the board, because after all, domestic manufacturers, what incentive did they have to lower the cost of anything? Oh, so you're thinking then with raising the foreign heavy trucks, then freight liner and other ones will feel quite comfortable boosting their prices? Of course. But just not as high as a tariff truck, right? Yeah, there's not going to be any reduction. So, you know, we're going to end up feeling this again, just what we need, right? On top of everything else, we're going to see the price of goods. And by the way, Trump has imposed tariffs on those things, too, things like furniture, kitchen cabinets, and so on. So, you know, your next home kitchen remodel might cost you another 20 to 20 or 35 percent more than it would have before these taxes, which, you know, they like to use that word tariff, but it is a tax.

But, Eric, isn't this ultimately about? encouraging the reshoring of manufacturing here, which would appear to be a societal good long term? For the time being, though, hurts like hell. Well, I agree with that, but I think it's a disingenuous argument because the chief reason that manufacturing left this country is because of the cost of making anything in this country, and tariffs are not going to fix that. If the regulatory compliance issue is not dealt with, and as far as I can see, he's done next to nothing about that, it's still going to be expensive to make things here. So what does it matter to you and I if the item that we purchased in the store is made in America and still cost

a fortune because of the regulatory compliance costs. All right. Talking with Eric Peters this morning, boy, and I have to tell you, transportation is mixed up with a lot of politics right now. Do you want to talk with Eric, opinion one way or the other? Maybe you have a vehicle you like to talk about. Well, you haven't even gotten to your review yet, and I'm looking forward to that. 7705-633-770 KMED.

It is Wheels up Wednesday. And I'm not charging you any more for this today than we did last week, okay? Still free, no tariffs. This is the Bill Meyers show. I said this is the Bill Meyers show, which means something happens. Stephen Westfall Roofing is growing. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063, KMED. Oh, that's a great bumper for EPATOs.

Look at that Cadillac. Yep. Straight cats. It's almost as good as Duke Jupiter's little late. That's an obscure one. The people who like a good 80s-era car songs, I recommend looking it up. Oh, absolutely. It's 651, and it is wheels up Wednesday, taking your calls at 7705-633.

Get a gentleman. Sir, what was your name again? You work for Freightliner? You kind of delving into the topic we were having about the tariffing of heavy trucks being imported. What's your story? Yeah, my name's Chris. Hi, Chris. I just want to let you guys know that...

Good morning, Eric. Morning. Let you guys know that Donner Group owns Freightliner and Western Star with two manufacturing plants in the United States, two in Mexico. And this is the information that's available on transportation topics as well. Okay. But yes, the 25% tariff is supposed to go into effect November 1st. Again, like Eric said, the president keeps changing his mind, and it's kind of tough on us.

Yeah, does, is it the changing, is it the tariff itself, or is it the back-and-forth lurching, Chris? What, what say you, as someone who's in that business? It's both. It's causing a lot of purchasing, indecisive purchasing and whatnot by the customers. Not sure what's happening, what's going on. How long it's going to last? Can they beat it by waiting it out? That nature.

Yeah. That's really interesting. Eric, and Chris, before you take off, what about the, you know, you said you, there are some trucks that are made in Mexico. Are trucks that are made in Mexico treated differently from, let's say, a heavy truck that is brought in from, let's say, Sweden or the U.K. or some other country. Do you know? According to the president, the 25% tariff is going to be everything that comes into the country from out of the country. All right. So I know we already have a $3,000 tariff on heavy.

duty and a $1,500 on medium duty, it's going to go to 25% from $3,000 to 25%, which you're talking most of those heavy-duty trucks are almost $200,000, so you're talking $50,000. $50,000. Okay, so. For a truck. All right, so that can't help but affect your business then, does it? Correct. Correct.

It's killing us. Killing us. Yeah. Chris, I appreciate you sharing your story, okay? Thanks for that. Wow. It's disgusting, isn't it? And it's not just killing them, and I have great sympathy for them.

You know, they have to somehow recoup their costs. And so the way they do that is by raising the costs on us. So, you know, everybody loses under this regime, and that's why it's so terrible. Let me talk with Vicki. Vicki's in the Amplegate. Vicki, you had some questions about what's going on with some classic car sources, classic car parts sources. What's the deal? Yes.

Well, good morning to both of you. Thank you. I'm the one that has the 76 El Camino that you were interested in, I think. Okay. What's your question? Okay. My question is, we need to find out what to do with a bunch of classic car parts. Rear view mirrors, the round headlights, bumpers, you know, the rails that go around the windows and the running boards.

and taillights, and, I mean, everything you could possibly, like, have on a classic car. And we're not sure what, how, where to go to sell them or, I don't want to throw them away because they're classic, and I, and I love classic cars. So I don't want to just throw them away. Suggestions, Eric, what do you think? Yeah, yeah, the best thing to do, announce something to hassle, but are you familiar with eBay motors? Well, I don't have cell service satellite or television, so I don't do the Internet, but I have peeps that do. Well, that's what I would recommend. And basically, it's just a matter of taking pictures of your parts, identifying them, and putting a little ad up, indicating, you know, I've got the sport mirrors for 76L Camino, and then, you know, you list your price.

And then people will buy it, and then it's up to you to package the thing and send it to the people. So there is a little bit of a hassle factor there, but you should be able to sell all your parts. and get yourself a nice little stack of money in the process. Okay, so what if we don't know what the parts go to necessarily? Oh, that's difficult. You've got to be able to tell people what you got. Yeah. I guess you could put, you know, I think the first step is to identify what you got,

and I think the way to do that, at least you know, they're Chevy parts, right? Well, they're Chevy. I mean, my dad was all American vehicles, no foreign vehicles at all. Oh, so you've got a pile of them is what you're saying, Vicki. Right. Oh, okay. Well, what I recommend doing that is if you can figure out what the manufacturer was, a lot of times you'll be able to look at it, it'll have a logo on it.

It'll say Ford or Chevy or whatever. Right. And go to an online forum for that particular marquee, that maker model, you know, people who have, say, El Camino. There are fans, you know, sites that are devoted to El Camino people who have those cars. And just post a picture of it. Join the thing and say, look, I've got this part. Does anybody know what this is? Yeah, but the thing is, though, somebody on that site will know.

It would be really helpful, though, for you to get some kind of internet connection to do a lot of that, because, you know, it's one of those worlds, Eric, where it's no longer like we're doing mail-in newsletters, right? Or mailing newsletters around to people, you know, like we used to do, there's none of that really going on to the same extent, wouldn't you agree? Yes, absolutely. You know, the thing is, if you don't know what you have, there's no realistic way to put a fair value on it. You could go to an antique car show, plastic car show with your boxes of parts and say, hey, these are for sale, you know, whatever. You make me an office, but, you know, it's possible you could sell something that's highly valuable for not much money, and you probably don't want to do that. All right.

Hey, Vicki, good luck on that. We appreciate the challenge. For me, it's electronic parts that I have filling the garage. But let me go to the next line. Hi, good morning. You're on with Eric Peters. Who's this? Welcome.

Yeah, hey, Bill and Eric. This is John and Medford. Hey, John. What's thinking? Hey, John. I just got back from L.A. in Orange County, and I had the opportunity to hire an Uber driver, and I specifically wanted to be in a Tesla for the round trip from L.A., Orange County, back to L.A. And it's the first time I've really been in the Tesla. And, yeah, the guy didn't touch the wheel a whole lot through all the heavy traffic starting and stopping. It was actually pretty impressive, I've got to tell you. Until it doesn't work. Well, it worked. And what was interesting, Eric, As he turns to me with his hands off the wheel and says, you know, John, this car saved my life.

And he proceeds to tell me that he himself was kind of a distracted driver for that microsecond, reaching, you know, maybe in his briefcase to hand something to his passenger. And the car, because it has, what, seven cameras, noticed that there was danger and moved their car to the lane to the right. and the car that was in his spot got pancakeed and rear-ended and killed the Fiesta driver, let's say. So when you think about, I mean, I watch this track the drivers all the time. I get set on my front porch on Main Street and see people watching their phone instead of driving their stupid car. And so, you know, I think as we become less and less tuned in with reality, this technology doesn't sleep. It's constantly got eyes all around you, lanes in front, lanes to the side. So it does build a good case for safety, but I think it's only because we're not really conscious when we drive.

Well, absolutely. You know, and you make a case, but on the other hand, wouldn't it be better to encourage people to simply pay attention to driving and be attentive? You know, I mean, that's, to me, the more fundamental solution to that issue. Well, good luck with that one, bro. you're right there's the sound bite okay good luck with that one actually paying attention to when you drive

John I appreciate the call and thanks for making that 7705 633 hey Eric latest review what do you got there and what do you have coming in well we got the Volkswagen TIGW on which has just been updated for 2025 and I think we touched on it briefly last week

yes just briefly though yeah Volkswagen had a problem of its own making and that the Tiguan which is a compact crossover. It was, you know, it was nicer than the other vehicles in that class being German and kind of related to Audi's. And so, you know, you felt like you got a higher Zoot product. So it was really popular initially. And then Volkswagen decided, you know what would be great? We'll make another one kind of like that. And they called the Touse. And when the Touse came out, it was a problem for the TIGI because it was almost the same size, a little roomier inside, only slightly

less powerful, but thousands of dollars less. So sales of Touse began to eat in the Tiggy sale. So they had a problem. What are we going to do? Well, what they did was to put some distance between the Tiggy and the Touse for 2025. What do I mean by that? Well, it's available with things like massaging seats, which is pretty unprecedented in a car that, you know, is way under $60,000, which generally is the price point you have to be at to get things like massaging seats, quilted leather. It also has a stronger engine for 2025. It's got an upmarket interior now and a few other things. It's a really nice little vehicle that really stands out in its class and relative to this house. Overall, though, pretty impressive car? Yeah, very much so.

You know, the only thing I think that Volkswagon could do, or that they didn't do that they ought to have, was to give it a bit more power. It's heavy. It's about 4,000 pounds. So the two-liter four-cylinder that makes 201 horsepower, which is an uptick from the previous version of that engine has a little bit of a problem imparting the acceleration that would be appropriate to a vehicle of its stature. I would like to see them up to about 228 or so, and they are going to do that. Next year, they're going to offer a turbo R-line version of it, which with essentially the current GTIs drive train. So it'll be a lot quicker. The problem is it'll probably be a lot more expensive too. So it strains a little bit to keep up at the moment, but not that it's horrible, but not as fast as

you think it could be. Yeah. Yeah, I guess the 16, about 8.7. Which, you know, if you're familiar with vehicles in that class, that's par for the course. I think it should be better than par for the course. All right. Very good. Hey, what's next week? Oh, we're going to have some fun. It's actually going to start today because the TIGY goes back and it sent me a Hyundai Ionic 5 EV, but not so much that it's an EV, which we always have a fun with.

But it's an EV with off-road equipment, which strikes me as hilarious because the last kind of vehicle that I think I'd want to take off-road is an EV for all the obvious. obvious reasons. You know, you've probably seen those adventure shows where they'll have a Jeep or a Land Rover that has dairy cans of gas strapped to it. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of hard to strap to get the cans of kilowatt hours for the blinds of the TV. You know, maybe what it is is they can include, let's say, you know, like survival gear, like MREs, you know, 50 gallons of water, all sorts of things, just in case you run out in the middle of nowhere. True. Yeah, that was my thought. It should have a survival kit in it so you You can endure the weight until they can helicopter you win a portable fast charger, which, by the way, the welder company, I'm having a Biden moment.

I can't think of the name. You know, the big company that makes welding equipment, they are now making a portable fast charger that can transmute 50 kilowatts of fast charge DC current. Only cost $20,000, though. Okay, well, everyone should have one. No problem. All right. Yep. Hey, before I take off, I want to ask a quick question here.

in your experience now we're going to be getting some new tires on my forerunner the radio station's forerunner because I blew out one going up to a site yesterday and it's just one of those things where you can just tell the side walls are just not they're just not up to it anymore

and so a little bit of a rock cut or whatever it is and boom I was down for the count had to change it nothing like changing tires out on BLM land let me tell you but be that as it may about how many years do you get out of good off-road tires these days. Some people have told me they're not getting as much as they used to.

Have you had any stories about that or thought about it much? Yeah, well, if you're talking about like MS and even all-terrain-type tires, you know, they're a specialty compound, kind of like the summer sport tires that a lot of vehicles come with or offer, and it's an inherent compromise. You know, you're getting additional capability in the form of the tread and the materials that are used, and so that is going to reduce the life relative to what you'd have if you just had a regular all-season, you know, regular tire on it. I guess it really does come down a lot to how you drive the vehicle.

I'd be surprised, though, if you've got better than about 25,000 miles on a set of navvies. Really? Yeah. What about the actual life of the rubber compound? Because I was reading a story many years ago. In fact, you and I may have talked about it in which that, you know, tires, you know, a lot of times you'll buy tires online. And then you find out that the tires you bought online are actually old tires. I had that happen one time.

They were very old tires. Yeah. You know, what they'll do, they'll get rid of them. You know, these tire stores, they'll offer a really good deal. And it sounds really good. Wow, look at that. I could get a brand new tire for, you know, substantially less than what they're usually going for. Of course, you find out later that that tire has been sitting on the back shelf for the last two years.

And, you know, so now you've got kind of an aged tire. It's probably not going to be as good as a brand new one. Yeah, there's a date code stamped on the sidewalk, and, you know, it's another one of these due diligence things where, unfortunately, you just can't trust anybody anymore, and you have to find out for yourself. If you go online, it's very easy to find out where that code is on the sidewall. Just type in a Google search engine or any other engine. But generally, though, I guess my question, generally, when is a tire that you may buy, whether online are used, when is it too old to maybe go and mount again? Do you know, is there a general rule of thumb on something like that? It's not firm, because, you know, if you store a tire, let's say that you, you know, you're anticipating the,

apocalypse. And so you went ahead, and I've done this, buy a spare set of tires, you know, because you want to just lock in the price, so to speak, and have that set on hand. You know, if I put mine in the basement where it's pretty much a consistent 50 degrees and the sun isn't hitting those tires, they're going to, they're going to be in much better shape after a year than a mounted tire on a car that's parked outside in the beating sun. Sure. The sun that really does the damage to the tires and accelerates that oxidizing process. All right. But, you know, if you're buying a car, tie,

and the tire you're getting the date code says it's five or six years old, I would be a little questioning of that, right? I wouldn't buy it. I mean, you know, when you buy, when something is presented to you as being new, I think you deserve new, not, you know, sitting on a shelf for however long. Now, if someone were to say it's new old stock, that's different, right? Then you know it's old stock, right? Correct, exactly.

But with new tires, it's a different matter. You're not buying a part for an antique car that was made 50 years ago. You know, you're buying something, you know, that's the service part that you're you're using for that purpose. And I think if it's anything more than a year old, you have a right to know that, and then you have a right to a discount. If you don't get it, just get the new tire. That would be my advice. All right, very good. It's made recently. E.P.O.O.S.com. Eric Peters, Automotivejournalist at E.P.O.O.com. Looking forward to

hearing about the Ionic and seeing if they include a survival, survival pack along with the... You bet, Bill. We're going to have some fun with that. It should be good. All right. Thanks, Eric. We'll see you next week. bet. All right. This is KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Metford, KBXG grants, Pass. Wheels up Wednesday continues with your calls afternoose.