**Gears: A Do-It-All Vehicle Dilemma**

When it comes to finding a car that can handle multiple roles, many drivers struggle to find the perfect vehicle. In this episode of Talking Cars, we discuss the challenges of finding a "do-it-all" vehicle that can meet the needs of daily driving, camping, and road trips with friends.

**The Early Days of Gears**

It's surprising how far gears have come in terms of technology and reliability. The early ones were indeed problematic, but they've become much better over time. Modern gears are lighter and more efficient, making them a popular choice for many drivers. However, some may still find that certain models can be a bit finicky when it comes to drivability.

**A Goldilocks Solution?**

When Randy from Tennessee reached out to us with his question about finding the perfect "do-it-all" vehicle, we knew he was looking for something special. With a budget of $35,000, Randy wants a car that can handle camping trips, long road trips, and daily driving duties. He's considering options ranging from trucks and SUVs to cars and hybrids.

**The 2022 Santa Fe Hybrid**

We recently discussed the 2022 Santa Fe hybrid on our show, and Emily had the chance to test drive it. The hybrid version of the Santa Fe impressed her with its roomy interior, comfortable ride, and decent fuel economy. The regular gas engine version, however, lacked some of these features. With its ample cargo space and smooth acceleration, the Santa Fe hybrid is a solid choice for those looking for a versatile vehicle.

**A Toyota 4Runner for Off-Roading Enthusiasts**

For Randy's friend who enjoys off-roading and camping in remote areas, we recommend considering the Toyota 4Runner. While it may not be the most comfortable daily driver, its rugged design and impressive suspension make it an excellent choice for those who want to tackle dirt roads and trails with ease. The 5-speed transmission is a notable feature that sets the 4Runner apart from other vehicles in its class.

**The Ford Maverick: A New Breed of Do-It-All Vehicle**

Our latest review features the Ford Maverick, a new pickup truck designed to be versatile and adaptable. Starting at around $20,000, the Maverick is an affordable option that can be equipped with a range of features, including a camper shell for camping trips. With its compact design and impressive towing capacity, the Maverick is poised to become a favorite among outdoor enthusiasts.

**A Future Review**

While we haven't had the chance to test drive the Ford Maverick yet, it's definitely on our radar. Our review will provide an in-depth look at this exciting new vehicle, which promises to deliver on its promises of versatility and performance. Stay tuned for more information on the Maverick as we continue to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses.

**Conclusion**

Finding the perfect "do-it-all" vehicle can be a daunting task, but with the right guidance and research, it's possible to find a car that meets your needs and exceeds your expectations. From the Toyota 4Runner to the Ford Maverick, there are many options available that cater to different lifestyles and preferences. Whether you're an outdoorsy type or just looking for a reliable daily driver, we hope this article has provided you with valuable insights and inspiration to find your perfect vehicle.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis week we answer your questions how much will today's electric vehicles depreciate over time why aren't some car brands sold in the u.s what are all weather tires and why did today's transmissions have so many gears find out next on talking cars hey welcome back i'm keith barry i'm emily thomas and i'm ryan pizzelkowski and uh we've got an all questions episode uh for you today we get so many questions sent to us at talkingcars icloud.com uh we're just gonna try and get through as many as we can so if you've been waiting to have your question answered this could be your shining moment uh the first person who we are going to call on oh is rob from portland oregon and rob asks i've owned six new cars throughout the years and they're all from different brands i've loved them all but i like to try something new with every purchase how do people like me fit into owner satisfaction ratings since i'm not brand or model loyal so as as it sounds like rob's kind of one of us who gets to drive something new very very often new and different and variety is the spice of life but uh emily what what does this mean for our owners our satisfaction score because the way i understand it we ask people you know would you buy this car again and rob could love the car but he's not going to say yes right he might not say yes because he just likes to try new things so i reached out to steve ellick he's our senior auto analyst and he deals very heavily with all of our survey data and basically the way steve explained it to me is it is based off of the question you know would you buy this car again however we're not asking it necessarily from the perspective of like are you going to run out right now and like go get another one it's more like do you regret this car purchase decision that for me like now that you've had it right so in rob's case you know he might love the car but he just might want to try a different brand or a different model for the next one so he won't necessarily go out and get the newest model of the same car but if he loved the car that he's in he should answer that he loves the car that he's in that you know that's more the perspective to have rather than being like well i've already done the research for my next car purchase and it's going to be this totally different car do you know what i mean it's all about kind of framing the question the right way i think um in terms of like your mentality when you're answering it so rob make sure when you answer the survey that you answer it based off of do you regret the decision that you made with this car and if not then you should say that you're satisfied uh if anything i would hold his opinion um in a high place because he's he's experiencing different brands and models so it's he's kind of like us in a sense right we're unbiased and we get to drive all this different stuff so he has a broader perspective um and i think that's worth something so that's that's exactly when he's answering he can say it from like that perspective like you're saying he's he's yeah because i tried more than one right well there are brand loyal or model loyal people that you know they only buy a volvo and that's it they but you know they're volvos for life and that's fine but uh they might be a little biased right i've i've only driven a ford ecosport and the ford echo sport is the best car that that exists right right yeah so i don't want to bash on the echo sport but we got it we get what you're saying it's dead we can we can we can say that um on to another question from daniel in austin uh and speaking of a car that that we've had some opinions on uh i've been interested in evs for a while now and i recently bought a pole star 2 launch edition i really enjoy it for its speed efficiency power and charging at home my question is this how do you think evs with around 200 to 250 miles of range will fare on the resell market in a few years our early adopters going to be extremely disappointed when it's time to trade that launch edition ev in this is i mean it's a great question there's a question a good friend of mine asked just the other day when he was looking at you know at cars with that you know 200 mile range and as we start to see cars going over 400 miles so uh ryan you were you were telling me about the you know about you looked at like the leaf and how much those are selling for yeah i mean the early the early leafs um i mean they only had what 80 mile range um that was in ideal conditions and they're dirt cheap i mean you can you can find them for like next to nothing it seems like and it's not especially now compared to everything else well right yeah and right now i mean listen right now it's not a good time to be buying a car in the first place but um they're cheap um and you know 80 mile range is not a lot uh so i mean there are it will work for some people that's fine you know what they'll get a smoking deal they can commute back and forth to work with within the 80 mile range and they're fine with that that's great but um you know he's talking about 200 to 250 miles um so those are more these are much more substantial uh evs right i have a hard time saying that any evs right now will hold their value well just because i i think of them like computers technology advances so fast um they're you know they're rapidly changing i mean just in a couple of years we've gone from you know less than 100 miles up to now we have this you know this new tesla's claiming 400 and change it changes so fast so they could think tomorrow they could come out with a new battery technology and we can get five six hundred miles and that all their stuff is archaic uh you know part of the past i have a hard time saying it will hold its resale well but i think for sure the 200 250 would hold it's going to hold its value better than the you know the 80 mile leaf um that's just my personal take on it i guess yeah i i mean i i know we have lucid coming out now uh with something in the 500s which is just which is astounding it's also a card that's well into the six figures and you also have to look at it in terms of also you know how much money you saved if you're depending upon how much your energy costs in in in texas and you're charging it at home uh you know the cost of maintaining it the end price could be that the depreciation isn't really something that matters as much because we found that evs do sort of you know we have some some information online our folks in in advocacy crunched some numbers and found that evs do save money over time so especially the longer you keep it so you know you're not paying for oil changes you're not paying for uh you know other things that can then that can go wrong that just don't exist on the polestar so right if you want to look at and find out what the top contenders for range are right now you can head over to consumerreports.org we have an article about lucid and it also explains what lucids is new if you don't if you haven't been following it's this new ev manufacturer based in arizona and uh they have these very expensive uh high mileage vehicles so head over to cr.org and look at that article angie from pittsburgh pennsylvania has a question my wife and i are looking for a used suv to replace one of our current sedans we have two small children ages one and four and we're looking for a vehicle that is safe and reliable has a wide enough bench seat for two car seats and a third adult plus all-wheel drive our budget is twenty thousand to twenty five thousand but we're willing to go up to twenty eight thousand for the right vehicle my wife would like something more upscale but it is not a necessity that's a it's another one of those questions that's really representative so i see car seats here so emily i'm gonna go to you first uh do you have any just sort of general buying advice for for for someone who wants to see if their car seats fit take your seats with you to the dealership that is the big piece of advice i've done it um they might look at you a little weird but you know what it's a big purchase and it does not make sense for you to buy a car that does not fit your car seats unless you intend on buying new car seats you want to ensure that for your specific car seats you're able to get a secure installation in the vehicle that you're going to have so it's really important to actually do that with any vehicle that you're considering also for something like what you're asking where you want to be able to fit two car seats in the back plus an adult it varies from vehicle to vehicle it varies from car seat to car seat because you might have really skinny car seat models you might have bulkier ones you know how you fit back there or how the car seats can fit next to each other is there's different configurations that you can try and you should totally do that you should try them all out you should put the seats next to each other you should put them on the two outboard seats and see if you have enough space to get into the middle and be comfortable there and buckle up etc definitely try out the back seat of any vehicle that you're considering that being said i did some digging in the pittsburgh area and i found a 2020 mazda cx-5 probably not upscale like you asked but it was a car that i really really liked when we had it here at the track and i only had one car city at that time but i was often in the back seat with micah and so i i can vouch that it was pretty comfortable it has um really great reliability for that generation i would definitely go with the 2020 model has better reliability than the 2018 and the 2019s did it has good ihs crash scores standard advanced driver assist systems it also allows you to do center borrowing for the lower anchors in the back seat so if you wanted to install one of the car seats in the middle see you could borrow the lower anchors from the two outboard seats and then use a seat belt installation in one of the outboard seating positions so there's a little bit more flexibility and i thought i had good cargo space for having kids so that's my recommendation but ultimately even with that you would still need to try out your own seats in that car before we go into our other questions you might notice that this podcast uh like our magazine like our website is missing a few things oh it's missing something it's missing ads it's missing ads from car companies it's missing ads from dealerships it's missing ads from you know people pitching mattresses and telling funny stories about their mattress and trying to get you to put in a promo code you don't have to remember any promo codes if you want to support talking cards you just have to go to cr.org give talking cars cr.org give talking cars and that's where you can send a little bit of money to us we're a non-profit um the you know the money that that you send us helps to you know keep this happening it also helps us to keep testing these vehicles independently we buy our own cars to test them we don't borrow them from manufacturers the way that almost everyone else out there does um and that keeps us independent and and unbiased so cr.org give talking cars uh our next question comes from brian uh brian asks i would love to see some reviews on the new three peak snow slash all season tires and i think i think he's talking about the logo with a little uh the three mountain peaks uh that are coming out i bought two sets of the michelin cross climate and looked at the competing goodyear model too does the performance of these tires fall between snow and all-season tires are these the holy grail for those of us with occasional snowstorms thanks so uh before i throw this question to ryan i just feel like i have to set the table because we get so many questions about these i think people don't know what these are ryan can you explain what these tires are because you know we hear about oh you have to switch over from winter to to you know all season or winter to summer tires are these tires that can actually kind of keep that from happening and especially in a place like you know southern new england where the snow isn't crazy but you get it you know what what's going on here yeah so um the for us in the northern regions and we're you know we get snow we we deal with um winter tires often right so you have all season tires which are just regular uh you know all around tires you can use them year round um they're the most common tires you'll find on vehicles today and then a dedicated winter tire is designed to be used from you know the when fall in the end of fall beginning of winter through the winter and then you take them off in the spring this is because they are not designed for warm temperatures they have a softer compound a special tread design um and they they're they're soft because they're softer they wear faster so you know running them year round wouldn't be advantageous anyway those dedicated winter tires carry a three-peak mountain snowflake symbol that keith um just mentioned it's actually a symbol on the sidewall that that says that that tire passed a minimum snow traction requirement so it was an actual test um attached to that you'll see on a lot of other all season tires um all terrain tires a an m s on the sidewall mud and snow it'll just say m plus s on the sidewall that might sound like it's good for snow but it's actu it might be but it's not an actual test that's a um it's actually a void a geometry measurement how much void is in the tread so you know a real racy like summer slick tire wouldn't have an m s on it because it doesn't have enough void it's just you know the actual design but either way that's not that tired didn't actually pass a snow traction test this new class of tires is kind of emerging and it's um we call them all weather tires so these all weather tires have they they actually have this three peak mountain snowflake symbol on the sidewall meaning they pass the same test um that the winter tire the dedicated winter tires passed um to get that symbol on the sidewall but the beauty of these is you can use them year round they can be used year-round like a an all-season tire but they have this added snow traction you know getting back to the the is it the holy grail i i would say that they're they're an excellent choice for like he said someone around here where um in connecticut where it snows but not heavily a lot going back to his question the best thing he can do is check our ratings we just tested this past year seven different models of all-weather tires and you can see where they fall i will give a slight hint that the cross climate is a very very good tire and i don't think you'll be upset that you purchased them this is great i think this is why people like to listen and and watch so um uh selden from singapore has a question i follow cr for reliability ratings cars are exceptionally expensive in singapore and when i was looking for a car i did not want something common i purchased a 2017 citron grand c4 picasso mpv 1.6 diesel because it's unique when i was searching reviews i only found them in from european reviewers and none from america why is citron not sold in america are there any plans for citroen to be sold there also i assume if it's not available in america then reviews from consumer reports will not be available either so yeah you're you're right uh i i'm gonna take this one is anyone mind if i take the french car question i don't think we have a choice yeah okay uh i think this is put in here for bait for me but anyhow so like you're a singaporean doppelganger yeah it's it's really this is this is this is weird it's like talking to myself so uh so citroen left the united states in 1974. um and you know that back then they were kind of cars they were expensive they were unique um and the us just was was too too difficult for them one of the reasons why was because there are different rules in different countries about things like headlights uh citron had these sort of self-leveling headlights that were really cool and they could turn with the wheel and they weren't legal in the united states so they had to make separate headlights for the us market and that sort of lack of harmonization means that there are sort of these galapagos islands where this independent invention and evolution takes place and and citron did its own thing and they left at you know people bought them i mean my grandmother's across the street neighbor had one up until the 80s but um and there's actually one just up the street from me uh an importer brought some in the in the late 80s but the u.s is very strict with import rules meaning you can't bring in something that's uh under 25 years old so you can't even bring in one a new one on your own the other thing is that roads and driving patterns are totally different in different countries so what might work in one country doesn't always translate for over here so you know we're not going to unfortunately as much as i would like to convince uh gabe to put a citron on the list of things to test we're not going to test one because even if we imported one and drove one here and tested it it would be such a different environment for it that it wouldn't you know it wouldn't be apples to apples the other thing is that citron's not coming back to the to the us they're they're part of stalantis now which is the the big group that includes fiat chrysler pujo a bunch of other brands um they're not coming back uh there was a plan a brief plan to bring pujo back to the u.s and that was that was scrapped much to my sadness so i was just gonna say i always had a little spot in my heart for citroens just i'm a huge rally fan i love watching rally racing and one of the best rally drivers um ever drove was sebastian loeb and he drove many different citroens but he was driving the citroen c4 and i remember watching a couple years you know several years back watching the rally on tv and it's just what what awesome cars you know you have we have all the wrxs and all that stuff here but those cars were just like these little hot hatches and they were just fantastic it's fun to watch and i always wish they came here but never made it yeah the us doesn't like weird we like everything to we care so much about resale value i mean we don't even have cars in colors anymore so we don't you don't do weird that's too bad um martin from frederick maryland asks as i near retirement i'm looking at purchasing what could very well be my last automobile i refuse to buy an suv so that leaves me with mid-size sedans i've narrowed it down to three used models in the following order one a 2018 or newer honda accord hybrid uh two a toyota camry hybrid or three ugg in his words a 2019 toyota prius hybrid however recently the evil his words alfa romeo julia ti sport has been creeping into my periphery my practical side says to stay away but the alpha is tugging at my heartstrings please talk me off the ledge thanks in advance oh man well i don't think that i will be the one to tell you to get the alpha romeo sorry about that we're the smartest of all of us here so listen to her i'm sure it has it's perks which ryan can probably tell you from driving it on the track but it wasn't my favorite of the choices that you presented before the alpha remain you know your practical choices i liked the 2020 honda accord hybrid thank you so the 2018 but you said or newer so i took or newer it has better reliability than the 2018 it's really great fuel economy we have that car as part of our test fleet for the child seat program and it's comfortable i find it easy to drive the controls are fairly easy to use it has standard advanced driver safety systems you can get the optional blind spot warning so make sure that you do i would definitely encourage that and it has really good crash scores so that was gonna be my pick you know it allows you to save some money in retirement with the hybrid model but also have something that's comfortable in our report we did say that it's a little bit low to the ground so you might want to check your access before you get it like see how comfortable you are getting in and out that would be my only thing but otherwise i thought that was a really good choice i think you should you should you should definitely reframe uh there's a phrase there my last car and you know my my father about like 15 years before he died said i want i think this is going to be my last car he had four more cars after that every single one of them he said i don't have you know uh the the one thing you have in retirement usually is time and um my father's first last car was an incredibly unreliable vehicle and he spent most of his time um sitting and reading newspapers in the mechanics waiting room so for all the fun that you get driving that alpha uh you know a few days a week do you really wanna i mean you know some of these dealerships are actually really nice to you they have coffee you know it's an alpha dealer so they're probably gonna be shared with like a maserati one so you can get espresso so you can say if you like to go to like starbucks or something you can save a lot of money but just you know keep in mind what's what's gonna happen also uh i'd suggest looking at my favorite car a 2019 toyota avalon hybrid uh you know as good fuel economy as as as almost as good as a camry but it just it's that bigger wheelbase means that you might get some of that ride quality you're looking for in the comfort so if you can swing that um you know take a look but i'm not going to tell you what to do but uh but just you know keep in mind what that might entail ryan you've you're probably the most familiar with the alpha so what what do you say well i'll be completely honest and transparent the alpha is a blaster drive right i mean it's a it's a super sharp uh steering it got super sharp steering it's just it handles really well it's like a little sports car right but um it's low to the ground the door openings are actually relatively small uh it's cramped inside it's a it's a sporty very very sporty car it's very different than the other three uh that he's listed i mean it is but i i haven't been known for doing practical things in my life so i would probably buy the alpha but i'm also i'm not at retirement age so uh you have to weigh that in and like keith said uh the amount of time you're going to spend at the dealer cause they're not the most reliable but i would go up if if we if we're not going to have fun i would say the i'm a fan of the the camry uh hybrid i spent thousands of hours in a regular camry testing tires but the uh you can't beat a toyota hybrid system um and the camera is a good size it's easy to get in and out of that would be my pick of those three but the alpha i don't know it'd be fun and and honestly the prius has its own charms i mean you can that big that big hatchback is is really really useful if you're doing projects if you're you know i it's it's it's you know it's not fun in the same way but it can make your life better in a way that makes you happier so who knows anyhow let's uh yeah martin write us back tell us what you tell us what you decided george has a question why do manufacturers make cars now with eight nine or ten speed transmissions uh my old 1999 and 2004 toyota camrys have four speed transmissions and they've been working just fine all these years it seems like the more complexity in a system the more possibility for trouble as the cars age what's the advantage to having more gears fuel economy okay next but no um it's set it's that simple um you know yeah the older cars had uh you know heck they had they went they had two speed transmissions at one time then three and then four and people were complaining about that that they weren't efficient those cars were not efficient they had you know some of these cars had big engines in them and it's you know that's okay because it can push it but what we're finding is with the with adding more gears allows a smaller engine to push a heavier vehicle so you're seeing we're seeing a lot of four-cylinder four-cylinder turbo engine cars or turbo engines put into larger cars i mean the technology like any like anything else technology is advancing so we're building better lighter transmissions that shift smoothly you don't even know that you're going through eight nine ten gears but they are more efficient he is right you are you know the more things you add to a vehicle the more opportunity you you introduce um you know for failure or issues and the manufacturers are uh you know they have pressure from you know the industry and the government and everything you know you know to raise their fuel economy numbers um in the quest of you know becoming more green and you know saving on earth and all that stuff so adding more gears has been uh an answer you know so they've it's been working so that's why fuel economy and you know some of these transmissions like some which we saw early on from ford and and chrysler with multi-speed transmissions had some teething problems early on completely not going to lie about that but they're starting to you know i i i they're not showing up in our reliability surveys is right big issues even the the cvt transmission continuously variable transmission it's infinite gears there's you can't even count them right i mean it's it's literally there's no actual gears to count um but the early ones are though you know early ones of those were problematic but they've become a lot better and those are much lighter and you know they have they have their other issues um in terms of drivability sometimes but they've come a long way and um yeah just technology advances and um you know and wait a year before you buy something new yeah yeah yeah so our last question is from randy and tennessee hey talking cars i have a question about a do it all vehicle i own a 2011 ford escape with 90 000 miles i'm looking for a car that i can take camping is comfortable on long road trips has enough room for gear and friends and can also serve as my daily driver not sure if i should go with a truck suv or even a car or maybe a hybrid for the mileage my budget is 35 000 new or used thanks for any advice so wow this is this is really a do-it-all vehicle emily what do you think i really struggled to find you a goldilocks car randy especially with the camping and the gear so we recently talked about this vehicle on the show i went with the 2022 santa fe hybrid i really like the hybrid version over the um the regular gas engine for the um santa fe i think it's roomy it's comfortable it drives much better it actually gives you that initial thrust acceleration that you need versus the gas version which does not and you know you have ample cargo space if you need to have rear passengers if you're going on a trip with friends or something you know you have the room to do that or you can just fold all those seats down and you'll have like a ton of great cargo room back there and it has pretty decent fuel economy so um yeah i mean he mentions the gear and the camping and uh so i'm thinking kind of an outdoorsy you know um type of person and i'm gonna i'm gonna go i'm gonna throw a wrench in here a little bit and i'm gonna say a toyota 4runner now the forerunner is a um more i will i'll call it more of a trucky suv it's got more so it's off-roady it's it's i i would say that the daily driving might be a little bit on the lower side you know comfort wise it's not the most comfortable i like truckee off-roady kind of vehicles and that's a you know you can go to the you can go down dirt road and get to your uh you know your secret fishing spot or go camping wherever um but it's you know it's kind of off-roady and outdoorsy so i i would say a forerunner i think that that would be fun the um as a callback to our earlier question you can get one of those the five-speed transmission right yeah that'll tell you something about its fuel economy um my pick is is actually there's a little caveat here uh it's we haven't driven it yet because we haven't gotten one in but it's on the list and maybe i'll have to come back and eat my words i think the the the almost to do everything vehicle is actually the ford maverick this new pickup truck this new small truck it's available as a hybrid it starts at around twenty thousand dollars um and you can really get it well equipped for thirty five thousand you can get it very well equipped they're gonna come out with you know even a camper shell for it uh too so you can keep your gear in the back something that's really cool about is there's all this kind of diy stuff you can do it's designed so you can build your own bike rack and it sounds like you you kind of want to you know you've got friends which is something i'm i'm unfamiliar with you like to camp which is something i'm unfamiliar but it sounds like you like want to do things and and you know make your own bike rack you can make your own car camper you can you know it's it's it's sort of a base from which you can explore so i say wait for our review of the maverick before you or at least our first drive before you do anything else because i certainly am waiting for that so the maverick will definitely be on a future episode of talking cars we've got a lot of questions about that that vehicle but for now that's all the time we have thanks for your questions thanks for sending them to talking cars at icloud.com you can head over to cr.org and learn even more about tires and even more about car seats than emily and ryan uh shared today but for now thanks for talking cars with us and we'll talk cars again soonthis week we answer your questions how much will today's electric vehicles depreciate over time why aren't some car brands sold in the u.s what are all weather tires and why did today's transmissions have so many gears find out next on talking cars hey welcome back i'm keith barry i'm emily thomas and i'm ryan pizzelkowski and uh we've got an all questions episode uh for you today we get so many questions sent to us at talkingcars icloud.com uh we're just gonna try and get through as many as we can so if you've been waiting to have your question answered this could be your shining moment uh the first person who we are going to call on oh is rob from portland oregon and rob asks i've owned six new cars throughout the years and they're all from different brands i've loved them all but i like to try something new with every purchase how do people like me fit into owner satisfaction ratings since i'm not brand or model loyal so as as it sounds like rob's kind of one of us who gets to drive something new very very often new and different and variety is the spice of life but uh emily what what does this mean for our owners our satisfaction score because the way i understand it we ask people you know would you buy this car again and rob could love the car but he's not going to say yes right he might not say yes because he just likes to try new things so i reached out to steve ellick he's our senior auto analyst and he deals very heavily with all of our survey data and basically the way steve explained it to me is it is based off of the question you know would you buy this car again however we're not asking it necessarily from the perspective of like are you going to run out right now and like go get another one it's more like do you regret this car purchase decision that for me like now that you've had it right so in rob's case you know he might love the car but he just might want to try a different brand or a different model for the next one so he won't necessarily go out and get the newest model of the same car but if he loved the car that he's in he should answer that he loves the car that he's in that you know that's more the perspective to have rather than being like well i've already done the research for my next car purchase and it's going to be this totally different car do you know what i mean it's all about kind of framing the question the right way i think um in terms of like your mentality when you're answering it so rob make sure when you answer the survey that you answer it based off of do you regret the decision that you made with this car and if not then you should say that you're satisfied uh if anything i would hold his opinion um in a high place because he's he's experiencing different brands and models so it's he's kind of like us in a sense right we're unbiased and we get to drive all this different stuff so he has a broader perspective um and i think that's worth something so that's that's exactly when he's answering he can say it from like that perspective like you're saying he's he's yeah because i tried more than one right well there are brand loyal or model loyal people that you know they only buy a volvo and that's it they but you know they're volvos for life and that's fine but uh they might be a little biased right i've i've only driven a ford ecosport and the ford echo sport is the best car that that exists right right yeah so i don't want to bash on the echo sport but we got it we get what you're saying it's dead we can we can we can say that um on to another question from daniel in austin uh and speaking of a car that that we've had some opinions on uh i've been interested in evs for a while now and i recently bought a pole star 2 launch edition i really enjoy it for its speed efficiency power and charging at home my question is this how do you think evs with around 200 to 250 miles of range will fare on the resell market in a few years our early adopters going to be extremely disappointed when it's time to trade that launch edition ev in this is i mean it's a great question there's a question a good friend of mine asked just the other day when he was looking at you know at cars with that you know 200 mile range and as we start to see cars going over 400 miles so uh ryan you were you were telling me about the you know about you looked at like the leaf and how much those are selling for yeah i mean the early the early leafs um i mean they only had what 80 mile range um that was in ideal conditions and they're dirt cheap i mean you can you can find them for like next to nothing it seems like and it's not especially now compared to everything else well right yeah and right now i mean listen right now it's not a good time to be buying a car in the first place but um they're cheap um and you know 80 mile range is not a lot uh so i mean there are it will work for some people that's fine you know what they'll get a smoking deal they can commute back and forth to work with within the 80 mile range and they're fine with that that's great but um you know he's talking about 200 to 250 miles um so those are more these are much more substantial uh evs right i have a hard time saying that any evs right now will hold their value well just because i i think of them like computers technology advances so fast um they're you know they're rapidly changing i mean just in a couple of years we've gone from you know less than 100 miles up to now we have this you know this new tesla's claiming 400 and change it changes so fast so they could think tomorrow they could come out with a new battery technology and we can get five six hundred miles and that all their stuff is archaic uh you know part of the past i have a hard time saying it will hold its resale well but i think for sure the 200 250 would hold it's going to hold its value better than the you know the 80 mile leaf um that's just my personal take on it i guess yeah i i mean i i know we have lucid coming out now uh with something in the 500s which is just which is astounding it's also a card that's well into the six figures and you also have to look at it in terms of also you know how much money you saved if you're depending upon how much your energy costs in in in texas and you're charging it at home uh you know the cost of maintaining it the end price could be that the depreciation isn't really something that matters as much because we found that evs do sort of you know we have some some information online our folks in in advocacy crunched some numbers and found that evs do save money over time so especially the longer you keep it so you know you're not paying for oil changes you're not paying for uh you know other things that can then that can go wrong that just don't exist on the polestar so right if you want to look at and find out what the top contenders for range are right now you can head over to consumerreports.org we have an article about lucid and it also explains what lucids is new if you don't if you haven't been following it's this new ev manufacturer based in arizona and uh they have these very expensive uh high mileage vehicles so head over to cr.org and look at that article angie from pittsburgh pennsylvania has a question my wife and i are looking for a used suv to replace one of our current sedans we have two small children ages one and four and we're looking for a vehicle that is safe and reliable has a wide enough bench seat for two car seats and a third adult plus all-wheel drive our budget is twenty thousand to twenty five thousand but we're willing to go up to twenty eight thousand for the right vehicle my wife would like something more upscale but it is not a necessity that's a it's another one of those questions that's really representative so i see car seats here so emily i'm gonna go to you first uh do you have any just sort of general buying advice for for for someone who wants to see if their car seats fit take your seats with you to the dealership that is the big piece of advice i've done it um they might look at you a little weird but you know what it's a big purchase and it does not make sense for you to buy a car that does not fit your car seats unless you intend on buying new car seats you want to ensure that for your specific car seats you're able to get a secure installation in the vehicle that you're going to have so it's really important to actually do that with any vehicle that you're considering also for something like what you're asking where you want to be able to fit two car seats in the back plus an adult it varies from vehicle to vehicle it varies from car seat to car seat because you might have really skinny car seat models you might have bulkier ones you know how you fit back there or how the car seats can fit next to each other is there's different configurations that you can try and you should totally do that you should try them all out you should put the seats next to each other you should put them on the two outboard seats and see if you have enough space to get into the middle and be comfortable there and buckle up etc definitely try out the back seat of any vehicle that you're considering that being said i did some digging in the pittsburgh area and i found a 2020 mazda cx-5 probably not upscale like you asked but it was a car that i really really liked when we had it here at the track and i only had one car city at that time but i was often in the back seat with micah and so i i can vouch that it was pretty comfortable it has um really great reliability for that generation i would definitely go with the 2020 model has better reliability than the 2018 and the 2019s did it has good ihs crash scores standard advanced driver assist systems it also allows you to do center borrowing for the lower anchors in the back seat so if you wanted to install one of the car seats in the middle see you could borrow the lower anchors from the two outboard seats and then use a seat belt installation in one of the outboard seating positions so there's a little bit more flexibility and i thought i had good cargo space for having kids so that's my recommendation but ultimately even with that you would still need to try out your own seats in that car before we go into our other questions you might notice that this podcast uh like our magazine like our website is missing a few things oh it's missing something it's missing ads it's missing ads from car companies it's missing ads from dealerships it's missing ads from you know people pitching mattresses and telling funny stories about their mattress and trying to get you to put in a promo code you don't have to remember any promo codes if you want to support talking cards you just have to go to cr.org give talking cars cr.org give talking cars and that's where you can send a little bit of money to us we're a non-profit um the you know the money that that you send us helps to you know keep this happening it also helps us to keep testing these vehicles independently we buy our own cars to test them we don't borrow them from manufacturers the way that almost everyone else out there does um and that keeps us independent and and unbiased so cr.org give talking cars uh our next question comes from brian uh brian asks i would love to see some reviews on the new three peak snow slash all season tires and i think i think he's talking about the logo with a little uh the three mountain peaks uh that are coming out i bought two sets of the michelin cross climate and looked at the competing goodyear model too does the performance of these tires fall between snow and all-season tires are these the holy grail for those of us with occasional snowstorms thanks so uh before i throw this question to ryan i just feel like i have to set the table because we get so many questions about these i think people don't know what these are ryan can you explain what these tires are because you know we hear about oh you have to switch over from winter to to you know all season or winter to summer tires are these tires that can actually kind of keep that from happening and especially in a place like you know southern new england where the snow isn't crazy but you get it you know what what's going on here yeah so um the for us in the northern regions and we're you know we get snow we we deal with um winter tires often right so you have all season tires which are just regular uh you know all around tires you can use them year round um they're the most common tires you'll find on vehicles today and then a dedicated winter tire is designed to be used from you know the when fall in the end of fall beginning of winter through the winter and then you take them off in the spring this is because they are not designed for warm temperatures they have a softer compound a special tread design um and they they're they're soft because they're softer they wear faster so you know running them year round wouldn't be advantageous anyway those dedicated winter tires carry a three-peak mountain snowflake symbol that keith um just mentioned it's actually a symbol on the sidewall that that says that that tire passed a minimum snow traction requirement so it was an actual test um attached to that you'll see on a lot of other all season tires um all terrain tires a an m s on the sidewall mud and snow it'll just say m plus s on the sidewall that might sound like it's good for snow but it's actu it might be but it's not an actual test that's a um it's actually a void a geometry measurement how much void is in the tread so you know a real racy like summer slick tire wouldn't have an m s on it because it doesn't have enough void it's just you know the actual design but either way that's not that tired didn't actually pass a snow traction test this new class of tires is kind of emerging and it's um we call them all weather tires so these all weather tires have they they actually have this three peak mountain snowflake symbol on the sidewall meaning they pass the same test um that the winter tire the dedicated winter tires passed um to get that symbol on the sidewall but the beauty of these is you can use them year round they can be used year-round like a an all-season tire but they have this added snow traction you know getting back to the the is it the holy grail i i would say that they're they're an excellent choice for like he said someone around here where um in connecticut where it snows but not heavily a lot going back to his question the best thing he can do is check our ratings we just tested this past year seven different models of all-weather tires and you can see where they fall i will give a slight hint that the cross climate is a very very good tire and i don't think you'll be upset that you purchased them this is great i think this is why people like to listen and and watch so um uh selden from singapore has a question i follow cr for reliability ratings cars are exceptionally expensive in singapore and when i was looking for a car i did not want something common i purchased a 2017 citron grand c4 picasso mpv 1.6 diesel because it's unique when i was searching reviews i only found them in from european reviewers and none from america why is citron not sold in america are there any plans for citroen to be sold there also i assume if it's not available in america then reviews from consumer reports will not be available either so yeah you're you're right uh i i'm gonna take this one is anyone mind if i take the french car question i don't think we have a choice yeah okay uh i think this is put in here for bait for me but anyhow so like you're a singaporean doppelganger yeah it's it's really this is this is this is weird it's like talking to myself so uh so citroen left the united states in 1974. um and you know that back then they were kind of cars they were expensive they were unique um and the us just was was too too difficult for them one of the reasons why was because there are different rules in different countries about things like headlights uh citron had these sort of self-leveling headlights that were really cool and they could turn with the wheel and they weren't legal in the united states so they had to make separate headlights for the us market and that sort of lack of harmonization means that there are sort of these galapagos islands where this independent invention and evolution takes place and and citron did its own thing and they left at you know people bought them i mean my grandmother's across the street neighbor had one up until the 80s but um and there's actually one just up the street from me uh an importer brought some in the in the late 80s but the u.s is very strict with import rules meaning you can't bring in something that's uh under 25 years old so you can't even bring in one a new one on your own the other thing is that roads and driving patterns are totally different in different countries so what might work in one country doesn't always translate for over here so you know we're not going to unfortunately as much as i would like to convince uh gabe to put a citron on the list of things to test we're not going to test one because even if we imported one and drove one here and tested it it would be such a different environment for it that it wouldn't you know it wouldn't be apples to apples the other thing is that citron's not coming back to the to the us they're they're part of stalantis now which is the the big group that includes fiat chrysler pujo a bunch of other brands um they're not coming back uh there was a plan a brief plan to bring pujo back to the u.s and that was that was scrapped much to my sadness so i was just gonna say i always had a little spot in my heart for citroens just i'm a huge rally fan i love watching rally racing and one of the best rally drivers um ever drove was sebastian loeb and he drove many different citroens but he was driving the citroen c4 and i remember watching a couple years you know several years back watching the rally on tv and it's just what what awesome cars you know you have we have all the wrxs and all that stuff here but those cars were just like these little hot hatches and they were just fantastic it's fun to watch and i always wish they came here but never made it yeah the us doesn't like weird we like everything to we care so much about resale value i mean we don't even have cars in colors anymore so we don't you don't do weird that's too bad um martin from frederick maryland asks as i near retirement i'm looking at purchasing what could very well be my last automobile i refuse to buy an suv so that leaves me with mid-size sedans i've narrowed it down to three used models in the following order one a 2018 or newer honda accord hybrid uh two a toyota camry hybrid or three ugg in his words a 2019 toyota prius hybrid however recently the evil his words alfa romeo julia ti sport has been creeping into my periphery my practical side says to stay away but the alpha is tugging at my heartstrings please talk me off the ledge thanks in advance oh man well i don't think that i will be the one to tell you to get the alpha romeo sorry about that we're the smartest of all of us here so listen to her i'm sure it has it's perks which ryan can probably tell you from driving it on the track but it wasn't my favorite of the choices that you presented before the alpha remain you know your practical choices i liked the 2020 honda accord hybrid thank you so the 2018 but you said or newer so i took or newer it has better reliability than the 2018 it's really great fuel economy we have that car as part of our test fleet for the child seat program and it's comfortable i find it easy to drive the controls are fairly easy to use it has standard advanced driver safety systems you can get the optional blind spot warning so make sure that you do i would definitely encourage that and it has really good crash scores so that was gonna be my pick you know it allows you to save some money in retirement with the hybrid model but also have something that's comfortable in our report we did say that it's a little bit low to the ground so you might want to check your access before you get it like see how comfortable you are getting in and out that would be my only thing but otherwise i thought that was a really good choice i think you should you should you should definitely reframe uh there's a phrase there my last car and you know my my father about like 15 years before he died said i want i think this is going to be my last car he had four more cars after that every single one of them he said i don't have you know uh the the one thing you have in retirement usually is time and um my father's first last car was an incredibly unreliable vehicle and he spent most of his time um sitting and reading newspapers in the mechanics waiting room so for all the fun that you get driving that alpha uh you know a few days a week do you really wanna i mean you know some of these dealerships are actually really nice to you they have coffee you know it's an alpha dealer so they're probably gonna be shared with like a maserati one so you can get espresso so you can say if you like to go to like starbucks or something you can save a lot of money but just you know keep in mind what's what's gonna happen also uh i'd suggest looking at my favorite car a 2019 toyota avalon hybrid uh you know as good fuel economy as as as almost as good as a camry but it just it's that bigger wheelbase means that you might get some of that ride quality you're looking for in the comfort so if you can swing that um you know take a look but i'm not going to tell you what to do but uh but just you know keep in mind what that might entail ryan you've you're probably the most familiar with the alpha so what what do you say well i'll be completely honest and transparent the alpha is a blaster drive right i mean it's a it's a super sharp uh steering it got super sharp steering it's just it handles really well it's like a little sports car right but um it's low to the ground the door openings are actually relatively small uh it's cramped inside it's a it's a sporty very very sporty car it's very different than the other three uh that he's listed i mean it is but i i haven't been known for doing practical things in my life so i would probably buy the alpha but i'm also i'm not at retirement age so uh you have to weigh that in and like keith said uh the amount of time you're going to spend at the dealer cause they're not the most reliable but i would go up if if we if we're not going to have fun i would say the i'm a fan of the the camry uh hybrid i spent thousands of hours in a regular camry testing tires but the uh you can't beat a toyota hybrid system um and the camera is a good size it's easy to get in and out of that would be my pick of those three but the alpha i don't know it'd be fun and and honestly the prius has its own charms i mean you can that big that big hatchback is is really really useful if you're doing projects if you're you know i it's it's it's you know it's not fun in the same way but it can make your life better in a way that makes you happier so who knows anyhow let's uh yeah martin write us back tell us what you tell us what you decided george has a question why do manufacturers make cars now with eight nine or ten speed transmissions uh my old 1999 and 2004 toyota camrys have four speed transmissions and they've been working just fine all these years it seems like the more complexity in a system the more possibility for trouble as the cars age what's the advantage to having more gears fuel economy okay next but no um it's set it's that simple um you know yeah the older cars had uh you know heck they had they went they had two speed transmissions at one time then three and then four and people were complaining about that that they weren't efficient those cars were not efficient they had you know some of these cars had big engines in them and it's you know that's okay because it can push it but what we're finding is with the with adding more gears allows a smaller engine to push a heavier vehicle so you're seeing we're seeing a lot of four-cylinder four-cylinder turbo engine cars or turbo engines put into larger cars i mean the technology like any like anything else technology is advancing so we're building better lighter transmissions that shift smoothly you don't even know that you're going through eight nine ten gears but they are more efficient he is right you are you know the more things you add to a vehicle the more opportunity you you introduce um you know for failure or issues and the manufacturers are uh you know they have pressure from you know the industry and the government and everything you know you know to raise their fuel economy numbers um in the quest of you know becoming more green and you know saving on earth and all that stuff so adding more gears has been uh an answer you know so they've it's been working so that's why fuel economy and you know some of these transmissions like some which we saw early on from ford and and chrysler with multi-speed transmissions had some teething problems early on completely not going to lie about that but they're starting to you know i i i they're not showing up in our reliability surveys is right big issues even the the cvt transmission continuously variable transmission it's infinite gears there's you can't even count them right i mean it's it's literally there's no actual gears to count um but the early ones are though you know early ones of those were problematic but they've become a lot better and those are much lighter and you know they have they have their other issues um in terms of drivability sometimes but they've come a long way and um yeah just technology advances and um you know and wait a year before you buy something new yeah yeah yeah so our last question is from randy and tennessee hey talking cars i have a question about a do it all vehicle i own a 2011 ford escape with 90 000 miles i'm looking for a car that i can take camping is comfortable on long road trips has enough room for gear and friends and can also serve as my daily driver not sure if i should go with a truck suv or even a car or maybe a hybrid for the mileage my budget is 35 000 new or used thanks for any advice so wow this is this is really a do-it-all vehicle emily what do you think i really struggled to find you a goldilocks car randy especially with the camping and the gear so we recently talked about this vehicle on the show i went with the 2022 santa fe hybrid i really like the hybrid version over the um the regular gas engine for the um santa fe i think it's roomy it's comfortable it drives much better it actually gives you that initial thrust acceleration that you need versus the gas version which does not and you know you have ample cargo space if you need to have rear passengers if you're going on a trip with friends or something you know you have the room to do that or you can just fold all those seats down and you'll have like a ton of great cargo room back there and it has pretty decent fuel economy so um yeah i mean he mentions the gear and the camping and uh so i'm thinking kind of an outdoorsy you know um type of person and i'm gonna i'm gonna go i'm gonna throw a wrench in here a little bit and i'm gonna say a toyota 4runner now the forerunner is a um more i will i'll call it more of a trucky suv it's got more so it's off-roady it's it's i i would say that the daily driving might be a little bit on the lower side you know comfort wise it's not the most comfortable i like truckee off-roady kind of vehicles and that's a you know you can go to the you can go down dirt road and get to your uh you know your secret fishing spot or go camping wherever um but it's you know it's kind of off-roady and outdoorsy so i i would say a forerunner i think that that would be fun the um as a callback to our earlier question you can get one of those the five-speed transmission right yeah that'll tell you something about its fuel economy um my pick is is actually there's a little caveat here uh it's we haven't driven it yet because we haven't gotten one in but it's on the list and maybe i'll have to come back and eat my words i think the the the almost to do everything vehicle is actually the ford maverick this new pickup truck this new small truck it's available as a hybrid it starts at around twenty thousand dollars um and you can really get it well equipped for thirty five thousand you can get it very well equipped they're gonna come out with you know even a camper shell for it uh too so you can keep your gear in the back something that's really cool about is there's all this kind of diy stuff you can do it's designed so you can build your own bike rack and it sounds like you you kind of want to you know you've got friends which is something i'm i'm unfamiliar with you like to camp which is something i'm unfamiliar but it sounds like you like want to do things and and you know make your own bike rack you can make your own car camper you can you know it's it's it's sort of a base from which you can explore so i say wait for our review of the maverick before you or at least our first drive before you do anything else because i certainly am waiting for that so the maverick will definitely be on a future episode of talking cars we've got a lot of questions about that that vehicle but for now that's all the time we have thanks for your questions thanks for sending them to talking cars at icloud.com you can head over to cr.org and learn even more about tires and even more about car seats than emily and ryan uh shared today but for now thanks for talking cars with us and we'll talk cars again soon\n"