lot of people that's what they want they don't need the you know i mean we've looked at this before i mean sometimes like mercedes-benz models you know you have to get rear heated and cooled cupholders in order to get a pedestrian detection i'll link it that way is just asinine um you know if you want the safety you should be able to get that safety shouldn't come at the additional cost especially when you're already spending 25 30 even more thousands dollars for this car all right so yeah general advice get the most safety that you can which brings us to our final question we're going to wrap this up with a question uh from john from fairfax virginia my wife and i have a 2015 honda pilot and a 2008 acura tl our oldest has a learner's permit and we've been letting him practice his driving skills on both cars so he gets familiar with different vehicle sizes handling etc he's doing a great job and seems to prefer the acura we've got others that will be driving soon and are thinking of letting the tl become the kid car which means i'll need a new daily driver i may be middle-aged suburban dad but i'd still like a little flare when i drive another exclamation point right now i'm thinking about the mazda6 but wanted to know if you had any suggestions

so we're in this the the quick answer uh section of this podcast uh suburban cool dad uh jen what uh what what do you think that um john should drive right so so it struck me too as we were looking that mike quincy myself and jake fisher all have 16 year olds so we're we're here in hijab we're all in it with you right now deciding what's the safest vehicles for these kids so one the tl is a good choice for them you know jake mentioned stability control that 2008 tl actually had standard stability control way ahead of when it was mandated so so good choice there the mazda 6 it absolutely stands out among midsize sedans for and i quote consumer record reports it's driving exuberance it sets itself apart in terms of what you're saying a little more flair a little more agility so good choice there among that group what i did say is if you wanted to stretch the pocketbook a little bit and maybe john after raising some teenagers you deserve it that maybe an audi a4 even used 2017 or later audi a4 so not really old would be kind of a gift to yourself certainly steps it up in terms of agility still a rear seat that some grown children can get into so that was my only thought but if if you're sticking with that midsize sedan the the mazda6 is a great choice jake i'm going to go the other way and i'm gonna say you know if you've got a your kids are growing up maybe you don't need that much room and if you go one size smaller those vehicles over the last several years have gotten a lot bigger so if you look at things like a volkswagen gti or a honda civic sports or even a mazda 3 these vehicles are pretty substantial roomy comfortable vehicles that are really sporty you could get them with stick shifts and they are i mean become really sports cars um and when you go one size slow smaller check all the boxes get the leather get all the get all the options you want the sunroof everything um and it they kind of feel more substantial and they're they're comfortable and uh you know probably will suit suit you pretty well excellent i i actually like both your choices however i'm gonna switch it up a little bit i'm going with the camry xse now a lot of people think camry they think boring but trim line in this case really matters the xse has a has a a stiffer suspension it has sportier tires um a great fuel economy i'd go with the front wheel drive model i would go with the four cylinder uh and you really you can't beat uh camry's reliability a great reliability history a long list of standard safety features don't laugh the camry especially in the xse model it's a driver's car it really has meaty steering it has good handling don't kid yourself it's really really good so um so that kind of gives uh john a few vehicles to choose from and unfortunately that brings us to the end of this episode always check the show notes for more information on the vehicles and topics that we discussed these all questioned episodes are super fun we love doing them so keep the questions coming talking cars at icloud.com thanks so much for tuning in and we'll see you next week

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis week we discuss how stopping distances compare between all season and winter tires no haggle used car dealers why replacement car keys are so expensive these days and more next on talking cars hi and welcome back i'm mike quincy i'm jake fisher and i'm jennifer stockberger so great news talking cars fans this is going to be an all questions episode which we love doing let's get right into it we get lots of emails text questions video questions keep them coming talking cars at icloud.com that's talking cars at icloud.com so first up it's tim from chicago where i live we have on average 28 days with fresh snow a year i like the idea of winter tires but cr's ratings on most recommended winter tires show the dry braking only fair and wet breaking is poor most all-season tires seem to perform better in these tests since we only experienced snow for about half the days of winter season am i giving up traction on more days that would benefit me tim thanks for the question jen uh what advice do you have so um the first thing that tim's question points out is that our ratings for tires are universal meaning they're representing all tires about across different types so when tim is seeing those fares and pours for breaking distances for winter tires for example that's true relative to some of maybe the higher performance tires that have very very short braking distances so that's the first thing so it is reflecting the universe not necessarily just winter tires so with that said great jake out actually a great idea i reached out to jean and ryan to get some sense of what the magnitude of those differences were so i asked gene and i have numbers comparing passenger all season tires the mom and pop tee rated h-rated tires to winter tires of that comparable and we're looking at just to give you a sense dry and wet breaking it's about 30 feet more breaking distances with a winter tire than it is with the all-season tires the converse snow traction which is our test of accelerating from 5 to 20 miles per hour on packed snow it takes about 20 more feet with an all-season tire to gain that traction than it does with the winter tire and then ice breaking is about six feet shorter with winter tires but let me just qualify there six feet doesn't sound from a lot it's only from 10 miles per hour just pointing out because it's done on an ice rink so it becomes those those magnitudes are certainly enough to be thinking is this what i want to do as tim is but i would say it's less tim about how many days of snow you get but rather more importantly do you have to be out in it if you are a person we've said this time that has a job where you have to drive on snow-covered roads you cannot beat the benefits of the dedicated winter tire in getting you there again to his point sacrificing some dry and wet breaking but being aware of it when the roads are cleared and of course as we always say getting those winter tires off when spring comes and and you're into the warmer and no no risk for snow months so hopefully that's helpful that's that's a really good point jen especially considering how many of us are working at home these days uh you know how what what kind of job uh might require you to get out there and i mean jake fisher has a driveway that you know makes uh uh the the drive up mount everest seemed to seem tame so so you're obviously jake a big fan of of of winter and snow tires yeah well i i have been um i've always had uh winter tires for my cars um going back years and years um you know i know i you know back when i lived in michigan i would drive my toyota mr2 uh with snow tires and i would be able to get around when uh you know other cars wouldn't but you know it re tim tim's got a great point and this what the one thing i just want to kind of throw in here is that with a lot of us now working at home and a lot of us really i mean i think a lot of workplaces depending on what you do are more acceptable of working at a home occasionally going forward it does change the calculus about this so for instance i have always had for my wife's prius we have always had winter tires but right now she's been working at home and even in the future she'll probably be working at home a lot more so when you start really thinking about the future here um you know i'm i'm trying to think will my wife ever drive in the snow again you know um you know the kids the kids are gonna go on buses um but if this if it's bad weather out because she's so used to working at home and now has the technology to work at home you know there may be a lot less cars out in the road and if you're one of those people who has this opportunity to you know and even schools i mean i i suspect when this you know the snow flies they're just going to flip the switch and they they know how to do remote learning now um you know is it that important so i think you got to take all that into account of of whether or not you're going to be using them or not great question tim it's going to take us to our next which is from susan and susan writes why is it so expensive for replacement car keys i needed replacements for my lincoln mkx and the dealer told me it would cost 400 exclamation point i asked why and was told the cost was because they had to be programmed by a computer is that normal cost these days so great question susan it's not an easy or inexpensive fix if you lose your car keys these days so key fobs can cost actually anywhere between 50 to 400 dollars so that number that you were quoted as kind of sort of in the ballpark um and and if your car was built in the last five years or so you're kind of stuck you're kind of stuck having to go back to the dealer for replacement and pay these high prices uh the the programming equipment that they use the dealers is expensive and that's kind of where it where you know where it hits you now the good news is if your car is more than five years old a consumer report's advice uh is to call up a locksmith you might be able to save a lot of money by getting a an after-market key fob but but keep in mind that some manufacturers and we did a big story about this mike monticello who's a regular contributor to talking cars did a great story and we found out that audi and subaru for example uh told us that some aftermarket fobs won't work so um it's kind of uh there's some some good consumer advice here um but it's not uh a slam dunk in that you can always get by with a cheaper fix and i mean jake we were talking about this question before and you definitely had some feelings about this well i mean look the whole the question is why is it so expensive and and the truth is yes it is expensive but why is it and the truth is it's about profitability when it comes to after-market products and i should say after market i should say replacement parts there's they're profit centers for automobile companies they they absolutely are so like if you need to replace the wheel on your car a new alloy wheel it may cost 500 of the dealership do you really think it costs 500 to put it on the car for the car company i mean this this might be a 60 wheel that they're not charging at 500 for it so the markup is incredible and you know just put that in perspective 400 for a keep up i mean you could buy a really nice chromebook for 400 right i mean we understand what technology you could buy for 400 you know and you think about all the technology that goes into that it's way more so um yeah it's it's overpriced um you know it's unfortunate but you know if there's a way you could do something on the aftermarket or go to a locksmith go for it but but yeah it's it is overpriced i i feel you i mean jen as we've often talked about with with automotive technology get making things better and easier there's there's sometimes there is a downside to it isn't it yeah and and often it is cost even you know the cost of safety we talk about that you know the the advantages but the replacement cost of some new safety features so yes that often is the downside i do think we certainly support the ones where the benefits outweigh that so um i would i would say yeah in this case the convenience of the fob for many people does outweigh the cost anyway check out mike monticello's story on consumerreports.org for more information on key fobs for those that don't know cr is a non-profit and we're able to do all of the work we do including anonymously buying our test cards and producing this show through memberships to our website and magazine as well as through donations what the talking cars donation program will do is allow loyal talking cars fans to show support for the podcast assist in supporting the costs of producing the podcast as well as support all the work cr does to keep consumers safe you'll be able to contribute either as a one-time donation or on a monthly basis even five dollars a month really helps go to cr.org give talking cars to find out more in any event we'll keep delivering talking cars each and every week again go to cr.org give talking cars to find out more next up as we've heard uh from luke from collegeville pennsylvania what is your opinion on used car dealers that don't negotiate like car sense car max etc my grandparents are obsessed with them saying they don't negotiate because they are priced right thoughts so jake um you definitely had some opinions about this matter in our meeting so uh take it away well it depends on who you are if you're someone who likes to negotiate and you think you get the best price then go for it but if you're like um like a lot of people and myself included if you don't want to haggle you just want to get a fair price i think it's a great option um it's a terrific option because the truth is that you know if you are this master hagler negotiator and you could go and get the best price that dealership is going to turn around and just kind of really inflate the price for someone else it's all comes out in the wash so um you know i think it's a great way you know it's interesting you know saturn we were talking about before i mean like you know years ago they actually had you know just like this is your price there's no negotiation actually some other car companies do this too i mean if you go to an and buy a tesla for instance right now there isn't a negotiation there it's like this is the price and generally people really like that um nobody likes to go to the car dealership nobody likes to go and and buy cars and part of the reason is is this they're trying to nickel and dime you for all these things so it is a good option i mean in our car buying service if you go to consumer reports and you you purchase a car through through us we've actually switched there was a time that we said here's what the dealership is getting is is paying for it and negotiate from there um but now we go to a pre-negotiated price and say okay this is a good deal pay this and from the people who have used that service that they like that more um and i understand that jenna are are you a real negotiator you're a real haggler so no i am not so i joke you know one of the things we do at home is we we like to go to flea markets and antiques i mean you can probably see i've got some old stuff back here and that there's very few things areas where you still do that haggling in negotiation antiques are one of them but we're usually talking about 50 to 100 dollars versus maybe hundreds or thousands of dollars for a car i do not like it some people though i do yeah i agree most people don't like it which is why people like carmax and carson's are doing you know a decent business but there are some people that it's a sport they absolutely and you may be one of them mike quincy that enjoy that challenge i i actually i'm kind of with you i i don't like the haggling but you you just describe my father yeah he enjoys it right exactly and some of the people we work with they absolutely enjoy um so take the tips you know um you know do your research don't do the monthly payment don't spout that out try and get your best offer but i will say too jake talked about the the populations that will end up paying more sometimes women are one of those populations where they feel uh she's not gonna know much so what they they lost on your father they're gonna gain back on someone like me and and that does happen now do you want to go home and talk to your husband about this you know type of thing so so if you feel like that's the process and we've always said walk out of a dealership ask for a different person salesperson if you're not liking the transaction all of those tools but yes i am not a haggler all right i i think we could almost spend an entire episode talking about negotiation so we do need to move on so here's one from jay from new jersey i have a 2017 vw gti and a 2019 mazda cx-9 both manufacturers state in their manuals that premium fuel will boost horsepower but both cars are recommended for regular fuel are there any other reasons i might want to use regular besides the cost savings i've used premium in my gti for a while and find it runs much smoother when i use premium so listen jake we've got premium versus regular you know let's get ready to rumble uh tell us what what should people be putting in their cars well it depends on your car but i mean for this person who um it's not requiring premium and most cars don't require premium use regular if you see a benefit um in these cases you can get a little more horsepower and even an older car that doesn't require premium you might it might be smoother you you could prevent detonation as the technical term but but the point is that it could actually help it but if there's no benefit that you're seeing from the premium use regular if you use regular are you harming anything if you use premium and you have no benefit are you harming anything well let's be clear you're not going to hurt your your regular car by using premium you're not going to hurt it uh but you're just wasting your money if you're not seeing any benefit i think it really just comes down to that right but jen we know that some manufacturers make it clear they say premium is required right and then that you know that's how we test when it's required we use it i mean required is required and obviously the engine's tuned for that that level octane level of octane but i almost say how much horsepower do you need on regular roads some of these small you know four-cylinder turbo charge there's a lot of horsepower there so um again to jake's point if you're not seeing a substantial benefit with the with the premium just go with the regular yeah and and as we often say with with questions about uh how do i operate my car check out your owner's manual always read that and we've always also said when you when you open up your fuel filler lid often there is a label inside that says you know you know just what what octane is required and sometimes it says premium fuel required and if that's the case i would put in premium but i'm with you guys with this it doesn't require it i wouldn't put it in next up is zenya from portland oregon do you know why push for park on electronic shifters is a thing now there are shifters that use all buttons rotary knobs traditional prndl or as we say prindle which of course stands for park reverse neutral drive and low but shifters and cars from bmw volvo genesis etc always put the park button in a weird unintuitive spot away from reverse neutral and drive buttons why isn't it potentially dangerous as people new to this design will think the car is in park when it isn't is there a benefit to having a button for park at all now yeah jake we've we've looked at this upside down sideways and backwards and especially when it comes to scoring our cars so what advice do you have for zenya uh well it's not even advice i we agree we agree i mean the um you know this is this is a problematic trend and we've been seeing for about 20 years it started with bmw that kind of we say broke the prindle you know and they just basically i think they actually lobbied the government to try to get rules so they didn't have to do it in a certain way and it's been just like scatter shot we've just seen all these random different ways of doing it now the question is why do they do it now we completely agree there's issues with it in fact we actually re remove points for some of these shifters in both in the usability of them as well as we found issues with people actually not getting the thing in the park getting out of the car and the car is rolling away which causes a danger and if they don't automatically have a roll away prevention we're taking additional points off in our scoring so so it is a big issue why do they do it and we've been kind of scratching our heads about why do you mess these things up you know i mean you have something that works i'm all for developing things and making them better but it didn't really seem initially that they've made them better i will say some are better for a couple of reasons some are better for one you sometimes have a lot more room in your cockpit so we so if you look at honda systems for instance they're very flat you've usually got more room to put cup holders and cubbies and bins whereas sometimes like that shifter is kind of like you know you crush your cup or something like that so there's some conveniences to that the other issue which some many of these now actually because of our scoring have changed is they will automatically actuate so for instance if you forget to put the car into park or you open up the door or and you're still in drive or in neutral they'll automatically go to park and that's harder to do when you have like like a physical shifter so that is a kind of advantage however with a physical shifter you could do that too you could put the emergency brake on so there's there's things like that so so there's kind of a somewhat weak reason that they're actually adding them i suspect part of it is they they seem neat they seem futuristic i think that's unfortunate um but what we'll say i mean some of them aren't as bad as others and we're continuing to look at them and continue to rate them and and jen stockberger you're one of our many safety gurus here at consumer reports um why do you think the manufacturers are doing this yeah i think jake has already touched on to real estate you know those electronic versions can take up far less room than a traditional prindle and differentiation we did something a little different we'll even see it on the same model between different trim lines or different type you know that they will go have a a regular shifter on the lower trim for example and the push button on a higher it's as it seems to be like a a sense of higher end to have a fancier or a different shifter and zenyatta to zenya's point we are all living with the transition so we are very used to a traditional shifter so it's changing and is that a higher learning curve for those of us who are used to driving with the prindle probably over the weekend i drove our our tested ram 1500 pickup truck which has a rotary knob and then i took it back to the track and switched over to our our sonata hybrid which has the push buttons and one of the things that we do here at consumer reports is we're testing all the new technology all the new cars and we're gonna have more and more experience with these gear selectors as time goes on but great question i especially love the emphasis of why okay next up is a is a question from jean noel my honda crv is a touring model with all the safety features standard however the model you tested isn't as well equipped with any model rate higher because all the safety features are standard and you award points for safety okay back to safety and back to jen stockberger so the short answer john noel is yes but so when we award points for the safety features that have been proven effective forward collision warning automatic emergency braking blind spot warning pedestrian detection we are doing that at what we're calling the model level so in your case all honda crvs are getting those points regardless of the trim ex ex-l touring as you mentioned so the key there is that feature has to be standard equipment across all of those trim lines but every crv will get that whether our test car has that or not uh jake you have a brief story about a certain honda a hyundai elantra se which kind of you know changed the way we looked at this also yeah well i mean at one point we were kind of looking at it as slightly different and we had tested a hyundai elantra sc this was years ago and at the time that was the only way you could get stability control this was when they were kind of optional and they played the same games with the safety equipment uh at that time i'm not just talking about hyundai i mean all the automakers so yes the hyundai elantra se you wound up as a top pick and they're i'm pretty convinced that many people purchased hyundai elantra non-essies and wound up buying that based on our our top pick status and we know that because when we have our surveys we see all these people we knew the trims and they're like uh yeah they didn't get the stability control and we really took that to heart and so so while honda has made the touring model had that standard safety equipment why do you have to get the touring you know why why do automakers make you get the leather interior in the big center or if in order to get the safety equipment because the safety equipment for a lot of people that's what they want they don't need the you know i mean we've looked at this before i mean sometimes like mercedes-benz models you know you have to get rear heated and cooled cupholders in order to get a pedestrian detection i'll link it that way is just asinine um you know if you want the safety you should be able to get that safety shouldn't come at the additional cost especially when you're already spending 25 30 even more thousands dollars for this car all right so yeah general advice get the most safety that you can which brings us to our final question we're going to wrap this up with a question uh from john from fairfax virginia my wife and i have a 2015 honda pilot and a 2008 acura tl our oldest has a learner's permit and we've been letting him practice his driving skills on both cars so he gets familiar with different vehicle sizes handling etc he's doing a great job and seems to prefer the acura we've got others that will be driving soon and are thinking of letting the tl become the kid car which means i'll need a new daily driver i may be middle-aged suburban dad but i'd still like a little flare when i drive another exclamation point right now i'm thinking about the mazda6 but wanted to know if you had any suggestions all right so we're in this the the quick answer uh section of this podcast uh suburban cool dad uh jen what uh what what do you think that um john should drive right so so it struck me too as we were looking that mike quincy myself and jake fisher all have 16 year olds so we're we're here in hijab we're all in it with you right now deciding what's the safest vehicles for these kids so one the tl is a good choice for them you know jake mentioned stability control that 2008 tl actually had standard stability control way ahead of when it was mandated so so good choice there the mazda 6 it absolutely stands out among midsize sedans for and i quote consumer record reports it's driving exuberance it sets itself apart in terms of what you're saying a little more flair a little more agility so good choice there among that group what i did say is if you wanted to stretch the pocketbook a little bit and maybe john after raising some teenagers you deserve it that maybe an audi a4 even used 2017 or later audi a4 so not really old would be kind of a gift to yourself certainly steps it up in terms of agility still a rear seat that some grown children can get into so that was my only thought but if if you're sticking with that midsize sedan the the mazda6 is a great choice jake i'm going to go the other way and i'm gonna say you know if you've got a your kids are growing up maybe you don't need that much room and if you go one size smaller those vehicles over the last several years have gotten a lot bigger so if you look at things like a volkswagen gti or a honda civic sports or even a mazda 3. these vehicles are pretty substantial roomy comfortable vehicles that are really sporty you could get them with stick shifts and they are i mean become really sports cars um and when you go one size slow smaller check all the boxes get the leather get all the get all the options you want the sunroof everything um and it they kind of feel more substantial and they're they're comfortable and uh you know probably will suit suit you pretty well excellent i i actually like both your choices however i'm gonna switch it up a little bit i'm going with the camry xse now a lot of people think camry they think boring but trim line in this case really matters the xse has a has a a stiffer suspension it has sportier tires um a great fuel economy i'd go with the front wheel drive model i would go with the four cylinder uh and you really you can't beat uh camry's reliability a great reliability history a long list of standard safety features um don't laugh the camry especially in the xse model it's a driver's car it really has meaty steering it has good handling don't kid yourself it's really really good so um so that kind of gives uh john a few vehicles to choose from and unfortunately that brings us to the end of this episode always check the show notes for more information on the vehicles and topics that we discussed these all questioned episodes are super fun we love doing them so keep the questions coming talking cars at icloud.com thanks so much for tuning in and we'll see you next weekthis week we discuss how stopping distances compare between all season and winter tires no haggle used car dealers why replacement car keys are so expensive these days and more next on talking cars hi and welcome back i'm mike quincy i'm jake fisher and i'm jennifer stockberger so great news talking cars fans this is going to be an all questions episode which we love doing let's get right into it we get lots of emails text questions video questions keep them coming talking cars at icloud.com that's talking cars at icloud.com so first up it's tim from chicago where i live we have on average 28 days with fresh snow a year i like the idea of winter tires but cr's ratings on most recommended winter tires show the dry braking only fair and wet breaking is poor most all-season tires seem to perform better in these tests since we only experienced snow for about half the days of winter season am i giving up traction on more days that would benefit me tim thanks for the question jen uh what advice do you have so um the first thing that tim's question points out is that our ratings for tires are universal meaning they're representing all tires about across different types so when tim is seeing those fares and pours for breaking distances for winter tires for example that's true relative to some of maybe the higher performance tires that have very very short braking distances so that's the first thing so it is reflecting the universe not necessarily just winter tires so with that said great jake out actually a great idea i reached out to jean and ryan to get some sense of what the magnitude of those differences were so i asked gene and i have numbers comparing passenger all season tires the mom and pop tee rated h-rated tires to winter tires of that comparable and we're looking at just to give you a sense dry and wet breaking it's about 30 feet more breaking distances with a winter tire than it is with the all-season tires the converse snow traction which is our test of accelerating from 5 to 20 miles per hour on packed snow it takes about 20 more feet with an all-season tire to gain that traction than it does with the winter tire and then ice breaking is about six feet shorter with winter tires but let me just qualify there six feet doesn't sound from a lot it's only from 10 miles per hour just pointing out because it's done on an ice rink so it becomes those those magnitudes are certainly enough to be thinking is this what i want to do as tim is but i would say it's less tim about how many days of snow you get but rather more importantly do you have to be out in it if you are a person we've said this time that has a job where you have to drive on snow-covered roads you cannot beat the benefits of the dedicated winter tire in getting you there again to his point sacrificing some dry and wet breaking but being aware of it when the roads are cleared and of course as we always say getting those winter tires off when spring comes and and you're into the warmer and no no risk for snow months so hopefully that's helpful that's that's a really good point jen especially considering how many of us are working at home these days uh you know how what what kind of job uh might require you to get out there and i mean jake fisher has a driveway that you know makes uh uh the the drive up mount everest seemed to seem tame so so you're obviously jake a big fan of of of winter and snow tires yeah well i i have been um i've always had uh winter tires for my cars um going back years and years um you know i know i you know back when i lived in michigan i would drive my toyota mr2 uh with snow tires and i would be able to get around when uh you know other cars wouldn't but you know it re tim tim's got a great point and this what the one thing i just want to kind of throw in here is that with a lot of us now working at home and a lot of us really i mean i think a lot of workplaces depending on what you do are more acceptable of working at a home occasionally going forward it does change the calculus about this so for instance i have always had for my wife's prius we have always had winter tires but right now she's been working at home and even in the future she'll probably be working at home a lot more so when you start really thinking about the future here um you know i'm i'm trying to think will my wife ever drive in the snow again you know um you know the kids the kids are gonna go on buses um but if this if it's bad weather out because she's so used to working at home and now has the technology to work at home you know there may be a lot less cars out in the road and if you're one of those people who has this opportunity to you know and even schools i mean i i suspect when this you know the snow flies they're just going to flip the switch and they they know how to do remote learning now um you know is it that important so i think you got to take all that into account of of whether or not you're going to be using them or not great question tim it's going to take us to our next which is from susan and susan writes why is it so expensive for replacement car keys i needed replacements for my lincoln mkx and the dealer told me it would cost 400 exclamation point i asked why and was told the cost was because they had to be programmed by a computer is that normal cost these days so great question susan it's not an easy or inexpensive fix if you lose your car keys these days so key fobs can cost actually anywhere between 50 to 400 dollars so that number that you were quoted as kind of sort of in the ballpark um and and if your car was built in the last five years or so you're kind of stuck you're kind of stuck having to go back to the dealer for replacement and pay these high prices uh the the programming equipment that they use the dealers is expensive and that's kind of where it where you know where it hits you now the good news is if your car is more than five years old a consumer report's advice uh is to call up a locksmith you might be able to save a lot of money by getting a an after-market key fob but but keep in mind that some manufacturers and we did a big story about this mike monticello who's a regular contributor to talking cars did a great story and we found out that audi and subaru for example uh told us that some aftermarket fobs won't work so um it's kind of uh there's some some good consumer advice here um but it's not uh a slam dunk in that you can always get by with a cheaper fix and i mean jake we were talking about this question before and you definitely had some feelings about this well i mean look the whole the question is why is it so expensive and and the truth is yes it is expensive but why is it and the truth is it's about profitability when it comes to after-market products and i should say after market i should say replacement parts there's they're profit centers for automobile companies they they absolutely are so like if you need to replace the wheel on your car a new alloy wheel it may cost 500 of the dealership do you really think it costs 500 to put it on the car for the car company i mean this this might be a 60 wheel that they're not charging at 500 for it so the markup is incredible and you know just put that in perspective 400 for a keep up i mean you could buy a really nice chromebook for 400 right i mean we understand what technology you could buy for 400 you know and you think about all the technology that goes into that it's way more so um yeah it's it's overpriced um you know it's unfortunate but you know if there's a way you could do something on the aftermarket or go to a locksmith go for it but but yeah it's it is overpriced i i feel you i mean jen as we've often talked about with with automotive technology get making things better and easier there's there's sometimes there is a downside to it isn't it yeah and and often it is cost even you know the cost of safety we talk about that you know the the advantages but the replacement cost of some new safety features so yes that often is the downside i do think we certainly support the ones where the benefits outweigh that so um i would i would say yeah in this case the convenience of the fob for many people does outweigh the cost anyway check out mike monticello's story on consumerreports.org for more information on key fobs for those that don't know cr is a non-profit and we're able to do all of the work we do including anonymously buying our test cards and producing this show through memberships to our website and magazine as well as through donations what the talking cars donation program will do is allow loyal talking cars fans to show support for the podcast assist in supporting the costs of producing the podcast as well as support all the work cr does to keep consumers safe you'll be able to contribute either as a one-time donation or on a monthly basis even five dollars a month really helps go to cr.org give talking cars to find out more in any event we'll keep delivering talking cars each and every week again go to cr.org give talking cars to find out more next up as we've heard uh from luke from collegeville pennsylvania what is your opinion on used car dealers that don't negotiate like car sense car max etc my grandparents are obsessed with them saying they don't negotiate because they are priced right thoughts so jake um you definitely had some opinions about this matter in our meeting so uh take it away well it depends on who you are if you're someone who likes to negotiate and you think you get the best price then go for it but if you're like um like a lot of people and myself included if you don't want to haggle you just want to get a fair price i think it's a great option um it's a terrific option because the truth is that you know if you are this master hagler negotiator and you could go and get the best price that dealership is going to turn around and just kind of really inflate the price for someone else it's all comes out in the wash so um you know i think it's a great way you know it's interesting you know saturn we were talking about before i mean like you know years ago they actually had you know just like this is your price there's no negotiation actually some other car companies do this too i mean if you go to an and buy a tesla for instance right now there isn't a negotiation there it's like this is the price and generally people really like that um nobody likes to go to the car dealership nobody likes to go and and buy cars and part of the reason is is this they're trying to nickel and dime you for all these things so it is a good option i mean in our car buying service if you go to consumer reports and you you purchase a car through through us we've actually switched there was a time that we said here's what the dealership is getting is is paying for it and negotiate from there um but now we go to a pre-negotiated price and say okay this is a good deal pay this and from the people who have used that service that they like that more um and i understand that jenna are are you a real negotiator you're a real haggler so no i am not so i joke you know one of the things we do at home is we we like to go to flea markets and antiques i mean you can probably see i've got some old stuff back here and that there's very few things areas where you still do that haggling in negotiation antiques are one of them but we're usually talking about 50 to 100 dollars versus maybe hundreds or thousands of dollars for a car i do not like it some people though i do yeah i agree most people don't like it which is why people like carmax and carson's are doing you know a decent business but there are some people that it's a sport they absolutely and you may be one of them mike quincy that enjoy that challenge i i actually i'm kind of with you i i don't like the haggling but you you just describe my father yeah he enjoys it right exactly and some of the people we work with they absolutely enjoy um so take the tips you know um you know do your research don't do the monthly payment don't spout that out try and get your best offer but i will say too jake talked about the the populations that will end up paying more sometimes women are one of those populations where they feel uh she's not gonna know much so what they they lost on your father they're gonna gain back on someone like me and and that does happen now do you want to go home and talk to your husband about this you know type of thing so so if you feel like that's the process and we've always said walk out of a dealership ask for a different person salesperson if you're not liking the transaction all of those tools but yes i am not a haggler all right i i think we could almost spend an entire episode talking about negotiation so we do need to move on so here's one from jay from new jersey i have a 2017 vw gti and a 2019 mazda cx-9 both manufacturers state in their manuals that premium fuel will boost horsepower but both cars are recommended for regular fuel are there any other reasons i might want to use regular besides the cost savings i've used premium in my gti for a while and find it runs much smoother when i use premium so listen jake we've got premium versus regular you know let's get ready to rumble uh tell us what what should people be putting in their cars well it depends on your car but i mean for this person who um it's not requiring premium and most cars don't require premium use regular if you see a benefit um in these cases you can get a little more horsepower and even an older car that doesn't require premium you might it might be smoother you you could prevent detonation as the technical term but but the point is that it could actually help it but if there's no benefit that you're seeing from the premium use regular if you use regular are you harming anything if you use premium and you have no benefit are you harming anything well let's be clear you're not going to hurt your your regular car by using premium you're not going to hurt it uh but you're just wasting your money if you're not seeing any benefit i think it really just comes down to that right but jen we know that some manufacturers make it clear they say premium is required right and then that you know that's how we test when it's required we use it i mean required is required and obviously the engine's tuned for that that level octane level of octane but i almost say how much horsepower do you need on regular roads some of these small you know four-cylinder turbo charge there's a lot of horsepower there so um again to jake's point if you're not seeing a substantial benefit with the with the premium just go with the regular yeah and and as we often say with with questions about uh how do i operate my car check out your owner's manual always read that and we've always also said when you when you open up your fuel filler lid often there is a label inside that says you know you know just what what octane is required and sometimes it says premium fuel required and if that's the case i would put in premium but i'm with you guys with this it doesn't require it i wouldn't put it in next up is zenya from portland oregon do you know why push for park on electronic shifters is a thing now there are shifters that use all buttons rotary knobs traditional prndl or as we say prindle which of course stands for park reverse neutral drive and low but shifters and cars from bmw volvo genesis etc always put the park button in a weird unintuitive spot away from reverse neutral and drive buttons why isn't it potentially dangerous as people new to this design will think the car is in park when it isn't is there a benefit to having a button for park at all now yeah jake we've we've looked at this upside down sideways and backwards and especially when it comes to scoring our cars so what advice do you have for zenya uh well it's not even advice i we agree we agree i mean the um you know this is this is a problematic trend and we've been seeing for about 20 years it started with bmw that kind of we say broke the prindle you know and they just basically i think they actually lobbied the government to try to get rules so they didn't have to do it in a certain way and it's been just like scatter shot we've just seen all these random different ways of doing it now the question is why do they do it now we completely agree there's issues with it in fact we actually re remove points for some of these shifters in both in the usability of them as well as we found issues with people actually not getting the thing in the park getting out of the car and the car is rolling away which causes a danger and if they don't automatically have a roll away prevention we're taking additional points off in our scoring so so it is a big issue why do they do it and we've been kind of scratching our heads about why do you mess these things up you know i mean you have something that works i'm all for developing things and making them better but it didn't really seem initially that they've made them better i will say some are better for a couple of reasons some are better for one you sometimes have a lot more room in your cockpit so we so if you look at honda systems for instance they're very flat you've usually got more room to put cup holders and cubbies and bins whereas sometimes like that shifter is kind of like you know you crush your cup or something like that so there's some conveniences to that the other issue which some many of these now actually because of our scoring have changed is they will automatically actuate so for instance if you forget to put the car into park or you open up the door or and you're still in drive or in neutral they'll automatically go to park and that's harder to do when you have like like a physical shifter so that is a kind of advantage however with a physical shifter you could do that too you could put the emergency brake on so there's there's things like that so so there's kind of a somewhat weak reason that they're actually adding them i suspect part of it is they they seem neat they seem futuristic i think that's unfortunate um but what we'll say i mean some of them aren't as bad as others and we're continuing to look at them and continue to rate them and and jen stockberger you're one of our many safety gurus here at consumer reports um why do you think the manufacturers are doing this yeah i think jake has already touched on to real estate you know those electronic versions can take up far less room than a traditional prindle and differentiation we did something a little different we'll even see it on the same model between different trim lines or different type you know that they will go have a a regular shifter on the lower trim for example and the push button on a higher it's as it seems to be like a a sense of higher end to have a fancier or a different shifter and zenyatta to zenya's point we are all living with the transition so we are very used to a traditional shifter so it's changing and is that a higher learning curve for those of us who are used to driving with the prindle probably over the weekend i drove our our tested ram 1500 pickup truck which has a rotary knob and then i took it back to the track and switched over to our our sonata hybrid which has the push buttons and one of the things that we do here at consumer reports is we're testing all the new technology all the new cars and we're gonna have more and more experience with these gear selectors as time goes on but great question i especially love the emphasis of why okay next up is a is a question from jean noel my honda crv is a touring model with all the safety features standard however the model you tested isn't as well equipped with any model rate higher because all the safety features are standard and you award points for safety okay back to safety and back to jen stockberger so the short answer john noel is yes but so when we award points for the safety features that have been proven effective forward collision warning automatic emergency braking blind spot warning pedestrian detection we are doing that at what we're calling the model level so in your case all honda crvs are getting those points regardless of the trim ex ex-l touring as you mentioned so the key there is that feature has to be standard equipment across all of those trim lines but every crv will get that whether our test car has that or not uh jake you have a brief story about a certain honda a hyundai elantra se which kind of you know changed the way we looked at this also yeah well i mean at one point we were kind of looking at it as slightly different and we had tested a hyundai elantra sc this was years ago and at the time that was the only way you could get stability control this was when they were kind of optional and they played the same games with the safety equipment uh at that time i'm not just talking about hyundai i mean all the automakers so yes the hyundai elantra se you wound up as a top pick and they're i'm pretty convinced that many people purchased hyundai elantra non-essies and wound up buying that based on our our top pick status and we know that because when we have our surveys we see all these people we knew the trims and they're like uh yeah they didn't get the stability control and we really took that to heart and so so while honda has made the touring model had that standard safety equipment why do you have to get the touring you know why why do automakers make you get the leather interior in the big center or if in order to get the safety equipment because the safety equipment for a lot of people that's what they want they don't need the you know i mean we've looked at this before i mean sometimes like mercedes-benz models you know you have to get rear heated and cooled cupholders in order to get a pedestrian detection i'll link it that way is just asinine um you know if you want the safety you should be able to get that safety shouldn't come at the additional cost especially when you're already spending 25 30 even more thousands dollars for this car all right so yeah general advice get the most safety that you can which brings us to our final question we're going to wrap this up with a question uh from john from fairfax virginia my wife and i have a 2015 honda pilot and a 2008 acura tl our oldest has a learner's permit and we've been letting him practice his driving skills on both cars so he gets familiar with different vehicle sizes handling etc he's doing a great job and seems to prefer the acura we've got others that will be driving soon and are thinking of letting the tl become the kid car which means i'll need a new daily driver i may be middle-aged suburban dad but i'd still like a little flare when i drive another exclamation point right now i'm thinking about the mazda6 but wanted to know if you had any suggestions all right so we're in this the the quick answer uh section of this podcast uh suburban cool dad uh jen what uh what what do you think that um john should drive right so so it struck me too as we were looking that mike quincy myself and jake fisher all have 16 year olds so we're we're here in hijab we're all in it with you right now deciding what's the safest vehicles for these kids so one the tl is a good choice for them you know jake mentioned stability control that 2008 tl actually had standard stability control way ahead of when it was mandated so so good choice there the mazda 6 it absolutely stands out among midsize sedans for and i quote consumer record reports it's driving exuberance it sets itself apart in terms of what you're saying a little more flair a little more agility so good choice there among that group what i did say is if you wanted to stretch the pocketbook a little bit and maybe john after raising some teenagers you deserve it that maybe an audi a4 even used 2017 or later audi a4 so not really old would be kind of a gift to yourself certainly steps it up in terms of agility still a rear seat that some grown children can get into so that was my only thought but if if you're sticking with that midsize sedan the the mazda6 is a great choice jake i'm going to go the other way and i'm gonna say you know if you've got a your kids are growing up maybe you don't need that much room and if you go one size smaller those vehicles over the last several years have gotten a lot bigger so if you look at things like a volkswagen gti or a honda civic sports or even a mazda 3. these vehicles are pretty substantial roomy comfortable vehicles that are really sporty you could get them with stick shifts and they are i mean become really sports cars um and when you go one size slow smaller check all the boxes get the leather get all the get all the options you want the sunroof everything um and it they kind of feel more substantial and they're they're comfortable and uh you know probably will suit suit you pretty well excellent i i actually like both your choices however i'm gonna switch it up a little bit i'm going with the camry xse now a lot of people think camry they think boring but trim line in this case really matters the xse has a has a a stiffer suspension it has sportier tires um a great fuel economy i'd go with the front wheel drive model i would go with the four cylinder uh and you really you can't beat uh camry's reliability a great reliability history a long list of standard safety features um don't laugh the camry especially in the xse model it's a driver's car it really has meaty steering it has good handling don't kid yourself it's really really good so um so that kind of gives uh john a few vehicles to choose from and unfortunately that brings us to the end of this episode always check the show notes for more information on the vehicles and topics that we discussed these all questioned episodes are super fun we love doing them so keep the questions coming talking cars at icloud.com thanks so much for tuning in and we'll see you next week\n"