**Vehicle Theft: A Growing Concern**

Do kind of need to protect it and secure it so unfortunately they sometimes are easy to take especially if you can physically easily get underneath the vehicle so trucks and SUVs can be prime candidates for that because you don't need a jack you don't need anything other than whatever tools you're going to use to remove it from the vehicle you can just kind of slide right under there do what you got to do and you've got a couple hundred bucks to maybe fifteen hundred dollars depending on the Catalyst you know that the thief has taken right um so it is a concern and you know people have been had one two three vehicles you know in their driveway all hit in the same time and that can be a financial stressor certainly and then of course you're trying to deal with transportation and getting it fixed and things like that.

**Protecting Your Vehicle from Theft**

So as far as what owners can do um you know certainly if you have a garage park in the garage and they have to break and Enter you know your garage or your house but they do make guards and Shields and things like that they do cost some money in most cases you're probably gonna have to go to a shop to get those professionally installed and then down the road you know other servicing that might have to happen you might have to take those off so that adds a little bit of complexity to servicing but here here in Connecticut they actually just passed a law to make them harder to sell so if you have something worth money but it becomes difficult to turn it into money that should help stem the theft as well.

**New Regulations to Combat Vehicle Theft**

The big one there there's actually six new rules but the big one is you have to provide your photo ID and they will only pay you with a check that gets mailed to you so it's not cash the same day so hopefully that can stem some of those steps as well. And one of the most hit models seems to be like the Toyota Prius and and I noticed that on on Toyota's uh website when you go to configure a Prius and you go to the accessories section of the configurator they sell a a actual guard yeah for their Prius fascinating and pretty telling and I don't think I've seen any other uh OEM selling them or at least as a as an accessory right.

**Aftermarket Solutions**

The other vehicles that are kind of more at risk would be pickup trucks just generally speaking right just or any vehicle that's higher up off the ground that's easier to just slide underneath without having to Jack anything up or do anything you know special right. And Mike you looked up a couple of the aftermarket um companies that are that are selling them yeah there's a there's a lot of different solutions and um you know if you put in your own vehicle you know you'll see different solutions for that summer cages that kind of encircle the the Catalyst um some are plates and panels that Bolt the subframes and other pieces like that so it's going to vary depending on the model and what kind of room you have under there and things like that or if you have any other accessories on the vehicle you know it might be more difficult or easier depending on on what's going on there right but um it's certainly something to to think about as an owner of a vehicle you know where am I parking um is it well lit you know maybe it's a case for having cameras in your driveway or things like that or choosing the lot that has an attendee versus street parking or something like that where maybe there's some eyes on your vehicle that might help deter theft of your vehicle unfortunately that means maybe someone else's vehicle is going to get hit but oftentimes with um vehicle security that's kind of how it goes.

**Theft of Precious Metals**

I remember years ago there was a a raft of thefts for um headlights for Nissan Maximas they were they were they would cost a lot to replace and they were easy to pop out wow and it just seems how how word gets out you know which which components are are valuable and easy to steal interesting you just take the whole headlight housing yeah wow pretty much okay um so so that's you know that's what we've got Paul um definitely is an issue you're not alone a lot of people get the these precious metals off their Cadillac converters stolen sorry to hear about it I'm sure we're going to have more about this going forward forward and how other manufacturers are going to deal with trying to keep their customers Vehicles safe but that's going to about do it for this episode which was produced by super producer Dave Abrams and of course edited by Anatoly the great shumsky as always check the show notes for more information on the vehicles and topics we discussed uh just a reminder keep your questions coming talk in cars at icloud.com thanks so much for tuning in we'll see you next week thank you

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign Quincy I'm Alex and Isaac and I'm Michael Crossing so Eagle Eye viewers and listeners of our podcast will notice a new face here this is Michael Crossen and he is a tire and automotive technician welcome to the podcast thank you very much Mike so good to have you um just give us a little bit of background why you're here why you're a car guy and uh and all that other good stuff sure yeah um in another life I was a Master Certified Mercedes-Benz technician and then um I taught high school high school automotive shop and post-secondary as well so um cars are kind of my life you know enjoyed as a hobby and and as my livelihood and and the the teaching High School probably accounts for the gray and the beard all a little bit of that yes um so Mercedes-Benz I'm not quite sure that we belong in the same areas and because he's the little class here I suppose so anyhow um anyway good to have you thank you we're going to get into one of the most popular cars on consumerreports.org it's not a Tesla it's not a Corvette it's not even a pickup truck it's the Honda CRV yes believe it or not it is one of one of the most popular cars that are searched on uh on consumerstock.org and we have a brand new one redesigned for 2023 this is a pivotal car for Honda uh a real Cornerstone model in their lineup uh for years really been a favorite among budget and practical minded compact SUV buyers uh the redesign is is three inches longer about a half inch wider with a wheelbase that's about 1.6 inches longer there's also going to be a stronger hybrid powertrain in the lineup good for 204 horsepower uh standard safety features including forward Collision warning automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection blind spot warning and rear cross traffic warning and we're going to get right into what we bought which was an all-wheel drive EX model uh we just got the 1.5 liter turbocharged four-cylinder same 190 horsepower as the model that it replace placed the EPA fuel economy is 29 miles per gallon combined for the all-wheel drive model our all-wheel drive EX came in at 34 250 and Alex I'm going to turn it to you for uh to get us started you know give us give us your give us your first impressions yeah so this this redesign for 2023 is definitely a conservative redesign right it's they haven't really tried to do anything weird here or change anything to dramatically right compared to the CRV that it replaces and I think that's probably for the better they're not gonna uh you know deter any existing CRV customers and especially when you compare this to um like what Hyundai and Kia are doing with the Sportage and the Tucson uh which although they are still compact Crossovers and they drive like one too but they you look at them and you're like wow these designs are pretty wild inside and out and and the CRV is definitely a lot more understated and kind of just uh this simple design to it especially the look and just also what they're going for and and I think it'll be interesting to see how that plays out but in terms of the vehicle itself and just driving in the first impressions and I'm going to say this in the best possible way but it it's like this is the starting Block it's a car that is going to blend into your life and like I said I mean that sincerely and as a good thing it's not going to annoy you or be uncomfortable or do anything you're not expecting or just be weird in any kind of way right um some might say they're playing it safe but I don't I think this is actually something a lot of people want and it's just going to work when you need to and historically the CRV has been reliable um right in the past so I think it has a lot of great things going for it and it drives pretty well I mean none of these compact crossovers are trying to be anything sporty right that's that's not the point um but that being said it drives well I think the steering is well tuned it's pretty responsive um the powertrain is smooth works well in the background and honestly I was more impressed with the driving experience in the CRV than I was with the smaller HRV that we recently tested they're all kind of based on this Honda architecture that is underpinning the Civic started with the Civic and then HRV now CRV I get more of that like fun to drive Civic DNA DNA excuse me in the CRV than I did in the HRV it just feels like a more kind of light on its feet and engaging experience and and and Mike you you talked about your experience driving all of the generations of the CRV which is honestly something I don't think Alex and I can't yeah initially I saw that this was the sixth generation CRV since 1997 and I thought that was wild I didn't think there were six but I went and looked and sure enough you know I looked at each body style I said I've driven that one I've driven that one and sure enough this is number six and I think to Alex's point they haven't gone with a radical redesign it's it's an evolution of one generation to the next to the next and I think this is a nice Evolution it's a little bit bigger a little bit more refined but but there is a lot of carryover from the Civic which isn't not all together bad no no I think it's good I was able to get in the car and basically go I didn't need to read anything I didn't need to have a lesson I was able to get in and go and I was able to figure things out as I was driving which I sort of enjoy um just like to to find those things and you know there's knobs and buttons that you can actually access without really even having to take your your eyes off right um once you learn what they are you can kind of just reach out you feel yep I got the button I can press that to advance the track you know on whatever I'm listening to and it's great it's easy to use and um I think intuitive right and and you said something really interesting in our pre-production meeting you you compared it sort of to the the new Acura Integra in terms of the Simplicity of the controls absolutely and we're seeing that with the HRV and the new Civic and and that's why I'm bringing up you know it's not it's not a bad thing that they're not going completely crazy you don't have to go into a screen to like do an adjustment to the lumbar for the seat or something crazy like that and that's part of why it's not going to annoy you on it it just works the way you expect and I would say they've got all the basics right with this car right and and some of their other other products that we've we've tested recently too but um just in terms of comfort and noise and drivability all these things right it just it kind of hits on all of those fundamentals that a good car needs to have and they kind of knock all those out of the park in my opinion so what I thought was was interesting or maybe just kind of odd with this with this new CRV is that I found out that um a moon roof heated seats are standard for every trim line which is not always there's there's a little bit of a caveat to why that is it's because they got rid of the base model that was there before right probably LX is what it was called right if you're following but I mean but but every every car has an entry level model right and and you know whether you call it the Alex or the ex it's still it's the cheapest one in the lineup right and it and it's kind of loaded with these with these sort of high-end features at least that's that's what I would I mean he didn't see you don't get heated seats in every car but what was weird to me was we get a super plain plastic steering wheel that is uh you know it was like wait a minute I've got all these these kind of luxury features and this this kind of lousy feeling steering wheel that I didn't understand at all yeah I think you know you're always gonna have some trade-offs and the the heated seats were nice I really did appreciate that um the word I wrote down here in my notes was durable you know nothing really felt luxurious inside but it felt like it was sturdy secured it was going to last a long time and Plastics are going to do that right I mean but but I mean even even some of your basic like like a like a Hyundai Elantra yeah it's probably gonna have a a wrap on the steering maybe it's not genuine leather maybe it's the synthetic or something but but it's those items that you're touching every day when you're getting in the city the steering wheel right the controls that you're always fiddling with should have a nice touch to them that's why I was just I don't want to say appalled but I was like really a plastic steel it's a little disappointing it's actually funny you say that because when I was going through the log book notes and filling it all out that was if I had to complain about one thing it actually was that just because like I said you're touching it all the time um it's probably better than some of the urethane or plastic wheels that I've seen in some other like at least you don't have the the like flashing line around the edge or anything like that like it was okay as far as those types of wheels go but yeah a leather wrapped or at least synthetic thing and you can get a higher end sure serious with leather wrap and you can go all kinds of fancy on on that and stuff like that so um so yeah but but you you fit an okay you like the way it drives yeah um I thought seating position was great access to the vehicle seemed to be really good I'm six one I was able to adjust the seat I didn't you know want any more Headroom or any more leg room or anything like that and then um actually I uh I drove home last night I called to my parents and said hey I got a car let's go to dinner so I put two other adults in the vehicle and they were hoping for a Tesla come on I don't know about that um they were very happy with it I put my father in the back seat and he's tall as well and I was like hey you have enough room back there and he said absolutely so after all was said and done when I got home I got in behind my driver's seat where it was adjusted and I had all kinds kinds of room between you know my knees and the seat and um I don't think I'd have any trouble for several hours in the back of that car on a road trip or anything like that um seem to be plenty of room and that rear door opens really wide too almost 90 degrees I think to the vehicle so I imagine you know loading in a child seat and getting a kid in there and things like that I'm probably gonna happen pretty easily Alex I think that's what you brought up that there's a remarkable amount of room of space utilization that Honda's figured out how to do with with this car right yeah yeah everything's nicely packaged you don't in terms of the driving position just there's no intrusion issues or anything coming at you uh from either the door the center console right it's all pretty simple and nothing kind of gets in your way um and just going back to the basics Honda does a really good job of just making sure that you have the adjustments you need in terms of like the steering wheel and the seat relative to the gauges so many cars that come through our our Fleet now that we're buying you can't see the top of the the giant display screen that they're giving you for an instrument cluster now because the the steering wheel blocks it and you just never have that issue in any of these Honda products even some of the Acuras right so they do that really well and yeah like like Mike said um the back seat is a huge highlight I think on this and it has a the built-in recline so you can adjust that angle it's kind of a pain to use you got to use the thing up here on the shoulder but um yeah I think and that actually separates it a lot from the HRV I think that we also recently tested so can we can we talk about the driver's seat and I might be in the minority here I find it really really stiff okay only one right I'm the only one didn't bother me maybe it goes to some of the durability that Michael yeah I I think again in my notes I think I use the word firm but it wasn't uncomfortably so I mean it did have some some cushion to it you know I don't know if you were in the car for 12 hours on a really long road trip you might you might find yourself getting a little uncomfortable but in the 150 so miles that I drove it um it was pretty comfortable but I do kind of understand where you're coming from yeah it I don't I mean there's a term that I often think about with cars and certain features I call it like a deal breaker I don't think think for me the seats are a deal breakers because I mean we've all driven cars where you the seats are so bad you just can't wait to get out of them I don't really feel that way about the CRV but I just thought it was it was like stiffer um than than I was maybe anticipating and would make me think I might want to get in if I was gonna if I was a buyer I want to at least sit I want to try out the leather seats it's going to cost more but and you got to get the hybrid to get the leather see it's true which which you know isn't a bad idea but I was I was happy to see at least the that two-way lumbar here on the on the driver's seat on the base uh ex um goes a long way I think so Alex you know you mentioned about the similarities of recent Honda designs whether it's a Civic the hrb the CRV I think a casual viewer listener might confuse kind of the two uh and and they do have some similarities certainly in The Styling but but you can you can point out other things where they're clearly different yeah and I think with the previous versions of the HRV and the CRV they're my might have been a little bit more Daylight if you will between them more of an obvious choice whether you wanted a bigger CRV or the smaller HRV right but the HRV with this recent redesign grew quite a bit so I think uh it's just not as obvious which one you might choose um so Michael and I actually put them both up on the lift just to kind of inspect the underside in the structure because you hear all this talk about platform sharing so we just checked them out so um to see what was similar yeah um with both vehicles in the air you can definitely tell that they're of the same methodology they do look very similar in some ways shockingly similar between the two there are some definitely different different components and things like that used um and size wise some things are different as well you know wheelbase and things like that but um there's probably going to be some shared components you know from vehicle to vehicle and definitely that that design ideology you can tell that probably some of the same Engineers or at least you know came out of a meeting and they kind of split a little bit and went to go design each of their vehicles but right well Honda has a well-deserved reputation for pretty durable reliable Vehicles I'm sure they're not going to leave it up to chance right the CRV is competing with you know the Ford Escape the Hyundai Tucson the the Toyota RAV4 the Subaru Forester I mean this this is a very very competitive segment I know Honda's got a lot on the line with this they can't I mean it's like you know they can't they can't mess it up right so um yeah I I think we're going to be really interested to see how how the this this car uh kind of pans out in our testing uh definitely check back to consumerreports.org you know first drive up soon and and videos and stuff like that so check out consumerreports.org for more information on the CRV as well as all those other competing small SUVs which brings us to our question we love your questions keep them coming 30 second videos text send them all to talkingcars icloud.com that's talking cars at icloud.com we've got one coming from Paul who writes catalytic converter theft is a huge problem I know from personal experience as the catalytic converter was stolen off my C-Class motorhome on a Ford E450 chassis could owners or vehicle manufacturers do more to deter theft by providing better protection for catalytic converters well we're really you know getting down to the the brass tacks although brass is not actually what their actor are is it um not so much but the the catalytic converter is full of precious metals um Platinum Palladium rhodium are the three that that come to the top of my mind so they're worth money in scrap value and the bigger the catalytic converter the more of those materials are in there so they are worth money and like anything that's worth money you do kind of need to protect it and secure it so unfortunately they sometimes are easy to take especially if you can physically easily get underneath the vehicle so trucks and SUVs can be prime candidates for that because you don't need a jack you don't need anything other than whatever tools you're going to use to remove it from the vehicle you can just kind of slide right under there do what you got to do and you've got a couple hundred bucks to maybe fifteen hundred dollars depending on the Catalyst you know that the thief has taken right um so it is a concern and you know people have been had one two three vehicles you know in their driveway all hit in the same time and that can be a financial stressor certainly and then of course you're trying to deal with transportation and getting it fixed and things like that so as far as what owners can do um you know certainly if you have a garage park in the garage and they have to break and Enter you know your garage or your house but they do make guards and Shields and things like that they do cost some money in most cases you're probably gonna have to go to a shop to get those professionally installed and then down the road you know other servicing that might have to happen you might have to take those off so that adds a little bit of complexity to servicing but here here in Connecticut they actually just passed a law to make them harder to sell so if you have something worth money but it becomes difficult to turn it into money that should help stem the theft as well and the big one there there's actually six new rules but the big one is you have to provide your photo ID and they will only pay you with a check that gets mailed to you so it's not cash the same day so hopefully that can stem some of those steps as well and and one of the the most hit models seems to be like the Toyota Prius and and I noticed that on on Toyota's uh website when you go to configure a Prius and you go to the accessories section of the configurator they sell a a actual guard yeah for their Prius fascinating and pretty telling and I don't think I've seen any other uh OEM selling them or at least as a as an accessory right and the other vehicles that are kind of more at risk would be pickup trucks just generally speaking right just or any vehicle that's higher up off the ground that's easier to just slide underneath without having to Jack anything up or do anything you know special right and and Mike you looked up a couple of the aftermarket um companies that are that are selling them yeah there's a there's a lot of different solutions and um you know if you put in your own vehicle you know you'll see different solutions for that summer cages that kind of encircle the the Catalyst um some are plates and panels that Bolt the subframes and other pieces like that so it's going to vary depending on the model and what kind of room you have under there and things like that or if you have any other accessories on the vehicle you know it might be more difficult or easier depending on on what's going on there right but um it's certainly something to to think about as an owner of a vehicle you know where am I parking um is it well lit you know maybe it's a case for having cameras in your driveway or things like that or choosing the lot that has an attendee versus street parking or something like that where maybe there's some eyes on your vehicle that might help deter theft of your vehicle unfortunately that means maybe someone else's vehicle is going to get hit but oftentimes with um vehicle security that's kind of how it goes whether it's wheel locks or the steering wheel locks and things like that right and I mean I remember years ago there was a a raft of thefts for um headlights for Nissan Maximas they were they were they were they would cost a lot to replace and they were easy to pop out wow and it just seems how how word gets out you know which which components are are valuable and easy to steal interesting you just take the whole headlight housing yeah wow pretty much okay um so so that's you know that's what we've got Paul um definitely is an issue you're not alone a lot of people get the these precious metals off their Cadillac converters stolen sorry to hear about it I'm sure we're going to have more about this going forward forward and how other manufacturers are going to deal with trying to keep their customers Vehicles safe but that's going to about do it for this episode which was produced by super producer Dave Abrams and of course edited by Anatoly the great shumsky as always check the show notes for more information on the vehicles and topics we discussed uh just a reminder keep your questions coming talk in cars at icloud.com thanks so much for tuning in we'll see you next week thank you\n"