2021 Chevrolet Trailblazer First Impressions; Best Used Cars for Teens Under $20,000

2021 Chevrolet Trailblazer First Impressions; Best Used Cars for Teens Under $20,000 _ #266

Tire Replacement Tips from Tire Rack

You can buy a tire from Tire Rack and if you do, they'll shave the tire down to match the same amount of tread depth as the other tires. This is done assuming it's the exact same tire model. This process is crucial because it ensures that all four tires wear evenly. However, this method may not be suitable for everyone. For instance, Hank from San Francisco jokingly tweeted that Elon Musk is saying the Cybertruck will be the official truck of Mars. While this might sound like a joke, it's essential to consider what vehicle would be ideal for a trip to Mars.

For a journey to Mars, the vehicle needs to be lightweight yet able to withstand harsh conditions. The Mercedes-Benz G65 AMG Six-Wheel All-Wheel Drive SUV is an attractive option due to its impressive capabilities, but it might be too big for a Martian mission. On the other hand, Audi's AI Trail Concept is a futuristic-looking vehicle that could potentially work well for space travel. However, its design and features are still speculative at this point.

Another alternative that was recently showcased is the Ferrox Azaris Six-Wheel Off-Road Vehicle. This vehicle is designed to be lightweight yet capable of navigating various terrain on Mars. It's essentially a single-person vehicle with a roof, making it easy to transport and maneuver in open spaces. The six wheels provide excellent articulation and suspension, allowing for quick movement over rocky or sandy surfaces.

A more practical option for space travel might be the Lamborghini LM02. While its design is unconventional, it's certainly eye-catching. Its advanced technology and unique features could make it an ideal choice for a Martian expedition. However, its size and weight need to be carefully considered when planning a trip to Mars.

Finally, some people may prefer more conventional vehicles, like the Toyota Tacoma. This choice might seem unexciting compared to other options, but it's reliable and can handle various terrain. The Tacoma's ability to traverse rough surfaces could be essential for exploring Mars' rugged landscape. Moreover, its reliability is crucial when considering a long-duration space mission.

In conclusion, choosing the right vehicle for a trip to Mars requires careful consideration of several factors, including size, weight, terrain, and practicality. While unconventional options like the Ferrox Azaris or Lamborghini LM02 might seem appealing, they need further research and development before being considered viable choices. On the other hand, more conventional vehicles like the Toyota Tacoma offer a reliable and practical solution for space travel. Ultimately, the best vehicle will depend on individual preferences and priorities.

The Cybertruck's Official Vehicle of Mars?

Elon Musk has been making headlines lately with his vision of a futuristic Mars colony. Recently, he jokingly tweeted that the Cybertruck would be the official truck of Mars. While this might seem like a joke, it's essential to consider what vehicle would be ideal for a trip to Mars.

Toyota Land Cruiser 70: A Great Choice?

Hank from San Francisco recently joked that Elon Musk is saying the Cybertruck will be the official truck of Mars. While this might sound like a joke, it's essential to consider what vehicle would be ideal for a trip to Mars.

Reliability Matters

When it comes to choosing a vehicle for a trip to Mars, reliability is crucial. A vehicle that can withstand harsh conditions and last for an extended period is essential for a successful mission.

Some people may prefer more conventional vehicles like the Toyota Tacoma due to its reliability. This choice might seem unexciting compared to other options, but it's reliable and can handle various terrain. The Tacoma's ability to traverse rough surfaces could be essential for exploring Mars' rugged landscape. Moreover, its reliability is crucial when considering a long-duration space mission.

Conclusion

Choosing the right vehicle for a trip to Mars requires careful consideration of several factors, including size, weight, terrain, and practicality. While unconventional options like the Ferrox Azaris or Lamborghini LM02 might seem appealing, they need further research and development before being considered viable choices. On the other hand, more conventional vehicles like the Toyota Tacoma offer a reliable and practical solution for space travel. Ultimately, the best vehicle will depend on individual preferences and priorities.

The Cybertruck's Official Vehicle of Mars?

Finally, some people may prefer more conventional vehicles like the Toyota Tacoma. This choice might seem unexciting compared to other options, but it's reliable and can handle various terrain. The Tacoma's ability to traverse rough surfaces could be essential for exploring Mars' rugged landscape. Moreover, its reliability is crucial when considering a long-duration space mission.

Toyota Land Cruiser 70: A Great Choice?

Reliability Matters

When it comes to choosing a vehicle for a trip to Mars, reliability is crucial. A vehicle that can withstand harsh conditions and last for an extended period is essential for a successful mission.

Conclusion

Reliability Matters

When it comes to choosing a vehicle for a trip to Mars, reliability is crucial. A vehicle that can withstand harsh conditions and last for an extended period is essential for a successful mission.

Conclusion

Reliability Matters

When it comes to choosing a vehicle for a trip to Mars, reliability is crucial. A vehicle that can withstand harsh conditions and last for an extended period is essential for a successful mission.

Conclusion

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enbefore we start the show this week we wanted to take a quick second to tell you about a new initiative we're introducing in the podcast which is our talking cars donation program 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 thanks for watching and enjoy the show on today's episode we give our first impressions of the 2021 chevrolet trailblazer share a list of the best used cars for teen drivers and what vehicle would we bring with us on a trip to mars next on talking cars hi and welcome back i'm mike quincy i'm john linkove and i'm ryan pilkowski so quick question for john and ryan uh when you tell people that you work for consumer reports uh do you always get asked the same question are you the guys that crash test cars i have been asked that it is something that people think that that's one of the things we do and the immediate question is like and after you crash them what do you do with them so that's as if you have anything left so actually uh what we've got going today for today's podcast is an awesome announcement uh consumer reports in the insurance institute for highway safety now that's the group that actually does the crash testing of cars the premier crash testers in all of the industry uh anyway our two organizations are teaming up to come up with a recommended list of safe reliable and affordable used cars for teen drivers and this is the first time that cr and the ihs have have teamed up together you know we're thinking about we're taking the combat combined uh you know resources and knowledge consumer reports you know physically test cars handling braking acceleration whatnot we have lots of reliability data and of course no one crash test cars like the ihs so it seemed like a natural to come together and and and and put our our resources and come and come up with this with this awesome list so we've come up with about 65 cars used cars ranging from about fifty three hundred dollars to uh just under twenty thousand and we realize that not everybody can afford a new car i mean the new cars always have the most available uh safety uh safety equipment on it but um really it's not within everybody's budget to be able to afford it so so ryan can you um take us through some of the criteria that went into creating the list of recommended cars yeah so um no sports cars or cars with um too much horsepower excessive horsepower um you know it's just there's an opportunity for um maybe some misuse there um however uh we said also no mini cars no no cars under uh 2750 pounds which is kind of funny because we i just said not um you know too much horsepower but you also don't want too little horsepower so some of these little cars actually can't get out of their own way fast enough and if you know you're merging onto a um a busy highway uh that could actually become a little bit of a safety issue you want to get up to speed with adequate horsepower uh we would say and then uh you know no big um heavy vehicles for obvious reason they're just a little bit clumsier they're harder to uh maneuver you know the braking distances can be longer um they're just it's just clumsier so it's kind of funny as we go through that list not that we'll go through the whole list but you'll see all these cars are more medium-sized vehicles you know there's nothing really really tiny nothing enormous and that's just you know physics and john what were some of the other requirements to make the list well you know what's interesting is you know the list of the best cards you know particularly for teen drivers is that you know like you said they have to be reliable and they have to be safe but they all have to have standard electronic stability control and it's uh it's a feature that most people now take for granted in the sense that it's been out for so many years you know we're talking about more advanced safety systems now that are that are on the cutting edge and coming into cars but electronic stability control you know is going to keep the vehicle under control and prevent it from a skidding situation you know you know kind of the tail sliding out or the car driving straight off off a road when you when the road bends so um you have to have above average reliability according to uh consumer reports member surveys um average or better scores for emergency handling because we conduct emergency handling tests on all the vehicles that we evaluate um it's basically what's called a double lane change and if you can envision you're driving down the street and a child runs out in front of you or or a deer runs out in front of you you're going to swerve out out of the way in the other lane you're going to want to jump back into that travel lane so that you don't hit an oncoming vehicle so that's that's an emergency handling test that we do and make sure vehicle is controllable through those situations um like ryan said braking distances are key dry breaking uh distances of less than 145 feet in our tests and then also good crash test ratings from the iihs and there is another in group that crash has cars the government does the national highway traffic safety administration and their tests aren't always aren't as severe um but you still have to have four or five stars in the uh national highway traffic safety administration uh safe car evaluation so you know if it's rated they have to have that and that that's what we do to really cull down the list to something that is manageable and that people can can use to to make their research for for a car for a team but also for themselves right and that's that's actually a good point and and this entire story and the list of all these cars are consumerreports.org and uh we can't go through every car on on the list uh uh but but ryan and john so if you had to pick you know one a few of your favorites and and maybe even talk about the cars that that you drove when you were teenagers you know looking at that list the first car in the list actually um resonates with me the mazda3 uh a smaller car super fun to drive um you know nimble's good nice quick steering um it's front wheel drive but it should be plenty good for um you know a new driver you could snow tires on it if you need to and then it's a little more money but the the i saw the three series was on there and the three series um is near and dear to my heart uh my very first car was a an 86 um bmw 3 series 325 e and um it was actually my dad was a mechanic most of his life and he would always end up with these stray cars at the garage and he brought it home one day and he was driving it for a while and i just fell in love with it before i could even drive it was a manual no abs no stability control a crank sunroof it was i mean the seat was stuck in one position um i was able to i was able to slide it up but the the seat back was stuck in one position um and i absolutely loved the car i fell in love with driving um it taught me how to drive i would say uh a more pure way um you know in the winter that thing was a little loose in the rear end and uh it was just a blast yeah the purity of driving a rear-wheel drive car in connecticut in the winter time yeah it was uh it was a different day and age i guess but um you know that this three series is obviously a much newer um you know it had all the modern safety stuff in it excellent uh john i'm sure you've got a different perspective uh what what what what's your choices and what did you drive growing up um i tried to keep my my list under ten thousand dollars so the the subaru legacy or outback uh 2013 or newer um around 7 500 to 8 500 honda accord sedan 9200 that's a 2013 or newer or a volkswagen jetta a little a little bit of a sportier option than the subaru's maybe maybe on par with the honda accord 2016 to 2018. i thought that these are vehicles that there are enough made of you know out there that you'll find some some very hard driven examples but you also find some that might not be driven as hard but there's also parts availability um you know something that you know keep keep the cost down for for a teen um you know these types of lists five eight ten years ago you know you're not gonna see an suv on it because for us it was the stability control availability of stability control you know and a tip over and such so it just goes to show that as much as people talk about old days with cars like now we're recommending that a teenage driver a new driver can have an suv because of the safety features but to brian's point nothing too clumsy not a big a tahoe a pickup truck that's a key thing i think parents should keep in mind and try to impress upon their their children my car i grew up with a i had an 87 toyota celica gt coupe um i couldn't afford the gts i certainly couldn't afford a celica all track turbo um you know those they were wishful thinking i think i afforded i was able to put bigger wheels and a spoiler on the back i was able to buy that and um it was a great car and like ryan said you know mine was front wheel drive but again manual no no abs no stability control um i learned about tire grip quickly when i went straight in a turn and between two trees thankfully not into one of them um at a young age uh but you know it made me appreciate driving the same type of way and i had to drive a stick i had to learn to drive a stick because my dad had a 65 corvette in the garage my goal was i had to drive it and i wasn't going to be able to learn on that uh so i learned learn to stick on a much easier hydraulic clutch than a spring spring clutch with a um you know rehearsed four speed so actually uh of all the the guys on on the panel today my kids are actually of driving age and my oldest son uh wanted to drive a manual transmission i mean he's just like falling right in line with the rest of us here and uh he has a 2015 honda civic si and so i was thinking if if he was going to pick a car from from the list that the ihs and consumer reports put out he would probably go for a mazda 3 just like just like you said ryan or or maybe a different honda civic i mean he's just definitely got the jonesing of of of working the clutch and and and the and the manual transmission and uh what's interesting is like when i was driving when i was growing up uh my dad bought a demo a a 1980 ford fiesta and it was a lot less expensive because it was a demo uh and it wasn't a real volkswagen rabbit but it was a four-speed manual vinyl seats no air conditioning and obviously no safety features like they see today but uh it was it was you know got me through the the snows in connecticut and uh it was it was a good little runner although the body was seen to be made of like absolute tinfoil and would rust just by looking at it anyhow just a reminder that list is on consumerreports.org so definitely check it out so which brings us to our next segment which is what we're driving at the track this week we have lined up for you guys the 2021 chevrolet trailblazer this is yet another suv for buyers to choose from as if people don't have enough uh it's a it's kind of it's a resurrected nameplate from from chevrolet's past much like you know the blazer made a comeback this year um so john can you tell us a little bit more about the small suv yeah sure so so we bought like you said a 2021 trailblazer lt all-wheel drive it has 155 horsepower 1.3 liter turbocharged three cylinder engine nine speed automatic transmission and like i said all-wheel drive uh it cost msrp so the manufacturer suggested retail price twenty five thousand six hundred dollars to that we we really only spent got one option 965 dollar convenience package uh automatic climate a larger touch screen eight inch touchscreen satellite radio uh rear charger uh usb charging points uh we also got rear parking sensors blind spot and rear cross traffic warning those were optional with destination 995 dollars we spent 27 560. uh this is you know it's it's kind of a new class you know they're squeezing in more manufacturers squeezing in more and more vehicles into these little niches you know you have the the chevy tracks chevrolet tracks this small sub-compact suv and then they have the equinox a compact suv so you think like oh okay well no now they're slotting the trailblazer and in between you know this tweener of the tweeners um competes with honda 8 honda's hrv the jeep renegade kia celtos it's it's a corporate cousin of the buick's encore gx you know so you know kind of the badge engineering in a sense that gm had done for years uh you know you have two vehicles sharing a platform but the buick is the the more luxurious one um you know a little nicer inside and out uh the reason why we got the lt trim the second level up brings a power driver seat it brings heated seats um the base engine on on the both the cars the buick and the trailblazer is a 1.2 liter turbo uh turbocharged engine with the cvt continuously variable transmission but when you go for all-wheel drive you get uh moved up to the more powerful 1.3 liter okay excellent i mean we've had some time to to drive this car uh put it through a lot of its paces and and ryan that's really where where you're uh coming in right now what's it like to drive um it's it's actually uh it's quite boring to drive um this car is uh it's very you know it's a nice little suv it's very um car based uh it feels like a car but you're a little higher off the ground um it's all-wheel drive but it does it feels it dr feels and drives like a front-wheel drive car you know the steering's a little vague it's um it's just it's just boring to drive it's small so it's a nice little run about car you know there's actually a fair amount of room in the car it will serve its purpose but um it's just you know they like we were just talking about these manufacturers keep cut cutting these little um you know another slice of the pie putting these other cars um in between it's hard to separate them because they're very you know it's it's it's only a hair bigger than that one and a hair smaller than that one and it's like they just have no personality i think um but uh you know driving it around i think a lot of people were a little discouraged with the power train too it it's the motor doesn't sound great and then it kind of shutters a little bit um it's just a little buzzy a little just a bit of road noise i don't have a lot of great things to say about it i i i sound like i'm hammering it but it's it's not a bad little car but it's um it's it's got some um vices for sure yeah that's that's all right i mean that's what we do here at consumer reports we we talk about the good and the not so good uh and and you think about comparing the last trailblazer that we tested uh which was you know was it was much bigger it had really sloppy handling weak brakes you know like a lousy 13 miles per gallon overall and you think that well the the bar was pretty low there so you know we're hoping that the gm uh is thinking about this and is gonna you know turn out that the new trail blazer is gonna be uh definitely a step ahead of the last one right i think it's i found it interesting with this is much like ryan said you know it's it's a nondescript vehicle and it is a great runabout it was a fun runabout but it's one of the vehicles that you see with such styling to make it to give it some presence that you know view at the front was fine the view to the left was fine but in a parking lot my over-the-right shoulder view was it's it's really really bad because there is a combination of passenger headrest kind of b pillar the second roof pillar then you get this big c almost rear roof pillar final cluster and the rear head restraint for this for the pat you know the passenger rear headrest and it just blocks the whole side and it's just one of those things where if it's an urban car you know because that's a lot of what people you know oh it's an urban city car but it's not really made very well for tight situations in that respect of looking over your right shoulder you know you end up really relying on either setting the mirror properly which i know a lot of people will comment and say you know you have to set the mirrors and that's the key thing sure setting the mirrors is key but you shouldn't really have to overcome a poor design by setting the mirrors in the key way so you know the big screen for the rear camera the backup camera and the mirror is going to really have to work to compensate for that that compromised view you know it's it's interesting that's 25 26 000 vehicle and it's kind of meh um yeah you know that's what we see with a lot of this or trying to keep price points down but it results in kind of a maybe a used car is a lot better decision well i i think you bring up a good point john about the size because if you think about some things that's small uh you'd hope that the visibility would be good because it's not this huge hulking vehicle but you're but i i agree what i drove it i definitely felt more uh enclosed and the visibility was limited and that just seems like a strange thing when it comes to a vehicle of that size uh you know compared to say something like a subaru forester which is a little bit bigger but definitely has much superior visibility yeah oh yeah and there's it's a there's a lot of cars in the segment now so it's it's a tough uh you know playing ground so you got you can't come in here with a um so-so vehicle in my opinion now as you guys said there's so many of these slicing and dicing uh there isn't any room for mediocrity now you know we're not going to obviously let the cat out of the bag we're we're still wrapping up our final test results uh of the trailblazers so i have to see where it where it comes out when we're done but definitely check back uh to consumer reports uh later this month and we'll have full test results those are available to consumer reports members so uh definitely check it out if you're in the market so we're gonna move on to questions and we get a ton of them we love it we wish we could answer them all we just can't get to them all but we really like you to keep them coming both text and video questions to talking cars at icloud.com that's talkingcars at icloud.com first up is a video question this is sean from pensacola hey talking cars i'm a big fan of the show i drive currently a 2009 toyota highlander it has about 230 to 240 000 miles i'm not exactly sure it's still in great condition i love the car but when i do replace it i'm thinking about getting the new venza i was wondering when you would get a venza and when the report might be available and i was also wondering how it compares to the rav4 prime because both of those cars are top of my list big fan of the show thank you for everything okay so let's start with ryan uh what do you what do you think of sean's alternatives with it with the venza or the uh the rav4 prime so so those are two uh really nice vehicles um you know i i would pick the venza personally um it has more of a um a lexus feel to it it's like a little heavier it has a there's more substance to it i think it rides a little better um you know they're both they're both hybrids toyota hybrids so they're both going to be um from what we've learned very reliable um and what i think is the best hybrid system out there in terms of just drivability they're just they're just great to drive um the the venza just has a little more heft to it i think it's you know the rav4 is a very nice car too but it doesn't have it's not it's thinner it doesn't have that um substance to it um the quality just doesn't feel like it's as high as the venza i think the venza you almost get into a lexus in a way without paying for a lexus so that'd be my choice excellent uh john what do you suggest so the the first thing i i thought sean it's good that he's not buying immediately you know he's looking down the road because right now the primes are hard to find they're only importing 5 000 i think we've talked about this on previous episodes of talking cars uh you know you're seeing basically msrp sticker price at best so you know no matter what you're doing putting it off and at least having the prices potentially come down is a good thing i am personally not a rav4 fan from the redesign uh i don't like the way it's styled i don't like the the space i don't i just it doesn't work for me um think of it this way the prime's smaller than your highlander the the styling compromises uh ingress and egress getting out of it in and out of it in headspace so that's something to consider um if you do get the prime you will be able to take cred advantage of the federal tax credit of 7 500 if you do pay taxes you'll be able to to lessen your tax burden in that way uh you know what you have to pay back so uh you'll have to play with your your uh earnings and what you declare and and uh excuse me and how much you withhold if you want to take advantage of that you will also have to drive the car on electric power to really maximize the price difference between something like a rav4 hybrid for example or the highlander hybrid or the crv honda crv hybrid which i think would be better choices um you know if you like a rav4 i would go with the crv hybrid personally i think the size works uh between it's a little bit more like a mid-size suv without going to that full space if you do like your highlander you can get the highlander in front wheel drive so a little less expensive than all-wheel drive since all the hybrids are all just really electric motors driving the rear wheels it's not like it's a real penalty weight penalty for someone in the sun belt to go with a hybrid like it used to be where you have a drive shaft and you know all kinds of extra weight that you're carrying around is a penalty so you know look if you like the highlander i would suggest going with the front wheel drive highlander hybrid or or all-wheel drive if you want um or the crv hybrid the honda crv hybrid it's just it's a it's a right size that they're they're going to probably i think they'll satisfy you a little bit more and you won't be paying a premium price like you will with the venza or the rav4 prime excellent you know it's funny because if i was going to be talking to sean about this the first question that i would ask is uh perhaps uh you know would you consider just holding on to the highlander that you have i mean these vehicles are known to last a really long time and you know maybe maybe you just get some more miles and more more years out of it and uh you know because dollar for dollar that's probably the least expensive way to go but if you're you know aching for a new car and you know we're car people here so we understand uh you know maybe you just hold on to it and keep driving it if it's not costing you a lot of money every month excellent okay so next we've got alex from phoenix and alex writes my wife and i have a 2018 honda pilot all-wheel drive and one front oem tire formed a cracked on the sidewall at about 28 000 miles in we took it to our favorite shop to have the two front tires replaced we were informed that because the vehicle was an all-wheel drive that all the tires needed to be replaced even though the rear tires had some life left on them they said had the vehicle been front wheel drive it would have been okay to replace just the two so would talking cars help explain why all-wheel drive cars need all four placed like this so alex you are in luck because ryan one of our cr tire experts just happens to be available to give you an answer so ryan what can you tell alex um yeah so it's it's a i guess it's kind of unfortunate but this does happen and this is a real thing um i think some people uh you know they'll the dealer will tell them or their shop will tell them this and they almost you know think they're getting um you know swindled or something but um so what happens is all wheel drive car you know you have all potentially all the wheels can receive power from the engine which means they're all connected in some way depending on the uh the manufacturer and how the car is you know built the wheels are all connected in some way so if you can imagine if they're all connected and one wheel is slightly smaller than the other three wheels it's going to spin at a different speed which is going to bind up or can bind up the um the drivetrain um the differentials different parts and actually um you know make them fail prematurely you know subaru's notorious for this subaru claims they have one of the best all-wheel drive systems and um we would we would even say they do but um it's very common when you you have a you know you get one flat tire and um you're you know you're maybe three quarters worn you have to put in you know the new tire on there they they tell you have to put all you know four on there is an option where you can buy a tire from tire rack um if you buy it from them they'll shave the tire down i know this sounds crazy you're gonna take a brand new tire and actually shave you shave it down to match the same amount of tread depth um on the other tires assuming it's the exact same tire um because that's that's key as well um and you know for to get yourself out of that pinch in alex's case i mean i don't know where his tires were um where wise but um and they are right if you had if it was front-wheel drive you could buy two tires and um which we we don't really recommend um you know you can do that what we recommend is to rotate your tires so that they wear evenly um at all four positions so you can avoid that in the in the first place yeah i mean it's it's unfortunate but just the nature of an all-wheel drive vehicle um every manufacturer has a different spec for what they allow the tolerance of what um you know how worn one tire can be as opposed to the other either way you always replace um you know two tires on an axle at the same time you should always do that and they should always be the same tire uh same model manufacturer and all and uh that's it unfortunately but well you know alex alex from phoenix good luck with this and you know sorry for the kind of the bad news but um that's the way it goes um our next uh and final question is a hank from san francisco hank writes elon musk is jokingly tweeting that the cyber truck will be the official truck of mars what's yours mine is the toyota land cruiser 70 the one available for the lucky australians but not here in america sad face okay uh so hank from san francisco is going all cyber on us and so john do you have kind of an out of this world choice for uh for the the the vehicle of mars uh kind of apropos question given that there's a number of missions going you know being launched to mars from from different nations uh you know right around this summer of 2020. i spent a lot more time thinking about this than the other questions as you could tell i did too but seriously so the first thing is it can't be too big um you know you gotta you gotta it's payload you know you gotta you gotta lift it and get it to mars okay so as much as the mercedes-benz g65 amg six-wheel all-wheel drive uh suv would but you know would be cool um or something crazy like what was shown last year audi's ai trail concept um you know check out the images there they are it's a pretty cool looking vehicle i'd go with a modified version of the ferrox azaris six-wheeled off-road vehicle and it's basically like it it's basically a a single single person vehicle you know like a glorified you know uh can am call you know km spider type of thing uh you know and again you see the see the image but i figured it would be lightweight um you it would need a roof of some some type of course but you know the lightweight would mean it'll be you know easier to get there wouldn't take up as much payload on the rocket um but also it would it would be able to kind of float over the different terrain whether it's sand whether it's rock boulders you know six wheels lots of articulation in the suspension uh quick because a lot of open space to cover um you know during exploring um you know or or maybe the lamborghini lm02 you know just for some reason so you know kind of a silly question get some silly answer nah actually really kind of funny uh ryan that's good best best car for mars go so because we're going we're going there and we don't have um we need to be able to haul stuff around and it's new we're new to this place i would get a early like a late 80s early 90s mercedes-benz unimog okay it holds like two people it's got a nice big bed the tires are enormous um it's just like the ultimate um everything vehicle like i think it just does it all and you don't know we're going to run into up there so that's my choice oh man gr great choice is definitely out of the ordinary uh i'm i'm kind of boring i'm just going with the toyota tacoma there doesn't seem to be any evidence on this earth that the vehicle can ever be stopped so with that we're gonna wrap up this episode of talking cars as always check the show notes for more information on the vehicles and the topics that we talked about keep those questions coming to talking cars at icloud.com thanks so much for tuning in we'll see you next week youbefore we start the show this week we wanted to take a quick second to tell you about a new initiative we're introducing in the podcast which is our talking cars donation program 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 thanks for watching and enjoy the show on today's episode we give our first impressions of the 2021 chevrolet trailblazer share a list of the best used cars for teen drivers and what vehicle would we bring with us on a trip to mars next on talking cars hi and welcome back i'm mike quincy i'm john linkove and i'm ryan pilkowski so quick question for john and ryan uh when you tell people that you work for consumer reports uh do you always get asked the same question are you the guys that crash test cars i have been asked that it is something that people think that that's one of the things we do and the immediate question is like and after you crash them what do you do with them so that's as if you have anything left so actually uh what we've got going today for today's podcast is an awesome announcement uh consumer reports in the insurance institute for highway safety now that's the group that actually does the crash testing of cars the premier crash testers in all of the industry uh anyway our two organizations are teaming up to come up with a recommended list of safe reliable and affordable used cars for teen drivers and this is the first time that cr and the ihs have have teamed up together you know we're thinking about we're taking the combat combined uh you know resources and knowledge consumer reports you know physically test cars handling braking acceleration whatnot we have lots of reliability data and of course no one crash test cars like the ihs so it seemed like a natural to come together and and and and put our our resources and come and come up with this with this awesome list so we've come up with about 65 cars used cars ranging from about fifty three hundred dollars to uh just under twenty thousand and we realize that not everybody can afford a new car i mean the new cars always have the most available uh safety uh safety equipment on it but um really it's not within everybody's budget to be able to afford it so so ryan can you um take us through some of the criteria that went into creating the list of recommended cars yeah so um no sports cars or cars with um too much horsepower excessive horsepower um you know it's just there's an opportunity for um maybe some misuse there um however uh we said also no mini cars no no cars under uh 2750 pounds which is kind of funny because we i just said not um you know too much horsepower but you also don't want too little horsepower so some of these little cars actually can't get out of their own way fast enough and if you know you're merging onto a um a busy highway uh that could actually become a little bit of a safety issue you want to get up to speed with adequate horsepower uh we would say and then uh you know no big um heavy vehicles for obvious reason they're just a little bit clumsier they're harder to uh maneuver you know the braking distances can be longer um they're just it's just clumsier so it's kind of funny as we go through that list not that we'll go through the whole list but you'll see all these cars are more medium-sized vehicles you know there's nothing really really tiny nothing enormous and that's just you know physics and john what were some of the other requirements to make the list well you know what's interesting is you know the list of the best cards you know particularly for teen drivers is that you know like you said they have to be reliable and they have to be safe but they all have to have standard electronic stability control and it's uh it's a feature that most people now take for granted in the sense that it's been out for so many years you know we're talking about more advanced safety systems now that are that are on the cutting edge and coming into cars but electronic stability control you know is going to keep the vehicle under control and prevent it from a skidding situation you know you know kind of the tail sliding out or the car driving straight off off a road when you when the road bends so um you have to have above average reliability according to uh consumer reports member surveys um average or better scores for emergency handling because we conduct emergency handling tests on all the vehicles that we evaluate um it's basically what's called a double lane change and if you can envision you're driving down the street and a child runs out in front of you or or a deer runs out in front of you you're going to swerve out out of the way in the other lane you're going to want to jump back into that travel lane so that you don't hit an oncoming vehicle so that's that's an emergency handling test that we do and make sure vehicle is controllable through those situations um like ryan said braking distances are key dry breaking uh distances of less than 145 feet in our tests and then also good crash test ratings from the iihs and there is another in group that crash has cars the government does the national highway traffic safety administration and their tests aren't always aren't as severe um but you still have to have four or five stars in the uh national highway traffic safety administration uh safe car evaluation so you know if it's rated they have to have that and that that's what we do to really cull down the list to something that is manageable and that people can can use to to make their research for for a car for a team but also for themselves right and that's that's actually a good point and and this entire story and the list of all these cars are consumerreports.org and uh we can't go through every car on on the list uh uh but but ryan and john so if you had to pick you know one a few of your favorites and and maybe even talk about the cars that that you drove when you were teenagers you know looking at that list the first car in the list actually um resonates with me the mazda3 uh a smaller car super fun to drive um you know nimble's good nice quick steering um it's front wheel drive but it should be plenty good for um you know a new driver you could snow tires on it if you need to and then it's a little more money but the the i saw the three series was on there and the three series um is near and dear to my heart uh my very first car was a an 86 um bmw 3 series 325 e and um it was actually my dad was a mechanic most of his life and he would always end up with these stray cars at the garage and he brought it home one day and he was driving it for a while and i just fell in love with it before i could even drive it was a manual no abs no stability control a crank sunroof it was i mean the seat was stuck in one position um i was able to i was able to slide it up but the the seat back was stuck in one position um and i absolutely loved the car i fell in love with driving um it taught me how to drive i would say uh a more pure way um you know in the winter that thing was a little loose in the rear end and uh it was just a blast yeah the purity of driving a rear-wheel drive car in connecticut in the winter time yeah it was uh it was a different day and age i guess but um you know that this three series is obviously a much newer um you know it had all the modern safety stuff in it excellent uh john i'm sure you've got a different perspective uh what what what what's your choices and what did you drive growing up um i tried to keep my my list under ten thousand dollars so the the subaru legacy or outback uh 2013 or newer um around 7 500 to 8 500 honda accord sedan 9200 that's a 2013 or newer or a volkswagen jetta a little a little bit of a sportier option than the subaru's maybe maybe on par with the honda accord 2016 to 2018. i thought that these are vehicles that there are enough made of you know out there that you'll find some some very hard driven examples but you also find some that might not be driven as hard but there's also parts availability um you know something that you know keep keep the cost down for for a teen um you know these types of lists five eight ten years ago you know you're not gonna see an suv on it because for us it was the stability control availability of stability control you know and a tip over and such so it just goes to show that as much as people talk about old days with cars like now we're recommending that a teenage driver a new driver can have an suv because of the safety features but to brian's point nothing too clumsy not a big a tahoe a pickup truck that's a key thing i think parents should keep in mind and try to impress upon their their children my car i grew up with a i had an 87 toyota celica gt coupe um i couldn't afford the gts i certainly couldn't afford a celica all track turbo um you know those they were wishful thinking i think i afforded i was able to put bigger wheels and a spoiler on the back i was able to buy that and um it was a great car and like ryan said you know mine was front wheel drive but again manual no no abs no stability control um i learned about tire grip quickly when i went straight in a turn and between two trees thankfully not into one of them um at a young age uh but you know it made me appreciate driving the same type of way and i had to drive a stick i had to learn to drive a stick because my dad had a 65 corvette in the garage my goal was i had to drive it and i wasn't going to be able to learn on that uh so i learned learn to stick on a much easier hydraulic clutch than a spring spring clutch with a um you know rehearsed four speed so actually uh of all the the guys on on the panel today my kids are actually of driving age and my oldest son uh wanted to drive a manual transmission i mean he's just like falling right in line with the rest of us here and uh he has a 2015 honda civic si and so i was thinking if if he was going to pick a car from from the list that the ihs and consumer reports put out he would probably go for a mazda 3 just like just like you said ryan or or maybe a different honda civic i mean he's just definitely got the jonesing of of of working the clutch and and and the and the manual transmission and uh what's interesting is like when i was driving when i was growing up uh my dad bought a demo a a 1980 ford fiesta and it was a lot less expensive because it was a demo uh and it wasn't a real volkswagen rabbit but it was a four-speed manual vinyl seats no air conditioning and obviously no safety features like they see today but uh it was it was you know got me through the the snows in connecticut and uh it was it was a good little runner although the body was seen to be made of like absolute tinfoil and would rust just by looking at it anyhow just a reminder that list is on consumerreports.org so definitely check it out so which brings us to our next segment which is what we're driving at the track this week we have lined up for you guys the 2021 chevrolet trailblazer this is yet another suv for buyers to choose from as if people don't have enough uh it's a it's kind of it's a resurrected nameplate from from chevrolet's past much like you know the blazer made a comeback this year um so john can you tell us a little bit more about the small suv yeah sure so so we bought like you said a 2021 trailblazer lt all-wheel drive it has 155 horsepower 1.3 liter turbocharged three cylinder engine nine speed automatic transmission and like i said all-wheel drive uh it cost msrp so the manufacturer suggested retail price twenty five thousand six hundred dollars to that we we really only spent got one option 965 dollar convenience package uh automatic climate a larger touch screen eight inch touchscreen satellite radio uh rear charger uh usb charging points uh we also got rear parking sensors blind spot and rear cross traffic warning those were optional with destination 995 dollars we spent 27 560. uh this is you know it's it's kind of a new class you know they're squeezing in more manufacturers squeezing in more and more vehicles into these little niches you know you have the the chevy tracks chevrolet tracks this small sub-compact suv and then they have the equinox a compact suv so you think like oh okay well no now they're slotting the trailblazer and in between you know this tweener of the tweeners um competes with honda 8 honda's hrv the jeep renegade kia celtos it's it's a corporate cousin of the buick's encore gx you know so you know kind of the badge engineering in a sense that gm had done for years uh you know you have two vehicles sharing a platform but the buick is the the more luxurious one um you know a little nicer inside and out uh the reason why we got the lt trim the second level up brings a power driver seat it brings heated seats um the base engine on on the both the cars the buick and the trailblazer is a 1.2 liter turbo uh turbocharged engine with the cvt continuously variable transmission but when you go for all-wheel drive you get uh moved up to the more powerful 1.3 liter okay excellent i mean we've had some time to to drive this car uh put it through a lot of its paces and and ryan that's really where where you're uh coming in right now what's it like to drive um it's it's actually uh it's quite boring to drive um this car is uh it's very you know it's a nice little suv it's very um car based uh it feels like a car but you're a little higher off the ground um it's all-wheel drive but it does it feels it dr feels and drives like a front-wheel drive car you know the steering's a little vague it's um it's just it's just boring to drive it's small so it's a nice little run about car you know there's actually a fair amount of room in the car it will serve its purpose but um it's just you know they like we were just talking about these manufacturers keep cut cutting these little um you know another slice of the pie putting these other cars um in between it's hard to separate them because they're very you know it's it's it's only a hair bigger than that one and a hair smaller than that one and it's like they just have no personality i think um but uh you know driving it around i think a lot of people were a little discouraged with the power train too it it's the motor doesn't sound great and then it kind of shutters a little bit um it's just a little buzzy a little just a bit of road noise i don't have a lot of great things to say about it i i i sound like i'm hammering it but it's it's not a bad little car but it's um it's it's got some um vices for sure yeah that's that's all right i mean that's what we do here at consumer reports we we talk about the good and the not so good uh and and you think about comparing the last trailblazer that we tested uh which was you know was it was much bigger it had really sloppy handling weak brakes you know like a lousy 13 miles per gallon overall and you think that well the the bar was pretty low there so you know we're hoping that the gm uh is thinking about this and is gonna you know turn out that the new trail blazer is gonna be uh definitely a step ahead of the last one right i think it's i found it interesting with this is much like ryan said you know it's it's a nondescript vehicle and it is a great runabout it was a fun runabout but it's one of the vehicles that you see with such styling to make it to give it some presence that you know view at the front was fine the view to the left was fine but in a parking lot my over-the-right shoulder view was it's it's really really bad because there is a combination of passenger headrest kind of b pillar the second roof pillar then you get this big c almost rear roof pillar final cluster and the rear head restraint for this for the pat you know the passenger rear headrest and it just blocks the whole side and it's just one of those things where if it's an urban car you know because that's a lot of what people you know oh it's an urban city car but it's not really made very well for tight situations in that respect of looking over your right shoulder you know you end up really relying on either setting the mirror properly which i know a lot of people will comment and say you know you have to set the mirrors and that's the key thing sure setting the mirrors is key but you shouldn't really have to overcome a poor design by setting the mirrors in the key way so you know the big screen for the rear camera the backup camera and the mirror is going to really have to work to compensate for that that compromised view you know it's it's interesting that's 25 26 000 vehicle and it's kind of meh um yeah you know that's what we see with a lot of this or trying to keep price points down but it results in kind of a maybe a used car is a lot better decision well i i think you bring up a good point john about the size because if you think about some things that's small uh you'd hope that the visibility would be good because it's not this huge hulking vehicle but you're but i i agree what i drove it i definitely felt more uh enclosed and the visibility was limited and that just seems like a strange thing when it comes to a vehicle of that size uh you know compared to say something like a subaru forester which is a little bit bigger but definitely has much superior visibility yeah oh yeah and there's it's a there's a lot of cars in the segment now so it's it's a tough uh you know playing ground so you got you can't come in here with a um so-so vehicle in my opinion now as you guys said there's so many of these slicing and dicing uh there isn't any room for mediocrity now you know we're not going to obviously let the cat out of the bag we're we're still wrapping up our final test results uh of the trailblazers so i have to see where it where it comes out when we're done but definitely check back uh to consumer reports uh later this month and we'll have full test results those are available to consumer reports members so uh definitely check it out if you're in the market so we're gonna move on to questions and we get a ton of them we love it we wish we could answer them all we just can't get to them all but we really like you to keep them coming both text and video questions to talking cars at icloud.com that's talkingcars at icloud.com first up is a video question this is sean from pensacola hey talking cars i'm a big fan of the show i drive currently a 2009 toyota highlander it has about 230 to 240 000 miles i'm not exactly sure it's still in great condition i love the car but when i do replace it i'm thinking about getting the new venza i was wondering when you would get a venza and when the report might be available and i was also wondering how it compares to the rav4 prime because both of those cars are top of my list big fan of the show thank you for everything okay so let's start with ryan uh what do you what do you think of sean's alternatives with it with the venza or the uh the rav4 prime so so those are two uh really nice vehicles um you know i i would pick the venza personally um it has more of a um a lexus feel to it it's like a little heavier it has a there's more substance to it i think it rides a little better um you know they're both they're both hybrids toyota hybrids so they're both going to be um from what we've learned very reliable um and what i think is the best hybrid system out there in terms of just drivability they're just they're just great to drive um the the venza just has a little more heft to it i think it's you know the rav4 is a very nice car too but it doesn't have it's not it's thinner it doesn't have that um substance to it um the quality just doesn't feel like it's as high as the venza i think the venza you almost get into a lexus in a way without paying for a lexus so that'd be my choice excellent uh john what do you suggest so the the first thing i i thought sean it's good that he's not buying immediately you know he's looking down the road because right now the primes are hard to find they're only importing 5 000 i think we've talked about this on previous episodes of talking cars uh you know you're seeing basically msrp sticker price at best so you know no matter what you're doing putting it off and at least having the prices potentially come down is a good thing i am personally not a rav4 fan from the redesign uh i don't like the way it's styled i don't like the the space i don't i just it doesn't work for me um think of it this way the prime's smaller than your highlander the the styling compromises uh ingress and egress getting out of it in and out of it in headspace so that's something to consider um if you do get the prime you will be able to take cred advantage of the federal tax credit of 7 500 if you do pay taxes you'll be able to to lessen your tax burden in that way uh you know what you have to pay back so uh you'll have to play with your your uh earnings and what you declare and and uh excuse me and how much you withhold if you want to take advantage of that you will also have to drive the car on electric power to really maximize the price difference between something like a rav4 hybrid for example or the highlander hybrid or the crv honda crv hybrid which i think would be better choices um you know if you like a rav4 i would go with the crv hybrid personally i think the size works uh between it's a little bit more like a mid-size suv without going to that full space if you do like your highlander you can get the highlander in front wheel drive so a little less expensive than all-wheel drive since all the hybrids are all just really electric motors driving the rear wheels it's not like it's a real penalty weight penalty for someone in the sun belt to go with a hybrid like it used to be where you have a drive shaft and you know all kinds of extra weight that you're carrying around is a penalty so you know look if you like the highlander i would suggest going with the front wheel drive highlander hybrid or or all-wheel drive if you want um or the crv hybrid the honda crv hybrid it's just it's a it's a right size that they're they're going to probably i think they'll satisfy you a little bit more and you won't be paying a premium price like you will with the venza or the rav4 prime excellent you know it's funny because if i was going to be talking to sean about this the first question that i would ask is uh perhaps uh you know would you consider just holding on to the highlander that you have i mean these vehicles are known to last a really long time and you know maybe maybe you just get some more miles and more more years out of it and uh you know because dollar for dollar that's probably the least expensive way to go but if you're you know aching for a new car and you know we're car people here so we understand uh you know maybe you just hold on to it and keep driving it if it's not costing you a lot of money every month excellent okay so next we've got alex from phoenix and alex writes my wife and i have a 2018 honda pilot all-wheel drive and one front oem tire formed a cracked on the sidewall at about 28 000 miles in we took it to our favorite shop to have the two front tires replaced we were informed that because the vehicle was an all-wheel drive that all the tires needed to be replaced even though the rear tires had some life left on them they said had the vehicle been front wheel drive it would have been okay to replace just the two so would talking cars help explain why all-wheel drive cars need all four placed like this so alex you are in luck because ryan one of our cr tire experts just happens to be available to give you an answer so ryan what can you tell alex um yeah so it's it's a i guess it's kind of unfortunate but this does happen and this is a real thing um i think some people uh you know they'll the dealer will tell them or their shop will tell them this and they almost you know think they're getting um you know swindled or something but um so what happens is all wheel drive car you know you have all potentially all the wheels can receive power from the engine which means they're all connected in some way depending on the uh the manufacturer and how the car is you know built the wheels are all connected in some way so if you can imagine if they're all connected and one wheel is slightly smaller than the other three wheels it's going to spin at a different speed which is going to bind up or can bind up the um the drivetrain um the differentials different parts and actually um you know make them fail prematurely you know subaru's notorious for this subaru claims they have one of the best all-wheel drive systems and um we would we would even say they do but um it's very common when you you have a you know you get one flat tire and um you're you know you're maybe three quarters worn you have to put in you know the new tire on there they they tell you have to put all you know four on there is an option where you can buy a tire from tire rack um if you buy it from them they'll shave the tire down i know this sounds crazy you're gonna take a brand new tire and actually shave you shave it down to match the same amount of tread depth um on the other tires assuming it's the exact same tire um because that's that's key as well um and you know for to get yourself out of that pinch in alex's case i mean i don't know where his tires were um where wise but um and they are right if you had if it was front-wheel drive you could buy two tires and um which we we don't really recommend um you know you can do that what we recommend is to rotate your tires so that they wear evenly um at all four positions so you can avoid that in the in the first place yeah i mean it's it's unfortunate but just the nature of an all-wheel drive vehicle um every manufacturer has a different spec for what they allow the tolerance of what um you know how worn one tire can be as opposed to the other either way you always replace um you know two tires on an axle at the same time you should always do that and they should always be the same tire uh same model manufacturer and all and uh that's it unfortunately but well you know alex alex from phoenix good luck with this and you know sorry for the kind of the bad news but um that's the way it goes um our next uh and final question is a hank from san francisco hank writes elon musk is jokingly tweeting that the cyber truck will be the official truck of mars what's yours mine is the toyota land cruiser 70 the one available for the lucky australians but not here in america sad face okay uh so hank from san francisco is going all cyber on us and so john do you have kind of an out of this world choice for uh for the the the vehicle of mars uh kind of apropos question given that there's a number of missions going you know being launched to mars from from different nations uh you know right around this summer of 2020. i spent a lot more time thinking about this than the other questions as you could tell i did too but seriously so the first thing is it can't be too big um you know you gotta you gotta it's payload you know you gotta you gotta lift it and get it to mars okay so as much as the mercedes-benz g65 amg six-wheel all-wheel drive uh suv would but you know would be cool um or something crazy like what was shown last year audi's ai trail concept um you know check out the images there they are it's a pretty cool looking vehicle i'd go with a modified version of the ferrox azaris six-wheeled off-road vehicle and it's basically like it it's basically a a single single person vehicle you know like a glorified you know uh can am call you know km spider type of thing uh you know and again you see the see the image but i figured it would be lightweight um you it would need a roof of some some type of course but you know the lightweight would mean it'll be you know easier to get there wouldn't take up as much payload on the rocket um but also it would it would be able to kind of float over the different terrain whether it's sand whether it's rock boulders you know six wheels lots of articulation in the suspension uh quick because a lot of open space to cover um you know during exploring um you know or or maybe the lamborghini lm02 you know just for some reason so you know kind of a silly question get some silly answer nah actually really kind of funny uh ryan that's good best best car for mars go so because we're going we're going there and we don't have um we need to be able to haul stuff around and it's new we're new to this place i would get a early like a late 80s early 90s mercedes-benz unimog okay it holds like two people it's got a nice big bed the tires are enormous um it's just like the ultimate um everything vehicle like i think it just does it all and you don't know we're going to run into up there so that's my choice oh man gr great choice is definitely out of the ordinary uh i'm i'm kind of boring i'm just going with the toyota tacoma there doesn't seem to be any evidence on this earth that the vehicle can ever be stopped so with that we're gonna wrap up this episode of talking cars as always check the show notes for more information on the vehicles and the topics that we talked about keep those questions coming to talking cars at icloud.com thanks so much for tuning in we'll see you next week you\n"

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