Season 2, Episode 108 - EGR USA’s Mike Timmons talks Product to Market

 

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1 (2s):

Yeah, I. I gonna go around.

Sean P. Holman (5s):

So did Rich let you drive the mini excavator that’s currently in your driveway?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9s):

No, he wouldn’t let me touch it.

Sean P. Holman (10s):

Yeah, he’s smart.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12s):

I was out here and watched him do, first we did the drilling and then we did the auger, which drew, we went down 54 inches, then we put rock at the bottom of the holes, centered up the Ballards, and then dropped in the Ballard. Got it all square. Dude, he’s, that’s

Sean P. Holman (29s):

A nice finish work

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30s):

Here. Driveway. He’s like doing pirouettes out here with this thing. Your

Sean P. Holman (33s):

Driveway is both pumped and sloped. All, right? So it’s time for real talk. How’s your wife feel? About 4 54 inch holes being drilled in her driveway.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (41s):

So apparently, and I’m not making this up, six neighbors texted her and said, What the fuck are you doing? What is happening here? You don’t own a Lamborghini. Why are you not yet? Not, not, not, not yet. Why are you doing, what is he doing? And she was embarrassed to say, we’re putting these posts in to protect the

Sean P. Holman (1m 2s):

Cars. Now she had a different solution and that was

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 6s):

Selling The truck.

Sean P. Holman (1m 7s):

So I think you’ve jumped the shark officially when your wife says, just get rid of the vehicle. I don’t know if you could ever recovered from that. I.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 14s):

Don’t know. I I saw her

Sean P. Holman (1m 15s):

Walk

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 15s):

The dog,

Sean P. Holman (1m 16s):

And she was not

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 16s):

Amused. Hold on, let lemme say this. She didn’t say sell The truck. She said, is this to a point where you think you should sell The truck? That’s how she

Sean P. Holman (1m 25s):

Phrased it. Clearly not. If you bought bollards,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 28s):

I don’t want to let them get the best of me. You know what I’m saying? Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (1m 31s):

This is, this is more of a machismo ego thing than it is protecting your own cars. Now. You just aren’t gonna let them get one up on you. That’s all this is. That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 39s):

All it is. And I’m hoping that it’s of the ultimate visual deterrent. Why break the glass if you can’t steal The truck?

Sean P. Holman (1m 46s):

Well, I’m not gonna say I. I am looking here and I’m like, there’s definitely some ways out. You need about four or five more Ballards in my estimation.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 53s):

No, No way, No way. I mean, you could drive through my white picket fence. I don’t

Sean P. Holman (1m 57s):

Think you should say that on the podcast.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 59s):

Maybe not

Sean P. Holman (1m 60s):

Specifically Why I didn’t say that. Well, no, see that. Hopefully you have a giant tree right

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 2s):

There. I have a tree in the way. And we’re gonna fill cement in that, in that post over there. So I don’t think there’s any way of getting out All. right? Rich,

Sean P. Holman (2m 8s):

How did it go today? I’m

Rich (2m 9s):

Pretty freaking good.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 11s):

I. think so

Rich (2m 11s):

We got, we got the machines delivered pretty early and we What,

Sean P. Holman (2m 15s):

What made, what made you want to help Lightning with this project?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 20s):

Why would you ask it like that? Okay,

Sean P. Holman (2m 21s):

Let me rephrase it. Why would you drive six hours to help Lightning?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 25s):

It’s bad because my mother

Rich (2m 26s):

From another mother, that’s pretty much how it is.

Sean P. Holman (2m 29s):

And by the way, I I find it minorly amusing. Okay. Maybe more than minorly. You’ve come here, you’ve prepped your driveway, you’ve put Ballards in, you’ve taken all these steps, and yet the TRX is nowhere to be seen. Well, listen.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 42s):

Wait, wait. Listen.

Sean P. Holman (2m 45s):

Another

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 46s):

Car theft on my block.

Sean P. Holman (2m 47s):

Right? Exactly.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 48s):

What was your question

Sean P. Holman (2m 49s):

Again? Where’s the TRX? You get all this assignment here?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 52s):

No, these aren’t ready yet. They’re not ready for the prime time. I see.

Sean P. Holman (2m 56s):

So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 57s):

The, it’s still at work at banks. Oh, oh, I shouldn’t say that. That’s right. It’s somewhere at a warehouse

Sean P. Holman (3m 1s):

Where, where you were told it needs to go home.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 3s):

I moved it. So now Gail can’t see it,

Sean P. Holman (3m 6s):

But it’s still there.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 6s):

It’s in another warehouse. I think that Rich’s holdaway construction crew did a gorgeous job. I mean, oh,

Sean P. Holman (3m 15s):

I’m, I’m gonna be honest. It’s better than you deserve. It

Rich (3m 18s):

Turned out good it out. We less than a day, we got it done. So that’s what we needed. We need to get it done. And we left you a few of these z cylinders here for you to

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 25s):

Play with. I would prefer you put those in the back of your F two 50 and haul ’em away. Okay.

Rich (3m 30s):

We can do,

Sean P. Holman (3m 31s):

I don’t have, what

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 32s):

Am I gonna do with Hold on a second? Hey, let’s explain what these are. So the guy before me, it’s a three car wide GR driveway. Yeah. And a single car garage. Right? Right. And the one of the main reasons I bought this house is it’s the only three car wide driveway in the entire It’s gorgeous. Yeah. Block. So driveway’s

Sean P. Holman (3m 48s):

Gorgeous. No, it is pockmark

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 49s):

Giant. I I Disagree. I disagree. Once the cement turns colors and it, it, it, they do like, like boobies, you know, sticking out the ground a little bit. Yeah. But I think the stainless steel will look kind of cool when they’re up. I think the neighbors will be like, oh wait, anyway.

Sean P. Holman (4m 2s):

Anyway, these six inch, 12 inch diameter cylinders, that

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 5s):

14 inch.

Sean P. Holman (4m 6s):

14 inch that, excuse me, that rich pulled out of your driveway. You’re asking him to haul them away. Listen, you’ve got motion sensors, you’ve got Ballards, you’ve got a camera. Oh, you’ve got lights. These should be your chalks for the wheels. Yes sir. Why would you haul those? Hey, when you can attach them. You know what, I bet those symbols rich, look rich, drilled through the center. So it looks like a donut to pull them out, right? Yep. What you do is you put a piece of chain through there, or wire like, like aircraft wire through the spokes of your wheels. And then that way when they drive away, they’ll just hit the body and prevent The truck from leaving. They wouldn’t

Rich (4m 40s):

Even move at that point. You couldn’t get, wait a minute, you couldn’t get your wheels over the top of that

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 43s):

Hold on a second. Rich. What if we drill holes and put anchors in the ground and then they chain the Wheel rings

Sean P. Holman (4m 49s):

Like a trailer? No airplane. Yeah, exactly. But like a, you know the flight line where you tie your Cessna down?

Rich (4m 53s):

Exactly. The big ones that you put inside. The big C seventeens. The big cargo planes and you just strap

Sean P. Holman (4m 58s):

It down. Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 59s):

Let’s not do

Sean P. Holman (4m 59s):

That. Put this here. Yeah. Alright, well I’ll be excited to come by tomorrow when you are fully extended and, and standing proud.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 12s):

Thank you very much. To hold away construction, coming all the way down from to Southern California. From Holister, from Hollister, California. Yes. Six hour drive. His crew was richest. Crew was awesome. His kids were awesome. It was great. They turned it into like a Disneyland weekend after they were done with my house. So I think job well done. As of this recording, The truck has not returned home yet. It will be returning home soon.

Sean P. Holman (5m 39s):

Has your wife returned home?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 41s):

No, she moved out. We’re divorced because

Sean P. Holman (5m 42s):

We had dinner with Rich and I sat with your wife and I asked her what she thought and she was pissed.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 50s):

She was not happy. No,

Sean P. Holman (5m 51s):

No, no, no, no. This was not, not happy. Yeah. This was pure unad. She was not only pissed, but she went so far over on the piss scale that she became defeated. Mm. So when I talked to her, I’m like, so how mad are you? And she’s like, I, I. Can’t I just I I can’t believe it. Like it was. So it was like, I’m so mad I can’t be mad anymore. Yeah. So I’m just gonna exhale all

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 15s):

Of this. No, you know what it was, it was disappointment,

Sean P. Holman (6m 18s):

Which

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 19s):

Is worse than math. It

Sean P. Holman (6m 20s):

Was abject disappointment. So I get to your place and the first thing I think about is coming back at night with one of those spray on chalk canisters to put balls around the base of your ballards. Sure. Because I think that would be funny.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 33s):

Right. And then when you extend it, it’s, you know, that’s,

Sean P. Holman (6m 36s):

And I was going to do that until I spoke with your wife who was mortified by the whole process. Yeah. and I went, that will emotionally scar her. It would if, if she has to come out in your driveway and then sees four extended stainless steel ballards with actual balls on the bottom of them. Yeah. That

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 51s):

Would’ve been funny.

Sean P. Holman (6m 51s):

It to us. Sure. But she was already at the limit because she told me five or six neighbors had come by wondering What the hell was going on. I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 60s):

Was not making that up.

Sean P. Holman (7m 1s):

And she was embarrassed.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 2s):

Yeah. By

Sean P. Holman (7m 3s):

The whole process.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 3s):

Oh no. One of the neighbors three doors down from us stopped by the other day when I was watering my cement. As you do it, as it cures, right? Yeah. And she goes, really Jay, that’s how you’re gonna spend your money. I was like, what? She was literally chastising me for spending my money that way. She’s like, your wife deserves a new front bathroom. You could redo the

Sean P. Holman (7m 26s):

Backyard.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 26s):

Come on

Sean P. Holman (7m 27s):

Now. All. right. Let’s slide past that. What, what I wanna know is, have you extended them yet? Yes. Are they extended currently? No. Is there a car behind them?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 35s):

They’re they’re in the ground right now. They’re flushed with the ground. Okay,

Sean P. Holman (7m 38s):

But is there a car in your driveway? Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 39s):

Three. Because your, your wife? No, there’s still a tractor as if this recording, the tractor’s still there, but there are two. Two. My, because your

Sean P. Holman (7m 44s):

Wife told me she was no longer because I asked you, I said

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 47s):

She lied. I said I pulled it in that night. No,

Sean P. Holman (7m 49s):

No. I I. I don’t, I don’t dispute you pulled it in. But your wife told me she would not be touching them. She would not be extended extending them. She’ll not be lowering them. She wants nothing to do with them so bad. In fact, she was gonna park in the street. I’m just curious if that changed.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 6s):

I pulled the car in actually the next day and she pulled it in two days in a row. So she is driving and she’s driving over them. She left, she left rubber skid marks on ’em. But

Sean P. Holman (8m 19s):

Did she extend or drop

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 20s):

Them? No. I don’t know if she’ll be doing that. I I mean I might be able to bagg her into,

Sean P. Holman (8m 26s):

But every night you have to go out there and you have to deploy them before bed. Like if you’re walking the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 31s):

Dog. Only if my truck’s there. If my truck’s there. You

Sean P. Holman (8m 34s):

Don’t care about the Mercedes.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 34s):

They don’t, I don’t think thieves care about it. They want Hellcats,

Sean P. Holman (8m 37s):

Which has a lifter problem.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 39s):

Now you No, let’s solved. That’s for another Whoa. Whoa.

Sean P. Holman (8m 41s):

You wanna talk about that?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 42s):

You can.

Sean P. Holman (8m 43s):

I just I I just,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 45s):

Do you love just crapping on me, don’t you? No,

Sean P. Holman (8m 47s):

I’m not crapping on you. I just feel like you had an embarrassment of riches with storytelling and

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 51s):

I did.

Sean P. Holman (8m 51s):

I’m allowing you always say, well, how should we get into this episode?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 54s):

Well, I Yeah. Well, I mean, we, I installed the Ballards I haven’t played with them yet. I am gonna post a video. I shot a lot of video. You guys will see what they look like, what they do. and I think I I think it’s gonna be a revolution in, in auto security. Okay.

Sean P. Holman (9m 4s):

All. right.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 5s):

I really Do

Sean P. Holman (9m 6s):

I truly think everybody’s tired of Ballards. What happened to the Benzs?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 8s):

I went to go move it. Yeah. To make way for the construction equipment and I started off and it goes tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,

Sean P. Holman (9m 13s):

Tick. Oh is louder than that. It was scary loud.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 15s):

It was scary loud. And it was coming out of, it would sounded like the exhaust. It

Sean P. Holman (9m 18s):

Sounded like a lifter

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 19s):

Or something. Alift or whatever. Yeah. I went on Facebook with Oh, that’s right. You and I. You helped me compose the Facebook message. I went on and within 45 seconds of posting that message, my buddy Oh, Eric Bja from Amp Research. The the step company, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he sends me a, a text ’cause he’s got my number and he goes, he’s like, Hey, my buddy works over at Fletcher Jones in Newport Beach, which is, there you go. The world’s largest Mercedes-Benz dealer. Yeah. So I called up his buddy Kenny, and we had a great chat. And he goes, yeah, it sounds like a stock lifter. Exactly what you were saying. And he goes, but before you do it, like before you drive it to my house or flatbed it to the dealership or whatever you’re gonna do, it is like,

Sean P. Holman (9m 53s):

Turn it upside down and shake it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 55s):

Negative. He goes like, we need to figure out where it’s coming from. So do you have a stethoscope? I’m like, no, but I’ve always wanted to buy one. So Amazon next day deliver day 7:00 AM the next morning. Nah, I love it. I I had a stethoscope and I walked out. By

Sean P. Holman (10m 7s):

The way, you know what I got on the 7:00 AM next day delivery. No foam sprayer.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 12s):

A foam sprayer. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (10m 13s):

Oh, you

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 14s):

Got, you got a foam gun. Yes.

Sean P. Holman (10m 15s):

Yeah. Hot ticket. Yeah. I, you guys talked me into it. I’m, I gotta try this. Have you used it yet? No.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 20s):

It’s, you are gonna like be Why didn’t I buy this a

Sean P. Holman (10m 22s):

Decade? Nah, I. That’s what I, anyway, I’m so, I’m just, I’m Listen, this is not me crapping on you. This is me like pulling life out of you.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 29s):

So let’s share with audience. So I, so I’m, I’m like, I’m, I get my stethoscope. I put it on and I’ve used them before I had borrowed somebody’s, it’s really, really handy if it’s literally just a stethoscope with a, with a, a long bar at the end and you touch it against anything metal and it goes into your skull. It’s so fricking loud. You can hear where any rattle or tick is coming from. Start the car, walk out. No, tick.

Sean P. Holman (10m 53s):

Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 53s):

No tick.

Sean P. Holman (10m 54s):

All. right. Not solved though.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 55s):

Not solved.

Sean P. Holman (10m 56s):

So where are we at right now?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 57s):

So what I was told to do by Kenny, the mechanic, he says get some friction

Sean P. Holman (11m 1s):

Modifier or something.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 2s):

Nope. He says Go get your AM oil engine flush. Yep. So luckily we had some at work and I and I luckily have the oil that I need. The European spec oil. Yep. Yep. So I’m going to first flush it with, I guess the, the flush has got detergent in it. Yes. So I’m gonna run that through it. New oil. And he says if it’s stuck, there’s a really high likelihood that that’ll cure it. Okay. Awesome. So fingers crossed. ’cause that would not be an inexpensive fix. No,

Sean P. Holman (11m 30s):

No, no. That would, that would be, that would be devastating on that car.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 33s):

Yeah. No, M1 13 K. He did say that of all the Mercedes engines, the M1 13 K or the, the M1 13 is naturally aspirated. The K is the compressor. Right. And he says, of all the engines, I, we love that one the most because it’s super, super stout. The one that followed it. Not so much nuts.

Sean P. Holman (11m 50s):

Yeah. It wasn’t

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 51s):

Great. Oh yeah. And then I went to Ikea and I bought a bed for the other room so my wife can sleep in it.

Sean P. Holman (11m 56s):

Oh, that’s nice of you. I thought you got it for the garage so you can sleep there.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 59s):

Yeah, well, either one. Either

Sean P. Holman (12m 1s):

One. Oh no you can’t because the golf cart’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 2s):

There. Yeah. No, I can’t. No, no. It’s, it, it’s, I think the wife is gonna warm up to it eventually. It’s just, they’re kind of cool when they’re deployed. Yeah. It looks like a museum. You know what I mean? I mean, my house doesn’t, but the ballers,

Sean P. Holman (12m 14s):

Do you think it draws more attention to your house? For sure.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 17s):

Oh, for sure. Not, not, not necessarily In a good way. Right. But

Sean P. Holman (12m 20s):

These people, oh, these guys are rich.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 21s):

But I will say that people roll by you. Hell, you were standing there when one of my neighbors came by with the two pit

Sean P. Holman (12m 26s):

Bulls. I know. And he Yeah. And turned around, came back

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 27s):

And he turned around. He’s like, what’s he stopped? He is like, what’s going on

Sean P. Holman (12m 30s):

Over there? Listen, it’s gonna explain. It’s gonna be a neighborhood talking point. No doubt about it. Oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 34s):

That’s, but I I like that. No I know you. I don’t mind that. Your

Sean P. Holman (12m 36s):

Wife on

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 36s):

The other hand, not so much.

Sean P. Holman (12m 37s):

Not so much.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 38s):

No, not so much All. right.

Sean P. Holman (12m 39s):

Well, if you’re sick and tired of unreliable cars and you’re facing a massive engine overhaul, why don’t you put yourself into a Nissan Frontier Smart. You can head on down to your local Nissan dealer. We can check out the whole lineup of Frontiers, including the Pro four X, and check out all the options they offer. Whether it’s the util track tie downs, whether it’s the zero gravity seats, the Fender audio system, the 310 horsepower, 3.8 liter V six, all that great stuff you can even build and price at Nissan usa dot com. Nissan is the presenting sponsor of The Truck Show Podcast. And we appreciate their partnership.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 12s):

And when you’re looking to figure out what in the world your truck is doing, because it’s not displaying what you’re looking for on the instrument cluster, you gotta go get yourself a bank’s ID dash. It’s a 52 millimeter digital gauge. The displays everything that your ECM is broadcasting, plus a whole lot more. A lot of that stuff is not displayed on your dash, but is available through that OBD port that the I dash plugs into. There’s a whole bunch of cool calculated parameters. It’s like having an onboard dynamometer. It’ll tell you realtime horsepower and torque. It tells you manifold air density, boost air density, all these wonderful things that if you’re an engine developer or you’re a tinkerer, it is a phenomenal tool. But if you’re an average Joe, the I Dash will tell you all your oil temp pressure level speeds, you name it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 58s):

The ID dash data monster and I dash super gauge are both available at Banks Power dot com.

Sean P. Holman (14m 5s):

And if you’re looking to up your lubrication game, you wanna go over to ams oil dot com. You can check out the 10 reasons to switch to AMS oil.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 13s):

Ooh, I smell a countdown. Number 10.

Sean P. Holman (14m 18s):

Unsurpassed customer service.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 20s):

I believe that. Yep. Okay, number nine.

Sean P. Holman (14m 25s):

Lubrication excellence for a wide range of applications.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 28s):

I gotta start it again. Here we go. Okay. Number eight,

Sean P. Holman (14m 31s):

AMS oil. Oil filters have some of the finest filtration in the world with their nanotechnology. Number

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 35s):

Seven, unbeatable.

Sean P. Holman (14m 37s):

Cold. Go ahead. Unbeatable cold temperature performance

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 41s):

Number eight.

Sean P. Holman (14m 41s):

Reduced oil consumption.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 43s):

Number nine. Wait, keep at six. All right Number five. What’s wrong

Sean P. Holman (14m 48s):

With you? It’s funny.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 49s):

Go ahead. Number five,

Sean P. Holman (14m 51s):

AM’s oil is great for the environment because you, number four, waste oil dumped in the environment. Four, by setting your oil changes, extended drain intervals of up to 25,000 miles. Improved fuel economy. And the last reason that you should switch to AMS oil is because it’s synthetic. It’s been molecularly engineered for moderate engines. We love AMS oil. It’s a great product you learn all about. Switching to synthetics at am oil dot com. What is wrong with you?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 16s):

It seems like we should end a countdown with that. Okay, great. No,

Sean P. Holman (15m 21s):

And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 21s):

We’ve got our friend Mike Timmons from EGR coming in right after the show intro. Oh, is he

Sean P. Holman (15m 26s):

Gonna be in studio?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 27s):

He is, yes. We

Sean P. Holman (15m 28s):

Should probably unlock the side gate.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 31s):

Yes. That’s probably smart. You guys know EGR for the roll track. Retractable tonneau cover that’s on the back of my TRX. You know them from Fender Flares. They’re a company that makes OE Parts and also makes quality aftermarket accessories for your truck. Find

Sean P. Holman (15m 46s):

Out all the different categories for your truck at EGR USA dot com.

4 (15m 50s):

The truck show. We’re gonna show you what we know. We’re gonna answer What The truck. Because truck rides with The truck show. We have the lifted We. have the lowered and everything in between. We’ll talk about trucks that run on diesel and the ones that run on gasoline. The truck show. The truck show. The truck show. Whoa Whoa.

5 (16m 22s):

It’s The truck show with your hosts Lightning and Holman.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 30s):

Mike Timmons, welcome to the pod shed. How you doing dude? I’m good. How are you guys?

Sean P. Holman (16m 34s):

We’re we’re we’re great. This is the first time that you basically immersed yourself in our pod shed. Yes. This

4 (16m 42s):

Is

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 42s):

Pretty awesome. This is great looking. Whoa. Whoa Whoa. Hold that thought. We’ve gotta play your intro. Don’t move.

4 (16m 47s):

Welcome to the parts department.

6 (16m 49s):

Screw nut filter oil grill tools, the

4 (16m 54s):

Pull department,

6 (16m 55s):

Wheels, tires, brakes, lights, gears, belts, the

4 (17m 0s):

Pull department. And your wife warns you not to Don spend our money and then you wanna come back.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 9s):

Love it. So if you guys don’t already know, Mike Timmons is with EGR and you’ll find ’em at EGR usa dot com. They are a proud partner of the podcast. And the thing is, we were after Mike for quite a long time to be a partner and he is like, nah, you gotta wait for another quarter. Gotta wait for another quarter, gotta wait for the, and you like, no, you are right for us. You don’t understand. You make awesome products and we need to be partners. And finally, like you

Sean P. Holman (17m 34s):

Caved, you might be a revisionist historian

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 36s):

Right

Sean P. Holman (17m 36s):

There. Maybe I’m, I’m not sure why you’ve done exactly like that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 39s):

It maybe was similar in nature. Yes. Oh, I. like that version.

Sean P. Holman (17m 42s):

Oh, you like that All right?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 43s):

All right. All right. We can go with it. The first time you came in, we were in El Segundo at MotorTrend. Yep. Yep. And you came in and you said, Hey we’ve got this, you know, we knew you for Fender flares, you EGR. That’s what I’m saying. We knew you for a lot of your plastic parts. Right. The truck accessories, The truck accessories, all. And we’ll get into a lot of that stuff. But you were debuting, I think that was one of the first times we interviewed you in, in person Right. With the EGR

Sean P. Holman (18m 7s):

With with this, with this company. Right? Yep. With

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (18m 9s):

EGR and I kind of like nodded. Yes. I believe you kind of sort until I see it. And then you took us out on the parking lot and you showed us on your ram, that red ram, was it the company’s Ram? Somebody’s Ram.

Sean P. Holman (18m 20s):

Okay. And that had the roll track on it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (18m 21s):

It had the roll track and it was in, it was at that point when I realized, oh, smack. Like he wasn’t, this wasn’t marketing BI believe

Sean P. Holman (18m 30s):

You crawled into the bed. To

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (18m 31s):

The bed. I actually crawled from inside the bed and I looked in. I got my little trusty flashlight out that I bought at Amazon. Yeah. And it always works. So I’m, I’m crawling around on the bed of this ram and I’m like, okay, this looks like it’s as good his as he said it was. And he said, well, and then came months and months later I get my TRX and I said, I’m ready for it. Let’s do this. Yep. And you laced me up with an EGR roll track and it was better. And I’m not saying I have said this and Don don’t know if you listen to the podcast, Mike. Of course. Of course. Okay. I have said this on so many occasions. I’m sure I sound like a shill. There’s nothing I can do about it. It is,

Sean P. Holman (19m 8s):

By the way, Mike, if it gets uncomfortable I can hand you the sign. It says slow down and you can either stop him or you can slow him down. Okay. Got it. All, right. Just in

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 14s):

Case. Just lemme know My, the octaves go up, my volume goes up when I get excited. I, there’s nothing I can do about it. I got it from my father. It is better than you described. Oh good. It is so well engineered and we’ll talk about that later. But I was lucky enough to get a tour. I guess it was sometime late last year. Yep. and I went through the whole place out in Ontario. I wasn’t lucky enough to go to Australia to see the mothership. Right. But I did see the Ontario California facility and I think I brought back some audio that I played for Holman. I was so impressed.

Sean P. Holman (19m 47s):

So when we first saw the roll track, it was basically either very early production or late prototype. Right. And it was kind of Yep. On the sales vehicle. ’cause you guys were taking around to vendors and showing ’em, Hey this is our new product. Yep. And you’ve added functionality since we saw it. Then. In fact, when Lightning went to Ontario, California to your facility here, you guys updated him to where you tied it into his key fob and all that. So it’s a product that even if you bought it early on, got better without costing anything. Right. I mean it was just, it was a product update that you offered to your customers. Correct. We wanted to add a unlock button through the key fob. Correct,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (20m 22s):

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And it works like a champ. If there was one before EGR, I wasn’t aware of it. I’m a techno geek. Like I love that kind of thing. I wasn’t aware of another electric roll top tono cover that tied into your can bus. So when I chirp my alarm from my truck, the tunnel cover is locked. Yep. That is novel. And the way that you tied it in and the fact that used all OE quality plugs, I, there was no splicing of wires. Everything plugged in, everything had a proper label. and I again, I installed it, this guy with two thumbs, this, this guy did it. Four

Mike Timmons (20m 59s):

Thumbs. Yeah. We, we loved your video. You did on it too. You did a great job on that. You shared that it was beautiful.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 5s):

If that is indicative across the rest of the product line a plus. Perfect.

Sean P. Holman (21m 10s):

Well and we talked about too, we, you know, this was a particularly wet spring in Southern California and one of the things you said is, you know, this cover is weather resistant. We’re gonna do our best to keep it from, you know, getting water in there. But obviously beds aren’t water tight. Right. And you’ve got seams around the tailgate and so you could get some Lightning crawled inside his after the rainstorm and

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 30s):

No, no. During the rainstorm

Sean P. Holman (21m 32s):

And there was nothing, there’s no water in it. I mean just good the amount of weather tightness that prov was provided on that was something that he’s come back and said, dude, it’s like a trunk. Like I can put stuff back there and I don’t have to worry about it at all.

Mike Timmons (21m 44s):

Yeah. That’s the one issue we’d never hear is that oh, I got this, this, this, this, this cover’s leaking so bad that you can put fish back here. Never hear any of that. Water is not an issue for us,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 55s):

That’s for sure. Yeah. ’cause you did early on, I think you showed me a video or somewhere I saw a video where you take a, a giant, like a backhoe or something and it’s the bucket’s full of water and you dump it on the, on the roll track and it obviously just blasts off the sides. But then you go inside and there was something that was not water soluble inside. They were like, look, it’s still dry. I can’t remember the exactly, but I do remember the, the tractor dumping water out like a huge explosion of water. Nothing got inside. Nothing. Nope.

Sean P. Holman (22m 22s):

Yeah. And the other thing we liked about the roll track is the T channels that you have on the, on the rails.

Mike Timmons (22m 28s):

The accessory T channels. Yeah. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (22m 29s):

So for the overlanding crowd you can put bed racks and things like that. In fact, our friend Bernard over at Lightner Designs, you can use his a CS rack, you can interface with your T channels. So that allows you to have a dry bed, open it up, you can put tall items in there and then you can have your overland rack that has your tent and your rotor packs, your max tracks or, or whatever mounted to it. To me that just seems like the, the, the perfect solution. ’cause you kinda get the best of all worlds a lockable weatherproof trunk, but you still have the flexibility to put tall items or have a rack with all of your overlay gear on it.

Mike Timmons (23m 0s):

Correct. And ER’s product fits really well with our stuff. Works well together.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 5s):

Look at what I’m showing you right now. This is a video of, hey

Sean P. Holman (23m 8s):

You need to get on the mic there Lightning.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 9s):

Yeah. I know This is a video of a lightener rack custom made for your boy Lightning right here. Oh. You see what it has do? It’s got, it’s got a screen with Octagons in there, which will prevent someone from breaking the rear window and crawling in. So

Sean P. Holman (23m 21s):

What he is not telling you is he over-engineered something. So what you’re telling me now in breaking news is that you’ve pivoted and you went to Bernard and said, Hey, can you redo this for me?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 30s):

Not really. I called Bernard and I said, Hey, he actually offered months ago. He said, why don’t we just use one of my racks and we’ll just yeah. Adapt it. and I thought, I don’t want that

Sean P. Holman (23m 40s):

Sounds like a great idea.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 41s):

So, but I didn’t wanna bastardize one of his racks. They are works of art. You’ve seen ’em. Oh yeah. They’re beautiful

Sean P. Holman (23m 46s):

For forged.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 47s):

It’s forged. It looks, they’re the nicest rack out there. I know you’ve got some nice racks and,

Sean P. Holman (23m 52s):

And well in fact on the EGR USA page, if you go to the roll track, it has a picture of the gladiator that actually has a lightener Exactly rack on it on your, on your website. He’s a

Mike Timmons (24m 1s):

Really good partner of our, for sure.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (24m 3s):

He offered and I’m like, nah, I don’t want to screw up your rack or whatever. And then we designed one at banks, Matt Gamble, who Sean knows, designed a a one. I’m gonna pull up a a photo here at some point for you and show you this thing. And it’s like we do oftentimes at banks it’s very well engineered at maybe too well engineered. So it would be expensive to build. and I just put four bollards in my driveway that, that rise outta the ground to protect. So you cannot drive a vehicle in or out of my driveway. It’s crazy. I went nuts by the way,

Sean P. Holman (24m 33s):

Your wife was very angry at

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (24m 34s):

You I know that. I’m well aware of that. Yeah. And so I didn’t have the money to build the rack that we designed. And here it is right here. Lemme show you Mike. I’m gonna get off. That’s the guy right there. It’s a little, it’s very, how do I wanna say this? It’s industrial looking. Yeah, but it looks good. It ties in nicely And it and it fits in into the, the track system system on the

Sean P. Holman (24m 54s):

Roll track. So you’re, you’re bearing the headline here. If you don’t want your Ram truck stolen through the back window, you need to get a roll track. Exactly. And then you can get the Lightning accessory that prevents you from throwing stuff through the back window to

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 6s):

Break it. So, so Mike, either, either Bernard Lightner is going to offer one that prevents rear window breakage. Right. Or I will. So you’re at some point very, very soon the Ram guys are all covered. Yep. and I think Bernard’s changes width. So you can put it on a mid-size truck as well. Oh good. Which is very cool. It collapses in the center. It’s kind of neat. I hope I wasn’t giving away any secrets, but yeah, that’s,

Sean P. Holman (25m 31s):

Well I guess we’ll find out if Bernard calls us. Yeah, right.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 34s):

So it’s cool anyway, like it, it’s neat, you know, you have a success on your hands when there is like an an aftermarket for your aftermarket. You know, when there’s accessories around your, your parts.

Mike Timmons (25m 45s):

Well accessories, sell accessories. So keep selling accessories, right?

Sean P. Holman (25m 48s):

Absolutely. Yeah. Now you guys, obviously we, we’ve got personal experience with roll track. You guys are known for a lot of things. Your private label OE products. So there’s a lot of people listening to the show, we’ve talked about it before, have EGR products on their vehicle that they don’t necessarily know about. But you’ve also come up with a new line like your V-S-L-L-E-D lights, which is a new product category for you, which is really cool. And then of course you’ve got, you know, I think probably EGR is most known for the fender flares and maybe the window visors and things like that. But you’re starting to kind of diversify the product lineup and get to more, I guess more functional types of things. More complex items. You,

Mike Timmons (26m 24s):

Well you said it earlier, accessories for accessories. So we’re starting to build more accessories to match our accessories. So you buy a set of fender flares but you want a light. So we came up with the VSLs

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 36s):

Of course. Let’s, let’s pause. What does VS L stand for and what does it look like? Because they’re, they have no idea they’re trying to picture it.

Mike Timmons (26m 41s):

So VSL is very simple. It is a vehicle

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 44s):

Specific Lighting

Mike Timmons (26m 45s):

Vehicle sidelight. Ah, even simpler. Ah,

Sean P. Holman (26m 48s):

One of the applications that you have is on the Jeep, which not on 3 9 2 ’cause nobody realizes the 3 9 2 cow is higher than a standard wrangler about an inch. Yep. Yep. But on all the rest of the wranglers, it basically replaces that rounded panel behind the hood and in front of the A pillar. And you guys actually offer it in already painted so it will match your vehicle. It’s not like just black plastic. Yeah.

Mike Timmons (27m 11s):

23 different colors I believe is what we offer right now.

Sean P. Holman (27m 13s):

23 different colors.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 14s):

That’s silly. So that way when

Sean P. Holman (27m 15s):

Congrats, when you buy it, it’s there. But the, the light is basically kind of French into a new cow piece that’s the body color of your vehicle. Yep. And then you can wire it into your ox switches. Super easy under the hood, boom. Done

Mike Timmons (27m 26s):

As well as you wired into your blinker and you have a side blinker there. Oh

Sean P. Holman (27m 29s):

That’s cool. I didn’t think about

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 30s):

That except for the person next to you who you’re blinding. ’cause these are bright.

Sean P. Holman (27m 33s):

Yeah. But you know, isn’t that the point of blinkers

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 35s):

I guess so I’m

Sean P. Holman (27m 36s):

Coming that way. What

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 37s):

Are these made out of? ’cause you do a lot of plastics or is this metal?

Mike Timmons (27m 40s):

It is all plastic. What I can tell you about this product is that we make this here in the United States. It is a US made product all the way down to almost the LEDs. The housing for the lights for the LEDs is all made here in the us. It’s all made out of just north of Salt Lake City in Ogden. And the company that helped us get into this, they made it, they, they do a great job manufacturing and coming up with ideas, but they needed a hand with the sales and marketing side. So I can’t take credit for this. Yeah. This company did all of that work. We took it from them and decided to go ahead and push this out into the market and That’s awesome. It’s been very successful.

Sean P. Holman (28m 16s):

Yeah, I was gonna ask about that ’cause it didn’t launch too, too long ago. And basically you guys have it on the website, you get a pair of lights already painted, ready to go 5 69 and they’re on sale regular. They’re 7 49. And then you’ve got, in addition to Jeep, you’ve got Bronco applications as well, which goes in the little gun site on the hood. Which is, which is pretty cool. So what has the response been to, from the moment you guys said go? Is it something that you’re having trouble keeping in stock?

Mike Timmons (28m 42s):

Yes, very much so. They are selling off the shelves quickly. Especially the Jeeps, the Broncos we just got in last week. So we sold a couple, couple of them already. We’re also talking with Jeep Mopar about user utilizing them, you know, selling them through the, the like the Mopar

Sean P. Holman (28m 58s):

Catalog Catalog

Mike Timmons (28m 59s):

Catalog in the dealerships. Yep. That could

Sean P. Holman (29m 1s):

Be good. Okay, so the, the number one question I have is when will you have one for three 90 twos?

Mike Timmons (29m 5s):

We are in the works of it. It’s just, it’s a big mold and a lot of money. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 11s):

The good news is that it is pla Oh no, it’s a, it’s you said the mold is expensive so it’s like if you’re making ’em out of metal, that would be even more expensive. ’cause that would require a, a male and female die. That’s gotta be 50 grand or something. Plus

Mike Timmons (29m 25s):

This is a $250,000. Oh

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 27s):

No. So

Sean P. Holman (29m 28s):

You gotta sell a lot of lights.

Mike Timmons (29m 29s):

Holy

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 30s):

Mackerel. Sell a, that’s quite a commitment. So you need to know that there are a lot of three 90 twos on the road. Like that’s like

Mike Timmons (29m 36s):

Well it also fits the Mojave, so Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (29m 38s):

Yeah. So has the higher hood as well.

Mike Timmons (29m 40s):

Ah, those two together should be able to get us enough because

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 42s):

You’re calling Sima going how many vehicles are in this fleet? Exactly, exactly. There’s only 30,000 a year,

Sean P. Holman (29m 47s):

So you figure, yeah, yeah. Well it’s even less, I mean 3 92 is about 5,000 a year. And then Mojave’s obviously gonna be more than that. But you also have it for Wrangler jks as well. And so that’s pretty cool. Yeah,

Mike Timmons (29m 57s):

That one’s a little bit of a different install. The one with the JLS is pretty simple. You know, you take your four bolts out of that Yeah. And put it back on and then you just wire it in. Got it. The jk, you do have to do a couple, remove some rivets, but it’s pretty simple.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 12s):

You gotta drill, you can remove a rivet.

Mike Timmons (30m 13s):

Exactly. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 14s):

So

Sean P. Holman (30m 15s):

I I, guess what I wanted? People who are, listen, you haven’t seen them, they’re inside the cow. So in unlike a ditch light that is basically two holes on a bracket, basically in the cow, they sit proud of the hood or in front of the A pillar, they may whistle in the wind, they may be very visible for somebody to come and rip off. Super easy to, to steal those things. This is actually French into the middle of the cow and then have a slight angle down toward the ground. So the nice thing is, because they’re built into the panel and the panel’s bolted to the Jeep, you can’t just come and rip ’em off. They’re also out of the Windstream. So people who may like the idea of having ditch lights or side lights, they don’t have to worry about, you know, you know, arrow or Jeeps are already horrible.

Sean P. Holman (30m 57s):

And the last thing you wanna do is add a bunch of warts and horns sticking off of it that you know, it’s, it’s bad enough. So this is nice because it’s not gonna affect wind noise or anything like that. Right. Where you’re sitting behind the A pillar, they’re

Mike Timmons (31m 8s):

Also out of the way of the, this factory bolt holes. So you can still add more lights to the pillars there if you’d like to. You can also add your CB mounts there still

Sean P. Holman (31m 16s):

Your antennas and stuff. Yep. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 17s):

Yeah. So it’s a fairly shallow LED housing.

Mike Timmons (31m 21s):

It’s actually probably about two and a half, three inches into the body. Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 25s):

Okay. But it’s still, it’s not so deep that you can’t bolt other things down in in No, no, no.

Sean P. Holman (31m 30s):

The, the bolts go on the cow. So there’s a bracket see basically here the two bolts

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 35s):

Here. Yeah, I’m seeing

Sean P. Holman (31m 35s):

’em. You put a bracket on top of those.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 38s):

Ah, got it.

Sean P. Holman (31m 39s):

So it floats above it. But this makes it a, it’s a very integrated kind of an OE look that’s gonna keep it, it’s not like, Hey come steal me, come take my, my Rigids or my bajas or whatever off my vehicle. And so you’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 50s):

Gonna have to stock 23 flavors of these in each of the model I mean like that’s a lot of colors. So are you, are you gonna paint them to match as they get ordered? That seems right now. Right now we w nightmare.

Mike Timmons (32m 0s):

We’ve got a couple hundred of each color right now. Okay. And as we see these sell more, we will give us an idea of how many we need to stock. and

Sean P. Holman (32m 7s):

I’m sure black granite, crystal, silver and white are probably gonna

Mike Timmons (32m 11s):

Be crazy. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 12s):

But like you’ve got Bikini blue.

Mike Timmons (32m 14s):

Yeah. Or

Sean P. Holman (32m 14s):

Gecko Green or Mojito or Hydro Blue or

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 17s):

Well, I mean like you said, you, you can’t keep ’em in stock. So that’s a great, you know, problem to have. I

Sean P. Holman (32m 22s):

I was excited when you called me up and you said, Hey, we’re launching this new VSL line for Jeeps. You go, I’ll get you a set out unless you have a 3 92. Yeah. I was like

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 29s):

Well,

Sean P. Holman (32m 35s):

So let’s talk about some of the other product lines that are your big sellers that most truck owners are gonna be interested in. They just picked up their brand new truck. You guys are pretty good about keeping up with with applications that are new. Yeah. New body styles. I know that’s something you guys even bought a Grenadier last year to make sure that you had all the accessories for that

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 52s):

Grenadine.

Mike Timmons (32m 54s):

Nope.

Sean P. Holman (32m 54s):

Wrong. Still, still wrong. Yeah. So let’s talk through some of that. I mean, what, what’s that process? You, you have product lines. You go okay, new vehicle came out, we want to go after this market, we’re gonna go buy the vehicle and then you just go to town.

Mike Timmons (33m 7s):

Yeah, either, you know, we have a couple different ways we go about it. One,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (33m 9s):

The first one is Mike wants a new ride. Of course

Mike Timmons (33m 13s):

That is number one.

Sean P. Holman (33m 14s):

No, absolutely

Mike Timmons (33m 15s):

No. Since we have a good relationship with the OE manufacturers, we do a lot of design work for them. We also get to see things earlier. Sure. We don’t always make things earlier, but we do, we do get to see things earlier and help us design ideas and get things started. So we get a little bit of an extra push on that. Let’s

Sean P. Holman (33m 35s):

Say you’re working with an OE and they say, Hey we need a step and you do, okay, well here’s a good better best step or something like that. And one is just a step one has a light and one will slingshot fireworks into the air. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. If they say no, we want the cheapest one for our product, then do you have the ability to say, okay, we’re gonna bring B or C to market, we like this, we’ll continue refining that or Well,

Mike Timmons (33m 59s):

It depends. Okay. And why it depends is we’re gonna be using the OEMs data and you know, that’s really not something you should be sharing. Well you shouldn’t be building

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (34m 9s):

Profiting.

Mike Timmons (34m 10s):

Yeah. Profiting off of their data. Right. So what we normally do is we try and build to their specs. Of course we have that data, but we want to be very respectful of that data. Sure. So then we go ahead and make sure, you know, we have the contracts in place. Either we can do that, we share the costs of making of accessories or you know, if it’s theirs, something they do, we won’t touch it for the grenadier’s. A great example of that, even though we build 26 products for the Grenadier that

Sean P. Holman (34m 35s):

Many

Mike Timmons (34m 35s):

Already and the quartermaster, then we are not gonna build any of those products. We’re gonna continue manufacturing for, for Enos,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (34m 45s):

What are you building? 26 is a lot. You don’t have to recite all of them. I’m just curious. Gimme a, gimme a sampling.

Mike Timmons (34m 51s):

We’ve got three different types of steps. Rock slides and a per a, what do we call it? I. Think we’re just calling a a side protector. You have a, we’re calling it a kangaroo guard and we make the ladder that’s on. By the

Sean P. Holman (35m 7s):

Way, EGR is an Australian company.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 9s):

Go back years into the, not the founding of EGR, but when did they, because they started with plastics. Yep. Right. Mainly what’s the mold process that they use? A vacuum forming, right? Yes.

Mike Timmons (35m 21s):

It’s a lot of

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 21s):

Okay. Vacuum forming. Okay. At what point do they get into extruded aluminum products or get into steel product? I mean we just, we we throw this around like it’s some, it’s easy like oh the company just expands. These are million dollar machines. You gotta hire new engineers that know the machines, know the technology, know how to do it because you can design something on the computer or on paper but manufacturing it whole nother ball of wax. So how did the company grow into these areas and decide to make investments in these wildly different areas?

Mike Timmons (35m 56s):

Well when you look at EGR USA we’re small. We, you know, a lot of people don’t know who we are. But you go over to Australia and EGR is king. Yeah. So when the king says, Hey we want to go ahead and start making this stuff, then we start sharing that to our other locations in Europe or in the United States here. So we benefit on the growth as a global company.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36m 22s):

But I guess even going back to Australia, how did, did they just grow slowly over time and add new capabilities? Yep. Okay. Alright. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (36m 29s):

So what’s it like for a company like EGR, which is Australian based and they’re moving into a market like the US where we have very specific platforms. We only have our full-size trucks here, for example. Unless you do a gray market conversion right hand drive over in Australia. But from an OE standpoint, there’s no Chevy HD in the rest of the world yet you have a whole line of products, whether it’s, you know, vent, you know, wind window visors or or fender flares or steps that’s not gonna fit anything else. So there’s no economy of scale in terms of global offerings. It’s only this off, you know, the US Yeah. So how do you justify getting into a product line to make sure that it pays for itself in one market?

Mike Timmons (37m 9s):

Well, it’s very complicated in the US and we’ve actually been having this discussion the, the last two weeks with our developers. We have an our own US development team here and then we also have a US development team there in Australia. Oh, interesting. Okay. So there’s a lot

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (37m 23s):

New product development.

Mike Timmons (37m 23s):

Yep. New product development and of course redesigning and then changing products of course. But yeah, there’s, there’s about 10 people that take care of all that for us. And the biggest, the biggest question or the biggest point to make to your question there is all of the different options. So Australia does get a lot of US trucks now and then they do the right hand conversion over there. Yep. And they de accessorize ’em right there before they even leave. And like a new TRX. What do you think is running in Australia right now? Oh,

Sean P. Holman (37m 56s):

We had a news thing on that Oh man, probably a year ago. And it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (37m 59s):

Was I, want to say it was like one 60 something like that. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (38m 2s):

1, 180. So it was pretty

Mike Timmons (38m 3s):

Expensive. It’s about one 90 now. Yeah. Oh okay. Oh my lord. So Toyota just went in there as well. So you can go, when you’re in Australia, you can buy a new Tundra now. Oh

Sean P. Holman (38m 11s):

Interesting.

Mike Timmons (38m 11s):

Okay. Yeah. So you can get a newt, you can’t get a Tacoma yet, but you can get a new tundra.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38m 14s):

What’s the policy there for a second? What’s the exchange rate or, or is it like, is one 90 not that expensive there because they’re there dollar whatever the hell it is in Australia is worth so much more or is that a very expensive vehicle there?

Mike Timmons (38m 27s):

That’s a very expensive vehicle there. Okay. Yeah. Alright.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38m 30s):

It’s just the elite are are driving the full-size trucks.

Mike Timmons (38m 33s):

Yeah. And they’re bringing in only the platinums in the high level. They’re not bringing s because

Sean P. Holman (38m 37s):

You gotta justify the cost. So it might as well be the highest profit margin one. Right? Yep.

Mike Timmons (38m 42s):

When you look at the options that they get there on the US and even on the stuff that they’re manufactured. And keep in mind Australia doesn’t manufacture vehicles there. So everything that gets built

Sean P. Holman (38m 51s):

Important I import.

Mike Timmons (38m 53s):

So you can’t go, okay, I want to have my Ford Raptor with 30 sevens and this color and this package and this motor like we can here in the States. Right. So it actually gets a little confusing to the guys in Australia when they only have four options and we have 4 million options. Yeah. So, and you know, we break it down, we go model year model may or year make model, and then we have Submodel. Yeah, yeah. Submodel. And then we have another Submodel and then we have package. Oh. So it really, it drives it out almost 17 different spots.

Sean P. Holman (39m 28s):

So I can’t even imagine how many skews that is for some products.

Mike Timmons (39m 31s):

Well we laid it out in a spreadsheet and we were close to 99,000 lines.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 36s):

What?

Mike Timmons (39m 36s):

Oh my god. For just US trucks.

Sean P. Holman (39m 38s):

Wow.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 40s):

That’s obnoxious. Yeah, it’s a

Sean P. Holman (39m 41s):

Lot. It’s,

Mike Timmons (39m 43s):

It’s,

Sean P. Holman (39m 43s):

Wow. So so basically what I’m hearing is if you need it for your truck, EGR has it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 48s):

Well no, I’m looking, they looked at all those 99,000 columns or I should say rows on a spreadsheet and they’re like, yeah that file’s gonna crash our, our Dell computer. but No like after you, you don’t do that. I think that’s when they look at the fleet size in, in volume in Australia. And you look at the fleet size here and you say, you know, there’s a million F1 fifties, but there there’s not that many gladiators or whatever it is. Right. And you have to weigh that out.

Mike Timmons (40m 13s):

Yeah. Well you also break it down into how many are, you know, your SLTs and if you’re doing fender flares, they’re all gonna fit, you know, if, but if you’re doing window visors, they’re all gonna fit. Hood guards are not always gonna fit because there’s hood. Yeah. Special

Sean P. Holman (40m 27s):

Sport

Mike Timmons (40m 27s):

Hoods or things like that. Exactly. So you could it, when you break it all down, you can get those 90,000 down to around I’d say probably about 500. Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (40m 38s):

That’s still manageable lot. Yeah. Okay. So

Sean P. Holman (40m 40s):

Talk to me about some of your newer products like the undereat storage. So that seems to be an area that you’re getting into. You’ve got the 19 to 24 GMC 1500, you’ve got the 15 to 22 Ford F-150 crew cabs, and then you’ve now got the Ram 1500 from 19 to 24 as well.

Mike Timmons (40m 57s):

Yeah. So the undersea storage came about with conversation where we’re seeing ’em out there. We know a lot of these companies have ’em as well. We know one of the things at EGR we decide to do is what can we do better than our competition? If we can’t do something better, we’re not gonna do it.

Sean P. Holman (41m 12s):

Or even better than factory. Like if a Highline version has undereat storage, but the base doesn’t, there’s a lot of opportunities, especially in fleets to say, well we can build that and we can probably do it at a better price point than what you’re gonna get from your dealer, I would imagine.

Mike Timmons (41m 24s):

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So with our, our undersea storage, we actually put two slots in it where you can actually put dividers. We don’t offer those dividers. We see a lot of people wanna make ’em outta whatever they want to do. Yeah. Foam or, or wood. So we allow them to do whatever they want, but we do give them the ability to put those dividers in. Or we use a very four millimeter thick plastic where our competitors use a more three millimeter.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (41m 46s):

I’ve seen a few of these that, well the, the factory ones I’ve seen like the Ford ones that fold into a deck. Those are the handiest. But then you have like, some of the GM ones are kind of flimsy. Well,

Sean P. Holman (41m 56s):

And it seems like some of ’em aren’t that deep either. And the EGR ones seem like you guys have added some additional depth. Like you’re going right up to the bottom of the seat cushion, bottom

Mike Timmons (42m 3s):

Of the seat cushion all the way to the end of the seat.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 5s):

And then they have the, you, you have to drill out the, the, the floor of your vehicle and then it sinks down in like two feet.

Mike Timmons (42m 11s):

No, no.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 12s):

Okay.

Mike Timmons (42m 14s):

Maybe on the next one. Okay. Got

Sean P. Holman (42m 16s):

It. I heard you’re gonna use lightings TRX to Exactly.

Mike Timmons (42m 20s):

Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 20s):

To test that one out.

Sean P. Holman (42m 21s):

Don’t, don’t fear the whole, the whole saw or the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 23s):

Al I was kind of surprised like in my truck, you know, I, I didn’t know that until I found came with the, the rubber mats in the backseat. Yeah, right. The thick ones. And then I Do you have ram

Sean P. Holman (42m 31s):

Boxes?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 32s):

The what’s that?

Sean P. Holman (42m 33s):

Those little ram storage boxes.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 34s):

I didn’t know Ludo. I didn’t know until, and

Sean P. Holman (42m 36s):

They’ve got nice little plugs in ’em too. So you put ice in ’em and I put your road coats in there.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 40s):

I that’s true. You could put whatever you want in there. But like I, but they hang down below and I thought, are these things waterproof? Like what’s going on here? It was just interesting to see that they just carved a hole right in the floor and they’ve got these, those things are awesome. They’re slung down like a foot where

Sean P. Holman (42m 53s):

You hide all your contraband and you, your, your extra ammo magazines and stuff. And you put the floor mat over it. Yeah. Nobody

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 59s):

Knows. I freaked out because my truck has been sitting at banks for quite some time and it’s been, I don’t know, well over a hundred degrees for the last week or two. and I have some anti-gravity, lithium ion batteries. Oh. In my, in those pockets. And I’m just, they, I put ’em there months ago. And are

Sean P. Holman (43m 17s):

They hooked up anything or you’re just storing ’em

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (43m 18s):

There? They’re just storing ’em there. Oh. and I storing ’em there and I and I’m looking at my, my Comus star alarm and I’ve got an app on my phone and I’m looking, it says 1 36 in the cabin. I’m thinking, oh this is not gonna go well for me. Like these things, are these gonna explode? ’cause I went on the anti-gravity site and says do not store over one 15. and I thought this could be bad. So I begged Eric one afternoon at work and I said, can you, I’m gonna lock my truck. Can you pull those things out of there?

Mike Timmons (43m 46s):

Yeah. Have someone else do it. Right. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (43m 47s):

Exactly. Anyway, getting back to these things, how, who dreamt up this idea?

Mike Timmons (43m 52s):

We came up with it as a team. It was definitely a, an idea. Just, you know, how can we make it better and be cost effective? So we’re in the, the middle of the ballpark price range forum for a much better product. It’s out on the market.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 4s):

And this is not vacuum form, is it? Yep. It’s vacuum form. Is it really? Yep. Yep. It’s, but it’s too detailed.

Mike Timmons (44m 9s):

We get a lot of draw on it. Yep. That’s for sure.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 11s):

What does that mean?

Sean P. Holman (44m 13s):

How deep you can do it with a vacuum draw. Okay,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 15s):

Got

Sean P. Holman (44m 15s):

It. Or with a vacuum form.

Mike Timmons (44m 16s):

Yep. The mold. Yep.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 17s):

And if you didn’t tell anyone, they would think it’s stock, it looks factory look very

Sean P. Holman (44m 22s):

OE Factory, A BS or something like that. Or with

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 24s):

The texture or

Sean P. Holman (44m 24s):

Blow molded. It looks really great. Thank I. Mean they look awesome.

Mike Timmons (44m 28s):

We have ’em for the three applications right now. I’m

Sean P. Holman (44m 30s):

Guessing you’ll be expanding. Yeah, we’ll

Mike Timmons (44m 31s):

Be growing this. But just as same with those VSL lights in the And the Mojave. So

Sean P. Holman (44m 38s):

Can you tell us where you’re going next with VSL? Are there any other applications that,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 43s):

Before you say VSL, I just wanna let everyone know that’s only 130 bucks for this. Yeah. Undersea storage. Like that’s really reasonable. Yeah. VSL Holman.

Mike Timmons (44m 51s):

Well, VSLs, I think let’s talk about the Bronco one. Yeah. Because it’s not like the Jeep, the

Sean P. Holman (44m 56s):

Jeeps, it’s completely different. You’re basically taking out the hood gun site. Yep. You know, at the end of the hood where you can see for visibility, know where the corner of vehicle is and you replace it with a different one that is embedded with an LED light

Mike Timmons (45m 8s):

And it’s billet aluminum

Sean P. Holman (45m 9s):

And it looks good Yes.

Mike Timmons (45m 10s):

When really good when it comes in polished or a satin finish. Aluminum as well as matte Ford

Sean P. Holman (45m 16s):

Did a pretty good job. I like the front end of the Bronco. Definitely has that retro look, but it’s so plasticy these things, especially with the billets sitting in there. So you take out the, the factory ones and you put these ones in, it breaks up the painted surface. Yeah. And it has adds that more like old school flare to it. But the other thing I like is you still have the hole in it because those things are designed to tie down to say the nose of a canoe or something like that on your roof. They’re still functional in that way in addition to adding the LED to it. So that’s really cool.

Mike Timmons (45m 47s):

Yeah. We wanted to make ’em as factory looking as we can, but allow that light to get in there. So

Sean P. Holman (45m 52s):

In my mind, I’m thinking of other vehicles that have similar body panels that are removable up front like that. It’s like, so are we like, hmm. There’s,

Mike Timmons (46m 0s):

You know, if, if we were to go down the next road that you’re talking about, the trucks, the things that come to my mind is like maybe that ranger. Yeah. Since it’s got that little side panel there on the side. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (46m 10s):

The little kind of vent applique looking thing. Yeah. I think that would be cool.

Mike Timmons (46m 13s):

The next thing that we’re working on though is of course the 3 92 Mojave setup as well as the, the electric. Okay. So we need to come up with a solution on the, like the four by Yeah, the four by E

Sean P. Holman (46m 25s):

I. I would think also super duty because now they have those really long vents on the back side of the, of the fender, near the door trim. And then

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (46m 34s):

Don’t they normally see like F 2 50, 4 50, whatever. Okay.

Mike Timmons (46m 37s):

Don’t be giving everyone or D

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (46m 40s):

Oh yeah. Alright.

Sean P. Holman (46m 41s):

Off the air. I’ll tell you all the vehicles that I can think of right now. ’cause it’s funny, it’s funny, the European car companies like BM BMW started those types of fender vent things, right? Yeah. Like that was, it was kinda like DTM racing and, and they were necessary then they put ’em on the m cars and you know, the production car and then it’s got like the sport Oh I want to look like, and they, they got less and less functional and more of a design element and then all of a sudden all these other vehicles start having those and it’s like, there’s a lot of opportunity there for you. Yeah.

Mike Timmons (47m 6s):

Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 7s):

So let’s talk about the cab spoilers. Yeah. When did this kind of I don’t wanna call it fad, but like the, the new, the 22 tundras, the first place, I think I saw it, I’m sure it existed before that in, in the modern trucks, like where it’s sws back the top of the cab and then cuts back in towards the light and makes it look like a wing

Sean P. Holman (47m 28s):

For Arrow.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 28s):

Yeah. No. I, I,

Sean P. Holman (47m 29s):

Nissan and Titan hat has had that since 19 or 16 when it, when the new body style came out at the back of the cab. Oh yeah. I believe some of the,

Mike Timmons (47m 38s):

All the Chevy S semi

Sean P. Holman (47m 39s):

Yeah. The GM trucks. Yep. You’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 41s):

Right. It’s, is it more pronounced on the tundra? Why do I, why do I notice? It’s some more,

Mike Timmons (47m 45s):

The tundra looks more like our styling than Okay. Than the Chevrolet does and

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 48s):

Stuff like that. When, because when I saw You’re right. And now that you’re saying those trucks Yeah. I do recognize that the Chevy has it. And what,

Sean P. Holman (47m 54s):

Essentially it’s just allowing the air to go over the bed. Right? Like it’s smoothing that out.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 58s):

I I get the reason for it. Yeah. But it was when the tundra came out, I go, oh, look at that. Like it was just so much more obvious, more pronounced. It I I feel like it came out like three or four inches as opposed to the Chevy that comes out maybe an inch or two. Yeah. So yours, you’ve got ’em for various trucks. I’m seeing here for F-150 Tundra 14 to 21 Tundra, Tacomas, all the F-Series Rams, et

Mike Timmons (48m 22s):

Cetera. All the major truck playing brands. We are working on the new Tundra as well. So not every tundra comes with one. Oh

Sean P. Holman (48m 29s):

Really? Yeah. Really.

Mike Timmons (48m 30s):

So it’s only about 30, 40% come with them. Okay. So yeah,

Sean P. Holman (48m 34s):

You’d think you’d want the arrow benefit on all of them. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 37s):

And so these are also vacuum formed. Are they paintable?

Mike Timmons (48m 40s):

No, these are not, these are out of a, I believe a polyurethane material. Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 45s):

Oh, so it’s actually pliable.

Mike Timmons (48m 47s):

Yeah, well yeah, it has a little bit of a squish to it. Okay. Yep. But yeah, they come pre-painted and you can also sand ’em down and paint ’em to match color match.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 55s):

So they come pre-painted like a matte black with

Mike Timmons (48m 57s):

The Matt black. Yeah. Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 58s):

Gotcha.

Sean P. Holman (48m 58s):

I wanna talk about fender flares really quick because you’ve got quite a few different lines of fender flares. You’ve got the Bolton and Bolton blackouts. You’ve got your baseline, your summit line OEM plus, and then the rugged flares. And so there’s a whole mess of fender flare styles and how much they stick out from the body. And maybe walk us through the fender flare line. Yeah. So fender flare line. Yeah.

Mike Timmons (49m 17s):

The Bolton style is your standard, your old school with the, the pocket holes in it and the, you know, it looks like you’re bolting ’em on, which don’t bolt into those, they bolt into factory spots. The blackout series would be the same, but instead of having stainless bolts, you have black bolts. Then we’d go into the rugged series. The rugged series is basically the, that same look, that same style with two inches of coverage just like the Boltons but with no bolts in ’em. OEM plus is an OEM style. So they’re a little bit smaller, about an inch and a half in height, maybe half inch of coverage and that’s it. And they go from the bottom of the Wheel. Well to the bottom of the Wheel.

Mike Timmons (49m 58s):

Well all the way around. Okay. Cover there. The newest one that we’re coming out with is the summit. Now the summit flare is something designed a little bit different. It is designed to work with a mud flap. It’s designed to give you about a half inch to three quarters of an inch of coverage over the tire as well as,

Sean P. Holman (50m 17s):

So that’s, if you have a, a greater offset Yep. On your truck, you can get a flare that still has that factory look. ’cause these are really nice integrated looking flare, but give you more coverage. Coverage.

Mike Timmons (50m 27s):

More coverage. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50m 28s):

But what about the guys, like in Florida now it’s become a southern California thing. Where do you have ones that stick out 12 inches?

Mike Timmons (50m 35s):

No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50m 36s):

You’ve seen those trucks, right?

Mike Timmons (50m 38s):

Oh yeah. Yeah. But those guys, they want to,

Sean P. Holman (50m 40s):

They might be a different, they might be a different customer. Yeah.

Mike Timmons (50m 43s):

So the summit we cover, it covers up about a half inch to three quarters of an inch, but it doesn’t go all down all the way to the, to the bottom of the The truck. It stays up a little bit around the body line. It looks more of like a Baja style. We were gonna call it a Baja style, but there’s some restrictions there we had to go back on. So we call this summit, it, it’s what, what we call as close to the m oaf mother of all fender flares that we can get right now. Nice. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (51m 14s):

What’s the application, Mike, that you have tr either the product you’ve tried to develop and it’s just been a thorn in your side ’cause you can’t get it to market for whatever reason or? I’m fascinated by like the struggles behind the scenes. Oh yeah. Because we see all the fruits of your labor on the website. Like it all, it’s all great, but like I want to hear the backside. He

Sean P. Holman (51m 35s):

He wants to go to that backroom that has all the half dead projects or dead projects. Yes. Stacked up and wants to know like,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (51m 41s):

I want the heartache,

Sean P. Holman (51m 42s):

Which Yeah, which ones were the, the, the must-have product that didn’t make it to market. Oh,

Mike Timmons (51m 47s):

Here you go.

Sean P. Holman (51m 49s):

No, this is a fresh, you didn’t even to think about that one. It’s a fresh move

Mike Timmons (51m 51s):

Right here. It is. It is. We’ve been working. Yeah, we’ve, so first of all, getting a Ford Ranger new body style is like Oh, super hard possible, right? Well I up in Portland where I live, we were able to get one and we took it over to a shop up there and we sent up every single product that we have for in Australia.

Sean P. Holman (52m 9s):

Right. Because of the same platform.

Mike Timmons (52m 10s):

They’ve had it there for two years, right? Oh, it’s not the same platform.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 13s):

Oh really?

Sean P. Holman (52m 13s):

Well there’s a, there’s a lot. The American truck has a ton of changes and even ton of changes. Body line, very minor body line changes. Yeah. So

Mike Timmons (52m 21s):

The fender flares don’t fit. It’s the same opening, but we have to do all new trim lines on the fender flares. Oh, the window visor are

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 27s):

The same. So the depths are different then?

Mike Timmons (52m 29s):

No, the body line

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 30s):

I know, but so

Sean P. Holman (52m 31s):

The cre the crease and the body doesn’t line up in the American What.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 34s):

The got, the way you trim it has to be different.

Mike Timmons (52m 36s):

It’s in the same spot. Okay. But underneath that body line, it kicks out in the US versus rolling under what? In the front. On the bumper side. Yeah. And in the rear on the, towards the tailgate side.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 50s):

I wonder why, why

Sean P. Holman (52m 51s):

Do they want, ’cause the Americans wanna have their own styling. ’cause they don’t want it to be perceived as a world truck. They want it to be perceived as an American truck, but

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 59s):

It’s so much more expensive to do. That’s you could just use their

Sean P. Holman (53m 1s):

Tooling. That’s how, that’s how Ford does

Mike Timmons (53m 3s):

It. Oh well that’s just the beginning. The things that do fit are the hood guard and the window guards. Okay. Okay. And our roll track cover fits. Oh. But, but we are right now trying to finish getting that all lined up. They’re in Australia. They have to have roll bars and or style bars there and Wait,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (53m 24s):

Wait, wait. You’re saying actually have to have them like legally?

Mike Timmons (53m 27s):

Legally, yes. Yep. Why mid-size trucks down there have to have these style bars for rollover purposes? Huh?

Sean P. Holman (53m 35s):

That’s just the, the regulations rules. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (53m 37s):

Yeah. How do you suppose that got legislated in like there was, it’s

Mike Timmons (53m 41s):

Something that’s been in there forever.

Sean P. Holman (53m 44s):

They they just aren’t like Yeah, they just aren’t as free as American regulations

Mike Timmons (53m 48s):

The safety wise. They have to have this roll bar. Well, we removed the roll bar here ’cause we don’t have it. Right. But right now the way that the install is, is that we’re missing four nuts and six bolts out of our kit. So now we’re having to redo the kits that would fit in Australia for the US version. Oh. So we’re having, yeah, we’ve got about a thousand of ’em sitting there that we’re trying to rework

Sean P. Holman (54m 11s):

Right now. Oh no. and

Mike Timmons (54m 12s):

I gotta adjust the

Sean P. Holman (54m 13s):

Instructions. Wouldn’t that be great? You’re like, Hey, we’re an Australian company. We’ve got this great Australian truck now they’re gonna have our Australian truck in America. We’ve got great presence there. Boom. Bada bing. We are going

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (54m 23s):

To ship and see containers of product over. It’s done.

Mike Timmons (54m 26s):

They’re all here and now we gotta change it. But the worst one is the front bumper. So we make a, a bull bar is what they call it in Australia. And the crumple zones on the frame are completely different in Australia than they are. Oh,

Sean P. Holman (54m 38s):

Interesting.

Mike Timmons (54m 38s):

So the plates won’t even mount onto to it. So we painted the bumper, custom painted it, got it all dialed in, went to put it on and it wouldn’t even line up. Not even close. Exactly.

Sean P. Holman (54m 51s):

That sucks. Yeah. That’s, that’s the global automotive industry for you. Oh, that’s so,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (54m 55s):

It’s so weird that they would change so much when

Sean P. Holman (54m 58s):

You don’t have to. Not, not if you know Ford. Yeah, but it’s just, that’s not weird in the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 2s):

Slightest. That’s, that’s ego, right? I mean, what else? What is

Sean P. Holman (55m 4s):

No, Ford is an American first company and they don’t want you to know that Australia, they basically farmed out the new Ranger to Australia and Australia did the durability testing. They built the vehicle. Even though Ranger Raptor is mostly an Australian product that’s been adapted to the American version of the platform. Who,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 22s):

Who, who would who other than journalists like you, like who would bring that to the American public to say, can you believe this thing? It was made in Australia. How

Sean P. Holman (55m 32s):

Dare who was it made in Australia? But the fact, fact that it was designed and engineered there. I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 36s):

I mean we love Porsches and they’re designed and built in Germany. Like, I don’t understand

Sean P. Holman (55m 40s):

Right. But but by a German company. Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 42s):

But

Mike Timmons (55m 43s):

See I, I’m with a little bit different here. I think having, being able to label it an international vehicle makes it even more important. I like the idea of it being an international vehicle that I could take anywhere I’d go.

Sean P. Holman (55m 55s):

Yeah, but then you would have a one ton Tacoma. Yeah,

Mike Timmons (55m 57s):

Exactly.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 58s):

They’re very true. Very true.

Sean P. Holman (55m 60s):

I don’t need a one ton Tacoma. Although the, the new Tacoma is way like 12 tons with all they are batteries and stuff. Yes. So I I was driving by the Toyota dealer today and I looked over in the trail. Hunters and Thet D Pros aren’t out yet. And those are really good looking. and I feel like they’ve put a lot of time into developing the look of those trucks. And in the middle of the road trucks like the, just the TRD off road or the sports, they kind of look the way they do and

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 28s):

It’s not bad.

Sean P. Holman (56m 29s):

They don’t look great. They don’t look great. and I, oh I I. The more I see the new Tacoma, the more I just think, eh, like it’s exactly what you would expect the next generation Tacoma to be. But there’s nothing special about it. It’s like even in that orange color, it looks boring. Well

Mike Timmons (56m 45s):

That’s where we come in. We get to be able to build it the way we want now and the

Sean P. Holman (56m 48s):

Right product. Well you have to because it, it’s not cool from the factory. It’s not the middle trims. By

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 52s):

The way, remember Ken Ty of 88 Rotors? We had him on the show not long ago. He did

Sean P. Holman (56m 56s):

A u review on his Tacoma.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 58s):

I’m glad we did it while we had it because Did he get rid of it already? He, it’s up for sale and he is, he’s already ordered the TRDF road. I’m sorry, the TRD pro. The TRD pro. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (57m 7s):

Oh that makes sense. Yeah. He’s not getting rid of that truck because he doesn’t like it. He’s getting rid of it. ’cause he wants the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 12s):

Upgrade. Yeah, he owns the shopping. He needs the, he needs the baller vehicle for sure. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (57m 15s):

Well in TRD Pro and the trail hunter or are gonna be great when they come out. But yeah, I just, I, you know, there’s, it’s funny, the co the colors I’ve seen are white, that orange color and that purpley blue color for some reason. And I’m just like, eh, like I’m just, I’m just not excited. I don’t know if it’s the offset of the Wheel and tire package and they just look like they’re too, but I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 35s):

Don’t think you were really excited beforehand. So this is, that’s not true. You kind of going into it kind of warmish. Nah. And then just going down a Luke wall.

Sean P. Holman (57m 42s):

I I. No, that’s not true. I think everybody was excited for the new Tacoma because we were so tired of seeing the old one everywhere.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 47s):

Yeah. But I think when the, when these two, the trail hunter and the TRD Pro come out, I think that, we’ll that we’ll see it. Another burst of excitement.

Sean P. Holman (57m 57s):

Well, I I just think they’re much better looking vehicles and it’s the one the enthusiasts are gonna wanna build off of. There’s a few pictures. I think a couple companies have already gotten early versions where they put 30 fives on a trail hunter and it’s like money. Perfect. Yeah, it looks really good. Really

Mike Timmons (58m 12s):

Good. We’re we’re coming out with a, a different fender flare for it, so Okay. We’ll be offering a different flare option for it.

Sean P. Holman (58m 18s):

I I. Interesting. I I. Think it’ll be cool. I’m, I’m, I’m excited about that one. Especially with the old man EMU shocks that are built by Bill Stein. And did you know that the trail hunter has a turn down tip in the back? Really? Yeah. The, the exhaust doesn’t go over the axle. They have a turn down to keep it all the way, way of rocks

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 35s):

And stuff. That’s interesting. Yeah. I was gonna say for clearance.

Sean P. Holman (58m 36s):

There’s a lot of thought that went into it. I just, I don’t know the, the Tacomas I’ve seen so far are just, they’re like okay sure.

Mike Timmons (58m 43s):

It’s still

Sean P. Holman (58m 44s):

Early I know it’s still early. Let’s

Mike Timmons (58m 45s):

Wait for sema. It’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 46s):

Right around

Sean P. Holman (58m 46s):

The corner. But if you think you see a lot of Tacoma on the trail over landing, wait till you go to sema, right?

Mike Timmons (58m 52s):

Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 53s):

Can you break any news stuff that you will be debuting at SEMA or soon? Hint. Is there anything that’s on the, on the cusp?

Mike Timmons (58m 60s):

Yeah. Yes. Let’s talk about some of that. We have, we’re gonna be showcasing in our booth, we’re gonna have one of the new quarter masters.

Sean P. Holman (59m 7s):

Awesome. Okay. So we’ll

Mike Timmons (59m 8s):

Have a lot of our on,

Sean P. Holman (59m 9s):

Did you see the concept version they did with the V eight? They put an LS in it. I did not.

Mike Timmons (59m 13s):

And so

Sean P. Holman (59m 14s):

It’s an LS on, it’s a quartermaster. They did a bunch of ’em. They just grenadier they turned Grenadier into like a pickup and then they have a quartermaster. The quartermaster has portals 30 sevens and the Lsv eight.

Mike Timmons (59m 24s):

Was that at the overlanding expo up in,

Sean P. Holman (59m 27s):

I don’t know if they debuted there because I I this year I had a conflict I wasn’t able to go. But they put out like a host. It’s kinda like the Easter Jeep Safari concepts from Jeep Iios is like, here’s what we can do right in the, in the vacuum as Jeep seems to be retreating from that. And I’m going, man, that quartermaster on portals with 30 sevens was awesome. Yeah. I’m like, okay, I’m I I’m about that I like that.

Mike Timmons (59m 49s):

So we’re gonna have the quartermaster in the booth. We’re gonna have a tricked out ranger. Of course. That’s where

Sean P. Holman (59m 54s):

Australian or American?

Mike Timmons (59m 56s):

American

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (59m 57s):

With the bumper that actually fits.

Mike Timmons (59m 59s):

We’re hoping so. Okay. We’re hoping So

Sean P. Holman (1h 0m 1s):

You should, I mean that would be a, an interesting thing to talk about even. ’cause we’re gonna be in your booth at sema. Yeah. So we’re gonna do a show from there. But

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 0m 9s):

Are you, you just broke news.

Sean P. Holman (1h 0m 11s):

Yeah. So we’re gonna be in the EGR booth at sema. How about that? Okay. I would, I would love to see, I mean it’s probably too much to bring, but it would be interesting to show your customers how much effort it was on the Ranger and what you had to do to make the American product to show them EGR USA made these changes to make this product line for this vehicle. And and I would bet a lot of people go, I had no idea you put that much work into this. Yeah.

Mike Timmons (1h 0m 34s):

I don’t think a lot of people understand how much work goes into all of this work that we do. Sure. You know, we get a lot of questions like, well how come you don’t have it for a Subaru brat?

Sean P. Holman (1h 0m 43s):

Well,

Mike Timmons (1h 0m 44s):

Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 0m 44s):

Because there’s eight of those left.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 0m 46s):

I don’t think with any manufacturing, you know, ’cause we’re in the, I do something kinda like you do and it’s, I have to fend off all those questions like, why did you have this? Why did you have that? Like, you don’t get how much effort goes into this stuff. Yeah. It’s just, and we are always reactionary, you know, we don’t get the vehicle years in advance. So when it hits the showroom floor, we’ve got parts to go with it. You don’t have a bumper. I don’t have a tuner. Like it’s just, we then have to work as fast as we can. First we gotta figure out,

Sean P. Holman (1h 1m 17s):

Can you get the vehicle?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 1m 18s):

Well can you get the vehicle? But then how big is Jeep gonna go on this? Like we don’t, they don’t say we’re gonna make 45,000 this year or we’re gonna make 5,000. Yeah. If, if they’re gonna come out and only make 5,000, the after market’s not really gonna touch it. Nope. It’s just, you’ll never make your money back. Right. You’re talking about $200,000 molds. Yep. How many do you have to sell to just pay off the mold, let alone

Sean P. Holman (1h 1m 37s):

Profit? Well, it, well think about it this way. If your retail price is $200,000 one,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 1m 41s):

Right, exactly. Well no, you’ve only paid it off. Oh, you haven’t made any money. You, you gotta make two. So like it’s, they, they, I don’t think, and I wouldn’t understand, you know, I, I would like you. This is a popular truck. Why don’t you make, you know it and then until you come inside the business and say like it’s, it’s hard. Yeah. It’s, if it weren’t hard, everyone would be doing it. By the way,

Sean P. Holman (1h 2m 6s):

I’m just going to totally side note. Take us off topic for a second and then we can get back to some of the new things that are debuting. But I just saw when Wheel companies put out a thing for Sprinter vans that they’re now doing a Wheel fitment because so many people are doing Overland Sprinter vans. But then you get into Wheel Tire package, you start getting into Fender coverage and guess who makes a fender flare for you? Sprinter guys out

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 2m 28s):

There. No kidding.

Sean P. Holman (1h 2m 29s):

EGR rugged flare. And what does it stick out? Another inch and a half or two inches of coverage? Something.

Mike Timmons (1h 2m 33s):

It’s a inch and a half. Yeah. Yep.

Sean P. Holman (1h 2m 35s):

So that’s awesome for you van guys out there who wanna have a bigger Wheel and tire package for overlanding van life and still have some coverage. Well,

Mike Timmons (1h 2m 42s):

One of the other things about our flare for that, for that sprinter is it is a non cut one. So a lot of these guys, in order to get this bigger, bigger tire under it, they gotta do some body cutting. And we decided not to go that route. And, ’cause there’s a lot of guys that want to put a bigger tire, but don’t wanna lift it up there and have to get all that extra cutting. So we did it without, it’s a great

Sean P. Holman (1h 3m 2s):

Seller and it, it looks great too because the way it matches that kind of black plastic body molding along the side and then the way you guys have it integrated into the way the front door pocket is, is, I mean, it looks oe Yeah. It, it just looks way better.

Mike Timmons (1h 3m 17s):

And it does only fit on the one 70. We haven’t been finished up the 1 44 yet. Yeah. We also have some of the transit stuff there that we’re gonna probably release hopefully by SEMA will be releasing this new stuff. Well

Sean P. Holman (1h 3m 30s):

That, that’s huge for the van Life folks because as you know, that market is hot, hot, hot. What are some of the other things that we can look forward to seeing in your booth at, at SEMA when we come and gra you with our presence to drink your beer,

Mike Timmons (1h 3m 42s):

Your beer From the roll track side, we got all the, well, not all, most of the six and a half foot applications. So the 2,500 Chevys and Rams and Fords and super duties as well.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 3m 53s):

Eight foot guys still want them. Yeah, we talked about that.

Mike Timmons (1h 3m 57s):

We were just talking about how many we would sell volume.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 3m 60s):

It’s small, that’s

Mike Timmons (1h 4m 1s):

The problem. Yeah, that’s the problem. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 4m 2s):

The bummer. It’s no different than like the big one ton trucks. They’re the ones screaming for the parts, but they don’t realize that the fleet size is one 20th. Yeah, right. That’s the bummer is those guys actually do need the products. Well, they’re towing the I, I should devil load, but they, they need, they need the,

Sean P. Holman (1h 4m 22s):

I’m gonna be devil’s advocate here. You just need a longer rail and a few more sections to fit into your, into the garage. Make the garage a little bit bigger where it rolls up the housing there. Make the rails longer, add a few more planks. Done.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 4m 35s):

Not that easy. Super easy. Not absolutely. See what you just did there. We just talked about What, the pain in the ass and stuff is like, I totally get it. No, that, and it would, it would make sense. Like the guy’s like, I need one for my dually because I’m I got this, all this stuff, my, my tools and all this stuff back there. I need to lock it up. And you go, dude, you, your, the fleet size is just way too small. Yeah. So I, I, I, I think the guys would adopt it, but again, would it make sense business wise for each, you’re hard to say, but

Mike Timmons (1h 5m 0s):

We’re looking into it. We want to get all these six and a half done and then we’ll start looking into those, those applications on the eight foot, the problem is going to be the volume that people would get it. I mean, we get a call maybe once every two months. Oh, for

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 5m 14s):

An eight foot? It’s that few. Really? Yeah. Oh, that’s

Sean P. Holman (1h 5m 16s):

Pretty few. Yeah. But, but that may be the difference between build it and they’ll come also. Right? Yeah. They may just be trained. There’s nothing for their trucks Right. In that space. So you may build and all of a sudden this cottage industry of people Yeah. You know, it crops up because the customer base has been dying for it. You just didn’t know about it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 5m 31s):

And I get it, the canister has to be considerably larger. Yeah. Everything’s gotta be bigger. So, and our,

Mike Timmons (1h 5m 36s):

Our canister’s not made out of aluminum, so, you know, it’s, that’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 5m 39s):

A very, very expensive mold. Yeah, exactly.

Mike Timmons (1h 5m 41s):

Yeah. Yeah. You thought the other one was expensive.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 5m 43s):

Yeah. And we should talk about that just briefly. We, we have said it on the show before, but all the competitors that I’m aware of have a, it’s an aluminum box or a steel box or if it’s plastic, it’s just square. Yours is a very unusual shape in, its in its design that the water, if it gets, let’s assume it’s pouring rain and you open it, the, as it retracts it takes all the water with it into the, into the, the housing, right? Correct. In the canister. But as that water’s going into the canister draining out, it drains off to the left and the right because it’s, it dips down at probably

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 17s):

That’s the beauty of being molded, I would

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 6m 19s):

Say like, th th three or four degrees down in each direction from the center out. Yep. And it’s got drains on either side, so it doesn’t just drain into your bed. It drains through these rubber hoses that go into your bedsides. And then there are plastic tubes that go out to the ground. So in the event that there’s, I, the, the water doesn’t get trapped in your bedsides and rusted out your truck, it goes right to the ground.

Mike Timmons (1h 6m 43s):

It goes right to the ground, doesn’t stay in the canister as well as there are about an inch and an eighth on the front ones there. So you get a, you know, if you get debris on the cover, you know, needles from the trees, it’ll also wash itself out. We also give access points so you can get into that area and clean it out and surface your cover as well.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 7m 1s):

I was so bummed. I opened the access cover about a month and a half ago and I got my spray cleaner that you recommended to me. Yeah. I forgot it was some German special cleaner or something. and I get it. I’m all there like got my rags, I’m ready to clean, I open it up, nothing in there, nothing.

Mike Timmons (1h 7m 14s):

Just clean.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 7m 15s):

Yep. It’s like, wow.

Sean P. Holman (1h 7m 16s):

Bummer. Yeah. You’re disappointing when a product works, right? It exceeds your expectations. Yeah, well

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 7m 21s):

I just, you know, when you get your, it’s like I had nothing to do, just close it up in defeat. I’m like, ah, well it’s

Mike Timmons (1h 7m 27s):

Still clean. Damnit. You’re welcome.

Sean P. Holman (1h 7m 30s):

I feel like you’re closing up this interview in defeat.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 7m 32s):

No, no, no, no. I am, I’m super happy to own it. And it, it did exactly as promised.

Mike Timmons (1h 7m 37s):

So some of the other stuff. So six and a half foot applications. We’re also gonna have Toyota Tundra and a Tacoma coming out that, well, we should have a couple of ’em out there. Awesome. At sema, we’re looking at some, some other new bed products. Some storage. Oh, some storage applications for it. Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 7m 55s):

So, so wait, do it integrate with the roll track or?

Mike Timmons (1h 7m 57s):

Yeah. Integrate work with or without. Or without.

Sean P. Holman (1h 7m 60s):

Yep. Interesting. I feel like bed storage is one of those things that is an imperfect world. So you’ve got ram boxes from the factory, right? You can pop open the side, but then if you put a shell on it, it doesn’t work. So then Nissan said, well, we’re getting to our own boxes where you can reach over the bed, bed and they open from the inside. And so that’s great. Unless you do have a shell on it or you have to crawl in the back to get to your stuff. Then you’ve got decked, you have this really great deck platform of the drawers, but then it takes up a lot of your vertical bed depth. And then you’ve got boxes that are irregular shape by some of the oes forward and others that hang off of the, the rail system on the side if you have the box link or util track or something like that. and I feel like it’s there.

Sean P. Holman (1h 8m 41s):

There’s not like it’s, I don’t know, there’s good, each one of those has pros and cons, but there hasn’t been anyone who’s really done like the best version of that storage.

Mike Timmons (1h 8m 49s):

I think the best version, you know, depends on what

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 8m 52s):

You need, what you need using a for.

Mike Timmons (1h 8m 53s):

Yeah. You know? Yeah. What I can tell you about this is gonna be a Molly panel style, but it’s not gonna be like everybody else out there. So it’s, it’s not gonna be Molly panel. You’re gonna have some extra little flares about it.

Sean P. Holman (1h 9m 4s):

Okay. I like that. I’m excited. Very interesting. I I love to see the innovation. So for me, I am always excited to see somebody take a problem that other people have tried to solve and go, no, no, we’re gonna do it our way. And, and that’s one of my favorite things about SEMA in this industry is there’s constant evolution and there’s, there’s constant evolvement of, of products and stuff. And the innovation is, is just, it’s part of the fun part about what we do. Yeah.

Mike Timmons (1h 9m 27s):

I agree. I love, it’s a great industry.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 9m 30s):

So will I have to remove my factory tracks because I You’ve got the bed rails, the EGR bed rails. Then inside you’ve got the, the tracks. What’s the ram track system that I have?

Sean P. Holman (1h 9m 43s):

It’s

Mike Timmons (1h 9m 43s):

Called the

Sean P. Holman (1h 9m 44s):

System. It’s just the Ram track system. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 9m 46s):

Whatever the RAM system is that I have. Yeah. Yeah. Those bolt right back in with the EGR system. Yeah. Will I have to remove those to you? No, no,

Mike Timmons (1h 9m 54s):

No.

Sean P. Holman (1h 9m 55s):

Well, you know, interesting, you don’t store or haul anything in your bed anyway, so they won’t be

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 9m 59s):

For you. Dude, I need somewhere to go to put the air. I actually, the bed is, it’s full. It’s full. It’s it’s, yeah. Random crap, but it’s

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 7s):

Full. Yeah. Like lithium ion batteries that are cooking.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 10m 9s):

No, just looking at No, those are in the cab ready to explode. No,

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 12s):

No. He put ’em in your bed after asked them to move them. You thought they went in the warehouse?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 10m 15s):

No. You know what’s funny is I have a bunch of like rope and stuff and recovery gear,

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 20s):

Duct tape and zip tie. No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 10m 21s):

No. I have recovery gear. Plastic bag. I’ve never made it. But I have recovery gear.

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 24s):

A lime, a shovel. What are you tubing?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 10m 27s):

It’s for you by the way.

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 29s):

Okay, good to know.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 10m 31s):

All. right. Well Mike Timmons from EGR, thank you very much for once again gracing us with your presence. Yeah,

Mike Timmons (1h 10m 36s):

Thank you for having me guys. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 38s):

Thank you for being awesome. Supporter of The. Truck. Show Podcast. We love you

Mike Timmons (1h 10m 41s):

Guys. You’re great. Really

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 42s):

Appreciate it. One person thanks thinks that and that’s amazing. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 10m 46s):

What?

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 47s):

Yeah, he’s right here.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 10m 48s):

Oh, okay.

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 49s):

Well our moms, I think our moms like it too. Our

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 10m 51s):

Moms do listen, which is super weird. Yeah. What’s up mom?

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 54s):

Hey mom.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 10m 58s):

Holman. You cool? If we read some email,

Sean P. Holman (1h 11m 0s):

It’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 11m 1s):

Been a while. All, right? Let’s do it.

4 (1h 11m 3s):

You email? Yeah, I email. do it. We email. That’s right. Everybody email type it up. You email proofread. I email send it. We email, click it every email.

9 (1h 11m 19s):

Who’s going first? You or me?

Sean P. Holman (1h 11m 21s):

I’m gonna go first today.

9 (1h 11m 23s):

All right.

Sean P. Holman (1h 11m 25s):

Got this email from Bob Beer Bauer and it says Diesel inappropriateness and the three liter durmax. And this is a little bit on the long side, but he’s got some really interesting questions that I think we can discuss. He says five star review. I started listening to the podcast shortly after picking up my 24 A T four three liter back in January. I’ve come to love both The truck and the podcast. I do have a question on diesel inappropriateness regarding the three liter durmax. The A T four is my daily driver. During the week, I’m driving short distances under 10 miles each trip. But on the weekends I’ll knock out 40 to 50 mile trips on a regular basis. None of these trips involve towing and 90% of the time the bed is empty. In other words, I’m diesel inappropriate. I do have a bank eye dash watch for regens, and if I hit a re while I’m on one of my shorter runs, I’ll drive another 10 minutes or so to complete.

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 7s):

The Regen The truck is serviced on a regular basis. Well before what GM recommends in the owner’s manual do the same diesel inappropriateness rules apply to the three liter as they do with the 6.6 liter engines used in the hds. I feel that a lot of the diesel knowledge I come across with the forms is based on experience with bigger engines, but I’m not convinced that experience is entirely relevant. I’ll concede that run heavy run long is the optimal way to run a diesel, but suspect that the three liter may be more accommodating of shorter distances and lighter workloads. And the bigger engines of my reasons for reaching this conclusion are about 20% of the vehicles in Europe use one and two liter diesels and I haven’t heard any widespread issues with using these engines and vehicles that are for the most part, not running long or running hard. My understanding is that at the time the three liter was developed, GM owned opal and the three cylinder, one liter and four cylinder, two liter variant of the engine were developed from the same design for use in opal passenger cars.

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 57s):

Granted the three liters a bigger engine, but it’s closer to these engines in displacement than it is to a six six. Other than some sensor failures, I’ve not seen much posted on the forms regarding the three liter duramax. Most of the sensor failures that I’ve read about are on newer vehicles, which leads me to believe they’re more of a luck of the draw in getting a bad part issue rather than an indication of long-term reliability. The base engine on a T four three liter at that, the time I bought mine, the majority of a T four dealer inventory in my area was the diesel, not the Gasser. I’ve not seen any advice from JAM regarding diesel appropriateness and the dealer certainly didn’t offer any. This leads me to believe that GM engineers are confident that the three liter can be used as a daily driver without any special considerations beyond regular servicing. I can see the argument of why a gastro would be more sensible for my use case, but this is not diesel versus gas, rather it’s question of whether the three liter falls under the same diesel inappropriateness rules as the bigger engines.

Sean P. Holman (1h 13m 44s):

I have no regrets with my engine choice, but would be interested in hearing what you guys have to say on the topic. Thanks again and I appreciate the entertaining podcast. That’s from Bob Bauer and I I. Think you’re, I think he’s right. I think the fact that he has an ID dash, he’s watching regen is probably the most important thing. I have a friend with an early three liter who’s had a lot of DPF issues, a lot of DPF, he’s had the whole exhaust after treatment system replaced. Chevy’s kinda shrugged a a few times, but seems like the newer ones are better. I would agree that he probably, the sensor issue is luck of the draw and I would say, yeah, the three liter was definitely designed with more of a daily driver in mind versus work like a six. Six would be. But I think the key is allowing that regen to happen.

Sean P. Holman (1h 14m 25s):

So if you’ve got the visibility on it, which the banks I’D dash gives you that the factory dash does not, you’re already taking a step in the right direction. And the fact that he says I do a lot of short trips, but on the weekend I knock out, you know, 30, 40, 50 miles. I think that’s fine. I think his use case, he’s okay in a three liter. What do you think?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 14m 43s):

So my opinion is to first hang out in the groups Facebook groups. There’s some good forms too, but the groups are three liter ax owners, three liter LZO, lm, two owners, three liter derm X diesel fans. You’ll find just start going on Facebook and there’s like five or six really strong groups. There’s a lot of great dialogue. And there’s also a great YouTube channel from Greg Nelson. He is a diesel mechanic based outta Utah and that’s all he talks about is the three liter. He had an LM two and an LZ zero now and he talks about regions and what to do and and inappropriateness and it’s a great channel for that. If you’re new to the three liter platform, the 2021 and 22 or the LM 2 22 and a half, they change the LM two updated and then 2324, it’s the LZ zero.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 15m 29s):

The LZ zero by all accounts is a lot better than the LM two. So I think you’re fine. Just run it. Spencer writes Jabob and Holeshot. I’m not much of a reader, but I was pretty interested in the Rudolph diesel book. The week of that episode, me and my girlfriend were getting ready for a road trip from Colorado to Salt Lake City down to Washington, Utah, and then back to Colorado through the Four Corners area and a stop at the sand dunes. So we downloaded the audio book to listen during the drive. I was interested in the history of the diesel engine since I am a diesel technician, but I found myself wanting to know what actually happened to Mr. Diesel and my girlfriend was interested in all the derails and parties with Mr.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 16m 10s):

Diesel. It was a great book for both of us. Thank you for having the author on the show and talking about the book. And it’s always Keep the suckage low and five stars from Emmy Hall Glory

10 (1h 16m 20s):

With the Suckage Star review five star.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 16m 24s):

And he also says matter those parameters and everything matters.

11 (1h 16m 29s):

Mel Parameters,

12 (1h 16m 31s):

Thanks for watching and remember everything matters.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 16m 34s):

Got ’em all in. Yeah, that was one of our, one of my favorite interviews. I, gotta be honest.

Sean P. Holman (1h 16m 38s):

Got this one from our buddy. RB

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 16m 40s):

Writes,

Sean P. Holman (1h 16m 41s):

Cummins should protest. Cummins should protest loudly or we should all protest loudly on Cummins behalf. So Cummins was fined $2.04 billion for 600,000 pickups with undisclosed emissions quote unquote cheat software. Yet GM gets fined only 146 million for 5.9 million vehicles emitting 10% more CO2 than advertised WTFA complete and total crock of

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 17m 10s):

Ray.

Sean P. Holman (1h 17m 11s):

How do you feel, Ray? Do you know? I, I’m not, I don’t know too much about the GM penalty. Is any insight on that one?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 17m 18s):

No, I don’t have any insight on that one. I just think that sometimes we don’t know all the details. So on the, on the outside it looks like there the penalty is not commensurate to the, with the crime. Sure. But we don’t really know the crime and there’s so much negotiation, like all the people that we’ve followed who’ve been busted by the EPA for delete tunes and all that stuff. The settlement process is so long and so drawn out and there’s so much negotiated then we don’t, we don’t have a clue and we may never have a clue. We still don’t know about the the Cummins thing, right? Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (1h 17m 55s):

What What the actual crime was.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 17m 57s):

Yeah, we don’t

Sean P. Holman (1h 17m 58s):

All. right. Fair enough.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 17m 60s):

Third gen Eco Diesel from Steven. Hey guys, just picked up a new Rubicon Eagle Diesel gladiator, and so far loving all of it. Torque for days, good economy, and it’s just nice to swap big tires with an old oil burner. I’m running 30 sevens on a stock suspension and snagged a JL taser and pedal monster after listening to your episodes and it’s been a super nice platform for my use case. Could you guys please, please, please do a deep dive on the three liter EcoDiesel?

Sean P. Holman (1h 18m 30s):

Nope. Kind of done it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 18m 33s):

Oh, not

Sean P. Holman (1h 18m 34s):

Really. I think next week our buddy Scott Birdsall is coming in, so he

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 18m 38s):

Has some opinions on that engine. Oh yes.

Sean P. Holman (1h 18m 40s):

Tried to race one. I’m sure he could. He has do some.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 18m 43s):

Well he has a turbo and a supercharger on his Lama prototype car that’s powered by a freedom racing engine version of that EcoDiesel. So anyway, he continues, I’m not above bribing you guys with bourbon and Legos, but I’ve, it’s funny. He lives knows.

Sean P. Holman (1h 18m 59s):

Well also Bourbon Legos is opening up. That’s a great name.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 19m 2s):

I know you get sued by Lego though.

Sean P. Holman (1h 19m 4s):

Bourbon, bourbon and toy blocks.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 19m 6s):

Something like that. Yeah. Do you remember all the, the ripoff Legos? Yes. They were like, remember bricks blocks and all these other, like everyone was trying to get on Legos tip. It didn’t work. They all sucked. So anyway, he says, but I’ve listened to a long time to remember both the T-shirt as well as the sticker endeavor. So if you guys would be willing to set aside some time for a deep dive on the different generations or known pitfalls or tips and tricks, I’m happy to box up some stuff and set it your way. Attaches the pick of my jeep at the tip of the northernmost point in the Yup. Upper peninsula of Michigan. And that is a, that’s a very cool photo, so thank you for sending it. That Matory engine, that’s who makes the EcoDiesel.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 19m 51s):

It is a very controversial motor.

Sean P. Holman (1h 19m 59s):

Is that as far as you’re willing to go? Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 1s):

That’s

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 1s):

It. That you’re just the you’re out right there.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 3s):

I. I. Just, you know what, it’s weird. Like we, we have a love hate relationship with that. We, of all the engines we decided to

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 12s):

You love it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 12s):

And you hate it. Decided we installed that engine Yep. Into a Humvee, as I think I’ve said before on the show of all the engines we could have

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 19s):

Chosen once had it installed in a F 100.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 22s):

Oh you did? What? What’d you say?

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 24s):

Once had one installed in an F 100. Oh

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 27s):

Yeah, yeah, you did for a minute. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 30s):

I’m like, are we that far?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 32s):

Man? I have forgotten completely about that. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 34s):

I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 34s):

Haven’t, man. Yeah, it’s Your truck is still at banks.

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 39s):

Yeah, I don’t I I haven’t seen in three years. That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 41s):

Crazy. Yeah. Your your, your truck is Oh, it’s safe. It’s covered. It’s clean. I I. It’s up on Jacks. I.

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 47s):

I wouldn’t know.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 48s):

I I know. Just, I saw it like six, eight months ago. Yeah, I think it’s still there. As far as I know, it would

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 53s):

Just be like Indiana Jones. They’ll just be lost in the back of the warehouse.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 56s):

Oh, I feel bad

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 57s):

About that. You could probably sell it if anybody wants to buy it as is with pay off all this podcast. I think

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 2s):

The thing, the thing is that the EcoDiesel is, its bones are strong, but the stuff that’s hung off it is problematic. Mm. That’s yeah. Do you wanna do a deep dive on it?

Sean P. Holman (1h 21m 14s):

Yeah, absolutely. I’d love I I think it’d be great. I mean, we’ve got the access to people who know it inside and out. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 22s):

Okay.

Sean P. Holman (1h 21m 22s):

You work with a lot of ’em.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 23s):

I feel like Gamble could be that guy.

Sean P. Holman (1h 21m 25s):

Could be, could be great. Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 26s):

I’ll ask him

Sean P. Holman (1h 21m 27s):

Why, why not All? right? This other one from RB I love, he says, the only thing more head spining than listening to season two, episode 1 0 4 with Lieberman and U2 all doing stream of consciousness is listening to it at 1.2 x playback speed. Which is exactly what I did. Kind of like trying to think, well, inside a popcorn popper who needs drugs? Ray?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 45s):

Oh wait, wait, wait. I gotta add some to this. Wait,

Sean P. Holman (1h 21m 47s):

Hold on. Then he sends a follow up email and he says, I realize my previous email could have been misinterpreted in the negative, but that’s not my intent. I enjoyed the entire discussion. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 56s):

So, okay. There was no negativity in that episode. Both Holman and I were way over prepping for like, we thought there was gonna be hate. We tried to set ’em up for some controversial topics. Nope, none, none of that happened. All good. None of that happened. So my, my wife was in the hospital the day that I was going to edit the show. And so we were in the emergency room, blah, blah, blah. So I asked my son, who actually is a proficient editor to cut that show and he text me several times when he was editing. He says, dad, you guys are covering so many topics. I can’t really edit it. There’s no like in and out of any story. No, there’s No way to, to cut any fat. It’s all fat. It’s just how it is. So I said, okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 22m 37s):

The one issue that I had though, and I’m gonna apologize to some of you, we may have left in some F-bombs. Now we got ’em the next day

Sean P. Holman (1h 22m 46s):

And, and it’s clean

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 22m 47s):

Now and it’s clean. So if you go back and you’re downloading that episode now, you’ll enjoy a very clean show for your children. But for those who may have downloaded it that evening, now you know what

Sean P. Holman (1h 22m 56s):

Morning, what rhymes with The truck?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 22m 57s):

Yeah, you do know what rhymes with truck because both Holman and our guest said it several times. So hey,

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 3s):

You’re, you’re not absolved of of that as well. You’ve dropped your fair share.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 23m 9s):

I

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 10s):

Usually recently I. Usually I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 23m 11s):

Usually bleep them though. No,

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 12s):

I well I know, but I’m just saying that you give yourself the bleep work as well.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 23m 16s):

Yeah, I do. Geez, that’s funny. That dovetails into Nick’s email. It says Unpopular opinion. Johnny Lieberman is still a quality interview. He does have a potty mouth though. He says one hour, five minutes and 24 seconds. Lightning, do your job, buddy. Yeah, well, I, again, I I, just apologize for that. Holman, I sent you an email a while back asking about my 94 Ranger. No response. What? You ghosted him? Dude, that’s

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 47s):

Harsh. No, no, that didn’t, that didn’t happen. He said it. Does he say he sent it to me or to, is it to our other?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 23m 54s):

He says Holman comma, I sent you an email. Nah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 57s):

What

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 23m 57s):

Do I call him a liar? Nick Lawn. You’re Holman says you’re a liar.

Sean P. Holman (1h 24m 1s):

Oh, the one that he, that he sent on March 16th.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 24m 4s):

He doesn’t give you a date.

Sean P. Holman (1h 24m 5s):

No, I found it. I’ll do that one next.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 24m 9s):

Anyway, since it’s a commuter 70 plus miles per day up and down the concrete interstate, it’s a two Wheel drive, standard cab long bed, 3 0 5 speed that I’m trying to get the best ride possible for what it is. I’ve done divas out back and with an inverted shackle and Fox two oh shocks upfront, full rebuild of the two Wheel drive beams with new rubber bushings and Fox 2.0 shocks. It’s world’s better over the undulations, but it’s world’s better over the undulations. But there are a few hard expansion joints that it hits that I still have to brace for. What else can I possibly do? Says Nick

Sean P. Holman (1h 24m 46s):

And then back in March he said this. Sean, I’m sending this to you, hoping you can help out a fellow ranger enthusiast. I’ve had my fair share of ranger based vehicles through the years. They’ve all been the twin traction Beam su suspension. Well,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 24m 59s):

This’s gonna be the basically the same email that I just read

Sean P. Holman (1h 25m 1s):

I recently bought. Yeah, but I want to show people,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 25m 4s):

Well, it doesn’t matter. That’s fine. Just answer his question. What’s he

Sean P. Holman (1h 25m 6s):

Gonna do? I recently bought a 94 standard cab, long band three there, five speed, 200 drive, two Wheel drive complete stocks except for 30 ones, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He says he ordered all the goodies he that he mentioned, mentioned there. He says, no hate. I don’t like the way Bill steins rise. I win the foxes. When I emailed Camber to order the middle of the road kit, I had one before and loved it. They informed me they no longer produce it. I’ve searched the forms for use setup or even a truck to part out, but No luck being on the wrong coast doesn’t help if there’s no one local that bends beams for this type of setup. What are my other options to get the front level with the rear or just a touch higher and more importantly, writing like a high speed Cadillac. PS got my stickers the same day. I got my registration. Thanks Lightning. And he’s got a picture of our sticker in the back window. That’s pretty cool. So yeah, I don’t, I’m supposed to have breakfast with Jerry in two days.

Sean P. Holman (1h 25m 50s):

So Jerry from can, so maybe I will bring this along and ask him because if anybody knows, he would know. and

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 25m 57s):

I can see, well, he’s not gonna bring the kit back.

Sean P. Holman (1h 25m 59s):

No, no, no. But he might know who’s bending beams and stuff like that. Oh, John at Auto Fab I don’t know if he’s around anymore. And then there’s a guy up here in Huntington who used to bend beams, but he retired a couple years ago. Sold his shop. So I, it’s kind of a lost art, but there’s gotta be somebody out there doing it. And if you guys have a shop that, that you’re familiar with or, or a kit that could help Nick out, please send us an email truck show podcast at gmail dot com.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 26m 23s):

Douglas writes in. Guys love the show. I’m all caught up. So I, listen to random past shows on season two, episode eight. You guys had the idea of letting your wives do a five minute or so show on trucks. Now, I, that

Sean P. Holman (1h 26m 36s):

Was a hundred episodes ago. He

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 26m 37s):

Says, I don’t recall if it happened, but I thought it would be a cool idea and you should do it.

Sean P. Holman (1h 26m 44s):

I don’t know that we should leave our wives in here together with the microphones.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 26m 51s):

Yeah, it would, it would just be they would just on us. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (1h 26m 54s):

Yeah. For more than we do to each other. Yeah. I mean, no, what I mean? Do you think we should just say, come over here on a Saturday and we’ll give you guys 10 minutes and at that point we pull ’em out.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 5s):

No, I reject all of this. Is that

13 (1h 27m 6s):

Why you’re ending the show here? Yeah, no,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 8s):

That’s

13 (1h 27m 8s):

A’s before we get too far down that thought process.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 11s):

She doesn’t like my Ballard idea. You think she’s, she’s talking. Oh, it’s Talk Good about the show. It’s not an idea

13 (1h 27m 15s):

Anymore.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 15s):

No. The truck show. The

13 (1h 27m 18s):

Truck

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 19s):

Show. The truck show.

13 (1h 27m 21s):

She hasn’t liked your Ballards in a long time or

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 24s):

Ever? No. Ever.

13 (1h 27m 25s):

It’s ah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 27s):

It’s been a dry spell. Yeah.

13 (1h 27m 28s):

Ballards sure it has. Well, yeah. You know the nice thing is you can extend anytime you want and admire them too. You just sit there in your driveway admiring

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 37s):

Stainless steel ballards.

13 (1h 27m 38s):

Yeah. How, how shiny and how, how they reflect in the sun.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 44s):

It’s fun to have four of ’em, I gotta tell you. Is it,

13 (1h 27m 47s):

Do you like to put each one up and down independently or did you do it all at once? They’re heavy. Do you ever sit on one at

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 52s):

No. no. I haven. Have

13 (1h 27m 54s):

You ever had a Ballard mishap?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 57s):

It sounds like a line from airplane. Roger Roger Truck Show podcast at gmail dot com is the main email address that seems to be where most of you guys choose the same email. So go for it. Truck show podcast at gmail dot com. If you wanna to find Holman, he’s at hol, at The Truck Show Podcast dot com or your boy Lightning over here. Lightning at truck show podcast dot com. And by the way, I feel like some of you guys are slipping I. know that you want some banks parts. I will hook you up. Send me an email or hit me on the the gram at LBC Lightning Truck Show podcast. I’m sorry, Lightning at truck show podcast dot com. You know, it just hit me up. I’ll hook a brother up. All

Sean P. Holman (1h 28m 30s):

Right now going to the gram? Yes. At LBC Lightning. I said that. Okay. Just making sure. Yeah. At Sean P Holman, yes. At Truck Show Podcast. Yes. You find us on Facebook also at Truck Show Podcast. You invite us at truck show podcast dot com and if you go to our, oh I your products

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 28m 43s):

Page Hold on a second, I just added some events. Oh good.

Sean P. Holman (1h 28m 46s):

Because I I know I got some emails I sent you. Yeah. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 28m 48s):

Then Dave sent me some as well. Okay. So there’s some new events on the events tab. There’s a couple, a lot of man C 10 guys are bonkers with their events. So many C 10 events. If you’re into the C 10 scene, you, you got a lot coming up the, the end of this summer and then there’s some cool shows in the South, back East, et cetera. There’s, there’s the show season is in full of effect. Hit up the events page at truck show podcast dot

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 10s):

Com and I actually have some events I need to send you as well. Oh. So have a couple other things we need to add to the calendar. If you wanna leave us a voicemail and tell us your thoughts. 6 5 7 2 0 5 61 0 5 and

14 (1h 29m 23s):

Fox Star

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 25s):

Hotline and I. Just want to add on The Truck Show Podcast dot com page. Under the featured products tab, we have products and discount codes. I’ve also added I had a few of you ask for OVR Magazine. So The Truck Show Podcast code. We will give you either a free digital access for a year to our online library, which now has 10 issues or a 10% discount on a one year print subscription. So, oh, make sure you check that out. If you’re into off-roading and trucks, which I think a few of you probably are.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 29m 53s):

Nah. And since we know you guys actually are into trucks, if you’re looking for a new great mid-size pickup, look no further than the Nissan Frontier 310 whopping horsepower. Get your butt into those zero gravity seats. Build and price yours at Nissan usa dot

Sean P. Holman (1h 30m 8s):

Com. And we gotta thank our buddy Mike Timmons from EGR USA for coming in the studio. EGR products, our great truck accessories for your ride. Everything from roll track tunnel covers to fender flares, the VSL lights, we talked about hood guards, body side, moldings, sport bars, cab spoilers, undersea storage, everything you need. EGR USA you can do Your year, make model and find out what products they have for your truck. Hey, Lightning, I’ve got a question for you before we part for the week. Mm.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 30m 35s):

Okay,

Sean P. Holman (1h 30m 35s):

Go for it. Do you think your Ballards are up or down right now or a little to the right?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 30m 41s):

They’re definitely down. The Truck Show Podcast is a production of Truck Famous LLC. This podcast was created by Sean Holman and J Tillis with production elements by DJ Omar Khan. If you like what you’ve heard, please open your Apple Podcast or Spotify app and give us a five star rating. And if you’re a fan, there’s no better way to show your support than by patronizing our sponsors. Some vehicles may have been harmed during the making of this podcast.