Season 2, Episode 66 - They Tried To Steal Lightning’s TRX, Tim Esterdahl, Nikola Badger “News”

 

 

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Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1s):

Holman. By a show of hands, how many people have had an attempted theft of their TRX in this room? How many people? Show of hands. I

Sean P. Holman (8s):

Thought it was stolen.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10s):

No, it was not.

Sean P. Holman (10s):

Oh, just your pride was just

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11s):

My pride.

Sean P. Holman (12s):

Yes. And your sense of security in your home,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14s):

All those things were broken. Yes. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (16s):

How about your wife’s knowing Side eye glance, if I told you So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21s):

I, don’t think she told me that my TRX was going to be stolen.

Sean P. Holman (24s):

Yeah. But She said, you have an obnoxious truck that’s going to attract

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27s):

Unwanted

Sean P. Holman (28s):

Attention. Attract unwanted attention. Yes.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30s):

That may have happened here.

Sean P. Holman (31s):

Here’s what I wanna know. You could go through it. You posted the, the photos, whatever. Oh, by

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38s):

The way, just blowing

Sean P. Holman (38s):

It off. You’re welcome. By the way, we talked about this where I said several times that your proximity to the freeway system and where you you are leaves your TX mighty vulnerable.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48s):

Yeah. I’m not in a secure neighborhood. There are a lot of ways to get my truck to Mexico. Really quick, really quick.

Sean P. Holman (54s):

So there’s that. But I wanted to know if you had heard your truck start up in the middle of the night, what you would’ve done. Because it’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 3s):

Loud. It’s very loud. I mean it’s, I would’ve ran out there and called 9 1 1 I mean birds.

Sean P. Holman (1m 7s):

Birds would’ve flown out of trees at 3:00 AM or whatever time this happened. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 13s):

I can tell you it’s, it happened at 6:24 AM Why don’t we hold this story about lightning’s? I, I, I could tell you this. Yesterday morning I walk out and the truck is there, but it’s damaged. But the truck was still there. And I thought, I feel violated. But it was a miracle that it was still there. Yes, I am truly thankful, which I’ll explain why later, but the truck is still there. I still have it in my possession. Someone wanted it and wanted it bad, but they didn’t get it. And just two weeks ago, had I not taken some action, and I’ve talked about it on this show, the truck would have been stolen.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 53s):

Gone, gone.

Sean P. Holman (1m 54s):

Can we do this show as if your truck is gone?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 57s):

Why, why do you wish hate upon me? I

Sean P. Holman (1m 59s):

Don’t I don.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 60s):

Why? Why do you

Sean P. Holman (2m 1s):

Wanted to be gone? I’m experimenting. I’m experimenting with, with your human emotion and your human conditions. It’s funny that you

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 8s):

Say that because my wife, Brandy, she says, oh, this is gonna be so good for the podcast.

Sean P. Holman (2m 15s):

I mean. That’s kind of funny.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 16s):

I mean, so it’s 25 years of radio. You know, like, I’d be standing on my underwear on a street corner. Yeah. And that was, it was awful for me. But good for the listeners. Right. Doing all that kinda like wacky morning radio stuff. And anytime that I would get a traffic ticket or whatever, it was always, oh, this sucks now. But this will be good on the air later. Sure. Well that’s exactly what happened to me Sunday morning. It was awful for me. But I figured maybe it would be good for you because

Sean P. Holman (2m 40s):

It’s not good for me. You, I you get that truck listeners. I don’t wanna see it. Listeners. No, you the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 45s):

Listeners.

Sean P. Holman (2m 45s):

Okay. All, right don? Don’t wanna see your truck ripped from your hands. was So I mean? All, all I could think of is when you sent me the photos is Oh, great. Now we gotta hear is if I had a cyber truck, this never would’ve happened. ’cause nobody wants one.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 58s):

No, I I I didn’t have any thoughts about this if

Sean P. Holman (3m 1s):

I had a Raptor r

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 3s):

No, I I didn’t have any of those thoughts. Okay. I I’m, I’m dead serious.

Sean P. Holman (3m 6s):

Were you more like, damn, my truck’s got a broken window.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 10s):

There was some of that, but mostly it was Oh. my God it was So close to being stolen. Well,

Sean P. Holman (3m 18s):

And the fact that,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 19s):

And I mean I have so much work into that thing.

Sean P. Holman (3m 20s):

Well, and and the fact that the, the reason it wasn’t stolen was literally just done two weeks ago. That’s, let’s, so we’ll get into that. Let’s talk about that. We’ll get into that All right on this episode of The Truck. Show Podcast. We’ve got a journalist, Tim Esterdahl, who will be joining us on the, on the phone. And then we also, a little video got dropped this week. And it’s funny because last week we were talking about Dave Sparks and his cyber truck with tracks. Yeah. And literally when we said in the last episode, how funny, we haven’t heard about the Badger in a long time. Well, lo and behold, oh whoop. Here It is Yep. And a cringey video was released. And I’d like to talk about that a little bit ’cause it’s, it’s fascinating. We won’t belabor the point, but it’s worth noting ’cause Well, don don’t know, 478 of you sent me the video.

Sean P. Holman (4m 2s):

I’m like, yeah, okay. I got it. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen it. All. right. Well we also have news and there is a ton of it this week. So before we start the show, we have to thank Nissan, our presenting sponsor. So if you’re in the market for a new truck, head on over to your local Nissan dealership where you can take a gander over at the mid-size frontier or the half 10 Nissan Titan or Titan Xd. The Titans have the industry’s best five year, 100,000 mile warranty. And I’ve been driving that frontier for a couple months now. And you might wanna get it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 28s):

Clean. I love it’s a little muddy still. I gotta be honest. It’s

Sean P. Holman (4m 30s):

Raining right now. Oh, okay. Nature will clean it. That

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 33s):

Nature’s

Sean P. Holman (4m 34s):

Car wash. Nature’s car wash I see happening right now with our Atmospheric River returning to Southern, California. Yeah. So it has been fantastic though. I’ve driven that thing all over. You borrowed it and took it out to the desert. I had a great time and it’s, it’s, it’s a great little truck. So head on down to your local Nissan dealer or you can go to Nissan usa.com where you can build and price. Nissan has supported The Truck, Show Podcast since the very beginning. We would love for you to support Nissan in return. So if you’re looking for a new truck, make sure to put them on your list. And if

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 59s):

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2 (5m 37s):

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.

3 (6m 9s):

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

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 17s):

So Holman, my question for you is

Sean P. Holman (6m 19s):

Whether we’re gonna start calling you truckless again.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 21s):

Oh

2 (6m 22s):

Man.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 23s):

No, please don’t. I don’t wanna live through that

Sean P. Holman (6m 25s):

Again. If was a, a shady listener that stalked you and decided to take advantage of, of knowing There are

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 33s):

A lot of interesting

Sean P. Holman (6m 35s):

Theories.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 36s):

Well theories, yeah. ’cause the wife says, could it be a listener? Could it have been someone on the Facebook groups? Right. Ram 1500, TXs. I’m there a lot. Could it have been a bang guy? Could it been like, there’s so many possibilities, but really I don’t think So don don’t think, I think there are groups because take me outta the equation. TRX is one of the most stolen vehicles. Right? I know we talked about Kias, we’ve talked, but like, they’re just disappearing all over the place. I wanna ask you a question. How would you have felt if I had sent you a photograph of a piece of broken glass in my driveway Sunday morning? I already

Sean P. Holman (7m 13s):

Felt bad that you had

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 13s):

And, and a truck

Sean P. Holman (7m 14s):

With broken glass.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 15s):

But imagine that it, there was nothing there. Like no,

Sean P. Holman (7m 17s):

I I I would have, I would’ve raged. So for those not not cool, for

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 23s):

Those of you that have had stolen vehicles,

Sean P. Holman (7m 25s):

I honestly think thief should have body parts chopped off like the good old days. So you knew they were a thief. Take start taking fingers and ears and stuff. That’ll stop that stuff real quick.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 34s):

I I wonder if like, do the cartels do that kinda stuff that

Sean P. Holman (7m 37s):

Make Absolutely. They’ll Steal from you, but, but if you Steal from them, you’re gonna be in a 55 gallon acid bucket on a bridge somewhere in Yeah, somewhere. Right.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 47s):

So it’s about 6:40 AM and the wife gets up to take our puppy out for a, a little walk and just in the front yard, let her, let her pee. And so the wife goes out there, And she realized that my car cover had been folded up and over. So exposing the tailgate and the back window. And, she looks over And. she goes, that’s weird. The wind must have caught it last night. And that she looks closer in the back window. ’cause I have a foot, you know, square, 12 inch by 12 inch sliding glass portion. The middle question for you, the ran window,

Sean P. Holman (8m 14s):

Would it have been better to have a padlock and cable underneath your car cover to help it from coming off the sleeve? I have

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 23s):

That. I have that.

Sean P. Holman (8m 24s):

Did they cut the car cover?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 25s):

No, no, no. You, it’s in the center section. It goes between the wheels and you’re able to fold up half of it and to kind of fold it over. So the cable is still connected. She sees it and then she walks a few feet over and looks to our neighbor’s yard and there’s the glass in the yard. She immediately goes inside, wakes me up, gets some clothes on. I walk right outside. It’s, it’s obvious that someone had broken in, in an attempt to, to Steal it. Not just getting some stuff inside. And I went in, got first, took some photographs of the glass of the truck. They, it looks like they may have stood on the rear, the driver’s side left Wheel and then popped the glass right in the center with who knows what these little, that tool that Yep.

Sean P. Holman (9m 7s):

It is got a car loaded light tip on it. Yeah, exactly. Here’s one thing I will say. And I have said this to the manufacturers over and over again. Stop putting in rear windows that open. I don’t want it, I don’t want a sliding rear window in my truck period. In the past I’ve actually taken the factory slider out and put in a solid glass window. Yeah. ’cause it’s too easy to break into trucks. Like, stop doing that. Well

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 29s):

So I spent most of yesterday doing more research on the topic. And if they don’t have the sliding glass, then they go in through the rear driver’s side or passenger side because it’s, it’s easier to get in for whatever reason through that. So they would’ve broken the glass regardless. So, I run inside, I get the key fob, I come back out, I unlock the truck and I was kind of delighted that it, it’s still like it was still reacting to my key fob. I opened the, the, the driver’s door and I look in and there’s a wire harness hanging out where the light switch is, you know, to the left of the steering Wheel home. And you’ve got that the rotary headlight switch.

Sean P. Holman (10m 3s):

Yeah. It is just a panel that pops out.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 4s):

Exactly. It just, it just p pops right out. You can just do it with your hands. And

Sean P. Holman (10m 7s):

Then behind the dash is basically so you can reach your hand in there. And they did. And if you know what you’re grabbing, there’s a particular harness that you can get your hand on.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 15s):

That’s exactly what, so they pulled this harness. This harness was laying out as well, a big green harness for all these cables. And. it was just laying there. So they had apparently tried to connect up to this harness and they didn’t, didn’t work. And the reason it didn’t work guys, is because I had installed an Igla device just two freaking weeks ago. And This is the part that like, gives me chills. The way they’re getting in is they connect to the body control module somehow. They get on the CAN bus, all these cars and trucks have can bus and they’re able to put it in this key pairing mode. And they basically tell the vehicle, oh, I’m a dealership and I’m, I’ve I, the customer lost his key, I’m creating a new key for this vehicle.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 59s):

They create this new key and they can turn it on and just drive it right away. Super fast, I think in my driveway for four minutes or less. And because I installed this ILA device, by

Sean P. Holman (11m 10s):

The way, you have cameras, right?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 12s):

I do. We’ll get to that in a second.

Sean P. Holman (11m 15s):

Or were they pointed at your truck? Yes.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 17s):

Hmm. Yeah, they can’t make the key. They probably freak out that it’s not working and they, and they bounce. Right? They bail.

Sean P. Holman (11m 26s):

Did you see a second vehicle? Take that other person away? So,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 30s):

So here’s the thing with the cameras, I have multiple cameras around the house. Luckily the previous owner of the house had installed them. They’re all in great locations and I kind of moved them a little bit. So they’re, they’re, they have all great shots. My wife goes in, she pulls up the camera system, she looks at it. There’s four cameras, three cameras are working. The fourth one is not. It’s black. She rewinds. She starts at like midnight and goes all the way through. And this one is black The whole time. I’m like, what in the world? Why is camera four out? It’s the one that literally points at the truck.

Sean P. Holman (12m 1s):

Did somebody come earlier and put something over the camera?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 4s):

I thought So I went up. I looked at the camera. This is after kind of like I put the truck kind of back together and the whole thing. I got my ladder up. I inspected the wires, I looked at the camera. There was no black spray paint over the lens, nothing like that. There was nobody tried to defeat the camera. I go inside and where the RCA connections come into the back of the DVR box, you know my, the, the camera control center. I’m like, what? I unplug camera four, plug it back in, right back on. It just needed to be rebooted. So

Sean P. Holman (12m 30s):

You have to be looking at your cameras more often?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 32s):

Yeah, apparently

Sean P. Holman (12m 33s):

I mean I look at my stuff probably five, six times a week just to make sure

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 37s):

I, well I’ve learned my lesson. That sucks.

Sean P. Holman (12m 39s):

’cause

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 39s):

You I literally just unplug. But

Sean P. Holman (12m 40s):

What about the other ones? You have other ones pointing at the street. Did you see a second car

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 43s):

Or anything? This is why I know it happened at 6:24 AM Okay. Because one of the other cameras, you been in my house and I have a camera that faces towards the, the front yard and then the TX is over to the side. Yep. And there’s a kind of a part of the house that makes a round you can’t see around the corner. But when they either got in or got out, you know how my Amber DLS light up? I could see the Amber DLS glow off the block wall. So that’s how I knew what time it was happening now. So you

Sean P. Holman (13m 6s):

Think they powered the truck up to accessory or on mode while they were doing their thing

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 10s):

Something or when he got out?

Sean P. Holman (13m 12s):

Oh, just because the lights flash with

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 14s):

Yes. When you get on in or out, the lights would flash. don don’t know if that’s because my taser that I have in there or not. But by the way, they didn’t touch the taser at 6 24 on the tape. I could see this, the RL light up the, the wall and then I see a black car whiz through the frame and So I think that’s when he freaked. He got out the driver’s door and ran and got in the car and they just bailed. Probably they had been there too long. What kinda car

Sean P. Holman (13m 37s):

Was it?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 38s):

I can’t, it looked like a, like a, like a Chevy Trax or something. like a, you can’t really tell. I went frame by frame. The problem is shooting through some like a, like a miniature palm tree. So, I can see the vehicle but I can’t tell what It is. But you can just see it whiz off And. it was right after the lights flash. So the lights flash, he jumps in the car and they bounce and went down the street. So, I was able to start the truck. And it started, went through the day glass. You put in your, like your passcode, right? Which you control with like steering Wheel controls and on the dashboard And it, everyone is custom And. it started right up and I thought wow, that’s a fricking miracle. and then I turned it off and I cleaned up all the glass ’cause there was glass everywhere.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 18s):

Just you know, basically glass dust, you know those little tiny shards everywhere. Pulled the car cover off, got in the truck and I drove it to work because it had no window. I didn’t want to sit there all day with no window and have ’em come back.

Sean P. Holman (14m 31s):

Go back. ’cause you have a dash cam, but I can’t remember if yours is only forward looking or back. Yeah. Did it record anything? ’cause I know my dash cam records all sorts of stuff don don’t care about. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 39s):

It’s forward facing only. Okay. And. it replaces the mirror assembly on the Ram truck. Yep. And the car cover was still on the, the cab. So they were in darkness. Like they had or or they were surrounded in this cocoon, right? So.

Sean P. Holman (14m 53s):

It was pre dawn. Pre

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 54s):

It was just dawn. It was just dawn. So it’s shooting nothing. It’s shooting a car cover through the windshield. You can’t see squad now there might be sound, I didn’t go back to listen for sound.

Sean P. Holman (15m 4s):

I, I would listen. I’d be curious to hear any communication that they have. Yeah. Or anything

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 9s):

Like that. But it goes on because it’s connected to the, it gets its power from the rear view mirror circuit. I think the ignition has to be on for that to go So. I?

Sean P. Holman (15m 19s):

No, because there should be a battery. No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 21s):

No, there’s no battery. No, it’s, it’s, it’s only running when the cars, it’s, it’s basically, you know, taping accidents and stuff in front of you while you

Sean P. Holman (15m 27s):

Yeah, but I, but I have like on mine, mine set up where it’s pulling power from a constant on fuse. So if the car’s been off for a few days and I close the door And it thinks there’s an impact. It’s recording in the garage or whatever

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 40s):

It might, I’ll have to check. Yeah, you’ll, it

Sean P. Holman (15m 41s):

Might, you’ll have to double check on that. I’ll, I’ll go back and

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 43s):

I’ll go back and look and unfortunately it’s at work now and I’m here. It’s

Sean P. Holman (15m 46s):

Deal. No for me I’m almost thinking of like they have those Uber taxi ones. Same company as as my camera that face back toward the driver Right now I’m kind of thinking like, hmm, maybe I put one of those in there so that I can see backwards too.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 60s):

That would’ve been a good idea. So I talked to immediately went on and And it, spoke to people on the forums and stuff like that. And they, the guys in Texas were saying that dudes are hopping in and flipping off the cameras like brazenly showing course with their face. Nobody asking, flipping off the cameras

Sean P. Holman (16m 15s):

Come over from the other side of the border, like they don’t care.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 16s):

Yeah. And, and but at

Sean P. Holman (16m 18s):

Least it would let you understand how it’s happening or posted or who knows. This

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 22s):

Is also weird. So this happens on a Sunday morning, Saturday morning, a day prior. I’m on the phone with John from Igla and he’s talking me through some of the features and ’cause we’re gonna have him on in a couple weeks. Yep.

Sean P. Holman (16m 35s):

It was just weird. And by the way, we were gonna have him on before this happened because it was something that you came to me and you booked this guy, I’d never heard of Igla before and you’re like, Oh, no lower, blah blah blah. I’m like, okay whatever. And then doing the research, I’m like okay, well that’s cool. And then so you went and had it done and then you booked them. It’s interesting. so we won’t go in too much detail, but it’s basically a device that intercepts between where they’re trying to access the vehicle and then the computer itself. Correct. Right. It there, there’s a disconnect and you showed me how it works and so like I still have some concerns about it and it’d be interesting to hear more. Like you showed me, every time you get in there’s like a five to ten second sequence of A B, BA up, down, up, down.

Sean P. Holman (17m 15s):

So if you ever play with a Nintendo controller, you basically basically do the same thing every single time you get in your vehicle. So to me like that’s a little bit on the annoying side.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 26s):

Although I did something you didn’t, I didn’t tell you

Sean P. Holman (17m 28s):

The key fob.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 29s):

They have a key

Sean P. Holman (17m 30s):

Fob. I understand. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 31s):

They, they recommend if you don’t have to use the key fob. Right. It’s safer to not use the key fob but it’s a proximity base just like your regular key fob. If I wanted to hang that on my belt or or on the key itself.

Sean P. Holman (17m 41s):

Well can somebody take that signal and figure it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 43s):

Out? No, they said That one is not being tracked. They’re not looking for that particular RF frequency range. They’re only looking for the factory ram

Sean P. Holman (17m 54s):

CO. So, so that help, that to me helps a little bit. The other thing I didn’t like is there’s very few installers nationwide. I think there’s only what, two or three here in SoCal period. And they won’t tell you as the owner where the module is hidden in the vehicle, which I get why they’re doing to be super secure. This is supposed to be one of the best things that you can get for your vehicle, blah blah blah blah blah. But what do you do when you go to sell it? What do you do when you go to the dealer? What do you do when you have valets? What do you do? So like you’re not gonna teach them how to do all the stuff.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (18m 22s):

So that is, it’s funny that you ask because Saturday morning I asked John that specific question. I said, how do I put this into bypass mode? Yeah. Because what, what I didn’t explain a couple episodes when I ha ago when I had this put in is I wasn’t there at work. I was at, I had, my truck was at Banks and I had a lunch meeting and I asked Steven in my office, I’m like, Hey, could you let this guy John in from Igla, he’s gonna install this thing for a couple hours if he needs anything, he needs a soda water, bathroom. Help him out. And, ’cause John had told me I can’t watch him put it in. Right. So, I had never gotten the tutorial. Like when you buy a new car and they go like All, right Mr. Smith, here’s how you up roll up and down the windows and do cruise control. I, he had never given me those instructions. So I had this little card and I have a thing in my wallet.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 4s):

like a little credit card with

Sean P. Holman (19m 5s):

Instructions. Yeah. They only print that card once, right? Yes. Because it’s unique to you or the code that is on there and that’s it. That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 11s):

Correct. That’s

Sean P. Holman (19m 12s):

The That’s correct. The only one they do. Correct.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 13s):

So he gave it to me and I photographed it. Yeah. So it’s in my phone and I have one in my wallet right now. Yeah. I actually give it to you and it’s got some instructions on it. It’s kind of cool.

Sean P. Holman (19m 21s):

So I wouldn’t put that in your wallet. I would take a picture of that I did and put it locked in your phone images and not have this, I would go put this in your safe.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 29s):

Yeah, it’s a good idea. So it’s, I get John on the phone, he’s walking me through some of this stuff and he explains, I wanna bring it into the RAM dealer, get it to oil changed, things like that. There is a service mode that will turn it off And it will automatically turn itself back on when, well

Sean P. Holman (19m 42s):

There’s two modes. There’s a service and a transport mode, right? Correct.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 45s):

And they say don’t use the transport mode

Sean P. Holman (19m 47s):

Because it lasts 30 days instead of two days or

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 49s):

Something like that. That’s correct. That’s correct. Whereas the service mode will turn itself back on if you go 50 miles an hour immediately the next time you turn it off it arms itself. So someone really thought this out, but you’re right, it now

Sean P. Holman (20m 1s):

It’s Where are they based though? Is this a Russian company? This like

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (20m 4s):

Czech Republic? Yeah. And there’s a really weird story behind how they’re getting imported. The company is called author A-U-T-H-O-R author.

Sean P. Holman (20m 14s):

But that’s the other thing that’s kind of interest. But but

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (20m 15s):

This is Igla IGLA and no one knows what it stands for. Yeah. Like there’s some

Sean P. Holman (20m 19s):

Well and that’s like the Velco stuff out of, I think they’re Russian and like they talk a good game. But there’s a whole lot of drawbacks to that system as well, including hacking up your wiring harness. And this doesn’t require that we think, but we don’t know because you couldn’t watch the install. What

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (20m 34s):

You get when you buy this box, when you buy this unit, you literally get a little tiny cardboard box and inside you get this card. Yep. And two cards, you get a sticker and a serial number and the two key fobs. That’s it. That’s it. You get no wiring hearted, you get nothing. You never see the module.

Sean P. Holman (20m 52s):

So that’s the thing that bothers me is it bothers me too. A DIY guy who wants to know everything that’s happening on my vehicle or to tell the next owner, Hey, this is what it ha I just, what happens if that thing goes bad? I’ve been in the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 3s):

Car. Does it

Sean P. Holman (21m 3s):

Have safety?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 5s):

No. Like Banks. No. Right. I I don’t think it does So

Sean P. Holman (21m 8s):

I that those are the questions I have. Like I get that it saved you from getting your truck stolen, which is awesome. It worked exactly as advertised. You’re gonna go out and you’re gonna profess how great It is. Me. I’m thinking of all the other ways it doesn’t work. Like I’m glad it served its purpose, but,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 22s):

But I brought those, all, all those things up and he goes, you’ve got my, he, you know, he’d you’ve got my cell phone. Yeah. I’m in West Covina. You know, he’s five minutes from Banks. Yeah. And he’s 30 minutes from my house. So what

Sean P. Holman (21m 33s):

Happens if he,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 34s):

If he gets hit

Sean P. Holman (21m 35s):

By a bus? By a bus and nobody, like what do you do?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 37s):

I call some other igla dude. I don don’t know. Yeah. I literally don don’t know. ’cause don don’t know where It is. I would have to,

Sean P. Holman (21m 43s):

Does he have anyone who works for him? Is there any records somewhere?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 45s):

I would have to put it in transport mode. Are people

Sean P. Holman (21m 46s):

Mode are are people gonna find him and Steal his records and then find out the address of all the cars he is installed and then go Steal

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 51s):

Don? Don’t know dude. It’s all sketchy. ’cause because look, he’s dude, he’s in every freaking TRX in

Sean P. Holman (21m 55s):

SoCal. I know he’s a good marketer. I get it. The product worked at his advertised. But

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (22m 0s):

There’s a lot of butts. There’s a lot of butts. But

Sean P. Holman (22m 2s):

Dude, it saved you from losing your tx. How If

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (22m 5s):

I would’ve come out Sunday morning to no truck,

Sean P. Holman (22m 8s):

I know

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (22m 9s):

I would’ve lost my fricking mind. Yeah. And I gotta be honest. And you

Sean P. Holman (22m 12s):

Would’ve put your deposit on the cyber truck.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (22m 13s):

What? I wouldn’t have. No. I’ve been so hurt. I would not have. What would

Sean P. Holman (22m 17s):

You, what would you have replaced it with?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (22m 19s):

A frontier. Really? Yeah. I swear to God. Frontier. Wow. I’m not saying that because Nissan sponsor. I’m saying because I’m, I would be like, ’cause I have whiplash in car buying. I’ll go from something radical Yeah. To something conservative,

Sean P. Holman (22m 32s):

Practical that you drive every day. Don have worry about

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (22m 34s):

No que right to the Nissan dealer. All. right. But enough about that. This is super spooky how this all went down. I can, it just weird,

Sean P. Holman (22m 47s):

Weird. Yeah. No it’s, it’s, it’s crazy. Our timeline, us talking about it. You and me. The fact that you got it just in time and then all of a sudden, what if there’s some dude and the igloo guy is like tipping people off. I know. Go break into cars that way. They feel good about the thing is

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 1s):

The thing. I know, but check it out. I never gave John my address.

Sean P. Holman (23m 4s):

They have it on your registration. It’s in your glove box.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 6s):

Oh yeah. It’s true.

Sean P. Holman (23m 7s):

I’m just, listen. That’s true. I’m not saying he, I I’m sure he is a great guy with a great business.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 11s):

Don’t, but in my mind, conspiracy theories, you know, I

Sean P. Holman (23m 13s):

Know. I just, it’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 14s):

So here’s my next step. People are like, well what are you gonna do? I am totally,

Sean P. Holman (23m 18s):

I’m mo with Alligators and Fire.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 19s):

So right now the truck is on its way over to Ellis Ram Dodge.

Sean P. Holman (23m 24s):

Yep. Jeep

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 25s):

Chrysler, all their other brands. It’s going over there for the rear glass. The rear glass is two weeks out. Eder my service manager over there. Editor’s Rad by the way. ER’s rad. Yep. He already ordered the glass, but it’s still two weeks. There’s nothing he can do about it. It’s the same as all the Ram 15 hundreds. It’s not like there’s nothing special about my TRX class. So he’s gotta get that in. At first they wanted to my Progressive Insurance ’cause it’s it’s a corporate

Sean P. Holman (23m 47s):

Vehicle.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 47s):

Yep. Right. They wanted to put me with Safelite and I’m like, I don’t want Safelite, I want Factory Mopar Glass. No

Sean P. Holman (23m 54s):

Safe Flight does Factory. You just have to request. Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 55s):

Yeah. Well fine, we’ll make sure that that happens. That as of this recording, that hasn’t happened yet. And, it’s going over there and I wanna make, make sure that they look at the wiring. I want that.

Sean P. Holman (24m 4s):

Then you gotta take it over to Brian at SoCal tent. Right. I gotta get get

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (24m 8s):

Get the 10 redone. Exactly. Yeah. So it’s good. It’s, it’s, it’s all easy. It’s first

Sean P. Holman (24m 11s):

World problems. It’s nice that you have your truck, but there’s a bunch of other stuff now your headaches that you gotta deal with.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (24m 15s):

But here’s what I started doing Sunday right after it happened,

Sean P. Holman (24m 18s):

Posting on Instagram. Nope.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (24m 19s):

What’s my next move? And my next move is an alarm system. I have to ’cause all of my Mini Cooper, my Acura, my Toyota pickup truck, my, my the Rock crusher dually, every single vehicle I’ve owned has had a either a Viper or a Comus star alarm in it. This is the first one that hasn’t, and I kind of paid the price. So they busted the window silent. Nothing happens. You know, it’s a factory Ram Mopar alarm. It might, well

Sean P. Holman (24m 48s):

It’s not immobilize, it’s not an alarm. That’s all It is. Correct. It might,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (24m 50s):

It’s a mobilizer and So it didn’t do anything. Right. And so they’re free to get in and they know that. Yeah. If that had squealed and started screeching at ’em and I’m now in the process of

Sean P. Holman (25m 2s):

Were my house and that happened, I’d be running out with a Remington eight 70. I don’t to greet them in my driveway.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 7s):

I don’t own a firearm.

Sean P. Holman (25m 8s):

I’m, I’m just saying.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 9s):

So what I think I’m gonna do is I’m going to, I’m right now I’m vacillating between Viper and Comus Star because everyone seems to, so now

Sean P. Holman (25m 18s):

You have three key fobs on your key rig.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 19s):

Yeah, unfortunately. Wow. But I, at the whatever, if it keeps the truck in my driveway, then it, that’s fine. I’ll deal with that. Everyone’s saying to go with the Comus star with this drone mobile, which is a GPS service you pay for, but soon as they Steal it, they can’t find it. It’s hidden. And you can go and it’s going down the 4 0 5 freeway at 90 miles an hour. And you can call the co the highway patrol and they can track it.

Sean P. Holman (25m 42s):

So it’s like LoJack. It’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 43s):

Just like LoJack. Exactly.

Sean P. Holman (25m 45s):

But what, how, I’m sure they do, they know how to defeat that too.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 49s):

I mean. But the thing is, how much time do they have? You know it’s in your front yard. Yeah. And they’re gonna have to defeat it while it’s in your front yard because it’s tracking them. Yeah. So if you can act quickly enough in theory, you could find it. Or,

Sean P. Holman (26m 1s):

Or you could go on Amazon and you could get a waterproof little air tag, air tag container and throw an air tag. Here’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 8s):

The problem with that. They know when the air tag is following them because there’ll be an alert on their cell phone. Good.

Sean P. Holman (26m 12s):

Get outta the car then.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 13s):

Well, they’ll go looking for it.

Sean P. Holman (26m 15s):

My air tag is behind bolts. You have to have specialized bolts to undo some stuff that’s in my Jeep to get to my air tag. That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 22s):

Not a bad idea.

Sean P. Holman (26m 22s):

So you, you will have to stop and pull over and move some heavy stuff around and then unbolt some stuff to get down to where mine is And.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 30s):

It doesn’t kill the range.

Sean P. Holman (26m 31s):

No, no. Do I have the,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 34s):

Show me afterwards?

Sean P. Holman (26m 35s):

The air tag on mine? The, the icon I’ll show you on my phone right now. So if I say track my, like my find my phone right. So, I. Go to find mine on my Apple thing.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 45s):

Yep. I see it.

Sean P. Holman (26m 46s):

All. right. I go to items What’s the logo for the 3 92?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 50s):

Oh, I gotta stretch right over a race car.

Sean P. Holman (26m 52s):

A little red Race car. Race car. Yep. And it’s so sad ’cause every time I leave home or I go in a parking spot, it says

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 57s):

You’ve left your race car. A

Sean P. Holman (26m 59s):

Race car’s been left behind. And if you I have it So it, the sound is off because it’ll play a sound and So I have it so the sound is off. So somebody doesn’t, but a lot of people take the air tag out and they just cut the speaker wire. Right. And then they put it in their car. So it’s a cheap way to do it. ’cause everybody has iPhones. And I can tell you what does it, where does it say our, the location is right now. Right here. Right here. Yep. So it’s not,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 21s):

I have, I’ve seen that

Sean P. Holman (27m 22s):

If nothing else

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 23s):

Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (27m 23s):

That it’s an option for somebody who can’t afford an expensive, you know, alarm system or GPS tracker. It’s, it’s pretty effective.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 30s):

So right now, again, I’m looking at Viper ’cause they’ve got a, a suite and I’m really familiar with Viper. But I see a lot of recommendations for the Compus star. If you guys have, I haven’t put it in as of this recording. So if you have some experience with either the Viper or the Comus store with the drone mobile, please do send me a note. Lightning at churchill podcast.com or at lbc Lightning on the gram. I am very interested and will be installing an alarm soon. And I’m going to do my best to connect it to a police siren because when they, when they break the glass, I want them to hear a siren.

Sean P. Holman (28m 1s):

6 5 7 2 0 5 61 0 5. If you’ve got some advice for Lightning on how to keep his TRX on his side of the sidewalk. Dude,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (28m 9s):

All these cars for all these years, I’ve never had one. What do you violated? I’ve never had one violated like this. You know, I’ve had bumped into a parking lot of stuff, but I’ve never had someone intentionally break in to Steal it. Yeah. And I know a lot of you have, this is just me and maybe I’ve lived in safe neighborhoods or whatever, although dude, I’ve worked

Sean P. Holman (28m 29s):

In some You live, you live in a safe neighborhood. But I It

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (28m 31s):

Is but I’ve worked in some sketchy ass neighborhoods.

Sean P. Holman (28m 33s):

The only issue is that you just have proximity to the freeway system. Yeah. Right. Like that’s probably the worst part about it. ’cause your neighborhood’s nice. You live in a great spot. It’s not a crime-ridden place at all. It’s a nice middle class upscale neighborhood.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (28m 44s):

We, we’ve had a couple catalytic converters stolen things like that. Yeah. But that’s kind cat covers on mind. Yeah. Unfortunately.

Sean P. Holman (28m 48s):

That’s just how It is in living in life in SoCal. This is where this SoCal pompous sucks guys.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (28m 54s):

So that happened. So

2 (28m 57s):

That, so that, so that happened. So that, so that, so that happened. There was a Trend that went down. We look back now we frow please don’t happened again. So that happened. So that happened.

Sean P. Holman (29m 15s):

I kind of feel like it didn’t happen though.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 17s):

No, it did.

Sean P. Holman (29m 18s):

But I but it didn’t. You have, you have a trucks still.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 21s):

You know what it was like they pulled my pants down but they didn’t violate me. Like I’m still embarrassed. Right. I’m standing in there naked. Yeah. But it didn’t penetrate me. Wow.

Sean P. Holman (29m 32s):

All right. Moving right along. Speaking of that, why don’t we go to our next guest who we’ll shortly have on the phone. You think,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 38s):

You think Tim will like this in in Trump?

Sean P. Holman (29m 40s):

I don’t think that segue is gonna be acceptable to him, but It is our show. So,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 44s):

Okay. Tim Esterdahl. Let’s call him up.

Tim (29m 53s):

Hello. You got me.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 54s):

Is this one Mr. Tim? Esther doll of pickup truck talk and SUV talk?

Tim (30m 0s):

Yes. Yes.

Sean P. Holman (30m 1s):

Or or or perhaps pickup Truck plus SUV talk

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 5s):

Or that too. Yes. Yeah,

Tim (30m 6s):

Yeah. That, yes. That one.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 8s):

It is Lightning and Home in The. Truck, Show Podcast. How you doing?

Tim (30m 11s):

Good. How are you guys doing?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 12s):

We are fantastic. We have so much to talk to you about. But first we’ve gotta play the intro that everyone gets. Well everyone gets their own intro, but yours is pull up a stool,

7 (30m 24s):

Pull up a stool and share, pull up a stool and share a story. Pull up a stool and share.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 33s):

How about you pull up a stool and share with us.

Sean P. Holman (30m 37s):

So from time to time on The Truck, Show Podcast, we like to have some of our journalist friends on the show. You may remember Tim from our episode where we talked about the the cyber truck because he was having a conversation with other journalist friend of ours, Mark Williams about it. And we had talked about a story that kind of Mark hinted out on the show and we thought, hey, you know, it’d be cool to have, have Tim on and kind of talk about the, the landscape of the truck and SUV world right now. ’cause there’s a lot of stuff going on.

Tim (31m 7s):

Indeed. Thanks for having me on. It is, It is crazy. What’s going on in the marketplace.

Sean P. Holman (31m 10s):

So let’s start with kind of your background, where you came from and kind of how you got to where you are today so that any of our listeners who haven’t heard from you or of you kind of know what you’re all about.

Tim (31m 22s):

Sure. I I, I’m actually the automotive space now over a decade. Did some finance work for you back in the day with motor Trend, what was it? Truck. Trend. And changed over, like I grew up kind of in Michigan. I was a gm, worked with GM as the engineering side. I’ve always been around trucks and got a degree in journalism and just kind of fell into the job as it were. We all had really crazy stories. so we got in the business mine, I answered to Craigslist dad to run two different Toyota websites and then just kind parlay where I’m today. Hold

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 51s):

On a second. Don’t gloss over that. Tim you, you did not answer a Craigslist ad. Seriously.

Tim (31m 57s):

Seriously. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 58s):

What did it say

Sean P. Holman (32m 0s):

For a good time call,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 1s):

You know?

Tim (32m 2s):

Right, right. No I mean you. So at the time I was running a web design kind of business. I wasn’t very satisfied with it and I was looking around and Craigslist was big back then. I mean, I’m talking 12, 14 years ago now. And it said looking for a editor to run a two websites, two Toyota truck websites, one to headquarters and one taco headquarters. And being my relationship in Michigan growing brown trucks and always being around trucks and and a journalism degree, I figured what the hell? And took a shot at it and that’s what it turned into. I probably didn’t fly in Michigan and doing some, I did daughter show circuit and met people and shook hands and kiss babies and pitch stories and that’s all

Sean P. Holman (32m 42s):

I know. That’s funny. Usually I shake babies and kiss hands. I may have that backwards, right?

Tim (32m 46s):

Yeah, sure, sure. You, you may be that backward.

Sean P. Holman (32m 49s):

So, so Tim and I have been on the, the auto manufacturer media circuit together for a pretty long time and we will see each other from time to time on on different events. And, it just seems like this last few years, I mean, I remember going back maybe sometime 20 10, 11, 12, where it was sort of the doldrums. There wasn’t a lot of stuff going on and now everybody wants to get into the SUV space, the kind of more off roadie space and then the truck wars are still going on. And we thought, oh, you know, people hit maybe a thousand pound feet of torque and and they’ll chill out I mean. Yeah, no. And then there was a time when the mid-size truck market didn’t exist. And now not only does the mid-size truck market have basically all new entries now, but now the small truck space is starting to get hot with obviously the Maverick and the Santa Cruz.

Sean P. Holman (33m 37s):

So what do you attribute all of the, the growth and truck and excitement of trucks for? And that’s not even talking about the EVs like cyber truck and Rivian and some of the other players.

Tim (33m 47s):

I think it comes down to two things. I think first of all, you know, when I was growing in the nineties, in the eighties and nineties, I mean if you got 10 miles in the truck going downhill and stiff wind, you were doing really damn good. And now you get to something like the Maverick and the front Wheel drive hybrid It is 40 miles per gallon. I mean, okay, so there’s no gasoline penalty anymore driving a truck like it used to be. and then you look at people’s lifestyles and this next generation and, and even our generation, you know how much Netflix Can you watch, you know, I mean you wanna get outside and do something. And to be able to do that, you have to have a truck. I mean, you know, a pickup truck talk took off big time during Covid because what Can you do during Covid, you can go outside camping, go outside off-roading, hunting, whatever. But you couldn’t go inside the mall anymore.

Tim (34m 28s):

You can’t go inside the store anymore. And so, you know, the views just took off a lot and people’s interest took off a lot. And I’ve always said there’s no better utilitarian kind of vehicle than a pickup truck. You know, if you wanna haul a family, great. If you wanna haul nothing in your life, great. If you just drive around and commute to work, great. If you want to tow stuff, do whatever. It’s, it’s basically the, the one vehicle that’s out there anymore that you can do whatever you decide to do in your life with. You don’t have to make compromises. You know, the, the, the full size sedan was always a compromise. Compact sedans compromise. And now you’re looking at stuff like, hey, no compromise. You look at SUVs, look at the baby boomer market and they’re all getting older and last thing they wanna do is bend down getting SUV. Well hell, I’m nearing getting closer to 59 40.

Tim (35m 8s):

Last thing I wanna do is bend down into a sedan anymore. I wanna get sit, sit up higher. I wanna see more and I wanna be a little more comfortable, more room in the head in head room, more room, shoulder room. I want a bigger, bigger cab. And I’ve had a, I’ve owned a full-sized truck now for three years and I, it’s hard to beat it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 24s):

Holman’s often said that the truck is the modern day station wagon. You know, I I it sounds like you would agree with that.

Tim (35m 31s):

Yeah, I I’ve said it’s like the Swiss army knife of vehicles too. It’s the same, same idea that you can do whatever, whatever you choose to do is fine. And like I said, I I I know truck owners that never haul or told anything besides golf clubs or you know, a few bags of mulch here and there and they love their trucks.

Sean P. Holman (35m 48s):

How dare you, you call out Lightning in his TRX like that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 51s):

It’s funny that I actually just hauled mulch about right before

Sean P. Holman (35m 55s):

Christmas. But you did it in a bank’s truck, right? You didn do it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 57s):

In yours. Did I did it in mine. I don’t believe you. I did it in mine. and then I vacuumed all the,

Sean P. Holman (36m 1s):

I I want the mulch out. I wanna see the tailgate down for evidence of a mulch back

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36m 5s):

There. I took, I took a photo of it because I knew you’d call me out. Of course I literally did. I’ve been hauling stuff in it lately. I have been actually using it like a truck, not just hauling air.

Tim (36m 14s):

I’m confused about this vacuuming thing you did

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36m 17s):

Because I’m a clean freak with it. I’m trying to keep it new. So what happened is you should have

Sean P. Holman (36m 20s):

Just left your todo open and driven on the freeway. So.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36m 22s):

It wasn’t mulch.

Sean P. Holman (36m 23s):

Oh here’s the, here

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36m 24s):

We go. It wasn’t mulch, it was the bark. Oh here we go. No, no, no. It was the, that bark stuff. So the wife puts bark all around, you know where the plants are. So it’s like, we don’t need mulch for don. Don’t know. It’s the park. It’s brown,

Sean P. Holman (36m 37s):

A brown cover for your planters

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36m 38s):

Brown cover, whatever it’s called. It’s in one of the bags split open and there’s stuff all over

Sean P. Holman (36m 42s):

The bag. Wait, wait a minute. You had it in bags. So you’re trying to say like the guy at Home Depot put a bucket load of mulch in the back and you did it just like the people wearing cowboy hats. Instead you had a bunch of bags and one just accidentally ripped open.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36m 54s):

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. That’s how most people go and get mulch. It’s in bags or you get the bark, it’s in bags.

Sean P. Holman (37m 1s):

Congratulations on winning the truck. Merit badge for hauling mulch.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (37m 4s):

What’s an asking for a merit badge? I’ve already got underwater basketry. Like that’s all the merit badge you need.

Sean P. Holman (37m 10s):

So Tim, how, how do you guys use your trucks in Nebraska

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (37m 15s):

And and do you vacuum out whatever is remaining back there So? it looks clean the next day

Tim (37m 20s):

Vacuum. No, I probably shouldn’t tell this story, but I’ll tell it anyways. Good. Just ’cause it’s funny. I tend to go deer hunting in Nebraska. ’cause what else do you do in the wet fall and winter? It’s boring. So you go deer hunting. So one year I had a GMC Sierra 84. I was deer hunting with And. it was the sand kind of tan color. And I shot a deer off the tailgate ’cause that’s what we do. Needed a gun rest shot the deer and I drove the truck over And it had that multi what they call what’s the GMC called MultiPro, right? Yep. So the Chevy’s multiplex, whatever damn thing is So. it folds all the way down And. it was helpful because I’d gutted the deer And. it was a heavy deer. And I summoned every ounce of energy I could in man manhood and lifted the deer up the head and the hooves and everything and used the tailgate in my vantage to put it in the, in the, into the bed.

Tim (38m 8s):

And So I drive home. And in Nebraska we have chronic wasting disease. so we need to take deer to the check station and the deer check, make sure it’s healthy. You’re not gonna eat meat that’s going to, you know, cause you harm. Well it turns out that the station wasn’t open yet. I shot the deer at seven o’clock in the morning. They didn’t get nearly eight o’clock. So I parked the truck outside my garage and I’m sitting inside my garage, got my knives, got my, my table, I’m getting ready to, to carve the gear up and, and process it. And my neighbors keep driving by really slowly. And I’m like, well that’s kinda weird. Why are they driving by really slowly and So I go around the back of the truck and I look And, it looks like some Halloween situation. I didn’t realize the dear blood would actually come through the seals of the multiflex tailgate and come down like blood trails.

Tim (38m 54s):

And I, I, yeah, So I took it over and I got the gear done and they picked it up as a Sloan and they took it back to Denver as they do. And, and I get a phone call like a week later and the press manager, he says, you know, he says, Hey, maybe next time Can you please, you know, go ahead and power wash out the back of that bed. And I said, oh gosh, sure, you know, no problem. I said, I, I typically don’t, I typically, you know, use the truck for truck and whatever. He goes, yeah. He goes, they actually picked that truck up and put it on transport, shipped it back to their place. And I had a help time convincing the transport driver it his deer blood, not human blood. Wow. And I was like, oh, whoops. And, and then I get, and so then I, I later on another truck and I power washed all of that thing, you know, make sure I net a deer in the back of it, clean up.

Tim (39m 39s):

I like a month later, get a phone call from the guy in Utah and he actually complained to the press guy and he goes, did Etro have this last, ’cause I had deer blood in the back of the truck. And I was like, you’re full of it. It was 30 degrees in the morning. I spent $9 a power wash. I cleaned the hell outta that damn thing. There was no blood left. And like, how is my reputation now known as the guys living Dear blood, the back of the truck? I’m like, what I mean?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 59s):

You should hear the whispers on the media bus when we go on trips. How did you not clean it out the first time you sent it back? Like with blood? That’s insane. Can, you imagine if you’d done that in California, you’d have SWAT at your house.

Tim (40m 14s):

Well that’s why I don’t live in California, but you know, but I’ve talked to first sweet guys about it many times and they’re just like, and they tell me about, they, they pot wash it anyways. They take, they clean it up So. I’m like, well, okay, if you’re gonna clean it up, you know, I’ve talked to manufacturing to tell me don’t wash it, we’ll take care of it. Okay. So I’d kind of gone along with that viewpoint. I hadn’t really thought about it before until that moment when, well maybe I made the wrong decision. I need to think about that. But yeah, it was, it was, it was quite the situation. I will tell you that I, I sent a photo of that bed in to our friend Chad Bol, who’s I’ll show you. Yeah. Communications truck manager. And he, I had a team mixed up. He’s A-A-G-M-C with Chevy. Anyways, he sent it in and he goes, he loved it and I did it and I went back to the house and Jill, who’s my managing editor, she was like, after I mean to do a video on this, the, the the hunt.

Tim (41m 2s):

And I was like, I’m not doing a video on the hunt. You know what the hell? It’s not, it’s, it’s not that it interesting ’cause you have gotta do a video on this hunt. So I went and I, I have the, you know, the channel is, we do websites posts and we do videos and that kind stuff. And So I went and did a video And, it was NSFW they do these days, you know, whatever. And apparently I found out later on is that the GM engineers, they posted internal message board and they freaking loved that story because I was here I am using a truck for being a truck. Now granted it was an $80,000 half ton truck and I actually was sitting inside the cabin screwing around on Facebook at five in the morning letting engine run.

Sean P. Holman (41m 38s):

I would more mad about the, all the, all the deer blood on the front seats more than the bed.

Tim (41m 42s):

Right. That yeah. ’cause yeah, yeah, exactly. But yeah, I mean, I’d love to tell you this fabulous story, but I looked up off Facebook and the deer’s looking at me. So I just, I was gonna take the shot across the hood, but I’ve learned my lesson. You can’t fire your rifle across the hood because if you’re firing the driver’s side, the projectile from the cat casing falls on the hood and leaves a nice little mark in the hood ’cause it burns through the paint. So you gotta be cautious. Yes. Don’t do that. That’s why I walked around the back of the tailgate. I walked around the tailgate to fired it off and there you inside through the dirt.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 10s):

No, no,

Tim (42m 11s):

Don’t learn anything. This is, this is experience talking here.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 14s):

This is the things to learn. Yeah, no to self. When I am a communications manager at GM Ford Ram, do not loan a truck to t Esterdahl.

Sean P. Holman (42m 21s):

I I what I’m hearing here is I, I can see it on Lightning’s face is his enthusiasm. And he’s ready to take that next level into Truckdo and he is gonna take his TRX with some sort of a projectile firing implement and he’s going to get blood all over the back of that

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 37s):

Thing. and then I. Yeah, I’m gonna hunt. It’s gonna be your blood is what it’s

Sean P. Holman (42m 39s):

Except the blood. The blood is gonna be in bags that he gets probably from like getting stakes at Home Depot or at a Costco or something. And he’s just gonna cut a bag So it leaks out some steak blood in the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 49s):

Bag. I don’t want blood in my truck. I gotta be honest with you.

Sean P. Holman (42m 51s):

So speaking of press cars, what have you been in lately? The ones that you’re allowed that, that manufacturers still send you?

Tim (42m 57s):

They’re allowed to talk. Yeah. Let’s see, lately I was just in the Hyundai Santa Cruz actually talking about a vehicle that’s unique brand. Is

Sean P. Holman (43m 4s):

That uniques brand polite or unique? Interesting. Or unique? Good.

Tim (43m 9s):

You know, I I would say it’s, it’s unique. Polite It is definitely a different customer, right? So it’s, it’s a more luxury compact car. And as you well we can call it truck, we’ll call it a truck. It’s, it’s more unique. It’s, the price point’s a little bit higher than I expected for Compact truck. The styling is very, very stylish and it’s, it’s a very, it it’s interesting. What

Sean P. Holman (43m 34s):

Was the price point of the one that you had?

Tim (43m 37s):

I think it was like, it was a 40 Oh. my God. It was, yeah, it was, wow. Crazy. But it was, you know, it was whatever Bell and Whistle you could add, you could add to the damn thing. Yeah. But you

Sean P. Holman (43m 47s):

Price, but you could still get a pretty nice off-road package on a real body, on frame midsize for around that price. So I’m, I’m surprised that it’s, that, it’s that high.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (43m 55s):

But these are selling really well,

Sean P. Holman (43m 56s):

Aren’t they? Well mavericks too. I mean. We just talked about how the Maverick price went up to what, 25 base for 2024? Something like that. So

Tim (44m 3s):

I think they can, they can make the maverick whatever price they want. Think people will buy it. Yeah. It seems like, because look at the areas like, well, like downtown LA for example. You guys are at I mean, I, I wouldn’t drive a a one ton dually down there. Right? But if you, if you needed a, a good vehicle for around town and have chance to carry your mulch in bags back in the Home Depot, you the lightning’s a good option.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 23s):

See what you did there.

Tim (44m 24s):

Yeah. I mean I I to, I totally get it. It’s just, it’s like, but yeah, it, it’s, it’s, the market’s so interesting. I had that, I had that Ford Bronco Sport heritage edition for $46,000 and this yellow with white top

Sean P. Holman (44m 37s):

Yellow and white. Yeah. With white wheels and

Tim (44m 39s):

Yeah. And I tell you, I, when I drove around town, it was just split down the line. Yeah. Men hated it. Women loved it.

Sean P. Holman (44m 48s):

I had a, and

Tim (44m 49s):

It’s just, it’s fascinating.

Sean P. Holman (44m 50s):

A family friend, she was all excited that she bought herself a Bronco. She had a Honda pilot and her kids are driving age. And She said, I’m so happy I finally got my Bronco. I gave my pilot to my son who’s now 16. It’s the perfect car for high school. And I figured since I’m not hauling kids around everywhere, I’m gonna get what I want. And I was like, oh, that’s great. Good for you, And. she went and got the heritage edition that had, you know, the, the two-tone with the white and it just looks girly, doesn’t it? It’s not even girly. It just don don’t know. I just don’t think it re especially on the sport, it doesn’t resonate. I mean the, the big Bronco, which is what she got actually has some retro lines on it so you can kind of see it, but it’s just kinda like you paid more for that.

Sean P. Holman (45m 34s):

I feel like that should be the base model. Like, like that should just come that way. But I know they’re pulling at, you know, tugging on your heartstrings.

Tim (45m 40s):

I think that’s the biggest thing that’s changed over the years is not the base level trucks or the base level things. I think those have been about the same. You know, we get Apple CarPlay now where Android Auto and we meet before we get, you know, we get nice the different styling and the seats or something like that. I think what’s really changed is the special editions and the high end stuff. The high end luxury editions. So like the, the new Ram 1500 Tungston a hundred thousand dollars, four to 50 platinum, a hundred thousand dollars. You know, it’s, it It is, you look at the GMC Sierra Denali, ultimate half-ton. A hundred thousand dollars. Yeah. Right. It and It is just, it’s, it’s, it’s crazy to me. I remember interviewing a guy years ago who bought a GMC Canyon Denali, the first GMC Canyon Denali ever that came out with I don know a couple, three or four years ago.

Tim (46m 24s):

And I even interviewed because I couldn’t understand why people would actually buy that truck and that high price point when you could buy it full size for, you know, $10,000 more whatever at that price point and go for it, you know, whatever. And the guy was very clear. He was a, he was a retired marine who was living in Pennsylvania who wanted to go Turkey hunting with his friends. They didn’t wanna drive trucks down the trail. One with a smaller truck. And he was pissed off at that time. ’cause he couldn’t buy more features to that truck. They didn’t offer it.

Sean P. Holman (46m 50s):

Yeah. I I thought that truck looked nice. It had like the Denali, you know, looks to it. But I felt like they didn’t do some things like make the interior nice or add more sound deadening things that you would expect from a Denali So. it was sort of like a Denali in looks. But I agree that right. If if you’re gonna spend that kind of money, you should have all the features too. And, and I, I’m, I’m somebody that has always advocated for features should be separate from size class. Like there’s, there’s no reason where you need to have, oh, well the, the small truck doesn’t have the same feature as the big truck. I don’t, I don’t think that’s it at all. I think you should be able to buy whatever size vehicle and then overlay whatever features you want on it. So I could definitely see that guy’s point. And he’s, it’s my lifestyle.

Sean P. Holman (47m 30s):

I want a smaller truck. don don’t need a big truck, but I wanna have all the features and the luxury. I just wish that they would on that generation, they would’ve done a little bit more to refine it. ’cause the interior was still pretty junky on those. And the outside was really nice looking, but I just felt like it, it felt flat in a few areas.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 45s):

But Tim, what’s the psychographic of, of the person who’s buying the top level truck? So you’ve got the baller, who’s got the Lamborghini or the Ferrari or the Porsche, and then he has the top level truck. That’s the 1% get rid of them. Who is all the rest that are buying all the GMC Denali Ultimates, which are a hundred thousand dollars, which GMC can’t make enough of right now. Like it’s the number. What are their number one sellers? It is It. is it a young guy like a dotcom millionaire? Is it a, a Texas oil tycoon? Like who is this dude that’s spending a hundred grand on these top level trucks, whether it be the mid-size or the three quarter one tons.

Tim (48m 24s):

It’s a couple different people. Fir it’s the first person that’s gonna be retiree who wants to buy one truck for the rest of his life. He wants all the bess and whistles. He doesn’t, his kids are outta college, his house paid off. He doesn’t care about the payment, doesn’t care about the money. He has great credit. He’s gonna get zero, 0% or 2% interest rates. And my dad, when he retired from gm, bought a GMC Sierra Denali and he bought the top, top, top trim load. ’cause that’s what he wanted. You also have, like you said, business owners like that. That high level truck is, is the business owner’s truck, right? It’s the construction foreman’s truck, not the construction guy guy’s truck. And the reason that that truck succeeds And it. Like for example, my case is I can write that truck off as a business expense. So can that guy. So if when you go to do taxes, you have to understand that if I have, if if I’m gonna spend 50,000 or 80,000, I’d much rather spend 80,000 on a truck than I would 50 if I’m gonna go do taxes, I have a bigger write off.

Tim (49m 15s):

I saved more money in taxes. And so that’s where you’re seeing that difference. It’s why a couple years ago we saw a big growth in leasing in full-size trucks and luxury segment because leasing is very consistent with the wealthy who treat the automotive payment as a monthly business expense. And not looking at it as something long term they’re gonna pay off. They’ll never pay it off. They don’t care about paying it off. They save more on taxes than they would ever paying it off. And so they look, they look at things that way. And so that’s that customer. I know a lot of ranchers around me who drive. I, I, I swear to God I was, I was about a year ago I was out driving and I saw a guy putting down fertilizer. He had a F two 50 King ranch with a hookup and he is doing a spreader in his fields.

Tim (49m 59s):

And I was shocked. ’cause you know, Ford does commercials, And it, whatever, commercials. But this real happened in real life. And I know why the guy that bought that truck, the guy bought the truck because he lives in that truck. That truck’s cost more than this house does. He doesn’t care. He says more time in a truck than he does his house and he gets to write taxes off. He writes it all off in taxes. So section 1 79 of the tax code got changed a couple years ago and you can write off as much as you want. The first year of ownership of a truck

Sean P. Holman (50m 22s):

May changed. I may have taken advantage of such things,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50m 26s):

Right? I’m not

Sean P. Holman (50m 27s):

Sure what you’re talking about. I I, I may have gotten a very expensive vehicle about a month and a half before I was laid off and turned it into a business vehicle.

Tim (50m 37s):

Yeah. I mean, and, and and from your viewpoint, your tax accountant viewpoint, you, you know, in my viewpoint as well, when I buy, I buy a truck of a year, taxes is part of the reason. But also business is a big part of the reason too. It makes, it makes good sense my business to have a truck for a year and then do videos and that kinda stuff on it. But I mean, you know, my tax accountant said to me, she says, you need to spend more money on a truck when you buy it. Like that’s conversation we had was you’re spending too little.

Sean P. Holman (50m 60s):

Oh, I, I, I’ve had, I’ve definitely had people with that there. In fact, our friend Ben Palmer had ordered a 3 92 of a 4 0 6 garage, 4 0 6 garage and he canceled it, or no, the dealership called and said, Hey, your your 3 92 is in. And he’s like, yeah, I don’t know that I wanna spend that much money. So they sold it to somebody else. And then Ben got with his accountant two weeks later and he said, you gotta buy something. Your tax liabilities are too high. She scolded him. And so he called the dealer like, sorry dude, it’s gone. So he ended up buying I think a Diesel gladiator. But it’s interesting how much of the truck market is driven by small business owners. And fortunately, you know, when I talked to my CPA, he’s like, well, you know, you can write it all off in one year. It’s an option. But you have to show that it’s a business vehicle.

Sean P. Holman (51m 40s):

You know, you need to have logs of what you, I said actually It is a business vehicle. ’cause every time I use it and I, I do all my fuel logs, I can show where I did, where I went and what I did. He goes, perfect, let’s do it. So that’s definitely, definitely helpful. Tim, you had mentioned earlier kind of like, you know how a lot of the vehicles are are standard with CarPlay and Android Auto now, which I love. ’cause as a journalist when you’re driving something new every week, there’s nothing more irritating than having to set the car up just to enjoy it for the week. And with the advent of CarPlay, it’s just made everything so much easier to hop in whatever vehicle and have all the things you care about at your fingertips. Well, you know, GM just made the announcement that all their EVs are going away from Apple Play and Android Auto and they will not be offering them.

Sean P. Holman (52m 24s):

And eventually the ICE ones will as well, which I think is a huge mistake. I think customer sentiment is going to turn on them. And I, I really do think there’ll be people who won’t buy the vehicle because it doesn’t have the feature. Well,

Tim (52m 36s):

My my viewpoint is we still don’t know the real answer why GM’s doing it. I read a new interview every other day that knew different new reason why they’re doing it. Oh, it’s data. Oh, we don’t wanna do it because this or the collection or No, no, no, it’s gonna mess with the ev charging setup or

Sean P. Holman (52m 51s):

Yeah, they’re so full of crap or don’t wanna do

Tim (52m 52s):

This. so we I mean So. It’s like, it’s like every day there’s new story coming from these people. Yeah, they

Sean P. Holman (52m 57s):

Spun

Tim (52m 57s):

It what

Sean P. Holman (52m 57s):

Told me about, but it’s data.

Tim (52m 59s):

Right? What kills me with the whole situation with that is if you look at who the electric vehicle buyer is and currently it’s it’s early adopters. Early adopters are very tech savvy. They’re very tech savvy people. It’d be one thing to give my farmer dude an A MFM stereo without Sirius XM driving around a two Wheel drive truck. That’d be one thing. But to do that to an audience that is very tech focused and they’re gonna use their phones on all the time anyways. And, and And it I think it’s interesting is, is they’re doing it in that segment. Like, you know, do it, do it in in the, the the work Truck Canyon or work truck Colorado, do that stuff.

Tim (53m 40s):

You know, that that stuff I can sort of see ’cause whatever, but don’t do it on electric vehicle. When your, your, your customer base is a very tech savvy customer base.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (53m 51s):

Holman, explain why you think it’s about data. Because I don’t know that our audience understands Oh. no. The marketing behind

Sean P. Holman (53m 56s):

It, it’s not maybe about data. It is about data. So when they have a third party app on there, apple or Google or, or taking all the data of where you go, what you do, what your preferences are, what your features are, and they want to control that whole ecosystem because they want to control you after the sale as well. And as we get into subscription models, which BM BMW has already tried overseas for like, oh, your car already had, you already paid for seat heaters, but we’ll only turn ’em on with a subscription. Well, that didn’t fly and a bunch of people revolted and said, well then we’re not just not gonna buy your cars ’cause that’s a ridiculous thing. I already bought the hardware. But what they’re, they call these software defined vehicles is like the next generation of vehicle where what they’re doing is they’re baking in all the features and you only have access to the ones you’ve paid for. And I think that’s gonna throw everybody for a loop because they’re gonna go like, well, what do you mean I have to pay $5 a month for HomeLink and I have to pay $10 a month to have serious XM activated and then pay them for something.

Sean P. Holman (54m 44s):

Or I have to have, oh, you want CarPlay? Well we will open that up for $20 a month. You want, you know, heated seat, you want adaptive cruise control. Well those are gonna cost extra too because they wanna continue. Here’s the problem. If you go to a dealership, the majority of a dealership’s profits come from the service department. With the advent of EVs, you’re taking that from a, from a regular service vehicle to a vehicle you may only see once a year. How do you backfill that revenue as a dealership or as a manufacturer? Subscriptions when you’re not seeing people, it’s subscriptions And, it has data and it’s how do they market to you? How do they sell your data to make money off of you? All of that kinda stuff. So it’s a massive data play. They’re gonna license, I think Google Maps and things like that, So, it still has to Tim’s point, state-of-the-art maps and whatnot.

Sean P. Holman (55m 28s):

But they’re gonna control that ecosystem in their car because with it being electronic, they know everything you’re doing. They know where you’re going, they know what your preferences are. They know what time of day you get coffee at Starbucks, it’ll probably have AI that goes, oh, are you on your way to Starbucks? Would you like us to order your, your usual over wifi, you know, B money

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 45s):

And they’re gonna get a piece of that

Sean P. Holman (55m 46s):

Sale from Starbucks, but I’m sure they’ll get a kickback on it. Right? So so that’s what’s happening. I don don’t think anybody’s being transparent about it.

Tim (55m 53s):

No, I, I agree. I think what I think the, the, if you go back in time, I think what opened Pandora’s boxing, this is OnStar OnStar’s success for General Motor is a post-sale revenue. Right. Created this whole ecosystem of post-sale revenue. And look at the Toyota is doing this now with remote start, you can’t get a tundra with remote start separately. You have to base a subscription for remote start.

Sean P. Holman (56m 13s):

Well it doesn’t come on the key fob, right? It’s on an app.

Tim (56m 16s):

It comes on an app and a key fob. But they’re gonna take So I talked toto a lot, lot of times on this. Yeah. They’re gonna take away the option to do it on key fob. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (56m 24s):

That’s what I thought. Okay. And it’s

Tim (56m 25s):

Only a key fob if you, if you know the trick getting the lock lock and hold lock the trick. And so I mean

Sean P. Holman (56m 32s):

A BA up, up, down, up, down.

Tim (56m 34s):

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s no remote start button on the key fob. Right. And I, and I didn’t know the trick until some viewers pointed out to me and I was like, oh, well I feel like a dumb ass knowledge as you do. But yeah, so I mean, so you talk about BMW’s thing, you talk about different things, but I mean, I you’re you’re seeing all these manufacturers look at GM’s on Star success and going, look at that pile of money. They make the billions, they make it on star. All they’re doing is having somebody sit at a call center and answer phone calls. Yeah. I mean the, the, the, the profit that’s insane. And, and all of ’em now are going, Hey, why can’t we make more money out that, why can’t we run out this, you know, So I subscription stuff, well take things away.

Sean P. Holman (57m 8s):

Well, and now they don’t even have to have a call center ’cause everything will just be automated through apps and things like that. So the AI as well, I mean all, all of it actually.

Tim (57m 15s):

Ai Yeah, sure.

Sean P. Holman (57m 16s):

I think it’s, I think It is crazy That, well, and then you It is funny. I had a conversation with somebody today who was talking about, you know, well how are, how are you using ai? And I’m like, I don’t, and they go, well, doesn’t that make it easy to write stories? I’m like, no, I I refuse to use it because I feel like it’s cheating. It’s taking the soul out of what you’re doing. And I’ve had a journalist and who say, well, I use it, but then I rewrite it my own voice and this that and the other. And that’s fine. What, whatever. But like sports illustrators got, got caught doing a whole AI thing. There’s a couple automotive magazines that have moved to AI overseas in India and things like that. And it’s becoming more and more apparent that authenticity and people who are actually subject matter experts are going to fade away as these quote unquote easier, more convenient technologies like AI take over and do the work.

Sean P. Holman (58m 4s):

And it’s, it’s kind of, you know, honestly it’s kind of sad to see

Tim (58m 7s):

It It is, I, I’ve used AI a few times. And, it, it’s interesting results you get. I mean, I, the, the best thing I did was I was, I might have had a little whiskey that night and I was goofing around and I put in ai, I said, I want you to write me a truck review based on President Biden’s voice of the Chevy. Do a Chevy Silverado truck review. and then I thought, well be fair about this. I did a truck review based on former President Trump’s voice, And. it was hilarious. I I had such a good time laughing at those. It was like, I think Trump was like, This is the greatest truck in the US history, and let tell you, I know a thing or two about trucks. And then Biden’s like, well, the Blobbity engine, blah, blah.

Tim (58m 50s):

And I

Sean P. Holman (58m 51s):

I mean it, it’s funny. I mean I don, we’ve done stuff on the show like that.

Tim (58m 54s):

I was like, this is This is the best thing AI ever produced. Yeah. Like I, I literally should have. IIII did. I didn’t wanna get political. Everybody gets your butt hurt about this stuff these days. Yeah. And So I, I just said, I read it off, I think I read it off on the livestream and just, and then I candid, I just deleted everything and just let it, you know, ’cause whatever. But I just was like, well that’s, this is, this is exactly how I see a AI is just being a gigantic joke. So why not just make a big joke about it? But I’ve had it rewrite press releases, And, it does a fairly terrible job. You know, this

Sean P. Holman (59m 21s):

I

Tim (59m 21s):

Mean. So, you know, the, the reality in our world, our world is you have to rewrite press releases from time to time. You just do, just ’cause the news is important, whatever. And you try to add your own little bit, not spin, but details to it, add more stuff to the story. But sometimes the press release is just a press release. You know, you just, you gotta rewrite it. And, it sucks. And, and sometimes it’s on the ai and I’m like, well here, this sucks worse. But maybe I clean up a little bit and I always find that it takes me twice as long whenever I use ai. Like it’s not a time saver. It takes me t because I, I have to double check everything because don don’t trust it.

Sean P. Holman (59m 50s):

Well, let’s, let’s just be honest. I mean it probably writes stories better than some of our colleagues. No comment.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (59m 56s):

No comment. Hey, speaking of politics, what do you make of the Cummins Dieselgate?

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