Gadgetory

you've got love for start/stop technology where maybe we don't we hope one of you find a thrifty text key SUV and we try to find out the truth behind ECU tuning for power this is seen at roadside assistance episode number 48 for March 15 2012 this is the show where we basically take a look at your questions and comments and try to get you some answers and uh and that sort of thing I'm antuan goodwin alongside Wayne Cunningham with Mitchell Chang at the control chiming in occasionally so let's jump right into the emails because i think it's the first one is actually pretty interesting comes in from thomas he says hi guys I'm in the market for a new or used seven passenger SUV in the next few months now originally I was thinking a three or four year old audi q7 or cadillac escalade but the atrocity the atrocious gas mileage i've been reading about for both vehicles makes me wonder if spending a little bit more on a new ford explorer or dodge durango would be better i was hoping to be closer to 30 k than 40k in price but i really want a lot of tech in this vehicle and the better gas mileage will be nice as i plan to own it for six to eight years any suggestions hmm yeah seven passenger SUV so that puts that puts it in a very defined segment in good gas mileage is not a marker of that segment really but he is mentioning the Ford Explorer and so the port export with the v6 they're saying that 20 28 miles per gallon which is way bad yeah the escalade from a few years ago that's you know you look at 15 to 20 right or less even I think and what's the fuel economy on the Escalade you can get that with the EcoBoost right or the Explorer I think so I know yet explore it's what I'm thinking about yeah they've got just right on the top of their site they've got the the v6 listed with a under 30,000 actually although drove some tech in there it's going to throw it over 30 so this is fitting all all thomas's requirements right away and they've got the updated MyFord Touch system too so that's good I'm just trying to yeah they do have the EcoBoost engine as well will be available that one will probably cost a little bit more let's just check that out here so this is actually a 4 cylinder engine and I don't think we've tested this the Explorer with the EcoBoost engine but we did test the edge the what is the other one the flex with the EcoBoost right and I think it wouldn't be that much different in performance I think the weight of those vehicles would be about the same you know what that that flex actually wasn't the force on marika but it wasn't it was a 6-cylinder yeah okay and that was powerful that was fast actually does the same engine they used in the taurus sho hmm being the in the Explorer they're talking about doing the the four-cylinder EcoBoost which may not be enough power for that car yeah I'm wondering about that because we did try it out in the edge which is a smaller vehicle mm-hm and I think it was good in that car and and I'm wondering if further for the deficit of power like are you really getting that much better fuel economy out of the turbo for because I've heard reports that it doesn't actually do very well as far as like really being a significant jump in fuel economy for the additional price tekken and power loss yeah one thing to note too is if you do get the EcoBoost engine you only get front-wheel drive you don't get four wheel drive so four wheel drive is a consideration then you'll you'll definitely want the be looking at probably and explore with the v6 mm-hmm you know which I think that power is adequate in there it's not super powerful but it's enough all right to get you around but other options to not not just sticking with Ford here it's also trying to think of other of economical seven passenger vehicles first one the jumps daman mine is the highlander hybrid yeah that's going to be closer to 40 though I mean I think to get started on that when I'm singing on Toyota site about 38 5 so it's at the top end of what your price range is but I mean it's a hybrid it gets 2828 the combined 28 yeah yeah you can pretty much reliably get close to 30 miles per gallon with that right and it's at seven with a third the third row fold flat seat a four-wheel drive it's basically lexus rx with the next row of seats and yeah well I think we really i really like the new lexus RX hybrid in the way that it handles its all-wheel drive and the way that it actually handles as a vehicle can you get that is that the price for the highlander with a four-wheel drive or two less that's the hybrid the hybrid is four-wheel drive I'll just standard just is yeah okay because they use an electric motor on the rear axle right for for fake all-wheel drive yes real all-wheel-drive there's no drive shaft another option i was thinking of it was actually the honda pilot which is also a seven passenger and that's a you know how does v6 in that hmm so you know it's just a straight v6 like the Explorer you don't and and it's pretty decent power from that engine I think it's probably about 100 and or two hundred and sixty or so horse know you know they've been making that forever yep it's the same 3.5 v6 they pretty much toss in anything that needs a v6 yeah fuel economy on that I think it probably looking at low 20s with it with his big a vehicle as the pilot I think we tested the vehicle at two years ago and i'm fairly certain hasn't changed significantly since then yeah yeah dig up our cnet review on that and i'm sure my opinion today is the same as it was then with the cadillac escalade there is a hybrid version of that car and that'll get you about 20 miles per gallon was it like a hundred thousand dollars yeah it was expensive anybody you know i think finding a used one will still be pretty pricey it's an it's a really nice car to drive around what was that like Chevy hybrid that they made for like a year was it like a Tahoe Hybrid day I think you're thinking of the Dodge had the durango hybrid yeah yeah yeah that's the one I'm thinking about yeah they pretty much cancelled it you know after they got it like got two of them on the lot yeah that was very short-lived and that's of course I'm they go through all the financial problems do which is why they cut it we'll see what happens down thrown by Fiat you know maybe they'll bring something like that back now I'm just trying to think if there's any other really I mean seven passenger vehicles there's a minivan yeah many started getting into the week starts talking Sienna's and I doubt a big time is what I think that was wants to go there see why not he did it in a tq7 i'm trying to think what engine is in the q7 it's it's you know if it was the 3.2 liter v6 that Audi's had around for long though that's actually a really good engine but i kind of don't think i think they got something bigger in the q7 just look this up really quickly here and they went Awards q7 and q7 q7 we can get the diesel q7 I'm sure that's going to be above the 48 the 40k cap yeah I mean yeah out he's a premium brand and these are definitely pricey although it's interesting I mean touareg is there's seven passenger touareg mmm VW touareg and you could look for that in diesel yeah the thing though I think that that he's also asking for is a lot of tech and as these vehicles go the Escalade probably not going to have the best cabin tech package as far as like having an older generation Cadillac system yeah it's decent but yeah it's not really cutting-edge you know it's a solid system but yeah anytime you're looking at the used vehicle and the tech has changed so rapidly in the past day and we also when you're looking at a used vehicle you're kind of looking for a vehicle that already has that in it you can't go and say I want to used yeah this with this in it it's you have to kind of find the vehicle that has that tech package in it so it's a little bit harder to spec the tech that you want when you're going used that's true you know I'm thinking just from looking at all the stuff here and by the way the q7 was under the same price on that as base price is 46 so yeah that's pretty far over you know that that's not sure that's a TDR enough but anyway base price 3046 so that's kind of pricey I'm thinking the best option around here looks like the ford explorer with the v6 I'm thinking highlander hybrid yeah yeah I think that they the the the fuel economy you'll get from the hybrid is probably worth the couple extra bucks that you pay for the the the the luxury of having a hybrid vehicle but I think as fuel gets more expensive it'll start balancing out in the long run especially if you're keeping it for six or eight years that that makes sense but you know where I'm where I would say maybe lean towards the Ford is the tech the cabin tech is going to be a little bit better in the Ford I don't think they have toyota in tune for the highlander yet they don't have in tune but they got bluetooth yeah they've got ipod connectivity and for I mean depending on on on what is being what Thomas is looking for I mean maybe that's just what he wants is really good tech is I want navigation with traffic and getting able to plug my ipod up yeah they do cover your basics there it you know may not be the most cutting-edge but they cover all the really things that we consider the really necessary you know cabin technology pieces so yeah and also you know I think the fact that the Toyota has all-wheel drive standard that you know may tip the scales that way to I'm sure Thomas lives here I don't think he gave us a location nip that's not like that but anyway so so I think it boils down to probably the ford explorer or the twitter highlander hybrid yep i think it just really depends on if you're going if you're going new then it's pretty it really depends on how much you want to spend if you're going use been i think we gave them a lot of good choices to kind of expand his field of what he's looking for and then of course just test drive the vehicle yeah make sure you can live with it and yeah as a dark horse maybe yeah maybe the pwr diesel might be something to look for in the used market hmm alright we got another question here from victor in pasadena he says I see always I often see the misconception about the hydrogen added into the fuel system as being used or intended to be used as fuel of course at what work is fuel since it would become a perpetual-motion mobile I think hydrogen was intended as a catalyst to help burn gasoline that is not burned think of this adding direct injection do an existing gas engine adds about thirty percent more power approximately he's just thrown a number out there adding hydrogen to the mix is trying to do the same thing to help ignite the previously unburned gas he says I haven't tried this or planty always wanted to dispel the notion that hydrogen was intended as added fuel so this is talking about the idea of putting a system in a car that will electrolyze or use the you know the electricity generated by the engine to do electrolysis on the water on a tank of water splitting the hydrogen and oxygen and running the hydrogen into the fuel stream and it's a good point that Victor is making here is that instead of having the hydrogen burn and cause combustion in the chamber the idea is that it will actually cause the gasoline cause all of the gasoline or help all the gasoline burn mm-hmm because you know this is inefficiency is when you leave you know gasoline unburnt in the cylinder yeah its inefficiency and that you're not expecting as much energy so you're having a use more gas to get the same amount of energy also it hurts your figure your missions because the unburned gasoline coming out of the the exhaust pipe is probably it's not it's not a good thing yeah long story short so but again I'm not a hundred percent sure on the science behind that or or how it works that I'm more of a mechanical engineering guy less of a chemical engineering guy yeah I mean I you know when you do ignite the hydrogen it'll certainly you know cause you know cause additional combustion in the chamber mmm yeah what I intend to do actually I'm sure on the web somebody's tested the system out and probably found that it doesn't really add much and I would just say just the idea of you know filling up your water tank and adding however my gallons of water you need to you know run hydrogen in the fuel stream that that could you know maybe a very little bit or it could be a lot and I'm not sure how much how did you need you're going to get out of electrolysis because electrolysis is a fairly your electrolyzing water is a fairly gives you a thin stream of hydrogen so I don't know how much not sure how much you're really going to add into the system yeah the the the efficiency the percentage of efficiency would have to it have to be pretty high to justify the the energy loss and actually creating the hydrogen in the first place yeah kind of like a supercharger where you both supercharger on to your engine and now percentage of the torque generated by the engine is being diverted to actually spinning the compressor on the supercharger fortunately it's so efficient that you usually get more power out of the system than you put in just buy buy it by the only account of how it works but I mean again if you're if you're doing this with with hydrogen you're going to have to put some energy into the the electrolysis of that water in order to get something out and if the amount of energy you're putting in is less than the amount of energy you're getting out probably just best not to deal with it and again I don't have numbers on either of those but it's interesting to see this other sort of perspective on it yeah oh yeah my my work today actually caused a better fuel burn and yeah that might add some / said you know direct injection I don't think direct injection is really adds thirty percent efficiency it's certainly you know you get get a lot more I mean it's precise yeah definitely yeah that's why it's pretty brilliant stuff I mean you do get you know we see new engines coming out of direct injection and they get more horsepower and better fuel economy over there you know over the equivalents but I usually see numbers cited the gains of like maybe ten percent or so ten to fifteen percent tens good yeah I'm very good at nothing to scoff at that that's for sure all right we got another email coming in that says I wouldn't have a name on this one but it says hi I saw your piece on car tech and car tech live about the BMW 328i that was last week before last afore we went to Geneva it says and the rant against the auto start/stop function I Drive the 118 d which we don't actually get here in the United States and it has the auto start/stop function but with a manual transmission he thinks this configuration is more suited for auto start/stop because when the car stops he's in neutral and depresses the clutch and it starts right up when he puts the clutch back in and it takes time for the engine to restart but then he also has to put the transmission in gear and can't drive away immediately so he's not really hurried he says indeed if you feel your engine restarting even more so with the diesel in this way it says indeed you feel your engine restarting even more so because it's with a diesel in a small car but after a while you get used to it and you get stellar miles per gallon he's also driven automatic gearboxes but he prefers the manual and doesn't understand why many people aren't able to drive with him because we're American yeah yeah dude funny is referring to in in brine coolies video on the 328i this car came with us an idle stop function so and it also had an automatic transmission so you come into the light you put you know put the breakdown hold it stopped and the engine shuts off and then as soon as you lift off the brake the engine kicks in again and this saves you gas every time you're waiting at a light for you know five minutes or whatever mmm and cool he ranted coolly hated this function and he was really happy to find the button that let you define it on turn the idle stop thing off because in the 328i it was really obvious when the engine kicked on and off it was it was a kind of a rougher system that I would expect from BMW right but the 118d he's taught that our readers talking about here or correspondent is talking about here is a I drove something similar in Europe I drove the mini cooper clubman it was a gasoline version but it had the idol stop function and and a manual transmission and it worked pretty well yeah we had the roof we had the 123d in yeah a couple years ago and that had the start/stop function on it to manual transmission 1 series hatchback yeah love that car yeah and it makes sense I would you know if you lift from if you lift the clutch and then the engine kicks in again or I know I guess it when you depress the clutch they didn't kicks in mmm which makes sense and yeah that gives you you have a little more time because you know before you start because you also have to put it in gear and everything like that and so it gives the engine time to really kick in as opposed to just lifting off the brake and the engine has to and you kind of want to go immediately but the engine has a little time there and oh yeah it's sort of like the mental timing yeah of it and I think you're not in an automatic gearbox car it's just you're just mentally used to I'm off the brake up on the gas on the gas i'm on the brake and that's sort of it's sort of digital so if you're if you're on one you're on the other or you're not on either but it's like an on/off switch sort of thing whereas in a manual transmission car there's a little bit more timing a lot more every limbs working in it so it's everything I mean for the most part takes a little bit longer to happen yeah and in in in that sense and that sense when you're stopped at a light i mean i think if you understand how a manual transmission works you understand the engines not actually connected to the drive wheels anymore when you're just sitting there so the the concept of the Indian spinning and wasting fuel makes a little bit more sense there I think it's easier to get over psychologically yeah the Porsche 911 we have in now I also has the idol stop function hmmm that has pushes a dual-clutch manual gearbox the Porsche doppelkupplung hey which I said right okay yeah yeah I think there might be a few other syllables on the end of that but I missed but the but it works pretty smoothly it definitely works more smoothly than the one in the BMW and well we'll see cool he's gonna be in that car on this weekend so we'll find out what he thinks of this rant my street right yes but I think idle stop systems are going to become more common and people are gonna have to get used to them the one in the buick lacrosse we tested not too long ago which has a mild hybrid system mm-hmm was fine because they had that mild hybrid system it's basically cheating yeah yeah you could get moving right away you know as soon as you hit the gas yeah and I think um you know as as as I guess things like you using mild hybrid systems cheat I think Mazda is working on some sort of technology that sort of doesn't have to use a starter motor to get the engine going I think I heard about this last year where they basically tend the engine where one of the the piston stops at top dead center so that when it's time to go it just fires and you start moving again you don't have to actually get that sort of like using a an electric starter motor to get the engine going again yeah as they start smoothing it out I think people will just get used to it but then you know again I think that the simple solution is to add cheater electric motor so that you don't really feel it and if the price starts dropping on that electrification technology if it ever does I think we'll start seeing more of that yeah it's certainly nice you know I've certainly gotten used to the idea and I love the idea you know when I was 12 * drive in that Portia and I was my first stop lightin in the agent cut out as like good you know I've just gotten you to the notion that he after sitting there not moving wasting gas is annoying it is i mean that's perfectly good guess that you could be using for having fun with yeah yeah you want that gas for when you're putting you and your push on the pedal yeah so okay I guess but before we move on to the next meal email I just kind of wanted to touch on his the what European seem to be more I guess less averse to the idea of a manual transmission versus in North America less than ten percent of the new vehicle sold our our our manuals like why do you think that is oh well I think it's partly because the gas prices for one thing I think the u.s. you know we've had cheap gas for a long long time and so we could get away with inefficient torque converter automatic transmissions and in Europe gas is so precious that every little thing that would get you better mileage you know they went they went for and so you know it really drove the adoption of manuals in Europe and so it's not so much that Europeans are more in tune with their cars or something like that now it's just that you know necessities of yes I wonder also if it's high fuel costs higher insurance costs congestion charges that sort of thing is it just more expensive to own a car just to own a car in a country like for example the UK so you know maybe spending twelve hundred extra bucks or pounds on an automatic transmission just doesn't really make sense yeah that would that make sense you know that definitely part of the equation to I would imagine the you know in the fact that you know we've had such an adoption or such such a widespread adoption of automatics here means that there isn't there often isn't a price prima anymore a foreign automatic right you know you don't pay an extra you know certainly in the low you know very low-end car market you know the very base twelve thousand dollar model of you know like the verse or something only comes with the manual yeah you know then you go up a level and you can actually get the automatic and I guess yeah we've had automatic so long that the price you know in in cars you know in a higher range 20,000 and above yeah it becomes pretty much you know either the automatic a standard you can't even get a man yeah this is the case with the Jaguar that's down there oh yeah yes prices just built in yeah seeing that little stupid gear selector knob is still annoying when blipping the throttle makes it sound so good like you can't even just you know sit at a light look over at someone and give it that quick romp I'm like yeah ours awesome isn't it I gotta put it in neutral then blip the throttle and then step on the brake and put it back in the drive and by then they're gone but yeah I think I think that is sort of interesting and a lot of people i know just can't even drive automatic like people i know can't drive automatics either but that's the completely different story I was yeah you mentioned that ten percent figure though it's a and I think people that are in the cars would be surprised at that but yeah my only ten percent of cards and new cars in the US are sold with Daniels yeah so sad day said no I don't think about that anyway I got another email comes in from a chris from California he says hi guys i just purchased a new 2012 tiguan with the 2 point 0 liter TSI turbo engine and have been doing a little reading into the various ECU upgrades from companies like a PR and Jack and says they claim to be able to do to remap timing booths pressure etc to offer 60 horsepower and 90 foot pound increases over the stock programming my question are do they seem like legitimate claims how much would such upgrades affect reliability with this void my warranty and if I were to go ahead and get the upgrade should I wait until the break-in periods over and I have significant miles on the engine thank you guys and I love all of the car tech content and that's again Chris macaela for Nia all right VW tiguan with it that's funny that doing a performance ship upgrade in a you want it I hope that's the all-wheel-drive models you get the front wheel drive model you're just gonna spin those skinny tires yeah I'm not you know it's funny I'm not sure why you would didn't wash up a chip at equal why not here's the thing I mean okay are you sure Chris bought the take one and because he needed a small SUV but now he wants to have a little bit of fun and yeah you can't really fault a guy for that and what's interesting is I've actually just been helping a friend do a ton of research on a similar thing he owns a mazdaspeed 3 and he's doing a lot of like ECU upgrades for things the trend of Nikki's car more efficient and more powerful and whatnot and so there are a lot of things that well for starters when you're working with a turbo engine of remap 222 tuning could easily add 60 horsepower because a lot of times a vehicle like the tiguan is tuned for efficiency so it's it's tuned in such a way that you know maybe it's you know set up to get the best fuel economy but with a couple of tweaks you can get more horsepower out of a turbo engine pretty easily yeah that makes sense i mean i know from the BMW side of things non turbocharged cars you can get you know the seems legitimate claims you can get maybe an extra 15 horsepower so 20 horsepower but yeah not not like these numbers here but a turbo could ya make a huge difference yeah doing something like cranking up the boost pressure it's it does almost logarithmic the amount of power that you can add the thing is that there there are a lot of things that you want to think about before you do that for starters is that there's more to an engine than the engine itself in the case of I really do you jump back to mazdaspeed3 but in case of the must be three once you start ramping up power once you start adding booth pressure the engine has to add more fuel to accommodate the extra air that it's sucking in its cramming into the cylinder and so usually what they start doing is they fight they find that their fuel pump can't keep up with it and you start running lean and you get engine issues so you want to make sure that there are talked to other people who have done similar monster their cars and make sure that things like your fuel system your intake and then the other sort of support systems that help the engine to get that air and fuel into the combustion chamber can keep up with the remapped programming the other thing is yes you are definitely voiding your warranty if you get caught ya doing something like using an aftermarket oil filter you're protected under the law for that but then once you start tinkering around with the computer there's not really much protection for that so you get caught if you blow your engine up and they find out that you've been messing with your ECU pretty much counter warranty is null and void yeah you don't get a new warranty based on that or new engine based on that also I got to mention two on the same line is in California you probably also can't renew your registration yeah they find out that you've adjusted in getting your vehicle small checked yeah sometimes it's an automatic vision will fail yeah and yeah it creates all sorts of issues there actually you said life is in California so yeah yeah you certainly have to check if it'll pass smog in California you know see what this company claims and see what other people said because yeah you definitely wanna make sure your car can pass smog right so as far as waiting till the breaking-in period is over I would recommend that if before you do any mod wait till the break amperes over because like the first thing you're going to want to do is floor it and you don't want to be doing that in the first like you know 6,000 miles for the Rings have had a chance to set and the engine sort of like good and and and and broken in so yeah I mean maybe not significant mouths but definitely before the breaking-in period is over you're gonna you're going to want to hold off on that yeah it's usually about 500 miles I think most cars I'm a little more more generous than that but yeah I owned well I've actually never owned a new car so yeah so I'm just free much going on with what my father told me right yeah a 60 horsepower and 90 foot pounds of torque that that's a big boost and and yeah if that engine really hasn't had time to get all its parts settled in like you said then yeah they could be big problem right but you don't wait too long because once you get high mileage vehicle like once if you don't wanna wait so you have like a 120,000 miles on your engine before you start trying to you know up the boost pressure because then hell yeah and you've got all sorts of like possible points of failure that could be like worn out so but I mean I think you know well after you after your you're breaking period you're kind of in a sweet spot for doing upgrades just understand that you want to make sure that the rest of your vehicle keep up with a car and in the case of the take one I would say you're probably better buying new tires stickier tires and the ones that come on it because the the bone stock TSI I take one that we tested last year spun tires away from every light yeah without going particularly fast and that's because it's got those kind of lower rolling resistant all season tires and if you want to actually have fun with it you're going to want some summer tires and I think that the power that tick one makes you'll probably see a pretty big definitely if you're going to be adding 60 more a horsepower you're going to want to make sure that you can actually put that power to the road but yeah so we got a our next user next a listener comment here comes from Matt bat called himself and he says on episode 45 roadside assistance Wayne myself went on and on about ugly car mounts for phones see he says when I needed him out for my samsung moment they didn't make any pretty mouth so I built one I body belt holster for my phone for five dollars a garmin windshield mount for three dollars on ebay handed tube of epoxy for six dollars at home depot I cut the clip off of I cut the clip off of the belt clip i made the garmin adapter flat and glued the two together the only problem I had was that I attached the garment to the center of the phone I made a second one that I attached near the top and made it easier mounting on the raked windshield of my 07 mazda6 though he's got some pictures he let me just Eve bring here we go yeah it actually looks like a pretty nice mountain looks nice and professional here that's actually the that's the garmin mount okay then in the next shot he's got the the belt clip where he sanded off the looks like that nipple that you would use to connect to the clip then if you go down a little bit further sir and I'll see any pictures of the finished one but I can see what he's doing there yeah and how that would would work yeah sort of DIY in a decent i plowed DIY yeah I think it's actually pretty awesome when people figure out to do that thing do things like that I I would like to see a picture of the finished the finished product but I don't see one of the flickr gallery here yeah but yeah I'm again all for do it yourself if you can't find the clip that does what you want it to do yeah make one and I mean what would he spent looks like under 15 bucks yeah which is great because I know proclip is a pretty popular brand for this kind of stuff but their mounds cost fifty bucks or so and you know I think they might pretty good of course those are mount into the dashboard which you could probably also DIY too yeah I mean yeah if you look at a lot of the proclip thing there the just precision-built bit metal a lot of cases and so what they're doing is saving you the trouble of taking your car apart measuring where the bolts are going like patterning out like metal then getting like a like a bender and doing all of that yeah that you saving you from having to crease your own aluminum for amount and that's what you pay for in that case and it's worth the money I think actually but if you do have a sort of do-it-yourself spirit you can again I think I think I said on the last show pretty much anything you can buy in a store odds are you could do it yourself if you just kind of want to do it well I like this idea to of taking a like this belt clip it's just an amount which is designed for specific phones and they have those all over the place you can usually find them on a table on the sidewalk somebody selling them yeah yeah and in adapting those with ya epoxy will bring plastic pieces will hold flashing pieces together yeah I want to add epoxy to my do everything tool kit all right there along zip ties duct tape and epoxy I think you could rule the world with those well I think I got to say about the solution to is lots of times the amount you know the pre-made bounce you find in stores have things you don't necessarily aren't necessarily use either maybe a power adapter or you know some kind of a you know aux cable adapter or something like that and you know so getting one with just the pieces you want on him you know you might have to go to DIY build it yourself and then you know just go out like it's got he went on ebay bought like a garment suction cup for three dollars like which is great I wonder if that included shipping um it probably had to i'm sure people just given those things away or just to go to a thrift store and like you see something laying around this actually has me wanting to go through my box of junk to see if there's anything that I could like take apart and may be used for similar summer situations because with my my my Thunderbolt like I have an issue where no car mount that I've actually and I only really use the ones that are laying around the office I refuse to buy one because car tech editor yeah but none of the ones that I have linger around the office like fit the phone right they all either hold down the volume button when they grip the phone by the sides or they're not deep enough to hang on to my phone with the extended battery I like a perfectly good belt clip sort of thingy in a drawer right now and I'm thinking I might go home and do something similar this afternoon I sent your next how-to article essence essence so I think that's going to be maybe yeah look for that coming up soon all right let's move on to Brian from Connecticut who sent us an email and he's he plods us for our excellent show oh yeah thank you right and he's mentioned a yes Tobias last year about a car stereo and Antoine Doug gave him some good advice there and I says now I'm looking for a used car the problem is that i'm looking for to submodels a 1996 to 2,000 only honda civic DX or HX I want something simple because I do my own maintenance so that means timing belts clutches and all that I also did not want a sunroof in fear of it leaking something reliable simple and nicer looking than my older car which is a 91 Civic and he says I plan to keep this 91 Civic and one day restore it but that's another day what other used cars sites are there I tried the obvious cars com craigslist org ebay and local forms but does anyone else have any ideas so places define a used cars online and you certainly named the big ones yeah those are actually the ones that usually pop into mind for me yeah and you know cars com also they get a lot of listings from like local newspapers and things like that too so they pretty well cover the used car market you know what's out there is they've got a pretty good line on that there there aren't really anything as baby compete with that or craigslist or ebay motors as well ebay motors is pretty comprehensive I think doesn't Edmonds have a edmunds com has a good used car locator but I don't know if they use someone else's or if they have their own sort of like search algorithm kind of going through right now and it looks yeah they're they're pretty they're pretty granular looks like on Edmonds yeah and they do they also let you see what I guess blue book prices are or you know what the prices should be and you you get to compare that to you know press on to bar offering so that that can help you in finding a good value but you know I think the thing is if you're looking for a particular car like this you know the DX are they checks and lately probably people are holding on to their DX's because the you know the mileage is is so good that with it with upper prices it might be hard to find one but yeah looking at you know these submodels that there might not be as many around and people might be you know loath to give them up at this point you just have to really play the waiting game yep yeah I don't think I'm put like alerts in in ebay motors or something like that but you know eventually one of them was going to crop up yeah you can I think yet would alerts an ebay motors for like this is the car that I want due to the years that I'm interested in this the price I'm willing to pay and when you when something pops up you can get alerted to that but yeah you put it perfectly there it's kind of when you're looking for something specific I think we kind of mentioned this in the the first email that we read today when you're looking for something specific that like whether i'd say a used explorer with the navigation package its you kind of gotta expand your search look nationwide and just kind of wait for something to come available yeah and there are like used car dealers have networks computerized networks of the cars that are available in there lots and so they can trade back and forth and you know cars calm and edmunds com that those I think those happen to this similar network so they like us get a look at them so yeah there's really you know not much else out there really define these cars I mean you could always you know if you see DX or an HX drivin on your neighborhood walk up to the driver yeah yeah 500 bucks yeah make it one I have a car yeah yeah look for one that's just sitting you know rusting in a yard somewhere not don't look for one of resting the rest is the worst thing that you want to see on a car you're about to buy because for every square inch of rest if you see there are four that you don't yeah and Brian here says he's from Connecticut too so yeah that's going to be that's that's one of those states where cars do rust not like we get out you're in California so I guess that's uh wraps up the emails that we get this week if you've got in question or a comment that you would like to share with us via email you can send it to car tech at cnet com you can also give us a call and leave us a voicemail 866 401 seen it cnet that's the 866 4012 638 and for the show notes for today's show in any previous episode of car tech live or seen at roadside assistance you can find all of that over at car tech cnet com of course you can follow all of us on Twitter I'm aunt goo A&T g 00 wayne is way foreign WWAY for Andy and Brian Cooley who's not with us this week but should be joining us again soon as Brian Cooley one word I guess we'll see you next week with more questions and comments