You Ask, CarPro Answers!

Q: How Long Do Hybrid Car Batteries Last?

• For Jerry's Answer Click Here →

Q: How Much Does GAP Insurance Actually Cost?

• For Jerry's Answer Click Here →

 📝 To check out Jerry's FAQ Page with more answers to your questions click here →

  On The Road: Test Drives

  Bumper to Bumper:  Industry News

  Weekly Recalls

• • • •  
      • Chevrolet/GMC **CRASH RISK**→    
        
      • Dodge/Alfa Romeo→   
      • Tesla **CRASH RISK** →  
      • Toyota **CRASH RISK**→  
       

 Incentives Guide

  Kim Komando's Quiz & Tech Tips

💡Kim’s Quiz:

Back in 2011, Apple sued Samsung, claiming the Galaxy Tab looked a little too iPad-ish: rectangle, rounded corners, big screen, thin slab of sleek. Samsung’s comeback? They told the judge Apple didn’t invent that look. Somebody beat them to it by decades.

📱 What did Samsung hand the court as “proof”? A) An episode of Star Trek, B) Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, C) A Jetsons cartoon or D) A sketch from Steve Jobs’ high school notebook?

*Answer below my closing message at the very bottom of this newsletter.

  Exclusive Approved Products & Services

In my over 20 years on the radio, I can count the number of products I have endorsed on one hand. I have had many opportunities, but after much due diligence, I usually end up saying no.

I won't recommend a product or service unless I have tried it myself and feel good about recommending it. It is the same with the car dealers on the radio show and website.

Here are companies I wholeheartedly endorse and personally use:

  DFW Listener Savings

  Get Your Car Pro Show T-Shirts, Hats & Mugs!

Visit The CarPro Shop! →

  Miss the Show? Catch Our Podcast!

Catch all five hours of the Car Pro Show! All three hours of the national show are posted Saturday afternoon. The DFW podcast is posted Tuesdays on WBAP.

  The Car Pro Has Mail 

Once again Freeman Toyota outdid themselves. We recently were able to trade our 2023 Tundra for a nearly identical 2026 Tundra at no cost. Tommy Chou has been amazing and delivered the new truck to our home in Cleburne. He also took the time to change the license plates, program the stereo, and answer all our dumb questions about the truck. We don't even consider going to another dealer when we consider purchasing a vehicle.

Jerry, I wanted to thank you for recommend the guys at Park Place Plano for this purchase.

Zach Schartz and Don Mitchell were wonderful to work with. They were both very courteous and professional. You could tell right away that they wanted to please a CarPro referral. For many years you have always taken care of my car needs and I appreciate you very much.

Thanks again!!!

Mike F.

I should be thanking you. I actually exchanged emails with you way back in 2013 before I bought my first Range Rover Sport (2014). We had such luck with it that when we wanted to purchase a new one, i checked your recommended dealers once again. Park Place Land Rover was your recommendation (and live The Woodlands). Park Place was an even better recommendation and a true pleasure to work with. We’re living our 2026 Range Rover Sport PHEV Autobiography.

So, here’s a big THANK YOU! And keep up the good work.

Jerry,

Been listening to you since you've been on the air, so I feel like I know you. Also I've used CarPro for 2 BMW and 1 Toyota acquisitions so I'm a customer too. I've listened to enough calls over these years where a caller had a special need and heard how you were clearly engaged when offering help. When you said in the newsletter that you needed that commercial break after the recent salvage title call, I felt that. Which motivated to write this and thank you for being who you are.

Have great weekend!

  On The Air: Station Listings

  Searching for a New or Used Vehicle?

If you are searching for a particular new or used vehicle, we can help you!  The best news is, if you use CarPro to search, when you find the car of your dreams it will be at a CarPro approved dealership.

Best of all, it’s simple to use.  Choose new, used, or certified.  You can select the make and model, or find a price range you are looking at.  Choose the number of miles you are willing to travel and enter your zip code.

From there, you can look through all your matches, knowing you are shopping at a dealership I have handpicked that adheres to the high standards I require.

Start your search on the front page of CarPro.com. If you don't find the car of your dreams, check back regularly.

  You Have 5 Hours To Call The Show!

You have 5 hours to call the show!  From 9AM- 2PM Central, 7AM-Noon Pacific, and 10AM to 3PM Eastern, the phone numbers are:

• DFW Show: 9 AM to 11 AM Central, 
  • 1 (800) 288-9227
• National Show: 11 AM to 2 PM Central,
  • 1 (800) 926-7777 

Add the numbers to your cell phone; you never know when you are going to need straight talk and honest answers about everything automotive.

So, what is the CarPro Radio Show?

Confused about the car buying process? Worried you won’t get a fair deal? Wondering about which vehicle is best for you? Then tune in to the CarPro Radio Show every week where Jerry Reynolds and Todd Chambless will guide you through the car-buying process with confidence. 

No matter where you listen to the show or which station you listen to, you have five hours to call in and ask your questions. We take calls every Saturday from 9 AM-2 PM Central time, 7 AM to Noon Pacific. The phone number is different the first two hours, then changes, so keep that in mind.  

We would love to help you in any way possible!  Keep in mind, we don’t take mechanical questions, but everything else is great!

  Jerry's Must-Watch Video of the Week! 

I love this YouTube channel. In this episode of Collision Cam, there are five full minutes of people crashing their cars at intersections. Every single case is avoidable and I'm guessing the culprits are people who can't put their cell phones down. You be the judge:

  Todd's Video of the Week! 

FAKE ID LEADS TO DANGEROUS POLICE CHASE WITH A STOLEN CAR

After pulling over a driver, two officers realize they were given a fake ID. After confronting the suspect about the false identification, he suddenly takes off in a stolen vehicle, resulting in a dangerous car chase.

  True Stories From A Former Car Dealer 

This is #25 in a series of 40 stories written by me about occurrences from my days in the car business. Each story had a lasting impression on me for some reason or another. Some because they were funny, some because they were sad, and some were just strange. But whatever the case, over the next 14 weeks, we’ll feature one of them, in order for you to enjoy.

Today, I tell you numerous stories about my experiences with auctions. There are plenty more I could tell, but these are some of my favorites and most memorable. Strange things happen at car auctions, as you’ll see!

You can read #25 here: Auctions→

Click here for the True Stories library →

  Closing Message From Jerry Reynolds

 The Last Time And We Didn't Know It  

There are certain firsts in life we never forget. Your first day of school, your first car, your first real job, your first date with the person you eventually married, the first time you held your child or grandchild, or the first day you walked into a new business with your name on the door. We take pictures of firsts, write down the dates, celebrate their anniversaries, and tell the stories years later because we know when a first is happening.

Lasts are different.

Most of the time, we don't know they're happening at all.

There was a last time my parents picked me up and carried me somewhere, but neither they nor I knew it was the last time. There was a last time I walked out the door for school and came home to the house where I grew up. There was a last family vacation when everyone who had always been there was still there, a last Christmas dinner with certain people around the table, and a last conversation with friends I assumed I'd talk to again the next week.

That's the strange thing about life. So many of the moments that ultimately become important don't announce themselves when they arrive.

They just look like Tuesday.

I've thought about that a lot as I've gotten older, probably because there are more years behind me now than there are ahead of me. That's not something I say sadly; it's simply a mathematical fact. When you're 25, you naturally assume there will always be another Saturday, another Christmas, another vacation, another dinner with friends, and another chance to make the phone call you've been meaning to make. Time seems almost unlimited because you've used so little of it.

Eventually, you learn differently.

There was a last time I walked into a dealership I owned as the dealer. I actually knew that one was coming. Twenty years ago, I sold my last dealership and left around lunchtime, closing a chapter of my life that had defined me for decades. I knew when I drove away that I would never again be the guy whose name was attached to a dealership, but even then I couldn't have imagined the career waiting for me in radio or that I would still be talking about cars to millions of people all these years later.

Most lasts don't give us that kind of notice.

There was a last car deal I worked with someone I liked, a last lunch with an employee I never saw again, and a last time I talked with friends who are no longer here. At the time, none of those moments felt important enough to memorize. We said goodbye the same way we had a hundred times before because we naturally assumed there would be a hundred-and-one.

And, of course, there was a last conversation with my son BJ.

I won't make this entire message about BJ because that's not really what prompted me to write it, but losing a child changes the way you understand the word "last." There are conversations I can remember clearly and others I wish I could replay just one more time. What I wouldn't give to have known during one ordinary moment that I should slow everything down, look at him a little longer, listen a little more carefully, and somehow store every detail where time could never touch it. That explains why I still have voice mails from him on my cell phone.

But that's not how life works.

If we knew every last in advance, we'd behave very differently. We'd hug longer. We'd put the phone down. We'd forget about the meeting that suddenly didn't seem so important. We'd ask one more question and listen to the entire answer instead of thinking about what we were going to say next. We'd probably say "I love you" more often, and we'd certainly say "I'll call you tomorrow" with a lot less confidence.

Maybe we're not supposed to know.

Perhaps knowing would make life unbearable. Imagine leaving every family dinner wondering whether it was the last one, or ending every phone call afraid there might never be another. That's no way to live either, and I don't think that's the lesson.

The lesson, at least for me, is to become a little better at recognizing the value of ordinary days.

I've spent much of my life chasing the next thing. In the car business, there was always another month to close, another sales goal to hit, another problem to solve, and another Saturday that needed to be bigger than the Saturday before. In radio, there's always another show to prepare, another newsletter deadline, another vehicle to review, another caller waiting on the line, and another week coming at me faster than the one before it.

I love that pace and probably always will. It's part of who I am.

But age has taught me something ambition never could: ordinary moments are often the ones we eventually miss the most.

Nobody lies awake at night wishing they had spent another hour answering emails. What we miss is sitting at the kitchen table with someone who isn't there anymore. We miss the sound of a voice we haven't heard in years, the family dog meeting us at the door, a child climbing into our lap who is now grown with children of their own, or an old friend calling at exactly the wrong time and talking far longer than we had planned.

We didn't recognize those moments as special because they happened all the time.

Until they didn't.

That's probably why I think differently today when somebody crosses my mind. I try to make the call. When somebody tells me something important, I try to listen instead of immediately thinking about what I need to do next. I'm certainly not perfect at any of this, and I still get too busy and let things slip just like everybody else, but I understand the stakes better than I did when I was younger.

The truth is, somewhere in your life right now there are things you do routinely that someday you'd give almost anything to do just one more time.

You don't know which ones they are.

Neither do I.

That's why maybe the goal isn't to live every day as though it were our last. I've always thought that sounded a little unrealistic anyway. We still have bills to pay, work to do, appointments to keep, lawns to mow, and all the ordinary responsibilities that don't disappear just because we've discovered perspective.

Maybe a better goal is simply to notice our lives while we're living them.

Stay at the table a little longer. Make the phone call you've been putting off. Listen to the story you've already heard twenty times because someday you'd give anything to hear that person tell it twenty-one.

We spend a lifetime celebrating firsts because we know when they're happening. The first steps, the first car, the first job, the wedding day, the first child, the first grandchild. We know enough to stop, take the picture, and understand that something important is happening.

Maybe we should occasionally do the same thing with an ordinary day.

Because every now and then, without warning, an ordinary day becomes a last.

And we didn't know it.

Straight Talk and Honest Answers — always.

💡 Kim Komando's Quiz Answer:

B) Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Open the pod bay doors, Your Honor. Yep, Samsung filed the film as prior art, arguing the movie tablets had an overall rectangular shape, a dominant display, narrow borders, a flat front and back and a thin body.

The court didn’t let that bit of sci-fi evidence make it to trial, but for one really surreal moment, a space movie starred in a billion-dollar tech patent fight.