Do you even like the TFL guys?

Dusdaddy said:
Glad I did my homework. I guess you don't realize that the Y43 recall is not the one that is associated with the Cummins fine nor is it the one that TFL is doing videos about. The Y43 recall was started back in '22 for trucks that shipped from Ram without a Particulate Sensor. Cummins had nothing to do with it, it was all Ram. Ram did this due to parts shortages at the time and received permission from the govt to ship those trucks with the understanding they would install the sensors as supply caught up.

TFL is betting that their truck will be the subject of a recall like the 2013-2018 trucks, and they fully admitted that their recall has not been released yet. For TFL to have a vehicle that may be recalled, this is a fantastic way to generate viewership/income for their business. I don't fault them as many owners are keyed into these exact results to find out if they should get the fix or not. I bet many truck websites wish they had an affected truck, and some are probably actively seeking one out right now to air the same before/after comparison. Why not? If I owned one, I'd like to know if it changes anything before I got it done. So, Tim, you gonna send Jill out to shop for a 2018 Ram?...lol

Unfortunately for TFL, if you go to the EPAs website, the announcement from Jan 10th says the 2019-2023 trucks will not be recalled. Could change, but I doubt it. That should end TFLs video series for now. Maybe they'll trade their 2022 for a 2018? Regardless, the EPA/CARB figured it out in 2019. They're just forcing Cummins to go back and fix the rest and the recall is 67A.

From the EPA website:

"The vehicles included in the recalls are model years 2013 through 2019 Ram 2500 and 3500 diesel vehicles. Model year 2020 – 2023 vehicles are not subject to the recalls. The recalls will ensure the vehicles comply with all the Clean Air Act’s applicable nitrogen oxides (NOx) emission standards."

Also from the EPA:

Cummins developed software that helped the vehicles pass emission testing but increased emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in normal driving conditions and used it model years 2013 through 2018. Cummins developed different illegal software that increased emissions of nitrogen oxides for use in model year 2019 Ram 2500 and 3500 diesel vehicles. This kind of software is known as a defeat device because it is designed to cheat emission reduction requirements. In all, Cummins installed alleged defeat device software in 630,000 Ram 2500 and 3500 diesel vehicles, model years 2013-2019.

Additionally, Cummins failed to disclose to EPA and CARB other software in these vehicles and in an additional 330,000 vehicles from model years 2019-2023; although this failure to disclose also violated the Clean Air Act, this software calibration did not include defeat device features and therefore did not create excess emissions.

In addition, from CARBs website:

Do I have to get the repair to pass a smog check or register my vehicle?​

No.
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First my apologies; the homework comment, while intended to persuade you to not dismiss the RAM 2500 Cummins for purchase, came out (in hindsight) to be snarky and that was not my intent. I will do better.

For fear of doubling down on a poor turn of phrase, you get an A+ for the great level of detail you provided. The amount of bureaucracy and overlap between NHTSA, EPA, the way too powerful for their state mandate CARB, and the manufacturers themselves tend to obfuscate, if not by design, but in practice, the exact nature of things that affect our vehicles. I was shocked NHTSA and EPA agreed my Avalanche was an SUV...But my state calls it a truck ($$$) for registration purposes!

Its like we all got some pieces of the puzzle, but you got the 10000 piece Schloss Neuschwanstein to come together. Looks like TFL Truck jumped the gun and the "Rolling Coal" illustration is unforgivable IMO, but collectively we are victim to a system lacking transparency.
 
testerdahl said:
One day a fan stopped by and we were talking about some truck I had outside. Out of the blue, he asked me, "do you even like the TFL guys?"

This question hit me like a ton of bricks. What did I do or say recently that would give that impression? Did I say something in the past? I was floored.

While I'm not quite sure where this question came from, I guess I can see people see TFL and Pickup Truck +SUV Talk as rivals. I sure don't. But being the truck channels are fairly limited, I'm only a few hours from their location and we get draw from the same press fleet in Denver, I suppose fans could see us a rivals.

The fact of the matter is I respect the hell out of Roman, Andre, Nathan, Tommy, Casey and the rest of the team. They have built a powerhouse of a business. TFL has set the standard, IMO, for what a successful publication should be like. No offense to Doug Demuro, Scotty Kilmer and others, but they don't have the staff, the channels that TFL does. The TFL team has to feed all the various channels and websites with new content all the time. They also have to do social media, travel, buy vehicles, etc...

They are busy and very driven. I've been to their studios and their ranch to see this first hand. It is impressive.

For me, I just see us as being different in how we cover things. You might not as a causal viewer, but I sure do. I don't want to get into how I see it because that will just turn into an argument over my views. I'll just leave it at that.

Now, the immature me, took some time to see the success of TFL. It is easy to criticize what you don't know. I also fell into a trap with some Livestreams. People would bash TFL on the Lives and I feed into this. TFL started popping onto the Livestreams and I realized, you know, this is dumb. Viewers wanted to create drama between us and I fell into their trap. I put an end to it by not talking about those comments and also stating how much I respect TFL to those viewers. I wish I was smarter back then.

What people don't probably know is I've stood up for TFL a few times behind the scenes. When TFL had the tiff with Ford over the leaked Bronco photos, I did a Livestream and brought it up on purpose saying I support them completely. TFL was right in what they did, Ford was wrong. Plain and simple.

Now as businesses in the same space, I'm sure there's things they don't understand with my work and there's thing I don't get about what they do. That's not being critical or hateful. It is just business and I don't publicly talk about any of those things. I'd be the world's largest dumbass to do so. Criticize one of the business's I idol. Yeah that's stupid.

So for those wondering, let me be very clear. I don't hate TFL. Rather I respect the hell out of them. Plain and simple.
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IMO Roman does not have the personality to be on video, the things he says sometimes is just stupid. He is better kept behind the scenes, which I believe they have figured out, as he is not in many videos anymore like he used to be. Andre and Nathan are great on Cam. Roman's son is not as bad as his father is, but he is no Andre personality, that's for sure.
 
billybob99 said:
IMO Roman does not have the personality to be on video, the things he says sometimes is just stupid. He is better kept behind the scenes, which I believe they have figured out, as he is not in many videos anymore like he used to be. Andre and Nathan are great on Cam. Roman's son is not as bad as his father is, but he is no Andre personality, that's for sure.
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I agree. My issue with Roman is that he constantly interrupts the other guys during a video to push through his point that somebody else may have already covered. I know he's the boss, but it comes off as just being rude. Tommy is good about shutting him down when he does that. Probably from experience...lol
 
I suspect Andre and Roman are pretty die-hard Ford fans, not so much in the vehicles they purchase or "screen time" but in how they talk about trucks while they're testing/reviewing them, it slips out occasionally. Nathan is more Ram/Toyota/Nissan and its good to have that counter balance.

Channels like theirs though contribute to these hp wars, they keep fanning the flames. When you think about it logically, all HD trucks have the required performance numbers for anything up to 25,000 pounds and beyond. Lets stop going for additional HP and focus more on fuel efficiency, reliability, cost etc. Nobody can afford to buy these trucks and maintain them anymore, and they're all way to powerful (drives up the cost) and way to unreliable.
 
zonedout said:
I suspect Andre and Roman are pretty die-hard Ford fans, not so much in the vehicles they purchase or "screen time" but in how they talk about trucks while they're testing/reviewing them, it slips out occasionally. Nathan is more Ram/Toyota/Nissan and its good to have that counter balance.

Channels like theirs though contribute to these hp wars, they keep fanning the flames. When you think about it logically, all HD trucks have the required performance numbers for anything up to 25,000 pounds and beyond. Lets stop going for additional HP and focus more on fuel efficiency, reliability, cost etc. Nobody can afford to buy these trucks and maintain them anymore, and they're all way to powerful (drives up the cost) and way to unreliable.
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I think their fandom comes from wanting to stay on the Blue Oval's good side after the assembly line photo flap put them in Ford's Dog House for the better part of a year...Not sure if Subaru still considers them persona non grata.

They leveraged a unique attribute in their area, The Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnel, created a catchy name for runs up and down thanks to our 34th President, and refined the product (in the early ones, Andre wore a Ushanka, tested brake temps on the side of the road and only spoke Russian to the driver, usually Roman; the gag must have been created by Nathan on one of his Rocky Mountain High trips). It has, to use an equity research term, moved the market and now HDs and half-tons are measured by it in buyer minds.
 
GMT 900 said:
I think their fandom comes from wanting to stay on the Blue Oval's good side after the assembly line photo flap put them in Ford's Dog House for the better part of a year...Not sure if Subaru still considers them persona non grata.

They leveraged a unique attribute in their area, The Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnel, created a catchy name for runs up and down thanks to our 34th President, and refined the product (in the early ones, Andre wore a Ushanka, tested brake temps on the side of the road and only spoke Russian to the driver, usually Roman; the gag must have been created by Nathan on one of his Rocky Mountain High trips). It has, to use an equity research term, moved the market and now HDs and half-tons are measured by it in buyer minds.
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Just weighing in here on this topic. The Ike Gauntlet is a massive home run in many regards.

The rest of this convo is enlightening for me.
 
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billybob99 said:
IMO Roman does not have the personality to be on video, the things he says sometimes is just stupid. He is better kept behind the scenes, which I believe they have figured out, as he is not in many videos anymore like he used to be. Andre and Nathan are great on Cam. Roman's son is not as bad as his father is, but he is no Andre personality, that's for sure.
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I guess that's the funny part about YouTube and personalities, to each their own. I actually really enjoy when Roman is on the videos because I feel like he's one of the few that actually speaks his mind and talks about the misses in a specific vehicle or a brand as of late. I think they experimented with some videos of rants for a while I actually enjoyed them as they seemed pretty honest. Tommy seems very political and careful about it and spins everything pretty positively. I think Andre is a natural on camera and does a fantastic job, Nathan is really the only one of the crew that I don't enjoy much on camera anymore his funny quips just irritate me as I don't find them funny, they seem to just get the person he's with off track in a detailed moment in a review.
 
testerdahl said:
Just weighing in here on this topic. The Ike Gauntlet is a massive home run in many regards.

The reset of this convo is enlightening for me.
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I agree, the Ike gauntlet is a huge success. From a consumer's perspective of both trucks and YouTube content. It nails what I would like to see more of, objective and subjective reviews of trucks doing the same exact thing so they're easy to compare and contrast against each other.

Tim my favorite video you ever did was the four half tons towing review. For the same reasons.
 
Fightnfire said:
I agree, the Ike gauntlet is a huge success. From a consumer's perspective of both trucks and YouTube content. It nails what I would like to see more of, objective and subjective reviews of trucks doing the same exact thing so they're easy to compare and contrast against each other.

Tim my favorite video you ever did was the four half tons towing review. For the same reasons.
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That four half ton towing video was so much work and luck. I just happened to get all those trucks together in a two month span all with different engines. That's pretty lucky. Then, it was a ton of work getting that video done. It was such a relief when it published.
 
I like the Ike's as well. The fact that it's fairly repeatable, but still real world is why I like it most. I think if a journalist could find a stretch of difficult road, maybe even something like a busy hwy showing acceleration and passing ability for each vehicle they test in real world conditions that's of benefit to someone like myself. I think even showing the safety features in traffic and an MPG loop, like TFL, are all helpful too.

Tim, every time I release a video these days I feel relief for like a day or so. Whew that's out. Then, it's ok what's next. I like that you have found what works for you, which is mostly the one-take recordings. You do those well!
 
Beninbeta said:
I like the Ike's as well. The fact that it's fairly repeatable, but still real world is why I like it most. I think if a journalist could find a stretch of difficult road, maybe even something like a busy hwy showing acceleration and passing ability for each vehicle they test in real world conditions that's of benefit to someone like myself. I think even showing the safety features in traffic and an MPG loop, like TFL, are all helpful too.

Tim, every time I release a video these days I feel relief for like a day or so. Whew that's out. Then, it's ok what's next. I like that you have found what works for you, which is mostly the one-take recordings. You do those well!
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The name of my game is volume and speed. I don't have the time, the staff or the technical skills to produce really high quality videos, so I don't try to bother with it.

Besides, those kinds of things don't seem to matter to people. I had a video editor two years ago who would add drone footage, car to car and music breaks throughout the videos. Plus, he would fiddle with the color settings.

We did a test. I went outside and put a GoPro in the corner of a windshield of a truck and just talked to the camera.

He did a full edit of a review and damn it did turn out great.

I'm going to exaggerate here.

I had 100k views in the first month.

He had 100.

Test over.
 
testerdahl said:
The name of my game is volume and speed. I don't have the time, the staff or the technical skills to produce really high quality videos, so I don't try to bother with it.

Besides, those kinds of things don't seem to matter to people. I had a video editor two years ago who would add drone footage, car to car and music breaks throughout the videos. Plus, he would fiddle with the color settings.

We did a test. I went outside and put a GoPro in the corner of a windshield of a truck and just talked to the camera.

He did a full edit of a review and damn it did turn out great.

I'm going to exaggerate here.

I had 100k views in the first month.

He had 100.

Test over.
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Yeah I would agree with a lot of that. I do have some editing skills, so I don't mind spending a little time on that. But when people add title bumpers in between sections of videos and have music/video sections that are too long people tune out. For my overlanding videos, I try to have some drone footage mixed in, but I do try to keep them short unless it's a special video that's more for the group involved in the outing. I like to try and keep them short, but I do like to add b-roll in where I can too. It's a balance. I'd be great on a podcast or something like that, but a no edit review would be harder for me I think. Maybe I'll try that sometime!
 
Tim, what you can do is a good long distance practical fuel mileage test. The Ike Gauntlet is huge but it really only covers one thing, towing. Their 100 mile MPG loop is pretty lame because we know it takes farther. You being in Nebraska, hell you can damn near see 100 miIes in one direction. Should be easy for you to drive out 150 miles one way then back. That'll give a much more accurate number. There is not much else that can be easily done with short-term loans. You can't beat them off-road to find the failure point.
 
testerdahl said:
That four half ton towing video was so much work and luck. I just happened to get all those trucks together in a two month span all with different engines. That's pretty lucky. Then, it was a ton of work getting that video done. It was such a relief when it published.
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Now that the video is out it acts as a baseline. When you get your new Ram do you plan on putting it through the same loop with the same or similar trailer. You could edit some of the old video to refresh yourself and the audience about what you said of the 3.5 or the 3.0. Then, cut to you on the same stretch of road in the new Ram and compare.
 
Dusdaddy said:
Tim, what you can do is a good long distance practical fuel mileage test. The Ike Gauntlet is huge but it really only covers one thing, towing. Their 100 mile MPG loop is pretty lame because we know it takes farther. You being in Nebraska, hell you can damn near see 100 miIes in one direction. Should be easy for you to drive out 150 miles one way then back. That'll give a much more accurate number. There is not much else that can be easily done with short-term loans. You can't beat them off-road to find the failure point.
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I’ve done those fuel economy videos over the years. Frankly, I should do them more. I’ve done it where I do the 100 mile loop (mix city/highway) and talk about the vehicle as well. The video is about the fuel economy and I stop the video half way to add in the interior and exterior review.

Now that you bring this up, maybe I need to create a playlist for these videos and have them on the channel’s page.

This is one example:
Sore Butt? 100 Mile Drive in 2023 Honda HRV Reveals Real-World MPG
 
Fightnfire said:
Now that the video is out it acts as a baseline. When you get your new Ram do you plan on putting it through the same loop with the same or similar trailer. You could edit some of the old video to refresh yourself and the audience about what you said of the 3.5 or the 3.0. Then, cut to you on the same stretch of road in the new Ram and compare.
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Yes, that’s part of my plan. I also have a friend who has the prior gen Ram with the V8. I’m strongly considering several video ideas like:

0-60 comparison old vs new
50-75 MPH comparison old vs new
MPG drive (my friend has a baseline he can share, I’d just do it in the new truck)
Towing with new Ram 1500 (I can compare it to the other towing test like you said)

When I buy it I’ll do a:
Here’s what I bought video
Hoping to go for a long road trip and do a first 1000 mile drive


After 6 months:
6 months later here’s what I think

Then around December:
I’ve owned all four full-size trucks, here’s what I think

I shot a video already on how much it will cost me to own the Ram 1500 for a year. I might reshoot it today since I think I missed out explaining why own it for a year (I need to rewatch it). I want to go live with that on Saturday. I’m looking at resale value, total cost of ownership compared to Chevy, GMC, Ford, Toyota and then Ram. That video will have all those details.

I’m rather irritated I didn’t talk more about the tax break in the Silverado how much I lost video. I’m constantly answering comments from people who are losing their minds over the $14k “loss.” When you regularly have a 30k tax bill and you can write off the truck, you don’t lose 14k. You actually make money.
 
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