Transcript
The Waters Wake Up Call with Mike Waters · Fri Jun 6, 2025
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It's not your car though, if you brought it to Milex anytime recently, smoking
that is your car.
No, it's
not.
That was a way for me to badly segue.
Badly segue.
Into
talking to Jen from Milex Complete Auto Care.
Tell me first about the guy who came in and saw you, this was, I don't know, a week or two ago, and then just came in again, got the new car.
Oh,
we were talking about, yeah, people, you know, sometimes think warranties and stuff should cover things, or we have that hard conversation.
that a vehicle's not worth fixing, right?
And so a customer that I had that conversation with, he was so nice, he stopped in yesterday to show me after we had that conversation that he went and got a new car and showed me his new car.
So thank you.
So he just brought the car in and showed me.
He did, it was so fun.
That's awesome.
It was awesome.
That's awesome.
So making new friends and I love it.
So keep stopping by and saying hi.
Yeah.
I absolutely love everybody stopping in and showing them their new car.
And I think a lot of it is, he heard you.
on
the station
initially and brought his car in and checked it out with you guys
yep and we had that hard conversation of was it worth fixing or is it worth
time say goodbye.
Yeah.
And you made such an impression on the guy
that
he went and got a car and he just brought it in to show
you.
Yeah.
I think
that's so cool.
So he's like, here's my new ride that's going to be coming in and seeing you guys.
Yeah.
So it's heartfelt.
I loved it.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So he had a hard conversation, but he realized, well, that's the truth.
That's
what I
need to do.
Did it was very satisfied and so proud that he brought it into the show.
Jen, what do you know his first name?
Just so we can say hello to him if he's listening now too.
Oh my gosh.
I don't know if he ever told me
anything.
I shouldn't
have asked you on the phone.
You shouldn't have said blank.
No, but he knows who he is.
He knows who
he is.
Yeah, he knows who he is.
That's awesome.
I
think that's great.
It is awesome.
Yeah, sounds
like a good
guy.
And, you know, we're also talking about road trips and we've been talking about some road trips, especially with
yesterday
being the last day of school for
a lot of Eastern
Iowa kids.
Everybody's pretty much out now, right?
I think
so, I think
so.
I think that was the last official Eastern Iowa school to get out.
Right, right.
So we've been talking about taking care of your car and getting it out, you know, before, before you get on the long road trips,
bring it into
my like complete auto care, they'll take care of it.
But then you had talked about hearing, I was talking about road trips a little bit as far as, and this was a poll that was taken with parents
that.
Oh, yes.
Kids three
and a half years
are the worst to bring on a road trip.
And I think it was like nine hours is the longest you should have a kid in the car.
But you as a parent disagreed with that.
I did disagree with that.
And the reason why is because at three and a half you could throw some fruit snacks or a juice box and
We always had a car that had a TV in it.
You know what I mean?
So the kids, you put their shows on, they're good to go.
I think the hard age is that eight, nine, 10 year olds because they get mouthy and they want to tell you their opinions and nothing's okay in the car at that time.
So I thought that age group was harder than the little kids, but that's just my opinion.
So I
think you can't reason with a three and a half year old, but you can reason with an eight, nine, 10 year old if you have
You know, if you threaten them with the right threat,
you know, if you... If that works for them.
Well, right.
Maybe it doesn't work for your kids.
I don't know.
But
really, I don't know.
That's the way I've...
Yeah.
If you know what they love and threaten to take it away from them.
If they continue to do what they're doing in the back of the car.
Right.
You can kind of control them a little bit that way.
But, you know.
You can, and kids that three and a half take a nap where the older kids may not take a nap and so.
Right.
Lots of things play into that.
But.
You're right.
You're right.
But while you're on that car trip, something a lot of people don't think about before they take off for a car trip is actually how their vehicle's driving and what can go into that is in a car alignment.
So a lot of people, you think about it, oh, my air conditioning is not working or.
I hear a noise, but a lot of people don't think about the alignment that their steering wheel might be off.
Right.
Or you feel that vibration in the steering wheel a little bit when you're driving.
It may pull to one side or not, and that could be the alignment.
And so what a car alignment does is it ensures your wheels are properly aligned with each other and the road, optimizing your handling and your tire wear.
So a lot of people don't think about that stuff before they take off.
Now, if your car is not aligned and it takes a long road trip, is that
will that mess with your car's alignment to
maybe
on a long term?
A
long term, yes, yes.
And so what you're gonna get is tire wear.
Like you could wear out your tires extremely fast.
You're not gonna get that longevity out of the tire.
You know, you're gonna get worse fuel economy, okay?
It can be if it's bad enough, you can be a safety issue.
It may not handle like it should.
So there's a lot of things that go into it.
You could also get some squealing tires if it's off bad enough, but most vehicles should have an alignment at least once a year to every two years, depending on what your driving habits are.
The reason I'm saying two years is depending on your driving habit.
Or if you get new tires, I always recommend if you get new tires, at least do an alignment check.
Check it out so you're starting out.
Perfect.
So you're not having that extra wear right away when you're starting.
Right.
Because tires are a big investment.
That's a lot of money.
I remember back in the day, it was like 50 bucks a tire.
And let me tell you, it's not 50 bucks a tire anymore.
No, it's not.
In fact, they make them so well now.
And for different cars, and there's only a certain type you can get for your particular car, or there are all kinds of things that go into it.
So, I mean, it gets to $1,000 for four tires.
Well, and it depends on what kind of car you have, to what kind of tires you're putting on it.
And also, if they're high performance tires, or if you're a commuter like me, I always put a little bit more of a, I don't want to say luxury tire, but a good riding tire, a long lasting tire on there.
If you put
quick, fast, cheaper tires on, they're not gonna last as long too, and the quality might not be there.
So when we do an alignment, essentially we're aligning those tires with the suspension to make those tires align up to where they should be with the camber, caster, and toe.
So it's all about that, and you can also find out if you have suspension problems that are parts that are going out or loose or have an extra wear in them.
So an alignment is not something everybody always thinks of, but it's a really good
safety tool and to make sure you're not wearing out those tires.
And it's not just the road pulling you, it might actually be your car that's pulling you off to the side.
It's hard to tell sometimes with the grooves in the
road
and other things, but if you're traveling down
There's a lot of road work going on outside,
I don't know if you've
noticed,
but some of it's getting done, and
if you're
on a really nice, smooth part of the road and you're still feeling that, you know it's the alignment.
Yeah, or if you're driving and you notice, hey, my arm's getting kind of tired, like you're holding it, like I gotta hold it back.
Right.
Definitely got an issue going on there.
Bring it in and let us check it, and we'll take care of getting it back into specs.
get those tires wearing as long as they can.
Another thing to go into that is the tire rotations should be done on a normal basis.
Because you think about the oil change and the tire rotations
all the time.
Everything kind of all fits together as a puzzle.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Yeah.
So the tire rotation and the oil changes have to do, you know, be done more often.
Yes.
But maybe what, every fourth oil change?
Depending
on your driving habit, you know what I mean?
I think a lot of
general tell you ask Jen
bring it in for the oil
change It's been like this long.
Just check the alignment
or
whatever, you know,
you know because some people are you know putting
20, 30,000 miles on a year.
So that's why I say a year would be.
Now we have other people who don't put three or 4,000 miles on a year.
They're probably not gonna need alignment every year unless
something's
going on.
So it just depends on your driving habit where you're commuting or taking lots of trips or a work vehicle.
So there's a lot of factors that go into it.
That just makes common sense.
Right.
That's what
that does.
Right.
So align your car when you need to if you feel it or if you know that it's long enough.
Or just ask Jen if you lost track
and you're not
quite sure if it's time yet.
You're not feeling anything, but you could be soon.
They'll tell you that at the Milex Complete Auto Care.
Yes.
Now real quick, real quick, tell me how it went last weekend.
That's
a
truck show.
At the big, yeah, with
Theo.
Roll on for a reason.
Yes, it went great.
The kids are going to be able to donate a nice chunk of money to families, help and families.
The weather was great.
We had a lot of cars show up.
The kids were happy.
We were happy.
So I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to everybody that came out and took part in it.
It was awesome.
You were there.
Thank you so much for coming out and talking.
Yeah.
It was just a great event.
And it's gonna help a lot of kids in the local area.
That's fantastic.
And I talked to Faith a little bit from Families Helping Families.
She was great.
And for any organization like that,
you
gotta have faith.
You gotta have faith.
So that's
why she's there.
Yes.
So, yes.
Well, thank you for letting us know about it and let me be a part of it.
I appreciate that.
Absolutely.
We'll talk more with Jen.
We got the bright side coming up here in a few minutes and we'll get into that and poison next KOKZ.
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Find out your welcome offer after you apply, which could be as high as 175,000 points.
Learn more and find out your offer at americanexpress.com slash explore dash platinum.
Terms apply.
We've been talking about sound, so I thought before you leave, I should play you some sounds.
Yes.
Like, you were asking about some sounds, or you had some ideas of sounds you don't hear anymore that kids probably will never hear.
Yeah, so one of them would be like the typewriter, you know, back in school we learned how to type on a typewriter.
See, I've got a typewriter in here that I'm typing.
And then you got to get so far and then...
Yeah,
it's hard to type an email on a typewriter though, because then I have to get the sheet out, and then I have to go to the printer, and I have to scan it in the printer, and then I'll send it to myself, and then I email it from there.
There's none like ripping that paper out of a typewriter
though.
Yeah, it's great.
We should have
that sound too, like whew.
This is great.
Wonderful.
And the, I thought, always looked better.
was the little whiteout, goopy whiteout stuff.
That's so much better than delete or backspace.
Oh my
gosh, it's, yes.
I really miss the whiteout.
Vigorating, getting, oh, that was wrong.
I gotta get it out of there.
Glooping it and then blowing on it.
And then you try writing on it and it goops and you're like, oh, you gotta start over, puts more on there.
And
they
so think it's raised above the
paper.
Yeah, right.
Oh, look how many errors.
It looks like prairie dog hills or something.
Right.
Right.
Got all these
mountains of white stuff all over it.
This person is an idiot.
Look at all those mistakes where now you don't know.
And then you're like, I got to start all over.
Right.
Right.
Oh, it's awful.
Oh, it's.
You'll never know.
It was awful.
No, the troubles we've seen.
Then what?
The
dial-up.
Kids will never know what that sound like
either.
I love that's a great sound.
My dad, he was working on computers for Pillsbury like in the 70s.
So he would put these tapes in this
huge box he would bring and put the tapes in and then he'd put the phone receiver on this box.
Okay.
And this thing would talk to computers.
So I would hear these computers talking if we ever took the tapes because eventually we'd take the tapes and tape over them.
Well, of course you gotta reuse them.
Yeah, but there would always be like a remnant of this sound and it was this sound.
The dial-up where you're sitting there anticipating
and you're like, come on, come on, come
on.
Hurry up.
I can't do
this.
Hurry up.
And then it
comes up and you're like, yes.
And
then you gotta wait for
it to slowly, kids
will never know
they want that instant gratification now, what the internet gives them.
They won't know.
And it's still not fast enough.
If you hit a website, it's like, oh, I'm waiting over a second.
This
is taking
forever.
Yes.
Yeah.
And then there's the,
the last one, which is correlated.
And that's the only thing we can think of that's correlated because we thought, I think we came to the realization that with,
new technology, that's where the sounds come from.
Whereas we didn't really have, not that I can, I can't think of any sounds really that we had with cars.
So we came up with the Ooga horn.
Every time I hear that I'd prayed or whatever, you know, an old car or custom cars coming.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Old car.
Cause you, didn't you read something that it can only be used with?
Yeah.
Um, it's, um, is only legal for use in vintage or custom vehicles.
So
if you have
one, and it says you have to check local organisms too.
Right.
Okay.
I wonder, I don't know if you know who Wendom Wanda is.
I
don't.
Okay, well on Wednesdays we do Wandom Wednesdays.
You know, just anything random can happen and we just kind of go with whatever the universe deals
with.
So the most Wandom of my callers on especially Wandom Wednesdays is Wandom Wanda.
I've called her because she'll call and she'll just get into any Wandom thing and she was going to get her car horn fixed and through our conversation I found out that she had borrowed a pink little
one of those bike horns, from her niece, I think it was, and she uses that in her car.
Because she gets really mad, she gets really frustrated at other drivers, oh yeah.
Could you imagine somebody with
a road rage with a little pink horn?
Yeah.
You need to experience Wanda.
She's awesome.
She really is.
She's awesome.
You know, I love meeting those unique kinds of people with different ways of communicating.
Anyway, let's see.
How about this?
Do you remember it?
Do you know what this is?
I
don't have headphones
today,
so I can't hear the sound.
OK, hang on.
I'm a dope.
OK, listen.
Do you know what that is?
Do you know
what that is?
Do you know what that
is?
Do
you know
what
that is?
Do you know what
that is?
Do you know what that is?
Do
you know what that is?
Do you know what that is?
Do you know what that is?
Do you know what that is?
Do you know what that is?
Do you know what that is?
Do you know what
that is?
Do you
know what that is?
Do you know what that is?
Do you know what that is?
Tape dispenser?
A manual credit card reader.
Oh,
were you struck?
Yeah, the manual one, right.
First job in high school I did the credit card.
Yes,
that's so fun.
Isn't it?
Yeah.
All right, how about this one?
Do you know where your children are?
It's 10 p.m.
Do you know where your children are?
Do you know where your children are?
It's 10 p.m.
Do you know where your children are?
It's 10 p.m.
Do you know where your children?
It didn't have the 10 p.m.
On there.
So anyway, it's 10 p.m.
Do you know where your children are?
I'm gonna play one more.
Okay.
Excited?
Extremely excited.
All right, here we go.
Sit, Ubu, sit.
Good dog.
There's the full one.
There you go.
I love it.
Sit, Ubu, sit.
Oh, I don't know whose production company that was that always had the Ubu.
I
said that to my dogs once, and my youngest looked at me like, what are you saying?
And my husband and I just laughed and we had to walk away.
That's funny.
I do have one more.
I see one more that I have
to play for you.
Alrighty.
If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try
again.
Hold on, hold on.
If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again.
If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator.
This is a recording.
What
yeah, the operator sound like you couldn't get it to go through
You're sorry.
Yeah.
Yes.
Now all you get
is all circuits are busy.
Please try again,
right?
Or just they need me real fast the real fast busy signal.
Yes Did you do the rotary phone sound to we got a root?
I
think
I think I have that somewhere hang on one second if I can find it real fast
Well, that's okay.
I
was thinking of
yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's that's a biggie.
We
started going
through the nostalgic
Thoughts of sounds that we personally hear
right
like one of mine was a cuckoo clock every time into my grandparents has cuckoo clock, you know
Right, and if it was 11 o'clock you'd hear 11 cuckoo's right o'clock and
right
all right.
Oh, here we go Here's a rotary phone.
I do believe I think I got five.
Nope.
Nope.
Hold on.
That's not it
I threw
a
curveball.
Sorry.
No, it's okay.
It's all right I
everybody knows what it sounds like, but that's
just
another sound that
People hear it and think, oh, I missed that.
It's another one of those where, oh, I missed.
But if your number had a lot of nines and zeros and eight, it was awful.
It take you 20 minutes to call somebody, it is awful.
There's nothing nostalgic fun about that.
But tell me, if you go in a vintage store and you see one, are you not playing with that thing?
Yes.
Because I'm going to be like.
Yeah, and I do.
That's all I do is nines.
Yeah, because it's the longest.
It's the funnest.
Oh, listen to that.
But when you're like 10 years old and you're trying to get old at your best friend because you want to go out and play, that is awful.
That's just awful.
All right.
Well, anyway, those are some sounds that maybe you remember.
Keep them coming, by the way.
If you have any more suggestions, 364-1057 or 234-1057.
Jen, thank you so much for coming.
It's good to have you.
It's
good to have
you.
It's
so fun.
This starts my Friday off wonderful.
It's like a party for me in the morning.
The rest of us as well, I think.
Yes.
So there.
Take your car over to MileX.
Get the alignment.
Get it all aligned.
Get your horn fixed if you need to so you don't have to use the Auga or the pink bike horn.
Exactly.
Yes.
We'll get you
fixed up.
Horns and alignments, man.
Horns and alignments.
MileX complete auto care over there on Sylvia.
Yep.
Cedar Rapids.
Right off center point road.
Kick butt.
All right.
Thank you, Jen.
Have a great weekend and good
to
you.
