#25100: Parts and Labor
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Car
Porsche Cayman
The Porsche Cayman is a sporty car that is fun to drive and looks really cool. It's designed to be fast and handle well on the road, making it popular with people who love cars.
Car
Dodge Intrepid
The Dodge Intrepid is a large car that was made in the 1990s. It was known for being roomy and having a unique look, which many people liked.
Term
bill
A 'bill' in this context means the amount of money that the dealership says you owe for fixing or checking your car. It's like a receipt for the work they did.
Part
front crank seal
The front crank seal is a part of the engine that keeps oil inside. If it leaks, oil can escape, which is not good for the engine.
Term
labor costs
Labor costs are the fees you pay for the work done by mechanics when they fix or service your car. This can include how much time they spend working on it.
Term
oil consumption
Oil consumption is how much oil your car uses while driving. If a car uses too much oil, it might have a problem that needs fixing.
Part
power steering pump
The power steering pump helps you steer your car more easily. It uses fluid pressure to make turning the wheel less hard, especially when you're going slow.
Car
Audi 4000
The Audi 4000 S is a car made by Audi in the 1980s. It's known for being well-designed and fun to drive, making it a popular choice at the time.
Part
heater core
The heater core is like a small radiator inside your car that helps keep the inside warm. It uses hot liquid from the engine to heat the air that comes into the car.
Car
Ford Taurus
The Ford Taurus is a car made by Ford that was popular for many years. It's known for being comfortable and having a lot of space inside, which is great for families.
Car
Mercury Sable
The Mercury Sable is a car that was made by Ford's Mercury brand and is similar to the Ford Taurus. It was known for being comfortable and having a lot of room inside.
Part
heater control valve
The heater control valve helps control how hot the air inside your car gets. It allows coolant from the engine to flow into the part that heats the air, making it warmer for you in the winter.
Car
Toyota V6
This is a pickup truck made by Toyota in 1990 that has a V6 engine, which means it has six cylinders for better performance.
Term
extra cab
This is a type of pickup truck that has extra space behind the front seats for more people or storage.
Term
4-wheel drive
This means that all four wheels of the truck can move at the same time, which helps it drive better on rough roads or in bad weather.
Brand
MG
MG is a British car brand famous for making sporty cars, especially in the past. They are loved by many car fans for their classic designs.
Brand
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a car company from Germany that makes popular cars like the Beetle and Golf. They are known for their unique designs and reliable vehicles.
Term
transmission
The transmission is what helps your car move by sending power from the engine to the wheels. If it's not working right, your car might not drive properly.
Term
heat shield
A heat shield is a part of the car that keeps other parts safe from getting too hot because of the exhaust. It helps prevent damage from heat.
Part
fuel filter
The fuel filter cleans the fuel that goes into the engine. If it's leaking, it can cause problems with how the car runs.
Car
Ford Ranger
The Ford Ranger is a small truck that can carry stuff in the back and is great for both work and play. It's known for being tough and reliable, making it a good choice if you need a vehicle that can handle different tasks.
Car
MGB
The MGB is a small sports car made by a British company called MG. It was popular in the 1960s and 70s and is loved for its fun driving experience.
Part
radiator hose
The radiator hose carries coolant to keep the engine from getting too hot. If it leaks, the engine can overheat, which is bad for the car.
Part
thermoregulator
The thermoregulator helps keep the engine at the right temperature by controlling how much coolant flows through it. If it fails, the engine can get too hot or too cold.
Company
Block Island MG
Block Island MG is a car repair shop on Block Island. They work on different kinds of cars, especially MG models, which are known for their sporty design.
Part
fan belt
The fan belt is a rubber belt in the engine that helps turn the fan that cools the engine. If it's broken, the engine can overheat.
Part
water pump
The water pump is a part that helps move coolant around the engine to keep it from getting too hot. If it fails, the engine can overheat.
Part
thermostat
The thermostat is a small part that helps control the temperature of the engine by opening and closing to let coolant flow. If it doesn't work, the engine can get too hot or too cold.
Term
overheating
Overheating happens when a car's engine gets too hot, which can cause problems. It's important for engines to stay within a certain temperature range to work properly.
Part
electric fan
An electric fan helps keep the engine cool by blowing air over it. It's different from regular fans that are powered by the engine itself; these fans run on electricity instead.
Part
alternator belt
The alternator belt helps the car's alternator create electricity. If this belt is broken, the car's battery won't charge, and electrical parts might not work.
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Hello, and welcome to car talk from national public radio with us, click and collect the tempered brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the investment center here at car talk classes.
Yeah, this just in from the Wall Street Journal, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, you talk. I'll do the baby.
As you know, for years, we have been sharing our investment expertise with the general public through our very own fund, the tap at brothers, capital depreciation fund.
Yeah. Now, the capital depreciation fund guarantees, and I might add, as always delivered, a 50% return of your investment.
Or less. Sometimes we've overextended ourselves, and we have done like 40%. Yeah, then that's of your investment, not on your investment.
Oh, you invest 100 bucks. We guarantee you'll get back what? 50 no more than 50. Sometimes we've we've overshot, and we've given only 40.
I'd say the last 10 years or so we've had this capital depreciation niche to ourselves pretty much. We've been market leaders, you might say.
And I think it was money magazine that said these guys have never lost less than 50%.
But now we have our first serious competitor to get this. The Wall Street Journal reports that General Motors Corporation plans to enter the asset management business.
Yeah. GM is starting an investment arm called GMIMO. What's that? The General Motors investor milking operation.
No, no, it's investor management operation. And it says he had the GM hopes to turn the fund into a profit center for GM. They're stealing our idea.
You know, how they're going to kill us? I know what they're going to do. They're going to do an index fund. Yeah.
And they're going to tie their returns to their market share. We're dead meat. Yeah.
And I thought three percent in a couple of years. She thought this is how we were going to fund our retirement.
Yeah. It's not nice of them to take away the one source of income that way. Yeah.
Yeah. One shorted booking and suspecting public. Well, anyway, I guess we're stuck talking about cars.
So if you want to talk about your car, the number is 888 car talk that's 888-227. I had visioned myself in the Grand Cayman Islands someplace.
I could see it now and all those checks coming in and we're just like walking to the bank every day, depositing funds.
Yeah. People give us a hundred bucks. We give them 50. Yeah. And you got a whole year to do it.
Yeah. I mean, we don't give a total of like four bucks a month. Oh, no, no. It's the end of the year.
It's the end of the year. I mean, what could be better? What an idea. It was the capital depreciation fund. Yeah.
Another one of my ideas. It was sour. Hello, you're on car talk. Hi, this is Eric from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hi, Eric from Ann Arbor. What's going on, man?
I'm actually calling for my mom. She has a 95 dot and trepid with a hundred six thousand miles on it. Wow.
Does some driving. Yeah. And she brought it into the dealership and she told them that she was going to sell the car.
And that, you know, she just wanted it, you know, checked over.
You should never tell them that because I figured this is the last chance to get you. The face is going to go buy an Audi.
Yeah. And why not get it for every cent they possibly can? But obviously it's too late for that ammunition.
Maybe not. Maybe not. Yeah. Well, yeah. They came up with a bill of about nine hundred fifty nine dollars.
Perfect. Yeah. And why did she say she wanted to do this so that she could sell the car in good conscience?
Yeah. Pretty much. Like she actually looking to sell it in six months or so. Oh, I see.
Yeah. So like one thing that was, you know, glaring at me when I looked at the bill is that they said the front crank seal was leaking.
Now, the part cost $4.10 and the labor costs $358. That's about right. Isn't that something?
Yeah. So we were wondering if this is even worth doing before we sell the car or what it's all about.
Well, I mean, if we were leaking badly, you'd see spots of oil on the driveway. Do you?
I don't think there's any spots there actually. And there hasn't been excessive oil consumption in your estimation.
I actually don't drive the car. So I can't really be so you don't know. Well, I mean, that's what you want to know from your mom.
Okay. I mean, if the thing is leaking so badly that it's just pouring out, which is unlikely, by the way.
Okay. But possible. Well, she'd know it. The driver would know that she'd be adding oil frequently.
Okay. And this certainly would qualify as falling under the description that my brother gave at the beginning of this, that they're looking for anything.
That they could find that I think I mean, it might be that. I don't know anything else.
They all said all belts are glazed. Yeah, they probably are.
Yeah. Okay. So that's reasonable.
If the belts are making noise, I'd replace them because that'll sound bad to a perspective buyer.
Okay. Other than that, I would just drive the car. Okay. Great.
And I wouldn't be too worried about that. But ask her if she's consuming oil because maybe she does have to do these things.
Okay. I'll ask her. Okay. Great.
Okay. Great. See, Eric. Oh, thanks. What? Thanks. Bye.
See, why do people think that there ought to be some correlation between the price of the part and the price of the labor?
Yeah.
I mean, if it was the other way around, if the part had been $380 in the labor had been $4.10, nobody would complain.
But if you say that the part is $4.10 in the labor's $380, everyone's going to complain.
There must be some optimal ratio. Well, the operational ratio is, for example, another doctoral dissertation.
The power steering pump is 200 bucks for the part, 200 bucks for the labor, and that seems fair.
Do you think $50.50 is right? $50.50 is right.
No, I think the parts got to cost more than the labor in all things.
So if you say, the part is $2.95 and it's five bucks to put it in.
They say, do it. I'm going to try it.
No matter if the job is 300, the part is $280. That's it, every time.
Plus tax and $7 labor.
See if it works. $7 labor.
Yeah, that's good. I like it.
Yeah.
It only took us a minute to put that new crankshaft in. Maybe a minute and a half.
But we have a minimum labor rate of seven bucks.
That is a doctoral dissertation.
Oh, indeed. Oh, yeah. Oh, no.
It's worthy of sororthington price fix.
It is.
Yeah.
In fact, my buddy Dick Heimer, who used to teach at BU, but I don't think he does anymore,
but he is the world's foremost pricing authority.
I'm going to propose this to him.
Well, I'm sure he'll have a doctoral student on this in a week.
Well, I mean, rest assured that the people that sell everything on late night TV have got
him to eat by a mile.
Oh, yeah.
They wrote the book.
He consults to them.
Maybe with them.
You see one of those things on late night TV and you say, boy, I'd buy that
if it wasn't 200 bucks.
And they say, it's not 200.
It's not 100.
It's not even $50.
It's $9.95.
But tonight only 1995.
And we throw in the entire Sleepy LaBeef collection.
And you reach it.
You can't help it.
You just go for the credit card.
You can't help it.
Yeah.
Is that how you bought mob hits?
Yeah.
Hello, you're right, card talk.
Hi.
This is Angela Cohen from Eugene, Oregon.
Hi, Angela.
Angela.
How are you?
What a nice name.
Oh, thank you.
So what's going on?
I have a 1984 Audi 4,000 S.
And the oddest thing, when I turn on the defrost, it doesn't always happen.
But I get this big whiff of maple syrup.
I think I'll be right out of my dash.
Oh, that's not good.
It ain't maple syrup.
It ain't maple syrup.
Unless you went to a pancake breakfast.
But it's about the same price as maple syrup.
It's about the same price as maple syrup.
That's about $900 a gallon.
That's what's going to cost me.
Are you serious?
Well, it may.
It's sort of sticky stuff.
Well, it isn't even sticky.
It just has that pleasant aroma.
Yeah.
It smells so good.
Okay.
It smells so good.
And that is so good.
It's gonna be so bad.
Uh-huh.
You might ask.
It's anti-freeze.
Yeah.
Angela.
See, that's what I was thinking, but I couldn't see it anywhere in the engine.
Well, you can't because it's all leaking underneath the carpet.
Really?
Yeah, probably.
What's leaking is the heat exchanger or the heater core.
And that thing is a little radiator that's under your dashboard really under the dashboard.
Yeah.
Wee!
Wee!
And see that.
Created under the dashboard, you might say.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
They go out of their way to...
They put it in...
I think they build the entire car around...
Right.
They suspend these things from wires.
Who's wires?
Yeah.
Everything.
Build the entire car.
And then they cut the wires.
And that thing is in there somewhere.
And they're not telling anybody.
I mean, time to deal with the wires.
Never get this out.
It's like a Ford Taurus.
Ford Taurus is like this.
We have a customer that came into the day with a relatively new sable.
Mm-hmm.
And he needed a new heater core.
His car, unfortunately, was three years and a month old.
Yeah.
And they told him he's going to have to pay for it because he's beyond the warranty.
Well, they weren't for that job.
I think, uh...
I mean, 900.
Yeah.
He said that to her.
Yeah.
So you may be looking at that amount of money, too.
On the other hand, you know, if you have a good stock of long underwear
in the light, you could probably tough it out to the winter.
So my best choice is not turning the heater on?
Well, yeah.
I mean, that will solve the problem because you do have a heater control valve
on this car under the dash.
That will shut the flow of coolant from the engine to the heater core.
So it will stop leaking.
And also, by the way, it's not good to breathe this stuff.
Yeah.
I was kind of wondering about that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you need to have it done unless you want to just shut it off and go without heat.
Okay.
You can try a stop leak compound.
You can try adding a luma seal to your radiator, or bars leak, or raw eggs, or pepper.
All of these things work sometimes.
Okay.
And it's definitely a time to try this stuff.
Okay.
But mostly it doesn't work.
Who cares?
I mean, if you're facing 800 bucks to fix the thing.
Yeah.
You'll certainly spend 10 bucks for the can of stuff.
And 10 bucks for the next one.
And 10 bucks for the next one.
Until it approaches 900.
Right.
Yeah.
When you start closing it on 300, you might even want to reconsider it.
And my brother, as he's mentioned in the past, has always recommended that you look for a container that says
it's the word miracle on the labeling.
Yeah.
Because anything that says miracle is about miracles.
It's going to be a miracle if this works.
But you'll want heat at some point during the winter.
And I would suggest a soda straw stuck out the window so you can breathe.
You know what to do here?
Are you going to have bachi?
A habachi.
You know those little things that are cheap.
You can buy one, you can maybe just catch one in a hardware store that still has one.
Sure.
And you just put it on the seat next to you.
Throw that so it gets in there.
And fire that baby up.
I would start it outside the car because the headline is can't take it.
Yeah, yeah.
The fling.
Is it a free flammable?
No, no.
Don't worry about that.
See you, Angela.
Good luck, Angela.
Bye.
But at least she's got a heater that can leak.
I don't even have a heater.
And she sounds like a good sport.
She can take a joke.
She can take it.
And besides, does it get that cold in Eugene?
You bet it does.
Oh, I think so.
I don't know.
I don't know where you genius here.
All right, Tommy.
Did you remember last week's puzzler?
Puzzle, though.
Was there a puzzler last week?
You know, how about from 10 weeks ago?
Remember that one?
Uh, I do remember the 10 weeks ago one.
Yes.
Oh, so anyway.
So what is it?
What's what?
We'll be back in a minute.
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Hi, we're back.
Listening to Car Talk with us, click and collect the Tablet Brothers,
and we're here to talk about Car's car repair and a solution to the cleave sanction puzzle.
We amassed all of the responses, which there was a mass.
Well, repeat the question, if you would.
I would.
I'll repeat the question because it was what?
10 weeks ago.
10 seems like it was 10 years ago.
We said that there were at least two words in the English language that we know,
that are their own antonyms, that we knew about.
We knew there was one more, but we couldn't remember it.
And Stanley Zodonic couldn't remember it either.
He was the one that gave us this damn puzzle 10 years ago.
And we mentioned the two that the three of us remembered, which are cleave.
Which means to hold on to and to separate and to sanction.
Which means to give approval or disapproval.
Or disapproval.
Exactly.
Okay.
And there was a third one, which we couldn't remember.
And we said, if there's a third one, there must be a hundred and third ones.
Maybe.
Maybe.
So we asked you, our listeners, to come up with a list.
And we got many, many responses, some of which were one or two words.
And we were hoping to find that one word that we remembered from the past.
And I believe we did get it.
It was the last one we looked at today.
It was indeed.
And there were people that sent in dozens and dozens of words.
So what we've done is we've picked the five or six or seven words that we think are indisputably their own antonyms.
Yeah.
Because there were lots of them that didn't quite qualify.
Because we had our own, we actually had rules here.
We made them up as well.
It's got to really mean the opposite.
And it can't mean the opposite if it's not the same part of speech.
It's got to be the same part of speech.
So you can't have a noun and then come up with some bogus far off definition, which is an adjective, that doesn't work.
So it's got to be the same part of speech.
And these are the ones we picked.
The first one is dust.
Okay, I'm going to dust the furniture.
That is remove dust.
Or I'm going to dust for fingerprints, which means you're going to add dust.
Yeah.
And we researched some of these because the two definitions do say to remove dust and to add dust.
Go by my definition.
Yeah.
That's pretty much opposite.
Right.
Yeah.
Ravel.
Which means to tangle or to untangle the reveled sleeve of care.
Terrific.
Now that one was terrific.
Now I didn't realize.
Now terrific means either awesome or terrible.
Like I got a terrific headache.
Yeah.
And over here someone say.
Oh, she's got it.
No.
I won't go there.
Get Joanne online too.
I was talking about Joanne.
Oh, yeah.
You know, and I hear people all the time.
So I have a terrific headache.
And they say, well, it's not right, but it's right.
Yeah, it is right.
Yeah.
Okay.
The other word is seed.
Seed.
The verb.
The verb.
I seeded my lawn.
Yeah.
I put new seeds.
Or I seeded.
The pomegranate.
The pomegranate.
Exactly.
Remove seeds.
Or add seeds.
And then there were a couple of others like skin.
To skin.
Yeah.
Put skin on.
Or remove skin.
How many ways are you on that?
When you skin a cat.
Are you adding skin?
Remove skin.
All right.
I'll go.
All right.
I might buy skin then.
Root.
Root.
I'm not sure I buy that one.
Like to root a plant or to, you know, to get a plant to root or to root.
Like uproot.
Like a root for the Yankees.
Well, anyway, those are the ones we came up with.
That's a terrific seeded.
You introduced these as being indisputable.
What are we doing?
I thought we only agreed to them before we went on the air.
And he's fighting with me now.
She can't win.
I still like cleave the vest.
Cleave it.
And here are the three winners we came up.
These three people are going to receive something and they're going to have to share it.
You need out of 10,000 people who wrote to us.
We're going to give three stinking little prizes.
Yeah.
None of these people came up with the same ones.
Yeah.
And they all came up with a bunch of bogus ones.
But they're the ones that have the longest list with the fewest bogus entries.
Oh.
Yeah, well, that's true.
That's good.
Okay.
And we have, we will put all of this up, by the way, much of it, at least on site.
We'll put every cop talk word and you can send in more stuff.
And you can fight with us.
It's like my brother's fighting with me.
Yeah.
All right.
Winner number one is Arlene Wolinski from Mesa College in San Diego, California.
Ivy Kaminsky is winner number two from San Leon, Texas.
What?
Your name has to end in SKY?
Or you can't win?
It's going to be Polish.
What is that?
We didn't, we didn't, we didn't mention that.
Oh, didn't we mention that?
We didn't mention that.
And Charles Alisky.
Oh no.
Ellis.
Charles Ellis from Ann Arbor, MD.
Charles Ellis, MD from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
And those are the three people who are going to win a terrific prize.
And I don't know what the prize is, but it's going to be.
Well, it's the usual thing.
You're right.
The $25 gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division, which you can reach by calling
1-888-CAR-JUNK.
Yes, indeed.
And if you'd like to call us about your car, the number is 1-888-CAR-TALK.
Not to be confused with CAR-JUNK, which is very similar.
Close.
That's 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on CAR-TALK.
Hey, this is Glenn from Portland, Oregon.
Hi, Glenn from Portland.
What's that?
Portland.
Well, here's the thing.
I had a great adventure a few weeks ago.
I went and I climbed Mount Adams, which is about a little over 12,000-foot peak here.
And I never done this kind of thing before.
It was great.
Oh, that's a lot.
12,000 feet.
Yeah, I was pretty tired.
What were your other options that week?
That means I was just curious.
I worked on my kitchen.
You know, that was the other option.
So I had to do it.
Yeah.
Anyway, though, so I'm driving my, it's a 1990 Toyota V6 4-wheel drive extra cap pickup.
And I had four people in the vehicle.
And I got 140,000 on the car, but only about 12,000 on the engine.
Okay.
Okay.
The last four miles this road were really rough.
I mean, this is like, you know...
Wait, when you said you climbed Mount Adams, did you mean in the truck?
Yeah.
You drive to about 5,000 feet.
You drove?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
You don't drive 5,000 feet.
So the last four miles of that was a really rough road.
Cars could make it, but barely.
Well, the thing is, I really like these kind of roads.
So I drove about as fast as my passengers would allow me, right?
Yeah, huh.
And after about a mile, I smell that memory smell from driving old Volkswagen's and MG's gasoline.
Oh, no.
So I pull over, pop the hood, but you know, this car's got so much junk under the hood, I couldn't see a thing.
So I looked underneath the car, and there was a puddle, the size of maybe a tuna fish can.
Of gasoline?
Yeah.
So I go, no.
So I look up, and there I can see the side of my transmission has gas running down it.
And I see it running down across like where the head is bolted to the block.
And I can see it actually boiling.
And then they have it dripping onto the heat shield of the exhaust, man.
Cool, huh?
Oh, yeah.
It's leaking from the fuel filter, probably.
Huh.
Well, I'm just, though, I guess we're, because here's the thing.
Yeah.
I think, oh, gosh, what are we going to do?
We're too tired to walk anywhere.
It's about 10 miles to the nearest town.
And don't tell me.
I know exactly.
I know exactly.
We've just seen the Blair Witch project, so we can't stay out in the woods another time.
Exactly.
And it's possible that this, I mean, this is gasoline, a volatile explosive material.
Right.
So there's only one thing we can do.
Keep driving.
But I took, I have a fire extinguisher.
I had a fire extinguisher in my wife, and I said, hold this and keep it ready.
Which doesn't make my passengers feel any better.
I'm going to keep driving, right?
I'm going to keep driving, so I drove to the nearest town.
Of course.
Because we had a place to stay if we would have got there.
Because my wife has family and that.
Yeah.
And obviously you concluded correctly that if it hadn't already blown up,
it probably wasn't going to blow up.
Right.
Well, I don't know if I thought that far.
No, you should have.
You should have been thinking about that.
But your wife went along with that?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
You don't think I know a lot about cars, so we're all thinking about cars.
You didn't know it wasn't going to blow up.
You just figured if it blows, it blows.
Yeah.
Yeah, he didn't know.
Anyway, I gave you too much credit.
Of course.
You gave him credit for thinking it through.
And he didn't think it through.
He was just being a guy.
Right.
He was a wacko.
That's okay.
So go ahead.
You continue to drive.
Come on.
Try to give us like the Rita's Digest version of this, will you?
We haven't got all day here.
All right.
I get down to the Ranger Station about 10 miles away.
I stop.
Check everything out.
No leaks.
Nothing.
I've been driving it now probably two, three times a week since then.
No leaks.
I call the dealer.
What should I do about this?
They say, oh, it's very dangerous.
You need to bring in and have a look at that.
And I've said, well, what would you look at?
You just better bring it in.
Of course, I'm not going to tell you where I should look.
Yeah.
No, you should bring it because it's going to happen if it was leaking that badly.
It's going to start leaking again when you're in even a worse place than the halfway out up a mountain.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And it's very possible that they will simply find something loose.
Yeah.
That's my guess.
And when you drove over this rough road, you may have banged a few things into that gas line.
No.
Yeah, sure.
No, that's very possible.
And in doing so, you may have loosened it.
And it may, who knows?
I mean, it doesn't take very much of a pull on that metal line, perhaps, to get the thing to leak.
In fact, you know what you could have done?
It could be cracked someplace.
Oh.
You know.
Yeah.
It could be cracked and now it's gone back into place.
That would certainly...
From your reckless driving, by the way.
Yes.
Yes.
Don't tell your wife, and we won't either.
No.
But I would take it into somebody.
It doesn't have to be the Toyota dealer, but I would take it into someone and have it put up on the lift.
And while the engine is running, have somebody yank on all the lines and see if they can force the thing to leak.
Because those lines, no matter what you do to them, shouldn't leak.
So if you have a cracked line or a loose line, it should show up.
Okay.
And the most likely place is probably where the fuel line runs from the tank to the gas filter.
That makes sense.
That's about where I think it's coming from.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Good luck, man.
Thanks a lot.
Yeah.
And don't smoke when you're driving anymore.
I don't smoke.
Good.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
So fascinated by his ability to convince his wife, here, hun, you hold a fire extinguisher.
I'll continue to drive.
Yeah.
My wife under no circumstances.
If there was any danger.
Don't forget what he's saying.
If anything happens like it bursts into flame, I will pull over.
You have the fire extinguisher.
Right.
So you will jump out of the truck.
I'll stay here in the cabin.
You open the hood and you put out the fire with the fire extinguisher.
Good luck.
All right.
Look, it's trying to take a short break.
And when we come back, we will have the opening puzzler of the new fall puzzler season.
Wow.
Can I throw out the first ball, man?
Yeah, sure.
We'll be back in a minute.
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This is Ira Glass.
On this American life, we tell stories about when things change.
Like for this guy, David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected, and very unpleasant term.
And it did take me a while to realize it's basically because the monkey pressed the button.
That's right, because the monkey pressed the button.
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Hey, for your T-shirt wear is out there.
All relatives of T-shirt wearers.
We just got a veritable shipload.
That's shipload with a pee.
We have new card talk T-shirts at the Shameless Commerce Division.
The folks there made a great series of T-shirts out of their favorite card talk quotes.
So in addition to the classics, you know, don't drive like my brother.
Do we cheat them in how you can now get card talk T-shirts that say, for instance,
if money can fix it, it's not a problem.
Life is too short to drive boring cars.
Do it while you're young.
You may never have a chance to do anything this stupid again.
Reality often astonishes theory or happiness equals reality minus expectation.
How about this one?
Lows it car advice since 1977 and many, many more.
If you'd like one, or want one to ship to a friend or relative,
you don't really like just head over to ShamelessCommerce.com.
That's ShamelessCommerce.com.
Ha, we're back.
Listen to the card talk with us.
Click and collect the Tapper Brothers.
And we hit a Discuss Car's Car Repair and the new puzzle.
Wow.
Finally, after all these months and months.
This vacation was no longer than any other.
In France.
And we are adopting the French method here in this country.
Everyone gets 10 weeks vacation.
The puzzle will be on vacation for a much longer period next year.
Anyway, how did this puzzle come about?
I got a call of the day from our dear friend, Murray Prysler.
Murray's been listening to our show.
25 years.
As long as it's been on.
Since before it was on.
He's not listening a week before.
He's been taping them all.
And he calls up.
How you doing, Rayson?
The show's great.
The puzzle's great.
And then he proceeds to tell me, well, you know, you and Tom made a mistake in this one.
I didn't like the puzzle with the 22 over 7 equals pie.
Because pie's not a Roman numeral.
He said, I didn't like the other one where you walked around the table.
The matchstick puzzle where you walked around the table.
Look to the society.
Because you move all the matches in that situation.
He said, so I'm going to give you one.
That's not as bogus as the ones you've been using.
But the show's great anyway, guys.
But don't do it anymore.
He says, right with matchsticks, the following Arabic numbers.
Arabic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One.
Yeah.
And then with two matchsticks, make a plus sign.
Plus.
Yeah.
Plus one.
One.
Plus 11.
Okay.
Yeah.
No equal sign.
That's it.
One plus one plus 11.
Yeah.
Okay, which looks like what?
12, right?
The first one.
12 and a half.
I got it.
Do we round up or down?
He says, move a match and make that equal to 130.
That's it.
Move one match.
Move one match.
And make it equal to 130.
I'll repeat it.
With matches, make construct the following little thing.
One.
And then a plus sign with two matches.
So plus one.
Then another plus sign.
Plus 11.
So one plus one plus 11.
Using one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Eight matches.
Eight matches.
I got it.
Eight matches.
Okay.
And make that equal 130.
130.
130.
130.
130.
No, 130 PM.
You use the term Arabic numerals.
No, that's what you mean by that.
That's what we usually use.
Arabic numerals in this world.
Oh, as opposed to Roman numerals.
Okay.
So we've got to stick with Arabic here.
We can't go.
You can't go making cultures.
You can't go to Roman.
We can't take one of these and make it into pie.
Right.
No, that's bogus.
That's bogus.
Those puzzles are great.
So this is a pure mathematical manipulation.
Equal 100 and good.
Is that correct?
Now, if you think you know the answer,
write that answer in the back of a $20 bill and send it to
Puzzler Tower,
Car Talk Plaza,
Box 3500,
Harvard Square,
Cambridge,
Mac 02238,
or of course you can email your answer
from the Car Talk section of cars.com.
If you like to call us,
the number is 1-888-Cart Talk.
That's a double 8-227-8-2-2-5.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
Hi, I'm Nancy Thornberry from Westfield, New Jersey.
Hi, Nancy.
Nice to meet you.
Okay.
Where are you from?
New Jersey.
Westfield, New Jersey.
Westfield.
Yes.
Got it.
And we have a summer place on Block Island in Road Island.
Yes.
Beautiful place.
Yeah.
And it's a perfect place to drive a 1980 MGB.
Oh, great.
But only if it runs.
Yeah.
So unfortunately we haven't been able to drive it too much.
We took it out the end of last summer,
and we were there working on it.
The early part of the summer,
and we noticed that it was overheating.
Yeah.
So we noticed that the radiator hose was leaking,
and we also knew that the thermoregulator for the fan
wasn't working properly.
Yeah.
So we replaced those two things.
And no sooner did we head off,
then we noticed it started to overheat
and the fan belt broke.
Oh, really?
Yes.
So then it really, you know,
we get really overheated.
It really overheated.
We barely got home.
And at that point we thought,
well, let's talk to a mechanic.
So we contacted the best
and actually probably the only mechanic on Block Island.
Oh, you didn't take it to Block Island MG?
We specialize in all cars,
foreign and domestic cars.
Now, but the guy said
there was no way he was going to look at it.
He said he had a lot of good American trucks to work on,
and working on an MG would only be a frustrating experience.
Yeah, he's right about that.
Right, he is.
Does it need your money?
No, he actually recommended
since we're at the top of the hill there.
He said, why don't you just kind of push it down the hill
onto the ferry, but we decided instead to have a go
with fixing it.
So we brought back a bunch of parts.
The next time we went up,
and we replaced the fan belt.
We also replaced the water pump.
We flushed the radiator and put new antifreeze in,
and we thought, okay, where's that?
But you didn't put a new thermostat in.
The thermostat, we think, is fine,
because when the dial goes to about half a full scale,
and you go out there and you feel the radiator hose
and you feel the radiator,
it starts to really get hot.
That's true, but it may not stay open.
Ah.
And the thermostat of all the things you mentioned
is the cheapest and easiest one to change almost.
Well, there's one other thing I haven't told you,
which is that only one of the two fans works.
Oh.
Now, the fans look pretty flaky,
so we found it pretty hard to believe that in fact,
that the fact that the second fan doesn't work
is the reason that we're overheating.
Would they have two fans if you didn't need them?
Well, this is an MG.
This is the Brits.
They wouldn't have two fans if it didn't take two fans,
and don't forget,
it was designed probably mostly
for British weather,
which doesn't get as hot or as cold as it gets here.
Ah.
I would...
Here's what it is.
It's either the thermostat.
This is going to be one of those 99% guarantees.
It's definitely almost one of these.
The thermostat.
Okay.
The radiator.
All that fan.
Ah.
This is an electric fan.
Yeah.
Two electric fans.
Yeah.
So it has no engine-driven fan?
I don't think so.
No.
So the fan belt that you replace
wasn't really, in fact, a fan belt,
because in the old days,
cars had a belt that drove an actual fan.
In fact, some cars still do.
A lot of cars.
But what she referred to as the fan belt
was, in fact, the alternator belt.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that's just mounted to a pulley
with no fan affixed to it.
Right.
And that was a complete red herring.
So the cooling is done by these fans coming on,
and they're turned on by a fan switch,
which is a thermostatic switch.
Yes.
And that seems to be working properly.
So one fan comes on.
Yes.
And it comes on kind of when it's...
And where's that fan located?
On the front of the backside of the radiator.
They're both on the front of the radiator.
So the other fan doesn't come on.
You first have to determine if the other fan even works
by hot wiring it.
Unplug it and run it right to the battery.
Okay.
And see if, in fact, the motor turns.
Okay.
Maybe that the motor is just burned out.
And that would definitely cause it to overheat.
Are you, are you really?
Sure.
Especially, I mean, you're only driving it on hot summer days.
But I don't think it causes it to overheat.
If it overheats in only a mile.
Then it isn't that.
That's contributing to it.
Okay.
But it wouldn't overheat.
Well, I think you said in a mile it's beyond the middle
and it's overheated.
And the one thing that would do that almost every single time.
Unfortunately, you're not going to like this.
No, no, the one thing that will do that every single time is a thermostat.
Okay.
And the thermostat may be allowing some portion of the coolant to circulate.
But it isn't opening all the way.
So it may be allowing 20% of the circulation that it should.
So the hoses get hot and the radiator gets seems to get hot.
But it doesn't allow enough flow and, in fact, the thing overheats.
Uh-huh.
Because don't forget this cooling system barely worked when the car was brand new.
Barely worked.
So any slight fault anywhere.
And like a house of cards, the thing just collapses.
There is no question that the first thing you have to do is replace that thermostat.
In fact, I would just take it out.
Okay.
You don't even need a new one.
You don't need one.
Just remove it.
Throw it away.
Okay.
Throw it in the trunk with all the other stuff.
Okay.
Go with the other transmissions and all that stuff.
All the other thermostat.
And if it still runs hot, you can fix the fan.
But I don't think you're going to have to.
Okay.
The first thing to do is to thermostat.
And if it's neither of those two, it would be the radiator in which case you just sell the car.
No, no.
You take the radiator back on the ferry and have it record.
Okay.
But take the thermostat out and throw it away and it's going to be fixed.
It's going to be perfect.
You'll love it.
That'll be romantic.
Writing back on the ferry with an MG radiator under your arm.
Isn't it?
Oh, yeah.
I love it now.
I love it.
Every trip you can bring over another piece.
Say it, Nancy.
Thanks so much.
Bye-bye.
It's the thermostat.
Oh, absolutely.
Well, it's happened again.
You've squandered another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk.
Hi.
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We're clicking on the tap with brothers.
Don't drive like my brother.
Drive like my brother.
Don't drive like my brother.
We'll be back next week.
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About this episode
The Tapper Brothers dive into humorous discussions about car repairs and the quirks of automotive service. They tackle listener questions about a leaky crank seal and an odd maple syrup smell from a defrost system, providing practical advice with their signature wit. The episode also features a light-hearted debate on the pricing of car parts versus labor, and the brothers share their unique investment fund concept. With plenty of laughs and relatable anecdotes, this episode is packed with automotive wisdom and entertainment.
Original notes
Eric has a modest proposal: Shouldn’t the cost of the $4 part that his mechanic is replacing on his car also bear some resemblance to the cost of the labor to do the job? Afraid not, piston puss! How would mechanics ever pay for their boats if that were the case? Click and Clack expound upon various schemes- uh, theories!.. on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.
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