#2596: Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
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Car
Honda Civic
The Honda Civic is a small car that many people drive because it's dependable and saves gas. The 1988 version is one of the older models that people still like today.
Part
disc rotors
Disc rotors are metal discs that help stop your car when you press the brake pedal. If they get rusty or too hot, they might not work properly, which can cause problems when you try to stop.
Term
warped
Warped means that a part, like a brake disc, is bent or not flat anymore. This can make it hard to stop the car smoothly and can cause shaking when you brake.
Term
brakes
Brakes are what help a car slow down or stop. Some brakes are made to work well even if they get wet, like if the car goes through a puddle.
Term
car stereo
A car stereo is the system in your car that plays music or radio. Getting a new one can make the sound better and louder.
Car
Toyota Previa
The Toyota Previa is a type of minivan made by Toyota. It has a unique shape and is designed to carry more passengers and cargo comfortably.
Car
Volkswagen Golf
The Volkswagen Golf is a small car that many people like for its good balance of size, comfort, and performance. The 1990 version is from the second generation, which was made in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Term
pulling to the right/left
If a car pulls to the right or left while driving, it means the car is not going straight. This can happen for several reasons, like problems with the tires or how the wheels are lined up.
Term
torque steer
Torque steer is when a car pulls to one side when you accelerate, especially in front-wheel-drive cars. It can feel like the steering is being tugged by the engine's power.
Part
motor mount
A motor mount holds the engine in place and helps reduce vibrations. If it's broken, the engine can move too much, causing problems while driving.
Part
transmission mount
A transmission mount holds the transmission in place and helps keep it steady while the car is moving. If it's damaged, it can cause shifting problems.
Part
differential
A differential is a part that helps the wheels of a car turn at different speeds, which is important when going around corners. It makes driving smoother and safer.
Term
90 Golf
The '90 Golf is a small car made by Volkswagen in 1990. It's known for being easy to drive and can be modified for better performance.
Car
Datsun 310
The Datsun 310 is a small car made by the Datsun brand in 1981. It's known for being easy to drive and fix, making it a favorite among car enthusiasts.
Term
clutch
The clutch is a part of the car that helps you change gears. If it breaks, you might have trouble shifting gears or driving.
Term
primary drive gear
The primary drive gear is a part that helps send power from the engine to the wheels so the car can move.
Part
throw out bearing
The throw out bearing is a part that helps the car's clutch work properly. When you press the clutch pedal, this part helps disconnect the engine from the wheels so you can change gears.
Part
master cylinder
The master cylinder is another part of the clutch system. It creates the pressure needed to help the car shift gears when you press the clutch pedal.
Part
slave cylinder
The slave cylinder is a part of the car's clutch system. It helps the car shift gears by pushing the clutch in and out when you press the pedal.
Term
hydraulic pressure
Hydraulic pressure is the force created by fluid in a system that helps parts of the car work together, like the brakes. If there's not enough pressure, things won't work properly.
Car
Nissan Maxima
The Nissan Maxima is a type of car that is larger than a compact car but smaller than an SUV. It's designed for comfort and has a sporty feel.
Term
rubbing noise
A rubbing noise is a sound that happens when a tire touches something it shouldn't, like the inside of the car. It can cause problems if it keeps happening.
Part
fender well
The fender well is the space around the wheel of a car. It keeps dirt and rocks from getting into the car's parts and helps the tires fit properly.
Car
Dodge Caravan
The Dodge Caravan is a type of minivan, which means it's designed to carry families and has a lot of space inside. It's been around for a long time and is known for being practical.
Part
tire balancing
Tire balancing makes sure that your tires spin evenly when you drive. If they're not balanced, your car might shake or vibrate while you're driving.
Term
tire wear
Tire wear is how much a tire gets used up over time. When tires wear out, they can become less safe to drive on, so it's important to check them regularly.
Part
brake rotor
The brake rotor is the flat disc that the brake pads press against to help stop the car. If it gets damaged or worn, it can make stopping less effective.
Part
brake pad
Brake pads are the parts that push against the brake disc to help stop the car. They wear out and need to be changed regularly.
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Hello, and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio.
With us, Click and Clack, the Tapper Brothers, broadcasting this week
from the Bumper Decoration Division here at Car Talk Plaza.
My car needs decoration of any kind.
Actually, in the interest of safety, we have mass produced,
and I'm making available to you our listeners today for free.
No charge, a new car talk bumper sticker.
The purpose of this bumper sticker is to get people to pay attention
to the task at hand, which is what?
Driving your car and hang up the stupid cell phone.
Well, we know from personal experience that a dope with a cell phone
up to his ear is four times more likely to have an accident
than a dope without a cell phone in his ear.
That's based on a study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine.
And they know what they're talking about, I think, for the most part.
So we decided to offer a free bumper sticker to encourage these bozos,
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This is it.
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That's it.
They are endangering the lives of all of us.
And if you're that important, don't leave the house.
Don't leave wherever it is you're so important for
that everyone's going to call you.
I mean, these people that are on their cell phones all the time,
did they previously spend their lives driving around looking for pay phones?
I mean, is that how their lives were consumed?
No.
When they got to wherever they were going, they pressed a little button
and they got all their messages.
Now they've suddenly become so important.
Yeah.
Come on.
You're not that important.
You're not that important.
Trust me.
It's ego gratification.
Exactly.
That's all it is.
I'm on the cell phone.
I'm calling you for my car.
Who cares?
Jerk.
Now, when we were designing this bumper sticker,
we got all the two slogans and they were.
Yeah.
One, drive now, talk later.
That wasn't bad.
Not bad.
Two, would you drive better if I crammed that cell phone up your keys?
I like that one better.
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And by the way, all this information is on the website,
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If you want to talk to us about your car or anything else for that matter,
you can reach us at 888-CAR-TALK, that's 888-227-825.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
My name is Gammon.
I'm calling from Birmingham, Alabama.
J-A-M-I-N?
That's right.
No kidding.
What kind of a name is Gammon?
That's my name.
Well, I know it's your name.
I never heard it before.
No, she was imp-like when she was small, I guess.
Exactly right.
Elphin.
My parents thought in a movie and they thought it was cool.
It's good.
It's interesting that there are so few people who take a creative approach
to naming their kids.
Isn't that true?
Yeah.
I think everyone should name all their kids Gammon.
My name is my first child, Hey Jerk.
Look, I didn't say George Foreman calls all his children.
They're all named George.
Yeah.
That's a creative approach too.
It's interesting.
Interesting, I think.
So what's up, Gammon?
Well, I have a 1988 Honda Civic and I want it to run forever
and it's doing pretty well with that.
How many miles on it now?
138,000.
That's good.
We're going for two, at least.
Sure.
I drove through some kind of deep water and I really didn't mean to
but I had to get someplace and then we had kind of a flash flood here in Birmingham
and it went up over my wheels and that was not pretty.
What, over the top of the wheels?
Well, I was in the car so I'm not sure.
And I do tend to exaggerate, but it was kind of deep
and it felt funny.
I think it didn't go over the top of your wheels
if it had the engine would have stopped running.
Okay, no, it definitely kept running.
Good, you're very lucky we'll explain why in a minute.
But it was up there certainly beyond the middle of the wheel.
I think so.
You just think so.
Okay, we'll continue.
Well, let me tell you what happened then.
I got where I was going, that was fine and I got home
and the next morning I went to drive
and the car started.
There's nothing wrong with the engine, but now when I brake
if I'm going fast and have to slow down quick
if I brake it makes the weirdest noise like
I tried to, I think it's like the wheel of fortune spinning
or roulette wheel.
Yeah, oh that brrrrrr!
But it stopped.
You know, and then of course the noise stopped
the minute I took it in to get it looked at
and now it started again.
And they told me the brakes were fine.
I don't need to get anything done for a while.
They've still got plenty of braking on them.
Well, how carefully did they look?
Well, I don't know.
They probably didn't.
They probably didn't look all that carefully
because you could almost always see the discs
without doing anything.
Okay.
Just peeking.
But I think that you have a fish caught
between. I think so too. Exactly. And from the sound that you've described, it
sounds like a brook trout to me. Really? It's more likely that one of two things
happened. Either you either thing got rusted from all that water that got it
there. Right. And in that rusting took place overnight. For example, if you if
you did this driving through the big puddle and then you parked it for a
couple of days, you could have built up enough rust on the pat on the
disc rotors to cause this problem or by plunging a hot disc into a cold bath.
You could have warped the discs. That's true. Yeah. Is the noise accompanied at
all by any vibration or pulsing in the pedal when you stop? Not. I kind of have
the typical Honda pulsation anyway. Yeah. So I don't notice anything more than that.
But the car stops well. Yeah, that's fine. I mean the brakes are designed to
operate perfectly well submerged. Okay. They are. I mean, there's nothing there
that can really be damaged. And if they were submerged for years at a time, it
would be bad. Yeah. But to get completely wet like you got them would be no way
injurious. I would wait until you needed pads and do nothing. Okay. Well, what I
did was I got a new car stereo, so it's louder. There you go. And now you
don't hear the noise at all. And that's the reason it's really fine.
You're all set. I'm glad we were able to help. Thank you. And are you glad
you waited for us to return from vacation? I've been sitting on the edge of my
seat. Dammit. It's a pleasure having talked to you. Thanks. See you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
One eight eight eight car talk that's eight double eight double eight double
eight double. No. Eight double eight double two double two eighty two double five.
That's it. Okay. Hello, you're a car talk. Quick, you forget. Hi. My name is
Mom in Princeton. Hi, Mom. Hi. Where the hell are we going? It's what three
people call me all the time. But I am not going to reveal my identity because very
likely either myself or my oldest son are going to be mortified at the end of
the conversation. Oh, okay. One or the other. We're protecting one of us. Yeah.
Well, my situation is not so much a question about a particular car, but
about cars in general. The little background. My oldest son, who is
just almost 19. His name is Son. Son. Sonny. Sonny. We'll call him Sonny. And he's by
the way no longer living here, so he can't present his side of the argument. And I'm
going to really try to do him justice and not do him a disservice. Okay. And I
have like an 18 and a half year old son, so I can be some kind of an expert
witness here. Yeah, I think you probably understand a lot of that. Oh, the name is
Jericho. Hey, Jericho. You may have a few other names for me, too. Yeah. In any event,
um, since he was a tiny little guy, he has always been interested in taking
things apart. Sometimes he would even put them back together. Um, but he has
a real curious mind and a natural ability to problem solve. Um, I on the
other hand have been described as mechanically declined by people who care
about me and not want to hurt my feelings. That's probably the most
positive spin we could put on it. All right. So when the following situation
took place, I assumed my son knew what he was talking about. I'll tell you
right up front here. That is one of the biggest mistakes that a parent of
an 18 or 19 year old can make because they are very, very powerful in their
presentations. Yes. Yes. I would concur with that. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. So the
story opens on that really one of these really, really hot summer days that
we've had on the East Coast. Listering. Yeah. My son is giving a going away
party for himself and we're at a discount store buying hamburgers and
hamburgers and all the fixings for 40 people. Is he going off to college or the
United States Army or what? The United States Army and that is why he cannot
defend himself. He is trapped in basic training. Not in Fort Dix, New Jersey.
No, no, no, no, no. He's in a much hotter place in Missouri. Yeah. So it's
with some kind of caution that I'm presenting the story here. Yeah. All
right. So here you are. You're buying hamburgers and hot dogs for 40
minutes. We've got this huge payload of frozen stuff and we come out to the van.
I don't know if you're interested in the make of the car. Yes, we are. 1991
Toyota Previa. So we get, we open the car, which has been locked for probably
an hour or so. It's 375 degrees inside. And we've been driving probably 30
to 45 minutes before that. Right. So this car is really hot and we have
a lot of food that we need to keep cold. We pull out of the parking lot
and we're waiting in line to make a left turn. And my son turns on the heat,
full blast. Okay. I, I, I, I, I, I'll see him need you. I can see, yeah, this is
good. And you say, Hey, jerk. And he says, no, that's Tom's son. And, you
know, and, and this is like the last day or two that my son's going to be
home for a very long time. So I'm trying to keep everything really
pleasant and nice
and um... i said uh... if they're particularly that you turn to keep on
you know the air conditioning button
he said no mom that the deal is when the car is this hot it will cool down
faster if the heat
have someplace to go with the heat yeah yeah yeah i know i i i understand okay
and so i i didn't question him no mechanical decline i'm mechanically
declined right so i
grinned and bore it
as long as i could but it was
stand the heat
i pulled rank
yeah i said
this is my car
turn on the air conditioning and roll up the window
yeah and that we ended it not amicably
yeah i think rolling he was rolling his eyes and saying that he's going to be
ruined
well uh...
the meat didn't get ruined we got home which isn't that far away anyway and
and i'm just really curious would that have worked if i'd been able to stand
the heat
the sun was that was completely wrong yeah he was mixing apples and oranges like
this is like most of my brother's theories is a little element of truth
okay in in it
or correctness or correctness in the basic validity to it except not with
regards to the meat
the meat certainly i mean that's why they keep the meat in
uh...
you didn't take it out of an oven
to find it frozen rock solid like that yeah what he was referring to is
if you are driving for example for a long time
you had just started up
you're driving for a long time and the engine
overheat is overheating not the passenger compartment
but the engine
one of the ways to help cool down the engine is to turn on the heater
because the heater is basically uh... another little radiator
okay so if the engine wasn't overheating and that you didn't
uh... you know the engine was
you didn't intimate that the engine was overheating anything could have been
overheating it was so hot it was the people who are overheating and the
hamburgers
so i mean if he hadn't directly alluded to
look at the how hot the
the temperature gauge is on the dashboard
and was referring only to the heat in the passenger compartment he was completely
all wet
and he was trying to
he was trying to intimidate
his mother
whom he was ready to leave
for years
after having lived with her for nineteen years
and there is some kind of psychological thing going on
yeah and we don't know what it is i i've yet to understand it but it's
especially goes on between mothers
and teenage boys well my mother who raised four of them
always said to remind me honey you have to let him go otherwise they can't come
back
yeah well uh... this one is is launched and uh... we hope you'll come back
but he has made it easier for you to let go as i have
see a mom
all right thanks a lot
it's tough isn't it? it certainly is and we didn't make it any easier
more calls are coming up after the break so stick around
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pay for you t-shirt wearers out there all relatives of t-shirt wears we just
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hi we're back you listen to car talk with us click and click the tappet brothers
and we're here to talk about cars car repair
and uh not the answer to last week's puzzler
will remind you puzzler addicts that we post a puzzler a week all summer
long on our website
the car talk section of cars dot com so if you're
really bored you have nothing to do while the boss is away
and you can you can do it furtively go there in loyter for the rest of you the
puzzler is on summer vacation and will be back
sometime in september the puzzler is on vacation let me get this right now
but we're here yeah so we can like just go right on
misinforming the american public about cars right
absolutely one eight eight eight car talk that's eight eight eight
double two seven eight two double five hello your own car talk
hey guys hi who's this john from gliversville new york hi john gliversville
gliversville isn't that the place isn't isn't gliversville new york isn't that
the place where the aliens landed i thought that was rockwell
somewhere no no it was well new mexico no and
gliversville do you what aliens the the mars invasion awesome wells
oh a war of the worlds war of the worlds yeah
wasn't it gliversville new york well i tell you i wasn't here then
oh that's all you weren't no wonder you forgot about it
yeah well i don't know what's so what's up john so i've got this 1990
vw golf brought it from my sister a couple years ago
yeah i got 135 thousand on it yeah and it pulls slightly to the right
whenever i'm going uphill and it pulls slightly to the left whenever i'm
going downhill or on the level yeah that's about it
it runs fine it's always been doing that right it's been doing it as long as i've
had it pulls to the right and it'll pull more if you
step on the gas yeah so i would bet it pulls more going up
hill than it does pulling going down actually it's you know it's pretty much
the same then i don't know what it is pull when it pulls to right going up
yep pulls to the left going down or on the level
so pulls the left otherwise right and it will do this whether you're accelerating
decelerating holding the steering wheel not holding the steering wheel
that's correct i don't want to not hold the steering wheel going up the hill
uh it's torque steer
it is it is coming down the hill we're not gonna have any money coming down
ah jeez that's john this is interesting i like these
obviously you've had someone look at this no he has all he has he has he has
you've had the obvious things checked like the the tire pressure the alignment uh
stock brakes etc etc absolutely and none of those things have yielded
anything new tires on it hasn't changed the thing it's aligned
um and it's recently redone it's been doing this ever since you got it
sister that weird sister yours now let's let's not get too far into my sister
but yeah it's been doing that pretty much ever since i got it just because we have
a weird sister doesn't mean that everyone does no i've got a great sister she took
very good care of it does your sister like bury things in the backyard well they've
got a garden that stretches no i don't mean i don't mean plants i mean like bottles of
solutions i've never known her to do that no matter what ailment you have our sister
has something buried she said underground but she says i'll get back to you in 17 days
right and you say 17 days and she says well it's got to be buried in the ground for 17 days
and we hope you survive that and by the time she comes back with the stuff you're all better
she says it works every time there's the definition of a homeopathic remedy for you
yeah but she does bring us things that have been buried in her backyard for 17 days
is this the reason she got rid of the car no she didn't even notice it when was the accident
did it have an accident no accident no accident nope she i mean i'm trying to think of something
that would change with direction in other words right a bad motor mount for example our transmission
mount would be changed by going uphill and then would change do something to the engine
transmission when you were going downhill how that would translate into pulling see i'm working
on haven't been able to fabricate what i'm working on here's what i'm working on the differential
are you really i am i am feverishly attempting i'd abandon that at once no i like it i i'd like
the differential jeez john you know you may have noticed that we've been on vacation
and ordinarily when we come back from vacation we we're rude yeah and and and we are reinvigorated
and our minds have been swept clean and you know we we we've forgotten everything we have a little
about cars what little it was yeah you know i have a suspicion that it's something to do with the
back end and not the front huh like an emergency brake is dragging when you're going under no
oh oh you never know you mean like a cracked frame like yeah you go ah did did your sister
have an accident no he said she never had an accident she didn't tell him about it no
that she's right i mean the justice to tell you all the accidents she has she's got a brand new car
one day she says it's funny you know those those extra driving lights that i have on the front
i said yeah oh she said you know those extra driving lights that i had in the front
they're not dragging on the pavement they're dragging on the ground and i said to her well
how did that happen what did you hit hit i didn't know they just fell out what a cheap piece of junk
this is the lights just fell out we said no we don't think so i don't think so so yeah i don't know
but i i am i am telling you work on the differential i'm working on it but john for the time being
we are stymied uh but that doesn't mean that we won't come up with an answer later on in the
show so so stay tuned yeah i'll do that see you later thanks john hi bye good luck i mean it's lucky
close to the right going doesn't 180 it has to do with torque it has to do with torque
it's gotta have to do with torque and the differential well i was leaning because the torque
i was leaning toward a bad axle but see axles torque the 90 golf is the is the is the right age
to but i i couldn't make it fit and it would have been too convoluted and unbelievable what i had to
put forth so i decided to abandon why was the city different well i like most of your
theory i wasn't up i wasn't up for it maybe in a few weeks all right one eight eight car
torque that's eight eight eight double two seven eight two double five hello you're on car talking
my name's tracy thompson hi tracy tracy with an e or no e tracy y tracy y just a plain old
tracy no no embellishments i like i like it you must be from some you're certainly not
from california and you're probably from some straightforward little place like pennsylvania
or maryland kind of wrong coast though wrong coast some of the simple little place like
washington not oregon but washington or that's it washington state beautiful olympia washington
all right gee is the guy good or what i'm talented i mean he had a 150 chance
no when she said wrong coast i only had one chance on a three and it wasn't california so i
could have been the gulf coast could have been texas alabama or i could have been the northern
coast it could have been detroit it could have been so tracy what's up i have a real puzzler
here i have an 81 dots and 310 oh my god really really i didn't know any survived the rust it's been
a dream car for me really one of the great things about is it has this totally accessible clutch
you you get at it from the top isn't it isn't that one of the amazing things about that car that
you look at that you say oh my god how would i ever take the transmission out of this thing
if it needed a clutch and the answer is in about 15 minutes wow and when my clutch went out i
was so happy i felt like wow you know this is what i've been waiting for and so the thing went out
i went and i um got the whole new unit i put it in and lo and behold you know there's this
release arm that comes from the slave cylinder yes all of a sudden there was this extra inch
between that and the primary drive gear unit and i took it apart again i put it back together
everything seemed right so then i took um the entire clutch then i took it to the dealer i took
it to the mechanic thinking that maybe there's a different one for different motors or you know
that it maybe machined a little i think there's only one clutch for all the 310s ever made yeah
that's what they said too yeah and so everything's right but everything's wrong so you can't get
the clutch to disengage exactly this had been this had been when you did this did you replace
the the the throw out bearing the release bearing yeah and you're sure you put it in correctly
kind of hard to mess it up it sure is yeah but if you did mess it up that would explain
why things don't meet anymore and not much else would explain it that i can think of well that
that read that arm that the that the witch mohooses pushes on is it pivots on a ball
does it not you mean on the slave cylinder side no no you you got you got the slave
cylinder a rod pushing on to the the this this clutch arm that you're calling it other
it's called the fork oh the fork the fork is the thing that they that the push rod is supposed
to push on to okay right that piece okay and it could be that that thing has come off the ball
the pivot ball because as you push in one direction the thing moves the other end of
it moves in the opposite direction and it could be that that thing broke somehow yeah
why did you take it apart in the first place because it was it was pretty much out
it's 20 I waited for the last minute so it was just slipping yeah you you were able to shift it
however pretty much you were able to shift it you pretty much what do you mean pretty much
it was getting tough in what way was it getting tough there was nothing in in the in the pedal
left anymore aha aha aha so it was not slipping no i think what was wrong has just gotten
worse you may need a slave cylinder or a master cylinder it may be that the reason
you're not pushing that rod far enough is you don't have enough pressure anymore
you didn't need a clutch at all don't tell us I mean you needed the clutch of course
she must have needed the clutch too yeah I mean after 25 years you need but the clutch but the
clutch that you the pieces that you replaced would not have caused the pedal to be doing what
you just described see the pedal is already beginning to do this before you took it apart
and now it's doing it worse okay and I bet you're gonna find out that the master cylinder
is no good and maybe you didn't do anything wrong but how would that explain the the inch
because because the reason you have the extra inches you're not pushing out there's not enough
pressure in the system to push the rod far enough because you're not developing enough
pressure with the master cylinder I'm gonna check the master cylinder I'm gonna check the fork okay
good luck thank you very much all right it doesn't work call us back here's our
night time number one eight eight eight two two seven eight two five five I was gonna go the
night time number oh just backwards no Burma I'll give you Burma's home number
see you Tracy good luck thanks a lot and congratulations for trying this yourself
and you'll feel a great sense of accomplishment if you ever fix it well and you will fix it
you will fix it you will and when you fix it you'll say those bozos didn't help me at all
see you later thanks bye bye see you bye I wonder how many miles she had on it
had because you ain't gonna get any more
that's so cruel that's bricked right in but a hundred and seventy four thousand that was it
strawberry plants our IP right guess what the puzzler answer and more calls are coming up right after
this
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hey for you t-shirt wearers out there all relatives of t-shirt wears we just got a
veritable shipload that's shipload with a P of new cart talk t-shirts at the shameless
commerce division the folks there made a great series of t-shirts out of their favorite
cart talk quotes so in addition to the classics you know don't drive like my brother
do we treat them in how you can now get cart 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 lousy 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
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we're back you're listening to car talk with us click and clack the tappet brothers
and we're here to discuss cars car repair and the known new puzzler the puzzler is taking its
annual summer hiatus and we know that while most of you are saying thank god there were a few
misfits out there who can't seem to go a week without a car talk puzzle and for them we have what
shock therapy and our weekly archival puzzler at our website the car talk section of cars dot com
so if you need a puzzle go there the meantime if you have a puzzler you think we can use in the
fall send it to me here at car talk plaza box 3500 have it square Cambridge our fair city mat 02238
or email me your puzzler suggestion from the car talk section of cars dot com and don't forget
to include the answer yeah i mean we've got enough to do without figuring out answers to
puzzlers yeah we're very busy yeah we do get a fair number that say if you want the answer
email me and uh no we don't bother we'll just throw it away we'll never we'll forget your name
unless something comes up like the mailing list for the uber ghastani's political party then we'll
add your list your name to it so don't do that to us but before we get back to calls do you
know what it's time for here time to cram a cell phone up no no no that's tempting but no it's
time to play stump the chumps yes it's time for yet another thrilling episode of stump the chumps
where we bring back a caller from the past to find out as they say in the medical profession
whether there was a quote satisfactory outcome or as they say in the medical profession whether
we're going to get our butts handed to us by the lawyers so who's this week's stump chumper
i don't know the note he says it's cid from lantana florida and i don't remember cid but it says he
has cid's nissan maxima made a rubbing noise on shop turns and i guess it was making him crazy
oh that's right cid's noise only occurred when he made fairly tight turns and he said it sounded
to him like a tire rubbing the inside of the fender well i remember and upon hearing it my brilliant
brother took a while stab and said cid you're not going to believe this but i think one of your tires
is rubbing on the inside of the fender well pretty good it would have been except you weren't spot
enough to quit while you were ahead no no no the next words idea mouth were so cid how long ago
did you buy the new tire i did buy the new tires about uh maybe three to four months ago but
let me preface this by saying this sound has been with me for well over a year
okay once again my brother snatches defeat from the jaws of victory so what was our fallback
answer i don't think we came up with a fallback you just insisted that it had to be the tires
making the noise and that cid had probably bought tires that were too wide and i can also explain
the existence of the noise prior to the new tires you can well not yet but i'm working on it all right
let's get it over with and cid are you there yes i am cid you still have the noise well before you
tell us what it was we have to calm and mirandize you actually yeah is it true that you have not
been offered any gifts cash prizes on the democratic party donor lists in exchange for any answers
you are about to give us here today no just a short trip to alaska short trip to where alaska all
right well what you what was the noise i hate to tell you this guy but you were right
not you plural right yes you plural right was it it was absolutely as you called it the tires
are a little wider now the thing i said to you before in the last time we spoke was that
the sound was there previous i had forgotten that i had bought the previous tires
some of the same people and they did the same thing ah so you had oversized tires on for two
rotations of the tires absolutely oh it's one of those deals were for the same price will give you
the tires that don't fit your car boy isn't that it's like going to buy what are you a size nine
we don't have those but for the same price we'll give you tens all 11 that's exactly what happened
that's it well my brother was right i have to say that my brother pulled it out he wanted to
know when did you buy the new tires and he was absolutely right and god only knows you may be
the only person in months that he gave the right answer well i'll put the flag out for that one
thanks said said listen thanks for playing stump the chumps we appreciate it well thank you for
the information guys have a good day thank you bye bye bye bye bye bye if you'd like to call us
about your car the number is one eight eight eight car talk that's eight eight eight two two seven
eight two five five hello you're on car talk hi this is karen from arlington virginia hi karen
karen how are you i'm fine i'm actually talking to you from washington dc and if you suddenly hear
the noise of small children it's because i'm in the middle of my day camp okay and you're not a
lawyer or a politician is that no no no i'm a camp director excellent camp director okay
excellent so what can we do for you karen um i have a four uh ford tourist station wagon
that has a mysterious shaking problem it only happens in highway driving after the car has been
you know going at fairly high speeds for say an hour or so so i cannot reproduce this from
my mechanic and they don't know what the heck is wrong and what does it do exactly it starts
the car just starts shaking and it's in a it's a very scary feeling i mean the entire car vibrates
it really sounds like something's coming loose or you know the whole engine's gonna
fall off or a wheel's gonna fly or but when you stop obviously the shaking stops it completely
stops and then we did i sat there the first time it happened and i didn't know what to do
and i thought well i'll try to start it again and then it just was fine yeah and what was the
weather that day actually it was bright and sunny and lovely yeah that'll do it every time
i don't think weather was related okay do you have any theories well my
of course great something to do with resonance and i say resonance and he says
yeah you know it's like the momentum in a swing yeah and i say i don't get it it's sympathetic
vibration yeah but does he have any any we know that but does he have any idea what's related
to temp to time no he told me to call the car guys what kind of physics does he do astrophysics
well no no actually he was um um of well quantum theory quantum mechanics oh that kind of stuff you
gotta buy him a Volkswagen quantum then it'd be really good no no he's no longer a physicist but that's
what he was when he started out see well i think he may be right in in in some way uh the first
thing i'm leaning toward is a bad tire oddly enough and i'll tell you i had a similar
experience with a dodge caravan i had you notice what i started to say this before
what i said time what i what i started to say was temperature temp of course temperature
i so i buy these tires and of course i have them balanced and and the whole bit new vows put in
these tires were wonderful when i first got them and then they went out of balance such
that when i drove the thing it would vibrate i take them back i have them rebalanced and to
make a long story short i had them balanced about 35 times and it was the first two months
and it turned it turned out that every time i drove for an extended distance they got worse
and worse and worse and worse but if i drove a short distance even at high speed they were
often fine it was if when they heated up they deformed and they went out of balance
and then when they cooled down they were okay and of course during during which time i refuse
to believe it was the tires i balanced them myself with my own equipment and then
went ahead and replaced axles and and finally in desperation i bought two new tires from the front
and the problem went away forever so i don't matter i mean how do i know which tire or are
they all bad well it's not what the front one's because if it's vibrating that violently
it's happening in the front probably okay and if the if any of the tires are questionable
because of their age or wear buy two new ones and put them on the front okay and put the
next best two on the back and put the last best two in the trash but i would certainly
before you do any spend any money and unless you have an obvious bad one i would certainly
just rotate them front to rear okay put the two rears in the front and vice versa because it may
change the dynamics of it such that you notice a huge difference in where the vibration is
or its intensity and that will tell you a lot yeah if that isn't it i suspect then you have a
brake that's sticking on and the longer you drive it the more it's sticking and either
it could either be a bad caliper and if one brake would stick would make the car go
now both of these things are related to temperature that's what the the key is and time well as you
drive something's happening so if you have a caliper that sticks little by little the friction
of that pad on that rotor is going to make horrible things happen because it's going to
heat up and it's going to what expand right right and it's going to grab that wheel unevenly
and it could make it so you could have a bad caliper or you could have two wheels or more
sticking due to a faulty power brake booster and we've seen that too but i would look at the tires
first and i think what we've said here is that no matter what it is your husband was wrong
i'll tell him that you'll love to hear that see you Karen good luck thanks for calling bye bye
well it's happened again you've squandered another perfectly good owl listening to car talk
our esteemed producer has dug the subway fusion of not a slave to fashion burman
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you louis dui known to the lost-looking tourists as louis dui thanks once you're listening we're
clicking clack the tappet brothers don't drive like my brother don't drive like my brother we'll be back
next week bye bye and now for our listening pleasure we have here in car talk plaza the chief
mechanic mr vincent q boom box hey thank you very much now if yous want to copy of this here show
which happens to be number 34 just pick up your phone call this here number one eight eight eight
car junk and what if i wanted to get other car talk profanity of any like uh what i call the same
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About this episode
Ray and Tom tackle a variety of car-related questions while emphasizing safe driving practices, particularly regarding cell phone use. They introduce a humorous bumper sticker campaign urging drivers to 'drive now, talk later.' Listeners share their quirky car stories, including a call from Gammon with a 1988 Honda Civic experiencing brake noise after driving through deep water. The brothers provide insights on car maintenance, discuss the importance of tire balance, and share light-hearted banter about parenting and mechanical mishaps.
Original notes
Karen from Virginia has two problems: Her Ford Taurus wagon shakes something awful from time to time. The second problem is her physicist husband’s theories about the source of the shimmy. We ain’t Fakin’, Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ on in this episode of the Best of Car Talk.
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