#2606: A Blended Car Family
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Company
Saturn
Saturn was a car brand that made buying a car easier by having a fixed price on the car, so you wouldn't have to negotiate or haggle over the price.
Car
Volkswagen Rabbit
The Volkswagen Rabbit is a small car that people often use for daily driving. It's known for being easy to handle and good on gas.
Part
clutch
The clutch is a part of the car that helps you change gears. If it's not working right, it can make it hard to drive smoothly.
Car
Volkswagen Jetta
The Volkswagen Jetta is a small car that many people use for everyday driving. It's known for being comfortable and dependable.
Part
flywheel
The flywheel is a round metal piece that helps keep the engine running smoothly and works with the clutch to make the car move when you drive.
Part
pressure plate
The pressure plate is a part that pushes the clutch disc against another part called the flywheel, helping the car to move when you press the gas pedal.
Car
Honda Civic
The Honda Civic is a small car that is popular for being reliable and economical. The 1984 version is one of the earlier models and is known for its simple design.
Term
mechanical pump
A mechanical pump is a part of the car that helps move fluids around. It is powered by the engine itself, not by electricity, and is important for keeping the car running smoothly.
Term
high pressure fuel line
A high pressure fuel line is a pipe that moves fuel to the engine. If it has a leak, it can cause problems for the car and might be dangerous.
Term
rust
Rust is what happens to metal when it gets wet and starts to break down. It can make parts of the car weaker and more likely to break.
Car
Toyota Camry
The Toyota Camry is a popular car known for being reliable and comfortable. The 1996 version is part of a series that many people liked for its roomy inside and easy driving experience.
Term
stalls out
If a car 'stalls out', it means the engine stops running suddenly. This can happen for various reasons, like not enough fuel or a problem with the engine itself, especially when changing gears.
Term
alternator
An alternator is a part of the car that helps keep the battery charged and powers the car's electrical systems while the engine is running.
Term
ignition
The ignition is the part of the car that starts the engine and makes sure the fuel burns at the right time.
Term
revving the engine
Revving the engine means making the car's engine run faster by pressing the gas pedal. Doing this when the engine is cold can hurt the car, so it's better to let it warm up first.
Term
engine revving
When we talk about an engine revving, we mean how fast it's spinning. If it's not spinning fast enough, the car might not perform well or respond quickly when you press the gas pedal.
Part
coolant temp sensor
The coolant temp sensor checks how hot the engine's coolant is. This helps the car's computer know how to run the engine properly.
Term
ohms
Ohms measure how much a material resists the flow of electricity. In this case, it helps check if the coolant temp sensor is working right.
Term
fuel injectors
Fuel injectors are parts of the engine that spray fuel into it. They help the engine get the right amount of fuel to run well.
Car
Acura Integra
The Acura Integra is a small car that many people liked in the 1990s. It was known for being fun to drive and dependable, making it a good choice for many drivers.
LIVE
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Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack.
The Tappet Brothers and we're broadcasting this week from Murky Research here at Car Talk Plaza.
Now, we can't actually take credit for this. This is from Gallup Research.
They do research as well and they're not as well respected and well known as Paul Murky.
But people have heard of Gallup polls. Gallup polls. Gallup polls.
Isn't that an island down off of Peru? The Gallup polls for the big turtles.
Well Gallup, every year does the poll about what are the professions which are most and least respected.
And we have made it a tradition here at Car Talk Plaza and Murky Research to divulge this information to the rest of the universe
because no one else knows about it except anyone who reads it.
From time to time as we see fit.
Anyone who reads the newspaper. And I thought, I mean, the top ten.
Most respected, you know what the most respected one is? Nurses.
Oh, okay. I could say that. I was going to say the medical profession but they narrowed it down.
Oh, doctors are fourth. So nurses, pharmacists, veterinarians, doctors, school teachers, clergy...
Pharmacists are number two?
Number two. Pharmacists are second most respected in the country.
Oh, because they're the ones that tell you which combinations of medications it takes. You don't get diarrhea.
And number ten of the top ten is college professors.
Well, let's go to the other list.
The other end, of course, is the least respected professions.
And tenth from the bottom is real estate agents. I'll give you the bottom ten.
You're reading up the list now.
Reading up the list down to the least respected.
Real estate agents.
Real estate agents are number ten beating out lawyers who are number nine.
Wow. Pretty good.
Gun salesmen who are number eight. Gun salesmen. Good for you guys.
And after gun salesmen, lower than gun salesmen, members of Congress.
Really?
That's pretty sad, actually.
It's very, very sad. It's very sad, but well-deserved.
True.
And true. Then we got internet journalists. Isn't that interesting?
Really?
That would be like us. And then one, two, three, four, fifth.
Disease is our top five coming up now, folks.
Coming up now. Number five, insurance salesmen.
Oh, yeah.
Number four, HMO managers.
Oh, yeah.
Number three, advertising executives.
Oh, yeah.
Isn't that interesting?
Yeah.
Number two.
Because they're sleazeballs.
In my opinion.
Telemarketers.
That's well-deserved.
That's number two.
And number one, the drumroll.
Car salesmen.
The least respected profession in the country.
Car salesmen.
And again, I have to say it's not undeserved.
I don't agree with that.
I mean, I think lawyers should be down there.
Gun salesmen should be down there.
Members of Congress should be down there.
But not car salesmen.
Oh, yeah.
You haven't bought a car in the last seven or eight decades.
Are they that bad?
You need to go and buy a car.
Yeah.
It's that bad.
And obviously, my slant is just the northeast, in fact, in the Boston area.
But they all appear rather...
The classic pledge?
Unshoots.
Yeah?
Yeah, that's the word.
And do they lie, cheat, and steal?
In your opinion?
Yeah.
I mean, I'm a firm...
I mean, I know some companies don't.
I'm a firm believer that the price should be on the car and that's it.
Yeah, well, some people do that.
Yeah.
Saturn does that.
Prices on the car and that's it.
But some people like the idea of haggling.
Some people like that.
I don't.
I guess it bothers me that someone else who's better at it is going to get a better price.
Sure.
And there are some things that you're better at and you take advantage of it.
Then why doesn't Sears do that with refrigerators?
Well, they do, actually.
If you go in there and say, oh, I'm not going to buy it until the sale.
They say, well, the sale is not for three months, but we can make a deal.
They don't do that.
Everyone will do that.
They will?
You don't do that.
No, I think it's only right.
They're doing the job.
I'm opposed.
I don't like this.
Well, tough.
But since when have I ever agreed with anything?
America.
That's true.
If you want to talk to us about this or anything else, our number is 1-888-CAR-TALK.
That's 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on CAR-TALK.
So you can go to Sears and-
Hello, who's this?
This is Michelle.
Michelle.
From Lexington, Kentucky.
How are you?
I'm very good.
Thank you.
Do you shop at Sears?
If I need appliances.
And when you go, do you haggle on the price?
Yeah, I do.
You do?
Everything's negotiable.
See?
Michelle is no dummy, such as like you are.
She knows everything is negotiable.
Really, huh?
Of course.
Everything's negotiable.
Even at Sears, where America shops?
Sears that has everything.
If the price is right.
Sears does have everything.
Oh, jeez.
Oh, you've opened my eyes, Michelle.
I'll tell you.
So you're from Lexington, Kentucky?
That's what you say.
Yeah, from Lexington, Kentucky.
And what can we do for you today?
Well, I own a Volkswagen Carrot and I'm having trouble with my clutch.
Whenever I depress the clutch to the floor, no problem.
It goes all the way to the floor.
And there's other times I try to depress the clutch and it stops midway.
Does it?
And I can't, and if I push as hard as I can, it doesn't push.
But it still allows me to change gears.
What year Carrot is this?
Actually, this is a Jetta for those of you.
What's a Carrot?
It's a fancy version of the Jetta.
Jetta Carrot.
She paid.
She didn't haggle enough and she paid the extra money for the Carrot.
Well, how do you spell Carrot?
C-A-R-A-T.
There you go.
I've never heard of it.
Yeah, it's the top of the line Volkswagen Jetta.
Wow.
Really?
Yeah.
And how old is it?
It's a 92.
92.
Okay.
This thing has...
It's about 180,000 miles.
Yeah, you go.
I was going to guess 175K and it probably has the original clutch cable.
Well, now let me tell you this.
That's what I thought.
I took it in and they replaced the clutch cable.
They said it was a little bit frayed, but the clutch still does the same.
If it only goes halfway down, you just can't push it any further?
No.
No, not at all.
It's like stepping on a brick.
It's like stepping.
There you go.
And yet it will shift.
It'll allow me to shift gears.
But has it ever happened, for example, when you stopped at a light?
No, that hasn't happened.
It only happens when you're moving.
It only happens when I'm moving.
What?
You know, my brother, as usual, has put his finger right on it.
I mean, it's not the answers that we give.
It's the questions that we ask.
It's the good questions that we ask.
My God.
If only this led someplace, it would be good.
But it's all designed to kill time.
The strange behavior of the dog.
Well, I'm going to tell you what you need, but you're not going to like the answer.
Yeah, I know where he's headed on this, and I think it's brilliant.
The problem, I believe, is that the clutch itself, that is, the piece is inside the bell housing.
The clutch disc is disintegrating.
I like it.
And occasionally, a piece gets stuck in between the pressure plate and the flywheel,
preventing you from fully disengaging the clutch.
Michelle, did you tell us that this was the original clutch in this car?
Yes, it is.
It's time.
It's time.
It's time.
And when they take the thing apart, pieces are going to fall out.
Oh, that's nice.
Yeah, and I'd be willing to bet you any amount of money that this is going to fix it.
So just out of curiosity, what are we looking at as far as cost?
Oh, whatever you can, whatever deal you can make.
Yeah, I mean, they're going to start at $6.50, and you might be able to chisel them down to $300.
And maybe they'll throw in a refrigerator too.
So I'll have to negotiate on my price.
You're talking $500.
$500.
That's not bad.
Yeah, and I know they'll throw in the refrigerator.
Oh, we can only hope.
We can only hope.
See you, Michelle.
Okay, thanks a lot.
Good luck.
1-888-CAR-TALK, or 1-888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
My name's Peter.
I'm calling from Ithaca, New York.
Hi, Peter.
Ithaca.
There's like a big school up there, right?
A couple of big schools.
What are they, those schools?
Oh, one is Ithaca College, and the other is Cornell University.
Cornell.
That's the one I was thinking of.
My brother, he authored the school song.
Far above Cayuga's waters.
There's an awful smell.
That's it.
It's an old deserted outhouse that they call Cornell.
Well, my daughter's in-laws have all gone to Cornell.
The entire family has gone to Cornell.
Huh.
Yeah, they never got out.
They've been there for like 25, 30 years.
So, what's up?
Are you teaching at one of these great institutions?
Sometimes I teach there.
I'm a graduate student at Cornell.
Ah.
A graduate student in what department, may I ask?
I'm in environmental toxicology.
Environmental toxicology.
That's an important field.
Well, good luck to you, Peter.
Thank you.
What kind of a car do you drive?
Some gas?
Well, cussing, polluting.
Polluting vehicle.
Well, yes.
You have to go to work at night so no one sees the smoke coming out the back.
Well, I'm calling about my wife's car and part of that stink above Cuyuga's waters is
the gasoline, which is just pouring out of her car.
Really?
Yeah.
From which end?
Just underneath the driver's side door.
Really?
Yeah.
She has a Ford?
It's a 1984 Honda Civic.
It's a red, but you usually can't see the red because it's covered with rust.
Yeah.
And she took it out one day over some rough terrain.
Yeah.
How long ago did this happen?
Oh, months.
And she's been driving around with gas?
No, I do.
Oh, you go to work at night.
She's an ecologist.
She won't drive it.
And you're majoring in what?
Environmental toxicology.
Don't ask.
I'm not going to go there.
No.
Sometimes you need a quart of milk.
Yeah, I understand.
That's true.
Yeah, I mean, it seems clear to me that she hits something that in turn ruptured a gas
line.
That's an old rusty gas line that was probably ready to break anyway.
And she just administered the coup de gras, so to speak.
Yeah, because you guys get rotten winters up there in Ithaca.
Yeah.
Probably use a lot of salt on the roads and all those gas lines have corroded away.
Yes.
And it's kind of dangerous not to mention toxic.
And I'd like to correct all of that.
You would?
Yes.
And I called my wife's brother, who is an ace Honda mechanic.
No kidding.
Yeah, it's convenient.
It is.
And his recommendation was to go in there and find the leak and take a tube cutter and
cut around the pipe.
Yeah, you can do that.
And then patch it with a hose.
You can do that too, as long as you're careful to secure the hose to the underside of the
vehicle so that it doesn't scrape on the pavement.
And that's a perfectly adequate repair.
Really?
It is because this vehicle has a mechanical pump, which is run by the engine, and it's
just sucking the gas, so there's no high pressure in that line.
So that's why it still runs, even though it's leaking?
That's right.
There's very little pressure on this line.
And you can have this repair work for the rest of the life of the car.
Assuming, of course, that the rest of that...
A couple of months, right?
Yeah, but you gotta make sure that the rest of that line isn't all rusted.
But once you find the line, you'll be able to see if it's rusty.
I mean, that line should be very, very strong.
And if you just take a pair of pliers and squeeze it a little bit, if it crumbles in
the pliers, then you gotta replace bigger and bigger pieces.
I should admonish you, Peter, that parallel to this gas line that is leaking are the brake
lines.
And they look so much alike.
Well, so don't go crushing or cutting any of those, but it's very possible that in
affecting this repair, you cause your brake system to leak, too, because it's...
Everything is delicately held together under there by the rust.
Yeah.
So you should disturb things at your own peril.
Well, the alternative is just to send it off to the junkyard.
Yeah, well, we considered that, but we didn't have the heart to tell you.
Yeah, because you're a grad student and you don't have any money, but...
Give it a shot.
Okay.
Good luck, Peter.
Okay, thank you very much for your time.
Bye-bye.
All right.
You remember last week's puzzler?
Give me a hint.
Any hint.
Just help me out.
Okay, it had to do with a trained bee.
Trained bee.
I knew you would.
I'll have the answer in just a minute.
This message comes from BetterHelp.
This message comes from NPR sponsor Capella University.
Hi, we're back.
You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack the Tapper Brothers.
And we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and the answer to last week's locomotive.
Oh, now I remember it.
It's an automotive puzzler.
A locomotive.
I remember it now.
And I said a trained bee, and I meant a trained bee, a bee that had been hit by a train.
Anyway, here it is.
Yeah.
You have two trains on the same track speeding toward one another.
Am I going to need a pencil?
Get a pencil, yeah.
Just make a little picture.
Two trains.
There we are.
The trains are 150 miles apart, and they're both traveling at 75 mph.
75.
And they're on the same track?
Did you say that yet?
Two trains on the same track.
I'm with you now.
Go ahead.
A very fast bee.
Yeah.
Maybe even a trained bee flies from the front bumper of one train to the front bumper of the other train.
And as soon as it gets to the second train, without losing any time in reversing its decision,
it turns around and reversing its direction, rather.
It turns around and heads back to the first train.
And it continues to do this, flying back and forth and back and forth, back and forth and forth and back and back and forth.
Yeah.
Okay, you got that now.
I got it.
So each time it goes, it goes a shorter distance, of course, because the trains are hurtling toward each other at 75 miles an hour.
Exactly, exactly.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Okay.
So you go, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Actually, you got all these little pieces you're going to have to add up.
A diminishing little series here.
You got that?
Until...
Whap!
Well, I didn't mention yet that the bee flies at 137.5 miles an hour.
Excellent.
And the question is very simply, how far will the bee have traveled before he squashed like the bug that he is
between the bumpers of the two trains?
Yeah.
Now, you could sit down and you could draw the little picture and you could say, well, let me see.
If he's flying at 137 miles an hour and the other train is coming at 75, then that's a combined velocity of 212.5.
You can figure out, in fact, how far he travels before he reaches the bumper of the train number two.
Yeah, sure.
And then you can say, well, in that time...
Train number one has gone...
Yeah, you could do that.
You could do that.
But you could also do it the easy way.
It isn't the cowboy way.
But it is the easy way.
According to our pal's riders in the sky, but it is the easy way.
Now, knowing that the trains are 150 miles apart and traveling at 75 miles an hour, in one hour, they will have crashed.
Really?
Yeah.
No kidding.
So if the bee is traveling at 137.5 miles an hour, how far will he travel in an hour?
137.5 miles.
And that is...
And that is the answer.
The answer.
And isn't that good?
Yeah, and that is...
How many eighth grade kids are going to get that in their little test next week?
They may.
They may.
Do we have a winner?
Yeah, of course.
We got to win a Becky Slager from Raleigh, North Carolina, and for having her answer selected at random from among all the correct answers.
Becky, you're going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk Shameless Commerce Division, where you can get any Car Talk junk you want, including our brand new album,
Why You Should Never Listen to Your Car, Why You Should Never Listen to Your Father When It Comes to Cars.
This is not nice that we're giving away a Shameless Commerce gift certificate.
That isn't right, is it?
Why?
I mean, they should win something of value.
Anyway, we'll have a new puzzler coming from the days of nights and fair maidens.
Excellent.
So it's historic and folkloric right away.
Boom.
Boom right off the bat.
And it could be challenging.
We don't know about that.
That's how you get carried away.
And that'll be coming up in the third half of today's show, so be sure to stay tuned for that.
In the meantime, you can call us and ask us questions about your car at 1-888-CAR-TALK.
That's 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
Hi there.
I am so excited to be on your show.
And so are we, Amy.
No, Nancy.
I got two of the letters there, though.
Amy was AMY, and you got an A and a Y in your name, unless you spell Nancy with an I, which you don't.
No, I absolutely don't.
The real good talk shows, the real good calling shows, have a monitor on the, you know, on the table.
Right.
And flashed up on the screen is the name of the next caller.
The next caller is Nancy.
She's from Alvo, Kirk, New Mexico, and her question is blah, blah, blah, blah.
Well, we don't have that monitor until I'm tired of telling you.
So how are we supposed to know who you are?
Get off our backs, will you?
Well, let me tell you who I am.
I am Nancy.
I'm from Marion Station, Pennsylvania.
Okay.
And I have a, actually, it's not my card.
It's only my husband.
And you have a sob.
No, a four-cylinder, 96 Camry Sedan.
Stop being so contrary.
96 Camry.
96 Camry, four-cylinder.
That's important.
30,000 miles.
And are you in the eastern center of west end of Pennsylvania?
Right outside of Philadelphia.
That would be the middle, yeah.
Middle.
East.
Okay.
Are you a marine biologist?
No.
No.
If we don't have anything right about her.
We need a new monitor.
Our data is all wrong.
It's all wrong.
You have to get your monitor, your monitor monitor to get better information.
Do you have two kids?
I do have two kids.
Finally.
Now just their ages and sexes.
Okay.
They're both girls and they're three and 11.
No, they're boys and they're 11 and 14.
I got one of them right.
Yeah.
We're getting better.
We're getting better.
2% maybe.
So what's wrong with this piece of junk Camry?
What happened is, this is my husband's car and two times when I tried to start it, I
could feel the energy draining as I was shifting from park into drive.
There you are.
You turn the key.
You start it up.
It goes from.
You hear the rum.
And then as you start shifting it, it just kind of dies.
The engine sound kind of just fades out.
And it stalls out.
And it stalls out.
Got it.
Okay.
Didn't become a problem until he experienced it and then he took it to the Toyota dealership
and had it checked out.
They thought it might be an electrical problem.
I don't think so.
It checked out fine.
They said it wasn't, you know, the alternator, the ignition, the fuel line, everything was
fine.
They found nothing.
And my husband says that if he really revs it up when he starts it, that it doesn't,
it doesn't die on him.
Well, tell him not to do that anymore.
Don't rev it up.
No.
No, it's better to have it die and restart.
Yeah.
Then rev it like that.
The worst thing you can do to a car is to rev it up when the engine's cold, when you just
start it up.
Okay.
You can count the number of days you can do that before the engine dies.
Huh.
So you don't want to do that.
So what is it?
How the hell do we know?
Why did I call?
I don't know because you wanted to waste some time.
Yeah.
I mean, it sounds to me like the engine, when it starts, is not revving quite fast enough.
Have any trouble with the boys?
We have boys ourselves.
We have boys.
We've had 11 and 14-year-old boys.
We can help you with a question about them.
They're probably still human.
Is that right?
11 and 14?
Um, semi.
Semi-human.
Oh.
Yeah, the 14-year-old is fast fading.
It's going to get so much worse.
Man, you're going to wonder why you brought them into this world.
Why did I do this?
Well, I thought of that.
No, they're going to hate you.
No, you haven't.
No, you can't comprehend the full force of their hatred for you.
Oh, you can't.
Oh, man.
You will be despised beyond your wildest dreams.
I mean, when we were first married, my wife said that she wanted to have kids and I was
violently opposed to it.
I said, why would you want to do that to yourself?
This is ridiculous.
And she convinced me that it was probably a great, wonderful thing to do.
I mean, it was God's will and nature wanted this.
And motherhood ran out of her family.
Motherhood ran out of her family, right?
Her mother was a mother.
Her mother's mother had been a mother.
And so she convinced me to do this and I remember it was when my son was about 15 that she leaned
over one day and whispered in my ear, you were right.
How old is he now?
I think he's about 40.
No.
No, he's 18.
And has it gotten better?
He's, I think...
Yeah, he's turned the corner.
He's turned the corner.
He's become human again.
Yeah.
But I can't attest to it, but it seems as though that's true.
Yeah.
We'll go back and see.
But then let me ask you a question.
Do I discuss my car problem with a psychologist?
I think so.
You got as much chance of getting an answer.
Here's what I would do.
I would take it to the same guys who said everything was okay.
Right.
And I would leave it with them overnight.
Yeah.
And I would ask them to start it from cold in the morning and find out what the RPMs are
in the morning and they will discover that they're too low.
Yeah.
Here's what's wrong with it.
You have a faulty coolant temp sensor.
That's my gut feeling.
That's good.
That's good.
And they should put the own meter on this thing.
There's a chart that when they look it up, they may haven't even memorized.
That'll tell you what this temperature, the coolant temp sensor should have this many
ohms, because that reading sends a signal to the computer, which in turn sends a signal
to the fuel injectors to tell them how much fuel to put in and how to race the engine
and all that.
And it says the engine's cold, so it's got to rev a little bit faster.
And if it doesn't tell that to the computer, the computer has no way of knowing, and so
it thinks the engine's warm and it runs too slowly.
And then when you take your foot off the brake and do whatever you do, it stalls.
If they can't figure it out in there at a loss for what to do, ask them to just replace
the thing because it's relatively cheap.
Okay.
Then if it isn't that, then what's the next step?
Oh, Jesus.
Well, you call us back.
I mean, we can't go dealing with hypothetical questions.
Nancy, we're very, very busy.
Good luck with those boys and remember what we told you.
I will remember it.
When they hate you, remember it's not them talking.
It's the little devils that live in them.
Thank you.
That's very reassuring.
See ya, Nancy.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
We'll be right back with more calls and the new puzzler after these messages.
Thank you.
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Hi, we're back.
You're listening to Car Talk with us, click and clack the Tapper Brothers,
and we here to discuss cars, car repair, and the new puzzler.
I can hardly wait.
This comes from the days of knights and kings and fair maidens.
People named Rowena.
Rowena, there you go.
Turns out that the fair maiden Rowena wishes to wed.
And her father, the evil king, has devised a way to drive.
Raven, the evil king, Raven.
To drive off suitors.
And he has a little quiz for them, and here it is.
And the white knight Tommy.
More like green.
Can we work him in?
Okay.
He has a quiz for the suitors.
Quiz for the suitors.
And here it is.
It's very simple.
There are three boxes on the table.
Okay.
One is made of gold.
One is made of silver.
And the third is made of lead.
Lead.
Inside one of these boxes is a picture of the fair Rowena.
Yeah.
And it is the job of the knight, the white knight,
to figure out which one, without opening them, of course,
which one has her picture.
Now, to assist him in this endeavor,
are inscriptions on each of the boxes.
This is interesting already.
Pay attention now.
Yeah, I'm gonna write this down.
You gotta write this down.
Get a pencil and write this down.
The gold box says, Rowena's picture is in this box.
In here.
Okay.
Yeah.
The silver box says the picture ain't in this box.
No, it's not.
Okay.
Yeah.
The lead box says the picture ain't in the gold box.
Oh, I got the question already.
Do you know?
Yeah, where's the picture?
Because if he opens the box with the picture, he gets the girl.
Yeah.
But he also gives him a hint, right?
He's gonna give him a hint.
Yes.
He's gonna say all the labels are wrong.
No, the hint is one of the statements and only one is true.
Excellent.
The question is, where's the picture?
And when he sees the picture, is he still gonna want it?
One of the statements is true.
One in only one of the statements is true.
Okay.
The three statements are on the gold box.
It says the picture is in the gold box.
Mm-hmm.
On the, what was the next box?
The silver box.
The picture ain't in this box.
Yeah.
And on the lead box, it says the picture ain't in the gold box.
Well, I got the answer already.
Well, guess who's your genius?
I mean, come on.
I mean, give the rest of us a chance.
Now, if you think you know the answer, write it on the back of a $10 bill.
We've lowered our prices.
Holiday special.
Exactly.
And send it to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500, Harvard Square, Cambridge.
Our fair city.
Matt 02238.
Or you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com.
That's simple.
Mm-hmm.
1-888-CAR-TALK.
That's 888-227-8255.
Hello, your own Car Talk.
Hi, this is Nan from Bolton, Massachusetts.
Nan with an N?
Yes.
An A-N?
Yes.
From Bolton.
Where is Bolton?
I've heard of it.
It's Apple Country, out west.
Yeah, it's near Worcester.
Yeah.
Worcester.
Worcester.
Worcester.
So what's up?
I have a 1994 white Acura Integra automatic transmission.
Mm-hmm.
I've parked it outside its entire life except for three times I've parked it in my boyfriend's
garage.
And each time when I got up to start the next morning, it wouldn't start.
That's because you didn't want his other girlfriends to see that you were there.
Well, we're married now.
Oh, okay.
But at the time you weren't married.
At the time we weren't married, and we're married now, but now you see, his Triumph, his TR6,
is in the other side of the garage.
Yeah.
And the big debate is, does he move his Triumph so I can put the car in the garage?
Will it start again?
Oh, I see.
So clearly he's lobbying for keeping the TR6 in the garage.
And I'm lobbying for not having snow all over my car every morning.
The car, it wouldn't start.
We go to start it, like, eventually, if you nursed it and nursed it and nursed it.
I'd like, I'd roll it out of the garage and nurse it and nursed it and nursed it and
it would start.
And what, it just cranked and cranked and wouldn't start?
It just wouldn't start.
One of those?
Yeah, all the electrical worked fine.
Yeah.
Leave it outside.
It's fine.
Really?
Yeah.
Jeez.
And it never happened any other time except in his garage.
Correct.
Boy, that's an interesting question.
Maybe we can not answer.
Well, I mean, we don't have to.
We need to know more about the garage.
The garage.
Yeah.
Is it under the houses?
It's a one-car garage.
No, it's a two-car garage.
So why can't both cars fit in there?
They can, but, well, his regular car and then the baby.
Oh.
Oh, he doesn't get two.
No, no, no.
He doesn't get two cars.
Why should he have two?
Exactly right.
Because it's his baby.
No, no, but what's the other car?
Oh, it's an Audi.
Yeah, so why does he keep that in there, too?
Who does he think he is?
Well, you know what the trouble is?
Yes, it was his house.
It was his house.
You need to, you need to.
You're going to move.
Yeah.
You should never have married him and then moved into the house that he lived in.
What were you thinking?
That's his house.
The marriage can't succeed under circumstances like that.
You're going to start off equally.
You're going to move into neutral territory.
So forget about the car.
Forget why it doesn't start.
Just move.
That's it.
Well, I suppose I should tell you a little bit about this marriage.
You're going to have to, I guess.
Well, we're both at our mid-40s, so we're not like infants.
How long have you been married?
Since May.
I was going to say six months.
Six months.
That's just about right.
Just, yeah.
Yeah.
Why won't the car start?
Forget about the damn car.
Forget about the car.
The stupid car.
Come on.
I mean, the car, who knows.
There's no good reason why it shouldn't have started.
No.
But it does make sense that if he's going to keep the TR6 in the garage, there is absolutely
no way he's going to get the second spot also.
I mean, what the hell kind of marriage is this?
Come on.
Just tell him, hey, Frank, get the car out of the garage or I'm history and I'm taking
the TR6 with me.
Right.
And that's it.
Oh, okay.
That's all.
Come on, Nan.
You know that.
I guess I agree.
Deep in your heart, you know, you must have said to yourself, my God, I love him, but why
does he get both spaces in the garage?
He must have crossed your mind at least once.
Pretty soon he's going to start lying crosswise on the bed and he'll say, Nan, there's a sofa
out there in the living room.
Why don't you use that?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Does he let you use the stereo?
One speaker.
He does almost all the cooking.
Yes.
So what?
And the grocery shopping.
So he doesn't let you use the kitchen either.
The troll freak here.
Yeah.
I'd run.
I'd get out of there.
Yeah.
Is he home now?
No.
Good.
This is your chance to get escaped.
Take the TR6 and go.
I wish we could help you about the Integra, but we can't.
Yeah.
I think you should really start looking for another house though.
That's the best advice we can give you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got to start on.
Yeah.
You can't move into the other person's house.
It doesn't work.
Yeah.
Okay.
So can I mention your names?
Absolutely.
Mention our names and you can tell them everything we said, including all the invective.
Okay.
Indeed.
Don't leave anything out.
Can I get a tape?
You can get it.
Oh yeah, you're going to need it for the hearing.
Good luck, man.
Thank you.
Thanks for calling.
Bye.
Bye.
Well, it's happened again.
You've squandered another perfectly good hour listening to car talk.
Our esteemed producer has dug the subway fugitive, not a slave to fashion Berman.
Our associate producer is Ken the Diaper Slayer Rogers.
Our assistant producer is Frau Catherine Fenolosa.
Our assistant producer is Frau Catherine Fenolosa.
Our engineer is Dennis Domenis Foley.
And he loves to do that.
Fenolosa!
I'm a senior Web Blackie as Doug.
You can put the sheep in the barn for the moment, Mayor.
And our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor back from the North American free lunch pro-amp tour is John Bugsy Lawler.
Our public opinion pollster is Paul Murky of Murky Research, assisted by statistician Margin Overa.
Our customer care representative Fenolosa.
Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzov.
And our official football widow is Eliza the Couch.
Our staff gossip columnist is Bud Insky.
Our director of cola and the starting is Martina Never Turnover.
And our director of long range strategic planning is K. Seraf, who's married to Frank Seraf.
And now everyone knows her as Mrs. Seraf.
Our female town priors are Nina Clark and Alice Well.
Tom's personal matchmaker is Robin D. Cradle.
And our chief counselor from the law firm of Dewey Chidwin-Howes, U. Lewis Dewey.
Known to the one man bluegrass band in Harvard Square as U.E. Louis Dewey.
Thanks so much for listening.
We're clicking, clack, the Tapper Brothers.
Don't drive like my brother.
Don't drive like my brother.
Don't I just say that?
We'll be back next week.
Bye-bye.
And now here is Car Talk Plaza's chief mechanic, Mr. Vinnie Gumbach.
Thank you very much.
Now if you want a copy of this here show, which is number 49, just pick up your phone
and call this here number 1-888-CAR-JUNK.
And yes, that's really the number 888-CAR-JUNK.
And what if I wanted some Car Talk formal wear, you know, like a t-shirt or the new Car Talk CD
while you should never listen to your father when it comes to cars.
What do I call that same number, Vinnie?
No, I think you pick enough spinach out of your teeth to actually build the CD with.
You know, you dope.
Of course you call it the same number.
You call the Shameless Commerce Division at 888-CAR-JUNK or visit it online at the
CarTalkSessionOfCars.com, you know.
Thank you, Vinnie.
You are a superb communicator.
Hey, communicate this all right.
Car Talk is a production of Dewey, Cheetah and Howe and WVU are in Boston.
And even little Bill Gates says, why don't they break up NPR?
Whenever he hears us say it, this is NPR National Public Radio.
Happy New Year!
Want to set goals that you'll actually stick to in 2026?
You want to accept yourself in the situation you're in, but you also want to expect more
from yourself and say, what are the ways that I can grow?
This week, how to design and plan your year on the LifeKit Podcast.
Listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
About this episode
A lively discussion unfolds as the Tappet Brothers dive into the annual Gallup poll results on the most and least respected professions, revealing surprising insights about car salesmen and other professions. The episode features humorous banter and practical car advice, including a troubleshooting session with callers discussing clutch issues and gas leaks in their vehicles. The brothers also tackle a puzzler involving a knight and three boxes, adding a whimsical touch to the automotive advice. Listeners can expect a mix of humor, car repair tips, and engaging stories.
Original notes
Nan just married her new guy and moved into his house but her car isn’t welcome. Hubby has an Audi and ‘his baby’ -a Triumph TR6 taking up both spaces in the two-car garage and he thinks that Nan should keep her’s in the driveway. Will Click and Clack suggest hubby join his cars in the garage, too? Find out on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.
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