#2627: Better to Die in a Fiery Crash
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33:55
Term
flat tire
A flat tire means the tire is low on air (or completely empty). The car won’t handle normally, so you typically need to change it or get help.
Part
jack
A jack is what you use to lift the car off the ground so you can take the tire off. It’s part of changing a tire safely.
Term
change the tire
Changing the tire means replacing the flat tire with the spare. You lift the car, loosen the wheel, swap tires, and tighten everything back up.
Term
creaking noise
If the jack starts making scary noises, it can mean it’s not sitting right. Don’t keep working—stop and re-check the setup.
Part
disc brake
Disc brakes are the brake system that uses a metal disc and pads to stop the car. In a crash, that part can get scraped or damaged because it sits near the wheel.
Concept
car dealership
Dealerships are often the most expensive option for diagnosis and repair, especially when the shop recommends replacing “the whole thing” rather than doing targeted fixes. The episode’s point is about avoiding a potentially costly, upsell-heavy repair path.
Concept
avoid going to a dealership
This highlights a common consumer decision: choosing where to get a repair diagnosed—dealership vs. independent shop vs. DIY. The underlying issue is trust and cost, especially when the diagnosis could lead to expensive parts replacement.
Part
lug nuts
Lug nuts are the fasteners that hold your wheel onto the car. If they’re not tightened, the wheel can loosen and fall off. That’s why it’s such a dangerous mistake.
Term
sparks flying everywhere
Sparks usually mean something metal is rubbing or grinding hard. It’s a warning sign that the damage is happening right now, not later.
Term
headlights
Headlights use electricity. If you leave them on when the car isn’t running, they can drain the battery.
Concept
electrical load draining the battery
When the engine is off, the battery powers the car’s electronics. If you use a lot of power for long enough—like leaving lights on—the battery can run out.
Term
key of the ignition
The ignition key activates the vehicle’s electrical systems and engages the starter when turned to the start position. If the battery is weak, turning the key may produce abnormal starter sounds without starting.
Term
turning over
It means the starter is trying to spin the engine. If it’s slow or weak, the battery may not have enough power.
Term
spark plugs
Spark plugs are small parts inside the engine that make the spark to start combustion. In this story, removing them changes how the engine can (or can’t) run.
Term
available energy in the battery
This is about how much power is left in the car battery. If the battery is low, the starter may not spin the engine well enough to start.
Term
charge up the battery
The battery can be recharged by the alternator when the engine is running. The story is saying he runs it briefly to get the battery power back.
Term
firing the thing up
“Firing the thing up” means getting the engine to start and run normally. In the segment, it’s the step after reinstalling the spark plugs, transitioning from the modified cranking/run attempt back to normal combustion.
Term
steering to stick
“Steering to stick” means the wheel feels like it’s resisting or not moving freely after the turn. If it happens repeatedly, it’s a warning sign that something may be binding or wearing out.
Part
calipers
Calipers are part of the braking system. They squeeze the brake pads against the rotors, and if one gets stuck, the brakes can drag even when you’re not pressing the pedal.
Term
rack and pinion
Rack and pinion is how many cars turn the wheels. If the rack or gears inside are worn or stuck, steering can feel wrong or dangerous.
Concept
break-in period
A break-in period is the first phase after you buy a new car. The idea is to drive it a little more gently at first so the engine and other parts can settle in before you drive it normally.
Term
miles
They’re using miles as the measure for when the car is “broken in.” The manual often says to be gentle for the first few hundred to about a thousand miles.
Term
sustained high speeds
They’re saying not to hold the car at high speed for a long time when it’s new. Early on, it’s better to vary speed a bit rather than keep it steady and fast.
Concept
dark paint vs light paint (solar absorption)
Car color matters in the sun. Black paint tends to get hotter, while white paint reflects more sunlight and stays cooler.
Concept
heat soak
Black cars absorb more sunlight than white cars. In very hot weather, that means the car can get much hotter inside and on the surfaces.
Concept
cabin temperature
Cabin temperature just means how hot or cold it is inside the car. Even if the outside gets hotter, the AC/heater can bring the inside back to the same level.
Term
black one is hotter on the outside
Black paint soaks up more sunlight than light paint. So when a car sits in the sun, a black car usually gets hotter first.
Concept
black vs white exterior paint and heat absorption
A black car soaks up more sunlight and gets hotter. A white car reflects more sunlight, so it tends to stay cooler.
Concept
radiant heat reflection/absorption
Sunlight carries energy. Light colors bounce more of that energy away, while dark colors take in more and turn it into heat.
Term
air conditioning
Air conditioning is what cools the inside of the car. If the car interior gets hotter from the sun, the A/C has to work harder to cool it back down.
Term
electric brakes
Electric brakes are brakes on a trailer that are controlled by an electrical connection to the truck or SUV pulling it. They help the trailer slow down safely.
Concept
dark interior
Dark colors soak up more heat from the sun. So when you get back in, the inside is usually hotter than a light-colored interior.
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Listen to Short Wave on the NPR app,
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Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week
from the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion here at Car Talk Plaza.
It is that.
Honesty is the best policy, so we'll just call this what it is.
What it is, is the publication of a book that we wrote,
which is out on your shelves just today.
And if you hurry, you can get it before most of the buck of books.
The title is In Our Humble Opinion, and we're not asking you to buy it.
And I'll tell you why when I read to you from the introduction,
which explains that we're not asking you to buy it.
We're not.
It says,
After all, we all have opinions, and as we know,
men have strong opinions about everything,
especially topics they know nothing about.
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We don't really care.
We really don't care.
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If you would like to shamelessly promote your own car problem,
yeah, our number is 888-KARTALK.
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Hello, your own Kartalk.
This is Jose from Baton Rouge.
Hi, Jose from Baton Rouge.
What's going on?
About a couple of weeks ago, I'm driving a green Dodge Caravan 95.
And I woke up and it had a flat tire on it.
So I got out the jack.
I put everything into place and I started to change the tire halfway through.
I decided to put the spare under the car just in case I forbid the jack would break.
That's the way my dad taught me that.
That's an invitation to a disaster.
Well, it was like a prophecy of disaster that day because...
So you put the spare underneath the wheel that you had just taken the bad tire off?
He was about to take the tire off.
Actually, I did both.
First, I put the spare under the car and then when I took the tire off the flat...
You swapped them?
Yeah, I swapped them.
Brilliant.
Well, almost.
Maybe.
I put it underneath the car right below the driver's side door because that's
sort of near where I put the jack.
I figured if anything happened, that would support the weight.
So this was a front tire where you had the flat?
Yeah, that's right.
So this tire now is behind the front wheel.
Exactly.
Got it.
Well, and I didn't even touch it.
And the jack made this horrible creaking noise.
And I thought, well, maybe I should give it a little nudge or something just to make sure.
And suddenly the thing just slipped and the car went down.
And it hit the tire and I watched the disc brake and it actually hit the ground as well.
Those discs are tough.
They are.
Well, that's what I was wondering because, you know, I don't want to be driving out
and all of a sudden hear another creaking noise and have my left wheel fly off.
But I don't want to take it to a car dealership, tell them the story.
And then, you know, see their eyes shine and dollars sign and say, oh, yeah,
we have to change the whole thing.
Better you should die in a fiery crash.
At least it will be quick, but it's amazing the lens that people will go to,
to avoid going to a dealership.
This guy would rather die in a fiery crash.
Well, no, no, no, he wouldn't.
That's why he's calling us.
Jose, talk about a reassurance.
Hear my life here.
But he's calling us.
Me, he could still die in a fiery crash.
He's going to take our word for it.
He's going to take.
Jose, what are you thinking?
He's going to take our word for it.
He is.
I know.
I'll tell you a story, Jose.
OK.
I once drove a Triumph TR250, a little sports car.
My dad had a Triumph.
It was a great little car.
And one time I personally was responsible for forgetting to tighten up the lug nuts
when I had been doing something.
I think I put new pads in it.
That was the last day we allowed him to work at the garage.
And I neglected to tighten the lug nuts.
And that night, I was driving down one of the major highways here around Boston.
For those concerned customers, that was the last day.
Yeah, it was the last day.
And as I'm driving along, interestingly, I'm doing about 60 miles an hour.
This is a road that goes in two directions.
There's no barrier or a center strip between the lanes going.
A yellow line separating you from a fiery crash.
From other guys doing 60 miles an hour going in the opposite direction.
OK.
And all of a sudden, one by one, unknown to me,
one by one, the lug nuts had been falling off.
There were four or five of them.
I don't remember.
Well, none when you were done.
And all of a sudden, the last one fell off.
I was not aware of any of this.
And the only thing that made me aware of it was, suddenly, the wheel fell off.
Oh, my God.
I mean, no sign whatsoever.
No noise, no shaking.
It was, it was magnificent.
At least no shaking that you could discern from the other shakes and noises that the car made.
The wheel falls off.
And naturally, now the same thing happens.
It happened to you, except I'm doing 60 miles an hour.
The spark display was magnificent.
Because now I'm driving on three rubber wheels and one disc.
And I managed somehow to not crash into the oncoming traffic.
I managed to pull over to the side and pull.
Oh, it is.
X, Y, Z.
Shucks.
For my luck, there's a gas station there.
And I pull into the gas station, sparks flying everywhere.
Everyone comes running out and I say, fill it up and check the oil.
A true story.
A true story.
A true story.
And I, I mean, it was dark.
It was late at night and I left the car there.
The next day I went back.
I found the wheel in the middle of the road and I found all the lug nuts.
Yeah, it was a great demonstration.
It was a great demonstration of how Darwinism failed sometimes.
Darwinism doesn't always work.
That's right.
And I just put, I jacked it up.
I put the wheel back on, tightened up the same old lug nuts,
and drove around for the next five years on the same car.
No disc problems or anything.
No, you're not going to have any disc problems either.
Because what happened when the car fell?
Indeed, the disc did hit the pavement.
But because there's a spring attached to the McPherson strut,
you compressed the spring.
That's what I thought.
Yeah.
And, and don't forget the vehicle only weighs a couple of thousand pounds.
So you, you know, there wasn't that much force being applied to that disc.
And it's designed to take a lot more punishment than that.
I mean, it's not something I'd recommend you do every week.
But you did nothing to put your life in jeopardy.
Well, I should say, unless there was already something wrong,
and it wouldn't hurt to have someone take a look at the tie rod ends
and the ball joints on both sides.
Because if you had one that was very weak,
you may have gone that last eighth of an inch to make it fail.
I wouldn't worry about it.
I would have someone just take a peek.
Don't tell them anything about.
Jose, who are you listening to?
The guy whose wheel nuts fell off at 60?
Or the guy whose nuts didn't fall off?
Come on.
I beg your pardon.
I wouldn't worry about tie rod ends.
I mean, you would be nice to have them checked as a matter of course.
Okay.
The next time you're in for something,
you just might want to casually mention it without any fanfare or melodrama.
Absolutely.
It'll be an invitation for overspending.
That's what I was wondering.
So I would downplay it and say, it happens all the time.
Oh yeah, it fell off the jack again.
But don't worry.
You didn't do any damage to it or anything else in all likelihood.
And you're lucky that the car didn't fall on top of you.
And you have good luck.
You know that the forces of nature are with you.
Your chi is working fine.
Thank you.
Have a great day.
See you. Bye bye.
Hey, Tommy, do you remember anything about last week's puzzler?
No.
Well, I'll help.
It was a story of love, romance, ingenuity, and dead batteries.
And better ones?
And I have the answer in just a minute.
Hi, we're back.
You're listening to Car Talk with us clicking clack the tappet brothers.
And we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and the answer to last week's puzzler.
I can't remember it.
Oh, here it is.
Murray Price, when I conspired on this puzzler, many, many, many years ago,
when Krusty, our old mechanic, was a young man in courting the girls,
he decided to take one of his dates out for a ride in the country one evening.
Took them all out for the country.
And his plan, of course, was to park by the lake and do a little smooching.
So they parked the car and they go off for a little walk in the woods
and end up by the water's edge.
Very romantic, you know.
Yeah, I love it.
And an hour later, to his horror, he remembers that he left his headlights on.
So he runs back to the car, leaving his date at the lake,
and turns off the now dim headlights.
Puts the key of the ignition.
He tries to start the car, but he gets that awful roar.
Dead battery sound.
The engine is just turning over barely and clearly not fast enough to start the engine up.
Now, he knows if he doesn't get his date home on time,
her father, or maybe it was her husband,
is going to be waiting with the shotgun.
So he's got to think of something quick.
The car is parked in such a location that he could never hope to push it out of there.
And in any event, he couldn't push it out of it because it's an automatic transmission car.
Oh, man.
Anyway, in the trunk, he's got a gallon of Filippo Berio extra virgin olive oil.
Doesn't everybody.
A family-sized tube of preparation H.
Doesn't everybody.
A pair of pliers and a set of jumper cables, but alas, no one to get a jump from.
And yet in about five minutes, he gets the car running.
He does get his date back in time when her father never finds out.
The hint was he used the pliers.
How did he do it?
Use the pliers.
He used the pliers.
Now, the hints are all there, of course.
They're all embedded.
Did he have a cell phone?
Yeah.
What he did have was an old car.
One of those cars where you could take out the spark plugs with a pair of pliers.
And what he does is he takes out two of them.
If it's a six-cylinder car, he takes out two plugs, like number one and number six,
which is halfway through the firing order.
And now he's got a four-cylinder car and he's got better than that.
He's got two less cylinders to compress the mixture in.
Yes.
So he turns the key and now with the available energy in the battery.
It cranks up.
Admittedly, it sounds like a gatling gun when it starts, but he can run it long enough
to charge up the battery.
Put the plugs back in.
Put the plugs back in.
All the neighbors, of course, from miles around come because they think someone's being shot at.
But then he can then put the plugs back in and fire the thing up.
This was brilliant.
And drive home.
Brilliant.
Do we have a winner this week?
Who cares?
The winner is Murray Breisler.
No, the winner is Robert Cattabriga.
Cattabriga.
I would say Cattabriga.
Cattabriga from Lebanon, New Hampshire.
Good work, Robert.
For having his answer selected at random,
Robert is going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Cartalk Store on our website,
with which he can get a copy of our new book in our humble opinion,
Click and Clack, Rant and Rave.
It's hardcover, so you can shim up a really wobbly table.
I mean, this is really heavy duty.
Look at this.
You won't find this in the buck of bin.
And it's adjustable.
If you have just a small thing, you can open it up and just use the cover.
Very hard.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you can have all, I think, all shims up to, what's that?
It's an inch, isn't it?
Wow, we wrote an inch?
We wrote an inch.
So congratulations, Robert.
You're going to have the best shims in town.
We will have a new mathematical non-automotive.
It's not mathematical.
It's a logic problem.
Well, it's from the series of the...
From the Heavy Coins series.
Okay, so that will be coming up in the third half of today's show.
So stay tuned for that.
In the meantime, you can call us and ask us questions,
and we can fumble through the answers.
The number is 1-888-CARTALK.
That's 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
Hi, this is Burma Madison in Silver City, New Mexico.
Burma?
Burma.
Be like and boy, E-R-M-A.
Cool.
Thanks.
And you're from Silver City, New Mexico.
New Mexico.
Be senior.
So now, more importantly, what's with this Burma thing?
Yeah, what's Burma?
You know, I just knew you were going to ask me that.
Oh, did you?
Oh, what the hell, of course.
I wish I had a really clever answer, but I don't.
It's just a family name.
It is, huh?
Yes, uh-huh.
So other people in the family have had the name,
and you don't know the derivation.
Right.
What is your ethnic background?
Maybe we can trace it that way.
Probably mostly German and some English.
German?
Burma.
Well, as you know, our producer's name is Doug Berman.
Yeah, maybe you'll relate to us.
Well, that's close.
I hope you're not related to him.
No, no.
Oh, no, that would be awful.
So what brings you to call us today, Burma?
Well, I have a really unusual problem for you.
I have a 94 Nissan Centra.
It's got almost 100,000 miles on it,
and I've taken very good care of it.
But I have to go to Albuquerque, New Mexico,
about once a month.
And I drive through a mountain range called the Black Range,
and it has around 200 fairly sharp curves.
The last three trips that I've made to Albuquerque,
I've noticed this feeling, and I have to emphasize
that it's a feeling.
It's not a noise.
That when I turn to a sharp curve,
after I've been driving for a while, I feel a sense
that it would almost be if a copper pipe had a dimple in it.
Is it like a rumbling that you feel?
It's not a rumble.
It's almost like a dip in the steering somewhere.
Also, you're in the turn.
I'm in the turn, and I...
And you feel a little hitch in the steering?
Yes.
And it seems to me that it's gotten worse
every time I've made that trip.
And the last time I made the trip,
it almost felt like it wanted to stick there.
Good.
Very good.
So I don't want to take that drive over the Black Range anymore
because I'm...
Although, you don't want your steering to stick
if you've completed the curve.
Yeah.
Right.
Because you could wind up either going over the edge...
Over the cliff, right.
Or into another car or...
Or into another car.
Oh, we don't want to even think about it.
But can I just finish this story?
Because every time I've taken that over the Black Range,
I've gone straight into the repair shop and said,
there's something wrong with this car.
And they say...
And they have given it back to me.
They've kept it for hours and zigzagged through parking lots
and given it back to me and said, there's nothing wrong.
I mean, the trouble is there are many, many things that do this.
And the only one who really notices it
is the person who is one with the vehicle.
And that is you.
And that is you.
So some snot-nosed mechanic who's going to drive it around for 15 minutes
isn't going to notice something that you,
only you, who drive the car 100,000 miles, are going to feel.
But this is not something that we can take lightly
because you're driving on mountains.
And you probably have something wrong with your steering rack.
That's what I think.
Well, do you think that?
Yeah, I do.
There's one other possibility which is not as expensive.
That would be nice.
And that is the coupling between the steering column and the rack.
There is a coupling which consists of a couple of universal joints.
And that can be binding ups.
And you might be able to feel that even if you were on a straightaway,
after it's begun to do it, if you could pull into a parking area
and stop the vehicle, but leave the engine running,
so the power steering still continued to work.
If you were to turn the wheel slowly all the way to the left
and then back all the way to the right,
you might notice that every half turn, it got a little bit stiff
and then got easy to turn and then got stiff again,
then got easy to turn and then a half a turn later got stiff again.
If that's what you notice, then I would suspect this coupling
between the steering column and the rack.
If, however, the stiffness is not predictable in that fashion,
then I would suspect the rack is bad.
And I think, assuming that they've checked all the other stuff,
the tie rod ends the control arm bushings and all that,
it's almost gut...
And of course, I would imagine they would have checked the brakes
to make sure that none of the calipers was sticking.
You should ask them to check that too,
but because a sticking brake can make the car feel
like the steering isn't working correctly.
So it could be something like that,
but let's assume they've checked all that stuff
and given it a clean bill of health,
then I would suspect either the steering coupling or the rack.
The steering coupling is easy to check.
They can take it out and try to flex it.
If it gives resistance in any direction, then it's junk.
And that's relatively cheap.
And if they can't find a problem there,
then I would recommend you just put a rack and pinion in it
because you're going to die otherwise.
Okay.
Yeah.
And don't drive on the black range until they find something.
All right.
Really, it could be really dangerous.
Okay.
Well, thank you so much.
See you, Burma.
And we don't have many listeners named Burma.
If we lose you, we're going to be very, very disappointed.
Oh, all right.
Well, I'll keep listening forever.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Bye.
Won't be forever if she goes off that mountain.
No, no, no.
Hey, stick around for more calls
and the new puzzler coming right up.
Ha, 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.
The new excellent puzzler, I must say.
Well, if you've been listening for a number of years,
as we have, you may remember some of the coin puzzlers
of yesteryear.
Yeah, you know.
I remember a few of them.
Yeah, one was you.
You got eight coins, and you've got a balance scale,
and how can you figure out what the fewest number of wings,
which is the heaviest coin for that?
Yeah.
Oh, you got 10 coins and an analytical balance.
What does the analytical balance look like?
Think about it a lot.
See, I don't understand what they're putting
all these coins on here for.
And then, of course, there was a pill puzzle.
And the string, there was a string series.
Well, so this, we're going back to coins.
String theory.
Imagine that you have in front of you 50 coins, okay?
And they all look exactly alike, except one of them is a fake.
And because it's a fake, it weighs an ounce more,
or some amount more.
It doesn't really matter.
A couple of grams.
It weighs a couple of grams more than a real coin.
So if you were to put, if you had a balance scale,
and you knew which was the bad coin,
you would put it on one side of the scale,
and you'd put a good coin on the other side,
and it would be immediately obvious from this imbalance,
which was the phony coin, because it's heavier than.
We know that it's heavier than a real good coin.
All right.
Okay.
So knowing that.
Knowing that.
You have in front of you 50 coins, one of which is bogus.
Yeah.
And the question is, what is the fewest number of weighings
on a balance scale?
That is one of which.
A balanced beam.
No, that's what Nadia Kuminic walks on.
Oh, that's a balance.
Yeah.
A balanced scale.
You put some of the coins on one side,
and some of the coins on the other side.
And you have no weights.
Balance.
You have no weights saved for the coins.
In other words, you can only put coins on one side
and coins on the other.
Got it.
So the question is, you've got 50 coins,
one of them is bogus.
What's the smallest number of weighings you can do to determine?
Part B, how can you do it in four?
How can you do it in four?
I knew it.
I can see it coming.
How can you do it in four?
Now, if you're thinking, well, this is not.
Well, I have to say, I've been working on this
for a couple of hours now.
Well, 10 minutes.
And if you think you know the answer,
write it on a postcard or a 35-foot fully-equipped
mahogany antique catamaran with full crew
and optional wet bar.
Has anything come through, Louis?
Anyone been to the post office this week?
I mean, have we got any big deliveries?
No, we may be shooting too high.
Mahogany antique catamaran.
That's a nice idea.
When we were asking for dead fish, we thought, well.
We've got plenty of them.
Anyway, send your answer to Puzzletower,
Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500, Havid Square, Cambridge.
How effective?
Matt 02238.
Or of course, you can email your answer
from the Car Talk section of cars.com.
If you want to talk to us right now,
you can call 1-888-CAR-TALK.
That's 888-CAR-TALK, or 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
I'm Carrie Beth, and I'm calling from Columbia, Missouri.
Carrie Beth?
And I have in a 2000 Explorer, and I have 4,500 miles.
And I got it on February 14th.
4,500 miles already.
Yes, most of them, almost all of them are on highway.
My roommate says that I should not be on the highway
in a new car because it's going to age the engine.
Too late now, forget about it.
Is this the nature of your call?
Yeah, I'm wondering, if that's true,
what can I do to kind of work against that?
Did you read the owner's manual when you got the car?
Yeah, most of it.
Most of it.
Mostly, I like how to work the radio, right?
I read that first, but then I moved on to the other part.
I don't think the answer matters.
Okay.
Because whatever it was, it's gone.
It's done, it's over, and just keep driving
and forget about what your roommate says.
Okay.
You didn't drive it much over 60, did you?
I don't know, I've gone to,
my car was actually bought in Kentucky
and my parents brought it to me,
so its first drive was about 300.
So you're not even responsible?
Well, I'm sure that dad broke it in correctly.
He probably did.
Yeah, I know he did.
Typically, if you read the book.
If you read the owner's manual, it typically says,
and I assume it's the same for the Explorer,
it says for the first 500 to 1,000 miles,
don't drive at sustained high speeds.
So that if you do drive on the highway,
don't go up to 65 miles an hour
and keep it there for an hour.
But rather, start out a little bit,
drive up to 50 miles an hour,
drop down to 40, go up to 60, come back.
But it's only for the first 500 to 1,000 miles.
So whatever it is, you're past it now.
All right.
I will tell you that every new vehicle
that I've ever had, where I've done this,
has ended off burning oil.
So my new philosophy is do what every other knucklehead does.
Just get in and drive it.
Just get in and drive it.
Yeah.
And if it burns oil, that's their problem.
If it was that important, they should have broken it in.
Just get in and drive it.
Who cares?
Okay.
See you, Kerry Beth.
All right, thank you.
Thanks for your call.
Yeah, I don't think the owners of breaking in the engine
should be on the owner.
Why should it be?
Then just trying to get rid of the car a little bit faster.
When it comes off the end of that assembly line,
drive it around for 500 miles before you send it to me.
Yeah.
Well, actually, the dealerships do that.
And then they turn back to the old dormitories.
Right, they have their kids do it, right?
Yeah, they have the teenage boys do it.
They drive this thing around us parking lot for a couple of hours.
1-888-CAR-TALK.
That's 1-888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on CAR-TALK.
Hi, guys.
Hi.
Who's this?
This is Ronnie.
Ronnie.
Hi, Ronnie.
Hi.
Where are you from, Ronnie?
I live now in Fort Lauderdale.
Oh, Fort Lauderdale?
Fort Lauderdale.
Do you have blue hair?
Blue hair?
Not quite.
We're working on it.
We're all working on it, aren't we, guys?
I'm working on no hair.
But I'd be happy with blue hair.
There you go.
No, not quite blue.
Thanks anyway.
All right, all right.
I'll look forward to that, however.
So what's shaking?
Okay, I have a very technical question to challenge your expertise.
All right.
Here are your thinking caps.
Okay, go.
I'm ready.
Okay, you ready?
Okay, for the past 20 years, I've always had a white car.
Okay, here's the technical question.
Get ready.
I'm about to purchase a new car and decide to be really wild
and go for a black car.
Really?
My husband cooperatively responded with the resounding,
are you nuts?
How can we have a black car in Florida
with the average temperatures like 85 and humidity is like 100 percent?
Yeah.
We will fry.
Anyway, we went to the car dealer and sure enough,
side by side were two black and white cars.
Right, right.
And my husband pointed out touch one.
It's going to be about 20 degrees cooler than the other.
The dealer quickly said to us, no, no, no,
even though the black one is hotter on the outside,
it doesn't make a difference in the inside.
That it only takes like 0.7 of a second for a conditioning unit
with his great new cars where they're built
to kick on and make the temperature internally exactly the same.
0.7 seconds.
0.7.
Okay.
It was he wearing plaid pants this guy?
Of course not.
Why is it too hot in Florida?
He wasn't wearing any pants.
That's right.
Okay.
So wait, it goes off if my husband said,
you mean the law of physics doesn't apply to cars?
Now it's important for you to understand that the white car
I found out afterwards is actually already sold.
That doesn't surprise me.
Which canceled out the dealer's advice totally.
Completely, yeah.
Completely.
So here's my question, my technical question.
Yeah.
Does it really make a difference inside of a car,
whether it's black or white on the outside?
It does.
Sure it does.
I'm not going to have my husband listen to the show
when everything is on.
Well I'm sure it does.
How do you get listening?
You know, I mean if you've ever had for example a convertible
with black seats.
Well no, I think Ronnie's question is if the metal,
the sheet metal of the car were white as opposed to black,
but the interior were the same color.
There you go.
Would it make a difference?
And I don't think it makes a difference in that sense.
That's what I'm asking.
What if you had a car with no air conditioning?
Would it be hotter in the black car or in the white car?
Answer, it would be hotter in the black car.
Everyone knows that the white car will reflect away
much of the heat that's coming in, or not much, some of it.
How much of a difference will there be?
Who knows, but your husband is at least theoretically correct
that the black car will be hotter.
Now you add air conditioning and say,
well I can't even tell the difference.
Well that's true, but the air conditioner is working hotter
to keep the black car cool than it would be keeping the white car cool.
So he was right is what you're telling us.
I'm telling you that he was right.
He is right.
We think.
Whether it makes any practical difference,
except in the longevity of the air conditioning system,
I don't know.
I would doubt that that would be too much of a factor.
However, we are getting perilously close to the arena of electric trailer breaks.
Okay, if you ever heard our discussion about cattle trailer,
cattle trailer, electric brakes, about which we know nothing.
Didn't prevent us, however, from going on a long 10 minute dissertation.
There you go.
So we may know nothing about this topic.
But I do remember, I would definitely avoid a dark interior.
I remember some years ago wearing shorts and getting into a Cadillac with a black leather
interior and hearing it sounded like I had gone to the Bissuteki steakhouse
and they had thrown a raw piece of meat onto that thousand degree grill.
And that same sound was there that sizzling.
Did they have a delicious barbecue smell as well?
Well, not really.
Well, and you also know that all the Latin American dictators wear white shirts.
There you go.
Now that, I don't want to say anything else.
That makes my decision.
Exactly.
I mean, that says it all, doesn't it?
So go for white, Ronnie.
Oh, thanks guys.
Again, blue hair and a white car fit in perfectly.
You'll be great.
Send us a picture.
Thanks guys.
See you later.
Bye bye.
Well, it's happened again.
You've underutilized.
No, you outright squandered.
Another perfectly good hour listening to car talk.
Our esteemed producer is Doug the Subway Fugitive.
And Martha by mail.
Martha by mail.
We have it on good authority that our producer, you ready for this?
Guess Martha Stewart Living.
To live it by mail.
Oh, he's shaking his head.
We know you're a lion's sack because
because Catherine, our spy, saw your name on the magazine.
The mailing label.
The mailing label.
Well, that's why, first of all, he's so impeccably dressed.
And that's why his office is so beautifully.
That's why the office looks like a bomb went up.
But it was a feng shui bomb.
Martha Stewart Living.
Oh my god.
Our associate produces our Frau Catherine.
You can't quit your fired Fenelosa.
And Louie Crote and the Barbarian.
Our engineer is George Hicks.
Our senior web lackey is Doug the Old Gray Mayor.
And our technical spiritual and menu advisor.
Just back from the North American Free Lunch Grand National
is John Bugsy Lawler.
Our public opinion pollster is Paul Murkey of Murkey Research.
Assisted by Statistician Margin Alvera.
Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzov.
Our director of new product repair is Warranty My Foot.
Our audience estimator is Adam Ilyan.
Our pseudonym consultant is Norm Diplom.
Our dermatologist for teenagers is Don Pickett.
Our conflict resolution specialist is Yvonne Pissamy.
Our emergency room physician is Henrietta Badclam.
Our divorce attorney is Carmine Not Yours.
Our Russian chauffeur is Beak Off and Drop Off.
And our seat cushion tester is, of course, Mike Easter.
Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Chidwin-Howes.
You, Louis Dewey, known to the James Taylor imitators
in Harvard Square as U.E. Louie Dewey.
Thanks so much for listening.
We're clicking, clack, the tappet brothers.
And above all, don't drive like my brother.
And secondly, above all, don't drive like my brother.
We'll be back next week.
Bye-bye.
And now here is Cot Talk Plaza's chief mechanic,
Mr. Vincent Q. Gumbaz.
Vinny?
Thank you very much.
Now, if you want a copy of this year's show, which is number 20,
you can get one on the web.
Just head on over to the online store
at the Cot Talk section at Cots.com, you know?
And what if somebody wanted something else?
You know, like the new book In Our Humble Opinion
that we just published.
Would I go to that same site if I wanted that?
No, you dope.
You go to www.DanielPinkWaterExerciseVideo.com.
Of course, you go to the same site, the Cot Talk section
of Cots.com, where you can order my phone
by calling 888-COT-JUNK.
Thank you, Vinny.
I appreciate your candor about all this.
Hey, Candace, right?
Cot Talk is a production of Dewey Chidwin-Howe and WBUR in Boston.
And even though Volodymyr Putin calls our office
and politely asks for our exact coordinates,
whenever he hears us say it, this is NPR, National Public Radio.
About this episode
The show mixes future-prediction science with classic Car Talk problem-solving. A call about a Dodge Caravan jack mishap turns into reassurance after the hosts share a story of a wheel coming off a Triumph at 60 mph—sparks, luck, and why damage may be limited. Another listener describes a steering “dip” on mountain curves; the hosts suspect a steering column-to-rack coupling or the rack itself and advise not driving until checked. Later, they tackle engine break-in myths, black vs. white car heat in Florida, and a coin-weighing puzzler.
Original notes
Jose is stuck on the horns of a dilemma -or is he? Whether to risk getting ripped off by a local repair shop or to die in a fiery crash. Click and Clack help him weigh his options on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.
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