This is a 1994 GMC truck. It’s the kind of older full-size pickup people often use for work or towing, and it’s built more like a rugged utility vehicle than a modern car.
The firewall is the wall between the engine compartment and the inside of the car. If the sound seems to come from there, it helps point to where the problem might be.
The throttle controls how much air the engine gets. More throttle usually means the engine spins faster and works harder, which can make certain noises show up.
RPM means how many times the engine spins each minute. Mechanics use it to recreate the same driving conditions in the shop so they can hear the problem again.
In your car’s A/C, the compressor is the part that makes cold air. The compressor clutch is the mechanism that turns it on, and if it’s worn out it can make weird noises.
A vacuum leak means there’s a small hole or crack in a hose that should hold suction. That can make certain car systems act weird and can even create strange sounds.
A Geo Prism is a small older car (from the 1990s). The caller is using their Geo Prism as an example of a smell problem—something in the car is rotting and creating a sweet, toxic odor.
The Chevrolet Corvair is an older Chevrolet model that’s known for having its engine in the back instead of the front. That makes it stand out compared with most cars. The podcast mention sounds like it’s using the Corvair as a recognizable example of something unusual.
An automatic transmission is the part of the car that changes gears for you. If it starts slipping, the car may feel like it’s not transferring power correctly.
Transmission fluid is the fluid that keeps the automatic transmission working and helps it shift. If it’s low or dirty, shifting problems like slipping can happen.
The torque converter is how an automatic transmission connects the engine to the rest of the drivetrain. If it’s worn out, the car can feel like it’s not getting power correctly.
Changing the transmission fluid can sometimes help if the fluid is dirty or worn out. But if internal parts are already damaged, it won’t fix everything.
A gasket is a seal that helps keep transmission fluid from leaking. If it’s not sealing properly after service, you can lose fluid and cause bigger problems.
Camshaft seals are small seals that stop engine oil from leaking near the camshaft. If they fail, oil can escape and start making a mess—sometimes onto very hot parts.
The oil pressure switch is a sensor that checks whether the engine has enough oil pressure. If it leaks or fails, you might get warning lights or oil problems.
The exhaust system carries the engine’s hot exhaust gases. If oil leaks onto it, the oil can smoke and potentially catch fire because the exhaust gets very hot.
The thermostat is a valve that helps your engine run at the right temperature. If it’s stuck or not regulating properly, the engine can run too hot and the car may warn you with dashboard lights.
The check engine light is your car’s way of saying it found a problem. A red one usually means the issue is more serious than a simple reminder and you should address it quickly.
The heater core is what makes your car’s cabin heat work. If it’s “blown,” it leaks coolant, and you can end up with strange smoke/steam inside the car and a big repair job.
A Honda Civic is a popular Honda compact car. Here, the host is talking about a 1993 Civic that had a heating problem serious enough that the dashboard would need to come out to fix it.
The Ford Taurus is a regular passenger car (a sedan) meant for everyday driving. It’s the kind of vehicle people choose for commuting and family use. In the podcast, it sounds like it was brought up as a familiar option in a discussion.
Changing the oil is basic maintenance that keeps the engine running smoothly. The speaker is saying they can do that, but not the harder dashboard-level repair.
Taking the dashboard out means removing a lot of interior trim to reach parts that are hidden behind it. It’s often required for heater-core repairs because the part is not accessible from the outside.
Here, “circuit” means the route coolant takes through the car’s heating system. The idea is to stop using that route temporarily if the engine problem is going to get worse anyway.
The Ford Bronco is a type of SUV made to handle rough roads and off-road trails. People talk about it because it’s built for outdoor driving, not just normal city streets. The name is also well known, so it’s easy to joke about in a conversation.
The defroster is what clears fog off your windshield so you can see. If the heater isn’t working well, the windshield can get foggy and visibility drops fast.
LIVE
Every episode of It's Been a Minute, NPR's What's Happening in Culture podcast starts
by asking three questions.
Who?
How?
Why now?
If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it.
At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and indulge your cultural curiosity.
Follow It's Been a Minute wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll break down the zeitgeistly
topics that are filling your feed.
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 the when in Rome department here
at Car Talk Plaza.
Yeah, in honor of Columbus Day, who is Italian, you know, and it was Columbus Day a few months
ago.
I thought it was from Ohio.
Someone sent me this and I realized now as I look at it that we're going to get so much
nasty mail from the Italian American Foundations of America.
No, it's all right to make fun of your own heritage.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Fine.
Okay.
Here it is.
It's a list of...
I mean, Yakov Smirnoff does it.
He does it.
Who's he?
I don't know.
I do.
This is...
You know you're Italian if.
I like it already.
You're six foot four, you can bench press 325 pounds, you shave twice a day, but you still
cry when your mother yells at you.
You live in a 900 square foot bungalow but still have two kitchens, one in the basement.
In some capacity, there is a dump truck in your life.
Hey, you never know.
You netted more than $50,000 on your first communion.
At some time in your life, you've called someone a mama luke.
You've been hit with a wooden spoon or had a shoe thrown at you.
And my personal favorite, a high school diploma in one year of community college has earned
you the title of Profesota, among your aunts.
Now, they're all going to send nasty letters saying, why should you be degrading your very
own heritage?
And the answer is, because it was funny.
Because it was funny.
Well, you know, these were especially funny for us because every single one of them except
for bench pressing 325 pounds.
I never got to more than 280.
But mom always had the way with the wooden spoon.
Oh, man.
You'd be...
She'd be at the stove, stirring something, and she'd tap the spoon on the edge of the
pot.
And you'd say something stupid.
And maybe you didn't say anything.
And all of a sudden, as you're turning away, you get the wooden spoon on the back side.
What was that all about?
Two weeks ago, Thursday, you talked back to me.
Well, hey, hey, if you have a question about...
So Profesota, what do you want to talk about?
Anyway, if you happen to have a question about your car or your heritage, you can call us
at 888-CAR-TALK, that's 888-227-8255, a lawyer on Car Talk.
Good day, gentlemen.
Hey.
Dale from Florida.
Hey, Dale.
What part of Florida?
Now, Clearwater, the Tampa Bay area.
Okay.
Yeah.
Best part of Florida.
Yeah.
I have a 1994 GMC pickup, a half-time pickup.
Uh-huh.
I've had it for two years.
It's got high miles on it.
How much is high?
150?
Uh, about 97,000.
All right.
That's not bad.
But, uh, she's starting to talk to me in mown and grown.
And through a process of elimination, I have narrowed it down to the air conditioning,
but I don't know specifically what's wrong with it.
But if you'd like for me to describe, I can actually give you the noise that it makes.
First tell us under what conditions it makes the noise.
When the air conditioning is running.
Good.
Yeah.
Huh.
And the noise that it makes is about a two to three minute interval.
And it sounds like it's passing wind.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Would you like me to describe the sound?
Go right to it, man.
Okay.
Here, all right.
Here we go.
And it'll do this, and I've had friends in my car saying, Dale, what are you going
to do with this thing?
And I said, I don't know.
I'm either going to give it some fuel treatment or throw a bottle of Kale-Pectic down a tank.
And no one says, Dale, stop that.
I have not taken it into a professional shop yet.
I thought I'd give you guys a whack at it first.
Where does it sound like the sound is coming from?
It's either something close to the firewall or possibly, it's tough, it's really tough
to hear it.
Oh, sure.
And it won't do it at all unless you're going at high speed.
Right.
Well, you can simulate high speed by turning the air conditioner on, because the air conditioner
doesn't know whether the thing is moving or not.
If you can bring the throttle up to 3,000 RPM in the shop, you can reproduce the noise
in the shop.
My first inclination is that it's the compressor clutch that's failing.
Well, I checked that, and there's plenty of clutch out there.
All right.
So we'll go back.
Plant B. I always have a plant B, because plant A almost always fails.
And plant B is that it's a vacuum leak in one of the controls.
And that's, I think, would make the passing wind sound.
Yeah, it's wind.
It is wind.
It is wind.
It is literally a wind sound.
Literally wind.
Oh, okay.
I like this one.
I like plant B.
Well, I tell you, it's hell on dates, man, because they think I'm making noise, and I'm
saying, look, it's my car.
It's my truck.
Right.
It's always tough to break into a song or something, when your first sense of thing
is starting to do it.
Now, what would cause it to do it about every two to three minutes?
There's some kind of a time frame in there in a pattern.
Because the vacuum builds up and leaks.
And something is leaking.
And so you got this cycle going on of some vacuum building up and then leaking down.
And at some point on the way up or down, it makes the noise.
There are things called vacuum motors, you know, which control the doors to direct, you
know, the flow of air.
And if one of those...
Oh, talking to which.
I got, yeah, one of those, I don't know which one it is, but man, that door slams hard.
It sounds like a garage door slamming.
Ah.
There you go.
Yeah, I do have that.
That's the one.
Yeah.
You know what you should do?
Call the Chevrolet dealer or the GMC dealer and see if they have a service bulletin on
this.
Okay.
And they may be able to tell you exactly what the problem is.
I'm sure you're not the only one who has this problem.
And if it is one of these doors of vacuum motors, it's going to be relatively easy to fix.
Okay.
Good luck, Dale.
Good luck, Dale.
Drive safely, brother.
Hey, thank you very much.
Y'all have a good day.
You too.
Bye-bye.
See ya.
1-888-CAR-TOCK that's 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
Hi, this is Julianne.
I'm calling from Dorchester, Massachusetts.
Julianne, all one word.
All one word.
Yeah, so what's up?
Well, I have a 95 Geo PRISM and my problem is this.
I went away on vacation for the last week of August and I came back and I got in my car
and it smelled like rotten fruit.
Really sweet kind of toxic and I actually assumed that maybe you know something fall out of my lunch bag
And I have some rotten fruit very very likely
Well, but I can't find it and I've looked and I've torn it up and I've really determined
There is no writing. Well, you can't find it now because it's vaporized
Maybe it's disappeared. I mean, I don't know how to say this without sounding
Stupid sexist
Sexist, yeah, go go for it man regarding the interiors of cars women
That's it, I said it you said it. That's it. Yeah guys are not
most most guys are not I mean I've seen
Thousands upon thousands of cars over the years and at least from my small perspective
Yeah, well, it's not a fair city. It's not insignificant. No, the numbers are such that it's not
There's no question about it. I mean, it's overwhelming that most women come in with empty or semi-empty yogurt containers
Stuck under the seats all kinds of rotting fruit 50 or 60 pairs of shoes
The shoes alone can give you a smell that you could never pin point I could knock so any any of those things
Are you one of those people?
Is your car a mess no, it's really not a mess
I mean, I have like papers and debris and stuff
But nothing that could rot
How would you know though see that's the problem
Well, but I've really torn it apart and when I've sort of gone down on the floor of the car
The smell isn't the smell doesn't come from the floor of the car really. Yeah
And you check the trunk. I
My son Tommy's got a whole case of clementine
Joanne it sent him off to college with you know, you know a big care package of all kinds of
Foods among them is a case of clementines and Alex, of course leaves them in the trunk for about five weeks
He comes home because his car is broken and I opened the trunk and oh my god
Was it disgusting?
But it smells like from me the only other thing that makes awful smells in a car and I imagine this smell is awful
Yeah, yeah is mold
Okay, yeah mold and decaying
creatures
Yeah, and decay. I mean, I can't say that I'm an expert on the on the smell of decaying creatures
But I I wouldn't say that it is totally unlike
Decaying fruit because they ate before they I mean, they are basically, you know
And it's possible that a little Misi Moussey crawled into something and maybe the reason you can't find him is he's sitting there
Huh sitting lying there with his paws up inside the heater ducts. Oh
Because it really did seem like you know around the mid-level of the car like maybe from the air well
Is it worse when you turn on the fan?
It's just so bad all the time is it is it abated at all in recent weeks or is it but then it'll come back
And that's what I find out about it. It'll go away for a few days and it'll come back
Well, I think you should take this this car to a detailer
Okay, and and see if they first of all they recognize the smell don't forget their well-versed and smells automotive
Okay, and they may be able to tell you oh, yeah, that's a dead mouse
And they can probably I mean eventually the mouse will just disappear. Okay, it will evaporate
At least the parts of it that remain won't smell. Okay, and you might be able to spray stuff into the ventilation system to if nothing else
Overpower the smell. Okay, and my recommendation is always Lysol
Okay, yeah, but there are many other things. I have a smell in one of my own cars
I love my brother driving for two days
And and I've been using with some success coffee coffee coffee if you roast coffee beans
Get them real hot so they're smoking
Okay, and being careful not to burn your seats or any other parts of the car
You put the hot beans in the car and you close the doors
Oh, and if nothing else it will smell like coffee, which is preferable to what I mean
That doesn't get rid of the smell, but it it masks it. Okay. Yeah, good luck. Julie. Okay. Don't forget
There's always fire
Bye-bye
Okay, Tommy, I have one and only one question for you. Do you happen to remember last week's puzzler?
Uh didn't have to do with the international monetary fund the home shopping network at Abdul's falafel emporium
No, that was your credit card
It had to do with my new CD player and the song I call I call
It's June and another big week in the run-up to the midterms
Primaries and half a dozen states including California where new congressional maps are in place and a chaotic race for governor is wide open
We're also following gas prices and Iran so far talk of a peace deal is just talk
We'll keep you posted listen every morning up first on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts
Hi, we're back you listen to car talk with us click and clack the tappet brothers and we hear to talk about cars
car repair and duh the answer to last week's puzzler and this came from the audio files
The audio ex files
Some weeks ago. I was convinced by my son that we needed a new
CD player for the house even though the old one worked great
So we bought this new CD change and I hooked it up to the sound system in my living room
Then I had to decide what to do with the old one
I was about to offer it to my brother for 200 bucks when I realized that I could hook it up to my Bose
Wave radio in the kitchen. I had this just terrific radio, but I was too cheap to buy the one with the CD player
Yeah, so I hook it up and I put on my favorite song of the moment
Which is I go I go and I crank up the volume you give us a little
excerpt from it. How does it go?
Can I hear you say I go
I go I go on a
Mofino I know yeah, Jackie Mofina. Yeah. Anyway, I put the thing on and it's skipping like mad
Being the master of diagnosis that I am I begin to perform a series of tests. I take my tish, you know hosa CD
Mm-hmm, and I put it in the old CD player works fine doesn't skip at all
Haha, I say the I go I go CD must be junk
So I take it over to the new CD player. Good. Good. Right. Yeah, I plunk it in the new CD player
Expect to get to skip like crazy
And it doesn't oh
So I take it back to the old CD player and I perform a couple of technical adjustments
Yeah, right
Well the back of your hand on the back of my hand
I drop and I kick and I figure uh-huh
Yeah, I put I go I go in and it skips all over the place
I said Jesus got to be something wrong with my old CD player. I'm gonna have to sell it to my brother after all
But there isn't anything wrong with it. How did moving the old CD player 50 feet from the living room to the kitchen?
Disturb this thing and make it malfunction
The answer is it did but not in the way
You'd think yeah, and the mistake I made was I didn't put it near too close to the microwave or anything like that
I put the CD player down on the counter and I put the radio on top of it
And when you play a song that has a lot of bass like I go I go boom boom
The bass
Was making the thing shake and making the CD player skip and when I played
You know the melodious sounds of tish, you know hosa
Yeah, of course. There was no big bass sound no vibration
She got no stinking bass in her music simple case of vibration and the cd player
Because I spent the better part of four weeks for you
That's another story. So who's our winner man?
Well, the winner is michael laveen from portland, oregon
And for having his answer selected at random from among all the correct answers that we got michael's gonna get a
$25 gift certificate to the store at the cartalk section of cars.com and with that $25 gift certificate
He can put a sizable down payment on a trendy trendy
Long-sleeved denim cartalk shirt. I happen to be weird. How do I look is that hit that is the very shirt
How many $25 payments is that all many only seven?
Payments of 25 bucks. Well, don't forget the shipping and handling. That's where we get them
That's worth every second, but it is a wonderful. It happens to be a very nice shirt. Yeah. Oh, yeah
How did you get a free one? I went through mayor's things and
stole it from his backpack
By the way, if you'd like information on any of the fashion challenged accessories mentioned on the show
You can always visit the store at the cartalk section of cars.com yourself or you can call
888 car junk
Anyway, we'll have a new uh
I don't know how to describe this, but it is it is mathematical
Logical in nature
Oh semi quasi
Not automotive non-automotive
Say non-automotive non-historic non folkloric non folkloric just just okay
We'll have a puzzle coming up in the third half of today's show
So don't slam your radio dial to off just yet in the meantime
You can call us and ask us questions about your car. The number is 1888 car talk
That's 8882278255 Hello. You're on car talk
Hello, this is grace from hampton connecticut
Grace
How's everything in hampton? Uh, it's great so far good
See my buddy richie ladano used to live in hampton connecticut. Do you know them?
They're the wacko family that lived on
With with the sixth Chevrolet Corvair's park on the front lawn
Sounds like about my neighborhood
So
Anyway, go ahead. Okay. I have an 89 Subaru station wagon
And it has a number of problems, but there's one
I'll start with the first one the car in the morning
doesn't want to accelerate past 20
for
I mean three or four blocks
And we live on a small street that turns on to the main thoroughfare into new haven
So in the morning everybody's driving down that road about 60 miles an hour and i'm driving 20
Turn on
I've tried flooring it and what happens when you floor it. It just doesn't go no the engine gets really loud
It starts roaring really loudly. Oh, oh, oh
Gracie
Gracie
You're in trouble
It's gonna cost you a fortune. I was gonna say I don't want to spend any money on this car
You know, you don't have to you can just leave it by the side of the road
Oh grace grace automatic transmission. Of course. She does. It's too bad. That's too bad
I'm supposed to shift out of one. No, it's supposed to shift out of one. It's slipping. There are various reasons
The most common of which is the transmission is done for
But it doesn't mean that you couldn't be real lucky if you had have led a good clean life
And it's possible that something simple like your low on transmission fluid
Is causing the problem. That's very unlikely because no one could lead that clean a life
No, it's more likely that your torque converter and your clutches are cooked
Yeah, but it wouldn't hurt to check the transmission fluid and make sure that it's got it and if it's really dirty
You can try changing it. Yeah, okay
That would be the second you have someone change the filter and the fluid in the gasket and that might help
And if you've led a somewhat good life, then that would make it work
But if you've been the evil thing that I think you have been
Uncaring about your fellow motorists, then it's gonna cost you 2000 bucks
But not to worry. You can put it right in the Lodano's front lawn because
They're collecting old jalapes like put it right next to those six corvairs
If I just ignore it and don't do anything, will it just keep running the same way though?
No, it's it's likely to get worse in a hurry. Okay. How long has it been doing this 20 mile an hour thing?
See, I bought it used
And I got it about a
Year ago. Yeah, it's been doing this for a year since I bought it
Oh
Really? Yeah, how much did you spend for the car?
About almost 4000
Oh
And he but he said that it would run till it has like 230 miles thousand miles on it. Well, it will only a 20 miles an hour
He didn't mention that
Now drive it. I mean check the obvious stuff
If if your mechanic things changing the fluid will help and I think it will okay, then I would go ahead and do that
But don't do it without changing the filter too
Okay
And if that doesn't help drive it till it drops and and then you can decide what to do
But it is dangerous driving at 20 when everyone else is doing 60
So you might want to find an alternate route for that first couple of miles of driving
So that it has a chance to warm up or drive her on the block seven or eight times
Okay, and one other question. Yeah, I took it in the shop because it was smoking all the time
And it smells like smoke all the time and I says that it leaks like the Exxon Valdez
Oh, really? He says that there's so many leaks in it. He said that he wouldn't know where to begin
my question is uh
Will that smoke ever become like flames or is it just always gonna smoke and that's fine
Cool, I'd wear your sneakers if you buy this cast you can get away fat
Well, see the lucky part is that you'll only be going 20 when the fire breaks out
You'll be able to just jump out and have a running start
Well, yeah, it's possible uh, it is possible to burst into flames
The most common areas of leakage on these things are the camshaft seals and the valve covers and in the oil pan and the oil pump
And the oil pressure switch all of which cause the leaks to go on to the exhaust system
Okay, uh, which is pretty hot right so it's possible for the thing to catch fire
Oh, it is. It's possible. Yeah
So but I wouldn't I wouldn't worry about that. I think the transmission will give out before that happens
Good luck grace. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Bye. And next time you buy a car at grace
Even though the price seems right
You really ought to have a mechanic check it out because a mechanic would certainly have seen all those oil leaks
Well, it came from a mechanic shop
They told me they looked at everything because they told me to be and you believed a mechanic
Who was selling you a car?
Are you interested in a bridge?
Oh
Oh, geez grace. So you are a nice person then you you're a a trusting person and it's coming back to get you
Yes, I guess. Yeah, this will make you wiser and stronger. Yeah. I hope see you later more cynical like the rest of us
188 that's too bad. It is unfortunate. Well, it's just it's the nicest people
Who get it? Yeah who get taken advantage of yeah, I know I I know that boy through bitter experience
Hey, man, I think it may be time for us to take a break. What makes you say that? Why?
Well, our producer jumping all over the place waving his arms on the other side of the glass
No, no, no, that's because louis just spilled the hot coffee in his lap
Oh, we won't worry about it then. We'll be back with a new puzzler in just a minute
Brazil used to have one of the fastest growing economies in the world people called it the country of the future
Their songs
Because it seems like we have it all man
But then the music stopped on the planet money podcast a lot of countries these days aren't rich
They aren't poor. They're just kind of stuck in the middle. Why is that?
Listen on the npr app or wherever gets your podcasts
Ha we're back
You're listening to car talk with us click and clack the tappet brothers and we here to discuss cars car repair and the
The new puzzler. Oh, no description. Just the new puzzler defies description jump right into it, man
Just go for it. Well, I do have to acknowledge
What was this sent to me 1980 what?
Uh, I'm trying to figure out who sent it. Wow, it's a big long thing
Oh, uh, this is ashley bruce robinson phd a professor of civil and environmental engineering
From uh, I don't I forget where he's from university of tennessee
He's probably retired by now
Sent a bunch of puzzlers in and and I've uh, oh, I see and you uh, I've stolen a couple of them and I'm going to steal another one
Oh, good. Okay. Well pretty good. And this is something for the rest of you to aspire to
sending stealing for yeah
No, no sending in four or five pretty good puzzlers. Oh, you remember when you were a kid you had those little
Plastic gadgets with the numbers in them and they had the numbers one through 15 and one empty square
You know and you and of course the the thing came with the numbers all scrambled and your job was to put them in order
Put them in order move them shuffle them around and and all that and and you always wound up 10 11 12 13 15 14
Right, and you could never get it right. There was no way to get there
Well, when I read this puzzler reminded me of that frustrating little toy that I had when I was a kid imagine this there are
25
Jealous people who live in the squares of a five by five grid
Okay, so drawing a piece of paper a five by five
Grid so this would be like a strange apartment building could be a strange apartment building
Okay, and each of them thinks that his neighbor is in adjacent squares. I the guy in the middle
His window looks out on the guy
Next to him and his window looks on the guy next to him
And then so if you want to know if it's raining you got to look to three guys went apartments
Right, you're gonna call everyone open your windows
Okay, I got it. This is a very strange
So we're gonna number the squares if we start on the upper left hand corner 123456789 10
Etc etc down to 25
So the first row starts with one the second row starts with six the third row starts with 11 and so forth
I got it. Yeah, right. So everybody everyone is jealous of his if his adjacent neighbor not his diagonal neighbor
But either the person up or down from him or left or right of all left or right of him. You got it
Yeah, okay, and each aspires to move into the apartment of his
Adjacent neighbor one of his adjacent neighbors one of his for example
Number one guy can either move to number two apartment
Or number six
Wow, okay, so they'll they'll be willing to take any other apartment as long as it isn't theirs
As long as it isn't theirs the smell has gotten too bad as long as it's adjacent to their adjacent
But not the question is very simple. What is the fewest number of total moves?
That can accomplish
Uh
Satisfy everybody satisfy everyone so that everyone gets to move in one of the adjacent apartments. You got it
Yeah, you ready you sure I think so. All right
I think you know the answer
write it on a postcard or stick it to the back of a bottle of
1997 Dante Rivetti barbarez cobrico de nieves
or something else bright plummy cherry and violet scented
with firm tannins and
Puzzler tower car talk plaza box 3500
Harvard square Cambridge our first city mat 02238
Or you can email your answer from the car talk section of cars dot com
If you'd like to call us the numbers 1888 car talk
That's 8882278255 Hello. You're on car talk. Hi. This is jim con from movin mass
Hey, so what's up, man? Okay the saga starts. I was driving home on the highway
And my thermostat maxed out and then the um, the dreaded red check engine light comes on
I knew that was trouble, but I was trying to get home. I was in Connecticut at the time
And next thing you know, there's a green smoke bellowing into the car
Uh, I had a passenger in the car. There was so the heart and you said I I know I can make it
It's only 110 miles
Uh, we didn't make it I barely got I was in the bright, you know the right lane
Barely pulled off and um, so anyway, that's how it all started
So what happened the diagnosis was a blown heater core. Yeah, I figured that either you have to have a
Ford Taurus or a Volkswagen actually it's a 93 Honda Civic all that
So okay, so I see a couple options
I could the first one obviously what you guys are thinking is get it fixed
But I'm getting prices anywhere from 500 to a thousand dollars
Because it's a very labor-intensive project
Is from what I'm what I'm hearing. Yeah, and unnecessarily so but that's another topic for another day and I
I'm kind of I can basically change my oil and change a flat
Beyond that
Ask me to do any car work. So I'm I'm thinking I'm going to get my whole dashboard out
Which this project involves that I'm not going to be able to get it back in
So I'm looking for an alternate heat source
Yeah, I mean I I was immediately going to suggest that you just take it out of the circuit
Which is relatively easy to do I might add before we go any further
Jim yeah, uh, that is likely that the head gasket is going to blow in about six weeks anyway. Perfect. So
Well because you overheated it so badly
Okay, you stretch the head gasket beyond the point where it can return to normal service
So what are we looking at for a bill on that? Oh, that's a thousand. Everything's a thousand. Okay. So we'll just round it with
Okay, so we'll just round it off with a thousand bucks a thousand bucks. That's why I don't think you should fix the heater core
Perfect. That's what I want to hear
That's what I'm looking for you guys to tell me. I thought you were thinking I was crazy, but okay
I mean so for the next six weeks, you won't have any heat
But you can wear your bronco nougurski long underwear. What if my mother gets in the car?
Nobody will get in the car with you. No
No, and and the thing is that you you may think you can tough it out now
Right, we've had a couple of chilly days. You say, huh, this isn't so bad. I'll wear a hat
But I'll tell you when it's nine degrees and it's snowing and the window is so fogged up that you can't see
Right, you'll pay 3000 for that heater core
And understand that the price will be inflated when that when the appropriate season arises
Okay, yeah, and there may in fact be alternative sources of heat
But the truth is that the defroster is really the biggest issue
So there's no alternate in other words. There's no sort of a small heater like a space heater that you could get for an
Rv or something would plug into my
Uh, cigarette lighter that would heat the car
There are I suppose but no, there's not one of them that can heat the car
Right
I don't think you can pull enough energy out of that that the charging system to heat the car
I could be wrong
I'm concerned about
One advantage you have is that it is a pretty small car and you might want to go and buy one of these things
How much fad you jim do you place on your life?
Because I mean you you could also get yourself a nice little propane heater
And you
Pop it up on the front seat. I could grill some hot dogs and you could grill hot dogs
And you and you could aim it, you know
And those work you get plenty of heat out of them, right? You'll be dead in an hour. Well, here's what I'm gonna see
If it doesn't blow you up it'll suck up all the oxygen that's passed into compartment and you'll be dead
I think I think this is a job you should undertake yourself
Okay, you could do it. I mean it is a lot of work
And you'll need the book
Right. I went to the Chilton's book. No good. You need the actual Honda service manual. Okay
It's like about 900 bucks, right?
No, it's a thousand everything's a thousand
And and and then and sit down and read it and if you after reading it you say oh, there's no way I could do this
Right, but it'll give you step by step instructions
I remember we did this once many many years ago before we really knew anything about cars
And we had decided we were gonna do a job on my truck
So I went to gm and I bought the manual
And we were flipping through it one day to see how big I forgot what the job was
But I looked at the page and they were like six steps
And we said piece of k we can do this
Finally, we decided to actually do it and we noticed that the first step is
Remove engine
So be careful when you get the book make sure you read it
Carefully so you know what you're really getting into
And and a friend and a polaroid camera
Will help tremendously. Yeah, because you'll never remember what stuff looks like. That's what I'm that's what I'm you know afraid of
Right and little in little containers into which you can put clips there are a million clips and screw you won't believe it
Oh, yeah, no, you'll never get it back together again, but you're the only one driving to work with a dashboard less
The dashboard is is
And the car will still run you might want to just take the dashboard out put the heater core in leave everything else off
I mean if it doesn't go back together, what do you care? You'll have he
Right doesn't matter anyway
No, you can do it Jim, but get the book and if it looks too daunting then then pay the money because you'll you'll freeze this winter
Hey, thanks a lot. Good luck. I appreciate it. Take care. Bye. Bye. Well, it's happened again
You've devaluated another perfectly good hour listening to car talk our esteemed producer is dug the subway
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About this episode
Humor opens the show, then the conversation turns practical: a caller with a 1994 GMC pickup hears a repeating, wind-like noise when the air conditioning runs. The hosts walk through reproducing the issue, suspecting either the compressor clutch or a vacuum leak, and explain how vacuum motors can slam doors and cycle. They recommend checking dealer service bulletins and also cover other car problems—smells, slipping automatics, and even a heater-core diagnosis—before wrapping with an NPR-style lawn-care reminder.
Julianne called Click and Clack hoping to get a clue in hunting down a nasty smell somewhere in her car. Instead she ended up on the wrong end of a sweeping generalization regarding whether men or women are the bigger automotive slobs. Judgement rendered on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.
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