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Car
1968 Rambler American
This is a 1968 Rambler American, an older American car from the late 1960s. People who like classic cars often find it interesting because it’s a specific model year and it represents that era’s compact, affordable American-car vibe.
Term
carbon
They’re talking about soot-like buildup inside the engine. That buildup can make the engine run worse, especially when it’s cold.
Term
rich mixture
A “rich mixture” means the engine is getting extra fuel compared to air. When the engine is cold, that extra fuel helps it start and keep running instead of stalling.
Term
automatic choke
An automatic choke helps a cold engine start by adjusting the mixture automatically. As the engine warms, it relaxes that extra-fuel setting.
Term
lean out the choke
To “lean out the choke” means to reduce the extra-fuel setting it provides when the engine is cold. That can help the engine run better instead of being overly rich.
Term
carburetor
A carburetor is a device that mixes fuel with air before it goes into the engine. It helps the engine run smoothly, especially when starting or idling.
Term
choke too rich
“Too rich” means there’s too much fuel compared to air. If the choke is set that way, the engine can run rough and leave extra soot in the exhaust.
Term
idle
Idle is the engine speed when you’re stopped. If it’s set too low, the engine can stall, so mechanics sometimes raise it to keep it running.
Term
bench seat covers
Bench seat covers are upholstery covers designed for a wide, single seat that spans across the cabin (instead of separate seats). This matters because the same car may use different seat layouts—so covers for a bench seat won’t fit bucket seats.
Term
bucket seats
Bucket seats are the individual seats with a shaped, supportive “bucket” around you. The speaker is saying they can only find the covers for those seats, not for a wide bench seat.
Term
convertible
A convertible is a car where the roof can be opened up. That usually means it’s better for open-air driving, but it can be less protective in cold or bad weather.
Car
93 Mazda B2200 pickup
This is a Mazda pickup truck. “B2200” is the model name, and “93” means it’s a 1993 version. The caller is saying it’s the right kind of truck for them.
Car
B-Series B2200
Term
muffler
A muffler is the part of the exhaust system that makes the car quieter. If it’s damaged or has a hole, the exhaust can get much louder.
Brand
Midas
Midas is a car service company that’s especially known for exhaust repairs. Here, they’re mentioned as the kind of place that could sell a muffler cheaply.
Brand
Ford
Ford is a car brand. The mechanic thought the engine parts were Ford parts, but the speaker says it’s actually Mazda using some Ford-made components.
Term
number three hole
Engines are laid out in a numbered order. When someone says “number three” or “number four,” they mean a specific cylinder/spot in the engine so the mechanic knows where to look.
Term
helicoil
A helicoil is a metal insert that fixes stripped or damaged threads. It gives the screw/bolt new threads to bite into so the part can be tightened properly again.
Term
spark plug
A spark plug is the part that makes the “spark” that starts combustion in a gas engine. If it’s not working right, the engine can misfire and you may end up replacing plugs more often than expected.
Term
tuneups
A tune-up is routine maintenance to help your engine run the way it’s supposed to. It can include things like checking or replacing spark plugs and other ignition-related parts.
Term
torque
Torque is the tightening “spec” for a bolt or spark plug—basically how hard it should be tightened. Tightening to the right torque helps it stay sealed and not loosen over time.
Topic
automotive puzzler
On this show, an “automotive puzzler” is a game-style car question. Someone gives clues about a problem, and the hosts try to figure out what’s wrong.
Car
93 Subaru Legacy wagon
This is a Subaru Legacy wagon from 1993. A wagon is basically a car with a longer cargo area behind the seats, so it’s more practical for hauling stuff.
Term
wheel balance
Wheel balance is making sure your tires and wheels are weighted evenly. If they’re not, the car can shake or vibrate while you’re driving, and it may get worse the longer you’re on the road.
Term
CV joints
CV joints are parts in the front drivetrain that help the wheels turn while power is still delivered to them. If the rubber boots around them rip, the joint can wear out faster and start causing noises or shaking.
Term
CV joint boots
CV joint boots are the rubber covers that keep grease inside the CV joint and keep dirt out. If they tear, the grease can leak and the joint can start wearing out, leading to vibration or worse problems.
Term
inner axle area
The inner axle area is the part of the front drivetrain closer to the engine/transmission. If you hear a sound there, it can be a sign the inner CV joint or its protective boot is damaged.
Term
vibration
“Vibration” is the shaking you feel in the car. Mechanics look at how strong it is and how often it happens to figure out what part is causing it.
Term
frequency
Frequency means how often the shaking cycles. If the shaking lines up with wheel rotation, it helps narrow down which rotating part is likely at fault.
Part
brake line
Your brakes use fluid pressure. A brake line is the tube that carries that fluid to the wheels. If it’s damaged or collapses, the brakes may not work as well or could feel like they’re getting worse.
Part
hung-up brake
A hung-up brake means the brake doesn’t fully let go after you slow down. So it can keep rubbing a little, which makes the car feel off and can overheat the brakes.
Part
right front axle
The right front axle is the part that connects the front wheels to the drivetrain so power can reach the wheels. If it’s worn or damaged, the car can feel rough and you may need to replace it.
Term
viscous coupling
A viscous coupling is a device that uses a special thick fluid to connect two parts of a drivetrain. When the fluid gets hotter, it changes how “thick” it behaves, which changes how strongly the parts are connected. That’s why temperature can make it act like it’s stuck or slow to respond.
Car
94-850 Volvo
A Volvo 850 is a Volvo from the 1990s. The caller says a golf ball is stuck somewhere in the car’s body/frame, so it rolls around and makes a loud noise while they drive.
Term
golf ball stuck in the frame
They think a golf ball is trapped in the car’s body/underbody area. When the car moves, the ball shifts and makes noise, which can be hard for a mechanic to locate.
Car
1995 Ford Contour
This is a 1995 Ford Contour (a regular Ford sedan from the mid-90s). The important part here is that it sometimes makes a weird noise and stalls when you’re slowing down to a stop, especially with the manual transmission.
Term
manual transmission
A manual transmission means you choose the gears yourself using a clutch pedal. The host is saying the problem shows up around stops even when the car isn’t in gear, which can help figure out what’s causing it.
Term
stall
To stall means the engine shuts off by itself. In this story, it happens when the car is idling near a stop, which often points to something affecting how the engine runs at idle.
Term
clutch out
“Clutch out” means the clutch pedal is up, so the engine is connected to the transmission. The host is using this detail to figure out whether the problem is tied to the drivetrain or just how the engine idles.
Term
mass sensor
This sensor measures how much air is getting into the engine. The car uses that information to decide how much fuel to add so the engine runs smoothly.
Term
throttle body
The throttle body is a part that controls how much air your engine can breathe. If it gets dirty or misbehaves, the car can idle rough or feel off when you press the gas.
Term
airflow sensor
This sensor tells the engine how much air is coming in. The computer then uses that info to decide how much fuel to add so the engine runs smoothly.
Term
lean mixture
A lean mixture means the engine has more air than fuel. If there isn’t enough fuel, the engine can run poorly and may even stall.
Term
vacuum leak
A vacuum leak is when air gets sucked in somewhere it shouldn’t. That throws off the engine’s fuel/air balance and can make it stall or idle badly.
LIVE
For three weeks in 2020, part of my Seattle neighborhood
was taken over by a protest occupation.
We were here to protest police brutality.
But it ended in tragedy.
The whole space felt darker and angrier.
Join me as I investigate the unsolved killing
of 16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr.
Listen to We Keep Us Safe on the Embedded Podcast from NPR.
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 Department
of Neurological Research here at Car Talk Plaza.
There's no end to the research that gets done in this world.
This, now get this, Reuters, dementia is an illness
that causes the loss of memory and reasoning.
However, Italian researchers, get ready for this,
in the journal Neurology, the Italian Investigator's report,
two cases where patients with frontal temporal dementia
suddenly began to enjoy pop music.
Really?
Yeah.
In the first case, a 68-year-old lawyer developed
frontal temporal dementia.
Losing...
This is what you lose now.
You lose abstract thinking, judgment,
beginning to sound familiar, isn't it, and language skills.
You know what I'm talking about here.
But after the diagnosis, he started to develop
an obsession for Italian pop music.
And then they go on and they list other situations
where these people have...
They have this problem where they lose abstract thinking,
they lose judgment, they lose language skills,
but they gain some new appreciation for pop music.
In one case, it was an old grandmother
who became buddies with her granddaughter, who was 11.
Listen to all that crappy music,
and the grandmother said, I love it, it's great.
This reminded me of...
Remember Foreign Accent Syndrome?
How could I forget it?
For those of you who don't remember,
I'm not up on your neurology.
This was a situation where people had an accident.
Or some traumatic event.
And suddenly started speaking with a foreign accent,
and it got a name, Foreign Accent Syndrome.
Monsieur, I don't know what is wrong.
There has been a terrible accident.
Well, there you go.
I mean, that's it.
That's just news for today.
I think it's fascinating that people even think of this stuff.
We know that one of the previously established symptoms
of dementia is feeling an urge to call us for advice.
Well, that would make sense.
Lose abstract thinking, bad judgment, and language skills.
It all fits together.
So for those of you feeling the onset of dementia,
our number is 1-888-CAR-TALK.
That's 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
This is Patricia from Eugene, Oregon.
Hi, Patricia.
Hey, how are you guys doing?
Not too bad.
We're doing great.
May we call you...
No, I don't want to call you Pat.
I don't like Pat.
No, don't call me Pat.
I don't like Pat.
No, I don't like Pat.
Your name is Patricia, damn it.
Your name is Patricia.
You could call me Rucci.
Rucci?
Yeah.
What does Rucci pray tell?
My last name is Marucci, and they shortened it.
My buddies call me Rucci.
Rucci.
Marucci.
Yeah, Marucci.
I'm going to call you Patricia.
Nice Italian girl.
So what's up, Eugene?
Okay, guys, I have a 1968 Rambler American.
Mm-hmm.
Man alive.
Yeah, you're looking for a husband?
Yeah.
Because my brother is available.
And I am short a couple of wives.
I've been looking for one all my life.
A 68...
You know, I was, for a few minutes, the owner of a 68 American.
Don't you love him?
That was such a piece of...
My brother knows...
My brother knows everything about these cars.
Oh, that is so great.
You might say he's intimate with them.
So what's wrong with it?
Well, it's a love-hate relationship, of course.
My mechanics, Bill and Mo, they've completely rebuilt it for me.
Larry, Mo and who?
Bill and Mo.
And they put a new engine in it, new ball bearings.
You know, I'm just restoring it.
But every time I start it, this puff of black soot comes out of the exhaust.
And everywhere I park at my job and at my home and any place that I frequent,
there's a pile of black soot where I park.
I've told them about this and they think I'm crazy.
They just think that I'm nuts.
Well, I mean, why do they think you're nuts?
Isn't there also...
Isn't the tailpipe all black, too?
I don't know.
Probably is.
They just can't figure out why it's doing it.
Well, the reason it's doing it is that you only drive 0.3 miles a day.
You know me.
A little less than 0.3, baby.
I never go anywhere.
Yeah, that's your problem.
Yeah, and you do have an engine that's full of carbon.
Every time you drive, think about it, when the engine is cold,
what happens is the car runs on a very rich mixture, otherwise it will stall.
Do you have a hand choke in this or is it an automatic choke?
It's an automatic.
Automatic?
Come on, these are modern technology, these cars.
But my windshield wipers only work when I press on the gas pedal.
Yeah, well, that's another story.
So, I mean, the rich mixture that you have never gets a chance to get un-rich,
because you stop by the time it would be ready to warm up and open up that choke.
But I just use regular gas.
It doesn't matter.
Gas is important.
You have to ask Shemp and Moldare.
Oh, Bill and Moldare and Curly.
They're nice guys.
I'm sure they are.
You have to ask them to lean out the choke.
Okay, lean out the choke.
Yeah, the choke is adjustable on this car, and they have to lean it out and make it so that
maybe it stalls once or twice when you start it in the morning, but it opens up faster.
And it doesn't close so tightly.
Okay, because they've worked on the carburetor a lot, because it was stalling a lot today.
See, it was stalling a lot, and they probably closed the choke.
And that's part of what the problem is.
They did something to it so that now when I'm driving it, I don't have to step on the gas.
It just goes off.
Right, my guess is, as Tommy's guess is, they adjusted the choke too rich,
and that's why you have the black thing.
And they up the idle.
They up the idle, and they're trying to convince you not to be concerned about it,
because they know if they put everything backwards supposed to be,
it's going to stall on you.
But it's better that it stalls.
Better that it stalls.
And once a week, take it out.
You got any highways there, Eugene, Patricia?
No, we only have logging roads here.
No, we have highways.
We have freeways.
There's one from Eugene to Portland, actually.
There you go.
Take a nice ride to Portland and buy a coffee and turn around to the back.
No, you don't even have to do that.
If you drove it up 10 miles every week at 50 miles an hour, it would be fine.
Okay, great.
Also, I was wondering, would you guys happen to know where I could find any leopard print
bench seat covers?
I got a couple of them.
What size do you want?
As you say, let me see if we have those in stock.
Really?
I cannot find them anywhere.
I can only find them in bucket seats.
And I've contacted ramblers only, and they don't have any.
Well, you may have to buy like 15 or 20 leopard skin bathing suits.
Sew them together.
See you in the trip.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Thanks for your call.
Bye-bye.
68.
You know, I decided the other day, you know what I want?
I want a 1960 Rambler American convertible.
You had one of those ones.
I did.
That's the perfect car.
Perfect for what?
It'll run all year.
Not like the MG.
The MG, you can't drive it nine months out of the year.
It's convertible.
Has a roof, windows, heater.
None of which the MG has.
None of which the MG has.
888 Car Talk.
That's 888-227-8255, a lawyer on Car Talk.
Why did you buy the MG?
I don't know.
What a stupid.
It's a stupid car to own, isn't it?
I'll give you a threaded box for it.
A lawyer on Car Talk.
Hi, this is Jamie from Millbrook, New York.
Hi, Jamie.
Jamie.
Where's Millbrook?
Millbrook is by Poughkeepsie, east side of the Hudson.
Great.
Where's Poughkeepsie?
Where's New York?
I know where Poughkeepsie is.
Just upstate.
I know where that is.
So what can we do for you?
I have the perfect truck, 93 Mazda B2200 pickup.
Really, huh?
Oh, yeah.
You're easy to please.
But you don't have the perfect truck.
You have the cheapest truck.
So this is my problem.
I'm driving home after work on the Teconic,
which, if you've been on the Teconic,
it's an up-and-down kind of road.
Going up a hill, and all of a sudden,
I hear this tremendous bang.
And I think, number one, either something has caught fire,
or number two, the entire exhaust system
is blown off of the truck.
And?
Pull over to the side of the road,
and one of the spark plugs has blown out of the engine.
Still attached to its cable,
but it's completely out of the engine.
Isn't that a shocker?
It's not just one bang.
I mean, you must have heard lots of bangs.
A one big bang.
One really big bang.
One really big bang, and then...
So the next morning, I called up the mechanic,
and he said, bring it in.
I limped in there, and he said...
Isn't it amazing, by the way,
how much noise can come out of that little hole?
He actually heard me coming before I got there.
Oh, man.
And I mean, everyone, if you wanted a new appreciation
for the fact that Midas could sell you a muffler for 15 bucks.
You should hear the noise,
and that's only out of one of those holes.
It's like a Gatling gun.
And for $15, they'll get rid of that for you.
So you announced your arrival several blocks in advance,
and your mechanic does...
He says you drive a Ford.
And I said, no.
But Mazda has Ford make some other parts of the engine,
and he said, was it the number three hole?
And I said, no, it was the number four.
And he said, oh, happens all the time.
Get a get a helicoil, we'll place it no big deal.
So he replaces it, right?
And then take it out, run fine.
Monday morning, I come back,
get out on the iconic again, go up a hill,
and I blew out a different spark plug.
Let me guess, number three?
No, number two.
Well, I would say the odds are getting better and better
that number three is going to go soon.
Kind of bracketed it now.
So I brought it back into him, and he said,
you know, huh, you know,
haven't seen it where the second one blew out.
And he said, you know, do the same thing.
We'll replace it.
And I said, how long until I replace all of them?
You know, is there something else that's going wrong?
And he said, I don't know.
Do you do your own tuneups?
I replaced the plugs myself.
6000 miles ago.
That's what I thought.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You did it.
Not tight enough.
Not tight enough, Jamie.
Not tight enough.
And what happens is little by little,
it starts working its way out and pretty soon.
What do you do for a living?
I'm going to guess, you're not in the construction business.
He does computer stuff.
You're a gentle, delicate kind of guy.
Not really.
What do you do?
I teach continuing education.
There you go.
Teacher.
See, the stuff you deal with is paper.
You have a gentle touch.
A gentle touch.
You deal with paper and once in a while an overhead project.
And a spitball.
And chalk.
You know, it's not the same as being like working on the oil rigs in Texas.
Right.
You're not a roustabout.
No.
No.
So I would guess that you just didn't tighten them up enough.
I'll tell you, we've worked on these engines since time immemorial.
Well, maybe since 1993 anyway.
And I have never seen a spark plug fly out except when the plugs weren't tight enough.
And the way he could have verified this was when he replaced number four that blew out.
He should have at the very least put the wrench on 32 and one
to make sure that they were all tight enough.
Actually, after the number two, he said, well, I don't know.
I can tighten them down.
And so he did actually go back and tighten those others down.
Good.
That was smart.
And had he done that the first time you went in, number two wouldn't have blown out.
Okay.
And I trust that the others are going to be fine from now on.
But tighten them up.
He did.
Right.
Oh, you did.
No, he did.
Jamie did.
The mechanic did.
After the second one blew out.
After the second one.
I wasn't paying attention to the truth.
I was reading mail.
You already dismissed Jamie.
I had.
He gave him an answer.
I was actually looking at the details of this fronto lobotomu temporal dementia thing.
Yeah, you need that.
See you, Jamie.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for calling.
Bye, guys.
Okay, Tommy.
Look, it's the middle of winter.
Yeah.
There's a cool, refreshing breeze in the air.
Yeah.
Frostbite on the feet.
Do you remember anything about our most recent puzzler?
I see.
All I see is confusion.
I see baffle mint.
Is there such a word as baffle mint?
Yes.
You're right.
It was so totally baffling and confusing that we gave everyone an extra week to work on it.
Oh, the magic hat puzzler.
Whoa.
The way you asked it was kind of baffling.
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This week on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me,
we talked to legendary musician Jason Narducey about being in a punk band when he was just 11 years old.
We broke up when I was 12.
And, uh, yeah, I just felt like I needed to go through puberty without band drama.
Don't miss our full conversation and the rest of our games.
Listen to the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me podcast and the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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 and for that matter.
Oh, the week before, before.
Well, this was a challenging, abstruse mathematical puzzler.
And understanding the question was not the least of the challenges.
I think this is going to be as big a puzzler as the behind the doors.
Oh, Monti Hall.
I don't think so.
It's as counterintuitive and baffling to think that there is an answer,
just that there is an answer.
Never mind what's the answer, just to believe that there is an answer.
All right.
Well, imagine there's a magical hat sitting on a table and there are two contestants.
You, Tommy, will be one of the contestants and we'll call the other one Vinny.
So you reach into the hat and you pull out a number and Vinny does the same.
And the reason that this hat is magical is that no matter what number you pull out,
Vinny will always pull out a number that is either one above or one below your number.
You're with me so far.
And to make it simple, we'll limit the numbers in the hat to between one and...
A million.
Let's say infinity.
Oh, infinity.
All right.
So each of you pulls out a number.
So let's say you pick three and Vinny picks two.
I'm the moderator and I ask, you know what number Vinny has?
Tommy looks, you look at your number and you have number three and you say no.
Okay.
And I ask Vinny what number you have and he looks at his number and he says yes.
Now I stated that no matter what the numbers, assuming that both contestants
answer truthfully and logically.
If I keep asking the question of each of them, so I go from you to Vinny to you again to Vinny
and as many times as it takes, eventually one of them will know without a doubt the other
contestants number.
Is that possible?
No, it is absolutely not possible.
Well, let's look at the example.
I thought this was not possible until you gave me the solution to it.
Okay.
Here's what I want our contestants at home to do.
Take your pencil and paper and draw on your piece of paper five boxes starting at the top.
Five good size boxes, maybe an inch by an inch.
Yeah, or two inches by two inches, whatever.
All right.
I got my boxes.
Okay.
I got five of them.
All right.
And in the first box on the upper left, put the number one.
Yeah.
Upper right, number two.
Yeah.
And then right below that, reverse the digits, two and one.
So lower left, two.
In the next, all the same box.
Two and one.
Okay.
So then the box below is going to be two and three.
Upper left, two.
Three.
Upper right, three.
Yeah.
Lower left, three.
Lower right, two.
The next box is three and four left to right.
And then 43
And then 43 left to right on the bottom.
I've got that.
And then 4554
You see the trend.
I got the trend here.
Okay.
So if you read from top to bottom on the left side, you'll get 1223
3445
Yeah.
Okay.
You know, 56
Got it.
Got it.
And the right-hand column is 21324354
I have that.
Okay.
All right.
So let's say you're on the left-hand column here.
You're on the left.
I'm going to put a T above that for Tommy and a V above the other one for me.
So let's say you have three and Vinny has four.
I ask you, do you know what number Vinny has?
No.
I mean, no.
I just told you you have three and Vinny has four.
What are you, stupid?
Yeah.
I know all of them.
All right.
No, but if you asked me, if I had a three, I'd say I don't know.
Because Vinny could have either a two or a four, you know.
And I don't know.
Okay.
Now I ask Vinny, do you know what number Tommy has?
He also answers no.
Then I come back to you.
Because I could have a, he says I could have a three or a five.
Right.
So Tommy could have three or a five when Vinny has a four.
Right.
I come back and I ask you again, do you know what number Vinny has?
And you answer, yes.
I do.
Yes.
How do you know?
Well, let's go to the previous example, which is one up.
You have three and Vinny has two.
I ask you, do you know what number Vinny has?
Just like the previous example that I gave, you have to say no.
But when I ask Vinny, what number, if he knows your number, he answers yes.
Because if he has two, you either have one or you have three.
Is that right?
If you had one, you would have known right off what number he had.
Right.
He would have had two.
He would have had two.
And because you didn't answer yes, he answers yes.
Because he knows.
Now, let's go to the first example I gave.
Yeah.
When you answered no the first time, and Vinny answered no, you knew he couldn't have two.
Yeah.
Because if he had it two, he would have said yes.
Exactly.
And because he didn't answer yes, he must have four.
So when I ask you the second time, do you know what number Vinny has?
You answer yes.
And if you go to the next example, four or five, where you have four and Vinny has five,
believe it or not, it goes no, no, no, no.
Comes back to you.
Yes.
So depending on how many times you ask the question and assuming no one says.
I don't know.
You already asked me that question.
Asked, asked me that.
Are you already asked me that question?
Assuming no one says that, but just says.
No, I still don't know.
Yeah, now if you're thoroughly confused by this.
Yeah.
Which everyone may be.
Everyone is.
You can go to the website and get confused again.
We go to the contact section of cars.com, go to the puzzler, and you will see a complete analysis.
So is our winner.
Who cares?
What a question.
The winner is John Peterson from Groton, Connecticut.
And for having his answer, pick that random.
From the three correct answers that we got this week, we didn't get any correct answers.
We just pick.
No, we got John.
Anyone who submitted an answer.
But John is going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division
at the car talk section of cars.com.
And with that 25 bucks, he can get, in time for Valentine's Day, maybe a copy of our best-selling
CD.
Men are from GM and women are from Ford.
Calls about couples and cars.
It has done wonders for my marriage, certainly.
Marriage.
Just marriages.
Anyway, we'll have a new puzzler coming up in the third half of today's show.
So be sure to stay tuned for that.
And it's going to be, I think, an automotive puzzler.
Good.
In the meantime, we'd be delighted to hear from you and try to answer your car questions.
The number is 888-CARTOCK.
That's 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on car talk.
This is Larry from Brooklyn, New York.
Hi, Larry from Brooklyn.
What's happening, man?
Well, we've got a 93 Subaru Legacy wagon, which up until recently, we'd been quite fond of.
Most people who have them are very fond of their Legacy wagon.
Well, I sense a little change in that.
Yeah, I know.
That's why I wanted to preface this, but I know that Larry's going to come now.
Larry's feelings.
He hates it.
Yeah, go ahead.
Well, the change is that recently, while it drives well in town, when we have taken it out on a
longer drive, after just about an hour, it begins to vibrate.
And the first time that happened, I was on I-95 going up to New Haven, and I thought,
well, it must be some wheel balance thing, no big deal.
I slowed down, and it didn't go away.
In fact, it got much worse.
What was the slowest speed at which you detected it?
Well, all the way to stopping.
I don't recall whether it shuddered when it was idling.
I don't believe so.
Oh, that would be important to know that.
The truly mysterious part of this is that at about 40 minutes after it starts, it just stops,
which has everybody who we've talked to stumped.
Yeah, you're right about that.
I was hoping you wouldn't say that.
You was, huh?
Well, we did take it to our local mechanic who did not find anything that could create
the symptoms I was describing.
But he did say that he heard a sound from the right inner axle area,
and that both boots over the CV joints were ripped.
The right front?
The right front.
The right front.
Well, I would go ahead and replace that axle, because it's possible that that's causing it.
And it may be that when the thing heats up, the axle is no longer able to flex the way it should
as the thing goes down the road.
But I would think you would notice some change in the amplitude of the vibration
as you slow down and also the frequency.
In other words, if the vibration were being caused by the axle's inability to flex,
at high speed, it would go...
But at lower speeds, it would go...
As each time that axle made a revolution, and you encountered that tough spot.
Well, that may be, and Larry may not have really...
It may be.
I mean, part of the problem is that we don't go on long trips that often,
so it's a bit of a memory task as well.
Yeah.
And you may not be completely honest with us, and we understand that.
We're used to that.
Now, the next thing that's coming to mind is viscous coupling.
Well, think about it.
Yeah.
Think about it.
You like it?
Not really.
Well...
Have you noticed that it's more pronounced on turns?
Well, it's hard to say since on the highway you're kind of going...
Kind of going straight.
So you didn't notice, for example, when you got off the highway and you were using the exit ramp,
that it got much worse?
No.
I didn't think so.
Well, let me mention, before the first time I experienced this,
there had been some brake work done on the car, which I dismissed because it didn't seem
wheel-related, but who knows?
It probably isn't.
Although...
Although there is the possibility...
There is the possibility that he's got a collapsed brake line.
Boy, that's awfully bossy.
Unlikely.
Unlikely.
I think it's more likely he has a collapsed lung.
Well, I'm struggling here.
There is a possibility that you do have a hung-up brake, but...
I don't like it.
I don't like it either, and I'm sticking with the axle.
And you know at the very least you have to replace the right front axle because both
boots are torn, so I would go ahead and do that.
And we'll expect to hear from you in about what?
Two and a half weeks?
Oh, about 40 minutes.
All right.
We'll be in touch.
Good luck, Larry.
See you, Larry.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
1-888.
We should have asked him.
What does he do when this happens?
He just sits by the side of the road and waits for an hour?
What makes it go away?
It's temperature-related, man.
I know it is.
What didn't you say that?
1-888.
When I said viscous coupling.
Yeah, but you failed to elaborate.
You were supposed to jump in and say,
The viscosity changes with the temperature that seizes up.
I don't know how a viscous coupling works.
That's your business, man.
My job is to just come up with the ideas.
You're the idea, guys.
Oh, no!
Really?
What did you say so?
Because don't forget, I operate unencumbered by the thought process.
So these things just come to me.
So as they float by, they're pulled into your gravitation field?
Is that what happens?
And I just toss them out to you,
and you're supposed to do something with it.
Not sit there like a momma.
Okay, all right.
All right, next.
Now that I know what my role is, we'll be back in a minute.
Of all the protests in the summer of 2020,
for a moment there, it was utopia,
one took a unique turn.
Somebody over there hasn't seen all these again?
This is the story of how violence came to occupy
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Ah, we're back.
You're listening to Car Talk with us.
Click and Clack the Tablet Brothers,
and we hear a discuss, of course, cars, car repair,
and the new, I'd have to call it, automotive puzzler.
You remember my neighbor, Frank, lived across the street?
Certainly, Frank.
What a guy.
Frank was an interesting guy.
And one morning, I'm out for my morning constitutional,
and I noticed that Frank is in the driveway working on his car.
He's got the thing jacked up,
and I'm assuming that he's changing the oil or some such thing.
I don't know.
He was always working on his car.
The Lincoln.
And the Lincoln.
And of course, I always made myself scarce whenever Frank was working on his car.
Yeah.
And I did this time too.
He was under the car, and I see him working away,
and I'm hiding behind the bushes.
And after a few minutes, he rolls out on his creeper.
And the next thing I know, he bends over,
and he picks something up off the ground.
And he holds it up.
It's about the size of a quarter.
And he has a look of, I would say, disappointment on his face.
Oh, yeah.
So he stands there puzzled for a minute.
Of course, I'm behind the bushes.
I don't move.
No.
I'm still like, like a rattlesnake ready to strike.
He enters the house.
Comes back a few minutes later with his vacuum cleaner.
They figured, he's going to vacuum out the car.
Which point?
He attaches the vacuum cleaner to something under the hood.
Attaches the vacuum cleaner?
Yeah, the business end of the vacuum cleaner, not the plug.
Yeah, the hose.
But the hose plugs the vacuum cleaner in, starts it up.
Yeah.
Gets under the car with this little thing at his hand.
What's the size of a quarter?
Does something, emerges from underneath the car,
and with a satisfied grin on his face,
he turns off the vacuum cleaner.
Yeah.
And the question is, what the hell did he do?
Now, let me get this straight.
The thing that he had in his hand,
did he have it in his hand as he rolled out with the creeper,
or did he get it?
No, no, he rolled out on the creeper, and then he bent over.
So this thing was not underneath the car when he picked it up?
Oh yeah, it was underneath the car when he picked it up.
And he looked at it, and he said, ah, yeah.
Okay.
And that's when he went in to get the vacuum cleaner.
Got it.
Okay, so you got the whole scenario?
Got the whole thing.
Now, if you think you know the answer, because I still don't.
Running on a postcard, or making it into a screensaver,
and installing onto a 500 megahertz titanium power book,
with DVD ROM, 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.
If you'd like to call us, as always, the number is 1-888-CARTALK.
That's 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
Hello?
Who's this?
Randy?
Randy, with an I at the end?
With an I at the end.
Great.
Where are you from?
I'm in Burlingame, California.
Burling.
Do you know where that is?
No, I don't.
It's about 15 miles south of San Francisco.
I've been there.
Oh, good.
It must have been really memorable, huh?
Yeah.
Is there anything there that I would remember?
I saw the Burlingame Giants play.
What's up, Randy?
Well, I have a 94-850 Volvo, and I have a golf ball stuck in the frame of the car, I guess.
It just kind of rolls around when I drive.
And it's pretty loud, and I've taken it to Mechanic, actually a couple,
and they can't figure out where it is or how to get it out.
Oh, man.
What do you mean you have a golf ball?
I think, well, we stopped short one time.
I think the golf ball was in the trunk, and it just sort of shot up through the car somehow.
Do you have any other evidence that it's a golf ball or just it's something?
Oh, I know it's a golf ball.
It sounds just like a golf ball.
And it was in the trunk, and you think it somehow got up into something.
Or down into something from the trunk.
Right.
But you step on the brake, and you hear,
Yeah, yeah.
And when you start up rapidly, you hear,
And it goes back.
Exactly, just like that.
You do a good impression of the golf ball.
And have you looked in the obvious places?
Yeah.
Like where the spare tire is?
No, we didn't look.
You didn't.
That's where it is.
You think?
I think.
But it sounds like it's covering more distance.
Oh, but sounds can be very difficult to track down in the car.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
I'll imagine.
Why else, why else would I have strapped my brother?
To the hood.
All those years.
At great personal risk.
Yes.
To whose person?
Mine.
There's no way for anything that was in the trunk of that car
to have gotten into the framework of the car.
Okay.
No.
And there's no way for anything to get anywhere near your feet,
anywhere near your seat.
If it's in the trunk,
unless and less.
Now, see, don't start clouding.
Wait a minute.
No, it's possible.
It is possible to get to the back seat.
Yeah, but then it would be in the...
That's what it sounds like.
It would then be in...
It's possible that it's under the back seat.
Okay.
Yeah, but I would be confident in saying that if you would rip apart the trunk,
including taking out the spare tire.
Right.
And also taking down the, you know, that felt material
that lines both sides of the trunk.
If it isn't in the spare tire well, then you've got to find it.
If that fails, I will ship you my Border Collie Scout.
If there's a ball within a thousand yards of her.
She'll find it.
She'll...
You put her in that trunk for a minute,
and I guarantee you she'll come up with the ball.
Okay, I'll hold you to that.
All right.
She flies for his class.
Only.
Good luck, Randy.
Well, thanks a lot, guys.
All right.
Okay, bye.
I had this problem in my sleek black beauty.
When the car was made, someone left somewhere inside the body of the car,
nuts and bolts.
And for the entire time that I had that car,
every time I hit the brakes, that thing would...
And...
You just let it in.
That's what caused much of the brain damage that I have today.
My fronto temporal dementia.
And nothing to do with the glue you were sniffing.
1-888-CAR-TALK.
That's 888-2278-255.
Hello, you're on CAR-TALK.
Yeah, this is Ken in Bluffton, Indiana.
Hi, Ken.
Bluffton.
Close to Fort Wayne.
Okay.
Fort Wayne.
Gotcha.
Where the pistons used to be from.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Fort Wayne pistons before they became the Detroit pistons.
Right.
The basketball team.
Oh.
Oh, yeah.
Is Detroit also in Indiana?
Used to be.
Used to be.
They moved it.
My confidential drift is taking care of that.
Anyway, Ken.
What's up, Ken?
Well, we have a 1995 Ford Contour.
It's a manual transmission.
And when you come up to a stop sign or a stop light or a parking place or something
and have at the car idling, it will occasionally make a funny sound and stall.
This is with the clutch out or with it out of gear.
And it never does it when it's just sitting there idling and never does it going down the road.
But when it's idling coming up to a stop, it makes the noise.
And the noise is like this.
It goes, ooh.
Where's the noise coming from?
Well, that's hard to tell.
It just, you can hear it throughout the car and you can't tell where it's coming from.
It's not from somebody in the back seat.
It's not somebody with a piece of tissue paper and a comb.
And it's a funny sound.
It sounds like a cow moving.
So it happens if you're coming to a stop and it stalls before you even get to stop.
But then I'm going to guess that it starts right up again.
Oh yeah, it'll always start right up again and run normally.
I've asked two mechanics about it.
One Ford mechanic said he'd never heard of it before.
And another mechanic suggested that the throttle body might be dirty or the mass sensor.
And I checked that out and I found a sign on the throttle body which said,
do not clean this throttle body.
Right.
So I didn't.
All right.
You qualify, Ken, for the cockamamie answer.
Well, I mean, it's an unusual situation.
It is.
It is caused for drastic.
It is caused for draconian measures.
For drastic measures.
Go ahead.
I can hardly wait, man.
I mean, did this just come to you or have you been developing it as Ken was giving us the details?
Before, I even knew he was from Bluffton.
I was working on the answer.
You were working on the bluff of them.
All right.
See if you'll go for this.
There is a tube that connects the throttle body to the airflow sensor.
Yeah.
Okay.
And that tube conveys the air that's been sensed.
Yeah.
Okay.
So what happens is the engine uses the air to combust the fuel,
but that air has to pass through the airflow sensor first and then it travels through this
tube, which is, I don't know, along a foot or so long, where a pony goes through the
throttle body and into the cylinders.
If there were a crack in that tube, I love it already.
Okay.
That would account for two things, the noise, the moo, and the stalling out.
Now, I know you're going to say that you examined this thing carefully.
No, I really haven't examined that tube.
No.
Thank God.
Well, I do like it.
And it would also account for the reason that it starts right up again too.
Now, it doesn't take much of a crack to create a leak so that air, what it does is it leans
out the mixture so that air is going in through this crack and not passing through the airflow
sensor.
So it upsets the mixture and the thing will stall because the mixture is all screwed up.
You've got a huge amount of air and not enough gas called a lean mixture.
It would stall out just like any vacuum leak would cause stalling,
and then it could start right back up again until the next time it decided to do it.
But I would examine that thing.
And if that's not it, don't ever call back.
Okay, that sounds good to me.
See you, Ken.
Good luck.
Thank you.
Good luck.
Bye, bye.
That was very good, Frank.
Very good.
I had to get rid of them.
I know that we'd have him one for half an hour if I...
Well, it's happened again.
You've wasted another perfectly good hour listening to car talk.
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Thanks so much for listening.
We're clicking clack to tap it, brothers.
Don't drive like my brother.
Don't drive like my brother.
We'll be back next week.
Bye bye.
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This week on Shortwave, could your next ride to the airport be in a flying taxi?
So you open up your Uber app, and you've got UberX and UberPet,
and now there'll be Uber Air.
That reality may be only a few years away,
but how is this futuristic travel possible?
Find out on Shortwave NPR Science Podcast.
Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Emmy nominations are here.
We're unpacking record-breaking nominations for hacks,
plus a big day for the pit and newcomers like Widow's Bay.
We'll talk about some snubs and make some early predictions of who will win.
Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour via the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
About this episode
Click and Clack kick off with odd neuroscience tidbits—frontotemporal dementia cases where patients develop sudden obsessions with pop music—and tie it to familiar Car Talk-style humor and phone-in advice. The bulk of the show is two classic problem-solving calls: a 1968 Rambler American that smokes black soot because it’s driven only tiny distances, keeping the carburetor/choke too rich, and a 1993 Mazda B2200 pickup that repeatedly blows spark plugs out of the engine, traced to plugs not being tightened properly. Light banter includes car-buying daydreams and a leopard-print seat-cover quest.
Original notes
All of the great duos throughout history like Lewis and Clark, Batman and Robin, Shields and Yarnell… they all had one thing in common: they knew their roles. And when things went south, with any luck they could blame the other guy. Click and Clack are no different and on this episode of the Best of Car Talk they discover what those roles actually might be.
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