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Car
91 Lexus LS 400
A 1991 Lexus LS 400 is a luxury car. Here, the problem is with the power steering—it's losing fluid and the steering system acts up unless the fluid level is topped off.
Term
reservoir
The reservoir is the container that stores power steering fluid. If the level is too low, the pump can pull in air, and then the steering system won’t work smoothly.
Term
air
Air in the power steering system can cause the steering to feel noisy or weak. Even if the reservoir has fluid, air bubbles can prevent the system from working the way it should.
Term
pump
The pump is what moves and pressurizes the power steering fluid. If it sucks in air, the steering system can act up and make noise even if there’s some fluid in the tank.
Term
power steering hose
Power steering uses fluid to help turn the wheel. A power steering hose is one of the tubes that carries that fluid—if it leaks, the steering can feel wrong and the system can make noise.
Term
front seal
A front seal is a sealing surface near the front of a component (here, the power steering pump) that prevents fluid from escaping. If the seal fails, power steering fluid can leak and the system may also draw in air, leading to poor steering feel.
Term
rack and pinion
Rack and pinion is the main steering mechanism that turns the wheel into sideways movement. If it leaks, the power steering can lose fluid and start behaving badly.
Term
power steering fluid
Power steering fluid is the special liquid that helps your steering work smoothly. If it leaks or gets contaminated with air, the steering can feel stiff or start acting up.
Term
automatic
“Automatic” means the car changes gears by itself. Instead of you using a clutch and gear lever, the transmission uses its own controls to shift.
Term
RPMs
RPMs tell you how fast the engine is spinning. If the RPMs climb and then the car suddenly shifts, it can point to a problem with how the automatic transmission is timing the gear change.
Term
upshift
An upshift is when the automatic transmission goes into a higher gear. If it happens roughly or with a loud noise, something may be wrong inside the transmission or with fluid level/condition.
Term
miles
Miles are how far the car has been driven. More miles usually means more wear, but maintenance history matters a lot too.
Term
transmission
The transmission is what changes gears in your car so it can drive smoothly at different speeds. City driving usually makes it shift more frequently than highway driving.
Term
hose clamp
A hose clamp is like a small metal belt that squeezes a hose tight so it doesn’t leak. Here, they’re saying a cheap clamp might stop a minor leak.
Term
drain plug gasket
When you change the oil, there’s a plug at the bottom of the oil pan. A gasket is a thin seal that helps stop oil from leaking around that plug.
Term
oil pan
The oil pan is the part under the engine that holds the engine oil. When you drain the oil, it comes out through a plug in this pan.
Term
motor oil
Motor oil is the fluid that lubricates the engine so metal parts don’t grind against each other. During an oil change, you remove the old motor oil and put in new oil.
Term
crankcase
In an engine, the crankcase is the bottom part where the crankshaft sits and where oil collects. When you hear people talk about “engine oil,” it’s usually sitting in this area.
Concept
vacuum cleaner connection
They’re talking about using a regular vacuum cleaner hose to pull on the engine area. That’s not a proper tool for oil service, and if it doesn’t seal well you can still make a mess or cause problems.
Term
remote starter
A remote starter is a device that lets you start your car without getting in. In winter, it helps warm things up so you’re not sitting in a cold car when you arrive.
Concept
aftermarket
Aftermarket just means something added to the car after it was originally made. Here, it’s the remote starter being installed after purchase.
Term
alarm system
Alarm systems are gadgets that help protect your car from theft. They can detect when someone opens the car or tries to break in and then set off an alarm.
Term
chassis ground
Cars use the metal body as part of the electrical circuit. If the connection to that metal “ground” is loose or corroded, the car can act totally dead because electricity can’t complete its path.
Term
ground path
The ground path is the “return route” for electricity back to the battery. If that return route is bad, lots of electrical things won’t work, even if the battery is fine.
Term
return path
A return path is how electricity gets back to the battery to finish the circuit. If the return path is faulty—often due to a bad ground—things like lights and wipers may stop working.
Term
little Eddie
“Little Eddie” is just a funny name the hosts use for the idea of the electrical “return” that lets the car’s electronics work. If the return path is missing, the car can seem completely dead.
Term
Eddie Electron
“Eddie Electron” is a joke name for the electricity/current in the car. The key idea is that electricity has to go out and then come back through the right path, or nothing works.
Term
bad ground connection
“Ground” is the car’s main electrical return path. If that connection is loose or corroded, the car may not start reliably, and some parts can overheat because the electricity isn’t flowing the way it should.
Term
check engine light
That light means your car’s computer noticed something wrong. It doesn’t tell you exactly what’s broken, but it’s a sign you should get it checked.
Term
fuel filter
The fuel filter is like a strainer for gasoline. If it gets clogged, the engine may not get the right amount of fuel.
Term
scan the thing
“Scanning” means plugging in a tool that reads the car’s computer messages. It helps a mechanic figure out why the warning light is on.
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Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack the Tappet
Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Department of Gender Studies here at Car Talk
Plaza. Now, since Valentine's Day is approaching, we thought that this was an appropriate topic.
One of those topics that can just drive a wedge right in between a loving couple, right? I mean,
I'm sure the name Laura Doyle rings a bell with you. Yes. Yes. Laura Doyle, as some of you may
know, has written a book called The Surrendered Wife, a practical guide to finding intimacy,
passion, and peace with your man. Yeah. And the basic premise is, right in the title there,
it's submit. It's taking the place right next to the Bible.
And I bought a dozen of these and I sprinkle them around the house. Basically, what Laura says
is that for happiness, a happy marriage, what you need to do, you, the wife, need to do is just
surrender. Whatever your husband says, you say yes, dear. Yeah. That's it. You don't ask any questions
and you just go out of your way to submit in any way possible. Now, here's a woman who's really
thinking, don't you think? Yeah. Too bad, she's crazy. She even gives like a little quiz to test
yourself on how intimate your marriage is, you know? Do you have to answer rarely, sometimes
or frequently, feel superior to your husband, nag your husband, commiserate with other wives
about your husband, hear yourself say, I told my husband, blah, blah, blah. I mean, what if there
were a similar test like for men? Okay. How rarely, sometimes or frequently, do you sleep in the garage?
Frequently.
Like that. I mean, this book has the potential to revolutionize everything. She may have ruined
everything. Yeah. At first blush, I was encouraged by your thesis. But it's, well, it's interesting.
It's turned scary. My brother turned me on to Laura Doyle because he saw it in Time Magazine.
We have another brother. And interestingly, we get Time Magazine, even though it's a rag.
And your wife had torn out that day. I have several times now canceled my subscription
to it. Somehow we keep getting it. Yeah, I know why you do, why you re-up. It's the free phones,
right? They give you a phone every time. I got 14 phones now. So he says, did you read about this
new book about the surrendered wife? And I say, no, he says, well, I saw it in Time Magazine.
And I say to my wife, honey, where is Time Magazine? She says, I don't know.
I said, well, we did get it, right? I don't know. She evidently had seen it and thrown the whole
issue away. Yeah. Didn't want me to even look at it. Yeah. Maybe that was her way of surrendering.
Well, if you want to surrender, you can call us.
Yeah, actually, if you have a problem with your car, we don't want to hear about your
marriage problems, at least not for the first 15 minutes of the show. Give us a chance to
recover. Number it's 1-888-CAR-TALK. That's 888-227-8255. I don't want to sleep in the garage. Hello,
you're on Car Talk. You want to know how cold it is in my garage? I know how cold it is.
Even as cold as it is outside. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Heidi from Scottsdale,
Arizona. Hi, Heidi. You sound like there's a party going on here. She's got a Scottsdale dog.
No, it's a three-year-old. A three-year-old. Yeah. And what's this three-year-old's name?
That's Robert. Robert. Robert. Is he a little animal yet? That's terrible two's time, right?
No, it's three. Well, but two's last for about 17 years. I think especially with this one.
Yeah, this is number one? No, this is number two. Number two. Cool. And I have Laura Doyle beat,
by the way. You do? Yes. What do you do? The trick is you make the husband think you've submitted.
Ah. Oh, yeah. Well, there is no one better than my wife. I need only to recount the tail of the clock.
Yeah, tell us about the clock. My brother has this most annoying... No, I buy this thing. I see it
advertised, I don't know, in television. It's a bird clock. And every hour on the hour,
a different bird tweets. It's got pictures of these birds. It's got pictures of the birds,
and it's seen that in a catalog. Yeah, so I buy the thing and I hang it up. It takes three batteries,
two for the chirping and one for the clock. And I hang it up. And the first thing I notice is that
it's driving my cat crazy. So right away, I like it. But it's also driving my wife crazy. And you're
all the visitors to your house. All the visitors. Every hour, some little... What the heck is that?
Oh, that's a wild titmouse. So three or four months later, I come home from work one night and I'm
sitting there having dinner. And at seven o'clock, I noticed that no chirp. And I say to my wife,
what happened? And she says, I don't know, I guess it stopped working. I said,
cheap piece of junk. I guess it just wasn't meant to write. I knew it was going to last that long.
And then I remembered that it had two batteries for the chirper. And many weeks later, I take the
clock off the wall. And what do you think, Heidi? The batteries had been removed.
What are the chances of that? How did that happen? They must have just like fallen out again into the
wall. I think so. Yeah. And my wife, Angelica, she is. She's very devious. How innocent did she
look when you turned that clock over and there were no batteries? Was she present at the...
So you just say yes. You just nod and smile and say yes, dear. Well, see, that's what I do. I'm
the submissive husband. And whenever my wife says anything, I, yes, dear, I pull up my pants and I
I'm in trouble. What will you do with your pants now?
I didn't mean that. I know. All right, I'm recovered now. Okay. What do you want to talk about, Heidi?
I have a 91 Lexus LS 400. Yeah. And it has 116,000 miles on it. Good. And I have a problem with my
power steering fluid. It keeps disappearing? It needs power steering fluid like every three days.
And I'll check the reservoir. Thank you. And there's power steering fluid in there.
But unless there's power steering fluid all the way up to the top, it does not like me.
Yes. And it makes noise. Yes. And it goes, oh, right. Because people look at me funny.
You have power steering fluid in there, but it's all full of air. And that's why it looks like it's
enough. But in fact, it isn't because most of that is air. Really? Yeah. It's a pump,
basically, that thing, that thing that you're pouring. Well, the reservoir in this car is
actually a separate plastic vessel. And then there's a hose that leads from that to the pump.
And then the pump is responsible for creating pressure that moves the rack back and forth.
And those kind of pumps are usually not good at pumping air. They like fluid, liquids. They like
liquids. So how do I get the air out? Well, you have a leak. You have to fix the leak. If you're
lucky and you've led a good submissive life, you will need something like a power steering hose.
There are many places where this thing can leak. This system can leak. It can leak from the pump
out of the front seal. It can leak from any of the hoses that go or come from the rack
and pinion. Or worst of all, it can leak from the rack and pinion itself. I'm going to guess
from my vast experience of these cars that you're going to need a rack and pinion. Oh, man.
Really? Yeah. Yeah. But you've had this thing for 10 years. Well, we're getting ready to sell it.
Yeah. Well, this is the day to do it. You're a couple of months late.
Put some power steering fluid in it beforehand. Oh, man.
I think you should write to Randy Cohen, the ethicist of the New York Times Sunday magazine,
and ask him what he thinks you should do. Well, I know what I...
And then ask him if he wants to buy a truck. I know what I think you shouldn't do. I mean...
You're going to have to be honest about this. But Hannah's on the other hand.
I wouldn't want a straight power steering fluid. That'll leak right out.
Okay. Good luck, Heidi. Thank you.
See you. Bye-bye. Bye.
1888 car talk. That's 88888
Make the husband think you're being submissive. 27
That's another theory, isn't it? 825 Oh, my wife did say she, you know,
she said initially I didn't like the clock, but it's kind of grown on me. Oh, that was...
Fermi got the clock and his wife had the batteries out in two days.
See, Monique. I think it was even sneakier. Sneakier because she allowed it to stay there
for a long time. Long enough so that I would believe that it broke. That it actually broke.
It was a masterful stroke on her part until I uncovered her little plot.
Hello, you're on car talk. Hi, my name is John Findlay. I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Hi. Hi, John. John. What's up?
Well, I have a 91 Zuzu trooper. It's an automatic and as it builds up to shift
into the next gear, it makes a noise, kind of a growling noise, kind of goes
like that. And then it shifts kind of rough into the next gear. It doesn't do it every time,
but probably 70% of the time. And when you say it shifts rough, what does that mean?
Sort of feels like it's building up, you know, to shift. Like you can hear the RPMs
of the engine increasing, then all of a sudden it goes boom and it shifts into the next gear,
right when it makes that noise. Yeah. And how long has this been going on?
Oh, six months. Oh.
During which time, other than calling us, you've done nothing about it.
No, I haven't been anywhere. I've been waiting to talk with you guys.
Yeah. Well, that was the right thing to do because it would cost you a lot of money if you
go out of anywhere. And we're going to give you the option of selling the truck,
which the transmission guys would not have given you. Well, that's right.
Well, you know, it could be something as simple as insufficient transmission fluid.
Oh, you didn't even check that. I haven't checked that.
Oh, so you really have done nothing. No, you're right. I'm a busy guy.
John abides by the philosophy if it ain't broke, wait. It will be.
Yeah. I mean, my brother's absolutely right, of course. It could be something as simple as that,
but only if you have led a very good clean life.
On the other hand, it could portend the end of the transmission.
Yeah, that's my nervousness.
Yeah. And that's why you haven't even opened the hood, you chicken.
All right. How many miles on this thing?
Hundred and something thousand. 94.
And what kind of driving has that been?
Been all combination. Mainly though, you know, just normal city driving and that type of thing.
Some highway driving.
Oh, but more city than highway. Yes.
It's more likely that the transmission's dead.
Well, because in the city, it has to shift more times.
Right. Right.
Whereas when you're on the highway, you get into high and that's it for an hour, two hours.
I think you should take it into your local repair shop.
And but before you do that, even you might want to check the transmission fluid yourself.
All right, we'll do that.
Hopefully you're going to find that it's low and you have a small leak in the transmission cooler
line and a 25 cent hose clamp is going to fix that and all will be right with the world.
Won't that be nice, John?
That would be great.
Yeah.
Three months.
But you never know.
So it's either going to cost you, let's see, a couple of bucks, a hose clamp, $25 or $2,500.
So we're going to take the average.
Okay.
Yeah, 1250.
1250.
See you later.
All right, thank you.
Good luck, John.
Bye-bye, John.
Hey, don't go anywhere because we've got a lot more calls.
Well, few anyway.
And the puzzler answer coming up right after this.
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Hi, we're back.
You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Collect, the Tapper Brothers.
And we're here to talk about cars, car repair and the answer to last week's puzzler.
I guess this was an automotive puzzler.
Well, it certainly was.
Could be a household puzzler.
The vacuum cleaner was involved.
Well, you remember my neighbor, Frank, who lived across the street.
Certainly do.
One morning, up my mouth from my constitutional, I noticed that Frank is in the driveway working
on his Lincoln.
He's got the thing jacked up.
And I'm assuming he's changing the oil or something like that.
So of course, I make myself scarce.
I'm hiding in the bushes and I see that he's under the car working away.
After a few minutes, he rolls out from underneath on his creeper.
And the next thing I know, he bends over and picks up something off the ground.
He holds it up.
I can't see it well because of a considerable distance away.
But it looks to be about the size of a quarter.
And he has a look of disappointment on his face.
Stands there puzzled.
I'm still hiding behind the bushes.
Kind of dare move, knowing that if I'm spotted, I may be asked to help.
Anyway, Frank enters the house and comes back a minute later with his vacuum cleaner.
I figure he's going to clean the car.
But instead, he attaches the hose to something under the hood.
He plugs the vacuum cleaner in and starts up the vacuum cleaner.
He gets under the car with this little thing the size of the quarter does something,
emerges from under the car with a satisfied grin on his face, turns off the vacuum cleaner.
The question is, what the hell did he do?
Well, I have to say that I'm completely baffled by this one.
There were a plethora of hints, I think.
No, maybe not enough.
I didn't hear a single one.
Well, I'm assuming he's changing the oil or some such thing.
And in fact, that's what he was doing.
But in changing the oil, he left out the drain plug gasket.
There was a little gasket that goes between the drain plug and the pan.
And when he finished the job, what he found on the ground was the gasket,
which he held up and looked at with the disappointed look in his face.
Yeah, I considered that for a while.
Not having a clean vessel into which to drain the oil,
he decided to use his wife's vacuum cleaner.
So he goes into the house, hooks the vacuum cleaner hose up to the place
where you pour the motor oil in, turns the vacuum cleaner on,
and draws a vacuum on the entire crankcase.
Oh, my God.
Don't try this at home.
You could blow yourself up.
Are you crazy?
So he takes off the drain plug.
He takes off the drain plug.
The oil is held in suspended animation by the vacuum cleaner.
Oh, bull feathers.
Deftly throws the gasket on there.
He may have lost a little bit of oil,
but certainly not the five quarts that he would have lost
had he just taken the drain plug out and had it run down.
Stop it.
What do I know?
Well, I suppose theoretically this is possible,
but it would require, of course, that the vacuum cleaner connection
fit perfectly into the hole.
I didn't say that he didn't tape it up with duct tape,
but he stuck it into the...
He stuck it in there.
Yeah, it just so happened that he didn't.
It happened to fit right into the thing.
It happened to fit right in perfectly.
He turns the thing on and with a couple of seconds,
that vacuum is trying to suck the life out of you.
And when he was satisfied that he had pulled enough vacuum,
he slid under there, took that drain plug off,
slapped the gasket in, threw the drain plug back in,
and emerged with a grin in his face before the house blew up.
All I can say is I'm not disappointed that I didn't get that.
Oh, come on.
I thought it was wonderful.
Oh, God.
It is wonderful.
What does it take?
It's a little far-fetched,
and I'm going to try this in your car.
As soon as I get out of here.
All right.
And I will admonish people not to try this,
because as you suck vapors out of the crankcase,
gasoline vapors, you could blow up the vacuum cleaner
in yourself.
In yourself.
In your Lincoln.
In Lincoln.
And the house next door.
And the neighbor across the street was hiding in the bushes.
That would have been funny.
But that never occurred to Frank.
And had I known what he was doing,
I would have run over and stopped him.
But I felt I was far enough away
so that an explosion would not reach me.
Well, Frank didn't really do this.
You made this up, right?
Yeah, you did.
Okay.
We have a winner actually,
and the winner is Gerald Runyon from Atchison, Kansas.
Atchison.
Topeka.
Is that Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe?
No.
And for having his answer picked at random
from the buckets of correct answers that we got this week,
Gerald Runyon is going to win a $25 gift certificate
to the Shameless Commerce Division
at the Cart Talk section of Cars.com.
So you go to Cars.com, you click on Cart Talk,
you go to the store,
and you look at all the wonderful stuff there.
Gerald Runyon.
And you can buy anything that costs $25 or less,
including our wonderful CD.
Men are from GM.
Women are from Ford.
Calls about couples and cars.
And maybe Laura Doyle will be on the next one
that we do have that.
It should be a guess.
No, very good.
Anyway, we'll have a new puzzler.
I guess you'd have to call it Automotive 2.
Kind of, in a way.
Well, this one being Automotive 1.
Yeah.
That'll be coming up in the third half of today's show.
There you go.
12 and three.
We got all the numbers coming.
In the meantime, if you have a question about your car
or anything else for that matter,
the number is 888-CAR-TALK.
That's 888-227-8255, a lawyer on Car Talk.
Hi, my name is Gladys, and I live in Clinton Corners.
And I don't have any car trouble.
I need your advice.
Where's Clinton Corners, Gladys?
What state?
New York.
New York.
Well, I'm not far from Taconic Parkway.
Oh, the Laconic Parkway.
Yeah, we've been there.
So what's the problem, Gladys?
Well, for Christmas, I got an engine starter.
And I heard wonderful things about them.
I don't have a garage, and I'm not that young.
And I thought, gee, I can warm the car up before I go out.
Now I hear horror stories
that they ruin your electrical system,
and you don't have a warranty anymore.
And I'm leaving for Florida,
and I'm scared to death that this thing,
I don't have it put in.
Well, if you're leaving for Florida,
are you taking the car with you to Florida?
Yep.
You're not going to need the engine starter in Florida?
No, I know.
That's why I decided I'm waiting till I come back,
and I'll have it put in then.
But I just live in fear of breaking down.
What Gladys is talking about, if other people may not know,
is a remote starter.
You can attach this device on all the accoutrements.
To the engine.
And from inside the house on those cold winter days,
when the snow is coming down,
you press a little button, and the car starts.
Doesn't that sound wonderful?
And by the time you get down there, 15 minutes later,
everything has melted.
The seats are heated.
Their tush is warm.
Right, there are buds on the trees.
Flowers are growing in the back seat.
The little babbling brook, or the babbling brother,
is babbling.
Well, I'm not a big fan of these, and I will tell you that.
But don't forget that 25 years ago,
you and I worked on the design of one of these.
We were hot.
We thought this was the idea of the century.
Well, we thought this was a big deal
for people that lived in the city.
We called it the Manhattan Project.
We were, our timing was a little off.
Timing was a little off.
And the reason I don't like them,
number one is, I mean, first and foremost,
I think it's as a people, it's making us soft.
Well, I'm old.
Well, that's all right.
You're not.
You're tough, though, Glandis.
I can tell.
Yeah, you're going to spend six months
living in a yurt in Tuvanizca.
And then, you know, milking yaks at 5 a.m.
And you'll be dying to go out and start
your car in a cold winter morning.
We don't know what tough is.
I'm opposed to it on that.
But more than that, or as much as that, at least,
I'm opposed to it on the grounds that if you're not there
when your car is running and something happens,
you won't know enough to shut it off.
Let's say, for example, that you will low on oil.
But you were inside the house making a cup of tea
while your engine was running.
Right.
And you could easily ruin the engine.
Oh.
Yeah, oh.
Whereas if you were in the car with it running,
and the oil light came on, you would know enough
to shut it off.
So that's why I don't like it.
Right.
But no big mechanical mess ups with my car
if I haven't put in.
No, it's not good.
Assuming it's done correctly, it's not going to mess up the car.
I mean, there were various.
There have been some stories that you've heard,
and I've heard too, that incorrectly installed
weird, crazy things can happen.
Like the car can continue to try to start itself.
Right.
In which case it might chew up the starter motor.
One girl told me they put it in,
and it was too powerful for her car
and it blew everything up in her car.
Well, I don't know about that.
I mean, I don't know.
My guess is most of these failures
are due to faulty installation.
OK.
I think if you really wanted to have one,
you should go to someone who does nothing but this
or who specializes in it.
OK.
And I wouldn't trust it to Dave.
Dave is your regular mechanic.
No, Mike.
Mike.
Or as good a guy as he may be.
If he hasn't done these,
you don't want him to learn on your car, Gladys.
So I would go probably to a company
that installs alarm systems
and ask if they'll install this thing.
And if they say, oh,
they gave you the Cadillac of remote starters.
That's what this is.
Well, if it's a deluxe version,
they'll put it in for you for a nominal fee of a few hundred bucks.
Uh-huh.
And you'll be on your way,
and you can even start the thing from Florida.
That's right.
Yeah, when the plane's going to land,
you can start the car at the airport.
It'll be running for you.
That's what I want to do.
I think it'll be OK.
OK.
Well, thank you very much.
You answered my question.
I don't mind getting soft and old.
I just want a nice warm car when I go out.
I hope you're wonderful time.
I hope you're living it up like Wayne Newton.
Enjoy yourself.
OK.
Thank you very much.
All right. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Or Barry Manilow.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
He lives it up.
Does he?
Yeah.
No kidding.
Really?
No.
1-888-CARTALK.
Who is Barry Manilow?
He writes the songs, man.
It's 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on CARTALK.
Hi, Tom and Ray.
My name is Michelle,
and I'm calling from Wheaton, Illinois.
Hi, Michelle.
Aren't you formal?
Wheaton, Illinois?
Wheaton, Illinois.
Well, hello, Michelle.
My name is Tom, and I'll tell you where I have to talk to you.
What's up?
Well, I have a 97 Saturn.
That was recently in a car accident.
And the...
Wasn't your fault, though?
No, it was not.
Of course, we knew that.
I'll deny it to the end that it was my fault.
Um, the point of impact was the front driver's side tire.
So it trashed the suspension and blah, blah, blah.
I'm guessing $1875 fixed it.
$2,675.
Wow.
It was close.
Yeah.
But when I got it home,
you know, I took it home, started fine,
but the next morning, it wouldn't start.
Well, I was so angry, of course.
I threw a fit in the car,
and I pushed on the steering wheel,
and when I shoved back in the seat,
the dash lights came on.
So you were having a little hissy fit there,
sitting in the car,
and you pushed on the steering wheel.
Right.
You say the seat went back?
I went back in the seat,
and it rocked the car back,
and when the car rocked back,
the dash lights went on.
And then the car started?
No.
And then it rolled forward,
and the dash lights went off.
So what I did was,
I put my foot outside of the car,
and I rocked it back and forth,
and back and forth,
and back and forth until I got enough momentum
that I could hit the ignition switch
when the lights came on,
and it started.
All right.
So?
So?
What's wrong with this?
Doesn't anyone screen these calls?
I mean, do we let any wacko just call us and talk to us?
Do we deserve this?
What do we do wrong?
What do we do?
Why us?
Why us?
Come on, man.
That's what I said.
This is NPR.
I mean, would Robert Segal put up with this nonsense?
Yeah, even Juan Williams isn't going to call this man.
Why?
I said I have a wacko car question.
I know the number to call.
That's what I said.
I don't even understand the question.
She's not getting current.
The car is dead.
I'd be willing to bet that when you turn the key on,
nothing works whatsoever.
Correct.
Even the headlights?
Have you tried the headlights?
Even the headlights.
Even the headlights.
Nothing works.
I think you have something as simple as a loose chassis ground.
Yeah.
There's a wire that goes between the engine
and the chassis of the car
and then eventually to the battery.
And that is the ground path or the return path
for all the electricity that comes out of the battery
to run your heater, your wipers, your radio,
their headlights to start the car.
So if the electricity can't get back.
We call them little Eddie and Eddie Electron.
We do, huh?
Okay.
So if little Eddie Electron can't get back home,
then he won't leave.
I see.
If the return path has been interrupted somehow,
then nothing in the car will be stone cold dead.
And rocking the car is moving stuff around enough
so that you finally do get it started.
I would recommend that you take it back to them immediately
because if you have a bad ground connection,
you can burn things up.
That would be bad.
That would be bad, yeah.
Hey, Tom and Ray, thanks a lot.
Hey, Michelle.
See ya, Michelle.
Thank you.
All right.
Thanks for your call.
Bye-bye.
Hey, let me guess.
You'd like to take a little break right about now.
Why do you think that?
Well, you've got the door open,
your headphones off and your roller skates are laced up.
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On Consider This, NPR's afternoon news podcast.
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Don't wake me up like that.
If you listen to car talk with us,
click and collect the Tapper Brothers,
and we here to discuss Cars, Car Repair,
and the new puzzler.
You're going to hate this.
I know you are, but it's tough.
Oh, I love the last one.
Go ahead.
You know, no one likes to follow a city bus.
I mean, they're ugly, they're noisy.
They're big.
They're smelly, they're big, they're slow.
Hey, I just described my brother.
And in our fair city especially,
they don't even have the decency to pull over
to discharge or admit passengers.
They kind of stop in the middle of the street.
Right in the middle of the street.
But I discovered something interesting lately,
that about half the time that I drive to work in the morning,
I don't mind following the bus.
You don't mind?
You don't mind following the bus?
I don't mind following the bus.
In fact, I look forward to it.
Really?
Yeah, I'd say on average, about half the time.
Wow.
The question is why.
Going to work?
Going to work.
And the hint is that if it's snowing,
yeah, I don't want to follow the bus.
Oh, that's a hint.
So if you think you know the answer,
write it on a postcard or tape it to the aft deck
of a Hinckley, South Wester, 61 Ray Salon Custom Yacht,
with state-of-the-art navigation station.
I'm reading Rob's report here.
And wrap around Banquet Sofa, Leatherette Banquet Sofa,
and Sailor 2, Puzzlet Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500,
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Matt 02238.
Do we have a slip right there at the post office?
You send it, we'll have it.
Well, you can email your answer from the Car Talk section
of cars.com.
If you'd like to talk to us right now,
the number is 1-888-CAR-TALK.
That's 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
Hey, this is JP from Richmond, Virginia.
Hey, JP, what can we do for you today?
Why did you choose to be called by initials
instead of by a name?
Oh, well, it's...
Instead of by John Patrick,
which is your real name, isn't it?
Yeah, that's correct.
Really?
Well, that's very common in the South anyway,
isn't it, initials?
Maybe.
More common than it is up north here.
Here, we just have Ship and Bradshaw
Throckmorton IV.
Right.
And when you call him and say,
Hey, Ship and Bradshaw, use the whole name.
All right.
Okay, JP.
Okay, so I have an 87 Chevy S10 pickup truck,
and it has 300,000 miles on it.
And it's a wonderful vehicle.
Really?
Now, my wife has been trying to get me
to get rid of it for probably five years.
Well, why does she want you to get rid of it?
See, I also have this old motorcycle
that doesn't run that well.
And then we just got a little minivan.
So now we have too many vehicles.
And she's embarrassed, quite honestly,
to be seen in the S10, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
Even the, I think, women look hot
when they're in a pickup truck.
Yeah.
She's going to get all the guys in the neighborhood
to tell me I won't be any less of a man
if I don't have a pickup truck.
Yeah, well, don't you believe that, man.
See, what she doesn't know, and...
Don't fall for that.
What I think would comfort her is that
you say that gals look hot driving a pickup truck.
Yeah.
But trust me, you're driving this 87.
You don't look hot.
Oh, I don't care.
Well, that's good.
That's it.
I mean, and guys don't care.
Right, yeah.
But it means something to you to be driving around.
First of all, the fact that it's that old
and it's still running, that's a sign of manliness
because you've managed to make it keep running
by whatever means.
That's what everybody thinks.
Sure.
That's why I drive a 40-year-old car.
Good stuff.
50-year-old car.
Yeah.
My brother always tries to drive a car
that's 10 years younger than he is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just a boat.
Just a boat.
After the gap is actually widening.
It's some kind of a logarithmic.
There's something going on there.
I don't know what it is.
Hey, I wish I had one of those wind-up things.
So what's...
Do you have a question?
Okay.
My...
Okay, what's wrong with it is I leave the key in it
in case any of my neighbors want to borrow it.
What a guy.
Yeah.
And well, they give me beer.
So it's a trade-off.
That's what they do.
They really put it right in the tank.
So my neighbor says he's going to borrow it
and I say, that's cool.
And then I get a phone call saying,
GP, what do you do about this stalling problem?
And I said, what do you mean a stalling problem?
Man, I was on Route 95 and the thing died on me.
I said, I don't know.
It's never happened to me.
So I'm like, I don't know.
And I'm just thinking this guy,
he did something goofy or whatever.
So then he makes it home.
All right, that's good.
And I think, I'm going to test drive it.
You know, I'll drive it to work.
So it's like 4.30 in the morning and I'm going to work.
And it happens to me.
And I'm like, what?
This is not right.
So I get to, I'm on the highway, the interstate.
And it just slowly dies on me.
Like it'll chug and then I'll slow down
and then I'll give it gas.
And when I put my foot on the pedal,
it seems to die even quicker.
So I make it up to an exit ramp.
I get it a neutral.
And then I'm just gunning it.
You know, trying to blow out something or whatever.
Exactly.
Of course.
That's a time-on-it method.
Right.
Let's blow it out.
So, hey, you know.
So it worked.
No, I've done it.
It worked.
It never works.
Fine.
It took a couple minutes.
I went about five miles an hour.
That's as fast as it would go.
And then finally I was going downhill
on the exit ramp, going back home.
And it opened up and I made it home,
going 70 miles an hour.
Well, did the check engine light come on?
Yes.
The check engine light is on almost all the time.
But was it on before this incident?
I'm not sure.
It probably was.
Who knows?
Who can keep track of stuff like that?
One day it's on.
Well, first of all, I want to say that I think it's wonderful
that you and your neighbors share your truck.
I think that's a very wonderful thing to do.
I'm lucky we have a good neighborhood.
Yeah, my neighbors borrow stuff and I never see it again.
Well, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is that
you have either a plugged fuel filter or a bad pump,
a bad fuel pump.
But I wouldn't just go ahead and replace that.
I mean, you should have somebody at least scan the thing
to see if, in fact, the check engine light means anything.
Okay.
I would go there first.
Okay, where do you go, JP?
I mean, since I was so good at picking out what your real name is,
I'm going to put my reputation on the line again.
And I'm guessing that even though you now live in Richmond, Virginia,
that you have not always lived there.
That's correct.
And I'm going to further guess where you used to live.
Wow, you're going to be good if you get this.
Baltimore, Maryland.
Wow, man.
Wrong, huh?
Yeah, wrong.
How close?
But you're within 20 miles.
20 miles?
Yes.
Come on.
That's it.
I call that a win.
Yeah, Boolean, Maryland.
How did you know?
I'm just too good.
I'm just too good.
Yeah.
It's frightening, you know?
He is.
That is frightening.
Yeah, it is.
Unfortunately, that's all that he's good for.
But hey, you can't have everything.
Hey, thanks for calling, JP.
Hey, thank you.
See you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Okay, bye.
While you've wasted an otherwise perfectly good hour listening to car talk,
our esteemed producer is Doug the Subway Fugitive, Bongo Boy, Berman.
Our associate producer is our Louie Cronin the Barbarian.
And David, I'll see you at Raise Your 15,000 Dream.
Our engineer is Tad Massaman Curry.
Our senior web lackey is Doug, a yak boy mayor.
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And our seat cushion tester, as always, is Mike Easter.
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Is you, Louis Dewey, known to the tenured pigeons in Harvard Square as you and Louis Dewey.
Thanks so much for listening.
We're Click and Clack the Tap with Brothers.
And remember, whatever you do, don't drive like my brother.
Don't drive like my brother.
We'll be back next week.
Bye-bye.
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About this episode
A caller’s “remote nonstarter” turns into a deep dive on why cars won’t power up: intermittent starting tied to seat/dash behavior, and a broader theory of a loose chassis ground breaking the electrical return path. The hosts also tackle other no-start and drivability headaches—like power steering fluid loss from air in the system and rough automatic upshifts potentially caused by low transmission fluid or a small cooler-line leak. Along the way, there’s plenty of banter, safety warnings, and DIY oil-change chaos.
Original notes
Gladys was gifted a remote starter for those cold winter days in upstate New York. But the promise of a warmed up interior on those icy cold mornings has given way to rumors about wrecked engines and voided warranties. To install or not to install: that is the question on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.
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