The Best of Car Talk - #2456: Mr. Leadfoot

Episode Date: July 13, 2024

It's bad enough that Gayle's new boyfriend hogs the tv remote all the time. Now he's speeding around in her car and Gayle is worried that he's wrecking the engine. Can Click and Clack help Gayle talk some sense into Mr. Leadfoot? Find out on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Get access to hundreds of episodes in the Car Talk archive when you sign up for Car Talk+ at plus.npr.org/cartalkLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Black perspectives haven't always been centered in the telling of America's story. Now, we're taking center stage. Introducing NPR's Black Stories, Black Truths, a collection of black-led stories from NPR's podcasts. Search NPR Black Stories, Black Truths wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Car Talk on National Public Radio with us, click and clack the Tappet Brothers. And we're broadcasting this week from the Center for Emerging Technologies here at Car

Talk Plaza. Yeah, it's nice to be a man of science. Now, you've probably heard all about Congress's new telecommunications bill, a section of which mandates something called the V-Chip. Yeah. Now, the V-Chip is a computer chip, I I guess that would be built into future television sets and when activated Would prevent the viewing of programs with violent violent hence V finally Yeah, anyway Dougie has been in the lab with murky

All this week and they have finally perfected their own device Which they plan to implant in my brother's called the R&R chip which when activated will prevent ranting and raving. Yeah sure, what about the WT chip that they're gonna work on for you? The wacko theory chip! As soon as you say the words roof snow everything goes blank. Well we'll discuss that later anyway if you have a question about your your chip Geez You're trying to sneak it right past me I was hoping with your advanced years that you you know begin to not notice things but I'm I'm sharpest. Oh, yeah

What is it? All right. I just thought I'd start out with a couple of little jokes here. They're not mine, but luckily they're from... These off the internet? David Phelps from Highland Village, Texas. I probably have had this in my little mail folder for six months. I think it's dated 1987. But that's alright. Good jokes are timeless. They're timeless, and you're going to like these. It's one of those, you know you are a native of West Texas if. You know, is he a Texan? Yeah, he's a Texan so he can say this. I'm just reading. I mean, I don't know if he's a Texan or not, but he lives in Texas, so I guess he's, it's

okay for him to do this. Yeah. Oh, there are no, all the times I've been to Texas, I hate to interrupt. Yeah. I do it so well. I've never met any real Texans. I mean, at least in the big cities. Oh, are you kidding me? When you go to Texas, everyone has moved there from someplace else. Oh, no, no. To avoid paying state income tax. Anyway.

No, that was only George Bush. Go ahead. I don't know if this should be west or east Texas. Maybe it's for all of Texas. I'll figure it out. I've been to all parts of Texas. You know you're a native of west Texas if there's a stuffed possum mounted anywhere in your home.

You know you're a native of Texas if you consider a six pack of beer and a bug zapper quality entertainment. You know you're a native of West Texas if the primary color of your car is Bondo. If you think beef jerky and moon pies are two of the major food groups. All right, you can get to the good ones. You can just jump right to the good ones. And the last two are good. If you think the Styrofoam cooler is the greatest invention of all time. Well, it is. It is. And last, if you had a toothpick in your mouth when your wedding pictures were taken. I like your laughing. Oh, I got more here.

Oh no, it's all quite all right. Save them for another... I'll save these for next week. There you go. Anyway, if you have a question about your chip or your car or West Texas or anything like that, you can call us at 1-800-332-9287. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hey, this is Mike from Tallahassee. Hey, Mike. Hi, Mike, how are you pretty good excellent um i got a

question yeah um an 89 dodge ram 50 and every time not every time actually two months ago to begin with every fifties the pickup truck right it's a pickup truck that's just like these days i was getting off the highway and i downshifted from fourth the second and the entire stick went loose and a perfect i was just you know transmission of a totally gone out now if you have a truck but when i got it home

uh... it turned out that the whole ticket come off the mount uh... how did you get a little bit stay in second year it's a big thing i was like really close to home and you couldn't shift it all at that point i couldn't change here at all uh... i got home and i and i you know what that the sleep and i looked underneath and it turned out of the grommet well personal it all come lose

all the ball to come out it was just like this the shift it goes right into the transmission on this truck right is it not this is our full bolts that all the shifter it's three three ball the whole picture of these two before you go to the bottom of the cup is ok you know three balls of the last year anyway so yeah i'm i i call me to be she can make the transmission

and uh... they have a grommet that goes on to the ball at the bottom of the stack uh... i replace that that was broken and then they said because uh... what are they the gasket had all rotted out right on the city don't need to get to get it only keep oil from leaking you don't need the gaskets the gaskets only keep oil from leaking So you don't need to replace those so I just bolted it back down I didn't bolt it down

I didn't like lock the nuts in because I didn't want to strip them But I locked it down pretty tight now in the past two months. It's come up three times Well, and it won't stay down, and I don't know what to do to keep it down You won't stay down because you're probably afraid to tighten them enough really well I guess I mean it's aluminum that you're screwing those bolts into uh-huh That's what the case of the transmission is made out of so there was some reason to be afraid There is because you could break them off in there, but it's not the end of the world if you do Uh-huh, I mean I would use

Loctite Loctite exactly Loctite. What is Loctite? It's a liquid. I buy in a little bottle. It's one of it's like a lumosil $750 a pound so you only can buy half an ounce of it because the question 12 bucks And you just paint it on the end on the on the threads and bolt it in you have to clean them all off first Usually a clean them with something like break clean, which is a solvent that depletes the ozone layer. Great! No, actually all those things are now ozone-ruining chemicals... Safe. Safe. Friendly.

That's good. Ozone layer friendly. O-L-F. And then you put... you just bolt it in. in should snug it up pretty good and that will keep them from backing out unless you've got something else going on here like an engine that's that's vibrating so violently that nothing's gonna keep them from backing out well I don't think so I was talking to a friend and I like I'll go from fourth to second just right why do you do that anyway why you

shouldn't it's quicker we shouldn do you mean you shouldn't well? How is it written that does that did you have to follow? You know that's another one of these old wives tales that you're gonna go one two three four on the way up And you're gonna go five four three two one on the way down Where does it say that who said you have to do that my daddy told me daddy was wrong You can do anything you want. You can go from fifth to first. Try it, Mike. Try it. You don't have a fifth. Who cares?

Have a fifth and you'll be able to go anywhere. One of the risks of skipping gears, many gears on downshifting, is that when you re-engage the clutch, the engine's gonna rev like mad. So what? Well, you could ruin the engine. If you were driving at 60 miles an hour and you did something as stupid as shifting from fifth to second. Can I confess something to you actually? Yes, you've done it with Dougie's car. I know. I did it with

his car too. No, I'll confess this, but don't tell anybody. And in some ways, this is a commendation. I was driving the Infiniti i30 a couple of weeks ago That car is so quiet That one day there I was Barrowing along on route 93 and I just happened to glance at the at the dash and the tack Was shall we say very high. I was doing 60 miles an hour in second gear Really? I couldn't hear the engine it was so quiet I had all the windows open and the wind was blowing but nonetheless it was so quiet that if I hadn't seen that tack pin and the needle

quavering but I mean it's it's testimony to the quietness of that oh no, that's a wonderful car I wish I had the opportunity to drive. No, but I was preventing all you want it blew the engine No, but it's unlikely that you'll blow the engine or even harm the engine if you go from fourth This is five speeds of four Four four so you go from four to two. It's no big deal. I mean don't forget. You've braked a little bit That's why you're shifting in at all right right so you're not doing 60 miles an hour when you're throwing it into second gear You're doing 25, but that wouldn't that wouldn't be causing the stick to come off like no no no no no That's a separate. No you didn't tighten the bolts enough Mike crank those babies down crank them down

But use lock tight, and you didn't tighten the bolts enough my crank those babies down crank them down but use walk tight and you won't have the problem anymore i want to talk about what you can clean the ball to it uh... anything brain break clean breakling are alcohol or uh... nail polish remover something to get the grease off the bolt and the threads inside yeah okay you get the stuff all nice and clean you put the question never get those bolts out again so if they're in for life. Yeah, right now

They'll come out with difficulty and and by the way if you're using the old gaskets over again, you can coat Both surfaces with with the silicone adhesive Well, I haven't I haven't put I haven't put any gaskets in because they said the only thing the gaskets did was kept The oil from leak. Oh, so you have no gaskets. No gasket. Oh no, make a gasket. Really? Buy a tube of silicone adhesive. Uh huh. Okay, and spread a bead of it, maybe a sixteenth of an inch thick on that, on one surface.

Right. And then put your Loctite on the balls and put that together, and it'll be like welding it together. It'll never come apart. Guarantee it. All right. Good luck.

Let's spray the whole thing. With aluminum paint. All right. Thanks a lot. See ya. Bye. Good luck. Hey, hey, the puzzler answer and more calls are coming up right after this. Last year, over 20,000 people joined the Body Electric study to change their sedentary screen-filled lives.

And guess what? We saw amazing effects. Now you can try NPR's Body Electric Challenge yourself. Listen to updated and new episodes wherever you get your podcasts. In this country, some truths aren't self-evident. In NPR's Black Stories, Black Truths, the collection of stories is wide-ranging and real as the people who tell them we celebrate the Black experience for all its soul and richness. Search NPR Black Stories Black Truths wherever you get podcasts. This is my voice. It can tell you a lot about me, and I'm not changing it for anyone.

In NPR's Black Stories, Black Truths, you'll find a collection of NPR episodes centered on the Black experience. Search NPR Black Stories, Black Truths wherever you get podcasts. From cowboy Carter to Old Town Road to Yellowstone, the symbol of the cowboy has been riding high for a few years now. But my big question is why are we turning to the cowboy? What's actually holding the reins on America's imagination? And what does it reflect about our psyche? Listen to It's Been A Minute from NPR. Listen to It's Been A Minute from NPR. and it's been in the week at the kennedy compound on the attack it actually the compound is on the and talk it is not in hyannis port where you from are you from the other side of the coast from philadelphia

well anyway i i i just want to mention is you probably knew from the last few shows that we did before the puzzle on a vacation that we're fresh out of puzzlers all year so we're asking you to send us your puzzle suggestions if you have a puzzler a conundrum a little mind-bender a teaser that you think we can use Send it to us at puzzler tower car talk Plaza post office box 3500 Harvard Square Cambridge our fair city, Massachusetts 0 2 2 3 8

But of course away we have a note from someone who says why did you guys stop? using the abbreviation ma for Massachusetts? Oh, MA, Cambridge, Allifers City, MA, 02238. Okay, it's done. He said, I used to listen to the show just to hear that, and you guys don't do it anymore. What the heck's going on, he said. I don't know who he was. MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA. anymore what the heck's going on he said I don't know who he was all right lost his mom mom mom mom mom mom mom anyway if we use your puzzler and you catch us we'll send you the brand new car talk diet mug this is a ceramic car talk mug

with our pictures on it if you would think of having a snack you take one look at this thing and you'll change your mind so fast your stomach won't know what hit it a diet mug I mean actually we have we tested this on our dogs. It died of starvation. We had our pictures on the side of the dog food dish. They wouldn't go near it. By the way, last week I gave a little puzzler about, I even remember Jackson the wording of it, but it was something like-

Oh yeah, I remember it. A cowboy rides into town at noon on Friday. Three days later, he rides out of town on noon on Friday How does he do that? Remind me before the end of the show Give the answer. Don't forget to give the answer. Okay, if you have a question for us We're just a phone call away at 1-800 a free phone call away. Yeah at 1-800-332-9287. Hello. You're on car talk Thank you.

You have 15 cents credit towards overtime. Hello? Hello, is anybody there? This is Beth calling from Schenectady, New York. From a phone booth? Yeah. Did you break down somewhere? No, I'm lucky about that.

Oh, good. Well, actually, first I wanted to answer your conundrum. You said a few weeks back that geniuses pass from mothers to sons. And I have one of those genius mothers, her IQ is 165. And if 50% of the geniuses in the world were women, not most of them men, wouldn't it? No, actually, men get all of their intelligence from their parents, from their mother, but females get half from the mother and half from the father. So if you have a genius mother, you might be a genius, but your genius might be deluded by a non-genius father.

Well, my IQ is not 165. So your father was a moron. Yeah. I mean that's it. Say la vie. That's how it goes. My car question is that I have her Honda Accord and about a week ago I was trying to get above 30 miles an hour and I heard this you could smell the spin burning smell and the car was revving up to 5,000 oh yeah oh yeah classic what it's a classic case of a car that needs a clutch yeah did you do this to her car no No! What do you mean no? Who was driving the car when this occurred? Was she driving it?

Well, yeah, I was driving it. How many miles on the car? About 100,000. Oh, then that's okay. Yeah. I mean, if this is the first clutch it's had, then that's fine. My other thought had been that the emergency brake wasn't working and that maybe it had seized and that's why I was having problems with the power, but the brake light wasn't on.

Well, the brake light wouldn't be on if it was seized because you could have released the handle, which would have turned the light out, but the brakes could have stayed on. Oh, your 15 cents ran out. Yeah, there's that simple test. 80 cents Okay, hold on Three quarters and 20 cents

The same right sound like four quarters to me Yes, there is a simple test that you can you can perform to determine whether it's the clutch. Okay. Bring the car near a big stone wall or something that you're not going to crash, you're not going to drive into or knock over. Set the handbrake with the front bumper pointing at this stone wall and then put the car in fifth gear. It only goes up to fourth. All right put it in fourth gear and then try to drive it away. Give it a lot of gas. Give it a lot of gas. Like halfway to the floor and let the clutch out.

If the clutch is really good and the smell was coming from the emergency brake being stuck and not the clutch, the engine will stall immediately. Okay. If the clutch is no good, the engine will continue to run and you'll have that familiar smell again. Well, it's an automatic. What do you mean it's an automatic? It's an automatic. Ha ha ha ha ha ha in fact your scenario is correct. That it's a brake. My guess is that maybe mom wasn't using the handbrake.

You used it. No, no, well I used it to park, but I didn't leave it on that day. I swear the little light was on. No, no, no. What I'm saying is if she is in the habit of not using it, and then you used it once, it probably stuck on because the mechanism is frozen. Even though you released the handle, the brake stayed on. Wouldn't the brake pad be worn if it was... Well, they are. Yeah, someone's gonna have to pull the drums.

Uh-huh. And only determine how much of the shoes are burned up, but try to free up the levers. Okay. And, alternatively, you could just return the car to her and say nothing. Ha ha ha! Which is what I would do in this situation. Well, I could do that, but because she lets me drive it so much I kind of would like to try to make sure that I do something about it.

Take it to your local gas station and have them pull the rear wheels. Okay. And they'll figure out what's wrong. Yeah. Good for you. I mean I'm glad you invested that other 80 cents because you'd have gone off with a completely wrong idea here well i think somebody along the way would have figured it out when you ask to have the country place yeah

all of us time to go a nice talking to you beth and good luck thank you thank you very much ceiling good luck say hello to mom by by by by one eight hundred three three two nine two eight seven all your own car talk this is jim from clastonbury connecticut

haitian i've got a problem with my nineteen ninety subaru maybe no surprise to you but the uh... the problem is that uh... when i drive it as soon as i get up above about twenty to twenty five miles an hour it sounds like i'm driving on a steel great bridge deck and the pitch goes up as the speed of the vehicle increases and it doesn't seem to Relate to the engine speed at all. I can coast and I'll still hear the sound So you get the it's like a steel great bridge deck. Most people in the planet aren't familiar

With these because you only have these in the East. Oh Is that true? Well, no, it isn't true. I've made that up, but I've never seen them anyplace else and I've driven a lot of other parts of the country, so I would assume that they're confined to the East Coast. It's like driving on a road which has been scarified. Yes. Exactly. Whatever the heck that means.

Cut up. So you get the sound of this. Is that the noise? Yeah, that's the noise. It's a hum or a buzz. Yeah. Are you sure that it is not sensitive to speed or engine speed? No, it is sensitive to vehicle speed, not to engine speed. Not to engine speed.

Oh yeah. So when you say... This will go up as I go faster, but I can coast, I can even pop king pop the current neutral and i'll still hear the top-up excellence not the risk of having you give the answer which uh... i i i think you know i did you see a lot of men ask if you've had a look at this uh... i i i had into the shop about uh... a month ago after i heard this noise for about a month

and i may have read my garage down the garden path a little bit thought maybe i was having uh... some sort of problem with the exhaust system they came back and said that checked out fine uh... and uh... i have really push any further i think like my main concern is knowing whether this is just uh... something i can pick up with my next uh... scheduled maintenance stopper

whether i've got some sort of a life or vehicle threatening problem. Well if you're really lucky it could be something as simple as bad tires and scalloped tires can cause the same kind of noise. On the other hand it's very likely that you have a bad wheel bearing. And a bad wheel bearing would make that kind of noise and it would get worse and worse the faster you went and you probably wouldn't hear it at very low speeds although you might if you were really listening carefully so I think you have a bad wheel bearing what you should tell them to do is put it on the lift did they drive the thing when you

had it in there? I don't know whether they did or not. Well if you told them to look at just the exhaust they probably didn't If they run the thing up in the air they may be able to hear it but the way to hear wheel bearings, the way to do it in the shop is we with the engine off and the transmission in neutral we spin each of the wheels and you can usually hear a bad wheel bearing when you do that. Okay it'll click? No it'll go hmmm. Yeah you can even sometimes feel it in your hand

as you're turning the wheel. Is this the point of imminent failure? Oh yeah. And you should do it right away because when it goes, it could go quite catastrophically. I mean, it could just melt and seize up that wheel and all of a sudden you'd find yourself driving into the woods. But this is four wheel drive, so you don't have to worry about that. It'll be three.

Three is good. So you should have it taken care of as soon as you can. And don't drive at high speeds between now and when you get it done. Because it'll be, you won't like what happens. Good luck Jim. Bye bye. More calls coming up right after these messages. All that sitting and swiping. your body is adapting to your technology. Learn how and what you can do about it.

I really felt like the cloud in my brain kind of dissipated. Once I started realizing what a difference these little breaks were making, there's no turning back for me. Take NPR's Body Electric Challenge. Listen to the series wherever you get your podcasts. On the inheriting podcast, if you ask a Filipino American or Asian American who is Patrick Salver, they have no clue. Pat Salver was a Filipino civil rights hero, but his activism came at a cost. The FBI labeled me as a troublemaker. Now his niece unearths his legacy.

Listen to Inheriting from LAistudios and the NPR Network, wherever you get your podcasts. New from the embedded podcast. I hereby declare the House representatives of the 113th General Assembly of the state of Tennessee now in session. What happens when three moms set out to change the way state politics work? We are smart and we are swift. We are not going anywhere. Listen to Supermajority from NPR's Embedded and WPLN.

All episodes out now. On this week's episode of Wild Card, actor Ted Danson says it's possible to embrace your regrets. I wish I hadn't become a liar, you know, early in life, but even your wounds you kind of have fondness for if you've lived through it and made amends and all of that stuff. I'm Rachel Martin. Join us for NPR's Wild Card Podcast, the game where cards control the conversation. Hello, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk on National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack the Tapper Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair and scientific

dining. There I was reading this month's issue. Was it this month? No, it's old. Oh, it is. It's close. It's the summer issue of the Annals of Improbable Research and here on page 16 is scientific dining reviews of Research institute cafeterias.

I mean, what kind of wackos are these people? And the reason it's of interest here is because it's quasi-automotive, quasi-automotive, because they're doing a review of the General Motors Research and Development Center cafeteria. Really? In Warren, Michigan. And the cafeteria at the GM Research and Development Center is very clean. is research and development center cafeteria really war in michigan and the cafeteria at the gm research and development center is very clean cited majestically in the basement just steps from the base of a gleaming

aerosauron and design spiral staircase and attracts well-groomed and occasionally faithful occasionally faithful lunch crowd of hungry researchers and then it goes on every table features a bouquet of artificial flowers anchored to an attractive walled-wood basket. And we asked people, what is there about this cafeteria that distinguishes it from other research lab cafeterias? A focus group of five GM staff research scientists answered this question with silence.

Eventually one scientist offered the notion that it's subterranean. What was this? While standing in the serving queue we smelled something burning, perhaps a featured entree, he and his colleague recommended the plentiful selection of breads and rolls which are renowned for their longevity The part of dr. Linda means one of two linguists on GM's research staff GM has Is a member of the cafeteria committee and she recently persuaded what an honor She recently persuaded the manager to augment his wide range of vegetarian dishes, which previously had been limited to French fries and succotash.

Okay, and then they gave a scale. The cafeteria's regular diners give it a consistent one. The scale goes from I to pi. Of course, it's a research lab. And they rated it on the basis of quality, where it got a rating of 1, trendiness, where it got a rating of 1, and bearded men, which is the number of photos or drawings of bearded men displayed on the walls of the cafeteria where it got a.6. All in all, we found that your visit to the GM Research and Development

Center, if you have to have lunch, and if you can't find your way out of the basement, the cafeteria is a fine place to dine. Who wrote this? Stephen Drew. Now, what does Stephen Drew do when he's not doing this? He's locked up somewhere. I don't know who he is. Definitely locked up. Well, just a little quick note here about our puzzler. As you probably know by now, our beloved little puzzler has the summer off. And while it languishes in the sea breezes

and reads John Grisham novels, we're here working ourselves to the bone collecting new puzzlers for the puzzler's fall debut. Yeah, sure. So if you have any pity on us whatsoever, and you have a puzzler you think we can use in the fall. Even if it's crummy. Or if you have some mail, let's not leave out the mail. Right.

You need to put mail on the outside of the envelope, or put puzzler on the outside of the envelope. Better a piece of mail that has in it some puzzler. Send both. That would be good. Send that stuff to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500, Harvard Square, Cambridge... Our fair city.

...MAH, 02238. If we use your puzzler and you catch us, we'll send you some crummy prize. By the way, the answer to that little puzzle... Oh, yes. A cowboy rides into town at noon on Friday. That same cowboy rides out of town at noon on Friday three days later how did he do it and he does it because his horse is named Friday if you're hoping to get puzzles better than that in the fall you better get

cranking fucks I'd press to beat that i think that was good well it was it was seventh grade that tells you a lot about me alright one eight hundred three three two nine two eight seven hello you're on cart talk this is gail hi gail we were waiting for you call do we know you? g-a-l-e or g-a-i-l? uh neither g-a-y-l-e ooooh ooooh

I'm a creative mom what can I say? that was cruel either, G-A-Y-L-E. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho,

ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, up in this i have what i would call a boyfriend problem that may lead to a car problem early some afraid it will uh... i have a ninety one to tell it that five-speed which by the way i like a lot better since i heard you call someone else's nimble i thought that was good uh... he he likes to drive my car can you think it's kind of sporty but the thing that he does is i'm gonna tell you what he does he shifts without

stepping on the clutch no no he down shifts all the time no no he uh... revs it up to five thousand rpm every time now if you thought of that he probably would be a kind of that yet thanks for your call three strikes were out right now we're on a okay i what does he do? What does he do? He drives it in what I call high speeds while in low gear. For example, although he denies this, he this past weekend was driving 70 miles an hour down the freeway in third gear. Yeah, that's what I said. He revs it up.

Oh, okay. That's revving it up? That's what he does. 40 miles an hour in second, stuff like that. He's over-revving it. Yeah, tell him not to do that. Well, I've told him not to do that. Give him a dope slap. Ha ha ha. Kind of a long way across the passenger's seat. What's the red line on the tachometer?

Is it like 7,000? Something like that. No, 62. Well, it's close to seven. Close to seven. And he's bringing it up close to the red line every time. Mmm, somewhere, he likes to just sort of constantly drive it at about 4,000 RPM. Oh, 4,000.

Yeah. Hmm. Why? Have you asked him what his reason is? Absolutely. Yeah, I know why. He likes what it sounds like. Well, I kind of think this is someone who leaves his volume up on the television, so

that may be related to it. Yeah. But what he says is that this avoids lugging my engine and Lugging I guess is what you do if you're going 15 miles an hour in third gear and your car's going Because you're in the wrong gear. Yeah, that is lugging. Well, tell her if it doesn't stop If you don't persist in this anti lugging thing, you're gonna start a slugging campaign No, I mean just because lugging is bad. that does not mean that over-revving is good. Well, that's what I'm worried about.

What's happening under that hood? Yeah, the engine is turning too fast. I mean, he's probably not doing any real damage to the engine. It certainly can run all day long at 4,000. However, an engine only has so many revolutions per lifetime in it. When people say, you know, my car's got 100,000 miles on it, that's not a good measure. 100,000 miles may be twice as many revolutions as someone else that's got 150,000 miles. It depends on how many times has the engine spun around. That's what wrecks it.

One of the reasons that cars last so much longer these days is because of five-speed transmissions. We've enabled cars to drive at 60 miles an hour doing only 2,200 RPM as opposed to 3,200. So when you drop 1,000 revolutions off per minute, you lengthen the life of the engine considerably. So you should tell them that you want your car to last a long time. You don't want it running at 4000 RPM all the time. You want it running at about 3 where it's supposed to.

And tell them to start shifting early or you won't let him drive anymore. But I mean, you've already, she's already told him this. Well this is a test, Gail. This is a test. This is an issue of power. It's a test of wills. Oh, don't say that. Not a control issue.

I think so. It's both a control and a power issue. The power having a dual meaning in this case of power over you, therefore control and power, the feeling of power when the car is in being over revved because now as soon as you touch that gas pedal, you go. Whereas if you're in fifth gear instead of fourth gear it goes a little bit but it doesn't have that oomph. Is this the only point of contention between the two of you? I'll bet it isn't boy. I'll bet this is the tip of the iceberg. Well there's like who gets to change the air conditioning setting and stuff like that so yeah you're probably

on to something. We're running into a lot of power issues here. When you watch TV together who has the clicker? The clicker he's got all four. Gail you're in for a life of misery. I would dump him. No he's a nice man. No he's not.

He's not a nice guy. Well has he got a lot of money? Medium. Medium. Medium that's not a nice guy. Well, has he got a lot of money? Medium. Medium. Medium, that's not enough. That's not enough to have a car and a car. If he's going to control you for the rest of your life, he's going to have tons of it. Are there areas where you control him but you don't even know it, maybe?

Well, none comes to mind. None comes to mind, so he's in control. Could be. Yeah. Are you happy with that? Well, for the most part, I don't notice it. He's like, Dr. Ruth, for you happy with that? Well, for the most part I don't notice it. He's like Dr. Ruth for god's sake! What?

This is Laura Slessinger. New areas of adventure. Hello Seattle. Hello Seattle, you're on. Well if you don't mind the control issue, I wouldn't worry about it because he's not really wrecking your car if he doesn't really take it much over 4000 rpm. He's not wrecking it, but he is shortening the engine's life. Okay, but as long as you can counter that with a strong relationship, what's an engine? What's an engine? What's an engine? If true love.

It's not a whole engine. A couple thousand dollars after all. Sure, I mean, I suppose what you could do is say, look, I know you have to drive this way, but the truth of the matter is it is shortening the life of the engine So when the car dies you buy the next one. Well, that's a good idea Or you replace this engine right? I think that's fair. Yeah, okay And if he agrees to that then I think you should keep them. Okay. See you girl While you squandered another perfectly good hour listening to car Well, you've squandered another perfectly good hour listening to car show. What me? Our esteemed producer is Doug, the subway fugitive, not a slave to fashion, punk and

lips Berman. Our associate producer and dean of the College of Automusicology is Ken Babyface Rogers. Our assistant producer is Catherine Cathode Petuti-Ray. Our engineer is Karen Given and our technical advisor, heading out again on the free lunch North American summer tour. It's John Bugsy Sebastian, Mr. Height Sweetcheeks, free lunch, I'll underline free lunch, donut breath, twinkle toes, hula hips, two gigabyte, make that three triple cheeseburgers, Waller. Guy's wasting away.

Oh yeah, he is. Our public opinion pollster is Paul Murky of Murky Research assisted by statistician Margin O'Vara. Our automotive medical researcher is Dr. Denton Fender. Our marriage counselor is Marion Haste. Our director of new product repair is Warren T. Mifoot. The designer of our casual clothing line is No Tai Wu. The curator of Tom's Car Collection is Rex Galore.

Our staff urologist is Willa Catheter. Our director of country music is Stan Byerman. The chairman of our underemployment study group as art majors, the chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff is John Shelley Papa-Wheely, and our timing director is Benjamin Not Yet Yu-Yahoo! And of course, our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheatham and Howes, Hugh Louis Dewey, and don't the other guys sleeping under the newspapers in the Harvard Square as Yui, Louie, Dewey. Thanks so much for listening. We're Click and Clack the Tappan Brothers,

and don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. If you want a cassette copy of this week's show, which is number 35, you can order it electronically on the World Wide Web through the shameless commerce division of CarTalk.com. Or if you'd rather interact with a real human, you can call 303-823-8000. You can also order the best of CarTalk and all the other useless CarTalk junk the same

way. Click on the Shameless Commerce Division at CarTalk.com or call 303-823-8000. CarTalk is a production of Dewey, Cheetah, and Howe in WBUR in Boston. And even though Kyle Castle hides behind his newspaper when he hears us say it, this is NPR National Public Radio. Do you want to maximize your summer? Well, LifeKits got you covered with tips on staying safe in the heat, planning your big vacation, becoming a grill master, and exploring your neighborhood on a budget. Make the most of every day this summer. Listen to the Life Kit podcast from NPR.

Was it just me or did brands seem a little quieter for Pride last month than they usually are? Actually, brands generally aren't jumping at the chance to advertise to marginalized communities or weigh in on politics like they used to. This week, we look at why brands got woke, then unwoke. Why was that so unusual? And what could it say about you? Listen on It's Been A Minute from NPR.