The Best of Car Talk - #2486: Tire Afire

Episode Date: October 26, 2024

Ann spent a winter day snowboarding in Oregon, but as she and her Saab tried to negotiate the mountain road home she smelled smoke and realized her tire was on fire. Being a risk taker, Ann kept driving. Apres ski with Click and Clack 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

When voters talk during an election season, we listen. We ask questions, we follow up, and we bring you along to hear what we learned. Get closer to the issues, the people, and your vote at the NPR Elections Hub. Visit npr.org slash elections. 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 preponderance of evidence division here at Car Talk Plaza. Now, you may remember a few weeks ago we were talking about your income taxes. My income taxes?

We're talking about my income taxes on the air? Did you give away my 10 secrets to infinite deductions? No no. Disappear income. No no, I mean your income tax. We were talking about ways our listeners could reduce their income taxes. Well that's easy, you just don't pay your income taxes. No no, we were talking

about charitable deductions. You remember this? And how if you make a pledge, for instance, you have to subtract the actual value of any gift you received in exchange for that pledge. Yeah, I mean, that's we know that. Right? Yeah. And the only exceptions, according to the IRS, are items of, quote, insubstantial value. So we said that basically, if you gave money to your station and received anything that says car talk on it it then that would automatically qualify as an item of insubstantial value, right? Well I would think so. Well there was some debate about this apparently at the IRS. We've generated some interest. They're so picky. But we have more evidence strongly supporting our position.

Exactly. This is an email that we got from Mario Riolo. A week or so ago, you were talking about the potential value of car talk related items with respect to the IRS. I thought you might like to take into account this little story in estimating the value of car talk items. The other day, someone broke into our car and took everything of value. Not that there was much there anyway.

As we were milling around the car, becoming more and more depressed by this invasion of our sacred space, my daughter noticed something in the bushes. What was it? It was our best of car talk tape. At first we were elated to know at least not everything was gone, then we started to think if even low down crooks don't want this tape, what can it be worth? So the IRS is on very, very, what's the word? Shaky.

Shaky ground. I have a follow up to that here. Even better. You guys blew it again. This is from Gary Liebling. What you fail to realize is that Car Talk premiums might have negative value. Suppose that for a hundred dollar donation, you sent one of those House of Croissants t-shirts to somebody and what if you had to pay someone, say 50 bucks, to actually wear that stupid looking t-shirt. If I made a donation of $100, my deduction

would be $150. $100 for the contribution and the $50 that I have to pay someone to wear it. The wearer's fee. Yeah. It says, and he ends with, feel free to use this brilliant observation in any way you want. I'll write to you in prison. Who's going to be in prison? Him or us? We rest our case. We rest our case. So IRS, get lost! What's your social security number anyway? I just saw the IRS have an easier time. BR-1134-1127. That's not your social security number. That was your number when you went AWOL. Did they ever find you? They never found me.

They never did, huh? They're still looking for me. They don't know. Private Magliozzi! Everybody will go on past this weekend except Private Magliozzi! Where is Sergeant Mc... I forgot his name. McNeely. McNeely, thanks. He's probably in the old soldier's home.

He's probably in... He's probably been in a rubber room ever since he had you as a recruit where are you sergeant mcneely from Fort Dix New Jersey? He's a big drool I think he's drooling he's probably roaming the streets of Wrightstown saying everybody will go passing some private magliors surprise Call us numbers 1-800-332-9287. Hello. You're on car talk. Hi. This is Scott from Lexington, Kentucky Hi, Scott Scott. What's happening man? Well, I guess you've heard the news about our tremendous flooding here in Kentucky Yes, we have yes. I was driving through what I thought was a fairly serene neighborhood, subdivision. And I saw water on the road in front of me. Yes.

And now I know you're not supposed to drive through water regardless of how deep you think it is. Well, I just kind of guessed it was about three inches maybe. And it turned out to be about a foot. And I drive a 1994 Festiva. Oh! That has a ground clearance of about seven and a half inches yeah that's

one that the tires are full but uh... and you know as well well no and uh... i want i got through it fine and what happened was i don't know when i got into the water something came to my mind about hydroplaning and you're supposed to slow down so i took my foot off the gas and kind of coasted through the water well i got to the i got through actually one more traffic light and I

got to probably busiest intersection in Lexington and my car died. Well I mean you you were obviously going too fast because if all you did was take your foot off the gas that's that's not good enough unless you were going at a crawl to begin with. Well I mean it was it was pouring rain and I couldn't see very well so I mean I was I was probably doing 25 30 Oh When you go through a puddle of any size you gotta go what like the submarine captains do dead slow dead slow Well, I thought it was just a little running water and it turned out to be you know, a lake over to

How it's going through now a friend of mine told me my biggest problem My biggest mistake was when I got into the water I took my foot off the gas He was telling me that because my car fuel injected I'll tell you right now whatever he was gonna tell you he's full of baloney. Well, let's see the theory There may be something it may hold water What he told me was I took my foot off the gas and because it's fuel injected The tailpipe acted like a straw and sucked the water into the engine.

Ooh, I like it. It's bogus, but I like it. And I just thought, you know, I didn't know, I was thinking, is there a strategy? Besides, obviously not going through water to begin with. But you're saying to go through slowly. Yeah, that's all it is. I mean, it's as simple as that. What caused your car to die is that you splashed enough water onto the ignition system, the distributor cap and the spark plug wires, to cause short-circuiting. And that's why, even when you did get it restarted, it probably ran lousy for quite a while. Well, actually, it kept almost backfiring.

Right. Yeah. Because the sparks were not occurring at the right time. You were missing sparks in some of the cylinders, and then they would spark, and then they wouldn't spark. You were getting explosions in the exhaust system, and the thing probably ran on two cylinders. So going through the puddle was your problem. Going too fast, we had even compounded it. And you're going through it dead slow. Dead slow. With left rudder, slight left rudder.

You would have made it. I feel like the Titanic or something. Now what's your friend's name? What's his first name or her? Kenneth. Kenneth. Yeah. We'll call this the Kenneth suction theory. So the problem was...

Now, he thinks... Now, let's get this straight. He thinks that the tailpipe, which is designed to exhaust things, things are coming out of the tailpipe. Under positive pressure. Under positive pressure coming out of the tailpipe. Under positive pressure. Under positive pressure coming out of the tailpipe. His theory is if you take your foot off the gas, then that positive pressure becomes negative pressure and it sucks water in. And that water, how big was this puddle, like 10 feet across? Oh no, no. I'd say about 3 feet across.

3 feet across. But in those few seconds seconds he thinks that that will suck in water through the tailpipe, right, into the muffler, right, through the catalytic converter, through the exhaust manifold, into the cylinders. Yeah. It sounds good. Yeah, I like it. I told you I like it. The rest is a get go. It did make a lot of sense to me, but what can I say? I'm not terribly mechanically inclined. But when my dad always drowned the car, we used to have an old 73 Nova. When he drowned the car, it's because it got up under the hood and it ruined the carburetor or whatever.

Well, probably what happened to your father's car is exactly what happened to this one. There are some cars, however, on the market that have the air scoop located fairly low, especially cars that have a low hood line, so that when you drive through a puddle it's possible to actually suck water in through the intake. Not through the exhaust. Right. Through the intake where the fresh air would be coming in to combust the fuel. Because at that end it really is sucking.

And when that happens you can hydro lock the engine and you can actually ruin it Wow which should be which would have been no great loss in your valuable car would have been missed well I've got it's got 120,000 on it I'm thinking is there do I need to really get this looked at now I mean it's been right no I don't I do anything no it's dried out that's while. No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't do anything. No, okay. It dried out and that's all. That's it. Try to cultivate some new friendships, though. Get rid of ten.

Well, okay. See you, Scott. All right. Thanks for calling, man. Bye-bye. Hey, the puzzler answer and more calls are coming up right after this. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate

with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com, T's and C's apply. It's a high stakes election year, so it's not enough to just follow along. You need to understand what's happening so you are fully informed come November. Every weekday on the NPR Politics Podcast, our political reporters break down important stories and backstories from the campaign trail so you understand why it matters to you. Listen to the NPR Politics Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, it's Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I know this is hard to believe, but one day the election will be over. Then the winner gets a lot more powerful. It's

my job to report on what they do with that power. That's public accountability, but it's not possible without public support. So please support our work. Sign up for NPR+. Go Visit plus.npr.org. All right, it's time for you to pry through the cobwebs of your gray matter. You're not gonna ask me about the puzzle I having to do with what those three famous guys had in common? Well, no. Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Is that what you're gonna ask me about? Well, no. Hahahaha! Is that what you're gonna ask me about? Well, actually, Dougie and I conspired to trap you. I figured that every week, Dougie gives us notes every week, you know, well, it's such and such a portion of the show, is when you do the puzzler and then another portion of the show.

Yeah, because we can't remember. And he gives us the phone number, because he knows we can't remember the 800 number even though we've recited it maybe 250,000 times and I thought you were taking- You attempted to entrap me? Yes, because you have different notes. You have last week's puzzler in your notes. What does it say there? The puzzler.

Oh, Sam's luncheon? You guys are hopeless you guys are hopeless so now we go So now we know it's Catherine Catherine gives me a signal look at those Expressive eyes, that's all I can see I can see just her eyes from here. She's hiding we hide the tape machine Telepathically and you guys can never interfere with that. All right. Well here it is. Yeah What do the following men have in common Ulysses s grant. Yeah Rudyard Kipling Woodrow Wilson

Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge. Now we know they're all dead. They do have certainly that in common. Yeah, they do. What do they have in common other than the fact that they were all famous and that they're all dead? I don't know. You don't know. I don't know. You don't know. Well, they are best known by their middle names.

What? Yes. Ulysses S. Sam? Well, no, no. Ulysses is not his first name? His real name is Hiram Ulysses Grant. He added the S to Simpson later on in life. No. Joseph Rudyard Kipling.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson. You knew that because that was a trivia question that you may have used on the website at one point or another. Yeah. Stephen Grover Wilson. He's a great writer. He's a great writer. He's a great writer.

He's a great writer. He's a great writer. He's a great writer. He's a great writer. He's a great writer. He's a great writer. He's a great writer. He's a great writer. He's a great writer. Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, you knew that because that was a... You asked me that one day. ... trivia question that you may have used on the website at one point or another. Steven Grover Cleveland and John Calvin Coolidge. Wow.

Pretty good, huh? Yeah. I'm going to change my name. Oh, I already did. Yes. You are Dante. I'm Dante. Yeah.

Yeah. You haven't been calling me Dante lately. What's up? In yon skinny app? Atlas no, that's not my name. That's my channel. Oh, that's your channel. Oh me on us be overdose Yes, and who have you been channeling with I've been channeling with surely I tried channel surfing but she's the only one I could find Do we have a winner? The winner is Anne Stoffel from? I tried channel surfing but she's the only one I could find. Do we have a winner?

The winner is Ann Stauffel from Denver, Colorado. Isn't that interesting? What a coinkedink. What a coinkedink. Ann for having the answer that she sent in chosen at random as I won it this week. Ann Stauffel, Ann Stauffel will get a copy of the second best of car talk CD or tape, whatever we have more of that we want to get rid of and She can put it in her car when her car gets broken until they'll leave it in the bushes, too

And we can we can send her the affidavit that says it has negative value of about 25 bucks sounds good to me. Okay, so that's it We have a new puzzle of course coming up later on don't pay the IRS. Let's go. We have a new puzzler, of course, coming up later on. Don't pay the IRS. Let's go, let's forget them. Stiff them, you mean? That's it. They don't deserve it.

They're too incompetent and smug. In my personal opinion. Yes, I'm glad. And your social security number is? BR-11. Anyway, we have a new puzzler coming up during the second half of Car Talk. In the meantime, if you'd like to call us, the number is 1-800-332-9287. Hello, you're on Car Talk.

This is Kay Ellsworth. I'm from Welch, Oklahoma. Hi, Kay. Kay, from Welch, Oklahoma. Right. What can we do for you today, Kay? I have an 86 Toyota 4Runner, and my clutch is slipping. And I've had the car for a long time, and I've had the boyfriend only for a year, and

we have an argument going on, and I think that it has something to do with the way that he drives it. The thing was perfectly fine before you met this deadbeat. Oh, you're right. No, he's not a deadbeat. I love him dearly. Oh, before you met this wonderful man, and now all of a a sudden after a mere year of his driving this thing around the clutch is slipping. Yep that's it. And it's obviously his fault. I mean I think he should pay for it.

It's like I you know it's like get your foot off my clutch. Oh he rides the clutch? Well I think he does he says it doesn't hurt it. Well you tell us what he does and we'll be the judges. Okay, that's what I'm hoping for. Okay. It's like we travel 30 miles a day round trip to work on really bad dirt roads. And we have to slow down quite a bit and he'll just put in on the clutch instead of putting on the brake or downshifting. Oh, so he'll hold the clutch all the way down to the floor.

All the way to the floor. And coast, so to speak. Exactly. He uses it like a brake. Well, he's not using it like a brake because if he were using it as a brake, he would have it halfway out. Yeah. But he's stepping on it.

In other words, you're on this rough road, you're going 30 miles an hour and he decides he wants to slow down to 20 and rather than stepping on the brake he throws in the clutch and lets the car just slow down naturally. Right. Okay and then what does he do? How does he, at some point, re-engage the clutch? Yeah then he'll either re-engage it or he might then downshift if he got going slow enough, might downshift it then to the next gear. And when he's in third or second gear And he's actually driving without doing this little thing of throwing in the clutch. Where is his foot then? Usually off of the clutch unless we're like in a really crowded parking lot or something

Okay, and driving around and then he'll have his foot on the clutch. How much money have you got saved up? Not very much you're gonna have to spend it whatever it is getting into it well we think that we do we know what the problem is now we really could we were get about this so we got out my well-worn manual uh... we think the real remain field leaking do you know uh... leaking down onto the clutch pit that clutches all that white how do we think that

well looked we looked yeah and all in the clutch put their looks to be felt in oil all and uh... we put them um... um... conditioner seal conditioner in the oil changed it but them we're trying to help that'll condition you know that the fail that now the problem how do you get the oil off the clutch?

You know, you don't know can't clean it with something or no, no No, you can set it on fire I've tried that I think gasoline is out of the question Gasoline the oil itself will burn. No, okay. So's out of the question. Okay. You don't need gasoline, the oil itself will burn. No, okay. So, I mean, first of all, what he's doing is not causing the clutch to wear out. Oh, that's too bad.

So that even if you didn't have this rear main seal leaking and you simply had a really worn out clutch that was slipping, he would not have been responsible for it due to this specific behavior that you have described and moreover You must have a hundred thousand plus miles on this thing Okay, I got some bad news and I got some good The bad news is that the only way to fix any of this is to fix Replace the clutch and replace the rear main seal. But the good news is that a lot of the labor to do the clutch job will go toward replacing

the rear main seal. Oh, okay. There's a lot of duplication of labor. In other words, they have to take out the transmission to do the clutch. Yeah, you do. Yeah. And you have to take out the transmission to do the rear main seal. So they would have had to do that if they got if they're gonna use the book to do this make sure they don't charge you

Double for all of this. No, no, no, my brother's mechanic. He has his own shop. Oh, that's all the more Get an estimate from at least three other people before you take it into him Get an estimate from at least three other people before you take it into him. Well, that might be a good idea. Yeah, but he should know enough to point, even if it isn't leaking, at this point you should obviously replace the rear mean seal anyway. Yeah, probably a couple hundred thousand miles. It's probably time. Yeah, and while he's at it, have him replace the front seal of the transmission. Front seal of the transmission. Sure, sure. What the heck? He's daring.

Okay. While he's in there, you might as well. While he's in there. Tell him to take out your appendix while he's at it. No, no, no, no. I'll keep it. Good luck, Kay. Thanks. See you. Bye.

Bye. Right after these messages, you'll hear more calls and a new puzzler coming right up. Wait, wait, don't tell me. Fresh air? Up first. NPR News Now, Planet Money, TED Radio Hour, ThruLine, the NPR Politics Podcast, CodeSwitch, Embedded, Books We Love, Wildcard... are just some of the podcasts you can enjoy sponsor-free with NPR+. Get all sorts of perks across more than 20 podcasts with the bundle option. Learn more at plus.npr.org. Anxious? This October, Shortwave is helping wrangle that fear. And the trick may have to do with horror movies. I feel more alive when I am in situations like this. Learn the surprising science to conquering fear when you subscribe now to Shortwave,

the science podcast from NPR. Darien, why have so many people fallen out of love with dating apps? That is such a question of the moment, and I posed it to the CEO of Hinge for Love Week on the indicator. That's our week-long investigation into the business side of romance. Find us on your favorite podcast app, The Indicator from Planet Money. It's Love Week. We love you. Coming up on The Indicator from Planet Money is Love Week, our week-long series exploring

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With a slate of Halloween episodes to get you in the spirit. This October, subscribe to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk on National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers. And we're here, of course, to discuss cars, car repair, and you've got to love this guy. This is an email for Russ Green from San Bruno, California, and this evidently was in the San Francisco Chronicle. This week's reward for breathtaking ingenuity and enterprise goes hands down to Dr. Kenneth

Olson, a psychiatrist. Nadine Kuhl, a former nurse's aide in Appleton, Wisconsin, went to Dr. Olsonson, a psychiatrist. Nadian Kuhl, a former nurses aide in Appleton, Wisconsin went to Dr. Olson for a one-on-one treatment and ended up with a bill for $300,000. Wow. The good doctor explained that Kuhl had 120 personalities and he had to administer not to one but multitudinous wild and wacky idds including Satan, a few angels and a duck. She had no idea that she suffered from multiple personalities and she's suing Dr. Olsen for malpractice claiming he left her suicidal and haunted by false memories and an insane psychiatric bill.

I love it. Dr. Olsen's lawyer said Kuhl was a very troubled person who had been abused and that the psychiatrist correctly diagnosed multiple personalities disorder. He couldn't decide who to charge so he charged them all. Makes sense to us. I like the duck. I mean if you're gonna multiple personalities, including Satan and angels, why not a duck? Well, I think he was within his rights to charge for every one. Of course, I mean, he helped, he may have helped every one of them. This is something that the automotive industry should have come up with.

Your car had multiple personality disorders. Well, we have something akin to this. We break four or five things, and then we call the customer and tell them there are seven things wrong with the car. Six of them we caused, but we'll fix them all for a fee. So it's similar to it. It is similar. Yeah, it's not exactly the same, but we've been working on that.

I'm proud of you then. We've been working on that for years. Okay, look, it's time for the new puzzler, and this was inspired by... Stolen from, is that the same as stolen from? Yeah, by a letter sent in... Oh, I just received this. June 20, 1994. You're up to date on the mail, huh?

Rod Messica from Brothel, oh, Brothel, Washington. Yeah, Washington. Yeah, okay. Oh, here it is. I remember one day this old geezer drives into the shop with his 75 or 76 Volare, and he says something like, boys, my car's having trouble. It doesn't like a certain kind of ice cream that I buy.

And he goes on to explain that when he goes to, he only has three flavors of ice cream that he eats, and he goes to the local ice cream parlor to buy. He eats either vanilla or chocolate or three bean tofu mint chip beef ice cream. He says, when I go to buy chocolate I park it in an ice cream pile and I buy the chocolate I come out my car starts right up. The same thing happens if I buy vanilla. The problem occurs when I buy them the tree what did I tree? Oh yeah I'm sure try to repeat that. Tree bean tofu mint chip beef.

Whatever. I buy the stuff I come out the car won't start it cranks and cranks and cranks and cranks it doesn't want to start finally it starts it runs on one cylinder maybe it runs on two cylinders it shakes and rattles and it takes me ten minutes to get going. Wow. Krusty, who's asleep in the corner, says, you're right. Same thing happens to my car. Same thing happens to my car,

and you're right, it is the ice cream. What? Whistling. Wow. That's excellent. Now, all the information you need to solve this is shall I say packed into the puzzler. If you think you know the answer send it to us at Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500, Harvard Square, Cambridge, Our Fair City, Math 02238 or you can of course email us your answer from Cartalk.com by clicking on the talk to car talk section and don't forget if you email us don't forget

to include your post office address so if you win we're going to load some of these best of car talk CDs. Right? I mean people that email stuff don't have real addresses. I just thought of a horrible thing. A what? I just thought of a horrible thing. We have more CDs than we thought?

If it's true that these CDs have negative value, then when we give them away, the people who have them get to deduct it even from their pledge. Oh, oh, oh. On the other hand. Oh, oh, oh. I know the problem. We are giving away something of negative value, so therefore it is positive income positive income right every time we give one of these things away I know your brain schemes would backfire on it we're going to jail I know we're not in trouble because the IR you would have to understand algebra to understand that and there's no one in the IRS with brains enough to do that In my personal opinion they ordered to do like every year. Yeah

You'd like to call us with a question about your car, the number is 1-800-332-9287. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Anne from Portland, Oregon. What's up, Anne? Well, last weekend I went up to the mountains to go snowboarding with my friends. And when I snowboarded all day long, I came out to the car, and it's a sob, and I got in and started driving down the hill. Now, wait a minute, what's the big deal about snowboarding?

I mean, skiing's bad enough. Yeah, have you got room for one more? Because we have a guy here who'd like to go with you. He loves the skiing and snowboarding stuff. Doug Mayer, who is part of the crack staff here, has been on crutches for about two years now from a skiing accident and you know that this guy has the mental capacity of it first of all the fact that he works

with us tells you something he has diminished mental capacity right off can hardly wait to get back on skis again right and he only he's gonna go now she's not gonna go to ski he's gonna go right to snowboarding because you really only need one leg for that His other leg is useless Do you mind if I interrupt you for a second because I happen to have here a note from someone that is relatively Relative to this relevant relevant. That's the way you go a doctor. Dr. Chris Kerr gave us definitions I just wonder which one is mayor an Idiot is a person without understanding of ordinary or ordinary mental capacity and

does not advance beyond the age of three years. That could be him. An imbecile who is weak, is a person who is weak minded yet not incapable of education. I don't think that's Doug. A moron. It could be a moron. Is a feeble minded person of higher grade than an imbecile, one who does not advance beyond the mental age of about 12 years.

I think we're going to give him the benefit of a doubt and call him a moron. I think so too. I think he might be a moron. I'm sorry, Ann. All right. So there you were snowboarding. There we are, we were snowboarding and you got back in the Saab. Right, and I didn't chain up. There wasn't that. There was just flesh on the ground. Yeah. Okay. So I started driving down the hill and it felt like I had no control over my back right tire. And it just felt like I was sliding all over the place and I could only go about 15 miles an hour without like

Ending up into a snowbank or you were driving on ice Well, I didn't seem like it was that icy. Yeah, okay and Precinct is a pile of cars in back of me. So I pull over to the side of the road They're all honking the horn of course telling you to go faster. Oh, that's that well, they weren't honking They were more polite, but they were pressuring me. Pressuring you. Pressuring you. And so I pull over and my tire, I get out of the car to see what's going on, see if there's something wrong, and my tire's on fire.

Ah! With all this smoke coming out of it. So these guys behind you, they just wanted you to pull over, they didn't bother to say, and by the way, your car's on fire? No, they didn't bother to say and by the way your car's on fire no it's great isn't it life is good so I got back in drove the car and it felt fine there was it felt like I had control over the tires again so we got back in the car we drove five miles down the hill you didn't change the tire? No. You just waited for the fire to go out. I'm with you Ann.

I love it. So we got back down to the, we drove like five miles, got out of the car, there's no fire, no smoke, and so we just decided to drive back to town, which is like a 60 mile drive, and I had no problems. Now when you say the tire was on fire. From inside, like I could see it if I looked inside the hubcap You could see flames. Yes, and you didn't think to like run like hell No, she had to get home

Just curious my first reaction would have been I mean if I didn't know anything to go which There are flames very close to the gas tank and I'm gonna just hang around and wait for the fire to go which there's if there are flames very close to the gas tank and I'm gonna just hang around and wait for the fire to go out you are some Vimence there and you know well the person in the back seat she wasn't very enthusiastic about it I mean it sounds to me although I haven't got it all figured out yet but the brake caliper in the right rear there was stuck on But I don't know where the flames are coming from because the flames could only come from either brake fluid Hmm, which which will burn does burn or grease from the wheel bearing? Uh-huh. Ah

That's pretty much it back there. Yeah, see if the brakes are stuck on The car is moving and you're getting tremendous heat from the friction And I also explained the peculiar handling. Oh, yeah that that was obviously what the crazy handling was because that brake was on Mm-hmm, and I guess my brother's theory is that grease or brake fluid caught fire It was a small flame, was it not? Yes, it wasn't tremendous. Yeah. Yeah.

So should I take it into the shop? Well, I mean, do what you like. Of course you're going to take it in. I don't know what happened to make the rest of the journey uneventful. Yeah, I can't explain that although I can only imagine that Somehow or another the caliper freed itself up and then you were able to drive Normally after that. Uh-huh. So I guess I mean you you showed great poise and Courage and you call it? Idiocy.

Yeah, but definitely, definitely have someone look at it. Don't drive it unless you're driving it directly to the repair shop. And tell them the whole story. Anytime your car catches fire anywhere, the first thing you do is run like hell unless you have a fire extinguisher and you and you want to be courageous well hopefully that won't happen again but I would start carrying one like on your hip see ya get it checked out okay how did the snowboarding go was it fun oh yeah can you take Doug Meyer with you next time you go sure okay we'll ship them

out okay thanks okay thanks for calling bye bye and they can ship them back in a Oh, yes. Can you take Doug Mayo with you next time you go? Sure. Okay, we'll ship him out. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Thanks for calling. Bye-bye. And they can ship him back in a body cast. While you wasted an otherwise perfectly good hour listening to car talk, our esteemed producer is Doug the Subway Fugitive, not a slave to fashion, Berman.

Our associate producer and dean of the College of Automusicology is Ken Babyface Rogers. Our assistant producer is Catherine Cathode-Ray. Our engineer is Karen Given. And our technical advisor returning from his recent victory lap around the buffet table is John Bugsy, free lunch man, Lawler. Our public opinion pollster is Paul Murky of Murky Research assisted by statistician Marge Inovera. Our director of new product repair is Warren T. Myfoot. Our director of staff pay increases is Xavier Breath. Our staff butler from the Cartock-Bombay division is Mahatma Foot. Our Director of Staff Pay Increases is Xavier Breath. Our Staff Butler from the Car Talk Bombay Division is Mahatma

Coat. Our Marriage Counselor is Marion Haste. Our Head of Used Car Purchasing is You Will Be Hoofin' It. Our Behavior Consultant is Wyatt B. Hoofizier. Our Secretary of State is Madeleine Airbrake. The Manager of our Weekly Shrimp Buffet is Sheldon Devane.. The curator of Tom's Car Collection is Rex Glore. Our director of Speed Bumps is Slo-Me-Down-Belo-Sevich. Our director of Cold Weather Starting is Martina Never Turnover. And our manager of automotive accessories is Francis Ford Cup-Boulder. Our chief legal counsel from the law firm is Dewey Cheatham and Howe is Younge Louis Dewey.

Known around the square as Younge Louis Dewey. Thanks so much for listening. We're Click and Clack the Tappers, brothers. And remember, don't ever, ever, ever drive like my brother. I'll meet you at the IRS. Don't drive like my brother either. We'll be back next week. Bye bye. And now, here with an important announcement is Car Talk Plaza's chief mechanic, Vinny

Gumbass. Hey, if you guys want some Car Talk junk, hey, I'm talking to you. Vinny Gumbass. 303-823-8000. That's 303-823-8000. Thank you very much. Car Talk is production of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though the folks in legal smack their forehands every time they hear us say it, this is NPR National Public Radio. Who's claiming power at this election? What's happening in battleground states? And why do we still have the electoral college? All this month, the Throughline podcast is asking big questions about our

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