The Best of Car Talk - #25100: Parts and Labor

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Eric has a modest proposal: Shouldn’t the cost of the $4 part that his mechanic is replacing on his car also bear some resemblance to the cost of the labor to do the job? Afraid not, piston puss! How would mechanics ever pay for their boats if that were the case? Click and Clack expound upon various schemes- uh, theories!.. on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Ray Maliazzi. You know, before we start the show today, I want to talk for a minute about public media. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 says that local public media stations should be responsive to their communities. And to this day, that's what NPR member stations are doing in so many towns and regions where newspapers have stopped publishing. They're providing news and information to everyone. Even as digital paywalls rise elsewhere, we offer these resources for free,

regardless of anyone's ability to pay. We still believe in this core commitment in NPR. We always will. But as of this fall, federal funding for public media, including NPR and local NPR stations, has been eliminated. As we move into this uncharted future together, we know that you will not let the service that has been here for you all these years falter. We rely on your support to bring you the best of Kartalk now more than ever. Now, this year we shared a lot of laughs with you from the Car Talk archives, and we're looking forward to continuing with your help in 26. Thank you if you already go the extra mile as an NPR Plus supporter.

If not, you can still join the Plus community, get perks like bonus episodes, and more from a bunch of NPR's podcasts, and support public media by signing up for NPR Plus today at plus.npr.org. And thanks. Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us Click and Clack the Tappert Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Investment Center here at Car Talk Plaza. This just in from the Wall Street Journal. You talk, I'll do the beep-bib-bib-b-b-b-b-d-d-d-d.

As you know, for years, we have been sharing our investment expertise. with the general public through our very own fund, the Tappet Brothers Capital Depreciation Fund. Now, the Capital Depreciation Fund guarantees, and I might add, as always delivered, a 50% return of your investment. Or less. Sometimes we've overextended ourselves,

and we have done like 40%. Yeah, now that's of your investment, not on your investment. Oh, you invest a hundred bucks? We guarantee you'll get back, what? 50. No more than 50. Sometimes we've, we've,

We've overshot, and we've given it only 40. I'd say the last 10 years or so, we've had this capital depreciation niche to ourselves, pretty much. We've been market leaders, you know, you might say. And I think it was Money Magazine that said these guys have never lost less than 50%. But now we have our first serious competitor. Get this, the Wall Street Journal reports that General Motors Corporation plans to enter the asset management business. Yeah. GM is starting an investment arm called G-M-I-M-O.

What's that? the General Motors investor milking operation? No, no, it's investor management operation. Management, oh, okay. And it says here the GM hopes to turn the fund into a profit center for GM. They're stealing our idea. You know how they're going to kill us?

I know what they're going to do. They're going to do an index fund. Yeah. And they're going to tie their returns to their market share with dead meat. Yeah, it should be down to 3% in a couple of years. She, I thought this is how we were going to fund our... Our retirement.

Yeah. It's not nice of them to take away the one source of income that we have. Yeah, one shot at bilking the unsuspecting public. Oh, well, anyway, I guess we're stuck talking about cars. So if you want to talk about your car, the number is 888 Car Talk. That's 888-227. I had envisioned myself from the Grand Cayman Islands someplace. I could see it now, and all those checks coming in were just like walking to the

every day, depositing funds. Yeah. People give us $100, we give them $50. Yeah. And you've got a whole year to do it. I mean, we don't give it to them like $4 a month. Oh, no, no, at the end of the year. The end of the year.

December 31st. I mean, what could be better? What an idea? It was. The capital depreciation fund. Yeah. Another one of my ideas that's gone sour. Hello, you're on car talk.

Hi, this is Eric from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hi, Eric, from Ann Arbor. What's going on, man? I'm actually calling for my mom. She has a 95 dot intrepid with 106,000 miles on it. Wow. Does some driving. Yeah. And she brought it into the dealership, and she told them that she was going to sell the car,

and that she just wanted it, you know, checked over. You should never tell them that because they figure this is their last chance to get you. They think she's going to go buy an Audi. Yeah. And why not get it for every cent they possibly can't? But obviously, it's too late for that, Amundit. Maybe not. Maybe not. Yeah, well, yeah, they came up with a bill about $959.59.

Perfect. Yeah. And why did she say she wanted to do this so that she could sell the car in good conscience? Yeah, pretty much. Like, she actually looking to sell it in six months or so. Oh, I see. Yeah, so, like, one thing that was, you know, glaring at me when I looked at the bill, is that they said the front crank seal was leaking.

Now, the part cost $4.10, and the labor cost $358. That's about right. Isn't that something, huh? Yeah, so we were wondering if this is even worth doing before we sell the car or what it's all about. Well, I mean, if we're leaking badly, you'd see spots of oil on the driveway. Do you? I don't think there's any spots there, actually. And there hasn't been excessive oil consumption in your estimation?

I actually don't drive the car, so I can't really big... So you don't know. Well, I mean, that's what you want to know from your mom. Okay. I mean, if the thing is leaking so badly that it's just... pour it out, which is unlikely, by the way, but possible. Well, she'd know it. The driver would be a mess, and she'd be

adding oil frequently. Okay. And this certainly would qualify as falling under the description that my brother gave at the beginning of this, that they're looking for anything that they could find that, I think, I mean, it might be that,

I don't know. Anything else? They also said, um, they said all belts are glazed? Yeah, they probably are. Yeah. Okay. So that's reasonable? If the belts are making noise, I'd replace them because that'll sound bad to a prospective buyer. Okay. Other than that, I would just drive the car.

Okay, great. And I wouldn't be too worried about it. But ask her if she's consuming oil because maybe she does have to do these things. Okay, I'll ask her. Okay, great. See, Eric. Oh, thanks a lot. Thanks, bye-bye.

See, why do people think that there ought to be some correlation between the price of the part and the price of the labor? Yeah. I mean, if it was the other way around, if the... The part had been $380 and the labor had been $4.10. Nobody would complain. But if you say that the part is $4.10 and the labor is $380, everyone's going to complain. There must be some optimal ratio.

Well, the optimal ratio is, for example, the power. Another doctoral dissertation. The power steering pump is $200 for the part, $200 for labor. And that seems fair. You think $50-50 is right. 50-50 is right. No, I think the part's going to cost more than the labor in all cases. So if you say, well, the part is $295 and it's $5 to put it in.

They say, do it. Do it. I'm going to try it. No matter of, if the job is $300, the parts $2.80. That's it. Every time. Plus tax and $7 labor. See if it works.

$7 labor. Yeah, that's good. I like it. I would like it. It only took us a minute to put that new crankshaft in, maybe a minute and a half. But we have a minimum labor rate of seven bucks. That is a doctoral dissertation. Oh, indeed.

Oh, yeah. Oh, no. It's worthy of Sir Worthington price fix. It is. Yeah. In fact, my buddy Dick Homer, who used to teach at BU, but I don't think he does anymore. But he is the world's foremost pricing authority.

I'm going to propose this to him. Well. I'm sure he'll have a doctoral student on this in a week. Well, I mean, rest assured that the people that sell every day, on late night TV, have got him beat by a mile. Oh, yeah. I mean, they wrote the book. He consults to them.

Or maybe with them. You see one of those things on late night TV, and you say, boy, I'd buy that if it wasn't 200 bucks. And they say, it's not 200. It's not 100. It's not even $50. It's $49.95. But tonight only $19.95.

And we throw in the entire Sleepy LaBeef collection. And you reach it. You can't help, but you just go for the credit card. can't help it. Yeah. Is that how you bought mob hits? Yeah. Hello, you're my car talk.

Hi, this is Angela calling from Eugene, Oregon. Hi, Angela. Angela. Hi. How are you? What a nice name. Oh, thank you. So what's going on?

I have a 1984 Audi 4,000 S. And the honest thing, when I turn on the defrost, it doesn't always happen, but I get this big whiff of maple syrup that comes right out of my dash. Oh, that's not good. It ain't maple syrup. It ain't maple syrup. Unless you went to a pancake breakfast. But it's about as expensive.

Left someone on the dashboard. It's about the same price as maple syrup. Stuff is about $900 a gallon. That's what's going to cost a fix this. Are you serious? Well, it may. It's sort of sticky stuff. Well, this isn't even sticky.

It just has that pleasant aroma. Yeah, it smells so good. Okay. How can something that smells so good be so bad? Uh-huh. You might ask. It's anti-freeze, Angela. See, that's what I was thinking about.

I couldn't see it anywhere in the engine. Well, you can't because it's all leaking underneath the carpet. Really? Yeah, probably. What's leaking is the heat exchanger or the heater core. And that thing is a little radiator that's under your dashboard, really under the dashboard. I mean, way, way under the dashboard, you might say. Yes.

Yeah, they go out of their way. They put it in. I think they build the entire car around the heater core. Right. They suspend these things from wires. The wires. Yeah, like fishing line. Bill the entire car, and then they cut the wires.

And that thing is in there somewhere, and they're not telling anybody. I mean, even the dealers don't know where it is. It's like a Ford Taurus. Ford Taurus is like this. We have a customer that came into the day with a relatively new Sable, and he needed a new heater course. His car, unfortunately, was three years and a month old. And they told him he's going to have to pay for it because he's beyond the warranty.

What they want for that, John? I think a million 900. I just said that to her. So you may be looking at that amount of money, too. On the other hand, you know, if you have a good stock of long underwear and the like, you can probably tough it out through the winter. So my best choice is not turning the heater on? Well, yeah, I mean, that will solve the problem because you do have a heater control valve on this car under the dash.

And that will shut the flow of coolant from the engine to the heater core. So it will stop leaking. And also, by the way, it's not good to breed this stuff. Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that. Yeah. Yeah. So you need to have it done unless you want to just shut it off and go without heat. You can try a stop leak compound.

You can try adding a lumiceal to your radiator or bars leak or raw eggs or pepper. But I would try the first tool. All of these things work sometimes. And it's definitely a time to try this stuff. Okay. Even though mostly it doesn't work, who cares? I mean, if you're facing $800 to fix the thing. Yeah, you'll certainly spend $10 for the can of stuff.

And $10 for the next one and $10 for the next one until it approaches $900. Right. Yeah, when you start closing it on $300, you might want to reconsider. And my brother, as he's mentioned in the past, has always recommended that you look for a container that says the word miracle on the labeling. Because anything that says miracle is bound to miracle. It's going to be a miracle if this works.

But you'll want heat at some point during the winter. Probably. And I would suggest a soda straw stuck out the window so you can breathe. What are those fluffy straws? You know what to do? Have you got a habachi? A habachi. You know those little things that are cheap?

You can buy one. You can maybe just catch one of the hardware store that still has one. Sure. And you just put it on the seat next to you. Throw those briquettes in there. And fire that baby up. I would start it outside the car because the headliners can't take it. Yeah, yeah, the flames.

Does Manifree flammable? No, no, don't worry about that. See you, Angela. Good luck, Angela. Bye. Bye, bye, bye. At least she's got a heater that can leak. I don't even have a heater.

And she sounds like a good sport. She can take it. She can take it. And besides, does it get that cold in Eugene? You bet it does. Oh, I think so. I don't know where Eugene is. All right, Tommy.

Did you remember last week's puzzler? Puzzle? Was there a puzzle last week? You know, how about from 10 weeks ago? You remember that one? I do remember the 10-week-old one. Yes. Oh, so anyway, so what is it? What's what? We'll be back in a minute. This message comes from NPR sponsor, eBay.

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exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit Wise.com. T's and apply. Hey, for you, t-shirt wearers out there, all relatives of t-shirt wears. We just got a veritable shipload, that's shipload with a P, of new Car Talk T-shirts at the Shameless Commerce Division. The folks there made a great series of T-shirts out of their favorite car talk quotes.

So in addition to the classics, you know, don't drive like my brother, Dewey Cheatham, how, you can now get Car Talk T-shirts, let's say, for instance, if money can fix it, it's not a problem. Life is too short to drive boring cars. Do it while you're young. You may never have a chance to do anything this stupid again. Reality often astonishes theory or happiness equals reality minus expectation. How about this one?

Lousy car advice since 1977 and many, many more. If you'd like one or want one to ship to a friend or relative, you don't really like. Just head over to shamelesscommerce.com. That's shamelesscommerce.com. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us. Click and Clack to Tabbert Brothers. And we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and a solution to the cleave sanction puzzle. We amassed all of the responses, which there was a mass.

Well, repeat the question, if you would. I would. I'll repeat the question because it was, what, 10 weeks ago? Ten. It seems like it was 10 years ago. We said that there were at least two words in the English language that we knew. that are their own antonyms that we knew about. We knew there was one more, but we couldn't remember it. And Stanley Zodonnet couldn't remember it either. And he was the one that gave us this damn puzzler 10 years ago.

And we mentioned the two that the three of us remembered, which are cleave. Which means to hold on to and to separate. To separate. And to sanction. Which means to give approval. Or disapproval. Or disapproval. Exactly.

Okay. Yeah. And there was a third one, which we couldn't. remember. And we said, if there's a third one, there must be a hundred and third ones. Maybe. Maybe. So we asked you, our listeners, to come up with a list. And we got many, many responses, some of which were one or two words. And we were hoping to find that one word that we remembered from the past. And I believe we did get it. It was the last one we looked at today.

It was indeed. And there were people that sent in dozens and dozens of words. So what we've done is we've picked the five or six or seven words that we think are in disputable. their own antonyms. Yeah. Because there were lots of them that didn't quite qualify. Because we had our own, we actually had rules here. We said it's going to... We made them up as well.

It's got to really mean the opposite, and it can't mean the opposite if it's not the same part of speech. It's got to be the same part of speech. So you can't have a noun and then come up with some bogus, far-off definition, which is an adjective. That doesn't work. So it's got to be the same part of speech.

And these are the ones we picked. The first one is dust. Okay, I'm going to dust the furniture, that is remove dust, or I'm going to dust for fingerprints, which means you're going to add dust. Yeah, and we researched some of these because the two definitions do say to remove dust and to add dust. Go by my definition. That's pretty much opposite. Right.

Yeah. Ravell. Oh, that was the missing one. Which means to tangle or to untangle. Yeah. The ravele sleeve of care. Terrific. now that one was terrific

I didn't realize Now terrific means either awesome Or terrible Like I got a terrific headache Yeah And over if I hear someone say that Well she's got a No

I won't go there Get Joanne online too I was talking about Joanne Oh yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, and I hear people all the time, so I have a terrific headache.

They say, oh, it's not right, but it's right. Yeah, it is right, yeah. Okay. The other word is seed. Seed, the verb. The verb. Yes. For example, I seeded my lawn.

Yeah. I put new seeds or I seeded. The pomegranate. The pomegranate, exactly. Remove seeds or add seeds. And then there were a couple of others like skin. to skin yeah

put skin on or remove skin how many ways are that when you skin a cat are you adding skin or removing skin all right I'll go

I might buy skin then yeah how about root root root I'm not sure I buy that one like to root a plant to you know

to get a plant to root or to root like uproot I like a root for the Yankees Well, those Anyway, those are the ones We came up with

You introduced these as being indisputable And what are we doing One more talking about I thought we all We agreed to them Before we went on the air And he's fighting with me now

She's can't win I still like cleave the best Cleave edge And here are the three winners We came up These three people We're going to receive something And they're going to have to share it

You mean out of the 10,000 people who wrote to us, we've got to give three stinking little prizes? None of these people came up with the same ones. Yeah. And they all came up with a bunch of bogus ones, but they're the ones that have the longest list with the fewest bogus entries. Oh, okay.

Yeah, well, that's true. That's good. Okay. And we will put all of this up, by the way, much of it, at least, on our site. We'll put every damn word, and you can send in more stuff, and you can fight with us just like my brother's fighting with me.

Yeah. All right. Winner number one is Arlene Wolinsky from Mesa College in San Diego, California. Ivy Kaminsky is winner number two from San Leone, Texas. What? Your name has to end in S-K-Y or you can't win? It's going to be Polish. What is that?

We didn't. Gee, that's interesting. Oh, didn't we mention that? We didn't mention that. And Charles Aliski. Oh, no. Ellis. Charles Ellis.

from Ann Arbor, M.D., Charles Ellis, M.D. from Ann Arbor, Michigan. And those are the three people who are going to win a terrific prize. And I don't know what the prize is, but it's going to be... Well, it's the usual thing, right? The $25 gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division, which you can reach by calling 1-8-88 car junk. Yes, indeed. If you'd like to call us about your car, the number is 1-8-8-8-car talk.

Not to be confused with car junk. Which is very similar. close. That's 888-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. This is Glenn from Portland, Oregon. Hi, Glenn, from Portland. What's up? Portland. Well, here's the thing. I had a great adventure a few weeks ago. I went and I climbed Mount Adams, which is about a little over 12,000-foot peak here. I never done this kind of thing before. It was great. Oh, that's a lot, 12,000 feet. Yeah, I was pretty tired. What were your other options that weekend? I was just curious.

Work on my kitchen, you know, that was the other options. so I had to do it. Yeah. Anyway, though, so I'm driving my, it's a 1990, Toyota V6, four-wheel drive, extra cab pickup, and I had four people in the vehicle, and I got $140,000 on the car, but only about $12,000 on the engine.

Okay. Okay. About the last four miles, this road were really rough. I mean, this is like, you know... Wait, when you said you climbed Mount Adams, did you mean in the truck? Yeah, right. You drive to about 5,000 feet.

You drove? Yeah. Oh, okay. You don't drive up 5,000 feet. So about the last four miles of that was a really rough road. Like, cars could make it, but barely. Well, the thing is, I really like these kind of roads. So I drove about as fast as my passengers would allow me, right?

Yeah. And after about a mile, I smell that memory smell from driving old Volkswagen's and MGs, gasoline. Oh, no. So I pull over, pop the hood. But, you know, this car's got so much junk under the hood, I couldn't see a thing. So I looked underneath the car, and there was a puddle, the size of maybe a tune of, can. Of gasoline?

Yes. So I go, oh, no. So I look up, and there I can see the side of my transmission has gas running down it. And I see it running down across, like, where the head is bolted to the block. And I can see it actually boiling. And then it's dripping onto the heat shield of the exhaust man. Cool, huh? Oh, yeah.

It's leaking from the fuel filter, probably. Huh. Well, it gets worse, though. It gets we're more, though. It gets we're going to do. We're too tired to walk anywhere. It's about 10 miles to the nearest town. Don't tell me. I know, exactly.

I know exactly. We've just seen the Blair Witch Project, so we can't stay out in the woods another night. Exactly. And it's possible that this, I mean, this is gasoline, a volatile explosive material. Right. So there's only one thing we can do. Keep driving. I have a fire extinguisher.

Good enough. to my fire extinguishered my wife, and I said, hold this and keep it ready, which didn't make my passengers feel any better. And I'm going to keep driving, right? I'm going to keep driving, so I drove to the nearest town because we had a place to stay if we would have got there, because my wife had family in that time. Yeah, and obviously, you concluded correctly that if it hadn't already blown up, it probably wasn't going to blow up.

Right. Well, I don't know if I thought that far ahead. You should have. You should have. You should have been thinking about that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You don't think I know a lot about cars, so what else was going to do? You didn't know it wasn't going to blow up. You just figured if it blows, it blows. Yeah, he didn't know. Anyway, I gave you too much credit.

Of course, you gave him credit for thinking it through, and he didn't think it through. He was just being a guy. Right. He was a wacko. That's okay. So go ahead. You continue to drive. Come on, try to give us like the Reader's Digest version of this, will you?

We haven't got all day here. All right. I get down to the Ranger Station about 10 miles away. I stop, check everything out, no leaks. Nothing. I've been driving it now, probably two, three times a week since then. No leaks. I call the dealer.

What should I do about? this they say oh it's very dangerous you need to bring it and have it looked at and I've said well what would you look at you just better bring it in you know first I'm not going to tell me where I should look yeah no you should bring it because it's going to happen if it was leaking that badly it's going to start leaking again when you're in even a worse place than the halfway up a mountain yeah oh yeah so and it's and it's very possible that they will simply find something loose yeah that's that's my guess and that when you drove over this

this rough road, you may have banged a few things into that gas line, you know? Oh, yeah, sure, no, that's very possible. And in doing so, you may have loosened it, and it may have, who knows, I mean, and it doesn't take very much of a pull on that metal line, perhaps, to get the thing to leak. In fact, you know what you could have done? It could be cracked someplace. Oh. You know?

Yeah. It could be cracked, and now it's gone back into place. And I would certainly... From your reckless driving, by the way. Yes. Yes. Don't tell your wife, and we won't either. But I would take it into somebody.

It doesn't have to be the Toyota dealer, but I would take it into someone to have it put up on the lift and while the engine is running, have somebody yank on all the lines and see if they can force the thing to leak. Because those lines, no matter what you do to them, shouldn't leak.

So if you have a cracked line or a loose line, it should show up. Okay. And the most likely place is probably where the fuel line runs from the tank to the gas filter. Okay, that makes sense. That's about where I think it's coming from.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good luck, man. Thanks a lot. Yeah, and don't smoke when you're driving anyway. I don't smoke. Good.

All right. Bye-bye. I'm still fascinated by his ability to convince his wife. Here, hon, you hold a fire extinguisher. I'll continue to drive. Yeah, my wife under no circumstances. If there was any danger. Don't forget what he's saying.

If anything happens like it bursts into flame, I will pull over. You have the fire extinguisher. Right. So you will jump out of the truck. I'll stay. here in the cabin, you open the hood and you put out the fire with the fire extinguisher, good luck. All right, look, it's time to take a short break.

And when we come back, we will have the opening puzzler of the new fall puzzler season. Wow, can I throw out the first ball, man? Yeah, sure. We'll be back in a minute. Hey, for you, T-shirt wearers out there, all relatives of T-shirt wares, we just got a veritable shipload. that's shipload with a P of new Car Talk T-shirts at the Shameless Commerce Division. The folks there made a great series of T-shirts out of their favorite car talk quotes.

So in addition to the classics, you know, don't drive like my brother, Dewey Cheyman, how. You can now get Car Talk T-shirts that, say, for instance, if money can fix it, it's not a problem. Life is too short to drive boring cars. Do it while you're young. You may never have a chance to do anything this stupid again. reality often astonishes theory or happiness equals reality minus expectation how about this one lousy car advice since 1977 and many many more if you'd like one or want one to ship to a friend or relative you don't really like just head over to shameless commerce.com that's shameless commerce dot com

the Tappert Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and the new puzzle. Well, finally, after all these months and months. This vacation was no longer than any other. In France. We are adopting the French method here in this country. Everyone gets 10 weeks vacation. The puzzle will be on vacation for a much longer period next year. Anyway, how did this puzzle come about?

I got a call on the day from our dear friend. Murray Prysler. No kidding. Been listening to our show. 25 years. For as long as it's been on. Since before it was on. Since before it was on.

He started listening a week before. He's been taping them all. And he calls up, how you doing, Ray? The show's great. The puzzles are great. And then he proceeds to tell me, well, you and Tom made a mistake on this one. I didn't like the puzzler with the 22 over 7 equals pie

because pie's not a Roman numeral. He said, I didn't like the other one where you walked around the table, the matchstick puzzle where you walked around. on the table and looked on the other side. He said, because you moved all the matches in that situation. He said, so I'm going to give you one. That's not as bogus as the ones you've been using. But the show's great anyway, guys.

But don't do it anymore. He says, right with matchsticks, the following Arabic numbers. Arabic. Yeah. Yeah. One. Yeah. And then with two matchsticks, make a plus sign.

Plus, yeah. Plus one. One. Plus 11. One. Plus 11. okay yeah no equal sign that's it one plus one plus 11 yeah okay which looks like what 12 right at first plus 12 and a half I go yeah do we round up a down he says move a match and make that

equal to 130 that's it move one match move one match and make it equal to 130 I'll I'll repeat it with matches make construct the following little thing one and then a plus sign with two matches. So plus one, then another plus sign, plus 11. So one plus one plus 11. So using one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight matches. I got it. Eight matches. Okay. And make that equal one 30. 130. 130. 130. Now you, you use the term Arabic numerals. What do you mean by that? That's what we use. We use Arabic numerals in this world. Oh, as opposed to to Roman numerals. Okay, so we've got to stick with Arabic here.

Right, you can't go changing cultures. All right. You can't go to Roman. Like, we can't take one of these and make it into pie. Right, no, multiply it by. He says, that's bogus. Those puzzles are great, but they were bogus. So this is a pure mathematical manipulation that will equal 130.

Is that correct? Now, if you think you know the answer, write that answer on the back of a $20 bill and send it to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge, Our Fair City, Matt, 2,2238. Or, of course, you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. If you'd like to call us, the numbers 1888 Car Talk, that's 828-278-2-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, I'm Nancy Thornberry from Westfield, New Jersey.

Hi, Nancy, no last name, please. Oh, okay. Where are you from, where in New Jersey? Westfield, New Jersey. Westfield. Yes. Got it. And we have a summer place on Block Island in Rhode Island.

Yes. Beautiful place. Yeah. And it's a perfect place to drive a 1980 MGB. Oh, real. But only if it runs. Yeah. So unfortunately, we haven't been able to drive it too much.

We took it out the end of last summer, and we were there working on it the early part of the summer, and we noticed that it was overheating. Yeah, yeah. So we noticed that the radiator hose was leaking, and we also knew that the thermoregulator for the fan wasn't working properly. Yeah. So we replaced those two things, and no sooner did we head off, then we noticed it started to overheat, and the fan belt broke.

Really? Yes. So then it really, you know, we barely, it really overheated. It really overheated. We barely got home. And at that point, we thought, well, let me. Let's talk to a mechanic, so we contacted the best and actually probably the only mechanic on Block Island. Oh, you didn't take it to Block Island, MG?

We specialize in all-cost, foreign, and domestic. No, but the guy said there was no way he was going to look at it. He said he had a lot of good American trucks to work on, and working on an M.G would only be a frustrating experience. Yeah, he's right about that. Right, he is. It doesn't need your money. No, he actually recommended since we're at the top of the hill there. He said, why don't you just kind of push it down the hill onto the ferry.

But we decided instead to have a go with fixing it. So we brought back a bunch of parts the next time we went up, and we replaced the fan belt. We also replaced the water pump. We flushed the radiator. Great. And put new antifreeze in, and we thought, okay, we're set. But you didn't put a new thermostat in? The thermostat, we think, is fine.

because when the dial goes to about half of full scale, and you go out there and you feel the radiator hose and you feel the radiator, it starts to really get hot. Yes, that's true, but it may not stay open. Ah. And the thermostat of all the things you mentioned is the cheapest and easiest one to change, almost. Well, there's one other thing I haven't told you,

which is that only one of the two fans works. Oh. Now, the fans look pretty flaky, So we found it pretty hard to believe that, in fact, that the fact that the second fan doesn't work is the reason that we're overheating. Would they have two fans if you didn't need them? Well, this is an M.G. This is the Brits. They wouldn't have two fans if it didn't take two fans.

And don't forget, it was designed probably mostly for British weather, which doesn't get as hot or as cold as it gets here. Ah. I would, here's what it is. It's either the thermostat. This is going to be one of those 99% guarantees. It's definitely almost one of these. Okay. The thermostat, the radiator, or that fan.

This is an electric fan? Yeah. Two electric fans. Yes. So it has no engine-driven fan? I don't think so. No. So the fan belt that you replaced wasn't really, in fact, a fan belt.

Because in the old days, cars had a belt that drove an actual fan. In fact, some cars still do. A lot of cars. But that was what she referred to as the fan belt was, in fact, the alternator belt. Yes, that's true. So that's just mounted to a pulley with no fan affixed to it. Right, and that was a complete red herring. So the cooling is done by these fans coming on, and they're turned on by a fan switch,

which is a thermostatic switch. Yes, and that seems to be working properly. So the fan, so one fan comes on. Yes, and it comes on kind of when it's about. Where's that fan located on the front or the back side of the radiator? They're both on the front of the radiator. So the other fan doesn't come on. You first have to determine if the other fan even works by hot wiring it.

Unplug it and run it right to the battery. Okay. And see if, in fact, the motor turns. Okay. Because it may be that the motor is just burned out. Okay. And that would definitely cause it to overheat. Are you?

Oh, really? Sure. Especially, I mean, you're only driving it on hot summer days. But I don't think it would cause it to overheat. If it overheats in only a mile, then it isn't that. That's contributing to it. Okay. But it wouldn't overheat.

I think you said in a mile, it's beyond the middle and it's overheating. And the one thing that would do that almost every single time... Unfortunately, you're not going to like this. No, no. The one thing that will do that every single time is a thermostat. And the thermostat may be allowing some portion of the coolant to circulate, but it isn't opening all the way. So it may be allowing 20% of the circulation that it should.

So the hoses get hot, and the radiator seems to get hot, but it doesn't allow enough flow and, in fact, the thing overheats. Because don't forget, this cooling system barely worked when the car was brand new. Barely worked. So any slight fault anywhere, and like a house of cars, the thing just collapses. There is no question that the first thing you have to do is replace that thermostat. In fact, I would just take it out. Okay.

You don't even need a new one. You don't need one. Just remove it. Throw it away. Okay. Throw it in the trunk with all the other stuff. Okay. With the other transmissions and all that stuff.

Or all the other thermostats. And if it still runs hot, you can fix the fan, but I don't think you're going to have to. Okay. So the first thing to do is the thermostat. And if it's neither of those two, it would be the radiator, in which case you just sell the car. No, no. You take the radiator back on the ferry and have it record. Okay.

But take the thermostat out and throw it away, and it's going to be fixed. It's going to be perfect. You'll love it. That'll be romantic. riding back on the ferry with an M.G. Radiator under your eye. Isn't that? I love it now. I love it. Every trip you can bring over another piece. Oh, that sounds perfect. See it, Nancy. Thanks so much. Bye, bye. Bye, bye. It's the thermostat. Oh, absolutely. Well, it's happened again. You've squanded at another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk.

Our esteemed producer is Doug the Subway Fugitive, not a slave to fashion Berman. Our associate producer is Ken the Diaper Slayer Rogers. Our assistant producer is Frow Catherine Fenelosa. Our engineer is Dennis DeMennis Foley, and our senior Webb Blackie, who may be passing through the digestive system of a wolf, someplace in the north country. Some place in the wilds of Vermont, I believe. It is Doug Mayer, and our technical, spiritual and menu advisor is the bugster John Bugsy. Did somebody say free lunch, Lawler? The one and only bugster.

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And the head of our HMO emergency room is Kenny Holder, please. Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheatham and How was you, Louis Dewey, known to the meter maids as Ui Louie Dewee. Thanks so much for listening. We're clicking clack to Tapwood Brothers. Don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother either. We'll be back next week.

Bye-bye. And now we have the pleasure of Car Talk Plaza's chief mechanic being here in the studio with us, Mr. Vinny Gumbats. Vinnie? Thank you very much. Now, if you want to copy at this here show, which is number 39, just pick up your phone and call this here number 1888 Car junk. And what if I wanted a Car Talk CD, Vinny, like the puzzle of book? I would call that same number, is that right?

No, you call Geraldo Riviera's manicure, she told. Of course you call the same number. You call the Shameless Commerce Division at 888 Carjunk or visit it online at the Cart Talk section of Cars.com, you know? Yeah, thank you, Vinny. This was very, very pleasant. A pleasant dispel. Car Talk is a production of Dewey Cheatham and W.B.R. in Boston.

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