The Best of Car Talk - #2529: Slappin' It

Episode Date: April 12, 2025

Norm works for the Post Office and he often has to drive over a mountain pass during big snowstorms at night in order to get to work. And he's constantly slapping at his moving windshield wipers to de-ice them while he's barreling down the road. Is there a better way? 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

Oh, hey there. I'm Brittany Luce. And I don't know, maybe this is a little out of pocket to say, but I think you should listen to my podcast. It's called It's Been A Minute and I love it. And I think you will too. Over the past couple months, over 100,000 new listeners started tuning in. Find out why.

Listen to the It's Been A Minute podcast from NPR today. Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us clicking clack the tappet brothers and we're broadcasting this week from the Center for Marital Bliss here at Car Talk Plaza. Now get this, there was an article in the paper, in our paper, the Boston Globe recently, it probably was from one of the wire service. Well it was actually reprinted from the Los Angeles Times. Okay and the gist of it is, here's the title, marriages endure when you just do what your wife says. Yeah. That's the essence of it. Some researcher, a guy named John Gottman from the University of Washington. Whose wife told him to do the research. Whose wife told him to do the research. What they were actually doing, they were studying the effect of what

we call active listening. This is what marriage counselors have been telling people to do for decades, you know, I'm sorry What did you say your wife your wife says something and you say to her? Yes, dear I understand that and I guess what you mean by that is the daughter and then you would Change have an exchange and you would come to some Realization some epiphany, whatever. They found out that that does nothing to enhance marital bliss. Instead the only thing that works is if the wife says do something and the husband does it.

Does it. Yeah. That's it. Well, from your own experience Can you tell us if this works? well first of all, it isn't clear because what it says is that those are the marriages which and Do or yes, and so the question is do they last forever or does it just seem like forever?

That's my question. Well, it may just seem like forever. It may just seem like forever. And that's good enough. That might be good enough. I don't know. We had a call. This is a very important question.

We had a call, I think it was last week, as a matter of fact, where some woman said that she always locked her car because she said quote because my husband makes me mmm and I said how does someone get her how does the husband get to be in a position where he makes that kind of power where does he get I can't even get my wife to cook dinner. And does he teach a course? How do they do that? Here's my theory. The guys who make their wives do things and their wives do them are the guys who fix things around the house.

No. Trust me. No, I fix things around the house because my wife tells me to. Anyway, if you would like to talk to us the number is 1-888-CAR-TALK that's 888-227-8255. Hello you're on Car Talk. Hi this is Barry from down in Tampa. Barry! How you doing? Good you guys are terrific. She housed things in Tampa. Right now it's actually sort of dry and sunny. Cool. But that could change within the next 20 minutes and so well you

guys had some wild weather it did uh... not near you a bit close it was close to me it was over in orlando also off close enough missed me missed my car so i was ok so what's up man uh... i think you can't speaking of my car in fact really i uh... during one of the big rainstorms

I sort of missed where the road started and the ditch Started yeah at the edge of the road. I managed to completely submerge the engine compartment on the car. Oh Did you really this is some ditch? I did it was a it's Florida. We have big ditches Lake ditch Yeah big ditch. This is Lake Ditch. Yeah. So you actually... Were you inebriated or otherwise impaired? I have no good stories like that to go with it. I was on my way to do the laundry. No, no, you're always going to have a story. You just barely hit the ditch. An alligator. Grabbed your tie. Grabbed that and pulled you down That's too late now you're probably

Claiming I wish I had like I said if I had a good story this will be well you should have called us first So the entire front of the car is down in the dish ditch and you didn't even get wet Oh, you did my feet got wet. Yeah Oh, yeah, it was that it filled up the floorboards I got it in the car, but actually didn't get to the seat of the car. It was... Yeah. Steep angle. Okay, I got the picture.

I got it. I get the whole scenario. After my mechanic drained about eight gallons of water out of, ooh, everything, I actually thought it was running a little bit smoother than it had been before I doused it. Really? And he told me one of his secrets when an engine's running rough... Is to sprinkle water in it. Really? And he told me one of his secrets when an engine's running rough. Is to sprinkle water in it. Is that yeah he pulls off a small vacuum tube pulls in a little bit of water. Yeah. And I was wondering if that's like something my mechanic has in his own mind or if that's true. It's a well-known fact in

fact there are devices which you can actually buy to put water into the engine as you're driving For this and other reasons well what they use primarily in diesel engines To what the water does it helps to bust up carbon deposits Mm-hmm so that as you as you put water into the engine it will loosen up carbon But you know you wouldn't want to put it in in like gallons No, I think was a little over. The 8 gallons was a lot. No, and it's very possible that there was enough moisture in the intake manifold and whatever so that it loosened up whatever carbon was in there and as a result the thing

did run more smoothly. Sure. But it should all be gone by now and you'd probably be back to where you were. No, no, he decarbonized it, it's running great. Well, except for the fact the alternator imploded a little later. Did it? Cool. But until that happened, the engine was running pretty well. What kind of a car was this? The 93 Blazer. 93 Blazer? With a lot of miles on it?

Uh, over 100, about 125. Well, you're lucky that you had a Blazer, because had you had something that were closer to the ground, you wouldn't have an engine anymore. Yeah. If it had something lighter, it might have skipped across the water. No, what would have happened is you would have sucked water into the engine, and then it would be goodbye.

Yeah, one of the pistons coming up would be trying to compress not air and gasoline, but air, gas and water and you would have bent the crankshaft and busted pistons and connecting rods and blown cylinder head gaskets. I mean nothing serious mind you but a few of those things would have happened. So you are very lucky to have not sucked water into the engine. Oh. Yeah. So it is running better because you have decarbonized the engine

Okay, and he's right to a certain extent and this is something you can do I mean he we have used this from time to time in the shop But now we have these expensive chemicals in this fancy machine that does it so we don't do it for free anymore. We charge people See a Barry great. Thank you guys One eight eight eight car talk that's eight88-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, my name is Dana, and I'm calling from Smithville, Texas. Hi, Dana.

What's on your mind? Right before Christmas, my 1989 Honda Civic started overheating a lot. I mean, basically there were two problems, overheating and not starting on wet cold mornings So my husband and even guy that he is replaced the distributor cap Good that helped with the starting, but we were still overheating especially on the highway So we have to help of a friend's brother who is a Peugeot mechanic

We finally identified our problem as a cracked radiator. Sure, that's good. Someone had, we'd taken it to a cheap oil change place and somebody had, looks like it put all his weight on top of our radiator and cracked it. Oh, you want to blame the guy at Quiky Lube. Oh yeah. I'm not naming names. Yeah. I'm not naming names. So we didn't want to buy a new radiator so my husband had some JB Weld with him.

JB Weld, amazing stuff. And he superglued the crap together. And we've driven it another 6,000 miles since then. Sure, why not? Okay, well here's my question. Am I driving a death trap? And what are the warning signs that my radiator is going to blow up? And should I go ahead and get a new radiator or keep driving this one until it breaks? Well, how many miles are on this car? 158,000. Wow.

I'd stick with the JB Weld in fact. I'd lay another coat on top. I don't know what's in JB Weld, but one of my guys at the shop uses it to fix everything. It does work. It works. Soul comes off your shoe, JB Weld. Breaker wrench, JB Weld. We fixed the toilet with it. I mean the worst thing that can happen is the weld lets go and then you've got the same leak that you had before and you'll overheat. And then you go buy a new radiator. Yeah, I mean the leak, I don't think the leak is gonna get worse when the weld lets go. Oh good. So and it's not going to be a death trap I mean you may get stuck someplace and you may get you know descended upon by armadillos or something. Yeah or banditos. She does live in Texas. Yeah well yeah I mean this is this leads to my secondary and my biggest problem is that this car is

sort of approaching second car status and we need another car. Yeah. So we're having this major debate about what is next and my husband wants a V8, big cab, four by four with a flatbed trailer on the back. Now I'm like, ugly, no way. I want like a foreign truck, something small, sporty, low gas mileage. But you would go for like a Toyota pickup truck. Yeah, but he says that's not big enough.

Well here's the compromise, he's going to get a T100. Wait a minute, if he says not big enough for what? Not manly enough, not big enough for whatever! Yeah, I think it's a motto thing. For whatever. It's a motto thing. It's not that it's not big enough to carry the 25 tons of manure that we have to haul back and forth. It's just not big enough, period, because it's got to be big. Right.

You know, I have to say that I am morally, ethically, and emotionally opposed to pickup trucks of all kinds, all sizes, all shapes. A pickup truck, unless you're picking up stuff, is a stupid way to travel. No, because you may pick up stuff. For example, you're driving down the road. You may pick up stuff. It's trash day.

Someone has put out on the curb a nice armoire. If you are driving your Suzuki Swift, you ain't picking up no stinking armoire. That's true. You have to go to the Ryder truck place, rent the truck, by the time you come back, it's gone. The guy with the 74 Scotsdale has picked it up. Yeah, and I'm tired of it. You know, there's like a rope on the back of my Honda, and last week

he drove in the driveway with a dead pig hanging off the back of my car. Oh, geez. Yeah. So I would suggest a T100. And last week he drove in the driveway with a dead pig hanging off the back of my car. Oh, jeez. Yeah. So I would suggest a T100. The T100 is a compromise. It's not the little truck and it's not as big as a monster truck. I don't agree with anyone who wants to buy a manly, ridiculous pickup truck, but in this

case I have this feeling, unencumbered by the thought process, I have this feeling that this is very important and I wouldn't fight it if I were you. Well, I do respect instinct. Yeah, well I've got it. That's all he's got. That's all I'm working on. In fact, I got a note to the day from someone that said, your brother's comments are always insightful.

I-N-C-I-T-E. Good luck, Dana. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Hey, hey, the puzzler answer and more calls are coming up right after this. Good luck, Dana. Thank you. Bye. Hey, hey, the puzzler answer and more calls are coming up right after this. bring you important stories from around the globe. In just a few minutes, you might hear how democracy is holding up in South Korea. Or meet Indian monkeys that have turned to crime. We don't go

around the world. We're already there. Listen to the State of the World podcast from NPR. S1 C1 S1 C1 These days, there is a lot of news. It can be hard to keep up with what it means for you, your family, and your community. Consider this. From NPR is a podcast of news. It can be hard to keep up with what it means for you, your family, and your community. Consider This from NPR is a podcast that helps you make sense of the news. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a story and provide the context, backstory, and analysis you need to understand our rapidly changing world. Listen to the Consider This

podcast from NPR. When Malcolm Gladwell presented NPR's Thruline podcast with a Peabody Award, he praised it for its historical and moral clarity. On Throughline, we take you back in time to the origins of what's in the news, like presidential power, aging, and evangelicalism. Time travel with us every week on the Thru Line Podcast from NPR. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Card Talk with us, Click and Clock, the Tappet Brothers.

And here's the answer to last week's puzzler, which we haven't even discussed up until this point. Usually, usually you say I'm going to give you the answer. I'm a pretty sure you remember this way. Bingo. Why diddle around? Why beat around the bush? You got the answers in the puzzle remember this way bingo You're why why diddle around why beat around the bush you got the answers in the puzzle Just tell us what the heck it is and stop with all the nonsense Okay Well anyway, this was sent to us. I've been reading Susan Powders book Stop already, is that what it's called? Stop the insanity. Stop the insanity already. Yeah already

This was sent to us via cyberspace from Roy Richard and he writes in my quote Stop already! Is that what it's called? Stop the insanity. Stop the insa- already. Already. This was sent to us via cyberspace from Roy Richard, and he writes in my quote, Oh, this one. I remember this one. While driving around Luxembourg on a recent trip to Europe, how much did you drive around Luxembourg? An hour. Maybe less. I caught a glimpse of a billboard that immediately brought car talk to mind. The billboard was brightly colored with a cartoon of a pig on the bottom. Red herring.

Red herring, yep. But it wasn't just the pig that brought car talk to mind. Across the center of the billboard was written an equation. The equation was D, big D, equals the quantity V over 10 in parentheses squared, all that business, not all that business, just the stuff on the right side of the equation, divided by two. Got it? D equals V over 10 in parentheses squared divided by two. Huh. I got it. And he says remembering a discussion on Karthik of a couple of months ago. I immediately knew what this was all about

Question very simply is what was it all about? I Mean first of all, I am struck by the fact that there that any Country would think that there were enough people Driving around who would even know that it was an equation about anything Well, you know, I was reading an article in the paper recently about about how poorly American kids scored in in science and math tests. They were like 97th out of 91 Nations tested and all the European nations typically do much better. I Looked for France and they were unfortunately right up there but Europeans in general

I guess were a lot more literate in mathematics than we Americans are. I guess so. And what this equation means is the distance that you should trail another car on the highway is determined by taking your velocity in kilometers per hour. So let's say it's 100. Say it's 100 kilometers per hour. Which is 60 miles an hour in our lingo.

Divided by 10. Okay, so 10. Square that. Square that is 2 is 100. Divide that by 2 is 50. Of course the units are all wrong, but that's alright. That's alright. But it means if I were driving at 100 kilometers per hour, which is 60 miles per hour, I should be 50 meters or 150 feet roughly, roughly, behind the car in front of me. There you go. Cute, huh? Wow. What's the equation, do you remember it?

D. Equals V over 10 squared, all over two. Because most people were trying to do the math, they'd crash into the car. And who's our winner anyway? We have a fabulous prize, and who got it, Tommy? The winner is from Luxembourg, someone named Diane Swan from

Easton E-E-S-T-O-N, not East-tern, but Easton, Maryland and for having her correct answer chosen at random from among the thousands of right answers that we got this week Diane is gonna get one of our 10th anniversary car talk t-shirts that says car talk Celebrating 10 years of bad car advice you're gonna get that and don't forget Diane It's the spring cleaning is coming up and these are great to do your windows Oh and for cleaning the car lint free lint free Yeah, you wash the car down and you wipe it off. There you go with this t-shirt anyway

It's about the only thing it's good We'll have a brand new semi Automotive puzzler coming up in the third half of today's show so don't touch that dial are we in the second half yet? No, not really not yet. No Don't touch that dial in the meantime. We'll take your calls at 1-888 car talk. That's 888-227-8255 Hello, you're on car talk. Hello Tom and Ray. Yeah This is norm norm I live in inclined village in Nevada in client I've been to in the line village it's near like Reno right North Shore of Lake Tahoe yeah yeah yeah as you're leaving

California that's the first town you come to that's right yeah yeah yeah yes let me just guess here is it on like like a hill, this town? Not really. No. Isn't that where Ben Cartwright lived? Yeah, he used to live down the street from me. That's what I thought. Anyway, Norm, what's up? Well, I live in snow country, as you know.

Oh yeah. Yes, a lot of snow. And I commute to Reno over an 8,900 foot path every day. Oh. And I see a lot of snow. Yeah, I guess you do. And I have four cars, and depending on how much it's gonna snow,

I determine which car I'm gonna drive. Yeah, what do you got for cars? Well, if it's only gonna snow six inches or less, I'll drive the Toyota Corolla. Oh, okay. Okay, the snow's between six inches and 18 inches. I drive the Subaru GL four wheel drive wagon. Yeah.

And if it's going to dry snow over 18 inches that night, I'll drive the suburban, the four wheel drive suburban. Yeah. But all of them have the same problems. The windshields ice up in these snow storms. And I drive in a hundred snow storms in the 18 years I've been going over. So the best solution is to reach out the window and slap the wipers. Right.

I get real good at this. Every three minutes you open the window, you slap it, knock the ice off. So you spend the whole time slapping it. Yeah, I'm so good I don't even have to put my coffee down. Just reach out and slap it. Hey, that's good. You're a pro. The Subaru, something happened to the Subaru wipers a year ago. The switch kind of burnt out. First the intermittent wiper stopped working, it was always on low. first the intermittent wiper stop working it was always on low returning here on it would stop

whenever you turn the wipers off it would just stop right in the middle of the windshield no matter where it was not have to but it back down stop it on the bottom of the point well this is a blessing because now where it's not really you can stop it right after that over on the left i was wondering how you manage to do the slapping business because now when it's snowing... Sure you can stop it right up there. I get to stop it over on the left. I was wondering how you managed to do the slapping business while the windshield wipers are running.

Oh, that's an art, man. 18 years of practice and I got real good at it. It's a learning process. At first I used a glove, but then I grabbed the glove and took it off. The glove going back and forth. Going back and forth. And then one time my finger got caught in there and it started pulling me out and it ended up cutting my finger and I had blood on the windshield and then I had my finger in my mouth trying to keep the blood from getting all over the car. What do you do for a living, Norm? I work for the postal service.

I was going to say you must work for FedEx. You work for the postal service. You're a say you must work for FedEx. You work for the postal service. You're a mailman. No, I work nights. I'm a clerk. You're a clerk. Yes. So you have to get in there because... Oh, the mail must go through. Oh, the dark of night or snow or sleet or whatever that stuff is. Oh, yes. The mail must go through. Well, okay, my question is how do I make break the other windshield wipers on my other two cars so they'll stop whenever I turn the switch off? Oh, that might not be too hard to do. No, all you need to do is put a toggle switch on the dash which which interrupts the ground circuit. Oh, it could do it that way. I was

well that would be the easy way to do it. I was thinking of the hard way which would be to get right to the to the mechanism that makes it park. I know how to do it. How? Turn the key off. You can turn the key off and lose all power steering power brakes and everything else but what makes it park is a capacitor. Well not all but yeah. I think they all have it. There has to be a switch that determines that it's at the bottom of the swing and turns itself off. Well here's what you do. See when you turn it off it's got to still have electricity coming to it to make it park. We call it park. Right. So if it's up at the top of the stroke,

it needs electricity to get back down to the bottom. And the way it gets the electricity, I think this is true for most of them, is it has a little capacitor, which is always charged up, and it uses the electricity in the capacitor to make the thing go back down. So if you find the motor someplace,

you know where that is. Yes. But where's the capacitor? The capacitor should be near it. No, I don't think so. You don't think so? No, no. Where is it?

Well, I don't know. It's maybe in it. It might be in it. Yeah. Well, call the dealer. If you could call the dealer and find out where the capacitor is, all you're gonna do is get rid of it. And it'll stop wherever you stop it. Okay. You think so? I think so. I like this. I'm not so sure they all

do this because most of them have a relay now to do this and they may be circuitry in there that you don't want to mess with. How about this? How about you reach out and fling a handful of salt on the window? Yeah, you could do that. Or you could take the wheel weights off of one wheel so the car just... Hey, this is a Subaru. It vibrates anyway. Let us know who you make out. If cutting the circuit and putting a toggle switch in works, can we patent it and sell it as an accessory?

No, you can't patent a switch in a piece of wire, unfortunately. I know because I've tried. We can try, but I don't think we're going to make... You'd have to put flashing lights on it or something. Yeah, we're not going to get rich doing this, Norm. Oh. No, and there are only four people in the country that want them. And I'm one. And you're two of them.

See you later, man. Thanks a lot. Good luck. Bye-bye. Bye. We'll be right back with more calls on the new puzzle right after these important messages. Having news at your fingertips is great, but sometimes you need an escape. And that's where Shortwave comes in.

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wherever you get podcasts. On Trump's terms, we have followed the first hundred days of this administration. Tariffs very strongly work. Trade war. Get ready. Elon Musk and Doge. We will make mistakes. Deportations, litigation.

I don't know who the judge is. He's radical left. Those first hundred days are coming to a close, but the pace of the news will likely continue. Follow NPR's coverage of President Trump trying to do things no other president has on Trump's terms from NPR. We're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us.

Click and clack the Tapper Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and the... And the... Don't surprise me like that. When I got a mouthful of stuff and you just yell like that. Well, that's why I did it. I almost choked.

And the... And the new puzzler. The new puzzler. I can't... Which you said would be semi-automotive. I remember. So you thought I was... Well, here it is.

I'll try to make it brief because it it it it I think it has the The potential to be rather lengthy. Oh, okay, so get right into it long long ago anything stop No, I mean don't be interrupted No, I won't just get into it and just go right to the end without stopping. I will long long ago What the plot what the question? Long long ago in a galaxy far away, a Ford galaxy that is, our pal Krusty was driving to what was to be his wedding ceremony up in the wilds of Maine. He's driving along this lonely, unimproved as they call it, country road, euphemism for

dirt and potholes. And while driving along, he drifts into a state of euphoria. Euphoria is right on the border of Maine, right between Maine and New Hampshire. And inclined village. And he drifts into this state of euphoria thinking about the marital bliss that awaits him. At least the two weeks. He was terrified in other words. At least the two weeks until she figures out he doesn't bathe. So there he is, he's driving along and he's daydreaming and

in this state of euphoria and and he hits a rock in the road, a big rock. It tears open his gas tank. Oh, huge gas. He gets out of the car, runs to the back and says, oh, fudge! And he realizes that the gasoline is pouring out at such a rate that he's never going to make it to the wedding and he knows if he doesn't make it, she's not going to hang around because he's what? Yeah. A loser. And he doesn't know how he hooked her in the first place. So if he doesn't get there on time, he's done for. She's going to have that extra two minutes to think about it and she's out of there. She's out of there, exactly. So he opens the trunk to figure out some way to get himself out of this problem. He starts pulling out, he's got like another transmission in the air, starter motor, raccoon

coat with the raccoon still in it. And there's nothing, it's his tool kit. And he reaches, he stares in, he looks down again, he sees the gas pouring out and he realizes that in five minutes he's gonna be done for, absolutely done for. He runs to the front of the car, throws open the hood and with a few tools in his hand, in a few minutes, maybe even less, maybe a minute,

yanks something off under the hood. A minute later, he's driving away and makes it to the wedding on time. Now he didn't yank out the fuel pump, nor did he yank out the carburetor. Those are two hints. But he yanked out something, evidently used, maybe used this. I don't need to give any further hints, do I? No, no, no.

You don't have to give any. Suffice it to say, he opens the hood, he yanks out something. He moves apart. And a few minutes later, he's on his way. He closes the hood. Yeah. And drives away and makes it to the church. Well that's a big hint. He does not go back to the gas tank. I didn't say that. You said he closes the hood. No, he yanks something out from under the hood. Yeah. And in a few minutes time. Yeah. I didn't tell you what he did with that few minutes. Okay, that's what I wanted to know. In a few minutes time. He's driving away. He's closed the hood, closed the hood. Yeah. And he

drives away and makes it to the wedding on time. Therefore, today there is a Mrs. Crusty and there would be no otherwise. No, it only lasted two weeks. Now, if you think you know what Crusty did. Yeah. And it worked, I might add, beautifully. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, I love it. If you think you know what he did, mail us your answer at puzzletower, Cartock Plaza, Box 3500, Harvard Square, Cambridge.

Our first city. Math 02238. Or you can email us your answer from our website, cartock.msn.com. Just click on the Talk to Cartock section. And if we choose your correct answer from among, oh, both, choose your correct answer at random from among all the correct answers,

you'll get one of our new Car Talk T-shirts featuring the slogan, celebrating 10 years of bad car advice. Hey, you know what it's time for? Time to appeal the death sentence the AARP gave you? No, no, it's time to play Stump the Chumps. ["Stump the Chumps Theme Song"] Well, on Stump the Chumps,

we bring back a previous caller to find out if our advice was actually helpful. Or more likely, actionable. So who's this week's chump stumper anyway? The contestant today is Ellen from New York City, and Ellen has the honor of being the first ever repeat stump the chumps contestant. What, we screwed it up twice? Actually no, this is just a second follow-up visit. Ellen first called us back in 1996.

What? Complaining that her then fiance Bruce was spending all kinds of time and money buying performance enhancing accessories for their 94 blazer. But we told her to encourage him by, I think these were your words, you said you should embrace his hobby because he would eventually get sick of it. Well, we may have underestimated the power of the J.C. Whitney catalog, huh? Apparently we did. We should embrace his hobby.

Yeah, I think that was my recommendation, if I'm not mistaken. But what we want to know is, did you marry him or did you dump him and did you force him to live on the streets of New York in the blazer? No, I'm a newlywed. We were married two months ago. No kidding! So you've married him since we've spoken to you? Against our advice. And is he still fixing up this blazer? Oh yeah. Now the problem has escalated though.

Because we're back in New York and we're back from the honeymoon and he now, I guess the honeymoon's over because at night he stays up and he's on the internet looking for high performance parts on the internet. Damn internet. Okay, so our first strategy of embracing the hobby failed miserably. So what do we tell them to do next? Since they were married by then, we drew on our own vast marital experiences in solving marital problems, and we recommended the time-ordered method for settling spousal

disputes. Counseling? No. Active listening? No. Spite! If he was going to spend all that time reading the J.C. Whitney catalog, then Ellen had to come up with another hobby of her own, like maybe another guy. Great!

Well, let's find out what happened. Ellen, are you there? I'm here. Hey! All right, now before we play Stump the Chumps again, I know you're a pro at this. Ken Starr wants us to ask you a couple of questions in order to verify that this is all on the level. You don't mind that do you know now

well and you've never met paula jones have you you know and vernon jordan has not offered your position at revlon in exchange for favorable testimony at the end no i'll tell us what happened well i i took your advice uh... you got a bond a boyfriend now i i got a hobby but he was a compromise my hobby was that I got pregnant But and with that'll show

But it was very clever your advice was very clever and my my hobby was clever because There are so many gadgets for babies. Oh That his attention has now it hasn't gotten away from the car But it has now turned its hasn't gone away from the car, but it has now turned its way over to all the baby gear. Yay! Well, I realize that this is a trick that women use to get husbands, to snap husbands out of their childhoods. Well, why didn't we think of this actually?

I mean, she had to come up with the idea of what the hobby was. We didn't, Rick. I don't think we deserve that round of applause. No? This was the best idea ever. But you know what helped me? That McLaren, who makes race cars, also makes carriages. How pregnant are you, Ellen?

I'm due next month. God love you. And do we know if it's a boy or a girl? It's a girl. It's a girl. But hopefully she'll like cars. And he has already got the whole place all decked out with like the swing that you hang up between the door.

Right and we have these walkie talkies that have a two mile radius. You know, there's a lot of electronic things that you need for a baby. You do, yeah. He's just going from one wacko hobby to another. I don't think there's really any hope for him, but the best. Well, he wants equal time because he feels that he needs to defend himself at some point to you too. Oh, yeah.

All right. Excellent. Thanks for playing Stump the Chumps, Ellen. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. 1-888-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Thanks for playing Stump the Chumps, Ellen. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye bye. 1-888-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, my name is Achela Cherugy. Oh wait. Wow! You have to spell it. Okay, my name is Achela. A-C-H-A-L-A. A-C-H-A-L-A. I got that Last name is Chatterjee

CHATTE ERJEE Right, like in chatterbox I know Chatterjee, Achala Chatterjee Achala Wonderful name Thank you, because I thought I could beat Arup Gupta Well

Achala is pretty nice Achala Chatter chataji is pretty good now you know it's very nice and where were you from actually I'm from two places I work in Huntsville Alabama yeah but my husband live in Riverside California that's interesting really yeah and do you find that this cuts down on uh... marital squabbles yeah

it's a good job but how do you mean is some kind of federal penitentiary and what is he doing making like that and i work for the army uh... only works for the army now i was really really are and work for that so your actual works for the army. No, I work for the army. So your actual home is Riverside, California? Well, kind of. So you're engaged in like biological warfare things in Huntsville? No, we're not. We make missiles in Huntsville. Oh, missiles. Oh, that's alright.

Anyway, I'm sure you called with some serious automotive problem. I have a 95 Toyota Avalon. Nice car. And it's a real nice car. But my husband gets to use it because it's in Riverside, California. And we have a house in Riverside, California too that has a real steep driveway. So when we leave the garage and go up the driveway, the bottom of the car kind of scrapes on the driveway. And my husband has perfected this, kind of semi-perfected a technique, where he'll make a sharp right turn right at the top,

and then about 90% of the time he doesn't scrape it. I almost always scrape it at the bottom. Well, eventually, what's being scraped will get scraped off. It will be gone. It won't hit anymore. What could be hitting? There's not much back there. The muffler, the tailpipe.

It's part of the exhaust system that's hitting, or maybe even the bumper. It's the exhaust system that's hitting, I think. Don't even worry about it. Not worry about it? I thought I could put a bigger tire on it, or put something that'll make my car rise up or something. I mean first of all you really shouldn't worry about

it but if you are concerned about it I would have one person stand at the end of the driveway while the other person backs the car up so you can precisely determine what it is that's hitting. Okay. And then, take a hammer and put a professional-type dent into this thing so that it will no longer hit and then forget about it completely. Well it may be that a large part of the muffler is hitting, in which case you've got to do something. Well if it's a really steep thing, I would think that something at the very back of the car is what's hitting and the thing that's the most furthest Is the furthest back in the car is the end of the tailpipe?

And then hardly worth, but that's not the piece closest to the ground the piece close to the tailpipe was out of the middle Of the muffler the piece closest to the ground is the body of the muffler itself, and that's what's hitting You can try to cave that in with some scientific blows. Would that affect working of the muffler? Not really. I mean you're doing that anyway. Yeah. Isn't there something less dramatic? Well you know back in the old days when cars had like normal suspensions you could put in load leveler shocks which had an extra coil spring and you could raise the butt end up. You could put in load leveler shocks, which had an extra coil spring, and you could raise the butt end up. You could put in air shocks. You could put in, what are those do-bers

that we used to stick in the springs when the springs would collapse? Spring savers or whatever. Spacers. Spacers. But you can't do any of that to this car, really. No. I mean, you could put a larger tire on it.

That's your only hope. But it won't. Yeah, but then the tires, the tires... the tires will probably start hitting the fender well. So here's the solution. We need a picture of the driveway. Okay, I'll send it to you. And preferably a picture with the car just hitting.

A close-up of whatever it is that's hitting and we'll come back with a detailed drawing explaining how to fix it Okay, I'll do that. This is a new service that we provide Here on the show as of we don't know what to call it yet right now. We're providing Beautiful Wow well it's happened again you vaporized yet another hour listening to car talk Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Achilla Chatterjee. Beautiful. Wow. Well, it's happened again. You vaporized yet another hour listening to Card Talk.

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