The Best of Car Talk - #2546: Death Valley Dinesh

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

There are thrill seekers and then there is Dinesh. Dinesh wants to walk through Death Valley in the middle of Summer -presumably because 'it's there', or something. And somehow this involves a car question that isn't a hearse. Can Click and Clack throw some shade on Dinesh' crazy plans? Or will they just try and convince him to add their names to his life insurance policy? Find out on this parched 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

Congress is considering a rescissions package from the White House that would claw back more than $1 billion of public media funding. Federal funding for all of public media amounts to about $1.60 per person per year. That helps bring you the news and podcasts you rely on from NPR. Please take a stand for public media today at GoACPR.org. Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, click and clack the Tappet Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Department of overseas travel here at car talk Plaza My brother I'm sure has something into it. Well, I have here a little I mean always defensive

It is that is great because you can get this up-to-date information tips for Americans traveling in France the following advisory Advisory for American travelers heading from France was compiled from information provided by the US State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and some very expensive spy satellites that the French don't know we have. It is intended as a guide for Americans, American travelers only. General overview, France is a medium-sized foreign country situated in the continent of Europe.

It is an important member of the world community, though not nearly as important as it thinks it is. It is bounded by Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and some smaller nations of no particular consequence and with not very good shopping. France is a very old country with many treasures such as the Louvre and Euro Disney. Among its contributions to Western civilization are champagne, chamomile cheese and the guillotine. Although France likes to

think of itself as a modern nation, air conditioning is little used and it is next to impossible to get decent Mexican food. One continuing exasperation of American visitors is that the people willfully persist in speaking French, though many will speak English if you shout at them. There are a couple other tips here. France has more holidays than any other nation in the world. Among its 361 national holidays are 197 Saints' Days, 37 National Liberation Days, 16 Declaration of Republic Days, 54 Return of Charles de Gaulle in triumph as if he won the war single-handedly days, 18

Napoleon sent into exile days, and 17 Napoleon called back from exile days, and 112 France is great and the rest of the world stinks days. That's good I mean the CIA, the Department of State, well it is summer people are gonna be traveling and they should know stuff like this and it's our job to help them to know. Well I thank you for that public service announcement. Thank you. All of. It's my pleasure. If you want to talk to us about France or anything else or the fact that none of my wife's relatives will be speaking to me anymore after this. They'll speak to you now. That's right. You can call us at 888-CAR-TALK. That's 888 8 2 2 7 8 2 5 5 hello you're on car talk bonjour je m'appelle Aaron bonjour bonjour monsieur bonjour to you too this is Aaron from San Francisco Aaron how you doing what's up well I think my car is

haunted yeah it's a 1988 Celica convertible and whenever I hit the brakes it does one of two things and then there's seemingly no logic the brakes it does one of two things and there's Seemingly no logic for when it does one or the other either it makes your traditional squeal squeak or it makes this deep mysterious laughing sound something like this It's just like that really and of course you haven't had anyone look at it. You've been waiting to talk to us because... I'm terrified to take it in. I think I'm... they're going to tell me he's like a whole new axle or a whole new who knows what. And does this happen when you're stopping from high speed or low speed or in between speed or all speeds? The laughing is a low speed phenomenon. It does it both, but it's faster if you're stopping from a greater speed.

Sure. The laughter is. So the laughing is, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, speed that the laughter is in sync with a pulsation of your brake pedal? No, no. Why haven't you noticed that? You're obviously not very observant. No, no. In fact, there was new brakes were done on it about a year ago. A year? Well, I think that you have a warped disc. And that would, I don't know, the squeaking, and brakes can squeak for no reason. And you think you should see a chiropractor for this? Yes, a few adjustments I think ought to do it.

No, I think the laughter, the laughing noise is coming from the fact that when that warp is coming around, it's pushing against the caliper and making the thing move in a manner that it's not supposed to and making the er, er, er, er, er, er, noise. And it's nothing much to worry about except that it would be nice to fix it. So it can't cause an accident? Well it might be, I mean you could have a wheel bearing going or some such thing or maybe a wheel is falling off or maybe a wheel nut's loose, maybe a tire's ready to pass

you on the highway. You might want to get it someplace and have them put a dial indicator on it, but that should tell them what's going on. Good luck, Aaron. Thank you. Thanks for your call. Bye-bye. Au revoir.

Au revoir. Au revoir. So you'll listen. 1-888-CAR-TALK. That's 888-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. This is Mabel from Aspen, Colorado. That's a seldom heard name, Mabel.

Seldom heard, very Victorian. Victorian? Yeah, kind of gone now. People don't use it. I don't equate that with Victorian. I equate Mabel with more like a diner. A diner? Thank you.

Hey, Mabel, can I have some hash with them eggs or what? Well, but a Victorian diner. A Victorian diner, there you are. Well appointed diner. Anyway, so where are you from Mabel? Aspen. From Aspen in Colorado. Oh, how charming. Very charming.

What can we do for you? What do you want to talk about today? Well, it's my Subaru. Yeah 82 Subaru 181,000 miles and she went in for one of those short checks and she came out with this My guys said that both valve cover gaskets are seeping Head gaskets are leaking The CV boots are cracking but not ripped yet. Okay. And they suggested that by fall I get these repaired.

My question is, should I just go for a whole new motor? No! No, no, no, no, no, Mabel, let's not be alarmist here. No! No, relax! This is something easy. Mabel let's not let's not be alarmist here Well, it isn't easy unless you got a phone 7800 bucks with you, but it's not the end of the world either No, I I I might want to fix the valve covers. Those are relatively cheap No under no circumstances fix the head gasket? No. Under no circumstances touch the head gaskets. Why? Well because I think first of all that most of the leak is probably coming from one of two places. Either the valve cover gaskets or the camshaft seals and he may have even overlooked that. Ah. So he may be erroneously, he may have erroneously concluded. Yeah. That the leak is coming from the head gaskets when in fact it may be coming from the camshaft seals

which leak all the time on these things Okay Oh, he didn't actually determine that the head gasket is bad He just said that there's an oil leak Well, what I took it in for was this constant oil leak which she's had for god five or ten years drip drip And then it got really bad. Oh, and they they let's see the rear they replaced the leaking rear differential pinion seal Okay, and the R&R oil pump and reseal and replace front main seal

Okay, so they may have done that they may have done the cam seals at that same time. So now you have a leak that's considerably diminished. Yes it's greatly diminished. Can you live with it? They said in a case for running that I needed to do these gasket things. Well like I said I may want to do the gaskets. I agree with my brother completely. Do the valve cover gaskets. That's it. Not the head gasket? No, no, no. No because you have valve cover gaskets. That's it. But not the head gasket? No. No, no, no. I agree. No, because you have two head gaskets. Because you have two cylinder heads on this thing. Yeah.

And if you do one, you're going to do the other one. Aha. So you're looking at a thousand bucks. Right. I mean they said 700. Out of the question. So that's why I was thinking a new engine costs 2000. Why not just go... No, you don't need anything. You need a $50 worth of valve cover gaskets. Oh.

And you'll be all set. Do the valve cover gaskets first. And see how it goes? They're probably like $75. Yeah. See how much the leak has diminished. And the worst case scenario is it leaks a little bit, but it's got 180,000 miles on it.

What do we expect here? Right, what do I expect? Yeah, I mean, sure. And if it does leak a little bit, miles on it. What do we expect here? Right, what do I expect? Yeah, I mean, sure. And if it does leak a little bit, forget about it. Yeah. What are you worried about, dirtying the snow in Aspen? Just put the cardboard underneath there, huh?

Yeah, sure. Have the cat sleep under there. I don't know. And then hose down the cat. Yeah. Good luck, Mabel. Thanks very much. See you. Talk to you.

Bye. Bye-bye. Now before we give the answer to last week's puzzle, we have to pause. Thank God. You're killing me with all this work. Question, answer, question, answer. I can't take it. Work, work, work.

Calm down, will you? This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things and other currencies. With WISE, you can send, spend, or receive money across borders all at a fair exchange rate. No markups or hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Public media is facing the most serious threat in its history.

Congress is considering a White House proposal that would eliminate federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund local NPR stations. This move would immediately threaten many stations' ability to serve their communities and could force some to close. Take a stand for public media today at goacpr.org. Decades ago, Brazilian women made a discovery.

They could have an abortion without a doctor, thanks to a tiny pill. That pill spawned a global movement, helping millions of women have safe abortions, regardless of the law. Hear that story on the network from NPR's Embedded and Futuro Media, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air. Hey, take a break from the 24-hour news cycle with us and listen to long-form interviews with your favorite authors, actors, filmmakers, comedians and musicians, the people making

the art that nourishes us and speaks to our times. So listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY. Hi we're back you're listening to Car Talk with us click and clack the Tappet brothers and here's the answer to last week's question. You can't give the answer until it's the question. Well I'm going to give you the I always give the question. Oh okay. I give the question and then the answer. How long you been here? Here it is it It was brief. It was really quick. I mean it was beautiful because it was The point it was interesting and and it was just a you know, all the elements of a great puzzle Yeah, I thought just give me the first couple of words and I'll know it a man Go goes to a hardware store to purchase something for his house. I'm proud of myself.

You peaked. I didn't. He asked the clerk, how much is one? The clerk says, 60 cents. The guy says, okay, how about 12? The clerk says, well, $1.20. The guy says, okay, in that case, I'll take 200. And the clerk says, that'll be $1.80.

Wow. What's he buying? So one costs sixty cents, twelve cost a dollar twenty, and he got two hundred for a dollar eighty. The quality must have gone down though. Well he's getting the quantity discount. You talk about quantity discounts. That's a quantity discount. Pretty good huh? He could have gotten 900 for a dollar 80 really on 999 but not a thousand but not a thousand. No, that's right What he was buying was house numbers

And who's our winner this week Tommy Wow, that's a good one I mean there are millions of high school and grammar school students at this moment saying how come I didn't get that or They're saying those guys are jerks. And the winner, and one of the people who said we were jerks is Diane Weaver from Houston, Texas. And for having her correct answer chosen at random from among the thousands of correct answers that we got this week, Diane is gonna get one of our Cot-Toc World Tour t-shirts.

This shirt lists all the stops of our just completed 1998 world tour the tasty Cafe de los boards Cafe para diesel this bombs junkyard Cambridge traffic court. I mean everything is Listed anyway, we'll have a brand new puzzler coming up in the third half of today's show So 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. Hi, Naomi. Hi, Naomi. How are you? What's up, okay, where you from though, oh Salt Lake salt well over in yeah, Utah Yeah, so you're? Okay. Where you from though? Oh, Salt Lake. Salt Lake.

Where you're from, yeah, Utah. Yeah. So you're from England? Yes, good. Okay, just a guess. Not a Utah accent, huh? But you've lived here for a while, haven't you? Yep, exactly.

Oh, you're good. Most people guess Australia, yeah. I'm gonna tell you how long you've lived here. Australia, what's that? Okay, let's hear. I'll give you money if you know. I'd say you've lived here Yeah?

at least 12 years. Oh no, seven. Oh seven, that's pretty close. Is it? Actually, twelve might be close too, let's see. It's about twelve, seven, yeah. No, seven to twelve, yeah. My brother got a prison sentence that long one.

Seven to twelve. Seven to twelve. Yeah, so what's up Naomi? Okay, I drive a Jetta, 85 I think. I've had it since November. It's been a pretty good car it's got a little red light on the dashboard when for oil i think it would have gone

but my oil spying it clean it topped up but it might goes uh... on all the time and it makes it noise exactly and got it out to do it and it's yeah out it started doing it while ago and i could deal with it you know but now it's almost non-stop and it's you know kind of road rage is creeping up on me I want to hit the car in front

and it won't stop unless I put it in neutral and rev and I'm trying to make this trip up to Mizzou listen you know so I want to know here's my question don't worry you will not have eight hours of that noise. Okay, I can just about guarantee you that okay You're gonna wish you had eight hours of that noise You got a lot of miles in this car. Don't you? Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Um, your domator doesn't move anymore. Oh Where did it stop like 150? I don't yeah around there. You don't pay attention too much to this stuff No, not the numbers ever deadly 712 712 the light. I think it's oil, but I'm not sure Distracting and the noise, you know, of course you haven't had anyone look at this

No, no, not yet. This car has that little buzzer which is into the dash, which is very difficult to find Okay, but if you get it to make the noise, the noise obviously you can home in on it so to speak. But it also has two oil pressure switches. One to detect excessively high oil pressure and one for low oil pressure. Now if your pressure is either too low or too high that's bad. If it's too low it means you have either worn bearings or a bad oil pump and if it's too high it means the oil pressure relief valve is bad and you're in danger of blowing off the oil filter which could be pretty exciting. And if the pressure is too low because of the other reasons you're in danger of blowing the engine because it's not getting lubricated where it's supposed to get

lubricated. So what you need to do is take the thing to a shop and have them test the oil pressure well she knows already okay yeah sound stops when she revs it up that's why is it okay I was hoping it was like a wire sure why dreaming well alternatively it could be that the switch is bad okay have the oil pressure tested when they verify the pressure is okay they can replace those two switches. And you can get them at the Volkswagen dealer, they're probably less than 10 bucks a piece. And you should pray for this result. Yeah, no kidding. Otherwise it's going to be...

Otherwise it's going to be no trip to Missoula. Here's the order in which you pray for things. Okay. First you pray that it's one of these switches that's no good. Okay. Second you pray that if it's not the switch that the oil pressure is too high. Too high? Maybe. What would I do then?

Well then you'd have to have them replace the oil pressure relief valve. Right. But you'd... And number three, which you don't pray for but which will happen if the other two are not true, is the oil pressure is too low. Okay. In which case either you've got to replace the oil pump or worse than that the engine is fried. I'm gonna be optimistic and say that I think it's the switch.

Okay. But it would be nice to verify it because it could be a couple of things which would definitely preclude driving to Missouri. Right and send us a postcard from Bear Lake because that's about as far as you're going to make it. Okay, I'll send you one from Banff, Canada. All right, see you Naomi. Okay. Bye bye. Bye bye.

1-888-CAR-TALK, that's 888-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Dinesh from Los Altos, California. What's your name? Dinesh. Dinesh? D-I-N-E-S. D- your name? The nest D. I any s D. I any s itch Dinesh correct from where Los Altos, California Altos where is Los Altos is right in the heart of Silicon Valley South of San Francisco, so you're a computer nerd, huh? No, actually I'm a trader

I used to be a trader. I trade commodity futures, those heating oil and stuff like that. Oh you're the guy that fleeced me out of about five grand last year. No kidding. Soybeans, you do soybeans too? No, no, I don't fleece people for five thousand. I go for the big money. For the big money. One million, five million. That's chicken feed and he trades that too. Oh, excellent. So what's going on Dinesh? Okay, what's going on is after doing this crazy trading, my wife and I and a friend

of us, we're going to be going to Death Valley next month and try to walk the whole park. That sounds like a great idea. That's why they call it Death Valley. Yeah, so the four of you are going over the Death Valley. That's good. We're going to walk 180 miles. Really? We're only going to walk during daytime.

Oh, that's smart too. That sounds good. Okay, go ahead. We're listening. And we're going to have three cars. We're going gonna park one car at the beginning of the day's walking. The second car will be parked at the end of the day's walking. Third car is gonna be parked right in the middle of the two cars. Sure. And that's where we're gonna have our water. Yeah. So we're gonna start from car number one, walk seven and a half miles, get some more water from the car and continue walking another seven and a half miles till

we reach the third car. And then you go, you all jump in car number three, you drive back, you drop one guy off at car number one, he drives it ahead of car number three, then you pick up car number two and you drive it seven-and-a-half miles in the middle and here's what you don't need keep doing this all day is what you do you buy for treadmills haha

and also you can do this whole trip in your backyard uh... and the garden so what's the is there a question embedded in this is insanity yet once at what So what's the is there a question embedded in this insanity? Yes What's what I discussed her sitting there in the middle of nowhere? Yeah, we are in the north end of Death Valley where hardly anybody even goes in winter let alone in some Nobody's crazy enough to go there in the summer Dinesh

Now the question is if one of these cars for some reason breaks down, we are in big doo-doo. Not big, deep. So what I want to know is, what's likely to happen to these cars that are going to be sitting in 125 degrees for 8 hours a day for 15 days? Nothing. Nothing? No, because you're only going to drive a few miles at a time with them

no problem no if you were if you were driving all around death valley all day long at 130 degree temperatures you might experience some kind of difficulty but if it's just mostly sitting there i mean think about what if you left it sitting there forever? What would happen to it? The paint would fade. And the buzzards would eventually... The buzzards would come. ...heat the car. The biggest danger that you encounter is having the car overheat. As far as it's sitting there, the tires aren't going to get...

What's the average? I mean, how hot could it be? 130 degrees in the sun? Yeah, it is. 125 in shade. In the shade. In the shade, so maybe 150 in the sun. Yeah.

What are you, nuts? Well you know, I want to be first at something. Yeah, that's great. Everything in the world is done, you know, somebody climbed the Everest, Columbus discovered America, there's nothing left for me. So you want to be the first Indian American whose skeletal remains are found in Death Valley. Is that what it is?

Well, that's okay too. That would be a first. That's a first. You're gonna be the first to walk across Death Valley. In summer. In the summer. In the heat of the summer. We definitely, you know what we need?

We need a series of pictures. We need day one when you're at zero miles. Yeah. We need a picture of you and the rest of the group. Okay, maybe you can get a lizard to take your picture. And Guido the guide. So if you would like us to chronicle it for you for the world to see, so that when you reach the end, we can have a big celebration saying

that you were the first to do this, send us whole series of pictures and the log we want to know everything that's gone on all your misfortunes good fortune exactly well we better send it every day in case we don't make it of course of course yes email us okay I have one serious question yeah I somebody told me I should crack the windows of the car while they are parked there. Oh, absolutely. What's the reason for that? Because it's going to get mighty, mighty hot in that car.

As a matter of fact, there are little fans you can buy that are solar powered that you can stick in the window. So you roll the window down a few inches and you put this fan in there and it'll keep the car cool. Because it'll get hotter inside the car than it is outside. And you run the risk of blowing out a window if it gets that hot in there. Exactly. You may come back and find one of the windows shattered.

So we should crack one or two windows? No. Or all the windows? Well, I... Why don't you leave all the windows wide open? No one's going to steal anything. Well, with my luck, somebody will be just passing by and take everything we have. Oh yeah.

Good luck. Dinesh, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Well, thank you very much, guys be just passing by and take everything we have. Good luck! Dinesh, it's been a pleasure talking to you. I look forward to the future. As they say, nice knowing you. Bye-bye. Good luck. I think it's... See, he wants to be first at something, and he made enough money from suckers like you buying pork bellies

that he can go do this. He didn't mention that those three cars that he's got, they're all Porsches. Oh yeah, we knew that. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. All right, it's time to take another short break. Thank God, I mean I thought you'd never give me a rest. You make me sweat here all day.

I'm under a hot microphone, ready to pass out, and then I'll see you. We'll be back in a minute. A minute? All I get is a minute? Shop's doing, I wanna see see the shop store. All right, all right. The best kind of celebrity interview is one where you find out that the person who made

a thing you love also thinks in a way that you love. Nothing is more foreign than when Ariel says in The Little Mermaid, I wanna be where the people are. I don't wanna be where the people are. I just don't. I'm Rachel Martin. Listen to the Wild Card Podcast, only from NPR. Ha, we're back. Listen to Car Talk with us,

click and clack the Tapper Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and the new puzzler. Yeah. Now I should mention that this is the last puzzler of the season. Is it really? Yes. Yes, the puzzler will be on a rather extended... Extended vacanza.

Extended, yes, a rather extended, not deserved vacation, but it's in his contract, so he's getting off. Well, actually, I have to say that the past 11 months of puzzlers have been better than usual. I think if we look at all the puzzlers that you've used over the past 48 weeks, I'd say that- Gaff's been shaking your head saying- Well, don't forget what we're up against it doesn't it doesn't matter

That they were lousy. They've just been better They've been better take it right then the previous 11 exactly right they could be absolutely lousy, but still be better though they are But they're better well here it is yeah here it is a spot a struggling young art history major waitress is working in New York City and it's around Christmas time and she finds herself in difficult straits. After all, she's traveled home for Christmas and spent a lot of money and bought Christmas presents and the like. And she returns to her little apartment, her little room in the rooming house and realizes that she cannot pay the rent.

So she approaches the landlord with the following little, what would you call it, offer. She says, look, I don't have the money to pay the month of January's rent. But I can give you a link of my gold necklace every day I'll give you one link To pay for the rent and his luck would have it. There are 31 days in January and her gold necklace has 31 links. Yeah You got it. Sure. Now, obviously he says he says let me look at the thing Now, obviously, he says, he says, let me look at the thing. So he looks at it and verifies

that it's authentic 18 karat gold. And he says, you got a deal. At the end of the month, I give you the necklace back. You give me the doll. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Now, obviously, she could cut the thing into 31 pieces

and every day give him a piece. But then she'd have to have it repaired by a jeweler, which would cost an inordinate amount of money. So she wants to make as few cuts as possible So what she's gonna do is she's for example day one she's gonna cut one link right, okay She's gonna hand him one link right, okay Now she could cut another link off and hand them two for the next day or she could just cut off two She'd give him the two and take one back. There you go And And then for the third day, she gives him the previous one that she cut off.

She wouldn't have to cut anything. So the question is... Yeah. How many pieces does she have to cut the chain into to be able to pay for all 31 days? How many pieces? So the chain is going to be... Now obviously when she makes a cut, she's going to close it back up again, you know? In other words, when she cuts that first link off, she's actually cut link number two to extract that first piece so that she doesn't lose it. She closes that back up again. You got the scenario? I got it, yeah. Okay, and then she's going to cut a two-link piece off, and that's going to pay for days one.

Right now, I've got to figure it out for you days one two and three all figured out. Yeah. Right? She did it with only two cuts instead of with three cuts which would be the obvious straightforward way to do it. Right just cut a link of a time. Right. So there's an economical way to do this. The question is what are the lengths of the pieces that she has to cut? The fewest number of pieces. Obviously. Obviously. The fewest number of pieces.

And what are those various lengths? And the hint is that 20 years ago, people would have had a much harder time solving this puzzle than they would today, I think. Excellent hint. Isn't that a good hint? Yeah. Even though you don't know the answer even even

If you think you know that answer or you're just lonely and you have nothing else to do You want to communicate with anybody send your answer to puzzler tower car talk Plaza box? 3500 Harvard Square Cambridge our fair city Matt 02238 or you can email us your answer from car talk comm if you'd like to call us the numbers 1-888 car talk. That's 888 227 8255 hello, you're on car talk. This is Leonard temple calling from beautiful downtown Olive Branch, Mississippi All of Branch, Mississippi. What an idyllic sounding place. It does sound peaceful doesn't it? It's not us. Well, it is peaceful with the exception of my car. Oh peaceful doesn't it is not as well it is peaceful with the exception of my car uh... i have a nineteen eighty seven oldsmobile cutlass supreme

that my lovely wife and i purchased brand new and we'd love this car but it has one problem uh... as it rolled over a hundred thousand miles coming home from church a few weeks ago the car just died there was no fuel in the carburetor if i spray start fluid in the car it would fire up and then shut right down

being the somewhat shaitree mechanic that i am i took the fuel line loose from the carburetor and turn the star cranked it good good the fuel come out we're smoking a cigar at the time not at that point not at that point did not have a smoking gun just yet excellent so i thought okay must be the fuel filters clogged so i took the fuel filter out i hope the line back up still nothing

car wouldn't start after fidgeting with this and that the other i gave up and replace the carburetor fired the car right up ran just fine for two weeks. Then the same thing happened again. It just shut off, no fuel getting to the carburetor. Oh, there's fuel getting to the carburetor, but the carburetor is not, as we say, processing it.

Yes, sir. Not passing it along to the proper authorities. That's correct. So I replaced the fuel pump, thinking it must not be getting enough fuel pressure. Sounds good. Car starts up, runs just fine for two weeks. Yeah, and it shuts off again. Yeah. Yeah, I Have a couple of ideas. Okay. Here's one you could bypass that pesky little carburetor Just take the fuel line and dump it right it right into the intake. Okay, that's not enough of that. But I need the cigar. I need to have my cigar. No, you might not need it. No, you don't need the cigar. Don't forget, this is how carburation worked in 1900. Probably if you just have it dripping in there, it'll be fine.

Ah. Well, it ran fine with the new carburetor. Yes, sir. Okay. Then it ran fine with the new fuel pump. Ran fine with the new fuel pump? I know what it is. Go ahead, what is it? It's the charcoal canister. The charcoal canister? The tank isn't venting. Ahhhhh. Do the following experiment. Drive it till it conks out. Take the gas cap off and start it up and drive it away. It may take you a minute or two to start it. What's happening is you're not allowing air to replace via the canister, the gasoline that's being consumed by the engine. And what happens after a while is you're creating a negative pressure in the tank, and the tank and the pump are competing for the same gas.

So the tank with the suction in it is trying to suck that gasoline back away. That's why when you shut it off, if you had just waited long enough, it would eventually have started. Well, that's how I got it home the last time. Aha. As I came back and I thought just for giggles, I'm going to try starting this car. And it fired up.

And it started up. I drove it right home. Oh, and that's it. That's it. That's it, man. The charcoal canister. So then I just go out to my local GM dealer just go to your local GM junkyard Well, it may be that the line the vent line it's coming off the tank is plugged so I can't necessarily say that it's the canister But it's in the it's in the fuel tank ventilation system someplace Okay, good luck Leonard. Thank you. See you later. Appreciate it guys. Bye. Okay. Good luck, Leonard. Thank you.

See you later. Appreciate it, guys. Bye-bye. Bye. Good luck. Well, it's happened again. You've squandered another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk. Our esteemed producer is Doug, not a slave to fashion, Berman.

Our associate producer and dean of the College of Automusicology is Ken Ed Grimley Rogers. Our assistant producer is Katherine and Mel de Ray Marcos. And our engineer is Jonathan Superhighway Sideburns Marston and our menu advisor and newly appointed car talk cheerleader is Mr. John Bugsy Lawler. Head cheerleader. He's up there man. He's a captain. He's the homecoming queen baby. The palm palm queen man. Our public opinion pollster is Paul Murky of Murky Research assisted by statistician Margin O'Vara. Our customer care representative is Heywood Jabuzoff assisted by Kurt Reply. Our director of catering is Russell Upsengrubb. Our director of winter motorcycling is Helmut Kold and our

director of fuel exploration is Gaseous Clay. Peekaboo Street directs our intensive care unit which is known as the Peekabooboo ICU our director of moral support is you demand our sexual harassment counselor is Pat McCann and our little Tolstoy biographer is Warren Peace author of real Tolstoy by Warren Peace Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheatman Howell is you Louis Dewey known to his fellow Disgraced lawyers as you e Louie Dewey. Thanks so much for listening We're clicking clack for tappet brothers and don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother. Or our sister. We'll be back next week. Bye bye. And now here is our chief mechanic, Ben Eagle Bots with some highly Jermaine information.

Jermaine, what is this, the recipe for Venus Knitzel or something? Just want a copy of this week's Card Talk Show, which is number 27. You'll call our shameless commerce division at 1-888-Card Junk. You got that? Triple 8-Card Junk. And if someone wanted other Card Talk parapsum and, you know, T-shirts, would they call the same number, Vinnie? No, you call Jang Zemin, you dope.

Of course you call the same number, 888-Card Junk, or you can get stuff through the online Shameless Commerce Division at CardTalk.com, you knowcom you know thank you very much Vincent your enunciation is coming along quite nicely hey enunciate this punk car talk is a production of Dewey Cheetahman Howe and WBUR in Boston and even though Mara Eliason apologizes to her mother every time she hears us say it this is NPR National Public Radio.