The Best of Car Talk - #2564 Permanent Vacation Car

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

One caller wants a new car to get through his pre-retirement years while another wants to chuck it all except for the car. Could they both have the right idea? Find out on this mid-life crisis edition of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

There's a lot of news happening. You want to understand it better, but let's be honest, you don't want it to be your entire life either. Well, that's sort of like our show, here and now anytime. Every weekday on our podcast, we talk to people all over the country about everything from political analysis to climate resilience, video games. We even talk about dumpster diving on this show. Check out Here and Now Anytime, a daily podcast from NPR and WBUR.

Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack to Tappert Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Center for our Technical Education here at Caratalk Plaza. Now, you may have missed this, but California held an automotive career education day recently. I guess the good people in California determined that there's a nationwide shortage of automotive repair technicians. And there is. So this automotive career education day was set up to encourage kids to go into the automotive repair field. And they did a pretty good job. But we have a couple of suggestions for more effective ways to lure kids into the profession next year. Yeah. I mean, for one thing,

I mean, they didn't combine their little automotive career education day with the boat show. Oh, I mean, that was a gross oversight. That was a fatal error. And secondly, show them how simple it is to be a mechanic. For instance, here are a few simple, multiple-choice questions that illustrate how intuitive it is. Question number one. A customer comes in complaining of an engine noise when the car is cold. Do you, A, ask for more details and collect as much information about the noise as you can. B, ask the customer to take a test drive with you so you can make sure you hear the noise. Or C, gnawed your head as the customer talks and you draw pictures of Xena Warrior Princess on your clipboard. C. I go for sale.

So, how am I doing? Great, question two You get unexpectedly busy at the shop that day And by three o'clock You haven't even touched the customer's car Do you A, call the customer, apologize And ask if you can possibly keep it another day Come on

B, call the customer apologize And offer to make another appointment At his earliest convenience Or C, wait until the customer comes to get the car And right in the repair order Couldn't get it to make the noise See again, I go for that one How am I doing? That in a thousand?

Question, you're doing great. Question three, in an attempt to eliminate the noise you change the belt. The customer pays the bill and comes back a few days later and says that he still hears the noise. Do you, A, apologize and say you'll take another look at it right away?

Never. B, explain that the belt was glazed and needed to be changed anyway, but obviously that didn't fix it, so you'll look at it again right away. Who writes these stupid answers? C, pretend you don't recognize the customer and ask you be sure it was this garage

that changed the belt two days ago because a lot of garages, what, look the same. Are you sure you were here? Now, if you know what to do in each of these cases, and we have many more. If you need more help with this, we'll be glad to send you the brochure. But if you knew what to do in each of these cases, you, my child, can succeed in the automotive repair industry. That's going to get a lot of people.

Sure, I mean, it's so simple. It's obvious. And this is all it does take. So I don't know why people are shying away from this career path. Well, I think it has more to do with people getting away from boats, actually. Ah, that could be. Well, we're having global drying. Yeah, lakes are drying up all over the planet.

Yeah, so what the hell did it is about? Remember Lake Erie? When you were a kid, there were five? Remember there were five Great Lakes? Holmes? It's now Homs. There's no Lake Erie anymore. Dry it up.

Dry it's gone, huh? It's gone. Boy, it's this global drying. Just goes to show you what happens when you ain't paying attention. Pay attention to science. We should do a little science thing every week. Our interpretation of science. Yeah.

That would be. It certainly would. Look, if you're not. If you want to talk to us about your car or about global drawing or any of these natural phenomena, the number to call is 1-888-8-8-8-8-8-2-7-8-25-5. Hello, you're on car talk. Hi, my name is Dave Heller from Springfield, Illinois. Hey, Dave.

How you doing? I'm very good. You know, there are more towns called Springfield than anything else in the entire state of Illinois. I don't know that. There are five Springfields in Illinois. What's up, Dave? Well, I have a 1990 Mustang that eats tires. It is just eating these 90,000 warranted tires in about 10,000, 12,000 miles.

Really? It's quite a dilemma, and I've been dealing with it, really, ever since I bought the car seven years ago. Cool. So you're buying tires, which are rated for 90,000 miles. Exactly. And you're getting 12,000 miles out of them. Unbelievable. Now, is this happening on all four of the tires?

Just the rear tires. And it happens on the inner half of the tire. I've had mechanics tell me, well, your springs are bad. Have your springs replaced? Well, I took it to another mechanic. He said, your springs are fine. He said, well, your shocks are bad. I have the shocks replaced. I still have the same problem. Another mechanic tells me, well, maybe you have a design flaw. I can't get to the bottom of it. Well, if the inside edge of each tire is worn out, it's going to be telling me that those two wheels in the back are towed in. Towed in. But that's impossible, we would think, because you have what's called a live rear axle. Right. And the rear wheels do not get aligned. They're supposed to be aligned. Right.

And so someone who says there is a design flaw, I think it's not a design flaw, but it might well be a manufacturing flaw. Or it might be, as we say, an unfortunate accident. Hmm. You know, I bought the car used. It was a year old when I bought it. And they had, what, about 12,000 miles on it. And guess what? Four new tires.

I hear you. Yeah. I mean, it's possible that there was an accident. Or, as Kramer would say, an incident. Yeah. And that's what occurs to me as well. I mean, because tires don't wear out that way. unless they are misaligned.

Mm-hmm. Jeez, it should be easy enough for the shop to put this thing on the alignment machine and see if those rear wheels are towed in. And if they are, it's going to be you need a rear axle assembly. So that's my next step, I'll find out if they're just towed in too far. Yeah, I mean, I would go, and I was going to say, I would go to the dealership to do this, but I'm not sure that they understand. Do they?

Well, they might understand. They might understand. I mean, now that you're beyond any kind of warranty, Period. Oh, they understand. They can be completely truthful. They understand everything now. Yeah. But it's not really a safety issue. I don't have to worry about it. Yeah, and I wouldn't expect it to affect the handling very much. On the other hand, if the tires wear out, you know, so fast that you don't, if you don't keep track of it, it could be dangerous. Yeah. But you know what to change them. Sure. Maybe. Yeah, once a month.

That's what I'm afraid of. But I think start start with the alignment shop first. Okay. Good luck, David. Thanks, guys. Thanks for your call. See you later. Bye-bye. 1-8-8-8-8-8-Kart talk. That's 8-88-8-8-8-7-2-7-8-8-7-8-8-2-4.

It's 1-10-10-3-2-1-8-2-2-7-8-5, a lawyer on car talk. Hi, this is Randy, and I'm calling from Atlanta. Randy? Atlanta. That's usually a guy's name, Randy. It is usually a guy's name. Randolph. So what is your real name?

My real name is Randy. And guess how it spelled with a Y. Well, why, that's exactly how I wrote it. I did too, because I did... W-R-A-N-D-Y. It's a little unusual, you must admit. No, I agree, and you can take it up with my parents, and I have. Yeah, sure.

It's too late now, though. So how's everything in Atlanta? Everything is great except for my car. Really? Sorry to hear it. Yes, I'm sad. I have a 1990 Honda Civic. It has a 122,000 miles on it, and the oil light keeps constantly.

coming on. Oh, that's too bad. It's been about six months with this. Oh. So we finally bring it in, and our favorite mechanic left the dealership that we go to. So we see whoever's left, which was making a mistake. But where did he go, do you know? Join the Navy.

No, we wish we could find him. We would just go to him. Yeah, what's his name? Michael. Michael! Michael! All right. You know, he's on a boat somewhere.

Oh, yeah. He got enough money. He paid for the boat, and he took off. It's probably in Tahiti right now. Okay. So Michael's gone. You bring it into the dealer. Right. They say we need to replace the distributor for $500. So we do that, and the oil light goes off and everything's great for about two weeks. And then it comes back. The light comes back on again. We bring it back in. They say, oh, well, you know what? We forgot to

replace the gasket when we did the distributor. We'll do that, but we'll do it for free. Free. Free is good. Yeah, free is good. It worked for us. So the light went off for maybe two weeks. And then it came back on again, and we kept putting oil in it, and it would stay off for like three days, and then it would come back on. So we finally bring it in again. When you put oil in it, was it down? Like a quart? You would check the dipstick, and it would say, you know, I need oil. Yeah. So the light was only on when you were low on oil.

Right. The light wasn't lying to us. We needed oil. Got it. But, and there was never, there was no, like, oil leak. There was no, you know, pile oil in our garage or anything like that. Gotcha. So we bring it in, and they say, okay, it's burning oil. You need to, something with the camshaft. You need to replace the camshaft.

It's going to cost $1,700. But you really shouldn't do that on a car this age. If you're going to do that, you may as well go ahead and overhaul the engine. That's $3,700. Yeah. $4,000. Yeah, I gave it the professional. You were being generous.

Yeah. So here's where we are. And I went out and bought a case oil in the trunk. Can I just pour a quart of oil in it once a week and just live? my life or, you know, will that be a problem? Well, does your life involve driving the car? Yeah, fortunately it does. Because that's central to the whole decision-making process here.

And how far do you drive it a week? Well, actually, my husband usually drives it, and he travels a lot for work, so he drives a lot. That's too bad. But now I'm letting him take my car, so, you know, it could be a local car if we needed to. Oh, I would do that. Okay. I would do that, in which case you might be able to get away with doing nothing.

Okay. Yeah. First of all, the- You certainly don't want to do the camshaft. Even their diagnosis about the camshaft is not going to help the problem. No. The camshaft is not causing it to burn oil. Okay.

The thing is burning oil undoubtedly because the rings are gone. So even if you were to spend the $1,700, you would be three times as disappointed as you were for spending the $500 for the distributor. Yeah. And the distributor got replaced, I suspect, because it was leaking oil. Mm-hmm. Okay, the seal was gone. And when they put the new one in, they probably forgot to put the old. ring on it, which is the oil seal for the distributor, although I think it comes, I think it

comes with it, remember they lost it. Someone had to take it. Maybe someone took it off and wear it as a ring. Maybe he was getting married that afternoon. What do we know? So if you were going to do anything to this, I would certainly rebuild the entire engine or install a used engine. Okay.

That's an option, which the dealer wouldn't give you because they don't do that. Uh-huh. You said, if I go out and buy a case of oil, can I go on and live my life? And I think the answer is yes. For the next three months. Three months. I was going to ask how long is my life that way. I would say three to six months before something catastrophic happens.

Okay. At which time you go to the junkyard and you get yourself an engine for $722, and you have Murray put it in. Michael. Michael. But try keeping the oil level up. You might want to try switching to 2050 motor oil. 20-50, okay. Yeah.

That may help. Well, we'll try it. Yeah, but you certainly don't let your husband drive it those many miles that he drives it. Okay. See you, Randy. Great. Thank you so much. All right.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Okay, tell me, quick. What was last week's puzzler? The Cadillac, Minnesota. The battery died? No, your battery's dying. No, it's a tale of two Camrys.

It was the best of Camrys. It was the worst of Camrys. This message comes from Wise. The app for using money around. the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit Wise.com. T's and C's Apply. I'm Rachel Martin, host of Wildcard from NPR. I've spent years interviewing all kinds of people, and I've realized there are ideas that we all think about, but don't talk about very much. So I made a shortcut,

a deck of cards with questions that anyone can answer, questions that go deep into the experience. experiences that shape us. Listen to the Wild Card podcast only from NPR. It's that time of gear again. Planet Money Summer School is back. This semester with help from professors, policy experts, and yes, even a Nobel laureate, we're diving into how government and the economy mix and asking the big questions like, what role should government play in our economy? Does government intervention help or hurt and how big should the government be? That's on Planet Money Summer School from NPR, wherever you get your podcast. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us. Click and Clack the Tappert Brothers,

and we hear to talk about cars, car repair, and the answer to last week's puzzle. Here it is. First of a question. Minnesota. What was it about? I don't remember. The other day in the shop, I had two Toyota Camry's side by each, as they say, Canada. One of them, Camry one, wouldn't run at all. We had to push it in. You know, it was one of these. You turn the key, and it would crank, but it wouldn't fire up. The other Camry, Camry B, was in for a simple emissions test. I guess the guy was going for his state inspection stick when he wanted us to verify that his emissions are okay.

So I say to Ralph, Ralph, Ralph, you boy, take care of these two Camrys. Yeah. So he takes the emissions tester probe, and he sticks it into the tailpipe of Camry B. That's the car that's in for the emissions test. So far so good, right? Yeah. Then he opens the hood. And the next thing I know, he's cranking the car, and now Camry B

won't start. Oh. Hmm. So then he takes the probe from Camry B, puts it in the tailpipe of Camry number one, the one that was pushed in. And he turns the key, and for a minute or so or 30 seconds, he cranks it. But that one, of course, doesn't start because it doesn't start. Yeah.

So I'm wondering what kind of nonsense he's up to. I mean, I assigned him these two cars. You figure out why this one doesn't start and do the emissions test in this one. And he's goofing off. Yeah. So I ask him what he's doing, and he tells me what he's doing, and I say to him, Ralph, you're a genius. At first I said, you're fired.

I think those are the first words out of my mouth. And then you said, you're a genius. What was he up to? Well, he knew that the first Camry, the one that came in for the emissions test, ran. Yeah. He sticks the probe in the tailpipe and opens the hood and disables the ignition system so that the car will not start. So now he basically has a car number one, like car number two, or car number B, like car number B or two, or B or C. Got it?

Got it? He turns the key, and he reads the emissions on the machine. Yeah? He reads, it's got like 3,000 parts per million of unburned hydrocarbons, obviously, because it won't start, but it's trying to start. The injectors are squirting fuel in. It's not getting combusted. Oh, I've got it. When he puts the probe in the other car's tailpipe.

Zero. No, and he cranks it. He's looking to see if it has the same kind of emissions. If it does, then he knows that the fuel system is working. The pumps working. The injectors are firing off. Right. And if he sees that there are no emissions with the same cranking time,

then he knows that it's a fuel system problem and not an electrical system problem. Pretty cute, huh? So what did he find out? I don't know. I fired it before you. Wow. He's a genius, the guy. He is. He is. He's a bleeding genius.

He's a genius. Who's our winner this week? Our winner this week is Crispin Reedy. That happens to be a she. Crispin. Like the breakfast cereal that you ate. Rice Crispin. And Crispin is from Richardson, Texas, and for having her correct answer chosen, at Randt. Like St. Crispin.

The patron saint of shoemakers. I didn't know that. But, I mean, that's why you get paid the big bucks, because you know stuff like that. All right. For having her answer chosen this week, Crispin gets a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk Shameless Commerce Division. With the $25 gift certificate, she can get our new big, thick book of puzzlesers called a haircut in the horse town and other great Car Talk puzzlers. Or she can get faces made for radio, the Car Talk video, our first ever video, which stars us another.

Brothers, you know, the Smothers Brothers, the Flying Caramato brothers, Dr. Joyce brothers, the Menendez brothers. All banded blockbuster, by the way. You can only get this here at the Shameless Commerce Division. Your choice, Crispin, call the Shameless Commerce Division or visit us at the Car Talk session of Cars.com, and you pick whatever car talk junk you want up to 25 bucks. And preferably more than 25 bucks, the remainder of which you'll have to pay for yourself. and then we'll make big big profits. And with those big profits,

we will hire more and more people and we will build an empire. And we'll buy bigger and bigger boats. Yoofee! Anyway, we'll have another new puzzler coming up later in today's show. In the meantime, we'll take your calls at 1-888-8-8-8-8-255.

Hello, you're on car talk. This is Richard from Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Richard. Good. What's going on? How are you? I'm doing great. Good. I've got a car problem and a relationship problem, so I really hope you gurus can help me out with this one. I hope so, too.

My wife of 30 years, whom I dearly loved, said a few years ago that I could have a midlife crisis, as long as it didn't involve another woman. Yeah, but a car was okay. So I jumped out and said, how about a car? Yeah. And she said, fine. You decide what you want. I'll buy it for you. Mm-hmm. So I began mulling over the possibilities and announced to her about six months. ago that I've decided on a BMWs E3.

And she said the woman would be a good idea. No response. It's too expensive. And I said, well, wait a minute. You didn't tell me there was a limit on the thing. Right. Granted, it's more expensive than the Miata, which is something that I'd considered, but it's cheaper the box to, which is what I really would like to have.

So I thought it would be a good compromise, but I asked her how much she was willing to spend, and she said about $17,000. She's not being very helpful. of all, by definition, you can't put a money limitation on a crisis. Well, this is a crisis. So I need you have to get me off of this impasse.

We both love your show and marvel at your insight and wisdom, and so my question is this, should I hold out and keep negotiating? I'm going to raise the amount he's willing to spend, or do I wait to get a used Z3 when it reaches the $17,000 range? Well, that's what I was going to suggest. I

think, first of all, as everyone knows, no one should ever buy a brand new car. That's really a silly thing to do. Well, yeah, I hear you. And the other thing is the new Z3 is on our fecal roster, so you can't buy a new Z3 with our blessing. I heard you a couple weeks ago. Yeah, you really did a job on the... Yeah, so you're going to have to... I wasn't going for the six. I won the four cylinder. The four cylinder. You've got to buy a used one. That's, that's it. So they don't make the four anymore. The four... They don't make the fours anymore. I don't believe they make the four anymore. I don't believe so.

They make two different sixes. One is way too powerful, and the other one's just too powerful. And the other one is outrageously too powerful. Okay. But the four was only made the first year, which I think was two years ago. So already it's down to $20,000, and next year it'll be $17. Oh, that sounds great. So I think that's the answer.

Okay, but there's another glitch. How do you suggest I deal with the flak that I'll get from my congregation when I drive up with the Z-3? Oh. Wow. Are you the minister of the... That's correct. The flock? Oh, excellent.

Yeah. Excellent. Whoa, I love it. How the hell are you going to explain that? You're right. Oh, you should be driving... No, you should be driving a Dodge Dynasty. Well, I've got Camry right now, which sort of fits in that...

Camry's good. Camry is nice and understated. Right. Let's see. I think you have to lie. But I park it right in front of the church. No, I mean, I think you have to say that some anonymous parishioner gave it to you. Okay.

How's that? That might fly. We could do that. If my wife is a parishioner. I mean, we can even arrange to have that happen. We can arrange that. You can. We can arrange just about anything.

Have your wife call us. I know if you could work through this one or not. Sure. I mean, if your wife calls us, we can arrange to have an anonymous. donor, come along and give you as a gift, a three-year-old Z-3. And can you possibly refuse it? No. You say it's, I realize it's not my style and it's not my image, but I couldn't turn it down

because this person gave it to me in good faith and it's God's will. Boy, yeah, right, sounds good to me. I mean, a little deception is good in religion, is it not? Well, my wife is a member of the congregation if she gets it for me. Then she will have given it to you, and a member of the congregation will have given you the car. And technically, you won't be lying, which we know is all the counts. Unless they listen to your show and hear me. Right.

Ah, yes. But, I mean, how many Richard are there from Charlotte, North Carolina, who's going to end up with Z-3s, just one? Probably one, yeah. Probably just one. Your goose is cooked. You may have to relocate. I don't want to do that

Well, good luck Enjoy the car Hey, well, thank you so much I really appreciate you. You deserve it See you, Richard. Okay, bye-bye. Bye-bye.

All right, it's time to take another short break. It must be time for my memory exercises. Why are you doing memory exercises? I can't remember why this time. We'll be back in a minute. It doesn't matter if you're a fan or not. We have to talk about season seven of Love Island, USA. It's a huge indication to me of this kind of generation of people who don't know how to be open and vulnerable.

I'm Brittany Luce, and on this episode of It's Been a Minute, I want to show you how reality TV is getting a little too real by revealing what it's really like to date today. Listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast today. Ha! We're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack the Tappert Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and the new puzzler. I can hardly wait. See, already the negativity is starting. I can sense it. Ollie, I can hardly wait.

All right. Now, pay attention. Go ahead. You're paying attention? Here it is. A lone hijacker. I love it already. Commandiers a jetliner that's on its way from Boston. to Los Angeles. You got it?

For a stopover in Sacramento. No, with a stopover in Chicago. At gunpoint, he instructs the pilot to land the plane at O'Hare. Whereupon, he further instructs the pilot to call the authorities and tell them that this hijacker wants a million dollars in cash and three parachutes. Sure enough, they show up with the stuff. And if they do this, he'll release half of the hostages on the. the plane. Yeah. So half the passengers get off. They load in the three parachutes and the million

dollars and the plane takes off. Yeah. He headed for what? Los Angeles. Yeah. He then tells the pilot to lower the altitude. He opens the door with the million dollars in the suitcase attached to one parachute and himself attached to another parachute. He escapes. The best looking girl on the play. See, I... It takes a warped mind. What's Cindy Crawford on that plate? You can't goof around with the sanctity of the puzzle like this.

I mean, this is serious stuff. I'm sorry. There he is. He puts one parachute on. He's got one parachute. He attaches the briefcase with the million dollars to the other parachute. They open the door, and he's dumped out into the wilds of Montana someplace. serves him right.

Obviously meets his accomplice and they escape because they get to just run over because they're going $150 and the money gets scattered all over the place. No, that's ending A. Different ending.

Yeah. Well, the question very simply is what's with the third parachute? There you go. Now, if you think you know the answer, write it on the back of one of those new $20 bills because there's plenty of blank space.

Plenty of room. Plenty of room. And send that answer to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, box 3500, Harvard Square. Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt, 02238.

Or, of course, you can do an electronic funds transfer and email your answer on a $20 bill to us from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. If you'd like to call us, the number is 1-888-88-8-8-28-2-25- Hello, you're on Car Talk. Oh, hi. My name is Gasper Casanova. I'm from Brooklyn, New York. Casper?

Gaspar. Gaspar. Gaspar. Castrono. Gastroro Nuevo. Castro Nuevo. No kidding. And you're from New York?

Yeah, Brooklyn. Brooklyn? Yeah. I have an 84 ranger. Yeah. That I came by, it cost me $500. Yeah. The truck runs fine, except my, I noticed my wife says to me,

every time you parked, there's a pool of oil under your car. Yeah. So I realized that I was losing about a quarter-and-a-half of oil a day. Wow. From my oil dipstick. Really? My oil pump has so much pressure that it pushes, spits oil out. How do you know it has too much pressure?

Well, because all this oil is coming from someplace. I don't like it, but go ahead. What I did was, I'm a plumber, right? No, no. I love it. I don't know what you did. Go ahead. Tell everyone else.

I stole the T-connection. I took a hose from underneath my sink. You know, the hose that we use on the, you know, the spray. Yeah, for the spray thing, I know, yeah. We didn't need the spray anyway. And you ran it up from the dipstick back into the top of the car. And I put a hole in the top of my oil, the valve cover. So you drilled a hole at the air.

And so the oil goes back into the car. What a guy. Great. But the thing is that I'm wondering, why is this going on? And since you did this, there's no longer a puddle under the car. Of course not. No, there's no more puddles. And you're obviously not losing any more oil.

I'm not losing no more oil. Wow, what a solution. Great. Okay, thanks for calling. But what's wrong? I don't like it. I don't like it either. No, I don't like this.

I don't like your analysis of the situation. No, it's not the oil pressure. Yeah, this doesn't happen. This can't happen. Several things, one of several things, or maybe several of several things, or a couple of several things. A lot of different stuff could be going on here, Gasper. You could, for example, have too much oil in the crank case. Not too much.

I run it a little low, in fact. Have you changed the oil since you've owned it? I changed the oil. I changed the filter. And you put five quarts of oil in. Five quarts, everything was exact, you know. And the minute you started up, running for two minutes, and oil is pouring out.

Okay, what's happening then? That's good. What's happening is that you are building up excessive pressure in the crank case, which is blowing out the dipstick. Okay, so the dipstick is like a friction fit into the tube. You notice when you push it in, it goes in easy, easy. And then the last half an inch, you have to kind of shove it. Right.

Okay, and it kind of sticks in there. But if you have too much pressure in the crank case, you'll blow the stick out. Okay, we're going to take guesses on how many miles are on this ranger. No, don't tell us. No, don't tell us, because I'm going for 220. 108. 108. Jeez.

Someone hasn't been taking care of this stuff. Someone had the odometer unhooked. It's possible. Here's what I think is wrong with it. Yeah. You have a PCV system that isn't working. Do you know what your PCV valve is? You don't.

It's buried behind the distributor. Pull the PCB. It's connected to a hose and it plugs into a hose. Pull that thing out of there and change the PCB valve. It probably hasn't been changed for 12 years. And your problem will be used. Maybe longer. Yeah.

The problem will go away immediately. You think so? Yeah, then you can fix the spray thing on your kitchen sink. I can put it back. You can put it back. Yeah, and all the dishes will come out oily. Change your PCV. The PCV is positive crankcase ventilation.

It's supposed to ventilate the crankcase, and it's not ventilating it, so pressure is building up, pushing down on the oil and up through the dipstick. Oh, wow. Wow. Whoopee. It would be, if it's that simple, then it's going to be that simple. It's going to cost you five bucks to fix this. Wow.

Maybe three. Maybe three. Maybe three. Well, New York? It costs me enough anyway. New York, you could borrow it from the kind next door. Good luck, Gaspwood. Another Chilton manual.

Good luck, Gassb. Thank you. See you later. Bye-bye-eight-eight-eight-eight-eight-eight-two-seven-eight-eight-two-seven-two-five. Hello, you're on car talk. Hi, this is Linda from Cleveland. Hi, Linda from Cleveland. What's up?

Linda. Well, I want to... Well, I want to... to, I want you to reassure me that I've made the right decision. We can do that. Okay. I am moving from Cleveland, Ohio to St. Thomas in

the Caribbean. Yes! Oh, can I marry you? You want to adopt me? Either one of those. Really? St. Thomas. Yes. You can't expect us to not pursue that.

I mean, this is not just a visit. You're going to move there. I'm moving there. What pre-telling? You're taking your needlepoint and everything, right? You're going down to... How did you know? Were you watching me back?

I mean, what are you going to do? The answer is nothing. She's not going to do anything. There's nothing to do in St. Thomas. Well, actually, I have a friend who's a potter and has a shop, and I'm going to help her out in the shop. Oh, God! A potter! A potter!

I've always wanted to throw a pot. Oh, my. Oh, God. get me better? No, well, I do have an issue about the car. What car? Oh, I'm sorry. It's called Car Talk, isn't it?

It is Car Talk, still, yeah. Okay. I have an 86 Toyota Corolla, and I've been trying to decide whether to take it with me to have it shipped down there, or should I buy one down there when I get there, or get a newer one and have that one shipped down. I don't think you want a newer one. Have you been there a lot? A couple times.

Have you noticed how they drive? Crazy. Yeah. I think the 86 Corolla is the perfect vehicle for it. Okay. Have it all fixed up before you go. Well, it might be cheaper to do it down there. They only get six bucks an hour for labor.

No, they don't have any parts. They don't have any parts. They make the stuff. No, they're going to charge the dickens out. Have the car gone through completely, have everything fixed, and by yourself, what parts would I bring along? You want to maintain contacts with the mothership? Yeah.

So you'll be able to send for parts if you need them. Exactly. I mean, this has got to be the biggest culture difference from Cleveland, Ohio to St. Thomas. So you think that's a good decision, huh? Oh, Linda! Whooppy! Oh, it couldn't be better.

kidding me? And you're leaving soon, I hope. I'm leaving soon. So you're going to miss the winter? Oh, shock. You're not going to miss it at all, are you? Oh, shucks, you said. Whoopi. Tell me, how did this happen? How did you throw in with these pot dealers?

Well, you know, we started talking about the possibility, and I thought, you know, what could be the downside here? Yeah. And I couldn't find one. Yeah, it would be tough. to find one. Yeah. Boy, I wish you the very, very best.

This is what, you've made my day. I vicariously feel happy, knowing that you will be leaving Cleveland. Not that there's anything wrong with Cleveland. But you will be leaving Cleveland very shortly and ending up down there in St. Thomas, and I just feel good about it. And more importantly, working with clay. Working with clay. I mean, that's the best part of it.

Yeah. Oh, Linda. Linda, Linda. Come down and visit. Well, whenever the cruise ships pull in, go down to the dock and look for us. We'll be the ones wearing the loud shirt saying, Linda! Have a wonderful time and do right. Okay, I will.

And most importantly, don't come back. Good for you. Good luck. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Oh, God. I can't carry on.

I'm all choked up. It just makes you feel good, doesn't it? I'm telling you, I've conjured up the entire, I can just see the little palapa, right? Oh, La palapa. I can see the little palapa. I can see Linda in there up to her armpits in clay. Yeah. Smoking a cigar.

I don't know why, but she's smoking a cigar. I mean, it must have been the same when Gorgant said to his friends, I'm leaving Paris, and they say, where are you going? And he said, well, going to Tahiti to throw a pot. Yeah. And they said, where the hell is Tahiti? And he wouldn't tell them. He said, none of your business.

And the new way. While you've wasted 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 and dean of the College of Auto Musicology is Ken, two car garages. Our assistant producer is Catherine Imelda Ray Marcos. Our engineer is Dennis DeMis Foley, and our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor now competing in the extra credit session

of the fall Grand National Free Lunch Tour is John Bugsy Lawler. Car Talk's poet laureate is Robert DeFrost. Our customer care representative is Hayward Jabuzzoff. Our staff child seat tester is Drew Lee Winer. Our financial forecaster is Lou Gubrius. Our document security expert from the island of Jamaica is Euripides Upman,

who is not related to our tailor. Euripides, I meant a D's, or to our staff bouncer, Euripides, I break your face, or to the proprietor of our men's clothing shop, Euripidese or you own a Diz. Peekaboo Street directs our intensive care unit, which is now known as the Peekable ICU. Our staff oral historian is Studs Tersell, and our Leo Tolstoy biographer is Warren Pease, author of Leo Tolstoy by Warren Peace. Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheatheman Howe is Uly Lewis Dewey, known to the dogs in Harvard Square as Ui the Hydrant. Thanks so much for listening. Tapper Brothers. Don't drive like my brother or my sister. Don't drive

like my brother. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. And now, back again by popular demand is Car Talk Claus' very own rap master, Mr. Vinnie Gobach. Hey, now, if he's want to know the program that old Vinny picks, it's this week

Card Talk program number 46. You can take it from me, the public radio hunk. You can get your taste but call an 8-88 car junk. Vini, I love. I love it. I love it. More. Come on, more. Now, if you like to spend your winter evening sitting at home, you should definitely get a copy of our puzzle at home. Or if you like my brother in illiterate schmow,

you can always get the hot new cat talk video. Take it from me to public radio, honk. You can get this stuff and call it 888 car junk. That's 888 car junk. Or visit the shameless commerce division at the Car Talk section of Cars.com. Thank you, Vinny. This is Grammy material. Hey, leave my Grammy out of this.

Car Talk is a production of Dewey Cheatham and Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though Jesse the Baudy Ventura considers banning it in Minnesota when he hears us say it, this is NPR National Public Radio.