The Best of Car Talk - #2573: The Electrons Go Marching Two by Two

Episode Date: September 13, 2025

Ray has theories and this one is a doozy! Nancy from Wyoming can’t get her car to start on cold mornings unless she first turns on the heater. Ray’s explanation involves a small stream and a colony of ants playing the part of electrons valiantly attempting to cross the stream. ‘Something bogus-a-brewin’ on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

On the TED Radio Hour podcasts, scientists at Alphabet's Moonshot Factory tackle big, serious global problems. But their leader likes to show up on rollerblades, sometimes dressed as Gandalf. My way of trying to disarm people and remind them humor and silliness are very close to the wellsprings of creativity. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack to Tapit Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Center for Puzzler Enlightenment here at Carat Talk Plaza. Well, go ahead, enlighten me. This is a break with tradition.

Enlighten up, will you? First of all, this is a letter to John Lawler. Really? Hey, where did it come from? When are all these stamps? Nippon. It came from Japan, man, by airmail. Oh, no wonder. Dear Mr. Lawler, I'm writing to you in your capacity as spiritual advisor. He is. She is. With a suggestion for improving the program, the suggestion concerns one of my favorite segments, the puzzler. Recently, the puzzler seems to be foundering, and understandably so. There are only a limited number of suitable. puzzlers out there. We were just discussing this. There are. It's finite, man. It's finite. It's very finite. My suggestion is simply that you broaden the scope of this part of your program. There's always somebody with a brilliant idea. As it now stands, you have automotive puzzles and you have non-automotive puzzles. I suggested you had a third category, the metaphysical

puzzler. Uh-huh. You are going to love this. This is not as far fetch as it may seem at first. Long before math teachers discovered them, spiritual teachers were using puzzles and conundrums to instruct their flocks. Not only that, car talk has frequently dealt with the metaphysical aspects of car ownership and maintenance. In fact, perhaps the greatest spiritual feat in the history of radio took place on your show. I refer, of course, to the resurrection of Martin Gardner. How would a metaphysical puzzle work? I have several ideas. The first would be to take something like a maxim or an aphorism

and give it an automotive twist. Really? Perhaps the best known of these is, what is the sound of one hand clapping? With a little automotive rework, this could become, what is the sound of one piston slapping? Okay, I got it. I'm sure, with all your ears of experience,

you could come up with other ways of doing this. Maybe something like, what is the true meaning of Camry? And what exactly would be the correct answer? This is the best part. The correct answer is whatever the master decides. Yes, the Zen master. By any criteria, he chooses.

It could be truth, wisdom, cosmic sonority, anything. It's up to you. And so I am appealing to you as a fellow spiritual advisor to present my suggestion in the best possible light to the powers that be, if I can be of any further assistance to you, Please do not hesitate to contact me, telepathically. Sincere the yours, and he signs it only, Zen Master, Mike.

Wow. If you want to call us about your car, our number is 1-888-8-8-8-8-2-7-8-255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, it's Brent from St. Brent. What's going on, man? Well, thanks for having me on the show. It's our pleasure.

I've got a problem with my Ford Explanation. explorer. And I have a two-wheel drive, 96th explorer that I bought in sunny Atlanta. I've since moved to St. Louis. Yeah. And anytime there's any inclement weather, snow, or even really wet pavement, I have terrible, terrible handling and traction. And my father-in-law, you always have to agree with the father-in-law. He lives in St. Louis also? No, perhaps. He lives in Albuquerque and has a Yukon with this limited slip or so-called positive.

traction. Right. And he does great. Never puts it in four-wheel drive. So he suggested I have my two-wheel drive explorer that doesn't have this converted to a posse traction and thought this would solve my problem. And it sounds good, but I want to know if this is a good idea, how much it would cost and things like that. Gee, I don't even know if they make a limited slip differential for that thing. Well, I think they did, and I looked back in the information that came with the car. It was an option. Was it? That I didn't buy, obviously. Why would you need it in Atlanta?

Exactly. And what you feel not only is the problem that it doesn't have good traction, but it also handles poorly? I'll say the handling's probably okay. It has great braking. That's not a problem. It's just the real wheels tend to slip quite a bit. 96. Yes.

Do you have tread on these tires that are on the back? Absolutely. I only have 20,000 miles on the car. Really? The tires are in good shape. It's their P235 all-terrain tires. I thought maybe I could do a tire solution versus this. Well, see, all terrain tires are a compromise because they're a compromise between dry weather, wet weather, mud, snow, slush.

God knows what else could be on the road. So they tend to be a compromised tread design so that they work all right in all those situations, but they don't work particularly well in any one of them. So what you might want to do is get rid of those tires and get a regular pattern. A light truck tire that's not all-terrain. Because it doesn't snow in St. Louis, does it? Oh, it snowed a foot and a half. What the hell are you living there for?

I ask myself this frequently. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely tires. Tires would definitely improve the situation, but it may not be enough. But if it snows, you're going to stick with the tires you have, and you have to try to buy a limited slip differential. Now, if you order one from Ford, new, it's going to cost you two. Who grand, if not more? Oh, boy.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think your only hope. Yeah. Is an accident. Yeah. Well, a junkyard would be nice. But the chances of finding one, even in St. Louis, are very slim. Yeah.

Do you have kin in Atlanta? No, not anymore. Not anymore. They ran them out of town when they ran you well, right? No, I was just thinking that maybe you could take this back from, the place you got it and sell it to another unsuspecting fool, and buy yourself a four-wheel drive one, which is what all of these are, except for the one you have. Exactly.

So, I mean, that's one solution. Before I went and spent $2,000 for a limited slip differential, I would just go with the age-old process of dealing with this, and I would buy snow tires and put them on in the winter. Okay. And sandbags. And a couple of sandbags, sure, and that should do it. Well, I'll try that. Give it a shot.

We'll do. Good luck, Brent. Thanks a lot. And summer's coming, you'll be able to sell it easily. Okay. Say ya, Brent. Bye-bye. 1-88-car talk.

That's 8-8-2-7-8-25-5. Hello, you're on car talk. Snow-tires. Hi. Snow-tires. You must be from down south. No. You're gloating, aren't you?

I'm from L.A., actually. L.A., just as well. That's good. What's your name, L.A.? Jennifer. Jennifer. I'm actually from your corner of the world, but I live in L.A.

Oh, yeah? You have, in the entertainment business? Every now and then, yeah. Oh, yeah? Uh-huh. Every now and then. What would that be? I'm a puppeteer.

Are you really? Mm-hmm. And puppeteering is bigger in L.A. than it is here on the East Coast? If you do it on TV, it is. Yeah. Everything. Everything is on TV. Would we know you if we saw you?

Not yet, but you will maybe in the fall. Oh, boy. Oh, something's in the wind. Yeah. Well, I wish you the very best, Jennifer. Thank you. Will this be an adult program or a kids program? An adult program.

With a puppeteer. We don't need to know anymore. No, you don't need to know anymore. My mind is racing with the possibilities. So what's going on, Jen? I have a 94 Geoprism. Uh-huh. Okay, I loaded my car up to take everybody skiing.

And I heard this... And I got out of the car, and I thought, God, my friends are fat, because the car was digging into the wheel. The wheel well was making, you know... Oh, really? How many people did you put in the car? Four or five. Four or five, including yourself. Yeah.

We got three in the back seat. Yeah. I mean, by definition, the three people in the back couldn't be fat so's because they wouldn't be able to get in. Right. They'd have to sit on each other's laps. Right, right. I mean, it's a small car. It's a small car.

So you had three medium-sized people in the back. Yes. Okay. That may have been too many. And your tires were rubbing against the inner fenders. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

Interesting. So I took it in, and I got the struts or shocks that a prism have. It has struts. Okay, so I got them out of place. That was too bad. That wouldn't do it. That would cost you a lot of money, and there is no way in God's creation that it could have any effect on this problem. And whoever sold you those struts is a complete and utter moron.

Oh, God. Well, you're right. Well, no, maybe not a moron. Yeah. Oh, yeah. A crook, maybe. Oh, maybe a crook. I'm sorry.

How silly of me. His chaster. Okay, but continue. So, um, I talked to this dude, um, who said that I needed a spacer. He was the only person who had any suggestion at all for me, but I had no idea what he's talking about. Well, I tell you, his idea was better than the guy. who's so you're in a lot cheaper. What spaces are these devices that are usually made of rubber or sometimes metal

that get wedged in between the coils of the springs. And what they do is they limit the travel of the springs so the springs can't get squashed down. What's happening when you put all those large butts in the back seat? Lard butts? Is that what you call them? Large butts, large butts. Is the springs are getting compressed.

And when they get compressed enough, the tires will hit the inner fenders. Yeah, I mean, it's a common misconception that the struts are the things that are holding up the car, but they're not. It's the springs that are holding up the car. Yeah. And any time a car is sitting low or sits lower when you fill it up with people, it's because the springs, after some long period of time of having been crunched down, like carrying hogs in the back seat, will end up being compressed so that they don't hold up the weight. the weight anymore. So what you needed was a set of springs. And it's unfortunate that the guy that put the struts in didn't replace the springs at the same time because he had to have taken them out to do the struts. And that's what you need. So you can try the spaces, but I think

ultimately you'll end off replacing the springs. Yeah, I mean, springs are not that terribly expensive. Or just buy a truck. Or buy a truck, which is what you really want to do. Which is what I really want to do. Yeah. You'll be buying a Lexus as soon as you will. Yeah, I mean, you'll be dumping the thing. I mean, I guarantee you, within six months, you'll be calling us back, asking us whether you should get the Lexus or the Infinity. Yeah. Yeah. What, which Mercedes is best for you in L.A. Right. And I think it's the E320. You know what? I realize, the E320. No, that's not my style. It will be. All right. It's the favorite by puppeteers everywhere. Sing and Jen. Have someone replace your springs and you'll be happy. Okay. Thanks for your call.

Great. Bye-bye. Bye. Okay. Now, before I give the answer to the last week's possible, So we're going to take a little break. You're going to do a little last minute polishing of the puzzler answer. Is that it? No, a little last minute remembering of the answer. Actually, but don't touch that dial. We'll be back.

We'll be back. 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. We all wonder about life's big questions. Why are we here? What are we to do and how to make sense of it all?

On Yee Gons with Scott Carter, I talk with Politico's, priests, actors, and atheists on how they wrestle with life's mysteries. Their stories will spark reflection, challenge assumptions, and maybe even bring you some clarity on your own journey. Listen to Yegods, part of the NPR network

wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack, the Tappert Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and the answer to last week's incredibly lame puzzler. It wasn't incredibly lame? It wasn't incredibly lame, but I thought it was pretty brave of you to even attempt it. Well, you know, you can't make all the puzzlers challenging and difficult. No, no, I thought it was a brave move on your part.

I'm crediting you with that. You need one to, you know, what do you call it? Lift people's spirits. Sure. I think it's called dumbing down. Yeah, that's it. And I agree with you. Well, I thought it was great.

It was a great puzzle. Let's just repeat it. Go ahead. Well, I don't want to now. I thought it was very clever the way you did it. I mean, two Malaysians are standing on a street corner or something. Yes. Wasn't that how it started?

Yes. And I said to myself, why the heck did he pick two Malaysians? And, of course, when you finished with a buzzer, it became immediately obvious to me. Well, I could easily have picked two Italians or two Americans. Sure, but not two Frenchmen. No, no. But two Malaysians was very, very good. Well, here it is.

Two Malaysians are standing on a street corner in downtown Kuala Lumpur, having a conversation. See, you got some interesting folkloric stuff in there already. Yes, and they were, of course, giggling about some advice they had read from our call up, in the New Straits Times. Yeah, that's good. Anyway, as it turns out, one of these two Malaysians

is the father of the other one's son. The question was, how can this be? And I'll admit that it was on the heels of the previous week's puzzler. Frank, Frank, don't shoot. Oh! I mean, if you didn't get this one.

Wow. Then you are really a male chauvinist pig. Exactly. Because the assumption would be that the two Malaysians, are males, but in fact, one is the father and one is the mother. Of course. Well, it's very good.

There were many who I'm sure didn't get it, and right now are going, do. Oh, I mean, if you're saying do-o, right now, right now, if you're doing right now, you know that you've got a long way to come before you become a sensitive guy of the 90s, and the 90s are fast disappearing. Yes, indeed. Who's our winner this week? The winner. is David Blumquist from Littleton, Colorado, and for having his answer selected at random, from among the thousands of correct answers that we got this week, David is going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk Shameless Commerce Division

where almost everything, once shipping, handling, taxes, and gratuity are added in, is over $25. So you let the pony up some money, Dave. We're going to make money on this no matter how. Anyway, we'll have a new scintillating and grossing, much better, much lengthier, much more detailed and involved automotive puzzler coming up later in today. The kind, you just love to upfuscate, don't you? In the meantime, we'll take your calls at 1-888-8-8-8-255, a lawyer on car talk.

Hi, Rich, Rich, from New Jersey. Hey, Rich, what's shaking, baby? I've got a 93 Ford Explorer and the color is Tourmaline, by the way, just in case you're interested in that. Tourmaline? Tormaline? What is that? I mean, what is that

like blue? It's greenish, bluish. Yeah, it's like aquamarine, but... When I went to buy the touch-up paint for the car, I was advised that the color of my car was indeed tourmaline. Tourmaline. I told them green and shame on me for not knowing of it was tourmaline. Shame on you. Shame on you.

It wasn't even in the owner's anyway what's up recently it's been it's been unseasonably cold up here in New Jersey and I've noticed that while driving to work and I'm about 10 miles from work and probably

driving about 45 miles an hour I know the answer already you can go ahead and ask the question but you wanted to jump right to the answer you don't even know what the question is the answer is that he has a bad thermostat I didn't know it was a Karnak thing okay

we're doing Karnak Okay. That's the answer. And I'm sticking with it. All right. Go ahead. Continue, Rich. The question is the temperature indicator barely gets above C, you know, indicating cold.

I mean, and it barely moving into the normal range. Well, I'm going to tell you the basis for my answer. You know what you need? You need a new thermostat. And I'm going to tell you the basis. My Wackle brother was right. I'm going to tell you the basis for my answer. In the last, I would say, three weeks...

Don't give away your secrets, man. Oh, you have to. Don't give away your secrets. Everyone thinks you're a genius. Tell us how you knew. And we'll know that you're a more. In the last three or four weeks at the garage, we have had the good fortune to service many Ford Explorers.

Really? And every one of them has needed a new thermostat. Really? Any 93s? They're all ages. No kidding. Every one of them has needed a new thermostat. Many have come in because they didn't have sufficient.

heat, or they just came in for regular maintenance, and we noticed that the gauge was buried on cold. Really? Right. And every one of them, all running cold. They're all running cold, and every one of them got a new thermostat. Well, the odd thing with this one is that I am getting heat out. Yes.

So it's not a great amount of heat, but it's enough heat to keep me warm for the 10 miles. Because that vehicle has a very large heater core, and even though your thermostat is kaput, the heat of core is probably enough to keep you reasonably warm. If you were in Maine, you'd be dead now. I'd be in trouble. So you're getting an awful lot of low temperature heat, whereas you should be getting an awful lot of high temperature heat, and you're not. All right.

Because the thermostat is stuck open. Okay. And if it weren't for global warming and, what do they call that, the alignment of the planets and all that, you'd be freezing. The ozone layer. And the greenhouse effect and all of those effects. Conjunction of the planets. Well, I had stacked up some kindling on the passenger seat.

I was ready to use it. I would go for the thermostat solution. It may be a little neater. That's a little bit better. I think you're probably right. I appreciate that. Hey, good luck, Richard. Thank you, later.

Take care. Hey, do you know what it's time for? Time to start accepting Euros at the Shameless Commerce Division? No, man, it's time to play. Dump the Chops! Our producers in their infinite wisdom occasionally invite a previous caller back onto the show to find out if our advice was actually helpful to him or her.

That's not really why they do it. They do it to embarrass us. So who's who's here this week? Well, it says on the little sheet that I have that this week's contestant is Dana, who called us all the way from that hotbed of automotive misery, France, to tell us her little tale of woe and intrigue. And now she's back to play Confu Le Chion.

Yes. Now, Dana wasn't the one with the car problem. She was calling on behalf of her friend Hans, a German engineer who, with the aid of a forklift. Oh, I remember this. He put his prize possession, a one-ton chunk of the Berlin wall in the back of his father's brand new BMW 7 series. He put it in the trunk, as I remember. He had it loaded, and then he drove to France with it, but he couldn't get it out of the car. And his dad wanted the car back. What a knuckle. They're going to have to use buoyancy. They're going to have to fill the concrete. They'll float the concrete. Is that it? You know what they're going to fill it with?

Mercury. That hunker rock will jump right out of it. It will. You'll have to watch out. You might live on your toes. Sure. Yeah. Either that he's going to buy a ton of suction cups.

Well, I think our best suggestion, was to drill some holes in the chunk, cement in a U-shaped piece of rebar, and lift it out with a hoist. That was a pretty good suggestion, don't you think? It doesn't matter what I think. The question is, what did Hans think? Dana, are you there? I'm here.

Okay. Before you tell us how Hans got the chunk out of the trunk. Okay. Chunk out of the trunk. I like that. We need to be sure that you have not been offered any foul-smelling cheese by the French Board of Tourism in exchange for a non-whacko answer here today. Is that true?

No, I tried. You tried. So where is that chunk of the Berlin Wall as we speak? Well, am I allowed to start by saying, am I allowed to say Doom Cops on the radio? Sure, you can do anything you want. Okay. Well, your answer was Doom Cups.

Well, it's going to get a point of the tool for creativity. Absolutely. No, I think, as you just said, you gave us three options, and the first one was to float the piece of the Berlin Wall out of the truck. using mercury. Yeah, that was brilliant. We rejected that one as just being a bit

over the budget. Okay. And the second was to put a thousand suction cups onto it and lift it out, and that was also a bit over budget.

We rejected that one, don't you? And the rebar and the third was to drill a couple of holes into the piece of the Berlin Wall and then cement

in a piece of rebar and then lifted out with the hoist or something. Yeah. And we couldn't do that one either, but it was because of something I didn't actually tell you,

but I hadn't actually, we hadn't actually thought of it at the time. What was that? Oh, what was that? The problem is the Berlin Wall had two sides, right? The west side and the east side, and the west side, of course, was covered with anti-soviet, anti-communist, you know, western graffiti. And don't tell me it was west side up, wasn't it?

Yeah. Oh, so you couldn't possibly mess with that. No, and we could have put it in. Wait, did Hans get it out of the car? And where is it now? They put the back end of the BMW up on the hoist a bit and jiggled it to get the piece of the Berlin Wall as close to the, front of the trunk as possible. Yeah.

And then they turn the car around and put the front end up on the hoist, right? And then they had built this little wedge that of reinforced stuff. And they put that in the back of the trunk between the lip of the trunk and the edge of the wall. And they rolled it out. And then they crowbarred the piece of the Berlin Wall up under this wedge. And then they slowly lifted the car up from the front end. And crowbar and crowbar and crowbar and crowbar. and it finally fell out on the floor.

And broke it to a million pieces. And now it's Berlin dust. That's Berlin dust. And then, yeah, so now it's sitting on the floor of the garage. Well, then they realized that they didn't actually have a method of getting it back to the house. So it's still sitting at the B&W garage. Excellent. Yes.

There was actually less damage to the piece of the Berlin well than there was to the trunk of the car. Yes, and the fact, when we discussed the crowbar approach, we said we can't. do that because we would wreck the end of the car well it wasn't wrecked but um there's a fair bit of cosmetic reconstruction let's put it back so to speak i think the mercury solution i mean you could have bought the mercury floated the thing out and then returned the mercury oh of course what a question of nothing what color would the car have been after they've done that no color the mercury wouldn't have stuck to anything you ever try to get mercury to stick to anything it wouldn't either wreck the paint no mercury doesn't do anything it's an as inert as can be

It's sort of like my brother's brain Nothing's going on in there Well, Dana Thanks for playing Stump the Chumps Yes, thanks for all your help Don't mention it Call us anytime Any time

In fact, don't call us, we'll call you Oh, good Ovoire Okay, the new puzzle is next But first, we need to take a moment All right, take a moment For me, too, we'll be back in a minute Ha, 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 new puzzler. Yeah, okay. Oh, here it is. A few weeks ago, an elderly woman customer came into the garage with their elderly car. I think it was like an 85 Lincoln Town car. Huge. One of these cars that should be accorded nationhood and have a seat in the UN General Assembly. Anyway, she's talking to Manny, the youngest of our technicians, and she's explaining to him what she wants done with her car.

And, of course, I'm eavesdropping. Of course. And she says, there are two things that need to be looked at. One of them, she says, is that I need a tune-up. And he's been instructed as have all the guys to ask why. When someone says, they need something, why do you need it? And she says, well, she says, my mileage has been off, the engine seems to be laboring, the power's diminished, and I know I need a tune-up. And he says, ha-ha.

And he says, okay. He says, how about the other thing? He says, oh, she said, my shift indicator is off. When I'm in park, it really says I'm in reverse. And when I'm in drive, it really says I'm in two. And he says, ha, ha, I know what's wrong with your car. He says, what's wrong is that you're not in the right. gear, and you're in second gear, and that's why your mileage is off, and that's why the engine

seems to be laboring. She says, oh, contrary, little piston, puss. What do you know, you young punk? Your young squirts is, I can feel all the shifts. I start driving, and it shifts from first to second, and then it shifts from second to third, and then if I stomp on the gas, it down shifts, and he says, oh, okay, back to square one. He says, how do you know the mileage is off? And she says, well, she said, I check it all the time.

And he said, yeah, and he said, but you're only getting probably seven or eight miles to the gallon of this. Anyway, why bother to check? How would you really know what we're off? She said, oh, no, she said every month I take a trip to visit my mother-in-law in New Hampshire. Just elderly woman has an alive mother-in-law? I didn't say she was alive. Oh, she just goes to visit. And he listens, and he says, okay, uh-huh.

And he says, yes. And she says, well, I noticed, in fact, on my return trip the last time, that when I got back, the things seemed to be laboring. My mileage was terrible for the whole return trip. And I began to notice all these symptoms. And he looks at her. And he asks her a bunch of other, you know, irrelevant questions like, what color blue is your hair anyway?

And then he says to her, Yes. Whereabouts in New Hampshire, does your mother-in-law live? And she says, oh, I don't know. It's like north-crunchy. She said, I didn't know. I didn't say she was alive. He lives in North Crunchy Grinola in New Hampshire.

Yeah. And he then asks, does she live on a dirt road? And she says, why, as a matter of fact, she does. Wow, this manny. Oh, man, he's hard. You should start calling him Hercule Poirot. He's managerial material. He is.

God, he's good. Does she live on a dirt road? And she says, as a matter of fact, she doesn't, it's a lousy dirt road with potholes and I hate driving there. And he says to her, I know what's wrong with your car. You don't need a tune-up. And one repair is going to fix everything. Wow.

The dropping mileage, the poor performance, and the whole shabing. Yeah. The whole business. And he says, that's going to fix everything. And she says, go to it. Yeah. What a guy. And what did he learn from this last question?

that enabled him to figure out what was wrong with her car. Now, mind you, he hadn't seen the car, of course. It was parked outside. It was parked outside. He hadn't really looked at the car. He was just interrogating her. Just based on the answers to her questions. Now, if you think you know the answer.

His questions. Write it on the back of a $20 bill and send it to Puzzler Tower, car talk plaza, box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Ma, 02238. Or you can email your answer. to us from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. Now, if you'd like to call us, the number is 1-888-car Talk.

That's 8-8-2-27-8-255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. This is Nancy from Wilson, Wyoming. Hi, Nancy. Wilson, Wyoming. Yeah. Okay. So, anyway, Nancy, what's up?

I've got a 92 Nissan Pathfinder. Yeah. And when it got really cold, it wouldn't start. And then I turned on the heater. a fan, and it started. Oh, man. Oh, my brother, my brother loves these questions. Really?

And this happened just once? No, it happened a lot. Over and over again. Yeah. And that seemed to be the only way that it would start. I'm telling, see, all these wacko theories, we've had so many people who have told us about this. That it can't work.

This theory, here's the theory. Okay. When it's very, very cold, you try to start the vehicle, and it just isn't enough energy in the battery to turn the starter over, which requires a lot of energy. It's a very heavy-duty motor, the starter. And here's the theory handed down from father to son through folklore, throughout probably millennia. Okay. Absolutely. And the theory is what you need to do is you need to introduce the battery to the concept.

of sending out electricity. Okay. And you can't do it with this demand for 150 amps. You've got to do it with a demand for something manageable. Ah. Like the heater. Turning on the headlights would do it. Okay.

Turning on the heater would do it. The battery gets the idea. Then you go to start the car. Bingo! What was just a dead battery moments ago is alive and well. okay now there is no proof of that theory well see i i have i have a theory that's close to yours but it's a little different yeah and i think what nancy has is a bad connection between the post of the battery and one of one of the terminals okay and i'll give you what an animal kingdom

analogy okay imagine there were ants that wanted to cross a little tiny stream you know maybe a stream that was a foot across. And what those ants would do is they would jump onto a leaf. Yeah. That had gotten stuck in that stream of water. And a few of them would be able to cross from one side to the other. I love it. I love it.

And then, after a while, after they had actually bridged the gap, so to speak, they would no longer need the leaf. Other ants would climb on the backs of the ones that had formed this natural ant bridge, opening the veritable floodgates and allowing their brother ants to cross to the other side. Walt Disney, wouldn't I? They told you that you... Vermin just told me you quit the show.

This is the most bogus little analogy I have ever. If you have a bad connection and a few electrons are allowed to go through by turning on the heater, then they build a bridge, so to speak, and more... Trust me on this one. more and more electrons will begin to flow as that heats up

and actually begins to weld itself. Yeah. Sure. Okay, well, I didn't think you'd like... Nancy, you're still there! There aren't any ants when it's 20 below. Well, I just use the ants as an analogy. The ants are electrons.

Nobody understands me. Well, then there's another problem, and that is that it quit while I was driving, just kaput. Yeah. Well, I had a toad, and they said it was a... relay. Yeah. So they disconnected the horn and said to get a new main relay switch.

It'll start, if you turn the heater on, you start to drive and it stalls. It stalls, but since they switched the horn relay thing, it doesn't stall anymore. Oh, so that did fix it. It seemed to fix it. Oh, you know what they did? They swapped the horn relay for the fuel pump relay. Oh, okay. So they may have fixed that.

the other problem could simply be a bad connection at the battery. I'd have them check that. Okay. Because I think when you find out that that's what it is, you're going to say the ant analogy was brilliant. It was brilliant. Well, I know that. Thanks for calling Nancy. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Wow. Well, it's happened to again. Thank God. It has happened again. We've all squanded another perfectly good hour on Car Talk. Our esteemed producer is Doug the subway fugitive, not a slave to fashion, Berman. Our social producer is Ken, the diaper slayer, Rogers.

Our assistant producer is Catherine Imelderay. Our engineer is Dennis to Menace Foley. And our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor is John Bugsy, sweet cheeks. Mr. Hydeh, Gula Lips, free lunch, make that two triple cheeseburgers, lollar. Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzzoff. Our manager of honest car salesman is Harry Diculous. Our mortgage loan consultant is Nora Lenderby. Our staff chiropractor is Winston Payne.

And our chief negotiator is Bernadette Bridge. Pekaboo Street directs our intensive care unit, which is known as the Pekigabu ICU, and our Leo Tolstoy biographer is Warren Peace, author of Leo Tolstoy by Warren Peace. Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheeem & Howe is you, Louis Dewey. Note to his partners, partners, as Ui Louis Dewey. Thanks so much for listening. We're clicking, clack, the Tapper Brothers, and don't drive like my brother. Drive like my brother.

We'll be back. The Antwish. Bye-bye. The amp tamer. And now, here it's Car Talk Plaza's very own commodities expert, Mr. Vinnie Gubatz. You'll bet you. Now, if you just don't want to get crushed like a bug with this here bold market goals must, then you should invest heavily in copies of this week's Car Talk show,

which happens to be number four. You call 1-8-88-car junk and they're guaranteed to hold their value. But Vinny, they have no value. See what I tell you. It's a lot, man. Now, if you feel like diversifying, check out the other card talks, CDs, tapes, books, and videos and such. They can also be leveraged quite easily with your Visa or MasterCard at the Shameless Commerce Division at the card talk section at cars.com or, of course, by calling 188 card junk. What if I want to put my money in an emerging market type of fund?

Then you can expect to see my fist emerging from your mouth real soon, okay? I got it. Car Talk is a production of Dewey Cheatham and Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though Mara Liason uses the phone in the Oval Office to call her boss and complain, every time she hears us say it, this is NPR National Public Radio.