The Best of Car Talk - #2575: The Mechanic's Decision Tree

Episode Date: September 20, 2025

How DO mechanics figure out what’s wrong with your car? You would hope that they’d start small and inexpensive and work their way up to the big stuff, but you’d be wrong. Listen to Click and Clack spend their customer’s money on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, click and clack the TappertBrothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Amore Division. When at the moon hits your eye, like that's it. You all right? He was one of the best. He was. He was. Anyway, I should mention here as a public service for Valentine's Day this year, we thought we would report on the status of the Car Talk personals. Yeah. You may know there's

you may not know, but there's a personal section on our website where people advertise themselves vehicularly as if you were a car. Yeah. And this area of the site has had quite a bit of success as well as, of course, the usual panoply of losers. But today, we're focusing on the successes. Anyway, it turns out, according to our cyber babes, that we've had, you ready for this, eight reported marriages now based entirely on meetings that took place through the car talk personal. Yes, and all these people have either sent us photographs of the way, or they've all sent us emails telling us how they met, how the relationship developed. We've been, in fact, invited to many of these weddings.

Yes. We haven't gone to any of them yet because I hate weddings. I've been to too many of my own. And paid for too many. And I paid for too many. But we got eight weddings. Pretty good. Anyway, as part of our Valentine's Day service here today.

Wait a minute. How many divorces did we have? We're not keep track of divorces. Our producer, Dougie, has asked us independently to compose a personal ad for each other. You ready? So you have a... You are going to... Go ahead.

You go first. You give the personal ad for me. Well, I'll tell you the truth. I forgot to do it. But it was easy, though. Go ahead. Of course. It was very simple.

And here it is. If you were putting a personal in our personals, it would say... 87 Dodge Colt Vista. love walking on the beach, bird watching, and listening to Ode to Joy in the morning, also have trouble starting in the mornings, and have an overly active exhaust system. That's it. I think that sums it all up, don't you? It's pretty succinct.

Yeah. All right, I'll read yours. Yeah, go ahead. You ready? Yeah, I can hardly wait. 63 Dodge Dart Incontrovertible Needs lots of body work

And cosmetics Rear end falling off And dragging Headlights weak But horn, loud and annoying Extremely difficult handling Ball joints worn And belts are loose

Difficult to start in AM And often doesn't work at all In cold weather Ah This is very good Crown to overheating Without advance warning He's plenty of rest

on long trips and cannot, I repeat, cannot be driven at high speed. No. Performance erratic and doesn't shift well often sticks in reverse. Looks good from a distance, but disappointing up close. Serious inquiries only definitely needs TLC and a fumigation would be in order. That's more. Like sunsets. Page two.

Kids, dogs, and most other mammals. Willing to relocate Presently living in two-car garage will eventually need full restoration, so hurry. That's very good. Anyway, if you want to check out the current crop of personal ads or place one of your own, they're free, of course. I mean, you can't put a price on love, can you?

Certainly not. Just visit the Car Talk session of Cars.com. Now, if you want to talk to us about your car or your love life or both, The number is 1-88-car talk That's 888-227-8-8-255 Hello, you're on car talk Hello, this is Joff from Newark

Who? Jof. Jof. As in Jeff? As in Jeff, that's how it's spelled, yes. Really? I like Jopheff better. I never heard of anyone pronouncing it's Jopheff. Jophrie. It was a nickname from when I moved from Michigan to Newark.

You probably had some teacher who didn't understand how to spell Jeffrey and saw it written and called you Joffrey. So you spell it, J-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y? I spelled J-E-F-E-F-F. All right. Oh, like Mutt and Joss. Mutt and Joss.

Okay. Where are you from, Jop? Newark. Newark, New Jersey? No, that would be Newark. I'm from Newark, home of the Fighting Blue Hands here in Delaware. No kidding. Newark.

Newark. Newark. Two words? One word. Spelled just like Newark. Yeah. Newark, Delaware. Yep.

Yeah. So go ahead, Juff. Yeah, a problem I got is a 1990 Toyota pickup truck. It's got a four-speed manual in it. Several weeks ago, when I got up to the fourth gear, it seemed like the clutch was slipping or something. I could hear the engine, Rob, but the speedometer didn't really seem to pick up much speed. Doesn't look good for you, Joe. But I figured if it was the clutch, I probably should have noticed it in, like, first, second, and third gears, too.

No. No, not really. No. A clutch is most prone to slippage in the highest gear under the largest load. The way we test clutches for slipping in the shop and make otherwise good clutches begin to slip when we feel the need to sell someone a new clutch is you put the thing in high gear, the highest gear that it has. you set the handbrake we pull up to Peter's toolbox so if anything doesn't work

he loses his toolbox and you try to drive the car away giving it as much gas as you want to almost and letting the clutch out all the way and the idea being that if the clutch is sound and the car can't move because the handbrake is on or you're up against the tree the engine will shut down

if the engine doesn't shut down then in fact your clutch is gone. There's the engine turning and the wheels aren't, so what's turning, the clutch is slipping. Okay, yeah, that makes sense, but it kind of stopped doing it. Oh, that's possible.

Yeah? I mean, it's possible because you haven't really duplicated the conditions. Okay. But, I mean, if you try to climb a hill, there aren't any hills in Delaware. No, that's the problem. Yeah, that's the problem.

You could drive around for years with a bad clutch, and you wouldn't even know it. Yeah, I was going to say, that's a good thing. That's not a great thing. But I'm going to guess you have 111,000 miles of this thing. 140. Yeah. Yeah.

And this is the original clutch. Sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's time for a new one. Well, I mean, you can perform this test yourself, pull it up against a tree, put it in fourth gear, and let the clutch out, and give it gas and see if it slips. But why?

That's going to take the last little bit of a good clutch. That's what my best. Oh, yeah, do this right next to the repair shop. Because otherwise you won't make it. A sound clutch will suffer no repercussions from this test. Because it will stall out. The engine will stall abruptly. It's like someone just yank the plug.

Bang, it'll shut right down. And a weak clutch, you'll hardly know that the thing was in gear. The engine will keep running and you'll say, how, that's funny. I'm in fourth. Let me see. I'm doing 3,500 RPM. I should be doing a boat.

The spedometer says 40 miles an hour. We'll be doing about 65 miles an hour, but I'm not moving. How could that be? And that's how it could be. But on the other hand, if you don't have any trips, any plans to take a trip, say, from Newark to Newark or anything like of that nature, I would simply forget all about this. You will forget we had this conversation. Yes. Jof.

Jop, you're falling into a deep sleep. You're falling into a deep sleep. Your eyelids are heavy. From now on, you will be known as Jeff. When you awaken, you will forget everything we've said here today. You will forget about the clutch. And I won't get stranded somewhere someday? Oh, yeah.

Well, you could, but you'll probably have some warning. Okay. Every once in a while. Jeff had the warning. No, no. Jeff, Joff. What the hell is your name? You had the warning, Jop.

No, but see, it doesn't matter. He had the warning. warning. He doesn't drive that much. He had the warning. He's going to forget all about the conversation because we've instructed him. What conversation? But get the clutch replaced. You're going to need it real soon. Okay. See you later. Thanks a lot, guys. Bye-bye. Okay, Tommy, do you remember last week's puzzler? No, huh? No. I called it a winter tale. Shakespearean? No, Volkswagen. 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. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack the Tappard Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and the answer to, last week's puzzler if I can possibly get there. That was a very long, convoluted. Is that all you have to say about it? Long? Obfuscated. Folklore. Interesting. Historic. Historic. Historic puzzler. Here it is. Many, many years ago when I was 23, I was married to a widow who was pretty as to be this way. I had a girl. No, no, no. I was engaged in the noble profession of pedagogy

in the frozen state of Vermont. I was teaching science to seventh and eighth grade. And anyway, there I was one Saturday morning sitting in front of my TV watching some educational program. I think it was Mighty Mouse. And the phone rang. And I knew who it was. It was one of my fellow teachers who happened to live across the street. And he was calling to ask me to help him move a cast iron stove into his house. Jesus. I'm remembering this. He explained to me that he didn't have the stove. He was going to pick it up at the factory. And he'd be back in a few hours. And then would I help him? And I said, what about that no good brother-in-law of yours? And he said, no, he wasn't due back in town until late that night. And I guess I

was it. So I said, well, go get the stove and call me when you get back. So I got dressed and immediately started engaging in every manner of household activity in the hope that I'd hurt myself. Or burn your house on it. I try to be like rewiring the house, doing chimney repairs, polishing the gutters. Nothing worked. But as I waited for the dreaded call, a wonderful thing began to happen. The snow that was falling changed the freezing rain. And I said to myself, This could be good. Right now, they're loading the stove into his VW microbus at the factory, but he's never going to get up his steep drive when he returns,

and I'll be off the hook. And maybe by tomorrow, when the ice melts, that no good brother-in-law will be back, and he won't have to call me. Sure enough, there I am, hiding behind the drapes as he pulls up, and he's slipping and sliding, even with the extra weight of the cast iron stove in the back. He gets out and throws some sand under the wheels, but of course, what? That doesn't help. He gets out of the van again, slams the door, opens the engine compartment.

Remember those buses had a little door in the back? I remember it. He opens the engine compartment, and he does something that takes, like, a second or two. Closes the engine compartment door, and the next thing I know, he's climbed the driveway, and he's on the phone saying, hey, babe, come on over and help. The question is, what did he do that literally took a second that enabled him to get up the icy driveway? Now, here's the answer. Believe it or not, his Volkswagen bus

Yeah, believe it or not, was transmitting too much torque. It's hard to believe to the wheels to enable him to negotiate this steep, icy grade. It's like if you're trying to walk on ice, you can't run. You can't, I mean, if you tried to run on the ice, you'd be on your butt in two seconds.

Whereas if you walk very, very slowly. But he couldn't transmit a source. small enough amount of power to the wheels to stop from losing to walk. That's right. So what he did is he opened the back and he pulled the coil wire off so the engine wouldn't start.

He got back in and with the thing in first gear he turned the key. And all that worked now was the electric motor that would ordinarily start the engine but he was using the electric motor to take him up the driveway in first gear albeit slowly, but

not slowly enough. and he crept up the driveway with just enough torque to get him up without slipping and there he was at the top. The equivalent of walking gingerly on the ice so you don't fall on your butt as opposed to trying to run on the ice where you would fall. Now, alternatively, he could have pulled a spark plug wire or two or three and made the engine run, for example, on two cylinders.

But the... Maybe he knew that it was already running on two cylinders. That's exactly why. He said, well, I guess two's too many. Anyway, how about none? Now that that's over with, who's our winner this week? The winner this week is Barry Fisher and his students at Eisenhower Middle School in Rockford, Illinois.

No kidding. Barry Fisher and in his entire class, Barry probably figured that by Putin and students, in parentheses in his email, we would feel obligated to send him like 25 car talk prizes. Of course. Well, dream on, Barry, we are sending you. $25, $1 gift certificate instead of the usual $1.25 gift certificate.

Good luck. Well, you can pull them together and, you know, make $1.25, or each of the kids can go on visit the Shameless Commerce Division and buy something of their choosing. Exactly. For a dollar. And spend some of their parents' money at the same time. You can be there for a dollar.

Not a. Not with us. Anyway, we'll have a new puzzler coming up in the third half of today's show. Do you know what it's time for now? Time to move the cart into the garage in preparation for your post-valentine's Day banishment? No, no, no, no. It's time to play.

Stump the chumps! As part of the ongoing quality control effort here at Car Talk, we occasionally invite a caller from a past show to come back and let us know if the advice we gave was at all. helpful. Or at the very least, not actionable. So who's this week's contestant? This week's contestant is Michael from Niagara Falls, New York. His father-in-law's 1990 Lincoln Town car was stalling out. Every time Pop took a slow, tight turn, the town car would die. So Popsie takes the car to his regular Italian mechanics, Sacco and Van Zetti, I think they were called,

and they come up empty. Jeez, you'd think that a couple of pizons would be town car experts, wouldn't you? Well, times have changed. Sacco and Van Zetti specialize in Lexus now. Anyway, Popso got so fed up with the car and with Michael's criticism of his mechanics that he finally said to Michael, here, if you can fix this car, you can have it. A little testy, isn't he? He's very confident that I won't be able to figure out because I'm just a, you know, I'm a musician, I'm an opera singer, I don't know. And we're pretty confident that we won't be able to figure it out either. Well, here's this, here's what happens.

All right, it says here we told Michael to check, you ready for this? The boost circuit that kicks up the engine idle when you turn hard at low speeds. We said it was probably fault. Sounds good to me. It always sounds good before the calling comes on. Hey, Mike, are you there? Hey, guys, how you doing? Hey, all right, before you tell us who owns the car now, we have to verify the following.

Well, number one, we have not spoken since your last appearance on car talk. Is that true? That is correct. And you have not been offered any cash prizes or other prizes by, National Public Radio, or the Sacko and Venzetti motor car company for specific answer today. No, not in it.

All right. What happened? We can take it. You were right. Holy cow! Really? You were absolutely... The idle up circuit wasn't working. That was it. It was... You said it was either loose or it was faulty and needed to be replaced, and it was faulty and needed to be replaced.

I wasn't, however, able to do it myself, which you also suggested would get me even more points. Yeah, that would have gotten your real point. Wait, wait. Does this mean that you are the proud owner of a 1990 Lincoln Town car? Well, I'll tell you, I went to him after I took it down, and I got it fixed, and the mechanic was also impressed with my, the way that I just divined this answer. Well, that's a good idea, and I felt very proud of myself, and I went to him,

and I told him the whole story, and I told him that it had now been fixed, and he said, well, that's great. Give me the keys. And I told him, you know, now what about giving me the car? and he said, you thought I was serious? You made an Italian who went back on his word? He said, I was kidding. I never gave it.

But the truth is he will actually allow me now. He entrust me now to drive the car whenever I want to. Well, that is more along the lines of what he meant. And I think that means more to him than even having entrusted me with his daughter. Oh, I see. What he meant was if you can get this car fix, you can have it for an afternoon. Once in a while. That's right.

He didn't mean I could have it. Sure. Of course. Next time. Get it in writing. Yeah, that's right. But I do want you to know that the mechanic who did eventually fix it and did a great job on it was also Italian.

So I think that the downtown car expertise is still... It's still in the family, so to speak. Well, thanks a lot, Michael. And thanks a lot, Michael. And thanks for coming back on the show to make us look good for a little bit. Okay, thank you guys. See you later. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. If you'd like to stump us with your car problem, the numbers 1-888-car talk, that's 8-8-2-27-8-8-25-5. Hello, you're on car talk. This is Amanda Barco from Edinburgh, Pennsylvania. Amanda? Yes. Edinburgh?

Yes. Pennsylvania? Yes. Got it. Which end of Pennsylvania must be the left end? Yes, it's about 30, 40 minutes from Erie. Yeah, okay, it's good. That would be like a steel place, right?

Erie? With a lake. Erie Lake. Yeah, Erie Lake. Yeah. They call it Lake Erie, but. Erie legs good enough for me. So shoot Amanda, what's up?

I have a 1987 Dodge Aries. My problem is I believe the power steering pump has gone, but my mechanic says, well, it might be a power steering pump. It might be the rack and pinion system. So I'm calling to see, is there a way that you can tell whether it's the rack and pinion system or whether it's the power steering pump? The way we usually figure it out is we put in the more expensive piece, and if that doesn't work, we throw in the other piece free.

I see. Well, that's helpful. Thank you. Little as you know, how close to the truth that really is. Actually, I just made that up, but it's actually a great strategy. Sure. If we're wrong, we'll give you the other one for free. He can actually put a pressure gauge on the pump, you know. He can actually read the pressure coming out of the pump to see if it's the spec. I see.

He's probably going to find out that it isn't. I mean, what happens is it won't have no power steering act. whatsoever. It's like really hard to turn, but the belt turns the pulley on the pump. Okay. Is that what's happening? Is that what's happening? All I know is about a couple months ago, I don't drive it very often. I mean, it's basically just to go to the grocery store and doctor's office visits with the kids and stuff like that. Yeah. But a couple months ago, it all of a sudden it just started to take more turns to

get the car to go where I needed it to go. For example, if I need to make a 90-degree turn, It takes between probably the average of about one full turn of the steering wheel to get it to turn 90 degrees. No, it just seems that way. That can't be true. The number of turns can't change. That takes more effort, though, does it not? Yes. It's a lot more effort.

It's taking more effort, but it can't possibly take more turns. Unless something really, really strange is going on. Well, when it first went, the steering wheel was like really hard to turn. Yeah. Now it's not as hard to turn. Actually, it takes hardly any effort. to turn the steering wheel at all. But what's the problem now?

I don't know. If, in fact, it was hard to turn, and then it got easier, without any intervention by this mechanic of yours, then I suspect that the rack is the problem. And I think your assessment that it takes more turns of the wheel is correct. Oh, I think the rack is stripped. Teeth. Oh, wonderful. Bad teeth.

That's like my brother had. That's dangerous Because if your rack is really stripped Or the pinion is stripped You know what it is, there are two gears that are meshing One is a round gear at the end of the steering column That basically mimics what the steering wheel does You turn the steering wheel, it turns.

You turn left, it turns left And you turn right, it turns right And then the rack is a flat gear That meshes with this And it goes left and right As this other round gear meshes with it But if they're not meshing correct, and it takes more turns to get you to make a 90-degree turn than it used to.

This is serious. That means that when you're turning the steering wheel, it is not at all engaging with the rack. Okay. Sometimes. I see. That could be serious. Oh, yeah, you've got to get this fixed because you could die in this car.

Yeah, this is very dangerous. Oh, okay. Because at any moment, you could turn the wheel and it wouldn't turn. The car wouldn't change direction. And that could be really exciting. Well, to say the least. To say the least, yeah. Okay.

And it could be that you end off needing the pump as well. It may be that there's so much debris from all these gears that have been chewed up in flowing around the system that you've damaged the pump as well. But you can buy both of these at a junkyard. All right, then. All right, you've been warned, Amanda. All right, thanks so much. No, she'll do it. I know.

Mother and her kids, you don't have to say it twice. You don't have to tell mothers what to do. No, they know what to do. All right, in just a minute. Good luck, Amanda. We will proudly introduce. of the world this week's brand new puzzler. You might just sound like it's really

like a big deal. Well, it is like introducing a new straight of malaria. He'll be back in a minute. Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward

a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF. 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'm excited. I'm really looking forward to this. Oh, shut up.

Well, you made it sound like such a big deal. Oh, I didn't. No, I have two pairs of puzzlers that are related. So each pair is related, but not to the other pair. In other words, I got you, yeah, yeah. So I have two puzzles that are similar, and then I have another two puzzles

coming up in, you know, the next few weeks that are also similar. So you'd like to use these like sequentially, the similar ones? Or non sequentially. Or non. Yeah. Whatever the case may be.

Yeah, or chronologically. Or non chronologically. Yeah. But the beauty of these puzzles is their brevity. Yeah. As opposed to last weeks. And their autonomy, I suppose. Yes.

Yes, they are autonomous. And their relatedness. And their relatedness. In another sense. And the first one is arithmetic, and I used this on the staff last week. Oh, man. And I, you remember this one and the second one? I do remember this.

All right, go and get a bunch of matchsticks. Yeah. We'll wait. Okay, time's up. Or a piece of paper and a pen which you can represent matchsticks. We're going to make a fraction. The numerator of this fraction is going to be Roman numerals. yeah okay and the roman numeral that's the numerator is 23 which is two x x i i i right and so you can

see these being made up of matches two matches making up again then you're going to take a bunch of matchsticks and make your line and then the denominator is going to be seven in roman numerals which is v i i and then on equal sign this is a little equation equals 2, which is represented by two matchsticks, two vertical matchsticks, I-I. Okay. Roman numeral 23 X-X I-I-I over Roman numeral 7, which is VII, equals 2, which is I-I, Captain. Now, obviously, this equation is wrong. Right.

Berman says it is. It's close, though. It's close enough. For Berman, it's close enough. Your challenge is to move one matchstick and make the equation correct. Now, you cannot turn it into, you cannot take one match stick, for example, and make it 22 over 7 does not equal. That was my... That was my pretty quick solution.

Yeah, that's bogus. That's completely bogus. So inequalities are not allowed. Right. So the question is, how can... Can you move one matchstick and make this into an actual equation? There you go. Now, if you think of the-Equation.

Equation. Equality. Yes, so to speak. And by the way, one of the issues that came up was, can I, if I take one of the matchsticks away from the X, I will be left with a sort of diagonal-facing line. And that's bogus. That means nothing. That means squat.

No, you can't do that, is the answer. No, you can't do that. You can't. You can't do that. If you know the answer, or think you know the answer, or just want to write to us otherwise, send your response to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge, Our Fair City, Massachusetts, 2,2238, or you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. If you'd like to call us, the numbers 1-888-8-8-2-27-8-255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Charlie Cox from New Paris, Ohio.

Hi, Charlie. Charlie, how you doing? Oh, marvelous. Well, no, not exactly. I've got an 85 tempo that I just replaced the third fuel pump in the tank. Yeah. The thing is driving me nuts. They're going to let me out next week.

I don't know what the problem is. Really? Yeah. Now, they're not costing me anything. Their lifetime guarantee, but it's going to kill me, laying under that thing changing the fuel pump by every three months. Ah, so they're not replacing the fuel pumps. No. Charlie's replacing the fuel pumps.

Exactly. And Charlie is buying these fuel pumps from the same disreputable parts store. No, let's not jump to any conclusions. Yeah. He admits it. But 85 tempo, isn't that carbureated? No, this is fuel injected. It is fuel injected.

And the pump is external of the tank. No, internal. It's in the tank. Oh, you poor. And, you know, it always waits when you get the tank full to die. And then you get this thing falls on you. So how long? Tell us when this little saga began.

I want to know how long it takes it now to change the pump. How good are you at? Oh, I can do that. Twenty-five minutes. If the tank is empty. But it's just a pain. You bet. You know, you take the tank loose.

It falls on you. It's got your pin to the ground. And it smells bad. Yeah. And they're yelling, Hunt. Yeah. And she says you got yourself into it.

You get yourself out of it. So how long has this been going on? About a year. So about a year ago, the original fuel pump that came with the car in 1985... It gave up. Gave up. Yes. You went down to pep boys or whatever the place is down at the corner, and you bought yourself a fuel pump.

Yes. For $29.95 now, no, no. For $105. $105. Who was the manufacturer of this pump? It's supposed to be air tech. Air techs makes good pumps. Should I say that, anyway?

Sure, no, that's good. We put air techs pumps in all the time and they're great. In fact, they probably made the original one. Right. Probably did. Yeah. So you buy the pump. Right.

You put it in. Right. How long does it last? About four months. When it stops running, you drop the tank. You take the pump out. Right. Then what do you do?

I hit it with a jumper wires from a battery. And? And it squirts a little gas, but it's not the pressure it's supposed to be. Well, they're about 40 pounds or so. But there's a pump actually turn? You can hear it turn? Yeah. It does turn, but it doesn't.

doesn't seem to be squirting enough. Right. When you say squirt enough, are you've got it immersed in the gas tank at this point? No, no, I got it out. Well, they're going to squirt when the things out. It's got nothing to squirt.

Well, there's a little gas in it, but you can put a... I put a pressure thing on it, and I was only getting about 12, 14 pounds pressure. And did you try that with a new pump? No. See, because I think that you're

condemning a pump that isn't bad. Okay. What would you suggest? Besides killing the car. Corolla. That pump did cross my mind. Yes. No, I think you are condemning, in order to really determine scientifically what's going on here,

you've got to test the old pump and the new pump exactly the same way. Okay. And then you'll determine, I think, that there's nothing wrong with your pump. And I think what's wrong is that maybe the wiring is bad. And maybe in the process of dropping the tank and putting the tank back in, you somehow make a connection that had gone bad. Reconnected. Good again.

Yeah. Now, my mechanic, it died. in his lot here a couple weeks ago. Yeah. So he had it in there, jacked it up, hit the starter, it started, then hit starter again, it wouldn't start, and they checked the voltage back.

As close to the tank as they could get, and they had voltage. They had voltage, but the pump wasn't turning. No. Well, you've got to go all the way back, maybe. Yeah, clear to the tank. You've got to go right to it. Yeah.

You've got to go right to it, and I think that's where your problem is. Okay. I mean, I'll tell you, we've installed a trillionaire text pumps. It's unlikely. And every once in a while, like anything else, you get a bad one, but to get, you know, nine in a row. But not, not three.

What are the odds? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And besides, I mean, you can't go through this for the rest of your life. No, you sound like an old geezer. I mean, one of these times it could croak you. My life is going to be shortened if I have to keep doing this.

You know, hell, it's too much work for an old guy like me. Yeah, it is. I can tell that. You're going to teach your wife out to do it. I know. Yeah. Yeah. That's what you've got to, I mean, you've got to really do the real scientific test.

You're going to find out. Yeah. And I think with the pump out of the, of the tank, you know, the fact that you're getting 12 pounds of air pressure or whatever is probably good enough. I think that pump is good. Okay. And you can call the parts store and tell them to put all those pumps back on the shelf.

Okay. Okay, guys. Good luck. If you don't hear from me again, you know the car got the best. And whatever you do, don't fill the tank anymore. Put in three bucks at a time like my brother does. Yeah, I need to do that. See you later.

Okay, guys, have a good one. Thanks. Thanks for calling. The thing is, if he puts in three bucks worth it last any time, it'll never fail. It'll last forever. It may. But he can't go any place. 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 is Ken the Diaper Slayer Rogers. Our assistant producer is Catherine Imelder Ray. Who has new boots, by the way. Oh, does she now? Yeah, bought them at Nine West. That's why she wasn't here last week. Our engineer is Dennis to Menace Foley, sick my foot, and our technical, spiritual and menu advisor. She was having a bad leather day.

Yeah. Yeah. I can't commit, I'm sick. Yeah, right. Our menu advisor is Mr. John Bugsy, sweet cheeks. Mr. Hyde hula hips. Hula lips. Free lunch, make that two triple cheeseburgers Lawler.

Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzzoff. Our manager of honest car salesman is Harry Diculous. Our mortgage loan consultant is Nora Lender B. and our staff chiropractor is Winston Payne. Our chief negotiator is Bernadette Bridge, and our staff efficiency consultants are Payne and Diaz. Our document security expert from the island of Jamaica is Euripides Upman, who is not related to our tailor, Euripides, I menadies,

or to our staff bouncer, Euripides, I break your face, or to the proprietor of our men's clothing shop, Euripides, Euronides. Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey-Chinman Howe is U. Louis Dewey, known to the janitorial staff as Ui-Louis Dewey, Thanks so much for listening. We're clicking clacks the Tappert Brothers. Don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother.

Don't drive like my brother. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. And now here is Car Talk Plus's very own member of the International Olympic Committee, Prince Vinny Gumbats, of Car Talk Lantern. All right, now, for a chance to have the 2008 Olympics held in your backyard, you should order a copy of this week's Car Talk. talk show, which is number six.

Vinnie, my backyard, you mean in their own city, don't you? No, no, I mean right in the yard. You're right there next to the swing set, you know? I've got a very tight relationship with my fellow committee men, if you know what I mean. The more you order, the better your chances. Now, to get tapes, CDs, and other card talk stuff, call our Shameless Commerce Division at 1-8-8-8-8-Gar junk. That's 8-8-8-car junk.

Or visit the Shameless Commerce Division at the Car Talk section of gauz.com. What if I just wanted, like, the ski jumping part, we'll talk. Car Talk is a production of Dewey Chiterman Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though St. Valentine himself rolls over in his grave and says, how do they get associating with these guys when he hears us say it? This is NPR National Public Radio. Support for NPR, and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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