The Best of Car Talk - #2577: Cross-Country Disaster Vacation

Episode Date: September 27, 2025

Anne and her brood are planning a cross-country trek in their old minivan and want to be sure that they’re not going to break down at the top of Pike’s Peak. Click and Clack think that’s the wrong approach. What’s a little blown engine amongst family members? Find out on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Eric Glass. On This American Life, we like stories that surprise you. For instance, imagine finding a new hobby and realizing... To do this hobby right, according to the ways of the masters, there's a pretty good chance that you're going to have to bend the law to get the materials that you need. If not, break it. Yeah.

To break international laws. Your life stories, really good ones. This American Life. Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack the Tappert Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Department of Freudian Slips here at Car Talk Plaza. I bought my wife a Freudian slip from Valentine's Day. I'm sure that one on the big.

With the magic, never mind. Well, listen, I had to mention this because this was a bona fide Freudian slip on the part of my brother. Just a few days ago, I was reading my umpteenth piece of hate mail about the puzzler and its various inadequacies. Yeah. You know, people were berating just the lack of creativity and imagination. And there I was feeling kind of morose and sad and ready to give up the puzzle. And I'd express this to my brother that I was really depressed and I really wasn't doing the job with the puzzle anymore. and he says to me

Yeah You don't remember this I have no idea what you're talking about Well this is an ultimate Freudian slip He says to me Keep your chins up I say Now I know I've had a few too many

Kilbasa bombs off the coffee truck But keep your chins up Chins? Where did this conversation? You see you forgot it already It's a true Freudian slip You said it and you forgot it I did

Keep your chins up All right All right I said that You did You did Yeah And

It's all right It's all right Really Yeah Where were we in this Conversation I have no recollection I have no recollection

We were in the green room Preparing for the show And there was I was reading all my mail saying on another detractor But another one Person who hates the puzzle Another one thinks I'm a moron

Geez, oh man I keep your chins up I keep your chins up Bro All right If you'd like to call us about your Wow.

Or your Freudian slip or Freudian girdle or whatever. Our number is 888-88-227-8-255. Hello, you're on car talk. This is Doris. I'm calling from Philadelphia. Hi, Doris. Hi. Have we spoken before?

Never in my lifetime. Okay. But it's a genuine pleasure to be talking to you now. That's a pleasure to talk to you, too, Doris. Well, thank you so much. I have a puzzle for you. All right. Okay?

Okay? All right. A couple weeks ago, driving the car, and the red light comes on my dash, check gauges. But to my horror, I looked to the left, and I see my temperature has gone through the roof up to the top to 220 degrees. So I quickly ran the car back to the mechanic, hoping I wouldn't, you know, disintegrate before I reached him. And he couldn't take me the time. He was busy. He said, come back tomorrow. Come back tomorrow? Tomorrow? Tomorrow? Tomorrow? That's like going into the emergency room with blood coming out of every vein, and the doctor says, I'm busy now. Come back tomorrow. Exactly.

Well, you can write him off. Anyway, I couldn't drive the car for the next few days because of the blizzard. So when I got back in the car to my utter, utter amazement, temperature was normal. When you get back in the car after seeing the guy? No, I haven't seen it. After a two day, after a two day rest. Oh, just after the two days. After a two-day rest of it, you then drove it, and it didn't overheat.

Exactly. Great, great. So, I called him on the telephone and explained what was going on. Why did you bother? He didn't care about you. True. He should have been calling you on the phone. He should have been calling you.

Doris, did you make it home? I wanted an answer to what was going on with my car. This is a Chrysler Corporation car. Is it not? This is a Pontiac Sunbird. Pontiac Sunbird. Pontiac Sunbird. From 1988?

And I love my car. All right. Anyway, I called him, and he gave me this educated guess. Oh, he said, your thermostat got stuck. And I said, quote, are you saying that it unstuck itself? Uh-huh. He says, oh, it happens all the time. Uh-huh.

That's my question to you. Is this a common occurrence? Happens all the time, Doris. That's what he said. We see it every day. There's hardly a day that goes by that we don't see an unstuck thermostat. Well, the truth is that he was right. Yeah.

It does happen frequently. Yeah. I mean, not every minute. Of all the ways that a thermostat can fail, this is one of the more common ones. It can stick one day and then work perfectly okay the next day. But once it sticks, it's destined to imminent failure. And you should have it replaced. I just had this thermostat put in a couple months ago.

This is a new thermostat. Well, it's no good anymore. Well, maybe. What kind of driving were you doing the day that it overheated as opposed to the day that it worked normally? And I suspect you've been driving it ever since? Yes, ever since. And it's been doing fine. I was just taking a short run.

I didn't go on a long trip. It was like 10 minutes away from home and the red light came on. And the red light came on. He could have put a faulty one in. And I was just asking him to replace it and also to check out the whole cooling system. system, and to make sure that your fan works every time. You know, there's an electric fan that is thermostatically controlled, and if that doesn't come on every single time the engine reaches a certain temperature, then it will, in fact,

overheat. So he should check that, too. So three things, check the thermostat, the fan, and the cooling system. Right, just to see if there are any leaks. Now, I mean, the reason I asked the question earlier was to determine if you had, for example, driven it on the highway that day and then come into the city. but you do the same you do the same kind of driving all the time

neighborhood drawing so that day that it overheated you hadn't done anything out of the ordinary exactly that's true okay well my my vote goes with the thermostat yeah the guy was right yeah take it in doris would have a new thermostat put in I would do that oh okay see you later

thank you so much for your advice you're very welcome bye bye bye brings up an interesting question even though he was right should she ever go back to him again when he sent her away in her hour of need. No, she should abandon him.

Drop him like a hot potato. I would drop him like a hot potato. Because maybe he's competent, but he has no empathy, no compassion. No feeling. No fear. He didn't care.

No boat payment too. No, come back tomorrow. By tomorrow, she could have fried the engine. And then where would we all be? If she had said, I drove home like he said, come back tomorrow. I went back the next day. The thing was hot as heck.

and my engine fried. Should I sue him? And we would have said, you bet. You call Dewee Cheatham and Howe? And one of those sleaze balls will sue him. We'll represent you. If you'd like to call us,

our number is 888 Car Talk. That's 888-227-8-255, a lawyer on Car Talk. This is Jim and Dallas. Jim and Dallas. How are you doing, Jim? All right things in Dallas. I was looking in the paper just the other day.

And, you know, it has the temperatures of all the cities. Dallas is one of the few places. in the entire country where the temperature it was pretty good. Cold by our standard. Well, it was in the 60s. Cold of the morning, now.

Well, let us tell you about it. Yeah. I'm trying to tough it out, Jim. Suck it up, man. It's been like three degrees here. If you were real men, you'd be up here. Toughing it out.

Freezing like the rest of us. Like the rest of us. Jerks up here. But the heat, the heat you wouldn't be able to handle. No, we can't. So what's going on, Jim? I have a 92 Infinity G20

Yeah And the right front trans axle is broken The axle is broken Yeah And from what I can tell The ill effect of this is it clicks when I turn Oh it isn't broken yet It's about to break

It's about to break Right If it were broken You wouldn't be able to move the car Well the service people tell me I need to replace it Yeah okay And I've been driving a long time

Like this And I just wonder if I'm going to kill myself If I keep driving kind like this? You could, yeah. I could. No, you know, you won't kill yourself. When he takes that left turn, trying to beat the semi, and the thing breaks, he's going to kill himself. Oh, the semi hits him broadside?

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's the one scenario where I suppose, but you was likely to be killed if your fuel pump conked out in that turn. Sure. Well, your ignition stopped working. I mean, there are many ways you can kid yourself. I mean, what could happen, what will happen sooner or later, is

the car will start moving. and it will happen whenever it feels like it. Yeah, that's not good. It could happen on the freeway. It could happen taking the left turn in front of the semi. It could happen when you're crossing those railroad tracks. Oh, that would be tough. Those trains in Texas go fast, too, and they don't stop.

So, yeah, you should, why are you being so cheap? That's like $700. It is? For one axle? You know. Oh, no. Foreign car, I guess. I don't know.

No, no, no, no. That's way too much. It is. It should be more like three. So find a better service shop and bite the bullet and make the repair. Yeah, just do it. Yeah, because, I mean, why break down? You're going to have to do it sooner or later.

So you might as well do it and not have the, unless you like the excitement of saying I could die any minute. Some people like that. Not me. First of all, they're probably putting in or going to put in or hoping to put in a brand new axle. You don't need a brand new axle. After all, the other axle. is already seven years old. Right.

So why would you want to put a brand new one on the other side? You could be happy with one that were, like, rebuilt. Sure. Go to your neighborhood service station and ask them how much it would be to put a rebuilt axle in. And I'm only to bet for $701, you can get two axles. Sure. It's going to be $329 for the right side and $3.29 for the left.

61 for the right other side. Good luck, James. Thank you. See you later. Bye-bye. Bye. Hey, don't go anywhere because we've got a lot more calls. Well, a few anyway.

And the puzzler answer coming up right after this. This message comes from an PR sponsor, SAP Concur. Latora Jackson, senior manager of finance projects at Atricure, shares how SAP concur solutions helped them automate outdated procedures so employees could focus on purposeful work. Literally, employees would receive a mailed invoice from our suppliers, put it in an approval folder, and walk it around to about three different desks. The great thing with concur invoice, it provides automatic workflow. The AI technology for the invoice reading has made it seamless and almost touchless for our accounts payable team to be more efficient in what they're doing. We're now able to have team building and decision-making input from that team that we normally didn't have the time to receive before.

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Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Collect the Tappard Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and the answer to last week's puzzle. Let me see how many sentences you have to go through before. You're going to get it on the first sentence. Go ahead. I'm going to set the scene, the time, World War II, the place. Got it!

Got it! Portugal, Brisbane. Merry Old England. A hotbed of intrigue. Yeah. I'll give you the abbreviated version, which I couldn't do last week because you kept interrupting me. Yeah, go ahead. In a secret laboratory, a small group of scientists is working on a project.

They have made a discovery. Something that they know will greatly aid in the ally. effort against the Germans. Furthermore, this discovery will also benefit mankind for years to come and could easily turn the tide of the war. This is heavy duty. This is heavy. This isn't heavy

duty. I mean, they didn't invent stink bombs or anything. This is big stuff. Or the whoopee cushion. Wasn't the whoopi cushion? That was your guess. Damn. Included in this group is a German scientist who has recently escaped the clutches of the Nazis and they're working on a project

that had been abandoned by a Scottish scientists more than 10 years earlier. So now, finally, after many disappointments, they finally have success. One of them cries out, eureka, or whatever the English version of eureka is. And the German says, same to you, pal. Anyway, they know they've got something big here, and they apply for a grant from the British government. To their amazement and great disappointment, the grant comes through for 50 pounds. Brits, these guys say 50 pounds.

Can't even have breakfast. The only way we can get this thing into the war effort is to go to America and try our luck there. So they leave England. But leaving England and going to the U.S. is dangerous with the German U-Boats patrolling the North Atlantic. I remember it well. So in order to make their way safely, they decide to sail under the flag of a neutral country. Switzerland. Portugal.

Switzerland doesn't sail. They don't have an ocean? They don't have an armada? The Swiss Armada? So they make their way. They make their way. They make their way to Lisbon. Yeah.

Okay. And from there, they plan. A hotbed. I want to get to the hotbed side. To disembark to America. Now, of course, Lisbon is a hotbed. Yes, a hotbed of spies, counterinsurgents, insurgents. And buckle out.

Sapporteurs. And they know that if the discovery gets into the wrong hands, there could be dire consequences. Yeah. So they need to hide it. So they take their discovery. You're ready for this? And they hide it on their clothing. On their clothing, Jerry.

And with the discovery hidden on their clothing, they make their way to America, and the rest is history. I got it. They invented the boutonnier. Now, how did that benefit mankind? Think about all the prongs that you would have gone to, barechested. That's right.

Wow, the boutonier, huh? Am I right? Close. Well, it wasn't the whoopee cushion. Yeah. But what they discovered was something, they discovered something that aided the war effort. And they knew, as most military students knew, that the greatest cause of fatalities in warfare is not the actual gunshot wound, but it's the ensuing infection. In fact, most people die in the battlefield because they get a minor wound, but a major infection, and the infection kills them.

Yeah. And the work that they took up had been started in the 20s by a Scotsman named Alex. Alexander Fleming. How well we know him. I believe. And what he had discovered by accident was penicillin. But he could never do anything with it because he couldn't develop a strain of it that was reproducible. But these guys had.

And when they had the penicillin mold, rather than carrying it in little petri dishes. Yeah, of course. They decided if they were apprehended by Nazis. They rubbed it on their clothes. They had it on their clothes so that when they got to America, they could do a little scraping. And that's, in fact, what they did. And, of course, it saved many lives. It allowed soldiers to get wounded to go back and get killed.

Well, wait a minute. Now, if they were going to do that... Yes. And rub it on their clothes. It was going to smell bad, probably. Why didn't they... Scientists always smell bad. But why didn't they go through France

than they would have noticed? They would have, but France, unfortunately, was not a neutral country. It was their first choice. Okay. Is that it? Of course, the hint I'd given last week was chicken soup, which everyone knows is Jewish penicillin. Oh! Of course.

I didn't get that hint. Well, I knew you didn't. You didn't get anything. You didn't remember anything. The Whoopee cushion and the butanier were my two guesses. Do we have a winner at least? We do. Wow.

Yeah. Get this. The winner of what a coincidence. The winner is Malaise Lindenfeld. No kidding. Malaise. How apropos. What a strong.

strange name. She's from Coconut Grove, Florida, and for having her correct answer chosen, malaise is going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk, Shameless Commerce Division, and that should end your malaise, I would say. Indeed. Now, we'll have a new puzzler coming up in the third half of today's show, one from the series of the Matchstick Puzzlers. The Mastick Puzzlers series. Yeah. In the meantime, we'll take your calls at 1-888-Cartac. That's 888-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, I'm Joe from Virginia,

Blacksburg, Virginia. Did you say your name was Joe? Yeah. How are you doing? Very good, not bad. So what's up? I got a little problem. Yeah.

I got an 88 Ranger with a 2.3-liter engine. Yeah. And very strange. It sounds like the lack of oil on a crankshaft. now uh but the uh it does not burn oil uh oil light goes off when it's supposed to car always starts properly when it's cold in the garage at night after 12 hours or so i crank it up and man it starts right off and hums like a hummingbird but after about 30 to 45 seconds i start to hear this little knock so uh i open the window and stick my head out and

and try to figure out where it is yeah i can hear it most loudly At the back of the cab, this is a short bed, 88 Ford Ranger. And between the cab... And the bed, that split is. And the bed, yeah. I put my head down near the bottom, and that's where it sounds like it's coming from. Really? But, yeah, but when I increase the speed up to 30, 40 miles an hour, it does not change.

The sound doesn't get faster as you go faster? No, no, it doesn't. No, that's a strange part of it. It doesn't. This is an automatic overdrive. Joel This is brutal Yeah

I know Can you hear this noise If you're not moving Uh Sure he says he hears it in the garage No When it's in Park I don't hear it

When it's in neutral I can hear it very slightly Well I thought you said I got it I thought you said you could hear it in the garage He can You can hear it sometimes When you start the engine

Without moving But you'll almost always hear it When you're in motion That's true? Yes but Also, I can hear, I've had it in park in the garage and revved it up to 3,000 RPM, and it kind of goes away. Yeah, I got it. Kind of goes away.

I got it. You want to know what it is? The mileage. Joe is dying to know what it is. I am, too. I am, too. The mileage is 140,000, 765. That's six.

You have not had any transmission work done on this vehicle since you've owned it? No, it's been great. Would you like to have some major transmission work? Really? Now you bring. Well, I think what's wrong. with this is one of two things. Either the bolts that hold the torque converter to the flex plate are loose or the flywheel is cracked. Ah-ha. Ha-ha. Sure. And that would explain the location

of the noise, would explain the irregularity of it, it would explain all of the, it would explain everything. Oh, my God. Well, wait, how does it explain? Don't, don't, don't, don't, let's not get the fact that the sound doesn't increase and frequency. That's the thing I can't figure out, because if I go 60 miles and a house, you had to ask, you had, if you, if you go fast enough, it won't, you won't get the noise because centrifugal force overrides the loose bolts. Oh my God. Okay, but when you're going, especially if you, if the engine is close to idle speed and you

rev it up and then let it coast, rev it up, let it go down, you'll get a gung-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-l. I'm telling you, the bolts are loose. All the flywheels cracked. Hey, guys, I never even thought about loose bolts, but I'm going to have them put it up on the list. Yeah, check and tell them. Take the inspection covered down, and they're going to find either a crack or some loose bolts, and that's going to fix your problem, Joe. Beautiful.

See you later, man. I like it. I think I like it. I appreciate it very much. Thanks for calling, Joe. I bye. Bye. Bye.

1-888-Kart talk. That's 888-227-8-255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. This is Ann from Boylston? Massachusetts. Where is Boylston? It's next to Worcester, next to Shrewsbury. Yeah, I think I've heard of it.

Central Massachusetts. Yeah, yeah. Not many have. We don't get out much. That's right. That's right. My question, we've got this big tour planned this summer with the husband and the two boys. We're going cross country to see the National Park.

Yeah. We're pulling our little camper with our hopefully 94 Mercury Villager. My husband says to me the other night, I think we need a new car. And I said, hold on a second. This car has 90,000 miles on it. It's only five years old. I hope it's good for this trip. So we had this long discussion.

I don't know if he's just looking to get a new car or what. But I need to know, do you think that a 94 Mercury Villager can get us, you know, cross-country and back again and buy us a few more years? Well, I know the answer to that question, and I also know what car your husband wants. Okay, tell me. He wants a Yukon. No, I don't think so. We're not a Yukon type. No?

No. You don't think so? No. No. No, you know what I see in her husband's future? No. What's that? A Lincoln Town car.

Oh, no, no, he wants big. He wants a truck vehicle. I think he's looking SUVs, but we've got new boys, and we're transporting them to school, so we need a multi-passenger vehicle at this point in our life. And I'm looking to get more time out of my Mercury Village. Well, how old are the boys? Going into eighth grade and sixth grade. Oh, they'll be around for a while, yeah.

They've got another few more years. You think of the next car will be something fancy-shmanty for us. Well, the answer is the villagers certainly should make it. Okay. I mean, 90,000 miles in this day and age is. pretty much nothing. Well, that's what I told him, too. Well, on the other hand, when you're pulling that big camper thing,

you're going to have one of those pop-up campers? It's a pop-up, so it's that little square box. Oh, yeah. With all your gear in it and you and the suitcases and the dirty laundry and the souvenirs and the pieces of petrified rock that you steal from the petrified forest and you're trying to climb Pike's Peak, you're going to blow the engine. And that's what, you know, all it takes...

No, we're not going to blow the engine, are we? Listen to me. All right. One blown engine Can ruin a whole trip All your wonderful memories The great bonding that's going to take place Between

At the top of Pike's Peak Calling AAA Is that what you're telling? I mean, how much can How much? I mean, all you do is you call up Avis And they bring you a car A Yukon

And what do you do? You push this off of Pike's Peak And you just leave the villager there I mean, it's all paid for it's not worth anything with a blown engine, so you forget about it. It doesn't have to ruin a vacation. I think it's worth the show.

It's worth the trip. I think it's worth it. I think it's worth it because that in itself is an exciting little adventure. Maybe I'm trying to talk him out of this trip, or maybe he's trying to talk himself out of this trip. The trip will be wonderful. Okay.

Yes, you will enjoy the trip immensely. And so will your kids. They'll remember it for the rest of their lives. Well, see, I think that's... Especially if the engine blows. Exactly my point. The boys. are the more important aspect here

because they will remember it for the rest of their lives. Remember the day that dad pushed the villager off of Pike's Beach? They'll never forget that. We had an old mobile going to the beach and it died and we still remember that. It was this big... You bet. I mean, that's what memories are

exciting adventures. And everyone thinks that everything should be perfect. And everything shouldn't be perfect. If it breaks down, it breaks down. They have to learn that that's what life is all about. Not everything is perfect all the time. Unless, of course, you're married to me.

Then you know, my wife... You know, where's wife those perfect misery? My wife has come to learn that things are perfect all the time because she married me. Whatever. Yeah, whatever. So, and continue. If we take this car with us, which I'm thinking of doing, what sort of service issue we have done before it goes? Everything.

Everything, yeah. The tummy belts do it 105, obviously, do that before we got that. Absolutely. I would certainly do that. I would obviously change any hoses that are suspect, maybe just change them anyway. Yeah. Because they're all 100,000 miles old. Certainly change the transmission fluid and the filter.

The oil, the coolant. Check the tires. Make sure you've got great rubber. Put a new water pump in. Take along some extra belts and suspenders. Well, I'll send you a postcard en route, and if it breaks. down. I'll let you know. Better than that, send us a photo of your husband and the boys pushing it off of Pikes Pete. That's what I want to see. I want to see the smiles on those

boys' faces. All right. And have a wonderful time. And think of us while you're out there. Appreciate the call. Have a great trip. All right, bye-bye. That must be exciting. Well, I've taken a few trips out West and now had the benefit. And I notice every time you do it, your family ends up flying home without you. Without me. We left that shirt at Pike's Peak. We'll be right back with Book Calls and the new puzzler after these messages. The Novelizers podcast, where we turn classic films like The Matrix and Dirty Dancing into hilarious audiobooks narrated by guests like Rachel Dratch, Ira Glass, Samantha B, Will Forte, Wayne Brady, J.K. Simmons, and more.

Listen to the novelizers podcast hosted by me, Dave Hill, from Cincinnati Public Radio and the NPR Network. This week on Consider This, COVID, vaccines, Tylenol. As the government makes massive changes in its approach to public health, we hear from doctors trying to keep up. If you hear something and you have a question about it, that's the time to have a conversation with the person who knows your health best. This week on Consider This on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcast. Sources and methods, the crown jewels of the intelligence community. Shorthand for, how do we know what's real, who told us? If you have those answers, you're on the inside,

and NPR wants to bring you there, from the Pentagon to the State Department to spy agencies, listen to understand what's really happening and what it means for you. Sources and methods, the new National Security podcast from NPR. Military commanders, intelligence officials, diplomatic power players, They know things you may not about where the world is headed and we will pull back the curtain

on what they're thinking on sources and methods NPR's new national security podcast. Our team will help you understand America's shifting role in the world. Listen to sources and methods from NPR.

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 as promised the second in the series of matchstick puzzles. Yeah. So where is the Puzzler Presentation Squad? Okay, yeah.

Oh, here it is. In contrast to last week's Puzzler, this one's very brief. Yeah, this is part of the set. Get out your matchsticks. Get out your matchsticks. Okay. Yeah. And make with your matchsticks the following Roman numeral.

Yeah. Seven, which is V-I-I. V-I-I. Okay. Yeah. Then an equal sign. Two more matchsticks. Equals.

Equals. Equals I, one match stick. So the equation reads 7 equals 1. Yeah. Okay. Now, as was the case with the other puzzler like this, you must move one matchstick and make this an equation. Right, a valid equation. And you cannot make the equal sign again, an unequal sign.

So you can't say six, for example, does not. equal one. Mm-hmm. Now, there are... Nor can you touch the equal sign. All you can touch are the matchsticks making up the number seven, the I-I, and the matchstick making up the one, the I. Exactly.

Yeah. Now, I'll admit, there are two possible solutions. One, our producer, Doug Berman, came up with a few weeks ago, and that one, we all considered bogus. And then there is the creative one. Yeah. Which is the one that will accept. Okay.

Because the creative one, you're going to admit, it's pretty good. I can't remember the answer. Oh, oh, man, huh? That's pretty good, isn't it? That is good. That is pretty good. So, I just said, write it from my brother. He forgot it from this week.

Anyway, if you think you know the answer, how to make seven equal to one, write that 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. Matt, 2-2-3-8, or you can email your answer to us from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. If you'd like to call us, the number is 1-888-88-28-8-8-2-7-8-25-0. You're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Marisa from New York.

Marisa? Yes. M-R-I-S-A. Yes, very good. Cool name, Marissa. Thank you. From New York City? No, upstate.

Now, whereabouts? Just outside of Woodstock. Shokan? Shokan. Yep. S-H-O? K-A-N. Really?

Yes. Well, we all know where Woodstock is, but no one's ever heard of Shokan. Well, it's about five miles past that. Oh, no, I know where it is. Someone said to me, I was there one time. Someone said, can you get the Woodstock from here, and he says, Shokan? Yes, right.

Very good. How did I know? I'm sorry. Okay. So, Marissa, what's up, kid? I got a 1993 Chrysler Town and Country that has the mystery noise. Oh. Front end.

Mechanic says, bring it in. I need to change your brakes and turn your rotors. Yeah. Ever since he did that, I've got this noise that won't go away. Uh-huh. And you didn't have the noise before? Right. Well, why did you go in?

Why did he say come in and, and I have to. to replace your brakes and your rotors? Well, he said, you know, it's time to have the break the break done. He actually called you up to tell you this? Well, no, I see him frequently. You have a little thing going with him? No. Jocelyn know about this? Yes.

He does, huh? We travel so often that we need oil changes like once a month, so Oh, we don't want to know any more than this. Okay. So Mario, the mechanic, calls you and says it's time for you to do your breaks and you bring it in, and he replaces, again, the pads and he replaces the rotors or he turns the rotors turns the rotors

okay after which you have a noise right give it to us um it was like a grinding noise at first okay so when i when you're going slow down the road and the windows are down this is you know back in september you could do that and you can hear this grinding noise and you'd hear it especially when you're loudly stepping on the break yes it would sound like this oh right very good now I have like a squeaking noise as I'm going down the road really slow right

exactly so exactly oh it's perfect I can't do that now it squeaks and it knocks and it does all this stuff and then when I hit the brakes the noise goes away interesting

so it used to make the noise when you stepped in the break and now the noise goes away when you step in the break so you can't say that Mario has done nothing he's certainly done something yeah I don't know and well he comes He cut the rotary, he says, I can't do it anymore, I can't grind it down anymore, you know. Yeah. So it's still making noise.

I don't want to replace the rotor. What do I have to do? Why not? Because I've already put a new transmission in this car. Well, that's not going to fix the brakes. I know, but I can't afford it. Well, did he know that when you took the car into him, that you were adamant about replacing the rotors? No.

You've made some noise about this? No, no, no, no. He just turned him. He said it was time. they needed to be turned. Yeah. Well, I think that was his mistake. We have found out that we cannot machine these successfully most of the time.

Ah. That one of several things happens, but the most prevalent thing is that they don't machine true, and you get a slight runout of the disc, which will cause that noise you refer to it. Right. Because as the high spot comes around, it's rubbing against the pad. It's deflecting the pad in the little bracket, and it's especially annoying when you're going very slow. because all the other noises are gone when you're going slowly. You don't hear the roar of the engine, the tire noise.

So you're going seven miles an hour, and the only noise you can hear is this. The roar of the grease paint. Right. Yes, the smell of the crowd. So what do I do? Well, I think... You're going to have to go for it. And the reason it made the other noise, by the way, is that when he machined them,

he didn't get the factory type of finish on the discs. Okay. And what you were hearing is the process of the metabolism. ballic pads mating with this rougher surface than should have been there of the machine disk. Okay. Over time, that would have gone away because everything would have gotten found its way home and smoothed out. Right. So had you been patient and not gone back and complained, all your problems would have been gone.

And it's probably another two days. Really? This has been months. Yeah. Well, if you'd waited two more days, the noise would have gone away. Oh. And you wouldn't have the... Now he's machined them so much that they're so thoughtful.

thin, he can't machine them anymore. Oh. And now if he's a good guy, he'll give you the two new disc rotors at cost. Can I only get one? Or do I have to get two? Sheepskate. No, you can try one, certainly. You can try one. It won't mess it up. No, it won't mess it up. No. Try one. All right. And that should do it. Well, you guys have been a great help.

We have, yes, right. I really appreciate it. All right, Marissa. Thank you. Thanks for your call. Bye. Bye. Well, it's happened again. You've squanded 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 Diper Slayer Rogers. Our assistant producer is Catherine Imelder Ray.

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