The Best of Car Talk - #2580: How's Your Breather, Laddie?

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Alison’s VW won’t start and to make matters worse, Click and Clack are mesmerized by her lovely Scottish accent. Will Alison have to dope slap the guys(“a skelpit lug!)to get some decent advice? Find out on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

A lot of short daily news podcasts focus on just one story. But right now, you probably need more. On Up First from NPR, we bring you three of the world's top headlines every day in under 15 minutes. Because no one story can capture all that's happening in this big, crazy world of ours on any given morning. Listen now to the Up First podcast from NPR. 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 State of the Dart Center here at Car Talk Plaza.

Oh, man. Tell us about your dart, Popper. I mean, how long have I had the dart? Way too long. I mean, it's time had come. It's time came. It came. Thank God.

Man, you talk about sad. I mean, this was the saddest, one of the saddest moments of my life. Really? Yeah. I mean, I mean, and your wife was so jubilant. I mean, she never thought she'd see the day when the dart was euthanized. I mean, I didn't even see it until days after this happened. My son.

I don't want to, I don't want to get the guy in trouble, you know. Any more than he's already in. I mean, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. has in a year. He's had his license, what, a year? Yeah. He's totaled two cars. Yeah. And... And, but instrumental in the destruction of many others. Instrumental in the destruction of the dark. Not that he was, I mean, you can't blame him. Let me set the stage. It was a beautiful pre-spring day. One of those days you get in the winter here in New England where the sun is out and it's about 64 degrees, an unexpected day. And he and his school chums decide that they

want to take a ride to celebrate the arrival, the early arrival of spring. I don't even know where they went. They were going to Dunkin' Donuts. Where else? Of course. They were going to Dunkin. They had the top down. The top was down because it was a beautiful day.

And there they were sitting at a traffic light. Minding their own business. He stopped at a traffic light. Out of nowhere. Unfortunately, directly behind an ambulance. Yeah, right. Directly behind an ambulance. They're sitting there and out of nowhere, don't.

Don't forget, it's a beautiful spring day. It's in the 60s. And the town is testing the brakes of the snow plows. That's how they do it. They drive down the busiest street in town and they test the brakes. What better test. And it's good because if the brakes don't work, you just drop the plow and you use the plow on the pavement as brakes, which is what they do. And they plow into, as they say, the back end of the dart.

The thing, I mean, and don't forget, this is a snow plow truck. So not only does it plow into the back of the dart, but it proceeds to push the dart into the ambulance, which is stopped at the light in front. One of those 13 wheelers or something. Exactly. It's like a semi with a plow on the front. The dart, you talk about, I mean, it gets towed away, of course.

They go to the hospital and they get their obligatory, what do you call those? Neck braces. And just yesterday. I managed to go to the yard where it's been towed. And I walked in to the yard, and I tell you, I was speechless. You were crushed, so to speak. It's just like the dart's going to be in a few days. I was absolutely speechless.

The dart, if ever the word totaled, could be used. There isn't a square inch of that dart that, I mean, ugly as it was. Well, it's a lot more ugly when you shave it up at a little bit. Well, if you want to see what it looks like And it is interesting that Man How little structural integrity Bondo has

If you want to see pictures of what's left It's on the website It is on the website And it's of course It's the car talk section of cars.com You can go and visit the Dart And my brother's been on every day visiting

Yeah and actually I would like to know I mean here it is It's still there in the yard Where I got told And the question is What do we do with the Dart now? I mean there have been several suggestions made that you might be interested in adding to.

But there's several suggestions that I can think of now. One was someone said we should take it and take little pieces of it and crush them up into little paperweaves or something and make it into paperweights. That would be kind of demeaning, I think. Yeah, but we might make some money off. But we might make a couple of bucks out of it. A lot more than it's worth. Tommy's idea was to shape the thing into a huge cube.

with a crusher, and put it in his backyard. Yeah, I mean, I was going to build a giant altar. Yes. And put the dart on top of the altar so people could come and pray to the great God dart. Drah. Dra. And people could come with their crutches and their wheelchairs. And their slipping transmissions.

And they could fix whatever. I think the dart has that power. Healing power. So, I mean, that was my idea. but if you have any ideas of what we could do with the remains of the dart, send us a little note. Stick it where? There will be a place on the website, cars.com, car talk,

and let us know what you think we ought to do with it, because it's not going to be there long. That's it. We hope. It's a sad day for me and a sad day for many. And he's been in mourning for weeks now. I have been in morning. It's good to have you back, man.

Oh, man. I'll try to cheer up. But you know, it isn't going to be easy. Oh, no, it's going to be a morose show, I can tell. If you'd like to call us, the number is 888, car talk. That's 888-227-8255. Hello, you're on car talk. Hello.

I'm Marga from Sonoma, California. Marga? Marga. Marga. You know, it should be Marga. I mean, of course, duh. Margot is a male name. It ends with an old. It's totally different.

Yeah. Just a different name all together. Yes. Different root. Different, well, yes. Yeah. But it is spelled just M-A-R-G-A, or is there an H? That's exactly how it's spelled. And where are you from?

Sonoma, California. And what is the origin of the name Marga? Well, I used to tell people it was Swedish, but then I went to Sweden. And there's no one named Marga there. And everyone said to me, that's a pretty name, is that an American name? So who knows? Oh, so you don't know? I really don't.

I was named after my aunt. That's all I know. Are you sure that your parents weren't at a Jimmy Buffett concert? I wouldn't lay money. They may have been. They may have been. So what's going on, Marga? Well, I have a 1985 Nissan stands a wagon.

Hmm. And I have a little bit of trouble making a right turn. I can't really make a right turn. I can go straight. I can make a left turn with no problem. of it all. But when I go to make a right turn, it's kind of like a big Mac truck that needs three lanes to do it. Oh. And it kind of veers to the right. And it's very, very hard to turn the steering wheel. To the right. To the right. To the right. The left, no problem. I can make it

around town making all left turns. Three left make one right, you know. Yeah. Yes, yes. Two wrongs make a right, too. Let's not forget that. So you go through two stop signs that the saver's taking a right. So my question is, is this something that I can repair? Because I've been putting steering fluid into the, I mean, it leaks. It has been leaking for a long time. Oh, yeah. And the reason it leaks is because the bushings and the rack and pinion are so worn out that it's causing the rack to bind. This is very dangerous. She's, Marga. I mean, how long have you been doing this? Not long. No, you shouldn't do it a minute long.

Are we talking minutes, days, hours, weeks? It's been weeks, hasn't it? Months. Months? Weeks. Weeks. Well, tell the truth. All right, months.

All right, months. Yeah, no, it's really dangerous. Yeah, I have another car, so I don't use it. But you've got to fix it. No, but should I get it fixed or should I sell the car? Well, you'd have to junk the car, I think. Yeah. I mean, you couldn't sell it to them.

How could they take a test drive? You'd go, I'll drive down here and take a left. Okay. When you get to the other next quarter, take another left. Don't take a right because it's a dead. There's construction going on there. There's the streets all blocked up. How do you like it so far?

It would be a challenge. It would be. You've got to get a fixed because eventually you won't be able to make left-hand turns either. And what's even worse is that if you ever had to make an emergency maneuver, we wouldn't do it. You wouldn't be able to do it. And you could hurt somebody. We don't want to do that.

We don't want to do that. That's not worth it. Okay. If you are going to continue to drive it, I would tow it to your repair shop and tell them to put a rebuilt rack and pinion in. A rebuilt rack and pinion. And it's going to cost a few hundred dollars. We have to warn you about that. Well, that's actually not as much as I thought.

I thought it would be like in the thousands. No, no, no. I mean, it may turn out that you need a power steering pump or you need hoses too. I mean, that's a possibility. But just for the rack, it's probably five or six hundred bucks at the most. Oh, now, first it was a couple hundred. That's a couple in mechanics talk is 500, isn't it? It's under a thousand, so therefore it's a few hundred dollars.

A couple of hundred, a couple of hundred. You just kind of rounded up that way. We do, we do. Okay, well, I appreciate that, and I think I may junk it, but... Yeah, well, you may want to. Well, yeah, but under no circumstances, let anyone drive it. All right, I hear you. See you, Marga.

I'll swallow the keys. Okay, thanks for your call. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. I wonder if her parents considered Rita as a... as another possible name. Like Marga, Rita?

Yeah, or Ville. Oh, her middle name could have been Rita. Marga Rita. Maybe her middle name is Rita. And she never put the two things together. Hey, we've got more calls on the puzzler answer coming up right after this. 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. This message comes from Rinse, who knows that mastering the perfect house party table spread takes time. But so does laundry. So Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned. And you can take the time once spent sorting and waiting, folding, and queuing, to finally pursue your real passion,

rolling delicate roses of Capacola alongside meandering ribbons of Amon Serrano. transforming a humble plank of weathered barnwood into a show-stopping charcutory spread. Rinse, it's time to be great. On Fridays, the 1A podcast is all about helping you cut through the info fog and get to what's important in the news. Close out the week with us on our Friday News Roundup. You're from reporters who've been embedded with the biggest news of the week.

Join us every week for the Friday News Roundup. Listen to the 1A podcast from NPR and WAMU. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us. Click and Clack the Tabbard Brothers. And we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and the answer to last week's puzzler. What was the question?

Last week? Last year. Here it is. You're going to remember this. Yeah, go ahead. Maybe. A guy came into the shop with his Volvo on the back of a tow truck.

He walks in and says, oh, I'm in trouble, guys. I need your help. So we immediately do a Dun & Bradstreet on him and finally agree to take his case. He says the clutch cable has broken five times in the last five months. I asked what happened and he said, I don't know. I had a new clutch put in six months ago.

And when they put the new clutch in, they advised me to put a new cable in and I said, go ahead. A month later, they closed up Sharp and headed for some unknown Pacific Island. The clutch cable breaks. So the guy continues his story. He says that he puts a new clutch cable in thinking the one the shop put in was defective. A month later, that cable breaks. another month goes by and that cable breaks. By this time he says I was at my wits end and I figured the clutch had to be defective

so I brought it to another shop and what? They installed a brand new clutch. Oh. And of course what? I just want you to know. I still don't remember this puzzler. Well, I don't either, but I'm hoping that in reading it here, my memory will be jogged. And a month later, the cable breaks again.

And he says, Sonia Henys Tutu. And I asked him under what circumstances it breaks, and he said, I start the car, I go to drive it away, I step in the clutch, or I go to shift it into gear, I get to the corner, for example, I shift into neutral, I wave for the light to turn green, I step on the clutch and the cable breaks. Jeez. I said, oh, my God. And I ask him if the car starts now. He says, I don't bother to start it since the cable was broken and what was the sense. And I say to him, I bet it won't start. He said, why shouldn't it start?

It started yesterday. It's nothing to do with the clutch. Anyway, we go out to the car and turn the key. Dead. Starts right up. No. It won't start. And he asks, what does that have to do with my clutch cable breaking?

And I say, everything. Everything. Is this the same old chestnut that we've used about five times? You have to spoil everything. And you wonder, I have no sympathy about your dart. You wonder. Well, you understand now why I remember. the puzzle because you've used it five times. I haven't used it five times. It just seems that

way. Twice. This is the second time it's ever been used. Oh, okay. The first time was 19 years ago when I first saw this happen. Excellent. What a memory I have. Yeah, you do. Too bad you don't use it once in a while. And so the question was, why was the clutch cable breaking? Well, what had happened when the original guys put the clutch in? They failed to put in a little tiny piece of of wire that goes from the engine block to the body. The body of the car and is the conductive path for electricity that goes from the battery to the starter motor, through the block, to the body of the car, and ultimately back to the battery.

And in the absence of this cable, the electricity must find a new conductive path to get from the battery through the starter and back to the battery because this cable's missing and there's no other conductive path, it uses the clutch cable, and it burns it up. It makes it brittle. You ain't got no path for me? I'm going to find one. Right. And what finally happens is it burns up the cable. You step in the cable that one last time, and the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back comes into play, the cable breaks, and then it won't start.

And that's why I asked him if the engine would start. And when he said, I don't know, I said I bet it won't because now he had no conductive path because the cable was broken and the car wouldn't start at all. And we put in a new clutch cable and a 25-cent piece of wire for which we charged him $80. And he was on his way. And who's our winner this week? The winner! What?

The winner is what? Tom Tootshavers from Lincoln, Rhode Island. Boy, that must be Dutch. Huh? You figure? Could be. From Lincoln, Rhode Island, and for having his correct answer chosen from among the thousands of correct answers that we got to. this week. Our pal Thomas will get a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk, Shameless Commerce

Division, with which he can pick up our new Puzzler book, a haircut in Hors Town, and have almost enough leftover to pay for the shipping and handsling. Oh, that always gets it. Anyway, we will have a brand new puzzler coming up in the third half of today's show. In the meantime, we'd love to take your calls at 1-888-Cart Talk. That's 8-8-2-27-82-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. from Somersworth, New Hampshire.

Somersworth. To whom are we speaking? This is Marshall Malone. Hi, Marshall. Hi, my wife and I, we used to be big fans of yours until we saw your faces on that 60 minutes episode. That'll do it. Where's Summersworth?

What way up? Do you know where Portsmouth, New Hampshire? Yes, I do. I'm 12 miles north. No kidding. Yeah. Roll it until we close by. Yeah.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, it is close by. My wife and I saw on that 60 minutes. episode that you guys were stuffing your faces with cheap salsa and chips. And we said, well, gee, we're only an hour away now. We ought to bring some over, but we were afraid that we might lose a hand if we, you know, many have, many have. So we might just chuck it through the window at Car Talk Plaza. Well, what do you mean?

You're only an hour away. Where were you before? Well, we moved from Alabama, which sort of brings me to my question. Alabama. Yeah. That's like selt of here, isn't it? Yes. It's quite fit south.

And when we moved up here, we've been posed with a few problems that we're not accustomed to. I'll bet. Snow for one. Snow, yeah. Yeah, and salt corrosion. So what do you got for a car? Well, actually, I've got a question. There's a house down the street that has an 89 Jeep wagon air for sale.

Uh-huh. It's white with that Brady Bunch wood paneling on the side. Is this a grand wagon ear? I think it is. And I'm not really knowledgeable about what the salt's going to do to this area, but it's been sitting out in front of their house for about a year now. I'm in love with that car, though. Well, the salt would do less if it's sitting there than if it's been driven.

Yeah? Well, sure, because the way the salt works, it's magic, is it constantly gets to bombard the undercarriage as you drive down the road. There's no salt where this thing is parked. I mean, the salt doesn't fall, come down with the snowflakes. No? That would be an interesting. What a great idea?

Wouldn't it? That's like George Cowellie says, why don't they put the mayonnaise right in with the tuna fish? Right, why don't they? Why don't they put the salt in with the snow? They can seed the clouds. Seed the clouds with salt. Little granules. Frank, you've come up with another great one.

The body shop will love you. And all right, it would melt as soon as it hit the ground. Exactly. Oh man Kids would get to see the snowfall Except it wouldn't collect It would be perfect Wow

I'm gonna get right to work on I haven't got time to talk Marshall No but the truth is The fact that this thing is sitting there In someone's yard It hasn't been detrimental In fact it's been beneficial to it

Yeah it has Really? Yeah But it may be sitting there Because the engine seized Or the engine may be seized Because it's been sitting there Well they say they've got a new engine

And a new transmission on it Oh you've talked Well I Yeah, I call them. There's a sprinkling of surface rust around the car, and I've seen this, and I think I can needle them down about $2,800. If the rust is just like the stuff that you can see on the outside, the superficial stuff on the body, that's okay.

You just want to make sure that it isn't structural, so that the frame itself is not rusted through, and things like brake lines and gas lines are not rusted through. But that stuff is easily fixed. You want to make sure that the body is all right, not going to rust away, and more importantly, the frame is not going to break in half, which it probably won't. The frame is the big issue.

You want to make sure, naturally, that the engine and transmission are still usable, even though they claim that they've been rebuilt. They may have been rebuilt badly, and that's why they're not driving it anymore. So don't just forget about it and buy a Dodge-Rango. I need to... No, you don't want to do that. No, I think you should... This is a nice vehicle.

You're going to love it. Yeah? But you do have to be a little careful because it's been sitting there for a year, not for no reason, obviously. But that is a nice vehicle, and everyone who has ever owned one of those has loved it. Great.

For two months. See you, Marshall. Thank you, gentlemen. Good luck, man. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Going from Alabama to New Hampshire, that must be an interesting cultural shock.

I bet it isn't much of a cultural shock. I'm wondering about that. No. Wow. No, it's, you know. I'm not sure. I don't get it. It's a rural mentality probably in both of those places. He's with

country people and he's probably in his element. I think he must love it. Except he's freezing his butt. Other than that, he must love it. Hey, besides all that, do you know what it's time for? Time to try and convince the IRS that bribing the FCC is a legitimate business expense?

No. It's time to play. Stump the chumps! Well, every once in a while, we let a previous call up back onto the show to find out whether our advice was good, bad, awful, horrendous, libelous, or whatever. So who's this week's contestant? This week's contestant is Allison, whom I don't remember, a wee Scottish last living in Denver, Colorado. I'm beginning to remember her. We have no recollection.

We have notes here, though. Don't worry. She called us a few months back. Because her 94 VW golf was having trouble starting in the mornings. Okay, but does it crank slowly, or does it crank at the regular speed? Here's regular speed. Here's slowly. Slowly.

Slowly. Tell me you want your money back on the spark plugs, the wires, the cracked breather. The breather. And everything else they might have done. The breather. If you told them then, it then. So once we overcame the language barrier, the breather, would we tell it to do? We told her to have the battery, the starter, and the charging system tested

because it sounded to us a lot like a bad battery. It sounded like it would start the car once, but not have enough juice to start at a second time if it stalled. Well, let's find out. Allison, how's your breather less? Hello, guys. My breather's fine. Thank you very much. Okay, Alison, before you tell us anything, tell us whether we have to do the

the common Miranda thing. Have we ever spoken to you about this since that last phone call? I've not heard from you guys at all, no. And do you swear that you have not been influenced by us, our staff, or the Denver bagpipers local? No, huh? No. No. Good.

Okay. So what happened? Well, what happened? I took the car and I checked out the battery, the alternator and everything. Yeah. And you guys were right. The alternator was dogy. Yay! We got one right! You did.

So you had the alternator replaced? Yeah, and then a week later, the oil pump failed. Oh, well. That's just bad luck. Yeah, I'm just going to get a new engine by the time I'm finished. Anyway, we haven't talked to you in quite a while. How are things going in Denver? Things are going well in Denver.

It's still beautiful and working hard, so, yeah. You're working. And I've had so much feedback from the first time I was on. Really? It's been really flattering. It's been lovely. Did you meet any fellas yet? A few nice gentlemen have been in contact.

How nice. Yeah, it's been really sweet. It's been really lovely. Well, great. I wish you the very best, Alison. Thank you very much. And thanks for coming back. No problem.

And don't lose that accent. It's charming. And good luck with your breather. Thanks, guys. See you. Bye, bye. Bye, bye. All right, it's time to take a short break. You've been working way too hard. So that means when we get back, you're going to knock our socks off with this week's brand new puzzler? Sure. Do it again.

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to explore different angles on the biggest headlines and give you a more balanced take on what's happening. Listen to the 1A podcast from NPR and WAMU. Ha, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, click and collect the Tappert Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and da, the new puzzler.

Yeah. And this is one of the promised in the series of the string puzzles. Oh, great. Oh, I thought you were going to say, I was looking forward to the string puzzle. You don't even remember the string puzzle. No, I don't. You have, in your possession, two pieces of string.

For the sake of argument, let's say there are a couple of, each is a couple of feet long. Got it. Right? But it doesn't really matter, and they can both be different lengths. Yeah. Okay. And they are burnable like fuses. In other words, you could light either end of either of the strings, and the string would burn.

So if you lit the end of one string, it would burn in an hour's time. It would take an hour for the string to burn from the beginning, rather a slow burning fuse, but nonetheless, it would take an hour. However, there's a little wrinkle. The fuse or the string does not burn at any constant or predictable rate. For example, it might burn up 90% of the string in the first five minutes. And then take 55 minutes to get the last piece.

Exactly, the last 10%. You don't know. Or vice versa, or any combination there are. It might speed up, slow down, da, da, da, da, that. You got it? So all you know is that if you lit one end, the string would be gone in an hour. Exactly. I got it so far.

You could light, if you lit one end, the string would be gone. You can light either end, obviously. It doesn't make any difference. Sure. The strings are symmetrical. Okay? You might not think so, but if you lit the other end, it would also take an hour to burn. The question is with...

But at a different rate, obviously. With only a zippo lighter. Yeah. And these two strings, how would you measure 15 minutes of time? 15 minutes 15 minutes Are you sure you got this right 15 minutes

15 minutes 15 minutes 15 minutes Really yeah now there are actually two solutions Yeah So I will accept either one Yeah Okay

Yeah Because coming up sometime in the near future is string puzzle number B Wow Which only has one solution But Well, I have to say that that is a great. I don't care what the answer is.

The question is wonderful. Well, we'll see. If you think you know the answer, write that answer on the back of a nice, crisp new $20 bill. With Andy Jackson's picture on. Yes, indeed. And send it to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza,

box 3,500, Harvard, Squaya, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Ma, 2,2238. Or you can email your answer to us from the... the Car Talk section of Cars.com. If you'd like to call us, or even if you wouldn't like to call us, our number remains 1-8-88-Cart Talk. That's 888-227-8255.

A lawyer on Car Talk. Hi, you have Bear in Worcester, Vermont? Who? What? Bear. Bear? Yeah, like the animal, you know, B-E-A-R. Yeah, we talked to a bear once.

Did you? Yeah. Great. You all parents called you bear? Yeah. That's because when they first saw you, they? That's how you were, man. Well, not only that, but when I was younger, if I got angry, they call me gris.

And the women would call me Teddy, but that's another story. Do you have any siblings? Yes, I do. And what pray tell of their names? Sabra, Shane, and Shannon. Sabra. Yeah. Like S-A-B-R-A?

S-A-B-R-A. And Shane. Shane, S-H-A-N-E. And Shannon. And these are all brothers. No, no. Okay. No kidding.

And where are you from? West of Vermont. It's about eight miles north. of Mount Pellier. Really? Really. Okay, man. What's up?

My last prosperous year was 1988. I bought a Grand Prix brand new for the 2.8 engine. And I've got 206,000 miles on it. And I love the vehicle. No kidding. And about three years ago, I was one of those people that you heard about across the country. You've got downsized.

So money's a little bit tight. And I've put not a lot of money into this car. It's been very good to me. But I went in to have a tune-up for the six plugs. And the guy says, see, I got bad news for you, Barry. He says, they were platinum plugs. We're supposed to go for 100,000 miles or something. They're going to have to go for 200,000 miles.

He says, the plugs are frozen into the block because you have an aluminum block. And he says, if I take those up, because he tried a torque wrench to take the plug out, and he's afraid that he's going to take the thread of the block with the plug. Well, if he did that, that would be okay. Really? Well, because you can then re-thread the cylinder head and put an insert in and put a plug in.

Oh, I didn't know that. But what's more likely to happen is that he shears off the plug and leaves a piece of it. What's the worst-case scenario is, and I've had this happen. Yeah. I mean, think what would happen if you were doing it bare. Yeah. You put the wrench.

on it, and it wouldn't work, so you'd go for the half-inch drive. I hear you. Then you'd work, so you'd get a piece of pipe and you'd stick it on the end of the half-inch drive ratchet. Right, and then you'd fell a tree to fall on the things and you'd get even more leverage. Right.

And once you've accomplished that, you'd succeed in shearing off the plug flush with the cylinder head so that the threads are still inside. And worse than that, the center electrode falls into the cylinder. Nice right. And I know I'd call you guys for help you, though.

Because I've done it Oh yeah Everyone's done this Yeah go ahead Everyone's done this And I've mentioned this before in the show This is one of the disadvantages Of all these car companies

That say You can go 100,000 miles With the same plugs in there What they should say Is you're going to go the life of the car With those plugs in there Because you ain't ever going to get them out Right

Because whether you have an aluminum cylinder head Or cast iron or whatever They just become one With the cylinder head There's no way like you can't heat the plug or anything else. What heats them up more than running the engine? Yeah.

We have tried, with success, repeated applications of penetrating oil. Okay. We use a stuff called X-88. It's a penetrant made by Delco. Okay. And you spray the stuff on and you do it like every day for, you know, weeks and weeks, you know, just a little bit. And every couple of weeks, you throw the wrench on there and you see if anything new was happening.

I follow you. And when that doesn't work. Right. You leave the plugs in there forever. I mean, after all, their platinum plugs, they may last the life of the car. Okay. But I would just, if they don't come out by that method, I wouldn't run the risk of breaking any of them off in the cylinder head because if they can't get at it to drill them out and put an insert in there, it's going to be a nightmare.

That's right. And the three plugs on the backside. Right. If they're the ones in question, I wouldn't mess with them at all. Okay. Just keep driving it. Okay. Yeah, you're in good hands bare.

It isn't worth breaking them off. No, no. No, I didn't think so. But like I said, the first thing I couldn't understand is I don't mind spending the extra money to buy the plugs. And then I'm saying every car that they advertise today, the 1999, they advertise, you go 100,000 miles without changing your plugs. They might as well say a million. That would be the biggest blunder of the 1999 model year. Mark my words.

I hear you. If you have a car like this that has these long-life plugs, you should take them out. every year. Right. Take them out and exercise them. Break those bonds. Yeah, I hear you.

All you got to do is loosen them up and tighten them up again and you're done. Oh, no, no. I agree, but I'll lay you money that people buying

the new cars today don't do that. Of course not. Of course not. People who buy new cars today don't even open the hood. They have a way of checking the oil

without even opening the hood. Yeah. Through the glove box. Good luck, Bear. Good luck, man. Thank you much. Thanks for calling. Thank you.

1-8-8-8-8. We don't get a lot of calls from Vermont. Or from bears. All from bears. We've had a few snakes called, but not too many bears. 1-888-car talk. That's 8-8-2-27-82-2-4.

Oh, we should have had Allison, the gal from Scotland, do our phone number. Oh, man, call her back. Right? We should have everyone who's on Stump to Chumps do our phone number. Think about how much time it would save you. Especially her with her beautiful accent. Oh, man. Next time.

Yeah. Okay. Hello, you're on Carthogne against Sean Conry. There you go. He's Welch, you know. Yes. Hello, you're... Hello, and anyone there?

Hi, it's Allison again from Denver. Allison from Denver. Allison! Excellent! This is great! We need you to do our phone number. And you have such a beautiful, beautiful accent that we could play it.

Week after week, of course you'd get $150. $150 every time we used your voice. Right, of course. Fat chance. So if you could just say the number is 1-888-car talk. That's 888-2255 or 8-8-2-278-8-2-5. Okay, what do you want? All of them.

Whatever you want to do. Whatever is most comfortable for you. Okay. one triple eight double two seven eight two double five one eight eight eight eight car talk oh hoo hoo i love it we love you thanks for being a good sport thanks guys bye bye bye oh man now if we can only get someone to do the rest of the show well you've just made my baby you made ours thanks alison bye bye bye bye well it's happened to

And you've squandered 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. I'm having a bad leather day, Ray. Our engineer is Dennis DeMennis Foley. And our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor is John Bugsy, Mr. Haight, Sweet Cheeks, donut breath, make that two triple cheeseburgers, Lawler, who happened to be here today.

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to you, Gumbats. All right. Now, if you were looking for a last-minute deduction, order a copy of this week's Cat Talk show number by calling 1-8-88-car junk. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I mean, what kind of deduction do you get from a tape of car talk?

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