The Best of Car Talk - #2591: Customer Fleecing Systems

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

Who doesn’t like a good flush? Certainly not us. Unless it’s our $ being flushed into some unscrupulous car dealer’s pockets via some newfangled Rube Goldberg device. Ann from Colorado thinks she might be a victim and wants Click and Clack to assuage her fears 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 Collect the Tappert Brothers. And we're broadcasting this week from the Consumer Complaint Department here at Car Talk Plaza. Now, there are some people you just can't please. You can go out of your way. You can do everything you can to improve a product.

And there are some people you're going to just tick off. We have been getting hundreds and hundreds of phone calls from people saying, what are the automobile manufacturers trying to do to us? And we're just trying to make a living like honest people. Well, we're just trying to make a living. And what they're talking about is the fact that the automobile manufacturers have almost all agreed to produce cars in the future that have a release inside the trunk. And the people who've been calling us are all connected, you know, with a certain kind. I don't know what they all sound like.

With the gibbonny crime family. And they're saying, how's the guy supposed to make a living? You know what I mean? I mean, I throw a guy in a trunk, he's going to just hop right out again. What am I supposed to do? Now we have to tie him up. It's going to slow us down. And I suppose that's true.

I mean, here's a guy trying to make a living, and all of a sudden the part... You couldn't say honest living. I started doing it. So, I mean, it just goes to show. You can't please everybody. You just can't. And I can understand their dismay, but they're going to have to tough it out. Yeah, I mean, I don't know why they're bothering to put it.

the release in there anyway. I mean, what for? In case you lock your keys in. Inside the car? Inside the trunk. Then you're going to get in the trunk to open the trunk. Yeah, but if you get in, they find the keys and the trunk should close on you? And all that closes on you. Then you can get out again. Yeah. If you can find the little thing you have to pull.

But is it worth that to put people out of work? No, of course not. I think. Not. If you'd like to put us out of work, you can call 1-888-car talk. that's 888-227-825-5. Hello, you're on Carhart. You know, I thought about 15 years ago that we would have answered all the questions

that could ever possibly have been asked, and we'd have to stop doing the show. 15. I thought like... 19. Well, I did, too. Well, and it's interesting because the questions just keep on coming, and we keep giving different answers. I mean, the question, we probably have answered

all of the questions, but never the same way twice. Oh, never correctly once. Hello, you're on car talk. Hey, this is Lisa from Bloomington, Indiana. Hi, Lisa. Hello. So that's just plain old L-I-S-A, isn't it? Absolutely.

Southern Indiana, none of that spoofy spelling for us. No, good. What's going on, Lisa? Oh, you guys, my nights in shining armor, I swear. Okay, I have a problem. I drive a 1984 Oldsmobile Omega, and maybe that's the problem in and of itself, right? Yeah. So anyway, the emergency break about a month ago,

I go to push it down and it flops to the floor, okay? It won't go click, click, click, click, click. When I put my foot on, it just flops to the floor. Yeah. So I take it into my local garage, and they call back and they tell me that it's frozen. The emergency brake cable is frozen, whatever that. Yeah, there are several cables on this car. Okay, all right.

So they tell me they're going to have to replace these cables. Okay. I say no problem. They're telling me about $150, and I'm like, cool. Sounds right. Yeah. So far everything sounds absolutely right. Perfect.

Well, yes, now the drama begins. Uh-huh. So, anyway, they call me back when the parts have come in and they say, Lisa, we're mystified. The cables that we ordered that, you know, are specified for your car, they don't fit. So we could try to get the parts from the dealer, but that's going to cost you a bunch. So what our guy did, and he's really good with brakes, he heated the brake cables, and he tightened them, and it's going to cost you $10. And I ask him if it's safe. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, it's safe. So anyway, I go downstairs, and one of the girls downstairs at my job, her husband's a mechanic, and he is an old mobile mechanic in a town north of here. So he's on vacation, of course, so she calls his buddy Ed. And he says, oh, no, oh, no, don't do that. That's a death trap. So at this point, you know, I'm driving around, and I'm just done the $10 gig and everything, but, I mean, I need to know, you know, am I going to die a fiery death in my Omega?

Well, you probably are, but not for this reason. I mean, if you don't ever use the emergency brake, it can't ever cause you harm. Cool. Is this an automatic transmission? Uh-huh. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah.

Because all it does is holds the car once you've stopped and have what? Parked. Right. It's called the parking brake. And it's there in the event that the thing should not be fully engaged in park, that is the shifter, or it should pop out for any reason. This is kind of a backup. When the transmission is in park, the car can't roll at all. unless it malfunctions.

Right. So this is a backup system. If you had a stick shift, it would be a little bit more responsible for holding the car on a hill. So you're not going to die a fiery death. First of all, what they did, I think, was they heated up the cables,

and the cables were rusted. They weren't frozen with ice. Okay. I mean, it is almost summer. Frozen is the term that mechanics use to mean rust. And those cables are braided steel cables that run through a sheathing, and the sheathing is often metal.

And what happens is the metal rusts, and as it does, it begins to build up, and it will grab the cable and prevent it from moving, because the inside diameter of the sheathing gets smaller as the rust builds up. So what they did probably is they took the cables out, they heated them up, they soaked them in penetrating oil, and they freed them up and got them to move. They may be perfectly okay, so I wouldn't be too worried about it. Yeah, and also getting them from the dealership, I mean, we're not talking about $1,000 here.

Yeah. So, I mean, if this really bothers you and you park on steep hills all the time, I would just go to the dealer and get the cable to do it. The left rear, evidently, is no longer being manufactured. Uh-huh. And that's probably the one that doesn't work anymore. What you can do alternatively is to travel around with a chalk block. You know what that is?

No. It's a hunk of wood that you use to chalk the wheel. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. Okay, yeah. is you have to remember to remove it before you take off. Uh-huh. Well, you can attach it. I got it.

You attach it with a rope and you keep it in the trunk. Oh, well. No, you keep it in the front seat right next. You reel it in. So you get in the car, the rope. No, if you ever forget it and you drive away, you're always going to be driving up. Uh-huh. Not necessarily.

Yeah, that's not going to work. No, you need to tie it to a rope and tie it around the steering wheel. Well, so you can't forget it if you're driving. down because you have to go over a big bump. Right. But if you're going the other way and it's behind the car, you'll just drag it. Blubleblah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'd get a chalk block. You figure out how you don't lose it. Oh, well, no. Those are really common in southern Indiana. You'd be amazing. Oh, they are. Oh, you'd be amazed. No, I wouldn't.

Good luck to you because you have a really easy thing to worry about here. And I would stop worrying about it. If you do find yourself still thinking about it, go and do something, but if you forget about it, that's okay, too. Yeah, and you're more likely to die a fiery death by having a fuel leak on this, which these cars tend to ask. But I didn't, I didn't mean to say that. You didn't mean that.

No, he didn't mean that. Instruct the jury to disregard that last statement. See ya, Lisa. Thanks, guys. Good luck. Thanks. Bye-bye. Would that that was the least of our problems.

Oh, mega. Oh, my God. 1-888-8-8-2-7-8-25-5. Hello, you're on car talk. Hi, this is Matt Baer. Hi, Matt. Where are you calling from? I'm calling from Dearborn, Michigan, just outside of Detroit.

Yes, indeed. What's shaking, man? What are they making Deerborn? Well, they make Ford's. This is Ford Country. Oh, yeah. They make rear ends in Deerborn, don't they? They make everything in Deerborn.

Everything. The whole business, huh? Oh, yeah. This is where the power plant blew up a couple months ago. Oh, yeah. They make shabangs, the whole shebang. From soup to nuts. So what's up, Matthew?

Well, I'm here in Ford Country, but I happen to drive a 96 intrepid. Okay. And I had an incident the other day driving down the road, air condition blowing away because it's hot out here, and had what my wife called the death fog come out of the air vents. Death fog, yeah. That's cool. She wanted me to pull over. She was afraid that it was something poisonous.

and I assured her in all confidence that it wasn't anything poisonous. You had a ready explanation, did you not? Oh, yeah. I have no clue what it was, but I just... But you did say, don't worry, hon. And you gave her an explanation of some kind. Oh, absolutely, it's just water vapor. It's nothing to worry about.

This stuff happens all the time in cars like this. It's just a hot heat. I have no clue what it was. But did she buy you a little story? Well, did she jump out of the car? She's known me long enough to keep questioning me. So you thought it was a fog created by excessive water vapor that was somehow being condensed and getting blown out the vents. Is that what you, is that what you so told her?

Yes. That's good. I said it was good because of the humidity. That's exactly. Man, you're 100% right. That's exactly what happened. Yeah. See?

See, hon? And it was due to the excessive humidity. Because, I mean, think about it. It's clouds. Clouds were forming right there in your car. There you go. Right. And had the humidity been a little higher, had it been a little higher, you could have actually gotten lightning bolts, too.

That would have been the next step. I mean, if you got a lot of humidity in the air and you cool the air down, which was happening through the vents. Right. Then what happens to the vapor? It turns into droplets. It condens it. Exactly. Exactly.

And you got a death fog. A death fog. You were right again, Matt, and congratulations. I don't know why she keeps questioning me. She ought to just go along with it. Of course. Right. Or at least preface everything by saying,

I know you're right, hon, but could you just explain it to me and you say, of course, my dear. Of course, if I have to. Good luck, man. And watch for the dope slap. It'll be coming. I'll duck. See you.

See you. See you. Thank you very much. See you. Okay, Tommy, do you remember last week's puzzler? Do I remember last week's puzzler? Do I remember last week's puzzler? No, I don't. Get up here. Well, it's about a very odd little paragraph, and I'll have the whole paragraph in just a minute.

Oh, I remember it. This message comes from NPR sponsor, eBay. Buying a car should feel secure. Start to finish. That's why you should buy your next ride on eBay. Now with secure purchase, sellers, and... titles are verified, and financing, delivery, and insurance options are built right in. Plus, eligible vehicle purchases are backed by up to $100,000 in protection, so buy your next car on eBay. eBay, things people love. Secure purchase is powered by Caramel Dealer Services

LLC, an eBay subsidiary. 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. With a phone and an internet connection, anyone can try to turn a creative passion into income. Creative work is more valuable than people realize. It is going to be a hugely significant area of the economy. But what does it mean to monetize all this creativity? Ted Radio Hour's two-part series explores the creator economy. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you. you get your podcasts.

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. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack the Tappert Brothers, and we're here to talk, of course, about cars, car repair, and the answer to last week's puzzler. Yeah.

And this puzzler was sent in by Robert Skidmore. He says, and I quote, This paragraph is odd. What is its oddity? You may not find it at first, but this paragraph is not normal. What is wrong? It's just a small thing, but an oddity that stands out. If you find it, what is it?

You must know your days will not go on until you find out what is odd. You will pull your hair out. Your insomnia will push you until your poor brain, finally short circuits, trying to find an oddity in this paragraph. paragraph, good luck. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

The answer, of course, is that the letter E, one of the most commonly used letters in the English language. According to Arthur Conan Doyle, it is the most commonly used letter. Oh, it's not anymore? No. Now, W is. Yes. Exactly.

All the www. www.com. Does not appear once in this entire paragraph, just to show you how odd this is. This paragraph that I just read to you has 19 E's in it. Really? Exactly. Do we have a winner this week? Yeah, we do.

The winner is Jennifer Hellier from Thornton, Colorado. Boy, you learn more town's names just by looking at the winners. Exactly. Every week, it's somebody from some place that I've never heard of. Some odd ball place. It certainly is. The winner is Jennifer Hellier from Thornton, Colorado, and for having her correct answer chosen from among the thousands of correct answers that we had this week, Jennifer is going

to get a copy of our new book of puzzlers, our haircut in Horsetown, which, by the way, is now available in all bookstores everywhere in the entire world. Right. And we would appreciate it in no small way if everybody within the sound of my voice would run out and buy just one copy. Just one. Just one. Just buy one copy of a haircut.

If you all bought one, if even half of you bought two. Yeah. If half of you bought two, we wouldn't have to be here next week. Right. You could be rid of us forever. You could be rid of us forever. So you go out and if the book is not there, we can give you John Duff's phone number if you need it. But it'll be there in your local bookstore.

You buy the book and we promise we will never. And this will be a great demonstration of the power of the. masses. Sure. I mean, one person buying a book doesn't do much. Ten people, not much. A hundred. A little bit, but if everybody that hears us goes out and buys one copy. And somebody will want

it. Someone will want it. You'll give it to somebody. You just leave it on the table someone else take it. Don't worry. And they'll bring it back the next day. Yeah. Is that all? That's it. And we promise never to darken your radio again. Boy, that's a

promise that you can't get it from everybody. It's indeed. Hey, do you know what time it is? Time to apologize to MIT for ruining their commencement? No. Time to play? Stop the chock! Every once in a while, we invite one of our past callers back onto the show in order to what?

Kill time, will I think up a new puzzle? Right. And to see whether the advice that we gave, that person was any good at all or even possibly correct. So who's this week's contestant, Johnny? This week's chump stumper is Bob from Greensboro, North Carolina. You may remember, and I'm reading this from a piece of paper because I don't remember. Bob called us in December, wow, because the heat wasn't working on his 85 Chevy Cavalier.

Oh, he must have one frozen took us by now. And he was desperate because the temperature was threatened to fall below 60 any day. Good, good, good. Keep going. Okay, here's what I've replaced so far. The thermostat. Good, lower radiator hose. Good start.

Nice. The radiator. Bad start. He needed that anyway. Upper and lower heater hoses. Oh, so close. Yeah, he's getting... Oh, jeez, boy.

Yeah, water pump. Oh, my ace of the home. Wow. If I had the cover off of the heater core, I checked to make sure that the baffle was moving. Oh, Bob, you're... Wow. Well, he didn't leave us much room to work with now, did he? He replaced everything.

Well, basically, yeah, so it was a fallback position. We told Bob that during one of these numerous repairs, he likely trapped... This sounds like... He likely trapped a considerable amount of air in his cooling system, So we instructed him to tip the car up on its front end and burp it. Actually, we told him how to remove the heater hoses and top off the cool it and run it with the radiator cap off and all that stuff so that any remaining air in the system would be allowed to escape.

And we'll find out right now if that helped. Bob. I'm here. Hey, Bob. What's the average temperature been in Greensboro this week? 90. So are you warm enough? Quite, quite.

We were right. starts working, it's going to blister the paint. See, you didn't tell us how we had to get you heat. We just had to wait for June. We just did our sun dance here. I knew you were going to have some bogus solution. So tell us what happened, Paul. We're dying to hear.

Okay, put it up on the ramp. Yeah. And ran it that way. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So while it was up, I did the, I pulled the hoses off. Good. Fill them with water.

Yeah, yeah. Put them back. Nothing. Went a step farther. Took the hose back off. The one that goes to the intake manifold is higher. Yeah, yeah, yeah, good. I put a T-fitting in it.

Oh, yeah, good, good. I ran a hose up to where I could pull a vacuum on it. Right, no. By sucking on it. Good. It was disgusting, but. It was. Didn't work.

So nothing has worked. Nothing has worked. Oh, man. Well, this is, this is sadder for you than it is for us. I mean, it's no skin off our noses. Well, it's not that for me until December rolls around again. Yeah, it might get down to 70 degrees down there. Occasionally, yeah.

That's awful. Jeez. I wish I had some new ideas, but we covered everything in the last call. Well, I will tell you a little story that I might not have told you when we spoke to you the last time. That we had a card. I don't remember what it was, but it was one of these GM little junk boxes. And this guy also had no heat. but he had a blown head gasket

coincidentally and when we fixed the head gasket i.e. when we put a new head gasket on we didn't even realize it but we had inadvertently fixed his heat. Did you forget to charge him for that? When he called back to tell us it had been fixed and you set up, forgot the video.

Send us an extra 50 bucks. But he said you know the heat hasn't worked in this thing for two years and since you replaced the head gasket it has now worked. Now I had no ready explanation, and therefore I couldn't present them with a bill. I just wanted to tell you that in the event that you're grasping for straws or looking for a long project for the summer.

Yeah. I'm willing to bet it's the head gasket. Bob, we're going to be talking to you again soon after you do the head gasket. Oh, Lord. So you're going to have to. You want to be on stump the stump the chumps again? Chump the stumps. It's getting very questionable.

If you want to be on Stump the Chumps again, you're going to have to do the damn head gasket. All right, here's the deal. Make him an offer. All right, we'll do it. No, if he does the head gasket, and it's not the head gasket, you'll pay him for the head gasket job.

There you go. Doug Berman will pay you. I can do a head gasket myself in a weekend and charge you, what, $500? Is that going right? Yeah, whatever. $2.20. Yeah.

Can we agree on $200? This is dangerous. We're going to be setting a dangerous precedent. What do we care? Berman's paying. Oh, that's right. 400. We'll go as high as four.

Four. We're not a penny over six. Good Lord. You just made my life complicated. I know. Get those wrenches out, baby. See you later. Take care.

Thanks for playing stump the chums. Bye. Bye-bye. Chump the stumps. Whatever. Jump the stumps. Oh, God. We'll be right back with more calls and the new puzzler after these messages.

How we're back 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 This is another of the very famous matchstick puzzles Ah, in a long series The matchstick puzzles series Very long series

Most of the kids are out of school Or closer being out of school And I thought that before their minds get too dull this would be a good little puzzle to just, you know, keep them going a little longer. Kids. So is that a hint? Kids?

Everything's a hint. Everything's a hint. From the time you say the word puzzler, and maybe even prior to that, every word is a hint. All right, get a bunch of matches, matchsticks. Okay. Wooden matches, preferably.

Or toothpicks. Or toothpicks. You don't want kids playing with matches? Matches? We don't need those. Can match us. You can see it coming a while. Get a bunch of toothpicks.

Toothpicks, sure. And make the following equation with Roman numerals. Yeah. X, I. That's 11. 11. All right. And then the small match sticks or toothpicks plus one.

Then an equal sign X. So you have XI. plus i or 11 plus 1 equals 10 equals 10 right that's not right that's not right and the question very simply is what is the fewest number of matches you can move to get an equation that's correct correct and you can't throw away any matches you got to you got to move one or two or three oh yes what's the fewest number what's the fewest number what's the fewest number now i'm going to give a hint. Wait a minute, I have a question. Can you use the plus sign or the equal sign as well? Well, you could take, for example, you could take the vertical piece of the plus sign

and take it away, so you would have 11 minus 1 equals 10, but what would you do with the thing you took away? Stick it in your ear? You've got to use them all. Oh, I would make it, I would put it into, uh, on top of the equal sign. Oh, that's bogus. That's absolutely Then it would be 11 minus 1 absolutely equals that. Now, I'll give you the hint. So you could do that. You can move those things around as long as you don't lose any. I presented this to my son the other day, my younger son.

Yeah. And he looked at it for a minute. And we had it set up on the kitchen table. Yeah, with matches or toothpicks. Cigars. Cubans? Yeah. He leaves the room, and as soon as he re-enters, he has the answer.

So if you think you know the answer, write it on the back of a $20 bill and send it to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge, Our Fair City. Matt 02238, all waste some electrons by sending us. Boy, I want to invest in electrons. What is the least? How did you phrase this thing? the least number of... The fewest number of matches. The fewest number of matches and or toothpicks that you can move and make this into a legitimate

equation. Yes. A valid, a true equation. An equation. I mean, why doesn't it need an adjective? Right. Equation needs no modifier. Oh, man. That is good. So email us our answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. And as always, if you have what you think may be a usable, inspiring, folkloric, historic, challenging, non-pathetic, puzzler that we might be able to use in the upcoming puzzler season. Feel free to send that in also to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza,

box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Well, how does Dear Abby do it? Our Fair City, MET, 02238, and attention, puzzle editor, Eugene T. Maleska. If you'd like to call us. No, I want to know, how do dear Abby and her sister, what's her name? Ann Landers. Yeah. You notice, they aren't doing any heavy lifting.

They haven't for a long time. People send them letters, big long letters. And then Anne Landers says, boy, I couldn't have said it better than you. Thanks for sending it in. And she's done for the day. Yeah, what's wrong with us? Let's try that. 1-8-8-8-2-2-7-8-8-2-2-8-2-8-2-5.

Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, I'm Anwell from Beaver Creek, Ohio. You're who? An-Will. Ann-W-L. An-W-I-L? A-N-W-Y-L. This is your first name.

Actually, it's my middle name, but it's the one I use. Anwill. Uh-huh. It's a Welsh name. Oh, really? Yeah. Where are you from? I'm from Beaver Creek, Ohio.

Beaver Creek, Ohio Yeah Got it Great All right Now that we've squanded A whole minute of your A lot of time

You hurry it up and tell us What's on your mind All right Well my husband and I own Two Saturns And when I took Margaret Which is our 95

Sport Coop In for her Oil change The last time The Saturn guys Tried to sell me This thing called Are you ready for this?

The Envirulution engine lifeguard system, which is a power flush for the engine. Wow. I'm not making that up. That's what it's called. Enviolution engine lifeguard system. Okay, and basically it is, they say... They put a heated detergent in to clean out the sludge and the used oil that they can't

completely drain. Wow. And they say that it'll extend engine life, improve fuel economy, restore engine. restore engine efficiency, reduce harmful emissions, and improve engine performance. They make it sound like the best thing since Viagra. And make you a bologna sandwich for lunch tomorrow. That's right. And how much do they want for this E-E-E-E-E-L-S?

I can't remember, but it was pretty expensive. It was like around 100 plus. Oh, it sounds like a $295 job to me. And I didn't go for it because I wanted to hear what you guys thought. Wow. Well, I'll tell you. I'm impressed. I haven't seen any of these machines in the flesh, but I've seen the ads for them.

And we have two similar machines in our shop. Yeah, they're called Customer Fleecing System is one of them. And the wallet back. The wallet back is the other one. And the credit card cleaning device. CCD, C, C, C, C.D. We have two machines. which are sold by snap-on tools.

One is the thing called the motor vac, which cleans the fuel injection system, which actually works pretty well. And then we have another one that cleans the transmission, automatic transmission. And what it does is it actually takes all the transmission oil out, runs it through a filter, takes all the crud, and puts in new fluid,

and it flushes... And then puts the crud back in. And then puts the crud back into the next guy's transmission. But this thing actually does flush out the torque converter, which you can never drain in any car, and it does do a remarkably good job. However, these engine things, I mean, don't forget, you're changing the oil every 3 or 4,000 miles in the filter. Which we do faithfully. I don't know.

I mean, I think if you had, if you had neglected many oil changes. Yeah. You know, if you had forgotten to do a bunch of oil changes. Which we have not. Which I would say you might want to do it. On the other hand, there's the old theory that says let sleeping dogs lie. Yeah, the cars both run great. It's good enough reason for me to say

Don't do anything Works for me I may tell my husband I did it And then like, you know Use the money to go out to dinner or something And virulution, what was it again? Engine lifeguard system Engine

Lifeguard system Boy, it's awfully catchy Isn't it? Just rolls right off the tongue It really does Not as good as the wallet vac though Well, I'm sure, I would like these guys that make this thing,

maybe to give us a demonstration. I mean, I would love to know on what they base their claims. You'd have to do some pretty serious testing. You'd have to have a whole bunch of cars, half of which you do this Envirolution thing to, half of which you don't. They'd have to drive the same way, the same number of miles. A controlled experiment.

Well, how else can you make a claim like that? You can't just say, here, do this, and it'll extend engine life, it'll improve economy. I mean, how can they say that without some kind of proof? I would love to know what the proof is. I'm sure they'll be calling us tomorrow. You're like actually assuming that they would necessarily tell the truth. Well, of course, this is General Motors. They never lied to us.

No, I don't think General Motors has anything to do with this. This is something, this is an independent thing. I know, but Saturn is General Motors, and they're selling it. Well, no, they didn't succeed in selling it to me. Well, they're trying to. Well, I'm working on it. Yeah, but I'm not so sure this is something that's done by all General Motors or Saturn dealerships. This may be just this particular dealership.

Oh, that could well be. That bought into this mumbo-jumbo. Yeah, that I don't know. Maybe the Snap-on guy went to see them. Yeah, well, we haven't seen him for a few weeks. He made very well. He may be out in Beaver Creek, Ohio right now. Trying to sell me a wal-back.

bunch of suckers. My advice is stay away from it. All right. Keep Margaret away from this thing. All right. And if we run across any new information, you'll be the first to know. We'll call you. We have your number.

See you, Annwell. Bye. Thanks for calling. That was interesting. I like it. Well, I have heard of these machines. Sure. I mean, it almost makes sense.

I said almost. Everyone's looking for that slight edge. It's the kind of thing that has appeal, you know. You know, you do this and it's, and you can just visualize all those little tiny crevices. Well, these are the same, the same people that would go for this are the ones that put Rizlone in. I put Rizlone. You do? Oh, well.

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 social producer is Ken the Diaper Slayer Rogers. Our assistant producer is Catherine Kiki Ray. Our engineer is John Marston because Dennis de Manis Foley is off medicing someone. And our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor is the bugster, Mr. John Bugsy Lawler. Our public opinion pollster is Paul Murky of Merkey Research, who has done some stellar research for my brother recently.

Yeah. assisted by his able, the lovely, the lovely, the lovely statistician. And our customer care representative is, as always, Hayward Jabezoff. Our daylight savings time manager is a Conrad Adon. hour and the director of our Latin American shameless commerce operation is Chico Maniorta. Chico Maniorta.

Chico Manny Order. Our swing dance consultant is Antonio Banned Era. And our director of Japanese cooling system technology is Emperor Overhito. Of course, our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Chito and Howe is U. Louis Dewey, known to the local constabulary as Ui Louie

Dui. Thanks so much for listening. We're clicking clack to Tapper Brothers. Don't Drive like My Brother. Don't drive like my brother. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. And now, here is Kot Talk Plaza's beach activity coordinator, Mr. Vinny Goombats. Vinnie.

Thank you very much now. You're looking for something to do while you're waiting for your friends to get back from the beach. If you are, you can listen to a copy of this week's, every program, just called the Shameless Commerce Division at 888 Card Junk and ask for show number 25. That's not a beach activity, Vinny. Waiting for other people to get back from the beach is a beach activity? Well, how do you personally define work activity?

Oh. Now, if you want any other Card Talk stuff, T-shirts, C-D's books, you can also call the Shameless Commerce Division at 888 Card Junk or order online at the Cod Talk section of Cards.com, you know? Thank you, Vinny. You have been most enlightened. Enlightened this palp. Car Talk is production of Dewey Cheaterman Howe and WBOR in Boston. And even though Justice Department attorneys converge on NPR with cease and desist orders every time they hear us say it,

this is indeed NPR National Public Radio. 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.