The Best of Car Talk - #2593: Driving Blind

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

Lori’s man is acquiring old vehicles at an alarming rate. He loves working on them but, since he’s blind, he can’t drive them. Should Lori be putting the brakes on this hobby or practice kickstarting the Harley instead? Find out on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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 Philosophy here at Car Talk Plaza. Yes, words to live by. I can't wait. These sound very much like Stephen Wright. Uh-huh. But you might be wrong. But I might be wrong.

But they came to me from various roots from Corinna Sherman. Okay. Give us the gems. To me, it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if somebody says, hey, can you give me a hand, you're saying, sorry, I got these sacks. As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red, again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way. That's me. I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world

without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they would never expect it. Consider the daffodil. Yes. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here looking through your stuff. And my favorite, which we used once actually before, was before criticizing someone, walk a mile in his shoes. Then, when you do criticize him, you'll be a mile away and you'll have his shoes. Well, Karina, I want to thank you. Those have made me stop and think. I'll tell you that.

Indeed. And that doesn't happen very often. No, we know that. I'm encumbered by the thought process. Anyway, if you'd like to talk to us about your car, the number is 1-888-8-8-8-8-2-7-8-25-5. Here's another one. I always wanted to be somebody, but I think I should have been more specific. Hello, your own car talk.

Hello. This is Michelle from Fairbanks, Alaska. Hi, Michelle. Is it spring yet? Is it spring? It's summer. It's sunny 24 hours a day. Yeah, this is it.

Oh, yeah. This is when it happens there. 24 hours a day. Getting much shut, I, are we? No, we don't sleep in summertime. We just stay awake all night. And why would you want to? I mean, the better you can hibernate in the winter.

Yeah. So you have to concentrate all your fun into a few weeks of the year. So during which time is, like, everyone on vacation? Of course. No, not really. Everyone, of course, is working as normal work. But when we get off work, we play, play, play, play. Well, sure.

I mean, and it doesn't really matter when you go to work because it's daylight all the time. That's right. You just throw away the clocks. That's right. Cool. So what's up? Well, I have a 900-series turbo sob, and it's a 1984. And when you drive it, you know, it starts just fine, and then you drive it, and the engine gets really hot.

And then you stop the car, and then it won't start again while the engine's hot. and you have to wait two hours for the engine to get totally coal, and then it'll start right up. Of course, in the winter, you don't have to wait two hours. You just wait two minutes. Yeah, yeah. And I should tell you what I already did. When it won't start, it cranks and try. No.

It does nothing? It does nothing. It doesn't even, it doesn't do anything, no sound at all. Oh. So then I call my dad, who's sort of a, you know, closet mechanic, and he said, change the coil, because the coil spring is getting all tired when it's hot or whatever. Okay. As usual, father's advice.

If coil springs in your mattress. Yeah. Well, I changed the coil because that was, you know, paper than taking this to a mechanic. But you said that when you turn the key, nothing happened. Well, it kind of goes quick, click, click, click. But it doesn't go, ah, ah, ah. No, no, no. Okay. Well, what's happening is the starter is not engaging.

Either you have a faulty starter motor, or you have a bad battery, or you have a bad alternator, and the alternator is not charging up the battery. But I'd have to go with the starter motor. Exactly. And you know why? Why? Because it starts when it's cold. And furthermore, after cooling off for two hours, it starts, which starts again. The battery, if it were bad, would not get self-rejuvenating.

in two hours. But what would happen in those two hours is that the starter motor would cool off. Uh-huh. And as we know, from seventh grade... Don't go too far. Oh, no. This is seventh grade science class.

Uh-oh. You took this course? Well, I did. I took it as a freshman. College. When things heat up, the resistance goes up. That's simple. Uh-huh.

And that's what's happening to the starter. It heats up. The resistance of the wine. endings goes up and it makes it harder for it to turn because you need a starter. I would bet my reputation on it. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh, okay.

Is this a stick shift car? Yeah. You could, if you may have tried this. If only there were hills in Alaska. Well, the next time you know it's not going to start, seek out a hill of some kind. Even a driveway that's inclined. And I'm willing to bet if you put the thing in gear and turn the key on and coasted down the driveway and pop the clutch, it would start right up.

Oh, okay. So you could, that's one remedy. You could just not do the starter and look for a hill every time. Or a moose. No. A moose to pull the thing. But I think you need a new starter motor, Michelle. Okay, sounds good.

All right. Well, thank you so much. Good luck, Michelle, and happy summering to you. Okay. Don't get sunburned. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. 1-888-car talk.

That's 8-8-2-27-82-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, guys, this is Andy in Alpharetta, Georgia. Alpharetta? Alpharetta. I love it. It's this side of paradise. No kidding.

Oh, yes, lovely here. Great. So what's going on, Andy? Well, help me out, guys. My wife has a 1997, three-quarter-ton suburban with the 7.4-liter-v-v-8. Oh, my. Well, I'm tired of getting thank-you notices from the gas stations around. Well, what the heck did you expect?

And this is just kind of a point of curiosity, a little consumer advice, I guess, on your part is, lately I have heard a lot of ads for these aftermarket, high-tech electronic ignition systems that you plug all the wires in, and five minutes later, you've got great gas mileage and increased performance in your car. Yeah, you already have that. They tried that already. And what do you get for mileage? About six? We stop counting.

I don't even think of double digits. Oh, no, double digits. You might get double digits downhill. Yeah, with a tailwind. With a tailwind. Other than that, you're definitely in single digits. The question is, are you below five or not? Well, you know, they put a 42-gallon tank in, so you never know.

You can at least get the grandmother's house. Right. You have a 40, really, you have a 42-gallon tank. tank? Oh, gosh, yeah. Well, why do you have a 7.4-liter engine, which is like 500 cubic inches by my calculations? Just her quest for more power and torque when she's out cruising the highway with that big horse trailer behind her? Oh, the horse to the horses. Oh, yeah.

See, we Americans are a little peculiar. I mean, most people that have a horse use it as the means of transportation. And we feel that she's taking the horses off like a Sunday drive? Oh, for a ride. That's an interesting idea. There you go. Well, I don't know what this miracle device is that you want to install on the car. I mean, can you elaborate?

Sure. Yeah, it's a set of what they call kind of a high-tech spark plug wires, a super coil, and then some sort of little computer gizmo that keeps it all hanging together. What does it cost? It's supposed to optimize the spark and the efficiency. 99 bucks. No, no, no, I'm sorry. 139.95.

Well, normally. it was 650, but today they were going to give it to me for a mere 450. Yeah, and if you installed this, I would say it would take close to 900 years

for you to pay off that device. Yeah, that's about what I came up to. Get another gas credit card and not worry about it. I mean, you already have pretty high-tech and high-energy ignition on this vehicle already. I can't imagine that they can't imagine

that they can really get the electrons to flow much faster than 186,000 miles a second. Don't forget, they were embarrassed when they road tested this and it got 7.7 miles of the gallon, so they pulled out all the stops already. So I'm already fuel efficient. You were already about as fuel efficient as you're going to get, and I think you'd be spending the money foolishly.

Although I'd like to see somebody buy it and see if it really does anything, and that might have to be you, Andy. Well, I mean, $450 is the wrong price to change. charge for a device like this. Oh, I agree. I mean, what they should be doing is selling something in a bottle that costs seven bucks. That says miracle on it.

That says the word miracle on it. And you'd have to put it in like every week. Well, I can do that. But the $450 price tag is genius. Because if it were $99, you'd figure what? Oh, it's not worth it. But for $4.50 you say, geez, these guys are going to have a lot of hutzpah. I don't feel like I'm getting placed.

50 for this thing if it doesn't work. It must, it must work. But for $8.39 a week, you could get the $450 every year. Yeah, but if it didn't. And everyone would convince himself. But if it didn't work, you'd only get the $8 once. Oh, but you'd always, it always works. You'd think so?

You know what happens, don't you? When you put in $8.39 worth of stuff. Oh, you add volume to the fuel. All you really put in here is a bottle of gasoline. There you go. That's right. you end up getting better gas mileage. This is a brilliant marketing.

Save your money, Andy. We'll see you on down the highway, then. Get lighter horses. More credit card. All right. Good luck. See you later. See you.

Okay. Now, Tommy, do you remember last week's puzzler? Do I remember last week's puzzler? You don't remember Diddley, do you? Gidley, who? That's what I thought. message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of

customers and visit Wise.com. T's and C's Apply. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack the Tappert Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and of course the answer to last week's puzzler. This is the heartwarming story of Krusty's fifth wedding or Sixth or something I don't remember exactly. Krusty, of course, you may remember, was a former employer of ours at the garage, and he was on his way to meet his bride at a chapel, quite a distance from home. I think it was in Unidilla, New York, in fact. That's quite a distance from everything.

And she had already warned him, if he's late, the wedding's off. So he fires up his most reliable car, his 65 Falcon, and makes his way across Massachusetts onto Route 7 in New York. Yeah, I remember it. Okay. Anyway, all's right with the world when all of a sudden the car backfires, cuts out and coasts to the side of the road, and he immediately figures out that his points have burned out.

And he says, ah, geez, I should have changed those before I left. If only I had another set of points. As luck would have it, he opens the glove box, and there's a shiny new set of ignition points sitting right there. And, furthermore, his entire toolkit is in the trunk. Wow. I mean, what's serendipity, huh? Wow.

Of course, his toolkit consists of a screwdriver, a jackknife, and a hammer. So he opens the hood, takes off the distributor cap, and proceeds to remove that little screw that holds the breaker points. Oh, I remember it now. He deftly removes the screw, and he installs the new points. And as he is putting the screw back in, he drops it. And where does it go? Inside the distributor. Everyone has had this happen to him.

And, of course, he can't get it out. He can see it. He can even touch it with the screwdriver. but he can't get at it and he knows that he's done for so he runs to the trunk and finds what you normally find in the trunk salami sandwich the bumper jack

and he first thinks of jacking up the car and tipping it on its roof but dismisses that because he thinks it might ruin the paint he also finds a 50 pound bag of Iams dog food not to be confused with Yom's dog food a junky old lamp that he bought at a yard sale

that was going to be the wedding present for his bride and a gallon of Filippo Berrio extra virgin olive oil. Using one or a combination of these items, plus his toolkit, he manages to extricate the screw in a matter of seconds, maybe, minutes, certainly. And he doesn't tip the car over. How did he do it?

So you ready? Salami sandwich, bumper jack, 50 pound bag of dog fool, an old lamp, and a gallon of Felipeo Berrio extra virgin olive oil, and of course his toolkit, the screwdriver, the jack knife, and a hammer. Wow. What does he do? What does he do?

What does he do? I have to say, I'm baffled by this one. I'm baffled. But I know it's going to be great. You do, huh? Yeah. I remember now when you stated this puzzle last week, I said it must have something to do with the lamp. You're right.

But I couldn't figure out what. You couldn't figure it out. No. He takes the lamp cord, realizes that this isn't going to be his bride's wedding present after all. And he cuts the cord. With the knife. With the knife. He then bears, with his jackknife, he then bears the ends of the cord.

So he has a wire with the insulation removed. Yeah. He then wraps that lamp cord around the screwdriver and touching the bare ends to the battery and turns his screwdriver into an electromagnet. And in the second he pulls out the screw and before the lamp cord catches fire, he installs the screw, sets the points and he's two hours late for the wedding she was gone when he got there

but he did make it you know the model of the story is that you can make it if you have to but he was a little late wow so that's it Electro magnet an electrow who would have thought right? Beets me I do know

I know that Adrian Overman from Concord North Carolina figured it out and for having her correct answer chosen from among the two correct answers that we got this week she's going to get a copy of our new book of puzzlers, a haircut in Horsetown, which is now available in all the best bookstores.

Make a scene if you don't see it prominently displayed. Just yell and scream and call John Duff at Penguin Books in New York. He won't mind. He loves to get calls. Say, what kind of a crummy bookstore is this? Yeah. What's the story here? Anyway, we'll have a new season-ending puzzler

coming up in the third half of today's show. It's like the World Series coming up. In the meantime, we'll take your calls at 1-888-8-8-8-8-28-8-2-2-7-8-2-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hello. Yes, yes. I've been waiting a decade to have a car problem worthy of your time and expertise. Well, I hope it's a good one.

Yeah. It is a good one. But now that I've gotten it, you know, I've wanted to tell all my friends I'm going to be on Car Talk, I cannot identify myself with my real name or my location. Oh, it's nobody else does either. Oh, okay. You'd be a fool to use your real talk. real name. Okay, because I'm in a real messy

divorce and I don't want their lawyers to find out what kind of car this is. They're probably able to figure out. Okay, so what name would you like to use and think about that, too, because I'm sure you have. I thought about it. When I was a kid, my friends called me... Ah, be careful now. Your ex-wife

may know what your friends called you when you were a kid. That's okay. As long as they can't prove who this was. Ah, okay. You do whatever you want, Phil. All right. Jinks. Jinks. Okay. And where would you like to be from, Jinks? I'm from the Boston area. I'm from a town that is known for the shot heard around the world.

Oh, Tupelo, Mississippi. Right. The backfired. I like to. We're going to put Tupelo in there. Okay. Go ahead. And this car... What kind of BMW is it? It's close. It's like a Volkswagen on steroids. It begins with a P and ends with an E. And the American pronunciation is one syllable. The German is two.

Yes, yes, yes. And the model number can often be seen on police cars as an emergency number. Yes. Okay, we're with you now. Very good. Okay, you're completely anonymous here. Yeah. No one knows anything about anything.

Okay. And what year is this 9-11? It's 1972. Oh, vintage. No. Probably all restored in primo condition worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. so anyway jinks what's your problem i um i was driving along on a very romantic moonlit night in vermont like the song yeah moonlight in vermont along route 89 just north of the capital

mott peculiar panties in a stream fallen leaves of sycamore i'm sorry very good um and i also was with a lady friend and um and this lady friend that i just thought wow you could probably see the moon and the stars a whole lot better if I turn the headlights out. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, and it was a beautiful night, so I turned the headlights out for a moment. I was traveling about 60 miles an hour, and immediately the car filled with this acrid smoke that smelled of wires melting. Oh. And smoke coming out of the vents and around the gauges.

So much for a romantic evening. We're rolling down windows, opening the sunroof, and smoke's billowing out, and when I pulled the light switch back on, it stopped. I mean, it wasn't burning anymore. Wow. Cool. I had recently sent the speedometer out to get recalibrated, and then I marked all the wires with little pieces of tape, and I took it out and then put it back in. Well, you've since then turned off the headlights. I don't try to drive it at night.

The car is also for sale, but anyway, the point is, it only happens when the car is running and I turn, and the headlights are on. I can turn the headlights on, but if I turn the headlights off, especially if the brights were on, while the car is running, smoke starts to come up. Oh, man. Well, and this didn't happen before you messed around under there with the spedometer. Right. Well, it's clear that you did something. Some kind of relay or something, you know, and I... It's clear that God is getting back at you for being such a lousy husband.

She's leaving me. I'm not leaving her. Then it's not God. Yeah. The Porsche God. It's the Porsche. I said the word. This is a very, of course, a very unusual thing. Because if you stop current from flowing, why should fires start?

And that's what's going on. Well, you never stop current from flowing to the switch. I mean, that's the way the switch works, is current coming to it, and then when you turn the headlights on, you energize a relay and you send current to the lights. Like the lights. But when I pulled the spectrometer out, the wires are all melting. Uh-huh. And I know to rewire an entire car is going to be very expensive. So it's running just fine now.

I just can't. You just want to sell it during the day. Yeah. That's right. Well, the thing is that I went out and immediately brought a fire extinguisher because... Good idea. The gas intake is very close to where these wires are right behind the dash. It sure is.

I wouldn't mess with it if I were you, because you've already screwed it up once. And I would take it somewhere and have someone look. I mean, someone's going to have to crawl under there. Yeah, you've done it. One of two things, I think, either you've pinched a wire or you've forgotten to hook up a ground wire someplace. Yes. You're forcing a circuit to find a ground. that then doesn't want to be ground.

But only when I'm turning off the lights. Well, what's happening is that when he turns the lights off, there's a relay that's not kicking out and somehow it's feeding. But I've seen very strange things happen when wires that aren't supposed to be grounded, get grounded. And when ground wires that are supposed to be hooked up to ground are not hooked up to ground. Right. Well, the good thing about this is it will be easy for the person who works on it to diagnose it

because it's easily reproduced. Yes. Yeah. So that's the way we solve these problems. We look for the smoke. Even though the smoke is like right next to the gas tank. That's right. They'll do it outside.

Yeah. Yeah. Don't mess with it. Take it to an electrical specialist somewhere down there in Tupelo where you live. Yeah. And as your name implies, you shouldn't be working on this, Jinks. Good luck. That's it.

Good luck, Jinks. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Take care. Don't move because. More calls and the new Puzzler are coming right up. 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.

I can hardly what. You said this was like a season-ending thing? This is season-ending, but never-ending. Ah. Because you don't know the answer. Well, you'll see that it did. there isn't one answer necessarily. Oh, that's very good. Well, I don't know about it very good, but it's different. So thousands of people could win.

I've known this, I've known this puzzler for years, and I used to know one of the answers to it, but I believe there's more than one answer. There may be many. There may be hundreds, and you, our listeners, will find that out. And I was reminded of it recently when I received an email from a guy named Claude Warren from, I don't know who the hell knows where he comes from. Cyberspace.

Anyplace. Alien. He says, as you probably know, there are words that are opposites, and they're called antonyms. For example, hot and cold up and down, click and clack. He even spelled antonoms out phonetically for us in case we were complete dim ones. Yeah, what would make him think that? He says, can you think of two words that are their own antonyms?

Well, I mean, I've known these two words for a long time. The two are easy. The two are easy. Well, they ain't that easy, and I don't think the vast majority of people would come up with even these two. but I'm going to give you these two because I know there are more. The first one is cleave. I'll give you a sentence.

You cleave things a part with a cleaver, meat cleaver, or your lug nuts may cleave to your studs making them impossible to remove without a very hot torch. Right? Or cleave means to... The cleavage you who are looking at it. No, no, never mind. I'll leave that part out.

Oh, God. Are we in trouble again? Yeah, I know. It's always you. The other word is sanction. Yeah. And here's a sentence that Claude Warren gave to us. NASCAR sanctions stock car races, but a driver that runs another into a wall may be sanctioned by NASCAR.

Yeah. It's clear that in these two instances, Cleave has two meanings, which are diametrically opposed. Right. And so does sanction. Yeah. The question very simply is, are there other words like this? And if there are, what are they? Yes.

Sure. Are there other words like this? And if there are, what are they? Well, we know that there's at least one other because we know what it is. We think. Oh, I think it's... You think so? Oh, absolutely.

I saw it in a dream. Okay, and send their answer to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt, 2,22, 3A. Or as always, you can communicate with us via the Internet by visiting the Car Talk section of Cars.com and emailing us your answers. Using up some of the Earth's most precious electrons. Do you use them up or do they just recycle? Can you recycle electrons? Oh, yeah.

We're not. Renewable. They're renewable resource. Yeah. So use all you want. It's like plastic bags. I like to call us the number is 1-8-88 cards. talk that's 888-227 8255 hello you're on car talk hi my name's Jamie I'm from Fayetteville

Arkansas hi Jamie how you doing man I'm doing all right how are y'all oh not bad you're having too much fun up there no we're not having any fun at all it's I'll tell you it's it's a chore to do this show every week yeah oh it's awful man you're just laughing to keep the pain away that's it that's it you got to hit the near right on the head man he's down there in country Western land, and they know a lot of expressions like that. I'm just laughing to keep the pain away. If that isn't a country western title, I don't know what is.

We just develop a certain attitude that makes it easy to make them up on the spot. But nothing's better than Bubba shot the jukebox. So what's cooking, Jamie? Well, I've got a two-part question for you, but both

parts are motivated by my desire to someday have power steering before I die. I'm in the lawn mowing business, and I'm pulling a trailer around with a 69 Ford truck, which is an old farm and ranch special. It's about like working an 80-year-old man out in the field every day. Yeah, right. But I've been thinking about getting a new truck, and I hear so much about diesel,

about how long they last and how powerful they are. And how much noise they make. And how much they cost, and how much they cost, and fumes they put out. But other than that, they're all right. But everyone that drives a diesel tells me that for my business, where I'm doing a lot of stopping and starting all day, you know, 15, 20 times a day, that that's real hard on a diesel engine. And everyone says that, except the people that sell them. And they say, no, nonsense. I've never heard of that problem.

Hmm. So what you guys are? Well, how many miles a year do you drive? Oh, 10 to 15,000? But it's all a little short trips. Yeah, a little short run. Yeah, see, I'd have to recommend against the deal. diesel. Okay, and why is that? It's bad for all kinds of engines to do that kind of driving.

It is bad for all kinds of engines. However, I think you're going to go through starter motors and batteries at an alarming rate. And it is bad for the contamination that results from a, don't forget, a diesel engine has to use the heat of compression to combust the fuel. And one of the reasons that you have to change the oil often in the diesel is that it gets contaminated with the fuel. And that contamination takes place primarily when the engine is running inefficiently. And when you start it. And when the engine's cold and you start it.

So you drive it for five or ten minutes. You park it. You park it. You restart it and you park it. You're restart it and you park it. And every time you do that, you're getting washed down of the cylinder walls with uncombusted fuel. And you're going to have to change the oil like every week. Or every day. And the other thing is that you're not gaining any of the benefits of a diesel because

diesels are good because they will run forever. But you don't want something that runs forever unless you decide to take. take out the key and just start it up once and leave it running forever. You could do that. You never shut it off. And I've noticed people doing that. They do that. They go into the store and they leave it running.

They leave it running. So when you see one like that, steal it. Well, do you have any good tips on how to go about that? Oh, yeah. We have a private number for that. It's 1-8-88. Hot cars. How about the second part of my question?

which would be feasible or recommended to... Retrofit. Yeah, for my truck. Yeah, absolutely. The power steering pump part of it is easy. I mean, you can attach a pump, and there's plenty of places to attach one. The holes are already there in the block and the cylinder head to attach the bracket. They make all the engines capable of having power steering.

So attaching that part of it's easy, it's getting the steering box that's tough. Okay. And so you'd have to get one. and you'd have to find out what steering box fits, what's vehicles. It may be, for example, that the steering box that fit a 69 pickup truck went all the way up to 75. And if you could find that out, you can find that out at the junkyard. So you'll plop that baby in, you'll put the hoses, you'll run the hoses up to the power steering pump, and you put a pump and a belt on there, and you're in Fat City.

God, it just can't be that easy. Oh, no, you're in Fayetteville. I'm sorry. It won't be because you're going to have to go down to the Fayetteville Recycling Center there, auto recycling center, and you're going to have to go to all of them. So I'm going to be doing some searching. Yeah, and as you know, the auto recycling centers are junkyards, as they are more correctly called, they have a network. So if you go to one where you can find a guy who's willing to spend a little time with you,

he can send out your request on the network. You know how the network works? The dog's bark. And the dog in the next junkyard hears him, and he barks. again, and then it leaks across. It's like smoke signals, so to speak. Yeah, right. Yeah. And pretty soon you find a dog that has this stuff, and he barks back,

and they deliver it. Okay. So, good luck to you, Jamie. All right, thanks a lot. See you later. Bye-bye. 1-888-Kartalk. That's 888-227-8-255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Lori and Elsa Bronte, California. Elsa, Bronte, California? Where is this?

Elsa Bronte? It's in the San Francisco Bay area. Is it actually in the Bay? No. Is it Elsa? Is it two words? Yeah. El Sabronte.

Yeah. It means the leftover. Right. El Sabronte. Oh, it's L. Yeah. Like El Segundo? Not El Sabronte.

It's not El El Sabronte's sister. Elsa. No. El Sabronte. When Sabronte means what? Remainter. The leftover. The leftover.

Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. That is a charming name for a city. As long as you don't know what it means. Yeah. That's great. Yeah.

El Sabronte. Yeah. I love it. So what's up? I have a car relationship question for you. Car slash relationship? Car slash relationship. Go for it.

Well, my boyfriend and I have been together for three years, and we've been living together since December. And also since December, he's been accumulating old vehicles. Oh. The first was a 1965 Chevy one-ton panel truck. Oh, that's a nice vehicle. Oh, man. Yeah, and then there was a 1949 Harley-Davidson Panhead with the side car.

Yeah. And now there are two more 1965 Chevy pickup trucks, and he could tell you the difference. All I can tell is one has more rusts than the other. No, no, see. Yeah. You don't see. You're not a discriminating user. Yeah.

No, not really. Yeah, you're going to have a hard time convincing us that he's doing anything wrong. Yeah, I mean, the question is, have you got a problem with that, Laurie? Well, here's the catch. My boyfriend is blind. He can't drive any of these vehicles. Interesting. So there's kind of this pressure on me to drive them.

Ah. He hasn't always been blind. He used to be a mechanic before he lost his eyes. So he likes to work on them. Oh, he does. And I don't know why he can't be satisfied just working on them. Oh, no, come on, Laurie. You've got to drive them once in a while.

You've got to get the guy a ride. Come on. I mean, first of all, he's got, what, three pickup trucks? Right. He's not going to know the difference between pickup drug A and pickup truck B. So you don't have to drive one of them. Neither one of them is going to run anyway. Right.

But I don't know how to drive a motorcycle, and this one has a kickstart. Yeah, that's going to be fun. Suicide shift. and that doesn't sound good to me. Yeah, you may have to just crash that into a tree the first five minutes and get yourself off the hook with that one. Right. But the other vehicles you can drive,

and I think it will strengthen your relationship. It will bond you together for life. You think so. Is this the guy? I mean, is this the guy that you... Three years. Is he the one? Yeah, maybe so.

Has he popped the question yet? No. Have you? Um, well... You know what the question is? I might have tried. Ah, he's not interested Well, I don't know

That's a good question Right now he's interested in trucks Yeah So you think I should just make my peace with it, huh? I think so Obviously, if he's gone to all this trouble To collect these things Then it means a lot to him

Right And if you think that he means a lot to you Then I think you gotta just bite the bullet Yeah, I guess you're probably right Yeah, embrace them You have the right attitude toward it. I can tell from the sound of your voice that you love the guy, and I think you should just go with it. Okay. That's my feeling, too. And if he doesn't say yes to your question,

ask him a different question. Okay. See you later. All right. Bye. See you, all right. 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 Diaper Slayer Rogers. Our assistant producer is Catherine make that three hot dogs, Ray. What was that all about? What is that about? We don't know. We'll have to find out.

Our engineer is Dennis DeMittany. Our senior weblacky is Doug Sheep Boy, Mayor, and our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor is the bugster. Mr. John Bugsy Lawler. Our public opinion pollster was Paul Murky of Merkey Research, assisted by statistician Marge in Overa. Marge said Marge in Overa. Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabezoff.

Our daylight savings time manager is Conrad Adonauer, and our staff mortician is Barry L. Plotz. And the direct of our Latin American shameless commerce operation is Chico Maniota. Our swing dancing consultant is Antonio Bandera. The chairman of our under-employment study group is Art Majors and our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheathamette and Howe is Louis Dewey, known to the meter maids as Ui-Louis Dewey. Thanks so much for listening. We're clicking clack to Tapit Brothers.

Don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. And now a special guest here in the studio is Car Talk Plaza's chief mechanic, Mr. Vin Eagle Box, Vinnie. Thank you very much. Now, if you just want a copy at this year's show, which is number 27, just pick up your phone, call 1-888 car junk. And what if I wanted some other Car Talk stuff, Vinie?

I mean, like books or CDs or T-shirts, how would I get that stuff? Well, you'd probably just steal it from Dougie's office like you usually told I, wouldn't you? But if you was a member of the general public, you'd call the shame. was Commerce Division at 888 Carjump or visit it online at the Car Talk section of Cards.com, you know? Yeah, thank you, Vinny. That was almost edifying. Hey, edify this, will you, pal? Car Talk is a production of Dewee Cheatham and Howe and W.B.R. in Boston. And even though Mahatma Gandhi would have reconsidered nonviolence, if you ever had heard us say it,

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