The Best of Car Talk - #2596: Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Karen from Virginia has two problems: Her Ford Taurus wagon shakes something awful from time to time. The second problem is her physicist husband’s theories about the source of the shimmy. We ain’t Fakin’, Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ on in this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi there, it's Ray Maliasi. Now, before we start the show, I want to point out that it's a special day at NPR. It's giving Tuesday. NPR celebrates this day of generosity every year, but we've never had a year quite like this one before. You've probably heard by now that federal funding for public media was eliminated in October. That means NPR is no operating without federal support for the first time in our history. Over 50 years, and that's a big change and a big challenge. but it's one that we can overcome together.

Twice a week, you have a laugh with me and my brother on The Best of Car Talk, and we're so grateful to the listeners who have already stepped up to donate, like Jessica from Michigan, who says, I'm donating in honor of my mom and dad who raised me on NPR, all things considered, and Car Talk. Thanks, Jessica. Please make your Giving Tuesday gift right now by signing up for NPR Plus. It's a simple recurring donation that gets you perks from NPR's podcast,

and bonus episodes from The Best of Car Talk. Join us at plus.npr.org. Thanks again for your support, and let's get on to the show. Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack the Tappert Brothers broadcasting this week from the bumper decoration division here at Car Talk. Plaza. My car needs decoration of any kind. Actually, in the interest of safety, we have mass produced and I'm making available to you,

our listeners, today for free, no charge, a new car talk bumper sticker. The purpose of this bumper sticker is to get people to pay attention to the task at hand, which is what, driving your car. Right. And hang up the stupid cell phone. Well, we know from personal experience that a dope with a cell phone up to his ear is four times more likely to have an accident than a dope without a cell phone in his ear. That's based on a study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine.

And they know what they're talking about, I think, for the most part. Yeah. So we decided to offer a free bumper ticket to encourage these bozos, these dopes to shape up. Yeah, this is it. This is it. We will have no more. That's it. They are endangering the lives of all of us.

And if you're that important, don't leave the house. Don't leave wherever it is you're so important for that everyone's going to call you. I mean, these people, these people that are on their cell phones all the time, did they previously spend their lives driving around looking for pay phones? I mean, is that what the, is that how their lives were consumed? No. When they got to wherever they were going, they pressed the little button, and they got all their messages.

Now they've suddenly become so important. Yeah. Come on. You're not that important. You're not that important. Trust me. Well, it's ego gratification. Exactly.

That's all it is. I'm on the cell phone. And I want, you know, I'm calling you for my car. Who cares? Jerk. Now, when we were designing this bumper sticker, we narrowed it down to two slogans and they were. Yeah, I'll give it to you.

One, drive now, talk later. That wasn't bad. Not bad. Two, would you drive better if I cram that cell phone up your keys? I like that one better. Well, after lengthy consultation with NPR and our lawyers and et cetera, et cetera, we opted for number one. So if you want a free bumper sticker that says drive now, talk later,

all you have to do is send a self-address stamped envelope to bumper sticker, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500 Harvard Square, Cambridge, Our Fair City. Ma, 22238. And by the way, all this information is on the website, the cartalk section of cars.com, if you happen to have missed it. If you want to talk to us about your car or anything else for that matter, you can reach us at 888 Car Talk. That's 8-8-2-27-8-2-5. Hello, you're on Carat Talk.

My name is Gammon. I'm calling from Birmingham, Alabama. J-M-I-N? That's right. No kidding. What kind of a name is Gammon? That's my name. Well, I know it's your name.

I never heard it before. Well, she was imp-like when she was small, I guess. Exactly right. Elfin. My parents saw it in a movie, and they thought it was cool. It's good. It's interesting that there are so few people who take a creative approach to naming their kids. Isn't that true?

Yeah. I think everyone to name all their kids, Gammon. I name my first child, hey, jerk. I didn't say George Foreman calls all his children. They're all named George. Yeah. That's a creative approach, too. It's interesting.

Interesting, I think. So what's up, Gavin? Well, I have an 1988 Honda Civic, and I want it to run forever, and it's doing pretty well with that. How many miles on it now? 138,000. It's good. We're going for two, at least. Sure.

I drove through some kind of deep water. And I really didn't mean to, but I had to get someplace, and we had kind of a flash flood here in Birmingham, and it went up over my wheels. And that was not pretty much. Well, over the top of the wheels? Well, I was in the car, so I'm not sure. But I'm, you know, and I do tend to exaggerate. But it was kind of deep. All right.

And it felt funny. I got it. I think it didn't go over the top of your wheels. If it had, the engine would have stopped running. Okay. No, it definitely kept running. Good. You're very lucky.

We'll explain why. But it was up there certainly beyond the middle of the wheel. I think so. You just think so. I'm quite sure. Well, let me tell you what happened. I got where I was going. That was fine, and I got home, and the next morning I went to drive, and the car started.

There's nothing wrong with the engine, but now when I break, if I'm going fast and have to slow down quick, if I break, it makes the weirdest noise. Like, I think it's like the wheel of fortune spinning or roulette wheel. Yeah. Oh, that brr. But it stops. You know, and then, of course, the noise stopped the minute I took it in to get it looking. at. And now it started again. And they told me the breaks are fine. I don't need to get anything

done for a while. They've still got plenty of breaking on them. Well, how carefully did they look? Well, I don't know. They probably didn't. They probably didn't look all that carefully because you can almost always see the discs without doing anything. Okay. Just peeking. But I think that you have a fish caught between. I think so, too. Exactly. And from the sound that you've described, it sounds like a brook trout to me. Really? It's more likely that one of two things happened. Either the thing got rusted from all that water that got in there.

Right. And that rusting took place overnight. For example, if you did this driving through the big puddle, and then you parked it for a couple of days, you could have built up enough rust on the disc rotors to have caused this problem or by plunging a hot disc into a cold bath. You could have warped the discs. That's true.

Yeah. Is the noise accompanied at all? by any vibration or pulsing in the pedal when you stop? Well, I kind of have the typical Honda pulsation anyway. Yeah, so I don't notice anything more than that. But the car stops well? Yeah, that's fine. I mean, the brakes are designed to operate perfectly well submerged.

Okay. Yeah, they are. I mean, there's nothing there that can really be damaged. And if they were submerged for years at a time, it would be bad. Yeah. But to get completely wet like you got them would be no way injurious. I would wait until you needed pads and do nothing. Okay.

Well, what I did was I got a new car stereo, so it's louder. There you go. And now you don't hear the noise at all, and that's the reason. No, not at all. It's really fine. You're all set. I'm glad we were able to help. And are you glad you waited for us to return from vacation? I've been sitting on the edge of my seat.

Jammin, it's a pleasure having talked to you. Thanks. See you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. 1-8-8-8-8-8-2. 8-8-2. No, 8-8-2-2-2-2-8-2-8-2-8-2-8-2-8-2-8-2-5.

That's it. Okay, hello, you're on Car Talk. Quick you forget. Hi, my name is Mom in Princeton. Hi, Mom. Hi. Where the hell do we get with it? Well, it's what three people call me all the time, but I am not going to reveal my identity

because very likely either myself or my oldest son are going to be mortified at the end of this conversation. Oh, okay. One of the other. We're protecting one of us. Yeah. Well, my situation is not so much a question about a particular car, but about cars in general. The little background. My oldest son, who is just almost 19.

His name is son. His name is son, yes. Sonny. Sonny. We'll call him Sonny. And he's, by the way, no longer living here, so he can't present his side of the argument. Good. I'm going to really try to do him justice and not do him a disservice.

Okay. And I have like an 18-5 years. your old son, so I can be some kind of an expert witness here. You probably understand a lot of the name is Jerk off. No, hey, jerk. My son may have a few other names for me, too. In any event, since he was a tiny little guy, he has always been interested in taking things apart.

Sometimes he would even put them back together. But he has a real curious mind and a natural ability to problem solve. I, on the other hand, have been described as mechanically declined by people who care about me and don't want to hurt my feelings. That's probably the most positive spin we could put on it. All right. So when the following situation took place, I assumed my son knew what he was talking about. I'll tell you right up front here.

That is one of the biggest mistakes that a parent of an 18- or 19-year-old can make. because they are very, very powerful in their presentations. Yes, yes, I would concur with that. Yeah, okay. Go ahead. So the story opens on that really, one of these really, really, really hot summer days that we've had on the East Coast, blistering. Yeah.

My son is giving a going away party for himself, and we're at a discount store buying hamburgers and all the fixings for 40 people. Is he going off to college or the United States Army or what? He went into the United States Army, and that is why he cannot defend himself. He is trapped in basic training. Not in Fort Dix, New Jersey. No, no, no. No, no. He's in a much hotter place in Missouri, yeah.

So it's with some kind of caution that I'm presenting the story here. Yeah, all right. So here you're buying hamburgers and hot dogs for 40 people. And we come out, we've got this huge payload of frozen stuff, and we come out to the van. I don't know if you're interested in the make of the car. Yes, we are. In 1991 Toyota Previa. So we open the car, which has been locked for probably an hour or so.

It's 375 degrees inside. And we'd been driving probably 30 to 45 minutes before that. Right. So this car is really hot, and we have a lot of food that we need to keep cold. We pull out of the parking lot, and we're waiting in line to make a left turn. And my son turns on the heat, full blast. Okay. Uncle Sam needs you.

Yeah, this is good. And you say, hey, jerk. And he says, no, that's Tom's son. And you know, and this is like the last day or two that my son's going to be home for a very long time. So I'm trying to keep everything really pleasant and nice. And I said, is there a particular reason that you turned the heat on, you know, the air conditioning button? He said, no, Mom. The deal is when the car is this hot, it will cool down faster if the heat has some place to go or the heat.

Yeah, yeah. No, I understand. Okay. And so I didn't question him. You know, mechanically declined. I didn't question him. I mechanically declined. Right.

So I grinned and bore it as long as I could, but it was so incredible. My skin hurts. I couldn't stand the heat. So I pulled rank. Yeah. And I said, this is my car. turn on the air conditioning and roll up the window. Yeah.

And that's, we ended it not amicably. Yeah. Rolling, he was rolling his eyes and saying the meat's going to be ruined, et cetera. So the meat didn't get ruined. We got home, which isn't that far away anyway. And I'm just really curious. Would that have worked if I'd been able to stand the heat? No.

The son was completely wrong. Yeah. He was mixing apples and oranges. Like this is like most of my brother's theories as a little element of truth. in it or correctness. Or correctness. There's some validity to it, except not with regards to the meat. The meat certainly, I mean, that's why they keep the meat in a freezer.

You didn't take it out of an oven to find it frozen rock solid like that. What he was referring to is that if you are driving, for example, for a long time, you had just started up. You're driving for a long time, and the engine is overheating, not the passenger compartment, but the engine. One of the ways to help cool down the engine is to turn on the heater because the heater is basically another little radiator. Okay. So if the engine wasn't overheating, and you didn't... No, the engine was... You didn't intimate that the engine was overheating.

And anything could have been overheating. It was so hot. It was the people who were overheating. And the hamburgers. and the hamburgers. So, I mean, if he hadn't directly alluded to look at how hot the temperature gauge is on the dashboard and was referring only to the heat in the passenger compartment, he was completely all wet. Okay.

And he was trying to intimidate his mother whom he was ready to leave for years after having lived with her for 19 years. and there is some kind of psychological thing going on. Yeah. And we don't know what it is. I've yet to understand it, but it especially goes on between mothers and teenage boys. Well, my mother, who raised four of them, always said to remind me, honey, you have to let him go, otherwise they can't come back.

So this one is launched, and we hope he'll come back. Yeah. Well, he has made it easy for you to let go, hasn't you? See you, Mom. All right, thanks, Bob. Wow. Bye. Boy, oh, boy. It's tough, isn't it? It certainly is. We didn't make it any easier.

More calls are coming up after the break, so stick around. Hey, for you, T-shirtwearers out there, all relatives of T-shirtwearers. We just got a veritable shipload, that's shipload with a P, of new Car Talk T-shirts at the Shameless Commerce Division. The folks there made a great series of T-shirts out of their favorite car talk quotes. So in addition to the classics, you know, don't drive like my brother, Dewey Cheathman, how. You can now get Car Talk T-shirts, let's say, for instance, if money can fix it, it's not a problem. Life is too short to drive boring cars. Do it while you're young.

You may never have a chance to do anything this stupid again. Reality often astonishes theory or happiness equals reality minus expectation. How about this one? Lousy car advice since 1977, and many, many more. If you'd like one or want one to ship to a friend or relative, you don't really like. Just head over to shameless commerce.com. That's shameless commerce.com.

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 not the answer to last week's puzzler. We'll remind you, Puzzler addicts that we post a Puzzler a week all summer long on our website, the Car Talk section of Cars.com.

So if you're really bored, you've got nothing to do while the boss is away, and you can do it furtively, go there and loiter. For the rest of you, the Puzzler is on summer vacation and we'll be back sometime in September. The Puzzler is on vacation. Let me get this right now. But we're here. Yeah. So we can like just go right on misinforming the American public about cars, right?

Absolutely. One 888 Car Talk, that's 888-228-8-2-8-2-5, although you're on Car Talk. Hey, guys. Hi, who's this? John, from Gloversville, New York. Hi, John, Gloversville. Gloversville, isn't that the place? Isn't Gloversville, New York?

Isn't that the place where the aliens landed? I thought that was Rockwell, somewhere in the South West. No, no, no. Oswell, New Mexico? No. Gloversville, New York. What aliens? The Mars invasion, Austin Wells.

A war of the worlds War of the Worlds War of the Worlds Yeah Wasn't it Gloversville, New York Well I tell you I wasn't here then Oh you weren't No wonder you forgot about it

Yeah well I don't know So what's up John So I've got this 1990 VW golf Brought it from my sister a couple years ago Yeah I got a 135,000 on it Yeah And it pulls

slightly to the right Whenever I'm going uphill And it pulls slightly to the left whenever I'm going downhill or on the level. Yeah. That's about it. It runs fine. It's always been doing that, right?

It's been doing it as long as I've had it. Pulls to the right. And it'll pull more if you step on the gas. So I would bet it pulls more going uphill than it does pulling down. Actually, you know, it's pretty much the same. Then I don't know what it is. When it pulls to right going up? Yep.

Pills to the left going down or on the level. So it pulls to the left otherwise. Right. And it will do this whether you're accelerating, decelerating, holding the steering wheel, not holding the steering wheel. That's correct. Well, I don't want to not hold the steering wheel. Well, going up the hill, it's torque steer. It is.

It is. Coming down the hill. We're not going to have any money coming down the hill. Ah, jeez. John, this is interesting. I like these problems. Obviously, you've heard. had someone look at this. No, he hasn't. Oh, he has. He has. And you've had the obvious things

checked like the tire pressure, the alignment, stuck brakes, etc., etc. Absolutely. And none of those things have yielded anything. No, that new tires on, it hasn't changed the thing. It's aligned. And it's recently redone. It's been doing this ever since you got it from your sister, that weird sister yours? Now, let's not get too far into my sister. But yeah, it's been doing that pretty much ever since I got it. Just because we have a weird sister. Doesn't mean that everyone does. No?

No, I've got a great sister. She took very good care of it. Does your sister, like, buried things in the backyard? Well, they've got a garden that stretches. No, I don't mean plants. I mean, like, bottles of solutions. I've never known her to do that. No matter what ailment you have, our sister has something buried in the ground.

She said, underground. But she says, I'll get back to you in 17 days. Right. And you say 17 days? And she says, well, it's got to be buried in the ground for 17 days. And we hope you survive that one. And by the time she comes back with the stuff, you're all better. She says it works every time.

There's the definition of a homeopathic remedy for you, right? Yeah, but she does bring us things that have been buried in her backyard for 17 days. Is this the reason she got rid of the car? No. She didn't even notice it. When was the accident? Did it have an accident? No accident.

No accident. Nope. I'm trying to think of something that would change with direction. In other words, a bad motor mount, for example, or transmission mount would be changed by going uphill and then would change, do something to the engine transmission when you were going downhill. How that would translate into pulling? See, I'm working on. Haven't been able to fabricate that. Here's what I'm working on.

Here's what I'm working on. The differential. Are you really? I am feverishly attempting. I'd abandon that at once. No, I like it. I like the differential. John, you know, you may have noticed that we've been on vacation.

And ordinarily, when we come back from vacation, we're renewed. And we are reinvigorated, and our minds have been swept clean. And, you know, we've forgotten everything we ever knew about cars. What little it was. Yeah. You know, I have a suspicion that it's something to do with the back end and not the front. Huh. Like an emergency break is dragging when you go on one.

No. No. Oh, oh. See? You never know. You mean like a cracked frame. Like, there you go. Ah.

Did your sister ever have an accident with the car? No, he said she never had an accident. She didn't tell him about it. Right. I mean, does your sister tell you all the accidents she has? She's got a brand new car. One day she says, it's funny. You know, those extra driving lights that I have on the front?

I said, yeah. Oh, she said, you know those extra driving lights that I had in the front? They're now dragging on the pavement. They're dragging on the ground. And I said to her, well, how did that happen? What did you hit? Hit? I didn't hear that.

They just fell out. They just fell out. They just fell out. She's what a cheap piece of junk this is. The lights just fell out. We said, no, we don't think so. No, I don't think so. So, yeah.

I don't know, but I am. I'm telling you. Work on the differential. I'm working on it. But, John, for the time being, we are stymied. Well, but that doesn't mean that we won't come up with an answer later on in the show. So stay tuned. Yeah.

I'll do that. See you later. Thanks, John. Hi, bye. Good luck. I mean, it's lucky. Close to the right going on. It doesn't, 1-8.

It has to do with torque. It has to do a torque. It's going to have to do with torque and the differential. Well, I was leaning. Because the torque. I was leaning toward a bad axle. See, axles? Tork.

90 golf is the is the right age. too, but I couldn't make it fit, and it would have been too convoluted and unbelievable what I had to put forth, so I decided to abandon it. Why was this any different from most of your theories? I wasn't up. I wasn't up for it. Maybe in a few weeks. 1-88-car talk.

That's 888-2278-2-5. Hello, you're on car talking. My name's Tracy Thompson. Hi, Tracy with an E or no E? T-R-A-C-Y. F-R-A-C-Y. Just a plain old Tracy, no... No...

Embellishments. Like Spencer or Dick. I like it. You must be from some, you're certainly not from California. And you're probably from some straightforward little place like Pennsylvania or Maryland. Kind of, wrong coast, though. Wrong coast. Some of the simple little place like Washington, not Oregon.

But Washington are, that's it, Washington State. Beautiful Olympia, Washington. Boy, gee, is the guy good or what? I'm telling you. I mean, you had a one in two. 50 chance. No, when she said the wrong coast, I only had one chance on a three. And it wasn't California.

Could have been the Gulf Coast. I had 50, 50, Texas, Alabama. Or it could have been the northern coast. It could have been Detroit. Could have been. So, Tracy, what's up? I have a real puzzler here. I have an 81 Dotson 310.

Oh, my. No kidding. God, really. Really? I didn't know any survived the rust. It's been a dream car for me. Really? One of the great things.

about is it has this totally accessible clutch. You get at it from the top. Isn't that one of the amazing things about that car? You look at that and you say, oh, my God, how would I ever take the transmission out of this thing if it needed a clutch? And the answer is, in about 15 minutes. Wow.

And when my clutch went out, I was so happy. I felt like, wow, you know, this is what I've been waiting for. And so the thing went out. I went and I got the whole new unit. I put it in. And lo and behold, you know, there's this. release arm that comes from the slave cylinder. Yes.

All of a sudden, there was this extra inch between that and the primary drive gear unit. And I took it apart again. I put it back together. Everything seemed right. So then I took the entire clutch, I took it to the dealer. I took it to the mechanic thinking that maybe there's a different one for different motors or, you know, that it may be machined a little... I think there's only one clutch for all the three-tens ever made.

Yeah, that's what they said, too. Yeah. And so everything's right, but everything's wrong. So you can't get the clutch to disengage. Exactly. When you did this, did you replace the throwout bearing, the release bearing? Yeah. And you're sure you put it in correctly.

Kind of hard to mess it up. It sure is. Yeah. But if you did mess it up, that would explain why things don't meet anymore. And not much else would explain it that I can think of. Well, that arm that the which mohousers pushes on, is it pivots on a ball, does it not? You mean on the slave cylinder side?

No, no, you've got the slave cylinder, a rod pushing onto the, this clutch arm that you're calling it, or the, it's called the fork. Oh, the fork. The fork is the thing that the push rod is supposed to push onto. Okay. Right? That piece. Oh, okay. And it could be that that thing has come off the ball, the pivot ball.

Because as you push in one direction, the thing moves, the other end of it moves in the opposite direction. and it could be that that thing broke somehow. Yeah? Why did you take it apart in the first place? Because it was pretty much out. It's 20 years old. I waited until the last minute. So it was just slipping.

Yeah. You were able to shift it, however. Pretty much. You were able to shift it pretty much? What do you mean pretty much? It was getting tough. In what way was it getting tough? There was nothing in the pedal left anymore.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So it was not slipping. No, I think what was wrong has just gotten worse. You may need a slave cylinder or a master cylinder. It may be that the reason you're not pushing that rod far enough is you don't have enough pressure anymore. You didn't need a clutch at all. Don't tell her that.

I mean, you needed the clutch, of course. She must have needed the clutch, too. Yeah, I mean, after 25 years, you needed a clutch. But the clutch that you, the pieces that you replaced would not have caused the pedal to be doing what you just described. See, the pedal was already beginning to do this before you took it apart. And now it's doing it worse. Okay. And I bet you you're going to find out that the master cylinder is no good.

And maybe you didn't do anything wrong. But how would that explain the inch? The extra inch. Because the reason that you have the extra inches, you're not pushing out, there's not enough pressure in the system to push the rod far enough because you're not developing enough pressure with the master cylinder. I'm going to check the master cylinder. I'm going to check the fork.

Okay. Good luck. Thank you very much If it doesn't work, call us back. Here's our nighttime number. 1-888-227-8255. No, I was going to give it a nighttime number, which is backwards. Is your home phone number?

No, Burman. 5-5. We'll give you to Simon's home number. See you, Tracy. Good luck. Thanks a lot. And congratulations for trying this yourself. And you'll feel a great sense of accomplishment if you ever fix it.

And you will fix it. You will. And when you fix it, you'll say, those bozo didn't hope. help me at all. See you later. Thanks. Bye-bye. Bye. I wonder how many miles she had on it? Mad, because she ain't going to get any more. That's so cruel.

That's bricked right in. Whatever, 174,000, that was it. Strawberry plants. Our IP, right. Guess what? The puzzler answer and more calls are coming up right after this. Hey, for you t-shirt wearers out there, all relatives of t-shirt wears, we just got a veritable shipload, that's shipload with a P, of new Car Talk T-shirts at the Shameless Commerce Division.

The folks there made a great series of t-shirts out of their favorite car talk quotes. So in addition to the classics, you know, don't drive like my brother, Dewey Cheyman, how. You can now get Car Talk t-shirts that, say, for instance, if money can fix it, it's not a problem. Life is too short to drive boring cars. While you're young, you may never have a chance to do anything this stupid again. Reality often astonishes theory or happiness equals reality minus expectation. How about this one? Lousy car advice since 1977 and many, many more.

If you'd like one or want one to ship to a friend or relative, you don't really like. Just head over to shamelesscommerce.com. That's shamelesscommerce.com. Ha, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack the Tappert Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and the known new puzzler. The puzzler is taking its annual summer hiatus, and we know that while most of you are saying, thank God, there are a few misfits out there who can't seem to go a week without a car talk puzzle. And for them, we have what?

Shock therapy! And our weekly archival puzzler at our website, the cartalk section of cars.com. So if you need a puzzle, go there. In the meantime, if you have a puzzler, you think we can use in the fall. Send it to me here at Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City, Matt 02238, or email me your puzzler's suggestion from the Car Talk session of Cars.com. And don't forget to include the answer. Yeah, I mean, we've got enough to do without figuring out answers to puzzles.

Yeah. We're very busy. Yeah, we do get a fair number that's a, if you want the answer, email me, and we don't bother. We'll just throw it away. We'll never, we'll forget your name unless something comes up like the mailing list for the Ubegastani's political party. Then we'll add your name to it. So don't do that to us. But before we get back to calls, do you know what it's time for here?

Time to cram a cell phone up somebody. No, no, no, that's tempting, but no. It's time to play. Stump the chump! Yes, it's time for yet another thrilling episode of Stump to Chumps, where we bring back a caller from the past to find out, as they say in the medical profession, whether there was a, quote, satisfactory outcome. Or as they say in the medical profession, whether we're going to get our butts handed to us by the lawyers.

So who's this week's stump chumper? I don't know. The note here says it's Sid from Lantana, Florida, and I don't remember Sid, but it says he has Sid's Nissan Maximum made a rubbing noise on sharp turns, and I guess it was making him crazy. Oh, that's right. Sid's noise only occurred when he made fairly tight turns, and he said it sounded to him like a tire rubbing the inside of the fender well. I remember. Yeah, and upon hearing it, my brilliant brother took a while stab and said, Sid, you're not going to believe this. But I think one of your tires is rubbing on the inside of the Fenderwell. Pretty good. It would have been, except you weren't spot enough to quit while you were ahead.

No, no? No. The next word's idea, Mothriss. So, Sid, how long ago did you buy the new tires? Go ahead, Sid. I did buy the new tires about maybe three to four months ago, but let me preface this by saying this sound has been with me for well over a year. We can't hear you, Sid.

We must have a bad connection. Can you speak up? Get up the callback. Okay, once again, my brother snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. So what was our fallback answer? I don't think we came up with a fallback. You just insisted that it had to be the tires making the noise, and that Sid had probably bought tires that were too wide.

And I can also explain the existence of the noise prior to the new tires. You can? Well, not yet, but I'm working on it. All right, let's get it over with them. Sid, are you there? Yes, I am. Sid, you still love the noise? the noise? Well, before you tell us what it was,

we have to Carmen Morandize you, actually. Yeah, is it true that you have not been offered any gifts, cash prizes, or Democratic Party donor lists in exchange for any answers you are about to give us here today? No, just a short trip to Alaska. Short trip to, where? Alaska. All right. Well, what was

the noise? I hate to tell you this, guys, but you were right. No! Not you, plural, right. Yes, you plural, right. No, it was absolutely, as you called it, the tires are a little wider. Now, the thing I said to you before, and the last time we spoke, was that the sound was there previous.

Yeah. I had forgotten that I had bought the previous tires from the same people, and they did the same thing. Ah, so you had oversized tires on for two rotations of the tires. Absolutely. Oh, it's one of those deals where for the same price, we'll give you the tires that don't fit your car. Boy, isn't that the true? It's like going to buy, what are you with, size nine? We don't have those, but for the same price, we'll give you a 10.

That's exactly what happened. That's it. Well, my brother was right. I have to say that my brother pulled it out. He wanted to know when did you buy the new tires, and he was absolutely right. And God only knows you may be the only person in months that he gave the right answer. Well, I'll put the flag out for that one. Thanks, Sid.

Listen, thanks for playing Stump the Chumps. We appreciate it. Well, thank you for the information, guys. Have a good day. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. If you'd like to call us about your...

your car, the number is 1-888-8-8-8-2-27-8-2-5. Five. Hello, your own car talk. Hi, this is Karen from Arlington, Virginia. Hi, Karen. Karen, how are you? I'm fine. I'm actually talking to you from Washington, D.C.

And if you suddenly hear the noise of small children, it's because I'm in the middle of my day camp. Okay, and you're not a lawyer or a politician. Is that correct? No, no, no. I'm a camp director. Excellent. Camp director. Okay.

Excellent. So what can we do for you, Karen? I have a Ford tourist station wagon that has a mysterious shaking problem. It only happens in highway driving after the car has been, you know, going at fairly high speeds for, say, an hour or so. So I cannot reproduce this for my mechanic, and they don't know what the heck is wrong. And what does it do exactly? It starts, the car just starts shaking, and it's a very scary feeling. I mean, the entire car vibrates.

it really sounds like something's coming loose or, you know, the whole engine's going to fall off or a wheel is going to fly. But when you stop, obviously, the shaking stops. It completely stops. And then I sat there the first time it happened, and I didn't know what to do, and I thought, well, I'll try to start it again, and then it just was fine. Yeah. And what was the weather that day?

Actually, it was bright and sunny and lovely. Yeah, that'll do it every time. I don't think weather was related. Okay. Do you have any theories? Well, my husband... My husband, the physicist, has a theory. Of course.

Oh, great. He said it has something to do with resonance. And I say, resonance. And he says, yeah, you know, it's like the momentum in a swing. Yeah. And I say, I don't get it. It's sympathetic vibration. Yeah.

But does he have any... We know that. But does he have any idea what's related to time? No, he told me to call the... car guys. What kind of physics does he do? Astrophysics. Well, no. No, actually, he was a quantum theory, quantum mechanics, that kind of stuff. You're going to buy a Volkswagen quantum then. He'll be very good at it. No, no, he's no longer a physicist, but that's what he was when he started out. See, well, I think he may be right in some way. The first thing I'm

leaning toward is a bad tire oddly enough, and I'll tell you, I had a similar experience with a George Caravan I had. You notice when I started to say this before. I said time. What I started to say was temperature. Of course, temperature. Ah, yes. So I buy these tires, and of course I have them balanced and the whole bit, new valves put in. These tires were wonderful when I first got them, and then they went out of balance such that when I drove the thing, it would vibrate. I take them back. I have them rebalanced. And to make a long story short, I had them balanced about 35 times. That was the first two months.

And it turned out that every time I drove for an extended distance, they got worse and worse and worse and worse but if I drove a short distance even at high speed they were often fine it was if when they heated up they deformed and they went out of balance and then when they cooled down they were okay and of course during which time I refused to believe

it was the tires I balanced them myself with my own equipment and then went ahead and replaced axles and da and finally in desperation I bought two new tires for the front and the problem went away forever. I mean, how do I know which tire, or are they all bad? Well, it's not what the front ones, because if it's vibrating that violently, it's happening

in the front, probably. Okay. And if any of the tires are questionable because of their age or where, buy two new ones and put them on the front. Okay. And put the next best two on the back and put the last best two in the trash. But I would certainly, before you spend any money, unless you have an obvious bad one, I would certainly just rotate them front to rear.

Okay. Put the two rears in the front and vice versa. Because it may change the dynamics of it such that you notice a huge difference in where the vibration is or its intensity. And that will tell you a lot. Yeah. If that isn't it, I suspect then you have a break that's sticking on. And the longer you drive it, the more it's sticking. And either could either be a bad caliper.

And if one break would a stick would make the car go, blah, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but both of these things are related to temperature. That's what the key is. And time. Well, as you drive, something's happening. So if you have a caliper that sticks, little by little, the friction of that pad on that rotor is going to make horrible things happen because it's going to heat up and it's going to, what, expand? Right, right.

And it's going to grab that wheel unevenly, and it could make it. So you could have a bad caliper or you could have two wheels or more sticking due to a faulty power brake booster, and we've seen that too. But I would look at the tires first. And I think what we've said. here is that no matter what it is, your husband was wrong. I'll tell him that. He'll love you at him.

See you, Karen. Good luck. Thanks for calling. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Well, it's happened again. 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.

His kids are 20 years old. He's still the diaper slayer? Come on. Let's get on that. Let's get a name for this guy. You need a name for Ken. Geez, I don't know. Our assistant producer is the missus. The missus. Oh, my God. Catherine Cathode-Ray. Our engineer is Dennis de Menace Foley. Our senior web lackey is Doug Sheep Boy Mayor. Well, he needs another name, too. And our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor, is the Bugster. John Bugsy make that three triple cheeseburgers Lawler. Our public opinion poster is Paul Murky of Merkey Research, assisted by statistician Margin Overa. Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzov. Our sales director in Iraq. is Aziz, no warranty. Our daylight savings time manager is Conrad Adonauer,

and the Car Talk Plaza receptionist is Diane Tamichia. Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheyeman Howe is Uluis Dewee, known to the lost-looking tourists as Ui-Louis-Douy. Thanks, much you're listening. We're clicking clack to Tappert Brothers.

Don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. Now, for our listening pleasure we have here in Car Talk Plaza, the chief mechanic, Mr. Vincent Q. Gumbach. Hey, thank you very much. Now, if you just want to copy at this here show, which happens to be number 34, just pick up your phone and call this here number 1-88 Carjunk. And what if I wanted to get other Car Talk paraphernalia of any, like, what I call the same number?

No, you'd call the French Foreign Legion. So, of course, you call the Shameless Commerce Division at 888 Carjunk. Or, of course, visit online at the Car Talk section of Cars.com. Thank you so much, Vinny. That was very, very enlightening and entertaining as well. Enlightened this, pal. Car Talk is a production of Dewee Chudeman Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though Boris Yelston Sachs, another prime minister every time he hears us say it,

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