The Best of Car Talk - #2598: The Not-So-Itsy-Bitsy Spider

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Gina was tooling along a local country road when an humongous spider descended in front of her eyes and into her lap. She doesn’t have any questions about removing stains from upholstery but there is the matter of the hedges and lawn furniture she wiped out as she careened down the embankment towards the waterfront. Brace for impact and check out this episode of The Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

NPR's podcast, Trump's Terms, is your source for same-day updates on big news about the Trump administration. Short, focused episodes, one topic at a time, about five minutes or so. We carry it reporting from across all of NPR's coverage, so you are always getting the biggest, most urgent stories. Listen to Trump's terms on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ray Maliasi. You know, before we start the show today, I want to talk for a minute about public media. Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 says that local public media stations should be responsive to their communities. And to this day, that's what NPR member stations are doing, in so many towns and regions where newspapers have stopped publishing. They're providing news and information

to everyone. Even as digital paywalls rise elsewhere, we offer these resources for free, regardless of anyone's ability to pay. We still believe in this core commitment in NPR. We always will. But as of this fall, federal funding for public media, including NPR and local NPR stations, has been eliminated. As we move into this uncharted future together, we know that you will not let the service that has been here for you all these years falter. We rely on your support to bring you the best of Kartalk now more than ever. Now, this year, we shared a lot of laughs with you from the Kartalk Archives, and we're looking forward to continuing with your help in 26. Thank you if you already go the extra mile as an NPR Plus supporter.

If not, you can still join the Plus community, get perks like bonus episodes, and more from a bunch of NPR's podcasts, and support public media by signing up for NPR Plus today at plus.npr.org. And thanks. 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 Division of Higher Education here at Car Talk Plaza. Everyone knows we're interested in higher education. We certainly are. And now that we're at September, here's a story that's certain to be of interest.

This is from the Detroit Free Press. Northwood University offers a degree in automotive marketing. This is an actual university, and the actual university, and they actually offer a major in automotive sales. So our crack staff wrote away to Northwood University and has obtained an actual copy of the course catalog. And my brother will read you a few excerpts from the required, required course lists.

Go for it. I mean, we just took these right out of the catalog. Here's one. Psychology 202. The effectiveness of satorial patterns on purchase decisions, plaid pants and you. Professor Iyakoka will delve into the effect that different patterns can have on purchase and upsell decisions. Do wider plaids encourage power options?

Do gingham plaids affect leather seat sales? Does wool up polyester affect closing rate? Pre-requisites Sociology 201, white belts, and luxury purchase intentions. Here's another. Economics 301. Market timing strategies. When to say, I have to go talk to my sales manager. Professor R. Smith...

Oh, R Smith? Yeah, R. Who could that be? We don't know. Professor Rourr Smith will explore the delicate art of timing. When is the appropriate moment during a negotiation to relinquish authority to a fictitious supervisor? How to make sure you are completely out of sight during this ploy so the customer will not see you having a cigarette by yourself and leaving through Newsweek? On Marvel Comics.

What is the exact right moment to throw in the free floor mats? Several theories will be thoroughly tested and evaluating. waited through role play and with the help of guest lectures, I mean lecturers, prerequisite, Psych 101, the Art of Lying. I like it. English 107, advanced rhetorical analysis, how to answer questions without the benefit of facts. Like unencumbered by the thought process. Professor Reagan will offer an overview of skills necessary to allay concerns, rebut

criticism, and answer difficult technical questions, all without the benefit of any particular knowledge. Kind of like our show. Can you take that course? Memorization of several dozen vocabulary words will be required, as they will then be used in an improvisational manner to respond to subjects on automotive, economic, and foreign policy topics. Sounds like a good course.

Pre-requisite, English 102, basic motor skills, lip and tongue coordination. And it is the last one, math 206. We're going to get mail. And here's the last one. Math 206, getting to 40,000. Creative addition techniques are discussed, along with such tools as exterior and interior packages, pinstripe in a little-known state and federal fees, and dealer prep costs. The semester concludes with an overview of advanced numerical obfuscation theory and spontaneous acronym creation. Guest lecturers will come from major auction houses, Vegas gaming establishments, and money-losing internet companies. Pre-requisite Math-104

calculating your commission while talking. I'm signing... Where is this place? Northwood University in Detroit. Wow! Yeah. Their lawyers are on line, too, away.

The Dean of Admissions wants us. It's a John Mungan letter. Guest lectures. If you'd like to talk to us about your car or perhaps enrollment in Northwood College, the number is 888 Car Talk. That's 8-8-2-7-8-2-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk.

Hi, my name's Rosanna. I'm in San Francisco. Hi, Rose Ann. A at the end. Rosanna. Rosanna. Rosanna, Rosanna, Danna. Exactly. Excellent. From where? San Francisco? San Francisco, California. Yeah. What's going on?

You got a car? You know what? I have my friend's car for the summer. You burn the clutch out? Exactly what I was going to ask. No, it's an automatic. It is. It is. It's a pretty new car. It's a 97 or 98 Subaru. Outback Sport.

And I was driving back from work the other day, and I heard a kind of ringing noise coming from under the car. Yeah. I noticed a man in a... Yeah, I noticed a man in a cell phone user, we hope. I noticed a man in a shopping cart rolling toward me, and I thought, oh, that's making the noise, but then about a mile later, it was still there. So that wasn't it? It stops whenever I stopped the car, a stop sign or stop light. It stops when I make turns But once I straighten the car back out again I hear the ringing

It's almost like a metal sound dragging on the ground But you have to be moving pretty much Or revving up the engine a little bit to hear it Moving Moving Have you tried just revving up the engine without moving For example leaving it in park or neutral I didn't try that

I didn't think so Yeah I didn't think so I'm not very good at diagnostics Yeah well that That'll mean we'll have to give you two answers Okay. One for moving and one for revving. Okay.

I'm prepared with only one answer. Oh, you're not? I am? I'm not? Oh, all right. Well, you'll give your answer and I'll give my answer. And you'll obviously give the other one. Yeah.

I mean, you may have two answers. I have two. I mean, you have two more. Because one of yours may not be mine. Yeah. Wouldn't that be interesting? Then we'd have three, wouldn't we? There you go.

Well, my answer. answer is that you have a loose heat shield. And what you're hearing is the little sheet metal of the heat shield rattling, and it's a benign little noise. And where is the heat shield located? The heat shield on this car is on the outside of the re-entry rockets. Right. You had me writing that down. Remember that. Well, the heat shield is everywhere. The heat shield runs from stem to stern on the exhaust system on this car. It starts virtually at the engine, and there are heat shield. And there are heat shields wrapped around the front exhaust pipe and the intermediate pipe and the catalytic converter and the tailpipe, you name it, there's a heat shield.

And it could be any one of those heat shields that's come loose and is making this annoying little noise. And that's 99% probably right answer. And you can corroborate that by sitting there with the with the car in neutral apart and revving up the engine and you will get the noise without actually being in motion. I will get the noise. I think so. Okay. But now my brother's prepared to give you six or seven other answers. That was my first answer. And the second one is if, in fact, you rev it up and you can't get the noise unless you really are moving, then that probably isn't it.

Okay. Then you might have a little, I don't know, a backing plate that's bent and maybe a rotor is just barely touching it. Oh, you could have a pebble stuck in there? Pebble stuck between them. You haven't been to Pebble Beach or anything like that, have you? No. Haven't been out there recently.

Yeah, but I don't think so. I think that you can get the noise even when you're not moving and that it's going to be the heat sheet. So when are you returning this car? At the end of the week. End of the week. Oh, good. The sooner the better, right? Exactly, exactly.

I wouldn't even mention it. Oh, you have to. You have to give whoever you borrowed it from a full report. Absolutely, absolutely. Really? I agree. Here's why I wouldn't say anything. Because how long, you've had the car all summer?

Yep. The person who was stupid enough to let you drive his car or her car is going to get in the car and not having driven it for three months or so is going to hear five other noises which he's going to blame you for. So why add another one? If you say, oh, it makes sense, little tinkle, tinkle noise. He's going to say, yeah, well, what about the thunking noise when you hit a bump? What about the noise I hear when I take a left turn?

What about the rose bush that stuck to the left front fender? It didn't make any of those noises when I gave you the car and you're going to end up paying for a transmission, CV joints, wheel bearings. Oh, here's what you do. Arranged to be out of town when he returns. Oh, smart. Unavailable.

Give him three or four days to sort things out, and you have to be in communicado. You have to be someplace. Okay. You disappear. Can't be found. Waits, Rosanna? Don't know.

You know what's good, too? Out of town. Return it on a day when you're having storms. Oh, yeah. And rain and thunder, especially loud thunder. And hopefully he crashes it in the way. I was thinking of leaving the radio volume up really loud. We try that at the shop all that time.

Yeah. But get the heat shield looked at if you want to get rid of this, if this is the only thing, take it to a gas station. And if they can duplicate the noise, they can probably tighten it up or put a little weld on it. Okay. Chewing gum works. Yeah, that's for a day.

I was going to say duct tape, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. See, yeah, Rosanna. Okay, thanks. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. If they had high-temperature chewing gum, that would work. We have that.

All right, Tommy, I'm not going to ask you if you remember last week's policy. Instead, I'm going to ask you a much easier question. Compare and contrast the economic policies of King George III and King Louis 15th paying special attention to physiocracy as a reaction to 17th century mercantilism. Hey, for you, T-shirt wearers out there, all relatives of T-shirt wearers, we just got a very 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, 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 the not the answer to last week's puzzler. The puzzler, as you might expect, is still on summer vacation.

It's still summer more or less. And I know it's summer until September 20th or 21st or 22nd. But I know it's coming back soon because lately I've been waking up at 4 in the morning with night sweats. But for another week or two, at least, maybe longer, you can get a weekly archival puzzler on our website, the Car Talk section. I thought it was Arch Rival. Arch Rival. Arch Rival. The Car Talk section of Cars.com,

and in the meantime, we'll try to confuse a few more innocent motorists. You ready? Am I ready? 1-888-8-8-2-27-8-8-2-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Yeah, hi, this is Chris from Hamilton, New Jersey. Chris. Chris, Hamilton, New Jersey.

What's going on? Yeah, I have an Eagle Summit wagon, 1994. Ooh. Uh-huh. Once in a while, when I'm driving, usually once in a while, I'm turning, but sometimes when I'm backing up, I hear this noise out of the back end. It sounds something like a very heavy spring, springing, or one piece of metal hitting another hollow piece of metal.

And I took it to the local mechanic, and he said he couldn't find anything. And it happens when? Sometimes when I'm backing up, usually if I'm going forward and turning it will happen, just like once. And it sounds like it's coming from maybe the right back, but somewhere in a back. back end. Does it happen more if you happen to be parked on a hill? Well, my driveway is on a hill, and sometimes it happens coming out of the driveway, backing out of the driveway. Okay. Have you ever, go ahead. Has it ever happened

backing into a parking space? No, I don't back into parking spaces generally. Oh, you don't? So the only time you back up is coming on. Jersey, I just plow right in. Back in. You just pull in and you leave the back end sticking out of the street. They call it the whole book and method. Technique. I like it. Have you ever worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation? Wow.

Well, I think it's coming from the rear suspension. It's coming from one of the springs. I like the spring theory. And if you think about it for a minute, I bet you'll say, it does sound like a spring that is getting tweaked. What's happening is the spring sits on a rubber cushion top and bottom. Right. And it may be that at times when it's.

considering there are certain dynamics involved in backing up that you don't have in going forward, that may also take place when you're turning. That spring is getting rotated a little bit, just enough to make it turn and then go, pung, pung, and that's the noise you're getting. I looked at it, and it looked sitting in solid, but maybe you can't see it. Well, you could also have a broken spring, too, and broken springs are hard to detect. Sometimes the last half of a coil will break off a spring, and you can't notice it, and it'll also make that kind of noise.

But you can detect it if you jack the thing up the right way. I mean, pieces start falling out. Yeah. But, I mean, you said you took it somewhere and he couldn't find anything wrong. Yeah, he just said he looked at the back end. It didn't find anything. No, I would take it back to this fellow. Ask him to put it up again and ask him to carefully look at the springs to see if you have a broken spring.

Okay. And if you don't, ask him to lube the spring cushions with silicone lubricant. And to look and see where the springs sit, if there's anything wrong. wrong with those with those uh cushions okay but in the meantime i wouldn't be too worried about it yeah it doesn't sound like anything's going to fall off all right my wife will be happy to hear that but make sure you wear the seatbelt just in case and a football helmet yeah oh and that too yeah did we mention that see you chris thank you very much call bye one 888 car talk this wouldn't you like to have a car that only made one noise i mean worried about i mean when i drive down the street

I mean, I can't count the number of strange noises that I'm hearing. Imagine if you only had, boom. Yeah, boom. What was that? What was that? You'd forget about it. Well, recently, I had to take my cold vista to pick up some bark mulch and other things, other things for the garden. Perfect vehicle for that.

I loaded it to the hilt. I piled stuff on the roof wreck. Sure. Jamaica's some awful noises ever since. I think I broke the two-rears. Springs, but I haven't had the courage to look. Don't. No, I mean, why bother, right?

Well, does it go? No, not really. That's good enough. 1-888-car talk. That's 888-225, a lawyer on car talk. My name is Gina. I'm calling from Spring Park, Minnesota. Gina?

Yes. Okay. Spring Park, Minnesota. Right. I'm basically on an elongated island peninsula on Lake Minnetonka. Is that why they make the little tall? Trucks? Yeah.

Mini Tonka's? Mini Tonka? Yeah. No, but Toro's down the street. Toro? Yes. Ooh. Ooh.

Listen, I had a very interesting thing happened to me Friday the 13th. Really? Yeah, I was, like, tooling on my way to work with, like, payroll for two stores in the front seat of the car. Yeah. Put my visor down, and I had probably one of the largest, whitest, biggest lobster-like spiders I've ever seen in my life. All off my bed. advisor, hanging in front of my face, and I'm thinking, oh, explicative, a spider. Wouldn't that scare the bed? Oh, man.

I'm, like, moving it on its little web over to the window, and I'm kind of, you know, like, on the edge of the road. I've got a policeman behind me, a couple of other cars. And, okay, rear tires on the edge of the road, and I think what happened is that my tire blue, I got pulled off the road. Basically, the way the bank embankment, is it's like an 85 degree pitch along the lake below the road. I ended up like going to, I'd say

180 to 250 feet along the embankment in my Lumina van. Yeah. Went through somebody's stairs to their dock a street sign for no parking. All the while wondering if a spider's still in my car

and thinking, oh my God, I'm going in the lake. I don't care if I go in the lake as long as a Spina that you're going with me. Oh, God, yes. Okay. So, you know, here I, like, plowed through 40 to 60, small trees, shrubbery. No kidding. Ended up on a sandbar with, like, three feet behind me was a 20-foot drop-off in the lake where they've been taking people out in body bags, which is what the cop said.

Did the cop at least pull over and ask you how things were going? Oh, he pulled over, wanted to know if I was okay, and I'm sitting here frantically trying to think, how am I going to get my stuff out of the car before it sinks and retrieve payroll? So, you know, I got out of the car. I stepped out into water that really did not even come up to my knee. You could still see the bumper, still see the license plate, could read my bumper stickers, you know, for driving the Marine Highway in Alaska. And they're totaling my car.

I want to know, A, do you think my car committed suicide? Or are they just saying that the car committed suicide? and they actually have to accept the fact that they think that I'm going to have more, like, computer problems than I could ever possibly have. I mean, I went through more water damage last year during the pseudo-tornado we had with water being thrown up off the lake along the same road. Also, they're totally in your car because they think it got drowned. Right. How old is it? It's five years, 117,000 miles.

How much are they going to give you for it? Honestly, I think it's low. $67.76. Take the money and run. Really? Oh, don't look back. They're going to give you $6,700? Yeah.

This piece of junk? Now, wait a minute here. It almost killed you. Oh, and God knows how many spider eggs are in that thing. Oh, God, thanks. Oh, man. Thank you so much. They love moisture, too. They love that dampness.

Well, there'll be a hundred of those spiders. Every time you put down that visor, five more will fall in your lap. I mean, I can see it now. They fix the thing all up. You go to pick it up. Right. You obviously, the first thing you do is get in and you flip down the visor.

No spider. Yeah. Right. And you think everything's okay. You even flip down the other visor. The thing's all been painted and restore. Everything's perfect. And then some dark night you're driving along that very road.

And you feel an itch on your leg. Oh, man. Man. In fact, you'll feel itches on your legs for the rest of your life. Oh, yeah. No matter where you are. If they'll give you $6,700. Give them $6,700.

Exactly. Tell them to keep it, and you'll send them a check every month. Okay. Now, I have a question for you. Oh. I'm looking at you, Suburban's. What do you think of Suburans? Suburban's a big.

Well, they're a lot harder to sink. Okay. They're big. You like big, huh? I do mountain driving, a lot of mountain driving. Yeah, but you've got to get over this thing with the spiders. I mean, geez, you could have killed some. somebody.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, I could have killed. Including yourself. What did you think the... It was not my day to die. What did you think the spider was going to do to you? Land in my lap. Yeah, then.

That's all it takes, man. You know what happened? One time, I always drive a convertible if I can, if I can. And I never put the top up if I don't have to. And I never have to, because the cars I drive, they get wet, who cares? So the top is always down. So I was parked in my driveway one day. and I sometimes wear a hat to protect my quaff.

Right. Oh, yeah. Because, you know, my hair is one of my biggest, best assets. Yeah. Biggest. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't want my hair to get must-up when I'm driving with the top down. So I always have a baseball hat laying on the seat.

So I'm driving someplace one day, and I didn't have the hat on. So I picked up the hat, and I put it on my head. It had been sitting on the seat. when the car was parked under a tree. Oh, no. And some kind of a monstrous beetle or bee or something was in the hat. A beetle in your bonnet. A beetle in my...

So I put the hat and I'm driving along in traffic at about 65 or 70, and I feel something crawling in my head. Man alive. I almost... I whip off the hat, and there's this thing. up there. How I didn't kill myself, I don't know. So I empathize with the spider thing because this thing was in my hair. In my hair. And it's still in there. We've been looking for it for two years. But back to your real question, Gina. I don't like the suburban for the mountain

roads that you talk about. Okay. It's too high. It's not well sprung. It tilts over. And I wouldn't want to be driving it around curvy mountain roads. So what do you suggest? I would get something lower. You need a nice Subaru outback. Yeah. Really? And the Subaru is all-wheel drive. It's low to the ground. I like it a lot better. And you can get a wagon. They're pretty big. Oh, thank you. I hadn't even thought of the height of the suburban thing. It's too big

and unwieldy. Okay. Dangerous for you. See it, Gina. We need all the issues we can get. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. See you later. So long. Thank you. Bye. right after these messages. Hey, for you, T-shirt wearers 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 Cheyman, How. You can now get Car Talk T-shirts. shirts that 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.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 no new a puzzler. Yes, right, indeed. The Puzzler is taking its annual summer hiatus, and if you can't go another week without a puzzler, aside from getting a life, we'd recommend you head over to the Car Talk section of Cars.com and check out this week's Arch rival, puzzler, or is it archival?

Arch rival. And if you happen to have a puzzler, do you think my brother can use in the fall, I'm sure he would love to hear from you. Oh, just send it to me at Car Talk Plaza. Less than lousy Puzzler Division. It doesn't even have to be lousy. Doesn't even have to be that good.

Better than lousy. Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt 02238. Or email me your puzzler suggestion from the car talk section of cars.com. Cool. By the way, we've been getting lots of requests for the free bumper sticker we started giving away a few weeks ago. It says, drive now, talk later, and it's designed to encourage

the bozos on cell phones to concentrate on their driving and talk to their bookies later. It's a simple concept. Drive now. Get it? Talk later. Or talk now, but don't drive now. Drive later. Whatever you want. Now, if you would like a free drive now, talk later, bumper sticker for your heap, just said they stamped self-addressed envelope. Notice I said stamped self-addressed envelope, too. Bumper sticker, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt, 2238.

And I'm sure the cell phone industry is with us 100% on this safety campaign. Of course they are. Of course they are. Although, strangely enough, they haven't called to congratulate us yet. Isn't that odd, huh? That is kind of strange, isn't it? Hey, do you know what it's time for, man? Uh, time to mow the weeds again?

No! It's time to play stomp the chumps! This is the portion of our show, when we go back and ask a previous caller whether the advice we gave was any good or just plain stinko. I hate this part of this show. I know you do so. Stop! Who's going to humiliate us this week?

Well, this paper here says it's Mike from Brothel. No, Bottle, Bottle, Washington. Bottled, Bottled Washington. Mike called a couple of months ago because once a week or so, I'm reading this, his 93 Subaru legacy would die while he was climbing a hill. He'd pull over, sit there for a minute of two, then he could start it right up, and the car would be fine. Oh, I remember.

We told him that his Subaru suffered from a rare trans-species ailment. This was when you were on your walnut shell kick, I believe, wasn't it? I'm not sure, but I think so. And you have a, your car, that is, has a rare disease, which it may have contracted from another car in the neighborhood. You have Toyota Camry syndrome. No kidding. I believe so. TCS.

TCS. Yeah, well known among cardiologists. And what you have is carbon-bishop. build up on the valve train, which causes some of the valves to stick open and not close, thus rendering the engine compressionless. Are there any Toyotas that you park near at work or neighbors? On either side of me, both neighbors. That'll do it.

I did. Late at night, when you're asleep, you don't know what's going on. Exactly. That TCS, Toyota Camry syndrome, in a Subaru. If you're right, you could write this one up for the journals, you know? Well, we explain that Therota Camry syndrome results from carbonized valves, and if you catch it early enough, you can sometimes treat it with a few bottles of, you know, fuel injector cleaner. Yeah, but what if it's late stage, TCS?

Then you're going to use a device called Motor VAC that forces a powerful cleaning solvent through the engine. Like, Jolt Cola, one of those? Mike, are you there? Yes. Mike, before you tell us whether, in fact, you had TCS or not, We have to, as they say, in the police business, common mirandize you. Now, it's a nearly painless surgical procedure, like so.

Is it true that you have not been offered any cash prizes, SNH green stamps by NPR, NPR member stations, or the cell phone lobby in exchange for embarrassing us here today on Stumpter Chumps? Oh, absolutely. Great. So what happened, man? Oh, well, I just, you know, it was pretty interesting. I took your advice and went down and found the cheapest chemicals I could put in my gas tank.

you know, considering the advice I got. Yeah. So you put the stuff in? Yeah, I put the stuff in. I went through two tanks of gas. Yeah, I went and got the two-for-one sale on the chemicals. Oh, so you put one can in one tank of gas. Yeah, and then put it in the second tank of gas, and then it got better.

It's just a little bit. Fantastic. Mike, I mean, what can we say? How can we possibly repay? Oh, we already did. Well, thanks for playing. Stump to Chumps, Mike. I'm glad everything is A-O-K.

Oh, yeah, it's fantastic, guys. Great. Appreciate the help. Our pleasure. All right. Bye-bye. Bye. You know, we have calculated our batting average on Stump to Chumps.

What do you think it is? Let me see. You're about one. No, no, no, no, no. Let me see. No, no, no, no. Just take a batting average guess. I would say 200.

One out of five, right. Two out of ten, actually. Okay. Well, here's the numbers. Eight out of 40. We have played Stump to Chumps 40 times. I don't know over what period of time, including today. Here are the results. I'm ready.

You ready for this? We had six mistrials due to misleading or inconclusive evidence. Oh, yeah, I can believe that. So they don't count. They don't count at all. Then we had 21 correct answers. Get out. Then you are already over.

500. Then we had 13 answers that were either incorrect, misleading, or criminally negligent. So it's really, let's see, let me get a pen here, it's really 21 out of 34. Yeah. So what is

that? 619. Holy. We're batting 619? I'm going to arbitration next season. I mean, who are these guys said he's... I can't play for this Trump change anymore. No. I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror. 619. 6.9. I'm shocked.

This is over, what, 10 years? Or six months. Wow. So, whatever, if you'd like to call us, and you'll have a 61.9% chance for getting a right answer from us. Remember that. Wow. Based on these 40 or so calls.

That's not bad. It's a good sample size. Mickey Mouse's a little sample. 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. Our assistant producer is Frau Federlosa.

Our engineer is Dennis DeMennis Foley. Our senior web lackey is Doug Sheep Boy, Mayor. And our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor is the bugster. John Bugsy make that three free lunches in three days, loller. And he's still awake. He stayed awake for the whole show. Stay awake for the entire show. Well, that's what happens when you make him stand.

I notice he has someone to tie his arms to the door. Our public opinion pollster is Paul Mercky of Mercky Research, assisted by statistician Marge Novera. Marge Novera. Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzov. Our sales director in Iraq is Aziz, no warranty. Our daylight savings time manager is Conrad Adenauer, who's assisted by our director of standard time Red Hour Back.

Tom's personal matchmaker is Robin D.G. Cradle. Robin D. Cradle. And our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Chidman Howe is Uluis Dewee, known to the languishing Taurus as Ui Louie Dewee. Thanks so much for listening. We're clicking clack for Tappert Brothers. And remember, whatever, don't drive like my brother. Need I say it, don't drive like my brother. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. And now, a special treat we have here in the studio, Kartalk Plaza's chief mechanic, Mr. Vinny Goombats.

Vinny? Hey, thank you very much. Now, if you just want a copy of this here show, which is number 37, just pick up your phone and call this number. You ready? Yeah. One 888 card junk. And what if I wanted a Contalk CD or a T-shirt, Vinnie?

I mean, would I call that same number? No, you called the Warren Beatty for President Committee, you'll talk. Of course you called the same number. You call the shameless commerce division at 888 card junk or visit it online at the Cod Talk section of Cards.com. You got it? Well, thank you, Vinny.

That was very edifying as you said. Hey, edify this guy. Car Talk is a production of Dewee Sheiman Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though our dad admits that adoption may have been a better way to go. every hears us saying. This is NPR National Public Radio.