The Best of Car Talk - #2602: Lincoln Logs or a Lincoln Continental?

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Charlotte and her husband have woven a tangled web, indeed. They just adopted four kids between 10 and 6 years old and the little darlings are getting into everything! Charlotte wonders if they should buy a junk car for her little mechanics to while away their young days taking it apart in the driveway. Click and Clack relive their youth on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR, and the following message come from Yarl and Pamela Mohn, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen. Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us clicking call. The Tappert Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Center for the Study of the Decline of Western Civilization, or from Pythagoras to the Cheese Steak here in Gar-Tock Plaza. Go, Tommy. Well, I mean, I have here this tome. I mean, literally a tome by P.B. Wombat, the automatic decline of Western morals. And basically, I'll summarize it for you in a sentence or two. Basically, what P.B. Wombat says.

is that the decline of America is due to the automatic transmission, which actually came way back in the 40s. It made us lazy. Made us lazy. And I'll just read you a couple of quotes. And he says, The evil doings of the automatic transmission are hidden, of course. We don't know that our wills and desires are being taken away while we are driving.

It is simply a matter, after all, of not thinking. We don't need to think about the differences between shifting and not shifting because the shifting happens for us. We don't think about being responsible for getting the car moving by any coordinated action of our own. It just happens.

Slowly this decline in personal responsibility creeps into other aspects of our lives. We don't want to be responsible for getting up and changing the channel so we have a remote control. We don't want to do the right thing and do the dishes so we have a dishwasher. We don't want to bother what actually raising our own

children, so we give them their own TV. Should we really be surprised when they shoot up the school on a lark? Of course not. They're just like us, not able to conceive of themselves as in any way responsible for their own actions. Like us, they have become shiftless. Shiftless. Ooh, how profound.

Huh? Well, I will say that the good folks at Mercedes-Benz have done their little bit to negate the negative effects of the automatic transmission by making the radios. And the heater controls impossible to understand. Boy, you've got to think when you drive one of those. I guess that's the test. It isn't the money that determines whether or not you can afford a Mercedes. All right.

So if you can work the radio. It's brainpower. Brain power. If you can't work the radio and the heater, then you don't buy the car. All right. Well, that's it. It could well be that the automatic transmission has been the decline of America. Maybe he's right.

I don't know. Who knows? Anyway, if you want to talk to us about your automatic transmission or your automatic upwindows or something like that, The numbers 1-888-8-8-8-2-27-8-25-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. This is Helen from Durham, North Carolina. How are you? Oh, Helen. It's a pleasure. Hi, Ellen. Durham. Durham. North Carolina.

The highlight of my week often is laughing at, I mean, with you guys. Oh, yes, of course. You let that slip, Helen. Sorry. So what's on your mind today? Well, I have an interesting dilemma, and I want to tell you the story real quick before I ask my question. My daughter's a sophomore at East Carolina University, which is in Greenville, where they had a lot of flooding. She called me last Thursday and said that her car was running a little warm.

It's a 92 Toyota Camry. I said, just take it to the Toyota dealer. So she goes there, they look at her fluid, say your fluid's a little low, and while they're standing there, she notices that the radiator's bubbling in the front. She said, what's that? And they said, oh, it looks like a crack in your radiator. We can probably repair it, but we may have. have to replace it. If we have to replace it, we need to use Toyota off-brand. We chose the off-brand. So she gets it time. Oh, they gave you the option. The dealer gave her the option.

They were very generous. Do you want the $750 radiator? Or do you want the $3.95 radio? Exactly. You're not going to believe this. Friday morning, she goes and picks up her car, writes them a check for $530, goes home, and the phone rings as soon as she got home. And they said, Sarah, can you bring your car back? We forgot to put the coolant in. No, they forgot to put the radiator in. They took out the old one, and they didn't put in a radiator. They just charged for it.

Really? Write that down. Wait, this might not be good. How far did she drive? Well, that's, I think, the good news. Only about four miles. Too far. About 60 degrees.

She said the thermostat never got warm like it had been. Well, duh, without any coolant in it, it's the thermostat won't move at all. It won't work. Well, look, then they had the nerve to ask her to drive the car back to them. That was pretty nervy. And then, as soon as she was willing to, she's 19, she was going to drive it back, they changed their mind, called her back and said they were sending a tow truck. Good idea.

The tow truck guy opens up her hood and says, have you called your dad? Well, that was good advice. So she called her mom instead. Close enough. So anyway, my concern is how much damage could have been done? What do we need to look for and how long will it take to show up? They also have the nerve to say she had 120,000 miles on the car. They don't want to necessarily do a warranty on the motor.

Well, the answer to your question is who knows. Right. But this could have been it. Well, so how do? What do we wait for? don't do nothing. Okay. You haven't put the radiator in this time. Yeah, that's done. And not to be sarcastic, but ask them if they could actually put even the hoses and the clamps and the antifreeze in also. Exactly. And circulate it and make sure the fan works.

Okay. And then you drive it. Okay. If it turns out that the thing begins to burn an inordinate amount of oil, which is entirely possible, because that's one of the things that happens when you're badly overheated an engine. Okay. And we don't know how badly she overheated it because the temperature gauge wouldn't work without coolant in the system. If that sensor isn't immersed in water, it won't read. Well, no wonder it didn't get warm. Exactly. And if you had been able to measure the temperature, although you'd be measuring the wrong

temperature, it might have been off the charts. Oh, my gosh. It might have been. I mean, driving four miles is pretty far. Yeah. I mean, if I were a lawyer, I would be thinking about, gee, when I do start burning a quart of oil every couple of days. How are I going to prove that this happened? I mean, did they acknowledge? They should, they sure didn't put it in writing. Well, that was the thing. They offered

to give us half the money back and a 30-day warranty. Well, I would do that. I would take that. I would take half of them. When she picked it up, they didn't give her back any money, and they gave her nothing in writing. So we just stopped payment on the check. Good. So now you've given them nothing. Right. But still. Here's what I would accept from them, because I think this would be of great benefit if you had to go to court, 120,000 miles notwithstanding. You would say, we will pay you, whatever you want for the Joe, pay you the full amount even, but we want a letter from you saying that we forgot to put the radiator in the car. Right.

And she drove it home, which was four miles, and then we asked her to bring the car back, and she did, and we put the radiator in, and that's all you need. That makes a good sense. If you had to go to court, that alone would hang them. Right. So if the car began to burn oil at a tremendous rate, you would expect them to rebuild the engine for free. And if you took them to the court, you'd win the case. Right.

Because they made a stupid mistake. But everyone made all mistakes are stupid, almost all mistakes. And if they made one, they should have to be responsible for making that mistake. And the consequences. And one of the consequences might be having to rebuild your engine. Right. Well, that just makes good sense. I think so.

But you want the letter. Say, we'll pay you if, in fact, you write us this letter on your letterhead. and if you don't want to do that, then sue us. And you'll never hear from them again. Right. That's what I would do. Well, I hope none of my customers are listening. Have you ever forgotten to put a radiator in?

Boy, that's tough. Not a radiator, but I've forgotten a few other things. Yeah, me too, but not a radiator. There's a large hole there where it's long. That's a very big hole, and I know exactly how it happened. The guy took, the mechanic took out the radiator. The hood is up. He's waiting for the new radiator to come.

It's lunchtime. he's sitting there having his lunch and he lowers the hood to put his sandwich on top of the hood because he's got to balance his coffee somewhere. Right. And he gets sick for the afternoon because of the bad lunch to the eight. He leaves

and they assume that he's finished with the job. And they just pull it out and call you up and say come and get it. Yep. And write the check. And he comes in later and finds the radiator sitting there in the box and says, oh my God. I'm sure that's exactly what happened. Oh yeah, three days later he came back.

Well, fortunately, she didn't drive to home or something. Oh, yeah. Helen, good luck. That's an interesting story. I thought you'd get a kick out of it, and I appreciate your suggestions. We did. See you later. Bye. Bye, bye. All right, Tommy. Do you remember last week's puzzler?

It wasn't that lame puzzler about the pendulum, was it? No, it's a different lame puzzler. comes from Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart, get Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit Wise.com. Tees and Cs apply. Support for NPR and the following message come from Yarl and Pamela Mohn, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen. 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 historic puzzler. First, the question. What was it about? Folkloric? I don't remember what it was. I don't either. Give me a hint. I have no idea. I do know that this came via the internet from a fellow named Dan Gallagher. The date is June 96. I remember that. Here it is. I'm just going to just read with old Dan sent us because I couldn't have improved it. Go ahead. In qualifying for the Camel Trophy Offer. road race, potential drivers were told that they had to match the lap time of their partners

as closely as possible without the use of time pieces. So no wristwatches or clocks or anything really. You couldn't use the radio in the car, right? Or pendula. For example, the first man of the two-man team would drive the course through the woods, over bridges to Grandma's house, through the streams, and then returned to the starting point and give his truck to his partner who would then drive the same course and tried to finish in the same time.

Right? Yeah. So the first guy finishes the course in like four minutes and 29 seconds. The second driver would try to duplicate that. You got, are you with me? We're in the same page? Yeah, I'm with you. But how could he do that without the use of a clock or a watch?

And this has nothing to do with a string and a lighter, but I said, it's close. It's close. And that was the hint. It's close. They were not allowed any time pieces per se. Per se. But it doesn't mean you couldn't measure time somehow if it weren't with a time. Time piece.

Right. I mean, you could use the sun. And I'm sure people were trying to think of how to use the odometer or singing a song. You could do that. They could sing the Star Spangled Banner. Oh, that's good. That would be pretty good. I haven't thought of that.

But better than all of those is you turn on the windshield wipers. Oh, man. And you count the swipes. Wow. And you can't get a better time piece than that. That's a good time. Unless you're in the MG. Right.

Who's our winner? That's very good. And the prize this week goes to Julie Johnson from Washington, D.C. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. All right, all right. And for having her answer selected at random among the thousands of correct answers that we got, Julie is going to get a copy of our brand-new CD

about fathers and cars, which is called Why You Should Never Listen to Your Father when it comes to Cars. The collection includes the call about the stupid little book. I remember that call. Oh, yeah. Remember the stupid little book? The father made his daughter fill out the cars.

stupid little book every time she got gas or checked the oil and one day she told him I'm not filling out the stupid book and she threw it out the window no that's not exactly what she did well that's just one of the many fatherly calls featured on why you should never listen to your father when it comes to cars good luck to you julie and I hope you have a good time hearing and listening to it indeed it will have a new I can't really decide I have a non-automotive and an automotive I think I'm going to use the semi- quasi-quoisey coming up in the third half of today's show,

so stay tuned for that. Hey, do you know what it's time for, pal? Time to rate the leaves out of your M-G. No, no, not yet. It's time to play Stump the Chumps! So once again, our producers have invited back a lucky, lucky to be alive, that is, caller, from a previous car talk show to find out just what happened when he or she followed our advice. Is that liability insurance paid up?

You bet it is. Okay, then who's this week's chump stumper? I don't know. It's Jeff from Moten, Motton, Pennsylvania. Jeff's 97 Chevy Luminah was making a three-stooge's type of noise when he applied the brakes. That's it. More of a classic. Yeah, it's more classic.

All right, all right. Now I remember, and I remember knowing exactly what it was. And I, of course, said you were completely full of bologna. Well, you did it first. Okay, and what's happening is as the warped part of the disc is coming around, it is slapping at the brake pad and moving it in the caliper bracket and giving you the bop, bach, bach, bach, bach, b'n noise. You can find this out by, if it is the front,

you can take it to your repair shop and have them put it up on the lift, and you can run the car in gear and you can step on the brake and you'll be able to hear and see this. Okay, you'll actually be able to see the pads moving left to right, which they shouldn't be doing. Okay, take it back. I like it.

I like it, too. Well, I mean, it's definitely the sound of pads. Yeah. It's the sound of one pad slapping. Yes, it is exactly. All right, so it appears that you convinced me that it was break pad noise and that it was caused by a warp disk rotor

that it was occasionally slapping against the pad. Is that still your position? Are you sticking with it? Not really. Can I talk to Jeff first? Sure. Jeff, are you there? I am there. All right, before we allow you to single-handedly ruin my brother's reputation,

we have to be sure this is all on the up and up. Do you affirm, Jeff, that you have not been offered any cash or prizes by our staff, the staff of National Public Radio, are any member of the Atlanta Brave starting lineup? Sure. Okay.

What happened? Well, I did take it in. And I do it, thank you guys, because, you know... It was serious. You advised me to address the situation. Yes. So I did that. Uh-oh, it doesn't sound good.

It doesn't sound good at all. Took it in. Yeah. Uh, they said they did not see any problem with a warped desk. Oh, man. Bummer. But were they able to hear the sound? Oh, they heard the sound.

And? Here's what they did. What it was was the CV joint Yeah Had a crack in it Well, that's possible And what was happening was The crack in the CV joint

Was actually causing my antelike brakes Oh To come on all the time Oh man, isn't that good Geez So the clicking I was hearing It's actually the traction control kicking in Exactly

Oh man Wow that is very good because what the ABS does is it detects a difference in speed among the different wheels. Okay. And the crack CV joint.

See, now, had you been more discerning, Jeff, you would have told us that your ABS was deploying instead of some bogus yuck, knock, knock. What the heck is that about yuck, yuck, yuck, y'all. Yeah, I knew you were going to give me a right now. No, come on, they're going to blame it on him. Of course.

Come on, we had the option to ask him a hundred times what the noise was. You wanted to go into your little Three Stooges routine, and you're paid for it. All right. Well, okay. So the CV joint was replaced, and the problem went away. Well, no kidding. Yeah, well, we could have figured, no, you couldn't have.

Well, anyway, Jeff, thanks for playing Stump the Chumps. You were a good contestant. Thanks a lot, man. Thank you. Now, if anyone out there here's someone you'd like us to invite back on Stumpter Chumps, our staff is eager to hear your suggestions. They love to humiliate us. Drop us a note or email us from the Car Talk section of Cars.com and say,

I got an idea for Stump to Chumps. Now, if you'd like to embarrass us, like, right now, the number to call is 888-Cart Talk. That's 888278-2-5-55. Hello, the extra fives don't matter. Hello, you're on Car Talk. This is Charlotte in New Mexico. Fair Acres, New Mexico. Hi, Charlotte.

Where in New Mexico? Well, it's Fair Acres. It's near Las Cruces, which is in Southwest. New Mexico. That's right here, the Alabama border, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, you're right. I know my geography. Geology. No, my briology. I'm a marine biologist. Yeah, so Charlotte. What's up? Well, we need help with a problem here. We need some advice from you. Yeah. My husband and I decided to liven up our dull middle age, and we looked at a number of options, and finally decided that adopting four little kids

was just the ticket. Really? Yeah. Awesome. Human kids or dogs? Human kids. Well, we have four dogs, too. Four human kids. But the problem involves the four little kids. Now, this was several years ago, and they're adjusting and doing real well, but they're real

busy, active little kids. Aren't they, though? How old are these little brats? How old are these wonderful children? Yeah, these wonderful. I'm sorry. Did something else slip out? Well, they are currently 10, 9, 8, and 6. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's a package.

How much Prozac do you take a day? Let's not talk about that. Oh, man, 10, 9, 8. It must be like a three-ringed circus in your house. Yes. Four. Four ring circus. Oh, but my sister said it's more like the Army, and we're more like drill signs.

Oh, you'd have to be. Yeah. Wow. Two boys and two girls? That's it. Yeah. That's it. And, you know, these are busy little kids.

Oh, you ain't kidding. They like to dismantle things. Oh. I got this brilliant idea of getting an old car for them. Oh, man. And that's where you came in. Charlotte. Am I not a good idea?

You are crazy. Let's explore it, though. I mean, it might have some potential. Well, this is our thinking that, you know, they could play driving on the inside, and we would disable it so that they couldn't get it to roll because our property is on a slant. What's the matter with a jungle gym? Well, because they can't take that apart. These kids evidently have the exploratory nature, and they want to take stuff.

They do. The only thing that concerns me about your idea, I think it's a great idea, but a car is dangerous. Well, yeah. And, you know, I don't want engine parts falling on them. Right. I mean, I have to advise against the car because there are fluids and greases. I mean, you'd never be able to clean out all the stuff that you needed to clean out.

There are sharp things. There are heavy things, which once you move could fall on delicate, crushable little fingers. And I know, I mean, I've been doing it for 26 years, and things fall on my delicate, crushable little fingers all the time, and I'm careful. I'm just wondering if there's some way that we could, like, what if you removed all the doors? That way you wouldn't get any fingers smashed in the doors. Yeah. Oh, that's a matter of time before they decide to remove the alternator.

And the alternator drops on somebody's fingers. If only we could take the fun element. Do you plan to let them back in? into the house at night, or they're going to have to live in the car? Well, it might depend on how greasy they were. Yeah. Well, that's the other thing, too. Your laundry is going to suffer tremendously.

I see it, Charlotte. You have invented the newest new product that click and clack take apart car. That's it. Isn't it? Right. That is it. It could be made out of materials. Space age materials.

Space age materials that wouldn't be harmful to kids. You could take it all apart, put it all back together again. We could sell our own line of craftsperson tools. Yeah, and old clothes. And old clothes. And then we could branch out into dishwashing and clotheswashing compounds. Right, the jumpsuits. The jumpsuits.

Charlotte. They have the tool kits. You're a ticket out of this dump. Well, maybe you should call me when you get us off. We'll have our people call your people. We might want to use your 10, 9, 8, and 6-year-old kids as, product testers. Oh, they would love it.

We'll have the prototype up and running in two weeks. I think you're going to have to wait until we have our product on the market, because I don't think I want to recommend that you let your kids play with a real car, unfortunately. Well, I think you're right. But have the four kids really put some new spice into the life of you and your husband? Oh, I'll tell you what. More spice than I can handle. Good for you.

Good for you. Well, you've done a noble thing, obviously. Yeah. But you've got some crazy ideas, Charlotte. You're going to have to see a doctor. It's obvious that the four of these kids are driving you nuts. Do whatever you can't to save yourself. Increase your dosage, and we'll call you in the morning.

All right. I'll wait for the prototype. Okay. Thanks so much. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Well, it wasn't really a bad idea. No, it was just a bad idea. All right, it's time to take a short break.

Yeah, and when we come back, My brother will present us with another in his long line of barely acceptable puzzles. Is that reverential enough? Yes, sure. Yeah, okay. We'll be back in a minute. Ha, we're back.

We're listening to Car Talk with us. Click and Collect the Tappert Brothers, and we here to discuss cars, car repair, and the new puzzler. I can hardly wait. Well, I for one. You may have to wait a while. It's rather lengthy.

But this came from, a guy named Bob Cofield from I don't know where. Cyberspace. Maybe even farther away than that. He says, I am disappointed that in all of your shows that I have listened to, you have never paid tribute to the great and venerable patron saint of automotive diagnosticians, Gus Wilson.

Surely remember that Gus was the proprietor of Gus's model garage whose stories appeared in Popular Science Monthly several years ago. Several. several decades ago. Yeah, well, this is what I realized, until I read the letter came to was in 1982. Anyway, he goes on and on, da-da-da-da-da. He says, I know how desperate you are

for puzzles, et cetera, et cetera, so I thought you might be interested in a Gus Wilson classic. Don't worry about copyright infringement. He's dead. And I will read what he said. This is stolen right from the Gus Wilson archives. It seems that there was an intense

but friendly rivalry between the volunteer fire departments of two nearby town. Jeffersonville and East Norriton. Pride was at stake as their rivalry climaxed each year in the fireman's competition at the county fair. That's what they do with county fairs. So closely matched with the two fire brigades and skill and experience that the preliminary hook and ladder events were virtually a tie, leading up to the final showcase event of the race of fire trucks. There's going to be a race.

Got it? Got it. 20 laps were race counterclockwise around the quarter mile dirt track at the fairgrounds. Both brigades drove identical pumperessly maintained and adjusted to peak performance. The rules require that they be set to factory configuration, fully loaded and equipped, and the crew's identical in total weight to the nearest ounce. Wow. Oh, this is serious stuff.

Wow. There's quite a rivalry, you know, between Jeffersonville and the other place. East Norriton. Both drivers were skilled and experienced, wily veterans of the road. So you'd imagine that they would balance out for sure. Anyway, the Jeffersonville team had come away disappointed for four years in a row, having lost a final event by the closest of margins each time. Kind of like the Atlanta Braves. They appealed to Gus to provide them with some small competitive advantage.

Gus took a look at the high-wheeled pumpers in the dirt track and mused while he knocked the ashes from his pipe. And Bob writes a dramatic affectation that you might consider adopting yourselves. He then stepped forward and without tools, without violating the rules, and without even opening the hood of this fire truck. He makes a quick adjustment that enables Jeffersonville to take home the trophy that year. What did he do? Give me the rules again. Oh, come on. They're going to be tuned to factory specifications and the weights of the guys that wouldn't announce.

Right. Okay. And he didn't do anything illegal. Gus Wilson. He's the patron saint of automotive diagnosticians. And being a saint, he wouldn't do anything illegal or immoral. So he knocks the ashes out of his pipe without any tools, without even opening the hood. He makes an adjustment. Is that important? He makes an adjustment, yes. I would say adjustment is the operative word here. Yeah. He makes an adjustment, but he doesn't open the hood. Yeah. Doesn't even set foot inside the truck. Oh, man. Do you need any more hints,

No. All right. Excellent. Well, I will see it. Now, what if someone thought that he or she had an answer that was within reason? Well, send it to the Jeffersonville Fire Department because they really didn't win. If you think you know the answer, write it on the back of a $20 bill or a block of Pecorino Romano. Imported Pecorino Romano and sent it to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge.

Our Fair City. Matt 02238, or of course, you can email your answer from the Car Talk section ofcars.com. If you'd like to call us, the number is 1-888-8-8-2-782-8-2-8-2-2-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, you've got Glenn from White Bear Lake, Minnesota. White Bear Lake. I'm writing this down. M.N.

Does anyone ever see a white bear near that lake in Minnesota? I doubt it. There's no live bears, but there is a huge white bear on top of a car dealership in town. That'll do it. That's good enough. Oh, it's B-E-A-R-E. Oh, you're mine. I thought it was a nudist colony.

Oh, God. All right, so, Glenn, what's up, man? Okay, well, I've got a question. And this is about a rental car that I had. Yeah. I was on a trip. It was out in California. I picked up this rental cars in 1999 Coneyac Grand Prix, drove it from Los Angeles up to Big Sur,

and was up there, and one day was driving around, was only on the road for maybe about 10 minutes, and the oil light came on. Isn't it a great to be driving a rental car in something like that happens? In the middle of nowhere. And the car only had about 3,000 miles on it. So I stopped, and I went to check the oil, and it looked like it might need a little. It wasn't showing like it would need a full court. I stopped in this little service station with just a, like one or two pumps and a shack for a, you know,

where there was one person just kind of sitting inside. So I went in and got a quarter oil. I put the oil in, and you know when you put oil into a car that sometimes a little bit of it spills, well, about a tablespoon of oil spilled. I can see it now. That's plenty to cause havoc. And what happened is the engine caught on fire. Yeah, I know.

Or the oil caught on fire. And I have put oil in cars, you know, I don't know how many times where that's happened, and I couldn't figure out why all of a sudden my car was on fire. What were the first two words out of your off? And he said, why didn't I mind my own business? Well, first of all, I mean, you do know, I think, and you just didn't think of it at the time, that being down a half a quart of oil

would never turn on the oil light. You know that. Oh, sure I do. Then why'd you go put an oil in the thing for? No, I don't. That wasn't going to fix it. He didn't know. He knows now.

That oil... That oil... I'm embarrassed him in front of 2.7 million listeners. Now he knows. Well, I'm just telling you that you could have avoided the whole thing knowing that the oil light doesn't come on when you're down anything. You're going to be down five quarts for the oil light to come on. Well, at least four anyway.

Okay. His mother's probably listening. The poor guy. So you could have avoided the fire. All right. But I just want to get that straight, though. The other way you could have avoided is by not spilling the oil on the hot exhaust manifold. That is the only part of the engine that's hot enough to actually start a fire.

I believe the ignition point, as we call it, of motor oil is somewhere around 750 degrees. And running the car for 10 minutes is enough to get that steel manifold up to 750 degrees. This car has a stamped steel manifold, not a cast iron manifold like cars of yesteryear had. And boy, that gets hot within about a minute. Yeah, and it's really hot, man. And it's take, that's the part, that's the conduit for the hot exhaust to get eventually to the muffler. And don't forget, if you spill just a drop of oil on there, it's going to just go. Okay.

Yeah, well, he knows that now. Yeah, I learned that. So how did you put the fire out? Well, you ran, didn't you? I ran over to this little shack, and there was a person in there. Yeah. And I said, my engine is on fire. And they started, and they got very upset, and they grabbed this old fire extinguisher,

and I brought it out there and tried to use it, and it didn't work. Of course. And so now the flames are getting bigger, and there's some smoke, because what happened is the top of the dipstick where you got that plastic little body. Well, that's melted by now, and anything else that has rubber or anything is starting to burn, and you can see the flames now. This is how it starts, Glenn. This is how it all happens.

And I'm standing and saying, my God, I'm going to burn down the, you know, all these redwoods here. And I'm going to get arrested. And I started panicking. And it happened to be a woman who was in this little shack. She came out and she started yelling at me. Drive away, drive away. Yeah, right. Sure, lady.

Fan the flames. It's going to explode. And I wasn't going to get in a car, drive it away. So luckily, there were these two. guys who were, you know, like a pump over from me, who had a pickup truck and they had a cooler full of beer. So they took the beer out of the cooler and dumped the cooler full of water and ice on the engine.

Yeah, they never would have used the actual beer. That would have been a waste. No. No, they saved the beer. Yeah. But that's how we put the fire out. Great. Very good.

Well, lucky they were there. Yeah, absolutely. But I was just wondering because, you know, I have done this. I've put oil in cars. I don't know how many times. And that's never happened. You know what I'm wondering? Well, you had what's called the right alignment of the planets.

Yeah. I mean, you had just turned the engine off. You added oil, and you spilled it on the hot manifold, and you spilled a sufficient quantity of it, and you've been driving up hills, so the engine was even harder than it would have been ordinarily. And you were nervous, so your hand was shaking when you added the oil. That's why you spilled it. There were all the factors were there. Yeah.

And it could happen the very next time you do it, but you'll never do it. this again, Glenn. Never again. But what I really want to know, Glenn, what I want to know what's been troubling me since the beginning of the story, did you tell them at the rental car company that you had done this? Or did you just bring it in, fill out the little form with the mileage, and say, have a nice day. Did you add any oil? Nope. Well, I was afraid that you were going to ask me. And to be honest, that's why I'll only use my first name here, is when I brought it back,

They asked me if everything was okay, and I didn't lie, I said, everything turned out okay. You mentioned that you were almost responsible for the largest ecological disaster since the ex-on Valdez, but... It turned out okay. I got it back to L.A. You did. And the light never came on again. No, it never came on after I added the oil, so... Well, that must have fixed it. The fire put the light out or what?

The fire put the light out. But it is a lesson. Don't ever add stuff to a... Well, at least flammable stuff, to a very hot engine. I think that's a good lesson. Yeah, that is a good. You learned it.

And so is the power steering fluid and transmission. All those things are flammable. So any of those that you add that, you spill onto a hot manifold, and that is the place where fires start. It was a little burst right into flame. Yeah. But, I mean, I'm surprised that the flame lasted as long as it did.

I mean, you must have spilled a fairly... large amount of stuff. I think that when the plastic caught fire, that probably added. Added fuel to the flame, so to this thing. Well, Glenn, your secret is safe with us. Don't worry. See you later.

Thanks, you guys. How many guys named Glenn can live in White Bear Lake, Minnesota? I'm never going there. No. It's dangerous. Well, it's happened again. You've squanded another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk. Our esteemed producer is Doug the subway fugitive,

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And now here is Car Talk Plaza's chief mechanic, Mr. Vinnie Gumbats. Vini? Thank you very much. Now, if you's worn a copy at this year show, trying to sound more like I'm with the first. mob, you know, which is number 45. Just pick up your phone and call this number 1-8-8-8-car junk. Hey, Vinny, what if I wanted the new Car Talk CD, why you should never listen to your father when it comes to Cars? Would I call that very same number, Vinnie? No, you'd call Derek Cheater's Social Secretary, you know. Of course, you call the same number.

You'll call the Shameless Commerce Division at 888 Carjunk or visit it online at the Card Talk section of Cars.com. Well, thank you, Vinny. That was very, very revealing. Revealed this, okay? Car Talk is a production of Dewee Cheatham and Howe and WBUR on Boston. And even though Jim Lero looks at Rees-Swarr as funny whenever we say it, this is NPR National Public Radio.

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