The Best of Car Talk - #2604: The Whoop Tube

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Lee’s Lincoln Town Car feels like it wants to brake on it’s own when cruising down the highway. His mechanic decided that it’s a problem with the “Whoop Tube”. Click and Clack and the rest of us hoping to find out what the heck a “Whoop Tube” is on this very episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack to Tappert Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Political Consulting Division here at Carat Plaza. Now, we wanted to share with you the great reach, the great impact that Car Talk is having on the political establishment in this country. I can hardly wait. Well, as you know, we never endorse candidates because we think they're all a bunch of what? Jerks.

Gas bags. However, we have had contact with a lot. few so-called politicians, and the results have been very enlightening. Haven't they been? I don't know. Well, you may remember some weeks ago, we tipped our hats to the mayor of Brooklyn, Ohio, which was the first city in the country to ban talking on a cell phone while driving. I do remember that we did that.

We thought that was pretty courageous stuff, and we said, good for you, Mayor John Coyne. That's the guy's name. Yeah. Well, we just got the word that Mayor Coyne, who has been mayor of Brooklyn for like 75 years was recently voted out of office. So we want to apologize to former Mayor Coyne for any role that we may have played in destroying his. Oh, that's what you remember, the great impact that Car Talk has on the political establishment.

So to speak. Then, then we get word from our own fair city. Remember Catherine with a K? Catherine with a K, which was last name started with a T. From the Cambridge City Council. Well, she was trying to get our very own fair city to ban cell phone use. while driving. Yeah, what happened to her?

Got hit by a bread truck. Pretty close. She lost her re-election bid this month. And so, we want to apologize to Catherine for the untimely demise of what seemed like a promising political career. I mean, she was only a young kid. Yeah, well. That's it, nipped right in the bud.

Yeah, well, maybe she can get a job at McDonald's. Maybe she can go back and get a degree in art history. Quicky-loob. Okay. In the meantime, you can call us and ask us questions about anything at all. Even your car. The number is 1-8888-car talk. That's 888-225.

Maybe it should be anything talk. Could be. We could do that. Hello. Even your car. Even your car. Hello. You're on anything talk.

Hey, guys. What do you want to talk about? Anything. Well, yeah, anything. This is Lee. This is Lee. And in Nackettish, Louisiana. Lee?

Right. Where are you again? Nackadish. Louisiana. Nacadish. It's pronounced K-N-A-C-A-D-S-H. Yeah, that's what I wrote. I wrote DISH down in.

Yeah, Nackettish. What's up, Lee? Guys, I got a 1994 Lincoln town car. I bought it new in 1994. Got 103,000 miles on it. And it kicks and bucks on me occasionally. The symptoms are, it's like you'd be going down the road. of a sudden it's like you tap the brake and that's the buck and then it'll kick back up like,

you know, it's grabbed another gear or something and then it'll settle down and it may not do it again for a long time and then it may do it again for the next five miles. I don't get it yet. You're driving along, say, 35, 40 miles an hour? It could be 35. It could be 25. It could be 25. It could be 85. And you touch the brake pedal. No, it feels like you touch the brake pedal. Ah! It feels like you touch the brake pedal. It just out of the blue, it suddenly feels the brake pedal. It's It's almost like stopping and then it picks up again. Right. Now, this happened about three years ago when I took it in and they said it was the whoop tube.

Yeah, I would have thought that. And I said, well, what in the world is the whoop tube? I would have said that. This big tube goes behind the fuel injectors down into the transmission and they replaced it. And it rained great. And it just started back, oh, about six, seven months ago. Really? So it rained great.

And so I wondered if y'all had ever heard of that. A whoop tube? A whoop. That's what he called it. Well, I never heard of a whoop tube. Well, I just wanted to get another opinion. Well, you got one. If you all never heard of it.

No. So did this guy give you a whoop tube, huh? He said it ran from where to where? It runs from the back of the fuel injectors. It kind of hooks into the, you know, with the breather system, and then runs down into the front of the transmission. And it's about a two-inch diameter tube. and it's kind of, you know, it's bent a little bit, the snake down between the firewall.

So you've seen this thing? Yeah, I saw it. Yeah, it's about two and a half feet long. Was it broken? Yeah, it had a hole in it. It had a hole in it. Mm-hmm. That would explain everything.

Well, I wish I could help you. I mean, I never heard of a whoop tube, and I can't even imagine what this thing is. Well, have you heard of any other? reason why the transmission would kick in butt like that. There is a snorkel that conveys fresh air from the air cleaner into the intake manifold. Maybe that's what it. Maybe that's what it's what it's what it. And I bet you've...

Well, whoop. You know, there's a funny thing to go on down there. So it could be that that, in fact, is what had a hole in it. And that can cause the thing to momentarily lose power and to misbehave on acceleration. Uh-huh. But there's no connection between the engine and the transmission with this whoop tube. Mm-hmm. So you need to have somebody, you need to have the whoop tube removed and see if, in fact, it's got a hole in it like it did the last time. I mean, is that guy still around?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's got a shop over here. Well, geez. And it's only like $125. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't mess with it. I mean, I know it's nice to get a second opinion, but you ain't going to get one from us. And you spent half of that on the phone call. No, this is your nickel, guys.

Oh, geez. All right, we'll see you, Lee. Okay, bye-bye, bye-bye. Good luck. 1-888-88-227-8-25. That's 1-8-8-2-278-25. I'm a lawyer on car talk. Hi, this is Jackie.

Hi, Jackie. Jackie. Jackie in Portland, Oregon. So it must just be a good old C-K-I-E, right? It is. None of that fancy stuff. No, no, no, C-Q-I-Y-Z. I know.

It's so silly. It is. It is. I like the way I fell my name. Good for you. Yeah. So what's up? Well, a really cute little Honda Civic 5-speed that I got a couple months ago,

and I couldn't get over being terrified of driving a stick and, like, planning my route. Like, where can I get where I'm going without stopping on a hill? So I went ahead and sold that car, which was a little. a great car, and I got a little Ford ZX2. What's that? It's a sporty escort. It's actually an escort, but it's a sporty model. Yeah.

Brand new? No, it had 3,000 miles on it, and it's a year old. Oh. And the problem is the car came wearing this cute little black bra. Yeah. And I really like how it was some people. From Victoria's Secret. Right.

It's cute. They sell that. It's on page 31. I happen to see it just today. Yeah, especially made for the X-2. And I like how it looks, but I don't know if it's okay to wash. I haven't washed this car, and I've had it for almost two months, because I don't know if I should take the bra off it when I wash it,

but I'm afraid if I take it off, I won't be able to get it back on. So I have a bra pop up. Oh, Jackie. Well, what is your instinct to tell you? Well, I mean, what would you do? Never mind. You know, I, I started saying, never mind. had a bra on a car.

And I've never really understood the purpose of them. Although I know the expressed purpose is it just seems so damn silly to me. I can't believe it. And I would guess, first of all, I mean, if it rains, you don't take the thing off. Yeah, but it's not like being crushed. And, you know, soap and everything. No, but if you're going to wash the thing, you want to get all the grime and grit out of there. It's like taking a shower with your underwear.

What? You don't do that? That way you wash your underwear That way That way you never have to change your underwear But you're always But it takes three hours before you can get dressed You're going to run around the house

To stand in front of the fans Yeah Well, you know That's what I was thinking It would feel a little soggy But then I thought I'll never get the thing back on No you won't get it back on either And that's what you should do

You should take it off, wash the car throw that stupid thing away. That's what my boyfriend said, and I said, no, but I like how it looks. Oh, you do? Yeah, I do. What's wrong with you? Well, it's just, normally I don't like them, but this car, because it breaks it up, because it's this sage color and it's got this black, brown, it's really kind of cute.

Well, I would, I wonder how much the thing costs. A lot. Yeah, I bet, yeah. Like what? A hundred bucks? Well, yeah, I'm sure it does. I mean, if you go through the car wash once, the thing is not going to fall apart. You might be able to go through the car wash five or six times,

Well, you've got to worry about shrinkage. Just on a low, you know, a low setting, yeah. But will it hurt my car? Oh, it won't hurt the car. It won't hurt the car, except that if you did it for a lot, many, many times, water would certainly get trapped between the car and the bra. Yeah. And that wouldn't be good. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, I... Well, you may have to contact the bra manufacturer to see what they have to say. I mean, there must be some literature about this someplace. I have tried to find it, and I have had to find it. and I've had no luck. I've even sat around in my car close to another car, like a fancy, expensive car that has a bra on it,

waiting for a big store, waiting for somebody to come out and say, aha, what do you do? That's exactly what I was going to suggest. I mean, I'm sure that there must be many of our listeners who have, maybe not. Because it's really a dorky thing, huh? Well, it's a BMW thing, you know. Oh, okay. And quite honestly, the people that had the real high performance car,

I mean, come on, yours really isn't a high-performance car. Yeah, and an automatic to boot. Must chuckle a little bit when they see you go by and say, oh, God, you should take that thing off. Well, here's what I would suggest. If it were my car, I wouldn't want to have to go through this agony and angst, among other things. And I would, even though you like the look of it, I would take the thing off and paint one on. There you go. That way you get the look.

No one will know. Yeah. And you don't have to worry when you go through the car wash. No, that's an idea. There you go. There I go. I guess all my problems are solved. See you, Jackie.

Good luck, Jackie. Thanks a lot, guys. Bye. Bye-bye. All right, Tommy, do you remember last week's puzzling? All right, just give me a hint. Help me out here. Well, I'll give you.

It had to do with a bonk. Actually, many bonks in the head. Bonk in the head? Yeah. Something I can relate to, but I have no idea. I'll have the answer. just a minute. 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 duh, the answer to last week's historic and folkloric puzzler, and here it is. And I still don't know what it is.

Historic and folkloric. Well, this puzzler just happened to have come from my vast pile of puzzler suggestions, which I am slowly working through the date on this one, December 31st, 94. And it came from Benjamin Schultz, who I think was a high school, student when he sent me this. He's probably married with kids and driving a minivan now, but who knows?

We'll hear from him. I hope. Here it is. At the beginning of the First World War, the uniform of the British soldiers included a brown cloth cap. Ah, yes. They had not yet discovered the advantages of metal helmets. But as the war went on, the war office became alarmed at the high proportion of men suffering head injuries. They therefore decided to replace the cloth caps with metal helmets. Duh. Well, it's military intelligence, and you know what that is. Yeah, an oxymoron. From then on, all soldiers wore the metal helmets.

However, this is the puzzling part. The war office was amazed to discover that there were more soldiers hospitalized with head injuries than ever before. Now, it can be assumed that the intensity of fighting was the same before and after the metal helmets. introduction of the intro. So why should the recorded number of head injuries per battalion increase when the men were wearing metal helmets rather than cloth helmets? And I know the answer too. Well, it's just an example of how statistics can lie to people and have people crying out,

I knew we shouldn't have been using those damn helmets. And the reason is rather simple. Before the helmets, anyone that got hit with a piece of shrap, and wearing a cloth helmet. Did not have any injuries. No, he was dead. He was a goner. At least with their helmets, people got a chance to survive and become part of the statistic.

Of injuries. Exactly. Better to be a statistic injury, an injury statistic, than not at all. A death statistic. Yeah. And that's exactly it. In fact, without their helmets, they had many more fatalities. And with the helmets, they had fewer fatalities, but more injuries.

And you don't think you're going to catch flack on this one. Not me. Benjamin Schultz's going to take him. And I hope he shows up. That little no good. I thought we were going to hear from him, but now I know we're not going to hear. He's got to be out in Laramie, Wyoming. He probably mailed a letter yesterday because he heard the puzzle. He heard his name mentioned last week, and he sent him, and now he's at the post office trying to get the letter back.

Well, I thought it was pretty good. Otherwise, I wouldn't have used it. I love it. I'm with you, Ben. We'll take the heat together. I love it because it's so obfuscated. Twisted. Yeah. Yeah.

And we have a winner. I'm sure. The winner is Marilyn Murphy from Chattanooga, Tennessee. And for having her answer selected at random from among all the thousands of correct answers that we got, Marilyn is going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talks, Shameless Commerce Division, with which she can get, among other things, a copy of our brand new album, why you should never listen to your father when it comes to cars. You've heard of gifts for the person who has everything.

Well, this is a gift for the person who thinks he knows everything. Your father Good work, Maryland Anyway, we'll have a new I would have to say Challenging, foregloric, historic Let's not build it up too much We'll have a different puzzle

Coming up Well, that's something That's something That doesn't always happen No I had to Rope for a modifier and I found one Different is good It'll be occurring in the third half

Or maybe the fourth half of today's show We'll see how much energy we have So stay tuned for that Hey, you'll never guess what it's time for. Time to blow the autumn leaves onto my neighbor's lawn? No. It's time to play Stump the Chumps! Stump the Chumps is our lame attempt at quality control,

where we invite a caller back from a previous show and find out just how bad our advice really was. And whether a settlement conference is still a possibility. So who's stumping the Chumps this week? It is Colleen. I have notes from this. Colleen from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and according to these notes, called about her 91 Dodge Spirit,

don't remember her, and she said, I quote, I'd be driving along up there on the Minnesota highways, yeah, and the car just losing speed, don't you know? Did she say that? Yeah, you betcha. It's all coming. It starts going slower to the point where I'm putting on my hazards, and eventually it just stops and starts driving again.

And you are trying to get over from the far left lane to the far right lane. Without getting run over by the big truck, hot, at me behind exactly. And this has recovered on its own every time? Every time. So I got desperate and took it to a Dodge dealer. There you go. Yeah, I'm thinking they would know. And what they want to do is put a co-pilot test on it, which is some machine they hook into the electrical system, and I push a button every time it happens. Right. But it's like a $150 test. So I'm wondering if that's money well spent or if I should just drive this. Well, you said you were putting your life in danger.

Is your life not worth $150 bucks? Well, it depends. Not worth $150. Boy, they're frugal up there in Minnesota, aren't they? Boy, good thing we don't work up there. We never make any of our boat payments. If I remember correctly, we told Colleen that the problem certainly could be fixed, that it was probably a fuel-related plant.

Either a plugged fuel filter or more likely a weak fuel pump. I remember. I don't. I remember. Well, let's find out, Colleen. Yes. Are you there? I'm here.

Right, before we ask you what was wrong with your car, We have to come and Mirandize you. Will you please certify that the answers you're about to give here today on Stumpter Chumps have not been influenced by our staff, the staff of National Public Radio, that Kila guy, who's just trying to make us look bad. Is that true, Colleen? That's true. Okay.

Okay, go ahead. Let us have it. I'm sorry, you were wrong. Again? Oh, Colleen. How wrong were we? It was an O2 sensor. The O2 sensor was malfunctioning so badly that the car thought it was flooding, and it stopped

giving itself gas. Yeah, that could, that's certainly, that is certainly a good answer. Well, so you went for the pilot, the co-pilot? I actually took it to a different mechanic, and I asked them to do the test that you had told me, and, you know, several $75, $200 worth of diagnostics later, they came back and said it was the O2 sensor. Oh, so they did a scan test. Yep.

Oh, so we're half right. Do we get credit by that? Well, I mean, no. No partial credit. No partial credit. All my professors are. College were like that, too. Motion denied.

Collie, you've been a good sport to play, and we want to thank you for playing Stump the Choms. And I'm glad that you got the thing fixed because you were putting yourself in death and harm's way there. That's true. Thank you. You'll never be on Car Talk again, but that's all right. Thanks a lot. Thank you. See you, Colleen. Wow.

Oh, gee, no oxygen sensor. Let me just look at the notes. What did we actually say to her? It was probably a fuel. related problem. Now, it could have been a non-fuel related problem, but we said it was a fuel-related problem. It sounded fuel to me, especially when she said it felt like it was running out of gas. Well, we certainly looked fuelish today.

1-888-car talk that's 924-9-9-9-3-4555 squared. Is it really? Quiet, it works. 942-5. 839-45. 5 squared. Wow. Is 1-8-88-car talk.

Try it. It works. Hello, you're on Car Talk. This is Wayne. I'm from Brighton, Michigan. Hi, Wayne. Brighton, Michigan. Yeah.

What's going on in Brighton, Michigan? Well, I guess my automobile is not running too well. We're here to help, Wayne. Okay. He's crying out in the darkness. What kind of a GM car is it? How'd you know? How'd you know.

It's a 1989 Chevy pickup. Ah. How big a pickup? How big? It's a full size. K-1,500. Okay. Oh, yeah. Four by four. Even better. Extended cab?

No, not extended cab. Oh. Yeah, okay. Buy swing back? Vented underarm gussets. All right. All right, Wayne, what's up? Well, it's got a Chevy 350.

Yeah. And there's oil in the reservoir. What reservoir? The antifreeze reservoir. Oh. That is... Oh, boy, that stinks. That's not good.

How do you know it's oil? I've stuck my finger in it, and I've had other people look at it. I had my mechanic look at it. Are they like little globules floating around in the antifreeze? No, it's about an inch thick. Oh, geez, Wayne. Yeah, so what do you want? Prayers are just compassion or what do you want?

What can we do, fly? What is the sandalvino? What? Yeah. Well, I... Everybody says that it's the valve cover gasket set for my mechanic, and he doesn't think that it's possible that that could be the case. The valve cover gas?

I mean, that engine, the head. The head gasket. Head gasket. There's a small chance that it's the head gaskets, one of the head gaskets. Yeah, but he didn't want to get into that, find out that that was a problem, and charge me all this money to tell me that you need to buy, just buy a new motor, and I'll put it in. How many miles are on this thing, Wayne?

120,000. Well, you know, you might want to investigate buying an engine right from GM. I think it's called a crate motors? Well, it's going to go into a crate. Yeah, I don't know. They used to call them target engines. The target is like the engine compartment. I don't know why.

Yeah, you're dropping it in. Yeah, they're bringing by helicopter. You just stare there with the hood open all the way. and you know it might be a lot cheaper to do that than to go exploring like you want to do because once he takes off the heads and finds out that the heads the head gaskets aren't in fact gone then it's either the cracked cylinder head or cracked block or he said a weeping block maybe or a weeping or a weeping block and then you'll be a weeping driver when you find that out well let me ask you this can i drive it for a while yes about an hour oh no you might be able to drive it for a

long time. Yeah. You're not losing a lot of oil, obviously, because otherwise it'd be more in this bottle. Right. I just pull off the tube that connects to the radiator and then just put it into a container and drain the whole thing and then just fill it back with antifreeze, and it seems to be okay. You haven't noticed the reverse is true that you're getting, that you're getting anti-freeze in the oil? Nope, haven't. Yeah, well, actually, you're better off because getting anti-freezing the oil is worse than getting oil in the antifreeze. Right. Because if you end up with more anti-freeze than oil, then you're going to wreck the engine.

Well? Yeah, I mean, if you love the truck, then I would go and get myself an engine, and I would get one of these target engines in the crate. But in the meantime, you can drive this thing because the worst thing that can happen to it is you wreck the engine. Which is, it's wrecked already. So what? So when do you think this will happen?

How long, you know, what's today? What do you want to date? How about just, I'll give you an approximate. time is now November, right? And winter's tough on it. I know that. Winter's tough. I'm going to guess you are not going to make it.

This truck will have no problem being Y2K compliant. I will bet you make it to spring. All right. Put your money where your mouth is. My money is there, man. Ten bucks. Ten. I was going to go a dollar.

We will call you back right after Christmas. Okay. Right after New Year's, rather. And if it's still running, we'll call you back. on March 21st, spring. Okay. And if it's running, then, my brother owes me $10.

You got it. All right, Wayne. All right, well, thank you, you guys, have been very helpful. So you didn't tell my brother you're driving to California for Christmas. I don't care. You can go anywhere he wants.

He will make it to spring. Drive the hell out of it, Wayne. All right, thanks. See you, let there. Okay. All right, look, it's time to take a short break. That's right. We have to fill up my brother's coffee.

We'll be back in a minute. Ha! We're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and whatever. Oh, the new puzzler.

I can hardly wait. Well, like I said, I have a huge, my brother knows, an enormous selection of potentially crummy puzzlers. And this is in the least crummy pile? Do you put them in piles? Do you have piles? I had piles once, but I took the medication.

Yeah. You guys may, you may not like this. And if you don't, tough. We'll have to live with anything. And I don't know who sent this because I lost the last page of the letter. Wow, it's long. Oh, it's handwritten. Handwritten.

I love it. I love it. I love it. Here it is. You get a letter in the mail predicting the winner of a heavyweight championship match a few weeks before the event. Yeah. There's no other information in the letter. It's just a prediction.

Yeah. This is like the Dempsey furtball fight. Furbo's going to win. You don't take it seriously thinking it's a prank from a friend. Nevertheless, the prediction is correct. Oh, man, I love it already. You receive subsequent letters predicting the winners of events a few days before they happen. The letters correctly predict the winners of, I said, the heavyweight championship bout, the World Series.

Wow. The NBA Finals. Wow. The presidential election. The world chess championship. I got it. I know the question and I know the answer. The NCAA basketball finals.

Yeah. The Rose Bowl. Wow. You are amazed these letters are always correct in their predictions. Yeah. Even though some are upsets. Wow. Shortly after the Rose Bowl, you receive a letter stating that if you send, you knew this was coming,

10 grand to a certain address. Yeah. One week before the Super Bowl, you will receive a letter with the winner of the winner of that event. I've got it. Yeah. Should you? And why? Now, if you think you know the answer, write it on the back of a $10 bill? What happened to $20? Oh, no, no. We low, oh, a holiday, holiday special, of course, right on the back of a $10 bill or a frozen spinach tofu egg roll. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And send it to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt 02238. Or of course, you can email your answer from the Car Talk section

of Cars.com if you'd like to call us. As always, the number is 1-888-8-8-8-2-25-5. A lawyer on Car Talk. This is Melissa in Washington, D.C. Hi, Melissa. D.C. Are you a politician or a lawyer? No. Are you aspiring to be one? No. Okay. But are you married to one? No. Do you want to be married to one? No.

That's not strong enough. You should have said absolutely not. Hang up. So, Melissa. I'm not here. My chances might be limited to one of those, though. It might be. So I move out of town as fast as you care.

What's up? Well, I actually have been cheering every time I got home recently because I've been driving with my door tied shut. I have a 1988 Honda cord. That's a new movie, isn't it? Door tied shut? Should be. Tom Cruz Well you know that does

That does bring you Back to your roots I mean everyone should at one point in his or her life Yeah It's humiliating No it's good It brings it really makes you It grounds one

Yes it does It does it does And everyone should do that And getting into contorted positions In the grocery store parking lot To get in and out the passenger side door Yeah especially if you have a stick shift What kind of a car do you have?

It's an 88 Honda cord What do you have it tied to the back door? It's really, I don't even want to tell you, it's tied from the seat, like the neckrest to the seatbelt. I love it. And it's, and it's hanging open, actually, half the time, too, because I can't get it tied tight enough. So the dome lights on all the time. You have to get the fuse out with that. I think it's going ding, ding, ding, ding.

The seatbelts dragging on the ground. Yeah, the beeping has been very, very challenging. I've been driving from Annapolis to D.C., you know, back and forth. each day and listening to the beeping the whole time. Yeah, and this happened because of an accident. No, it didn't happen because of an accident. I bought the car used two years ago, and the door always, like, didn't really close straight, but it wasn't too bad.

And after two years of slamming it shut, it's kind of, I guess it's worn out the... The latch. Yeah, you may have worn out the latch. The slacker. And the hinges may be all worn out, to the doors sagged down even more. And the latch is kind of actually, the metal is almost ripped out. the screws. Oh, jeez.

It doesn't look good. Well, you've got to fix it because this is very dangerous. I know. That's why I always feel like when I'm going faster on a corner that the door is going to get enough momentum to swing open and pull the seat out with it because the... It's tied to the seat. Yeah, and so are you. I know.

So are you? Wow. I know. That's the problem. So how long have you been driving with the rope? Well, I haven't been driving that long because my boyfriend was actually driving He drove with it for like three weeks because his truck was broken down, so I took the best and he used my car. So I've only been doing it for like two weeks.

Ah. What do you do in Washington, D.C.? I work at a magazine publisher. Okay. Yeah. And your boyfriend? He's sort of a scientist. He works out in Maryland doing experiments on the rivers of the bay.

Oh, never mind. On pigeons? What? We don't need to know any more about. him. That's enough. Okay. Except for the few we take home to experiment. Working on the riverbanks. Okay.

All right. All right. I was just curious. I had no real reason for that. Melissa, how much rust is on this car? Not much at all. Yeah. Got it. What do you think? You could obviously try to fix it yourself, but without the benefit of seeing it, it's going to be tough for us to recommend

what you should do. You could take it to a body shop, and there are body shops, and there are body shops. There are some that will do a job, and make it work, make it functionally okay, but not make the thing aesthetically pleasing. Uh-huh. So they may have to go at the door with hammers and chisels and whatever to get it to close, and it may be ugly when they're done, but it may be perfectly safe and functional.

Uh-huh. And then there are body shops that'll do everything correctly. Uh-huh. So you'll have to choose. You want to stay away from them. Okay. You may want to stay away from them. Then there's always welding.

You could weld the door shut. No. I don't want to use the passenger's door anymore. Yeah, I don't know if I would recommend having your boyfriend do it Because you're never going to trust that it's going to work There will always be this lingering doubt Is this the turn on which the door, right now, don't forget Right

The door is at least tied shut After he fixes it and pronounces it fixed You'll have to rely on his ability solely To keep the door closed Right And I'll tell you, the fear and the anxiety Will gnaw away at you to the point where you will need Never, ever again make a right-hand turn.

He's been pretty good in the past, though. He's a sort of scientist, and you can't trust them. They're too theoretical, you know? Yeah, once they think they have the explanation for something, they refuse to be. They keep saying, well, it should have worked, and I'm going to miss Melissa. But there are more fish in the sea, he'll say, and goodbye, Melissa. Here's what you do, I think. You take it to a body shop and ask them to give you an estimate.

If they tell you they can fix it for $100. Uh-huh. Fix it. If they tell you, look, it needs a new door. Uh-huh. Well, then your boyfriend can do that. Okay. You can buy a door and unbolt the old one and put the new one on.

Of course, it'll be a different color. Right. And if you haven't already destroyed the latch and the striker, you may be able to get by. But you can go to a junkyard and buy all that stuff off a functioning 88 accord. Uh-huh, and there's probably lots of those. And there may be lots of those in the junkyard. Oh, just swap to the whole car. Right.

You see a nice 88 accord with the door on it? Say, I'll give you a $50 for the door. And the card that it's attached to. Yeah. And I'll give you my card return. But do fix this because what you're doing now is dangerous. Yeah, it is. I mean, if there were to be an accident and the crew was trying to extricate you

and the door doesn't open because you get it tied to the headrest, that's no good. Yeah, that's not good. Okay. See you. See it, Melissa. Thank you. Get right on this.

Okay. Bye-bye. See you. But it does. See, now, duct tape is a real good thing to tie it to door. Well, it's happened again. You've scorned at another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk. I have?

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No, I think you'd sit around and tie knots in your dental floss to one like fell out of the sky, you dope. Of course you called the same number. You called the Shameless Commerce Division at 888 Car Junk. or visit it online at the Car Talk section of Cars.com. The visual imagery of me sitting there talking knots at my dental floss. That was good. Thanks, Vinnie. You're very succinct.

A sync this, will you, pal? Car Talk is a production of Dewey Cheatham and Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though other mechanics kick their yachts in disgust when they hear us say it, this is NPR National Public Radio.