The Best of Car Talk - #2606: A Blended Car Family

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Nan just married her new guy and moved into his house but her car isn’t welcome. Hubby has an Audi and ‘his baby’ -a Triumph TR6 taking up both spaces in the two-car garage and he thinks that Nan should keep her’s in the driveway. Will Click and Clack suggest hubby join his cars in the garage, too? Find out on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is our glass. On this American life, one that we like is a good mystery. Sometimes about really big things, but most times, the little mysteries are the best. Our lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know. I've never seen this happen. This is true? This is true.

Mysteries of every size each week, this American life, wherever you get your podcast. 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 murky research here at car talk plaza. Now, we can't actually take credit for this. This is from Gallup research. They do research as well, and they're not as well-respected and well-known as are we. Paul murky.

No. But people have heard of Gallup Polls. Gallup polls. Gallup polls. Isn't that an island down off of Peru? The Gallupils. Yeah. The big turtles are.

Well, Gallup, every year, does the poll. What are the professions which are most and least respected? And we have made it a tradition here at Contauk Plaza and murky research to divulge this information to the rest of the universe because no one else knows about it except anyone who read. From time to time as we see fit. Anyone who reads the newspaper. And I thought, I mean, the top ten, most respected, you know what the most respected one is? Well, nurses. Oh, okay.

I could say that. I was going to say the medical profession, but they never. Doctors are fourth. So nurses, pharmacists, veterinarians, doctors, schoolteachers, clergy, pharmacists are number two? Number two. Pharmacists are second most respected in the country.

Oh, because they're the ones that tell you which combinations of medications that takes. You don't get diarrhea. And number 10 of the top 10 is college professors. Well, let's go to the other list. The other end, of course, is the least respected professions. And 10th from the bottom is real estate agents. I'll give you the bottom 10. You're reading up the list now.

Reading up the list down to the least respect. Right. Real estate agents. Real estate agents are number 10, beating out lawyers who are number nine. Wow. Pretty good. Gun salesmen who are number eight. Gun salesmen.

Good for you guys. And after gun salesmen, lower than gun salesmen, members of Congress. Really? See, this is very... That's pretty sad, actually. It's very, very sad. It's very sad, but well-deserved. True.

And true. Then we got Internet journalists. Isn't that interesting? Really? That would be like us. And then, one, two, three, four, fifth. This is the top five coming up. Coming up now. Number five. Insurance salesman. Oh, yeah.

Number four, HMO managers. Oh, yeah. Number three, advertising executives. Oh, yeah. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Number two. Because they're sleaze balls. Number two, telemarketers. That's well deserved. That's number two. And number one, the drum roll. Car salesman, the least respected profession in the country. Car salesman. And again, I have to say it's not undeserved. I don't agree with that.

I mean, I think lawyers should be down there. Guns salesmen should be down there. Members of Congress should be down. But not car salesmen. Oh, yeah. You haven't bought a car in the last seven or eight decades. Are they that bad? You need to go and buy a car.

Yeah, it's that bad. And obviously, my slant is just the northeast in fact. the Boston area, but they all appear rather, uh, the classic, unctuous. Yeah? Yeah, that's, that's the word. And do they lie, cheat, and steal?

And in your opinion? Yeah. I mean, I'm a firm, I mean, I know some companies don't refer to believe that the price should be on the car and that's it. Yeah, well, some people do that. Yeah. Saturn does that. Yeah.

But some people like the idea of haggling. Some people like that. I don't. I guess it bothers me that someone else who's better at it is going to get a better price. Sure. And there are some things that you're better at and you take advantage of it. Then why doesn't Sears do that with refrigerators? Well, they do actually. If you go in there and say, I'm not going to buy it until the sale. They say, well, the sale is not for three months, but we can make a deal. They'll do that. Everyone will do that.

They will? You don't do that. No, I think it's only right. They're doing it. the job. I'm opposed. I don't like this. Well, tough. But since when have I ever agreed with America? That's true. If you want to talk to us about this or anything else, our number is 1-888-8-8-8-8-8-8-2-7-8-25-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. So you can go to Sears and Hello, who's this? This is Michelle. Michelle. From Lexington, Kentucky. How are you? I'm very good, thank you. Do you shop at Sears? If I need appliances. And when you

And when you go, do you haggle on the price? Yeah, I do. You do? Everything's negotiable. See? Michelle is no dummy such as like you are. She knows everything is negotiable. Really, huh?

Of course. Everything's negotiable. Everything's negotiable. Even if Sears were America shops? Sears that has everything. If the price is right. Sears does have everything. Yeah.

Oh, jeez. Well, you've opened my eyes, Michelle. I'll tell you. So you're from Lexington, Kentucky? Yes, I'm from Lexington, Kentucky. And what can we do for? you today? Well, I own a Volkswagen carot, and I'm having trouble with my clutch. Whenever I depress the clutch to the floor, no problem. It goes all the way to the floor. Then there's other times I try to

press the clutch, and it stops midway. Does it? And I can't, and if I push as hard as I can, it doesn't push, but it still allows me to change gears. What year, carot is? This is a just, actually, this is a jetta for those of you. What's a carot? It's a fancy version of the Jeddah. Jetta carot. She didn't haggle enough and she paid the extra money for the car. Well, how do you spell karate? C-A-R-A-T. There you go. I never heard of it.

Yeah, it's the top of the like Volkswagen Jetta. Wow, really? Yeah. And how old is it? It's a 92. 92. Okay. This thing has...

It's about 180,000 miles. There you go. I was going to just, I was going to guess 175K. And it probably has the original clutch cable. Well, now let me tell you this. Yeah. That's what I thought. I took it in.

They replaced the clutch cable. It said it was a little bit afraid, but the clutch still does the same. If it only goes halfway down, you just can't push it any further? No, no, not at all. It's like stepping on a brick. It's like stepping, and there you go. And yet it will shift. It will shift.

But is it ever happened, for example, when you stopped at a light? No, that hasn't happened. It only happens when you're moving. Only happens when I'm moving. What? See, now, my brother, as usual, has put his finger right on it. I mean, it's always. It's not the answers that we give.

It's the questions that we ask. My God. If only this led someplace, it would be good. But it's all designed to kill time. The strange behavior of the dog. The main thing is solving it. The main thing is solving. Well, I'm going to tell you what you need, but you're not going to like the answer.

Yeah. I know where he's headed on this, and I think it's brilliant. The problem I believe is that the clutch itself, that is the pieces inside the bell housing, Uh-huh. The clutch disc is disintegrating. I like it. And occasionally a piece gets stuck in between the pressure plate and the flywheel, preventing you from fully disengaging the clutch.

Okay. Michelle, did you tell us that this was the original clutch in this car? Uh, yes, it is. That's... It's time. It's time. And when they take the thing apart, pieces are going to fall out. Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, and I'd be willing to bet you any amount of money that this is going to fix it. So just out of curiosity, what are we looking at as far as cost? Oh, whatever you can, whatever deal you can make. Yeah, I mean, they're going to start at $6.50, and you might be able to chisle them down to $300. Maybe they'll throw in a refrigerator, too. So I have to negotiate on my price. You're talking $500. $500.

That's not bad. Yeah. And I know they'll throw in the refrigerator. Oh, we can only hope. We can only hope. See you, Michelle. Okay, thanks much. Good luck.

1-8-88-car talk or 1-88-227-8-8-255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. My name's Peter. I'm calling from Ithaca, New York. Hi, Peter. Ithaca. There's like a big school up there, right? A couple of big schools.

What are they, those schools? One is Ithaca College. Yeah. The other is Cornell University. Cornell, that's the one I was thinking of. My brother, he authored the school song, didn't you? Far above Cayuga's waters. There's an awful smell.

That's it. It's an old dessert. an outhouse that they call Cornell. Well, my daughter's in-laws have all gone to Cornell. The entire family has gone to Cornell. Huh. Yeah, they never got out. They've been there for like 25, 30 years.

So what's up? Are you teaching at one of these great institutions? Sometimes I teach there. I'm a graduate student at Cornell. Ah. Graduate student in what department, may I ask? I'm an environmental toxicology. Environmental toxicology.

That's an important field. Well, good luck to you, Peter. Thank you. What kind of a car do you drive? Some gas... Well, cussling, polluting. A piece of junk. Well, yes.

You have to go to work at night. So no one sees the smoke coming out the back. Well, I'm calling about my wife's car, and part of that stink above Cayuga's waters is the gasoline, which is just pouring out of her car. Really? Yeah. From which end?

Just underneath the driver's side door. Really? Yeah, you have a Ford? It's a 1984 Honda Civic. It's red, but usually can't see the red because it's covered with rust. Yeah. And she took it out one day over some rough terrain. How long ago did this happen?

Oh, months. And she's been driving around with gas dripping up? No, I do. Oh, you're going to go? goes to work at night. She's an ecologist. She won't drive it, but... And you're majoring in what?

Environmental toxicology. Yeah. Don't ask. I'm not going to go there. No. Sometimes you need a quart of milk. Yeah, I understand. That's true.

I mean, it seems clear to me that she hits something that, in turn, ruptured a gas line. That's an old rusty gas line that was probably ready to break anyway, and she just administered the coup de grace, so to speak. Yeah, because you guys get rotten winters up there in Ithaca. Yes. Probably use a lot of salt on the roads, and all those gas lines have corroded away. Yes. And it's kind of dangerous, not to mention, toxic.

And I'd like to correct all of that. You would? Yes, and I called my wife's brother, who is an ace condom mechanic. No kidding. Yeah, it's convenient. It is. And his recommendation was to go in there and find the leak and take a tube cutter and cut around the pipe.

Yeah, you can do that. And then patch it with the hose. You can do that, too, as long as you're careful to secure the hose to the underside of the vehicle so that it doesn't scrape on the pavement. And that's a perfectly adequate repair. Really? It is because this vehicle has a mechanical pump, which is run by the engine, and it's just sucking the gas.

So there's no high pressure in that line. So that's why it still runs, even though it's leaking. That's right. There's very little pressure on this line. and you can have this repair work for the rest of the life of the car. Assuming, of course, that the rest of that... A couple of months, right. But you're going to make sure that the rest of that line isn't all rusted.

But once you find the line, you'll be able to see if it's rusty. I mean, that line should be very, very strong. And if you just take a pair of pliers and squeeze it a little bit, if it crumbles in the pliers, then you've got to replace bigger and bigger pieces. I should admonish you, Peter, that parallel to this gas line, that is leaking are the brake lines. And they look so much alike. So don't go crushing or cutting any of those,

but it's very possible that in effectingness repair, you cause your brake system to leak, too, because everything is delicately held together under there by the rust. So you should disturb things at your own peril. Well, the alternative is just to send it off to the junkyard. Yeah, well, we considered that, but we didn't have the heart to tell you.

Yeah, because you're a grad student, and you don't have any money. But give it a shot. Okay. Good luck, Peter. Okay, thank you very much for your time. See you. Bye.

All right. You remember last week's puzzle? Give me a hint. Any hint. Just help me out. Okay, it had to do with a trained bee. Train'd be. I knew you would.

I'll have the answer in just a minute. This message 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. T's and C's apply. This message comes from Databricks, the data and AI company. AI agents work best when they have the right context, your unique data, your rules, your workflows.

Agent Bricks helps companies build agents that are accurate, continuously learning, and automate everyday tasks. It's AI built for how your business actually runs. Agent Bricks by Data Bricks. AI agents grounded in your data and build for your goals. There is a lot of fear these days that AI could be a bubble. So, Nick, is it? I don't know. Right.

It is hard to tell. But there are some clues that economists say might kind of sort of help us predict bubbles. On the Planned and Money podcast, the dark art of bubble detection. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Carth Talk with the webbed. us, click and clack the Tapper Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and the answer to last week's locomotive.

Oh, now I remember it. Automotive puzzler. Locomotive. I remember it now. And I said a trained bee, and I meant a trained bee. A bee that's been hit by a train. Anyway, here it is. Yeah.

You have two trains on the same track speeding toward one another. Am I going to need a pencil? Get a pencil, yeah. Get a pencil. Just make a little picture. Trains, there we are. The trains are 150 miles apart, and they're both traveling at 75 MPH. 75, and they're on the same track? Did you say that yet? Two trains on the same track. I'm with you now. Go ahead. A very fast B, maybe even a trained B, flies from the front bumper of one train to the front bumper of the other train.

And as soon as it gets to the second train Without losing any time In reversing its decision It turns around and reversing its direction rather It turns around and heads back to the first train And it continues to do this flying back and forth And back and forth and back and forth Back and forth and forth and forth

Okay, you got that now I got it So each time it goes It goes a shorter distance of course Because the trains are hurtling toward each other At 75 miles an hour Exactly, exactly Yeah, exactly.

Okay. So you go, boom, boom, boom, boom. So you've got all these little pieces you're going to have to add up. Diminishing little series here. You got that? Until, whop!

Well, I didn't mention yet that the bee flies at 137.5 miles an hour. Excellent. And the question is very simply how far will the bee have traveled before he squashed like the bug that he is between the bumpers of the two trains? Yeah.

Now, you could sit down You could draw the little picture, and you could say, well, let me see. If he's flying at 137 miles an hour and the other train is coming at 75, then that's a combined velocity of 112.5. You can figure out, in fact, how far he travels before he reaches the bumper of the train number two. Yeah, sure. And then you can say, well, in that time, train number one has gone, yeah, you could do that. You could do that.

But you could also do it the easy way. It isn't the cowboy way. But it is the easy way. According to our pal's riders in the sky, but it is the easy way. Now, knowing that the trains are 150 miles apart and traveling at 75 miles an hour, in one hour, they will have crashed. Will they? Yeah. No kidding.

So if the B is traveling at 137.5 miles an hour, how far will he travel in an hour? 137.5 miles. And that is... And that is the answer. The answer. And isn't that good? Yeah, and that is... How many eighth grade kids are going to get that in their little...

test next week. They may. They may. Do we have a winner? Yeah, of course. We've got to win a Becky Slager from Raleigh, North Carolina. And for having her answer selected at random. From among all the correct answers, Becky, you're going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk, Shameless Commerce Division,

where you can get any car talk junk you want, including our brand new album, Why You Should Never Listen to Your Car, why you should never listen to your father when it comes to cars. This is not nice that we're giving away a shameless commerce gift certificate. That isn't right, is it?

Why? I mean, they should win something of value. Anyway, we'll have a new puzzler coming from the days of knights and fair maidens. Excellent. So it's historic and folkloric right away, boom. Boom, right off the bat. And it could be challenging. We don't know about that.

Let's get carried away. That'll be coming up in the third half of today's show. So be sure to stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can call us and ask us questions about your car at 1888-car. Talk. That's 888-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi there. I am so excited to be on your show. And so are we, Amy. No, Nancy. I got two of the letters there, though. Amy was A-M-Y, and you got an A-N-A- and a Y in your name, unless you spell Nancy with an I, which you don't. No, I absolutely don't.

The real good talk shows, the real good calling shows, have a monitor on the, you know, on the table. Right. And flashed up on the screen is the name of the next caller. The next caller is Nancy. She's from Alvo Kirk in New Mexico, and her question is blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, we don't have that morning. That's what I'm tired to tell you. So how are we supposed to know who you are?

Get off our backs, will you? Well, let me tell you who I am. I am Nancy. I'm from Marion Station, Pennsylvania. Okay. And I have a, actually, it's not my car. It's really my husband. And you have a sob?

No, a four-cylinder, 96 Camry sedan. Stop being so contrary. 96 Camry 96 Camry 4-cellal that's important 30,000 miles And are you in the eastern center of

West end of Pennsylvania Right outside of Philadelphia That would be the middle, yeah Yeah Middle East Okay Are you a marine biologist

No No If we don't have anything right about her Well our data Our data's all wrong It's all wrong If you have to get your monitor your monitor monitor to get better information.

Do you have two kids? I do have two kids. Oh, right, finally! Now, just they're ages and sexes. Okay, they're both girls and they're three and eleven. No, they're boys and they're 11 and 14. Oh, got one of them, right? Yeah, you're about bad.

Getting better, we're getting better. Two percent, maybe. So what's wrong with this piece of junk Camry? What happened is, this is my husband's car, and two times when I tried to start it, I could feel the energy draining as I was, shifting from park into drive. There you are. You turn the key. You started out.

It goes rum. You hear the rum. And then as you start shifting it, it just kind of dies. The engine sound kind of diminishes. And it stalled out? And it stalls out. Got it. Okay? It didn't become a problem until he experienced it. And then he took it to the Toyota dealership and had it checked out,

they thought it might be an electrical problem. I don't think so. It checked out fine. They said it wasn't, you know, the alternator, the ignition, the fuel line, everything was fine. They found nothing. And my husband says that if he really revs it up when he starts it, that it doesn't die on him. Yeah. Well, tell him not to do that anymore.

Don't rev it up. No. No, it's better to have it die and restart than rev it like that. The worst thing you can do to a car is to rev it up when the engine's cold, when you just start it up. Okay. That you can count the number of days you can do that before the engine dies. Huh. So you don't want to do that.

So what is it? How do we know? Why did I call? I don't know because you wanted to waste some time. I mean, it sounds to me like the engine, when it starts, is not revving quite fast enough. Have any trouble with the boys? We have boys ourselves. We have boys. We've had 11 and 14-year-old boys.

We can help you with a question about them. They're probably still human. Is that right? 11 and 14? Um, semi. Semai human. Oh. Yeah, the 14-year-old is fast fading.

It's going to get so much worse. Man, you're going to, you're going to wonder. Why you brought them into this world? Why did I do this? Well, I've thought of that. No, they're going to hate you. No, you can't comprehend the full force of their hatred for you. Oh, you can't.

Oh, man. You will be despised beyond your wildest dreams. I mean, when, when we were first married, my wife said that she wanted to have kids, and I was violently opposed to it. I said, why would you want to do that to yourself? This is ridiculous. And she convinced me that it was probably a great, wonderful thing to do. I mean, it was God's will, and nature wanted this.

And motherhood ran in her family. Right. Her mother was a mother. Her mother's mother had been a mother. And so she convinced me to do this. And I remember it was when my son was about 15, that she leaned over one day and whispered in my ear. You were right. How old is he now?

I think he's about 40. No. No, he's 18. And has it gotten better? He's, he's, I think he's turned the corner. He's turned the corner. He's become human again. Yeah.

But I can't attest to it. But it seems as though that's true. Yeah. Well, we go back and start. Yeah. But then let me ask you a question. Do I discuss my car problem with a psychologist? I think so.

You got as much chance of getting an answer. Here's what I would do. do. I would take it to the same guys who said everything was okay. Right. And I would leave it with them overnight. Yeah. And I would ask them to start it from cold in the morning and find out what the RPMs are in the morning. And they will discover that they're too low. Yeah. Here's what's wrong with it. You have a faulty coolant temp sensor. That's my gut feeling. That's good. It's good. And they should put the own meter on this thing. There's a chart that when they look it up, they may have it even memorized. that'll tell you at this temperature, the coolant temp sensor should have this many oms.

Because that reading sends a signal to the computer, which in turn sends a signal to the fuel injectors to tell them how much fuel to put in and how to race the engine and all that. And it says the engine's cold, so it's got to rev a little bit faster. And if it doesn't tell that to the computer, the computer has no way of knowing. And so it thinks the engine's warm and it runs too slowly. and then when you take your foot off the break and do whatever you do, it stalls. If they can't figure it out and they're at a loss for what to do, ask them to just replace the thing because it's relatively cheap. Okay.

Then if it isn't that, then what's the next step? Oh, geez. Well, I mean, well, you call us back. I mean, we can't go dealing with hypothetical questions. Nancy, we're very, very busy. Good luck with those boys. And remember what we told you. I will remember it works.

When they hate you, remember it's not them talking. It's the little devils that live in them. Thank you. That's very reassuring. See you, Nancy. Okay. Bye-bye. We'll be right back with more calls and the new puzzler after these messages.

On ye gods with Scott Carter here from the faithful. I told my very Catholic mother that she needs to meet Jesus. The faithless. I just so don't believe in God. And the fearless. Serve people, connect with people. how we thrive. If life's a mystery, we investigate, who done it? I pray to the humor God. Listen religiously to ye gods with Scott Carter, wherever you get your podcasts.

We're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack the Tappard Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and the new puzzler. I can hardly wait. This comes from the days of knights and kings and fair maidens. The people named Rowena. Rowena. There you go. Turns out that the fair maiden Rowena wishes to wed And her father, the evil king has devised a way to drive Raymond, the evil king Raymond To drive off suitors Yeah

And he has a little quiz for them And here it is And the white knight Tommy More like green Can we work him in? Okay He has a quiz for the suitors And here it is

It's very simple There are three boxes on the table, okay? One is made of gold. One is made of silver. And the third is made out of lead. Lead. Lead. Yeah.

Okay. Inside one of these boxes is a picture of the fair Rowena. Yeah. And it is the job of the knight, the white knight, to figure out which one, without opening them, of course. Yeah. Which one has her picture. Now, to assist.

him in this endeavor are inscriptions on each of the boxes. Oh, this is interesting already. You're going to pay attention now. Yeah, I want to write this down. You've got to write this down. Get a pencil and write this down. The gold box says, Rowena's picture

is in this box. In here, okay. The silver box says the picture ain't in this box. No, it's not. Okay. Yeah. The lead box says the picture ain't in the gold.

box. Oh, I got the question already. Do you do? Yeah, where's the picture? Because if he opens the box with the picture, he gets the girl. Yeah, but he also gives him a hint, right? He's going to give him a hint. Yes. He's going to say all the labels are wrong. No, the hint is one of the statements and only one is true. Excellent. The question is, where's the picture? And when he sees the picture, is he still going to want her? One of the statements is true. One of one. One, one. One, one. and only one of the statements is true. The three statements are, on the gold box, it says the picture's in the gold box.

On the, what's the next box? The silver box, the picture ain't in this box. Yeah. And on the lead box, it says the picture ain't in the gold box. Well, I got the answer already. Well, guess you're a genius. I mean, come on. I mean, give the rest of us a chance.

Now, if you think you know the answer, write it on the back of a $10 bill. we've lowered our prices. For a holiday special. Exactly. And send it to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt 02238. Or you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com.

That's simple. Mm-hmm. 1-888-2-27. 825. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Nan from Bolton, Massachusetts. NAN with a Nanda? Yes.

N-A-N. Yes. From Bolton. Where is Bolton? I've heard of it. It's Apple Country, out west. Yeah, it's near Worcester. Yeah.

New Worcester. Worcester. So what's up? I have a 1994 white Accura-Ira-Automatic Transmission. I've parked it outside its entire life, except for three times I've parked it in my boyfriend's garage. And each time when I got up to start the next morning, it wouldn't start. That's because you didn't want his other girlfriends to start. see that you were there.

Well, we're married now. Oh, okay. And the question is... At the time, you weren't married. At the time, we weren't married. And we're married now. But now, you see, his triumph, his TR6 is in the other side of the garage. Yeah.

And the big debate is, does he move his triumph so I can put the car in the garage? Will it start again? Oh, I see. So clearly, he's lobbying for keeping the TR6 in the garage. And I'm lobbying for not having snow all over my car every morning. Ah. But the car, it wouldn't start. We go to start.

It would, like, eventually, if you nursed it and nursed it and nursed it and nursed it, I'd like, roll it out of the garage and nurse it and nurse it and nurse it and it would start. And what? It just cranked and cranked and wouldn't start. It just wouldn't start. Err. Yeah. All the electrical worked fine.

Yeah. Leave it outside. It's fine. Really? Yeah. Jeez. It never happened any other time except in his garage. Correct.

Boy, that's an interesting question. Maybe we can not answer. Well, we don't, I mean, we don't have to. We need to know more about the garage. The garage. Yeah. Is it under the house? It's a one car garage?

No, it's a two-car garage. So why can't both cars fit in there? They can, but, well, his car, his regular car and then the baby. Oh. Oh, he doesn't get two cars. Why should he have two? Exactly right. Because it's his baby.

No, no, but what's the other car? Oh, it's an outy. Yeah, so why does he keep that in the? Who does he think he is? Well... So you know what the trouble is? Yes, it was his house. It was his house.

You need to... You're going to move. Yeah. You should never have married him and then moved into the house that he lived in. What were you thinking? That's his house.

The marriage can't succeed under circumstances like that. You're going to start off equally. You're going to move into neutral territory. So forget about the car. Forget why it doesn't start. Just move. That's it.

Well, I suppose I should... tell you a little bit about this marriage. You're going to have to, I guess. Oh, see, see. Well, we're both at our mid-40, so we're not like infants. How long have you been married? Since May. I was going to say six months. Six months.

That's just about right. Just, yeah. Yeah. Why won't the car start? Forget about the damn car. Who cares about the car? Stupid car. Come on. I mean, the car, who knows. There's no good reason why I shouldn't have started. No. But it does make sense that if he's going to keep the TR6

in the garage, there is absolutely no way he's going to get the second spot also. I mean, what the hell kind of marriage is this? Come on. Just tell him, hey, Frank, get the car out of the garage, or I'm history, and I'm taking the TR6 with me. Right. And that's it. Oh, okay. That's all. Come on, Nan. You know that. I guess I agree. Deep in your heart, you know, you must have said to yourself, my God, I love him, but why does he get both spaces in the garage? You must have crossed your mind at least once. I mean, pretty soon he's going to start lying crosswise he's on the bed, then he'll say,

Nan, there's a sofa out there in the living room, why don't you use that? Oh, no, no, no, no. Does he let you use the stereo? One speaker. He does almost all the cooking. Yeah, so? So what?

And the grocery shopping. So he doesn't let you use the kitchen either. Is he a patrol freak here? Yeah, I'd run. I'd get out of there. Yeah. Is he home now? No?

Good. This is your chance to get escaped. Take the TR6 and go. I wish we could help you about the Integra, but we can't. Yeah, I think you should really start looking for another house, though. That's the best advice we can give you. Yeah. Yeah, you've got to start on, you can't move into the other person's house.

It doesn't work. Yeah. Okay, so can I mention your names? Absolutely. Mention our names, and you can tell them everything we said, including all the invective. Okay. Indeed. Don't leave anything out.

Can I get a tape? You can get it. Oh, yeah, you're going to need it for the hearing. Good luck, man. Thanks for calling. Bye. Bye. Well, it's happened again.

You've squanded at 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 Frow Catherine Fenelosa. Our assistant producer is Frow Catherine Fenelosa. Our engineer is Dennis DeMetis Foley And he loves to do that Fenalosa

I'm a senior webb lackey Is Doug You can put the sheep in the barn For the moment mayor And our technical spiritual and menu advisor Back from the North American Free Lunch Pro Amp Tour is John Bugsy Lawler

Our public opinion poster Is Paul Murky of Merkey Research assisted by statistician Margin Overa Our customer care representative Fenelosa Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzoff, and our official football widow is Eliza, the coach. Our staff of Gossom column is Bud Inski.

Our director of Kohler, the starting is Martina Never Turn Over, and our director of long-range strategic planning is Kay Sarah, who's married to Frank Sarah, and now everyone knows her as Mrs. Surra. Our female Tom Pryors are Nina Clark and Alice Well. Tom's personal matchmaker is Robin D. Cradle, and our Chief Counsel from the Lawroom of Dewey Chitman How is you, Louis Dewey, known to the one-man bluegrass band in Harvard Square as Ui Louis Dewey.

Thanks so much for listening. We're clicking and clack to Tappert Brothers. Don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother. Didn't I just say that? We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. And now here is Car Talk Plaza's chief mechanic, Mr. Vin Eagle Box.

Thank you very much. Now, if you want a copy of this here show, which is number 49, just pick up your phone and call this year number 18888 car junk. And yes, that's really the number, 888 Gar Junk. And what if I wanted some Car Talk formal way, you know, like a T-shirt or the new Car Talk CD, why you should never listen to your father when it comes to Cars? Would I call that same number, Vinny? No, I think you pick enough spinach out of your teeth to actually build a CD with, you know, you're dope.

Of course you call the same number. You call the Shameless Commerce Division at 888 Carjunk or visit it online at the Cart Talk section of Cars.com, you know? Thank you, Vinny. You are a superb communicator. Hey, communicate this all right. Car Talk is a production of Dewee Cheetahman Howe and WVR in Boston. And even though Bill Gates says, why don't they break up NPR? Whenever he hears us say it, this is NPR National Public Radio.