The Best of Car Talk - #2607: House Call

Episode Date: January 24, 2026

David lives practically around the corner from The Good News Garage and he’s found a mechanic who not only has customers bring their cars to his house, but he makes them dinner, too! The customer service gauntlet has been officially thrown down on this 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, the Tappert Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Talk Now, Gallup Later Department here at Car Talk Plaza. Now, this came to us from a listener in the Middle East who asked us not to use his name. So I'll only say that his first name is Sheik. He's very chic, too. He even wrote a little old. The way your cohorts rant about mobile phones and automobiles, I thought they might

find the attached article from the Gulf Daily News. That's the Persian Gulf Daily News. Interesting. And here it is. Headline, horse and rider hurt in crash. A horse and rider were injured in a road accident in Bahrain yesterday. Bahrain Yusuf Abdukharian, age 28, was reportedly talking on his mobile phone when his horse suddenly veered into a passing pickup truck. Mr. Abu Blah, was taken to the hospital, the medical complex with back injuries. The horse was badly injured, a vet was called to the scene and said it would almost certainly have to be put down. Now, even riding a horse on a cell phone is dangerous.

Well, those microwave transmissions must have upset the horse's guidance system. Right? The global positioning system that was in his butt. I think they have it in the tail. That's why they're waving it around all the time. So, I mean, I suppose part of the update, we should give a little update on the cell phone thing. there seems to be a lot of pressure against our idea.

Even though lots of people, individual people, seem to be much in favor of Drive Now Talk later. It seems like people in power may not have exactly the same objective view. For example. For example. I don't want to name names, but NBC and CBS, for example. Interestingly, both CBS and NBC had planned to do a story. on the Drive Now Talk Later campaign, and mysteriously in both cases, we were disinvited.

It might have something to do with us. It might have something to do with us. It might have something to do with us. But in your opinion, but in your opinion, we weren't invited because. Well, they never did the story with anybody. There are plenty of stories. And all the consumer. Just like this one from Bahrain.

The consumer reporter people who work for the stations, for the networks, who quashed it. I don't want to suggest anything, but there might be some sleaze going on here. And we noticed that lots of the people who are trying to get bills passed in the various states, they're getting a lot of pressure. You know, only 35% of adults have a cell phone. When it gets to be 49% we're done for. Absolutely. This is our only chance to stop those jerks right now.

Well, it's a lesson to us that we should have started, we should have started stopping it. Immediately. Yeah. We should have started stopping it immediately. And I'm going to move to one of the countries where it has been stopped. Like Norway? Yeah, Guatemala. Guatemala.

Israel? Oman. Oman. That's where I'm going, man. Oh, man. And I'm going to buy you the ticket. Anyway, in the interest of horse and car safety, we are still giving away. People may not know this.

Free bumper stickers that say, drive now, talk later. and if you want one to stick on your car or your horse's butt, just send the self-addressed envelope to BS, that stands for bumper, sticker. Oh, does it? Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt, 2-2-3-8. And if you didn't catch that, we have all the information posted on our website,

which is the Car Talk section of cars.com. If you'd like to talk to us about anything, anything. And I mean anything. The number is 1-888-227-8-255. That's 1-88-car talk. Hello, you're on car talk. Hi, this is Donna from Delray Beach, Florida. Donna, what kind of a firebird do you drive?

I thought I was going to get something about that. Of course. You'd be disappointed. So you don't drive a firebird or a Camaro? I don't drive anything right now. Ah. I'm calling about a 1990 Lexus ES 250 with about 160,000. and miles on it.

And it's been a great car for me for many years. And, well, I'll just tell you what happened. I was driving to work one day, and my oil light went on. So I took my car into the gas station, and I told him I needed oil, and the attendant checked the oil and said, your oil is just fine. Oh, no, really? I said, how can that be my oil lights on? and the mechanic said, well, would you like to check the dipstick?

And I said, no, I trust you. And, you know, I drove off and figured I'd take it in and have it checked out in a couple days. Well, about four days later, I'm driving up I-95, 70 miles an hour, and all of a sudden I knew something was radically wrong. You started hearing the noises, the wrappings. It was just sort of like a... Oh. And I got off the highway, and my car was towed, and the guys told me, no oil, your engine.

seized. No oil. Oh, I believe that. How can that be? Well, there are various things. First of all, the oil light is not telling you how much oil you have. So if the oil light comes on, it can come on for various reasons, but primarily what it's measuring is oil pressure. You could have low oil pressure for various reasons, one of which is you've got no oil. But we know you didn't have that. condition because the kid at the gas station said you had oil and you probably did so it's very likely that what you had was no oil pressure as opposed to no oil and why would I have no oil pressure because your oil pump stopped working and why would that happen because the car's a hundred sixty thousand miles on it and everything stops

working sooner or later yeah and when the oil pump broke you you had oil in the engine that wasn't being pumped around to all the parts that desperately need lubricate So if the pump fails completely, you can have plenty of oil on the dipstick and nothing going where it's supposed to go. But then what happened is as you continue to drive it, you ran the engine without lubrication. It got hotter and hotter and harder and harder. And it maybe vaporized the oil that was in there just because it got so hot. Oh, how sad. I wish I had known.

Yeah. Isn't it sad? Well, it's, look at the bright side, Donna. Yes. You learned a lesson on an engine that had 160,000 miles on it. Wouldn't you be ticked if you learned? in that same lesson when it had 30,000? Oh, I'd be more than ticked.

Yeah, yeah. So at least you got your money's worth out of the car, so to speak. So you don't think it's worth putting anything new in there. I'd put a used engine in it. Yeah? Yeah. I mean, if the rest of the body is in good shape and you like the car, then why not fix it? Unless you're dying for another car.

Yeah, it served me so well for so long, but it's definitely starting to show its age in little ways, like the electric locks aren't working and the sunroof doesn't work and it has a... You hate the car. Tell the truth. You do, huh? No, I love the car. No, you love the car.

But it is... What do you get your eye on? Maybe we can help you in that department. A boxter? Well, no. I'm not a boxter person. Oh, you're not? But I would absolutely love to get a convertible.

But there just aren't that many choices out there. No, there aren't. And they are kind of expensive. but if you have any suggestions. Oh, well. I mean, you need a big convertible or a little convertible? I definitely don't want a little matchbox because the drivers down here are crazy, and it's so scary to be out on 95 and a tiny little.

Where are you from? Delray Beach. Yeah. Delray Beach. It's about 20 miles south of West Palm. Okay. How old are you? Are you over 40?

I'm 31. Okay. You can't buy a Chrysler product. Unless you're willing to die. your hair blue. If you're willing to dye your hair blue, you can get a Chrysler. We'll get the letters from them tomorrow. I mean, a good

size convertible is a Mustang, but I have to say, I hate Mustangs. Yeah. I mean, they're big, they're ugly, they're overpowered, and they're stupid. Well, you don't have to get an overpowered one. Tell me how you really feel. Well, I mean, there aren't many convertibles that I don't like,

but that's, I hate Mustang. Well, tell us what you do like. I'll tell you two and tell me what you think. One, and they're pretty different. One is the cabriolet and one is the a used sob. Yeah. Well, I like both of them. Yeah? Yeah, I like both of them. Well, the sob will be expensive to repair. Yeah, and the cabriolet is a little on the smaller side. If you worry about, if you worried about the octogenarians running you off the road,

then you would be well advised to have a sob as opposed to a cabrio because the sob is a lot safer. Yeah, I think I go for the sob, even though it put you in the poorhouse, it's better than putting you in the cemetery. That sounds good to me. Well, good luck, daughter. And we knew right off that the ES 250 was a goner. Yeah. And subconsciously, you killed this car.

You bet in the dark recesses of your mind. Oh, well, be careful here. You knew that that oil light being on for four days was not good. And I guess after this call, I won't be able to make any insurance claims right now. No, no, I wouldn't think so. See you, Donna. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

All right. Tommy, do you remember last week's puzzler? Well, is a bear Catholic? Is the Pope Italian? 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 da, the answer to last week's historic and folkloric puzzler. I still don't remember it. As I said, this comes from the days of knights and kings and fair maidens named Rowena. And here's the story. Yeah. Rowena the Fair Maiden, of course, like all Fair Maidens, wishes to wed. And her father, the evil king, Dougie, has devised a way to drive off suitors. He puts three boxes on the table.

Okay? One is made of gold. One is silver, and the third is lead. Inside one of these boxes is a picture of the Fair Rowena. And the Knight's job, without opening the boxes, naturally, is to pick the one with Rowena's picture in it. If he wants to buy some pictures of Rowena, I got some... Oh. Oh, I'm sorry.

Actually, never mind. I'm sorry. Did they interrupt? No, no, no. So he has to pick the one with Rowena's picture in it, okay? If he picks the box with the picture, he gets Rowena's hand in marriage. Anyway, on top of each box is an inscription, and here's what they say. I remember this now.

Okay. Yeah. The gold box. says Rowena's picture is in this box. The silver box says Rowena's picture is not in this box. The lead box says Rowena's picture is not in the gold box. I love this. Don't you love this stuff?

So Evil King Dougie gives our knight one hint because, as it's currently set up, you can't solve it. Oh, no, of course not. he stipulates that only one of the inscriptions is correct. Yeah. You got it? One is correct and the other two are incorrect. Yeah. And if you look at one and three, they're contradictory.

Yes. What does that mean? Well, they say the opposite. I know that, but what does it mean in terms of the truth and foolness? Well, it means that one of them must be true. One of those two statements must be true. Yeah. Because if they say the opposite.

All right, then let's go. Let's assume. Wait, I like this. because if one of them is true, the gold box can't be true. The inscription on the gold box cannot be true because if it is, then the inscription on the silver box

must also be true. And that can't happen. And that can't happen. So the first statement on the third box, the lead box, is the only one that can be true. I love it. The statement of the third box is the only one that can be true.

The first one must be false. And the second box, which says Rowena's picture is not in this box, That is also false, which means that her picture is in the silver box. I love it. I love it. So it means the picture must be in the silver box. You know, you tell me that geometry is better than this at teaching people how to think.

It's easier to explain. Maybe it is. That's why they teach it. I think all of grammar school and high school should be puzzlers. Have nothing to do with algebra. I mean, trigonometry. area under a curve. Who cares?

This is thinking, man. I still don't get it. Well, there is someone who did get it. Who's that? I don't know. Who's our winner? The winner is Greg Fry from Scottsdale, Arizona. And for having his answer selected at random from among all the correct answers,

Greg gets a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk, shameless commerce division, with which he can get our puzzle of book or our broad brand new album, why you should never listen to your father when it comes to cars, or he can lose the certificate, save us $25, which is what we'd prefer, but that's up to him. Go, Greg. Well, as always, this puzzler answer will be on the website, because it seems to be, seems to have created a little consternation among the staff here. Sometimes seeing it written down makes all the difference in the world, but it is very

logical, but it sometimes gets a little confusing to hear it. Yeah, so if you want to see it, go and visit it, go and visit the website. Well, some of us are visual learners, and some of us are audio learners. Yes, and some of us are stupid. Stoop. This point, stupid. Okay, so you can see that on the Car Talk section of Cars.com. Anyway, we'll have a new, I don't know what modifier to use.

All I can say is... How about good versus bad? Mediocre, new puzzle are coming up in the third half of today's show. So stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can call us and ask us... questions about your car or anything else. Anything else. Plasma physics, anything, you name it. Hey, you know what it's time for, man?

Time to try to lock up that Mars syndication deal? No, no, no. It's time to play. Stop the Chops! It is time, once again, to put our, what's little left of our shred of credibility on the line by inviting a previous caller back onto the show to tell us whether our advice was any good or just plain bogus. Did I mention that I hate this part of the show? All right, who's this week's contestant, Johnny? It's Red Barker from New Jersey.

And when Red first talked to us, he didn't sound like he had a car problem at all. Well, this was before he talked to us, right? Right. Well, listen to this. Last May, I'm driving around the corner from my house. I've got my daughter in the car, and we see a beautiful, big, baby blue convertible on this lawn. And it's got a sign in it and it says,

are you ready for summer? I immediately slam on my break. Hang of you turned. Jump out of the car. Say, no, I'm not. A baby blue what convertible? 1975, Pontiac Granville. Oh, what a car.

So I buy the car and I pick up my buddy and his kids and my daughter, and we go on our maiden voyage and smoking a couple of big cigars in front of this car. You're saying it doesn't get any better than this. That's right. And the kids are loving it. And then all of a sudden, there's smoke coming up from the floor. So we pull over the floor of the car burst into flames.

The carpet, that is. All right. So he did have a teeny. little problem. Picky, picky. I bet he's glad of that fire now that it's winter. Anyway, Red's mechanic quickly figured out that the exhaust system and converter were too close to the underside of the car, and that was set in the carpet on fire. So they repositioned that, and that took care of the flames. That's right, but Red said that there was still way too much heat emanating from beneath the front passenger floorboard, and it was

ticking off his girlfriend, so we told him that despite his mechanics' protests to the contrary, his converter was plugged up and that he should get a new one and reinforced the floorboards for good measure. Okay, that was our advice and it still sounds good to me. All right, Red, are you there? Bonjour. Hey, man, are you ready for winter? Let me tell you something, it's plenty of warm enough now. Before we hear about any other conflagrations, we have to confirm that you have not been offered any cash prizes or stock at any fire extinguisher companies to make us look bad today on stumped chumps. Is that true? That is absolutely correct. All right, so what happened?

So what we did was we put a steel, welded a steel plate under the passenger side, replaced the catalytic converter. Yeah. And put in a heat reflector shield, as you recommend it. Yeah. And

my girlfriend was able to sit next to me for the remainder of the summer. Okay. Yay! Hey! Very good. I'm very happy for you, Red.

I'm happy for you, your car, your girlfriend, and everything else. Thanks for playing Stump the Chumps. Thanks, guys. Take care. Bye. Now, if you hear someone on the show that you'd like us to bring back on Stump the Chumps, you can email your suggestions to us from the Car Talk section of Cars. Well, that happens every time we give someone an answer.

And just hear people saying, oh, that sounds like something. Much baloney to me. You can hear the collective groan coming in the other direction. You immediately get on cars.com and email your idea. Get that guy back. There you go. We have four calls like that today already. If you want to call us, the number is 1-88-car talk.

That's 8-8-8-8-car talk. That's 8-8-8-car talk. Hello, you're on. Guess what? Car talk. My name is Mary Jane. I'm from Ashland, Oregon. Mary Jane.

Mary Jane. Hi, Mary. My God. Mary Jane. Are you our little goody two shoes or are you a wild woman? I'm a wild woman. Crazy. Yeah. Well, listen for years.

Let me give you my home phone number. Okay. But I appear to be nice on the outside. Okay, that's good. That's good. It depends on what crowd I'm with. You know, I can go either of. Oh, never mind.

I don't want to go there. Yeah. Yeah, forget it. Never mind. All right. So what's up? Mary Jane. And here's the story.

About a year and a half ago, my son was about to turn 19, and he's going through what I can only lovingly refer to as his transitional period. Yeah. Tell me about it. Yeah. And so during this transitional period, his car was somewhere for months, which was okay because he lost the keys, which was okay because he lost his license, times and misdemeanors, if you will.

Yeah. Suddenly, at three in the morning, three months later, he drives up, no headlight, registration expired and no license into my driveway. Well, that night when he brought it home, we went out and took out the battery to prevent him from further, you know, possible incarceration. It was the only chance I had to save him. So he had no battery, so therefore he can't find, you can't drive the thing. Yeah, good idea.

But I thought this transitional period is going to be really short, but a year and a half later now. The question is... And he's just as wacko now as he was then? And now he really has a job, and he's coming out of it, and it's a pleasure to have him around again. Boy, is that good to hear? But it's not a pleasure to have his car in my driveway. Yeah.

Here's the question. After a year and a half, is this thing going to ever come alive again? What do I do with it? Well, what kind of a car is it? Let's see if it's... Now, because of the real joke. Ford Escort, 89. It's always cars like this that start right up.

Yeah. But without a battery, huh? Well, we don't even need the battery. You might be able to do this with like four or five flashlight batteries stuck together. If this were an 89 Jaguar, the engine would be seized up. You know, if this was some collectible car, you could rest assured that it would have been ruined by sitting there for a year and a half. But cars like escorts, this could sit there for another decade. Oh, don't tell him that.

And you could turn the key and it would fire right up. Uh-huh. Great. And you don't really want it to fire up. right up actually. No? You'd rather that it didn't start immediately. Well, it won't anyway. And hopefully it won't. So, I mean, what I would do is I would put a battery

in it. And I would like disconnect the coil wire and crank it. Maybe for 20 seconds. Just to get the oil up where it's supposed to be. Then put the coil wire back in. Say a little Ave Maria.

And turn the key and it'll I don't probably start right up. No kidding. It could well. Oh, great. Yeah, I mean, you might want to just check the motor oil level before you started and make sure there's cool it and the radiator and all that. But other than that, just fire it up.

Wouldn't that be cool? And then get it out of there as fast as you can. Yeah, and maybe you give it to them for Christmas again. The only other thing that might be a problem is the gasoline. Gasoline. Because the gasoline is a year and a half old, and gasoline turns to ugly nastiness after a year and a half. If you do get it started, just go to the gas station and fill it up with some good stuff. Okay.

So as to dilute the crud that's accumulated in there. Okay. And it'll be fine. You can't hurt this car. Oh, we love that. You cannot hurt this car. We love that. If there are anything, they're rugged.

Very good. So just fire it up and drive it. Okay. See you're Mary Jane. Yes. Thanks for calling. Okay, thank you guys. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. All right, look, it's time to take a short break. Yeah. I can see in his eyes that my brother needs to commandeer another box of Donuts before we go on another minute. Out of my way, soldier. We'll be back at a minute. Ha, we're back.

You're listening to Car Talk with us. Click and Clack the Tapper Brothers. And we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and, duh, the new puzzler. Yeah. And how did I, what modifier did I use? Mediocre. So it was mediocre. Well, some may find it interesting.

Some may find it less than mediocre. Some may find it less than interesting. But here it is, nevertheless. Last weekend I was doing a little shopping and doing my little errands in our little village, so to speak, downtown in our fair city. Yeah. And as you might expect, I was going from one business establishment to another, opening doors, closing doors, going in, transacting business, you know, the usual routine. Sure. And one of the places I entered, upon opening the door, I was surprised to see something.

affixed to the door that I had just opened. There were attached to the door three brass strips, I would say, and they were about, oh, maybe four inches long and a half an inch wide, and they were nice and shiny, and each was affixed with two little screws, and one was... To a wooden door? To a wooden door. Yes, it was a wooden door. Could have been a steel door.

Could have been any kind of a door. Yeah. But it was a door that opened and closed. I think that defines a door. As I opened the door to this establishment, I find myself looking right at one of these bars, which would put one of them right at eye level with me. And one was, say, six inches higher than that, and one was six inches below it. And I thought, hmm, that's unusual.

And I went to another place of business and opened its door and saw no such little bars. So I went back to this first place, and I looked at, normally the door I had. had first entered, but another door. And it, too, had these three little brass bars attached. So they were horizontal bars. Mm-hmm. And give me again, how big on it, half an inch? Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's an industry standard,

but this particular door had these three strips that were each a half an inch wide by four inches long so they could be affixed to the style of the door. Yeah. Okay. And they were six inches apart. Yeah. You got it? The question is, what was this building that I had entered that had this on the door?

Oh, and not what were they? Oh, would that be obvious. If you know where I was, you'd know what they were. Wow. It wasn't the brass factory. No. No. And they needn't have been brass either.

But in this particular case, they were. They were brass. And, of course, when I saw them, I knew immediately what they were. and it was dictated by the building I was entering. I like this one, boy. I like this. Well, if you think you know the answer, write it on the back of a $10 bill. What's what this $10 thing?

No, no, no, no holidays. 20, this is the holidays. Come on, this is the time to gouge the customers. Exactly. $20 bill. $30, $30, $30. $40. Or a stale fruit cake that you got for the holidays

and send it to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, box $3,500, Harvard Square. Cambridge. That's my line. I'm sorry. Cambridge.

Our Fair City. Matt 02238. Or you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. If you'd like to call us, 1-888-8-8-8-8-2-8-2-8-2-8-2-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. This is David. I'm calling from Newton-Mass just up the street from your Fair City. Yes.

No kidding. What's going on, David? I wouldn't kid you about something like that. I guess we took your call because, even though it's an 888 number, we must pay more for calls that come from Alaska than ones with Newton, right? So does this mean that we're low on funds again? No, no, all the calls are routed through. Oh, that's right, Louisville.

Yeah. Well, it's the weighted population center of the universe. Oh, that's true. Yeah. I thought it was Centrelia, Kansas. Maybe. David, what's up? Well, here's the story. I have a 90 accord. Kind of getting up there in miles. It's got 180,000 miles on it.

That's a lot. I guess about six or eight weeks ago, it started to run really rough, especially at idle speed. I was noticing that the brakes were pulsating a lot, although that wasn't a new thing. It was starting to lose a little bit oil. I was talking about this at work, and one of my coworkers said, oh, my husband's a mechanic. I said, oh, fantastic. She was telling me how much everybody loves her husband, and he was a great guy.

He's lots of return business. I said, fantastic. So I arranged in that I took the car up to him. We talked it up for a while, actually went to his house. This was on a Saturday afternoon. House? Yeah, he said, bring it on by to my house. He does some work out of the back of his house.

So I brought it over there, and he did some stuff like he replaced the wires, replaced the plugs, and he put new front brake pads on it. And so I sat around. had dinner with his family, cooked on the grill. Very nice. This is good. Oh, great. And then got in the car and it wouldn't start.

So this is great. Now we've introduced the new problem into the mix. And so he thought, well, maybe that it could be a bad coil in the alternator. Ended up driving his old truck away. Let me his old truck. Came back a couple of days later. He couldn't find a replacement coil, but replaced the entire distributor. And it still didn't start.

So I went away again and came back a couple days later, and he replaced the coil in the new alternator, and then it went ahead and started. Well, when you say it wouldn't start, would it crank? It would crank, but it wouldn't turn over. It wasn't the alternator. It was the distributor. Oh, yeah, did I said alternator? Yeah, that was a mistake. It was an distributor.

That's all right. That's all right. That's all right. You just wanted to set the record straight here. So anyhow, he was very, very nice guy, felt bad about having to keep the car so long, and didn't charge me any labor, but charged me for. the parts. The problem was that I drove away with the same problems that I had when I went in there. The car was still running very, very rough, and the brakes were pulsating very, very badly. Yeah. Well, what do you expect from my guy who's doing all this in his backyard? Andy gave you dinner.

Andy gave you dinner. The guy lost a fortune on you. That's right. I don't know how he's going to make the boat payment now. Well, maybe he was just like, does he have a shop this guy? Well, never mind. That's enough. Yeah. Well, if it's well. A little bit tough to describe. Yeah.

But, and so now I'm trying to figure out what I should do. It's, should I bring the car back to him and say, look, I still have the same problems that I did. And you know what? And I still had a couple episodes now since of the car not starting. See, it sounds to me like this guy, and maybe he's a great cook. But, I mean, if he's doing the stuff out of the back of his house, he probably doesn't really have all the equipment he needs. Yeah. For example, he put pads in, maybe the pads will warn,

but probably the pulsating is not because of the pads, but because of the rotors. I've been subsequently told that I need to replace the rotors. Right, and he could, if he had had a runout gauge at home, he could have measured that. He could have run out and gotten one. He could run out and get one, I suppose. Right.

I have a feeling that you need a good old-fashioned valve job. Do you? Yeah. That, in fact, I mean, when he first, you said he put new plugs in, when he did that, did it run well then? Not really. Not really. I've heard subsequently that the third cylinder is not firing.

There you go. And I think the reason that it was the car has been losing oil is that the cylinder was, he said it was full of oil. Is that possible? Well, it's possible. You could have worn valve guides which are sucking oil into the cylinder and fouling the plugs. So it's possible, or following that plug. When he put the four new plugs in, it ran well for several minutes. And he said, oh, that problem is solved.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And then the longer it ran, the more oil it sucked in, and then it followed the plug, and it now runs on three cylinders. So, like I said, you may need a good old-fashioned valve job. Okay. It sounds like this guy just didn't spend enough time diagnosing and just dove right in and started replacing stuff. I guess. That's okay.

All right. And if you're lucky, that works. I got a wonderful meal out of it. Really nice family. Yeah, and I think you should just call it even. Just forget it. Whatever he did, he did. If you want to get it fixed, I think you need to go to the Honda dealer.

Yeah. Okay. Well, there's someone that has some test equipment. They can test the run out of the disc rotors. They can test the compression. They can find out if you're fouling number three plug. And then when they tell you it's going to cost you $3,500 to fix it, you'll decide to just drive it the way it is.

Yeah. I guess that's my big overall question is, do I want to put the money into this car, which I love, but it's getting... Well, I mean, that's the age-old question. Do you dump it just because it's got a few minor little problems like this? Or do you keep it forever? This is the question my sister-in-law faces frequently. Why do I get the feeling we're not talking about cars anymore?

Yeah. So it's tough. I mean, I don't know. When things get old and decrepit, do you just dump them? I mean, my philosophy is. Well, there's an argument to be made for that. There is, there is. There is there.

And certainly, and I think you should have the whole car gone through by somebody that you trust to find out everything that's wrong with it. And then you can sit down. And when you find out it's $4,500 to fix it, you'll say, Nah. Uh-huh. Since you don't have a mechanic, I would go to our website, car talk section of cars.com,

and then we have a feature called the MechanX files. Uh-huh. And it's a listing of all mechanics, all over the country, all over the world, in fact, who have been recommended by visitors to the site. Excellent. And you can just type in Newton and Accord, and you might find somebody right around the corner.

Excellent. Good luck, David. Thanks a lot. See you later. Bye. 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 Fenalosa. Our engineer is Dennis DeMennis Foley. Our senior web lackey is Doug. I'm selling the sheep mayor. And our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor who's been detained by a blizzard today is John Bugsy. make that two triple cheese burgers,

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Don't drive like my brother. my bra. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. And now here is Car Talk Plaza's chief mechanic, Mr. Vinnie Gobotz. Vinnie? Thank you very much. Now, if you want a copy of this here show, which is number 50, you just pick up your phone and call this here number 1-8-8-8-8-car junk. And yes, that really is the number 8-8-8-car junk. And what if I wanted some other Car Talk paraphernalia, you know, like 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, Vincent? No, you get some wool and crochet one, you're dope. Of course you call the same number. You're called the Shameless Commerce Division at 888 Carjunk or visit it online at the Car Talk session of Cars.com. Well, thank you, Benny. I have once again underestimated you. Hey, underestimate this bell.

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