The Best of Car Talk - #2615: 'Relaxed Fit' Comes for Cars

Episode Date: February 21, 2026

Raconteur and friend of the show, Daniel Pinkwater has been on a lifelong quest for the perfect car. His is a quest not motivated by horsepower or design so much as the need to find a vehicle that he can get his ‘substantial’ frame in and out of without the use of lubricants. How effective is WD-40 when used as an antiperspirant? Find out 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 Collect the Tappert Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the millennial, mobile, mechanical, meritorious, mediocrity deficient. It's a mouthful, isn't it? It is. Here at Car Talk Plaza, otherwise known as worst cars of the millennium. Now, in the past couple of weeks, I guess, we've asked you for nominations for the worst cars of the last thousand years or so. Anyway, the judges.

That being us, have deliberated over much coffee and donuts, and we have come up with a list of finalists. And now we want you to vote for one of these finalists as the worst car of the millennium. Got it? You're ready? And here they are. A list that would give them mechanic night sweats. Okay, so we're going to give you the list. So you get the pencil.

Right. And you're going to write them down, and then you can tell us which one you're going to vote for. Okay? Okay, I'm ready. The Chevy Vega. Man, we had lots and lots of people. recommending this one. And understandably, because they sold a lot of these. Yeah. This was touted as the car whose engine would last either 10,000 miles or 500,000 miles.

Yeah. Most of them lost to 10. Either too short off, way too long. For many people, it was way too long because they were just dying to get rid of this car. The Ford Pinto. This made an explosive entry into the market. As it did. The AMC Gremlin, which was as ugly as you could get. And way ahead of its time. We weren't ready for that. agree of ugliness yet. This could be my, my vote. The Renault or Renault Doffin. I like Renault.

It was Renault in those days. The Hugo. The Renault le Carr. Right. That's neck and neck with the Doffin. Yeah. Yeah. And we needn't say much more than that.

No. The Chevy Chavette. Well, we don't need to mention that they also made the Pontiac T-1000. That's the same car. Yeah, there are a lot of cases of this being the same car, but the one most memorable is the Chevy Chavette. And also, the same thing occurs with the next one, the Dodge Aspen or the Plymouth Valari. They were the same car. Right. These are the distinction of actually rusting while they were still in the showroom.

I remember it well. Yes, what's that spot? Nothing. Don't worry about it. And one of my favorites, the Fiat X-19. There weren't many of those sold, but a lot of people who hated them. Here's one of my personal favorites, the Cadillac. Simeron. This was General Motors. One of the earliest attempts to pass off a cavalier as a Cadillac.

And it worked. General Motors, man. The VW bus, we've discussed that as far as having no heat, no safety, no handling, no nothing. It was pretty pathetic. Someone sent us a note saying, you guys mentioned the VW bus was a death trap if you were in a head-on collision. He says, but you can never go fast enough because usually on the highway, the chances are better that you'd be hit from the rear. And in that same vein, the VW thing. Conan the Barbarian comes to mind. You had to be tough to drive one of those. Yeah.

I don't know how this made the list, but it did. The Daihatsu charade. Yeah. Hardly were any of them sold. And no parts. This company had the unique, the dubious distinction of having no aftermarket parts available for their car. Yeah, something broke you through the car away. There you go.

It's cheap enough. What do you want for $4,000? bucks and the Ford excursion. Yeah, and that's on the list for obvious reasons. It's got to be maybe not the worst, but certainly the stupidest vehicle of the millennium. Maybe we ought to have a separate category. Maybe having thrown in with OPEC, we don't really know. Yeah.

So we want you to help us pick the single worst car of the millennium. I'll go over the list really quickly. The Vega, the Pinto, the Gremlin, the Dauphine, the Hugo, the Le Car, the Chevet, the Aspen slash Valari, the Fiat X-19, the Cimarron, the VW bus, the VW thing, the Daihatsu charade or any other car that Daihatsu may have made, and the Ford excursion. So basically, we want you to help us pick the single worst car of the winning him and will award consolation prizes for the runners up too. So cast your vote, one vote per person.

Either go to our website, the Car Talk section of Cars.com, or mail your vote to Worst Cars, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt, 02238. Enough of that. If you want to talk to us about your car, the number is 888-88-28-2-7-8-2-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Michelle calling from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Michelle. Hi there. Michelle Marbell. Exactly. I've heard that a lot, my life. From Ann Arbor. That's right. a student or a professor?

I am neither. I work at a retail grocery store called People's Food Co-op. Ah. Yeah. I do outreach and education for them. Outreach and education for a grocery store? Not a grocery store. It's a food co-op, you dope.

Exactly. Yeah, so? What kind of outreach education do you do? Well, we help people learn about what it means to be a cooperative business, and we promote a lot of environmental and nutrition information. Really? Yeah, a whole variety of things about natural foods. Cool.

Yeah, that is a cool job. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, I like it, too. So why are you calling us, Michelle? Well, I'm calling you about my 1991 Mercury Tracer, which I love. It's got 160,000 miles on it and still going strong. Yeah, but I'll be driving along on the highway, so this has to be at around speeds of around 70 or so. For no reason.

it'll just like make a revving noise. It'll start like, you know, it'll jump up about 1,000 RPM. And so it sounds like it's driving really hard. It almost like gets dropped out of overdrive. And if I pull over to the side or, you know, pull off the highway or something, put it in park and then drive again, it's fine. It's like it's corrected itself. Now the check engine light will come on for a little bit,

but it doesn't stay on. It'll pop on and then it'll go off. All right. And if you didn't pull over, if you just let it happen, would it stop by itself? No. Well, I've driven maybe, I don't know, five or six or seven miles with it, you know, sounding horrible just to get to a safe pullover. And no one was able to figure this out. No.

All right. Tell us more about the food co-op. Oh, is it that easy? Is this an auto-magic transmission? It is, yep. I'm going to suggest that it, in fact, has downshifted. Well, then how would, like, if we've checked over the transmission and nothing is wrong, and the check engine light doesn't stay on, so it's not like they can run a diagnostic.

Well, but the check engine light does come on when it's doing this. It'll come on for maybe 10, 15 seconds, and that'll go away. So it doesn't stay on. And they've never been able to get a trouble code out of it? No. I suspect that it is downshifting. Huh. Well, the way you can corroborate this is, in fact, to downshift it.

Huh. And for example, if the thing is in third when you're driving along it, well, I must have a three-speed transmission. When you're driving along in third gear and it seems to do this, you should actually downshift into the next lower gear and see if nothing changes. But I have an automatic, not a standard. Yeah, you can downshift. So I can just down, just get out of overdrive. There you go. Yeah.

Huh. So what would, that's sort of the trick. It's like what's causing it. Because it's happening. Who knows? My brother's been working on that one ever since he woke up. What? What's happening? Yeah.

I mean, I agree that it probably is downshifting, but I don't have any idea why it's downshifting. Have you taken this to a transmission shop? No, I haven't. No, you shouldn't. But it's something that you might want to take it to the dealer for, believe it or not, because they may have seen it before or they may have a bulletin on it. Right. Could be something as simple as a pinched wire or vacuum hose or maybe some adjustment that needs to be made to the transmission.

Yeah. But try to verify if it in fact. fact is really downshifting by doing what I said. Right. See you, Michelle. Thanks a lot. Bye, bye. All right, Tommy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember last week's puzzler? No, no, no. 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.

Tees and season. supply. There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's on the media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here and maybe how to head them off at the past? That's on the media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us,

Click and Clack to Tappert Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and, of course, the answer to last week's puzzling. I can hardly wait. Not for the answer. Just the question. The question, I know. This came from Kent Hartfield from somewhere in Texas.

I don't remember, but it could be almost anywhere. He says, I was driving my Ford Arrow Star van down the road in Arlington, Texas last June. First hint. When all of a sudden, hint. first hint, June.

I heard a muffled bang that was immediately followed by the motor dying out. You got it? Bang? Motor quits. You with me? I'm with you? I don't think so. You don't look at your face. I always have to. He continues. I pull off to the side of the road

and pop the hood. The aerosar has a little hood because it's a van and the engine is buried. We know that. But I look under the hood and soon figure out what had happened. Dang, I said, or maybe it was consarned. Consarned. This is going to cost a lot to have fixed. I close the hood, get back in the van, start the engine, and drive off. June. Without incident. Arlington, Texas. He drove off, Terry. It's hot. The question is, what happened to the car,

and the hint is, of course, it's June. It's June and the muffled bang. A bang. This is more than a muffled pop. This is a bang. Yeah, I mean, this, this closed all into play, all kinds of different pieces of knowledge. It's June. It's hot. It's Texas. And he has the air conditioner on. Of course. And when he's driving along, the high pressure hose from the air conditioner compressor blows,

filling the engine compartment with what? Refrigerent. Refrigerante. R13A. 134A. And it blows all the oxygen out of the engine compartment. Because it comes out such a. huge volume at such high pressure, it displaces all the oxygen necessary for combustion.

And, of course, the frayon... And the engine stalls! ...is not supportive of combustion, and the engine stops running. Wow. As soon as he opens the hood, the stuff is a chance to dissipate. He sees the broken hose. This is going to cost a lot to fix. This is going to cost some serious of money.

And, of course, he closes the hood and drives off. I like it. And he makes a hole in the ozone layer. Yeah. Kent himself personally is responsible for a little bigger hole. Yeah, another pinhole in the ozone layer that's making our temperature go up here in greater Boston. And I thank you, Kent. You're doing a great job.

Who's our winner? The winner is Donald Miller from New York, New York. Wow. And for having his correct answers selected at random from among all the correct answers, our pal Donald will get a $25 gift certificate. into the Car Talk, Shameless Commerce Division, with which he can buy a complete wardrobe as long as he's willing to go out

in nothing but a t-shirt and a baseball hat. We have the T-shirts an extra long. Extra long. Congratulations, Donald. Donald Miller, from New York, New York. We'll have a new, barely automotive puzzler coming up in the third half of today show, one that anyone could do.

So stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can call us and ask us questions about your car. About anything. Anything. 1-888-8-2-2-2-7-8-2-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Tom and Ray? Yeah.

Yes. Daniel Pinkwater. Daniel! How the heck are you? I'm all excited. About what? I bring your listeners good news. Really?

I have concluded the quest, the automotive quest, of my adult life. Really? You have found the perfect car? For me, and for those like me, the automobile with, like they say, in the Mighty Man catalog, relaxed fit. Oh. Allow us to guess what this gift might be. This is a car that I can enter and egress from with dignity.

Now, listeners should know that I am. well, we've been overweight. And I have been for years running at various cars, using various lubricants. When I get out in the parking lot, usually I will request help from a passing stranger. Yeah, we heard that your wife had to buy a jaws of life to get you out one night. You want to give us a number? Feel free to use scientific notation, if necessary. I went to Kingston, New York, not far from my home, where there are lots of fat people.

I ensconced myself in the parking lot of the Super Kmart. And you watched. Scientific equipment. I had my binoculars. I had my notepad. I had my donuts. And you watch people struggle or not struggle getting in and out of their cars. I observed some actually frightening techniques.

One of the scariest one is they grab your own head. you put your right buttock on the seat that you grab your own head and pull it down under the doorframe. Oh, much like the police do when you're handcuffed. Yeah, exactly. And then another one I saw, which leads right to the Chiropractor's bench, where they just put their head down and run at the car. Do they bother opening the door?

Some do, some just go right through the window. Kingston is a tough spot. The last time we spoke, am I correct that you were driving a Mercedes of some kind? I had a beloved Bay M. V. Right. 735. I.I. I served me well. Yeah. But, you know, as we age, we become more challenged. Lowering myself into the large sports car became somewhat problematical. Really? Just a bit.

And it was time for me to find something appropriate to my dignity, and shall we say, gravitas. And stationing light. Gravitas. Is this a new car that you bought? A brand new car. Is it of American manufacture? You might say that. And it is a sedan, but not a, it's not an SUV of any kind.

It is not an SUV of any kind. I'm going to guess it's made in Canada. I, um, not Canada. Oh, Mexico. Mexico Mexico? Mexico? Yes.

A VW bug? Yes. What? Yes. Yes. Yes. A VW bug? In creating the new beetle, the demented designers made a very large and very high door.

They did. One of the things you have to consider when you yourself are upholster to a certain degree is headroom. very important for people who may not be all that tall when standing. You mean you're taller sitting down and you are standing up? Yes. That can be done. That can be done. You've got to have a humongous butt for that to be true.

And as we know, you do. It's several pink waters, as I recall. I feel. Now, here's the funny thing. I want to talk about the non-sircumperally challenged or non-diometrically opposed, diametrically disadvantaged aspects of the car. When you drive this thing, one feels like a pretty girl.

People smile at you and let you into traffic. Oh, there's no question about that. We had a couple of these in the last year or so that we test drove. Did you put the Biscotti in the budd vase? Exactly. and everyone that you went by had to wave, smile. It was wonderful. It could have changed.

It's getting on my nerves, but there's room for my tuchus. Why I said VW bug, I don't know, because it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. But the only vehicle you know that's manufactured in Mexico, that's right. If I hadn't told you Mexico, you'd never have. We never would have never have guessed. I mean, I had a hundred other guesses before I would have gotten to that car, and I'm sure other people listening that are diametrically disadvantaged, as are you, would never have thought of that car either.

You may be up for some kind of award from Volkswagen, Daniel. Volkswagen, Shane a mensch medal. Wow. Daniel, it's always a pleasure talking to you. I'm still seeking knowledge, and when anything comes up that I think is important to us. You will let us know. Well, it's always enlightening hearing you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Goodbye. Goodbye. Now, he's nuts. Have we ever met him actually? No. No. We've spoken to him on the phone all the time, but we've never met him.

No, he expressed an interest in not meeting us, actually. It has something to do with you, I think, but I'm not sure. Hey, do you know what time it is? Time to dump our tech stocks and invest in heating oil? No. It's time to place? Stump the chumps. This is the part of the show where we exhume a previous caller and find out whether the advice that we gave him or her was good, bad, or just plain ugly.

So who's our contestant this week? It's Crystal from South Carolina. I know, Crystal. You do? Yeah, didn't he wrap the Grand Canyon in a big gauze pad or something? No, no, not that, Crystal. This crystal had an 86 VW golf that wouldn't start and a mechanic that kept putting in new fuel pumps. And if I remember correctly, Christo had some elaborate ritual he used.

to get the heap started. What you have to do is to get underneath the car with a hammer, hit the fuel pump, which, as you probably know, is right next to the gas tank. Yeah. Two or three times, run back, jump in the driver's seat, and crank it, and it would start right up. That needs to work.

But what happens now is that that doesn't work. What I have to do is I have to get somebody else to sit in the driver's seat. Oh, so while you're cranking. And then, no, no, no, while he's cranking. Well, he's cranking. I have to say, oh, so you got it wrong. You should be. cranking.

No, no, no, no, it's his car. No stranger was going to lie on his back to do this. And it works perfectly, but this is not the way I want to run my life. I mean, what's he complaining about? If that was all I had to do to start the MG in the morning, I'd be thrilled.

So what did we tell him anyway? We told him that he was either getting substandard fuel pumps, or he had advanced gratification of the fuel system. I remember that. I think there was my term. So let's find out.

Christo, are you there? I am. All right, look, before we find out whether the crudification was in your fuel pump or in our brains, we need to verify that the answer you're about to give here on Stump the Chumps has not been influenced by our staff, the staff of National Public Radio, or that poor slob was to crank the car with you every morning. Absolutely correct. Oh, good. So was it the fuel pump or the creeping crud?

It turned out that there was a little male-female, electrical connector that had been corroded, and which was supplying electricity on an episodic basis to the fuel pump. So when you were hitting the pump, you were making the connection. I was jarring the connection back into life, but what I do need to tell you guys is that you, the conversation with car talk gave me hope that it was fixable and that I shouldn't chuck the car. Well, we're thrilled.

Well, that's good, but we were wrong. Well, we were wrong, but we gave hope. You weren't wrong. You weren't wrong in two ways. One, because you didn't say chuck the car. Secondly, you weren't wrong in that. It was an extension of the fuel pump. I regard the electrical problem as falling under the umbrella of your solution.

Of crud. Well, that's very nice of you, Crystal, but you're wrong. But thanks for playing stumped to jump anyway. You're a good sport. Okay, thank you. Okay, God bless. Bye-bye. All right, before we get to the new puzzle,

we're going to pause and take a short break. You know, we should think about making these breaks just a little bit longer. I mean, a minute isn't long. If we made the break like 59 minutes, though, think about it, we would cut way down on the 8-8-8-number charges. Ha, we're back listening to Car Talk with us,

click and clack the Tappert brothers, and we here to discuss cars, car repair, and the new barely automotive puzzler. Yeah, I can hardly wait. Pay attention now. Okay. I'm going to close my eyes and meditate on this. Go ahead.

A woman and her husband decide to go shopping one Saturday for a used car. This is the automotive part of the puzzler. So they go to the neighborhood used car dealer, and a young man is showing them around the parking. You know, he's showing them various cars, and they don't seem to be really excited about any one of them. And finally, he says, oh, how can I have forgotten this one? I have just a car for you. I know you're going to love it. And he takes them over to this late model Japanese car.

And he says, you're not going to believe this. He said, but this car belonged to my fourth grade teacher, Miss Johnson. And it's a wonderful car. And she treated it very well. Had all the service done here. And interestingly, she never left town with the car. All she ever did with the car was she drove from home to school and back. and on Sundays she went to church and never used the car on Saturday.

And they look over the car. It looks magnificent. And so the woman asks the obvious question, well, why did Ms. Johnson sell the car? And he says, well, you know, as luck would have it, she was called out of town on very short notice to care for a sick relative in the Midwest someplace. So she came in here last week and sold us the car. And, of course, it's your good fortune that it's here. But this is a wonderful car. So the woman gets in behind the wheel and starts up the engine and sounds fine.

And the husband sits in the passenger seat. And she fiddles with the controls on the dashboard, tries the wipers, blows the horn, looks around the car. And the husband says, geez, hon, I think we ought to get it. And it's such a cute color, too. And she says, as she turns off the key. She says, I don't think so. I don't think so. I could see it coming.

He's lying to us. And the question is, how did she know? And the answer is not that the salesman was moving his lips. Wow. I love it. Now, if you think you know the answer, write it on the back of a $20 bill or a half-eaten apple. Or any half-eaten fruit. And send it to us.

Yeah, but pears don't hold up well. They don't mail well. They don't mail. You know why the stamps don't stick on them. That's right. Apples are good. Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City.

Matt 022-38. Or you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. If you'd like to call us, the number is 1-888-8-8-28-28-255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hey, guys, this is Mark calling from Lawrenceville, Georgia. Hi, Mark. How you doing? Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Yeah. What's going on? Got a weather-related problem with my 94 Dodge Dakota SLT extended cab. Okay. First notice the problem back in the winter of 96, when the outside temperature is 33 degrees or colder, the cassette deck engages, and I cannot use the weather. radio until the vehicle warms up. Even if there's no cassette in it?

No, no cassette. No cassette, no cassette. No cassette in it. No cassette in it. But it thinks there's one and the radio won't play. Exactly. Oh, geez. In the winter of 97, the temperature increased to 43 degrees where the cassette deck would engage.

Oh, pretty soon you won't be able to use the thing all summer. Right. I can see the trend here. I'm up to 63 degrees right now. Oh, Mark, did someone pay you to call it? us with this problem. No, sir, no. Oh, give us a break, will you please?

Oh, man. Well, no, see, when you throw a tape in there, it obviously shuts off the radio. So you don't have to, you don't, there's no button you have to press. No, I understand. So if there's a tape in there and it knows there's a tape in there, it shuts off the radio and plays the tape. Yeah, well, my solution would be to make sure there's a tape in there all the time. At least you can listen to a tape.

Here's what you do. You tape the news. The night before. So you'll think the radio's on. And you'll keep hearing the news. It'll be like Groundhog Day. You hear the same news every day. See, Jesus, another explosion downtown.

It was one yesterday. Yeah, and pick a day when the Dow Jones Industrial average goes up like 200 points and you'll feel good about your investments. At least for the first 20 degrees. Or I could just lead the best of car talking there. Well, this must have, I don't know anything about tape players. Oh, here we go. But this is akin to electric brakes.

Exactly. And you must have a lazy something or other in there. Right? Okay. There's going to be something that hanging down that's telling the tape player, that's telling the radio that the tape is a tape in there. Well, I think you should... There's obviously a switch.

I think, yes, there is a switch, and I think you should probe it with a pencil. Yeah. You should open up the little flap. Uh-huh. You need to find the offending piece by, touching everything you possibly can with the pencil until the radio starts working. Okay.

And then you need to devise a wedge to put in there or something. Well, you called us. I mean, the easy solution is you could take the radio out and have somebody fix it. Yeah. Yeah, well, anyone could do that. Exactly. Anyone could do that. Yeah, that's no fun at all.

You can have the radio out in about five minutes. Right. My new theory is don't let anybody do anything. Fix everything yourself because everybody is probably more incompetent than you. Everybody. It doesn't matter what it is. If you had to have open-heart surgery, you'd be better off doing it on yourself than having some wacko do it. With your ginsu knives.

On the kitchen table. Well, see, the odd thing is I can get the tape deck to disengage if I run the heat, full blast on the vents, to where I'm assuming that the ambient temperature of the dashboard is now 64 degrees where it disengaged. I have to be honest with you, I don't think my brother even has any idea why this is related to temperature, do you? Tell us something that's hanging there.

No, but why is it related to temperature? Why would a switch be related? I don't know. It's been a long show. Come on. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense. But I guarantee you that if you peer in that little winter,

Well, see, I've looked in there, and I can see the metal plate that would lift up the tape and eject it out. I can see that in the up position, and it won't go down until that dashboard is hot enough. Oh, you know what it is? It's the switch that that pushes against. You're going to take the radio apart. Oh, man. Yeah. If there were a train to Lawrenceville, Georgia, I'd come down to help you because this sounds like a fascinating problem.

Well, I'm just outside of Atlanta, so, you know, we're not too far away. Oh. Yeah, you're breaking up, Mark. We're losing you. But the train doesn't go through Atlanta, actually. It goes through Savannah. Uh-huh. So that's quite a distance from you.

Oh, there is a train that... Perhaps you could meet me. Yeah, there is a train that goes to Atlanta, but it's not the same train that you would take. Yeah, well, I... It would be a midnight train. There would be a midnight train. There will be the midnight train. There you go.

I'll meet you in Jessum. See you, Mark. All right. Thanks, guys. 1-8-88-car talk. That's 8-88. We get them, don't we? Doesn't anyone screen these calls?

Evidently not. 2-278. 255. Hello, you're on car talk. Hi, my name is Barb. Barb. Hi, Barb. As in Barb, Dwyer? No.

Barb Dwyer was our head of security for a while. Oh, no, that wouldn't be me. Where are you from, Barb? I'm from Richfield, Minnesota. It's just outside Minneapolis. Man. How cold is it? It's not too bad.

No, it's not cold. It's global warming, man. The whole planet is about to melt. It's not too bad, huh? That's great. Yeah, and actually, the trouble we're having with our car, we like it to be cold because the car seems to work better when it's really cold. Really?

Yeah. That's unusual. You might have inadvertently purchased the Klondike package. What's it doing? Well, it's a 1990 Plymouth Acclaim, and it just dies for apparently no reason. You're just driving along, and all of a sudden the check engine light comes on, and there's no power. Cool. And that could be touch and goal if you're on the highway at 75 miles an hour.

It's kind of scary. Yeah. So we took it to the garage and they thought maybe it was the fuel line or fuel pump and it wasn't. And then they didn't have any more ideas for us. Their next suggestion was, well, we could take the whole engine apart, but we don't know what the problem might be. Oh. And we didn't really like that idea. I don't like that either.

And how many times of this has this happened? It's been going on for two months now. And how often, like, every time you go out? Well, the strangest thing is it's the third trip of the day that does it. It's like you can go someplace and come back, but if you try to, go someplace a third time, that's what it happens. Ah, maybe it's some kind of safety feature trying to get you to stay home. That's right.

They're trying to make us more efficient. I don't know. Yeah. Why didn't you buy the milk on the last trip? That's right. That's exactly right. Now, when it does this, does it restart? Well, yeah, if we, you know, pull over to the side and put on the blinkers and sit there

for a few minutes and then start it again, it's fine, and it's running smooth. For how long? Well, sometimes it'll die again pretty soon, but usually, you know, you can finish what you're doing and get home. You must have 130,000 miles on this car. More. Well, yeah. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's an old car and it's been through the wars. Yeah, so what do you want?

I want to keep running because it's the only one we've got. Well, the most likely candidate on this thing is the fuel pump. Okay. Yeah. Now, when they said that the fuel pump and the fuel lines were okay, uh-huh. On what basis did they say that? That the car was running the day you took it in.

Yeah, well, see, that's the thing. It wouldn't do it at the garage. Well, it may not have done it, but at the very least, they should have hooked up the fuel pressure gauge to it. Because very often, a pump that fails like this intermittently will exhibit low fuel pressure. Okay. Which is a telltale sign that it's, what's the technical word? Done for. Yeah.

Done for. So, in fact, if it is the original pump, it's the, it's a telltale sign that it. It's a miracle that it's still working. Yeah. Well, they may be looking for something in the wrong place. I mean, I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that mechanics, for whatever reason nowadays, except for the geysers, go and look at all the computer stuff because they assume that that's what it is. But the same things that have gone wrong with cars since the days of Ben Hurr still go wrong with cars. Fuel pumps still give out.

Intake manifold, gaskets, leak, you know, things and all those things. None of which are on the computer. Yeah. See, we used to have a geyser to fix. fix our car and then he retired. Ah, man. I thought that was really inconsiderative him. It was.

Bring the geysers back. That's right. Was he in like a rest home someplace? Yeah, you know, we could track him down. Does he have his tools? But I suggest it's the fuel pump. I agree with my bro on this one. Okay.

And we had noticed that it seems to be temperature dependent. On really cold dry days, it doesn't do it. Well, the failing pump is more apt to fail when the weather gets warm. So when the spring comes, like in July. Uh-huh. You'll be done. It'll be conking out every day and those dopes will be able to figure it out for you. Well, yeah, it'll finally do it.

But have them check the pressure first. I think they're going to find out the pumps no good. Okay, the fuel pressure. Thank you. See you, Barb. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye. So July in Minnesota is spring.

12 through 14th. Yeah, that's the official last day of ice fishing season. Yeah, okay. You know, that's the thing that's most disturbing about this global warming thing. It's cutting way back on the ice fishing season. fishing season. Oh, man. Yeah. Just when I was about to take it up as a hobby, it's about to become extinct.

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