The Best of Car Talk - #2616: Non-traditional Repair Materials

Episode Date: February 24, 2026

On past shows we’ve discussed repairs using a variety of ‘improvised’ materials such as underwear waistbands, road signs and extra virgin olive oil. Add to that list the humble and perpetual Pop Tart. Gather ‘round the toaster for this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org. Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack, the Tappertr Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Mouths of Babes Division here at Car Talk Plaza. Now, this was sent to us by an eighth-grade teacher named Mrs. Mrs. Angstrom of Northfield, Minnesota. Angstrom.

Is that the size of your brain? One angstram. That's A-N-G. Those are A-N-G, S-T-R-O-M's. An-Strem is a million of those. Anyway, she apparently taught a little lesson on radio, and she had her students listen to various radio programs and analyze them, and here are some of the comments about our show.

Well, they're hardly babes. They're eighth graders. But here are some of the things. This is an analysis that they did. And brutally honest, I might add. Here's one from Josh. I thought the car talk show was the best show we listened to in class. When those two guys started talking, it was funny because they talk about nothing.

This is Emily. I like their voices. I don't want to see them because I just like listening to their voice. Seeing them would ruin it. She's right about that. Seth, I like Car Talk. I think the show is a good idea because people like listening to idiots. Karsten says,

I like the format of the show. It keeps your attention, but doesn't involve much thought. Our sentiments exactly. Oh, and that's it. All right, well, we'll find out who these little twerps are. We'll hang a beating on them what we can. Eighth graders. Yeah.

Don't you have an eighth grader? I have an eighth grader, and I would have to say, although she has never listened to the show. No. There's no interest whatsoever. I would say that she would say all these things about me personally. But you're the idiot thing. Oh, here's the one. Here's one that says, Bill and Ray were funny in a stupid way.

Bill and Ray. Well, if you'd like to talk to Bill and me, the number is 8888-car talk. That's 888-227-825. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, my name's Kelly. Hi, Kelly, with an I at the end. Oh, an I-E. Yes.

All right. I had it with a J.E. Well, that's the Rikivik spelling. Yeah, the Icelandic. Where are you from, Kelly? I'm from Detroit, Michigan, but I go to school at Miami University in Ohio. Oh, yeah. Oh, that was a cruel choice.

Miami University in Ohio. Yeah. I always have to say in Ohio. And why Pre-Tell is it named Miami University just to screw people up and confuse us? Well, actually, I think it was named after an Indian tribe that was living in Ohio. What, the University Indians? I guess so. Oh, no, the Miami Indians.

The Miami Indians, yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. And they were living in Ohio. Yeah. And they were in search of cold weather. Oh, they just went to Florida and the winter. That's kind of funny.

So anyway, so here you are stuck in Ohio someplace. Yes. And you're calling us for what reason? Well, I have at home. I have an 86 Honda cord, and it's been having problems since August. I came to, I thought, you know, I'm going to drive it down to school this year. It'll be okay. My drive's about, you know, four and a half hours. After about two hours, it started bogging out, and, like, it started doing what? Like, bogging out, it would start to shut itself off, like around 65 or 70 miles an hour, so we would pull over and turn it off, and then turn it back on, and it would go for a little more,

and then it would shut itself down again. Okay, so it just kept slowing down and slowing down. Yeah, well, and then it just cut out. You know, it would be like at 50, and it would just cut out and die. And you would coast over to the side of the road. Right, exactly, very dangerous. Who's we? My dad and I, who's driving down with me.

Wow. Why was he coming down with you? Oh, to take me to school. And luckily my mom was following, too, so if something really bad happened. So your father just dumped you off at Miami University and said, good luck, Kelly? Exactly. Call me if you ever get it to run again. We'll see at Christmas, yeah.

Got it. All right. So the mechanic I went to rebuild the carburetor and put in new needles and floats. That didn't work. So at Christmas I brought it home, and I switched cars with my dad, and we tried using a gas additive to put it in it to clean out the gas tank. And that didn't work. And then he took the fuel pump out and put a new one in, taken the gas tank out, clean, you know how you clean it and you reseal it. Yeah.

Who did this now? My dad. Yeah. Yeah. Good. I like it. Because, I mean, you have the classic symptoms of a bad field. fuel pump. Yeah, and that's what he said, too. He's been reading the manual and looking at it.

And he changed the filters to this? This thing is carb-rated, so it has, this has two gas filters. Yeah, he changed the screens with carb cleaner on the gas filters, both of them. Well, the gas filter, the rear one is a plastic filter that you just throw away. Oh. And the front filter is a metal filter. He may not know. He may not know there are two. Yeah. He cleaned the screen inside the tank. Right, exactly. But he did not clean the little plastic filter that's outside the tank. Yeah, and the way you clean it is, throw it away and you put a new one on.

There's one under the car right near the gas tank. It's a white plastic filter. And then there's one under the hood, which is a bronze-looking metal filter. Okay. And both of those should be changed because either one of those can give you the same symptom as a bad fuel pump. And boy, he's going to be ticked if he finds out it's a $6. I know.

We've done all this stuff, and it's just, it's not even... So close. I mean, he should have... Well, it doesn't matter now. But, I mean, the classic theory is you always replace the cheapest and or easiest thing to replace. Oh, that's not the way we do it. No, no, unless you're charging

people are. Oh, right. I'm talking about... Let's get that clear. Let's get that clear. If you were doing it on your own car, that's what you would do. If you were doing it for money, you would first replace, and in your case, I think my brother would have first put in a new transmission.

And when that didn't work, you'd put, to you throw in the $6 fuel filter. So have Daddy-Oh check the fuel filter, because it could easily be that one of these fuel filters, and the more likely one. So there's actually three of them, right? Well, there's, no, they're all, there were

five of them. There were five, actually. Five, five. But there's one, there's one inside the gas tank. Okay. Which is supposed to filter out stuff like rocks and milk bottles in case they wind up in the gas. And then there is a finer filter on the opposite side, on the other side of the pump.

Which is this plastic one, which I've referred to. And then there's the one under the hood, which is the last line of the fence before the carburetor catches. You figure with all these filters. Yeah. You've got to catch everything. And the reason they put so many filters is that the passages in this carburetor are so small. And that's the way they get the thing to be so fuel efficient.

Right. They really miserly meter out the gasoline. Which is why the guy, the first guy, rebuilt the carburetor, although that was a nice thing that he did. He was following the rule of let's do something expensive rather than let's do the thing. Because you may never come back again. Exactly. Yeah, I probably won't. And he learned that, I'm sure.

at one of our seminars. Charge first. Apologize later. Thanks a lot, guys. But have dad try those filters. Okay, great. Thank you so much to help. Hopefully that'll work out.

Kelly, what are you studying at Miami University? I'm studying microbiology. Microbiology. Oh, yeah. I love the bacteria. Really? Great. Yeah, yeah.

It's really interesting. And anything that you've stumbled upon that you want to share with us? Well, I'm doing some research with adenovirus, which is like what causes respiratory infection. Really? So, yeah, if I get anything new, I'll let you guys know, you'll be the first ones. Well, thanks. Keep us posted.

Okay, great. A pleasure talking to you, Kelly. Yeah, you too. Thanks a lot. Bye. Bye-bye. She'd probably love to roam around my basement. She could get you any number of diseases.

Talk about microorganisms. Woo! Oh, boy. We'll be right back with the answer to the puzzler right after these very important messages. Support for NPR and the following message come from. from Nutrafol. Nutrifol is a physician formulated, clinically tested supplement to help support hair issues, like thinning or shedding. NutriFol is the first and only hair growth supplement to be NSF certified for sport. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering listeners $10 off your first month's

subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code, Car Talk. Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack, the Tapper Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repairs, and the answer to last week's puzzler. And here it is. I'm sure you've forgotten all about it. They were buying a used car.

Very good. And it was only driven by a little old lady who drove it to school once in a while when she went. and to church on Sunday. You got it. That's it. Keep going. Don't slow down now. And the little old and the woman who was driving buying the car, the prospective buyer said, ah, ah, ah. How's that? Hey, I actually remember this puzzle. I'm blown away.

Well, you got most of the facts right. Yeah, I don't really remember the details. But she and her husband looking at the car and the salesman says, oh, my fourth grade teacher or some such thing, Ms. Johnson drove this car, and she only drove it back and forth to school. She never left town with it, and she drove to church on Sunday, and on Saturday, it's Saturday in her driveway. And anyway, they look over the car. My fourth grade teacher was Muskean, S-K-A-H-A-N.

But that was the first time. The second time, fourth grade. Oh, second time. Yeah. Yeah. I did all the grades. Anyway, they look over the car. That was because my teachers liked me, my mommy said.

Yeah. They liked you. you so much, so many. They want you to stay another year. Okay. Anyway, come on. You're killing valuable time here. There are people out there that need to speak to us. All right. I'm sorry. Anyway, they look over the car and of course it looks magnificent, and the woman asks the obvious question, well, why did Ms. Johnson sell the car in the deal? Well, 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. And so she came in here last week and sold us to

the car and of course it's your good fortune that it's here. So the woman gets in behind the wheel and starts up the engine and sounds great and her husband gets in the passenger seat and she fills with the controls on the dashboard and the husband is saying, oh gee hon let's get it, it's really cute. I love it. I love it. It's a nice color. Turns on the heater. She plays with everything. She blows the horn. Everything works perfectly and the husband says, gee hunn, we got to get it. You know, let's do it. And she says, I don't think so. The salesman is lying to us. A salesman lying? The husband says?

incredulously? The question is, how did she know? The answer... Because he opened his mouth. That wasn't the answer that his lips should move him. Well, she did fiddle with everything. The wipers, and she blew the horn,

she turned on the heater and all that, and she also turned on the radio. Yeah. And when she turned on the radio, she noticed that it was not set to a local station. In fact, it was noise coming across. So she tried another station and another and another. And in every case,

the presets were set to nothing. that were not local stations. So this car clearly was from out of town. And if the story were absolutely true that Ms. Johnson never left town, then how could she have listened to these stations? Man. So who's our winner, Tommy? What a clever woman, huh?

Indeed. Wow. Our winner this week is Andy Paralla from Camuela, Hawaii. Camuela. Camuela. Camuela. Yeah. Hawaii.

It's actually Hawaiian for calm weather. Yeah. Yeah. Man. Camuea. As a matter of fact, my pal Dusty Chalk went to Hawaii the other day, and he sent us a postcard saying, I'm never coming back. And I cailed them. Can I have your table saw? I wanted it as Lexus.

Andy Perala lives there all the time, and for having his answer selected at random from among the thousands of correct answers we got, Andy's going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Cartagherst Shameless Division, with which he can practically dress himself. I mean, as long as he only dresses from the way stuff. Hey, he lives in Hawaii. You don't need much. You don't need much.

Congratulations, Andy. Anyway, we'll have a new drug-related puzzle 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 anything you want. We do best with car questions, but barely. The number is 888.

car talk, that's 888-227-8255, a lawyer on car talk. This is Andrea. Andrea. Andrea. Not Andrea. No. And not Andrea. But I'll answer to anything.

Andrea. Right. Okay. Call me anything except late for dinner. Exactly. And where are you calling us from, Andrea? I am calling from Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Williamsport, PA.

Home of Little League Baseball. Really? Yes, really. Oh, really? Is that what the Little League World Series is played? Absolutely. Who wins the Little League World Series nowadays? Whoever pays the umpires the most.

I think you. No comment. I don't want to start a rant and rave, but I am violently opposed to Little League baseball. Oh, I am too, for a lot of different reasons. Well, here's one of my main reasons. Okay. Little kids are perfectly capable of organizing their own baseball game. They don't need adults and parents to do it for them.

You throw 15 kids out on grass, and if they want to play baseball, they'll figure out where the bases should go, who's going to be the empire. And better than that, if they don't figure it out, they may invent a new game. They may invent a new game or whatever. I mean, who are we to tell them to play baseball the way and when we want them to play it? Back off. In fact, the parents should be present only to take kids to the hospital if they're injured. One parent can handle that. or to instruct them as to the rules of the game.

They should not interfere in any other way, and there should be no coaching allowed. You don't even need that. How did you figure out what the rules were? You made them up. I played Little League. You make up the rules. Someone says, wait, you can't run when there's a pop fly.

Someone else says, ah, shut up, of course you can. And that's why you only get 16th, all those playground arguments. I played Little League, and they taught me the rules. But the arguments are good. I mean, the kids are growing up. back off. Well, I agree. So, Andrea, I wish we could talk to you, but we're so violently opposed to the little...

Kids shouldn't play competitive sports at that age. No. In my humble opinion, of course. So, Andrea. So, Andrea, what's up? Wait a minute. I have to catch my breath. Well, she brought up. Did I bring it up?

Yeah, why the hell did you say that stuff about the Little League? We didn't even know where Williamsported Pennsylvania was. God's sake. Little League. Yeah, so what's up? You got a car? Okay. Or a boyfriend?

Is it a car or a boyfriend problem? It would be husband, or I would. would really be in trouble. Well, that would be a problem, then? It certainly would be a problem, yeah. Okay, the question is actually twofold. My car has a tendency to fog up. Pretty bad, the front, the side, the back, and I can't see out of it.

Japanese car? Honda? Oh, yeah. Honda. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So right away, you know you're going to get the right answer from us, because you didn't

even tell us what kind of car you had. And we zapped right in on it. Okay. All right. So strike one for you guys. One for us, yeah. Okay. So my first question is, why does this happen?

Why does this happen? Right. I mean, I'm going to write these now on why does it happen. I've been told it's, you know, when the temperature inside the car is warmer than outside of the car. Yeah, that was the engineer guy who told you that, probably your husband. Right. Or vice versa. And what's your boyfriend taught you?

Or are I. I'm going to get you in trouble no matter what. He also said no comment. No comment. Question two. Question two is how do you get rid of it? How to stop it? What do you do?

Well, the reason your car fogs up is that you get moisture that's in the passenger compartment condensing on the cold glass. And it's more likely to happen in the wintertime because the glass is what in the winter? Cold. Just like moisture in the air condenses on your glass of iced tea in the summertime. Okay, but no, why does it have an inside my car? Because the moisture is inside the car. Coming out of your life.

because you're in there. I mean, I can't produce this much far. Put a panting dog in your car for five minutes. And you won't be able to see. It'll take you a week to scrape the stuff off the window, most of which is saliva. So there's no question that, and plus the fact that you introduce moisture to the car in the winter by getting into the car, for example,

with snow and ice on your shoes. Okay. And then that stuff melts, but becomes part of the ecosystem of the interior of your car, along with the other things that are great. growing in there, like the mushrooms and the trees and whatever. See, this is the reason that most of us don't drive our cars in the winter. My, happens.

Most of us civilized people. So the way you get rid of this, you're on your dashboard. Is you take the bus? Are you listening? Did you call us? She's probably watching some damn little league game on television. Okay, I'm listening. On your dashboard, you have various controls for heater, one of which shows a little,

There are two little buttons next to each other, one of which shows a U with an arrow on it, and the other one is a... Recirculate versus fresh. Right. So which one do you have it on? You know. She's tried them both. It all depends on who I consult, of course.

Well, you're consulting the so-called experts now. And you've got it on the wrong setting. Okay. You have it on recirculate. Probably. Yeah. And recirculate is death. Okay.

Because all you're doing is recirculating that same moisture around it and round and around again. My own breath. There's your own breath. And more and more of your breath comes out because you keep breathing until you pass out. And there's no place for it to go except stick on the window. Even when you are on the recirculate mode, you do mix in some outside air, but not anywhere near as much as you mix in when you're on the outside air mode.

But even better than that, is turning on the AC, which most cars do automatically when you turn on the defroster. Okay. The function of an air conditioner, and the reason the air conditioner's work is they rebutt, they remove moisture from the air. Right. By condensing that moisture, instead of on the windshield, on, you ready for this? The condenser, the evaporator.

Yeah. And then dumping it out onto the street. Okay. Isn't that interesting? Okay. Yeah. But turning on, just pressing the button that says new air. Right. Well, might do it.

That's what it's there for. Okay. Cool, huh? Andrea, it's been a pleasure talking to you, and your secret is safe with me. Oh, well, thank you both very much. I hope this works. Well, we hope so, too. None of our other advice works.

This may work. See you later. Bye-bye. 1-8-8-8-2-278. 1-8-28-255. Hello, you're on car talk. My name's Steve, I'm calling you from Los Angeles. Steve, from Los Angeles.

Are you involved in the movie business? No, sir. I hope not. They're a bunch of morons. He's on everyone's case. I am. Did you take your pills, Steve? Oh, they?

Geez. The people in Hollywood, they... All right. We won't go there. I'm not going to rant anymore. I'm not going to. What's up, Steve? I got a 97th Saturn station wagon.

The SW2 with the power windows and the power door locks. And drive at night, I can flip the rear view mirror for the shade to block the glare, but I get the glare from the side view mirror. So I got a great little shaded piece of plastic with a suction cup on it. I put on the inside of the window. Cool. And that blocks the glare from the side view. So you suction cup this to your driver's window and your passion on the inside.

Right. Yeah. Right. Great. Great. A little while ago, I went into a parking lot where you got to get the ticket. So I lower the window. And you smashed the car.

No, no, no. No, no. I raise the window. I get the ticket. I raise the window. I go to park the car and I realize it's not there. The suction cups aren't there. Oh, the whole thing's going?

The whole thing went down into the inside the door. And it stayed there. And what I want to know is, can I get this panel off and retrieve this plastic thing with your guidance, or do I have to go to the dealer? Well, does the window go up and down? It won't go all the way down, so I know it's under there. Well, do you mind that it doesn't go all the way down? Of course he does. And, Steve, you've got to fix this.

Yeah, and I want that thing back if it's not broken. Well, it's likely to be mangled. Okay. Yeah, but I guess if it bothers you, I mean, if it didn't bother you, I think it would be perfectly safe to just leave it where. it is because it's obviously down at the bottom. No, I think you, Steve, we're going in. We're going in, Steve.

Most door panels, and Saturn included, actually pop off. They're held on by a friction type connector, which is basically a piece of plastic that gets pushed into a hole in the door frame. And when the plastic goes in, it's kind of swaged

in. And the way you get these things out is you put a screwdriver between the plastic trim of the door and the metal part of the door. And you pry it and you'll see one pop off. All right. And that will encourage you. And then you'll pop off the next one

and the next one and the next one. Now it may require that you take off the armrest or the door handler which may require some tools. Oh, no problem there. Like screwdrivers, but you have tools, right? Yeah, yeah. But you may be able to pry off the bottom of this

just enough to lie on the ground and look up in there and you will see, when you do that, you will see the window mechanism. You'll see the window from a vantage point that you've never seen it before. And you'll see your piece of plastic with the suction cups. And you may not have to do anything. It may well be that when you pry the bottom of the door off,

the thing just falls out onto the ground. No, you're going to have to liberate this thing. I'll bet you're not. You want to make a side bet. A hundred bucks. A hundred bucks it is. That's why the window won't go down. No.

It's down at the very bottom. He's going to pry that panel off. and this little device is going to fall right out onto the floor. You're going to need the SWAT team to get this thing out. But you can do it. It is not going to just fall out, but you'll be able to extract it. And that was going to make a recommendation, actually, that you nix the suction cups.

You can get a piece of this plastic that just sticks. That will adhere by static electricity or some such thing. You could rub it on your toupee even and get the stick to the window. And then it could go up and down. maybe with the one. And that, yeah, and it might be able to. At least you wouldn't gum up the works. But I like the suction cup because it's a perfect nighttime TV product.

Yeah. Steve. It's a great thing. We are your ticket out of this dump. Oh, Steve, you ought to call Ron Poppeel. He'll have this on TV in a week. Well, this is a great idea. From a company that went out of business.

Oh, you bought it. I thought you made it. No, no, I bought this. Oh, but if they went belly up, this is your chance to cash in. Yeah. Maybe they just had the wrong marketing strategy. They tried to sell them. Well, they sold it to me, and it's great.

Good luck. All right. Thanks for your call, Steve. Thank you, guys. See you later. Bye-bye. Don't go anywhere. Stick around for more calls and the new puzzler coming right up.

We're back. You're listening to Car Car. With us, click and collect the Tappert Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and the new puzzler. I can hardly wait. Well, I think you'll like this. This is a recent submission from a guy named Scott Crass. And I like it because it's my brother didn't get it.

Here it is. Pay careful attention. You're placed on a medication regime in which you are to take daily one tablet of A and one of B. Got it. You got it? So you have two little pill, what do they call them, containers? Yeah. One says pill A and one says pill B.

You must be careful. Taking two or more Bs can have unpleasant side effects. or can even be fatal. In order for the B to be effective... Does my wife know? In order for the B to be effective, it must be accompanied by the A pill. Yeah.

So you've got to take one A and one B. So you open up the A bottle and you, as people do, you tap the bottle in one A pill kind of jumps out into your palm. Yeah. You open the B bottle and you accidentally get two Bs falling out of the bottle. But here's the problem.

They look exactly the same. Oh, they don't have little A's and Bs on them? Just on the container. But they're both... Bummer! They're both blue. They're the same size and the same weight. And as soon as they fell in there, they got mixed up. So now you have three pills, but you can't tell what the heck you got.

How can you make... Now, of course, you could just throw these pills away. That's my first thought. My first thought was, don't make this into a puzzle. Let's throw the pills away and start again. The pills cost $100 bucks a piece, and you can't throw them away. But how can you make sure that you get your daily dose of A and B without wasting any of the pills? Got it?

Yeah, I've got it. Well, you didn't have it earlier, but you got it now. No, I understand the question. I can't remember the answer. If you think you know the answer, write it on the back of a $20 bill or a stale Pop-Tart. Wow, great idea. Pop-Tarts are pre-staled. They're pre-stale.

They are. You de-stale them when you pop them or when you toast them or whatever you do. I never realized that before. I had one the other. I don't like to toast them. You could reshingle your house with these. If you ever got enough of them on sale,

you could re-single your house with Pop-Tarts. Raspberry. You could have raspberry shingles. And the frosted ones, Doug, he says, they're waterproof. And they're pre-painted. I love it. Anyway, since you have Pop-Tarts, they got to sue us. I actually do eat Pop-Tarts.

Well, I see one in the cabinet once in a while, and if I'm really hungry, I will eat it. Well, they ain't considering, though, the unique chemistry involved in these, they're pretty good. And they last forever. Ah! Yeah, I mean, have you ever looked at the package

to see how old the Pop-Tart you're about to eat is? No, they don't have any dates. No, they don't need them. Yeah, although some of the packages still say, Great for your bomb shelter. President Eisenhower says. Ike says, I like Pop-Tarts. You may like Ike, but I like Pop-Tarts.

Anyway, send your answer to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt 02238. I was trying to remember the puzzler. I forgot it already. Oh, you can email your answer. Someone help me. I'm being held against my will.

Or you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. If you'd like to call us, somebody please call quick. The number's 1-888-8-8-8-8-288-2-2-5. A lawyer on Car Talk. This is Mark from Boise. Mark. You know Boise, Idaho. Oh, yeah, that Boise.

I know. I'm honored to be talking with you guys. I don't even know where Idaho is. Well, the only reason he can. do that is that he has an eighth grader. And she knows where Idaho is, so he had to learn it. Yeah. Anyway, I've got an 86 Colt Vista.

Oh, man. Yeah, with 148,000 miles on it. Doesn't get any better, doesn't it? I've got to talk to you about engine lubrication. Well, these don't need much. Spin on oil filters are designed to be bypassed if they get clogged up, correct? That's right. They have a built-in bypass.

I've got a situation where my daughter crunched the front of the car, and I cannot remove the filter. Perfect. Leave it on. So the question I have is, in order to keep this thing going as long as possible, and I don't know how much longer that might be, with that many miles,

how frequently should I change the oil? Oh, to keep the filter from getting clogged up. Well, the filter's going to clog up. You'd be surprised. How long can it go? How long has it been on there now? It's been 3,000, 4,000 miles. Oh, you've got, let me tell you,

you may not be aware of this, but I own an 87 cult vista. Exactly. That's exactly why I'm talking to you. Yeah, that's right. He wouldn't call because he knows you don't know anything about any other thing. Oh, that's true. Well, I decided some time ago to do an experiment with my cult vista in the interest of science. Yes.

And I decided to never change the oil again. So I'll call you about a week. I'll call you the day mine blows up. That'd be perfect. And you'll know how much, you'll know you'll probably have thousands of miles left if you're at least changing the oil. I've decided to change not only not the oil, but not the filter either.

Okay. I've done nothing. I'm merely in top-up mode. Just today, talk about things being timely. Just today, I was looking through some mail, and we got a note from a guy who lives down the Cape here in Massachusetts, in Brewster, Massachusetts. I think his name was Wells.

Uh-huh. And since we didn't respond to his letter through our newspaper column, He sent it directly to us. Death threat included? And he says, here's my question. He says he somehow was in the Army sometime or other. The Army, he says, did tests. And in these tests, the question was,

to change the oil or not change the oil? Uh-huh. And he has been driving a Ford something or other, has 50,000 miles on it. He's never changed the oil. He says it runs like a dream. And get this. He says, the Army tests showed.

that the best thing to do is don't change the oil, and here's the reason. The engine will be protected by metallic flakes. How about that? Well, there may be a huge cover-up. We know that the... ...the industrial... ...the military complex and the oil...

I mean, if anyone could be accused of skullduggery without any information, oh, it's the oil company. Oh, man. Oh, in your opinion. Oh, yeah, in my opinion. And in the opinion of Oliver Stone. And General Motors, in my opinion. So it wouldn't surprise me if this has been foisted on us,

this philosophy that we have to change our oil and filter. Yeah. To sell more oil. I've been using Restore in this car, like you suggest, and that seems to help a lot. And that has a lot of metallic flakes of various things. Doesn't it, though? Yeah.

Doesn't it? Well, see, they may have... By design. They may be privy to these Army tests. Now, this guy didn't come. You're making that restore stuff from grinding. up old engines. Well, it's some kind of homeopathic

thing. Exactly. Right? You put a little bit of a sick engine into everyone's car and it builds up a resistance to it. Yeah. So I could change the oil whenever I feel like it. I think you should change you all every 3,000 miles and forget the filter. Really? Yeah. I was going to do like every 2000, but... I was going to suggest

10, actually, but... Well, maybe with your experiment going and my experiment going, we can call a sort of a double-blind medical study? Exactly. Yeah. Because you're not going to change the filter and I'm not going to change any Yeah, I think that two or three thousand is the answer. Super. But isn't this a great car?

It's wonderful except three teenagers have gone through it. Well, that's a testimony to its greatness, isn't it? It survived three teenagers. Well, we're on the fourth clutch. Well, yeah, well, clutches are disposable. Yeah. You've got to just count on a, one teenager, one clutch. Exactly.

The first one went 70-some thousand. The last ones have gone 30 or 40,000. That's pretty good. That's not bad. We've known clutches to go 1,000. That's no joke. Not in this family. Good luck, Mark, and keep us posted.

Thanks a lot. Goodbye. Bye, bye, bye, 1-88. I've got to tell your story because... Go ahead. Because if I don't tell the story, soon or later, everyone's going to know. And I figure the best way, you know, if you did something wrong, the best way is to just do this catharsis. And get it out.

And get it out there. And as they say in the media, get it over with. Get it over with. So I'm going to get it all with it with. Tell us. everything you did. Did you inhale? Yeah. Was it fumes?

Yeah. Was it from a dodgy cold fist? Carboretic cleaner. The other day at the shop, we were putting, replacing a couple of calipers on a Mazda, rear calipers. And one of my mechanics had installed them, Mani had installed them. And when he was finished installing them, he asked me if I could help him bleed the brakes. In fact, the car was a Miata.

So I say sure. So he has the car like halfway on the left. and I kind of jump into it with one leg and he says, okay, and the way you do this is you pump the brake pedal and pressure. You get some pressure. He opens the bleeders and a combination of air bubbles and fluid comes out and you do this until there's no more air coming out and you're done.

And, of course, the person inside the car knows that you're done because the brake pedal feels like it should. You know, so he's at the left rear wheel and I'm in the car and I pump the pedal and he says, okay, hold it down. and he opens the bleeder and he says, okay, pump it again and I do that

and he opens the bleeder and after three or four times he says, there's not much coming out here and I say, well, keep trying, there's probably a lot of air in the system and I do it again

and while I'm doing it, he kind of leaned over and he's looking inside the car and he says to me very quietly, you're pumping the gas pedal. But your secret, is safe with me. Oh, no, it ain't.

Now, I don't know what his definition of the secret is, but there were people coming up to me that entire day that I had never seen before, made contact with in any way shape of all. Were they snickering? They're saying, most cars have three pedals, the one in the middle is the break. I mean, so I figured I had to make a clean breast of it, so to speak, because everyone's going to know sooner or later.

It's better they know. I better they hear from me than from Maddie, if he lives. But most people will not hear it from you because Manny has set up a website and has sent out an email chain letter. It's called middlepedal.com. Middlepedal.com. You're right. Oh, God.

Anyway, 1-8-8-8 car talk. It is sad. It's what happens when you get old. He was once at the pinnacle recently at the pinnacle of his mental prowess. And now I can't even pump a brake pedal. Man, how fast we have fallen. Well, it's happened again. You've squanded another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk.

Our esteemed producer is Doug the subway fugitive, not a slave to fashion, Berman. You forgot punkin lips. Pumpkin lips. Our social producers are frau, Catherine Fenalosa, and Louis Cronin, the barbarian. Our engineer is Dennis DeMennis Foley. Our senior web lackey is Doug the old gray mayor, and our technical, spiritual and menu advisor who happens to be here or was here, today is John Bugsy Free Lunch Lawler.

Our public opinion pollster is Paul Murky of Merkey Research, assisted by statistician Marge in Overa. Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzov. Our director of new product repair is Warren T. My Foot. And our shop foreman is Luke Bizzy. Our student consultant is Norm De Plum. The head of our Division of Threat Assessment is U.N. What Army? Our director of luxury car horn is Tony Blair. And our new Russian chauffeur is speak up.

drop off. Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Chiteman How is Uly Lewis. Dewey. known to the other bums in Harvard

Square as Ui Louis Dewee. Thanks so much for listening we're clicking and clack to Tappert brothers and above all

don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother. We'll be back next week. Bye bye. Well, here's a big surprise we have with us in the studio today.

Mr. Vinny Gombats are the chief mechanic of car talk plus. Thank you very much. Now, if you're here want a copy of this show which is number 0-0-0-8.

Just pick up your phone and call this number. You got a pencil? 1-8-88-car junk. And what if I wanted a copy of that CD, why you should never listen to your father when it comes to cars? Would I call that same number, Vincent? No, you called the Harvard Wiffam Pooke. You're dope, of course, you call the same number.

You're called the shameless commerce division at 888 Car Junk or visit it online at the cart talk section of Cars.com. Thank you, Liddy. That was riveting. Hey, rivet this, will you? Car Talk is a production of Dewey Cheatham and Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though Nina Totenberg takes all of her NPR T-shirts and tosses them out the window when she hears us say it,

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