The Best of Car Talk - #2629: The Babysitter Tells All

Episode Date: April 11, 2026

Faith from Washington wants to make a trade: car advice in exchange for embarrassing tales from our wayward producer Dougie Berman’s childhood. It’s a deal on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR 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 Department of Rationale Rationing here at Carat Talk Plaza. Now, this is an interesting announcement. This is. From Ford Motor Company. This is brilliant. Here's what Ford Motor Company publicly announced. And I'll paraphrase, because I don't really remember the exact words, but it was pretty much this.

They said, we know that SUVs are really bad. We know that they pollute the atmosphere. We know they kill people in other cars. They kill people in the SUVs themselves. We know all that. It's a horrible thing in SUV. You're just paraphrasing. You're actually inventing here.

I mean, they might not have said any of those words. They may not have said any of those words. But that was the gist of it, in your opinion. In my opinion, the gist was they're terrible things. They get 10 miles to the gallon. They pollute. They're awful. Yeah.

Basically, that's what they said. That's what they said. Then, get this. Now, this is, I don't get it. This is brilliant, though. They said, we know all this is true. But, and here's the interesting, but, we are making so much money selling these things that we just can't stop. We can't stop.

And their argument was, if we don't build them, somebody else is going to build them anyway. They'll make all the money. And we want to make all the money. So we admit that we shouldn't be doing this. But we got to. We can't, we can't stop because we're making so much. It's just making too much dough. And so maybe they're begging for some kind of governmental intervention to stop everyone from making these.

They're crying out for help. They're crying out. Please stop me. It's like an addict. Right. It's the money. They're money addicts. They're money addicts. But do they have a long-term goal?

Yeah, the long-term goal is we're going to make it better. Well, we found that there's somewhat inspiring. And in the spirit of corporate responsibility, we at Carhart Plaza would also like to issue a statement. Yeah, and we spent a lot of time writing this, so. Should I read it? Read it carefully. No, you go right ahead. Car talk acknowledges that giving out stupid and misleading answers to people's car questions

is reckless, dangerous, and a waste of the public airways. We further acknowledge that laughing at each other's jokes and gassing on about electric brakes and other nonsense for as much as two-thirds of an hour-long show every week is irresponsible, detrimental to the mental health of the nation, and can lead to hemorrhoidal flare-ups and other unpleasant physical reactions. by listeners. We cannot, however, stop doing it. This is the but.

But! This is the rationalization. We cannot, however, stop doing it. We simply enjoy the free donuts we get here at the station every weekend far too much. Plus, if we didn't waste your time like this every week, we know Scott Simon would jump in

in a New York minute. So we hope someday in the future to do better, but don't hold your breath. Exactly. And I think that's it. I mean, we have as much corporate responsibility. as Ford Motor Company. We've admitted to everything.

Wow. Just about. And there's no real difference here. They're doing it for billions of dollars. We're doing it for a couple dollars. Exactly. And until then, you'll only encourage us by calling 888 car talk. So if you want us to mend our ways right now, don't call. If you'd like an answer to a question, the number is 888-227-8-255.

Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hello, my name is Ben, and I'm from Round Hill, Virginia. Hi, Ben. Ben from Brownsville. No. Round Hill. Round Hill. That's right. Virginia.

What's shaken? Okay, I got it, 1987 Nissan Stanza with 195,000 miles on it. Good for you. And I do some small maintenance myself, and particularly oil changes every 3,000 miles. But when I drive by garages, I always see these signs that says oil and lube for 1995 or whatever. I know your question. So I'm wondering, am I missing some critical step by not lubing it? And 87, you may be missing a few things, right?

Would you ever take it in for any kind of repairs or oil changes all you've done for 200,000 miles? I got it at 145,000 miles. And ever since then, all I've done is oil. Oh. Oh. Okay. So you've never replaced, like, the timing belt? No.

That's going to break this afternoon. I assume it was replaced before I got it, but I don't know that for sure. Yeah, well, see, the trouble is they tell you to replace the belt at like 60,000 miles. And people figure if they're replaced, you, they replace the belt. replace it at $60,000, they don't have to replace it again at $120 or at $180. So you may, you should have had three timing belts in this vehicle, and you may still be on, maybe it's the second one, but that ain't good enough. I mean, not that there's anything to do with your question.

Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. We're trying to figure out if you're on the verge of self-destruction here. And if you are, then lubing the ball joints becomes kind of, you know. Yeah, it's like fixing the curtains on the Titanic. Exactly. Okay. Well, interestingly, we were just having.

roundtable discussion about this very topic the other day. We were. We were. I remember it. I mean, we had heads of state, you know, financial leaders. And we were talking about the fact that most cars these days do not require lubrication from a grease gun. They have sealed joints. And they've done such a good job of sealing in the grease and as such, sealing out the contaminants,

that it's possible to drive the car for its entire life without ever having to grease, ball joints or tire rod ends and the like. and many cars don't even have a provision for greasing them. There are no grease fittings on the car. You must have had a grease gun at one time if you do what you do. So you know the fitting that the grease gun goes on to. Absolutely. It's called a Zerk fitting.

Yeah. The only two things to be lubed in your car would be the outer tie rod ends and the ball joints. And it only has, I believe, lower ball joints because it has McPherson strut suspension and doesn't have an upper ball joint. And that's it. So if you just crawl under there and look for the Zerk fittings, if you don't see any, then there's nothing to grease. And if you do, you know what to do with the grease gun. You clean off the fitting. You stick the grease gun on there.

You give it a couple of pumps. Sure. And either you'll see the boot bulge up, which means you put too much grease in it. You should have stopped two pumps ago. Or you'll see grease and other junk push out when you get to that point. But that's it. But if you have no grease fittings, then you need do nothing. Okay.

Yeah. Except get the timing belt replaced. You really should have someone look at the timing belt. Because if the belt breaks on this engine, it's the kiss of death. It wrecks the engine. Okay. So I would do it. There's not enough clearance for the valves?

Well, there will be after they get crushed. See you, Ben. Okay, thank you. Good luck. Thanks for calling. Bye. Bye. 1-888-Kart talk.

That's 888-22-5. A lawyer on car talk. Hi, this is Faith from Kenmore, Washington. Faith. Hi, Faith. Hi. That's a nice name, isn't it? Ken Moore.

Is that where they make the washing machine and dishwashers and all that? No, I don't think so. So what's up, Faith? What brings you here? Just blind Faith or what? Actually, I have a very frustrating car problem and also an interesting personal tidbit for you. So you tell me what you want first. Everything.

Just spit your guts. You do whatever all you choose. Tell us the car problem first. Okay, I'll tell you the car problem first. I drive a 92 Camry wagon. I have a problem with the automatic door locks. The way I usually lock the car is that I open the door, and I have the kids open their doors,

and then I push this door lock button, and the car locks, and we close the doors, and that's that. But in the last few months, several times I've had this problem where, for some reason, after I open the door and push the door lock button, I have to get back in the car to get something or separate fighting kids or something. Oh, you've locked them in the car? Yeah, okay. Well, no, I lock me in the car.

If the door closes behind me while I'm still in the car, I then can't open it. Oh, how nice. And in order to get out, I have to climb over the shift in the middle and get out the passenger side, which is very clumsy and unladylike. So I don't know what to do, and I had it at the dealer recently, and, of course, I couldn't reproduce the problem for them, so they don't believe me. I recall this problem. That there was a recall, in fact, at the very beginning of it, before they knew how to fix it or before they had enough...

They were giving out hammers to people. They were telling people to go to their local homes center and buy an S-wing hammer. Because you'd have to break the glass to get out. No, I mean, it was dangerous. People were getting locked in their cars. You could get out the passenger door, but before long, you may not be able to get out of any door. Well, actually, one time it did happen on the passenger side. The problem that they had with these is that neither the door locks nor their power windows.

would work. So you couldn't even climb out a window. If you think climbing over the shifter is undignified, think about climbing out the window. So you go to them and remind them that there's probably a technical service bulletin on this car, and you'd like them to do a little research and find out. There must be some relays that have to be replaced. I don't know what the final result was. All right. All right. Now give us the dirty personal tidbit. Well, it just so happens that I grew up across the street from your esteemed senior producer, Doug Berman. And I used to babysit for him

and his sisters when they were kids. He's saying, he's saying, oh, it's faith, the light bulb just went on. He got it. How old was he

when you babysat? Oh, nine, ten. Oh, he must have been a hellion. He was a mischief maker, but he was a good kid. You have any real dirt on him that we can use? Yeah.

Like, did he wet the bed when he was nine? Yeah, well, when did he stop wetting the bed? No, I will tell you what he did to get me in trouble once, though. Yeah, yeah.

Go ahead. Yeah, I love it. Well, one night... Just between you and us, of course. Yeah, just between you and us. One night, he and his sister decided that it was tortured babysitter night. Yeah. So the two of them just decided they were going to break every rule and give me every kind of trouble they could.

Raise all sorts of hell. And the final straw was when I was trying to get them into bed, and they decided to run out of the house half naked and scream all around the neighborhood. He still does that. His wife keeps telling us He's still doing that Oh God Faith, we may have to get back to you somehow

And discuss this at greater length But make sure you leave Catherine Your phone number so we can call you Because I will I'm sure we'll need to talk to you off the air All right, well make sure Doug is still talking to me first I don't think he is. See you, Faye.

Take care. Get your door locks fixed. Bye. We're going to keep face number. That'll be fun to talk to her, won't it? We've got to get some new names for Dougie. Yes, we are. I'm sure she can have some for us.

Hey, do you remember last week's puzzler? Frankly, no. Well, it's a who am I puzzler. You're my dumb brother. I don't know that. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers,

and we're here to talk about cars. car repair and the answer to last week's puzzler. And this is from my putrid collection. Not the string collection or the coins. No, no. The putrid, okay. You know, cars have evolved a lot over the last hundred years, and parts have been made from a variety of materials.

For example, wheels used to be made out of wood, and they were made out of steel, and now they're made out of some kind of magnesium, aluminum alloy. Dashboards used to be made out of wood, and then they were made out of steel, and now plastic and other things. so I'm going to do this little What Am I game? I'm going to tell you what I used to be made of

and you tell me what I am now. Yeah. Remember this? I do remember that. I thought this was a fascinating... I mean, even if the answer is bogus and I couldn't figure out the answer, I will admit that. All right, well.

But even if the answer is bogus the technique that you used is... You like that? Novel. I love it. I love it. Go ahead. Okay.

In the early days of cars, I didn't even exist. When they saw a need for me, I was first made out of wood. Later on, when they discovered that that didn't work too well, I was made out of leather. Sometime later, I was made out of cotton. Now, I have to confess. For the purposes of obfuscation and, you know, I took a little poetic license and left out a few years of advances in a automotive technology.

Oh. You know, between the cotton and the next step. Well, and I left out about 75 years. Well, that could be all right. But I did, I did, if you, if you listen carefully, I said, it's not a lie, today. Today, I am made out of a mixture of things, some of which are, and I didn't mention all of them, obviously, steel wool, iron, and bronze. Steel wool, iron, and bronze.

Yeah. Of course, I did leave out the bonding agent, the thing that holds those three components together, which is some kind of resin. And what all these things were, believe it or not, were brakes. The first cars did not have brakes. When they saw a need to stop the car, they actually used blocks.

Was that like the first day? The first afternoon. The first afternoon. Yeah. And was it right after the word, oops? Yeah. Oh. Oh.

Oh, something, otherwise known as oops. Yeah. And then the first attempt at stopping the car used wooden blocks. When that failed because the wood, what? Wooden blocks? Wooden blocks. How'd they do that? They grabbed the wheel with wooden blocks.

And then they refined that to leather. And then to cotton. That was pretty cute, huh? Cotton. Yeah. Man, that's a mystery to. No, I would never have gotten this. I mean, I was working on clutches.

But the wood In fact, if it weren't for the wood That's what made it such a great puzzle Stunk Oh, geez All right, who's our winner? You think that one stunk Wait, you hear this week

The winner is Dave Knight And our boy, Dave! It's always good to know There's one wacko who thinks like you From Norman, Oklahoma And for having his answer To select it at random Among all the correct answers,

Dave will get a 24 $25 gift certificate to the Car Talks Shameless Commerce Division on our website. With this $25, he can get his father a copy of our latest CD, why you should never listen to your father when it comes to cars. That's assuming that he and his father are already not speaking for each other. We'll have a new... Yeah, putrid? Oh, yeah.

Mathematical puzzler coming up in the third half of today's show, so stay tuned for that. In the means, actually, this is this is aimed at the school kids, some of whom have already ended school for the year and the rest of you are about to. Yeah. So, so that your brains don't go lame. I thought we'd give you something to keep your intellectually stimulated. And, of course, adults can enter because they forgot all their math. Exactly.

Anyway. In the meantime, you can ask us questions about your car at 1-888-car talk. That's 888-227-8-25-5. a lawyer on car talk. Hi, guys. This is Bob in Fort Worth, Texas. Hey, Bob. Fort Worth.

What's happening? A fine place. It is a fine place. Yeah. I have a question, a problem that I guarantee in all your years in radio you've never heard before. You know, we get some of our most unanswerable questions from Texans. I wonder why.

I don't know why. Does it involve cattle trailers? You're close. Really? All right, let me tell you the problem. Yeah. My car is frequently. in an environment where there are equestrian events,

primarily horse shows. These horse shows, the horses actually, attract monstrous flies, some of which are reminiscent of B-29. Yes. They get in the car and I can't get them out. I travel with a fly swatter. I travel with a can of raid.

I've even lit up a few Arturo Fuentes, and that doesn't seem to help. Yeah. But someone suggested that I set off a bug bomb at night in the car like you would in the house, you know, and vacate the place, and then in the morning, everything will be fine. But I'm concerned about your health. Well, no, no, no.

I mean, put it in the car. I know, but I don't think you want to get into a car that's just been sprayed with deadly poison. Well, I'm concerned. You might as well throw Agent Orange in there. I mean, come on. I'm concerned more about the bug juice getting in the electronics of the car and messing up the car. The electronics, what about your lungs, man? Oh, you're re-spoken those Arturo Fuentes, so you don't care about your lungs.

I don't care about my lungs. I don't think you should worry about your lungs either. In a few years, you've been able to buy a lung. What's the answer to my problem? Wow. Man, this is, this is bad. I mean, I'm not going to give any advice here because this is deadly. See, I think they propagate in the car is what the problem is.

Wow. So these flies really multiply, so it may be that if they're in there laying eggs, you're done for. Well, God said go forth and multiply. He didn't just mean it for us. He won't flies, too. No, it was go forth. Never mind. And divide, go forth and multiply, subtract.

Well, I mean, my problem is anything you put in there, you're going to have to air the thing out. Exactly. And as you're airing it out, these giant flies are going to come back in. No, no, because they only come back in when you're at the equestrian events. That's right. Well, that's where he's going to be. Well, no, no, I can air it out away from the equestrian event.

Oh, you can't. Exactly. I would suggest you set off one of these bombs. And then after it kills everything, it will kill everything that's in there. Right. Then you air it out. I mean... Okay.

It won't mess up the electronics of the car like the digital speedometer. No, I don't think so. I should it. Well, I mean, I don't know what's in that stuff, you know? Is this bomb rated in like megatons? Well, it's liquid, you know? I mean, it says a vapor. What troubles me is, yes, this stuff is going to get on everything.

It's going to get on the seats. It's going to get on the steering wheel. going to get on the dashboard. You're going to get in the car. It's going to stick to your butt. And you're going to put your hands on the steering wheel. You're going to stick your hand up your nose. Well, don't forget, this stuff is recommended for residences.

Right. You could put this thing in your living room. Right. And it doesn't bother people there. And it's government. It barely kills the flies. What are you worried about Bob? I would throw one of them in there and hope for the best and then wash your steering wheel off with

soap and water and drive the car. Hey, you guys are wonderful. I don't like the poison. I do. I do. Go for it. Hey, thanks a lot. But don't do it too often, once or twice.

Once a year. There you go. Thanks a lot. Thanks for calling, Bob. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Hey, do you know what time it is? Time to switch to our open-toed summer mechanic sandals?

No. It's time to play. Stump the Chumps! This is the portion of the show where we revisit a previous caller to find out if our advice fell into the realm of useful, useless. Or you's got to be kidding. So who's our contestant this week? Well, my little notes here say that it's Jennifer from DeKalb, Illinois. I don't remember Jennifer, but I will.

Well, Jennifer, it says here, had a Ford temple that her in-laws had dumped on. You know, you should never buy a car from your relatives. Well, every time she drove it, it made a nasty screeching sound. Well, she's going to tighten the gag with her mother-in-law in the trunk. I mean, that'll do it. No, that wasn't it. It squealed whenever she turned on the heat. I guess her mother-in-law likes it cold in the trunk, eh?

I start to accelerate the same horrible, er-screeching noise starts up. Interesting, huh? Great. I'm freaking out. I'm thinking, oh, no, I've hit a cat. I've got something. I've something horrible happened.

Yeah. You have FSS. Ford screeching syndrome. Another stellar diagnosis. So what do we really tell her? Well, we had two solutions, a cheap one and an expensive one. they both had to do with the air conditioner. The air conditioner?

Yeah. What she didn't know was that when you run the defroster with the heat on, it was automatically running the AC as it does in many cars. Oh, so we told it it was either a loose belt or a bad air conditioning compressor. Yeah, we told her to pray for the belt because it was cheaper. Jennifer, are you there? I am. Hi, Jennifer.

All right, Jennifer, before we find out whether your prayers were answered, we need to be sure that the answer you're about to give today has not been influenced by our staff, the staff of National Public Radio, or the deluxe toaster oven that we sent you last week with that large bouquet of flowers. Is that all true, Jennifer? Oh, absolutely. And breakfast is wonderful. Great.

All right, what was it? It was the belt. And I have never heard the noise or anything since. So it was the belt that ran the eltony. It was the belt. Yippee! Very good. Now I'll be sending your toaster back for repair.

Oh, no, you can keep the toaster. If it breaks your straw, it away, we got it for nothing at the table. bank. And we used it for two years before we sent it to you. That explains a Tuesday. Luckily, we saved the box. All we saved the box is in case you need to give an emergency gift. Okay.

Jennifer, thanks for playing stop the chums. Thank you guys. Have a great day. Thanks. Bye, bye. It's time, once again, to slow the show down for a minute and pull it over to the side of the road. But stay tuned because the radio equivalent of the tow truck.

He's going to be here in about a minute. We'll be right back. Ha! We're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Collect the Tapper Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and of the new puzzler. Yeah. Now, I did say earlier that this was for the children, but of course, adults are welcome to work on this tour. And it is mathematical, and we'll even let Berman work. Do I need a pencil to write this down? I mean, are there going to be like numbers in it, or is it just theoretical? Yeah, get a pencil. Yeah, get a pencil.

Okay, get the pencil. I got it. Okay. This is a probability problem. Probability. There's a baseball team, which consists of, 20 kids. And they all, at the end of the season, they all go to the coach's house to have a barbecue. Yeah. And he says, look, kids,

you can't wear your hats at the barbecue. So all the kids take their hats and they throw them in a big pile. I love it. So there are 20 hats in a pile. 20 hats. I can see it coming.

You can see it coming. Yeah. So they fill their little faces with hot dogs and corn on the carb and whatever. And they barf. And they barf into their hats. And at the... At the conclusion of the evening, they all reach in at random and grab a hat and put it on their heads.

Yeah, I see it. What's the probability that 19 out of 20 of these kids gets his correct hat? No hints, right? No, I'm not going to say a word. No hint. Of course you can't say a word. I'm not going to. If you think you know the answer, write it on a postcard or a 26-foot hand-carved, a 10-year-old.

Canyon Marble Fountain. With lions? Tigers. Tigers. Tigers is good. And send it to, I don't think they knew about the tiger, and sent it to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City?

Matt 02238. Or you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. If you'd like to call us and insult us or berate us or do anything at all. I'll make some admission about what's terrible in your life. Oh, what's terrible about our show. No, you can't do that. No. The number is 1-888-8-8-8-2-7-8-2-55.

A lawyer on car talk. Hi, this is Dottie, calling from Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Hi, Dottie. From where? Right next to Valley Forge, about 35 miles west of Philadelphia. My brother was at Valley Forge. I was. With what's his name?

Washington. With George. No, General Motors. General Motors. What's going on, Dottie? Okay, I have a 1995 Taurus with just about 102,000 miles on it. Uh-huh. For the past several months, I've noticed a hot odor to it as though I suck something up in a vacuum cleaner,

and the belt started to heat up. And I took it to the dealer. He said the radiator hose was leaking a little, and that's what was causing it. So they put a new radiator hose on it. Also a new serpentine belt. Mm-hmm. and when I drove out of the dealership, it still smelled. Does the heater work all right, the blower motor on the heater, all the speeds work?

Heater and the air conditioning both work fine. I noticed when I get out of the car, if I lean down and smell the hood of the car, that's where I can smell it in the front. Right. The smell you smell is burning rubber. Uh-huh. And I think what's happening to your car right now is that the idler pulley or the tensioner pulley on the, uh, uh, uh, The serpentine belt is not spinning all the time, and it's burning up the belt, and that's what you're smelling. It's only a matter of days before this thing seizes up, and the car bursts in the flames.

Not quite. No, it won't happen, but the smell will get stronger. I would suggest that you take it back to these guys who put the belt on and suggest to them that you think that the belt is not turning all of the pulleys correctly. There's an idler pulley on this thing, and there's also a tally. tensioner pulley. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And it's possible that one of them is binding up.

If they merely take the belt off and try to turn everything that the belt turns by hand, they will find one of those things is not turning freely, and that's your culprit. And what it's doing is it's overheating the belt and burning up the rubber. I'm with it. I'm with my brother on this 100%. Uh-huh. And I would go back and have them take the belt off and we'll check it out. Okay.

Before it breaks on you, it burst in the flames and all that. No, it won't. See it, Dottie. Thank you very much. Bye bye. 1-888-car talk. That's 888-225. Hello, you're on Car Talk.

This is Jeff. I'm calling from Peru. Which Peru? That's New York. Where is that? Oh, I know where it is, too. No, I don't. It's just south of Montreal.

Yeah, because there's a whole bunch of weird places up there named like Egypt and Rome. Yeah, well, they ran out of name. And name of anything, because no one comes up here anyway. So what's up? Well, I have a lifestyle question. About four years ago, I quit my job and hit the road. Yeah. And I've been traveling for about four years.

And you just quit your job, got in the car, car? Or you would start walking? Yeah, the first part of the trip was in my own car. Yeah, I went up to Alaska and the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. And were you in search of some great unyielding truth, or were you just curious about things? Just curious, just wanted to get away from working for a while. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So what's up? Keep going. Well, a lot of the time, like when I was up in Alaska, there's times when, you know, I tend to run out of gas. Yeah. And so I'm wondering, you know, I have all my backpacking gear and camp and equipment, and very often I have coal and fuel, like a gallon of coalman fuel. And I'm wondering if I can put that into the car rather than, you know, walk out for 20 miles to try and find gas. How much of an emergency would have been?

be like, would the wolves be ready to let you pass through their digestive systems? No, it's never that bad. It's just a question of do I want to walk for a couple of days to get out to somewhere where I can buy some gas and haul it back? A couple of days. Yeah. Days, huh? Yeah.

In which case you might pass through the digestive system of wars. If they happen upon you. Yeah, it's, you know, it happens in a variety of places. So, you know, I never know. I mean, you know, if it works, then I can do it. But, you know, I don't want to, you know, screw up my car. Well, you will. You might.

You might. How old is your car? It's a 93 Honda Civic hatch. What is Coleman fuel anyway? Gasoline. Yeah, it's fine, that's all. No, I don't know exactly what Coleman fuel is. Colman fuel is some secret.

No, I think it, we are now entering. This is going to get us a letter. from Coleman. Mr. Coleman himself. I do know that you can burn gasoline in your Coleman lantern. Yes. I thought I should know this. But I always thought that Coleman fuel, I mean, don't forget, it doesn't come out of the ground known as Coleman fuel.

No, sir. If they weren't a company putting it in little... Comes out of Coleman mines. Yeah, I mean, it's not one of the basic elements, you know, hydrogen helium, Coleman. I mean, they get a helium, lithium, beryllium. It's one of the rare earths. No, I think it's caracine. Isn't it?

No, no, it's definitely not carousine. No, it's not kerosene is. It's not a match on, and it flares up like gasoline. Yes, it is much, much more volatile. Carosine will not, actually will burn at room temperature. But, uh, well, if you have a match. Barely. Oh, no, it ignites like gasoline.

I mean, you know. This stuff burns like gasoline. Yeah. Well, here's what I. You know, it's a great question, Jeff, and if anyone should know the answer, it would be us. And we don't. And rest of sure. We're embarrassed as hell.

I mean, I should say, I'm not really that embarrassed because I've never had occasion to use Coleman fuel for anything, because I'm not an outdoorsy person. So I don't know what Coleman fuel even is. Well, I do have, I've heard of it. I do have a supply of Coleman fuel in my basement. You do? I do. I have a gallon of it.

Call your wife. And I have a Coleman lantern. Ask her to look. Go on the basement. and read what it says on the can. I think the side of the can says something like contains petroleum distillates, which is what gasoline is, too. Fatal of Swallow. Harmful of Fatal of Swallow.

Keep out of reach of children and Tom Malyazzi. And I think it's likely to be less explosive than gasoline. Okay. But it's probably not going to hurt your engine if you did it, you know, under dire circumstances. Well, that's the thing. I just didn't know if it was just going to just explode. No, it's not going to explode. although, you know, I have read, and I'm sure we will get some not insignificant number of emails

about mixing fuels and causing certain kinds of reactions to occur. And weird stuff happening. Like people adding gasoline to diesel fuel, you've heard of that? Yeah. See, I mean, the biggest problem is not whether it will burn, but what will it do to the injectors, the fuel lines, and all that stuff? Mm-hmm. So I would recommend you don't do it until you hear from us.

Okay. Or you hear the explosion. Right. From the lab. Yeah. Or if you do it, you do it far away. Yeah, I mean, I'm very curious to know what this stuff is, especially since they don't really tell you on the... Well, they can't because if they told you, if it says contains chemical gas.

But cost five times as much. Who would buy it? But it does smell different. It doesn't smell like gasoline. I've never seen or smell the stuff, tell you the truth. But it does burn pretty intensely. Yeah. So I think you could use.

use it, and if the alternative were being eaten up by wolves, I'd put it in my tank. See you, Jeff. Okay, thanks a lot. Boy, that was very helpful, wasn't it? Now, read that. What's that disclaimer again? Hey, did he call us? Did he call us?

Car talk acknowledges that giving out stupid and misleading answers to people's car questions is reckless, yeah, dangerous, mm-hmm, and a waste of the public airways. All true. We cannot, however, we cannot, however, stop ourselves. But fun. And don't forget, it was he that called us. He called us. We didn't go looking for Jeff.

I mean, what did he expect to get from us? He expected us to know something. Yeah, and we could have taken the same. We could have said, oh, no, Jeff. You never should put anything in your tank except gasoline. That would be the safe. Oh, how about we don't know? No, we couldn't do that.

Why not? thought in our chart. We're not allowed to say we don't know. Oh, NPR won't allow it? Not allowed. Not on our contract. You've got to give an answer. Did Ray Suarez ever say, I don't know?

Does Juan Williams say, I don't know? No. Absolutely not. They know everything. They know everything. And we know what? Squat. Is this show almost over?

While you've wasted another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk, our esteemed producer is Doug the subway fugitive, not as slave to fashion Berman. Our associate producers are Frau Catherine Pickle, Fenelosa. Oh yeah. And Louis Cronin the Barbarian. Our engineer is George Hicks. Our senior web lackey is Doug the old gray mayor and our technical, spiritual and menu advisor. Just back from the late spring, South Florida free lunch senior pro am is John Bugsy Lawler. Our public opinion poster was Paul Merkey of Merkey Research, assisted by statistician Margin Overa. Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzov. Our director of new product repair is warranted.

my foot. Our audience estimator is Adam Ilyan and our shop foreman is Luke Bezzi. Our staff mortician is Sven Didigal. Oh, Buzz, Van Didi-Di-Gol! Our credit card debt manager is Maxedout. Our staff tax preparer is Lionel Little. Our emergency room position is Henrietta Bad Clam. Our divorce attorney is Carmine, not yours. Our Russian chauffeur is peek-off and drop-off. And our seat cushion test there, of course, is Mike Easter. Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheathamman, How is U. Lewis Dewey, known to the scraped-up skateboarders in Harvard Square as Ui-Louis Dewee. Thanks so much for listening.

We're clicking and clack to Tappert Brothers. And remember, don't drive like my brother. And remember, don't drive like my brother. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. And now, here is Car Talk Plaza's chief mechanic, Mr. Vin Eagle Box. Thank you very much. Now, if you want a copy of this here show, which happens to be number 22.

you can get one on the web, just head on over to the online store, aka the shameless commerce division at the card talk section of cars.com. And what if I wanted something else? I mean, like the father's CD, why you should never listen to your father when it comes to cars. Can I go to that same website then? No, no, I don't think so. You go to www.mud wrestling, danielshaustyle.com.

Of course, you go to the same site, the cart talk section of cars. or you order by phone. You know, your fashion way, just call 888 car junk. Thank you, Vinnie. That was direct and to the point. Hey, point to this, all right. Car Talk is a production of Dewey Cheatham and Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though mothers everywhere whip their minivans around and head back to D.C. for another protest, whatever they hear us say it. This is NPR, National Public Radio.