The Best of Car Talk - #2635: Knock, Knock...

Episode Date: May 2, 2026

…”Who’s there?” Debra with her impossible knocking noise, that’s who. All we know is that it isn’t coming from the engine compartment. Wild guessing ensues on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.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 Can't Be Too Careful department here at Car Talk Blasso. Go ahead. This is a series of warning labels. This was sent to me, I think, by my old pal Johnny Mellam, who has got what? Squat to do. Squat to do.

So all he does is send me stuff. This is warning labels, and it seems as though it came from England. because there are some British brand names. But here's some of the warning labels that appear on actual products. On Tiramisu dessert, printed on the bottom of the box, it says, Do not turn upside down. Whoops! This is a good one.

On a Korean-made kitchen knife. Warning, keep out of children. On a string of... Christmas lights for indoor or outdoor use only. I like, my personal favorite was on a bag of Freeto's. You could be a winner. No purchase necessary. Details inside. Okay. That's referred to as the shoplifter special. No purchase necessary.

Well, in the event that you find a bag that's half eaten, are you supposed to? suppose you would avail yourself of that opportunity. Yeah. Well, if you want to alert us to some unforeseen hazard regarding your car. Yeah. Or anything else for that matter. The number is 888-88-8-8-8-288-2-7-8-8-255. A lawyer on car talk talk.

Yeah, this is Jeff from Washington, D.C. How you doing today? Hey, how you doing? Are you a lawyer or a politician? No, neither, fortunately. Good. Are you aspiring to be either of those? Architect.

Oh, just as bad. Architect is good, you know? No, an architect is a noble profession. You're dealing with aesthetics and utility, and you're not really hurting anybody unless you make a balcony that falls off. But stuff like that happens. Oh, yeah, sure. But it's a nice profession.

It's clean. You don't have to get dirty. You deal with paper. Yeah, we have to go on the job site once in a while and wear the hard hat. Oh, yeah, you just make it look good. You wear the hard hat. You get your shoes muddy a lot. You get your shoes, buddy, and make it look so you can tell your wife you won't work in that day.

I was on the site today, hon. I'm on the site, huh? How would you find out? I don't know. They have good coffee. The coffee truck comes at 10.30. And you make less money. And you have to eat off the coffee truck, even though you know your stomach can't take it.

Because you've got to be one of the guys. You've got to be one of the guys. I guess that's the big problem with being an architect. You ain't one of the guys. Yeah, you break out a briocean and espresso. They're going to lay a beating on you. All right, Jeff. What the heck do you want, man?

All right. Your time's almost up. Yeah, what's up? I've got an 89 Accord, LXI, about 145,000 miles on it. And for the last couple of years, I've had a problem, a very sporadic problem where the throttle sticks. Ah. Not a good problem to have. You know for sure the throttle is sticking, or is it just racing?

It's just racing. No, I don't know it's the throttle sticking. So I took it to the dealer. and they said, well, it's one of two things. Yeah. It's either that we need to replace the throttle cable for 500 bucks, or you need a new computer module for 500 bucks. And we don't know which one.

Did they have a two-for-a-deal? Like two-for-750? Two-for-2000. It's not the throttle cable they wanted to replace a 500. I think rather it's the throttle body. Okay. That is the actual part of the car that bolts to the intake manifold that is actuated by the throttle cable because the throttle cable is cheap.

The part's probably $40. And it's certainly no $460 to install. Yeah. The throttle body is sort of part of what would have been the throat of the carburetor. Right. It's the flap that gets moved as you step up. the gas pedal so that when the gas pedal, when your foot is off the gas pedal, the flap is essentially closed, and then as you step on the gas, it gradually opens to allow more air

to enter the engine. And it could be that that is sticking. Right. And you obviously tried punching the gas pedal or pulling it back with your hand to get it to stop? I punch it, and it stops every time. I put in the clutch and punch the throttle and it stops. Oh, really? Yeah.

Oh, and they knew that, and they still wanted to study the computer? Yep. Those sly little devils. Now, I took it to an independent shop, and they told me that they, and again, they said throttle cable. They said they needed to lubricate the throttle cable. No. So they did that for 30 bucks. It had no effect.

No. Throttle cables don't get lubricated. Okay. No. Because the lubrication is just to attract dirt. It makes them even more likely to stick. Okay. I would go ahead and replace the cable first off, but at the same time, you might want to ask them to clean the throttle body.

Okay. And make sure they get all the carbon and varnish build up out of the. the throttle area, and that might help too. Okay. But it's one of those two things. I doubt it's the computer. If you can fix it by punching the pedal, it's a mechanical thing and non-electrical. Yeah, and don't go back to the place that wanted maybe to sell you the computer.

Fantastic. See it, Jeff. Thanks, guys. Bye-bye. 1-888-88-Cart talk. That's 888-2255, a lawyer on car talk. Hi, this is Alex in New York. Alex.

Alex. Hi. In New York City? New York City, the belly of the beast. Where do you live? Upper East Side? Upper East. East.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was on the Upper East side. I have a little Mazda Miata. And it's a 94. And I've never had any trouble with it at all. I have to go to this retirement party up in Eastchester.

So Friday afternoon, height a rush hour. It's like 90 degrees. And I'm cruising up the Harlem River Drive. I'm going like, you know, two miles an hour. You know, it's New York. roll stop, roll stop. And I'm dressed up because I'm going to this retirement party.

I'm wearing this big pair of heels, which I usually don't wear. So cruising along, and I put my clutch starts to feel spongy. And, of course, my first reaction is, oh, it's the heels. You know, I'm not used to driving. Right, right, right. So I go forward, like, maybe 10 more feet, and I realize, oh, no, I have about three quarters of an inch of clutch left. Like, I can barely shifted out of first.

Right. Now, mind you, it's like, like, it's like, 6.30, traffic is like not moving. And the last thing you want to do is, like, stall on the Harlem River Drive and the height of rush hour. So, I'm panicking. So, and now I'm realized even though I've got my clutch all the way down, I can't get it out of first.

So I stay a little pair of the powers of B. I jam it out of first. And then I get hit with this inspiration that you can drive anywhere in third. So I... Oh, man. Alex, you are right on top of the situation. I shove it into third. Wow. And, you know, once I get past the George Washington Bridge, I can start going like 45 miles. I get to this retirement party.

I give my little talk. Everything's fine. I now have to get back in my car and drive home. And this guy was telling these people at this party about it. They said, oh, one guy said, oh, no problem. Just pump your clutch. You'll be fine. I'm like, right.

So I get in my little car, and I pump my clutch, and it pops out of gear. And I drive home, and I'm able to shift. and my clutch is no longer spongy. Now, it still feels a little bit rough. And since this happened, whenever I'm like slowing down, and I'm in neutral, my air conditioner goes, brr, mm-hmm. You don't hear any knocking or anything.

No knocking. No, no paranormal forces here. But my question is now, it seems to be fine. And I'm about to drive eight hours to Maine. So my questions are, will I be safe? it happen again and is my air conditioner about to go? Or is my air conditioner related to my clutch problem? No, yes, and no.

Yeah, and where both of Maine are you going? I'm going to Bailey Island. Bailey Island, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. That's important. It's very important. Are you kidding? In Bailey Island, not only have they never heard of a Mazda Miata. They have never heard of a Mazda Miata clutch master cylinder, which is what you need.

No. Yeah, you do. What happened was the day you were driving to East Chester. See, the clue, if you were giving a puzzle, it was the heat. Oh, man, it was good, too. And then when you left it... You sneaked it in. You sneaked it in.

It cooled off. Okay. And because the master cylinder was beginning to fail, the master cylinder is attached to your pedal. And as you step on the pedal, the master cylinder creates pressure and pushes the pressure to what's called the slave cylinder. I know these are politically incorrect terms, but this is what they've been called for years. It's okay. I'm in New York.

We can handle anything. And the slave cylinder is actually... actually what disengages the clutch. But if the master cylinder, because it's leaking, cannot produce enough pressure, then you push your pedal to the floor and it doesn't disengage the clutch or you can't shift it. And worse than that, when you begin to move as you lift your foot off the floor, the car begins to move almost immediately upon releasing the pedal instead of halfway up like it used to. Yeah.

Because the clutch is basically almost always engaged. And there's nothing much you can do about it because the thing that makes it disengage ain't working. It isn't pumping because the rubber seals in it have worn out, and it's been worsened by the fact that the hot weather has made the bore that is the cylinder in which the piston moves bigger in diameter. But then why would pumping the clutch? Well, pumping it would help because it would tend to compress the air that had leaked into the system. And that's why even though it's corrected itself since it's cooled off.

Yeah. Okay. And when you left the party, it was cool. It was cooler. Yeah. It was night. And it worked. And the air that was in there didn't become such a big factor.

And pumping, it did compress the air somewhat so that you have air in the system, but it's because the thing has begun to fail. The master cylinder has begun to leak. So how much is this going to cost me? Oh, not much. Oh, come on. I live in New York. All right, 300.

For the estimate. Not a penny less. And they may want to replace the slave cylinder as well. And if they suggest that, do it. Okay. I'm going to guess it at New York prices to replace the slave cylinder. cylinder and the master. I'm going to write down the number right here.

Okay. I'm going to write down my number two. I got my number. Let's see how close we become. Okay. My number is 449. Mine is 472. Oh, you guys are good.

I was going to say 500. Well, that's close enough. Yeah, I mean, 300 in any other place in the country. You said 5. He said 449. And what's right exactly in the center of those two numbers? 470. All right.

So you get 10 points. Good luck, Alex. But get it fixed before you go to Maine because you'll never come back. You'll never make... That wouldn't be so bad. Might not. They'll be filming the remake of the birds while you're up there on Bailey Island or wherever the heck it's called. I'll keep my top up.

Good luck. Enjoy your summer. Bye-bye. Bye. Okay, look, I'm going to try a little telepathic experiment here. I'm going to think of last week's puzzler, and I'm going to send it to you by ESP. Terrific. I'm ready.

I mean, what do I have to do? Just clear out your mind completely. Never mind. We'll be back at a minute. 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, duh, the answer to last week's puzzling. This is an algebraic puzzler for the vacationing school kids with atrophying brains.

Do you think? Burman spent two weeks on itself. I don't really care. I don't watch some TV. What do I care about atrophy? Recently, after we finished one of our car talk shows, shows, we and our staff decided to go out for a little snack. So the whole gang goes to the tomean deli down the street, and we order a bunch of food

and whatever. And as luck would have it, just before the bill comes, my brother and I, excuse ourselves, and we go to the bathroom and climb out the window. I mean, what else would you do when the bill was going to come? It was interesting that I met you there. We hadn't planned it in advance. Anyway, the bill comes, and it's $63. bucks. Everyone figures after a while that we ain't coming back. So Bugsie says, oh, those guys,

they stiff us. But look, if everyone throws in an extra two bucks, we'll cover the bill. So the question very simply was, how many people were in the original group and show your work? Right? Yeah. Well, it doesn't take too much. The only two numbers I know that makes 63 will multiply together at nine and seven. So that must be. the answer, so you can work backwards and write the equation. So we're going to write two equations. We're going to write. If X equals the number of people.

Yeah, let me write these down. Go ahead. X is the number of people. And Y equals the amount paid. So X times Y equals 63. The original number of people. Ah. So if we hadn't sneaked out the window, then X times Y would have been 163.

Would have been enough and you wouldn't have been able to figure it out. Okay. You got it. So X times Y is 63. That's good. Right. We can solve that. So then, but you also know that if you add two to the number of people, so X plus two.

Yeah. Times in parentheses Y minus two, which is the number of people that were short. Yeah. It's got to equal 63 also. Oh, how sweet it is. Oh, so you just go multiply stuff together. Well, you multiply it all out. And what you get is you get a long expression with a, and when you end off.

doing is your substitute, you get rid of the Y, and you substitute the 63 over X for Y. And when you do that, you wind up with something called a quadratic equation. Is that right? Of course, everyone knows. All you're going to do is give them those two equations. And any kid will figure this out in five minutes. Just give them those two equations. X plus two times Y minus two is 63. And X times Y is 63. Solve that. You can't do that. You're out. That's it. But you finally wind up with x squared minus 2x minus 63 equals zero. Oh, yeah. And when you factor that, it comes out to X plus seven times X minus nine.

Right? Yeah, I see it. Right? Yes, that's correct. I see it. And so one answer is X equals nine. And the other one is X equals minus seven. That's how many people there were originally.

Minus seven. No one showed up. And... Well, in the anti-matter universe, the minus seven answer is valid. Yeah. But otherwise, there were nine people in the original group. Right, and we left. And we left, and we stiffed them, so they had to come up with two more bucks apiece.

Yeah. If you think you have any questions about that, right to my brother. Who won? So each of the seven people pays nine bucks. Right, whereas each of the nine people would have paid... Seven bucks. Seven bucks. Oh, man.

Right. And if you wouldn't climb out the window with me, they never would have figured it up. The winner is Tucker Metzik from Lombard, Illinois. And Tucker, for having your answer selected at random from among the thousands of correct answers that we got, you will get a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk, Shameless Commerce Division, of our website, which is cartotalk.cars.com. And you can get a copy of our new book in our humble opinion, which we have found makes an excellent doorstop, fills in for a broken couch leg,

or is a spare kitty seat at the dinner table. Really? Yes. Sometimes, you know, the kid can't reach the top. You might want to get two of these. The kid's real small. Or if he's got very wide butt, you might need two of the book side by side. Those of you who don't know the drill, the puzzler is going on vacation.

Oh, yes. Yes, in fact, it's already left the building. So don't hang around outside. Anyway, we'll have some listener mail and some more of your questions. in the third half of the show. In the meantime, instead of a puzzler, in the meantime, you can call us at 888 Car Talk. That's 888-2255.

Hello, you're on Car Talk. My name is Jerry. I'm Glen O in California. Jerry with a J. With a G. Oh, I wrote J. Well, I don't know what to say. So what's up?

Well, I was in the last winter out of southern Mexico, and a guy called me up, and who was house at my house and said, I wondered if you could borrow my truck. Something had gone wrong with his van. And I said, yeah. And a week later, he called up and said that he thought I had a problem with my truck. He thought I had a head gasket problem.

And then he said that he felt a little responsible for it, and that since he was a mechanic, which I didn't know at the time, he'd fixed it if I'd buy the parts. And I said, okay, $80 for a head gasket, that sounds okay, because I'd replace one of my other truck. And when I came back, it turned out it cost about $800. And I started looking at the bill and everything and realized, he had the head welded, and when I walked around outside, I found some piston rings lying around.

And now I got a real problem with what mechanic describes as piston slap. And when I first started up the truck, all I heard was a little leak from the exhaust manifold, and I figured that's not a big deal. But after a week of driving, this noise just, I'm now using the word autodigestion. You know, we drive down the road, it's just making all this noise. What kind of a truck is this? It's like a Chevrolet truck or something? It's 86 Azuzu.

He must have said he was driving this thing. I think he'd overheated like serious. He must have overheated the bejesis out of this, as they say. Yeah. Because in order to have melted the piston rings, which he undoubtedly did. You think that's what happened? He melted them? Well, he cooked them.

He cooked them. He cracked the head. Yeah. So how much of this endoff costing you? $800? Well, it was interesting. I started looking around my checks. and I realized he'd written himself a check for $929.

He was renting your house, so he figured it was okay. No, no, he was living in it for free. Oh, so he figured it was okay to use your checkbook. Yeah. Anyway, I don't, should I just keep driving this truck, or should I get it rebuilt? I mean, it sounds like it's beaten itself to death. Well, I mean, how much do you love it?

Well, it was a perfect truck when I left. And... It's old, though. It's old. What do you use the truck for? Just like... Work. You drive a lot with it.

Well, not really. I remodel houses around town, and I sometimes like to take trips in it. I wouldn't take a trip. No. Define a trip, like more than 10, 15 miles from your house? Well, right now, I just drove up to a ranch about three hours away. Oh, I wouldn't do that again. No, I mean, if you drove it around town, sort of, you know, 10 miles in some direction or another, and you didn't rev it up a lot, and you drove very carefully.

Yeah. It would probably run for a long time. What's a long time? Hours. This kid who worked on it, I imagine he's a kid. Yeah, he's 30. You're right. Oh, 30.

He was the one who did the work, or did he have some of else? No, he told me he was an auto mechanic, and I said, oh, really? And I didn't know that, and, you know what the key thing was? I sitting on my other truck, and I was looking at this thing at my truck, and I realized it was something wrong with a grill, and I couldn't read the grill, and it's because he's because he's, you know, put the grilling upside down. That says something, doesn't it? It told me a lot about what happened on the inside of the engine.

That's why I thought he'd call you. Yeah. Well, he would easily have put, if he took the pistons off, I think what's likely to have happened is he put a connecting rod on backwards. Really? Because there is a preferred direction for the connecting rods, and only one direction works. And so that's my guess.

But that being the case, I mean, if you're willing to drive it around town, I would drive it until it breaks. It's not going to cost you any more to fix it because what you need is a complete engine rebuild. That's what I was thinking, yeah. Or a junkyard engine. No, I would, and if you are determined to take it on vacation and the like, then I would just go ahead and have the engine rebuilt tomorrow. Well, you're going to have to do it sooner or later.

Yeah. Can you live with the uncertainty of when it's going to break down or not knowing when it's going to break down? Good point. Then you might as well do it right now. Right. And you'll get another $100,000 out of it. Good. Okay.

Yeah, and send them the bill. I'm going to do that. See it, Jerry. Okay, thanks a lot. And write your check on your checkbook. Go long. Hey, thanks for calling. Good luck.

Bye. Okay, Tommy, look, it's time for us to take a little break and give our listeners a chance to stretch their legs. And we adjust their earprints. Ha, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack the Tappert Brothers. And we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and da. Anda. Our short quiz to test your intelligence.

Are you ready? Duh. Who sent me this? Probably Johnny Mellum. He says me everything. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator? One leg at a time. Oh, that's close. The correct answer is you open the refrigerator, you put in the giraffe, you close the door. Yeah.

Okay, this question is testing whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way. That's good, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator? Open the door, put the elephant in and close the door. No, of course not. You open the refrigerator. You take out the giraffe.

You can't fit both of them. See, this question tests your ability to think through the repercussions. Right, right. Of course, of course. Okay. Here's another one. We'll change the subject to lose my head. It's still animals, but it's different.

The Lion King, you saw that movie, is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend except one. What animal doesn't attend? attend the Lion King's Animal Conference. I did not see the Lion King. You didn't. Well, you don't have to. I don't have to. The King is the King of the Jungle, right?

Right. The Lion King has an annual animal conference. All the animals come except one. The elephant. He's in the refrigerator. All right, you still got one more chance. There is a river that you must cross, but it is inhabited by crocodiles. How do you manage it?

Throw your brother in first. And while they're reading him, you walk across their backs. Not bad. Actually, you can just swim across because all the crocodiles are aware. At the animal conference. Okay, you got four out of five wrong. Which shows that you... I have no creativity, no imagination, no adaptability.

This test, evidently, is given by the Anderson Consulting Worldwide Group. And they say that around 90% of the professionals that they tested got all the answers wrong. But many preschoolers got several correct answers. And Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old. They have less than the brains of a four-year-old. Anyway, if you run across something amusing and interesting and enlightening like this, send it to my brother because you know. No, he'd love to see it. I would.

Send your items to interesting mail division, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge, Our Fair City, Ma, 02238, or you can email stuff to us from the Car Talk section ofcars.com. If you'd like to call us right now, or next week for that matter, the number is 888 Car Talk. That's 888-2255, a lawyer on Car Talk. Hi there.

Hi. This is Deborah. And I'm calling from Bellingham, Washington. With an O? With an R.A. With an R.A. Okay. No O.

No O. Yeah. So what's up? Well, I have a GMC Sierra pickup. It's in 1994. When I first noticed this, I was just driving along and it was hot, and I needed to use my air conditioner. So I turned it on, and it did this knocking thing. And I thought, oh, my God, my air conditioner's going out.

But then the knock just went away. Was it a duck, doc, it was like this, just like someone knocking at the door. Come in? Yeah, and it went away. And then it didn't come back

for probably about two weeks. And then the next time I noticed it, I was just, I was getting in to drive somewhere, and I turned the key on, and the knock happened before I even got my truck started. Get out. Yes.

Now, come on. Deborah, give us a break here. This is the real, it gets weirder. Any idea where it's coming from? Yeah. Well, no. But I think I know. I'll tell you where it's not coming from.

Ah, it's good. It's not coming from under the hood. Woo-hoo! Really? So now I'm driving my truck and I've forgotten that I have this problem. Until I'm ready to park. So I pull up to wherever it's. as I'm going, and it's an automatic, so I put it in park, and I turn it off, I take the key

out, and it knocks again, and it'll be knocking while I'm walking away from it. And people, I mean, it's loud enough. Doesn't anybody screen these calls? Catherine, you're fired! And stay out. Shee. As you are walking, now you get a different perspective. on the sound.

Did you get any sense of where it might have been coming from then? It sounds like it's coming from inside the glove compartment. So I opened that up, and it's not, I think it's under the glove compartment. And, you know, is there a fan or something in there? If you want there to be, you're going to arrange it. Well, I tell you, I have no basis for this whatsoever. But when you described this problem, I heard fuel pump. Really?

Now, it can't be the fuel pump. We know that for a fact. It makes no logical sense, but I could see in my mind's eye the fuel pump. No kidding. Get out. I'm glad there's two of you there. Now, what did you think? Here's what I came up with.

I mean, if you think his answer is wacky. You ready for mine? Yeah, go ahead. I'm not even sure your car has one. At least we know your car has a fuel pump. But I think your car might have one of these and it might not. But if it does have it, this is it. Power antenna.

Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. It doesn't have one. It doesn't have one. That would have been great. Let me make this a little. easier maybe.

Yeah, go ahead. Underneath the glove compartment, there's like a covering to something that looks like it might be the air conditioner or the heating. Well, that is... The heater core is under there.

The heater and the air conditioner evaporator and all that stuff is under there. That's where it kind of sounds like the noise is coming from. Well, then we'd have to go with our idea of the fan. Because there's a fan under there, too. There is a fan under there. And if the fan were loose and

every once in a while when on a kilter and started banging against the house more likely something stuck in there. There's a twig or something in there. So you get the bump, bump, bump, bump, and then it moves out of the way. That would also explain why when you turn the key on

but hadn't started it, it would come on. Because the fan runs then, even though the air conditioner and then when you got out. Yeah, now we're going to explain that one. Go ahead. It's just spinning. The fan is, you know, grinding down and you got out of the car and boom, boom, boom, boom.

You might have even noticed, Deborah, that as you walked away, the frequencies went, boom, boom, boom. No, I didn't, but... Deborah, you are the worst contestant. It might be. I was probably trying to get away from it real fast, so nobody knew it was my truck making all that noise. We'd have to go with the fan. No, I'm sticking with the power antenna.

You are? I'm sticking with it. Even though she doesn't have one. This is the best answer. Hey, maybe they were going to give her the power antenna. They started to install it, and it was Friday afternoon. Oh, and somebody read the order sheet and said, hey, wait a minute, this isn't getting a power. I've already put it in.

So I've already put it in. So I'll stick the regular antenna in there. No one will notice the motor underneath. Have someone take off that box and take a look at the fan if it's not really impossible to do and see if that fan is loose or if there's a twig in there. I think that's it. That would be great. I'm on my way to the shop right now. I see you very much.

Hey, Deborah, don't call again. Well, it's happened again. You've misspent another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk. Our esteemed producer is Doug the subway fugitive. Cute, cute, cute. What was that? It wasn't there. What happened?

Yeah, I don't know. Berman. Our associate producers are frau Catherine Pickle, Fenalosa. Ah, yes. And Louis Cronin, the Barbarian. Our engineer is George Hicks. Our senior web lackey is Doug, the old gray mayor, and our technical, spiritual, satorial and menu advisor,

just back from his sold-out luncher-palooza tour is John Bugsy Lawler. Our public opinion poster is Paul Murky of Mercky Research, assisted by statistician Marge in Overa. Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzov. Our staff acupuncturist is O. Howard Hertz. And our shop form is Luke Busy. Our pseudonym consultant is Noam de Plume. Our dermatologist for teenagers is Don Pickett.

Our emergency room physician is Henrietta Badclam. The Carthock musical director is Donna E. Mobile. Our divorce attorney is Carmine, not yours. Our seat cushion tester, of course, is Mike Keister, and our Russian chauffeur is Pekoff and Dropoff. Our Chief Counsel from the Lawton of Dewey Cheeverner How is U. Lewis Dewey, known to the dumpster diving Oracle execs in Harvard Square as Ui Louie Dewey.

Thanks so much for listening. We're clicking clack to Tappert Brothers. Don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother. 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. Vinnie Gombards. Vinnie? Thank you very much. Now, if you want a copy of this year's show, which is number 29, you can get one on the web. Just head on over to the online store at the Car Talk section of Cars.com.

What if I wanted something else? You know, like our CD, why you should never listen to your father when it comes to Cars. Would I go to that same site, Vincent? No, you don't. You go to www. Madeline Albright's hip-hopfavorites.

Of course, you go to the same site, the Car Talk section, cars.com or you'll order by phone. You know, you'll call 888 car junk. Thank you, Vinny. That was very, very believable. Hey, believe this, will you? Car Talk is a production of Dewey Cheatham and Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though Vladimir Putin says, see, democracy is dangerous. Whenever he hears us say it, this is NPR National Public Radio.