The Best of Car Talk - #2641: How Cheap is Too Cheap?

Episode Date: May 23, 2026

Michelle and her hubby need a second car but funds are ‘limited’ and she wants to know if it’s possible to get a decent one for $170? Tommy worries that Michelle is overpaying 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 Tappertr Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the hate mail division here at Car Talk Plaza. This isn't hate mail, but I'm going to predict that about half of the listeners that hear it are going to hate it. We have managed. Which half do you think? Well, you'll find out. This is as far from politically correct as you could be. But it's so funny.

We didn't author it. We didn't author it, and we're just passing it on. Or authorize it. I mean, occasionally you get a piece of mail and you read it and you laugh out loud. And this is one. And you can't let that go by. No. So as long, I think that I think on balance, you know, enough of the guys will laugh and all the women will hate us.

Right. But they may hate us already. Right. So we'll take a chance. We'll take a chance. Go ahead. Here it is. I know one woman in particular.

I know one woman in particular too. And I know her name and I know her address. And his social security number. And his social security number. And I'll be in the garage tonight. But here it is. It's a chain letter. The real man's chain letter.

This chain letter was started in hopes of bringing relief to other tired and discouraged men. Unlike most chain letters, this one does not cost anything. Just send a copy of this letter to five of your friends who are equally tired and discontented. Then bundle up your wife or girlfriend and send her to the man whose name appears at the top of the following list. Then add your name to the bottom of the list.

When your turn comes, you will receive 15,625 women. One of whom is bound to be better than the one you already have. At the writing of this letter, a friend of mine had already received 184 women of whom four were worth keeping. Remember, this chain brings luck. One man's pit bull died, but the next day he received a Playboy swimsuit model. An unmarried Jewish man living with his widowed mother was able to choose between a Hooters' waitress and a Hollywood supermodel. You could be lucky too, but do not break the chain.

One man did break the chain and he got his own wife back again. When I get to the line that says, when your turn comes, you will receive 15,000, 625 women. one of whom can be your mother-in-law. That's right. I have to say that I thought it was very funny, and I know that I'll be super. You would think it was funny, and you are in deep doodle, man. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm used to it.

Who wrote this? Oh, we don't know. We don't know. I mean, we never know. But they say that a good laugh will keep you healthy, and it's going to have to be healthy for a long time in the garage. Well, if, like, Tom, you have a lot of free time since your spouse is no longer speaking to you. Or if you have a problem with your car or anything else, you can call us at 888 Car Talk.

That's 8-8-2-27-8-2-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. I thought that letter was hilarious. I can't tell you how many of those ridiculous chain letters I've got. You thought it was hilarious. I thought it was great. Oh, good. Oh, you know.

There's some hope? I didn't think that we could immediately all simultaneously alienate half the audience. Well, it's going to be less than half now. It's less than half because what's your name? This is Cherie. Sherri laughed. Yes, I did. Where are you from, Cherie?

I'm calling from Eugene, Oregon. And what's going on? I've got a 1989 Jeep Waggoner. It's an automatic. And recently, this problem developed when I start the car and I try to put it in gear, the shifter is stuck. But if I turn the car off and jiggle the shifter and start it again,

it goes into gear no problem. And I can't figure out for the life of me what could be causing that. Is the 89 the big monster? No, it's not the... No, in 89, they made a wagoneer. It looked just like a Cherokee, but it's called a wagoneer. Yeah. Yeah. The other one was a grand

wagon ear. Right, that was... Yeah. Still got the sexy wood paneling, though. Oh, isn't that grand? So you can, it starts right up, but you cannot take it out of park. Right. Unless you do what, you shut it off.

I have to turn it off and jiggle the handle, you know, jiggle the shifter. And I'm so used to it now that I know to just jiggle it right when I get in the car before I even started. So if you do that, it starts up. You can then shift it? Yes. Without going through the restart process. And also once it started, if I just want to run back in the house or something, I can't put it in park because it'll get stuck. I have to put it in neutral and put the emergency brake on.

And you do have your foot on the brake when you're stepping on the, when you're pulling on the handle. This has one of those setups where you have to step on the brake to take it out of gear? Yes. Okay. Well, that's what the culprit is. I mean, there's a switch attached to the brake pedal, which is disengaging a pin.

I don't know exactly how it works in this thing, but they all do it differently. But basically there's a pin that inhibits the shifter from moving. at all. Oh. And what must be happening is that thing is stuck. And then by grabbing the shifter and moving it, you then, you might not even have to shut it off, although you may have to re-initiate the process. So I, okay, so I see how that could be related to the break, because I don't have the break

on when I just jiggle it. I don't put the brake on until I'm ready to start it. Right. But I mean, you shouldn't have to do this. But this interlock mechanism is what's keeping it from moving. interlock-out mechanism. It's basically a mechanism that was put on there on the heels of the runaway acceleration problems that Audi's and a few other cars had in the 80s.

Oh, okay. So that people couldn't say, well, I put the thing in gear and it took off. Well, you couldn't have because we now make you step on the brake before you can put it in gear. Oh. So if it started moving, you would just have to step harder on the brake and the thing would not go anyplace. Okay. You know, so it was put in as a safety measure, except that yours doesn't work. So you need to have somebody take that thing apart.

Okay. And they'll probably find out that it needs to be lubricated or maybe there's a loose wire or something. That's my case. But in the meantime, keep jiggling. Yeah, it's been working. Hey. That's it? That's it.

Thanks, guys. See you, Sherry. So long. Thanks for calling. Thanks for chuckling. Oh, yeah, of course. We'll see how many more you get today. Oh, man.

We'll see. Bye, bye. Thank you. See you later. Bye. One 888 car talk. That's 8882-282-8-25. Hello, you're on car talk.

Hello, this is Dan. Lake City, Florida. Lake City. Yeah, kind of by Jacksonville down there. Yeah, not to be confused with Lake Buena Vista. We've been there, man. We've been there. Oh, okay.

The whole place was on fire, the last thing. I think my brother threw a cigar out the window. So you caused it all, huh? I think so. I don't know. So what's shaken? I'm having a. problem with my car. I'm at a 93 Nissan Maxima. Right now it has about 150,000 miles on it. The problem I've

had when I drive over a rough surface, for instance, railroad tracks, a speed bomb, something like that, if I don't give it any gas, it kills. Really? Yeah. And if, you know, if I put it in neutral and it'll start right back up. But when I drive over a rough surface, it'll kill. I haven't had it in the to check it out, but I thought I'd give you guys a ring and see if you could tell me what the problem is. When you come to the railroad tracks, or the bumps or whatever on the road, right? If you slowed way down, it wouldn't do this. Yeah, it would.

Get out. It would. Well, are you slowing down by stepping on the break when you come to these things? Are you slowing down by simply taking your foot off the gas, or sometimes one, sometimes the other? Exactly. or even sometimes if I'm going real slow, sometimes like if it's, say, a big pothole or something. Yeah.

Even if I'm going real slow, it'll just kill. But when it stalls, it starts right back up again. Yeah, I'll pop it in neutral. Okay, I know what it is. Fire right back up. It's a stick shift? No, it's automatic. I know that.

You're good. No, not really. I think I know what it is. Oh, really? Yeah. I don't think so. No, I don't either really. I think Dan might buy it.

There's a large rubber hose, basically, that runs between a device called the air mass meter and the intake manifold. Okay. And it conducts the air that has gone through the air filter and through the air mass meter and gotten measured by the air mass meter into the engine to eventually burn up the gas. Okay. If there's a crack in that thing, sometimes when you do certain things to the kind of, like go over bumps, that crack will open up enough to make the things just shut right down. Huh. And then as soon as it does that, and you stop and restart the car, the crack is closed up and the thing will be fine,

and it may never give you a problem until you duplicate those conditions again. Right. So it must have something to do with going over a bump and causing the engine to move, and that crack is opening up. Interesting. Yeah. It could be the air mass meter itself, but because of you have 150,000 on it, I would suspect that that bellows connecting the air mass meter to the manifold is broken. Okay.

And you might be able, if my brother's right, you might be able to make this happen by letting it idle and jump up and down on the fender. Okay. Well, better than that, you can grab a hold of this thing while the engine's idly and squeeze it and squeeze it and play with it. Okay. And you'll get it to move, and when you do that, the engine will stall out, I bet. Sure. And if that's it, you'll find the crack. If that isn't it, don't ever call back again.

Let me ask you this. Does anybody ever call and you guys just don't have the answer? You haven't been to listen for very long, have you? We make up answers all the time. We never let our listeners down. And answers and answers and answer. Right or wrong makes no difference. Thanks for calling, Dan.

Thank you, sir. Bye, bye, bye. Okay, Tommy, do you remember last week's puzzler? Did it have to do with falling leaves, falling arches, and falling off a bike? No, that was your commute to the radio station today. 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 the answer to last week's puzzler. Have you remembered it yet?

No, no, but you go ahead. Go ahead. Well, this was an historic folkloric puzzler. It came from someone named Carrie Brown at the American Precision Museum in Winds of Vermont. they had an exhibit there called the pedal power. Yeah, which closed one around 1895. Well, something like that. But the museum is still alive and well. In any case, she wrote, in the 1800s,

the common form of bicycle was called the Ordinary. And you've seen pictures of it. It's the bike with the huge front wheel. Yeah. It was mostly considered a toy for wealthy young men. It was expensive and obviously dangerous. The most common accident was something called the header. It sent the rider going over the handlebars,

usually to his death. Yeah, you're sitting about seven feet up in the air. And obviously it was difficult to mount and ride and the whole thing. So to make cycling more universally acceptable, something called the safety bike was developed, which had two wheels of the same size, a chain drive, and many features we see on bikes to this day. The safety didn't catch on at first.

It was considered ugly, inefficient, and uncomfortable. Now, I said this was at the beginning, semi-automotive. Did I not? quasi-automotive. Oh, you did. I remember. You introduced it as being a quasi. You will see why in a minute. In 1889, a veterinary surgeon in Belfast, Ireland, patented an accessory which revolutionized the bicycle. Safeties became popular and the ordinary became obsolete. Passet. The question very simply is, what was the name of that surgeon? Or what, in fact, did he patent? Either answer would suffice. So the thing must have his name in it.

And it's not the bicycle seat. No, but that would have been good. That would have been important. I think the seat was... That would have been important. Someone had figured out the seat. No, the reason I couldn't give you his name is that his name is John Boyd Dunlop. And Dunlop invented the pneumatic tire.

And in doing so, made the safety bike, the bike of choice, because now it was no longer uncomfortable. See, the big wheel of the ordinary smoothed out the ride over those cobblestone streets and rudded back roads. Of course, but if you put smaller tires, smaller wheels on the bike... That weren't pneumatic. Oh, man. And all the people who rode those had their teeth knocked out.

Gary Hayes. So anyway, who's our winner, man? Our winner this week is John Robertson from Chilli-Cothe, Ohio. And away John! And for having his answer selected at random from among all the correct answers, John will get a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk's shameless commerce division on our website, with which he can wow his friends, get this, with a match set, service for four of Car Talk coffee mugs.

It's if he's not too cheap to pony up the extra 95 cents that it's going to cost him. But he's got 25 bucks to spend any way he wants on the country. Contact website. By the way, if you want to be eligible to win one of these great prizes, including a tap and range or anything else from the Spiegel catalog, you can always visit the store at the Car Talk section of Cars.com, or you can call 888 car junk, and they'll read you the list of stuff we have over the phone. Did you find out something you like, and you'll say, I'll take that. Yeah, right. I also wanted to mention a free public service that you may not know about. Sometimes people miss a puzzler, accidentally, of course.

Yeah. Lots of other people miss it on purpose. But if you're one of the people who misses an occasional puzzler, rather, or a puzzler answer, and doesn't mean to, you can now get them delivered by email. Wow. All you have to do is sign up for the psychic friends puzzler network, and you can also do that at the car talk section of cars.com. Isn't that a great, nice little feature, huh? Is it just one more, one more service from your pals at cars.com. Now, we will have a new, and I can't describe this puzzle.

because I have three potential puzzles, and they're all in the tumbler. And whichever one pops out will be the one I use. So that'll be coming up in the third half of today's show. So stay tuned. In the meantime, you can call us and ask us questions about your car or anything except physics. 1-8-88-car talk that's 888-227-8-25-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hello there.

This is your physicist friend from Harvard. Get out. It's okay. Get out. You just said cause was anything except physics. I forgot your name. It's Wolfgang Ruckner. Wolfgang.

Wolfgang, yeah. From Harvard University of the world's greatest university. Ah, yeah. And you must have been listening last week when that poor young lady called us up with that physics problem. That poor young lady, and you were on the right track, but not, didn't quite get it right. I forgot who called what her name was. but what she said was that she was Kim. Kim.

And she was taking some kind of physics test and she was having trouble with a problem. And here's what the problem. She was trying to bluff her way into medical school. And she needed to pass this physics test. And you remember the problem? Yeah. Go ahead.

A car is stuck in the mud and you tie a strong rope to the back bumper of the car and the other end to a tree. At the midpoint of the rope, she pushes down with her maximum effort which he estimates to be a force of about 300 newtons. You with us so far, Wolfgang? With you.

Yep. The car begins to budge with the rope at about a five-degree angle. Uh-huh. With what force is the rope pulling on the car? Right. And I remember my answer, which I didn't even think about, I just said, 300 times the cosine of five degrees. Uh-huh.

It has to do with vectors. That's right. It has to do with vectors and the components of those vectors. So you're right on the right track and using trigonometry. Who was that professor who always said, remember, force is a vector. That was Professor Teaser. Got it. Okay.

Remember, did you know Professor Teaser from MIT? No, I don't know. He'd retired for 65 years. He was retired then. Yeah. He worked on the Manhattan Project, not the one the bomb one. The one would actually build the island of Manhattan. Okay, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Right, so you visualize pushing on his rope, so you're pushing in one direction, and the rope's pulling back on you and the kind of a V-shaped... Got it, of course. I got the little diagram there. Okay, so you've got the component of the V that's pulling in the opposite direction that you're pushing,

and that component is going to be the sign of the angle times the tension in that rope. Because it's two parts of the V, it's going to be twice the sign, because you've got both parts of the rope pulling back on you. So it turns out that the tension then is going to be your force divided by twice the sign of theta. And if it's going to be five degrees, sign of five degrees is around 0.1 or so twice that. So the tension is going to be like five or six times the tension, the force that you push.

What? So you've magnified it by a factor of five or six. How did you magnify it? Mechanical advantage. Where's the pulleys? Wait, how can the force pulling on the car be more than the force that she's pushing with?

See, now that's the part of it that I never understood. What is this? Is this some kind of perpetual motion machine? How can you get more force out than you put in? Mirrors. Mirrors! I mean, what is this? Lee Iyakoka reincarnated?

You see now why I flunk that course twice. The part that you push with turns out to be just one component of the force of tension in the rope. And so when you resolve that into the direction of the rope is pulling, you do have that mechanical advantage. Hey, Wolfgang. You don't believe me, do you? Well, all due respect. I mean, what, that? Come on.

Well, this is good. I mean, we could use this to our advantage if you could, you don't mind the expression. I mean, this is good. You can push with 300 newtons, and you can get $500 or $600,600 out of the IRS. No, $1,500. $1,500. $1,500, $1,700, yeah, yeah. Well, that's not the whole story, though, that the rope is tied to the tree.

The tree is pulling. And where you're losing, you're pushing. let's say, I don't know how long the rope is, but if you're deflecting it by five degrees, you're pushing maybe a couple of feet. Right, and it's moving a few inches. Exactly. So there's your mechanical advantage. It's like a pulley.

Oh. All right, one last question then. Yeah. What's a Newton? While we have you, should we ask him the other question, too? Yeah. How are things in the optics area for you? Oh, fine.

Somebody called us, I wrote to it. I don't remember him. Alan, some guy named Alan, because we got it up on our website. He said, every once in a while I walk along the street, and the sun is shining, and I see in rear windows of vehicles, a bunch of little dots. What are those dots, he said? And we said, with our typical great sense of physics knowledge, huh? We too have seen those dots. Sure.

You've probably seen them with polarite sunglasses. Well, I've discovered that if you turn your head, you can make them do funny things. Yeah, yeah. In fact, everyone should own a pair just to see these marvelous, marvelous patterns in the glass. Oh, so you know about this, too. The dots you're seeing is where they've stressed the glass. As you know, if you break the windshield, it shatters into zillions of pieces rather than big chunks that might fly. That I know about.

Yeah. Well, they do that by pre-stressing the glass. So glass, which is not under stress ordinarily, is a very what we call isotropic medium. It's like a liquid where all the molecules are facing in random directions. And when light goes through ordinary glass, nothing unique or special happens. But if you stress the glass, then you tend to align some of these molecules in certain directions. and that alignment is going to affect how the light passes through the glass.

Okay. Does your wife hate you? Can she get you to do anything around the house, or do you always talk your way out of it? I mean, if you know everything, you don't have to do much. Right. Well, hon, I mean, the force here is through it at Newton, but if I get up on that ladder and I would have to drop an apple,

it could crack the sidewalk and end the world. They set off a tremor, tsunamis. Oh, dear. It would be telegraphed to all the oceans in the world, and that would be it. Wolfgang, as always, you have bailed us out. You have enlightened not only us, but all of our seven listeners. Well, I hope so. You've used up your lifelines.

Hey, thanks a million for calling. Thank you. Bye, bye, bye, bye. Okay, I've had enough. I think we should take a break. If you've had enough, then you know that both of our listeners bailed out at least 10, 15 minutes ago. Ha, we're back. You're listening to Carlin.

talk with us, click and collect the Tapper Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, end of the new, uh, jeez, I don't know what I want to say. Semi-onomotive, quasi-automotive, non-automotive? Non-semi-quasi, yeah. Yeah. A new puzzler. Yeah. Here it is.

In the, uh, the little Asian country of Tuvaniska, you know, Tuvaniska? Of course. Been there very, very many times. That's where, that's where, uh, Richard Feynman went to collect stamps. Yeah. I think. It just so happens that there are two towns a few miles apart on either side of the mountain. And we'll call these towns Abba and Bubba.

So Abba is on one side. There are only a few miles apart, but the mountains in between. There you go. I got it. Okay. Mountain, Abba, I'm drawing a picture and Bubba. Okay. And the preferred footwear in this region is the combat boot.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Do we need a pencil for this? You need it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Hi, we're back. Get a pencil

Get a pencil, yeah So the first town is Abba and the other town is Baba There are 20,000 people who live in Abba Yeah Okay And one percent of them

Okay Has one foot only And as such they wear what One boot On the other foot On the foot Yeah The remaining people in the town

Half of them Wear no boots at all They go barefoot Oh man Okay Got it Okay And the rest of the

people wear two boots like you do. Okay. Yeah. All right. Now you can go and figure out how many boots there are in Abba. I can do that. You can do that. I would be able to do that. Okay. Now let's go to Bubba. Bubba. Okay. How many people live there? That's what you're going to tell me. Ah, that's X. In Bubba, 20% of the people have one foot. We don't know what happened. It was a mining accident. Of the remaining people, half of them wear no boots. Yeah. And half of them wear boots.

Two boots. Two boots. There are 20,000 boots worn in Baba. Wow. Oh, yeah. What's the population of Bubba? That's a fascinating puzzler. Let's just summarize it again.

20,000 people live in Abba. Let me see if I got it. 1% of them have only one foot. That's right. And they wear a boot on that foot. You would think so. Yeah. Right.

Right. Of the remaining people, half of them... Half of the remaining people wear no boots. They wear no boots. And the other half wear two boots. There you go. And in Bubba, we don't know how many people lived there. X people lived there.

But 20% of them, due to that industrial accident, have only one foot. Half of the remaining people wear no boots. and the other half wear two boots. And in Bubba, there are 20,000 boots altogether. That's right.

What is the population of Bubba? Not Baba. Baba. Baba. Oh, Baba. I thought it was Bubba. Like in Bubba shot the jukebox?

Oh, Baba. Baba. Baba. As in Ali Baba. Yeah. Now, if you think you know the answer, write it on a postcard or carve it into a

60-foot flowering stuartia. Japanese stuartia. Oh, okay, if that's what you want. With nicely exfoliating bark and ship it to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt 02238. Or you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. By the way, I should add, not only what is the population of Bubba.

but why why? Yeah also you can call 1888 car talk then I have the answer yes of course

888 227 8255 hello you're on car talk hi this is Michelle calling from Spokane Washington hi Michelle hi Michelle

how are you oh couldn't be better good what's up well I have sort of a general almost philosophical question to pose to you I'm wondering if

$170 can never be too much to spend on a vehicle. Well, I defer to my brother in all questions philosophical, because he is taking the home philosopher king study course. Well, my husband and I, who I might mention, I just married recently, decided that we needed a second vehicle, or both in school full-time and working full-time, and it just was getting too much to shuttle each other around. So we set the sort of arbitrary budget of $500 to spend on,

on our car. To buy the car? Well, yeah, and so a lot of people sort of laughed at us. Ha-ha, you'll never get a car that runs for $500. And I kind of left it up to Sean because he is the one who's going to be driving it. And kind of let it go. And he called me at my work the other day and said, I got it.

I got a truck for $170. And I said, wow, a truck. What kind of truck? And he said, a Dotson-74 pickup, which happens to be my dream car. Whoa. Yeah. And I said, well, you know, what's wrong with it? and he said, well, it's missing a back window, and that's really it.

And so I kind of spent the day kind of psyched thinking, wow, you know, maybe this will be good, $170,000 only need the back window. So I went home and I sort of approached the truck, and as I peered in the broken out back window, I noted that among other things, there's a sort of this huge group of wires kind of just stuck together with the twisty in the middle of the truck. Oh, yeah, yeah, well, you can't worry about that. And that the... What Sean looked like by? I hate to interrupt you. What Sean looked like?

Well, kind of short and stocky and has red hair. He looks kind of Irish, actually. You know, I was just curious. I mean, if a 74 Dotson is your dream car. Just curious what your dream guy looks like. How bet you weren't even born in 1974? Actually, that's when I was born. Ah.

So that has something to do with it? Well, no, it's actually, I grew up in Ohio, and I went to school in Chicago. And until I was 21, I never went west of Chicago. And then, you know, when I was in college, I took all these environmental policy classes, and I sort of got this sort of idealized vision of what the West would be like, and I really wanted to move west and sort of live that carefree lifestyle that these Westerners live. And I always sort of envision myself, like, kicking around in my 74 dots with my cowboy boots. Wow, this is fate.

A dream come true. Yeah, well, it is. So there's a bunch of wires hanging down. Well, that's not all. That's not all. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead.

I'm standing there, and he's putting on the new gas cap, because he says, you know, it didn't come with one, and that's an overrated car part anyway. Gas cap? It's like worrying about the curtains on the Titanic. You've got a hundred and seven-hour-old time bomb here. You worried about the gas cap? Well, and then I noticed that it doesn't have seatbelts,

and he says, oh, it might need new brakes, a new engine, and a new clutch. And I said, uh-huh. And then the thing that is most alarming to me, which may not be alarming to anyone except for me, because I'm kind of neurotic, As I notice, as I'm looking at the conglomeration of wires in the middle of the thing, that there's sort of light peering up at me through the floor of the vehicle.

And there's a whole bunch of holes in it. And Sean says, oh, I'm just going to put a metal plate over that. I have to say, before we discuss the individual issues here, that Sean is a man after my own heart. I mean... Well, mine too, I guess. I guess so. But, I mean, the truth of the matter is that this sounds like a...

great vehicles. Man. Jesus. I love it already. Every one of my brother's cars has been rescued from the scrap heap.

I mean, he's been at the 11th hour. He's been there staying the hand of the guy about to throw the switch on the crusher. And what's nice

about this is only you can drive it. There will be no one that you're loaning the car. You can borrow your car. You're right.

Well, okay, you take these two wires and you wind them up together, and then you touch this wire to the metal part of the dashboard. And then you stand back because there might be a small explosion, but the thing will usually start then. It will usually start. And only you know, and it's sort of like this camaraderie thing, you know, this sense

of oneness that you have with the vehicle, because nobody understands it but you. Yes. And Sean is looking for that. Junkerottery. Junkerottery, right. So, I mean, the holes in the floor, as long as it's not part of the structural integrity, I would say Sean's approach of putting a metal plate down there is I've had many a car with metal plates. Sometimes you can just rug it.

Well, that's the thing. If the holes aren't big enough to fall through. Right. I was a place to pick the rug up. No, you don't ever take the rug up. When the rug gets real wet. You put another one over it. Put another one over.

the cab gets smaller and smaller. And the engine and the clutch junkyard. You know, you go to the junkyard, you'll buy the whole thing, engine, clutch, all together, a few hundred bucks. Breaks, you're going to have to spend money to fix. And the other thing, I can't read my writing, but it ends with an S. Vines, it looks like, wines. Wires, wires.

We already discussed the wires. So I would say that this, this, This could be the car of everybody's dreams. Really? Yeah. We try to show a little excitement. Really? That was beautifully set.

You've changed your tone dramatically. This was the car of your dreams, and unfortunately it's gotten a bit tarnished. Well, yeah, now it's in my backyard, so I'm not sure if it is the car of my dreams anymore. Well, I mean, how far does he have to drive? Well, that's the thing. I mean, he only needs to drive about five miles to and from work and school. Yeah. But, you know, I don't want to have to be, you know, going to pick him up everywhere when the thing stalls on the side of the road.

Yeah. Yeah, I think we have a dream that it's going to turn out to be this great, you know, clean running, long-term vehicle. Well, it is not going to be that, and it is going to break down, and that's what life is all about. Okay. And it will bond you two together. Oh, man. It will. It will.

I mean, it's bad for couples to have things go well all the time. Out of adversity, gross strength. Okay. And buy a rope. So you can hang him in a jab. Michelle, it's a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you.

And give my very best to Sean and tell him that if he ever needs any advice, he can come to my house and we can talk about it. Okay, thank you. See you later. Come by. The very fact that the guy showed up. You know, he must have seen the ad somewhere.

truck, $170.70. He goes to see it. Oh, he might have wanted a grain. He might have chisle him down to $170. He might have wanted $200. You wouldn't ask for $1.70. No, you wouldn't ask for $1.70. That was a funny number. Yeah, $200 is probably. Sure. And the very fact that he went there and wasn't disgusted when he saw what he saw, because he saw what Michelle saw. And he said, great. Reminds of the time my wife and I were driving out on it. We were taking a Sunday drive. We're driving out in the country someplace and we come upon a yard sale or some

such thing and this prominently displayed in the front of the yard is the ugliest hutch kind of thing that you could ever imagine. And the guy is asking a ridiculous price for it of like $200. And at the time

we had a Dodge van, one of those big vans. I remember it well with the engine between the seats and of course it was just ideal for picking up junk like this. And my wife says, oh, we have to buy it. And I look at it and I say, 200 bucks, this is out of the question. And I say to the fellow, how much do you really want for it? And he says, oh, 200 bucks, I'm firm.

And I think, thank God. All I have in my pocket is 35 bucks. And I tell him that. He says, I'll take it. No. And I spent the next two years of my life stripping that thing and then finally throwing it out anyway. It's happened again. you've laid waste to one other perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk.

Our esteemed producer is Doug the subway fugitive, not a slave to fashion, pumpkin lips, Berman. Our associate producers are Louis Cronin, the Barbarian, and David Purchase Low Ball Offer and still no sale green. Our engineer is Tad Shrimp Curry. Our senior where black is Doug the old gray mayor and our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor, just back from the short-putters lunch line at the Sydney Olympic Village is John Bugsy Lawler.

Our public opinion pollster is Paul Merkey of Merkey Research, assisted by statistician Margin O'era. Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzov. Our director of new product repair is warranty my foot. Our shop foreman is Luke Busy, and our director of Firestone Tire Recall's is Ivana Michelin. Our pseudonym consultant is Norm Diplum. Our divorce attorney is Carmine, not yours.

Our appointment secretary is too early. Our Russian chauffeur is peek-off and drop-off. The banker at Cartock Plaza Pokey Games is Nikolai put in, and our seat pushing tester is Mike Easter, our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheatham and Howe is U. Lewis Dewey, known to the trust of ferry and panhandlers in Harvard Square as Ui Louie Dewey. Thanks so much to listening. We're clicking clock to Tappert Brothers, and don't drive like my brother.

Don't drive like my brother. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. Car Talk is a production of Dewey Cheaterman Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though the U.S. Olympians don their Team Romania outfits, whatever they hear us say it, This is NPR National Public Radio.