The Best of Car Talk - #2645: Stink Bug

Episode Date: June 6, 2026

Ashley called us to say that when she takes long trips in her ’74 Volkswagen Bug she feels nauseous and has trouble staying awake. Sounds like a drive with Click and Clack after a chili dinner, but could this be more serious? Find out 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 two zeros in zero-zero campaign headquarters here at Car Talk Plaza. Some of you may know that Tommy and I are running for co-president this year on the Fondue party ticket. And if we win, we've already... I thought it was Halloween party. And if we win, we've already announced that my brother's going to take Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I'll be president on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

so I can immediately overturn everything he does. Anyway, before you make up your minds and head into the voting booths, we thought you might want to hear one of the things that my brother will be promoting during his three days a week. Oh, you're not in, you're not a party to this? Oh, no, no, no, really, no. Okay, here we go then. This is one of our initiatives.

It's called the Vehicle Reliability Reduction Program, also known as Cars Absolutely Stink. Don't sugar. Don't sugar coat it, man. The people want the truth. They can't handle the truth, but they want it. Has anything in the past century torn asunder the social fabric of this great nation more

than the automobile? Just look at the cost of the modern automobile. It's the source of more pollution than anything else on the planet. It's the cause of 40,000 deaths a year, road rage, and Ricardo Montelban TV. To be fair, the industry has given us a couple of interesting things, you know, convenient transportation, cup holders, and, of course, enriched the lives of countless mechanics.

You ain't kidding. Yes, they have. All right, faced with this enemy to the American public, what have our leaders done? They've done squat. Worse than squat, they've actually built more roads. I mean, they make it even worse. Now, we are going to change all that. A Maliazzi-Malyahti administration is going to dramatically reduce the role of the automobile

in American public life as we know it today. What you mean we, Kim Mosemi. And how are we going to do this? Here it is. This plan consists of five components. Five. Oh, like in your MG. No, that's how many fingers I happen to have on this hand.

First, a gradual phase-out of Japanese. Japanese cars. We mean by gradual, we're going to give it like 90 days. These cars are way too reliable. Whoever heard of a car that will go for 100,000 miles without anything. I mean, that's ridiculous. So Japanese cars will gradually be phased out. Step B, the immediate importation of more Italian, French, and Yugoslavian vehicles. These cars are temperamental. They are prone to malfunction at inopportune times. And best to of all, parts are practically impossible to find. Step Roman numeral three.

There isn't any three. We missed three. We wanted to use five because that's how many fingers we had, so we had to, like, slip the one in the middle that we didn't have anything for. Three is coming. Roman numeral four. As a nation, we'll get so frustrated with our cars that we will once again use public transportation, which by comparison will seem reliable.

and comfortable. Number five. Theemed public transportation. Ah, yes. Now, see, you may be in on this because this was your idea. Well, I may have to line item, veto some of these things. Themed public transportation. Imagine stepping onto the Bart, the Metro, the T, or anything else,

and find yourself in front of a butcher block counter with Julia Child, caramelizing breast of quail. Or stepping aboard the Starbucks slash Arturo Fuente car. and enjoying a Camponchino and a Stogi on the way home after work. You get the idea, cars would return to their rightful place rusting in people's backyards, and when they did run, we'd all be pleasantly surprised. Skies would clear up. You could ride your bike to work without having to worry about getting hit by a soccer mom in an excursion, and you would enjoy a glimpse of the latest lingerie fashions from Victoria's Secret or Chippendales on the way home from work.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, we thought so, and that's not all. there is one final benefit to this program. If we could eliminate cars, we could eliminate car talk. And no one can doubt that the end of car talk would be a good thing for NPR, public broadcasting, and our nation.

If not, the entire world, I rest my case. Here, here. Woo-hoo! We are a shoe-in. Boy, you got my vote, man. Well, if you'd like to complain about cars in general or your car in particular... Or car talk.

Or car talk, by all means, and give us a call at 888. 8888. Car Talk, that's 888-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Ashley from Kent Washington. Hi, Ashley. Ashley with an E-N-T-E-N there? Just L-E-Y. Yeah.

Oh, really? I was going to go for the E-E-I-G-H. Oh, that would have been good. So what's happening, Ashley? Well, I have a very cute Volkswagen-74 Super Beetle that I absolutely love. The problem is that winter is coming, and I have a little problem with carbon monoxide in my car. Yeah, because your heater boxes are rotted through. Yeah, you know, and I had that checked out. In fact, I had a new one placed in there, and still the carbon monoxide was very high.

I actually had it tested out. And you know you have carbon monoxide in the passenger compartment because someone has tested it with an emissions tester. Oh, yes. know that it had passed emissions and all that kind of stuff, but... Well, sure, there's no emissions coming out of the tailpipe. Passing the compartment. No, I actually, after spending two hours in my car and a little trip, after I got out about ten minutes later, I passed down.

Really? Yeah. And driving back, I got the same kind of symptoms as I did before with the headaches and all that kind of stuff and realized that that's exactly what it was. And then I actually had, you know, those carbon-and-oxide testers that you would put in an aircraft, a small aircraft? Yeah. Well, my wife bought one of those because she was convinced

that my brain cells were disappearing. And she found out they were, but it wasn't due to the carbon monoxide poisoning. Yeah. Yeah, so you got it. Well, there are only two ways that carbon monoxide can get into your car. Okay. Into this car. One is through the heat exchanger system.

Okay. And you can disconnect that where the heater boxes attach to the ducts underneath the car. There are two flexible pipes or hoses that connect. You can take those right off and you can plug up the ductwork with something like duct tape at the chassis end, which prevents the intrusion of anything into the engine, into the passenger compartment. Okay. It doesn't mean that carbon monoxide can't be getting in some other way. Like holes in the floor, open windows, and all that stuff.

Okay. Or cracks in the chassis or whatever, in a car this age could have any of those things wrong with it. Right. What you've got to do is divide and conquer here. Okay. So what you've got to do is take the heating system out of the picture. Okay. So you want to shut that thing up completely and then measure the carbon monoxide level.

If it, in fact, is down to zero, which it should be, or close to it. Right. Then, in fact, you know that that's the problem. If not, then you just junk the car. Okay. But it will probably knock it down to zero, though. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you're prepared to junk the car, aren't you?

She loves it. I'm not quite prepared to do that. Another few weeks we'll be able to junk it for you, and you won't even know. This is one of those, your money or your life situations. That's right. That's right. But I'm pretty sure that most of it will be gone when you plug up everything. Okay.

And good luck. And in the meantime, I mean, either don't drive the car or if you do. And I'm hesitant to say drive with the windows open because the carbon monoxide will get in and it will stay there. Okay. And I don't think I would want to drive this much at all. Okay. And don't be afraid to junk it.

Okay. All right? Hey, thank you. See, Ashley. Okay. Bye-bye. Okay, Tommy. Do you remember last week's puzzler?

No. Yeah, yeah, I do. I do. It had to do with domicile envy. I don't think you've discussed that on NPR. Oh, we can't. And we shall. Hi, we're back.

You're listening to Car Talk with us. Click and Collect the Tappert Brothers. and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and the answer to last week's puzzler. Which I don't remember at all, to be honest with you. You said you remembered it. I was lying. Anyway, this puzzler came from my fewest number of moves series.

Oh, that's... That crazy little thing. No, it is. I thought this was a great puzzle. It was sent in by Bruce Robinson, who's a professor at the University of Tennessee. Anyway, here it is. There are 25 jealous people who live on one floor

of a very strange apartment building. On this floor are 25 apartments laid out in a 5 by 5 grid. Yeah. Got it? So if you draw this grid, the square in the upper left hand corner we could say is 1,

and the one next to it is 2, 3, 4, 5, and then the line below that is 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, right, all the way to 25. I got it. Got it? Right, got it, that, got it, that. Now, each person who lives on the floor aspires to move into the apartment

of one of his adjacent neighbors. So number one can move to square. number two or number six, for example. But not diagonally. Not diagonally. Number two can move to number one. Number three or number seven. There you go.

I can visualize all that. So here's the question. Why would anyone live in such? No, the question is, what is the fewest number of total moves that will allow every person to move to an adjacent square? All right. I know Doug Mayor has been, did you get the answer, Mayor? He says, no, I didn't get the answer.

Well, unincumbered by the thought process, I concluded right away when you gave this problem. You had to be one or zero, right? The answer was either going to be 26 or millions. Well, millions is closer. Millions is closer. If you don't number them one through 25, but instead letter them. Yeah. And not A, B, C, D.E.

Let's letter the first one A, the next one B. The next one, A. The next one B. etc. All, all. Then everyone who's on an A square must, by definition, move to what? A B square.

Right? And everyone who's on a B square must move to an A square. It's pretty obvious if you draw it out. Yeah, that's true. Now, if you add them up by some stroke of bad luck, you've got 13 A squares

and only 12 B squares. Someone's got to move out of the building. They're going to evict somebody. So there are no fewest number of moves. It is impossible for this to happen. I know it was a little sneaky. No, impossible is a good answer. Impossible is a good number of moves.

So who's our winner anyway? That's very good, you know? I like that question. Well, you're going to love this week's a few. Yeah. Poor man just threw a wastebasket at me. He was up to 26,215 moves, and he almost had it. The winner is Martha Lozano from Richmond, Virginia.

Richmond, Virginia. Good work, Martha. And for having her answer selected at random from both of the correct answers that we got, Martha is going to get a $25 gift certificate to the store at the Cart Talk section of Cars.com. And with that $25, she can buy the better part of a Card Talk CD gift set. What's the better part? The carry-in case. Actually, that's the best part.

And by the way, if you'd like to learn more about any of the... the status lowering items that we mentioned on the show, you can always visit the store at the cart talk section of cars.com yourself, or you can call 888 card junk, and this is known as shameless commerce, what we just did. We gave the name. We told people they could go buy stuff, and we told them how to buy it. You're ashamed that you did that?

No. Not really, no. We have a new puzzler coming up in the third half of today's show. It is not automotive, but it is locomotive, uh, folkloric, historic, and, uh, Locomotive.

Locomotive in nature. It's like crazy cars. Kind of. Anyway, if you'd like to call us, the number is 888 Car Talk. That's 888-2255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Christian Spencer in Oxford, Ohio. Christian.

Oxford, Ohio. Home of Miami University. Oh, yes. I think I knew that. No, wow. After what or whom is Miami University named, and didn't they know there was going to be a problem? Actually, Miami University was founded way before Florida was.

Oh, I don't think so. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's true, actually. Come on the oldest city in the country. 1807, I believe. In 2007, Miami was named after the Indian tribe that used to live here in Southwest Ohio. Oh, really? Oh, and they went to Florida for the summer. And they loved it so much.

They changed the name of the tribe, the Miamians. Yeah, I just graduated, so. Oh, so that's your alma mater. Yeah. What's your major in? Interdisciplinary studies. Ptsintern. Is that included?

Do you want fries with that? What is interdisciplinary studies? Interdisciplinary studies is just the code word for pretty much creating your own major. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. So which McDonald's you're working at? Actually, I'm working at a pizza place. I'm way too qualified to handle fries. So they had to put me on dough.

Good man. No, actually, that's the best way to get an education. And you'll probably never have your hands on that much dough over again in your life. With a certain uncertainty, you might say. A certain uncertainty. So anyway, so what's the... So what kind of a 1976 Chevy do you all? Actually, I own a 1988 Suzuki Samurai, the five-speed hardtop car.

You know the samurai. Oh, of course. Doesn't everyone? About a month and a half ago, I started having this little problem with the clutch. Now, I bought it five years ago, and I put about 60,000 miles on. It had very little problems with it. I've done almost every repair on it myself. Good.

But I started having this problem where when I would shift gears, the clutch would start to be a little hard, not the clutch, not the pedal, but shifting the gear shift. Be a little sticky, a little hard to get into gear. Eventually, this turned into a situation where I'd have to apply about five. 500 pounds of pressure to move the gear shift. Oh, really? Yeah. Only when the engine was running, however.

Only when the engine was running. Right. And only once it got good and warm. And this happens in all gears or just first gear? It happens in first and second, then eventually third and fourth and fifth. Oh, until it just won't go into any gear. Yeah, eventually. When you say you have to put a lot of force to make it move, while you're doing that, is it grinding

away or not? Only when I put in reverse. Every other time it didn't do it. But I talked to all my mechanic and a couple other people, and they said my clutch was probably about to go out because it hadn't been replaced in five years. That was what they were just like, your clutch is probably about to die. And they were right. A week later, the clutch went. And after being stranded on a not-so-friendly street, I got it towed, and I got the standard three-part clutch assembly put into it by a friend of mine who's a mechanic.

Sure enough, I get it back the next day, and it's the same thing happens. It's the exact same problem, but he goes to Florida. Miami, right? Miami, maybe. Now, when you say that the mechanics told you that the clutch was ready to go, and indeed the clutch went, what does that mean? What do you mean it went? Where did it went?

Well, it just stopped working. In what way? And R.A. wasn't working. Or it appeared to the up here. It just like the pedal went down, never came back. Oh, all. So the pedal went down to the floor, stayed there. Well, pretty much. It popped up

a little bit more, and then, like, it was all rubbery. There was nothing to the clutch. Like, the car wouldn't start. You couldn't push it down. It was gone. All right. Does this have a hydraulic clutch or a cable clutch? It has a... I'm pretty sure it has a hydraulic clutch. Good. Because

if it didn't... We wouldn't have any answer. We would have been hanging up on you. No, no, we would have had. I had a backup answer. I have a backup answer. I have a backup answer. I had a backup answer for the cable. I think I think what happened is your clutch master cylinder failed. The day that the pedal went to the floor, what you didn't need was a clutch. No.

What you really needed was a clutch master. Either the thing had run out of fluid. No, we checked that. Well, or it wasn't pumping. But in any event, I bet when your friend put the new clutch in, he had to bleed the thing too to get it to work correctly. And then as it heats up and the bore of the thing expands, the clutch of the bore of the master cylinder expands,

The clutch master cylinder is less able to provide the requisite pressure to disengage the clutch. And that's why you have to lean on that handle, the shifter, that is, to shift it. Okay. So I would recommend you change the clutch master and the slave. And the slave? Yeah, they're cheap enough. And you can do this yourself if you've done all the other work on the vehicle. Okay, well, I'll give it a shot.

Okay. And this will fix it. It's a guarantee. Okay. It'll never run again. You'll never deliver another piece. See you, Christian. I'll see it at McDonald's.

Good luck, ma'am. We'll be right back with more calls and the new Puzzler, right after these messages. Ha, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack to Tappert Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and the new, what did I say? Locomotive. Locomotive. Puzzler. Man, there's nothing to do with trains.

That's why I thought. I didn't. Yeah, you know that. It has to do with crazy cars. Locomotive. Oh, no, geez. Does it? No.

Yeah. Okay. As Chico Marx was formed, saying, I'd like to play one of my own numbers now by Victor Herbert. So I'd like to give you this puzzler in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Oh.

So pay attention. I'd like everyone to close his eyes or her eyes. And imagine. Relax. Yeah. Okay. Imagine yourself in the English countryside. I'm there.

You're feeling very sleepy. And if you're lucky when you wake up, the puzzle will be all over. You'll have missed it. I'm there, man. I'm on the English countryside. I'm riding in the dog cart. Yes. It seems there had been a terrible accident.

In a suburb north of London, and Inspector La Strade had been sent to investigate. Sir Richard Ashcroft was dead, and everyone agreed that it was an accident. Although some suspected it was a suicide. There were all the problems that Sir Richard had had, you know, with the non-existent copper mines in Chile and that thing with the Viceroy's granddaughter. But we all get into that. Anyway, he'd been found on a rocky slope.

His head dashed against one of the boulders and his mangled bicycle at his side. The facts seemed to speak for themselves. He had lost control of his bike and it crashed. There had been no eyewitnesses. But finally, an eyewitness emerged. Nigel, Sir Richard's trusted Gardner of many years. Yeah, yeah. You're paying a check?

Now, there are lots of facts here that are going to obfuscate the things. We knew that. You did? That's unnecessary. Unnecessary to state that. And then there are some important pieces of information. Nigel. Nigel appears.

So shocked by Sir Richard's death, he had been unable to speak for several days. Ultimately, he told his story. I was walking back from town up that long hill leading to Sir Richard's estate when I saw him riding toward me, sitting straight up in his seat the way he always rode. And he was traveling at a high rate of speed. The Brits always say that high rate of speed, even though he knows. Yeah, dirty. When suddenly, he jerked the handlebars to the left and off the road he flew. to his death.

Lestrade asks, why didn't you come forward earlier? He said, I didn't come forward because Sir Richard told me he was taking his own life. And he didn't want to shame the family. Wow. And I decided to keep his secret, but I could not keep it any longer. I had to tell the truth about it. I saw Sir Richard take his own life by flying down this road. jerking the handlebars of his bicycle to the left.

I've got it. Going off the road to the left, crashing into a rock and ending his life. Later that day, Lestrade is discussing the points of the case with his buddy, Sherlock Holmes over Cognac and Arturo Fuentes. And Holmes says, bring the gardener in for questioning. He did the perpetrator. How did he know? Now, if you think you know the answer, write it on a postcard or floated inside a fully assembled Paltzar whirlpool bath with built-in armrest or contort to a teak bench seat, magic touch controls and six turbo-powered jets.

And send it to. Musler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt 02238. Or, of course, you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. 1-88-car talk. That's 8-8-8-8-8-8-8-2-8-25-5. Hello, you're on Car Talk.

Hello, my name is Camille, and I drive a 97-volvegon golf. Hi, Camille. A golf. And is a golf a chick car or a guy car? Well, I'm a chick. You're a chick, and you bought it. Yeah. Did you buy it for its appearance?

No, I brought it for its practicality. I really wanted a bug, but I couldn't afford the new Beatles. Yeah, well, you reminded... The new Beatles definitely a chick car. Oh, yeah. I mean, the fact that you drive a golf reminds me that on the website and show, we discussed the fact that there are some cars, we think, which are known to be chick cars, and some cars that are guy cars.

And, in fact, the very example we used was the golf, because a friend of ours was buying a car for his son, and the son decides to buy a golf. and he goes out and he tests drives it and he loves it. And he happens to mention to his buddy the next day, hey, I'm getting a new golf. And then his buddy says, you can't buy a golf. A golf is a chick car. And he practically broke down in tears, canceled the whole deal, and ran out and bought a pickup truck or something. And so our question was and is now, we want nominations from people.

What are chick cars? which specific cars are chick cars and which cars are guy cars and what's the rationale behind it? What makes a golf, a chick car? I mean, you bought one and it's a very common car and our producer Doug Berman had one.

No, I am. Two of them, I think. But that's another topic for another show. And not anything wrong with it, he's very neat. And he's over 30. I don't drive a slave to fashion car. So anyway, what's the matter with your golf? Well, it has this very strange problem.

It started one morning when I was driving to the airport very early, and I turned the car on, and I noticed that the brake lights stayed on as if I had left the emergency brake on. But I don't use the emergency brake, so it wasn't on. Where are you from, by the way? Did you tell us? I'm from Philadelphia. Okay. At the same time, the blower wasn't working on the defrost, air conditioning, that whole unit.

I had no electricity on that as well as on the windshield wipers. Got it. Of course, this is on a rainy morning that I discover this. Lummer. Yeah. Well, how else would you discover it? Turn on the windshield weapon if the sun is out. Right.

But the radio worked, didn't it, to me? The radio worked and the sunroof still worked. And I did test it in the rain. Good for you. And this seemed bad and sort of disconcerning, but of course I'm just going to drive it because these didn't seem like major problems. And then I had to press the clutch in. And now the clutch was in when I started the car, and there wasn't any kind of strange sound. But on subsequent pressing of the clutches, it made this god-awful sound.

Grinding sound. Yeah, as if something wasn't engaged, kind of a like, ah-kind of sound. Were you driving near a power plant at the time? Were there any unusual abductions in the area? Philadelphia. Here's the only... Oh, Philadelphia Experiment. Of course, you know about the Philadelphia experiment.

Actually, no. Oh, Camille. We're playing to have an entire show in it soon, so stay tuned for that. An entire battleship disappeared in Philadelphia. Disappeared. Are you just playing with me? No, we're not. No, no.

There are books written on the subject. It's very hush-hush. And now it's just between you, us, and the CIA. And a few million other people who may be listening. Anyway, what happened to your car happens, interestingly enough, to a lot of Volkswagen's, but no other cars. Yeah, this is a very strange thing. And what happened is your ignition key did not return all the way from the crank position to the run position. You know, when you start the car, you stick the key.

key in the hole, you turn the key, the starter motor engages the flywheel and makes that and the thing starts. And you let go of the key. When you let go of the key, there is a spring in there, in the ignition lock that will flip the key from the crank position, which is the all the way clockwise position, to what's called the engine run position. You familiar with this whole phenomenon? So far.

So what's happening in your car is... What you may not know, though, is that... most of the accessories will not work when the car is in the crank position. Right, like the headlights, the wipers, some of the dashlights will be on. The radio in this car will work, however, because the radio will work. It's not tied to the ignition key. Right. And I don't know about the sunroop, but I'm assuming the sunroop is not tied to the ignition key either.

Maybe for safety reasons. I don't know. In any event. Jump out. And the noise you heard was because the starter, motor, we're still trying to start the engine. Oh. So what you need to do is

nothing. Remove 500 of those keys from your key ring. Oh. Do you have a big fat set of keys hanging down? It's a reasonable size. Yeah. Well, that may have done it. But if nothing else, you just need to be cognizant of the position of that key.

Mm-hmm. You know, if you rely on yourself to turn the key back to the run position and make sure you've returned it. and didn't trust it to that little spring. I would fix it because, I mean, life is too short to have to remember stuff like that. It's hard enough to remember where you live. Take it to the dealer. Maybe it's covered by warranty.

No, see, it wouldn't because I bought it used. Take it anyway. It doesn't matter. Just because you bought it used doesn't mean it's not covered. Tell them you bought it new. Tell them you hit your head. You don't remember anything. Good luck, Camille.

Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Oh, boy. Why do we have to make it so complicated? We could have given her the answer like 25 minutes ago. Goodab. Burman says good have. We could have. All right.

1-888-car talk or 1-88-227-8-255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, my name is Katie, and I'm calling from Northampton Mass. Hi, Katie. Northampton Mass. Yeah. What's up, Kate? Well, I'm calling with a question about what car to sell.

So I got married this summer, and my husband and I each brought a sort of well-used car into the marriage. So he has an 87 Chevy Nova, and I have an 89 Volvo 240. And we actually just bought a new car because I have a very long commute to work. Oh, I see. What did you buy? Well, I got what the caroscope told me to get. A Dodge Colt Vista? No, that's not what the car was going to say.

I got a Volkswagen Beetle. Perfect. Well, I'll do respect. She'll never do what the caroscope suggests. Oh, well, it's too late. It was only fun in you. We're only fun in you there. You didn't, I hope other people are not taking it seriously.

I hope there were other factors involved in your decision. No, I thought we just needed to look at that. Well, okay. That's good. That works for you? Well, the beetle is a good choice, and the question now is which one do you dump? How many miles on each of them? Well, okay, so the Nova has about 100,000 miles,

and the Volvo has about 140,000 miles. And they're actually good reasons to get rid of either one, but it sort of is broken down where, of course, I don't want to get rid of my car, and my husband doesn't want to get rid of it. We don't ask us which one is yours. Yeah, we know the Volvo's yours. Yeah, I already told you.

Oh, you've already told you. Had I been paying attention? I was going to say, I guess the Volvo's. So, well, here's what the situation is with the Nova. Yeah. It actually, my husband bought it, I believe, from his parents used. And when they bought it, they believe in a very stripped-down version of cars. So it has no options.

What cheap skates, huh? Is he like that, too? A stripped-down kind of guy? He has a jizzler? I don't think I want to say that on the radio, no. Okay, no, no. Between you and us then. Well, and also, to be fair, then, I mean, his response to that is always, well, my daddy didn't buy me a Volvo.

Oh. Yeah. Okay. Oh, sure. So, the argument. So, to be fair, the argument for the NOVA is, it needs to be fixed a lot, but it's always cheap to fix. Yes, it is. A lot cheaper than that.

the Volvo. And you've had the Volvo for how long? I guess about seven years. And how has it been in the snows of North Hampton in the winter? Oh yeah, it doesn't drive very well in the snow, right? Because it's a rear-wheel drive. Right. And it's a Volvo. Right. It does very well in the snow if you leave it parked in the driveway, actually. Even without that, I was going to suggest to get rid of the Volvo. Anyway, after all, you bought a car, and so you're replacing your car. Well, right, except, of course, we bought the new car together. Well, I understand that. Come on. It was a community thing there. And your son, and your husband has kind of an emotional attachment to the Nova.

After all, it was his folks car. Right. And any time you take a trip, you'll be using the new car anyway. Well, that's what I would hope. So the Nova will be relegated to around town. Right. It will be adequate. It will be cheap to fix.

It won't be stolen. It won't be stolen. And it'll be his car. Okay. And I think that's the car you keep. All right. And the frightening thing is, I agree. with my brother completely.

Well, I don't know what that means. I don't know either, but trust me, it's frightening. Okay. But it's scary. Well, good luck, Katie. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thanks for your call.

All right, bye-bye. Bye. Well, it's happened again. You've disrespected another perfectly good hour by listening to Car Talk. It's not good to do that. Our esteemed producer is Doug the subway fugitive, not a slave to fashion, bongo boy, Berman. Our associate producers are Louis Crotonin the Barbarian, and David, it's so peaceful. on the Cape and the winter green.

Our engineer is Tad, shrimp curry. Our senior web lackey is Doug the Old Gray. What happened to Sheep Boy, Mayor? And our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor just back from the New York sub-shop series is John Bugsy Lawler. Our public opinion poster is Paul Murky of Merkey Research, assisted by statistician Marge and Overa.

Our customer care representative is Haywood Jabuzov, assisted by helpline coordinator, Kara Lott, Not. Our director of new product repair is warranty. foot. Our shop former is Luke Busy. Our new truck reviewer is the big new rig, and our director of Firestone Tire Recall is Ivana Michelin. Our pseudonym consultant is Norm De Plume. Our divorce attorney is Carmine Not Yours. Our bungee jumping instructor is Hugo First. The Car Talk travel agent is Lois Faire available. Our Russian chauffeur is Peecoff and Dropoff. And the banker at the Car Talk Plaza Poker Games is Nikolai Putin. And our seat cushion tester, of course, is Mike Easter.

Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheatheman Howe is U. Lewis Dewey, known to the Jimmy Hendrick Wannerbees in Harvard Square as Ui Louis Dewee. Thanks so much for listening. We're clicking clack to Tapit Brothers. Don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother. We'll be back next week.

We'll be back next week. Bye bye. Bye bye. Car Talk is a production of Dewey Cheatham & Howe and WBUR in Boston. And even though Martha Stewart jabs an extra nostril into her joccalant whenever she hears us say it, This is NPR National Public Radio.