The Best of Car Talk - #2665: A Laser-like Focus

Episode Date: August 15, 2026

Anne’s Subaru has fallen prey to several failures that exhibit a complex pattern of intricate and subtle symptoms that only a master mechanic with finely-tuned powers of concentration could ever possibly hope to diagnose over the phone. While we all wait for a master mechanic to show up, Click and Clack attempt to stay awake long enough to give it a shot on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. Car Talk's perks include full archive access, new call-in bonus episodes with Ray, and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.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 Tappertar Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the early childhood development division here at Caratuck Plaza, which, as you can probably guess, is run by my brother, since he's still in childhood development. This is interesting stuff I learned from six-year-old kids, and they say, honest to goodness, from an anonymous mother in Austin, Texas.

She's got a whole list of stuff that she's learned for our little kids. From her six-year-old kids? From some six-year-old kids. I guess her own, her very own. Here they are. Some of them are related to each other. A king-sized water bed holds enough water to fill a 2,000 square foot house about four inches deep. I know if you figured that one up.

I know if you figure that one out. If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42-pound boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20-by-20-foot room. This sounds like Dusty Chalk's brothers' kids. You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on. When using the ceiling fan as a bat,

you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball. baseball a long way. The glass in windows doesn't stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan. No matter how much jello you put in a swimming pool, you still cannot walk on water. Pool filters do not like jello. Always look in the oven before you turn it on. Plastic toys do not like ovens.

The fire department in Austin, Texas, has a five-minute response time. The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy. It will, however, make cats dizzy. Cats throw up twice their body weight when they're dizzy. You can just see a six-year-old kid doing, I love the Batman thing with the ceiling fan. I love it, too. I didn't know it didn't work. I was going to try it myself.

Oh, boy. Boy, it is reminiscent of our friend Dusty Chalk's brother. Yeah. Kenny. Kenny, who went to work one day and his twin boys decided to surprise him. Yeah. And as he walked home from the bus stop, they were in the driveway painting his car with brushes. With brushes and rollers.

Well, he may have said something about, I don't like the color of the car, and they were trying to do the guy a favor. You'd never know. Where are they now? Yeah, they're probably congressmen. Look, if you'd like to talk to some hundred-developed siblings and ask us questions about your car, our number is 8888-car talk. That's 8882-27825. Huh?

Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Sarah from Santa Cruz. What's going on? Well, I drive a 1993 Saturn, and my problem is that when I break, but only when I'm facing downhill, the car makes a noise that I can best describe by having you imagine the following. Two rocks the size of your fist in a Cuisinart makes two rotations before it dies. Kind of cr. And how long does the sound go on for?

Until the car has finished coming to a stop. So you're going down a, let's say you're going down a lengthy hill. Well, just, it doesn't have to be a steep hill. Right. Any hill will do. Any hill will do. And it's at the end of the... break. It doesn't appear until the car is within, say, five seconds of stopping.

But it sounds like it's coming from where? From the back? From the front of the car. That's good. Yeah. Good today, yeah. Did a call worker put you up to this? No. Some kind of a wager? No. But only when the car's warmed up, also, I forgot to ask. Sure, you might as well.

Let's draw that in. Does it only happen like on Tuesdays? No. And, of course, you've had the breaks checked, and someone has told you they're okay. No, I haven't done anything about it because it's intermittent. It really doesn't happen all the time. What do you do for a living? I'm an art historian.

Really? No kidding. Do you want fries with that? Are you actually engaged as an art historian? No, I'm writing my dissertation. Oh. Oh, you're going to be an unemployed art historian. Yet another unemployed.

I mean, can't you guys get the picture here? I mean, how many people are getting PhDs in art history? And there's only three jobs in the entire world. Right, if we'd only listen to your advice, we'd all be better off. Well, maybe not. I mean, maybe there's an intrinsic value to having a PhD in art history. But, I mean, for one thing, I know it has the value of we're evading the question that you were originally called with, and now we can rant and rate about our history.

It may seem like we're evading. But while we're talking, those wheels are turning. Right. No, I mean, do you have any hope of employment? Well, yes, I'd like to think I have hope of employment. Well, so did all the other thousands of people with the Ph.D. in our history think that. And they're all saying, do you want fries with that? Well, I do lord you, Sarah, for not pursuing money.

Oh, thank you. And even though you're probably driving a death trap and you don't know the answer. I have an answer. Has something come up while we were discussing our history? Excellent. Very, very good. Obviously, we would advise you to have someone look at your brakes because our answer could be entirely wrong.

But I think what may be happening, like lots of other cars in the road, this car has inner fender liners, which are made out of plastic. And it's possible. Oh, my brother's making that awful face like he forgot to take his face. PEPCO-Bismol. Oh, you kind of, go ahead. Well, don't forget, when the car is slowing down, especially going down a hill, the basic geometry changes.

And it could be that one of your front tires is touching the plastic fender liner and causing a and make an awful noise. It wouldn't affect how the car stopped. It would go away as soon as the motion ceased. It would go away as soon as you began to accelerate. and it would be intermittent because it would depend on how hard you were decelerating

maybe the steepness of the hill maybe whether you're turning the wheel slightly and it could be any of those things Of course she's already told us that it's not related to any of those things I know but I was hoping that maybe the listeners forgot But and again I mean not to play devil's advocate

but let's say I was going to do that something would have to be wrong for this to have happen. Well, that inner fendeliner's loose. For example, yeah, the inner fendaline that could be loose, or you might have bad ball joints. I would definitely have someone look at the front end. Okay. And not necessarily the brakes, but, you know, the ball joints, the thyroid ends, and all that stuff that holds wheels on and the holes that keeps the car from going. Yeah, I don't worry about that stuff, but you...

It's overrated. It's not important in Santa Cruz. And certainly have someone look at the brakes, but when they do it, you know, it's overrated. I don't know. do, have them examine the fender line is to see if, in fact, a tire isn't hitting. Okay. That is good, I have to say. That was good. Okay. Can we go now, Sarah?

Thank you. Hey, and how long before you get this degree? Probably within the next eight months or 12 months. What is your dissertation topic? Are you going to make fun of me? Of course. It's on portraits of women made by the 19th century French artist Angra and his students. five of his students.

Okay, we'll be moving right along now. Well, good luck. Thank you. I'm sure it's a worthy topic. You're going to write an entire dissertation on that, huh? Indeed. How famous is this guy that I never heard of? If you're studying the 19th century French art history,

he's one of the probably two biggest names you'll encounter. The other would be whole. Maybe Delacqua, David, at the beginning of the century. Oh, yeah, of course, yeah. Not the Wright brothers or anybody like that. No, not Charlie Chaplin, right? I'm a Robert Gordered. Okay, Sarah.

It's been a pleasure. And you're a good sport. And I hope your car problems are small. And we're serious about having the front end looked at. I will. And, of course, the break. See ya. Okay, bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Well, she could take a joke. It was with some considerable reluctance that she told us she was in art history. It wasn't it, though. I wonder why. Canada. I don't. It is the truth.

There seems to be no link between the real world. And it's nice. Well, it's wonderful. Artists in general have little of a link between the real world and themselves. And it's only right that art history should have the same lack of a link. Well, too many people do things, that is, things in life for just the money. Yeah. And like I said, I think it's wonderful that she knows she's always going to be broke.

She's always going to be broke, but she wants to know about art history. And those two obscure artists she was talking about. Okay, Tommy, look, are you ready? for your puzzler hints. I am ready. Ready to receive. These are filling the blanks. Remember in the last couple of weeks?

When your wife calls for you at Car Talk Plaza, you've instructed the receptionist to say, Tommy can't come to the phone right now. He's out of blank. His mind. Well, no, the building, actually. Out of the building, of course. I can see we're off to a good stuff.

Okay, here's the next one. Yeah. A picture of you sitting at your desk in a shirt and tie sweating over a pile of paperwork would be blank. That's simple. Photoshop. Well, probably. I was looking for incongruous.

Incongruous. Last week's puzzle was about a building and the incongruous sign on the front of it. 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 puzzler. And I know I'm going to get a bunch of letters about this. I just know I am. Why?

I think it was a great puzzler. Yeah, well, there's probably a hundred possible answers, and I only came up with, what? Two. You can't do it unless the number is two. I want that on my tombstone. Right next to it, I told them I wasn't feeling well. I told them I was sick.

Oh, God. Anyway, this is from my series of driving back and forth to work puzzlers. I work in our fair city, and to get home, I wind my way through the back streets of Cambridge, going through various neighborhoods. And one of the neighborhoods, there are industrial buildings, little factories or warehouses or office buildings and the like. And there's one of these buildings that I pass every day that always makes me chuckle. Hmm. On these buildings, as you might expect, they have the name of whatever enterprise is contained within. And when I see this building, I chuckle because the name of the building

seems incongruous or not to fit, that is, with the building. Yeah. Now, this building has four walls, windows, doors, or roof, and there's nothing particularly unique about it, but the sign on the building makes it unique and makes me chuckle. And here are some hints. These are good hints, too. If you went into this building and asked for a demonstration of the product they sell,

they wouldn't be able to give you one. However, if they took you to a building perhaps next door or a few doors down, they could easily give you a demonstration of the product they sell or maybe the product of their competitor. And I can safely say that each and every one of us has used this product that they sell, and some of us use this product every day. And finally, I guess I at there. There are two possible answers. You should have left that part out. I should have left that out. There are 2,000 possible answers.

And I only know two of them. That would be better. You know, that would keep you safe. I have two possible answers. Yeah, I thought of two possible answers, but there might be 2,000. Well, what's unique about this building is that it's a one-story building. That doesn't make it unique because there are many one-story buildings on this street. And the reason they can't demonstrate the product that they sell in this one-story building

is that they sell elevators. It is the ABC elevator company. And every time I say, I say, what a stupid building to have chosen. It's on Concord Avenue. And, of course, the other answer is they could be selling escalators. They could be selling escalators.

Or they could be selling drugs. Or any one of 1998, other things. Yeah. But I think I put enough conditions on it so that I narrowed it down to somewhere around 2,000 or so possible enterprises. Well, it would be interesting. I mean, if you have the other 1998 answers, hey, we're open. You can win a car talk mug, too.

So anyway, did we have a winner this week? The winner is Neil Judel from Waltham, Massachusetts, hey, right up the street. And for having... Probably works in this building. And for having his answers selected at random from the barrel full of correct answers that we got, Neil will get a $25 gift certificate to the shameless commerce division. Whoopey. And that's at the Car Talk section of Cars.com.

And with that $25 gift certificate, Neil can get a Best of Car Talk CD the early years. And the FTC wants us to add this disclaimer. When we say, best of, we mean such as it is. Indeed. I mean, after all, come on. Anyway, we'll have a new puzzler coming up in the third half of the show. I can't divulge any more than that because I don't.

Because I'm thinking of the audience. So stay tuned for that. In the meantime, if you have a question about your car or anything else, the number is 1-888-car talk. That's 888-227-8-255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Ann from Altoona, Pennsylvania. Altuna.

That's like West, right? That's like West of you. Not West of Minneapolis. Anyway, what's up? We have a 94 Subaru legacy wagon with 120,000 miles on it. And before I tell you what's wrong, I have to warn you that the people at the Subaru dealership now have no clue where to go from here. The people at Subaru Technical Support have no clue where to go from here. Everybody is stumped.

So as much as I hate to say it, you guys are probably my car's last hope. Otherwise? Otherwise, I don't think I have a car. Not a bad thing. Okay. Unless you live in Elton. I know right away. I don't know what the question is, but I know the answer.

Okay. You have a bad ground. I hope. Yeah. I like it. That's it. That's my answer. I'm sticking with it.

You're right. Go ahead. Go ahead, Ann. Okay. It started back in September, we were driving up a hill with the air conditioner on, and my son noticed a white mist coming in through the vents. I don't know what the question is, but I know one thing. What happens? The answer is not a bad way.

All right, white mist. Go ahead. So we were real close to the dealership, so we drove it into the dealership, and by then the car had drastically overheated. They changed the thermostat. A week later, the same thing happened, and this time the antifreece came in through the, came in on the floorboards of the car. So they changed the heater core. Duh, yeah. Okay, so two weeks later, my husband's driving the car, and he notices the white mist again.

the car's overheating. He goes to the dealership. The antifreeze pours out on the floor again, and they replace the heater core again, thinking that they had a defective heater core. So three weeks later, on Thanksgiving Day, we're traveling out of town. The white mist comes through the vents again. The car overheats. The anter freeze pours out on the floor. We just had the car towed back to the dealership, where they changed the heater core for the third time, flushed the radiator and said that the liquid that came out was milky white. They flushed it four times until it ran completely clear, replaced all the hoses, said that the substance, the residue in the hoses was white and flaky powdery when it dried, not oily. At that point they determined, or they think that this white stuff was what was clogging up the heater cores and causing them to destruct.

They put it, they pressure check the car. They said to rule out a head gasket. It was fine for three months, and then the white mist came back. The heater core shot again, and the radiator is full of the white stuff again. Any ideas? Oh, I'm sorry. I was carried away by the American. And how are you?

Is there something we can do for you? We have this car. And so the theory is that this white stuff, whatever it is, is rotting away the heater cores and has done so three times? And we'll do it in as short a time as three weeks? Well, no, when they completely flushed the coolant system, it took three months. But as far as you know, they have determined that the heater cores that they've taken out. Yes. Leak.

Yes, as far as I know. And their theory is that this white stuff is clogging the, I guess, the... See, but clogging would not cause the heater core to leak. If anything, the white stuff, whatever it is. would stop it from it. It might be corrosive to the heater core. For example, the radiator in this car may be made out of 94.

It's probably made out of copper and plastic. Okay. The heater core, on the other hand, may be made out of aluminum. So it's possible to have some agent in the cooling system that is corrosive to just one component. That would be the heater core.

White stuff. Have you been to Alamogordo, New Mexico, ever? No, and no one but the dealer has ever touched the radiator of the car. There's not a whole lot of places to get foreign cars worked on here. So they're the only ones we've ever taken it to. Well, I mean, the fact that they have flushed it out, and don't forget, every time the thing leaks

and it leaks the antifreeze all over the place, I mean, whatever was introduced into the cooling system had to have been so diluted by now that it can't possibly have the same effect on subsequent heat of cores as it did on the first one. Unless. Unless. Unless it's being produced by the engine.

There you go. And it's a bad head gasket. There you go. Now, we don't know what it is. Let's work on that for a minute. But I think the chemistry is way beyond us. No, it's not. This is where you get yourself in trouble.

You should just shut up and hang up right now and say, Ann, good luck. No, no, no. Let me think about it. We've got some simple chemistry here. We know we've got carbon, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide. It's making nitric acid.

There you go. Okay, good enough. See, and that's what it's doing. It's making nitric acid. Oh! And what we see, as everyone knows, who's taken basic, simple, first-year chemistry. Here's where the foot goes right down the old throat. Copper nitrate is a white powder.

It is? No, but wouldn't it be great if it was? It would be. That's it. It's forming copper nitrate. She hung up about 10 minutes ago. You know what you need? You need a head gasket.

Do you think? Wouldn't the white stuff be oily instead of powdery? That's what the dealer should think. No, copper nitrate is your basic salt. Okay. An acid and a base to form a salt and water. I mean, it's chemistry 101. Tell them to check the radiator for emissions.

Okay. What they want to do is check for the presence of combustion gases in the cooling. In the cooling system. And I'm going to guess that they're going to find that you need a head gasket. And I'm surprised that the big wigs at Subaru didn't think of this because it only took us 25 minutes to come up with it. Yeah, and these guys were working on it for months. But there were two of us. Two of us.

Each of us has half a brain. Yeah, but I do agree with my. brother that whatever it is, I think, is being manufactured by your engine. Okay. I don't like copper nitrate. No. I like copper carbonate. Really?

Carbonate sounds more white. Oh, like sodium bicarbonate. There you go. I need one, I think. And actually, what I really like is aluminum carbonate. That's even better. AL2-C-O-3. You know, they're going to call up and ask me a diploma back if you keep this stuff.

I think MIT is online, too. I love making up stuff. Yeah, we noticed. Well, look, we have no more time. The show's over, Ian. We wish you luck, and please. Please let us know. Don't ever call back.

No, let us know if... Yeah, I hope this helps. I will let you know. All righty. Okay. Bye-bye. Good luck. Okay, look, it's time for us to do...

What? You know, that thing we do a couple of times during every show. Oh, give a right answer? No, that's once every other show. It's time to take a short break, and we'll be back with a brand new scintillating puzzler in just a minute. Ha, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us.

Click and Clack the Tapper Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and the new puzzler. Look, no more chemistry. This was sent in by a guy named Joe Barron. Yeah, where's Joe from? The world. He's cyberspace.

Yeah. We don't know. But this is an interesting little puzzle. Hey, what the heck? Yeah. I've used lousy ones before. This might be no exception. Okay, go ahead.

He writes, My father, Max, at about age 65, still likes to mow his own lawn with a gasoline push mower. It's not self-propelled. It's the kind. Has an engine, of course. You know, you started up. The blade, during the... but you've got to slip it around.

And he's had the same Moor for like 20 years, and it's been great. Well, about a year or so ago, he noticed that the Moore was not getting very good gas mileage. In other words, the Moor was using much more gas than it used to per cut of the lawn. So, for example, if it took him a whole tank of gas to cut the lawn twice, now a whole tank of gas would only cut the lawn, say, one and a half times. You'd have to fill up in the middle of the second cut. So he knew something was wrong. Yeah.

So he takes it to the neighborhood small engine repair shop. And for about a hundred bucks, they replaced the spark plug, the spark plug wire, and a new air filter. And they probably did a few other things like cleaning the carburetor. Of course, for $4 more, could have bought a brand new lawnmower. But anyway, after all the repairs, he takes the new lawnmower home and he starts mowing the lawn with it as usual. But he notices after a while that the gas mileage has not changed. In fact, he's not back to his two cuts per tank. It's still one and a half cuts.

It's still one and a half and he's bumped out. And he wondered if there was something else that they should have replaced. And of course, you know that there isn't. The engine and the lawnmower are in perfect working order, the same as they were perhaps the day he bought the thing. These guys did nothing wrong, except charge him 100 bucks for a spark plug. But that's another story. And there's nothing that they overlooked. And the lawn isn't thicker than it used to be.

You might argue that, well, 20 years ago, he only had seven blades of grass. The lawn density is exactly the same as it's always been. Yeah. The question is, what's wrong? If you think you know the answer, write it on the postcard or on a Mead, LX-200 Schmidt-Castograin reflector telescope with computerized drive and an equatorial wedge. And mail it to Puzzler... You don't have enough of those yet! Oh, 10 inch.

Did I mention that? Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza. Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Oh, Our Fair City. Matt 02238, or you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of... Cars.com. If you'd like to call us right now or any time in the past, present, or future, the number is 1-888-8-8-8-8-8-2-2-7-8-25-a. A lawyer on Car Talk. Hi, my name is Dina, and I am from Lakeland, Florida.

D-I-N-A? E-E-N-A. I thought so. Oh, I wrote the, I wrote E-E, from Lakeland, Florida? Yes. Is Lakeland in the Lakeland? That's Minnesota, isn't it, Wisconsin? One of the lakes? There are a lot of lakes here, but it's around Orlando and Tampa.

Okay. Oh, yes. Anyway, Dina, what's on your mind today? Okay, well, I have a 93 Buick century, and I took it to the shop because it was making a horrible noise, and they tell me that my air compressor is shot, and what I need is a new air compressor, which is going to be about $500, and obviously I don't want to spend $500. So what I was wondering, as far as I know, the air compressor is just for making the air conditioning work, and I'm fine without having an air conditioner.

You are. You may be now. I'm going to college here in Florida, but I live in Ohio. Oh, so you'll be leaving Florida when the real hot weather comes. Oh, perfect. So the only other thing is, is I need to know if there's a way I can, and the only other reason you would need an air compressor is because the serpentine belt goes around that.

So I need to take the air compressor off and then reroute the serpentine belt, but I don't understand if that's possible or not. Well, it's not always possible in every car. I mean, that's one of the things I hate about these serpentine belts. I should explain what they are. Back in the old days, you had a fan belt, and then you had another belt for the power steering, and another belt for the air conditioner, another belt for the alternator. Sometimes one belt would run two things, but more often than not, you'd have one belt

dedicated to running each accessory. Then they came up with this great idea, because it saves space of having one belt run everything. So all these pulleys could now be in the same plane, which would allow them to put a bigger engine under the hood. The only problem is that when one thing breaks, you can't get it out of the circuit. Now what you have to do is go to someone who can either find you a belt that will allow you to bypass the air conditioner pulley, or you will have to take out the compressor and put in an idler pulley. But they do have something like that to replace the air compressor? Yeah, somebody will have something. Don't forget, they did make this car without air conditioning. You're never going to find one in

Florida, but you may find one in Ohio. Yeah. And you may be able to, in fact, get the pieces you need. And it might be that the belt that fits on the one without air conditioning will fit this if you take the air conditioning out of the loop. Okay. That would be real good. What you need to do is go to a part store and ask them if they have the belt for the same car but without AC. And then ask me if they have a picture of the belt routing diagram.

Okay. then you can just put this belt on. And for a hundred bucks, you'll be often running. We must better than 500 or 900. Good luck. How many more semesters do you have? One more semester after this one. What are you studying?

Church ministries with a concentration and communication. So you're going to be a preacher. Preacher? I don't know. We'll see. Going to be a preacher woman, maybe. Something like that. Well, we'll be looking for you on TV, Dina.

Say a prayer for us, Dina. All right, I will. See you. Good luck. Thanks, bye-bye. God knows we need. Oh, God, we need luck and prayers. 1-8-88-car talk or 1-88-227-8-255.

Hello, you're on car talk. Hey, this is Bob from Babylon. Bob from Babylon. I love your hanging gardens. People always come into the gardens and say, are they hanging, Bob? Okay. I'm sorry.

We're both sorry. We had a hard day. We haven't answered one question correctly, Paul. We ask us something simple. Well, who's going to save my life, probably? Go ahead. I've got small cars, a Saturn and Austin and a Capric androitable. The question of a big guy is coming toward me, and a head-on collision is unavoidable.

Yeah. Am I better off exhilarating when I see him or her coming toward me, or do youseles? But I heard that mass sort of increases with velocity, so maybe I should get him harder. Yeah. What you should be doing is praying. Yeah, well. Yeah. As if the guy is coming in a semi, there's nothing.

Well, unless you get your speed up to near the speed of light. Yeah. If you could do that, then your mass would be so much greater than his. Yeah. You just run over like he was a bug. Yeah. But you'd have to do this right away. So you're not only would you have to reach the speed of light,

but you would have to go faster than the speed of light in order to attain the speed of light by the time he hit you. There you go, because you wouldn't be able to see him unless you saw him. Yeah. Okay. All right, that is? Is that it? Well, yeah, it solved my problem.

I just hit the break and pray. Oh, no, you're always better off slowing down. Always, huh? I mean, for example, what if you could suddenly go backwards? Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah, that's an idea. Zero is closer to being backwards than 50 miles an hour going straight ahead. Because I think you would have to add up the energies.

The kinetic energy is one-half, the mass, times the velocity squared. So his is what it is. He's doing 60. You can calculate what his is. And obviously, you make yours smaller by either going zero velocity or negative velocity. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, don't speed up.

It's bad. But just in case you don't believe us, you should definitely start wearing your football helmet when you drive. And these cars, I would practice evasive action. Yeah, better to hit a tree. Hey, Bob, love your gardens. Thanks for calling. Hey, thanks, buddy.

See you later. Bye. While you've voiced another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk. Our esteemed producer is Doug the subway fugitive, Bungo Boy Berman. Our associate producers are Louis Cronin, the Barbarian, and David Gibraltar, Green. Our engineer is Tad Massenman... Debronte now is a large rock, a stone, you might say.

A stone of some kind, yeah. Our engineer is Tad Mascarman Curry. Our senior web lackey is Doug the old gray mayor, and our technical, spiritual, and menu advisor currently in spring training for the tri-state brew, chew, and barbecue is John Bugsy Lawler. Our public... Brew, chew, and barbecue?

Yeah. Oof. I love it. It's the biggest event of the season. Our public opinion pollster is Paul Merkey of Mercury Research, assisted by statistician Mara Ginovera. Our customer care representative is Hayward Jabuzov. Our interpretive dance instructor is Tristan Shout.

Our staff alpinist is Ariana Topia. Our divorce attorney is Carmine Not Yours. Our sexual harassment investigator is Hank Pankey. Our director of Pavlovian research is Isabelle ringing. Our Russian chauffeur is beepoff and drop off. The banker at Car Talk poker games is Nikolai Putin. Our Russian vacation specialist is Ivana Vikov. Our seat cushion tester,

our seat cushion tester is Mike Easter. Our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey, Cheeverman Howe is U. Louis Dewey, known to KGB informant sleeping on the benches in Harvard Square as Ui Louie Dewey. We're clicking clack to Tappert Brothers. Don't drive like my brother. Don't drive like my brother.

Don't drive like either one of them. Oh, shut up. That's my sister Lucille. Your sister, too. I think so. We'll be back next week. Bye-bye. Car Talk is a production of Dewey Cheatham & Howe and WBUR in Boston.

And even though mass communications majors get a sudden urge to switch to metallurgy, whatever they hear us say it, this is NPR, National Public Radio.