The Best of Car Talk - #2671: Answer Coupon
Episode Date: September 5, 2026Sandy’s Honda sounds like a muscle car all of a sudden. Gotta be a hole in the muffler, right? Apparently not, says Sandy. Can Click and Clack get her to change her answer with the proper incentives...? Find out 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
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us Click and Clack to Tappertr Brothers,
and we're broadcasting this week from outside the locker room here at Car Talk Plaza.
Is that what that smell is? And all these years I thought it was you.
No, we have here a bunch of things on why sports figures should not be role models.
And these are some, I believe, to be actual quotes of sports-type people.
Jocks, as we call them.
Jock! Ah! That's it.
And actually, I've seen some of these people.
I know we've mentioned some of these.
I'll just throw them out as they come here.
Football commentator and former player Joe Thiesman.
Do you know him?
No, Thysman.
Thaisman.
He says, nobody in football could be called a genius.
A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.
I like this one.
Senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh.
I'm going to graduate on time no matter how long it takes.
Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach.
You guys line up alphabetically by height,
and you guys pair up in groups of three
and then line up in a circle.
That might have been a test.
Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks, left wing.
That must be hockey then.
Very good, Tommy. You're right on it.
Explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker.
He says, that's so when I forget how to spell my name,
I can still find my clothes.
Well, you know, Hawkins is a thing.
You can get hit in their head.
Anything that happened.
And you could forget everything.
You could go back to the locker room
and think you were playing basketball.
So you see your picture, say, hmm.
This one I know we used before.
Pat Williams' Orlando Magic General Manager
on his team's 727 record in 1992.
We can't win at home.
We can't win on the road.
And as general manager,
I just can't figure out another place to play.
Well, look, if you're looking for role models for your kids,
try all things considered.
But if you have a question about your car, give us a call.
Heart number is 1-888-8-8-8-8-28-8-2-7-8-255.
Hello, you're on car talk.
Hi, this is Sandy from Clifton Park, New York.
Hi, Sandy.
Sandy, are you calling from the bathtub?
No, does it sound like I am?
Yes, it does.
Did you just subscribe to Time magazine?
No, it's probably because I'm calling from my work phone, which is in Hyde Park, New York, just 100 miles south of Clifton Park.
Oh, okay.
But we have a phone system here that makes a kind of funny echo, so please excuse me.
That's quite all right.
It's not your fault.
You know why it makes that funny sound?
Because all the calls are being monitored.
To ensure.
The recording devices do that.
That's right.
You'll be terminated in the morning.
That's okay.
In the meantime.
What's up?
Well, I have a 1997 Honda accord with about 63,000 miles,
and it has started making occasional loud noises.
Noises of the type you might hear from a young man's car
who is fiddled with his to make it sound like it needs a muffler.
Oh.
You know, r-hmm, rha.
Yeah.
But the noise isn't constant.
It's occasional.
It's only on my way home from work, not on my way into work.
Anything else going on on this?
happens? Well, I kind of tried to think logically the way you guys do, and I know that.
Oh, who put you up to that state? I almost spit the coffee right across the room.
Well, I felt what's different about my morning commute from my afternoon commute, and I realized that in the morning, it's early and it's cool, and I don't have the air conditioner on.
In the afternoon, particularly last week, it was kind of warm, and I had the day.
air conditioner on. And so the compressor was going.
Mm-hmm. Well, the compressor doesn't go all the time, you know. It does cycle on and off.
Yes. And when you hear the noise, is there any kind of predictability to it? And do you have to be
moving to hear it? Yes, I have to be moving. When you described this problem, you described it as
sounding like a car that needs a muffler. Do you have any evidence that you don't need a muffler?
Well, the fact that the car runs quietly, 85% of the time, makes me think that it's something other than a muffler.
But if we could give you some scenario in which...
Or a coupon.
We gave you a coupon.
If we gave you a scenario in which we could show you that you could occasionally have a bad muffler.
Okay.
In quotes.
Would you buy that?
With a other coupon
Yeah, what would it take?
Sandy, what would it take to get you into a new muffler today?
I would need a coupon for sure.
I mean, it sounds enough like needing a muffler?
Can I give you one other bit of evidence?
Sure.
This might clear it up.
Yeah, we might need two, but go ahead.
Well, I thought it was related to the compressor,
so I thought, well, I'm going to try driving in the morning.
and put the air conditioner on needed or not.
Oh, you have a very scientific mind.
Yes.
What do you do for a living in Hyde Park there?
I'm a marketing manager for the Culinary Institute of America.
Really?
Yeah.
The Culinary Institute of America, the CIA.
The CIA.
If I said I worked for the CIA, you would hang up.
Wow.
Yeah.
So you turn on the air conditioner on your way to work.
Yes.
And I'm going to tell you.
that it didn't make any noise.
Bingo.
Yeah.
Well, what does that tell us?
Tell us.
It's got nothing to do with the air conditioner.
We knew that already.
I mean, I'm leaning toward it being the cooling fan.
Are you?
The fan that cools off the end.
You know, there are two fans on this car.
I think one comes on automatically when you turn on the AC,
and the other cycles on and off as the engine coolant temperature dictates.
And it may be that you're hearing the fan hitting something.
Did you have a little fender bender with this?
car ever?
Uh-oh, you found me out.
In January, I had a front-end collision.
Uh-huh.
Play the music, Dad!
And I'm willing to bet that your fan is hitting its shroud and making the noise,
which will sound not unlike a baseball card in the spokes of one's bicycle.
The fan hitting shroud.
Yeah.
And you could confuse it with the sound of...
a bad muffler. Oh, I could confuse a lot of things.
But I think that's what you got going here.
I like that. I like it. I like it, too.
Well, Sandy.
Well, thanks, fellas. I appreciate it.
See you. Come down to the CIA for lunch.
All right. See you later. Thanks for the invite.
It'll be a secret between you and us.
Bye-bye.
Bye-8-88-car talk. That's 888-227-8-25-5. Hello, you're on car talk.
Hello, guys. This is Barry from Flint, Michigan.
Barry, what's happening, man?
Barry with a Y?
Yeah, that's a Y at the end.
Okay.
Okay.
Believe it or not, I have a problem with unbelievably huge numbers of dead bugs on my windshield.
When I drive to work, when I drive home from work, I have to wash or clean the windshield,
at least every day, sometimes twice a day when I get to work in order to practically even see through it.
My wife says it's just because I drive too fast.
It brings back the old debate about running versus walking in the rain.
It doesn't matter if you're running or walking.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
If I drive slower, am I going to have fewer dead bugs,
or is it just because I'm a maniac and I drive too fast?
She's right.
You drive too fast.
I drive too fast.
Just like you're going to get wetter if you run through the rain.
Wait.
Except you're going to get there sooner so that'll make you less wet.
You have more time to dry your clothes off.
It depends on how far you have to go.
Well, no, I see that in this instance, don't listen to a word he's telling you.
Yeah, if you drive you, you're telling you.
fast, you're going to get more dead bugs on your windshield.
But the aerodynamics, they improve as you go faster.
There's in the air kind of slip over the windshield.
It does.
As it slips over the windshield, any bug that's in your path gets croaked.
Oh, I see.
Your theory is they're going to go right over the roof.
They're going to go over the top.
Yes.
And the faster you go, the more of them are going to go over the top?
Is that your theory?
Yeah, yeah.
I like it, but it's wrong.
You know, but there are things you probably have seen going down the road, trucks or maybe even cars that have a bug deflector on the hood.
Does that work?
That works.
Well, we're hoping to find out from you, Barry.
Okay.
Well, that does work.
Oh.
I think it works.
Oh, I think you should sound a little more positive.
They've been around for so long.
It has to work.
It makes so much sense.
But I think what it does is it just changes the flow so that the bugs either hit this thing.
or the ones which don't hit it
go flying over the roof
and miss your windshield.
They hit the guy behind you.
They hit the guy behind you, exactly.
Maybe you're the guy behind the guy
with the bug thing.
You ever think of that?
But you notice that that thing,
that bug deflected thing,
clearly interferes with the nice smooth flow.
Yeah.
And that's what makes it work,
which would mean without it,
and therefore having the beautiful aerodynamics,
you do get more bugs.
So the more aerodynamic cars, like the corvets and the Ferraris,
they get a lot of bugs, even though they're really aerodynamic.
Well, no, I think the speed is the critical factor.
Speed is, yeah.
You're driving at 20 miles an hour.
You're not going to have any dead bodies on the windshield.
No, I guess they're just going to bump into the windshield and say,
oh, another car, another car.
Well, for example, you ever hit by a bug when you're riding your bicycle?
It feels like someone hit you with a two-by-four.
Yeah, there's a lot of momentum there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I think that...
Your wife is absolutely right, because the driving that you do,
you shouldn't come home full of bugs on the windshield.
That's crazy.
Okay.
What do you drive?
Are you driving something like an Azuzu trooper?
No.
It's a Mercedes.
The one that goes too fast.
The one that goes too fast.
Yeah.
And so you drive like a maniac, and your wife, as usual, is absolutely right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We won't tell if you won't.
Okay.
I won't.
See you, Perry.
Thanks, thanks, watch.
Slow down.
Okay.
Bye, bye.
Okay, Tommy, look, are you ready for your weekly fill-in-the-blank puzzler hints?
I am ready and willing, sir.
What does Ben Stein say?
I don't know.
I'll do my best.
I'll do my best.
You claim that the secret to your long, happy marriage is that your wife is always in blank.
Taos, New Mexico.
No, controls.
She's always in control.
And here's your second hint.
You've been called a ranter.
You've been called a raver.
But now that you're older, perhaps we should call you what?
Dr. Tommy.
No, I was looking for a rambler.
We'll be back in a minute.
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, uh, the answer to last week's puzzler.
This was an automotive puzzler.
We haven't had an automotive puzzler in a while.
No.
And it was sent in by a fellow named Roy Harvey.
and he writes the following.
This happened to me way back when I was commuting to college.
The car was a 65 rambler classic with power steering, power brakes, automatic transmission,
six-cylinder engine, and no air conditioning.
What a car.
In other words, it was my parents' old car.
The year in the car aren't important, but there are some cars with which you couldn't have this particular condition.
The car had maybe 80,000 miles on it, and let me tell you, they were hard miles.
Anyway, I was driving to school, and about halfway through a 15-mile trip,
the alternator light came on.
It was daytime, so the headlights were already off.
The heater blow was already off.
I turned off the radio, but the alternator light persisted.
I began to worry, and then I turned one control on the dashboard, and the light went out.
And it wasn't the ignition switch.
So this told me what the problem was, and I continued on to school without concern,
and I later fixed the problem with a few simple tools.
Now, here's the hint that I gave.
this control had no direct electrical connection to it at all.
In other words, it didn't have any wires hooked up to it.
How could that be?
How could that be?
What did he do?
I have no idea.
Here's what he did.
And lots of cars are set up like this.
He moved the heater control valve, which has connected to it at one end, the little lever you move.
And at the other end, connected by a cable, is a valve which allows water to pass from the engine to the heater.
and when he did this,
the water pump
which had been
causing a slipping belt
all of a sudden
had so much less drag on it
that the belt
which was slipping
and causing the alternate light
to come on
went off
because now the belt
was not slipping
because he had reduced
the pressure
in the floor
in the floor
just a lot of time
oh bogus
bogus
Every week I struggled to come up
And what do I met with
Bogus?
No, bogus
But we do have a winner
We got a guy named doctor James Randall
See?
See?
See?
See?
He's a doctor
James Randall from Long Beach, Mississippi
Yeah, well, hey, they have doctors here too
Yeah
Where are you from?
I'm Long Beach, Mississippi.
And for having his correct answer
selected at random,
Dr. James Randall from Long Beach, Mississippi,
will receive,
what is he going to receive?
A $25 gift certificate
to the shameless commerce division
at the contact section of cars.com
with which he can get.
Now get this,
one and nine-sixteenth copies of the CD
why you should never listen to your father
when it comes to cars.
Now, this guy has the option
of sending in the $25 bucks and getting back change.
But he's not going to get any change.
No, we don't do change.
We don't do change.
So he's going to end up paying $25 for one CD.
And then what's he going to say?
That's no good.
I can get something else because I got $8 left.
Like kicking a few more bucks.
Kicking a few more bucks and he's going to buy two CDs.
Well, congratulations, Dr. James Randolph from Long Beach, Mississippi.
Anyway, we'll have a new puzzle coming up in the third half
the show today. Hey, you know what time
it is now? Time to cut the grass
in the oil change bay? No, no, no.
It's time to play. Stop the Chump!
This is the part of the show where we check in with
a previous caller to see if we committed
a sin of omission,
co-mission, or
transmission! So who's our lucky
contestant this week? This week, it's Michelle
from Illinois. Do you remember Michelle
neither do I? No. It says here, Michelle
had an accident involving the front end of her
97 Saturn.
When she got the car back from the body shop, it wouldn't start.
It was totally dead.
So she did what any mature adult would do.
She had a hissy fit and pounded it on the steering wheel,
jumped up and down on the hood, and lo and behold, the dashlights came on.
So she came up with an event of solution to get it to start.
I put my foot outside of the car and I rocked it back and forth,
and back and forth until I got enough momentum
that I could hit the ignition switch when the lights came on, and it started.
All right, so?
So what's wrong with this?
Doesn't anyone screen these calls?
I mean, I don't even understand the question.
She's not getting current.
Yeah.
There's a wire that goes between the engine and the chassis of the car and then eventually to the battery.
And that is the ground path or the return path for all the electricity that comes out of the battery.
So if the electricity can't get back.
We call them Little Eddie an E.D. Electron.
We do.
Okay.
So if Little Eddie Electron...
I just made that up.
can't get back home, then he won't leave.
That's what my wife always says. He won't leave. I've done everything. He won't leave. Well,
let's see how we did. Michelle, are you there? I'm here. All right, look, before we find out
which was groundless, your circuit or our answer, we need you to confirm that we have not spoken
since your last appearance on Car Talk. Is that true? I have not spoken to you since my last
appearance. Great. And is it also true that the answer you're about to give here on Stump to Chumps
has not been influenced by our staff to staff of National Public Radio
or by the anger management council that you've been working with all the 20 bucks that we sent you?
Absolutely that.
Okay.
Okay.
Was it in the battery circuit, Michelle?
It absolutely was in the battery circuit.
Whoa!
And they must have listened to the show.
What was it, the gas cap?
They must have listened to the show because they were so embarrassed.
They paid for my car rental.
No kidding.
And what did they actually replace?
The ground strap?
No, you know, they just hooked the battery up, like you said.
Oh, it wasn't tight.
Right.
Yeah, it was a loose connection.
Oh, of course they would be embarrassed.
Right.
But you shamed them into it.
They must have listened and you shame them into it.
It's been paying for my car rental.
Great.
Yeah.
Well, that's wonderful, and it's especially wonderful to be right.
This is like the first time in months that we've been right on Stump to Chump the Chump to Chump to Chump.
So I guess that $20 really does work out.
Well, thank you so much, you guys.
And thanks for playing Stump the Chumps Bunchell.
I'm happy to do it.
Bye, bye.
Bye-bye.
Right again.
I mean, right.
Again?
All right, Tommy, look, would you like to take a short break right now?
Well, I don't know if I have the time.
I'd have to check my Palm Pilot first.
You know, I'm so organized.
Have you seen my Palm Pilot over there?
We'll be right back with more calls and the new puzzler after these messages.
Ha!
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 new puzzler.
This puzzler comes from the World War II series.
We haven't had one from the String series for a while.
Oh, you know, you reminded me that I do have a few of those coming up.
You do?
I do, I do, if I can locate them.
Those are great.
I love the String ones.
World War II.
That's interesting also.
Yeah.
You ready?
David Thorndyke had been operating as a spy behind the German lines,
even before the outbreak of hostilities in 1939.
Don't look for his name in the encyclopedia.
I made it up.
As a son of an English father and a German mother,
he was perfectly suited for the job of his knowledge of the language,
the German culture, music, you know, history were unsurpassed.
And you could eat with a fork in either hand.
Indeed.
And yet among his colleagues, he was not above suspicion.
In the Third Reich, nobody was above.
suspicion.
He was watched and watched carefully, but never a false move did he make.
As the war wore on and invasion plans materialized, he became encouraged, even euphoric
that soon the war would end, and he would return to merry Old England.
Jolly old England.
Not Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
It's Jolly England.
He returned to Jolly Old England.
Well, it was going to be merry when he got here.
Yeah, sorry to interrupt.
That's okay.
No, it's important.
Then one day he was in Berlin, maybe lost in his thoughts,
thinking about his return to merry old England.
Yeah.
And there he was standing there in a busy street corner,
ready to cross the street.
Oh.
And he feels a tug on his sleeve and a pistol in his ribs.
Oh.
He's been discovered.
Yes.
And the question is, how did they know?
Now, if you think you know the, and all the hints are there, and as are all the red herrings and everything.
So if you think you know the answer, write it on a postcard or etched it into a pair of Kawasaki FC47, rimless frames with polycarbonate glare and scratch resistant lenses, and send them to, who wants those?
The Ponsolate Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge.
Our Fair City.
Matt 2-2-3-8, or you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of Cars.com.
If you'd like to call us right now, the number is 1-888-C-8-8-8-2-2-5.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
Hi, my name is Mickry, and I live in Mendocino, California.
Mickry?
Yes.
M-I-K-R-I?
No.
All right.
Mickry, M-I-C-H?
Yeah, M-C-H-R-I.
And...
Mickery?
Well, you know...
You're not getting by with that.
Hold on a minute.
And where in California?
A Mendocino.
Mendocino.
Micri.
Mm-hmm.
And I didn't make it up.
My parents actually named me Mickry.
Is it a combination?
Let me just have a hint.
Is it a combination of two names like Michelle and Ronaldo, your parents' names?
No.
They picked it out of the Old Testament in the list of names and names and names.
Oh, this is an Old Testament name?
Uh-huh.
So it had nothing to do with it.
Duncan Rinaldi.
What happened to Duncan Rinaldi?
Well, it's funny you should ask.
Do you know who Duncan Rinaldi is, Micri?
Of course she doesn't.
She's only 25 years old.
How's she going to know Duncan Rinaldi?
Wasn't it Rinaldo?
Duncan Rinaldi.
It might be Rinaldi.
I think Rinaldi.
Duncan Rinaldi, I believe, was the Cisco kid.
You bet he was.
Oh, Cisco.
Yeah.
Of course, he wasn't the Cisco kid when my brother listened because the real Cisco kid.
Was the Cisco kid when my brother listened on the radio.
I remember the TV version, of course.
Anyway, what do you do out there in Mendocino?
Well, right now I'm a Jill of all trades,
and I'm doing anything I can.
But I got my credential to teach high school math,
and I live in a small area,
so I'm waiting for one of the guys to retire
so I can take his job.
Oh, really?
We can take care of that.
Oh, yeah.
We'll be happy to help you with that.
We have operatives on the West Coast, East Coast, East Coast, North Coast.
Sure.
Just give us a couple of names.
and addresses and the hierarchy in which they're ready to retire, and you'll have a couple of job
offers in a week.
Right on.
So what's up?
What's wrong with the heap of a car that you're trying to use to get the school when you can
get to school?
Well, I'm working on my car, and I have an 88 Toyota forerunner, and I put a new engine
in it.
Good for you.
You personally did this?
Yes.
I consult my father, and he was always there for moral support, but I tightened all the
bolts and did all that stuff.
Wow, good for you.
And I'm really excited about it.
I love this truck.
But I have an embarrassing problem because my valve covers are leaking.
And it drips oil on the exhaust manifold.
And so when I pull up and I'm so proud of my new truck,
there's a cloud of oil smoke coming out of the engine.
Did you put a used engine in?
Well, it's a remanufactured, I guess, but it's the newest I could get.
It was all shiny and...
Oh, cool.
So, and the valve covers are leaking.
and I went to my boyfriend's dad, and I asked him about it, and he said, whenever he puts in valve covers,
because I had the heads renew, but the valve covers are from the old engine,
he said they can get a little misshapen, and so he always put silicone in there.
And so my dad, when I came home, said, never do that.
You don't ever need to put silicone in his appearance, and if you have good gaskets, that's all you need.
Your dad is right.
So you took the valve covers off of your...
old car and put them on the new engine?
Right.
Yeah, because they didn't give your valve covers.
It came without valve covers.
Right. Okay.
Well, these gaskets, if I'm not mistaken, it's just like a strip of rubber.
Yeah.
And it fits into a groove in the valve cover.
Exactly.
So that it's easy to put it in wrong.
Believe it or not.
I would think that you didn't get the gasket in the groove all the way and a piece of it sticking out someplace.
But it's too late.
You've ruined those gaskets.
Now you have to take the vasset.
valve covers off. And get any gasped. And I would buy them from the Toyota dealer because they're
real cheap. Okay. And stick them in and don't do not use any kind of adhesive because it's not
advisable. And silicone will make them squore them out of their little groove and guarantee that they
leak. So don't use any silicone. Okay. And don't tighten them up too much. Yeah, I did use a torque wrench.
And I tore them exactly the way the book said. Well, the real question is, does it run well?
It runs great. I live on a mile long pot hole of a drive.
driveway, and I used to drive this little Plymouth, and it just got so beat up, and this
truck is, oh, I love it.
Well, if the worst thing...
Did you call it a mile-long puddle?
I do, I swear.
If the worst thing that happened in this whole adventure was that the valve covers have leaked,
then you've done amazingly well.
Thanks, guys.
See, him, McRey.
Bye, bye, right?
Thanks for your call.
There are a lot of nuts and bolts involved, aren't there?
I thought you were going to say there were a lot of nuts in California.
That, too.
No, I think there was very courageous of her.
No, I'm kidding.
Jump into this.
Jump into that and disconnect everything.
It's great.
1-888-Cartalk.
That's 888-227-8255.
Hello, you're on Car Talk.
Oh, this is John from Chimicam, Washington.
From who?
Chimacom.
It's an old name for an Indian tribe.
So what's going on, John?
So, let's see.
I got an 84 Camry, and I bring it in for a break job,
and it winds up as an...
ethics problem.
Ah, now you're talking?
Well, I bring the car in for the brake job.
He says, oh, you need a master cylinder.
Oh, great.
Come in here a couple days later to pick it up, and he's got to take a test drive.
And a younger guy pulls up against his stop sign, stomp's on the accelerator like he was
in a drag racer, and he blew my transmission and says, sorry, tough, should have been able
to handle that.
What do you think?
Really?
So this young punk is test driving your car, and you stood there and saw him floor it.
My wife and I both heard him do it, and I saw the car come by on the road.
Sorry, her testimony is inadmissible.
She's a hostile witness.
Every mechanic in the place must have heard it.
And at that moment, when you say he blew your transmission, what happened, actually?
Oh, you just, you know, you heard the car rev way up as he stomped on the grass.
Right.
As it was coming by where my car was parked and I was sitting in it, looking out the window,
it went up to who knows how many thousand, and it just went out of business right there.
He had to tow it in.
So the question is, should he pay for the entire transmission?
Or even part of it.
Because their position was the transmission should have been able to.
able to take it. And the car is 17 years old. Yeah, with 183,000 miles out of it. Yeah. Well, I'm sure you can see
their side of it. I certainly can. But they can't see yours. But they cannot see that I feel that he was
abusing it. And my needs for this car are very slim. My work is only five miles down the road from
my house. But a transmission would be central to your needs. Yeah, pretty much.
Unless it was going to be a planter.
Yeah, in which case you wouldn't have needed the master cylinder anyway.
Well, here's what I'd recommend.
I mean, if he had driven the car gently like you drive it,
chances are the transmission could have gone on for another 15,000 miles or more.
Something like that.
Something like that.
And it was unnecessary.
That's the whole issue.
He was not checking the engine.
He was not checking anything that required him to drive that way.
So it was totally unnecessary.
And I think that's the key issue.
And what he should do,
if he's a good guy is he should buy you a used transmission from a junkyard.
And put it in.
And put it in.
That sounds like reasonable course of action.
Yes.
If he's a good guy.
No, he isn't.
He won't be.
And he's not going to be a good guy.
So you're going to have to, when he tells you to flake off, you're going to have to call us back and give us his name.
And we're going to dump all over him.
And he'll never have another customer for the rest of his life.
I would do that.
Let's do it.
We know you're going to do it.
But give him a chance.
Give him a chance.
To write a wrong.
Oh, I will.
Tell him to call us.
We could talk them into it.
You know what I mean?
Tell him a sudden Bobby Brajole up to see him.
Good luck, John.
All right.
Take care, guys.
Thanks for your call.
Bye.
Bye.
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