The Best of Car Talk - #2676: The End of the Previa

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Marsha mixed up. She opened all of her Toyota minivan’s fluid reservoirs and mostly poured the right stuff into the right holes, but not quite. Click and Clack ponder her polluted Previa 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 Tappert Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the Religious Studies Department here at Car Talk Plaza. These are allegedly, according to Neil Jackson, who sent them to us, written by kids in religious school. Kids are great. The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Sinai.

To get the Ten Amendments. Solomon, one of... Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines. You know, I mean, how often do you not really get the gist? And if you didn't really know what the words meant, you might substitute a known word? A word that you do know. Exactly. So, I mean, porcupines is fine.

Sure. And whoever gave the kid something different to memorize was a moron. Jesus enunciated the golden rule, which says, says to do one to others, not to do unto others, but to do one. O and E to others before they do one to you. St. Paul cavorted to Christianity. He preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage. And speaking of marriage, most religions teach us to have only one spouse.

This is called monotony. It's good. And maybe it's all true. And I am not going to make any editorial comment about any of them because... Why not? It could get cold out. Which one were you thinking of commenting on?

The last one? None. None. I wasn't thinking you're commenting on any of them. Well, if you'd like to try to encourage my brother, to make a comment that he regret. You can call us the numbers 8888-88-28-8-28-8-2-7-8-25-5.

Hello, you're on car talk. My name's Rebecca. Rebecca? Yes. With C's or C's? With Cays. Really? Yes.

Oh, stop it. Where are you from? Well, I'm calling from Alta, Utah. Got it. All right. What's up? I drive a 92 Toyota pickup. It has about 130,000 miles on it.

I am the third owner. And my problem is that when I'm accelerating at high RPM, it kind of jerks a little bit. Like the gas isn't getting to the engine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it doesn't happen all the time. It only happens either when I've been driving really long distances, or if I'm going up a hill, or if I'm at a really low amount of gas in my tank, like below half to a quarter of a tank of gas.

and then I'll put in some fuel filter or fuel system cleaner, and it will go away for a couple, maybe a week, and then it'll come back. How much do you pay for the fuel system cleaner? About $350, $4 a bottle. You're cheaper by the case? I have no idea. I bet it is. We call this hesitation.

Okay. Or missing, actually. Or a miss. Yeah, an engine miss. Okay. Which, I mean, the reason it's called a miss is because, usually it's because a spark missed, like a skipped heartbeat. Okay, so in the spark plugs.

Well, it could be. But I just bring that up because even though it's called a miss, which refers to the spark plug, it doesn't have to be due to a spark plug. No, it could be a mile because we know that a miss is as good as a mile. I mean, it could be a misnomer. So that's why I opted for the term hesitation because that doesn't pre-cle, any possibility for what causes it. Which is good for us.

Which is good for us because everything's wide open here. But it's not good for me. Well, it could certain. I mean, the fact that it seems to happen more when the tank is down below a quarter. Might not mean anything, but it seems to suggest that you might have low fuel pressure. Okay. And low fuel pressure could be attributed to a weakened pump. But I tend to think...

I dismissed that right away. You did. I did. If the tank is below half or a quarter, can this happen even if you're not climbing a hill? No, it doesn't happen if I'm coasting along. It doesn't happen if I'm just driving 35 miles an hour and 10th. But what if you're accelerating? If I'm accelerating is when it happens, and it's when I'm accelerating at high RPM, so I'm trying to get speed.

And it's just a one-time miss, or is it a repetitive? No, it's repetitive, but it's not consistently repetitive. it'll start to jerk a little, and then it'll speed up again, and then it'll start to jerk a little more. And you're saying that it never happens, this is true, is this true? It never happens if the tank is full and you're accelerating and climbing a hill. Be careful here. I wouldn't say never. Never.

You wouldn't say never. But you don't recall having noticed it. Exactly. That equals never in my book. I don't have, I don't recall. having noticed it, your honor. Your honor. Well, I also am going to dismiss the fuel pump,

and I'll tell you why. Our friend Stanley called me the other day because his car had conked out, his Camry. Did he say conked out? Not quite. What did he say? It's an 89 Camry, and he said, I think it's the fuel pump.

He said, how hard is it to change that? And I said, gee, I don't think it's, And I stopped. Yeah. And I said, I don't know how hard of this to change, because I've never changed the fuel pump in the Camry. For that matter, I don't think I've ever changed the fuel pump in any Toyota. They don't go.

So on that basis, you're going to dismiss. So I'm going to go with a dirty fuel filter. Okay. And now I had the fuel filter replaced probably when I bought the car at 115,000 miles. So about 15,000 miles ago. Oh. My brother has a very dejected look on his face. He was really counting on the fuel.

He was really counting on the fuel. Well, I mean, there's nothing with which I can. It's going to be the fuel pump. See, if in fact it really isn't happening when the tank is full, then it can't be the ignition system, for example. You can't have a bad coil or a bad. plug wire unless you're driving differently when the tank is full,

but that's unlikely. No. So I'd have to dismiss the entire ignition system if in fact you're not lying to us, which is a possibility. That's why your answers is so important, Rebecca, because it does, even

the word miss, it does suggest an electrical problem unless you're sure that it has never happened when the tank was full. No, because I'm not sure of that. Well, could you call us back when you are sure? Here's what you do. Take it to the repair shop.

Ask them to test the fuel pump pressure. Okay. Ask them to pop the filter, which is easy enough to do, and to see if it's clogged. Okay. And if those two things are all right, then I'd go and look at the ignition system because it's probably true that you'll lie into us. Yeah. I would never lie to you guys.

It could be the cap. It could be the ignition rotus. You should have all that stuff looked at. Right. Sarah Becca Bye, thanks Good luck Bye Thanks

1 8888-8-8-8-8-8-8-2-7-8-25 Hello, you're on car talk Hi, my name's Frederick I'm from Arlington, Virginia Frederick Can we call you Fred? You can call me Rick Rick

Rick? Rick Frederick All right And where are you from again? From Arlington VA? Yeah, I'm calling from Shantilly but I live in Arlington Okay

Shantilly's out near Dallas Shantee, yeah it is Zotee, exactimo. Yeah, Zettem-Mall. Yeah, Zett-Mall. I have a 1985 Volvo station wagon. But before that, I had a 1990 toyer at a pickup truck. They had exactly the same problem your previous caller described.

Well, help us all. What was wrong with yours? I had to have the carburetor rebuilt twice. But she doesn't have a carburetor. She doesn't have a carburetor? No, but she can get one if you think it would help. With the trouble I had with it, I don't think it's worth having a carburetor. Yeah.

The Volvo doesn't have a carburetor either. The Volvo doesn't have a carburetor either. The Volvo's in 1985, Volvo Station wagon with 145,000 miles. It's probably the nicest car I've ever had. I fixed a lot of the things on it myself. But when I turn the air conditioner on, it loses power and starts screaming. What loses power? The air conditioner or the engine?

Both. Well, the air conditioner screams so much I turn it off. And the screaming is coming from under the hood. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Oh, is it going to be a long hot summer? It's already a long hot time. It's going to be longer and harder, baby.

Because it sounds like you need a compressor, and the reason that the belt is slipping is that the compressor is seizing up. Uh-huh. And it's screaming because it's trying to turn, but it can't, and the bell is slipping around the pulley. Now, if you're lucky, you just need a belt. Would that make it hard to steer?

It's not the belt. It isn't the belt. Be straight with the guy. Here's what you do. Open the hood. You probably can tell just by looking. Uh-huh. Open the hood and have somebody with the engine.

running, have someone turn on the air conditioning. Right. You will immediately see smoke. No, but before you do that, before you start the car, push on the belt and see if it's as tight as the other belts, which you know aren't slipping. Right. And if it's really loose... Here's why I don't think it's the belt.

Because he said the engine is losing power. No, he doesn't know that. He... Are you questioning the witness? It's just the overall screaming, losing steering, making me nervous kind of noise. can't tell you how many people over the years have told me, check tune my engine up. It has no power. Right. And what they need is a muffler.

Well, I just put a new muffler on. No, I'm saying. But people's perception of power is related to the amount of noise that the power delivering device is making. So when someone has a hole in his muffler, he equates that with low power because with the amount of noise that it's making, the car should be doing 100. Well, let me rephrase that. It starts screaming and becomes hard. to steer and the air conditioner doesn't work. Right, and all of that is consistent with something as simple as a loose belt.

All right. I'll admit. On the other hand, it could be a brain tumor. But if you look at what's going on, if you see that the pulley isn't turning at all, the pulley on the air conditioner compressor.

All right. And it's just sitting there. You can even turn off the engine and see if you can even move that. And I bet you're not going to be able to. And I see $400 out of your wallet in the near future. 625. My brother, Judge, is 625.

There goes all the money I saved working on it. Yeah, well, it's a good thing you saved all the money. You're going to need it. Good luck, Rick. All right, thanks a lot, guys. See it. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Okay, Tommy, look, I'm going to do my best to get you to remember last week's puzzle. Are you ready?

You been doing miserably in this area. No, I did all right last week. Oh, you did? Okay, here's your first hint. Experts who have examined you say it would take a blank to find your brain. Well, a head trim, among other things. No, that's to find your skull. To find your brain, you'd need a magnifying glass.

Okay, next hint. Having examined your brain with a magnifying glass, one scientist declared it resembles a blank piece of paper. Hmm. A blank piece of paper. That's it? What? The puzzle was about a magnifying glass and a blank piece of paper.

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. And you may recall that this one came from Malcolm Ross McDonald, who designed the evolution of the modern mechanic t-shirt. Yes, and quite a job he did.

Indeed. So I'll be forwarding all complaints directly to Malcolm. And if you remember, I suggested that when you heard the answer to this, Tommy, that your response would be... Bogus. I think it's bo-oh-oh-go-go-go-go-c. Oh, oh, gosh. That's it.

Come here that one more time. Oh, Gus. Yeah, that's it. They can do miracles there on the control roll. Here it is. I took a sheet of plain white paper, you know, no lines on it or anything. Just a blank sheet of paper, like eight and a half by 11. And using a fountain pen with black ink, all these things is designed to have a skate.

I wrote my signature on the paper. anywhere in the paper, it really didn't matter. I also wrote something else in the paper. Both were plainly visible. When I looked at my signature through the magnifying glass that I had, I was not at all surprised to find that it was enlarged.

But when I looked at the other thing that was on the paper, it wasn't enlarged. What was the second thing that I wrote? Oh, man. Now, I will admit that I thought about this for 10 seconds, as you were saying it last week. and I thought, the only feeling I had was that it was a word trick.

Well, I didn't really write anything into, I didn't write words or letters, but I did use, is, by your definition, would using the pen on the paper constitute writing? Assuming that the tip of the pen touched the paper and made marks. Would drawing something be equivalent of writing? Yeah, I would accept that. All right, then. All right. Yeah.

Did you? Yeah, I did. Yeah. What I drew. was an angle. I drew two lines. So if I drew a 37... Oh, play a death.

Oh, gosh. Oh, come on. Well, that's no good because you can't draw an angle without sides. And the length of the sides had to have enlarged. Did they enlarge the angle? You just didn't get it and it's sour grapes. That's all I can say. What was the question again?

When I looked at the other thing, it wasn't enlarged. When I looked at the angle, was it enlarged? Come on. The other thing. I think you could have worded it better. Well, I tried to word it to make it difficult. See, I would have said something like part of it was enlarged and part of it wasn't. Wouldn't that work better?

That way, the lines could have been longer. They would have been. They would have looked longer. I don't think that was necessarily better. I think it's good just the way it is. Well, if you do, I think it's bogus. In any event, we do have a winner. It is bogus because...

Would it be better if I said I drew something on the paper? No, it wouldn't have been better because you had to draw the two lines that made the angle. And those lines were bigger. Did the angle get bigger? Do we have a winner? Yeah, yeah. Well, obviously, someone thought, someone figured it out.

Yeah, sure. We give these prizes away for nothing. The winner this week is Sam Wallace from Moreland, Georgia. And for having his correct answers selected at random from all the correct answers that we got this week, which was none. We just giving Sam the $25. Sam had the best handwriting, and he's going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division at the Car Talk section of cars.com, with which he can get our brand spank a new evolution of the modern mechanics. T-shirt.

Which you're going to be with squat now. It pictures the backward evolution of the modern mechanic from modern man on down to what, us? Or, as we like to say, from Homo erectus to Homo incorrectus. Anyway, we'll have a new, and I can't describe the puzzle because I haven't figured out which one I'm going to use yet. It's all right. I'm weighing them on the bogus scale.

As long as not be bogus one. And that'll be coming up in the third half of the show today, so don't go anywhere. In the meantime, if you have a question about your car or anything else, Give us a call at 888 Car Talk. That's 888-227-8-8-255. Below, you're on Car Talk. Hey, guys, this is Bridget from Colchester, Vermont. Colchester, I have a vague feeling that I've been there.

Where is it? What's it near? The Arctic Circle. It's near Burlington. It's near Burlington. That's why I have been there. Oh. Yes, because I go to Burlington all the time. Oh, yeah.

Is it cold or coal? Co-L. Co-A-L. C-O-A-L. Co-A-L. Just COL. I go there all the time because I'm an alumnus of UVM. He's a lion, Logan.

I am also an alumnus. No kidding. What year are you? I'm 91. Years old. 1891. What's up, Bridget? Well, I am a nanny.

My brother's a nitty. You have something in common. Well, one of the richest person my nanny job is that my boss has a 74 alpha-rameo spider. Yeah. No kidding. And in the summer, I get to tool around looking cool in the alpha. Gee, that's nice.

That's a nice car. You know, that car has the technology of the 50s. For those 20 years, they never changed anything. This car... Yeah, they didn't have to. They didn't have to because it looked so good. Well, it's good that you're familiar because, unfortunately, this summer, we have yet to get it on the road because as winter was approaching last year,

was supposed to get the fire engine and the alpha out of the yard and into storage. And he got his old fire engine into a barn down the road, and the alpha just stayed and got snowed on. Yeah. Until he decided he felt bad enough. He went out and tried to start it up. And, you know, it seemed like it was cranking over. It was doing all right. And then he heard this grinding sound and a clicking, and then a loud bang. from under the hood. He said, I didn't see any smoke,

but there was, you know, a few inches of snow on the hood, so it might have smothered it. Hmm. I got everything about the bang. Sounds like Starbucks. Well, it's so beautiful now that we uncovered it, push it out, and started to mess around with it a little bit. And?

We charged the battery up, and we tried to start it, and now it just makes a continuous, just, er, noise. Nothing seems to catch, and nothing's spinning. when you look under the hood. And the noise that it's making is not a cranking but like a whirring noise? Like a growling noise.

It's er, you know. Well, it sounds to me like you might be in luck. You might be in luck, yeah. Well, I don't get giddy yet. If you're lucky, it might just be the starter motor that broke, the drive. It's called the Bendix drive. It might have broken.

That is the gear on the starter that is supposed to engage. the flywheel may have just broken. Let's pray for that. I think what you need to do is take the starter motor out, which is pretty easy in this car. Okay. You know how to do this, right, Bridget?

Well, I'm a train massage therapist, a nanny, and not a bad bartender, but I think I'll let somebody else handle the car thing. All right, you'll have to get mort to do it. Norm. Or Norm, yeah. I like Norm. Norm to do it.

Norm will take the thing out, and if you're lucky... Strong as an oxen twice as smart. Hey, I think I dated him in company. Hey, what class were you at UVM? Ninety-four. See, we were very close. Just three years ahead of you.

Well, that's what you need to do. Take the starter out and hope and pray that the starter is broken. Okay. Now, if you don't want to go to that extent, you can try to start the thing by rolling it down a hill. Okay. We've got to push it up a hill to do that around here. Well, does the hill continue down? It just goes up.

Well, the driveway goes up, and from there we could go down. Oh, the driveway. No, you're going to get it out. I would just tow it to town and have Norm take the starter out. And if the starter is indeed broken, then you can... I mean, there's always a chance that the flywheel's broken. That would be unfortunate. That would account for the...

That would account for the... That would account for the... ...the crank, the click, and the bang. Yeah, that's what I was worried about. And if the flywood... That's why I would not recommend trying to... pop started with the clutch. In case it's the flywheel?

Because things could be ugly. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Yeah. So I wouldn't hesitate recommending. You wouldn't. I mean, I've still got the nannymobile. I've got the Volvo wagon. Right.

If you really want to take a chance, you can push it up to the end of the driveway. Uh-huh. And then try to pop the clutch as you're going down, back into the driveway and through the garage and out the back. You can try that. Well, good luck. I have a strong feeling that it's just the starter motor.

Well, I hope you're right. Well, I wish I could agree with my brother, but I can't. Because I don't think that that explains everything, and I can't believe that the starter motor would have chosen that particular moment to break. I think it's worse than that. Well, you're a half-glass, half-empty guy. That's me, man. And I'm a glass-half-full guy.

See, what would explain all of this also is that when he tried to start it, it was seized. And the big bang you heard was... Ooh, this is the Big Bang Theory? The Big Bang theory. The Big Bang you heard was because the starter did break it. But the reason it broke is because it bumped into a crankshaft that couldn't move because everything was frozen. Oh, come on. You couldn't paint the bleaker picture.

No, you couldn't. Don't listen to him. He's trying to ruin your day. Throw a starter motor in. I'm still underlining starter motor. I'm hoping for that too. The wind will be blowing through your hair in a matter of days.

Maybe hours. Maybe hours. I hope for the best. And if it's a piece of junk and it doesn't work, I'll buy it from you. See you later. Bye. Bye, bye.

Hey, Tommy, it's time for us to take a little break. Well, I have enough time to fix my hair. You've had a whole lifetime to fix it already. You're right, never mind. 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.

I get on me. Wait. I, uh... Yeah. What do you got there? I don't know if I could blow to my... Come on, you must have a hundred puzzlers there. Yeah, and most of them are...

Bo! Oh, God. All right. Don't forget. Well, just pick one at random. It's almost playoff season for the puzzle. You don't realize that. Oh, I do.

You do. I certainly do. The end of the regular season is close. So, uh, I, I, I, it's time to just put out everything you got, man. Don't hold back now because the season is over. Oh, not going to save something. Come on. Just get out there.

You can't just save the relievers in the bullpen, man. They're going to get out there and do it. All right. Then I won't use this one. this really is bogus. All right, go ahead. All right. The inspiration for this was submitted by, actually, the entirety of it was submitted by Tim

Pew and is from an email from someplace in the cyber world. In the electronic world. And the subject is the stakeout. Oh, I like it already. Yeah. Pay attention. Is it E-A-K or A-K-E? A-K-E.

A-K-E. Oh, okay. A detective is on a stakeout. He is watching a warehouse where he knows a bunch of crooks meet. But he wants to catch the boss, the big cahuna, you know. Yeah. So he's watching this warehouse at night from a second floor window over nearby building. Crooks come and go all night, but he waits until the boss shows up to move in.

He doesn't know what the boss looks like. My question, never mind. All he knows is that he always travels with two bodyguards, never turn. just one, and that he'll be in a white car. Eventually, a white two-door coop pulls up. El Dorado, I think. There are only two men in the car, and they get out of the car and go into the building. The detective just waits.

While waiting, he nods off for a few minutes. Occupational hazard. When he wakes up, the coop is gone. He watches another half hour and falls asleep again. When he finally wakes up, the same white coop is back. He uses his binoculars to look into the car. Don't forget, he's in a warehouse far away. And he sees that the car is empty, but he knows that the boss is inside.

He calls back up, and the joint is busted, catching the big boss. The question is, how did he know all the facts of there, including some that you don't need? I know that. I like it. Now, if you think you know the answer, write it on a postcard. I know the answer already. Well, then write it on a postcard. I will.

Or better still, tape it to the bottom of a Panasonic DVD-H-2000 progressive scan DVD player with advanced surround sound, cinema mode, dialogue enhancer, illuminated joystick remote, and champagne finish. Oh, of course. And send it to Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3,500, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Our Fair City. Matt, 022. two, three, eight. Hey, Tommy, it's time to take a little break from the usual routine of the show.

Oh, we're going to like talk about cars instead? No, it's time for where are they now, Tommy. This is the part of the show where we tracked down a caller from a previous show just because we feel like it. Right. We get a lot of interesting people on the show, to whom we provide no help at all. Sometimes we wonder, what happened to these people? So who's in a piece are we disturbing this week, you might ask?

Well, it's Heather from Sacramento, California. A lot of people have written to us wondering whatever happened to Heather. If you remember, Heather had an 88 Honda Civic that was stolen and then returned with a little something extra in it. These white, clear spiders on the outside of my car. And I opened the car door, and there was at least 20 on the inside. And they're just little clear white spiders with these little sacks on the back. And I'm thinking, were they whistling, hi-ho, hi-ho. It's off the week we go.

But what I found out later is their black widow, their baby black widow's sparse. Oh, no! They are infested in my car. They are everywhere. Do you have an ex-husband? Who would steal an 88 civic? Do you have a trust fund? No.

Have you made out your will? No. I would. You know, I was afraid to get in my car for a week after we spoke for Heather. Now you know how the rest of us feel about your car. So did we give her any ideas that you remember? Well, we did say I think we could blow up the car, have a tow to the highest mountain in the Cierras, and freeze them out.

Yeah, I remember that. Or go to our website and see if any of our listeners had a clue because we did it. Yeah, in other words, we were no help at all. No. Well, let's see how Heather did. Heather, are you there? Yes, I am. You still alive?

I am. Oh, man. Did you get rid of the black widow spiders? Did you just adopt them as pets? Well, you know, I was thinking about that at first. We were starting a little farm, making it profit. No, I actually did. You had a lot of good, I went on to your website,

and you had a lot of good suggestions for me. And one of them on there was to take it to someone who paints cars and then put it in a paint booth and heated up really, really to a high degree. And actually, I did that. Put it in the, not the spray booth, the heat lamps. Yeah. And cooked them.

He cooked them, yeah. You sure he got all of them? Yeah. I have seen none ever since. And this has been about three weeks ago. So this guy was willing to do that. What a nice guy. Maybe he listened to this show, and he felt sorry for me.

But you drove the car to his paint shop. Actually, I had a friend that knew him, and he goes, oh, totally. I get that done for you. And he did. And so I didn't actually drive it there. Someone did. Jeez. Someone who didn't know anything about it.

Oh, do me a favor and drive my car, sure. Yeah, like your new boyfriend, right? Yeah, exactly. Still got those engineers' boots. Well, hey, I didn't tell the guy. There's a spider's in there. So it's been three weeks, and everything is copacetic. I mean, nothing.

And you don't know of any enemies that would have done this to you. Actually, you know, I really don't have any enemies, but my car just did broken into last night. It was just going to broken into again. Really? Really. Really? Really?

I mean, honestly, so I don't know what is going on, but I think I might have it. I'd be on the lookout for snakes this time. If the spiders didn't work, let's go for snakes. I'd look over the Monty Python. Oh, man. If anything else happens, don't call us. Hey, thanks for being on. Where are they now, Tommy?

Bye, Heather. Bye, bye, bye. Look, if you hear someone on our show, you'd like to hear from again, drop us a note, and maybe we'll track them down for. Where are they now, Tommy? Or you can email us your suggestion from the Car Talk section of Cars.com. 1-888-88-2-27-8-255. Hello, you're on Car Talk.

Hello, this is Marcia, calling from San Rafael, California. San Rafael, yes. What's San Rafael? We've had a lot of calls from San Rafael. What's it like? It's nice here. It's beautiful. We're just north of San Francisco.

Why do they say Rafael? I mean, come on. Well, Raphael. Raphael? Well, yeah, I mean, it is Raphael. What does San Rafael? I guess it's easier. Well, I get the sense that it's some language that we don't know.

Yes. There might be San Rafael. That's how you say it in Bulgarian. Although I have problems with that. I'll see you at the town council meeting on this discussion, huh? Yeah. Renaming the town. So what's up?

I bought a new to me used vehicle. It's a 1991 Toyota Previa. And what's nice about it is when you pop the hood, instead of having to do the dipstick thing to check all your fluids, there's all these little reservoir containers in the front of the car under the hood. Yeah, you know why they were able to do that? It's fabulous. Because there's no engine there.

There's no sticking engine there. Try working on the engine. Well, I got under my hood, and I lifted off all the caps to all the reservoirs, and I accidentally put the oil in the coolant. Oh. Bummer. Oh, not the end of the world. Oh, thank goodness.

It's the end of the privy of all. Oh, well. It's better than the end of the world. No, it's not the most horrible thing you could have done. You could have done worse than that. Yeah, you could have put the coolant in the oil. That would have been bad. How much did you put in?

Maybe half a quart until I realized I did it wrong. And have you driven it? What I did was, well, I work here at the boat yard, and all the guys that were like, oh, my God, what are you doing, right? So I disconnected the hoses that are to the container, and I let it all drain out. Brilliant. And then I just filled it with water.

I didn't start the engine. Right. No, you're in luck. You didn't start the engine. You did the good thing. And so what you did was you just let it pour out onto the ground. Yes, but I am I sure. Shame on you.

On the ground. Ooh, and I'm, you know, I'm in California. That could be trouble, right? California. They're going to drop a giant sequoia on you, baby. I'm in trouble now. So what should I do? Well, here's what you could do.

Yeah. You could take that plastic reservoir right out. It unscrews. Oh, take the whole thing out. It comes out. And wash it and rinse it out thoroughly. And you'll have gotten all the oil out of there. And just put it back and forget it.

And stick it back and hook the hoses up and pour a half a gallon of anti-freeze in and drive the car. Ah. Or do nothing. You've already done it. Yeah. I mean, the thing is 11 years old. Do nothing in what? Just top it off with cooling?

The small amount of oil that's in there is not going to interfere with the cooling. And don't forget, there is lubricant in the anti-freeze anyway to lubricate. the water pump. Okay, so I didn't ruin my car. You didn't. Not yet. And tell those guys that are telling you you did a horrible thing to back off. All right.

And tell them that you washed it all out with soap. Okay, but do you still want me to do that? No. Only if you want to. Only if you've got nothing better to do, Marcia. I have nothing better to do. Wash it out with soap. It's going to gnaw away at you.

It will. It will keep me from sleeping. It will keep me from sleeping enough. by talking to you, that it's going to drive you nuts. Yeah. Yeah. It's already driving your nuts. Yes, it is if I called you.

Yeah. Now you're driving to that. If we had both agreed that she could just leave it alone, she was slept like a baby tonight. Yeah. The fact that we disagreed is making her tense now. No, no. I'm going to break the thing. I'll get my tools out and take it out.

I had to tell her what was in my heart. Thank you. Since when? I appreciate that. I do. I've adopted a new philosophy. If it isn't broke. fix it.

See you, Marcia. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Well, it's happened again. You squanded another hour of your child's precious quality time

listening to Car Talk. Yeah. Our esteemed producer is Doug the subway fugitive Bongo Boy should be jailbird too. He's not just a subway fugitive.

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