The Best of Car Talk - #2471: Put a Sock in it

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

While doing some maintenance on his Mercury, Bob from Washington used one of his athletic socks to keep things from falling into the car's manifold. After finishing up he took the car for a spin on the highway until he heard a horrible noise and the car died. That giant, sock-sucking-sound on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.Get access to hundreds of episodes in the Car Talk archive when you sign up for Car Talk+ at plus.npr.org/cartalkLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges, nine campuses, one purpose, creating tomorrow today. More at iu.edu. Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us clicking clack the tappet brothers and we're broadcasting this week from the Center for Automotive Industry Ethics here at Car Talk Plaza and I'll, this is a very small division here, but hey, we have to have one, right?

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Automotive News, November 11th, 1996. BMW Corp stresses ethics. Mandatory training effort debuts at U.S. dealerships, Reno, Nevada. BMW of North America, Inc. has this fall made ethical training mandatory for key dealership employees.

Yeah, I got it. This is very nice. They realize that ethics is important and that probably or possibly there are some people in the automotive industry who don't really understand the meaning of ethics. Here is one of the little exercises that they do. They present the seminar participants with the following. Here is a hypothetical situation. I'm ready. I got my pen in hand.

A retail customer phones the dealership asking the price of a CD player for a 1996 328i. Got it. The parts counter person looks it up and says $875, which the customer finds acceptable. When the customer comes to pick it up, the parts counter person checks the price again and realizes, you ready for this? Yeah. That the retail price is actually not 875, but 775. This now presents an ethical dilemma. They want to know what should

the parts counter person do. I mean the very fact that they think that this represents an ethical dilemma lets you know where we're starting from here in the automotive industry. It's pretty sad isn't it? Good. Well I mean I know the answer. I mean I know how it should come out. I mean, it would never occur to them to say, well, I made a mistake. It's only $7.75. That answer isn't even on the list. What is the answer?

Well the answer is you look it up, you find out it's $7.75, you tell the customer you made a terrible mistake in your haste to give them a price over the phone, and it's really $9.75. Oh, you risked for that. But because you gave them a price over the phone and it's really $9.75 but because you because you gave him a price over the phone you'll stick to that and sell it to him for the $8.75. As soon as Dougie showed this to me it reminded me of the the lawyer joke about the lawyer has a client and they're discussing something at the end of the meeting the lawyer says well that'll be a hundred bucks and

the guy reaches in his pocket and hands the lawyer in cash a hundred dollar bill. And the client leaves and the lawyer realizes that there were actually $200 bills stuck together. And he is immediately presented with an ethical dilemma. Should he tell his partner? So this is what, well, I guess you have to start somewhere. Exactly. And this shows that at least understand where to start. Maybe it's a little too high for them. Maybe.

But it's a humble beginning. If you have a mechanical or ethical question about your car or anything else, feel free to call us at 1-800-332-9287. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Ike from Western Springs, Illinois. Hi, Ike. How you doing? Western Springs. Right. You're're gonna ask him what part of Illinois that is well I thought you'd ask so I'm not prepared for the answer

oh I'm asking them we want to know why your name is Ike how do you wind up with a name like Ike don't ask it's a long story all right we won't anyway Western Springs is not far from Chicago we're one of those nice bedroom communities he's a subject ah okay so what's up by is not far from chicago where one of my spectrum communities is subject to our so what's up anyway i i have a nineteen ninety dodge caravan with a three point three liter engine and about fifty six thousand miles uh... lately i've noticed when i start the car in the morning

or after it's it's all day in our tropical winter climate that we have here now that the oil pressure gauge reads very close to the low end of the normal range practically on the boundary between normal and low and when does this happen when i start a couple cars called i started up in the morning really yeah i'm going cold days are just called engine a cold engine cold engine that's unfortunate but sometimes the needle starts out slightly above the low end

but after i back out of the driveway start moving it moved downward toward a low and which stays for a while uh... even after the engine is warm the needle hasn't moved very much uh... this uh... symptom a sign of impending doom as i drive down some not only highway at midnight or to gauge uh... just being temperamental i don't think it's impending yeah the public i had an idiot like the federal it wouldn't even come on, which goes

to show that little knowledge may be a dangerous thing. Well I mean it could be the gauge, that would be nice, but you really have to check it out because I mean when you first start the cold engine the oil pressure should be very high. Should be. And so I mean it should be higher than normal. Do you notice that the engine makes more noise than usual? No, no. It runs very quiet. It's very quiet? Yes. I don't think you have a problem. I mean you should fix it because my guess is that the gauge is reading incorrectly. It's probably the sending unit or something?

It's probably the sending unit and I believe this thing has a light as well as a gauge. I've never seen a light That's a light. It's they might have taped it over at the factory. You never know Well, you'd know if I had a light because if you just turn the key to the on position I don't think that's what I would come on. Yeah, I think it's just a gauge it may our caravan I the only reason I know this I don't know if it has a light. I think it does but it also has a chime Because the time that I seized the engine, when driving... Does it... What does it play? Exactly, Tchaikovsky's Death March.

No, the time that I was driving home from New York and had the engine blow on Route 95 outside of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The gauge went down to zero, and then after a minute or so of continual, which I shouldn't mention. You shouldn't be mentioning this. I couldn't get off the highway. He told the insurance company that he pulled over immediately and shut off the engine.

But. Well, I did, I had to finish my coffee first. But he told me in private that he knew his only hope was to completely destroy the engine because they'd want to just fix it. He didn't want it fixed. He wanted a new one. So he drove 25 miles with no oil pressure. Listening to the chime, Dane. But this is just between you and us, Ike.

So I think you do have some other warning device. But my guess is you need just a new sending unit or maybe the gauge on the dash is bad, but more than anything have them check the oil pressure and make sure that that's okay. You're going to have to leave it overnight so they can do it on a cold engine and they'll test it first thing in the morning and if they find out that you truly do have low oil pressure I would be very surprised. Okay, thanks very much. See you later.

Good luck. Bye bye. 1-800-332-9287. Hello. You're on car talk. Hello Hello, Pam from Shreveport Pam Pam you sound like you're a recording I'm rather horny. Oh Right now are you on some kind of a funny telephone that you got from Time magazine? Well, that might be it's a school phone Oh school. Yeah, they they cheap out on everything Are you a schoolte. Ah, oh school, yeah, they cheap out on everything. Oh, it might be. Are you a school teacher?

Yes, I am. Cool. Oh, so the kids are at recess or something? No, they're being watched and they're reading their novels. Yeah, no, she tied them up. Okay. So what's up, Pam? Well, my car, Miss Amy Lyon, that's my car.

Miss Amy Lyon? Yes. car and any lion that my car miss any lion yet he had to put a drop of mountain land or mountain aluminum on my left foot the first time it happened to pick up i thought i'd been stung by an insect as you were driving i'm driving a little pellets yet of something

fell on your left what yet and it was hot oh yeah i'm not and tonight Something fell on your left foot. Yes, and it was hot. Oh, yeah And when I when I got to where I was going I noticed that it was not an insect but indeed I had this Little ball of lead aluminum looking stuff. It's lead probably. It's probably lead. Oh probably lead. Probably solder. Solder. Yeah, I'm gonna I haven't asked you what kind of a car it is yet because I'm... Oh, you're going to predict? No.

You're going to guess? No, I don't know. I was hoping to guess what kind of a car it is because I figured I'd make it one out of two questions right. I have no idea where the solder came from. Well, then let's shoot for what kind of car it is because I don't know where the solder came from either. I'm going to guess, let's see, solder.

I'm going to guess it's an American car.er. I'm gonna guess it's an American car. No! I'm gonna guess that it's Japanese. Oh, you're right. What? Who's right? Japanese. Japanese, okay, we narrowed it down to two. I'd say then that it's a Subaru. Nope.

Toyota! Yes. Okay, now why is that? That was my first guess. Toyota? It's a 1980 Corona. 80? Yes.

Ah. 80. 80! It's about 210,000 miles on it. Ah, this might be a clue. Well, I'm going to tell you that you are a car fire waiting to happen. Oh, dear. I think. I think so?? Yeah if you're pulling so much

current through a wire that you are melting the solder, yeah, then you are a hair's breadth away from melting the insulation on that wire and causing a major short circuit and having the car burn up as you go down the highway. Oh my gosh. I I don't... I mean... No, I mean, I have to agree with my brother that, I mean, for it to be hot solder... I mean, don't forget, the way you have to get solder hot, if you're using solder, is you heat it up like with a blow torch. You know, a little propane torch? Well, in this case, you'd use a soldering gun. It would be a soldering gun or a soldering iron.

Which is many hundreds of degrees. Yeah, so, I mean, this is not the temperatures that you would normally encounter under the dashboard. Oh golly. So something's really wrong. I would guess that maybe something's pulling too much current. It may be that the compressor clutch is pulling too much current, and as a consequence it's heating up the wires and it's melting the solder at the connections.

I don't know where the solder connections are, but it shouldn't take a genius to get under the dashboard and figure out what's directly above your foot. Yeah. I mean, it really is confusing because whatever is drawing that much current should have blown fuses by the dozen by now. And this is why they tell you not to drive barefoot. That's right, because this happens all the time. Seriously, Pam, have someone look at it as soon as possible.

Oh, I certainly will. This sounds really lousy to me. I don't like it. Oh, okay. Well, I certainly will then. Thanks for your call. Thank you. I loved your show. Thank you so much. Thanks for calling. Go untie the kids. Bye-bye. Bye.

We'll be right back with the answer to the puzzler right after these messages. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Wise, the app that makes managing your money in different currencies easy. With Wise, you can send and spend money internationally at the mid-market exchange rate, no guesswork and no hidden fees. Learn more about how WISE could work for you at WISE.com. When it comes to your health, Shortwave is a science show you can count on. We bring you clear information rooted in the best research to keep you and your loved ones safe and well.

Listen to the Shortwave Podcast from NPR. I just don't want to leave a mess. On Bullseye, the great Dan Aykroyd talks about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters and his very detailed plans about how he will spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the Bullseye Podcast from MaximumFun.org and NPR. For a while now, you've probably been hearing about book bands, how they're gaining momentum everywhere in Texas, in Missouri, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

On the Code Switch Podcast, we're taking a look at why. Why are so many books suddenly considered so dangerous to kids? Listen to our new series on the Code Switch Podcast from MBO. Speaking of the thought process. In the spirit of the holiday season. Of giving, a spirit of giving. Yes, generosity. I'm not going to embarrass you by asking if you remember last week's puzzler.

Had to do with now what the heck fishing bait Bait yes, you were baited bait Fishing pole no that was close. It was like that was three weeks Here it is. I know I don't know it a customer came in a few weeks ago with an old Toyota or something I don't even bought it was and he had the following complaint He said when I try to climb a long, rather steep hill, the car starts to behave peculiarly as if someone has turned the key off and then on off, so it's like lurching.

And as I'm writing down his complaint, one of my guys is standing behind me and I write down car lurches severely, et cetera, et cetera. He says, on level ground, no problem. Runs great. I remember this now. And I write car lurches severely on hills and the customer says, oh, one other thing. If I try to climb a much steeper hill, but shorter hill, it doesn't happen at all. And you said, huh?

So I write car lurches severely on long, very steep hills. You underline very steep. And my guy who's been standing behind me says, I've got it. He said, I'm going to guess it. You don't have a fuel injected car, do you? And the customer says, I have no idea. No, he says, no, I don't. I have a carbureted car.

And my guy says, I know what it is. So I turned around and I gave him a black eye for divulging the answer because now he couldn't charge it for like six hours, diagnostic, put it on the scope and I can see it all well I was impressed because by knowing that the person had a carburetted car He knew what was wrong with the car the question was what was it and who was standing behind you? Who was standing behind and we know it wasn't Peter? The problem was he was if it had been a fuel injected car, the problem would have been the same whether it was a steep hill, but because it behaved differently with this carbureted

car, he knew what it had to do with the fact that a carburetor has the ability to store gasoline for future use. And when he devolves that it would climb a short, steep hill without a problem, but not a long, steep hill, he realized that what was happening was the float chamber gasoline was being used up. And by the time the thing got to the top of the hill, if it was a short one, it was still running OK.

And the fuel system would catch up. But on a long hill the thing would essentially be running out of gas and we're running out of gas because the fuel flow was impeded. Right because the way the carburetor works is you pump gas from the tank into this little bowl. A reserve. And the carburetor sort of takes it out of this bowl as it needs it and if the bowl runs dry you're done for you're basically out of gas. Exactly. Yeah. And if the bowl runs dry, you're done for. You're basically out of gas. Exactly. And what it was that fixed it was a four dollar gas filter. His gas filter was

plugged up. Pretty good, huh? Wow, that is very, very good. He still has the black eye. He's been nursing it for about a month now. Who's our winner this week? Well, the winner is Miriam Brown. Do you like that sort of like yeah, who's the winner Johnny the winner is Miriam Brown from? Saville New York and for having a correct answer chosen at random as our winner this week Miriam will get a copy of the brand new second best second best of car talk

CD tape or whatever This is a collection of the greatest car talk moments and includes the now famous Max and the schnauzer telephone call Daniel Pinkwater's call about being circumferentially challenged the Clinton sends vows to Bosnia letter I mean everything this is great and you can give this to it comes with a special car talk gift sticker which you can use to turn around and unload this piece of junk on someone else's Christmas or a Hanukkah gift or any other kind of gift because it's got little check-off things.

Well, I recently received in the mail from Berman my Christmas present, which was the best of Car Talks. Yeah, it was. Did it have a sticker on it? What a chisler. Anyway, we have a brand new puzzle coming up during the second half of Car Talk, so stay tuned. But in the meantime, you can call us at 1-800-332-9287.

Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hello, this is Bob from Gig Harbor, Washington. Bob, Gig Harbor. That two G's or three? One, G-I-G. G-I-G. Gig Harbor, Washington. What's up, Bob? I got an 88 Sable with a 3.8 liter engine

and about 60,000 miles on it. Yeah. It sucked a sock down the intake manifold. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was working on it and I was replacing an injector so I had the part of the manifold off. I put a sock in there so I wouldn't drop anything into the and then you forgot it was there Put it together started it up and I got about a mile. I got to the freeway

It died a very violent death sure it did It's a common thing. I mean if you look up in the technical service bulletins It has directions on what to do if you suck a sock. I've looked at it many times. I towed it home and I thought I'd just look in there, take the manifold off and there'd be a half a sock or something. Well the important question is, was this a cotton sock or was it some kind of a nylon,

you know? I think it was probably 80% cotton 20% nylon it was one of those big athletic socks size 13. Oh no those are good those are mostly cotton. That'll burn them. Cotton's pretty combustible, nylon burns too but it makes a gooey mess. Well that's what I thought. Cotton leaves a nice ashy, white ashy residue. What's this gonna do to my catalytic converter? You don't have one anymore the car still runs well it does because it it quit and i said all this isn't happening i'll just started again and drive away and when i started it

uh... it runs like some cars that you shut them off they still run on it sounded kinda like made lots of noises i mean it's a, very hard to believe that a size 13 sock could get through an intake valve. Well, when I took that manifold off, there were little burnt bits of lint

throughout the intake manifold. Oh, so you did, you took the manifold off. Yeah. I mean, I have trouble understanding where the sock went, tell you the truth. Oh, it got distributed, I think, pretty evenly among the six cylinders. Well, that's... Oh, it got distributed, I think, pretty evenly among the six cylinders. Well, that's...

Gee, it's really hard to believe, though. Well, don't forget the forces. The suction is pretty intense, and I think it just tore that sock apart. I want to know, should I just stir it up and hope it'll burn out, or can I do more damage than... Well, let's look at what it could do. Okay. I don't know what it could do.

But I think you need to find out, Bob, for all of humanity. I mean, here's what could have happened. Assuming that it got torn up, I don't believe it. I don't believe there's enough force. I think that sock is laying there in the intake manifold someplace. Oh, I searched thoroughly. You took the manifold off. I took the manifold someplace. Oh, I searched thoroughly. You took the manifold off? I took the manifold off.

And you could see each one of the valve ports at that point. Yeah. And you could see pieces of material in each one of them, I bet. A little bit of lint, yeah, everywhere. Yeah, no, it got shredded. Well, you know what you need? I think what you need is a quart of sock solvent.

Yeah, you need something that... What would eat up cotton? My son's feet. You need the feet of a teenage boy. I know, sulfuric acid eats up almost every material. Coil pistons. That's a problem. I mean, you haven't run this for more than like 10 minutes, right?

Oh, yeah, not even that much. No, I think I think you're a little bit timid here And I think you need some encouragement from us. I think careful now because I'm worried that the sock is gonna get stuck The sock in the piston the snow the sole the sock isn't trust me The sock is no more first of all the whole sock could never get sucked through the valve No, no, I don't mean the sock but the pieces of the sock that are now in the cylinders. They're going to get burned up. It's hot in there, man. Flames!

I burned a sock in my backyard with the propane torch to see what happened. Oh, the other one, right? You might as well burn the other one up. Excellent! How did it work? I think it's treated or something with anti-flammables. It didn't burn very well. Oh, no, but it'll burn there.

Okay. I think you ought to put it together and just run it. And I think what you'll notice is one of two things will happen. Either after a few minutes it'll begin to run better and better and better. Okay. And maybe after ten minutes or so, you won't know that anything had ever happened. Or after about a minute, it'll stop running completely and it'll never run again. Right. Well that's what I was hoping you would say. The worst I can do is have to overhaul the engine. Yeah, because the alternative is at this point to take it all

apart. And what's the sense of that? If you need to take it apart you want serious justification for it. Yeah, that's true. That's right. My guess is that the remains of the sock will eventually plug up if they haven't. Well, not yet because you haven't run it long enough, but in the next hour that you run it, they'll plug up the catalytic converter and you'll have to replace that. You may have two of them on this car. I think so. You may have. Converters.

They're about a thousand bucks a piece. I don't think I'd be too worried. Bob, you can take a joke. The war that was sought, the kingdom was lost. Boy, oh boy. Well, I wrote a book about the big book of swear words. Well, you sound like you're pretty philosophical about it now. What did you, are you married? Well about it now. I mean, you're not... What did you... you married?

Well, for now. For now? It's her car, actually. Oh, that's even better! Yeah, I would... If it were my car, I'd put it all back together and I'd start it up. I wouldn't rev it.

I would just start it up and... And let it idle. Hope that it ran and let it idle for as long as it takes to idle smoothly and Then I'd take it for a little jaunt around the block and little by little I think my my hope and prayer would be that it would just gradually smooth right out and you wouldn't even know anything happened And then work on your explanation of how this is the way the car always has run for your wife Because you're gonna have to explain to her while it really runs on only five

cylinders most of the time or she did this somehow somehow she did it right here good luck bob boy thank you very much does she know what happened and i think so you just think so i worked on it and now it doesn't work that but you know she doesn't she doesn't know about the sock not exactly no a sock would disappear anywhere and they disappear in the laundry all the time exactly and and you've in fact you destroyed the mate

you know you destroyed the mate of this so you've destroyed all the evidence you've covered the tracks he's not going to have if she looks in your in your sock drawer a sock without a mate yeah so that's what that's good that was good those. That was good. But it was good thinking, Bob. Yeah. And we won't tell her about the sock.

Well, look, I think you should run right out and run this thing because we're going to call you back soon within a week or two for Stump the Chumps. I mean, if, if ever there was a call worthy of Stump the Chumps, this is it. Oh, this could be a good one. This, this will be a good one. And I predict, I will walk on a limb and predict that within a half an hour of running this thing with you man it runs

great I wish I could disagree but I'm with you all the way good luck Bob hoping for the best thanks guys see ya I talked to you soon okay I bike don't suck a sock boy how stupid must he have must he have felt, huh? I guess you say, oh, the sock! As soon as it stopped there on the highway. Oh, the sock. Yeah. That sinking feeling, like, oh my god.

Yeah. We'll be right back with more calls and the new puzzler after these messages. puzzler after these messages. changing and what that says about us as humans. Listen now to the How Wild podcast from KALW, part of the NPR network. Every day, technology changes how we live. Shortwave wants you to feel empowered and informed in navigating these new tools from AI to precision medicine to quantum computing, face the future with confidence. Listen to the shortwave podcast from NPR. How does the brain process memories?

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and more. Learn more and sign up at plus.npr.org and never hear this promo again. Hi, we're back. You're listening to Car Talk on National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack the Tapper Brothers, and we're here to discuss, of course, cars and car repair and Litigation related you want otherwise known as lawyer Joe. Oh, yes Here's one. What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 50? I don't know what your honor What does a lawyer have in common with a sperm they both have a one in a million chance of becoming a human being. One of my favorites here. What do you get when you cross the Godfather with a lawyer? I give up on it. An offer you can't understand. Actually, you can read thousands of lawyer jokes from our website.

Get to cartalk.com and you go to Nolo Press and they've got 10,000 wonderful lawyer jokes. But speaking of the website. Yes, indeed. New, this week, something actually potentially useful. We have posted winter driving tips and actually a winter car care and driving tips. What to do for winter. Like move to Hawaii? That's in there, that's true. But there's also an extensive list of actually serious advice for winter driving.

Oh, I know. The answers to frequently asked questions like should I bother with snow tires? Should I put eight bags of kitty litter in my trunk? Depends on how many cats you have in your trunk. Exactly. That's all at cartalk.com and you can find it from the What's New page and don't forget to take the car ownership survey while you're there. We got a new survey and it is a whoopee! Hey, talking about real whoopees, here's this week's puzzler. Oh, I can hardly wait. Now see, you destroy the whole mood.

Oh, I'm sorry. I mean... The entire country is sitting there poised with pen in hand, ready to write down this important information. I mean, whoopee, yeah, hey, here's the puzzler. I can hardly wait. Doesn't sound genuine. You know me. Yeah, well, I know you. Hey, I bet it's a good one, too.

It couldn't be as bad as last week's. Oh, yes it could. All right, go ahead. Just give it to us, will you? Come on. We had actually been asked to do this. Hey, I bet it's a good one too. It couldn't be as bad as last week's. Oh, yes it could. All right, go ahead. Just give it to us, will ya?

Come on! We had it, Ashley, this has been used as a puzzler many, many, many, many moons ago, and I hadn't seen it happen for a long time, but we saw it the other day at the shop, and it reminded me to use it again because it was a good one. A customer came in with a car that wouldn't run.

He said, I went out to start my car this morning. I turned the key and it cranked, but it wouldn't start. I said, did you open the hood? He said, of course not. I just called the tow truck and the car should be pulling up to your shop any minute. Sure enough, it does. And we get inside and turn the key and it sounds good. It sounds like there's compression in the cylinders and, and, it smelled gasoline even. And we open the hood and find out that the distributor cap is broken into a million pieces smashed to smithereens. Were you able to retrieve all million of them? Well most of the pieces because they were still stuck to the wires. Yeah okay so here's the distributed cap with a piece stuck to one wire and a piece stuck to

one of the wires so the spark plug wires are for the most part still attached to it but it is broken beyond recognition you might say. Really? I said well it must have been, I don't know, maybe there was a crack in the cap or some such thing, maybe it finally let go, maybe the rotor hit it, maybe there's something wrong with the rotor, the rotor spun around and broke the thing. Those are all very unlikely. All very unlikely things but all possible.

In any event, we put a new cap and rotor on this thing. Let me guess. It blew up. Starts right up. Runs great and we parked the car outside. Yeah. We run it to make sure everything is okay. Drive it around.

The end of the day, the customer comes to get his car. He pays the bill. Well, the first, he complains a lot about the bill. And then after an hour of, of haggling and fighting and gnashing of teeth, he finally pays the $400 as we charged him. Hey, well. I mean, what do you want?

I mean, you know, diagnostic. There was diagnosis, there was lunch, there was boat payments, I mean, there were things. He comes back five minutes later and he says, won't stop. What is this? Some kind of a joke? He comes back five minutes later and he says, What is this, some kind of a joke?

Ooh. And I go out and open the hood and notice that the new cap is broken in a similar fashion. Wow. Yeah. What was happening here? Wow. And I'll give you a hint in that it would happen to cars of yesteryear much more readily than it would happen to cars of nowadays.

Of now year. And there are some cars nowadays that this couldn't happen to at all. Why? They don't have distributors. They don't have distributors and distributor caps and rotors. So would you care to tell us what kind of car this was? There are a lot of different cars that it could be. I think this was a Honda, an older Honda. Older Honda. Yeah, 80s vintage.

80s vintage. Yeah. Wow. Something like that. That's it. Yeah, 80s vintage. 80s vintage. Yeah, wow, something like that. That's it, I think that's it. I think so too. Now if you think you know the answer, send it to us at Puzzler Tower, Car Talk Plaza, Box 3500, Harvard Square, Cambridge, Our Fair City,

MA, 02238. Or you can email us your answer from CarTalk.com by clicking on the Talk to Car Talk section. If you'd like to call us for the question about your car the number is one eight hundred three three two nine two eight seven hello you're on car talk hi this is Barry from st. Louis hi Barry Barry you're coming in loud and clear well st. Louis isn't that far away no no yes it is it's days away from here by a horse and wagon well it's a short commute for me, by plane.

Indeed. Oh. Yeah, so what's up? Well, I'm having a problem. My car is stuck in the garage because the parking brake will not release. I've been driving it. It's a 1994 Mazda 626 and the other day I pulled into the garage, set the parking brake as usual, went in when I came out the next morning and released the parking brake, the lever went down, but the parking brake didn't release.

Does this have disc brakes on all four wheels? Yes, it does. Have you tried to move the car? Yes, I have. And those brakes are on there pretty tight. The car is still under warranty. And I called the dealer and they said, oh, no problem, bring it in and we'll fix it for you.

Right, sure. The problem is getting into my garage is a fairly tight squeeze. It's off of a narrow alley, and I make a sharp turn into the garage, and I don't know how I'm gonna get a, how a tow truck is gonna get in there to... I got it. So...

I got it, man. Here's what you do. Okay. Oh. I remove my garage, right? No, no, no. You go down to the local auto parts store okay and you buy two creepers creepers you know what a creeper is no wait whoa whoa

wait a minute let me work on this a creeper is in the old days before no it's bad enough you get a shoe all the companies that you berate. Actually, there is a device sold for this very purpose. Yeah, but he... No, he's gonna do it. It's a creeper? No, buy one creeper. Get underneath the car.

No, no, no, he's gonna have to. No, you will see. If you have an assistant pull on the handbrake lever, he's gonna hit the car. Oh, that's not gonna be any fun. It's not gonna be as much fun as I was. Here's what this moron wants you to do. He wants you to jack up the car, put each of these back wheels, because it's a front wheel drive car, he wants you to put each of these back wheels on these chintzy wooden creepers. And when you let the car back down, you're going to crush the wood.

Yeah. If you're lucky, you'll crush the wood. If you're not that these two wheels will now be a little casters on the casters of the creeper at which point you're gonna try to back the car up you're gonna crash into the side of your garage because you won't be able to steal the thing because the creepers are gonna dictate I should also tell you that in order to get into the garage from the alley there's a there's a little hill I mean it's not of course they would have to be she's still is not a

it's not the right word it's like a you know it's a slant upward three feet how long is the carbon park without being moved uh... about a week now about a week my guess is that the mechanism on the calipers is stuck. Here's how you're going to get it to the dealership. You're going to get under there.

With a hammer. With a hammer, exactly. A hammer. Yeah, a hammer. And you're going to see when your assistant pulls on the handbrake inside, you're going to see the cable and where it connects to the brake caliper in the back. And it connects to a lever. And you'll be able to see when someone pulls on the thing in which direction it

moves to actuate the handbrake and that we were most moving the opposite direction to deactivate handbrake you whack it in that direction with the hammer and you'll know you fixed it because you will then be able to push the car by hand or it'll just roll on top of you as you're called a line of no you're not even a jacket up as a lying to the on your belly i'd like a sand dog

but and then when you've got it freed up you can drive it to the dealership and they'll fix it and you may need to have the calipers rebuilt it doesn't sound like it's the cables or that they've been everything just might be rusted i should tell you that if you can't affect the repair in this manner yet you can drive the car you can override the handbrake this is a little eyes on you know

you'll drive it right out of the going to the auto parts for uh... to buy the creepers as i previously suggested if you're gonna follow my brother's next piece of advice you go in the house and you get a bottle of extra virgin olive oil and you put it right behind the real tires and then when you start to go that or the light and slide on the olive oil you go just put it on the bottom yeah

so I'm greasing up the floor of my garage to get it out of the garage in this slide the car no actually even though it's even I build the belt you'll get this freed up by banging on it with a with a hammer yeah but if you don't get it freed up completely you'll be able to bet you'll get this freed up by banging on it with a hammer. But if you don't get it freed up completely, you'll be able to at least drive it out of the garage enough to get the tow truck to come. Right. I've backed it out a little bit, but there's a lot of resistance, but it skids along the ground.

That's what it's going to do, but that's what the olive oil is going to make easier. It's going to skid along the olive oil. Well, I could put olive oil all the way from my house to the dealership and just push it all the way well maybe you'd like to set up a 50 gallon drum on the roof and you could sort of like drip system like dribble irrigation you could dribble it as you go I like that too yeah okay well Barry well thanks for the advice don't mention see you later to anybody especially especially a lawyer. Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.

Well, you've wasted another perfectly good hour listening to Karto. I didn't waste it. I wasn't going to do anything else anyway. I wasn't listening. Our esteemed producer is Doug the subway fugitive, not a slave to fashion, Berman. Our associate producer and dean of the College of Automusicology is Ken Babyface, Nanook Rogers. Our assistant producer is Catherine Pertuti-Ray.

Our engineer is Karen Given. And our technical advisor is John Bugsy, milk carton man Lawler. Yeah, we have to start over with the nicknames because the printing bill for the credits is killing us. Every week after... No sir, two-thirds of it is him. I know, I can't remember them all either, so we have to write them out every week. I know.

It should come quite burdensome, I might add. He's been a burden to us for a long time anyway. I know. Is he here this week? No. I thought he was here. Our public opinion pollster is Paul Murky of Murky Research, assisted by statistician Margin O'Vara.

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That's it! Our marriage counselor is Marion Haste and our sexual harassment intervention counselor is Pat McCann. The curator of Tom's car collection is Rex Galore. Our director of photography is Lens Capon. Our engine cooling systems manager is John Claude Airdam. Our director of country music is Stan Byerman. Our director of cold weather starting is Martina Never Turnover.

And our manager of automotive accessories is Francis Ford Cupholder. And our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheatham and Howes, U. Lewis Dewey, known to the tipsy looking Santas in Harvard Square as Uee Louie Dewey. Thanks so much for listening. We're Click and Clack the Tapet Brothers.

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