The Best of Car Talk - #2483: Undiplomatic Channels

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Mike from DC is at war with the Swedish embassy. Some diplomat's car has an alarm that goes off several nights a week for long stretches of time -a clear violation of the Geneva Convention's subsection on 'neighborliness'. What decidedly 'undiplomatic' solution will Click and Clack devise in order to end these nightly alarms while also avoiding an international incident? Find out 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

Hey, if you enjoy the best of CarTalk Podcasts, you should try out NPR+. With NPR+, you'll get access to the CarTalk Archives and other perks across more than 20 of NPR's most popular podcasts. Give a little and get a lot in return. Good deal, huh? Visit plus.npr.org. Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers, and we're broadcasting this week from the IRS Service Center here at Car Talk Plaza. Now, they've given us our very own service center. Have they?

You know, they want to keep an eye on us. Anyway, since this is the time of year when many people are trying to create, I mean collate the tax deductible expenses for the internal revenue service, we thought we'd offer a helpful tax tip. Today's tip, I guess, is particularly apropos to you public radio listeners, because it has to do with charitable deductions. I mean, I know that what we've always given as a tax advice is that when you make a contribution to the radio station, you ask them to send you a blank form right and then you double what you actually gave and if you're in the 50% tax bracket it ends up that you pay

nothing if you're in the 30% tax bracket you triple whatever so if you gave a hundred bucks you say you have 300 bucks right 30% tax bracket it's free so everyone benefits that way as far as I can see. I mean who could possibly argue that? Well, we thought we'd give you some information that you could possibly use I'm illegitimate now if you make a pledge like a charitable Contribution, you know and you receive something in return like a Nina totem bag Yeah, it's always a question isn't well general. No's the rule. You have to subtract the actual value of the gift. So if you pledge 100 bucks and the bag is worth 10 bucks, you can deduct only 90. So your gift would really be $90, right?

And that would be the amount you'd be able to deduct, right? But ready for this? And this would be of keen interest to people who pledged during car talk last year. Tokens of, quote, insubstantial value. These are their words. Can now be completely disregarded. Now you should obviously check with your tax preparer, but I happen to think that anything that says car talk on it would be of, in the words of the IRS, insubstantial value.

By definition. Sure. And they'd have a tough time proving otherwise, wouldn't it? Wouldn't they? Let them chase you for it. Absolutely. That's what I would do Absolutely, who's gonna go to jail for this you or me? Well, we can't put it we could go to jail Yeah, yeah that will that'll be us Pick us as a test case You don't have any great mail to read at the end. I do as a matter of fact want me to read some no

No, I was only kidding. I was trying to make you feel have. Let me read you a quick one here. This is good. This is of interest to both of us. As a devoted listener for a long time, I've come to observe something that raises a question in my mind. Almost invariably, when one of those tough questions is asked, they will follow a short period of quiet thought processing, and then the answer will come. From Ray. In each of these cases Ray will come up with something erudite, insightful and profound while Tom's contribution will be a long whistle and maybe a wow. This

leads me to a thought that gives me great pain to formulate in my mind but yet is a question that I cannot escape. Does Tom know anything? As I said before gives me great pain to contemplate this because as an older brother myself, I know that the older brother is always mentally enhanced. That's good. Since this is always true, it leads me to the only conclusion that can possibly be reached. That is, Tom is sending these answers to Ray by ESP. Oh, of course. Then, being the gentleman that he is, he allows his younger brother to look good by not saying

anything about his psychic contributions. This shows that Tom is a genius of the First Order and deserving of a simultaneous hurrah from older brothers everywhere. I know that this must be the answer. I feel much better about the whole situation now. Wow. Well, the truth is, if everyone must know, my brother does not communicate telepathically with me. He writes the answers down on a piece of paper and slides them over to me and then I enhance.

Tear them up and throw them away. Well, I enhance and modify and add to, you know, and except they've all lately said choke pull-off. If you want to talk to us about your car or your tax returns or correct answers of any kind, you can call us at 1-800-332-9287. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Well, I should mention that letter was from Don McGowan from Osceola, Arizona That's I just wanted to mention. Hello. Who is this? I click I clack. How you guys doing? Good. Who's this?

This is Mike in DC Mike in DC D absolutely and are you a politician or a lawyer or both? neither neither What's your question Mike hey my question is well first of all, I don't even own a car. Good. But I'm having a problem with someone else's car. Yeah. Now see, in DC, if you have this little license plate that says diplomat on it, you know all about that.

Yes, and you have a girlfriend who has one of those plates. Absolutely not. We have an unknown person down the street who has one. Oh, unknown person. Yes, who has one. Oh, unknown person? Yes, who apparently is out of town. It's parked out back of an embassy whose name I won't give, but I think they eat a lot of lingonberries in this country. And every night or every other night, recently,

the alarm on this car goes off. And it won't stop for about two, three hours. Really? You know, the tow places won't tow it because, Hey, let's go to diplomatic plate. Have you tried knocking on the door of the embassy and saying, Hey guys. Well, it's hard to tell who it is, but yeah,

there's been a couple of letters written and, and telephone calls to them. But basically, basically you know we've come down to the point where something mechanically has to be done maybe a giant electron beam that would yeah but but I mean there's got to be some way to disable this alarm because whoever owns the car it hasn't moved for about a month and a half now so they're out of town and the thing goes off and I mean there's nobody to stop it. Well, what you could do.

Well there are lots of things you could do but I just want to make sure that you have taken the appropriate action. We have taken all the appropriate action. You've done all the diplomatic channels. What embassy is it? You can tell us. Alright, it's Sweden. Yes sir.

No, it's a Mercedes-Benz. Of course. Silly of me. That's all they drive for some reason. All the embassies. Okay, so you've done all the things that would allow them to take action were they so inclined? Absolutely. So the thing wakes you up a couple of times a week, tough! Yeah.

So let's just make sure we get the context of the question right. And it doesn't wake them up obviously. It's far enough removed from there and they're well insulated and back off the street and... Well I think that the diplomatic residence is in a different part of town than the embassy. Ah, so the embassy after five o'clock in the afternoon, the embassy is empty. Exactly. Exactly. The question is, what can you guys do?

View the neighbors. Exactly. I mean, I guess the quickest way to take care of it would be to disconnect the battery. So you don't actually have to get to the battery itself. All you need to do is get to one of the main cables of the battery and disconnect it or sever it in some way and that would do it well unfortunately this is all illegal of course but this car has more than one cable running off the positive and more than one cable running off the negative so if you found the cable that ran from the negative of

the battery to the block of the engine Disconnecting or severing that cable would not be enough to kill the necessarily it might not in this car wouldn't you never know? I don't think so But given that you can't open the hood. I mean, let's take that as a given. Yeah Because in order to open the hood you have to break a window and get inside and pull the hood really I think we I think that'd be a little bit too far for us. I think so too. Do the police come when the alarm goes off? No, of course not.

If you called them, would they come? They've talked to us and first of all they said they have much better things to do, which I'm not really sure what they mean by that. And secondly, it's a diplomatic car in a diplomatic parking lot, so it's not their jurisdiction Yeah, they can't do anything about it. Do you have a tuxedo? Excuse me. Do you own a tuxedo? No I do not. Rent one. Okay. Next time this happens. You have blonde hair? Yes, I do. Good Put on this rented tuxedo. Put on the tuxedo late in the evening sometime, 5 o'clock.

Put on the tuxedo, you walk over to a phone booth near the car, preferably your cellular phone and you call AAA. Or you call anybody that toes. Yeah. Okay. And when they come, your name will be, what do you want to be? Olaf Peterson. Olaf Peterson.

This is Mr. Peterson. How about just Leif Eriksson? Leif Eriksson would be good. your name will be what do you want to be Olaf Peterson Olaf Peterson this is Mr. Peterson Leif Erickson would be good and your car won't start and you want it towed could you please take it to the garage in Maryland take it to the Mercedes dealer that's it right so you'll need the name of the Mercedes dealer in Fairfax Virginia yeah the fact that you don't have keys, however, might... Ah, you've locked the keys in the car. No, they'll open it.

Yeah, well, that's even better. Sure, open it for me. Sure, tell them you locked the keys in the car. They'll open it. You open the hood and disconnect the battery. Hey, that's perfect. With your tuxedo on. Exactly.

There you go. So in either case, you win. If they can't open it, they'll tow it to Fairfax, Mercedes, if they don't open it and tell them you want a key made. And the best part about this is you can after that drive the car. The car might be yours. How bad could Swedish prisons possibly be? How bad could they be? They might be nice, who knows? No, whoever owns the car deserves it. They're arrogant. Inconsiderate. Inconsiderate. at the end of the night you know that was caught with all the cards of that arrogant inconsiderate inconsiderate we can have that i mean they're not even french and

i have to make the they wouldn't even know if the car missing they probably have so many of the scattered around the world sure i mean obviously missing they just call my not if it has a little problem and i have to means whoever has it doesn't care about it much so the taxi always what's going to get you around this. Okay. Okay, Olaf, thanks for calling. Okay, thanks a lot, guys.

Let us know how this works. You need to practice a little bit of a Swedish accent. Yeah. Well, I think I watched enough of the Muppets. You got it, man. You got it, baby. Just don't lapse into Brooklynese. Yeah, and try not to smirk too much.

Good luck. Thanks a lot. Thanks for calling. We'll be right back with the answer to the puzzler right after these messages. As election day approaches, NPRs consider this podcast is zooming in on six states that could determine who wins the White House. Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. We'll ask voters in these swing states what matters to them and which way they want the country

to go. Follow along with new episodes this week on the Consider This podcast from NPR. Hey, it's Mike and Ian. We're the hosts of How to Do Everything from the team at Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Every week we take your questions and find someone much smarter than us to answer them. Questions like, how do I safely jump out of a moving vehicle? How do I dangerously jump out of a moving vehicle? We can't help you, but we will find someone who can. Listen to the How to Do Everything podcast from NPR. One year ago, the event that changed a region.

Heavily armed Palestinian militants in Gaza flew across the border. The October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel. Israeli ground troops have entered northern Gaza. How the war unfolded and where it could be headed. Pagers carried by Hezbollah members began exploding in cars. unfolded and where it could be headed. Listen to a special episode of the podcast, State of the World from NPR. Okay, brother, tell me anything you remember about last week's show. I remember... I don't want to limit you to remembering the puzzler.

I remember the puzzler. How's that? Jeez. How's that grab ya? Because who's here today? Catherine. And she's still awake. The puzzler was about a car that wouldn't start, the guy would park it and he'd go away for a couple of days and it wouldn't start and he gave it to you. Is that it? Well yeah, essentially. Excellent. About a year ago a customer came into the shop complaining that when he went on trips

his car would be dead when he returned about a week or so later. Not a poker game, trips. Trips, yeah. But when he drove it every day or every other day Not a poker game, trips? Trips, yeah. But when he drove it every day or every other day as he usually did, it was fine. He didn't have any trouble with it. So he takes it to us and we did all of our usual tests. We looked high and low for current drain and we were unable to find anything at all wrong with it.

How did his financial interview go? Not well. Not well. We did a Dun & Brad Street on them and it was disappointing. It was. Yeah. So you didn't want to spend so much time on this. Well, we did the most honorable thing we could think of. We sold them a new battery

anyway and an alternator and voltage regulator and four tires. Anyway, he goes on another trip and comes back and he's incensed because his battery is what? Oh, another irate. Another dead drop and like flies. The battery is dead again. And he says, listen, you knuckleheads, there's definitely something wrong with my car.

I want you to check it out. So we check it out, find nothing wrong. And we attempt to return the car to him and he says, ah, and he says, I'm going on another trip, but you guys keep the car and let it die in your driveway. You miserable no- And in fact, we made the offer that whenever he wanted a trip, leave the car with us for the week.

So he agreed to do that. He'd leave the car with us for a week. We would not touch it for the entire week. It would sit just as it was sitting in his driveway, right? Parked in the one spot. He insisted that none of us drive it because he wanted to prove that there was in his driveway, right? Parked in the one spot. He insisted that none of us drive it because he wanted to prove that there was in fact really something.

And that he was not crazy. This is a common problem, you know? You bring your car into the garage and you complain of something and they tell you that you're crazy. It works a lot. Well yeah. Anyway, he returns after a week,

turns the key, we hold our breath, starts right up. And he says, aw shucks. And of course he makes all the usual accusations and so on. Yeah, he calls you liars, cheats, scum balls and all that stuff. But the fact is we had done nothing to the car. Yeah. He sits down on the curb, puts his head in his hands and starts crying. I am crazy, I am crazy. He sits down on the curb, puts his head in his hands and starts crying.

I am crazy. I am crazy. Then I asked him one question. I asked him where he parks and he tells me he parks when he's gone for the week. Yeah. In his driveway. At which point I say, I think I know what's wrong. Yeah.

I remember this. I know what's killing your battery. What was it? I don't know. His battery was going dead because something was indeed draining the battery when he was parked in his driveway. Aliens?

That was not draining it when he was parked in the shop. Yeah. And what was draining it was the underhood light. His driveway was on an incline of such severity and the, you know, that has those under hood lights have like a little mercury switch in them so that when you lift the hood, the light goes on.

No kidding. And if you're parked at a steep enough angle and the switch is one of the hairy edge of being misadjusted. Oh my God. No, as you open the hood, you stick your head under there and peek when you've got it open two, three, four, five inches inches the light may in fact come on.

Ohhhh. So his, and not only that, but you could tell which way his driveway slopes. Up! He was backing in. Backing into the... Wow. Who's our winner? Wow.

Geez, that was good, you know? That was excellent. Winner, who needs a winner? Alright, let me see. Winner, winner. Ah, that was good. You know that was excellent. Why there who needs a winner? See winner winner. Ah here it is Jeffrey for Natalie from Hummelstown, Pennsylvania And Jeffy oh boy you are going to win from us if you get it someday when Ken Rogers gets around to it a CD of the best of... Not the best. The second best of Car Talk.

And you will get that in the mail someday in a plain brown wrapper. Good luck to you, baby. Very good job, Jeffrey. Anyway, we have a new puzzler coming after in the second half of Car Talk. An automotive puzzler, again. Yeah, under hood light.

Oof, that was great. Plus we're gonna play Stump the Chumps today. That's just under hood light. Oof! That was great! Plus we're going to play Stump the Chumps today. In the meantime, if you'd like to call us, the number is 1-800-332-9287. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hello, this is Dora. I'm calling from West Monroe, Louisiana. Hi Dora. West Monroe.

Oh, West Monroe. Yes. Louisiana. That's correct. Now there's a great place, Louisiana, huh? Uh, Madison? No comment, huh? No, huh?

Actually, I'm from Texas, and I think Texas is an even greater place. Well, any place that's warm is okay. I'm transplanted. Certainly greater in area. Yes. There's no question. So what's up? Okay.

I have a 1986 Dodge Ram van. Yeah. And it's a hungry van hungry band has an appetite for alternators i am on my fourth alternator in about a six-week period uh... weeks well in about a quick i don't think no kidding the first time

it happened i'd never had any trouble with it i'm driving home and the digital display on the clock starts flickering when the radio started cutting out and this happened more when i was going down at the intersection and i made it home but then it wouldn't start after that it kind of went back yep good and i thought that the battery it you know whatever so i'd jump started in the morning and drove it to my mechanic and he said uh... it's the alternator i'll replace it

when he said oh it's the alternator I'll replace it. When he said that did he do anything or did he just say that? He said he had checked the battery and had checked the regulator and had checked the generator and whatever so I picked it up the very next day I had driven it less than 50 miles and it did the same thing so he towed it back to the shop and he said oh I must have just put in a bad alternator so he took it back to the shop and he said, oh, I must have just put in a bad alternator. So he replaced it. And so, I mean, this is an interesting behavior tactic here. No matter how many times you go back, he puts another alternator in.

Well. I mean, at some point. He gets better. No, he's a good man. He's a good mechanic. He's always taking good care of this van. He's st of the family tiny right now he says i think we can do it because well and let me take a look i can't get to get a mechanic my mechanic take that they have mechanic and mechanic that any of the alternator

so he put another one of the four because i mean the alternators are burning up for some reason and uh... he said well you probably can't hold that alternators were alternators and we're thinking three in a row. Yeah I mean this is an interesting. So you're now on your fourth alternator and it's currently working? It's working now but. But she only put it in yesterday. The joy of driving around wondering. It's not gonna work for long I mean I don't think it's gonna work. It is possible and we have had it happen. I'm not with an alternator, but I remember some years ago buying four-

Water pumps. Mm-hmm. Brand new air fresheners. No, four brand new carburetors. I can't remember, it was some Ford product. And we diagnosed the carburetor as bad. We put a brand new one on and the thing ran worse than with the old one.

Oh my goodness. So they sent us another one and we put that one on and then I pushed it up. At that point when it misbehaved again you begin to second guess, right? Yeah, I guess I was wrong. It couldn't have been the carburetor. I screwed it up. But I timidly asked the parts store to send us the third one to which he replied, what are you nuts?

And that one did the same thing and I must admit it took great courage. Yeah, all I was just going to say, so you admire this mechanic of hers because he is persevering and he will not give up until he gets a good alternator and he will not veer from his diamonds. In this case with the carburetorsors they had built all these with the wrong jets Oh my and in fact they were all defective and I ended off getting a the fourth one from another source Yeah, well, maybe it was from a different batch And in fact that fixed the car and it ran beautifully Wow

Six months later that we got it But it's very possible that whatever they did wrong to the first one if they're the same batch they did wrong to all of them Uh-huh. Well, maybe maybe his mechanic got one from a different batch. But like I said, the suspense is killing me well, and us too That's too sorry. I mean aside from the obvious stuff like, you know having put the belt on too tightly which could damage the alternator I rather doubt that he could have done that. Mm-hmm times in a row. I think this thing has an external voltage regulator and he must have checked that. He told me he had checked everything. The other thing he should look for is to make sure that the thing is grounded correctly. Sometimes there's

a ground strap that goes between the engine block and the chassis that gets removed or falls off or whatever and that can affect the charging rate So he should double check to see if that ground is there Okay, and other than that tell him to order an alternator from someone else. Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay If this doesn't fix it, all right He's gotten them all from the same parts store and all likelihood and they may be just a batch of them Then maybe they've got a bad bunch of rectifier of them then maybe they go to a bad bunch of rectifier bridges. It seems so unlikely though.

It does but just remember the example of the carburetor. At this point I mean I sprinkle it with holy water and say in our Father in three Hail Marys and get in and crank it up and hope for the best. That was going to be my next suggestion. Good luck Dora, this is very interesting. Thank you. I am so delighted to talk to you. And we're delighted to talk to you.

You are my automotive icon. Thank you so very much. Thanks Dora. Bye bye. See ya. Bye bye. Hey stick around for more calls and the new puzzler coming right up. Hey there, it's Ian and Mike and on the How to Do Everything podcast from the team at

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, we will answer any question you have, no matter how ridiculous. Like maybe you want to get a haircut in space and you're not sure how. Astronaut Frank Rubio has had a haircut in space. We plan for everything, right? And so it's not a pretty haircut for sure, but it's functional. Listen to the How to Do Everything podcast from NPR. Arizona is a swing state with a booming Latino population. Joe Biden flipped it blue once. Could Kamala Harris do it again? NPR's Consider This podcast is talking to Arizona voters all week. We have to go recruit our compositesres, our compadres, our neighbors.

How do issues like immigration and abortion play in the Grand Canyon State? Listen this week on NPR's Consider This podcast. Once again, we find ourselves in an unprecedented election. And with all that's happening in the lead up to the big day, a weekly podcast just won't cut it. Get a better grasp of where we stand as a nation every weekday on the NPR Politics Podcast. Here our seasoned reporters dig into the issues that are shaping voters' decisions and understand how the latest updates play into the bigger picture. The NPR Politics Podcast. Listen on Spotify. You care about what's happening in the world.

Let State of the World from NPR keep you informed. Each day we transport you to a different point on the globe and introduce you to the people living world events. We don't just tell you world news, we take you there. And you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR. Vital international stories every day.

Hi, we're back. You're listening to Card Talk on National Public Radio with us, click and clack the Tappet Brothers, and we're here to discuss cars, car repair, and feed the pilots. What's her name, the one who does the feed the children thing? Sally Struthers. Sally Struthers. You've got to just picture her as doing this. Feed the pilots. It's just's brother. You gotta just picture her is doing this Feed the pilots It's just not right thousands of pilots in our very own country are living at or just below the six-figure salary line

And if that wasn't bad enough many of them may go several weeks or months without a paycheck if they're forced by American Airlines to strike But now you can help for about $300 a day. That's less than the price of a 25 inch TV set $300 a day. That's less than the price of a 25-inch TV set. You can help keep a pilot economically viable during his time of need. $300 a day may not seem like a lot of money to you, but to a pilot it could be the difference between a vacation fishing in Florida or a Mediterranean cruise. How will I know I'm helping? Well, each month you'll receive a complete financial report on the crew member you sponsor. Detailed information about his stocks, bonds, 401K and real estate holdings will be mailed to your home and you'll be able to watch your pilot's net worth grow. How will they know I'm helping? Your pilot will be told that

he or she has a special friend within AMR management that just wants to help. Although the pilot won't know your name, he or she will be able to make collect calls to your home via a special operator in case they need additional funds. I want to help. I'd like to sponsor the crew member listed below. And then you list your pilot, co-pilot, a navigator, an F-100 crew member, an entire flight crew, please apply my donation to the crew member most in need.

I mean, I like the best line was, $300 may not be a lot of money to you. All right, that's less than the price of a 25-inch television. Is it? Is that all a 25 inch TV costs? 300 bucks. I'm gonna get one.

Well you can't get one cause you need to send it to a pilot. Okay look, it's time, it's enough fooling around. Enough fooling around, yeah. It's time for the new puzzler. An automotive puzzler and an interesting one at that. Well I thought it was interesting. It's probably something that we've used before

but this disguises it enough I think so that it is interesting. And besides probably something that we've used before but this is this disguises it enough I think so that it is interesting sides if it is change the answer in its real life, too Because it's really a few weeks ago. This really happened Yeah, a customer who works down the street came in with an older Volvo 60s vintage one of those p1800 volvos Feeble attempt at a sports car. Yeah back in those days of the 60s and 70s. Anyway, it's an interesting looking car and his complaint very simply was that the car didn't seem to stop very well and he was sure that his power brakes

weren't working. A quick test drive revealed him, revealed this to be the case. When you first stepped on the pedal, the first time you slow down, the car seemed to stop quite well. But in fact, if you applied the brakes several times, as if slowing down, to avoid crashing into the back of some other vehicle, after two or three applications of the pedal, it would be pretty hard, pretty rock hard. And didn't really want to stop unless you stood on the pedal. So we pulled into the shop and I said, geez, I don't know. I said, it's very likely to be the booster. he said great I have a used one which I know is

good. So a few days later he brings the car and the booster over and we install the booster. Got it. I drive the car. I call the customer and ask him to drive it because I didn't notice any significant improvement So and we are sure now that the booster is okay. I will qualify the booster as being the new booster is being okay Yeah, okay, and it turns out that the original booster vacuum booster was okay. It was also okay You know obviously that's not his problem and in fact there was no significant improvement in my mind There wasn't in his mind. There was very little improvement. Yeah Okay, got it. You you're with me. Okay. Got it. You're with me I'm with you. You're hanging in there. I'm hanging in there

Yeah, so we begin to look around and we for the first suspect Of course is the hose that leads from the manifold to the booster. Is it restricted? Is it plugged? It gets replaced. No improvement After a few more minutes of tinkering and doing various tests After a few more minutes of tinkering and doing various tests Ralph finally figures out Ralph the Volvo Wizard the Volvo Wizard figures out what's wrong with the car and It had any in the saloon. It has to do with The gas he's been using. Oh

We don't say moreover. he does an adjustment that fixes the car. Brrrr, brr, brr, brr. What's going on here? What adjustment does he perform that fixes the car? Whistling. And it is not adjusting the timing either. No. 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, Math 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, the number is 1-800-332-9287. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Do you happen to know what time it is? Time to get down on our hands and knees and beg the IRS for mercy? No, no, no. It's time to play Stump the Tumps.

["Stump the Tumps"] ["Stump the Tumps"] ["Stump the Tumps"] All right, so who we got this week? This week's Stump Chumper is Kathy from Tualatin, Oregon. Apparently Kathy called car Talk a little while ago because the kid was about to enter the Pinewood Derby. Just in case you were not a Cub Scout or you didn't have a Cub Scout in the family when you were a kid, the Pinewood Derby is some kind of a,

they give each kid a little block of wood and they say make this into a car and everyone has to use the same size block of wood and the official wheels I guess. You got four plastic wheels. Four plastic wheels. They charge you $500. It's a little thing they have to be official and that's it a couple of nails you make a car and it rolls down a track. And the kid is supposed to design and build this little wooden car and it rolls down the track and races against the other kids car. It's pretty simple. Yeah I mean the kids are supposed to be creative inventive they're supposed to accomplish something on their own, you know.

Well, that's the way it's supposed to work. Anyway... Oh, another flashback. Here, have some chewable boresy. Ha ha ha! The Pinewood Derby thing, go faster. Well, of course, my son was involved totally in the whole process.

Well, I was involved in the Pinewood Derby thing for many years, having seen two boys through Cub Scouts. I was disappointed, I guess, that the parents got involved in it to the extent that they did. After all, it's designed so that the kids can learn. Oh get serious! Give me a grab! Right, I mean, you see this six year old kid with a belt Santa?

Now in our ever increasing quest as concerned parents. Concerned about winning parents. To beat the living, you know what, out of all those other naughty little second grade boys. We're going to kick some butt here boys. We're kicking some pinewood butt. Okay so Kathy wanted to know where on this block of wood should you place the extra weights that you're allowed to use to get the maximum advantage for her kid's little vehicle.

If I knew that, my kid might still be speaking to me today. I don't even know what we told her. Do you remember? I don't know. We told her it didn't matter, or at least if it did matter, we had no idea why it mattered. It had to matter. It had to matter. It had to do with momentum and kinetic energy. I remember discussing formulas. One half mv squared. Oh, mv this. Kathy, are you there?

I'm here. Is it true, Kathy, that no one from our staff, National Public Radio, or the Cub Scout Internal Affairs Division has threatened to egg your house based on any remarks you may or may not make on this show today? Is that true? I saw some suspicious vehicles driving by slowly last night. It turned out to be another second grader who was mad. Yeah, I bet.

He was spying on you. Well, did you win the race? Was our advice any good? Well... Well? Advice? Is that what that was? We didn't give you any advice.

We did not win, but my son's car came in fourth in his grade level. Out of five kids? No, out of five. level five kids probably about uh... fifty car total in the whole rate though they came in fourth and i don't know anything about what i think that friend came in third overall really and uh... the uh... it's still not settled because his car with waited in the back and

best friend car with waited in the middle well we don't know the magic and but what came to have been more important well first of all i have to tell you i was thinking of you guys at the car which were underweight rolled slowly to a stop to peel of cut out laughter before they cry the finish line.

Well, I think I will stand by my position. You said that the weight didn't matter. I disagreed violently with that. In a theoretical sense, the weight matters not in an ideal world. But the reason the weight matters, and I think I made this point pretty clear, was that, I thought I had, was that the purpose of the weight is to keep the wheels rolling on the track and not sliding and the more weight you have More you have to keep the wheels in point-for-point contact with the track which would make the car go straight

Well, obviously give you the smallest amount of friction And you think it has nothing to do with kinetic energy squats key Absolutely. Well, I have here. I mean, I can't tell you how many letters we got on this subject. Well, if they don't agree with me, then they're 100% wrong. I have here, I'll send you, are you going to be in this next year? Uh, yes, oh yeah. Well, that's your penalty for losing. I have here a couple of things which I will send to you. One is called On the Placement of Weight in a Pinewood Derby Car

by Jed Ludlow of Salt Lake City, Utah. He's got diagrams, equations, I mean it's incredible. But I mean if you want I will put a pile of this junk together and send it to you. Oh heck yeah. We'll just be in the series until fifth grade. Yeah, did you send us pictures of your son's car? Oh yeah, he does have a happy smile on his face, which is the bottom line of the whole issue. That's all that matters. And he did get a little segment with a picture of a car.

That's good, and as long as he understands the basic premise here that you cheat as much as you can, as long as you win, that's what's important. Well we're going to put the pictures up on the website We'll even put a lot of this stuff. I I suppose we have to give to make this available to the whole world So we have all kinds of little documents and Now you're gonna tell everybody else the secret. Well, they all disagree. That's what's good Well, actually I read an article in boys life, the publication of the Boy Scouts of America. That little Nazi organization, yeah?

Yeah, you got that right. Well, anyway, this one dad wrote in and said, you know what we did this year? We didn't give out prizes. We just lined them up and let them rip. And as soon as they got to the finish line, they got to go back and stand in line to go down again. Great. And he said the boys were so happy.

Sure. It is interesting, the kids may have recognized which of the cars overall was the fastest, but they probably had a hell of a lot more fun just letting them go down the. Yeah, that's what they want. They wanna see them go down the track. And do it over and over again

until somebody gets sick or gets hurt. Exactly. And then you go home. Yeah. All right, Billy got hurt, time to go home. Kathy, call us next year, but call us early. Don't call us a week before the thing. We need time to really research this and build some cars and test them in our facility. Well, there we go. Maybe I could build like 10 or 12 based on these design papers and then we

could, you know, run a few down the track and see what happens. Stay in touch and we will cheat your kids a victory no matter what it takes. That's right. You've got to let them learn the lessons of life. Right. Cheat at all costs. All right, guys. Thanks a lot for calling back.

Keep up that good role model work, Kathy. We love you. Thanks again. Bye-bye. Bye. Well, you've wasted an otherwise. Thanks again. Bye-bye. Bye. Well, you've wasted an otherwise perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk. 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 Rogers. Our assistant producer is Catherine Cathode-Ray. Our engineer is Karen Given. And our technical advisor, currently sweeping through the southern leg of the 1997 Pro-Am North American Free Lunch Victory Tour is John Bugsy Milk Cartman Lawler. What a guy. The Stump the Chumps theme is by B.J. Liedemann.

Our public opinion pollster is Paul Murky of Murky Research, assisted by statistician Marge Inovera. Our director of staff pay increases is Xavier Breath. Our staff butler from the Car Talk Bombay Division is Mahatma Kote. Our marriage counselor is Marion Haste. Our head of used car purchasing is Yule B. Hoofinett. Our behavior consultant is Wyatt B. Hoovzia. The manager of our weekly Shrimp F.A. is Sheldon Devane.

The curator of Tom's Car Collection is Rex Galore, our director of speed bumps is Slobby Dalmalosevich, our director of listener support is Old Noah Fun Drive, our director of country music is Stan Byerman, our director of cold weather star because Martina never turned over, and our manager of automotive accessories is Francis Ford Cup Holder. Of course our chief counsel from the law firm of Dewey Cheatham and Howes, Hugh Louis Dewey, known around the square as Huey Louie Dewey Cheatham and how is you Louis Dewey note around the square As you eat Louie Dewey. Thanks so much for listening

We're clicking clack the tap it brothers and remember don't drive like my brother remember this don't drive like my brother We'll be back next week. Bye. Bye If you want a copy of this show on cassette, it's show number 10, and you can get it on the world wide web by clicking on the Shameless Commerce Division of Cartalk.com, or you can use old fashioned technology, i.e. the telephone, and call 303-823-8000. You can also use that to order other stuff like the best of Car Talk CDs, cassettes, you know, either click on the shameless commerce division of CarTalk.com or use the telephone at 303-823-8000. Car Talk is a production of Dewey, Cheetahman, Howe and WBUR in Boston.

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