#2619: Teens and Cars

0:00This message comes from Intuit TurboTax. With TurboTax expert full service, match with a dedicated expert who will do your taxes for you from start to finish getting you every dollar you deserve. It's that easy. Visit TurboTax.com to match with an expert today. Hello and welcome to Kair Talk from National Public Radio. With us, click and collect the tap at brothers. And we're broadcasting this week from the Department of Wates and Measures here at Kair Talk Plaza. I didn't know we had such a deal. Well, this is the follow-up to a conversation we had a few months ago. You may remember that our pal, Daniel Pinkwater called, and he was discussing, I don't know how to put this delicately. The enormity of his posterior. And we decided that during that call that the official unit of button measurement

1:04should be a pink water. Yeah. So for instance, Daniel is by definition one pink water, obviously. And I'd say I'm like 0.6. And you all like what? 0.1. Maybe 0.2 pink water. Well, this sparked some discussion on the show and on the website as well. And another caller told us that when she was little, her brother used to push her butt against the piano keys and measure her butt by how many octaves she played. Ah! I always liked that one. Yeah. Yeah. You should be an octave and a third and an octave and a half. But now we've received a very serious scientific memo on button measurement from someone named Carl W. Gable. Yeah, Carl Gable. Go for it, man. He works at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. So when it comes to weights and measures, his he says, at Los Alamos National Laboratory, we generally use metric units, but every once in a while, we need to be quantitative about a butt load of stuff, like a butt load of rocket fuel,

2:04a butt load of anti-matter. Yeah. Of course. I thought you might like to know that there is actually an exact unit of volume called the butt. Really? Really? I kid you not. See Webster's Dictionary. I don't use Webster's Dictionary anymore. No. Why? Webster's Dictionary is something crazy. Okay. It's absolutely crazy. I'll get to that later. Here it is. But a measure of liquid capacity equal to 126 gallons or, if you prefer, two hogs heads. Yes. In another dictionary, an English butt is two hogs heads of 54 imperial gallons each or 129.7 U.S. gallons. Ah. And also, he gives me some conversions. I mean, you never know what units you'll be in. We know what happened to the Mars Voyager thing then. Yes, exactly. Okay. One butt equals. In addition to the 126 gallons,

3:06476.961 liters. I believe that. 104.917 U.K. gallons. 13.5 bushels. 4,032 gills. 21,504 ponies. And a partridge and a pear tree. Look at this. Oh. And a micro butt. Of course you need to know that. A micro butt is 0.0968 teaspoons. I can see this is going to take over recipe books the world over. Yeah. It means it takes 100 micro butts to make a teaspoon. Make a teaspoon. Wow. Hey, Carl. It's good to know that stuff like this is going on in the government facilities that we pay for. Well, actually, it's good to know that this is the level to which they're doing, you know, which they're doing stuff. And I think any more serious than this. Yeah. I mean, they could be killing people. Exactly. Which they've already done. Well, the demonstrator that they're able to do that. Now they just haven't fun.

4:07Soaking up the residual radioactivity in Los Alamos. But I didn't want to alarm anyone. Anyway, if you'd like to talk to us about your car, your butt, your next door neighbor's butt, or a micro butt that you know, the number is 1-888 car talk that's 888-227-8255. Hello, you're on car talk. Hi, this is Brian from Belchertown, MA. Hi, Brian. How's it going, guys? Well, I think I have actually been to Belchertown. My recollection is that it's out on Route 2 someplace. Yes, it's right next to the big butt store. It's like out west, right? It's at Route 202 and Route 9, actually. It's the corner of those two routes is where I live. I remember it well. Hell yeah. There's a lot of good stuff going on. Other things going on in Belchertown, really? There's a lot of hiking and recreational activities. Oh, really exciting stuff. Yeah. A lot of trees grow there, I guess. A ton of trees. Yeah, that's great. Do you guys have problem with trees? No, I don't. I am a tree lover from way back. That's good. A lover and a hugger.

5:07Okay. My brother on the other hand has chosen concrete. He likes concrete and pavement. Yeah. Yeah, but see, you can't climb the pavement. You don't have to. No. You've got to feel lying in the gutter. What's up, Brian? Well, the crux of my problem deals with my 1997 F250 pickup truck. Yeah. And I've got the 7-3 liter turbo diesel in there. It's a big truck. You ain't kidding. Yeah. Well, here's the trouble. I'm a grad student at UMass. And I was late for a class a couple weeks ago. And this is when we had all the snow on the ground. And they do a fair job of applying out the parking lots. But I was trying to back my truck, which is a decent sized truck, trying to back it into a space. And there was a car behind me. And there was also this big mound of snow. And I couldn't get the truck backed over this mound of snow without taking a running start and risking running into the car behind me,

6:08which would have obviously done a lot of damage to the car. Oh, yeah. So I have realized now that there's no way I'm backing into this parking spot without putting it forward drive. Now, it has manual locking hubs, which means I have to get out of the truck. Getting out of the truck. Lock the front hubs. So at this point, I am absolutely livid. And I slam down the parking brake with my foot and reach for the handle and literally with butt power rip the handle right off the door. So now I'm inside the truck with no door handle. I have to roll down the window and open the door from the outside. So the question is, is it worth trying to disassemble the door and all this stuff and to get a new handle and fix that myself or should I just keep opening the door by the outside? What are you studying? I'm an Urban Forestry PhD student. Urban for a tree guy. I'm a tree guy. This is why I was answering. Yeah. Well, hi, somebody. I mean, you can't deal with metallic objects.

7:09Can you? I mean, you even own a screwdriver. I actually have a nice set of tools because I have to fix like my chainsaw and stuff. I was just going to say, do you have a chainsaw? I do have a chainsaw. I've got a rope. Well, I tell you, I mean, this is not rocket science. Sure, you could do it. Yeah, actually, I think Brian that this project may be within your grasp. Okay. Yeah, I mean, the door panel just pops off, you know. You just like pull it off, right? Well, yeah, gently, not like you did the handle. Well, I mean, you're going to have to unscrew a few. Maybe there may be some screws that hold the armrest, for example, to the door. Okay. But the rest of it just pops off. They're a little plastic. Well, you call those things fasteners. Okay. And as you pop them off, you'll gain courage to pop off the rest of them as you do a few. Okay. That door panel will be sitting on your lap and you'll be looking at what you have to replace. And it'll be obvious. I would suggest you go to the four dealer and buy the handle first. Okay. That's, yeah, this is thinking about it. Then you'll know what you would have.

8:09You may need a special tool. Is there that little, that little C clip thing that holds that door panel on? I mean, the handle. Brian, whatever you can't get off, just rip it off. That's right. Yeah, I did that with the door handle. Let's do it now. You already ripped off the door handle. That's true. Do you have power windows? No. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. The truck is manual everything. You know, I don't like these people to get pickup trucks and power this and power that. It's supposed to be a rough and tough work truck. That's right. Because all your power is in the two butts of your engine there. That's exactly right. Good luck, Brian. Okay, thank you guys. Good luck. See ya. Hey, don't go anywhere because we've got a lot more calls. Well, few anyway. And the puzzler answer coming up right after this. This message comes from Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive, and up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit Wise.com.

9:12T's and C's apply. This message comes from Rinse. Who knows that greatness takes time. So does laundry. So Rinse will take your laundry and hand deliver it to your door, expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time one spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up that Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or the daunting beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to Rinse. Rinse, it's time to be great. This message comes from Intuit TurboTax. With TurboTax expert full service, match with a dedicated expert who will do your taxes for you from start to finish getting you every dollar you deserve. It's that easy. Visit TurboTax.com to match with an expert today. This message comes from Mint Mobile. If you're tired of spending hundreds on big wireless bills, bogus fees, and free perks, Mint Mobile is for you.

10:12Shop plans at MintMobile.com slash switch, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hi, we're back. You listening to Car Talk with us? Click and collect the tapet brothers. And we here to talk about cars, car repair, and DAH, the answer to last week's puzzler. This puzzler was sent to us by a kid who gave us a phony, baloney story about being in a hospital bed and how he had to use this puzzle because it wasn't long for this world. Then he wrote us again for his later and used the same story. Anyway, here's this puzzler I thought it was pretty good. But I thought it was good the first time I must have lost it. It just didn't migrate up to the top of the pile. It happens. It happens. He says, on the hottest day of the summer, my mother was driving her decrepit 88 Corolla from New York City to Philly with her significant other. They were going to a wedding in the bride. It asked them to courier a shipment of gourmet frozen sorbet centerpieces from a little known sorbet and porium in Queens. Yeah. Most people don't know that that Queens is the headquarters of all the sorbet and porium.

11:14They're kidding. Anyway, at the Emporium, they loaded a crate packed with sorbet centerpieces into the backseat of the car. The merchant warned them that they had three hours before the sorbet started to melt. Said the sorbet king. Said the sorbet king. From Queens. Philly is two hours away. So flushed with the urgency of their charge, they set out. All went well until they ran into bumper to bumper traffic heading over the 59th Street Bridge. You knew that was going to happen, right? Of course. Significant others suddenly began showing symptoms of cardiac distress. Shortness of breath. Yeah. Dizziness, et cetera, and mom changed course to New York hospital. The next thing she knew, a policeman, was reviving her. She had lost consciousness and crashed into a guardrail, but was miraculously uninjured. She recovered quickly and drove significant other to the hospital. You with me? I'm with you. A full cardiac workup showed no medical problems, so they set off again having lost an hour.

12:15Significant other had a few other rough moments as they passed through the Lincoln tunnel, but he seemed to have recovered on the Jersey Turnpike. The story has a happy ending. They made it to the wedding with moments to spare and without further incident. The sorbet was a smashing success. The question is, what happened? And you have all the facts. You don't need to, you think you may have all the facts. You don't have all the facts. You're missing one important piece of information. Yeah, but I do know that the hot summer day had a lot to do with it. Indeed it did because the sorbet king had packed these little sorbets, these centerpieces. In dry ice. Ah! Ah! And dry ice as you may know. May not know. I do know. I'm a chemical engineer by trade. I was speaking to our audience to the other person that's listening. Is solidified carbon dioxide. How do they do that? It squeezes it a lot. And as it sublimates from a solid into a gas, it displaced, in this case, the oxygen that was in the car.

13:17And the car because they had the windows up in the air conditioner on top of it. And the hot summer day. Indeed. And of course, significant other began to show symptoms of cardiac arrest because it couldn't breathe. And of course. You do have shortness of breath if you're breathing in CO2. And Mumsy crashed into the guardrail for the same reason. Of course, as soon as the policeman came and opened the door. Ah! Oxygen rushed in and by the time they got significant other to the hospital, he was alright too because he had what? Started breathing again. Yeah. Who's our winner, Tommy? Wow, that's a great one. By the way, David Horowitz sent that in. Good work, David. David, I hope he's still alive. I'm sure he is. The winner of this week is Sarah E. Ice. Ice, I see E. How appropriate. I got how appropriate. CO2. That's probably right. Why ice? Sarah E. Ice. From Stratford, Connecticut. And for having her answer selected at random from all those correct answers that we got, Sarah is going to win a $25 gift certificate of a contact shameless commerce division with which she can buy.

14:20Well, I'd say about $25 worth of shameless commerce. That's it. Well, that's pretty exciting. Congratulations. Anyway, we'll have a new historic folkloric. Right this down. Historic folkloric automotive. Automotive. Mathematical. Oh, man. Puzzler coming up over the next several weeks. Today, I don't know. Coming up in the third half of today's show. So stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you can call us and ask us any questions you'd like, especially about your car. The number is 1-888 Car Talk. That's 888-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. This is Amy calling from sunny Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Amy. Is it sunny? It is sunny. It's beautiful down here. How tall warm is it? It's going to be maybe 70 or 75 today. Oh. I say this only because I used to live in New York. So you're up there. Well, the truth is that it's been a practically invisible winter.

15:24Well, good. Just a little dusting of snow here and there. Just enough to make it look like a Christmas card. Yeah, just three weeks in bed with the flu. You know, nothing extraordinary. Can't pass a kid. I have an issue. First of all, I drive what I think is kind of the greatest car on the road. Do you want to guess what kind of car I drive? The greatest car on the road. Yeah. You can do it. You can do it. Yeah, it's on the Civic. No, it's a Volvo. A Volvo. A Volvo. Okay. Sure. It's a S70 GLT. It's a 99. Where I work, I park in a parking deck and I park on the seventh story. To exit out of my parking deck, you come down a really tight, I call it kind of a cylindrical exit ramp. It looks like a soda can or something like that. Yeah, right. It's a helix. You're driving down the screw. Exactly. And it's pretty tight. Sometimes I'll put it in a lower gear than drive.

16:26It's good. I don't think that's good. Yeah. You should do that. Oh, good. In fact, you should probably be in the lowest gear that you have. Oh, good. Depending on the steepness of this ramp. I don't know the degree or the angle, but it's pretty sharp and I've kind of mastered it. Well, when I go down, every so often when I get to the bottom, at this point I've been turning my steering wheel pretty severe for a long time. And sometimes if I kind of turn to the little more severe than normal, I'll hear this grinding sound. And it's kind of like this. And it's really short. And then I'll kind of straighten up my wheel a little tiny bit. But it's such a bad noise. It startled me because I love my car and my car is new. Oh, okay. And I don't want to do anything bad to my car. Okay. Here's what's happening. What? You're going down too far around that turn over and over again. And now next time you've got to alternate.

17:26You're going there five days a week? But you can't go. You always have to go left. I would say Monday, Wednesday and Friday are going to go back down backwards. You're putting it in reverse. Right. And that way you'll be turning the wheel the opposite way. Yeah. And you'll be balancing everything. Everything will be right with the world. And none of these noises will ever occur again. Thanks for calling ABC. Really? What am I going to do? Nothing. I mean, this would happen even if you weren't doing down this little helix. It would happen if you were trying to pull out of a parking space and you turned the wheel all the way left or right. Okay. I'm just turning it too hard too quickly. Not too quickly, but too far. But you don't have the wheel crank all the way over. Yes, she does. No, you don't. Well, but she might be a wacko. She's not a weed. No. She might be a C-dong J. You might try to go down it in reverse every now and then. Oh, getting a wacko. I mean, it will make the noise.

18:26I think only when you turn the wheel as far as it'll go. Okay. When I've done that, have I called damage? No. When you have done that and you've asked the pump to do more, then it's designed to do the belt will slip against the pump pulley. And that's what you're hearing. And you'll hear a little key, key, key. Yeah, that's it. But that would only happen if you really have turned the wheel all the way to lock. Well, I'm surprised. I didn't think I was turning it all the way. But maybe, you know, I've just done a little too much. Well, if you're not turning it all the way, it might mean that the belt is loose. Okay. I would have someone take a check at it. Okay. Yeah, although that's unlikely. What kind of a belt, a steering belt? There's only one belt on this car. Okay. The one belt that runs everything. Okay. Got it. I would just try to refrain from turning it all the way to the lock position. Sure. You should be able to negotiate that spiral without having to do that. Yeah. And try the every other day backwards thing. I'm definitely going to try and tell my fellow parkers that you also guess. Someone's going to shoot you. See you, Amy.

19:26Thanks so much. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Oh, boy. Do we have to get them all the same week? All right. Now, coming up, we have what I consider to be a magnificent new puzzler. Really? No, I was just trying to get some hopes up. This message comes from LinkedIn. Who knows the wrong hire can cost small businesses more than just time. That's why LinkedIn Hiring Pro goes beyond resumes. Using insights you can't find anywhere else to give you a short list of candidates who truly fit. So you can hire right the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off at LinkedIn.com slash NPR author. Terms and conditions apply. This message comes from duck.ai, a new product from DuckDuckGo. Ever think, should I really share this with AI? Head to duck.ai to chat privately with popular AIs. Duck.ai keeps your AI chats private. It's free.

20:26No account required. And built by DuckDuckGo, where AI is always optional. And who believe in protecting your data, not collecting it. Visit duck.ai slash NPR. This message comes from LinkedIn. Who knows every hire matters when you're running a small business. That's why LinkedIn Hiring Pro uses real-time professional data and insights. Not just resumes, to find you the best candidates. In fact, businesses hiring with LinkedIn are 24% less likely to reopen a role within a year compared to the leading competitor. Hire right the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off at LinkedIn.com slash NPR author. Terms and conditions apply. This message comes from Mint Mobile. If you're tired of spending hundreds on big wireless bills, bogus fees and free perks, Mint Mobile might be right for you with plans starting from $15 a month. Shop plans today at MintMobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three month five gigabyte plan required.

21:27New customer offer for first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. We're back. You listening to Car Talk with us. Click and collect the tapet brothers. And we here to discuss cars, car repair and the new puzzler. Advertised as historic folkloric automotive and something else which I don't remember. And you never heard of false advertising, son? Picture this. I will. It's 1936. Europe is on the brink of yet another war. In a secret location in Germany, German officers gather around the table with the designers and the builders of its new personnel carrier. They're going over every little detail, leaving no stone unturned. They want everything to be flawless. That's Jeep. That's Jeep.

22:27One of the officers stands up and he says, I have a question about the fan belt. You see this fan belt looks just like the belt you wear around your waist. It's a flat piece of rubber. And it's designed to run the fan and the generator. And he asks, how long do you expect this belt to last? And the engineer says 30 to 40,000 kilometers. Turnle. He says, not good enough. What's not? He said we needed to last 60,000 kilometers. The fellow says, well, he said it's a merely simple matter of taking the belt off and turning it over. Because this is a flat belt. It's not a V belt. You turn it inside out and you put it back on. He says, that's unacceptable. That won't do. He said, we can't. He said, our soldiers will be engaged in battle. We can't ask them to be changing fan belts in the middle of the battlefield. He's got a point. In the middle of the battlefield. Yeah. So all the engineers huddle together and they come up with a clever design.

23:30What do they come up with? They come up with a way to extend the life of the belt. They come up with a clever way to extend the life of the belt. To 60,000 kilometers. To 60,000 kilometers. Yeah, they're making out of Kevlar. They don't have Kevlar. He hadn't been invented yet. Nylon stockings. There you go. But they do not change the material of the belt. But that's what I was getting. They do not, but they come up with a clever design. They come up with a clever design and in two minutes they have a solution to the problem which satisfies the general. He wasn't a general at the beginning of the meeting. He was only a Colonel. He was a Colonel. He just lasted so long. He became a general by the end. Yeah. So if you think you know the answer, write it on the back of a $20 bill or a very ripe banana. Send it to Puzzle of Tower. Car Talk Plaza. Box 3500. Harvard Square. Cambridge. Our facility. Matt 02238. Or of course you can email your answer from the Car Talk section of cars.com.

24:33If you'd like to call us the numbers 1-888 Car Talk. That's 888-227-8255. Hello, you're on Car Talk. Hi, this is Linda from Maple Plain, Minnesota. Hi, Linda. Linda Maple Plain. Yes. Yeah, Minnesota. Right. And anyway, I have a mystery I'd like you to solve for our family. And it's involving a- Does it involve cheese? Well, no. That's what's- Oh, that's what's called. And it's involving snow. Voyager and snow. It's kind of a who done it. Who done it? You must have teenagers in the house. Yes. Exactly. Well, this is what happened. We had the transmission on this Voyager rebuilt in about November. How old is the thing, by the way? It's 94.95. something like that could have got about a hundred thousand miles on it yeah so anyway it was rebuilt

25:33then two months later in january um... i would had picked up the ban at where my son works i had taken the bus there picked it up i drove it about three miles and heard this big clunk i thought i'd maybe had driven over something all of a sudden i could hear like really loud noises and it was a transmission again so we had it told to our mechanic and he called me the next day and he said um... did you put this thing in the ditch mhm and i said no and he said well that there was all kinds of snow pack over the axles and what and what would that do with the transmission well then they took the transmission out and the case was broken uh... all it sounds very possible all how old is this teenage son well actually

26:33there are three teenagers you don't fall in the but you know that the thing is um... the seventeen year old one who had it at work uh... i think is the only one who had driven it within the last week but you don't know the entire junior class could have driven it that day how old are the other teenagers well uh... once nineteen and uh... he's not living at home although the this happened on a third day in the friday before uh... the seventeen year old went to visit him and this is complex but this is very reminiscent of of a little story that occurred now our family last not this past winter the winter before my brother and his wife and my wife and i were out having a quiet little dinner on an evening where it's been snowing just a few flakes we were having stuff squid as i remember at lasuma in the north

27:36i remember it well they were delicious and all the other uh... joanne cell phone rings and it's their son informing them that he had a little mishap with the car that in the snowfall for flakes that that were there uh... he drove over a curb stone yeah and in doing so did about six thousand dollars worth of damage to the car for three thousand dollar car that was not easy that was no he said he had to hit the curbs on twice back up to it again so it's very possible and i think that the culpability here is with one of these teenagers and i mean it's not fair it's not fair i mean you could have done it to linda somebody drove over a curb stone with this or wrote into a ditch because you can't crack the case of the transmission not easily without doing that right and have you confronted said seventeen year old son

28:37that's the other problem yeah that you know they all say no they didn't do anything i think you got to put them in the hole like a different person right until one of them rats on the others well i mean i think well i mean i don't think they really think they did anything wrong so you believe them and you trust them well i could believe that they don't believe they did anything wrong because they could easily have driven over a curb driven over a curb without without knowing it okay yeah i mean it's very possible for your sons to have not done anything different or unusual they may always drive over the curb but but if they drove over a curb that wouldn't explain the snow over the axle oh sure it would well i mean they drove through a big pile of something and there was a curb underneath it that's what it was they drove through a pile of snow when there was a rock or curve or something hidden by that snow yeah and they heard a big

29:38thud and then the thing kept moving so they thought nothing of it and they thought that they had lucked out i mean i was driving in at the time that it actually went out yes i didn't want to mention that and you heard a big clunk is i recall yeah but that was just driving on the road yeah well you may have done it you you may have hit something no the clunk happened because the and this probably happened in a short sequence of time because what happened is the fluid drained out through the crack and when you heard the clunk it was the in the innards of the transmission giving up the ghost boom that was it mostly because it had no fluid in it so which means that it had to have happened within hours probably of that drive that you took which means it was sun number one seventeen year old son who was driving it when it happened well i will tell him what you said then and well i think you ought to build all three of them all three of the kids should be should share and this

30:38until one of them rats out the other ones tell him look it's gonna cost fifteen hundred bucks to do this each of you's ponying up five hundred bucks unless you're right out the guy that did it i think Linda has been driving the car too i think she's got to kick in her share maybe well i would have known i'm sure you would have when to being the experienced responsible person that you are yeah and you're from Minnesota so you never lie right and but they're from Minnesota too but their teenage well i do remember our model my model and i i don't lie but my model when i was a teenager i do remember was denied denied denied yes and never lie cheat or steal unnecessarily right good luck Linda and don't tell your parents anything that they really don't need to know all right see my boy that's a that's a difficult one you know one eight eight eight uh uh car talk that's eight eight eight two two seven eight two five it sure is wow that's tough where i'm glad i don't have any teenagers anymore too man they are nothing but trouble hello you're a car talk hi this is Steven calling from Philadelphia my stevee are a pH with a v

31:43what's the difference anyway uh i don't know just an extra letter and uh using outcomes razor we should use the least amount of letters exactly i believe you're right and in which case we don't need the two e's that's right i i will revise my name now right to be the Bosnian version the Bosnian TVN TVN would do it right Steven yes it would yeah i like it better so what's up steve listen i'm a psychologist here in Philadelphia and i'm having a psychological problem about cars and i figured you guys are the ones i should consult rather than my colleagues okay we'll help we hope well i'm i'm kind of undecided about what kind of car to buy next yeah but i thought if i gave you the list of all the cars i have owned over the years we should we should be able to develop a mosaic of your personality use it like a roar shock test and tell me all about my personality and what i need and look at my hope streams aspirations and compromises i love it i love it give them to us in chronological order of ownership

32:45okay these are all purchased brand new brand new yeah i was going to ask that question go ahead wow how many are there a nine you have owned nine brand new cars yes i have you've got more money than brains that may be okay go far tell us about 1965 Corvair my first car okay i like that 1970 sub 96 with a v4 engine i like that 1973 chavelle laguna times were bad were you in graduate school at the time uh yes 1976 i bought a vet oh man you have got that's not no it was a chavelle oh chavelle oh still in graduate yeah 1981 chavelle strange combination of things 1983 Pontiac Firebird yeah midlife crisis

33:491986 Pontiac 6000 STE Steven you are in such trouble i can't believe it i am you're gonna have to come over here and sit out with us on the couch i think so now i have this i've got two more but i have my choices now down to three cars that are so different i'm so confused well i think we need to know the two most recent cars the two more recent cars 1990 Impala and then a 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee really yes she's well first of all we got we have to have a little bit a few demographics here okay i would say that you are married correct and i would say that you have at least two children correct how many two two and i would say that these children are younger well preteen and teen now they're older in their 20s they're in their 20s 25 and 23 now oh really well see the corveyor and the

34:50sob show a willingness to do wacko things right and then you come to and so and so does the firebird too somewhat it doesn't surprise me that the firebird came right after the Impala and he bought an Impala and a firebird when the kids were living in the house sort of snubbing his nose at at at at at the adventure urban conventions yes fireburn what is there a divorce in here no no divorce not yet it's coming no no he's very happy with his wife that's true yeah yeah okay so what are you now with nine cars if you're narrated down to for your new one well three cars for the new one i but i'm not sure will i buy it to you if i tell you what they are or should you just tell me what i should get well you try that first the three very different cars they are i know they are i can tell one of the cars in contention is a Mazda Mianna or a Z3 or one of the ilk maybe even a Porsche because now you made a few bucks so it's going to be a

35:51sporty car that's one of them i'm gonna also think that you haven't outdone the SUV thing yet but you do have a few more bucks and you're going for the the RX 300 Lexus or the ML320 Mercedes 5 maybe or the ML320 i'm going for that too and the third one the third one so it's just you and your wife at home now correct have you gained a lot of weight in the last 20 years no but i should tell you i'm six three and way two hundred pounds oh you're a big guy we don't want to make you angry no but that you know i do have to try cars on for size okay yeah i got it what is it uh link a navigator no you think so that's Mike that's Mike he is big yeah he is big see that's it let's let's hear what your choices are well actually one of your choices was right on uh bmw x5 uh-huh the other was just the

36:52sheer seductiveness of that jaguar s okay and what's the third is completely different but goes back to that conventional sense and that's the cantalact dts with night vision because we get to an age where night vision looks very attractive wow well you know it's interesting that you do you don't keep any car very long five five years of the longest yeah yeah I mean every couple of years for a while there so you could buy the cantalact we haven't driven a Cadillac for a few years now but we have driven the x5 and the x5 is very nice but i don't see you in the x5 you've done that been there done that the s-type is a possibility did you drive that and did you like it i did a drove wonderfully then that's what i would go for which one the s-type jag what are you 61 Steven

37:5555 55 yeah yeah you're too young to buy the caddy yeah that was my concern dude i needed another 10 years for that you want any white shoes none then you can't buy the caddy you have any plaid trousers no plaid trousers i would go for the s-type jag that's the car for you man i can see you sitting in it and boy you look marvelous oh wonderful and and is your brother in agreement yeah i'm in agreement too and that's a good car to keep if you have a five year horizon okay enjoy it i'll have you call my wife and convince her right that'll be next week okay good luck Steven no we'll call her bye bye well it's happened again you've underutilized another perfectly good hour listening to cadet talk underutilized i like that our steam producer is dug the subway fugitive not a slave to fashion bourman our social producers are frow cast and phenolosa and Louis Cronin the barbarian our engineer is Dennis the workplace menace foley our senior

38:56weblack he is dug the old gray mayor and our technical spiritual and menu advisor is the bugster john bugsy free lunch lauler our public opinion pollster is Paul murky of murky research assisted by statistician margin of error our customer care representative is heywood jibuzz off our director of new product repair is warranting my foot our official spokesperson is lu scannon and our shop foreman is luke busy our staffs no cloud driver is phrasia too our student consultant is known to plume our devoyse attorney is carmine not yours our peeled specialist is bud your owner bud your honor but your honor and our russian chauffeur is beat golf and drop off our chief counsel from the law firm of dewey chinman how is you Louis dewey known to the Yankee haters in Harvard Square as you we do we do we thanks so much for listening we're clicking clack the tapet brothers and remember don't drive like my brother and remember this one thing don't drive like my back we'll be back next week bye bye

39:59and now here's car talk boss's chief mechanic mr vincent humbots vinyne thank you very much now if you want to copy this here show which is number 11 just pick up your phone and call this number eight eight eight god junk and what if i wanted something else you know like a car talk puzzler book or the best of cd would i call that same number then no i think you call fun those are russ you though of course you called the same number you're called the shameless congress division at eight eight eight god junk or visit online at the car talk section of caz.com you know thank you vinyne that was triumphant ever you're trying to break your bell car talk is a production of dewey chinman how and wb you are embossing and even though Jennifer Lopez puts on a moo moo whenever she hears us say at this is npr national public radio this message comes from prolon feeling heavy and depleted after the holidays prolon's five day fasting mimicking diet aims to make it easy to reset your body habits and energy heading into

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