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#1104: Power to the People

Jan 22, 2011
This week on Car Talk, a rebellion in the Magliozzi family, as Ray's wife uses one candy wrapper to free herself from the shackles of a neat car. The tale is part of the guys' attempts to answer whether a neat freak and a slob can share a car, and still speak to each other. Meanwhile, relocated airline pilot Brigitte is looking for cheap real estate--specifically, a VW Westfalia, with the address, "Airport Employee Parking Lot." Also, if your dad's a mechanic but won't fix your Crown Vic's heating problem, does it mean he doesn't love you? And on Stump the Chumps, we find out if Scott got his Nissan to start, and survived Fat Tony and his big bucket o' tools. All this and lots more this week on Car Talk.

Show Open Topic

Tom and Ray share some of the worst MIT course evaluations, ever.

This Week's Puzzler

How did archaeologists determine that the Romans drove their carts and wagons, and, probably chariots, on the left side of the road?

Last Week's Puzzler

How can you figure out when a cylindrical tank is three-quarters out of gas.... with a pizza box?

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9 Comments

Show Review - 1449

You bozos! Of course women's' cars are a mess! That's where the kids are. They are never in the Dad's cars! My EX husband bought a two door car, on purpose, making it too difficult to get car seats for our twins into the back. He'd spend hours washing and waxing and vacuuming his car. Then we'd get into my car as a family and he'd say "your car's a pigsty". Did I mention he's my EX husband? And he never offered to clean my car!
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Manual or Automatic?

The husband should buy the manual transmission, saying that's what he likes to drive. Put the responsibility on her to learn to drive a manual. In my marriage with my now ex- I was the one to wash & wax our cars. The last vehicle we bought together he wanted black, I like white. He bought black -- I don't wash or wax his car any more.
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Recycling?

In this show, there was a call from a female airline pilot who wanted to buy a van to live in at the San Francisco Airport. Even though this was alleged to be a new show, this story has been told before. Come clean. You are saving your brain energy by recycling wacky calls!
Favorite Moment: 
The listing of your "helpers" at the end: It means the show is over!
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Puzzler Problems

If I understood the story about the cardboard in the pizza box, the solution that was explained was incorrect. The center of gravity is not where the quarter-full point in the tank is. The correct answer is where there are equal areas in the semi-circle. The correct solution is to first find the angle theta that satisfies pi/4=theta-sin(theta/2)*cos(theta/2). Then, the distance from the bottom of the tank is R*(1-cos(theta/2)). This is not the same solution as finding the point that has zero torque from gravity, which is the pizza-cardboard solution.
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neat cars

I was very surprised to hear that well educated people like Tappet Brothers can make such an oversimplified statements that men keep their cars neat and all women cars are mess. My car is always clean and I know many women who keeps their cars clean. And I saw men's cars that are real mess with empty paper cups, spilled coffee with milk, newspapers all over around. Actually at one point I thought that this is an American habit, because people here eat anywhere they want. I was wrong: there are neat Americans too. There are different people among different nations and different genders, and you should never generalize habits by gender or by nation. My advice to the caller to help his wife to clean the car from time to time instead of staying aside. She is driving the grandkids, maybe he can help her with that also?
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stolen joke

Whoa! I just heard a professional pilot claiming the joke, "What's the difference between X and a large pizza"! X actually equals "A professional musician," not any well-paid bourgeois pilot. As I used to say when I worked in MIT's Aero-Astro department, listening to engineering students complaining how hard it is to get a decent job in their field, I'll feel sorry for you when I hear about professionally trained engineers doing their stuff for free, evenings & weekends, while earning their bread and cheese by serving as support staff for well-paid professional musicians and artists.
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94 Honda civic

Standard transmission has wet area on right side. No symptoms,maybe ocassional drop of fluid. How serious is this? Motor has a ticking sound when it is cold but quiets down after running for a short time. Runs great. 35mpg. Your option since we want to keep it for a long time. Thanks.Joe Sturniolo
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Booogus Puzzler Answer

Please check you puzzler answers. The center of mass answer is wrong. Why do you always say your producer Doug Berman is S-steamed. We all know steamed starts with an s and having to work with you two would steam anybody.
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Running On Empty

I recently bought my cousins 1991 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 5speed, and it wouldn't run with the mas air flow sensor pluged in, but it starts and run with out it. What i found out was they did a motor swap with an engine from japan and the paper work it is the same make and model but with 30,000 miles, the engine was put in correct but all the vacuum lines were all wrong, so i look at the the vaccuum diagram and hook the all according to the diagram. the car then was running but rough, so i wiggle the mass air flow sensor plug and it stalled out so i pulled the plug out and figure what would happen if i tried with out and it started up with out a glitch but my check engine light comes on and when I plug the maf sensor back in it stall, but in reverse the car idle and sounds great but every time I throw in nuetral or 1st through 5th gear it stalls. I thought it must be the mass air flow sensor so I went and bought a new one for 150 dallors and still didn't fix the proble I check the wires thought it mus have a short but my ohm meter reads 12 volts and the ground is good. There is one thing to it my abs light is on too I wounder if that has anything to do with it, My reverse stays on all the tim so I checked the motor swap over and there was no split or cut on the wire harness nothing was rigged and all the wires are clean. I don't know what to do or to look for anymore so I just drive itas a daily driver and with out the mass air flow sensor opperating right I only get about 10 miles per gallon so can you some one help me out. Other wise I be like the rusteze from disney's film cars. The reason I said that is because a buddy of mine says you guys gonna tell me to trade off my jap crap.
Favorite Moment: 
my favorvite moment is driving 300 horespower and have 4 wheel drive. It's like driving a cheap verson of the Lamborghini supperleggera.
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