#1214: The Flower and Blue Cheese Belvedere

Apr 07, 2012
This week on Car Talk, Chris' 1959 Belvedere has turned into a greenhouse and Fromagerie, courtesy of some poorly placed birdseed and a kid who thought it would be fun to hide four bricks of blue cheese in the vents. Can he kill the plants and smell without also taking himself out? Elsewhere, Jonathan's wife is blaming his speed-bump strategy for his Civic's alignment problems. His reaction to Tom and Ray's analysis? "I'm a dead man." Also, Jeannie's looking for validation that the guys telling her to use her emergency brake have their heads up their keisters; and Amy wants to give her husband a dope slap for fixing their Maxima's rack and pinion with nothing but a hammer. All this and lots more, this week on Car Talk.

Show Open Topic

An underwear adjustment gone very, very bad.

This Week's Puzzler

How far up the tree trunk did the couple have to look to find their initials, those many years later?

Last Week's Puzzler

How can Lefty win his 20th game, collect his bonus-- and not throw a single pitch?

As Read on Car Talk



4 Comments

Unfortunate Adjustment?

So, I guess the moral of the opening anecdote about the wife adjusting the wrong guy's privates is that you should always make sure you have legal title before you try to realign the crankshaft...
Favorite Moment: 
Opening anecdote about the wife adjusting the wrong guy's unmentionables
Rating: 

Olds Achieva

You morons... An Olds Achieva has four wheel disc brakes so the parking brake does NOT adjust the pads...
Favorite Moment: 
Rating: 

How about the Lint Lizard?

I love the show but the cheese and seeds caught my attention. How about using a Lint Lizard (like you'd used to clean dryer lint) to clean out the vents and whatnot? A fish store could provide smaller diameter hose but at 40" of hose, I suspect that might be sufficient.
Favorite Moment: 
The idea of the little jerk kid tossing the blue cheese into this classic car!
Rating: 

cheezy / not cheezy repairs

The fellow with blue cheese in his air intakes - how about advising him to blow HOT AIR BACKWARDS through the vents, to dry out and blow out the cheese? He may get it dry enough, that it will crumble up and be blown out. And if he blows the air from INSIDE the car, it will exhaust OUTSIDE and not stink up the car's INSIDES! how he'll get that hot air in, is another matter.
Favorite Moment: 
I enjoyed your response to the wife who paced the living room as her husband fixed the rack&pinion of a $500 car. Good for you guys, to encourage people to do their own repairs.
Rating: 

Get the Car Talk Newsletter