The Best of Car Talk

By NPR

Comedy Automotive

What's The Best of Car Talk about?

America's funniest auto mechanics take calls from weary car owners all over the country, and crack wise while they diagnose Dodges and dismiss Diahatsus. You don't have to know anything about cars to love this one hour weekly laugh fest.

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#2205: The Hitchhiker Test

01.15.2022

Reggie from South Carolina noticed an odor coming from her car's air conditioning that smelled suspiciously like the stink of the kids in her car pool. Will the dealer's remedy for the problem work or will the ac and the ...

The Best of Car Talk episodes:

01.15.2022 #2205: The Hitchhiker Test Reggie from South Carolina noticed an odor coming from her car's air conditioning that smelled suspiciously like the stink of the kids in her car pool. Will the dealer's remedy for the problem work or will the ac and the ...
01.11.2022 #2204: Na-nu Na-nu THIS! Vacation is tough work! Especially if you're an academic like Tom and you have a hard time keeping all of your holidays, Spring Breaks and Sabbaticals straight. Following several weeks of time off from sweating over a hot microphone the ...
01.08.2022 #2203: Sonja Henie's Tutu! A lot of listeners want to know where Tom and Ray latched onto phrases like 'Don't drive like my Brother!' or 'No matter what it is, it's gonna cost you $200, if that's what it is.' Well ok, very few ...
01.04.2022 #2202: How to Adjust Your Fahrvergnugen Automakers are legendary for developing new ways to sell more cars. But cruise control, abs and premium sound systems have nothing on 'Fahrvergnugen'. What's 'Fahrvergnugen'? Find out(or not) on today's Best of Car Talk.
01.01.2022 #2201: Let Me Break It In For You Honey Donna is tired of boring cars so she just went out and bought herself a new Mazda Miata convertible. Donna's husband convinced her that the car's "break-in period" is critical to the long, trouble-free life of the car's engine, so ...
12.28.2021 #2165: Hello You're on Bird Talk Most of us have had the displeasure of walking up to our car to find an industrial-sized, avian ordinance splattered across the door handle and into places we'll never get it completely out of, but only a select few of ...
12.25.2021 #2164: Cross the USA in Your New Ford Festiva Katherine from Maine occasionally drives her Ford Festiva all the way to New Mexico for fun. The boys try to take her brake trouble seriously, nonetheless. Ditto Keith from Montana who swears that his Plymouth Horizon is trying to electrocute ...
12.21.2021 #2163: The VW Golf from Hell Elizabeth loves her VW Golf so much that she named it 'Miss Gilda'. Rather than love her back, 'Miss Gilda's' fusebox decided to burst into flames on a trip down the highway and ol' Gilda hasn't been right since. Is ...
12.18.2021 #2162: Mid Life Crisis Car on a Budget Like a lot of middle-aged drivers, John from North Carolina wanted to cut loose and buy a cool car. But instead of reaching back to his youth for a 1960s muscle car he decided to settle for his idea of ...
12.14.2021 #2161: Picking the Best Post Divorce Car Any old car salesman can talk a young and enthusiastic car buyer into an appropriate new vehicle. It takes a special skill set -honed by many trips to one's divorce attorney- to help the soon-to-be-unwed find the right car with ...
12.11.2021 #2160: Two Losers Try to Pick a Winner To add excitement to the annual Car Talk Sock Hop listener party held at the Good News Garage, Tom and Ray run a contest that promises free airfare and accomodations to one lucky entrant. Pretty exciting, huh?! Well, not nearly ...
12.07.2021 #2159: Honey I Shrunk the Car Susan fr Florida has to put her beloved 1960 Austin Healey 'Bugeye' Sprite into storage for 3 years. According to Click and Clack there are two schools of thought on how to put a car into storage properly: The right ...
12.04.2021 #2158: Donna Drives a Datsun? Back 'in the day' Click and Clack observed that there were many species of peculiar drivers around their 'fair city'. Older men wearing hats were feared only slightly less than young women named Donna who zipped along in their Firebirds ...
11.30.2021 #2157: Stop in the Name of Love Suzanne from San Diego always downshifts when coming to a traffic stop. Her husband David coasts in neutral with his foot on the brake. Will Tom and Ray declare one of them to be right and thus doom this marriage? ...
11.27.2021 #2156: Son of Oinga Boinga Boinga On a recent show, the boys had to figure out what could possibly be the source of a car noise that went 'Oinga, Boinga, Boinga'. No sooner do listeners leap to their aid with the answer than they are then ...
11.23.2021 #2155: Shake Rattle and Roll As the boys near the date for their '3rd Annual Car Talk Sock Hop' Tamsen calls in from California with a VW Superbeetle that Shakes, Rattles and Rolls down the highway. Robin has a rotten exhaust, Debbie's Peugeot won't go, ...
11.20.2021 #2154: Being Right vs Being Married After several wives, Tommy came to the realization that within the spousal universe you can either be right or you can stay married. So when Warren fr IL called looking for help in settling a disagreement between him and his ...
11.16.2021 #2153: Save the Skeets Foundation Somewhere between 'Save the Whales' and 'Save Our Planet' Click and Clack took up the cause of the endangered North American Skeet. Contrary to popular opinion, it was the desperate plight of these poor creatures who are bred in captivity ...
11.13.2021 #2152: Oinga Boinga Boinga Today's show starts out with a listener communique from the future spelling out Click and Clack's fate, and it ends with the boys repeating the words, 'Oinga, Boinga, Boinga' like some lost explorers in an old B movie. In between, ...
11.09.2021 #2151: Mothbalderdash Jim from Oklahoma was driving with his buddy through a torrential rain when his Nissan pickup stalled due to water in the fuel tank. Buddy walked off in the rain to the general store and came back with a miracle ...
11.06.2021 #2150: Hark, I Hear a Cannon! At the end of the New Puzzler each week Tommy has one line of exactly three words that he's responsible for, yet somehow it's too much for him sometimes. This was one of those weeks. Together, the boys have better ...
11.02.2021 #2149: Bugsy is Moonlighting On today's show our long-time technical editor John 'Bugsy' Lawlor is found to be providing a new definition for the term 'moonlighting'. After that revelation the boys get down to the main business at hand and try to help John ...
10.30.2021 #2148: Whoop Whoop Whoop Goes the Pickup Whoop Whoop Whoop Goes the Pickup... pretty sure that's a nursery school rhyme but it's also what Gail's truck sounds like. The boys also try their hand with Dan's quieter pickup(won't start), Libby's Dodge Dartre and Lisa fr TX who ...
10.26.2021 #2147: Diogenes Auto Repair Jeff, who has just moved to Pittsburgh, has a problem with his Toyota and Tom and Ray want him to make like the ancient Philosopher Diogenes and use the opportunity to test the honesty of the local mechanics. Shorter, but ...
10.23.2021 #2146: The Clink and Clunk Compendium of Car Noises You would think that two guys named after noises would know their rattles and shimmies pretty well, but Click and Clack spend much of this week's show consulting the Ford Motor Company Official List of Car Noises whenever they're stumped. ...
10.19.2021 #2145: To Form a More Imperfect Union Nothing succeeds like secession! Or at least that's the thinking as Tom and Ray plan for Car Talk Plaza's imminent secession(from what exactly, we're not sure). But the crazy car problems will of course emigrate to wherever they land. This ...
10.16.2021 #2144: What Transmission Trouble? In today's show Click and Clack are confronted with two callers whose car's transmissions are in really bad shape but the boys tell them to do NOTHING! Now, why would they risk their good standing in the local mechanic's yachting ...
10.12.2021 #2143: Have You Lived a Good, Clean Life? Broadcasting again this time from their new think tank -The Bushings Institute, Tom and Ray advise Cynthia that the fate of her beloved 1980 Chevy Citation is inextricably linked up with her personal life choices. Jim's shaking VW, Eileen's Nissan ...
10.09.2021 #2142: Weekend at Dougie's When the producer is away, our cats will play. The boys figured out where producer Doug Berman hides his spare housekey and spend this week's showtime raiding Dougie's fridge and torturing his cat inbetween calls. Shelly and her misbehaving clutch, ...
10.05.2021 #2141: Greetings from the Bushings Institute The important think tanks tackle global peace, poverty and the really deep problems facing humanity. Tom and Ray's 'Bushings Institute' set their sites a bit lower: Where is Stacey's oil leak coming from?.. When is the right time to sell ...
10.02.2021 #2140: When Yugos Roamed the Earth This week's show starts a new/old chapter for Car Talk as we go back to the show's beginnings to try and figure out where such a simple concept -giving nice listeners useful car advice- went so horribly wrong. Turns out ...
09.25.2021 #2139: Thirty Four Years of Wasting Perfectly Good Hours This week on Car Talk, we wrap up our 34th Anniversary celebration/apology, with our all-time favorite laughs. We've got the infamous electric brakes call and the philosophical breakthrough it inspired. Also, Tom's misadventures in the US Army; the ultimate Puzzler ...
09.18.2021 #2138: Thirty Four Years of Listener Retaliation This week, Car Talk's month long 34th Anniversary Celebration/Apology continues, with an all-listener request show. We've got the Bosnian Vowel Drop, Arup Gupta, the original Melissa Peterson letter, Death Valley Dinesh, and the circumferentially challenged Daniel Pinkwater reading highlights from ...
09.11.2021 #2137: Thirty Four Years of the North American Wacko This week, we continue celebrating (and apologizing for) Car Talk's 34th Anniversary on NPR, with some of our all-time favorite "out there" calls. Our roster includes space shuttle astronaut John, whose government vehicle had a slight hesitation problem at 17,000 ...
09.04.2021 #2136: Thirty Four Years of Lousy Marital Advice Believe it or not, Car Talk is celebrating its 34th Anniversary on NPR. We know we should mark the occasion with a sincere apology for wasting all those hours, but instead, we're celebrating with a series of special shows featuring ...
08.28.2021 #2135: The Camaro Contretemps Who better than Tom and Ray to solve a dispute between two brothers over a vintage Camaro? Well, lots of people, actually. But Cynthia wasn't able to reach any of them, so this week on The Best of Car Talk, ...
08.21.2021 #2134: My Dog Still Hates You This week on the Best of Car Talk, we hear from Tom and Ray's all-time #1 nemesis, Melissa Peterson. Years after her first missive, Melissa wants to remind the guys that she (and her dog) still hate them, but would ...
08.14.2021 #2133: Joys of Family Car Trouble This week on The Best of Car Talk, Vern's sister-in-law's husband accused him of wrecking the engine in his Windstar by adding too much oil. On a scale of 1 to 10, how guilty should Vern feel? And does their ...
08.07.2021 #2132: Choosing the Right Vehicle This week on The Best of Car Talk, Amanda is getting married in a few days, and has one last item on her To-Do list—convincing her fiancé to get rid of his truck. Should she just throw the keys instead ...
07.31.2021 #2131: Adventures in Bogosity This week on the Best of Car Talk, Ray takes Male Answer Syndrome to a whole new level, trying to explain why Dave's keyless remote works better when Dave points it at his chin rather than the car. Is the ...
07.24.2021 #2130: Til Death Do Us Park This week on The Best of Car Talk, Katherine's new job got off to a bumpy start (literally!), when she rear-ended her boss' shiny new car on her first day. Katherine has been eyeing a new car herself, but should ...
07.17.2021 #2129: We Don't Recommend the Hot Wax This week on The Best of Car Talk, we've all been there. You're in the midst of a long drive when nature calls but doesn't provide a venue for you to answer that call. If the only urgent haircut option ...
07.10.2021 #2128: Geek Camp This week on the Best of Car Talk, got a pencil neck and an empty summer calendar? Tom and Ray are here for you, with the first (and probably last) Geek Week Summer Camp. Elsewhere, Shelly thinks she's killing a ...
07.03.2021 #2127: Perspicacity and the Sundance Kid This week on The Best of Car Talk, after years of ranting and raving about bad drivers, Tommy makes a shocking confession. What previously unthinkable driving sin did he commit, and why? Meanwhile, Tommy's erstwhile soulmate Rob drives like a ...
06.26.2021 #2126: The Secret Male Handshake This week on The Best of Car Talk, Katie's roommate's pseudo-scientific explanation for getting her Civic's door stuck on a sidewalk struck her as bogus, so she's turning to two pseudo-MIT grads. Can Tom and Ray separate truth from bogosity? ...
06.19.2021 #2125: The Spark of a Bad Idea This week on The Best of Car Talk, Steve left a fresh turkey in his car for a week, and well, things don't smell so fresh anymore. Will any combination of soap, air freshener, and bad cologne get the stench ...
06.15.2021 #2124: Empathic Shared Meaning 101 This week, The Best of Car Talk kicks off with some of our favorite Country song titles. Can anything top, "I'd Rather Pass a Kidney Stone Than Another Night With You?" Then it's off to Maui, where Jeff would be ...
06.05.2021 #2123: But it Drives Pretty Good This week on The Best of Car Talk, Ellen's Civic has been in three crashes, vandalized nine times, and had a tree fall on it, all of which has somehow convinced Ellen the car is cursed. If she tries to ...
05.29.2021 #2122: Automotive Marital Wagering This week on The Best of Car Talk, Cynthia is so convinced her gas mileage improves when she gets her oil changed, she bet her boss 100 bucks. If she can't win on technical grounds, might Tommy the Philosopher King ...
05.22.2021 #2121:All's Well in Endwell, NY Slackers of the world, unite! Ah, never mind, that's probably too much effort. But this week The Best of Car Talk pays tribute to those dedicated to avoiding the rat race. In matters automotive, Liz's husband really wants to celebrate ...

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