Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us Click and Collect the Tappert Brothers,

and we're broadcasting this week from the Consumer Complaint Department here at Car Talk Plaza. Now, there are some people you just can't please. You can go out of your way. You can do everything you can to improve a product, and there are some people you're going to just tick off. We have been getting hundreds and hundreds of phone calls from people saying, what are the automobile manufacturers trying to do to us? And we're just trying to make a living like honest people.

Well, we're just trying to make a living. And what they're talking about is the fact that the

automobile manufacturers have almost all agreed to produce cars in the future that have a release inside the trunk. And the people who've

been calling us are all connected, you know, with a certain kind. I don't know what they all sound like.

With the gibbonny crime family. And they said, how's the guy supposed to make a living? You know what I mean? I mean, I throw a guy in a trunk. He's going to just hop right out again. What am I supposed to do? Now we have to tie him up. It's going to slow us down. And I suppose that's true. I mean, here's a guy trying to make a living, and all of a sudden... You know, she couldn't say honest living. I started doing it. So, I mean, it just goes to show. You can't please everybody. You just can't. And, you know, and I can understand their dismay, but they're going to have to tough it out. Yeah, I mean, I don't know why they're bothering to put the release in there anyway.

I mean, what for?

In case you lock your keys in.

Inside the car? Inside the trunk. Then you're going to get in the trunk to open the trunk. Yeah, but if you get in, they find the keys and the trunk should close on you? And it closes on you. Then you can get out again. Yeah. if you can find the little thing you have to.

But is it worth that to put people out of work?

No, of course not. I think not. If you'd like to put us out of work, you can call

1-888-8-8-8-8-8-2-7-8-25-5. Hello, you're on car talk. You know, I thought about 15 years ago that we would have

answered all the questions that could ever possibly have been asked, and we'd have to stop doing the show.

15. I thought like... 19. 19. Well, I could, too. Well, and it's interesting because the questions

just keep on coming, and we keep giving different answers. I mean, the question, we probably have answered all of the questions, but never the same way twice. Or never correctly once. Hello, you're on car talk. Hey, this is Lisa from Bloomington, Indiana. Hi, Lisa. Hello. So that's just plain old L-I-S-A, isn't it? Absolutely. Southern Indiana, none of that foofy spelling for us. No, good. What's going on, Lisa? Oh, you guys, my nights in shining armor, I swear. Okay, I have a problem. I drive a 1984 Oldsmobile Omega, and maybe that's the problem in itself, right? You should do have, right? Yeah. So anyway, the emergency break about a month ago, I go to push it down and it flops to the floor, okay? It won't go click, click, click, click, click. When I put my foot on, it just flops to the floor. Yeah. So I take it into my local garage, and they call back and they tell me that it's frozen. The emergency brake cable is frozen, whatever that. Yeah, there are several cables on this car. Okay, all right. So they tell me they're going to have to replace these cables. Okay. I say no problem. They're telling me about $150, and I'm like, cool. Sounds right. Yeah. So far, everything sounds absolutely right.

Okay.

Well, yes, now the drama begins.

Uh-huh.

So anyway, they call me back when the parts have come in and they say Lisa were mystified.

The cables that we ordered that, you know, are specified for your car, they don't fit.

So we could try to get the parts from the dealer, but that's going to cost you a bunch. So what our guy did, and he's really good with brakes, he heated the brake cables, and he tightened them, and it's going to cost you $10. And I ask him if it's safe. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's safe. So anyway, I go downstairs, and one of the girls downstairs at my job, her husband's a mechanic, and he is an oldsmobile mechanic in a town north of here. So he's on vacation, of course. So she calls his buddy Ed. And he says, oh, no, oh, no, don't do that. That's a death trap. So at this point, you know, I'm driving around and I'm just done the $10 gig and everything.

But, I mean, I need to know, you know, am I going to die a fiery death in my Omega?

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