#2632: Brilliant or Crazy

The Best of Car Talk

NPR

Automotive, Leisure, Comedy

4.7 • 16.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2026

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Rebecca’s Honda won’t go into reverse, but that may not be her biggest problem at the moment because Tommy can’t decide if Ray’s answer is clever or just nuts. And since Tommy himself may be one entree short of a combo platter where does that leave the rest of us? It’s a fine line between brilliant and crazy on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to car talk from National Public Radio with us Click and Clack the Tappert Brothers,
0:20.6	and we're broadcasting this week from the murky behavioral research center here at Car Talk Plaza.
0:26.8	This is a study of sorts, I guess, sent to us by someone named Peter Graham of the Department of Behavioral Sciences, Pensacola Junior College in Florida.
0:37.6	This is not a study of sorts.
0:39.6	This is brilliant.
0:41.1	You think so, huh?
0:42.5	Here's what Peter.
0:43.5	What's his name?
0:44.1	Peter.
0:44.4	Peter.
0:45.6	I teach an experimental psychology class and ask our not brain dead students to design and run
0:50.9	an experiment.
0:52.0	One of them came up with the idea of looking at the effect of gender on car repairs.
0:57.6	Now, get this!
0:59.2	Tammy disconnected the ground wire for the check engine light on her still under warranty Kia.
1:05.4	So the light came on.
1:07.2	Then she took the car to 10 different repair shops and asked them what to do about it.
1:12.0	Got it.
1:12.9	She also had her 6'4 macho boyfriend, Corey, take the car a week or two later to the same shops.
1:22.9	Okay?
1:23.7	Got it.
1:24.0	Here's what we got here.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.