Dear Car Talk:
What is the most memorable road trip that you have ever taken? Please include make, model, year of vehicle, year of trip, occupants of said vehicle, origin, destination, highlights, lowlights, internal condition of vehicle at its worst during the trip, and any promises to God made during said trip.
I look forward to hearing your answer!
— Mike
Thanks for the question, Mike.
I’ve taken many memorable road trips, but the first one that comes to mind happened around 1985.
My younger son was about 22 months old, and he was a holy terror. He was a toddling time bomb, always threatening to detonate into a shrieking meltdown.
Despite that, I somehow duped my family into taking a road trip from Boston to Montreal to do some sightseeing. So, we set out in my green 1976 Ford LTD with a bazillion miles on it. It had been a reliable car, and it was our family vehicle at the time.
We drive up there, and I drag the whole family around Montreal all day, and my younger son is an absolute nightmare. His favorite new phrase back then was “hate Dada.”
We managed to escape dinner just as one of his tantrums was erupting and got back to our hotel absolutely exhausted. It was a trying day for everybody, and the whole family is mad at me, because this was all my dumb idea.
So, we’re collapsing with exhaustion when the phone rings in the hotel room. I answer it, and there’s a man speaking with a heavy French accent.
“Alo, Meester Mag-lee-oo-zee?”
“Yes?”
“Ah, zees is Henri, ze concierge at ze hotel.”
“Yes?”
“Ahh, Meester Mag-lee-oo-zee, deed you used to own a green, Ford LTD?”
“What? Used to?
“Ah, Meester Mag-lee-oo-zee. I am very sorry, but zere haz been a terrible fire in ze hotel garage.”
“What? A fire?”
“Unfortunately, zee car has been totally destroyed. Burned to crisp! Car-bon-i-zay!
So, of course, my heart sank. No car. No way home. A 22-month-old terrorist in a crib. And then I heard the telltale sound of suppressed laughter on the other end of the line.
It wasn’t Henri. It was my brother, Tom, playing an awful, dirty trick on me. Well, it was a pretty good trick, actually. So, I was immediately relieved and then spent the whole ride back planning my revenge.
So that was forever known as the Great Montreal Hotel Fire trip, Mike.
If any of you folks have great, funny road trip stories, send them in and maybe we can print some of them.
Dear Car Talk:
I love your advice, and now, I need some. I have a 2007 Toyota Avalon V6 with 106,000 miles in excellent condition. It runs great.
I had it in for regular maintenance, and Toyota told me the timing chain cover is leaking. They said that to repair it, they’d have to remove the engine, so I’d be better off looking for a new car.
I was told that if it runs out of oil, it will ruin the engine. That makes sense to me. But I do not see any oil leakage on the floor in the carport where I park.
I did some research, and I believe the timing chain is lubricated by the engine oil. So as long as I maintain proper engine oil level, can I keep driving it?
— Gerald
Absolutely, Gerald. As long as the leak is modest and you keep your oil level topped up, you can just keep driving. The dealer is correct that fixing this leak is a big job. It does involve removing the engine and transmission. So, it’s going to cost several thousand dollars.
I think he’s also correct in getting you to think twice before you fix it. Fixing it is an option, but on any car that’s 16 years old, you risk spending $3,000 on a major engine repair and then having the transmission fail in six months.
So, I’d vote for watchful waiting. And the first step in watchful waiting is to find out what you’re really dealing with here. That starts with measuring your oil loss. Make sure the oil is at the full level, write down your odometer reading, and then check the oil every fill-up until you’re down a quart.
If you’re losing a quart every 1,500 or 1,000 miles, that’s a very small, very slow leak. And it suggests you can keep driving the car for a long time to come.
If you’re losing a quart every 300 miles, then you’ll have to either fix it or check the balance on your home equity line and start looking around at the 2023s. And by getting a handle on the rate of oil loss, you’ll also know how vigilant you have to be about checking it. And you’ll know when it’s getting worse.
If you do opt for a new — or newer — car, the silver lining is that you’ll be able to avail yourself of some of the wonderful safety features that have been added in the last decade, like automatic emergency braking, blind spot monitoring, lane keeping assist, and emergency “passing an ice cream shop” alerts. Good luck, Gerald.
