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Car Talk Ends on WBUR

About time, IMO. They stopped production almost 10 years ago due to Tom's health, and while the show ages reasonably well, it isn't ageless due to the march of technology in cars.
 
End of an era. The show has been in repeats since the brothers retired in 2012. Most stations stopped carrying the repeats in 2018. But the history is with WBUR. I once met the show's producer Doug Berman. He made an entire career out of basically one show. Not many people can say that. You want job security in radio? Create a hit show.
 
We carry it at KSKO, running it Saturdays & Sundays...I'm gonna probably put some automated rock or country music there for the time being till I find something suitable that our audience would like
 
As has been stated above, the show was entertaining, but if you're supposed to be giving advice on automotive troubleshooting and repair, it's a little tough to do when you haven't produced a new episode in 9 years. Lots of people have upgraded to new (or newer) cars since then, and there have been lots of advances in technology. An end of an era for sure, hopefully NPR stations can find something else to fill the slot with. My local NPR outlet airs a quiz show in the former Car Talk slot; I've listened to it when I happened to be in the car at that time and it's enough to hold my attention and keep me entertained for sure.
 
Mikey Radio said:
An end of an era for sure, hopefully NPR stations can find something else to fill the slot with.
Click to expand...

Program development apparently is not very good in public radio right now. The replacement for Prairie Home Companion was a flop, and I haven't seen a similar replacement show for Car Talk. The concept is simple, but the hard part is execution. Thankfully shows like All Things Considered and Morning Edition aren't tied to particular hosts. Otherwise, public radio would be in trouble.
 
TheBigA said:
Program development apparently is not very good in public radio right now. The replacement for Prairie Home Companion was a flop, and I haven't seen a similar replacement show for Car Talk. The concept is simple, but the hard part is execution. Thankfully shows like All Things Considered and Morning Edition aren't tied to particular hosts. Otherwise, public radio would be in trouble.
Click to expand...
According to another Discussion thread, the show "Ask Me Another" which had been a part of the weekend lineups on many NPR stations, is also due to end production this month.
 
TheBigA said:
Program development apparently is not very good in public radio right now. The replacement for Prairie Home Companion was a flop, and I haven't seen a similar replacement show for Car Talk. The concept is simple, but the hard part is execution. Thankfully shows like All Things Considered and Morning Edition aren't tied to particular hosts. Otherwise, public radio would be in trouble.
Click to expand...
True too though. The good part about NPR News/talk affiliates is not just Morning Edition and All Things considered are not tied to specific hosts but also depending on the affiliate their local hosts, PRI The World , BBC News, Marketplace and in some areas PBS Newshour airs on NPR News/Talk stations. At least six shows on the national level are not tied to a personality but to national and world events of the day.
 
As the 60 Minutes clip (linked on universalhub)--from way back--pointed out, cars these days are less likely to be repaired by do-it-yourselfers ...and
maybe people just enjoyed the banter of the two brothers. Tom passed on in 2014. But indeed it got to be quite dated.
 
raccoonradio said:
As the 60 Minutes clip (linked on universalhub)--from way back--pointed out, cars these days are less likely to be repaired by do-it-yourselfers ...and
maybe people just enjoyed the banter of the two brothers. Tom passed on in 2014. But indeed it got to be quite dated.
Click to expand...
...and car repair instructions on YouTube!
 
I still repair my own, and I just dropped the better part of $3000 dollars on a Snap On Solus bi-directional scan tool...

my garage is better equipped than most shops.

But I agree with the above, the industry has changed so much that diagnosing by a noise or a condition is a guessing game. The information they were giving in re-runs was vaild 20 years or more ago, but not in today's world.

Try to replace the rear brakes on some newer cars, unless you have the ability to go into the computer to command the caliper to retract the pistons you'll never get the new pads over the rotor

My neighbor was having trouble getting his 2013 Vette w/ 9K miles on it to start.... I tried to help him using my time honored troubleshooting skills.... this was right after getting off a 4 hour flight so my mind was scrambled.... after 20 minutes of testing battery capacity, cable condition, putting a new battery in the key so the computer would see the right RFID code to allow the computers to fire up (that was half the problem) it dawned on me that it was a newer car and I needed to use a newer car truth chart to trouble shoot it.... and after I swapped the rear defroster relay with the starter relay I got it to run, but it still took me the better part of 45 minutes to fix it... when it should have taken me 20. If I had my scanner with me I could have plugged into the OBD2 port, let the scanner ID the car and load the software, and I could have pressed one screen prompt to tell the computer to energize the relay and if it didn't start I would have gone straight to the relay
 
I believe Sirius XM's NPR channel had been airing Car Talk early on Sunday mornings. But I'm not sure if that's also discontinued.
 
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