As news of Car Talk’s Tom Magliozzi’s death spread across the country and through the automotive world, a collective sadness could be felt. Everybody from radio listeners to car repair professionals were mourning the loss of what was inarguably one of the most forcefully affecting personalities in the industry — both public radio and auto service. 

Car repair gurus in the media are generally a quick and easy target for professional mechanics.


The idea that a 15-second description of an ailing car’s symptoms could yield anything but bad advice is all but impossible for the pros to digest or support. These personalities are often seen more as media figures than people actually qualified to fix cars and trucks, much less dispense advice on how a vehicle owner should approach a repair with their mechanic. Yet somehow Tom and his brother Ray were almost universally loved and supported by casual radio listeners and auto repair professionals alike. 

I first heard of Car Talk from my mother. She would tell me about a caller she heard on the air and the comedic response he or she got from Tom and Ray, with a little actual advice dispensed in between chortles and guffaws. I had zero interest in hearing the show, yet somehow it couldn’t be avoided. As I listened to what could be boiled down to about 5% actual car advice to 95% I found myself chuckling along with Tom’s booming laughter. Sure, they spent more time talking about why a caller should tell her boyfriend that he’s an idiot for putting his vehicle in neutral every time he coasts down a hill, but that’s what made the show such a success.

Let’s face it, listening to a full hour of dry car advice every week would be painful. There’s nothing sexy or emotional about car problems, but they make a great launching pad for some hilarious conversation. Tom and Ray took this and ran with it.

Still, the 5% actual car advice Tom and Ray offered was coming from two well-trained, well-educated guys who loved cars and the mechanical systems that made them work. They understood not only what was going wrong with a vehicle when it started acting up, but why that system was designed the way it was and what was most likely causing it to fail. Their armchair (or microphone) diagnostics sounded spot on in most cases, and this was backed up by the stream of success stories that could be heard on the show and followed online. Their true success lies in the fact that they were able to completely fluff up a discussion that started with a car repair question without compromising their standing as good mechanics and managing to slip a few pieces of good advice into the conversation as they entertained a massive radio audience. They tackled anything from EGR valves to brake pads to fuel pumps.

While Tom and Ray stopped making new shows about two years before Tom’s death (they continued to play previously aired shows), their impact on public radio and automotive journalism will continue to be felt in the years and decades to come. I’ll still tune in to NPR on Saturday morning to hear Tom and Ray’s raucous laughter and witty banter, but there will be a twinge of sadness knowing that one of those brothers is no longer with us.