RAY: Hi! We're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair and, uh, the answer to last week's fully automotive Puzzler.
TOM: Two weeks' ago Puzzler. It's not last week's Puzzler.
RAY: All right, all right.
TOM: Get it straight!
RAY: Anyway, this one came to us from a listener named Brad Hamill, and I'll just read it as is. I didn't think I could improve it. Well, I could have. Could have obfuscated more.
TOM: Even more than Brad did.
RAY: It didn't really need it.
TOM: It didn't need it. Good. OK.
RAY: Anyway, this fellow takes his Volvo to the shop--but this could be just about any car. And he complains of a strong pulsing in his brake pedal when he applies the brakes. The mechanic looks over the car and finds that, sure enough, the front disc brake rotors are warped. So he installs new ones and sends the guy on his way. Five thousand miles later, the fellow comes back to the shop and complains that the pulsing is back. Suspicious, and yet confident that his work was, what, perfect...
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: The mechanic asks the owner a few questions: Do you ride the brake?
TOM: No.
RAY: Have you tightened your lug nuts with a high-powered air wrench?
TOM: No.
RAY: Have you had a hemorrhoidal flare-up recently?
TOM: Yes.
RAY: Has anyone had their hands on your lug nuts recently?
TOM: Absolutely not.
RAY: Have you bought new tires?
TOM: No.
RAY: The mechanic is at a loss and begrudgingly replaces the warped rotors.
TOM: Mmm. Again.
RAY: A thousand miles later, the guy comes back, and-- guess what?
TOM: What?
RAY: Same problem.
TOM: I would never have guessed.
RAY: This time, the mechanic asks straight up what the heck he's doing to the car that could be causing this problem, knowing that there's nothing wrong with the parts and nothing wrong with the installation. The fellow says, "Jeez, I don't know. I go on a lot of long trips, and it's always the day after I arrive home from these trips that I start feeling the pulsing, but never during the trip."
TOM: Really?
RAY: The mechanic then asks him one question and solves the mystery. What question did he ask him?
TOM: I'm afraid! I'm afraid to even venture a guess!
RAY: He asks him, "Did anyone have his hands on your lug nuts?"
TOM: He asks him one question, and from the answer to that question, he knows what's wrong with the guy's car.
RAY: Mmm.
TOM: Wow!
RAY: And the question he asks him is, "Do you wash the car immediately after returning from these long trips?"
TOM: Awww! Really?
RAY: And the fellow says, "As a matter of fact..."
TOM: "Before I get home..."
RAY: "As soon as I pull into the driveway, before I even loosen my tie, I've got the hose out, and I'm hosing the dirt off the car, and in doing so..."
TOM: "Ach! I'm warping the disc rotors!"
RAY: By hitting those hot rotors with ice-cold water...
TOM: With cold water.
RAY: On one side only.
TOM: Oh, man! One side only!
RAY: Well, he's hitting just the wheel side of the disc rotor. When you go through a puddle, you're immersing the whole disc rotor in the water.
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: And so you tend to equalize the forces. But when the thing is red hot, because you've been driving like crazy to get home to your sweetie...
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: At least pulling into the driveway and wash the car, and you put that ice-cold water on that red-hot disc brake...
TOM: On one side.
RAY: On one side of it, zzzzzzt! It's warped! And who's our winner this week?
TOM: Wow! Oh, boy! That's good! I mean, that's good, but we're going to get a lot mail.
RAY: Don't we always?
TOM: I'm just letting you know, you know. We do have a winner. The winner is Jessie Dornstreich.
RAY: Dornstreich.
TOM: From Philadelphia, PA. And for having his answer... Jessie?
RAY: Could be either.
TOM: His or her answer selected at random from among all the correct answers, Jessie's going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Car Talk Shameless...
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
