A Mysterious Repair

RAY: I mentioned that it was not a safety recall or a service campaign, or anything like that. And it was a new part, and it had to be done. Not doing it would have made their work very difficult. What did they do?

They couldn't find the key to the car because he had put it in his pocket. The answer is, they made a new key, and didn't charge him for it because they assumed they had lost it.

He got a new key, and he was happy because his other key in fact was bent after 183,000 miles. It certainly was a replacement that had to be done before any of the other repairs.

Do we have a winner?

TOM: We do. It's Ursula Stanley from Williamstown, Vermont. And for having her answer selected at random from among all the correct answers that we got, Ursula gets a 26-dollar gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division at cartalk.com, with which she can get our women's only Car Talk T-shirt.

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]