Support for Car Talk is provided by:

Puzzler Answer

Puzzler Answer, Encore 2

Ray: What piece, what part of cars is virtually interchangeable with virtually any other car, whether it's foreign or domestic, let say within the last 30 years. And don't say something silly like motor oil.

Tom: It's not liquid.... It's an actual piece that you can take out of any car, no matter where in the world it was made, and it would fit on any other car.

Ray: Now, a lot of people wrote in and said, like, the air in the tires, the oil in the crank.

Tom: But we said it was an actual mechanical part--not a fluid. Now, we did research this for six or seven minutes. We brainstormed, sat here, and read the answer.

Ray: My answer was the cigarette lighter. But the answer is the Schrader valve. That's the tire valve. The valve that goes in the stem.

Tom: It's called that because it's made by the Schrader company. It's not the Schrader valve. A Schrader-type valve.

Ray: It's the little valve that screws in there, that keeps the air from coming out, it's a little check valve of course, and allows you to put air into the tire, yet it does not allow air to escape.

Tom: How does that work? Allows air to go in...but it...and it's called a check valve.

Ray: Yes, and you can take that out of any car--in fact we've taken them out of all the cars in the parking lot...

Tom: A check valve. I thought they made them in Czechoslovakia.

Ray: Right, and all the cars in the parking lot now have flat tires.

Search Car Talk
GO
Eat my shorts!" and other useful phrases — in Latin; a modern take on classic literary quotes.
Save a boat payment. Check out our new collection of Car Talk columns.
What really causes roadway hell? We talk with best-selling author Tom Vanderbilt.
Who lived in a van? Hear Tara's call and tell Tara what you think.
No kidding. Check out our new special edition Martin guitar.