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 the answer to last week's puzzler. This was sent via a fellow named Joe Barger, and he writes, my father, Max, at about age 65, still likes to mow his own lawn with a gasoline push mower. It's not self-propelled, but it does have an engine. He's has the same mower for like 20 years, and it's been great. Well, a few years ago, he noticed that the mower was not getting very good gas mileage. In other words, the mower was using more gas per lawn cut than it used to. This seemed to be getting worse. So, for example, if one tank of gas used to get him through two lawn cuttings, now a whole tank would only get him to mow the lawn one and a half times. Are you with me?
TOM: I'm with you.
RAY: He would have to fill it up in the middle of the second cut. So, he knew something was wrong. He took it to the neighborhood small engine repair shop and for about $100, they replaced the spark plug, the spark plug wire. They gave him a new air filter. And they probably did a few other things like clean the carburetor. Of course, for $4 more, I think I mentioned, he could have gotten a whole new lawn mower. But, anyway, after all the repairs, he notices that the gas mileage is still lousy. He's bummed out, and he wondered whether there's something else they should have replaced. Of course, there isn't. Now, I will add here the engine and lawn mower are in perfect working order, the same as they were perhaps the day he bought the thing. The lawn isn't thicker than it used to be. The lawn density is the same as it has always been. And the question is, what's wrong?
TOM: Man.
RAY: And this is something that my brother could relate to.
TOM: You bet.
RAY: I love these puzzles.
TOM: This is an outside-the-box puzzle. You know? You sometimes say the puzzlers are automotive puzzles are automotive-related puzzlers. But this is an engine puzzler. But it isn't.
RAY: But it isn't. It has nothing to do with this. It has nothing to do with the lawn mower. We stipulated, your honor, I love deceitful questions like this.
TOM: Has your appearance here today been affected?
RAY: No. I just like the ??. Yes. He could be alive and practicing law somewhere. At age 65, Max, seeing the loss of mileage with his lawn mower, has to do with one thing and one thing only. The only answer is one thing.
TOM: It only works. Can we hear that, Tad?
RECORDING: You can't do it, unless the number is 2.
RAY: When will it end?
TOM: Never.
RAY: Well, quite simply, Max is walking slower.
TOM: Oh, man. I bet you no one got this thing right.
RAY: All the geezers did. That's why you got it right away.
TOM: And I've noticed the same thing. It takes me more gas to mow my lawn now, because I walk slower than I did 10 years ago.
RAY: Of course. If you walk slower, of course it's going to take longer, because it's running doing nothing most of the time. At the ?? case, it would take an infinite amount of gas.
TOM: If you couldn't walk at all, you'd start the baby up, and you'd stand there and say --
RAY: Well, that's what I do now. I look at it, and I say, go. Do we have a winner?
TOM: Yeah. We've got a winner, actually. Faith Hayes. Nice name. From Reno, Nevada. And from having her answer selected at random from the grass catcher full of correct answers that we did get, Faith is going to get a $25 gift certificate to the shameless Commerce Division at the Car Talk section of cars.com. And with that $25, she can get 1 and 3/4 copies of our best-selling, marital counselling CD, Men Are From GM, Women Are From Ford, all about couples and cars.
RAY: Indeed.
TOM: One and three-quarters copies. This is the most brilliant marketing strategy anyone has ever devised. We give people $25, and nothing costs $25. This is brilliant. I mean, I taught marketing for 40 years.
RAY: And you didn't come up with this.
TOM: I never came up with this. It's like when you get those free, we get a free vacation. Yeah. One night, seven days. Anyway, we'll have a new puzzler from the realm of statistics coming up on the third half of the show. So, be sure to stick around for that. Right now, if you have a question about your car, or anything else, of course, you can call us at 1-888-Car-Talk. That's 888-227-8255. Hello. You're on Car Talk.
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
