Measuring Up Romania

TOM: I think I know the answer to this puzzler.

RAY: I bet you do. What he noticed, while he was being chauffeured around in traffic, were the tires.

TOM: The tires! I knew it!

RAY: He noticed the tires on the cars that were next to him. Just like tires in this country they're half metric and half English. If you have a tire, let's say, a 225/15, the 225 is in millimeters.

TOM: The 15 is inches!

RAY: Right. That's the size of the hole in the tire.

The rest of the tire measurements are in millimeters. There's some agreement that's been struck between the Europeans. I'm sure in Asia you'll find tires whose wheels are not measured in inches, but all the Asian cars that come here use the system that we and the Europeans use. Pretty cute, eh?

Who's our winner?

TOM: Our winner this week is Kate Imholt from Washington, D.C. And for having her answer selected at random from among all the correct answers that we got, Kate is going to get a 26-dollar gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division at cartalk.com, with which she can get our classic tire gauge. This is the most serious tire gauge you can get, an old-fashioned dial gauge made of brass, with a rubber protective cover, and a sturdy hose coming off of it. It's so reliable, in fact, I use it to check my blood pressure too.

RAY: Oh yeah, what is your blood pressure?

TOM: 32 PSI over 80.

RAY: I think you need to cut down on the salt.

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]