Shocking Shocks
This is the case of the bad shocks!
The puzzler this week has to do with shock absorbers.
This woman goes to one of those speedy, super quick, fix your car in 5 minutes places. You know, one of those places we are always bad-mouthing and then getting nasty letters from...
Anyway, her car was running rough. And they told her she needed new shocks. The mechanic says, "Here, I'll show you." And he bounced on the rear bumper, up and down, up and down, to prove his point. So she agrees and tells him to put in new shocks.
He puts the shocks in and she drives away. Of course, as luck would have it, they were closing for the night, right as she left. She was very disappointed because the ride was terrible. It was much worse than it was when the old shocks were in there. It was like driving over cobblestone streets. Very rough.
So she went back the next morning and said, "There's something wrong with these new shocks. They're defective."
The mechanic looks at them, and there's nothing wrong with them. He did the test again, pushed the bumper down, and released it. It came to a stop. He said, "They're perfect."
She insisted he put new shocks in again and so he did. And of course, it made no difference. So after all of that, she came to us and said, "What is wrong with my car? What did they do to it?"
So the puzzler question is, what is happening here? Did they do something wrong when putting in the shocks? If not, what is happening here?
