Rusty Oil Pans

We have a great new puzzle for everyone. A very automotive puzzler.

Here goes. A while back, a long time ago back in the 1980s at our shop, an odd thing happened. We had occasion to replace not one, not two, but three oil pans. Three!

Now the oil pan is that stamped steel reservoir that holds the motor oil that's in your engine. And from the beginning of time, oil pans are made in the same fashion.

Okay, listen. All three of these were replaced because they rotted away. Now, you might say how could an oil pan rot away? After all, throughout its entire life, it's bathed in oil.

So the inside always has oil in it, so these rusted from the outside.

There we were, we had just completed the third oil pan replacement and the guys and I was standing around, which we did a lot back then. We were looking at the brand new oil pan, admiring our work.

It should be noted that the oil pan replacements were not working on the same car. It was three different cars. But the cars don't matter in this one.

Anyway, we were looking at the new oil pan, and thinking about how years ago, there were oil pans that have never rotted away. So one of the guys says, "Boy these oil pans must be made out of real cheap junk that they rot away this quickly."

And one of the other guys said, "That's not it at all."

And as soon as he said that, I said, "You know, you're right. It has nothing to do with the quality of the steel. There's some other factor involved."

I'll give you a hint. The hint is that all three of these cars were front wheel drive cars.

What is going on here?

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

The Arena

It has all the elements that it needs to be considered a great puzzler, in my opinion.

A while back, years ago, I was going to get my hair cut. And the place had reading materials laying around to look at while you wait. I came across a book on tremendous buildings or something like that, it was about great architecture throughout the ages.

So I'm flipping through this thing, and it describes the Alhambra in Spain, the Taj Mahal in India, and of course, one of the things the book talks about is the Colosseum in Rome as the most magnificent arena ever built. It goes on and on about the history of it, gladiator battles, Christians and lions, and all that stuff. I never knew this, but a little known fact is there were even mock naval battles in the Colosseum. They used to flood the floor of the arena and put ships in there and everything. Really interesting stuff.

So while reading all about this, of course, they were calling the Colosseum an 'arena' which is a word we use today, all the time. I was interested in this word, and I was wondering where it came from. I looked it up and I was amazed to find out what arena means in Latin, it means 'beach' or 'beach sand.'

And I thought, how strange. Why would they call the Colosseum something that means 'beach' or 'beach sand'?

Good luck.