Phantom Battery

Puzzler time.

This was a letter, written to us long ago.

Here it is.

My wife owned a 92 Old Achieva with a five speed manual transmission.

One morning, she's heading out to work, and she comes back into the house and says the car won't start.

I go out and I listen. She tries to start the car. She turns the key, zippo, not even a click.

Being in a hurry, she takes my car, so I put the battery charger on her car, and later in the day, I go out and I started right up. I drive it around a bit to charge the battery. Everything's fine.

The next day, the exact same thing happens. She turns the key, and nothing.

I visit a website, and I find instructions for determining if there's a drain on the battery, There isn't. There is no battery drain.

I go get a new battery and install it. The next day, same problem with the brand new battery.

So we jumped her car to get it running and we take it to the shop.

They call back later to day they could not find anything wrong with the car at all. We told them to let it sit there overnight and try it in the morning, since that is when it always dies for us.

So they did that. They call the next morning to report that the car started right up with no problem.

So we go down to the shop, my wife gets in the car, turns the key, and it won't start for her.

And we're standing there scratching our heads. I don't believe it.

At which point I asked her, did you just buy something for your car?

And she said, yes she did.

And the puzzler question is, what did she buy that was preventing the car from starting?

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

One of Six

Puzzler time.

Here it is.

A long time ago, a friend of mine used to work at a Ford assembly plant. He told me the following story.

A new model came out, and there were a few design bugs that needed to be worked out.

Among these problems, was one really strange problem. One out of every six cars delivered to a dealership would arrive with a dead battery.

The engineers at Ford were confused. They did tests for short circuits. They did extensive testing on the batteries to see if there was a problem from the battery plant. They hired specialists to consult them about the problem.

But they could find no reason for the dead batteries.

The problem persisted for three months. One out of ever six cars had a dead battery upon arrival.

My friend decided to take action. He walked the entire assembly plant, talking to the workers as he went.

He went from the parts department, the electrical department, even the employee break room. He looked at everything.

Without fail, each new car at the end of assembly would start up fine, the battery was good. There were no dead batteries at final testing at the plant.

He watched the cars being loaded to shipment, and then turned around to speak to the final test manager.

He asked the manager if he could think of a reason for the dead batteries at delivery.

The manager thought for a second, then he smiled and said he knew what the problem was.

And the puzzler is, what was the problem?