Can you solve this week's puzzler?

View in browser » Warped Discs Time for the new puzzler.  Here we go. Years ago when I was still working in the garage, a customer called us up and said that a brake job we had done for him had gone awry. We had done a brake job on his old Volvo, and we had put on new pads and new disc rotors, and it was all right for several months. He says, "Gee, now when I step on the brakes, I get a rumbling. The harder I step on the brakes, the worse it is. In fact, I don't really feel it at low speeds or if I step on the brake gently, even at high speeds, but if I really lay onto the brakes, I feel that shuttering in the car. One of those new discs must be warped." And I said, "I doubt it..." Anyway, he brings the car in and we drive it around, and turns out, he is right. It is rumbling when you press on the brakes hard, which is a classic symptom of a warped disc. So we put the dial indicator on it, but it says there is nothing wrong with the disc. So at that point, we check over the whole thing, because a bad tie rod or a crummy ball joint could also cause this vibration. We check over the whole thing. We find nothing wrong. But to make him happy, we put four new discs on, so he will be happy. We figure, maybe one of our intruments is off a bit, so for good measure, we put four new discs on the car.  We drive the car to check it out, and of course, the vibration is still there. It is not fixed.  We put it back on the lift. We dedicate one of our mechanics to this problem. So he works on it for a while. Then, he is standing right under the car, in the middle, with the car on the lift, wrench in hand, getting ready to remove something.  And I say to him, "What are you doing?" He says, "This is it. I know what's wrong with it." And the puzzler question is this. What's he going to remove? And why does it fix it?  Good luck. Answer the Puzzler » Remember last week's puzzler? The Carving Here it is.  Somewhere in a land far, far away, a teenage boy was smitten with a teenage girl in his high school freshman class. He made his feelings known. He was overjoyed at finding them reciprocated. She liked him right back. So to commemorate their love, he took pen knife to a young hardwood in the vicinity and carved their initials with a heart five feet up the tree's trunk. Sadly, by their senior year, the girl fell out of love with the boy. She left him. She took her diploma, went away to the big city and married.  The boy was inconsolable. Completely crushed. Bidding his family farewell, he took his small savings that he got from selling lemonade, bought a bus ticket, went to the east coast and shipped out in a menial job on a broken down freighter.  So, 25 years later, captain of his own vessel, owner of a small freighter fleet, and with a major interest in a few oil tankers, he indulged a nostalgic whim and returned for the first time ever to his old hometown.  Imagine his joy when he discovered his old sweetheart living back in their hometown, now a widow. One thing led to another. The flame reignited, and one day they searched for their tree. It was not hard to find. It was near a rock, near a river, and they immediately found it.  Now here's the puzzler. If the tree had added 35% to its height in the first 15 years of his absence, 10% in the following five years, and 2.5% in the ensuing eight years, how far up the trunk did they have to look to find the carving with their initials in it? Find out here » Congratulations to this week's puzzler winner:   decker.larry06 Congratulations! This correct answer was chosen at random by our Web Lackeys. Cartalk.com Community This Week's Show Podcast Add to address book Unsubscribe from list Email preferences Shameless Commerce Care of WBUR, 890 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 Contents © 2025, Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe.

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Can you solve this week's puzzler?

View in browser » The Carving Time for the new puzzler.  Here it is.  Somewhere in a land far, far away, a teenage boy was smitten with a teenage girl in his high school freshman class. He made his feelings known. He was overjoyed at finding them reciprocated. She liked him right back. So to commemorate their love, he took pen knife to a young hardwood in the vicinity and carved their initials with a heart five feet up the tree's trunk. Sadly, by their senior year, the girl fell out of love with the boy. She left him. She took her diploma, went away to the big city and married.  The boy was inconsolable. Completely crushed. Bidding his family farewell, he took his small savings that he got from selling lemonade, bought a bus ticket, went to the east coast and shipped out in a menial job on a broken down freighter.  So, 25 years later, captain of his own vessel, owner of a small freighter fleet, and with a major interest in a few oil tankers, he indulged a nostalgic whim and returned for the first time ever to his old hometown.  Imagine his joy when he discovered his old sweetheart living back in their hometown, now a widow. One thing led to another. The flame reignited, and one day they searched for their tree. It was not hard to find. It was near a rock, near a river, and they immediately found it.  Now here's the puzzler. If the tree had added 35% to its height in the first 15 years of his absence, 10% in the following five years, and 2.5% in the ensuing eight years, how far up the trunk did they have to look to find the carving with their initials in it? Good luck. Answer the Puzzler » Remember last week's puzzler? The Last Train Car Puzzler time. This is a puzzler of yesteryear. The best kind of puzzler, you know.  Anyway, here it is.  Imagine, if you will, a long freight train, like the kind you see out west. A train with a couple hundred freight cars. It is on a big cross country trip, carrying all the things. It pulls into the train yard, for a scheduled stop. On this stop all the workers get off the train to stretch their legs.  Then it is time to take off again so all the train workers, they get back in, and the engineer opens the throttle and the train starts to pull away from the yard. As they pull away, they realize that the caboose has a problem. The brake is frozen on one of the wheels of the caboose of the train.  The wheel is being dragged along. There's sparks and smoke coming off the track. So someone standing there yells for the train to stop. They manage the signal to the engineer to stop the train. Well, they work on it for a bit, but they can't fix it. So they just cut the caboose loose. They remove that last car and then wave them on to go ahead with their journey.  So the engineer gives it the throttle, the train doesn't move. He gives it more throttle. It doesn't move. He gives it more. Doesn't move. And what's happening is the train isn't moving, but his wheels are spinning on the track.  The cars aren't moving. There's nothing wrong with any of the remaining cars, and there's nothing wrong with the engine. But the train won't move. The question is, what's wrong with this picture? Find out here » Congratulations to this week's puzzler winner:  John Schubert Coopersburg, PA Congratulations! This correct answer was chosen at random by our Web Lackeys. Cartalk.com Community This Week's Show Podcast Add to address book Unsubscribe from list Email preferences Shameless Commerce Care of WBUR, 890 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 Contents © 2025, Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe.

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