RAY: Ha! We're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack, the Tappett Brothers, and we're here to talk about cars, car repair, and, duh, the answer to last week's Puzzler. Now, this was submitted by Ross Sukashima, I assume, if I'm pronouncing his name correctly. He writes, a friend of mine used to work at a Ford assembly plant, and he told me the following story that took place some years ago. A new model came out, and like any new model, there were bugs that needed to be worked out. Amongst these problems was one really strange one. It seemed that one out of every six cars delivered to a dealership would have a dead battery. The engineers at Ford were perplexed. They did circuit tests for short circuits, they tested their own shorts, and none were found. They did extensive lot testing on batteries to see if one out of every six was a problem from the battery manufacturer.

TOM: No.

RAY: No luck. They hired specialists and consultants, experts on batteries and chemicals to try and pinpoint the problem, and of course, they found nothing. For three months, the problem existed, and for three months the problem remained the same. One out of every six cars delivered would have a dead battery.

TOM: Whew!

RAY: He says, my friend was a quality control engineer and decided to take things into his own hands. He walked the entire assembly plant, talked to workers. He started out in components. Then he went to chassis, and electrical, the cafeteria. And he wound up at Final Test, and without fail, each car would start up at the end and was driven away.

TOM: So, he went back to the cafeteria.

RAY: There were no dead batteries at Final Test. He was stumped. He watched the cars being loaded for shipment and then turned around to talk to the guy in charge of Final Test. He asked him if there were ever any dead batteries at Final Test. The guy said, "No, never."

TOM: Yeah. See, the only thing I get out of that is that whatever happened as they were loading the vehicles onto the truck.

RAY: You're so close. He then explained the situation, da-da-da-da-da-da. One out of six batteries was dead. He pondered and smiled and said he knew what the problem was. The question is, what was it? This is, and I gave a hint. This was the old days, when cars were big.

TOM: When cars were big.

RAY: And the big trucks that carried the cars held how many cars, do you figure.

TOM: Five.

RAY: How 'bout six?

TOM: Six is good.

RAY: Six is good.

TOM: Well, they should have only had five.

RAY: They should have had only five. That's right. But because they had six, one of them was always at such an angle that the mercury switch for the trunk light was turning the trunk light on for the entire time the car was being transported on the truck.

TOM: Ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo, oooh!

RAY: And that was killing for the batteries. By the time they reached their destination, one of the six batteries was dead.

TOM: What mercury switch for the trunk light? There's no such thing.

RAY: Of course there is!

TOM: I won't touch it, though. That's fine.

RAY: No.

TOM: Fine!

RAY: It's a great answer.

TOM: Great. Absolutely great.

RAY: Who's our winner?

TOM: No winner. The winner is Kathleen Sullivan.

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]