RAY: I stole this puzzler from Phil Dawson, a fellow shop-owner. He writes:

"We had a late model Oldsmobile, brought to our shop last summer with the complaint, 'Stalls at random. Restarts after a while.' We had the car for days, and we ran it on and off, with no such symptoms.

"My wife shows up one day unexpectedly at the shop and decides that I should take her to lunch. I decide to drive this car in a last ditch effort to produce a failure.

"The place my wife suggested was about 10 miles away, and, of course, I didn't tell her there was any problem with the car. I just said, 'Let's take this Oldsmobile, I want to take it on a test drive.' And, sure enough, about 4.9 miles into our return trip, 'Kaput!' It quit.

"It was hot, and my wife was fuming. I told her to cool out, but she couldn't. She was pacing the sidewalk...I thought she was having a cigarette, and then I realized it was her that was on fire. Anyway, I asked her to crank it, and after probing around under the hood, and realizing it wasn't going to start, I asked her for the keys and I opened the trunk. I then went back to the front of the car with the only thing I could find in the trunk that I thought might help me: a bottle of washer fluid. I slowly emptied the entire contents of this one gallon bottle. I then closed the hood. My wife said, "What in the world are you doing? You added a gallon of washer fluid? How can that possibly get the car started?"

I said, "Watch this."

I turned the key, and it started right up. I drove her back to work without further incident.

And, the question is, what the heck did I do to get this car started?

Think you know? Drop Ray a note!

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]