Announcement from Car Talk Plaza

We're going back to the beginning of Car Talk—we hope you'll join us! Starting today, Car Talk will release two episodes a week. Double the laughs, double the lousy car advice, and double the puzzlers! Subscribe to our podcast and never miss an episode.

The Elements Of Combustion

A customer has his car towed into a repair shop because it will not run. He turns the key and it cranks, "Ahahrharharharharhharharharh." And it may fire up for a second but it doesn't run. And the mechanic says "Hmm, I guess I'll have to check to see if it has a spark."

And he checks for spark. And indeed, it has a spark. He checks to see if it has gas. In fact, the car has a throttle body injection and he cranks it and he sees gasoline. He has all the ingredients for combustion! He has compression, he has whatever you call it when you rub the two sticks together. And yet the thing won't start because he is missing something. He is missing one of the essential ingredients for making the engine run.

So he takes out one of the spark plugs. I don't know why he does this, but he just takes the spark plug out, turns the key, and it starts. Now what, pray to tell, prompted him to try this?

If you know what prompted him to remove the spark plug and why it wouldn't start in the first place, write us!

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

Of Streets and Surnames

We're gonna make it a two-part puzzle. Part A is: what is the most common street name in the United States?

By common, we mean "most used." So if you went to every single town, village, and hamlet or fair city in the United States and looked at all the street names and tallied up every street name that you found, number one on the list would be ___? And no it would not be Maple Street. So that's the first part.

Part B, we know that the most common surname is Smith. But what is the second most common?