Problems with the Click and Clack Brothers 'Puzzler' question

As I was driving around yesterday, I was idly listening to the ‘Click and Clack’ brothers—or whatever they call themselves— on NPR. For those of you who have never heard of these guys, they’re an automotive question and answer team heard on nationally syndicated public radio. For the most part, they’re informative and often funny-- but not as funny as they seem to think they are.

One segment of their show is called the ‘weekly puzzler’. In it, they offer up a car problem and ask listeners for the one right answers to that problem. Listeners who answer correctly apparently win cash, prizes, and untold adulation from their peers.

Fine, right? Wrong. I think I spotted a serious flaw with last weeks puzzler (They present the puzzler question one week and in the following week they reveal the answer).

Here’s the question and the supposedly ‘correct’ answer-

You’re driving a 1963 Chevy Dart. As you’re driving along, you notice that your right rear tire has gone flat. You pull over and start changing the tire. Lo and behold, as you’re changing it, you accidentally drop four of the five lug nuts from that tire down a nearby storm drain.

Drat.

But being resourceful, you immediately think, ‘Hey, if I take one lug nut from the other three wheels I can end up with four lug nuts on all four tires (1 lug nut that didn’t fall down the drain + 3 lug nuts taken from the remaining 3 wheels = All 4 wheels with 4 lugs).

Five hours later, you’re still sitting there. Why?

The answer?

The lugs from the left side of the car wouldn’t work on the right, so you’d be screwed.

In 1967 Chevy’s, the lug nuts on the left wheels where threaded the opposite direction of those from the right side. Chevy’s thinking-- at that time-- was that as you drove down the road, the centrifugal force of the wheels spinning would keep the lug nuts secure, because they’d be threaded to tighten up as the wheel moved as opposed to possible loosen up, had the wheel not been threaded the opposite direction.

Yeah, OK. Pretty stupid question and answer, if you ask me.

But it got me thinking- couldn’t you take 2 lug nuts from the right rear tire—where it’s threaded the same direction—and adding it to the one that you salvaged from falling down the storm drain, and make a total of three on the right front and rear wheels?

The car should be able to drive with three lugs on two separate wheels, right?

I’m thinking about calling their smug asses next week and telling them their puzzler was screwed- that person could still have driven off, he wouldn’t be stuck.

But would I be right?

I’m no car expert, but I would think three lug nut on two tired would be more than enough fo you to drive slowly to a service station…

I’ve driven a piece o’ crap Chevy Malibu (? Not sure of the make… it was a long time ago) several miles with only 3 lug nuts… of course by the time I got there the tire had basically become fused to the axle. It took them a day to get it off to replace the lug nuts. (Long story, but in trying to change the tire, two of the five lug nuts simply broke off when I tried to loosen them with the tire iron… I’m a stud!:wink: )

? Dodge, perhaps?

Three lug nuts would easily get you down the road. I can’t remember having dealt with opposite threaded lugs, though.

are you sure it was a Chevy Dart? I thought dart was under the Dodge Corporation? i could be wrong, or you are thinking of something different, or these car idiots are, well, idiots

It was a Dodge Dart - the Plymouth ‘twin’ model was the Valiant.

  • Rick

OK. Here’s the link to Click and Clacks Puzzler question - Tommy’s Flat Tire Fiasco.

I admit, I was off a bit on the specifics-- it’s a '63 Dart… nothing more added.

But, in the explanation I heard on the radio yesterday, they specifically talk about Chevrolet and the lug-threading thing. Is Dodge a division of Chevy?

Wait a minute… that’s all beside the point!!

Do the people who answered it the way I did have a legitimate beef with these guys?

Would it matter if one side of the car has three lugs on the wheels while the others had five? It doesn’t ‘throw’ the car off or anything, does it?

I had the same thought, CnoteChris. I’m a long-time Cilck and Clack fan, though, so my annoyance was somewhat tempered by the fact that I understand how the Puzzler works. I don’t think it will do any good, but I’ll try to explain. :slight_smile:

You have to solve the Puzzler based on the information you’re given. The information you are given is that the plan to take one lug nut from each of the other three wheels results in your still being stranded. Why? It is not stated as “You have one lug nut, how do you get the wheel put back on?”

I know it’s subtle … it’s the kind of thing you pick up on after a few years of listening. I even know who’s Click and who’s Clack. :smiley:

I sense some sarcasm in that post, KneadToKnow.

If that’s the scam they’re running, then it ain’t right!!

You could absolutely get by with three lug nuts on each wheel:

You have the one you didn’t lose plus two from the front wheel. The opposite side of the car, whose threads are threaded in the opposite direction, would of course keep it’s five per wheel.

But three per wheel is definitely enough.

It was a Dodge Dart. Dodge is a division of Chrysler Corporation. At least it was Chrysler Corporation until their new German masters took over and turned them into DaimlerMercedesChryslerBenz or whatever it’s called.

And yeah, you probably could have gotten away with three lug nuts on each wheel if you took it easy. The same thought occurred to me. I’ve owned a couple of ChryCo cars with left-handed and right-handed lug nuts but I’ve never ended up in that particular pickle.

Zap!

Chevy didnt do the left hand thread lug nut thing, but Dodge did.

The question asked was why could the person not get four nuts on each wheel. The question was not “how can he get out of this mess?”. It’s a puzzle question, not an automotive question as such. (And note also that at least half of the puzzlers have nothing to do with cars at all. Again, they’re logic questions.)

Chris, if you’re that unhappy, write your complaint on the back of a $20 bill and send it to them. :wink:

–Cliffy

I’ve noticed problems with many of the puzzlers over the years. That’s why I stopped bothering with them. You have to guess what THEY thought was the correct answer.

What engineer_comp_geek said. While I don’t know if they’ve ever explicitly stated it, the answer is decided by them. If they’re wrong in respect to rational thinking, you can always complain, but it doesn’t change who won.
There’s a section on their website (at least it used to be there, haven’t visited in a while) with a daily trivia question. The object there, very clearly stated, is to figure out which answer Tommy thinks is right. Sometimes the correct answer (or the closest to being correct answer among three wrong ones) is available in addition to whatever urban legend Tommy’s happened to pick as the right answer. It’s kind of fun, in a way. Like when you take a standardized test and have to figure out what the test compilers think is the right answer.

I missed the show, but I answered that puzzler, and gave their expected answer. Yes, it did occur to me that, in practical terms, three lug nuts on each of the 2 wheels would suffice to get you home, but it wasn’t a bad puzzler question, actually. The point of it was knowing the little factoid that some models of automobiles have left-threaded lug nuts on one side. Many Chrysler products, specifically. Car Talk puzzlers, and set puzzles in general, are not about thinking in real world terms. They are about working within the bounds of the rules stated (implicitly or explicitly) by the puzzle, and it was pretty clear what they were after.

(IIRC, the International Scout I drove as a kid had left-threaded lug nuts on one side, too)

A just so you know post–

The part about me being angry and wanting their butts is done a bit tongue and cheek. I understand questions like this are written with an expected answer.

I can grok that, honest.

My real purpose was to question whether or not my thinking (And apparently the thinking of many others out there-- sheesh, I had no clue so many people listened to these guys) was a sound one-- would three lugs work, or wouldn’t they.

Since they didn’t say a word about that (Which must be pretty obvious if even I came up with it) then I thought it might not be possible. But, according to youse guys, it is.

I’ll gladly accept that.

I dunno, I guess I just wanted to say, or make clear, that I’m not upset about it and I’m not going to fire off an angry letter to these guys. I just thought it was glaringly obvious and wanted to make a point about that as well.

Thanks.

As I said, I hadn’t heard the show where they gave the answer, but they just posted the transcript, and maybe somebody SHOULD write them - after explaining the left-handed thread bit:

What about 5, 5, 3, 3, guys? As long as you’re bringing it up. This is different than simply not mentioning the possible distributions of the nuts one side and observing that the original 4 per wheel couldn’t be done. You could let the listener infer that 3-3 was thought to be no good. Probably erroneously, but OK for a puzzle.

Now, some models of cars have 4 lugs per wheel. I don’t know if there are any cars that have 4 lugs and also left-handed threads on one side …

See?

Maybe I should get angry. because that’s exactly what I remember hearing the other day. I didn’t get into that part of it too much in the OP because I assumed I hadn’t heard it close enough.

But you’re right-- it’s a shitty answer. They make it sound like it isn’t possible.

Hah! A small sense of redemption comes over the old cnote.

As transcribed in the puzzler email list (bolding mine):

Given the question they asked, their answer is technically correct.