REPAIRMEN MAY GYP YOU-1951
"For six months," says The Neiv York Herald Tribune, "the two authors of this perturbing little volume made a nationwide investigation of the higher nature, if any, of the American repairman. Buying a used car of distinguished make, they engaged the assistance of a lady who looked more helpless than she was, and traveled 19,000 miles, with 1,700 calls on repair shops." "And no one," adds the Boston Post, "could ever pass this book with indifference Whatever your experience with repairmen may have been, you'll find its counterpart here. You will point it out with great satisfaction, and you'll say: 'There! That's exactly what happened to me once.' And you're lucky if it has happened only once. The Post can't think of any subject for research that touches more people. Buy this book, and you will get your money back, over and over, in amounts saved through your wisdom." "There are some amusing stories in it," says the Baltimore Sun, and the Washington Post thinks that the funniest were "the authors' experiences with the Rube Goldberg testing machines used by some shops to impress customers." "The articles in The Reader's Digest were interesting," remarks the Springfield Republican, "but they left room for doubt. The book, however, with details of the almost laboratory caution used by the authors in making their tests, is alarmingly convincing."
"For six months," says The Neiv York Herald Tribune,
"the two authors of this perturbing little volume made a
nationwide investigation of the higher nature, if any, of the
American repairman. Buying a used car of distinguished
make, they engaged the assistance of a lady who looked
more helpless than she was, and traveled 19,000 miles, with
1,700 calls on repair shops."
"And no one," adds the Boston Post, "could ever pass
this book with indifference Whatever your experience with
repairmen may have been, you'll find its counterpart here.
You will point it out with great satisfaction, and you'll say:
'There! That's exactly what happened to me once.' And
you're lucky if it has happened only once. The Post can't
think of any subject for research that touches more people.
Buy this book, and you will get your money back, over and
over, in amounts saved through your wisdom."
"There are some amusing stories in it," says the Baltimore
Sun, and the Washington Post thinks that the funniest were
"the authors' experiences with the Rube Goldberg testing
machines used by some shops to impress customers."
"The articles in The Reader's Digest were interesting,"
remarks the Springfield Republican, "but they left room
for doubt. The book, however, with details of the almost
laboratory caution used by the authors in making their tests,
is alarmingly convincing."
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
AUTOMOBILES 1 1 1<br />
CASE 96. Tavernier, Florida. For miles beside<br />
the new "highway that goes to the sea" along the<br />
Florida Keys you see signs advertising this garage.<br />
I drove the car in on half an engine. The<br />
mechanic gave the motor scarcely a glance. Instead,<br />
he backed up to the car a most impressivelooking<br />
Rube Goldberg machine. It sits on a<br />
tripod and consists of a three-foot-high case lined<br />
in crimson. Inside the glass cover of this case is<br />
a set of glass tubes with a number of twists and<br />
bends ending in a mercury column. If the<br />
mercury<br />
rose to a place on the gauge where it<br />
read "leaky manifold," why, that was certainly<br />
what was wrong. Other positions indicated "carburetor<br />
out of order," "sticky valves," "leaky intake,"<br />
"advanced motor," "motor surge,"<br />
"cracked manifold," etc., etc. After consulting<br />
this machine the mechanic first told us that the<br />
carburetor was dirty, then that we needed a new<br />
fuel pump, and finally that we needed work<br />
which would come to a total of $20. At that I<br />
pointed out the disconnected wire to the mechanic<br />
and asked if that made any difference.<br />
With unruffled calm he replied<br />
:<br />
"Oh,<br />
off myself to get<br />
a better test."<br />
I took that
Change language