MILFORD — Local man Dale Pruitt, 44, nodded steadily and with apparent comprehension through a four-minute conversation with his mechanic Tuesday, then authorized a $1,400 repair to a component he later described as “the thing, I think under the car.”

According to witnesses, the exchange began when mechanic Ray Delgado said the vehicle “was throwing a code” and that the issue was “probably the secondary whatever, but it could be cascading into the manifold situation.” Pruitt responded with a slow, downward nod and the phrase “Yep. That tracks.”

“He said ‘that tracks’ twice,” said Delgado, wiping his hands on a red rag. “Once after I said the part number. I could tell he didn’t know what a part number was, but he really sold it.”

Pruitt’s confidence reportedly peaked when Delgado asked whether he wanted the “OEM version or the aftermarket one.” After a pause of nearly two seconds, Pruitt said, “What would you do?”, a move experts call the Reverse Mechanic.

“It’s a classic defensive maneuver,” said Dr. Priscilla Vandergroot-Haas, associate director of the Institute for Automotive Bluffing at the Northeastern Regional Center for Pretending to Know Things. “The customer hands the decision back while maintaining the posture of someone who could have made it. The arms-crossed stance, the squint at the middle distance, the occasional ‘mm’ are all load-bearing lies.”

Vandergroot-Haas said her research shows 91 percent of drivers have approved a repair they could not identify in a lineup, and that the remaining 9 percent were mechanics.

Pruitt said he does not regret the decision. “He pointed at it, and it did look pretty bad,” he said, adding that he had no way of knowing whether the part in question was the one Delgado had pointed at, or whether he had pointed at one at all.

“I felt like if I asked what it did, he’d know I didn’t know. And then what would we have? Two men who both knew.”

The final invoice, reviewed by Taradiddle, lists the repair as “Replace thing (see other thing),” along with a $186 charge for “fluid,” a $95 charge for “shop supplies,” and a $40 charge for “vibes,” which Delgado said is a recognized industry term.

Pruitt has since attempted to explain the repair to his wife, Carol, by saying the car “had a whole situation with the underneath.” Carol reportedly nodded.

At press time, Pruitt had returned to the shop after noticing the car now made a different noise, which he described to Delgado as “a kind of wuh-wuh, but sadder.” Delgado reportedly nodded slowly and said he’d heard that one before.