Pep Boys

The silence of night never lasts long. It ends somewhere in the 5 o'clock hour with the purring of the heater and distant strains of Sam Cooke. Edwin Shneidman looks at the clock -- an hour and a half since turning off the TV and closing his eyes. "Mrs. Wiggles," he shouts. He knows that that's not her name, but he likes the joke. Sitting in another room, Pauline Dupuy turns down the CD player and puts her Bible and crossword aside. She stands and walks down the hall into his room.

Southland Corp. said Thursday that it has agreed to sell Chief Auto Parts to the subsidiary's management and Shearson Lehman Bros. for more than $130 million in cash and the assumption of certain liabilities. "We're delighted with the price, as well as the buyers," Jere W. Thompson, president and chief executive of Southland, said in a statement.

Prolong International Corp. said Monday it expects to report a second-quarter loss of about $1.6 million on revenue of about $12 million. The Irvine lubricants manufacturer attributed the loss to higher-than-expected start-up costs associated with the roll-out of a new line of automotive appearance products. A year ago, it earned $116,000 on sales of $8.4 million.

Regarding "Movie Casts the Electric Car as Hero, GM as Bad Guy," July 15: Your story -- like the film "Who Killed the Electric Car?" -- perpetuates several myths. It is a myth that electric cars do not pollute; the pollution is simply transferred from the tailpipe to the generating plant. It is a myth that electric cars reduce our dependence on fossil fuels; except for nuclear and hydroelectric power, generating plants burn fossil fuels or coal. Not even mentioned are the environmental issues with recycling the batteries when they wear out, who would pay for replacement batteries and so forth.

I've been neglecting my car recently. This is bad. I'm a sportswriter, driving is the No. 1 sport in Los Angeles and the No. 1 rule in any sport is take care of your equipment. With the holiday season approaching, I figured I could make it up to my car by buying it a nice Christmas gift. This thought coincided with the arrival in the mail of the Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories Holiday Gift Book.

Manny, Moe & Jack are going racing. Starting Saturday with the Indy 200 at Walt Disney World Speedway in Orlando, Fla., drivers of the open-wheel Indy-style cars will be running for the Pep Boys Indy Racing League championship. A $1-million bonus awaits the winner. The 11-race series, beginning only its third year as Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Tony George's pet project, includes the Indianapolis 500, which has a rich heritage dating to 1911. Pep Boys goes back to 1921.

"Let's take a trip down Whittier Boulevard!" --The Midnighters, 1966 **** Whittier Boulevard was once the place to see and be seen in East Los Angeles, a bustling street that teemed with shoppers and teenagers cruising by in low-riding Chevys. But battered by a 1970 riot during a Vietnam War protest, the mile-long retail district never recovered its former glory despite several efforts to revitalize the strip.

If an auto repair shop says it charges $70 an hour for labor, and the job takes one hour, how much is the labor bill? David Verdiner thought the answer should be $70 when he had his car fixed at a Pep Boys -- Manny, Moe & Jack Inc. garage in Los Angeles two years ago. The store had signs stating that its hourly labor rate was $70. But instead, Verdiner claims, he was billed $112 for the labor, even though the job took only 40 minutes. Verdiner paid his bill.