It's not the bad machine that uses iso-88590-1, it's Google.
Don't know why Google doesn't use the same for both*, but that code won't help.
Unless you can see mostly recognisable text including "<html>" in the output, this isn't related to your question.
* — Presumably, you don't send the same request.
In reply to Re^5: Mechanize Returns Garbled Content
by ikegami
in thread Mechanize Returns Garbled Content
by Anonymous Monk
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