Had to fix it
 

My first car, at age 16, was a 1966 Ford Mustang. My car payment was $35.00 per month. I had a part time job making the then minimum wage of $1.65 per hour. When my dad and I got the car home he said the forst things we needed to do was all of the normal maintanance. So, oil, filters, tranny fluid, rear end fluid, anti freeze, the works. We did all together. Then of course reality sets in, the motot mounts broke, the brakes needed replaced, and a host of other small problems. I could not afford to pay anyone to fix, so began my automotive education. I took pride in fixing it myself. Oh, and by the way, I am a computer field engineer, I still fix broken stuff, and get paid for it!!! :D . And I worked my way through college as an auto mechanic.

Whenever I come up the street
 

and I see my neighbor's garages, I am always amazed to see how clean they are, just a SUV and some garden tools on a spotless wall...I started parking my cars outside because with all the tools and solvents I have in my garage, i am worried about a Fire hazard...

A note to Software/ Computer engineers..
 

I would bet a lot of you, if raised in the 50's or 40's, would be mechanical engineers.
I guess Computers are the current thing and will be for a while...I worked on Computers for awhile, but it was stressful for me and when I tried software, I couldnt sit still in a cubicle that long....

Many years ago I was looking at a used VW Scirocco. The owner knew nothing about cars. I asked the owner if it ever burned oil. His exact reponse was: "I put a can in every time the light comes on." I kindly said I wasn't interested and drove away.

My girlfriend has heated seats in her car. She insists that the car burns more gas when I turn them on.

Some people have no clue.

Scott

I love these stories. yes our society has become very specialized. Or lazy I'm not sure which.

Daughter was off at college riding in her freinds car and it was raining. Wipers were terrible. My daughter asked her the last time she changed them. "you can change the wipers?" was her reply. My daughter brought her to Oreillys and they bought and installed new wipers/

My first car was my brothers discarded 59 Karmen Ghia. He bought it to get a good engine. I got the bad one out of his bug, rebuilt it and put it in the Karman Ghia. Learned a lot on that car. Also had to redo the engine rebuild 3 times. Live and learn.

My inlaws freind in the 50's complained to her husband that the vacuum cleaner was not working properly. You guessed it, she did not know htere was a bag in the vacuum.
Other very wonderful friends of the inlaws, that I knew. Had a Subaru. My inlaws were up in Vermont with them. He drove the subaru to the store. Later they asked what he did to the steeriing wheel. Afraid he had broken something, they went out to the car and they pointed out the steering wheel was different. They had a tilt wheel and did not know it.

Other friends, she is a neat freek. Had there garage floor painted with epoxy, per my recommendation. And cabinets intalled to hold everything. When you went into the garage. All you saw was 2 cars in a 3 car garage. EVERYTHING else was in the cabinets and the floor was washed once a month. She was realy anal about having everything in its place. I can just hear her about my garage.

Dave

He has already been stuck on the interstate and called one of those tire services to come change it AND he's a jiffy lube guy.

hey, don't blame me. i showed him how to go over the usual crap when he was 16 and he paid no attention. He is like my cousin and just will not get his hands dirty in any way.

True, we all have to drive but pretty much all of us have to use a computer too and I wouldn't raise the hood on my computer for anything. I do not know what the heck I'm doing and have no business inside the workings.

BTW--Where do you check the oil on these computers anyway? :D

Cheers,

Bill

[QUOTE] She insists that the car burns more gas when I turn them on.

Sometimes I wonder if some think this is the case with headlights. Rainy weather, grey car, no lights = accident waiting to happen.

I understand what you mean by people not even lifting the hood. I went through a scenario years ago with my then wife. She insisted that she knew how to check things on the car. While driving she noticed a strange sweet smell coming from the vents. Pulling into a service station, she asked them to check the car. When she came home, that afternoon, and told me their diagnosis of the oil was low, battery low, trans. needed fluid but could not find the problem.

I immediately popped the hood. The oil was at least 2 qts. higher than the full mark. Battery was overfilled and had overflowed. (Batt.failed 2 months later) and transmission was 1-2 qts. high. They had overlooked the obvious of the coolant resouvior, which was nearly empty.(I think they were checking her out rather than the car.)

We had several "classes" on checking vitals after that. Everyone who owns a car should at least be able to check these. Even during horse-and-buggy days, you had to know if the horse was lame or overheated, at least!

I just pulled a perfectly working HP 4000N printer (needed two rollers worth $4.50 each), a HP 4 plus, A HP scanjet ADF scanner with automatic document feeder and a COmputer out of the trash a few days ago.....the PC has a Ultrwide scsi interface on it, adn 2 Segate Barracude drives.....

CMOS froze because the powersupply and chassis fans dies and it didn't boot...reset CMOS put in a good used supply and chassis fan from other junk PC's here at work and fired it up.... Been running a week with no problems....

All this stuff cost me $20 for the HP parts and over 1/2 that was shipping.

That 4000N is a $700 printer. Boy the things people throw away these days.

THere was 5 Epson 800 inkjets too, but I never bothered with them....I didn't know anyone to give them to.

I expect that there are TONS of people who can't open their hood and would have no idea what they are looking at if they managed to get it open.

My Dad told me something funnier than that. My Dad is quite a friendly fellow and paid a complement at the gas station about the guys nice four door truck. It was one of those that have the back doors with no outside door handles, but the hinge at the rear. The guy said no, it's not a four door, it's only a two door. My Dad said "are you sure?" and walked over and opened the back door.

It's one thing to not know anything about servicing the vehicle, but here's a case of the operator, not even knowing all of the OPERATIONAL aspects of the vehicle.

In the same conversation, my Dad told me about someone who bought a truck with 98,000 miles on it and wanted to sell it because it had so many miles on it. The person evidently didn't even check the mileage before he bought it, but then was concerned about the mileage.

Oh well, it just shows to go ya'.

Have a great day,

That was hilarious! Funny thing is some people still think that "female-driven" is a plus when you mention it in your car ad.

You could be talking about the people on my street. :rolleyes: I have never seen a hood up on my street. But most of my neighbors seem to lease their cars so I wouldn't care either. I not getting my hands dirty on a leaser if the oil light comes on I'll throw some in but thats the next owners problem. :D

I really do try hard to get along with everyone
 

after all I am far from perfect and relationships are a two way street.
But one day we were mounting some equipment and the office smart-a_s , always bucking for a promotion, looked over at me and said in a lecturing tone " Now , remember, to loosen the bolt, go counter clockwise and to tighten it, go clockwise...."
Its been seven months and I haven't spoken to him once..

Scott98,

Your girlfriend is correct so you are the dummy you are making her out to be.

The seats are electrically heated. Therefore that electricity must be generated by the alternator and the engine will use more fuel because the alternator will offer more resistance to rotating as it generates the current to heat the seats.

Is all the because of the law of physics that says: "Energy can neither be created or destroyed, merely converter from one form to another".

P E H

I learned how to work on cars as a little kid. I held the flashlight and fetched the tools for my old man. Seems like as long as it was dark, cold or raining (or best yet - all three) that was the time to fix the car. I still remember when I was about 6 or so, he was pulling the head on my mom's 47 Plymouth Special Deluxe to do a valve job; he very carefully explained to me how to check the pistons for too much play (try to wiggle them) and what a burnt valve looked like.
For my 14th birthday he bought me a 56 or 57 Peugeot and said it's yours, just fix it so it runs OK. Two years later I got my license and drove that car 'till I was 22 years old. He established the life long habit in me to keep a car for about 2 years beyond junker date. I'll probably have my old diesels till the day I die. OTOH, my 25 year old kid is only just now realizing taking car of the car pays off in spades compared to having to bring it someplace for everything. My 11 year old can already change oil.

Just present the financial aspect of it. I doubt anyones kids has more money than they can spend.

Explain how you can fix a car and save the money you would pay a mechanic for stupid things and end up with more money to spend on the things you like.