There is a whole bunch of people out there who can’t even open their hood!
 

I heard a funny rumour--there are a whole bunch of people out there who can’t even open their hood!
First of all I have to be very serious and say that I am not writing this out of silliness. This land was made by tons of tough and resourceful people with incredible mechanical ingenuity. But I think times have changed where everyone has to specialize to make a living and a lot of history teachers, doctors and paramedics, computer engineers and software people just don’t have the time to learn cars.
Nevertheless, there is a whole culture of smart and capable people out there who don’t open their hoods anymore. Maybe one reason is their cars are so reliable they never have to. They might not even know how many cylinders they have, or horsepower, for that matter. And that culture is getting bigger. Their entire tool set is maybe a set of screwdrivers and stuff left over from an IKEA chest they made. I mean they don’t even have an engine hoist!
This Culture never goes to junkyards! (Can you believe that? What if you saw your family doctor at a bone yard?) , has never split bloodied their hand out of clumsiness or tripped over their jack stands (Bill Gates—did he do that?), never gone to the Sears at the mall covered in grease. They never comb the Want ads every night in search of MIG welders or used tools; instaed they read the Stock Market, can you believe it? Is that normal? They never wash their car twice a week and spend entire weekends ripping out their dashboard to make their console lights come on or remove their engine as regular maintenance (heh heh GSXR are you reading this?)
These people, they take their cars to the Dealer for service! And they actually can park their cars in their garage which usually contain a weedwacker and a rake on an otherwise perfectly clean blank wall,instead of having it filled with an air compressor, several jacks, two old engines, and shelves full of boneyard parts, and thirty odd unlabelled containers with everything from Bondo to antifreeze in them!
What are these people crazy?

I'd say this rumor is FACT. Speaking of hoods. I looked at a 1984 300 SD the other day and when I went to open the hood from the front the normal grey stick that comes out of the grill wasn't there. There were 2 levers to the sides of the grill that opened it up. Never seen this before. Where these differnt types of hood openings or on different models?

I kinda of felt funny at first. I was puzzled that I couldn't open the hood. :D

i wish i had a junkyard to go to..preferebaly one with many 123's :D

Hell, I believe it.....you see a SUV abandoned on the shoulder of the road with a flat and a shiney new spare underneith it almost every day around here. They either

#1 are idiots and don't know its there, or

#2 are idiots and don't know how to change it.

Now I am talking new or fairly new vehicles, not 20 year old ones.

i think that's normal.. most of the SD's of my friend have those type of levers....

as for people not knowing how to open their hood.. i hate it when some know-it-all guys attempts to open the hood of the mb.. yanking and pulling on the lever only.. without helping the weight of the hood with the other hand... i've had a couple of levers broken like that because of some stupid gas attendant opening the hood when my sister was driving our then family MB...

Just changing a flat tire
 

What I hate to see is a young 20 year old standing beside his car with a flat tire waiting for help or on his cell phone getting help. The fact is he doesn't know how to change it. I took my son when he was 16 and showed him how to change a tire. First time he had a flat he knew what to do.

My 19 year old daughter knows how to change a tire...and she would be upset that she didn't have the torque wrench with her to properly torque down the lug bolts. Somewhere in that girl is one little mechanic gene, just itchin' to bloom. I gotta spend more time in the garage with that kid!

You're lucky 300sdltom. When my older son was 16 he would have no parts of changing a flat. Believe me, I tried. I went over it with him and he wasn't paying attention.He's 22 now and still doesn't know.

And lift the hood up? No way. He probably knows where the hood latch is, but I would bet he has never used it.

Even as a baby he never liked his hands dirty. And to this day he still doesn't.

He's a computer programmer too and I be darned if I could do that so I guess we all have our nitch.

My 10 year old son is a completely different story. He rides my big 4 wheeler around the farm here to help with chores and before he took off for the first time I taught him to check the oil and the gas. He has actually driven a Benz too. And I do not mean sitting on my lap. I was in the passenger seat. Now before someone gets upset with that last statement you must bear in mind that A--it was a junker I had that still ran [barely] and B--it was out in our pasture field and not on the street.

Just for the record, I do not remember learning how to drive. I was way too young to remember. I do remember pulling hay wagons when I was in first grade, by myself, with nobody around for a mile or more.

Cheers,

Bill

Well, this will give a few laughs...
One morning, my sister wakes me up and says that her tire is flat and needs help changing it. So, being a good brother, i go over and start to show her the proper way to change it, and have her participate in some of the work. When the tire comes off, i notice that is barerly has any tread left on it. I ask her how many miles she has on her car. Her responce, 37k. I look at the treadwear rating on the tire and its a measely 220. Then i tell her that she needed new tires about 10k miles ago. Then she responds..."I didnt know you needed to change the tires." In a couple of days, after the repair was made, the tire goes flat again, and guess what, she doesnt remember a thing i said before. I then accompany her to get new tires.

Bill, Well we may not tinker with computer programming, but we all have to drive. Man i'd hate to see him stuck out on the interstate with a flat tire or in some kind of dire straits. Usually, if my son gives me the wrong question about his truck, I usually just tell him to go figure it out. I'll let him think about it for sometime and then if he just can't figure it out, i'll assist. Heck, I still have a hard time getting him to check his oil every time he stops in to get gasoline. Well maybe every other time he stops in. I keep having to pound it in. Changing the tire he's got down though.

I love computer programming/hardware, but I also love to work on my diesel :D Most of my friends, well...all of them, have never done anything to their cars....amazingly the only one who has is female, she actually likes working on cars and mechanic stuff, hmmm... :D My friend used to have a Jetta that used so much coolant he had to add half a jug every week....the exhaust on that thing was soo many colors :eek: :eek: It was a horribly abused gasser, passed away with 138,000 miles on it(the shop couldn't figure out what was wrong with it after days of trying) His mom also owned a 280te for a while, poured money into it, then ended up murdering it (seized the engine on the freeway when the rusted out oil cooler lines blew) it was also horribly abused. I hate seeing abused cars, it bothers me. I like to open my hood and inspect my car all the time :D I do the same thing to all of our computers.....

I was just thinking of this topic the other day when I was opening the hood on one of my cars (which I sometimes do for no other reason than just looking at and admiring the engine). Indeed many if not most people never open their hoods. Sometimes the only one who opens the hood for these people is Jiffy Lube. :pukeface: Stay away from those kind of cars! BTW, I'm a computer programmer too and my main hobby is working on Mercedes diesels. :D

Maybe it was my imagination
 

but in the 60's and 70's everyone worked on their car. Maybe its because its a bit harder to make a living now so that we have to specialize, or its just a socioeconomic trend or something because new cars are plentiful and no one drives a junker anymore

Satirically this audio clip says it all CLICK

My father always said if you can't change a flat you have no business driving the car. Even my mother knows how to do that.