There is a whole bunch of people out there who can’t even open their hood! - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Carrameow · #1 12-06-2004, 09:47 PM

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?

#2 12-06-2004, 09:54 PM

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.

redbaronph123 · #3 12-06-2004, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 300SDLTOM

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.

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...

#4 12-06-2004, 10:21 PM

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.

BobK · #5 12-06-2004, 10:35 PM

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!

bill murrow · #6 12-06-2004, 10:37 PM

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

W140 S600 · #7 12-06-2004, 10:51 PM

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.

boneheaddoctor · #8 12-07-2004, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bill murrow

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

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.

84300DT · #9 12-06-2004, 09:55 PM

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

boneheaddoctor · #10 12-06-2004, 10:06 PM

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.

Junkman · #11 11-09-2010, 09:47 PM

I had to learn to work on cars. I owned an MGB as a broke college student. Took the spare tire out so more tools would fit in the trunk. Couldn't sell it when it wasn't running. Too much fun to drive when it was running.

Carpenterman · #12 11-09-2010, 10:52 PM

I can remember seemingly endless hours helping my dad rivet brake shoes, changing plugs, and oil, etc. when I was a kid. I was always looking for an excuse to slip away, but my dad MADE me stay and help.

I am so grateful, now.

vstech · #13 11-10-2010, 09:24 AM

at 6 or 7 years old, I was under VW beetles assisting my dad in the driveway of our condo in ICELAND... (can you say TDY?) worked plenty of cars since then.
played with my first race engine at 12

300sdToronto · #14 11-10-2010, 01:37 PM

This is a good thread. I think there are a lot of factors at play here.

1. Modern cars and electronics are just too complex for shade tree mechanics nowadays. With a modern car you need a computerized scanner to analyze it and the remedy is usually to replace an electronic module of some kind. Young people are not more stupid than we were in our day, they recognize this issue and see no useful benefit to them in learning about cars (unless they drive an old MB or similar ...).

2. New vehicles are being designed to require much less maintenance. Tires and fluid levels are some of the very few things that the average driver has to remember. The simpler it is the more likely folks are to forget it.

3. Finally, thanks to Wallmart and its ilk, we have happily sacrificed much of our manufacturing economy in the US and Canada in return for cheap prices. The end result of that is that the economic benefits of developing mechanical engineering common sense for our young people just isn't there. As a society we've decided that it's more important to be able to buy a cheap imported hose adapter at Home Depot or wherever for $1.99 rather than a decent quality, made at home product for $2.99. End result is our young people are all motivated to become software engineers or social workers because those good old fashioned jobs got exported.

Hatterasguy · #15 11-10-2010, 03:51 PM

Some stuff is worth doing yourself, other not so much. For example changing the transmission fluid on my truck would suck, their is no drain plug on the pan or or the torque converter. So I would take a bath doing it myself and only get part of the fluid, no thanks I rather pay a shop.

It almost doesn't make sense to change my own oil, I only do it because I don't mind it. It costs exactly the same for a shop to do it, I'm not saving a dime.

New vehicles don't really require much in terms of maintenance. Change the oil every 5k or 10k and that's about it for 100k miles. Thats going up to, BMW is now on 20k mile oil changes.