OTOH I have encountered some Mississippi farm kids that could break down a shotgun and put it back together as fast as I could. They also could trouble shoot old tractors like a licensed mechanic. It just depends on where one is in the world.
“[...] It just depends on where one is in the world.”
My sister-in-law’s boyfriend had been trying to help her mow the lawn with her lawn tractor from Sears, several years ago.
Eventually, they had to call me, as the mower wasn’t running right, and the blades wouldn’t engage.
Well, to make a long story short, the mower had never had the plugs changed, nor the oil, nor had the air filter cleaned or replaced. And I eventually had to replace the battery, clean the mower desk of old, rotted grass, and replace the blades, as none of that had ever been done (for around 2-3 years).
It wasn’t so surprising that my sister-in-law didn’t get this done (I was actually surprised that she hadn’t called me before): it was more surprising that the boyfriend couldn’t troubleshoot what was wrong, nor knew anything about how it ran.
I have to give him credit though: he watched me and learned the whole time I worked on it, and I gave him some troubleshooting tips on mowers.
But, it was amazing that he knew nothing about this sort of thing. He had never used a lawnmower, had never worked on anything resembling an engine, and had absolutely no clue on how to troubleshoot (i.e. eliminate electrical issues one at a time, eliminate fuel issues one at a time, etc.). It literally floored me.
I had been working with mowers since I was around 7-8 years old, and had rebuilt/replaced numerous engines on mowers, motor bikes and go-carts for years. And had worked on and rebuilt car engines since I was 12-15 years old. It never occurred to me that not all men knew their way around engines and such...