Read the article again. She is talking about how stupid she is. 
Posted on 11/29/2004 1:59:05 PM PST by Clive
My fella and I were going out of town. He was driving his "super reliable" car into which he pours nothing less than premium gas and synthetic oil and which, incidentally, is so much better and safer than my car that the two can never even be compared.
To boot, his car just got a tune-up and that became the launching point for a lecture about car maintenance habits and how I do not have any.
He should know. He's been working on my car all weekend. So blah, blah, I never check my oil (I forget), my tire pressure (um, my tire pressure measuring stick is broken), my radiator fluid (as if I even know where my radiator fluid is ...) and so on and so forth.
In fact, my car is in such shoddy shape, I should not even drive it anymore. Instead, I should just drive his car (which I'll simply refer to as super reliable from now on) but I have to remember not to start it in second gear because that WRECKS HIS CLUTCH.
In passing, my car-savvy fella mentioned that during his tune-up, the mechanic told him to consider replacing an ignition module or something of that sort. The mechanic, my fella concludes, is probably wrong and there is no problem with the car.
You should listen to the mechanic, I said, using up all the car advice I felt authorized to give. With your luck (he has the worst luck of anyone I know) the car will break down in the middle of a road trip and you'll be stuck there forever.
About 45 minutes later we were sitting on the side of the highway with the hazard lights on waiting for a tow truck.
That's right, Mr. Awesome-car-care-premium-gas-guy was digging around under the hood swearing and, to make matters worse, we gave the tow truck the wrong directions and were stranded for almost two hours at sub-zero temperatures in a car that would not start.
Two hundred bucks later, super reliable was in the shop and is there still, waiting for several hundred bucks worth of parts and labour.
In the meantime, the car's owner is driving my car (the one that does not have enough radiator fluid, the back doors do not open and is, overall, totally unreliable) to work.
Before I point out why this episode confirmed my attitude towards vehicles, consider this.
A couple of years ago I was driving my super junky K-Car along Highway 2.
I was just past Leduc when my tire seemingly exploded.
I pulled over, stupidly, on the left side of the highway and immediately realized I was stuck in the middle of six lanes of whizzing highway traffic.
I got out of the car, examined the tire (yep, it was flat) and pondered what to do next. I decided to walk to Nisku and call someone.
But before the traffic subsided for long enough to cross to the other side of the highway, some guy had already pulled over, put on my spare and asked me out for coffee.
Now I know I should learn how to change a flat and check my air tire pressure, but where's my incentive?
Obviously obsessive car maintenance, synthetic oil and all, does not eliminate breaking down on the side of the road.
Furthermore, if all of a sudden I learned to care about my spark plugs or my air filter, then so many guys would be deprived of the car-related lectures and rescues in which they secretly delight.
Besides, not knowing anything about cars means I generally listen to my mechanic when he says something needs to be fixed.
And let's face it, if it had been me driving ol' super reliable when it broke down, I could have got a ride back to town, and probably coffee, instead of trying not to die from the frost while waiting for the tow truck.
Oil cap...Oil drain plug...Oil filter.
Would you really need a manual to find these three items?
/never worked on a Bug either.
The only reason I haven't gotten rid of it already is because I can't get enough for it to get me a bug in the condition it's in now...it's nonfunctional!
My husband said he talked to a guy and he said it probably would cost less than $1000 to fix it. I was hoping to get $3000 for it after fixing the power steering leak and then buying a Bug.
But it's all moot, because $300-500 we could afford in one pop, $1000...no way. So I'm stuck with a car in the garage till I can afford to fix it, which will be sometime after Christmas (and before the next Christmas.) LOL
Does the Bug use a spin-on oil filter? It predates the spin-on oil filter, doesn't it?
Worst case scenario, if it's some sort of short in the domelight wiring you can just disconnect the door switches!
By the way, if you want to remove the radio to see if that might be the cause of the fuse blowing you can get radio removal tools for $4 at Wal-Mart in the car stereo section.
My understanding is (like I say, I can't buy one so I research)...Bugs don't have regular oil filters (at least not all of them.) Apparently they have an oil "screen" and you take that out and clean it off before putting it back in! They also have a seal you replace before putting the plate back on...
Going from memory here from something I read somewhere...
Still, you shouldnt need a manual.
Ask him if he's ever used a cigarette paper to adjust the clearance between the pinion and the ring gear, or used a dime to set the points.
Or used a grapefruit shoved over the fuel pump to keep it from vapor locking.
Or put clothespins on the spark plug wires to make the fire jump to worn out spark plugs.
There's so many things we used to have to do because we didn't have the money to take them to a garage.....and cars were a LOT simpler then!
actually, i read that wrong, i guess all of them have screens.
Be sure to use the metric phillips screwdriver when removing the plastic lens.
Oh! I DO! Indeedie!!! I'll carry that stuff in my autermobile for my next trip down a country lane. :)
Read the article again. She is talking about how stupid she is.
,,, on that very line an industry was built.
Tre story, lady goes into a parts place to buy a new 710 cap. Confused looks, more questions, finally, she takes the parts guy out to her car to show him. 710 is oil upside down.
A bit later he came into the waiting area with a look of total surprise (disgust?) on his face........ he said he lied, my oil was worse than the one he had seen before.
I never went back there - ;^)
Probably the safest lane to travel in on Canadian divided highways is the leftmost lane of the express core. If a tire blows there, the only safe thing to do is to go to the nearest shoulder lane and not try to cross other lanes.
Perhaps she should have had a "send help" sign or a white towel to hang out a window or even better, a cell phone, but we can't fault that as many people travel without any of these.
She also recognizes the limits of her mechanical knowledge and so is prepared to accept expert advice.
Lack of knowledge is not the same thing as stupidity.
OTOH, the boyfriend put them both into a two hour wait in a Canadian prairie winter because he would not accept advice from a mechanic before setting out on the highway.
Now I've got fruit salad dribbling off my chin!
I'll bet he had to chip it out of the oil pan!
A few years back, my daughter was married to a guy that didn't have a short term memory, or I guess any memory.
She called me at home, telling me her car had broke down. I had it towed to my home. It was smoking terribly. I checked the oil. Yep, it was full, all the way to the top of the dipstick.
I drain 3 gallons of oil out of her car. It was 3 gallons, because I measured it, before discarding it.
I replaced 4.3 quarts, because that was the capacity. The car was fine after that.
I don't really know how, but it was.
Same with my wife's sister. She just had to put in a new transmission in her Camry. BTW, it was at 160k and 11 years old!
Actually, he brought a little wooden stick inside with the congealed oil on it - I swear it was like putty........... I was humiliated...........
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