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Not all of them there is another thread running from a 24 year old who has just purchased a VW bay window, he expects to do a fair bit of the maintenance himself. Not sure how much help an aerospace engineering degree will be!
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Modern cars are more reliable and less home-maintainable. Due to the explosion in mass-affluence over the last 20 years, as well as globalisation and comoditisation, products are relatively cheaper to replace and thus there is an overall reduction in the need or desire for people to maintain their own cars. The youth of this country have never had it so good, with ready availability of technologically advanced products at affordable prices. And do they realise how lucky they are?????? Of course not.
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Don't worry in 10 years time younger people will plug xbox into the datasocket in the car and it will tell them what it needs.
And of course they will understand perfectly and be able to entrust it grandly to a tooth-sucking villain of a main dealer workshop foreman, like MichaelR. Needless to say they will always have the means to cover the charges he sees fit to impose when he returns the car to them in a worse state than when he got it.
Keep it virtual!
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The question was probably badly phrased. Although I used to be able to service my cars when I was in my youth, I'm afraid that I wouldn't know where to start with a modern car.
The last car of mine that I serviced was my first Vauxhall Carlton - 1980. That was my last low tech motor. No problem changing pads; tuning the engine with my Gunson Sparktune; adjusting the dwell angle with my other Gunson meter; and changing the points and plugs.
I certainly can't do that with my Honda Accord - anyway it's a diesel.
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I do enjoy the picture of Lud, relaxed on his sofa this morning, up to his elbows in grease and hydraulic fluid, enjoying a read of the paper in a brief break from a taxing de-coke, while the women of his family iron his formal overalls in preparation for a "do" at the local scrap yard.
Outside, various mildly cross young men mince up and down waiting to give him a jolly good
metro-sexualling.
It's ok, Lud, it doesn't make you a bad person to think this way!
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>>comoditisation
I had to go and look that one up!
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Let's have a bit of realism here Optimist.
I am not a professional mechanic - the very thought makes me shudder - and my car, touch wood, fingers crossed, does not need daily mechanical surgery. But I am from time to time up to my elbows in oil or brake fluid, although I wouldn't sit on the sofa in that state.
As for the women of my family doing any ironing for me, chance would be a fine thing. I have to make a clamour for three months just to get one of them to cut my hair (hate barbers y'see). They don't mind me looking like an alcoholic tramp. They are used to it.
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The sad thing is that some of them are actually easier to service than before and complex electronics can be mixed/confused with the actual bits that need servicing.
On the engine of my paradoxical Snob and Gloat, Humble Truck Following Supplicant, only oil and filters need attention for 150,000 miles - no time limits.
What would we have said about that in the days when we were doing tappets, plugs, points, cambelts and fanbelt tensions in addition to the above.
I blame it on loose talk from journalists (not HJ) and the makers and dealers in trying to pretend that between the top and bottom plastic engine covers, now lies a nuclear fusion warp drive that would disintegrate if not touched up by the Main Dealer Special Diagnostic Tool.
They keep very quiet about EOBD..... As for incapability...well...
Regards
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"no time limits." I mean as in cambelts, not with oils and filters
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I am firmly in that age group (23) and yet a fortnight ago I changed the cambelt on my HDi. Now admittedly I'd be somewhat lost if not for my dads help and advice on bigger jobs such as the cam belt, but for general servicing such as oil changes and the like I can do them with my eyes shut. I have a haynes manual and can do most jobs following the instructions.
I did try to enrol on an evening course at the nearest college that offers such a thing (30 miles away) but was cancelled due to lack of interest. Don't think my generation are very interested. I suppose they might be if they we're aware you can do most jobs for little money compared to garages. Pug garage belt change = £500, my belt change = £50, bought a new telly with the savings.
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Well, you are one of the non-decadent ten per cent Whiskers, so you are not in the frame here. As for seeking advice or help from yr father or friends, everyone does that. It's the only way to learn anyway.
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To be honest, the cars people drive these days just don't need fettling in the way they did when I fitted into that particular age group. I used to spend weekends trying to make sure that my current set of wheels would actually make it through the week without breaking down.
Fortunately, car manufacturers came up with ways of replacing points, condensors and carburettors with inherently maintenance free systems. This means today's car owners can put their leisure time to far better use than standing in the rain on a Saturday in October trying to get twin SUs in sufficient tune to prevent them fouling the spark plugs within 10 miles.
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The question was probably badly phrased. Although I used to be able to service my cars when I was in my youth I'm afraid that I wouldn't know where to start with a modern car.
Don't really understand this! Oil still comes out out of the bottom still and fresh stuff put in the top.
The sparktune and dwell angle meter can be left in their boxes!
If anything it's got to be easier? I certainly wouldn't know what to do with a dwell angle meter but have given all my cars services to the standard listed in the service manuals.
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Lud,
I can see your point and somewhere in me i sneakingly agree...but...with a huge whiff of hypocrisy..because;
as a youth i can remember the old man teaching me simple mechanics and as an example the brake pad change on mother's 1970 1600GT Capri was most simple, wheel off, couple of clips and it was like putting toast in a toaster...but, when she changed it to a 1978 Fiesta 1.3 Ghia, the pads on that needed the calipers taking off the disc (unless we were doing something wrong, which is entirely possible).
I've lost count of the times in late teens early twenty's when the 15 minute job has taken 4 hours, because the correct spanner is missing, or the nut has rounded or you can't get your hand in there or the essential widget drops down into the engine bay never to be seen again, the nice warm sunny afternoon suddenly changes into an arctic storm, etc, etc
so when you start earning enough dosh to not to have to bother, you pay someone else to do it to maintain your sanity and a reasonable stress level. I worked it out, i just don't have the patience.
Nowadays, even something really simple like changing a headlamp bulb is a trial. Unless you have a neighbour with a child that has a withered arm.. and they're willing to lend you said child...how on earth are you supposed to get your hand in these places without dismantling half the car?
No, no, no...leave it to someone else, who knows what they're doing.
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leave it to someone else who knows what they're doing.
The older I get, the more inclined I am to do that. But during most of my motoring life I have been chronically skint, or anyway short of disposable mazuma, and, er, needs must when the devil drives. I have never enjoyed doing brakes, wheel bearings or suspension, that awful combination of heavy labour, filth, barked knuckles and the need to keep certain things spotless amid all the grit and rubble. But I have had to do them in my time, and got away with it too.
Of course the phenomenon of pratting about for two days on a one-hour job is familiar to all mechanics, professional as well as amateur. These days I run what passes for a modern car, and as people have pointed out electronics and things like hydraulic tappets reduce the need for routine adjustment. I even paid someone, a good mechanic obviously, to change my car's cambelt because reading the Haynes manual made it look like a PITA, and I knew from my brother-in-law that the job is very easy to get wrong with a Ford 16-valve engine. Still, the knowledge and experience acquired over the years is useful in understanding the car and also garage men when talking about it, most especially understanding when they are talking rubbish either because they don't know or are trying to con the dumb punter. I absolutely hate that. The thought of the thefts such people perpetrate on simple average car owners really gets up my nose.
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