Photo credit: Rob Stinnett
Am I the only person who hates doing any sort of maintenance on their vehicle? I like to think that I am not, and that I have just been unlucky to come across a lot of DIY maintenance enthusiasts in my time who have made me feel bad.
It is time for a confession; I don’t do anything with my car except drive it. I wrote a while back about a tyre blowing out on a dangerous dirt road next to a precipice. The story was completely true but what I didn’t mention was that is was my father in law who changed the tyre. What did I do? I held the lamp, and offered some encouraging words…
An Historic Year
Maybe I have always been spoiled, as until recently I had never owned a really old car which needed a lot of maintenance. In fact, unless my memory is letting me down badly, in the last year I added brake fluid and water to my car for the first time in my life.
My father in law is one of these guys who can do anything with his hands. He fits windows, changes wiring systems, strips out motors and builds entire walls. Me? I changed a light bulb last week and felt pretty good about it.
My sister is another car maintenance freak. She loves to get to work on her vehicle for some inexplicable reason. Even when it seems to be running perfectly fine she is forever talking about strange noises (inaudible to the human ear) which she plans to fix with a spanner or a soldering iron or a blowtorch.
This was all a bit of a long winded way of saying that I wasn’t really that interested to see the Haynes manuals get put online recently. I am sure a lot of other people will be delighted to see the searchable menus, links and how to videos but I am happy just putting the key in the thing and hoping that it starts. If it doesn’t I know who I can call to help me out.