All,
Since the members of this great forum seem to largely comprise a gathering of real white men from America and Europe, I was curious as to how many of you are interested in working on cars? If so, what kind of repairs have you done? What kind of cars do you have? What makes and models do you like best? What is your “dream car?” What was your first car?
Having grown up with a father, two grandfathers, and multiple uncles and male cousins who were famous for never needing to take any car to an actual mechanic for repairs, much of my adolescence involved working on my parent’s cars/trucks and the large dump trucks utilized for my grandfather’s business.
Today, in addition to my career in civil engineering and running my small agricultural business, I routinely do side work for people in my personal garage. It’s mostly easier, “routine maintenance” jobs like oil changes, brakes, rotors, tire mounting/balancing, radiators, alternators, fuel pumps, water pumps, power steering pumps, thermostats, serpentine belts, sensors, shocks, struts, timing belts, etc. Given that I don’t have a hydraulic lift and I’m a one man operation, I rarely tackle more difficult stuff like clutches, transmissions, or major engine problems. My wife works on a Saturday, which means I need to watch my young daughters while working, making things even more interesting, as my youngest (1.5) is always touching greasy stuff and my oldest (3) is begging me to do the voice for Ken while she plays Barbie dolls, haha. Each year, I purchase one really cheap car to “flip” and make a profit. Craigslist is full of people who accept scrap metal price for a beater car because of a few small problems.
It all started about 11 years ago, when I first started driving after my dad procured a real gem of a “first car” for me, that being a 1992 Ford Festiva, for around $300. It kind of looked like the one below, but was gray and much more dilapidated, haha…
CAPTION: First Car
It had over 200,000 miles when I got it, and over the next few years my dad helped me fix the maddening myriad of problems (head gasket, always overheating, slowly leaking every fluid at all times) so that it was at least drivable. Despite my best efforts to mess with the sensors and wiring, the car had no functioning gauges, so I never knew how much gas was in the tank, what speed I was traveling at, the engine temperature, voltage, oil pressure, etc. It had no heat, no AC, the radio had been removed before I got it, the exhaust leaked into the cab, it couldn’t be shifted into 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] gear, the headlights pulsated at night, only the passenger side window could be successfully rolled down, and because the starter didn't work most of the time, I was forced to “catch it in gear” to start the motor. Needless to say, some negligent bastard had painstakingly destroyed this car before it came into my possession.
One summer I was lifting weights when a horrendous hail storm throttled the campus and shattered the rear window of the hatchback. I didn’t have the money to fix it, so I “N-rigged” it and drove it with plastic/tape covering the back for over a year. In the days before I was scheduled to go on the “first date” with my eventual wife, I bought a new rear window from a junkyard and quickly installed it. During the date, while we were driving down the highway, the window suddenly fell out of the housing and shattered on the highway. Yeah, she’ll never let me forget that story, haha. After that, I simply glued in a piece of plexiglass that I fabricated to fit. Eventually, at around 250,000 miles, a rotted frame, and an engine that had several blown a piston rings, I scrapped the Festiva and bought a used Ford Focus for around $2,500, which looks very similar to this one…
CAPTION: Ford Focus – Awesome Little Cars
As of now, despite being 15 years old, the car has 265,000 miles and is running strong. Last weekend, I changed the timing belt and water pump in my garage, which was at least 10 hours of work. It sucked to do and the parts and special tools needed were expensive, but it’s worth it to invest in a good vehicle. I love this car and I’ll never give up on it. I have so many memories in the car. College, dating my wife, my wedding, my honeymoon, bringing my daughters home from the hospital, all the thousands of hours of driving with my friends, family, co-workers, driving to jobs sites and meetings and transporting clients. The time my kid retched in the back seat when we were at the beach and the smell lingered for months before dissipating, haha. When I have a son in the coming years, it’ll be his “birthright” to keep it running. I’m looking to achieve around 400,000 - 500,000 miles and beyond, like Irv Gordon...
http://http://www.autoblog.com/2013/09/18/irv-gordons-volvo-p1800-has-hit-3-million-miles/
I also have a 26 year old truck (205,000 miles) and my wife has a Ford Explorer (120,000 miles). All three cars were purchased with cash and thus, we’ve never had a car payment. Everyone always makes fun of me (especially the guys at work, who all seem to have brand new cars with $400+ per month payments) because I like “junkers” and want to keep the vehicles I have. Since I don’t have expensive cars, I'm able to make large mortgage payments and I’ll hopefully be paying my house off in the next 2 years. I always tell them that I’m just an extremely loyal person…to my family, my wife, my heritage, my race, my community, and even my vehicles. What do you guys think?
For anyone interested in learning more about automotive repairs, I’d highly advise you to watch “Eric The Car Guy,” who’s made a series of fantastic instructional automotive DIY videos. He’s highly knowledgeable, practical, funny, topics range from very easy to very difficult, and the videos are free to watch...
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_q-UNDJeEBSHqKzAP_8x_A
The internet is great for car repairs, and I’m constantly researching problems online. There is always some white man, somewhere, who had the same issue and figured it out.
