I don't understand how someone can drive but not know basic car maintenance, especially if you can only afford an older used car and depend on it.
I don't mean everyone should know how to replace a clutch but you should know the basic wear components (filters, belts, lights, brakes, etc) and how to diagnose and replace them. On most cars these are fairly simple (except on some newer cars that make them overly complex).
This is a rule I feel should be applied to your entire life. At a bare minimum you should understand the basics about things you use on a daily basis. Computers, cars, homes, etc.
> I don't mean everyone should know how to replace a clutch but you should know the basic wear components (filters, belts, lights, brakes, etc) and how to diagnose and replace them.
F..k Renault. Lights on these (especially Laguna front lights) tend to be an adventure to replace. Or every car with the high-voltage Xenon gas lamps.
I was pretty happy with my VW T4, I could tear that car down and reassemble without any problem. With modern cars, filled with dozens of computers, not so. And to make things worse, once one of the computers or sensors breaks or has issues, you'll need OBD diagnosis computers or even specialized computers to diagnose the problem or repair it.
That's stuff for expensive maintenance shops, while I just needed a small garage and a couple of basic tools for the T4 (okay, and a motor crane for lifting out the engine).
Yup, that's why I said except on some newer cars. Headlights were what I was thinking about too. Even some non-HID headlights have become a real pain to replace.
The problem with the headlights is crash resistance.
Old(er) cars had plenty of space available in the engine room because the "air" was used to absorb impact in crash situations.
New materials/manufacturing processes allow for entire removal of "dead space", with more and more components for "luxury" stuff (luxury compared with an old car, like all-side radar, active parking assistants, multi-zone AC,...) squeezed in every cubic centimetre of the car.
And so, no more space is left for your hands when you try to replace a f...ing 4mm wide lamp. Unless you disassemble the container for the window washing fluid, unmount the brake fluid container and bend two multi-wires (Renault Laguna, right-front lamp assembly).
I agree, I say so often that people depend so much on things in life that they don't know the first thing about.
But then again, it's that the point of our educational system, to teach us these things? One month of basic auto repair in high school is more useful to more people than trig.
I work with people, many of them lawyers or para-professionals, who don't know much about the cars they drive to work, the computers on their desk, the boiler in their home, etc. ... and it bothers them! Luckily, they can all pay someone else to take care of these things for them, but there are others who are just as in-the-dark but can't as easily afford it.
I don't mean everyone should know how to replace a clutch but you should know the basic wear components (filters, belts, lights, brakes, etc) and how to diagnose and replace them. On most cars these are fairly simple (except on some newer cars that make them overly complex).
This is a rule I feel should be applied to your entire life. At a bare minimum you should understand the basics about things you use on a daily basis. Computers, cars, homes, etc.