Would you be able to jump start a car or change a tyre?

Soldato
Joined
8 Nov 2006
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London
Never had to change a wheel, but how hard could it be?

Pretty sure anyone could work out how to jump start a car given colour coordinated leads.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Jul 2005
Posts
3,913
About two weeks ago a massive pot hole wrecked my front right.

I parked in Sainsbury’s, jacked the car up, removed the wheel, replaced with the spare, took the damaged one to garage, had new tyre put on, went home, jacked it up again, put old wheel back on with new tyre and replaced spare in boot.

Didn’t bat an eye lid.

It’s because my dad taught me how.

My wife’s cousin is 23. He got a flat tyre and didn’t drive his car for six weeks because he didn’t know how to fix it and wouldn’t touch it without his dad doing it for him.

A 23 year old man who can’t change a wheel - it’s down right pathetic.

Same with wiper blades - why on earth would you pay some oik in Halfords to do it for you when the instructions are on the bleedin packet.

Engine coolant, washer fluid, power steering fluid - most people below 30 haven’t the foggiest these days.

If it’s not on Instagram then they can’t possibly work out how it works.
 
Man of Honour
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26 Dec 2003
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30,837
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Shropshire
I can strip most of my motorbike down and do all my own work on that, so while I've never done either on the car I'm sure I could figure it out with ten minutes of staring and some trial and error. I should really find out where the jack points are in the daylight just in case.
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Oct 2010
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2,639
Location
North Staffs
Yes & Yes.
Old enough to have done a de-coke and flashed a dynamo to switch it to negative earth. Done discs, drums, clutches and lots of other bits along the way. Had nowt when I was young so did it myself out of necessity. I was considering doing the timing chain on my current Polo but have been snookered because you need to adapt the ecu to the new settings and the kit to do that is £200+ New cars are too complicated for their own good. I'm surprised there aren't more and more vehicles with sealed bonnets. Come the EV age I doubt you'll even need a key.
 
Man of Honour
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29 Mar 2003
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Stoke on Trent
We can take this further, both my Son in Laws wouldn't have a clue how to drill a hole in the wall to fix something to it but both my daughters would know because I taught them.
A couple of Christmas's ago we bought both of the lads a £20 toolkit as one of their presents and it was hilarious looking at their faces.
They wouldn't even know how to wire a plug but my daughters would.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
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90,820
It’s because my dad taught me how.

Back in the day you had to, there isn't the same pressure in the days of 24 hour businesses and mobile phones, etc.

My grandad on my dad's side used to own a garage so my dad learnt a lot about maintaining cars but there has been little reason or even opportunity really for him to teach me the same.

I pride myself on not being completely hopeless though and can't understand people who have both no interest or ability to deal with stuff like this if the situations comes up.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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3,686
Location
Sussex
I can certainly jump start a car but you have to be so carefull these days, too many computers involved. I've brought one of those jump pack things to do it next time I need to which is fairly often with two young drivers in the house.

Also a wheel change is no problem unless the wheel hasn't been off for a time and you undo the bolts and the thing is pretty still welded to the car and you have to lie on your back and kick seven bells out of it or hit it with the spare or bolt it back on losely and roll forward a bit.. but other than that its easy :D

I'm a pretty pratical person and can turn my hand to most things, even more so these days when there are a dozen vidoes explaining exactly what to do, used one of those to do a head gasket on a peugeot!
 
Caporegime
OP
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24 Oct 2012
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25,024
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Godalming
Well I do for my bike, why not a car?


Tell you what. Record yourself changing a car tyre with your bike kit and I'll hand you a nice internet award.

Blindfolded for double points and there's another secret side quest in this storyline which will double all points but you have to figure out what it is.

Go :D
 
Caporegime
OP
Joined
24 Oct 2012
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25,024
Location
Godalming
I can certainly jump start a car but you have to be so carefull these days, too many computers involved. I've brought one of those jump pack things to do it next time I need to which is fairly often with two young drivers in the house.

Also a wheel change is no problem unless the wheel hasn't been off for a time and you undo the bolts and the thing is pretty still welded to the car and you have to lie on your back and kick seven bells out of it or hit it with the spare or bolt it back on losely and roll forward a bit.. but other than that its easy :D

I'm a pretty pratical person and can turn my hand to most things, even more so these days when there are a dozen vidoes explaining exactly what to do, used one of those to do a head gasket on a peugeot!


Busted shins are no joke :(
 
Soldato
Joined
11 Nov 2009
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4,784
Location
Edinburgh
Of course I could but I am a good age but I have young neighbours who would be hard pushed to put up a shelf.

One of my neighbours has an internal door which for some inexplicable reason the landlord decided to fit a self closing door hinge which actually slams the door and can be heard clearly in other flats. These things are very simple to adjust but he did not do it himself or get the landlord to do it.

His wife recently had a baby and I said what precautions was he going to take to insure that the future toddler was not crush bey this closing door, he hummed and hawed until yet again I suggested I could do it for him, a five minute job with an allen key, but he insists he can do it, we'll see.
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Oct 2002
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6,824
Location
Bath
yes to both, wonder how many could set the gap and dwell on a set of points though :)


used to spend my weekends ripping rotten hot hatches apart as a teenager and built many a 16v nova back in the days :)
Sounds like you and I had similar lives growing up...


Dad ran a stock car team on the Mendip raceway so not only could I spanner from the age of three but have driven at speed since I was six and raced since I was 11.
 
Associate
Joined
7 Feb 2019
Posts
116
Location
Yorkshire
There is a few other general maintenance tasks that I would say everyone should be able to on most cars without too much hassle or special tools. Obviously the internet (or the service book/manual) is a useful resource for finding out how to do these things if you're a bit of a newb, but none of them should be ability prohibitive.

Change a fuse
Change the cabin filter
Top up the oil
Top up the screenwash
Change a windscreen wiper
Change a lightbulb

There is probably a few others, but it often amazes me the things that I'm tasked with on my Mrs car. I show her and she's like "is it really that easy?".

Just open the bloody manual!!!
 
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