Actually I find this humorous. I check the oil in the wife's car and it is 1/2 qt low. We use Mobil 1, and so I asked her to pick up a qt when she gets a chance. A few days later I see a puddle of oil under her car. I pop the hood and pull the dip stick, it's overfull. I walk in the house with the dip stick and in a nice way ask if she knows how to read the dip stick. (feathers are getting ruffled at this point)She says she didn't look at it. I say, there is too much oil in the crankcase. She says, you said it needed a quart of oil so I put it in and spilled some. I start to defend myself, see the ruffles, decide it's not worth a fight, and go get the kitty litter to clean up the oil on the driveway and run it up on the ramps to drain some oil out. Can anyone relate to this or have a good other half story?
With my X i gave up..Im gald some one else is checking her oil..figuratively and for real! Im wondering how soon it will be before she burns up another car...lol Sucker!
We had an 1980 1/2 Chev pick-up that my wife drove. I had been running rough on her way home from work one day but forget to tell me. The next day it ran a little worse on her way to work. She went to see her mother for lunch & it ran even worse. When she started the truck to leave her mothers there was a loud bang from under the hood, the truck ran better & some "stuff " fell on the ground. She put this "stuff" in a bag to bring home to me. What I got was a paper lunch bag full of broken plastic & charcoal that smelt like gasoline. The charcoal canister was plugged & it had finally blown the bottom out of it.
I coasted into my driveway one night and saw my wife hunting for something underneath the hood of her car. She didn't hear me pull up because her motor was knocking so loud that you couldn't have heard a freight train. All of a sudden she gets a "I found it!!" look on her face and pulls out the dipstick. Even from 20 feet away, I could see it was bone dry. All the times I asked her" Have you check the oil lately?", I always got an angy "Of course!!" She was mad as hell when our Memorial day vacation consisted of her helping me put in a new engine. The sad thing is I should know better. That was the 3rd motor she's blown up from not checking the oil!
hell when I ask the wife to get parts I might as well be talking to the wall. OOH wait I'd get a better response from the wall...joe
What timing,I had taken off the flasher unit on Sunday,so because I work long hours,the parts shop is shut both when I leave and by the time I get home (another story).I put it on a shelf in the kitchen thinking I.ll wait till she,s in a gentler mood and ask her highness to pick one up,She needed a favour so I.ve dived in about the flasher unit Too late she,s binned it!!??I start to go off,but what the hell was that piece of rusty junk doing in the kitchen anyway..I ask you,why did I even imagine it would work out right?
I learned my lesson early.. I have taught Both my ladies how to.. 1. Change a tire. 2. Check and fill (correctly) the oil 3. check and fill the air in the tires. 4. listen and report any strange noises or fluid leaks 5. pay attention to the gauges Hell Im not going to live forever..the 9 year old has a ways to go yet..she can barely reach the dip stick or torque down the wheel studs tight enough ..but you get the idea..start em early.
My wife and I were married for about a month or so when she was checking the coolant in her '63 Nova and at one point she figured she put to much in.... Soooo she decides to take some out, she gets a small rubber hose from my junk and proceeds to siphon coolant out of the overflow... she gets a little in her mouth as she is siphoning and then she reads on the coolant bottle "do not drink" or "this stuff will kill your dog" or something like that. I get a call at work from her in a panic telling me to come home and take her to the hospital, she needs her stomach pumped!!! Turns out she just got a dribble in her mouth and didn't swallow any at all, you know like what you'll get when you siphon gas..... I Love Her (still do after 15+ years) and am sure glad she was OK.
I am suprised some days that my wife can add windshield washer fluid. I love her but she ain't to car savy
Working on trying to get my wife to understand the importance of explaining the sounds/noises that the car makes in helping find the problem. Tried to explain that a ping is different than a knock, and that a clunk is different than a click. Just got a blank stare back. It's a work in progress...I'll get there.
If she's interested in it, or at least can put up with a 15 minute lesson... DO IT. If you are going to drag her around the car while she looks at her nails it's a waste of both of your time. I hate to sound like Dr. Jon here, but sometime when there are no temper issues say "Baby... It would ease my mind a lot if we could go over a few things on the car both for the cars sake and your safety. Would you mind doing that sometime with me?" If she's not going to go for it, you are better off knowing that she's not trying!
A few years back my cousin bought his daughter an early Mustang for her 16th. She was not allowed to drive far from the house but one night she decided to take a friend 50 miles away to a football game or some such. The idiot oil light came on and she had the presence to pull over and, since he had taught her well, discovered she was two quarts low. Apparently she also was low on coolant as well because the two quarts of oil brought the fluid level back to the top of the radiator. The car made it home but they never did get the oil smell out of the heater. $123 billion dollars in profits in 2007 and we need to subsidize them further?
A few years ago I put a brand new 390 FE in my F-1. Had a bad rear main seal leak (pain in the ass on a FE) . Anyway the wife uses it as a daily, tell her to heck oil often. Comes home and she says oil pressure is low, but over full with oil. WTF? Tells me traffic has been bad for a week and has not had a chance to use the tri-power. Maybe the outside carbs blead a bunch of gas in the oil pan. Drain about 2 gallons of oil, and refill. Never a rear main leak again, gas must have swolled seals. She thinks she fixed it!!!!......OLDBEET
My dear old Mother ran her Chevy 32 miles with no oil in it. She came into the house and asked what that flashing light on the dash was for. My wife is clueless and I'd just as soon it stayed that way. If she were to acomplish getting the hood open she would probably stick her fingers in the fan. I do ALL the maintanence. If she stays out of the garage I promised to stay out of the kitchen!
Told a co-worker one time that she needed to have her winter air taken out of her tires and replaced with summer air because it was getting hot outside. I really wish I had been at the tire store when she asked how much that would cost!
Sometimes i wish Sheep could cook..... 1st wife blew up the wagon, drove home and said that red light on the dash was on, all the way home...15 miles later and a 2.5L Iron Duke rebuild, all was well again
my wife reads all the instructions on my "projects" because I say I don't need them.... then tells me what I did wrong she can change a flat, check the pressure and air up tires, change oil, install belts, bulbs, air filters, batteries (car & everything else), she can solder, and pull wires. come to think of it, i am pretty damn lucky I don't have one of those ladies that are afraid to get her hands dirty. she is playing hooky Friday, and rollin with me in the 50 Chevy truck to the LSR. Come by and say hi.
Got the wife with the "low turn signal fluid" deal. Boy,was she pissed when she went to buy a quart and the guy behind the counter almost soiled himself laughing? Yeah,i paid for that one...
Ok let me tell ya about a girl I dated. She had some crappy 80s buick she drove. One day her car overheats so I drive out to where she is ask a guy to use his hose to fill her radiator. I show her how to do the cap safely and fill it. About a week later she calls me from her place says she has oil in her radiator! So I drive over go strait to the car check the radiator its fine. She comes out and points to the engine cap.......Yep she stuck the hose in the enginr oil fill hole. Topped it off with the hose OMG!! She was banned from under the hood.
i am lucky,my wife checks her oil,can change plugs and wires and is very observent when it comes to noises..to observent!
I tried to teach my ex-wife. See where that got me? Now with the second wife (she's a keeper) I'm taking care of the cars. Trying to play to our strengths. At the risk of sounding sexist, she doesn't mess with fixing things and I don't try to do the cooking. Everyone's MUCH happier that way. I'll teach my 15 year old daughter while she still listens to me. We're rebuilding a '71 Super Beetle for her now. Total rehab from the ground up. She's going to install the clutch this weekend. Hope for the next generation.
i borrowed my girls car one day it was making a clicking noise so i check under the hood and one of the spark plugs was unthreaded and out flopping around so i put in back in and when i got home i told her she was only running on 3 cylinders and her spark plug somehow came out she just looked at me and said... "whats a spark plug?"
Ex #1 story. I bought a 65 caprice for her driver (this in the late 70's) Nice car, factory air etc. She calls one day.." this damned OLD car won't start..." on and on for about 10 minutes. I leave work, battery in the back ready to rescue her. I get in the car, turn the key...nothing. Look down,she's left it in drive. I call her down form her dept, and ask her to start it. Nothing again. I then tell her "go ahead & put it in park & try it" if looks could kill.......
One of my favorites to tell...My wife had a flat tire and needed a patch. I was working over so told her to go to the shop across the road and have them fix the tire. I got home to an $800 bill for four new tires. Her response...I fixed it.