Have ya ever met a guy(kid) that don`t know how to change a tyre?

Me and my bro were drinkin way to many beers tonight. First we started talking about how many people have no idea how to start a car with a carburator(pump it first???) Then it went to how many people cant even change a tire(I think this should be part of drivers training). My bro spent over an hour today trying to patiently show this 20 year old kid how to change his tire. Dang this story goes on and on(picture the worst). It baffles me to think there are people that have NO IDEA about simple maintaince? WOW! This is a different story but related... I cut my rusty 40 ford coupe off the floor boards and needed help to set it on some rust free tudor sedan board. I asked my cousin and a few of his freinds to help. All the neighbor kids and parents are used to cars rusted to shit, sitting in my yard but there was this one kid that walked up to help with this look of fright in his eyes. He took hold then looked to see if his hands got dirty(of course they were, probly the first time)Well we lifted the coupe from its rusted hulk and set it on its new home. My cousin thought dang this is cool! But the new kid just looked at me and said "what the hell are you going to do with this"(totally serious) I said build a car. He could not fathom the idea that some day this would be a car. Man I can`t believe how differently people think, or not think about something. I hope all is not lost with this new generation. I am doing my part having these kids help me with my cars. Every time I pull a new car out of the garage, the local kids are amazed. Everyone wants a ride. I can`t help but think the HAMB has helped some of these youngsters... Now days you can build a car on a tight budget and get recognition. That is a good feeling. What storys you got?? Jason

Dang I think I did some rambling. get use to it

 

Every time I put a rusty convertible on eBay, I get at least one note from someone like that - sort of like how on tonight's new South Park they said 1/4 of everyone in the US is retarded, I think the same number is car-retarded, the concept of rebuilding a car from the ground up, piece by piece, is as alien to them as walking on their hands and using their feet to type with.

It gets so they all sound the same, too, sometimes I comment back to them just to see what they say and I've had at least a couple that if you put them side by side would look like the same idiot wrote both messages.

 

Most people just use one of these to change their tire:

 

I built a bad-assed Jeep for my neighbor.


The day before we left for a 3 day off-road jamboree, I insisted that he show me that he was capable of changing a tire on his Jeep with the equipment he had on board since we would be in the middle of nowhere.

It probably took him about 20 minute to figure out how to get the jack out of it's storage place... merely a precursor of things to come...

He fumbled around with the jack for a while trying to figure out where to jack it up (with a little coaching from me).
I advised him that the tie-rod was a poor choice....

He eventually got the Jeep high enough for the tire to spin....completely forgetting (not knowing?) to crack any of the lug nuts.

It was entertaining for a brieff moment watching him struggle while trying to hold the 33" tall tire with one hand and trying to crack the lug nuts with the other.



Eventually when entertainment became irritation, I advised him that possibly he should consider loosening the lug nuts with the weight of the vehicle on the ground rather than let the gong show continue.

With the weight of the vehicle on the ground...he tried in vain to crack the first lugnut.

Before I could tell him to use his legs and back to pry the crowbar up rather than his forearms...he lunged at the end of the crowbar like a fat kid lunging at a cupcake.

Needless to say...the crowbar slipped off and all 250lbs of him went flying off in a gracefull tumble that loosely resembled Eastern Europeon gymnastics performed by a bald fat guy.

DISASTER!

He had fully rounded off the key on the lock nut! This would mean I would have to sacrifice some sockets since his arsenal of tools included a framing hammer and a fishing knife.

Now my lesson in off-road repair involved removing lock nuts without a key. Rather than destroy my sockets, I elected to weld a nut to each lock nut and remove them.

With the lock nuts removed, I showed him how using your body to crack the lugnuts was far easier and more precise than trying to use your arms.

After several demonstrations, he finally got the technique down and was able to crack the lugnuts ( I stopped him from removing them all together as the jeep was still on the ground...).

The time to remove and replace ONE wheel on his Jeep took him a staggering hour and 15 minutes.

This was on the driveway in a semi controlled enviroment.


If we had been off-road, He would more than likely be performing his clumsy ballet in a foot of mud with fatal results.

 

I once had a neighbor, perfectly able bodied guy, who bought a new car. When his new license plates arrived in the mail from the DMV, he took them down to the dealership where he bought the car to have them "installed"!

Pathetic.

 

We hired A kid at work and of course he knew everthing. I walked by his car one day and notice that all four lugnuts on all four plastic hub caps were strippid out and total rounded off. You would think that after one or two he would have figured out that they were fake lugnuts on plastic hub caps but I guess not. He thought he knew every thing about every thing and was one of the stupedest people I ever meet and to stuped to even have a glue how stuped he realy was.

 

I hear ya. I was asked to look at a minivan at a house to see what repairs it might need. The family, 1 mom, 10 kids were recent evacuees due to Katrina. I had a good time with the kids that ranged in age from about 2 - 12. They all wanted to "help" me so I'd give them little chores like guarding the lugnuts when I took the wheel off and helping me polish and put the hub caps back on. I had a kid on every corner with a towel to polish things. Showed them how I check fluids. They were full of questions. It was quite comical. Anyway there were two boys about 14 and 15 that hardly came out of the house. I noticed they had a broken basketball goal, so I took the broken part home to weld it and bring it back later.
When I came back I pulled ALL of the kids out in the yard to help with the basketball goal. I handed one of the oldest boys a wrench and the other a socket and ratchet and pointed to what they needed to do. They looked at the tools and looked at me and didn't know how to use them. I showed them how to install the bolt and nut. It was all I could do to keep from laughing when the guy with the wrench wanted to do the turning and the guy with the ratchet was just trying to hold the nut still. I advised them to switch places. We got it all fixed and stood it up. One of the boys asked me if I owned a shop or something because they didn't know anyone who had tools. Now that I am actually working on a hot rod, I wish I could find those boys now and teach them a thing or two. I bet they would enjoy it.

 

My father in law called me one night at about 2:00am saying he had a flat on his 96 impala ss. I told him to get the jack and lug wrench out of the trunk and call me back. He called back a few minutes later and said the lug wrench didnt fit the lug nut. I told him it had to, it came with the car. I noticed that he kept referring to the lug nut in the singular not plural as in "lug nuts". I asked him about that and he said he was talking about the big lug nut in the middle of the wheel. I told him that was the center cap and he had to take that off to get at the lugs. He just hung up and called 911 and had someone else come do it. And this guy used to own a 400 acre cattle farm???

Mule Farmer...stupid...not stuped. Sorry, I couldnt help that one.

 

Jason -

Have ya ever met a guy(kid) that don't know how to SPELL tire? - LOL

 

Ever wonder what these mechanicaly chalenged people can make it the time it takes to change a tire? Lawyers, stock brokers, money managers? Never meet one that would give me a tip on their field of knowledge.

 

I think there should be a living skills course in high school just like shop or home economics. Everyone gets to change a faucet washer, light switch, furnace filter, tire, etc. I was working on a pool deck for a man in his mid 50's with a $3M home and he called me back to ask what all the pipes were. I went back and explained they were reinforcing steel for the concrete. And I had left a load of dirt in the driveway for one night so his wife had to park her MB SUV in the drive and she called me to ask if it would harm the car to leave it outdoors overnight. It's scary how unprepared some people are.

 

WTF is a tyre anyway?....LOL...just kidding

 

Hey I did say I had too many beers. I read it over but missed that one. It rymes

 

A friend of mine told me a story once of his brother who stayed in his place for a while when he was gone. The guy (brother) earns cash big time in the corporate business and such. One day he called up to tell about how he "fixed" that large 'plate' lying under the car where it's always parked...
Turned out the moron had punched a couple of holes in the drip-pan 'so the oil could run off into the ground, instead of making the plate look so "dirty"....'

 

thats a good read..

 

Tyre is how they spell tire up in canada...minnesota is just too damn close to them and obviously a bad influence

 

Then there was the couple that took their car in for service. The mechanic accidently locked the keys in the car just before they were to pick it up. As they approached the car, the mechanic was frantically trying to get the drivers door unlocked. He said it shouldn't take long. The lady went to the passenger side, tried the door and it came right open. She told the mechanic she got it open, and he said, "I know, I already done that side."

This was told to me by a Ford dealership mechanic, supposed to be true, but probably urban myth.

 

Here's an interesting thought:
With the divorce rate as high as it is, we are now in the second generation of boys who were raised by their mothers, with now father in the house to show them the basics.
As a single mom with a boy, they figure the kid needs to be involved in "boy stuff," so she signs him up for little league and cub scouts. The result is that the kid is a sports nut, but never really gets any other hands-on experience about fixing dry-wall, simple plumbing, installing a garbage disposal, framing a room in the basement, electrical wiring, running speaker wires in the house, building a short landscaping wall in the back, fixing siding on the house, repairing rotted wook on the deck, and the millions of other things we don't even think about.
Think of the rise in popularity of Sports bars and "fantasy" sports leagues.

My 10 year old put the chain back on a 10-speed bike for the family across the street. He knows what end of a wrench to use!
Brad

 

In 1963 I think, a good lookin gal comes into the Standard Station I work at, says "my transmission just fell out", the shift lever was layin on the floor. 63 T-Bird.....OLDBEET

 

Ohhhhh and another one. I had just replaced the front pulley on a ford tempo in the shop one day. The teenage girl was waiting for me to finish up her car, so as soon as I got the belt back on it I let it it down. The car was pointed out the back door so I told her to hop in and be on her way. She looked at me dead serious and with a smart a$$ tone and said, "How am I supposed to drive with the steering wheel upside down??? I just reached in and straightened the wheels and pointed out the door.

 

Might have something to do with it, but on the other hand, I didn't learn a single skill (other than golf) from my father and neither did my brother. Life experiences have brought us to the point where I can do (and have done) all those things you mention plus fix anything electronic, overhaul (including the machining) engines, blah, blah blah, and my brother doesn't know a box end from an open end. He is however a fine minister, and I seem to be his restoration project.

 

Thats sick...............OLDBEET

 

When my old man taught me how to drive, lesson one was how to change a flat. It was January, and about 30 below, so I paid close attention.

Of course, lesson two was how to do donuts in a snowy parking lot at midnight (or as we described it to my mother, "skid recovery techniques, and steering with the gas pedal").

Every day this place reminds me to thank my dad for a million things.

I had to help a buddy of mine change a fuse once... he was not even aware that his car had fuses.

 

I chuckled.

I learned a lot in shop class, but at that point I'd already helped to fix a ton of stuff around the house and worked on cars with my dad and stepdad. By the time I was 17, I was a wild man, I'd work on stuff just to be doing something. My job is white-collar now and I miss working with my hands every day like I used to.

 

I doubt it. I used to drive a Tow Truck and have been out to lots of lockouts that werent locked and one even had the windows down. AAA members are hands down the dumbest group of people I have ever seen.

 

Blondestar

 

I also understand how kids get away from important things they need to learn and know . I built my son(s) a pint -sized work bench so they could build and tinker with "stuff" when they were about 4 . My EX-wife would come to the shop and get them after about 10 to 15 minutes and take them to the house , telling them "It's too hot out here for you " . After several times with that it got to where they didn't bother to come and "help" anymore. I can't say as I blame the kids either . I tried to talk to her about it , but you have an idea how closed minded a "mom " can sometimes be . Now my oldest son (22 now ) is working on his truck and constantly is asking very simple questions , I tell him that he is having to learn now what he should have learned 10 to 15 years ago --he smiles , understands and remembers how it was " too hot for him " and says " yeah , but I am going to catch up now " . He is going to be alright , just takes a little longer when you start out " behind" and are really trying to get it all t o soak in at once. The main thing with anything is you have to have at least a little talent a whole lot of want to and someone with some patience to help you learn ---Yes kids today as a majority want to only do their work with a keyboard and the few that will and want to work with their hands will be making premium wages in the VERY near future as like you all have stated above --these kids cannot even change a tire ( or tyre depending on your area) . Some will be getting a bargain when the find the guy that will and ONLY charge them $89.95 to take care of that "dirty job "

 

We could be brothers. That sounds like my life. Weird.

 

Here's a sad thought. Someday an OBD code reader will be considered a vintage tool.

 

Unfortunately my daughter is married to one. Dumber than a swamp stump when it comes to anything mechanical. And. what really pisses me off is he doesn't want to learn anything either...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr