Remember the good old days when you could work on your car? Sadly, those days have passed. With the advent of technology, computer chips and digital readouts, it is simply not possible for us to do a Saturday morning tune up in our garage.
Don’t get me wrong, technology definitely has its advantages. Cars are a lot more dependable these days. They are being engineered and built to go several hundred thousand miles in a life span. Technicians (no longer mechanics) can plug in to your car’s computer, run diagnostics and determine problems quickly and easily. All this is great. But still…
Remember when you or one of your buddies would buy a new car and you all would stand around and marvel at the engine? Nowadays, open the hood and all that’s visible are shapes and belts. You can’t even see the engine, let alone work on it.
Call me nostalgic, but I long for the days when I would watch my father and uncle put a dyno tune on our Fairlane or my grandfather’s ’57 Chevy. Everything was right there in plain sight. The spark plugs, distributor, oil filter, carburetor, master cylinder and battery were easily accessible. You could get what you needed at the local parts store for less than $20 and do a full tune up and oil change in an hour or so. Nowadays, you can’t even change your own oil. You may find the drain plug, but you’ll need special tools, a laptop and an engineering degree to find the filter. An appointment must be made for a tune up, which will cost more than what was my monthly payment on my Mach 1.
As a result, as fathers and grandfathers, we are denied the joy of bonding with our sons and grandsons, teaching them the workings of the internal combustion engine and how to maintain and care for a fine automobile. Today, we take them to the 10 minute oil change, sit in the lobby while they play games on their pads and we watch infomercials on the TV. We can’t even watch Saturday morning cartoons with them anymore. They took those, too. Keep Cruisin’… –J.
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