just curious.

[moominmolly]

[Poll #1604133]

Comments

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

Though, without a "none of the above" option, you're missing everyone who's never done a single thing to a car by hand (either on account of not owning one, or not being inclined to do so.)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I went back and forth on that. I should have put one in.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Oops - I clicked added power steering fluid because I thought it was power (ie automatic) transmission fluid. Which turned out to be a mistake because it was a manual transmission car. That bottle was *not* well labeled.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I think of myself as totally clueless when it comes to cars, but the number of things I can check off in this poll makes me feel all buff! Thanks. 8)

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Me, too.

Cars and Denistry are the two things I outsource with no qualms. Everything else I really like to try to do myself first.

But I have changed bulbs in my car and stuff!

[geekpixie.livejournal.com]

I've done everything but changed a spark plug, for whatever reason. I've also replaced speakers changed brake pads and calipers and rebuilt a slant 6 engine. All of this was done when I actually had a driveway, and access to my dads tools, of course. Out here it's just not reasonable for me.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I've rebuilt an engine but not my own. :)

This poll not actually brought to you by the belief that people should do these things themselves, but more by the number of little tiny tasks I think of as COMPLETELY ROUTINE which people are surprised that I'm willing/able to do. *shrug*!

[khedron.livejournal.com]

Emergency brake-light bulb change on the way to a driving test!

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I think you get bonus points for that!

I also think I get bonus points for teaching Natalie how to change headlight bulbs. She's a good helper.

[asciikitty.livejournal.com]

"Changed a tire" is tricky - I have been involved with the changing of tires, but never changed one all by myself.

And I'm unclear on whether I've added oil to a car of mine. I maybe have, but maybe haven't.

[geekpixie.livejournal.com]

Changing a tire in 3 inch heels and a business suit is even trickier, on South Huntington Ave could be the trickiest, but it's doable :) I love some of my car stories..

[youngwilliam.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised at how many of these I've done, given that I've never even owned a car.

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

I've never owned or rented a car. I have no driver's license!

(I am not cos)

[cos]

Neither am I, this time.

[inahandbasket]

woot, clean sweep! ^_^

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

I've never owned a car, but I've done lots of these things! This makes me weirdly proud.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I'm actually wondering how much correlation there is, now. :)

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

I used to have a Volkswagon Beetle (one of the old ones, before they were reintroduced), and there was a wonderful car-repair manual made for it that assumed NOTHING. The manual was on the level of "When you open the hood, you'll see a flat, black plastic thing at the top of the engine. This is the air cleaner. The air cleaner is fastened with wing nuts. Here's a drawing of a wing nut. Wing nuts can be unscrewed by hand, so unscrew them now."

Using that manual, I was able to change the oil, set the timing with a timing light, change the spark plugs, all that stuff. I wouldn't try to do that to cars nowadays; not only are modern cars more complicated, but I don't have the marvelous manual for the car I have now.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

That's gorgeous. I think a manual like that should come with every goddamn car on the planet.

[dbang.livejournal.com]

You should have included "pumped your own gas"

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

As a control? Or do people drive cars but not ever pump gas? That hadn't occurred to me.

[ectropy.livejournal.com]

Do motorcycles count? Because that significantly changes my answer. :)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I nearly put in 'motorcycles' just for you. Let's say yes. :)

[cruiser.livejournal.com]

With my first few cars, when they needed maintenance, I had the able assistance of my father, a former auto mechanic. He'd help me by telling me what to do, and lending a hand when it was a two-person job. I may have changed spark plugs under his direction, but don't remember doing so.
Now that I don't have my dad around to tell me what to do, the vast majority of my auto maintenance is outsourced.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

I'm sure "wash the car" was given as a chore at some point in my childhood, but since I've never owned a car as an adult, I've never done any of the rest (although apparently that's not the excuse I thought it was ;-).

[ocschwar.livejournal.com]

X Changed out the engine.

[spinrabbit.livejournal.com]

I feel I should get some sort of points for the time when my radiator hose failed out in western MA on a hot summer Sunday. I got a moderately-clueful dude to check it out for me, but he didn't have a new hose or a way to get one right away, so he taped up the hose and I watched the temp gauge like a hawk and added water to the coolant reservoir periodically until I got to an open auto parts store quite a ways away.

I'm not absolutely certain I've changed a tire completely on my own, end-to-end, but I certainly know how and have started it on my own and done it end-to-end as a team.

[ceo]

Wow, the "view answers" page on polls like these is a stunning example of poor presentation. I'd make it a grid of users vs. poll questions.

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I've done everything but major repair. I don't think I've ever done that. I did a lot of working on cars with my friend Casey in high school, but nothing that ever required removing an engine. If you want to count something like changing a distributor cap or adjusting a carburetor, then I have, but not since the 80s.

I get less and less able and less inclined to do this kind of stuff over time, though, as engines get more computerized and packed more tightly into their compartment. The last time I did anything more complex than adding fluids or changing a tire was the late 90s. I helped my dad change the alternator on my car. I had driven to northern Indiana at Christmas. I got about 15 miles south of his town when my electrical system light went on. I kept my fingers crossed that I could make it to the autozone in the next town. I did. They tested me and said the alternator was bad. I could not have done that job on my own anymore. It was one of many times in my adult life I was thankful for dad's blue collar skills.

[alanj]

LJ seems to think that when 89 of 102 responses include "washed it by hand", that counts as 11.8%. All the other percentages are similarly tiny. I'm baffled.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I've been watching that ALL DAY. I wonder if it is 11.8% of total boxes checked? It's... a new interpretation of the data, somehow even worse than even the old lj poll stuff. Madness.

[liminal-spaces.livejournal.com]

I used to carry a (reasonably) complete set of tools in my car. They came in handy when I drove things like the 1974 Dodge Dart I had for a while in Florida. That was The Car That Would Not Die, and I've got some great stories of driving across the country in it, twice.

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

Chrysler slant six engines FTW. Those things were damned near indestructible.

[roozle.livejournal.com]

It's funny, there's a reasonable number of checkmarks on my poll and YET I feel completely incompetent about cars.