On computers. When my bit of the nhs was computerised we got some basic training on the software but nothing for basic computer use. A significant number of people never used a computer so didn't have the basic skills needed .not their fault at all that they couldn't use a mouse
This may have already been mentioned...
A romantic understanding sees it primarily in terms of immediate appearance.” beauty or art and are led by their feelings. Classical thinkers value systems, laws and logic. To them, the inner workings of a thing is much more important than its surface appearance.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I love that book and re-read it every 5 years or so. Some on this thread would get it and love it too 🙂
Every year I set up a little bike mechanic stand at the local fete / fun day and fix / check bikes for free.
Every year one or two genuinely astound me. I get a lot of people have no desire to maintain bikes, especially inexpensive ones for kids, but the merest sliver, the tiniest morsel of knowledge and mechanical sympathy might mean your children aren't riding around on something genuinely unsafe.
Parent "Can you check the brakes, my kid is complaining the brakes aren't very good"
Me: "The rear brake is disconnected and the front is braking on the tyre not the wheel"
Parent: "Is that bad?"
Still that was better than the one I was asked to look at that had one crank arm and no grips. I would have had more sympathy for the poor state of the bike if they hadn't turned up in a Range Rover Sport
Are YOU not part of the problem here? You are buying the bulbs and going to do it for her – why would she bother learning to do it herself when you’ll sort it.
I have waited since July to actually do anything. So trying NOT to be the problem.
Still that was better than the one I was asked to look at that had one crank arm and no grips. I would have had more sympathy for the poor state of the bike if they hadn’t turned up in a Range Rover Sport
Yep. We had that on some of our bike rides in lockdown with the BB's. Range Rover, £600k house, both parents consultant something and GP.
Cue undersized Apollo with no grips, saddle pointing up a la 1980's BMX, bald tyres and one brake pad missing completely. Plus a cracked helmet (etc).
I would not be so frustrated but we had offered the day before both bike checks/basic tune up and/or a loaner bike for anyone who did not have one or needed one. And the fact that the dad has a carbon Scott road bike and Trek Fuel....
What then really narked me off was they were asking if there was anywhere that would give them a bike to replace it when I suggested the skip....
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I love that book and re-read it every 5 years or so. Some on this thread would get it and love it too 🙂
Tangent: I had high hopes for "Shop class as soulcraft: an inquiry into the value of work" (briefly - it's about an academic who runs a motorcycle repair shop). However, would not recommend. Turgid self-indulgent academic naval gazing. I hope the author fixes motorcycles better than he writes pop psychology books.
When my bit of the nhs was computerised we got some basic training on the software but nothing for basic computer use.
Yes I think many folks experience of using computers is this. The whole training focussed on the programme that people will be using and not how the thing itself functions.
My wife slams doors and it drives me nuts, the force she uses to shut a car door is enough that I sometimes go and check it hasn’t opened the opposite door."
Late 1980s, I used to have a Maestro van (oooh, get me and my fancy-pants motors...) where the passenger door was a bit prone to bouncing back if slammed hard. So I always said to people "Just pull it, don't slam it". What did they do? Slam it ever harder & harder, until I had to get out of the driver side, walk round, and do a soft-push demonstration. Grrrrr
I think these broadly fall into two camps.
Picking up on that and expanding it a bit, I think that older people (in general) have slightly more of a clue and slightly more desire for "make do and mend". Back in the 80's, my grandfather was quite handy with fixing his car...because the bloody thing was unreliable (as were many cars back then). When he was in the Navy, he'd had to learn how to fix radios and morse lights (he was a signaller) because there wasn't a Radio Shack out in the North Atlantic. Mechanical competence based on necessity.
Modern "stuff" though has been made much easier and more intuitive to use at the expense of any sort of serviceability. I can't do what my grandpa did with cars...but my car doesn't fall apart every 200 miles or burn massive amounts of oil or have a flaky panel that needs banging back into place. So through the lack of needing to do anything with it (and the fact that the car manufacturer has actively made it difficult to allow the end user to do anything with it), means I don't have to know about it.
So I reckon the younger generation are at that level - "stuff" is generally pretty reliable and idiot proof (yes, yes, you can always find a better class of idiot...) so they've never needed to learn mechanics. It still doesn't excuse them from driving around in a car with bits hanging off it instead of getting it sorted though.
Nah, I don't buy that. Cars are just as repairable as they always were for most home users, it's just the tools that are different.
Yes, some consumer product manufacturers have made it deliberately difficult to fix things but Right to Repair is the backlash that will correct this.
My current car can park itself – and does exactly the above when reverse parking – it goes from lock to lock whilst stationary, and quite quickly. I guess BMW don’t have to pay for tyres.
Really? My old Golf (2010) with autopark definitely needed movement to start turning the wheels. Bit of a shocker from BMW there – the strain of low pro tyres on all those steering and suspension bits must be extraordinary.
Yep - due to camber angles and all that jazz the bonnet visibly rises and falls as it does so.
It's just tyre wear and judgement from others that concerns me though - O don't think strain on the mechanicals is an issue - they're designed for far higher loads. One common load case for design / analysis is "kerb jacking" - i.e. park the car with the front wheels parallel to and almost touching a decent height kerb. Then apply lock to force the car to move sideways.
IME folk with no mechanical sympathy are a bunch of gibers, censurers, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, bawds, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, wits, splenetics, tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murderers, robbers, virtuosos, scoundrels raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues; lords, fiddlers, judges and dancing-masters all.
The best thing I have read all day. Possibly ever. Quite right!
Modern “stuff” though has been made much easier and more intuitive to use at the expense of any sort of serviceability. I can’t do what my grandpa did with cars...............(and the fact that the car manufacturer has actively made it difficult to allow the end user to do anything with it), means I don’t have to know about it.
I disagree.
Swapping the clutch, brake pads or the cambelt on a modern car is fundamentally the same as it was 70 years ago. It might require you to turn the ignition on whilst holding the odometer reset, counting to three then reciting Les Internationale if it involves French electrics or Deutschlandlied if VAG, BMW or Merc. But it's still just a few minutes/hours with spanners.
My Car's O2 sensor has failed. I know this because I plugged my laptop in and it told me. That the "bolt" that makes up the body of the sensor has sized into the exhaust is a problem common to both a new Ford and the 50 year old MG it shares the driveway with.
People : Cars are far too complicated to do anything myself.
Also People : You can't get thicker than a Kwick Fit fitter.
Mrs WF doesn’t drive much, and being German tends to drive too far to the left for my liking.
Not to tyre bursting standards but I've been living between the UK and America for a bit and that's familiar. I don't even have think about what side of the road I should be on anymore, I just do it correctly depending in what country I am in. Only time I do notice it is on the odd occasion I find myself not centred in a driving lane. I think it's because I revert to positioning the car based on me rather than the vehicle, so in the US I might be driving towards the right hand side of the lane rather than the middle. Easily solved by buying a Mclaren F1!
I see we've digressed a bit into lack of mechanical competence and generally not causing damage to all the stuff around you.
1 handbrakes are meant to be ratchetted and it’s in the owner’s manual too, “Always apply the parking
brake. Activate the manual parking brake without pressing the release button. Apply as firmly as possible on a downhill slope or uphill slope. Depress brake pedal at the same time to reduce operating force.”
It may be true, but you can't assume it to be true just because it says so in the owner's manual. The manual is written to be idiot proof and to avoid liability to the manufacturer in case of misoperation.
But think of the things that the host would get mended
That’s how an economy exists, everyone contributes in their own way. Some people diagnose and fix mechanical issues with cars, some people fix mechanical issues with humans. What sort of world would it be if we all acted like robots that stopped everything and adjusted their ‘insert example here’.
Would you like to be a rounded enough individual to be able to exist as a one man band, doing everything yourself? I’m not and I really appreciate that mechanic that can do a job for me, freeing up time so I can do ‘insert example here.’
Not the same thing. You're taking my point several levels higher and generalising it, and then disagreeing with me about something that isn't the point I made.
I’m confused what your complaint is here… …it sounds like the original bikes failed to take into account the usability requirements of the target demographic. A lot of the complaints of, frankly middle aged grumpy old men, on this thread are actually design failures rather than lack of mechanical sympathy.
I did say that their response was in the spirit of the hire programme. My general position was that people should have enough basic awareness to stop bloody breaking stuff, rather than creating work and costs to repair and upgrade stuff to handle the abuse. It is a lack of mechanical sympathy, but I think the point we differ on is whether we should accept that and design for it, or say teach people to people be more sympathetic.
I’m confused what your complaint is here… …it sounds like the original bikes failed to take into account the usability requirements of the target demographic. A lot of the complaints of, frankly middle aged grumpy old men, on this thread are actually design failures rather than lack of mechanical sympathy.
Not really, in the case of e-bikers can you imagine the collective gnashing of walkers crisps if their bikes had torque limiters?
+1 handbrakes are meant to be ratchetted and it’s in the owner’s manual too, “Always apply the parking
brake. Activate the manual parking brake without pressing the release button. Apply as firmly as possible on a downhill slope or uphill slope. Depress brake pedal at the same time to reduce operating force.”
Vauxhalls don't count, only people who hate driving/cars would ever consider spending actual money on a Vauxhall.
Anyone who drags the handbrake up without pressing the button first is a monster and should be fired from a cannon into the sun, along with those who ram their car into each gear, you don't need to try and snap the lever off you animals.
When I was taught to drive many years ago the push the button in as you pull the lever was taught as standard practice
Why?
As previously pointed out, they don't wear out so...
Dunno really. This was back inthe 70s. Presumably a myth that they did
I’d never even heard of anyone doing that until I hired a car on holiday and my wife asked me why I didn’t use the button as she’d been taught by her driving instructor. That was in my 30s
I also don’t lift and reseat ratchet screwdrivers and spanners when I use them 😉
It’s also a nice sound when you ratchet on a handbrake. I think some people don’t learn how to repair things because they’re just not that way inclined. What seems simple to one person, such as changing a wheel on a car or defragging a hard drive for example, may be utterly daunting to another. A basic level of understanding should be taught at some point. Not sure when or by who.
My FiL is a retired mechanic and one of rag guys that works with me loves computers and tech. Both fantastic dealing with their chosen field. Both wildly incompetent/borderline dangerous the other way round.
I think some people don’t learn how to repair things because they’re just not that way inclined.
There's a world of difference between actually fixing something and being a sympathetic operator.
Who teaches them how to operate things? I think that’s the missing piece. A lot of folk nowadays don’t have the knowledge or skills to pass on how things work and how to look after them. Then there are the ones that just don’t care. Sad state of affairs really.
I am 90 percent sure "three clicks" was a requirement during my driving test era (which was later than most of you old gits)
I am 100% with squirrelking on this. It's an affectation and as it causes no damage of any consequence it fails the mechanical sympathy objection test.
Hauling on it with or with out the ratchet... That's the real issue.
I used to work with an opinionated wee arsehole thought he knew everything insisted oiling his rotors was the fix for squeaky brakes. He was a total walloper in general so I didn't point out his chain was on the outside of the derailleur tab as we set off on the annual gypsy glen ride. And watched with glee as he rode himself into the ground trying to keep up. Waited to the top before casually asking why he had put his chain on wrong.
When I started driving I found the handbrake getting stuck on could be embarrassing and potentially dangerous so reversed the pawl to make it fly off. That was fine unless you drove another car without a fly off. The answer was to push the button in and drill through lever and button and add a screw - a handbrake but no longer a parking brake. I just had to remember to take the screw out for the MOT. Now there's no clutch to ride and the handbrake is electric.
Swapping the clutch, brake pads or the cambelt on a modern car is fundamentally the same as it was 70 years ago.
Cars didn't have cambelts 70 years ago. The first two I can remember (Escort BDA and Fiat Abarth) had exposed cambelts you could change in the time it took to remover the decorative plastic on a modern engine. Brake pads, I agree but I reckon there are probably three time the nuts, bolts, screws and clips to get at a clutch these days, and a pile of specialist tools rather than a bag of AF spanners and a screw driver. The real problem with modern cars though - electronics, chips and sensors - cars are about as reliable as a PC.
The real problem with modern cars though – electronics, chips and sensors – cars are about as reliable as a PC.
So really bloody reliable compared to an old car requiring constant fettling to run correctly?
There's no way you can cut it to argue old cars were more reliable. They're less user servicable for sure but that's not the same thing.
Yeah, I can remember my dad constantly having to fix something on his cars damn every weekend. While I accept modern cars breakdown, mine goes in for servicing...and that's pretty much it. I intermittently check oil and water and it tells me when to put air in the tyres. In comparison to cars 30 years ago, they're white-goods really.
Yep, I don't touch my car in between services and it has been faultless for 5 years. My Computer is only 2 years old and never gone wrong and the one I have before that was 10 years old and never went wrong once in 10 years.
Maybe saying as reliable as a PC is not the best example...
Swapping the clutch, brake pads or the cambelt on a modern car is fundamentally the same as it was 70 years ago.
70 years ago, most cars had overhead valve engines, usually with a chain drive, rear-wheel drive, and drum brakes all round. Drum brakes needed regular cleaning and adjusting to keep them working properly (which was still pretty underwhelming) and changing brake shoes was a much trickier job than changing disc brake pads. You needed to set the points gap and spark timing at every service and pulling off the cylinder head to do a valve grind was a regular thing.
Starting the engine when cold meant using a manual choke to richen the mixture, but if you got that wrong, the engine would flood. A lot of cars didn't have very effective shielding under the engine bay so the distributor would get wet if you drove through a puddle and the engine would cut out. The drum brakes would also get wet and you'd change lanes if one side got wet and the other didn't.
Modern cars are much, much better. Much more reliable and their performance, braking, and handling are far superior to the old shitboxes from 70 years ago.
Modern cars are much more reliable
Ditto all the above but also to add corrosion protection was almost not existent on old cars. Cars would begin to visibly rust on door edges, bonnet leading edge, stone chips etc within 4 or 5 years from new. Less if Italian or early Japanese (Datsun, I'm looking at you). That just doesn't happen now unless a vehicle is very badly abused.
I am old enough to be a dab hand at adjusting points and carburettors, ****ting the starter motor with a hammer etc. because it was a regular necessity. If it was a Brit car with Lucas (prince of darkness) electrics they were absolutely guaranteed to let you down at some stage. Cars were also leaky, slow, noisy and just crap.
No rose tinted glasses here, modern cars are incomparably superior to the beige shit boxes of the 70s and 80s.
There’s no way you can cut it to argue old cars were more reliable.
I didn't, I just said that the problem with modern cars is the chips, sensors and electronics. In the last 10 years I've booked a car in for non-routine servicing twice, both chip/electronics related. My PC has been to the local repairer twice in the same time. So I'll stand by "modern cars are about as reliable as a PC". 🙂
No rose tinted glasses here, modern cars are incomparably superior to the beige shit boxes of the 70s and 80s.
Indeed.
But I would also argue we have lost 'character' in many modern cars, and that is not only related to the shortcomings of the vehicle. I keep eying up that 1988 Saab 900 which passes by and think 'hmmmm'....
only people who hate driving/cars would ever consider spending actual money on a Vauxhall.
One of the best cars I ever had was a Vauxhall.
(Not my photo.)
I bloody loved the Cav, I had several. The GL was, for it's time, like piloting the Enterprise. The SRi was a right giggle.
would also argue we have lost ‘character’ in many modern cars,
100%.
I can see video footage or stills from my formative years and go "that's a Mk2 Fiesta" or whatever. Today, perhaps it's the same phenomenon as modern music to old ears but they're all so bland and interchangeable. Mundane silver lumps that haven't changed much aesthetically since the Sierra took a a defibrillator to the design industry 40 years ago.
But I would also argue we have lost ‘character’ in many modern cars.
In the motorcycling world 'character' is often used by old duffers as a euphemism for vibration, questionable build quality and unreliability. I've owned an old British bike which had bags of 'character'. I've also had modern British and Japanese bikes which are accused of being 'soulless' because they don't leak oil, rattle your fillings out or break down regularly. I'll take 'soulless' over 'character' every single time. I don't think the world of cars and motorbikes are all that different.
Old blokes who look fondly at the cars of their youth, would in most cases be sorely disappointed if they were to drive one today. Things have moved on, your memory plays tricks on you, they are not as great as you remember.
My own dear mother once asked me how I kept my laptop screen so clean, while jabbing it with her finger and leaving grubby marks.
“By never doing that, mum.”
My dear old gran kept looking behind the laptop screen as she couldn't understand where the pictures where coming from or going to. But then she also couldn't remember who her own children and grand children were either. Dementia sucks.
One of the best cars I ever had was a Vauxhall.
One of your best cars ever was a Vauxhall Cavalier - you need to get out more.
Old blokes who look fondly at the cars of their youth, would in most cases be sorely disappointed if they were to drive one today. Things have moved on, your memory plays tricks on you, they are not as great as you remember.
Hey Cougar, he's calling you old 😉
In the motorcycling world ‘character’ is often used by old duffers as a euphemism for vibration, questionable build quality and unreliability
See also "soul".
And folk waxing lyrical about the days when they could strip their bike/motorbike/car down and rebuild it.
Yes, the bloody thing needed that cos it kept breaking!
Anyone missing old cars should be buying one. They are good value, parts can be cheap if picking right model, easy to fix, no tax, no MOT and dirt cheap insurance.
Just try not to crash in it...
One of the best cars I ever had was a Vauxhall.
So what were your other cars?
So what were your other cars?
