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what's America's boys coming to?....

J

jose bagge

Well-known Member
Got a call from my daughter- she left the lights on in the El Camino and battery died. She had 3 high school guys with her trying to jump it...won't spin, so she calls me.
I get to the high school, here's 3 boys and my daughter, two hoods up, jumper cables attached...with the jumper cable on the guys car clamped over the plastic cover on the battery cable (Honda, elco is side post)!
Unclamped it, pushed aside the cover, reclamped and the ElCo fired right up. Good kids, and now they know, but...?
In my day, those kids could have hot wired that car, much less jumped it! Who'd a thought?
 
Why do you think it should be just the boys that should know such a task . The young girls should also be taught things like this so to avoid someone taking advantage of her later on in life . When my oldest girl left for college she had knowledge of this & other car troubles . I gave her a small tool box with varioius tools . She knew how to change her own tires , spark plugs , check all fluids & how to jump start her car as well as a friends . So I would say more so that its the parents faults that kids don't have knowledge of emergency situations . So Dad get to teaching your kids more . God bless, Ken
 
What do you expect boys raised by just their Mother's to know? That has to be at least 1/3 of the boys out there.
No mechanical hobbies/projects, no hunting/fishing, very little sports etc.
Boys being either raised like girls or running around with other know nothings getting into trouble.
 
I'll bet when it comes to computers and such, those kids most likely know more than you do.

My point being, that their skill set might just be different than yours, and that does not mean they don't know anything about anything.
 
My boss came in late one day. He explained he had to get out of bed and go to the adjoining town late the previous night to change a flat for his twenty year old son on his pickup. That brought on several eye rolls. TDF
 
Doesn't speek too highly of the "ME_ME" generations does it? And you can't be too quick to blame the fathers of these one parent families either! A lot of the time it is the woman that just decides "SHE DOESN'T NEED NO DAMN MAN TO RAISE THESE KIDS" and divorces him and puts the kids in day-care and goes back to colege/parties without a care as to what the kids really NEED! The guy, with our court system, has zero power to help these kids other than financially. He can't teach much of anything on visitation. Look at our high school drop-out rates and how full our prisons are to find out how parenting (or lack of it) in the '80,s-'90,s- and 2000,s is working.
 
Raised three boys, and taught them all I could. Wifes family was very sports oriented, I am not. I always told them, "You teach them to play, I'll teach them to work". Worked out fine, all successful, self-reliant guys that still play a little basketball.
Paul
 
I have 2 daughters, 21 and 27 yrs.old. The last thing I want is for either of them to be working on a car along side of the road. There are to many perverts that would just love to help a girl in distress. My 21 yr old daughter works at a resturant about 9 miles away and just last night she said someone was harassing her on the way home at 11:30.
It may be just the area I live in.
 
Lots of kids were taught, "Tha's what AAA is for." My brother and I grew up in the same household, but he was the jock, while I hung around the family garage run by my dad and Grand-dad. My brother's wife has requested we NOT give him any tools for Christmas or birthdays, because she's tired of paying for someone else to repair stuff he tried to fix.

On the other hand, I can pretty well hold my own with a box of tools. But if these boys have never been taught, how would you expect them to know how to properly attach jumper cables? My brother is living proof that osmosis and genetics don't work.
 
That's true to a point, but you can't eat a computer, heat your house with it, or drive yourself to work in it. You still need basic maintenance skills.
 
Four of us college buddies. Two of the guys have 2 girls each. The one has a boy and girl, and I have the two boys.

All of the girls are flat out good looking I might add. The girls all hunt, shoot, have shown calves, can drive anything with wheels and one of the girls even restored an mid-60's model Volkswagon Beetle. 7 of the 8 kids are college grads and know their way around computers also.

My boys can skin a buck, run a trot line, etc.

They learn what we teach them.
 
Maybe it was a good thing the boys hooked it up over the plastic sheild. this says they don't know the difference, if the shield wasn't there they could of created a spark causing the battery to blow up and blind them instantly for the rest of their lives.
 
True, but you can order food to be delivered online, pay your utility bill on line and work from home. Any maintenance items can be googled and poof you can do it (it may not be the best job, but it will probably get you through).
 
Reminds me of a neighbor family. Beautiful BLONDE daughter saved her money and bought nice 66 Mustang, She spent all her money on it and had no money for maintenance. Her uncle had over a half dozen wrenches and a pair of pliers he carried in his overall pockets his shop was a big sycamore tree in the back yard. He taught this darling BLONDE girl to change oil. fix tires and do all other maintenance. All went well for a few months the girl learned well. One day it quit running and would go no more. She called uncle Pete. He looked it over and with a minute or two with the slip joint pliers he had it running like new. She asked what was wrong with it and how to go about fixing itnext time. He answered'" Crap in the dam gas filter!" she asked, "How often do I have to do that?"
 
You can't do any of that when the power's out. I did learn how to bale hay almost entirely by information on the internet, but if I hadn't had a mechanical backround, I still would have been lost.
 
Several years ago, a guy I worked with died of a heart attack fixing a flat on his 18 year old son's truck.
 
Hey not all guys are that dumb.

I'm 17 and a senior, I can do all the maintenance + on a car and lots more on Minne Mo's, but Every once in a while in the parking lot there is a vehicle that wont start so me and my buddies help them. Most of my friends are real good guys but most of them are wanna be country, and plowboys.

It is amazing the amount of kids that drive that don't know squat about the vehicle that there driving.

I just try to do my best to help people.
 
Quick question, didn't it used to be "buickanddeere", with the "and" in between. I saw you still abbreviated b&d. Tryin to keep my names straight...
 
Got a call from my daughter the other day, Dr. Beth - She and her sister had met at a public parking lot, left one car and then went shopping. When they got back, second daughters car had a flat. "You"d have been proud of your girls, you taught us right." Took the two of them just a few minutes to change the tire, and on their way. I was both girls" driver ed teacher! And yes, we covered changing a tire!
 
Sigh....................yes.
I don't know what my computer is thinking but it no longer auto fills my user name correctly into the space. Trusting fool I am and rarely double checking. Posts too often are set loose with the wrong name.
The name maybe misspelled but I'll try to maintain my chipper cheerful manner.
 
I think I knew the same guys...you could smell 'em a mile away, but they got more out of a shade tree, a block and tackle, and a Taiwan socket set than a lot of "alleged'mechanics did out of a box full of expensive tools.
 
Ray, did they do it with the jack that came with the vehicle or did you give them a jack that works? Hats off to them if they did it with the stock jack.
 
Daughter was always interested in getting under the car. She was under it blowing spit bubbles and screeching before she could walk or talk while I was working on the transmission. She did almost all her own repairs as soon as she first owned a vehicle. My son on the other hand thought he was more elite and that he should just drive the cars and not stoop to take care of any maintenance on them. Forty years have passed and they have not changed a bit. When he has trouble with his junk wheels while she just shakes her head.
 


A couple of months ago, our daughter was driving back to DC one Sunday evening after visiting friends in Maryland when a pickup truck with a couple of guys in it pulled up beside her and kept pointing at her right front tire. Amy has too many street smarts to fall for something like that, so she just kept on driving.

The guys fell back, and pretty soon came up beside her again, gesturing more urgently at her front tire. Again she ignored them. Pretty soon the guys dropped back, made an illegal U-turn, and went back the other way.

With predators like that on the prowl, I agree, no young female should be working on her own car anywhere but her own driveway or garage even if she's capable of it.
 
No, we know that not all guys are that dumb, it's just that when we grew up, there were not ANY that dumb, unless they rode the short bus.


gene
 
Got a suggestion for a birthday or Christmas present for all involved: A GOOD portable booster pack with a air compressor also built in to it. Teach them how to hook it up to the battery. Even if it would be too low to fire the engine, at least they know where to hook the cables. The POSITIVE connection may very well be a LONG ways from the battery, as is or should be the NEGATIVE. Most if not all newer cars have a remote hook up away from the battery. Not going to help much if cable has corroded at battery, but that is going to take a little more time to educate them. Good pair of Vice Grips and a pocket knife can work miracles if you know how to use them, even if it means cutting the bad cable and clamping direct with the grips. But, not going to go that far into basic jumper training. DOUG
 
Exactly why your generation will never have any money and a large credit card bill. Why raise a garden when I can go to the supermarket , maybe I won't get the imported lettuce/srawberries/tomatoes watered from the sewer.
 
My college boy son called last week and said he and his girl were looking at a 97' Subaru Legacy for sale over in college town. He's been hinting that he's getting tired of driving his DAD supplied F-150 shortbox and wants to get something more economical to run (think his girl is talking there). So I told him he would likely realize 27 or 28 MPG instead of the 16 or 17 MPG he's now getting when he drives the truck 4 or 5 miles a week. But his savings will quickly be offset by HIS payments on the Subaru, HIS licensing costs, HIS insurance costs and HIS repair costs. I own the F-150 and as long as he finishes college and drives that truck, I'll cover the costs except for gas. He's on his own with anything I don't own. I think some economics 101 came rushing back to him.
 
Your right, but in our society right now, as long as your good at one particular thing, you can make money. Most people do not know how to do much outside of their job.

Without a doubt knowing car maintenance keeps your vehicle up and running far better. Also knowing a little something about mechanics can help keep you from getting ripped off by dishonest mechanics, which especially happens if they think they can get away with it.

I honestly have no clue how most of my generation is going to turn out. I know in studies done in things like mathmatical abilities and such, America is NOWHERE near the top of the list, seems the AVERAGE American has troubles with basic math. I"ve got to admit, at the college I go to, most people hate math. As for me, I can"t wait until Fall to take Pre-Calculus.

external_link wants to make college more affordable to get America more competitive with the global economy. Thats going to be no easy task since I think the standards have been getting lower and lower as time passes. In an attempt to get more kids through high school, the standards have been lowered. Even in college you can get a degree in something stupid for an easy way out that really doesn"t train you for a whole lot. Did you know you can get college credit for guitar lessons, or even dance classes? Yep, its true.
 
Yes it can happen. I saw one blow up all by itself just a few min after the girl shut the car off. Another time a friend of mine was driving home with another guy after work at 2 AM and the lights stated flickering and acting weird so he pulled over raised the hood just in time for the battery to blow up and it did get in his eyes. The one guy took the one with the battery acid in his face and they ran up to the house that was right there and banged on the door until someone woke up. Turned out it was a Doctor who lived there! Talk about luck! His eye sight was saved.
 
seen that many times, father wants to raise kids, "mother" wants alimony so she can go back to having fun, judges usually agree with the female.
 
(quoted from post at 15:15:43 03/01/09)In my day, those kids could have hot wired that car, much less jumped it! Who'd a thought?
Click to expand...

The ones here that could hotwire the car would have done it and been gone long before the lights had a chance to run down the battery :roll:

Some people just don't learn. You have master mechanics here that their job is to drive around and wait on a call. You pay 100 bucks a year
( family price unlimited cars)and someone will be there within an hour to take care of you. If it can't be repaired, you get towed, a rental car, hotel, etc (you pay the garage bill yourself). Not a lot of incentive to learn.

Neighbor kid (not a kid anymore) works at Mercedes. Done his full apprentiship and test to get his Meisterbrief (highest certification you can get so I'm told). I asked him about something on my volkswagon and he said he only new Mercedes....... Somehow, I believe him..

Dave
 
That pocket knife and vise grips brought back some memories. Must have been 25 years ago got a call from my dad about midnight to go see if I could help my brother get his car going. Dad lived on the farm 20 miles from town and my brother still lived at home then. I was living in town and dad had to get up early never wanted to make to trip to town.
It was my brothers car battery cable end real dirty. Cleaned it good but was so bad was no way that bolt would tighten. So clamped the vise grips down on the end, that made a tight connection. Was good enough to get him home.
I have a socket set with screw driver ends, vice grips, a coat hanger, booster cables and small compressor in both my van and 3/4 ton.
Might be over kill but over the years have found these things can help me or somebody else out of a jam.
 
The truth is it happens very seldom.
I"ve seen one blow in my life, and I"ve been charging/jumping vehicles, from 6 to 12 to 24 volt, for 30 years.
 
(quoted from post at 18:44:30 03/01/09) or drive yourself to work in it.
Click to expand...

That's not entirely true. We have two folks in our office the totally telecommute. One is local and one lives down in Texas. You can drive yourself to work with a computer these days....


Though it does depend on the type of work.
 
Ya' Vern... You deffinately got that right,I never saw many of those Factory supplied Jacks that were worth a Cuss!You didn't have much with them. LOL! Larry KF4LKU
 
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