What have you learned in your old age that you feel should be taught to high school students?

Yeah, but that's not CITY! It snowed in Los Angeles in 1949 (I was sick and couldn't go out to play in it) and in some year possibly in the 80s in Pasadena. Novelty. It snows up in the mountains, of course, but that's not MY problem!

When I was little they would light smudge pots in the orange orchards when a freeze was expected. They looked like little round black bombs. Then people started worrying about smog...

Once had a fuel pump internal gasket go bad on an early 70's Dodge which pumped gasoline all over the engine with every rotation of its cam shaft.

The fuel spurted out of a perfectly formed hole about 1/4" in diameter. I was ignorant that they're designed to do that.

I couldn't at first figure out what had failed since it seemed someone drilled a quarter inch hole in the top of the mechanical fuel pump.

Drove that thing to the auto parts store with the fuel leaking all over. If that's not stupidity added to ignorance, I don't know what else is.

Nowadays I'm happy for electrical fuel pumps sitting in the fuel tank.

That should start a religious war... The metallurgy did change for newer vehicles but there are endless discussions about whether pre-unleaded engines will be destroyed by unleaded gas. The thing to keep in mind is a lot of those engines weren't known for valve longevity even with leaded gas. I've done valve jobs on engines where the valves and seats looked like the gates of hell long before leaded gas was taken off the market.

Also, a lot of people swore by Amoco Super Premium which was unleaded decades before unleaded was cool.

I bought my 2013 Corolla in 2016. It now has 33K miles on the odo. I may be buried in it. It does have a chronic problem with one tire -- every month or so the pressure drops down to 24 psi and I have to pump it up. Dealer has no clue. Original tires are still good, although the dealer keeps trying to convince me that they need replacement. I've NEVER had to replace a tire because of sidewall problems ("See that checking? Dangerous..." -- which includes my 30-YO Dunlop motorcycle tire which still held air when I sent my 1960 Ducati off to the dealer as a free gift.

They were smooth and shiny and a kind of gunmetal grey color. How could anything that pretty be made of pot metal?

I always liked Protos. They were just beautiful and the pliers were designed to NOT pinch your hand if you were careless.

iirc the Audi had bolts. That apple didn't fall far from the tree. I have to assume Audi has improved a lot since 1971.

Haunt estate sales. That's where we bought most of our tools. Last new Craftsman socket (10mm, all lost) let me peel its chrome off with my thumbnail.

BUT on a couple of my walks in the last year I FOUND 10mm sockets. One deep Craftsman 3/8" and a regular 3/8 of unknown brand. Karma.

I don't know. I don't think I have any left but there was a Montgomery Wards store where I grew up and their PowerKraft line also had a lifetime guarantee. Sears was a late-comer and mail order but Wards was a distribution point with merchandise on the floor.

They would replace a 'defective' 1/2 ratchet knowing full well 4' of pipe and a frozen nut had something to do with the 'defect'.

If that was true, how do you account for the Texas Republican abortion laws?

You just make up stuff to suite your agenda at the moment.

That’s what 'Arlen' always does.

You lucked out. Long before a lot of the counter help was recruited from the local sheltered workshop I went in to buy some Packard 440 to build a new set of plug wires. I got a blank look so I explained as well as I could. The kid came back with a spool of vacuum hose. Well, it was black and 1/4" in diameter so two out of three wasn't bad.

It's O'Reilly's now but it went through a few other names. There was a woman behind the counter that I always sought out. She could have starred in 'My Cousin Vinny'. The guys were hit and miss,, mostly miss. I went in one time for a carburetor rebuild kit and gave the guy the vehicle and engine information. I read the box on the way out of the store and did a u-turn. I thought it highly unlikely a F150 would have a Rochester carb.

iirc toward the end Sears had a line of cheaper tools with a very limited warranty. Black & Decker did the same thing before they completely turned to crap.

The lug nut attaches to a stud.

And sometimes it's an informed decision... Pull the Keihin jug or pour a slug of SeaFoam into the tank and see what happens. No more sputtering, decision loop complete.

1985 or 1986 in Pasadena. Flurries made it down to Colorado Blvd, but the actual snow level (on Mt. Wilson) where the snow stuck around for any amount of time was about 100 ft higher than Pasadena's Hasting's Ranch neighborhood. I could see the snow from my office, at the time.

Yeah, I'm starting to have a little deja vu all over again.

Anything you want to, apparently. The bold print says 'Dorman AutoGrade M12-1.50 Thread Wheel Lug Bolt' and the fine print says 'M12-1.50 Serrated Wheel Stud;'

fwiw, I would call everything on that page studs. Lug nuts thread on to them. otoh, bolts are male, nuts are female. There are no other genders afaik.

Yeah. That's it. Nothing fancy. The principle is the same whether it's a permanent magnet or if it's a coil of wire energized by the battery.

That's my point. Nothing has fundamentally changed since the 1950s for home auto repair.

My editorial is that anyone who claims they changed is usually someone who doesn't (and never did) understand them, since the mechanics is the same.

I haven't had an all-electric (or even hybrid) though, so since I'm ignorant about them, I won't say whether they (finally) change things fundamentally.

The minor stuff some people talked about (such as fuel injection replacing carbs) usually made things easier.

Most of these people who never understood cars in the first place are the ones who claim they can't work on them because they're "computerized", which is just complete nonsense, imho.

Just as the most ignorant people on the "vaccine" are the ones telling everyone else what they should do, the most ignorant on cars are the ones who are saying that they've changed so much that they can't work on them.

All they're really telling us is they can't work on cars, and that's OK. But it's not the car's fault.

The new toothed belts have pretty much made a crowbar to tension the V belt obsolete.

The ultralight people tend towards 2 strokes because of the weight requirements. 2 strokes need more maintenance and are more finicky in general, plus they often have a very narrow power band. What works on a KTM dirt bike may not be the greatest thing at 1000' AGL.

Raven is a company that offered conversion kits for the Geo engines which drove their popularity. The engines are getting harder to find so Raven has moved on to the Honda Jazz/Fit engine.

Rotax makes purpose built aircraft engines but they're pricier. BMW used a Rotax single in their F650 but went to a 800cc parallel twin but confused everybody by still calling it a F650. Last I knew they were back to the original Rotax design but it's built in China now rather than Austria.

It's a 4 stroke, water cooled engine. A lot of bikes have gone to water cooled or at least liquid cooled. It adds complexity but is more reliable for cooling. For example my DR650 has a radiator but it's oil cooled and doesn't require an additional water pump. The V-Strom is straight water cooled.

The new Harley engine uses both oil and water. Another plus for Harley is the cooling jacket reduces engine noise. Being a federal agency the regulations are complex but a motorcycle has to be 80dB or below, but that's total noise, engine, drive train, and exhaust. Reduce the engine noise with water cooling and the drive train noise with belt drive and you have a little more room for allowing the exhaust to sound like a Harley.