Having a non-car person other half - the things they do.

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Atlanta, GA
So other half is not a car person outside of they like to admire cars and drive but knowing the mechanical aspect is about zero. We typically take my car (EV) during weekend driving to save gas so I don't really ride in the GLI too terribly often.

This morning was our first below freezing day and we hop in, other half starts the car and immediately starts revving it to 4500-5000 RPM. :oops: I said "What are you doing, you know thats not good for the engine!" Response was - "Well its cold." I left it at that as its not worth an argument - other half is 100% responsible for all costs/maintenance of the GLI so it is what it is, they can redline it from a cold start as they please. Don't even get me started on the use of the clutch to hold the car at a stoplight, I attempted to educate on that years ago with no luck.

Being a car person with other half not a car person is a tricky balance. :ROFLMAO:
 
my elderly Mother has a Cruze with the little turbo. She still starts it while pushing the gas pedal halfway down..revs the crap out of it at start up and then immediately puts it in gear and guns it. Nothing I say changes this...so...oh, well..
 
Not an 'other half' story, but amusing. My other half is an SVP in the auto industry and heads out and buys herself vehicles like the Golf R and Wrangler, did driving schools in the 911 so....

Mom used to drive with the heat off to save gas....like turning the heat down on the house. We didn't have a lot back in the day. Dad and I tried explaining the situation, but I am not sure the concept was ever completely understood. Many cold rides in the old Country Squire...🥶...good days though.

Many years later I gave them my BMW and explained the climate control 'Auto' setting; "..comfortable? Good, leave it!"
 
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I have two sisters and two brothers.
Luckily, my dad was into old Pontiac's when we were growing up and even my sisters helped tinker on my dads LeMans, Grand Prix's, GTO's.. While my sisters could care less about fixing cars and dumb stuff that bother members here like CVT's and direct injection, they can at least put a spare tire on, check and add fluids, replace wiper blades and replace a burned out bulb.
 
I have two sisters and two brothers.
Luckily, my dad was into old Pontiac's when we were growing up and even my sisters helped tinker on my dads LeMans, Grand Prix's, GTO's.. While my sisters could care less about fixing cars and dumb stuff that bother members here like CVT's and direct injection, they can at least put a spare tire on, check and add fluids, replace wiper blades and replace a burned out bulb.
I have to think they are comprehensively the better for it.
 
Assuming Your Experiences Match Mine Department:
Don't forget the incredibly stupid or pugnacious faces they make when you point something out to them.

I realize "stupid" and "pugnacious" are harsh words.....but they're the ones reacting like threatened children who are incapable of listening.

^This (bolded) is the response I usually get when trying to point things out. :ROFLMAO:
 
My old high school buddy would floor his 66 Pontiac LeMans in low gear with a power-glide to warm the engine up faster in the winter. He would hold it at about 70 mph and keep it in low gear. It's amazing how much abuse vehicles will take without totally ruining them.
 
My Dad had a '99 Sebring convertible, short tripped it to death, loved to shift from reverse to drive as it was still rolling backwards, and it got an oil change maybe every other year when I harped on him to get it done or when I took it in. One of the worst production cars made in recent history was totally abused, and it ran no problem when we gave it to someone in need in 2018 with 85k miles on it (although it did have a pesky electrical bug).

Oh yeah, when he bought it in 2001, it was a rental car and had like 15k miles on it, so who knows what sort of fresh h-e-double hockey sticks it went through prior to him getting his hands on it...

And one more thing...every time he hit something (usually an inanimate object at idle speed), he'd spray paint the area to cover it up.
 
I remember my mom doing that with her Escort Wagon when I was a little kid, revving it up before leaving on a cold morning so it would warm up faster and the heater would work faster.

She did shortly after blow the engine in that car so 🤷‍♂️
 
It's amazing how much more one learns about their spouse/partner after tying the knot, even if you were together for a long time prior to formalizing it. We must have some sort of selective comprehension that accepts the good stuff and suppresses the bad stuff. I've been in to it for 45 years. One must have the resolve of both the deep rooted mighty oak and the bendy willow/reed.
 
my wife likes extremes, she using AC or Heat all the time around house and inside the car; I like just pleasant, I do not use AC or Heat much at all; we have combined finances, only one account that pays for everything if that matters;

However, she starts the heat all the time right upfront when the car is cold; very hard for her to understand, the heat does not work that way!
 
My wife would run one gear down in her manual car to get car heat working faster. She drove it gently cold but kept engine revving higher . Her point was excellent it ran higher RPM on cold start and she was doing the same.

Car lasted with major engine issues 14yrs/240k miles.
 
However, she starts the heat all the time right upfront when the car is cold; very hard for her to understand, the heat does not work that way!
Back when I had saturns I left the fan on 1 or 2 on cold days, because 3 or 4 sucked too much heat away from the motor. Wife would switch it to blast and within 15 seconds the air would turn tepid.
 
So other half is not a car person outside of they like to admire cars and drive but knowing the mechanical aspect is about zero. We typically take my car (EV) during weekend driving to save gas so I don't really ride in the GLI too terribly often.

This morning was our first below freezing day and we hop in, other half starts the car and immediately starts revving it to 4500-5000 RPM. :oops: I said "What are you doing, you know thats not good for the engine!" Response was - "Well its cold." I left it at that as its not worth an argument - other half is 100% responsible for all costs/maintenance of the GLI so it is what it is, they can redline it from a cold start as they please. Don't even get me started on the use of the clutch to hold the car at a stoplight, I attempted to educate on that years ago with no luck.

Being a car person with other half not a car person is a tricky balance. :ROFLMAO:
Well, maybe it's the way you say it that encourages resistance.

Sometimes you have to put the instruction into a context that's relatable. When I was married, my wife insisted on having the station attendant fill her tank. No matter how many times I told her that she could save money by doing it herself, it didn't "sink in." Now some background. At the time, she was taking an aerobics class every morning at a cost of about $5.00 per class. One day, instead of telling her that she'd save $$$ by pumping the gas herself, I tried a different approach. I told her that every time she filled up and pumped the gas herself, she'd get a free aerobics class. She never, ever, had an attendant do it again, even when we traveled.

I had a lady friend in Tel Aviv who was taking instruction to learn to drive. She would always mash the accelerator when starting so that a smooth start was impossible. Her instructor told her numerous times to be gentle, but it did not "sink in." She related her situation to me as she really wanted to get a driving license. I told her to pretend that there was a raw egg under the accelerator pedal. It didn't take long for her to get the hang of making a smooth start.

Same sort of thing with my Grandpa Jack. I was teaching him how to drive in 1962, and he was absolutely awful behind the wheel. He handled the car roughly, on and off the gas abruptly, herky-jerky turns, and so on. Grandpa was a man with little education and experience. He came to this country as a boy of 11 or 12 in the early 1900s. He got a job working for a fellow who had a produce market, and that was pretty much what he knew ... produce. One day, instead of trying to be forceful with him, I blurted out that he should treat the car like a ripe peach. I could almost hear the machinery in his head start to work, and he got the concept. Over the next week or so his driving improved tremendously.

Look, I'm not a smart guy, and I don't mean to disparage your attempts, but with many people (men, women, and children) you've got to explain certain things in a way that they can grasp the concepts. For example, I'm pretty much a dunce when it comes to understanding electricity, and how it works. Many people have given me technical details using terms like amps and watts and whatever-all-else is used to explain the subject. One day someone used the example of water going through a garden hose to explain some of the terms, and the light inside my head went on, albeit dimly. I'm still a dummy wrt electricity, but I'm not as ignorant as I'd been before.

Please guys, try finding some relatable context to help your "better halves" understand the points you're trying to get across.
 
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