Dad told me that one day "this" car would be mine if I helped him every time he had to work on it. From age 5 up, I was underneath handing wrenches, scraping grease, etc... Built mower engines from parts (for fun) and did all the auto care at home. Was not brand-frenzied on oil, just reasonable about maint intervals. My 'rents bought stripped-level cars and drove them into the ground. They'd get freebies from grandparents and drive these g-awful beaters into the ground. Dad was a Dr. and they wouldn't let him park some of them in the hospital parking lot because they looked so bad. I respect that he didn't fit the norm - many (not all) docs in my hometown always drove the newest, nicest, and lived in the biggest, nicest... There was pressure to conform to that, I suspect.
Anyways, we didn't live in the best part of town... it was nice enough, but, very near some very bad parts. One day we are driving through one of the nicest parts of town. I'm looking at the monster houses, beautiful cars in the driveway. Our windows are down b/c there's no A/C. I said, "I'll bet these people don't do their own car work, you know, repairs, oil changes." Dad says something like, "Then it would surprise you to know just how many people out here have done it and how many likely still do." I was very quiet at that point. It made sense in a way I hadn't considered, and I felt a little bad about judging by appearances.
Sometime around then I started paying a bit more attention. When I finally found myself in a nicer, newer vehicle, a '97 legacy 2.2 wagon, I really started to pay attention to what went in it. I'll tell you this, 10k mile OCIs on Mobil 1 10w30 and that engine was shiney-spotless inside at 100k miles.
M
