Having a basic idea of how a car/engine works. Most people waste so much money on basic repairs they could just do themselves. Feels like majority of folks couldn’t even put on their spare tire. Plus, mechanic is job that less and less people are willing to do over time so the cost of their labour will only keep getting worse
Some of this just isn’t worth the time or effort. Time is money, and sometimes it’s cheaper and easier to pay for warrantied work rather than do it yourself.
I can pay someone to change the oil and the oil filter and it takes them 15 minutes. I don’t enjoy doing it and it’s worth the money for me to pay someone else to do it. I don’t have to crawl under the car, or gather all the parts, or get filthy, or worry about disposing of the used oil properly.
Oil change is one of the things not worth doing yourself, agree
This only applies if having a car is a requirement in your city/country tho. Nothing could be more useless for me than car knowledge.
I mean, this isn’t helped by the odd proprietary bolt patterns and specialty OBD communications required by some brands.
My wifes car has a bad pcv system, turns out it’s built into the valve cover and intake manifold so instead of unbolting a part and putting the new one on I have to take apart a heafty amount of the engine to fix what should be a basic repair.
I drive a golf and can’t even change my battery without updating my ecu to readapt to the new battery. If I don’t it starts frying sensors and the alternator because of voltage irregularities. Have to have the $80 dongle with the yearly subscription to access the necessary code input.
Car companies over the past decade have built cars that are harder and harder to maintain yourself. I don’t blame people for not knowing how to do some of the basic stuff when that basic stuff has become more complex, expensive, and unreasonably difficult for the layman to parse.
My dad has ran an auto repair shop for 40 years and it stopped being any sort of fun like 15 years ago.
That’s not even the biggest problem though. It’s customers and their entitlement. Worse every year.
Parts took longer to ship than promised? Mechanics fault
Car needs to go to the dealer? Mechanics fault
Something plastic piece broke on your car during disassembly because it was designed to break? Mechanics fault
Job supposed to be 10 hours labour but took you 15 because it’s not easy? Guess you just lost money helping someone cuz you have to eat the cost of those 5 hours
I’m like a few year older the driving age and I don’t even have a driver’s license 💀
I feel like I’m being called out 🥲
Depends where you live, maybe your life is just fine without it
Swimming, it’ll save your life
Yeah I know multiple adults who can’t swim, and I occasionally ask them if they’ve learned yet.
Yeah. I’m amazed at how many people do not know how to swim.
I remember seeing this video of two indian(?) guys drowning in a pond literally 2 meters from the shore. I mean… If I knew I couldn’t swim I wouldn’t go anywhere near water. It could just as well be lava.
For something very relevant to health: cooking, knowing how to measure food, and how to read a nutrition label. Obesity would be much less common if people were able to cook their own food more often, and knew how to actually measure out accurate portion sizes.
I totally get that time, upfront costs like cookware, and access to decent ingredients are MAJOR factors in whether or not someone can learn how to cook, but anyone can and should know how to read a nutrition label and know how to measure accurate portion sizes for the things they eat. If you are trying to lose weight or work on healthy habits, a food scale is infinitely more valuable than a body weight scale. Most people do not know what 28g of chips looks like.
Listening and empathy. Putting themselves in others’ shoes instead of just seeing/speaking/thinking about I, me and myself.
Reading a map.
GPS is great & all, but I know people that if you put a paper map in front of them they’re still lost because they can’t correlate the map with reality.
I can read a map (and hate letting the car navigate) but map has to be aligned with the world. Before the cell phone, I used to spread the map out on the ground, with north pointing north.
Thank you! You know what you need to do to make things work, and you’re not one of the people who think “North” = “The direction I’m facing”
Proof reading what they post.
Looking at you OP :P
Yeh, I’ll concede that I’m shitty at typing on my phone. Fixed.
Aren’t we all mate.
Correcting autocorrect can get exhausting sometimes. It seems to get worse over time instead of improving.
Manners.
It’s true. Habitually saying “please.” thank you," “hello” to people can open a lot of doors. Also, it’s just amazing in an awful way just how many people are not doing this.
Integrity.
How to turn greenhouse gasses into pure drinking water. I wish I knew how to do that.
Understand and knowledge that they are not an island. That the things they do, even if they believe it only affects them, affects those around them.
Listening (to one another).
Driving. Most people know how to operate a vehicle, but a lot don’t know how to actually drive properly.
And yet the state gives them a license to drive. And doesn’t bother enforcing traffic laws. To me that’s the real problem.
Critical thinking: We would be in a better world if more people were capable of it.
Working with your hands and tools. It’s amazing how far it can take you and how much money you can make and/or save by DIY’ing things around your home with some basic skills. Like there are people that will pay $100 for something easy like mounting a TV when it’s a few minutes of finding studs and screwing down the bracket.
Then as things progress and you get more comfortable, you can start helping friends and doing side work. I’ve been doing industrial electrical for 10 years now, I’m gonna be re-wiring a whole house from the ground up in July
Basic it skills
