Deferred maintance blues

Ok, grew up with a Dad that I would describe as an angry mechanic. Awesome guy, you just didn't want to hang around the garage when he was wrenching.

So I was like 95% of Americans and clueless about car maintance. In my teens and early 20's I got oil changes at Jiffy Lube or an equally worse place 2-3 times a year no matter if that was 5k, 8k, or in some cases 12k+ miles since the last change. Got new tires when my old ones failed inspection and only took the car to a mechanic when it had to be towed there.

Got better in my late 20's but without a garage and knowledge of what needed to be done and stealerships being expensive for any work, maintance was still short of what it should have been.

Now in my mid 30's and with a garage to actually work in I am slowly overcoming all of that diferred maintence on my 4 cars totaling just shy of 500k miles and it's driving me up a wall but I'm also loving that I'm learning so much.

While I have picked up mechanics books for my cars and used my Google-fu as best I can you guys have also been a big source of help and I just wanted to say thanks.

I have to say that my dad was OK. Not the most friendly guy to me but everywhere I went with him, when I did, he was always greeted with a smile by those who knew him. AS for working on cars I can remember watching him work on our 1950 Mercury, then the 1960 Rambler. It was just maintenance stuff like tune ups, oil changes, etc. The one thing I remember is my dad always dumped the old oil in the alley behind out garage or down the storm drain. (We lived in the city then.) Not the correct thing to do but those were different times. I wouldn't even consider doing anything like that today.

I went far beyond what my dad would do automotive wise but that's not to say he didn't know about engines, etc. he just didn't have time to "play" with them like I have, what with a wife, 3 kids, and a house to take care of.

What is your strategy, to "finish" one car at a time, or to work on them all simultaneously? With my car, what I have found most helpful is a white board where I can break up the work into a series of small jobs, and most importantly, have the satisfaction of crossing items off the list.

My father worked for the dealership most my life.

"I hate people, I hate cars, and I hate people that drive cars." - Dad

He would work on my cars when he had to because he didn't want me to go into the same line of work. I didn't. Now that he feels I won't, he is happy to give me all the tips he can. He is very helpful, but I have turned to GRM many times when I want other help. During my early 20's I learned a lot and am now where I am although I still make silly mistakes.

Not only has my knowledge increased, but I have been able to have so much fun thanks to so many of these guys.

GRM and GRM forums make up so many great poeples.

i second the white board (during the winter or on rainy weekends during the rest of the year i even do spreadsheets). I also do service scheduling on them so that if a parts vendor has a sale on something that will need to be done in the next few months i know what to pick up while stuff is on the cheap.

In reply to captdownshift:

I'm the type that would buy a whiteboard, then just say "berkeley that" and never put it up/write on it.....

I learned alot from helping dad work on farm machinery.....he never used to do his own maintence on vehicles. I do most of my own.

Mitchell wrote: What is your strategy, to "finish" one car at a time, or to work on them all simultaneously?

Well, my dd has 100k, my wife's is between 65-70k, then my two track toys are 150k+.

I am going to "finish" my dd as I had put off quite a bit. Fortunately I am most of the way through and no huge surprises.

Then I think I will take your advice on a checklist as I don't want to let my wife's maintenance get away from me but I still need to do some things to get the Maliboo ready for the track.

Miata is burning oil (haven't decided to fix, rebuild, or run engine into ground then get crate engine as I want to supercharge down the road) but otherwise up to date and not a priority due to extremely low miles put on per year, my boat needs plugs and fluids changed and could use a Seafoaming but considering my local lake had a sewage spill in it recently I won't be doing as much boating as the next closest lake is much further away.

The hard part though is making myself do the boring maintenance before the fun go fast mods.

Fr3AkAzOiD wrote: Ok, grew up with a Dad that I would describe as an angry mechanic. Awesome guy, you just didn't want to hang around the garage when he was wrenching.

For some reason, the scene I'm picturing is downright hilarious. Probably due to the string of explicatives that leave my garage almost every time I'm in there.

Our stories are similar in the sense that I didn't really learn to work on my own stuff until I was out on my own. My dad was a DIY guy when it came to the homestead, but he didn't really touch anything under the hood by the time I was born. In turn, there weren't many opportunities to learn real maintenance unless I created them myself. Buying a 20 year old sports car solved that.

I guess I'm just saying I can relate. Learning stuff the hard way on your own equipment is simultaneously worrisome, frustrating, and immensely satisfying.