Equipped for the Future

My husband recently bought an older Buick, with a lot of miles on it.  He wanted something cheap to drive to and from work, that would get much better gas mileage than his pickup.  It's a 2003 Century with well over 100K miles.  But, it is quite a bit newer than his pickup; it's a 1997 GMC with nearly 200K miles on it.

The "new" Buick is in good shape for it's age, but it needed a tune-up.  It's lived a lot of its life on a ranch, so has spent quite a bit of time on dirt roads.  This means there is dirt packed pretty much into every nook and cranny possible, and some that you would think impossible!  My husband does a lot of his own mechanic work, which comes in very handy, and over the years, he's had our daughter helping him work on various things.  So, yesterday, he rounded her up, and they got to work.

They pulled the wheels off and cleaned out a huge amount of packed in mud and rocks.  They cleaned and painted some areas inside the wheel wells that were scraped up and beginning to rust.  They checked the brakes to see if they needed replaced, but they are fine.  The spark plugs were changed, which was a very good thing, because several of them were worn almost down to nothing.  There were other things they did as well, but these are the things I know of for sure.  My daughter did a lot of the work with her dad watching and giving instruction.  My dad had me help him do things like this with our cars when I was a kid, and the memories of what I learned, and the time spent with him, are some of my fondest.

Pulling spark plugs

My little grease monkey

I think it's great that our daughter is getting some valuable training for when she has a car of her own. It is comforting to know she'll be able to do things like take care of a flat tire, do a tune-up, or change the oil if she wants to.  She's becoming better equipped for her future.