Hmmmmm, a fellow Blogger asked me recently to blog on Car Maintenance. I know I am in this automotive maintenance line for donkey years on and off. Being in the automotive maintenance line, the knowledge gained does not stop after the course as it is essential to keep oneself as updated as possible on latest automotive maintenance techniques and new technologies. Cars are ever changing, going from mechanical to electrical to electronic with lots of electronic components as part of the overall system to keep the engine and other parts ticking away smoothly. Basically the cars nowadays are run by computers. I am a bit behind this as I came off this line way back in the mid 2000s though I did continue to do minor maintenance work on and off for friends, relatives and of course my own cars. I tried to keep myself as updated as possible though.
Maybe I should give it, this car maintenance matters, a go in my blog, to generate some interests in whoever visits my blog and which may be a help to them in similar situations or to help sort out their problems or just learn a thing or two. I guess we have to share our experiences with the rest of the world, if not, to give back to society, to whom we belong. We are living among human after all.
I may give advices or suggestions to the best of my knowledge and through my experience as an automotive technician and hope there are others who have similar experiences, can share with me and those following my blog.
Disclaimer: I do have to point out, though, that I cannot guarantee the information given by me or other drop-in volunteers, will work for your individual cases because some analysis will need the actual testings, hearing, seeing and even feeling for proper diagnosis. But with the general information presented, you should be able to understand your vehicle problems more clearly and thus not easily fleeced by workshop operators. A word of caution when referring your vehicle to workshops for repair. NEVER EVER tell them what is wrong or what to change, even if you feel you are right. Just tell them about the problems. It is THEIR job to analyse / diagnose, inform you of the intended repair and get your approval to do whatever necessary to get your pride and joy working smoothly again. After all, you are paying for their professional consultation and actual repair work itself, besides cost of spares.
OK, now maybe I should give a background on how it all started for me.
I was, like most teenagers way back in the 1960s, maybe late 1960s, curious about things around them. I was just slightly mechanically inclined back then. I will tell you why I decided to go into this line.
My dad used to be a weekend tinkerer on his own cars. He knew enough to do simple servicing like cleaning contact points, checking engine oil levels, fuses and some electrical items on his cars. He was more in the electronic line as he used to do repairs on electronic stuff, like radios, record players, commercial jukeboxes where you have to insert coins to play music and songs of your choice. That time we did not have transistors but big vacuum tubes, a bulb like thingy which later evolved into transistors which we know today. Those were the days.
Anyway, I used to watch him doing stuff on his cars and he tried his best to explain to me what he was doing. Of course I had no clue. Hey! I was a teenager then and I was not expected to have interest in this kind of stuff. The more I watched the more I get interested. Hmmm, to me, getting things to work when they stop working seemed interesting. I slowly started to be curious about stuff then, mostly mechanical stuff.
One day, he asked me, albeit casually (as if I know what to do), to clean the "contact points". No problem! I started removing some parts and start looking for the "contact point" to clean. Hmmm, Hey, they looked different. Where are they? I could not find anything similar which I had seen when he was doing it. Then, ..... He came over after a while and to his horror, Oooooophs!!!! I have removed the wrong parts and no wonder I did not see anything familiar. He looked at me. I guess he must be thinking, "Boy, you still have a lot to learn"!. Period! Finally he pointed out to me where the darned thing was. Whew.......
Yes, I did finally learn more about where to look for the "contact points" over time. Then came the "destruction" stage I had to go through to learn more about anything mechanical about cars, maybe out of curiosity. Maybe....
I used to have a small collection of model cars, those metal diecast models from Corgi, Matchbox, Dinky, Solido with scales from 1:70 to 1:24 I think. What I would do was to pry them open to see the insides. Yes, I did destroy some of my precious collection back then, but then, I learned something about how those tiny parts were assembled and how they worked. Then I started modifying those poor diecast models. The rest was history.
After completing my Senior Cambridge (yes, those were the days where SPM did not exist then) in 1970, I joined this technical institute in Kuching to take up a 3-Year full time course in Automotive Engineering. That was where I learned more in details about car maintenance. We had to learn the theory part, on the various components that made up the car and how they worked with each other, an essential part of the learning process so we can understand what went wrong if any component breaks down and be able to diagnose the faults correctly. Over the next 2 to 3 years, my interest grew so much that I knew this was going to be my bread and butter job in the future years ahead.
I learned fast and furious to get whatever knowledge I could get from the instructors and from technical books. I achieved Distinctions for the subjects in City and Guilds examinations as a reward. That was way back in 1973. Yes, I admit I am old now but still functioning quite normally.
Towards end of that year, Sarawak Shell Berhad recruiters came over to Kuching to recruit vehicle mechanics for their pool of company cars, motorcycles, tractors, vans and trucks. We went through, if i recalled correctly, 2 stages of interviews by different interviewers and told to wait for the results in a week or 2.
Tick tock, tick tock, time passed and we were all anxiously waiting for the results. Finally the results came. They only selected 2 out of more than 30 from our batch. I was one of the lucky 2. The other one, my classmate missed the opportunity because he did not receive the appointment letter as he has gone back to his kampong in another place. I went over to Miri to work in the company in 1974. The rest was history. While still in the same company, I only left the automotive line in 1988 where I joined the offshore maintenance team to do offshore maintenance work, still mechanical in nature though.
However, after office hours, during weekends and holidays I still did car maintenance for friends, relatives, friends' friends and sometimes strangers who has heard about my service, even my bosses' private cars. I charged them for the service of course. Hey! I got to feed my family and to compensate them for the time I spent on the cars instead of quality time with them.
As the years went by, I continued to do that in order to keep myself updated on the later model cars that came into the market. That was the most enriching experience of my life.
Now, over here in JB and due to space constraints I cannot do major work on my own cars. I still tinker with minor ones though. I leave the major ones done at nearby workshops as they have the necessary equipment to handle them. (I sold off my equipment which I have back then when I migrated to JB end 2008).
Well, that is how it started. Next ..........
