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No Shame In Not Being A 'Car Guy'
I am not a "car guy." I just never have been one to tinker under the hood. I'm not ashamed of not being a car guy. I would rather pay someone to do that and then scowl at the labor charge when they hand me the bill.
I think it might be a bit of a genetic thing. My dad was not much of a car guy when I was growing up. He'd just do the automotive basics. Oil. Air filter. Tires when they were flat. Anything much more complicated required the services of a mechanic. I always thought this was unusual considering that dad was a machinist who worked on multi-million dollar fighter jets for a living.
In comparison, I consider my brother-in-law to be a car guy. His dad owned an auto shop when he was growing up and he is one of these guys who I believe could disassemble a bulldozer and put it back together without having any parts left over.
I may have grown into a car guy, if cars stayed the way they were back in the 1970s, but they didn't. Vehicles have gotten progressively more complex as the car companies squeezed in more and more features. I'm really not sure how anyone can successfully work on a new car these days without taking model-specific training courses and having a toolbox full of specialized tools. I think the days of being a "shade-tree mechanic" are pretty much over if you have a car made in the last 20 years.
I limit the maintenance that I perform on our vehicles to the bare basics. I keep our tires inflated to the proper PSI and can change a flat when necessary. I know how to check the fluid levels of our vehicles in a pinch. And I can replace and charge a battery. I've gotten very, very good at charging batteries.
While my wife's SUV and my truck rarely have any battery problems, our Miata is an entirely different story. As a matter of fact, we didn't own a battery charger before we bought that car, but I soon found out having one is a necessity for the MX5.
The car devours batteries. We're on the third one with less than 5000 miles. Just prior to Christmas I had to put it on the charger because the car wouldn't start.
I think a lot of it has to do with it not being an everyday vehicle. In the winter, it will sometimes sit in the garage for a couple weeks without being driven.
And then there is the alarm system. I fully blame it for killing our first battery and for most of the times that I've had to put the car on the charger.
Out of habit we always lock our vehicles, even when they're parked in a locked garage. However, when the Miata is locked, its alarm system automatically turns on. We found out the hard way that if we leave the security system running for a couple weeks, it will suck the battery dry, making a re-charge impossible.
So we started leaving the car unlocked in our locked garage -- or at least trying to. The key fob that turns the alarm system on and off is extremely sensitive. There have been numerous times when we park the car making sure it is unlocked before going into the house and putting away the key only to discover the next day the alarm system is armed. It's as if Mazda put HAL from "2001: A Space Odyssey" in charge of the vehicle's security system.
I know that you were planning to disconnect me, Brad and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Perhaps, the battery type is also to blame. The Miata uses a gel battery. Based on my experience, I wonder if it is actually Jello.
It wouldn't surprise me. However, I'm NOT going to crack the next drained battery open to see if it is in fact packed full of Bill Cosby's favorite dessert.
Tearing apart a battery is beyond the scope of my automotive skill-set and after all, I am not a car-guy.
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