Teach your Grandchildren about cars

There was a time when children and grandchildren looked to their parents and grandparents to learn everything they could about automobiles.   It was a well-functioning system, and children or grandchildren who sought assistance from their mother, father, grandmother, or grandfather were taught most of what they needed to know.    If they wanted to learn more and make the maintenance of motor vehicles a big part of their life, then they would get an apprenticeship.

The difference between then and now is that kids many years ago did not believe that they knew everything at the age of 16.   As we all know, when children believe they have all the answers at a young age, it can be dangerous.   Even if they are voracious readers, they cannot learn everything there is to know about complex machinery from books alone.   You need supervised practical experience to figure out how something works and how to care for it properly.

Over the last 15 years, there has been an explosion of information (both good and bad) available on thousands of social media platforms around the world.   Unfortunately, this is not always a good thing; anyone can write about anything they want, including potentially dangerous tasks on vehicles that, if performed incorrectly, can lead to disaster.  

The art of taking excellent care of automobiles is something to treasure.   The time you set aside to teach your children or grandchildren about their vehicles is an excellent opportunity to bond and learn more about one another.   It’s not about teaching them to do work at home that should be done by a licenced auto mechanic.   It is about providing them with a list of tasks that they can safely perform on the vehicle once properly instructed.    You’ll also teach them how frequently these tasks must be completed, the safest/most practical way to complete them, and how to test that they’ve completed them correctly.

In my opinion, regardless of how confident your children or grandchildren become, they should have their car serviced at least once a year by a qualified mechanic, and twice a year for older vehicles.    The safety criticality ranking of specific tasks determines what you can do at home and what must be done by a qualified auto mechanic.   The criticality ranking of a vehicle maintenance task will compute the severity (consequence) of what could go wrong with that function/assembly of the car if it fails, as well as the likelihood of it failing (how frequently).

If you’re unsure, consult a mechanic about what you should teach your children or grandchildren about cars.   Request that they explain the importance of certain tasks that you may have questions about.   You must remember that these children require their vehicles to be safe on the roads, not just for them but for everyone else.   Depending on the vehicle, they could be behind the wheel of 2 to 3 tonnes of metals travelling at 100 km/h/55mph. 

For that amount of mass to be travelling at that speed with other drivers constantly driving towards them on the other side of the road, they are basically in charge of a potentially deadly weapon.   A weapon that, if it loses control on the road and crashes into oncoming traffic, has the potential to kill a large number of people in a single strike.

As a result, any safety-critical tasks on their vehicle must be performed by fully trained and authorised mechanics.   For the tasks that prove to be safe for you to teach them, I think they’ll enjoy learning from you, it might bring you closer together and will provide them with a lot of useful information.   Encourage them to set aside one day each month to give their car a thorough once-over and to fix any minor issues that arise in order to keep their car in excellent condition.