America's Love Affair With Cars Is Over

interesting subject

I too was the kid that fixed bikes... by the time I was 11 or so other kids paid me to fix their bikes

also growing up in the "fix it don't trash it" time meant that the TV in our house was found on the side of the road... dad spent an afternoon with a soldering iron and a multimeter and had it working like new when he found the bad solder joint.

also that meant that when I was 7 y/o I as out in the garage helping my dad pull the head for the HG job on our car... move to last week dad and I pulled the hitch off his old car (totaled waiting on settlement so he bought the same model car lol)

I think because so many people near my age (and a bit older.. so 30-45ish age) don't work on their cars they haven't passed that along to the next generation... and without that it's not exactly easy to get into cars beyond "rimz" and stuff like that

JohnInKansas wrote: I'm inclined to think decline in interest in cars/driving may be parallel to the throw-away nature of society. Many young people grow up in a use-it-till-it-stops-working-then-throw-it-away environment.

Around here, people use it until it is broken, throw it away, and then I try to make it drivable.

Joe Gearin wrote: It does boggle my mind when I see teenagers that are unconcerned about getting their driver's license. The day I turned 15 I wrote a "countdown" on a calendar to mark off each day before I was able to get my DL at the age of 16. 365, 364, 363, 362........all throughout the year. of course I was grounded on my 16th b-day and had to wait another week to get my license! These days for whatever reason (complexity of cars / proliferation of i-pads, i-phones, video games / reluctance to leave the house) kids don't seem as excited to drive as they used to. It used to be a major life-changing event that every kid looked forward to, now it seems like a chore. Maybe all the social networking is partially to blame. Why go see your friends in person, when you can "chat" or "like" them online. I'm sure there will always be car nuts like us........but for the majority of kids, automotive enthusiasm seems to be less important than Super Mario, or Facebook.

Love this post so true, well maybe.

damn kids

I totally don’t understand the youth of today. I’m not quite ready for a walker, but any child who was being born on the day I got my driver’s license is now legal to drive in all 50 states. That gives me pause.

Cars are expensive. Messing with them is even more expensive. Furthermore kids (and their parents) are having a tough time coming up with the $20 it takes to buy gas to hoon around for a weekend, much less swap out expensive parts that probably were working OK before they tore into them.

Even further- when I was 17, I had managed to acquire a 4-year-old Honda that got high 20s or low 30s. And gas was well under $1/gallon. $5 would cart me and some friends around for a whole weekend, easily. Only a couple of my friends even had a phone, and we were generally irritated by them because it always seemed like they were looking for somewhere else to be, some other people to hang out with. A few years later, when I got out of college, I remember pissing and moaning because gas had doubled (the NERVE!) to like $1.89. Everybody had a cellphone, mostly, but people still used them to talk- still seemed like everybody was looking for somewhere else to be, though. Gas at $1.89 again would solve 150% of the country’s problems, I’m sure of it. There would be celebration in the streets to rival V-E day.

Ten more years down, gas is now 4-5x what it was when I graduated from high school. Average fuel economy of cars has certainly not kept up. Kids talk on their phone, text one another, and share their lives virtually via facespace, same way I keep up with old buddies 1500 miles away. Only now EVERYONE is looking for somewhere else to be, I don’t think that’s up for debate now.

Ten years from now, I’ll have teenagers of my own. Lord only knows what they will be into. Right now I’m at even odds of “new golden age” and “armed revolution.” I guess we’ll see- unfortunately they probably aren’t going to see dad doing much car-enthusiast-ing until they get older. Kids are expensive, too.

/essay

Jake gets it.

Racing in this day and age is IMPOSSIBLE for a young adult who follows the "norm" of a life now. You graduate high school (having worked a part-time job for a year or two so you could have spending money/save up for post-secondary), you go into a 4 year degree (or longer), bust your ass, come out of school broke (or as is more often the case, in debt), start at a job that pays a mediocre wage, and by the time you are 25 you MIGHT be able to start racing.

waits for SVreX to enter the conversation and call me and my ilk lazy kids who feel entitled to everything

That's assuming you haven't done something stupid like get married or have a kid by then.

On another tangent, I graduated high school in 2006. I honestly was the ONLY "car guy" who wrenched on cars everyday of the week that went to that school and knew something about cars. I was the only person who drove to Calgary or Edmonton for drag racing or auto-x's. Yes, there were a lot of "wannabes" and "fast and furiousers", but nobody was into cars like I was. And I had limited access to the parents garage. Yes, at one point I had FIVE cars in the backyard (don't ask!), but they were all for sale as I was flipping them as fast as I could.

I don't know of a single person at the age of 16 who was lying on their back with a breaker bar in hand ripping a car apart for it's "valuable" parts and then having the shell hauled to the wrecker. In a high school of over 1500 people!

Huh. My kid is NUTS for teh int3rw3bs and her iPod etc but keeps pestering me about when she will get her license and first car. Maybe there's hope out there yet...

Also NA$CAR has priced themselves out of the market, much like big league baseball and football. It's just too damn expensive any more. It's not just those sports; the last time I took the fambly to the regular movies it was damn near $50 for three people. The trimmed us back to the 'dollar movies' REAL quick.

Think Joe Gearin has most of it in his post. Add that the lack of real drivers ed in most places and in others the hassle of meeting the "other" requirements. It just doesn't seem worth the hassle to most kids these days. Then getting stuck in a boring, bland car just like everyone else has. For most of us, the cars we drove as teens may not have been anything special but they could be affiliated with some of the hot cars of the days. Like I drove a 65 Chevelle. Sounds cool until I go one to say it was a 4-door with a 190ci 6-cyl, powerglide, NO POWER steering or brakes. But Chevelle's were cool nonetheless. There are kids out there that enjoy driving but really they are the minority.

Hey, like us.

Not dealing with cars directly, but an interesting op-ed piece from a diy magazine, Make, on the use of tools by young folk has the following passage:

AnnMarie Thomas said: I recently spoke to an engineering professor who mentioned that when he asked a class of 35 first-year engineering students how many had used a drill press before, not a single hand went up. How many had taken apart one of their toys when they were younger? Again, not a single student raised a hand. And that’s in a roomful of future engineers.

It is a sad indicator of our times. Rest assured, I'm doing my bit by letting my daughter help me when I do repairs on the car or around the house.

HiTempguy wrote: Racing in this day and age is IMPOSSIBLE for a young adult who follows the "norm" of a life now. You graduate high school (having worked a part-time job for a year or two so you could have spending money/save up for post-secondary), you go into a 4 year degree (or longer), bust your ass, come out of school broke (or as is more often the case, in debt), start at a job that pays a mediocre wage, and by the time you are 25 you MIGHT be able to start racing. *waits for SVreX to enter the conversation and call me and my ilk lazy kids who feel entitled to everything* That's assuming you haven't done something stupid like get married or have a kid by then.

I am going to be do track days and autocrossing well before I am 25 and hopefully* start doing wheel to wheel around then. I am leaving debt with very little debt $7k.

And I take offense to to the do something stupid with regards to getting married. I am getting married next year to the most awesome girl and I have been dating her for 6.5 years including a few long distance. She is my best friend and I am sure it isn't a mistake.

*hopefully is because of the getting married thing. If I have to wait a couple years to get to point to do wheel to wheel because of getting married, it is worth it.

nderwater wrote: What worries me is the number of people who hate driving, and have no idea that it can be enjoyable. Litterally - zero comprehension that driving a car can be anything but a chore.

This is why I consider my Zx2 a big go-kart.

93EXCivic wrote: And I take offense to to the do something stupid with regards to getting married. I am getting married next year to the most awesome girl and I have been dating her for 6.5 years including a few long distance. She is my best friend and I am sure it isn't a mistake.

At least half of the north american population could be considered stupid. I meet very few people on a day to day basis I respect for their intelligence, and I work in R&D.

Young people don't know themselves. OK, MOST young people don't know themselves before the age of 25, which leads me to my next bit...

50% of marriages end in divorce.

Most people get married for the most stupid, dumb reasons imaginable. And this goes doubly for those who do it before 25. You know how many people I know who have had to stop racing because of their wives? It's a significant number. I know a lot of married people who "think" their SO is their best friend, but they are constantly undermined or not allowed to follow their dreams. And getting married BEFORE you start racing, which presumably would be after college, virtually guarantees you will not be racing if kids come along in under 5 years.

So yes, a dumb idea, unless you can find a caring, supportive chick that understands your passion, and you her's. I've come to notice that would be an extremely small portion of married couples.

Which brings me back to the point, racing is expensive, it is hard to get into as a single male with a degree before the age of 25, and virtually impossible if you have any other responsibilities.

93EXCivic wrote: And I take offense to to the do something stupid with regards to getting married. I am getting married next year to the most awesome girl and I have been dating her for 6.5 years including a few long distance. She is my best friend and I am sure it isn't a mistake. *hopefully is because of the getting married thing. If I have to wait a couple years to get to point to do wheel to wheel because of getting married, it is worth it.

Married at the age of 25 and couldn't be happier. When lady is your best friend and you don't really fight, you know. Even some of the oldest people will never understand.

My wife supports my hobbies and dropped some bills on this. Actually more than I have.

As a younger person (21) reading this I felt a weird disconnect with my peers. I can only wonder why is going on to make my generation not be into hobbies as much (I’d bet this IS NOT just cars) I think it is at least somewhat the influence of the computer really this damned device is a ungodly time sucker and it has made culture change happen at a faster and faster pace. At least that was I see with memes and “today’s hot websites” I would think that the teens/low 20’s don’t want to log off for fear of missing the next cat picture. I think the phrase “over 9000” and myspace.com are just about proof positive of this. Maybe this has always happened and I just noticed it? I don’t have a clue really. The computer is where we listen to music, it’s where we get our news, it’s where we play our video games, where we watch movies, hell is where we even make PHONE calls. What I do know is facebook is bigger than god ever was. Friends are traded as a commodity and I am about to break my laptop in half.

I really don’t see gas as the holy grail some of you do. The first time I filled up my car with my money it was $4.14 and it took EVERY CENT I had but you know what I didn’t give a crap because I had a car. Yea I got to work on a bike later on that week but the fill up was still worth it. That was the most I ever spent on gas so I think I am doing fine. Another point here is out of my “car” friends really only one comes to the meets and says things like “I had to pay 4.05 for 93 today, RAWR!” I would have to bet a lot of us will buy gas regardless of cost because we just like to drive.

As for the kids that don’t like driving what worries about that is not the fact they won’t work on cars, it is if you don’t like something you are probably not going to bother to do it well. I always have enjoyed getting ran over.

I think part of the problem is that kids are no longer encouraged to work on vehicles from their parents. Cars have definitely gotten more complex over the years and with that complexity comes the need for specialized tools and equipment. Combine this fact with increased vehicle reliability and I think people are more inclined to not perform their own maintenance work.

The logic might look something like this: Specialized tools are expensive --> Modern vehicles are difficult to work on ---> When they start to break down it is easier to replace than to repair.

Another angle to consider is that a lot of high schools no longer offer shop or a small engine repair class. Once parents loose the knowledge of auto repair and it is no longer taught in schools it becomes very daunting for the next generation to learn. Gas, tools, and vehicles are expensive and if you mess up a repair because you don't know what you are doing, and don't have anyone who can teach you it will cost you again to fix your error down the road.

N Sperlo wrote:

93EXCivic wrote: And I take offense to to the do something stupid with regards to getting married. I am getting married next year to the most awesome girl and I have been dating her for 6.5 years including a few long distance. She is my best friend and I am sure it isn't a mistake. *hopefully is because of the getting married thing. If I have to wait a couple years to get to point to do wheel to wheel because of getting married, it is worth it.

Married at the age of 25 and couldn't be happier. When lady is your best friend and you don't really fight, you know. Even some of the oldest people will never understand. My wife supports my hobbies and dropped some bills on this. Actually more than I have.

That describes me and my fiance. We have been dating for 6.5 years and I know she supports my hobbies. At this point as she pointed out after the amount of time we have been together she can't imagine not hearing about cars. The other night we had a conversion about race tires for an hour and of coarse we talk about her interest and hobbies (guns and teaching, odd combo) I know her better then any person at this point and I honestly can't imagine myself with any one else. Not saying we are perfect. There are things the both of us need to work on but I feel like that should go on in every couple trying to improve as a couple and individuals. Also not looking to have kids for 7-8 years if we have any. We have already had a discussion about that. We want to have some time to enjoy married life as just the two of us before we jump off that bridge. Any enough of my thread jack.

I really think a big part of it is that a lot of kids regard cars as a right and their parents buy them a car (generally some boring thing) and they don't appreciate it and also since it some boring reliable car, they don't have to get under the hood and don't have any fun driving it.

I'm 21 and I can definitely see the trends that everyone else is talking about. While I tend to ignore the price of gas because I know that I am going to buy it because I love driving, it is definitely putting a dent in my wallet. Not to mention the ridiculous insurance rates for young people.

I have always loved tinkering with things and continue to do so and being around FSAE guys I guess I don't think about the sheer number of people that don't care anymore. And about the engineering students....Some examples of cluelessness from people in my classes: Whats a sprocket? (sprocket can be replaced with drill chuck, angle grinder, lathe, etc.)

1manwolfpack wrote: I'm 21 and I can definitely see the trends that everyone else is talking about. While I tend to ignore the price of gas because I know that I am going to buy it because I love driving, it is definitely putting a dent in my wallet. Not to mention the ridiculous insurance rates for young people. I have always loved tinkering with things and continue to do so and being around FSAE guys I guess I don't think about the sheer number of people that don't care anymore. And about the engineering students....Some examples of cluelessness from people in my classes: Whats a sprocket? (sprocket can be replaced with drill chuck, angle grinder, lathe, etc.)

I went thru that in Engineering school. I was amazed about the number of students who didn't know anything about working on stuff. I am sorry but if you want to be an engineer you should at least have an idea of how to build E36 M3. I make prototypes at work quite often rather then just drawing them up. Also insurance here is fairly cheap compared to across the pond.

I only know a few people that are seriously into cars from my circle of friends (20-somethings in college), but I know a TON of people, both guys and gals, who are into motorcycles. They're much cheaper, get better gas mileage, and they can be parked on campus, which is nigh impossible for cars. We also have a 12-month riding season here. If only we had the roads...

And girls love the pillion seat. It is the best/cheapest date.

Also keep in mind that cars are so much more powerful out of the box now than 10 or 20 years ago, that switching out parts that still work seems a bit meaningless.

Federally mandate metal and auto shop as required classes.

Random thoughts (and I'm so pleased at the response to this thread)...

I'll have been married 20 years next Wednesday. I think the "stupidity of getting married" was partially in jest, but there is some truth to it. Too many people get married because they are in love with a piece of ass. My criteria was oddly different: after I found a hottie, she had to not piss me off on a regular basis. I can count on one hand the number of major, raised voices, not-talking-to-you-for-a-day differences we've had (I wouldn't even call them arguments or fights). Never slammed a door. I hear about some of the drama other couples have and just shake my head in wonder. The criteria for marriage needs to be Best Friend, not Looks Hot In A Bikini (though if you can snag both, well...). My car hobbies have never been called into question aside from the field fresh BMW 2002 that I placed in the garage that wound up being full of mice and spiders. I did hear about that one. Kids, however...they will suck all the automotive cash and time from your life. Think real long and hard (and discuss at length with your intended) about that one.

Yesterday I replaced a headlamp and turn signal bulb in my neighbor's cars. He's in his 20s and had zero clue how to do it. Jeep HL bulb was easy, but I'll give him the front turn signal bulb in his Civic was a bit above the average doofus (partially remove fender liner for access). The kid is a computer whiz for UPS but probably can't change a tire. Upside is he does have a desire to learn. We'll change his mower oil next week.

I'll agree that the computer sucks too much time. I'm guilty of it, and I'm deep into my 40s. I log on daily to see what's happening on the various boards and spend far too much time iRacing (though it is cheaper than buying tires for my real race car). I do make time for other things, however. And it really has been a godsend; without it, I couldn't diagnose and repair some of the things that happen to vehicles these days. Google will usually find a solution to a problem pretty quickly, because someone out there has always dealt with it before you. So my thoughts of turning it off completely get dismissed in a hurry. TV on the other hand...

Lastly, I wonder if the large number of dull cars out there contributes to the malaise. There was a lot of variety in cars preceding the 1970s. We thought cars died in the 70s, got some rays of light in the 80s (remember how exciting the VW GTI was?) and got some gems in the 90s. But now everything that isn't a minivan or Stupid Urban Vehicle looks like a bar of soap. Matters not how capable it may be, it's just not exciting to look at.