Spent this morning and some of this afternoon working with the GF on her car. She needed new brakes, pads and rotors, on her car. I figured I would just do them for her as a favor, but she insisted she wanted to help! AWESOME! I had the garage ready by the time she came over to the house, and together we read over the repair manual, gathered the tools, and got to work. I didn't know how much she wanted to get dirty, but after a few minutes it was pretty clear that she wanted to be as hands on as possible! I made sure to explain the parts, what they do, how they're held together, how they come apart, and how to put them back together. She actually did really well on everything, and got rather acquainted with air tools...SCORE!! I only had to step in to break free a few bolts and to swing the BFH...she was more than happy to let me do the grunt work on those, and as soon as it was evident that everything was going to come apart easily she took over again. I was really proud and impressed at the speed and precision that she picked up on everything! Slapped everything back together on the one side, and as we worked on the other side, she was talking out the steps ahead of time...really cool!
Even the road test was fun, she had me drive just in case, but she agreed that the smell of brakes being bedded was kinda hott!! Overall, it was really cool to have the chance to teach some hands on skills and car maintenance to a super kick ass GF!
Pics of the day!!
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.646111326098.2098145.53702568&type=1&l=61cbed8a1c
I hope all you guys/gals have similar significant others!!
You lucky dog.... I'm barely lucky enough to get a "Hey, this needs to be fixed." warning. Working on it? Fat chance.
Javelin
SuperDork
11/19/11 6:52 p.m.
Lucky!
Mine will help bleed them, but she won't change them.
JThw8
SuperDork
11/19/11 7:13 p.m.
Cool if it works for you. I've had the "I want to help" GFs and some that even knew what the hell they were doing. But at the end of the day I'm looking to go out to the shop and work on cars to get away from things, including the SO. Its just a nice bit of alone time and solitude for me. So while I can appreciate the desire to meet a car chick, you all can have em.
like brother, like brother hahaha. wish joy was not at school so much. she wants to help out too but always being 200 miles away hampers that haha.
well peter, glad you two had a good time
currently drinkin and gonna make a toast to GFs who like cars. might be drinking alone though....apparently this is unheard of.
Awesome dude, mine lets me do about anything I can think of in the garage but she has no interest whatsoever in helping out.
To top it off, she is one hot little wrencher.
Lucky dog.
I showed my (now) wife how to change a tire, oil, clean the air filter, check the brakes and handed her a Haynes book for the Toyota 4Runner I taught her how to drive in. It's been fun listening her do maintenance and fixing things while I'm gone on extended trips for work. Shes all excited to build a FFR Cobra kit after we get a house.
My girlfriend knows how to plug a tire. I found this out the 2nd week we were dating... that was 2 1/2 yrs ago and we are still together.
She's good though, knows how to do all the basic maintenance ( oil/filter changes, headlights, batterys,) I'm sure if I asked her to help pull a motor, she'd be right there.
Five year old twin grandchildren were here today.
My son-in-law & I replaced brake pads on his car.
Emma wanted to help & we let her. She wanted to use the air wrench so we showed her how & helped her remove lugnuts on 3 wheels, she removed the nuts on the 4th wheel by herself.
She's also pretty. She may be a good catch in 15-20 years.
Nice!
My wife is a ricer at heart and loves doing cosmetic stuff to her cars, but hates maintenance with a passion. She does want to eventually restore a car with me, when we have garage space.
Must say SWMBO has really stepped up in the last year to help do her own car maintinence. She is learning and seems to have the capacity to do as much as I will let her. I will say it is a challenge to let her do rather than do for her, but if she is willing let her go with it. I hope in the long run it will free me up to do more of the fun car stuff rather than constant maintinence.
My wife has really acclimated to my car hobby. If I'm doing something to my car and I'm having a hard time with it, she will offer up her slender hands to get up to what I can't reach. Very handy and helpful!
EvanB
SuperDork
11/19/11 9:49 p.m.
JThw8 wrote:
Cool if it works for you. I've had the "I want to help" GFs and some that even knew what the hell they were doing. But at the end of the day I'm looking to go out to the shop and work on cars to get away from things, including the SO. Its just a nice bit of alone time and solitude for me. So while I can appreciate the desire to meet a car chick, you all can have em.
Me too, I like to work on cars alone.
The title of your album made me laugh out loud.
"Ashley's Fisrt BJ (Brake Job) ;)"
Awesome that she jumped in to learn about her car.
Lesley
SuperDork
11/19/11 11:06 p.m.
Meh. I've been dubbed "honorary guy" by my car-guy friends.
My second date with my (now) wife was to change the brake booster on her car. It took a while to get her to notice things wrong with a car, and she still ignores "minor" things like fairly major valve noise and an out of balance tire. I have a hard time getting her to change the CLOCK in the car.
You guys are lucky.
My future wife changes her own oil, brakes, and can change her own tires. Now when i say she changes her own oil, i should also mention that the oil she is changing is from her bike. A 07 Honda cbr600rr. Yeah. This is the same girl who has bought me a couple (200 dollar) cars, and once suprised me on my birthday with a 40" lcd tv. Did i mention her dream car right now is a mazdaspeed3? Or that she also wants a dodge spirit r/t? Is it too much to also mention that she has 3 years training at an italian restuarant? Or that she enjoys cleaning?
/living the good life.
My wife has stated that working on the cars, among other things, is "man's work". Oddly enough, I haven't discovered what she considers to be "a woman's job".
That's pretty awesome. My wife pretty much just says fix it and runs back in the house
You lucky dog, only reason my wife comes out to my repair jobs is to nag "why isn't it done yet?"
Taiden
Dork
11/20/11 8:55 a.m.
I find that women are much more intuitive with mechanical things than men if they are willing to let go of the "girls can't work on cars" mentality.
Just ask Rosie
Nice. My wife usually helps me out as well, handing me parts and tools and whatnot if I'm buried in the engine bay or under the car. If it's her car, she'll actually do the wrenching. She's good at rounding off bolts, and there's some other things she needs to pick up on, but she could probably do most basic jobs on the car with little or no supervision.
And also your photo album title made me laugh. Was that a '96-'99 SL2 wheel I spied in the background?
Haha Ive decided I need a enthusiast GF or one that likes cars. I'm too diseased with cars not too :/ Thats slim pickins but oh well Ive got high standards.
Before me and my ex got together she tricked me by helping me out when I was putting my rb20 swapped 240sx back together. She liked the car and called it the 240 sex. She never went in the garage again after we got together.
Oh and proker, I added you since you live in ohio as well. :D
~Alex
Taiden
Dork
11/20/11 11:12 a.m.
I had one girl put a front sway bar on my B13 sentra. All the others were too scared or 'dainty' to attempt these things. In Charlotte, it was not uncommon to run into young women who had helped their fathers build 9 second camaros and whatnot. The ones I met tended to love motorsports in general. And they weren't rednecks either!