Car Maintenance Every Woman Can Do
You’ve probably seen that joke doing the rounds about the male way of changing the oil versus the female way of changing the oil, where the guy does it himself – with the “help” of a crate of beer or so – while the woman just heads down to the local service station and enjoys a paper and a coffee while someone else does it for her. This wee script is a good laugh, but it is, of course an exaggeration. Women can and do car maintenance for themselves, so don’t let any jerk of a mechanic tell you that you can’t. What’s more, if you know your way around the inside of a car, you’re less likely to be ripped off by said jerky mechanic who thinks “Here’s a woman who knows nothing about cars, so we’ll see what we can get away with telling her needs doing and charge her the earth for it.”
Any woman can benefit from knowing how to do a bit of basic car maintenance, ranging from the penny-pinching mother who wants to save a buck or so by doing everything she can rather than paying for somebody else to do it, through to a professional single woman who wants to prove to her male colleagues that she’s no dumb bimbo, not to mention the country women who are located miles from the nearest service station and don’t have much choice. You’ve got good authority for working on your car, too. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II once trained as a mechanic when she was Princess Elizabeth during World War II (to set a good example to all the other women of England at the time), and a rumour is circulating that once, when the royal Daimler broke down, she had a rummage under the hood for herself, presumably having removed her white kid gloves first.
What Does This Button Do?
Right. You’ve read up all the reviews to find out which set of wheels suits you best. And now you’re down at the car yards and you’re about to take the model you’re interested in for a test drive. While the basics are the same in all cars – you have the steering wheel in front of you, the gear stick somewhere on your left (unless you’re in a left-hand drive car imported from the US or Europe), the accelerator pedal by your right foot and the foot brake down by your left – the layout of the dashboard and the various controls available to the driver vary from car to car. One of the things that you’ll be doing while you’re doing that test drive – and in the first week or so of owning your new car – is finding out where all the controls are and what they do. And what do you do first?
Firstly, how do you get into the car and how do you get started? A lot of new cars these days have Smartkey entry and/or a quick-start function. Some don’t. So this will be the first thing that you have to sort out. However, before you start the car, take a quick look around to see where the handbrake is and where the gear stick is – if you’re test-driving an older car, especially one with a bench seat, you may find these in places you don’t expect. Next, if you’re driving a manual car, take a moment or two to check how many gears the car has – four, five or six – and where reverse is, as some cars want you to push the gearstick to the far left to get into reverse, while others have it on the far right. There has been a horror story about a car reviewer (not me!) test driving some very expensive Alfa Romeo sports car and putting the car into reverse rather than sixth gear while at high speed. Ouch!
Beaut Little Utes
Thanks to rising fuel costs, we’re seeing a greater shift to smaller engines and smaller cars. The chances of some of the more unusual offerings, in small-ute form, might be a realistic option for Australian buyers. In the modern requirements for smaller carbon footprints, a small ute is what every business in Australia could do with. Right?
Smaller utes/pick-up trucks are doing very well in one or two places in the world. South America has seen a great success in people buying into a little ute – as their benefits have a growing appeal. Europe is shortly to test the introduction of the Fiat Strada – a very cool mini ute that is surprisingly handy and exceptionally rugged.
In-Car Breathalyzers Now Compulsory – in France
The French have become the first nation in the World to compel ALL drivers to carry a breathalyzer in their cars from July 1st.
This rather draconian legislation has come about due to the high incidence of all road fatalities that involve drivers above the legal limit – a staggering 31 percent. 
Level 2, 9 Help Street