Wednesday, September 11, 2013

When Men Were Men and Jacks Were Jacks


As a crusty old curmudgeon, I can remember when cars came equipped with jacks to lift the car so you could change a flat tire.  You are no doubt thinking, as a crusty old curmudgeon, you probably remember winding a lever near the front bumper to start cars, as well.

Laugh if you will, but jacks and spares were the easy guy things in the trunk of a car. The engine compartment things: oil, belts, spark plugs and other crap were the purview of the guy you called to fix your car (after you looked at it and made up stuff like "oh that damn engine rotator split" to impress your date).

But flat tires? A way to show off to your date. Just be sure to set the parking brake - things could get ugly.

BMWs always had full-sized spares. With their obscenely expensive wheels in them, too. Then came those donut things.  Good thing I had started to lease my cars - I had no idea what to do with "donuts" - eat them? You certainly couldn't be seen in a BMW driving with one.

My new car has...NO spare.  No jack.  What sort of trickery is this? Turns out, you just push a button on the dash and a very pleasant person comes on and promptly arranges to save you. Pretty cool.

Pretty annoying. I recently had the need for a good jack to push a heavy piece of garage furniture. Car jacks can lift 4000 pounds; they could easily move a 600 pound cabinet. Me? Not so much. 

I pushed the button on my dash.  The nice lady wasn't very helpful.

No comments :

Post a Comment