There’s nothing more confusing than trying to work out what your car is trying to tell you when its lights go all funny on the dashboard.
I love driving, it gives me freedom, it means I can go to lots of lovely places at the weekends with my hubby and our dog and also to work in the week (boooo!) but what would I do if something went wrong with my car and I was on my own……that’s what you have breakdown cover for, right? Well not anymore, I have my own set of skills thanks to Kwik Fit and their Ladies in the Driving Seat night.
On a hot Thursday evening, when most people were chilling with a cold beer or G&T, a group of members from Seven Hills WI descended on Kwik Fit on Ecclesall Road to be greeted by Chris (Manager) and Liz (Customer Liaison) and Shaq, Mike and Cameron who had all agreed to stay behind after hours to pass on their engine and car-related skills. Did I mention that there were cream cakes and overalls for us all to wear? We were officially winning at life!
Following the completion of the obligatory paperwork and a few photos of us in our overalls before we got down and dirty, we were straight into some supervised engine action.
Changing a wheel has always seemed like a huge challenge, its thankfully not something I have ever had to do in an emergency (or at all!) but I freely admit I wouldn’t have a clue and would probably end up ringing my husband, Dad, breakdown service and as a last resort, look all mournful on the side of the road until someone came to my aid.
Well no more, thanks to the patience of Shaq who allowed us to change a wheel on his own car. I now know what the jacking point is, why my locking wheel nut should be cherished, coveted and kept safe and the importance of the torque wrench – I am aware that I am speaking a foreign language, but it no longer holds me in fear. I can do it – a wheel is much heavier than you might think and the tiny jacks we will have in our car will be far less satisfying to pump than the pneumatic jack we used on Shaq’s car – no fair.
We then moved onto tyre pressures and tread wear, who knew that the relevant information can actually be found within your car and you do not have to rely on the power of Google! Why does no one tell you these important things? We deflated a tyre and inflated it to the correct PSI (get me with my technical lingo!). No longer will Alice turn her head away when pumping her tyres through fear of popping it – this is actually a lot more difficult to achieve than you might think.
Finally, we went under the bonnet, the home of all the action and where my own car maintenance skills currently started and finished with the topping up of the windscreen wash; well I take the screenwash and I raise you with oil, coolant and brake fluid – boom! I will no longer look under my bonnet thinking it’s all witchcraft and stare in wonderment and gratitude for the invention of the internal combustion engine. No, I now have the knowledge of what normal looks like and when to go to a garage (note to readers, you should visit a garage for anything that’s not screenwash or oil related)
Chris and his team were so patient and helpful with our questions and queries, most of which were using hypothetical situations which we may or may not encounter in the future…who are we kidding, they were all car related incidents we had been involved in and alternative facts we had picked up over time about the mystery of the car.
As it got towards 9:00pm we thought it best that we finished up and let Chris and his team get home for their tea; we had a quick quiz, a last cake and all left with a goodie bag and a sense of achievement from leaning something useful and at last destroy the mystique of car maintenance.
Rachel
Vice President
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