Basic Car Maintenance

One of our goals for this year was to learn basic car maintenance. You know, like filling fluids, changing/rotating tires, changing oil, etc. Well we haven't been as proactive at learning those skills as we thought we would be until today when it became necessary.


A little over a year ago I bought this lemon of a car. I had it checked by three reliable sources when I went to check it out, but I knew VERY little about cars at that time so I had no idea I was totally getting taken advantage of. I basically paid some strangers on KSL thousands of dollars to take their trash out for them. Anyway, since then I have spent more time with my favorite mechanic in Provo than I have with many of my friends. I've learned terms, schedules, and the workings of my car, and I've spent many fun hours sitting in the waiting room of Hay's reading National Geographic while Fritz (the car) was being worked on. 
The night before my wedding I parked Fritz outside of my sister's house, and since that day I haven't touched it. I know, I'm pretty irresponsible. The thing is Clayton has a car so I never needed one, my sister lived in AF which is about 30 min. away, and life just got busy. 
Today Clayton and I decided to finally go take care of Fritz. Our plan is to fix him up (new tires, oil change, new back window, plus some minor touch-ups) and sell him ASAP. Of course we will tell anyone who is looking into buying it that Fritz is not meant for long distances or big hills, and that he gets temperamental in the winter.  
So we drive up to AF and find that one of the tires is flat. Great. We get to work unscrewing the lug nuts, jacking up the car, and yanking the tire off... except that it wont come off. It wouldn't even budge. I think we spent about an hour trying to get that dang tire off of that dang car, and we were pretty frustrated. Finally this man named Pablo (I'm not making this up) walked up and asked us if we wanted some help. Yes, we do want some help, thank you. He yanked, pulled, and kicked the tire until he almost gave up. Then he asked us if the parking break was still on. (hand to forehead moment right there). Clayton took off the emergency break, Pablo splashed some water on the drum (he called it mexican WD-40 haha), and the tire came right off. 
After jumping the battery on Fritz, we drove the cars home just in time to miss the last session of conference.  It ended up being a 2 1/2 hour adventure, which is pretty funny for something that should have only taken half an hour tops. However, now we have a very solid grasp on changing tires, and I doubt we will forget about the emergency break and the mexican WD-40. 


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