A day in the life of an automotive enthusiast

Cars have so many different meanings to people. Some don't care at all, and would honestly rather be driven around than have to operate any controls aside from the radio. Others love cars for the convenience of not having to walk everywhere. Finally, there are those who love every single thing about cars. They love looking at cars, reading about cars, working on cars, listening to cars, smelling cars (yes, smelling. The smell of leather, oil, combustion gasses get us gear heads revved up like there's no tomorrow) but most importantly: driving cars. Hopping behind the wheel of a favorite car provides a release from the messed up world we all live in, and a few wide open throttle pulls reminds us of the amazing things this world has to offer. 

Car life isn't all good though, there are certainly drawbacks. If our cars breaking down wasn't the worst part, we have to worry about break ups too. It's a serious problem, a relationship with a car can put a serious strain on a relationship with another person. I've been blessed with a beautiful, wonderful girl who understands my borderline obsession with the automotive industry, but it's still not always easy. I couldn't count on both hands how many times in the past week she's dozed off at me talking about compression ratios, firing orders, transmission ratios, or whatever may be on my mind at the time. For the number of times I've heard someone say to me "is all you care about that stupid car?" You would think I would change, but for the life of me I just can't get my mind of cars. In fact, the main reason I started writing this was because I knew people were getting tired of non-stop car talk from me, and I wanted to reach out to an audience that wanted to hear my input. In the next couple of days I'll continue on the life of a gear head. 

Alright, we're back. Today we're gonna tackle one of the automotive enthusiasts biggest fears: breakdowns. Now nobody likes having their car breakdown. It costs money, you lose the convenience of getting up and going wherever, whenever, but most importantly you're undoubtedly going to have to call in favors from people you probably don't even like just to get rides. For a gear head all of this is still true, but there's more! 

When a car guy is without his vehicle, it's about like being homeless. At first thought you may be thinking "that's ridiculous, you may not like it, but it's not THAT bad!" Well you're wrong, it is that bad. Ever had a pet at the vet going through surgery? It's that and then some. Veterinarians at least are generally people who love animals, and want nothing more than to make your dog perfectly happy and healthy again. Car mechanics tend to want other things. While they probably do love cars, they generally don't really care what happens to yours, unless it makes them money. It's sad, but true a lot of times. If a vet had the choice, save the life of a puppy, or make $20 I would almost guarantee that you would hear a happy healthy puppy barking the next day. On the other hand, I once had a mechanic argue with me for half an hour that the spark plugs I replaced not 6 months earlier were the set from the factory with 70,000 miles on them. He already had the spark plugs out for the header install he was doing on my car, so all that arguing was to make him an extra $18 for some new plugs. After all that I was without my car for 2 weeks, and who knows how they drove the car in my absense? I've known mechanics, I knew one who wrecked a customers brand new audi s4 while showing off for his girlfriend. I knew a mechanic who swapped a good battery out of one customers car with the dead one from another customers car, charging full price for a "new" battery.  It's scary to think that the people many are forced to trust with their cars, can be so shady. 

Now, on to another topic, a bit happier than the last. As a car guy, how quickly would you jump on the opportunity to have a garage stocked with every car you could ever want, with one circumstance: you have to sleep in the garage with them. When I was first asked that my initial thought was "as long as there's a shower for me, I'll sleep on an inflatable mattress anywhere. Now my girlfriend wasn't quite as excited by this, but hey, she likes fast cars too, I'm sure she would come around eventually. That's all the time I've got for this topic though, thanks for reading!