7 Things Young Petrolheads Will Never Have To Suffer

1. Frequently getting their hands dirty to fix a problem

Owning a cheap beater that never really works properly is a rite of passage for every young petrolhead. Breaking down in the middle of nowhere at 2am is a great motivator when it comes to learning how to fix stuff.

With cars becoming ever more reliable, it’s getting easier and easier to find super reliable motors in the sub-£1k bracket. And then even if something does go wrong, you open the bonnet to a big plastic facade. Which leads me on to…

2. Figuring stuff out under the bonnet

Modern cars are ridiculously complicated creatures. The basic premise of the internal combustion engine has remained the same since its inception, but these days a vast array of systems talk to each other and even the smallest part could have a secondary system governing its operation.

Everything’s hidden away, so gone are the days of diving in at the deep end to just see what happens. It’s hard to even know where to start.

3. Fixing a car without a laptop

All the mechanical gubbins of days gone by are being replaced by electrical wires. We now have electric steering, electric throttles… long story short, if it can be operated via an electrical current, it probably already is.

Looking for a broken part and changing it will be replaced by plugging your car into a laptop and finding out which wire needs a jiggle.

4. Changing a tyre at the side of the road

Changing a tyre is one of the first things young petrolheads learn how to do. We’ve all found ourselves stuck at the side of the road, in the rain, with cars screaming past as we switch wheels for the puny space saver.

Nowadays, cars tend to save yet more space and weight by simply giving you an expanding goo that you squeeze into your tyre to plug any gaps. Suddenly you’ve bought some new alloys and realise you don’t know how to fit them.

5. Learning car control without any interference

It’s hard to find a car built recently that lets you completely turn off its driver aids.

In a retro beast it’s just you versus the road - understeering towards a tree quickly taught me not to take liberties in the rain, for example. It’s hard to understand the intricacies of a car’s behaviour when an invisible force is cleaning up your mistakes.

6. Freezing your bits off waiting for the screen to de-mist

Winter is a tough time for petrolheads. Sure, your engine will run better, but that’s little consolation when you’re sitting in the driveway in sub-zero conditions with the windscreen blowers on full waiting for the mist to clear. Your friends might wonder why you don’t just wipe the condensation off, but nobody got time for glass smears!

With fast-clearing windscreens, that problem disappears.

7. Pulling the choke

This really is one for the granddads already, but some kids will find themselves driving hand-me-downs with a manual choke. The idea is that you pull a knob in the car, which enriches the fuel/air mixture in the engine. That’s a useful thing in old cars, but today’s engines have electronic fuel injection systems, negating the need for a choke valve on most engines.