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"Can't you just add coolant?" I asked the oil-change guy when he told me I needed a radiator flush because my coolant was low. My question must have revealed my vast store of automotive knowledge because the oil-change guy proceeded to strongly suggest fuel-system maintenance, recalibration of some thingies I'm still not convinced really exist, and several other pricey procedures. He stopped just short of selling me a brand-new car. All I wanted was an oil change!
I declined all of the above and resorted to reading my owner's manual to determine just what coolant is and where it goes. Did you know that "coolant" is a fancy word for equal parts antifreeze and water? I stopped by Target for the antifreeze and headed back to the office parking garage where my equally car-savvy coworker, Karin, and I set about filling the coolant ourselves.
I admit we spent the first ten minutes finding the latch to open my hood.
But then, with MacGyver-like ingenuity, we figured out how to mix equal portions of antifreeze and water using only tools found in our office kitchen—an empty Diet Coke bottle and a large blue candy bowl. Any men watching us surely would have shook their heads and muttered "women." But it worked. Eventually.
The oil-change guy could have filled my coolant on the spot with very little trouble and considerably less drama. But he had seen me drive up—a single woman who, though 26, looks more like 16—and had assumed (albeit correctly) I knew nothing about cars. He tried to convince me that without several hundred dollars' worth of repairs, my car would spontaneously combust, engulfing me and my unfortunate passengers in an automotive inferno of doom.
Clearly there's a vast mechanics' conspiracy at work here. Realizing that, here are two tidbits of automotive information you single girls may find useful:
There is such a thing as a "head gasket," and it should cost a whole lot of money to replace. This information came from my father, whom I called after the service manager at my dealership, Jimmy, told me my head gasket needed replacing—to the tune of more than a month's salary. Since I'd seen a lot of Jimmy for a while, I generally trusted him, even though he'd given up trying to explain my car problem du jour to me right around the time he heard me use the word "thingy." (I don't think it's considered proper automotive terminology.)
But a head gasket sounded like a small thingy to me, even if it was the head one. Apparently (again, according to my dad), in order to replace a head gasket, the mechanic basically has to disassemble your entire engine like a big metal Lego set. Mine might have been more time-consuming than most, due to the thin layer of coolant covering each part of my engine. Take it from me, coolant is sticky stuff.
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