SHE SAYS . . .

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31088, 17 June 1966, Page 12

SHE SAYS . . .

... as I have said before, women motorists should have at least some idea of how a car works. This is not only so they may be able to get it going again if a minor breakdown occurs, but also so that they can keep some check on the work done by their garage or, even more important, the work done by a strange garage if repairs are done while they are away from home.

If you can analyse the cause of minor troubles, there is some satisfaction to be gained from the expressions on the faces of garage men! I recall the case of a woman driver whose car spluttered into a service station near a main road. She jumped out, told the mechanic there was a fuel blockage, and asked him to blow through the fuel lines with an air hose. Slightly thunderstruck, he did as he was bid. Away roared the woman, leaving the duly impressed mechanic surveying her now-healthy and rapidlydisappearing car!

Even with the best will in the world, small mistakes can be made just as easily by a mechanic in the garage as by a housewife in the home! Before today bungs have been left out of sumps, radiator or fuel filler caps have been left off, or radiators have been emptied and not refilled.

Small things can be quite easily overlooked, but if left unnoticed can prove most inconvenient and possibly very expensive. Even if you appear more interested and concerned about the car when you collect it from the garage I think you are likely to have mechanics pay just that little bit more attention

to what they are doing. The person who doesn’t know and doesn’t seem to care is not quite as likely to have a mechanic fuss over her car.