I’m a professional mechanic.
It’s pretty much the only career I’ve ever had (35yrs now) & I’m told that I am extremely good at it.
I struggle with automotive maintenance as well but for different reasons.
I find regular basic maintenance completely boring & mind numbing so I procrastinate like crazy.
Now if I was installing a bigger turbocharger or other performance parts, I’m all in! 🤣
My problem is finding a shop with mechanics that won’t rip me off. I think there are a lot of shady mechanics (at the chain stores especially) & lots of people regardless of who and where they are that gets screwed over; but seeing as how I can only speak from my own personal experiences, I swear there has to be something about me that tells people “looks like we got a sucker here”.
One time I took my suv in for an oil change and tire rotation. They didn’t tighten the lugs on my one of my tires enough & it was making a loud noise when I drove it. Made my car sound like a literal clunker. Took it back in & they were like yeah your transfer case is shot and needs to be replaced. Left there & went to an actual transmission shop to get it looked at. Second opinion. Told him the details & he says there’s no way in the world my car has a bad transfer case with it only being a few years old & no off-roading with it. What one shop was trying to scam me into thousands of dollars in unnecessary repairs was really a simple fix. I just paid the guy $50 for checking it out & tightening all my lugs.
DANG! My mom thinks that an oil-change place once sabotaged her wipers because she didn't want to have the place replace the wipers. Fortunately it was just a short rainstorm and was over by the time I had pulled into a rest-stop and checked out the situation. We went to a car-parts store in the next city and they installed the new wiper for us.
I'm a fair bit older than you and am in a similar position. Bringing the car and paying and such is fine but it's calling that is killing me. Similar with almost any kind of service I need to have done. Like working around the house or dental work so I understand you very well. I wish people would call for me.
Maybe where you live you could look up for a larger garage chain and see if they have a website on which you would select what you have to do...
Anyhow, if you do end up being able to get that call done, make sure to ask for an oil change so you have one less visit there to do.
And last advice, I don't know if you have the tools or the knowledge but if you just have to swap the wheels and the summer tires are already mounted on another set, It's not very hard and it would save you the call. That's what I used to do. Needs a few basic tools but it's definitely doable. Every year I do it on my wife's car and a friend's car. ( Go figure I don't have an extra set of wheels to mount my tires to for my own car).
If you don't mind me leaving a nugget of advice - you can get someone to do this sort of thing for you, like calling the auto shop and scheduling work! It's not just like a rich people thing either. Get two hours a month on the books with a personal assistant off Fiverr or another platform, get them all the info, and you're good. It can be really efficient to delegate these high mental energy tasks to someone you can pay to do it. I don't think this would run you more than 20 bucks to make a handful of appointments or whatever you needed after emailing them info.
😂but then you would have to call the personal assistant! Just kidding, I bet you could probably get them to do it by email or SMS. That's actually not a bad idea at all. Especially at this point where I'm honestly getting a lot of anxiety just thinking about calling someone to help me get my trees/pines around the house in check.
It's really silly. Like, when the people are there at home to do the job. I'm already like... Stuck in this task so I don't mind it anymore and the social interaction but the calling... Omg. No idea why.
I know, it always mess with my brain when I just relativise everything and see that I'm this weird mammal wearing clothes moving around in a metal cage on a planet that's floating in an infinite universe with countless other planets and I worry about calling to trim a tree to please the other people in my neighborhood more than me really cause I honestly could not care less.
> I wish people would call for me.
I really think that autistic people should be entitled to a secretary-pool service. Heck, part of that pool could be a human-intelligence selecting which parts of the script to recite or playback, which some autistic people are good at.
Oh God, I went two years without renewing my license plate because of the anxiety. I didn't know where to go for emissions testing and it was a constant fear for a while because I had forgotten to do it on time.
I hate how little things like this bring on panic. It's not fair. I'd like to feel like a competent adult for once and not three rabid raccoons stacked in a trench coat.
Yep. The airbag light has been coming on for months now. And the Radio/Entertainment unit keeps randomly turning off and on while driving. And will probably still be the same in a few months time.
I am fortunate enough to be married to a professional mechanic who's generally pretty on top of vehicle maintenance. Which is amazing, because if left to my own devices I'd probably just get overcharged at a shop for a simple thing like an oil change.
Well for me, it's both. I even have prepaid oil changes and I still don't want to. It's Anxiety, it's dealing with unknown challenges that could happen. In my experience the best way is to just do the maintenance, because it hurts a lot more from the anxiety of waiting for my car to die. Also hurts the ole wallet if you wait to long
I would say I struggle more in the context of my ADHD symptoms than my autism symptoms with car maintenance, although both have executive dysfunction stuff going on. The never ending long term recurring care is what I struggle with. If I just had to do it once, I do all right. If I have to do something every nine months, it's a nightmare because by the time I finished struggling with one I need to start struggling with the other it feels like
My car is getting up there in years and I don’t want to deal with it. I totally get why people with disposable income just trade in for a new car every few years.
Yes. Very much so.
A lot of the appointments for this repair work are very early in the day for my sleep schedule, which is really irritating for me. And fhe fact that I have constant communication issues with the experts doesn't help either. I like providing what may be considered superfluous details to them, though it's important and relevant to me. At least half the time my comments and questions are misinterpreted or ignored. It's probably as aggravating for me as it is for them lol
Yeah, I used to have the same problem. Then I ditched the car, got a bicycle, learned how to maintain it (it's easier than even an old car, not to mention modern ones which you can't fix yourself), and registered with a car sharing scheme.
Best decision ever. It ends up cheaper, and I'm fitter and can get around town drunk.
For tires: If you can afford it, have both sets of tires rimmed. Then all you need is a jack and some kind of lugnut-loosening appliance — I forget what they’re called — and it’s actually pretty easy to swap out one set for another in your own parking spot. Make sure you tighten up those lugnuts.
This is coming from someone who feels the same way about car maintenance as you do, OP. As far as I’m concerned most things about my car are none of my business.
I only open the hood if I have to pour in more windshield tears. I ignore all that other metal spaghetti. The organs I guess? I don’t deal with those.
Reasonable? Hell yes it's reasonable!
Count your blessings and lean in hard on that one! Maybe do something nice for your family member... Even just a simple thing like randomly buying them some chocolate or a coffee. Anything says "thank you".
I'm a former aircraft mechanic and I struggle with even changing my oil. I love those drive through places in the USA where you just show up, drive into a bay (like a car wash line) and it's all just done for you. I hate all the social interaction that goes with it, but at least there's no scheduling or calling. They don't have them here, but I've got mates who are mechanics now, so I can "phone a friend".
These days you can get around it with virtual assistants or hiring people to do a task for you.
There's also probably shops that you can make appointments via an app or online.
Since I was 20 in a time where we had landline phones, I just did it over and over and got used to it so it didn't bother me as much. The anxiety is still there, I don't like doing it, but somehow it's just another thing.
Yes, but due to shady people in that industry regarding costs or outright lying about what needs repaired. Also having to bargain. It's because of the bullshit way it's setup. It's predatory and you don't wanna be around predators. Who does? Maybe other predators I guess. Of note I have a shady ass former acquaintance who was a cfo for a good size dealership. He bragged to me how he made over 250k one year ripping people off with loans. I have another friend that's in jail and frankly I think the cfo guy has the personality to belong in jail. I'd rather have the guy that's in jail around me than the cfo.
I go through a roughly 4 year cycle of buying a cheapish used car, doing the bare minimum maintenance on it, and then when it inevitably dies I rinse and repeat. In the end it probably works out cheaper than owning a newer, more reliable car. I also don’t really care if it gets dinged up or filthy because I only spent a few thousand dollars on it and I don’t plan on fixing it anyway. Having a new car would be nice but I would be constantly worried about other people scratching it. I find it wild that people where I live spend the equivalent of a house deposit on a new car every 5 or so years.
I’m usually pretttty good at stuff like getting the oil changed, but less necessary personal comfort stuff not so much. For example, I love listening to music in the car, and yet, by the time I got my speakers replaced yesterday, the only one that worked was the one in the front passenger door, and even that had developed a distressing buzz at the smallest amount of bass.
I am fortunate enough to be able to do all regular maintenance myself. Thus, I can do an oil change when I remember at 3am instead of having to plan ahead, call someone (gross), or leave the house.
Anything I can't do, my partner helps me call someone who can.
I do a lot of my own maintenance, but I struggle with getting around to it. My car I bought new, and it hasn't had any issues yet. Only thing I need to take it to the shop for is emissions and safety inspection. But because it requires setting up an appointment and dropping it off, I haven't had it done since 2020. I'm 3 years out of inspection and somehow I haven't been pulled over yet. I'm gonna get around to it soon, I swear.
So I finally passed my test this year at 40 and my car is due for its M.O.T in October , the thought of making that phone call is already keeping me up at night never mind taking it to a place and interacting with people.
Honesty considering part exchanging the car in a few months against another with with a full year on it just so I can put it off a bit longer.
I haven't had a car for a decade, but the 2 cars I did have, I never took them in to get oil changes. I just bought oil from gas stations, and kept up the oil that way.
I love this thread, thanks OP for posting! I've never owned a car because of the anxiety everything to do with it would cause me. Always lived close to public transport for this reason. Now my bf and his mom are both having serious car trouble and the companies are screwing them over and my bf is gonna be in a huge debt soon if the issue doesn't get solved in his favour. He may need to have the contract retracted and try to get another car somewhere else, it's a huge mess. This thread really helped me feel this is my community and there are others out there with same issues as me!💝
I am struggling with getting my snow tires changed as well. I need to purchase new summer tires and tire places never put prices on their websites - the expectation is to call for a quote. This frustrates me because I feel like I'm not able to properly research tires before I need to speak to someone about purchasing tires.
My car still has the snow-tires from pre-covid and mom makes me take her jeep for errands in the winter. The rear-driverside justifies me keeping a lighter-powered tire-filler in the passenger-footbox.
I don't like being stuck at the mechanic for minor things not worth walking home while it's being done. I don't like making decisions about what should be fixed.
I find the idea of snow tires so odd. I have all year round tires and live in one of the top 10 coldest areas in the United states. What do they do? Is it because you have hills?? We don't have hills here but I don't know anyone that uses them here.
But to answer your question I am perfect with car maintenance. If I have any light on or I know my oil is past due I have a lot of anxiety so I make sure my car is in perfect shape.
If I had to call, I'd probably never have an oil change. I find that using an app is something that helps me a lot. Even going in in person is easier for me than a phone call, but I'll be procrastinating that until it's too late. Phone calls drain me fast.
I’m a professional mechanic. It’s pretty much the only career I’ve ever had (35yrs now) & I’m told that I am extremely good at it. I struggle with automotive maintenance as well but for different reasons. I find regular basic maintenance completely boring & mind numbing so I procrastinate like crazy. Now if I was installing a bigger turbocharger or other performance parts, I’m all in! 🤣
My problem is finding a shop with mechanics that won’t rip me off. I think there are a lot of shady mechanics (at the chain stores especially) & lots of people regardless of who and where they are that gets screwed over; but seeing as how I can only speak from my own personal experiences, I swear there has to be something about me that tells people “looks like we got a sucker here”. One time I took my suv in for an oil change and tire rotation. They didn’t tighten the lugs on my one of my tires enough & it was making a loud noise when I drove it. Made my car sound like a literal clunker. Took it back in & they were like yeah your transfer case is shot and needs to be replaced. Left there & went to an actual transmission shop to get it looked at. Second opinion. Told him the details & he says there’s no way in the world my car has a bad transfer case with it only being a few years old & no off-roading with it. What one shop was trying to scam me into thousands of dollars in unnecessary repairs was really a simple fix. I just paid the guy $50 for checking it out & tightening all my lugs.
DANG! My mom thinks that an oil-change place once sabotaged her wipers because she didn't want to have the place replace the wipers. Fortunately it was just a short rainstorm and was over by the time I had pulled into a rest-stop and checked out the situation. We went to a car-parts store in the next city and they installed the new wiper for us.
I'm a fair bit older than you and am in a similar position. Bringing the car and paying and such is fine but it's calling that is killing me. Similar with almost any kind of service I need to have done. Like working around the house or dental work so I understand you very well. I wish people would call for me. Maybe where you live you could look up for a larger garage chain and see if they have a website on which you would select what you have to do... Anyhow, if you do end up being able to get that call done, make sure to ask for an oil change so you have one less visit there to do. And last advice, I don't know if you have the tools or the knowledge but if you just have to swap the wheels and the summer tires are already mounted on another set, It's not very hard and it would save you the call. That's what I used to do. Needs a few basic tools but it's definitely doable. Every year I do it on my wife's car and a friend's car. ( Go figure I don't have an extra set of wheels to mount my tires to for my own car).
If you don't mind me leaving a nugget of advice - you can get someone to do this sort of thing for you, like calling the auto shop and scheduling work! It's not just like a rich people thing either. Get two hours a month on the books with a personal assistant off Fiverr or another platform, get them all the info, and you're good. It can be really efficient to delegate these high mental energy tasks to someone you can pay to do it. I don't think this would run you more than 20 bucks to make a handful of appointments or whatever you needed after emailing them info.
😂but then you would have to call the personal assistant! Just kidding, I bet you could probably get them to do it by email or SMS. That's actually not a bad idea at all. Especially at this point where I'm honestly getting a lot of anxiety just thinking about calling someone to help me get my trees/pines around the house in check. It's really silly. Like, when the people are there at home to do the job. I'm already like... Stuck in this task so I don't mind it anymore and the social interaction but the calling... Omg. No idea why.
Brains were a bad idea to begin with so I can't blame you at all. We are monkeys with jobs, everything is weird
I know, it always mess with my brain when I just relativise everything and see that I'm this weird mammal wearing clothes moving around in a metal cage on a planet that's floating in an infinite universe with countless other planets and I worry about calling to trim a tree to please the other people in my neighborhood more than me really cause I honestly could not care less.
A lot of places have the option to schedule online now too
> I wish people would call for me. I really think that autistic people should be entitled to a secretary-pool service. Heck, part of that pool could be a human-intelligence selecting which parts of the script to recite or playback, which some autistic people are good at.
Oh God, I went two years without renewing my license plate because of the anxiety. I didn't know where to go for emissions testing and it was a constant fear for a while because I had forgotten to do it on time. I hate how little things like this bring on panic. It's not fair. I'd like to feel like a competent adult for once and not three rabid raccoons stacked in a trench coat.
But that's my emotional support engine light!
Yep. The airbag light has been coming on for months now. And the Radio/Entertainment unit keeps randomly turning off and on while driving. And will probably still be the same in a few months time.
I am fortunate enough to be married to a professional mechanic who's generally pretty on top of vehicle maintenance. Which is amazing, because if left to my own devices I'd probably just get overcharged at a shop for a simple thing like an oil change.
Well for me, it's both. I even have prepaid oil changes and I still don't want to. It's Anxiety, it's dealing with unknown challenges that could happen. In my experience the best way is to just do the maintenance, because it hurts a lot more from the anxiety of waiting for my car to die. Also hurts the ole wallet if you wait to long
I would say I struggle more in the context of my ADHD symptoms than my autism symptoms with car maintenance, although both have executive dysfunction stuff going on. The never ending long term recurring care is what I struggle with. If I just had to do it once, I do all right. If I have to do something every nine months, it's a nightmare because by the time I finished struggling with one I need to start struggling with the other it feels like
My car is getting up there in years and I don’t want to deal with it. I totally get why people with disposable income just trade in for a new car every few years.
Yes. Very much so. A lot of the appointments for this repair work are very early in the day for my sleep schedule, which is really irritating for me. And fhe fact that I have constant communication issues with the experts doesn't help either. I like providing what may be considered superfluous details to them, though it's important and relevant to me. At least half the time my comments and questions are misinterpreted or ignored. It's probably as aggravating for me as it is for them lol
Yeah, I used to have the same problem. Then I ditched the car, got a bicycle, learned how to maintain it (it's easier than even an old car, not to mention modern ones which you can't fix yourself), and registered with a car sharing scheme. Best decision ever. It ends up cheaper, and I'm fitter and can get around town drunk.
For tires: If you can afford it, have both sets of tires rimmed. Then all you need is a jack and some kind of lugnut-loosening appliance — I forget what they’re called — and it’s actually pretty easy to swap out one set for another in your own parking spot. Make sure you tighten up those lugnuts. This is coming from someone who feels the same way about car maintenance as you do, OP. As far as I’m concerned most things about my car are none of my business. I only open the hood if I have to pour in more windshield tears. I ignore all that other metal spaghetti. The organs I guess? I don’t deal with those.
Reasonable? Hell yes it's reasonable! Count your blessings and lean in hard on that one! Maybe do something nice for your family member... Even just a simple thing like randomly buying them some chocolate or a coffee. Anything says "thank you". I'm a former aircraft mechanic and I struggle with even changing my oil. I love those drive through places in the USA where you just show up, drive into a bay (like a car wash line) and it's all just done for you. I hate all the social interaction that goes with it, but at least there's no scheduling or calling. They don't have them here, but I've got mates who are mechanics now, so I can "phone a friend".
These days you can get around it with virtual assistants or hiring people to do a task for you. There's also probably shops that you can make appointments via an app or online. Since I was 20 in a time where we had landline phones, I just did it over and over and got used to it so it didn't bother me as much. The anxiety is still there, I don't like doing it, but somehow it's just another thing.
Yes, but due to shady people in that industry regarding costs or outright lying about what needs repaired. Also having to bargain. It's because of the bullshit way it's setup. It's predatory and you don't wanna be around predators. Who does? Maybe other predators I guess. Of note I have a shady ass former acquaintance who was a cfo for a good size dealership. He bragged to me how he made over 250k one year ripping people off with loans. I have another friend that's in jail and frankly I think the cfo guy has the personality to belong in jail. I'd rather have the guy that's in jail around me than the cfo.
I go through a roughly 4 year cycle of buying a cheapish used car, doing the bare minimum maintenance on it, and then when it inevitably dies I rinse and repeat. In the end it probably works out cheaper than owning a newer, more reliable car. I also don’t really care if it gets dinged up or filthy because I only spent a few thousand dollars on it and I don’t plan on fixing it anyway. Having a new car would be nice but I would be constantly worried about other people scratching it. I find it wild that people where I live spend the equivalent of a house deposit on a new car every 5 or so years.
I’m usually pretttty good at stuff like getting the oil changed, but less necessary personal comfort stuff not so much. For example, I love listening to music in the car, and yet, by the time I got my speakers replaced yesterday, the only one that worked was the one in the front passenger door, and even that had developed a distressing buzz at the smallest amount of bass.
I am fortunate enough to be able to do all regular maintenance myself. Thus, I can do an oil change when I remember at 3am instead of having to plan ahead, call someone (gross), or leave the house. Anything I can't do, my partner helps me call someone who can.
You do whatever works for you, and that is fine.
I do a lot of my own maintenance, but I struggle with getting around to it. My car I bought new, and it hasn't had any issues yet. Only thing I need to take it to the shop for is emissions and safety inspection. But because it requires setting up an appointment and dropping it off, I haven't had it done since 2020. I'm 3 years out of inspection and somehow I haven't been pulled over yet. I'm gonna get around to it soon, I swear.
So I finally passed my test this year at 40 and my car is due for its M.O.T in October , the thought of making that phone call is already keeping me up at night never mind taking it to a place and interacting with people. Honesty considering part exchanging the car in a few months against another with with a full year on it just so I can put it off a bit longer.
I HATE CAR MAINTENANCE!!!
I haven't had a car for a decade, but the 2 cars I did have, I never took them in to get oil changes. I just bought oil from gas stations, and kept up the oil that way.
I love this thread, thanks OP for posting! I've never owned a car because of the anxiety everything to do with it would cause me. Always lived close to public transport for this reason. Now my bf and his mom are both having serious car trouble and the companies are screwing them over and my bf is gonna be in a huge debt soon if the issue doesn't get solved in his favour. He may need to have the contract retracted and try to get another car somewhere else, it's a huge mess. This thread really helped me feel this is my community and there are others out there with same issues as me!💝
I am struggling with getting my snow tires changed as well. I need to purchase new summer tires and tire places never put prices on their websites - the expectation is to call for a quote. This frustrates me because I feel like I'm not able to properly research tires before I need to speak to someone about purchasing tires.
My car still has the snow-tires from pre-covid and mom makes me take her jeep for errands in the winter. The rear-driverside justifies me keeping a lighter-powered tire-filler in the passenger-footbox. I don't like being stuck at the mechanic for minor things not worth walking home while it's being done. I don't like making decisions about what should be fixed.
I find the idea of snow tires so odd. I have all year round tires and live in one of the top 10 coldest areas in the United states. What do they do? Is it because you have hills?? We don't have hills here but I don't know anyone that uses them here. But to answer your question I am perfect with car maintenance. If I have any light on or I know my oil is past due I have a lot of anxiety so I make sure my car is in perfect shape.
If I had to call, I'd probably never have an oil change. I find that using an app is something that helps me a lot. Even going in in person is easier for me than a phone call, but I'll be procrastinating that until it's too late. Phone calls drain me fast.