See What Happens?

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My wife, my stepdaughter and my stepson all drive me up a wall. Here's why...
They're always too busy and in a hurry for me to check under their hoods. I've given up on my stepson. He thinks he knows better. He doesn't listen when I do say he needs this or that and he ends up stuck. Guess who gets to go get him.
Yesterday, my stepdaughter came out to run some errands with my wife. After a few trips back and forth, her Jeep became hard starting. She called me. I was wrapping up a mountain bike ride and said I'd be there within the hour. I return home, open the hood, check the battery. It was a Deka that I had installed in 2015. Terminals were grossly corroded. I said this is PROBABLY your whole problem. I cleaned the terminals, added some dielectric grease, Jumped it with my truck to get it going and checked the alternator voltage. Alternator was fine. I said drive it around a little and come back and let me check the battery. I have one of those Midtronics testers that does the battery equivelant of an EKG. She was gone five minutes. Comes back, shuts the car off, starts it. Shuts it off, starts it again. Shuts it off once more and tries to restart and gets click. Since she's a teacher in Queens, NY, I decided to just install a new battery. Can't have her getting stuck. I'm in the city all day and can't help.
Here's the part that kills me. My brother is a Deka dealer. If I had seen this coming, I probably could have gotten some inkling of a prorate on the original battery. Since it was Sunday and the warehouse was closed, I was forced to buy a battery at Autozone. Autozone battery was 175-. A new Deka would have been 125, my cost. Now, her old one became a five dollar core when all along, if she would have been a little patient, probably would have lasted two more years.

She learned from the finest. My wife is one of those people that drives with the dash all lit up until the car stops running and then complains.
At least the wife lives with me. Every once in a while I take her keys and make sure everything is ok.
 
This is why I like batteries with removable caps where I can test the actual state of charge with a simple hydrometer and see if the battery is merely drained or actually has a bad cell.
 
not sure why it's all or nothing of them doing nothing and you doing everything. Can walk them through the problem but make them do the work while you are there? Like have them clean the terminals, hook up the charger, remove the battery (if she can lift it)? Not an attack or criticizing (i dont even have kids so have no standing
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. I just wonder if they are really intimidated or just assume you do magic to fix it.

Early on with my wife, I instilled in her to tell me ANYTHING she thought was out of the norm with our vehicles. Lots of false positives but also prevented major repairs by speaking up about minor things.
 
I think we all have that frustration. Cut them loose if you ask me.
That said I'm sure I'll get a bunch of nonsense but I have many decades experience with Deka batteries.
I think they are pure rubbish. My local garage 400 yards down has been selling them since their inception.
I avoid them at all cost.
 
Back to the battery problem, it seems to me, that if the charge was so low as needing jumped to start after the clean up, that a 5 minute drive wasn't nearly enough to charge it up anywhere near fully. Maybe it just needed a good charge, and it would be OK.
 
Originally Posted By: Zee09
I think we all have that frustration. Cut them loose if you ask me.

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Originally Posted By: Lolvoguy
Originally Posted By: Zee09
I think we all have that frustration. Cut them loose if you ask me.

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Agree sometimes a person can do too much too help. In the long run it only results in dependencies. Especially with millennials.
 
Adults. They are on they are their own unless they ask ME for advice.
Woman at work buys a used jeep on her own - syas sales person was soo nice to me - then gets burned a week later with a car that stall out unpredictabley and no one can fix it. She trades it back to same dealer and looses 3000 bucks - all in two weeks! Worse, she paid cash for it. A "NON Investment item. A relatively Poor person pays cash for a car when 2-3% interest loans are available.
Ignorant and too bad they get hurt. But what do we expect with the Loss of Romanticism and Enlightenment - A New age of Darwin-ism in dark ages revisited.

That said, I dont expect a non "car person" to know anything about battery maintenance - that's pushing the envelope. Checking oil and loose gas caps and tire pressure YES. Other stuff NO - unless they grew up around their Mom or dad wrenching and learned then.
 
As a step father that has help raise 4 step children into adulthood, stop being their personal valet and mechanic when things go wrong and hold them accountable for their own maintenance.

On all four of my step children when they started driving, I made each and every one of the do their own maintenance while I showed them how and made them buy their own fluids and repair parts. All are out of the house. The two oldest abandoned doing anything for themselves once they left the house and when they call asking for help, I give them the local garage or dealership number. They no longer call me. The two youngest, they are a different story and have matured into taking care of what they need to do and only call when they want advice on how to do something they are doing themselves.

As to my wife, I just took over her car maintenance but she at least appreciates it as before we met, she never left a Firestone with her car that did not have $700+ of usually unneeded maintenance most times.

There is helping those to help themselves, then there is being a doormat for people to use and wipe their feet on you. Stop being a doormat.
 
I'm lucky my wife freaks over anything that's she hasn't seen before. Except for when the gear position indicator was on, she was convinced I broke the car
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Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
Adults. They are on they are their own unless they ask ME for advice.
Woman at work buys a used jeep on her own - syas sales person was soo nice to me - then gets burned a week later with a car that stall out unpredictabley and no one can fix it. She trades it back to same dealer and looses 3000 bucks - all in two weeks! Worse, she paid cash for it. A "NON Investment item. A relatively Poor person pays cash for a car when 2-3% interest loans are available.
Ignorant and too bad they get hurt. But what do we expect with the Loss of Romanticism and Enlightenment - A New age of Darwin-ism in dark ages revisited.

That said, I dont expect a non "car person" to know anything about battery maintenance - that's pushing the envelope. Checking oil and loose gas caps and tire pressure YES. Other stuff NO - unless they grew up around their Mom or dad wrenching and learned then.


LOL so a poor person pays cash while someone who isn't poor pays interest on a depreciating asset? Nice.
 
Originally Posted By: rshaw125
Originally Posted By: Lolvoguy
Originally Posted By: Zee09
I think we all have that frustration. Cut them loose if you ask me.

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Agree sometimes a person can do too much too help. In the long run it only results in dependencies. Especially with millennials.


It has more to do with people's personalities and work ethics in general. Some of the most dependent people who need their hand held at work are far from being millennials fresh out of college.
 
I don't ever expect my stepdaughter to replace a battery or clean terminals but she is excellent about getting the oil changed regularly and keeping good tires on her car. It's my stepson and my son in law, My stepdaughter's husband that both make me wonder what happened to young men today. These two are clueless. My stepson especially bothers me because I've been in his life since he was ten years old. He's 28 now. Can't learn it if you don't want to learn it I guess.
I've even tried teaching the boys basic carpentry and electricity because they both talk about buying houses. They have no interest. I tell them they better make lots of money so they can pay people to do things for them. I rest easy that my thirteen year old is all in. Picks up everything.

Zee09, that's the first time I've heard negative comments about Deka. Seriously? I've used them for years, mostly 4D and 8D for standby generator applications and have never had a problem. I have sixteen of them here now at work. I'm curious what you've seen and what you use.
 
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Let me add, they're all great kids. Hard working and educated but if you make 110,000 dollars a year and expect to live on LI or in the metropolitan NY area, that money isn't going to go very far if you pay for every little thing to be done for you. I get it, they want to work in finance. No one is saying become a mechanic but at least be able to take care of the basics.
 
I fill up the wife's Venza with gas. Get to see how it works about every 2 weeks. Thought the front suspension was crashing so asked her about it. I get the blank look. My youngest son works at a local Dodge dealer. I said hey, take the car to work, have them look at it and maybe get a better price on repair. Car is pronounced fine after a mechanic test drives it - like what the heck?
Change of the winter tires off and yup, both front struts are leaking, the side I felt was bad was completely soaked top to bottom.
Had them changed at the local Toy dealer, car rides like new again.

Just shaking my head .....
 
Originally Posted By: rshaw125
Originally Posted By: Lolvoguy
Originally Posted By: Zee09
I think we all have that frustration. Cut them loose if you ask me.

01.gif






Agree sometimes a person can do too much too help. In the long run it only results in dependencies. Especially with millennials.




It's not just 'millennials' ...it can happen to any person or group who are given too much.
 
The best part of the whole thing was as I got there and came through the door, my stepson announces it's the starter. I said why is it automatically the starter? He replied because it's cranking slowly. So after I cleaned the terminals and jumped it and it started right up he was "surprised" it wasn't the starter.
 
Originally Posted By: jeepman3071
Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
Adults. They are on they are their own unless they ask ME for advice.
Woman at work buys a used jeep on her own - syas sales person was soo nice to me - then gets burned a week later with a car that stall out unpredictabley and no one can fix it. She trades it back to same dealer and looses 3000 bucks - all in two weeks! Worse, she paid cash for it. A "NON Investment item. A relatively Poor person pays cash for a car when 2-3% interest loans are available.
Ignorant and too bad they get hurt. But what do we expect with the Loss of Romanticism and Enlightenment - A New age of Darwin-ism in dark ages revisited.

That said, I dont expect a non "car person" to know anything about battery maintenance - that's pushing the envelope. Checking oil and loose gas caps and tire pressure YES. Other stuff NO - unless they grew up around their Mom or dad wrenching and learned then.


LOL so a poor person pays cash while someone who isn't poor pays interest on a depreciating asset? Nice.


Well If your getting over 20 points year over year in the Market as we have been. Now with over value and stagnation I'd say pay 35-50% down cash and finance the balance ... 1-3% is still cheap money for a Car loan.
 
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Originally Posted By: Lolvoguy
Originally Posted By: Zee09
I think we all have that frustration. Cut them loose if you ask me.

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There you go. Or at least tell the stepson he is on his own next tme his car quits due to something he didn't do that you suggested. Needs to learn.

Stepdaughter is either an idiot or uneducated...5 minutes is not long enough to charge the battery.

Originally Posted By: Hootbro
As a step father that has help raise 4 step children into adulthood, stop being their personal valet and mechanic when things go wrong and hold them accountable for their own maintenance.

On all four of my step children when they started driving, I made each and every one of the do their own maintenance while I showed them how and made them buy their own fluids and repair parts. All are out of the house. The two oldest abandoned doing anything for themselves once they left the house and when they call asking for help, I give them the local garage or dealership number. They no longer call me. The two youngest, they are a different story and have matured into taking care of what they need to do and only call when they want advice on how to do something they are doing themselves.

As to my wife, I just took over her car maintenance but she at least appreciates it as before we met, she never left a Firestone with her car that did not have $700+ of usually unneeded maintenance most times.

There is helping those to help themselves, then there is being a doormat for people to use and wipe their feet on you. Stop being a doormat.


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Originally Posted By: NYEngineer
make 110,000 dollars a year ...I get it, they want to work in finance.


Ooooooh, yeaahh. You're dealing with a very special kind here, now everything makes much more sense. One big problem I'm seeing here is that you're responding way too fast the moment they start crying. Leave them alone with the problems they're responsible for- please, for the good of humanity. The entitlement and willful ignorance will only become more and more severe, given the disclosure of their chosen careers and their current behaviors.
 
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