What Simple Vehicle Repair Or Trick Made You A Hero To Your Non Car-Obsessed Friends And Family?

There's always that one friend or family member that remembers "Hey, so-and-so is into cars! They might know!"— and you're the first person they text or call to help. The question or request might be complicated, like could you diagnose the car over the phone? Or perhaps your winning advice is simply best shop to repair their car and what to watch for until they can get it there. You might actually be able to diagnose it, or you have a simple fix that will keep said issue in check until they have the time, money, or whatever else to properly get it attended to. Mission accomplished — you're a hero and now a quick dial away from helping them in the next car crisis. Yay you.

Admittedly, you don't hate this great responsibility. You rather enjoy it because it's the one time that your friend or family member who doesn't understand anything about your interest will seek you out because of your interest. And compared to YouTubers and writers who can rebuild an entire car, your little spot of knowledge, comparatively, was useful and helped someone out. And that's what I want to know going into this week: What simple vehicle repair or trick made you a hero to your non car-obsessed friends and family?

Sometime in my youthful 20 I joined an hour-long road trip with some coworkers from the bar I worked at, to a Detroit casino. Our driver was our semi-unlucky pregnant coworker, who remained our sober babysitter. Sometime around one in the morning, we decided to return home in the Chrysler minivan we had brought along. I don't remember exactly what the issue was at the time, but the problem was enough that we had pulled over to the side of I-94 in Detroit on a cold winter night and needed to fix it.

I, being the only car-savvy individual of the lot (and the least buzzed of our group) hopped out of the van and began to diagnose the issue. It wasn't long before I was on my back, on the snowy, cold highway cement, under the car, ruining my gloves and taking off a shoelace from my winter boots to combine it with a coat hanger I found in the rear hatch so I could reaffix the muffler to the exhaust and we could continue home.

The party was ecstatic, as we didn't have to wait in a questionable area for the hour-plus quoted for a tow truck or someone to come out to fix it. We made it home and my coworkers continued to celebrate my innovative MacGyvering skills for weeks. It was not the first, nor the last time I did something like that, but what seemed like a simple thing became a monumental achievement. I might have well have built a rocket and launched it to space.

There are certainly more simple stories I could have told, but this one remains one of my more amusing ones. As for you reader, what repair or vehicle trick made you a hero to the people in your life that know nothing about cars? We'll gather 'round to celebrate your hero-dom later this week.