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| Power tools
by Jen Reeder
“Get a second opinion,” he advised. “I think they’re scamming you.” He was right, and I haven’t been to a mechanic alone since. So, it was exciting to hear that the Women’s Resource Center was hosting “Car Care 101” last Thursday, the first in a series of “Empowerment Workshops” to help women take charge of their lives. Fittingly, I got lost on my way to Mountain Mechanical, where the workshop was held – the shop is at 8th Street and 4th Avenue, and not vice versa. Name tag affixed, I chatted with another attendee before the workshop began. “I don’t even know how to check the air in my tires. It’s been bothering me,” Betsy Lloyd, a Durango resident, told me. “This is a great opportunity.” Lloyd recently relocated to Durango from Arizona to be closer to her 37-year-old son and his family. “He’s helpful but I can’t ask him to do everything. I want to know how to do things,” she said. Deborah Uroda, fund development and marketing director at the Women’s Resource Center, called the workshop to order, and a dozen women gathered around a yellow ’91 Geo Metro convertible with the hood up. One attendee called out, “This is one clean shop – cleaner than my house!” (Sadly, this was true of my house, too.) Uroda introduced Dave Crom, owner of Mountain Mechanical, who said he wanted to encourage questions and help us understand how our cars work. The first question: “Why is it so expensive to get our cars fixed?” “Everybody thinks we have Learjets, but we don’t,” Crom said with a chuckle. He explained that times have changed from the old days when mechanics “played with GTOs in the parking lot with cigarette boxes rolled up in their sleeves.” For example, some 2011 car models have more than 70 computers in them. To further illustrate the point, he had Mountain Mechanical’s lead technician, Ed Smith, detail his background, which includes military service, work as a pharmacy tech, a degree in pre-med, 300 hours of training to become an ASC certified mechanic and a $40,000 investment in tools. “He’s a smart guy – he’s not the tech I told you about in the ’60s,” Crom said, which led him to more reminiscing about the ’60s, when Chevrolet only manufactured four different engines. “OK, we get it!” someone called out. And we did: Cars are more complicated and expensive to work on these days. It was time to dissect the yellow car. Crom started with spark plugs and how maintenance can prevent expensive repairs down the road, a recurring theme of the evening.
Smith demonstrated how to check the car’s oil level, starting with locating the dipstick. It turned out that the oil in the car was extremely low, and we learned the owner of the car was in fact the WRC’s Uroda, who called out: “I purposely didn’t put oil in it this weekend!” as the room filled with laughter. Crom suggested we check our oil every time we fill up at the gas station, and the laughter shifted to groans. The subject moved to fluids in general, and checking the tops of caps or the owner’s manual to make sure we put the correct fluids in. “What about synthetic oil?” a woman standing near me said. I gave her a suspicious look because I’d never heard of synthetic oil, and intelligent questions make me uncomfortable in a class supposedly for beginners. (For the record, Crom replied that there are 100 different opinions on it, but he contends that if you use good quality oil, you don’t need synthetic.) “Next, we’re going to check the air filter,” he announced, and Uroda groaned. It was in pretty good shape, and we compared it to a filthy one from another car. Uroda’s car was a fine guinea pig throughout the night, putting up with having a tire removed so that we could check the tread depth with a penny (poor Abe Lincoln goes in headfirst; if you can see the top of his head, it’s time for new tires), and being hoisted up so that we could gather to identify things like the muffler and catalytic converter. The attendees kept asking intelligent questions, which I’m sure was empowering for them but made me realize I needed the class more than anyone. There was plenty of joking too – on using Coke to dissolve corrosion on the alternator, someone added, “Don’t drink it after, right?” Finally, Crom gave us tips on how to select a mechanic. “We suffer from an image problem,” he admitted. “There are some dishonest people out there.” A woman asked what a reasonable hourly rate for a mechanic is, and he said $80 - $100 is typical, though more expensive cars like Mercedes will have higher rates. Uroda gestured to her Geo and said, “So this is only $20 an hour, right?” “Nope, that’s a lawnmower,” Crom retorted as the room erupted. Afterward, Jessie Morgan explained what she got out of the workshop. “The biggest thing I got out of it is how important the owner’s manual really is,” she said. And did she feel empowered? “Absolutely.” • The next “Car Care 101” workshop will be held at Mountain Mechanical at 6 p.m. on Thurs., Jan. 20. For more information, contact the Women’s Resource Center at 247-1242 or visit www.wrcdurango.org.
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The Independent Weekly Line on Durango and Beyond
I’m ashamed to admit that I fit the female stereotype. I know little about cars. Years ago in Seattle, I took my pick-up truck in for its annual checkup only to have a smiling mechanic tell me I needed thousands of dollars worth of repairs. Something called a “serpentine belt” was the main culprit. Dejected, I left the shop and another customer – a man – followed me outside.