Exactly!

It's practically impossible to fix a broken appliance, nowadays. It's so much easier to toss it in a dumpster, drive down to the nearest Home Depot, or what-have-you, and buy yourself a new one. Chances are that what broke was something trivial to diagnose, and even less challenging to fix, but you can't work it out, yourself.

The exact same goes for car dealerships and maintenance. You're driving to the store, one day, and all of a sudden, you see a blinking light on the console. It's telling you that you "Need Maintenance." Great. You drive it to the dealer (or an authorized shop), where they use all sorts of computers and thousand dollar machines to find out that you needed to add some windshield wiper fluid, which they just so happened to do for you, and for which they charge precisely an arm and a leg and both your first and second born children. God forbid that something should actually break...

What a way civilization has turned, eh?

(I used exaggeration and hyperbole liberally. Please take with a grain of salt.)

I find that the easiest way to learn about anything mechanical is simply by doing it, getting you hands dirty and asking questions....you seem to figure out things as you go....

Actually I also believe it is due to the fact that its cheaper to toss it.:) It just is not worth it these days to repair certain items since they have gotten cheaper. Answering machines used to use complicated rods and timing mechanisms to get them to work. Now all they use is a cheap little microchip.

Funny this should come up. The other day a friend called to say that he couldn't come over as planned. His car (a 1970 Dodge Dart) wouldn't start.

So I went over to give him a hand with it. I dragged my 14 year old son along with me so he could share the experience. On the way out I grabbed my timing light and tach/dwell meter.

When we got there, he went to show us what it wasn't doing, and it fired right up. Mechanics syndrome strikes again! But we went ahead and checked the timing dwell and idle speed anyway, since we had all of the stuff out.

Since the problem hasn't recurred, we figure he probably just "flooded" the carborator, possibly due to trying to start it with a low battery. He had a battery charger on when we arrived and enough time had passed that the flooding could have cleared by itself.

Thinking about it later I realized I hadn't had those things out since before my son was born!. During that time all of our cars have had electronic fuel injection and electronic ignition. So flooding rarely happens and the dwell never gets off, unless something is fried. In which case the problem is obvious.

A whole realm of experience passed off of the scene and I never even noticed.

ChrisH

I was reading this book about off-road driving and it talked about this guy who made a bunch of money by freeing stuck cars from the sand on the beach. People who's cars were stuck would ask this guy for assistance and he would ask them for $40. Once the money was payed, he would air down the tires to a low PSI and drive the car right out. He then told the people to re-inflate the tires as soon as possible and have a nice day.

I know this isn't really how one learn's but it's just a fun little trick that's very useful.

Reverse engineering, whether it be on purpose or accidentally. 'Nuff said.

Re: How Do You Best Learn About Mechanical Stuff?
 

That's about how I learn how to do things to. I like to take things apart and put them back together and if it works fine if not I'll just go out and buy another one =)

As for classroom trainingI prefer the teacher just showing me physically how metal is welded or how to use high tech tools or even attach something correctly rather them writing on a board of giving out handouts or making speeches that make no sense I will not hesitate to fall asleep for such things.

The way I look at it theres 24 hours in one day and If I don't get it right the first time around I have plenty of time to correct the mistake and try it again.