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Mechanic

 I hadn’t really planned on doing the Mechanic badge any time soon, although I noted that I could already do most of the clauses when I first ready through the book. As we will be taking a trip up north soon (let’s be honest - most places are north when you live in Devon), and I needed new windscreen wipers, I thought I might as well start the badge. 

Yesterday I checked the oil and topped up the windscreen fluid. Nothing else needed my attention under the bonnet - and I have managed previously to top up the oil. I seem to remember doing it in a motorway service station, and asking someone for some help, because I couldn’t manage to undo the oil cap!

I checked the tyres a couple of days ago - noting with interest the tread wear indicators on the tyres, and they are fine. We have a tyre pressure gauge and inflator that we bought recently (to replace the one my husband can’t remember what happened to it), so I will check the tyre pressures later today - with husband’s supervision - because I’m worried that doing it by myself without supervision may result in the tyre exploding…I don’t have this worry when doing the tyres at petrol stations!! (Think this may also count as a scary thing for this week).

Yesterday I did something else that is a bit scary - I changed the windscreen wipers. Now, I don’t know why this is such an issue for me, but they are something that I also seem to have a problem with. Yesterday it didn’t help that when I looked at the passenger side one and took it out of the box, there were two clips, neither of them in the wiper. I couldn’t quite work out the diagram either, because what I was trying to do didn’t look like the diagram - and this is before I even removed the wiper on the car (I didn’t want to remove it until I was ready and sure of what I was doing. So, not to be outdone, I thought I’d have a look at the rear wiper instead. This was just as bad - I mean, it all looked fairly easy, but I couldn’t work out how to remove the rear wiper, and as much as I pushed and wiggled, it was not moving at all. So I looked on the Internet, and saw how easy it was meant to be…and decided to wait for husband. He arrived home, and we tackled the front passenger wiper first. When I say ‘we’ - he did it, as I was really struggling to work out how it was meant to go, - and then he wouldn’t take it back off so I could do it myself…I almost sulked. I managed to do the driver side wiper by myself (I think husband really wanted to get in an do it for me, rather than see me being so inept), and then it came to the rear one. Well, he didn’t manage to remove it easily either - and part of the plastic broke off, but I put the new wiper on and it seems secure enough now!

In searching for information about the windscreen wipers, I did find a useful website - mag.toyota.co.uk - which also has information about how to change a tyre - so I’ll be checking that a bit later!

The First Aid kit is in the car, there is a blanket in there already, and there is also a reflective tabard in there (advertised as a running vest in Aldi, but I thought it was ideal for this clause!).

In checking my service details I noted that I don’t seem to have my old service book…I do have a brand new one, now that my car has done more than 100,000 miles. I’ve also learned about AdBlue - useful things to know!

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