Can i use this game as repair tutorial cars IRL?

[petrichor]

i know it sounds dumb, but i know nothing about car's engine and all, i know about bike/motorcycle but cars, understanding about basic repair or cars engine is on my bucketlist, as i mature i need to learn how to change car's oil, nuts, battery and all those basic stuff you know, i dont own a car yet but i can drive, who knows this basic skill will help me or other people one day.

[Mardoin69]

Yeah, you 'can' get a 'little' familiar with car components in this game. But, there's a lot of stuff either missing or doesn't go into enough depth to actually 'school' you in mechanics. The game 'Wrench' maybe a little better for that purpose. These are just games though and don't get super realistic and detailed enough. A Chilton or Haynes car repair manual for whatever car you own is probably your best first step... aside from playing a game.

[bjthedeejay11683]

Originally posted by Mardoin69:

Yeah, you 'can' get a 'little' familiar with car components in this game. But, there's a lot of stuff either missing or doesn't go into enough depth to actually 'school' you in mechanics. The game 'Wrench' maybe a little better for that purpose. These are just games though and don't get super realistic and detailed enough. A Chilton or Haynes car repair manual for whatever car you own is probably your best first step... aside from playing a game.

^This....My dad used to buy a Chilton guide for every car he owned. The book is a complete teardown and rebuild of the model.

[Vazeul Ezren]

Professional mechanic here: The biggest thing about this game, is even if the realism as far as parts, bolts, and assembly is spot on, what will never be spot on is the hair pulling stress and physical agony of actually working on cars. The minor tedious tasks of this game are nothing compared to working on cars in real life.

(incoming angry rant) It kinda hurts me playing this game and being able to magically reach and unscrew some of the bolts and hard to reach parts in this game, where in real life some bolts I'm basically feeling around for on the other side of an engine where I can't see crap while hugging the engine and getting stabbed, cut, and burned by all manner of little pointy and scalding hot parts. Then when I finally find the bolt I get to struggle for 10minutes trying to find a tool that I can fit on the stupid thing that doesn't get blocked by everything else that's in my way without dropping anything or losing location on the bolt I struggled to find. Also how everything in this game feels so weightless. Tires will mess your back up, transmissions and engine blocks weigh hundreds of pounds, and I've had more than a few hood shocks give out to tell you engine hoods are heavy when there's not something supporting them.(end rant)

To put it simply, even with all these "How to" videos on YT and books/manuals and everything on the internet, there's a reason people still pay professional mechanics to do this work. Because it's time consuming and will make your body feel bad, requires a stupid amount of specialized tools, or at the very least make you wanna pull your hair out and scream. Even some of the most basic maintenance like oil changes can vary in difficulty by make, model, or even year. Working on cars just comes down to your tolerance for time, pain, and frustration. If you can handle dealing with those things then anything you want to know how to do is probably on YouTube somewhere.

[Mardoin69]

@Vazeul Ezren
True That!!
Reminds me of one time when I was trying to remove a starter on a Semi I was working on. The bolts were rusted in. Soaked them down with 'Liquid Wrench' and came back to it later. Put 2 wrenches (combined for extra leverage) onto the bolt heads and still couldn't get it to budge. Ended up breaking one of my wrenches so, I asked our Supervisor if I could borrow one of his wrenches. He ridiculed me for a poor choice of tool brand purchase since my wrench broke. He was always bragging about how all his tool were 'Snap-On' and guaranteed. So, I took his and did same thing again trying to get the bolt to even budge at all. Ended up bending his wrench, along with mine (which were also guaranteed) into a horse shoe shape. Handed it back to him and said, "Great choice in tool brand Boss. It didn't break!" He was a bit P.O.'d, lol.

Speaking of some super difficult cars to work on... The early model chevy Astro vans had to have the motor mounts loosened / remove and engine jacked up on one side in order to remove / replace the oil filter of all things. This kind of stuff is always happening in the car industry because them dang Engineers do NOT actually do any wrench work to see how bad their designs are. They get told later by mechanics how awful it is and then change things in their next designs. Even then, they also add new things in newer models and mess that up too.

[Vazeul Ezren]

@Mardoin69
God rusty junkers are some of the worst things to work on. Those end up being the vehicles that you have to end up either sacrificing one of your tools for something and hoping the warranty will cover it, or go to harbor freight and buy some cheap ♥♥♥♥ tools to sacrifice to create your own one time use (probably) tool that once your done you'll keep in the box out of paranoia that you may one day need it again, but you never do. Haven't had to work on an Astro yet.

Most of my tools are Cornwell or GearWrench cuz I'm cheap and Cornwell has lots of BOGO deals, and our GearWrench truck is pretty cheap with lifetime warranty still so why not. All my coworkers are Snap-On guys though, I honestly don't really see too much of a difference in most things quality-wise, their tools seem to break just as much as mine do and warranties are the same. But yea, the ol' double-wrench for extra torque technique is infamous for turning wrenches into all kinds of funny shapes.

I just got done doing a spark plug job on a 2007 Toyota Sienna that made me question my career choices, or if maybe I become an alcoholic again this weekend. I'm a pretty calm person but this job had me almost throwing tools and breaking things. Had to remove the air intake (or surge tank as it's called in this case) from the top of the engine block to reach the rear 3 plugs, well there's 2 brackets on the backside of the surge tank called the "surge tank stays". They bolt to the surge tank and the valve body, the one on the right side is fairly easy to get to one you remove the throttle body but the one on the left (passenger side) can eat me. No room, no visibility, a nice sensor connector on the side with sharp edges to remove layers of skin as you try and feel around, the bolts for the bracket are just barely fingertip reach so you can't put any muscle into them. Then if you drop any bolts or brackets because you're holding them with your fingertips you get to lift the car all the way up and fish them out of the subframe because they always get stuck in a pocket between the cross member and the lower control arm.

My favorite oil filter though is the ones on mid 2000's Subaru Foresters, we call em the "Ring of Fire"(just google "Subaru Ring of Fire" for funny Reddit posts). The exhaust pipes form a weird circle under the car, well they put the oil filter right perfectly in the center. There's not enough room to get your hand in there without touching the edges of the pipes though. So it's one of the few oil changes you'd prefer to do on a cold engine, unless you enjoy many many exhaust burns on your hand. (yes you can use a claw on an extension to get the old filter off but you gotta put the new one on by hand)

Holy crap, long post sorry.

[Mardoin69]

@Vazeul Ezren
Lol. I know what you mean. I did, in fact, change my career eventually. So many busted knuckles, cuts, scrapes, bruises--it's fun having a tool slip off and hit yourself in the head / face with it, lol. I actually went through a few career changes in my working days--retired now. I never missed wrenching though. I get enough of that just working on my own vehicles, ugh. Ofc, I was lucky enough to still have all the damage show up in my old age thanks to mech days--carpal tunnel, bad arthritis in hands, 9 messed up disks in back, etc. I had got into mech work cuz Dad was too lazy to work on his own crap after working at the Service Station. So, he taught me to fix his cars and I just kind of carried on with it into my first career for 10 years. Jumped over to construction work after that and loved it while I could still do it--very demanding on your body. But, yeah... never missed my wrenching days.

[Vazeul Ezren]

Ah, yea I get that. I work at an independent shop owned by my family, that's the only reason I got into it. Some days I wish I would've pursued that career in cyber security, but alas here I am. Long ways to go before retirement for me but at least my uncle takes care of the crew and has a firm belief in taking care of his employees means having better employees. Even my coworkers who aren't family have been with the shop for many years. I'm only on my 2nd year as a mechanic actually, didn't know anything about cars except how to do my own oil changes and air filters until I got into this. I get the trial by fire experience though, "Throw him at everything and see what sticks." The jobs that break you the most tend to be the ones you learn the most from though.
Anyway, one good thing about being a mechanic is you sure save a lot of money on fixing your own vehicles. If you're really good you can even make some money on the side.

Well I'll stop hijacking the thread with the pains of mechanic life. To anyone else who's still following along and to OP: Sure, the game can teach you the basics about car parts and assembly. Really though, if you wanna fix your own stuff just learn through YouTube videos and manuals specifically for whatever you're trying to fix, those sources will teach you far more than any video game will. The point I wanted to make is that what the internet and computer can't teach is just how time consuming and physically (sometimes even mentally) demanding automotive work can be. This tends to be the part that's often overlooked by people. Minor injuries are daily life in this work, and you will make mistakes on putting things together. There's probably even a joke in there somewhere about how we care about your vehicle so much that there's a little piece of us in every job we do (literally, there's probably blood and skin shavings/bits from some poor technician somewhere inside or under most vehicles).