Car Lore

They didn't charge me, taking all of about 20 seconds to check it. But I figure what the hell, for seven bucks I got a first-hand account of the three-hundred mile carb.

Another famous story was the pit. It was gas station lore that you should never let mechanics you didn't know put your car over the pit to make a diagnosis. Instead of putting the car on a hydraulic lift way up in the air, they drive it over a pit in the ground. Of course you can't get down in there with them and see what they are doing.

I didn't know that much about automatic transmissions. Had an old Opal four cylinder with automatic transmission. Wouldn't shift out of first gear. So I took it to a chain transmission place very close by my house, near Mission and Army in San Francisco. Now up front my objective was to find out what the problem was without paying any money. So whatever the result I had no complaint.

I drove the car in first gear to the transmission shop and told them my problem. A mechanic, an older guy, who when I told him I do almost all my own car work, said he needed lots of work to feed the babies, rode with me around the block. When we got back to the garage he says, "Better pull it into the shop and take a look at it". So he drives it in and what do you know. I had never actually seen one before. It was the pit. He jumps down in the hole and with a utility light he reaches up in various places announcing here and there, "Nothing wrong, nothing wrong here".

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