Many moons ago in the UK I worked with a guy called Jack and he was a very modest yet wise fellow. His car was a Morris Marina TC and the car was no youngster (like Jack) yet was in excellent condition and proved very reliable indeed, so I asked him his secret. He explained that dancing kept him young, and then he explained how he kept his car on top form and he described what he called his “Forth Bridge” philosophy as follows:
(and ps the famous Forth Bridge in Scotland is a massive steel bridge and traditionally required to be painted always, although that is no longer true, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Bridge).
- The official car service book and schedule is simply a guide but not really very important, it just lists the minimum requirements like oil and filters anually. The Jack philosophy goes MUCH further.
- Every weekend he decides which part of his car he will attack and I think he worked by rotation. In other words starting at the front of his car he removed and cleaned the front bumper and grill, applied WD40 and grease and replaced everything. The following weekend he removed the wheels and worked at cleaning the mudguard and wheel arch and so on as well as the wheel and brakes. Dont forget that in the UK the local authorities use salt to melt the snow and salt is a horrible rust generator.
- So he would in fact find and solve any problems BEFORE they became serious.
I think that his philosophy was amazingly effective and since then I have tried to follow his example. Motorbikes are even more critical than cars as they only have two wheels so keeping a bike always on top form is super important.
I now have 3 slightly mature bikes plus a very mature car so I really like to keep on top of them, so to speak, and so far so 👍 as they are all proving very reliable.
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