Do you want to learn how so you will be able to tell some one else how to do it to your car so they can help you? Mark the page in your manual and be sure to keep it in the car.
You do not want to ever learn because you can not or will not raise a hood on a car? If so, take it to a auto parts store and ask, just like the suggestions up thread.
Or, have the fluid in your vehicle and drive down the street and ask the first male that looks over 15 to help you. You have about an 80% chance of finding someone on the first try.
You are brave enough to ask on this board so I bet you are brave enough to go to the auto store and ask for help. You won’t get as near the number of snark replies as you will here.
Not all are blue, true. But I’ve yet to see one that didn’t have a completely obvious symbol on it.
This thread makes me feel like maybe I really am a self-rescuing princess. It never occurred to me that multiple grown adults might need other people’s help to do something this simple with their car.
In case it’s not obvious to sara20, and it probably isn’t, changing a timing belt is neither quick nor easy and not something for a beginner to attempt. Presumably kayaker was kidding.
What sara20 might want to do is to find a friend who is reasonably savvy about auto maintenance and ask them to show her how to add windshield washer fluid, how to check the oil level and other fluid levels and perhaps also how to jump-start the car and change the tire.
I’ll admit, though, that I’ve owned my current car (bought new) for almost five years and have almost never opened the hood. I take it someplace to have the oil changed and fluids checked but don’t do much beyond that.
It doesn’t correlate with model year, but it does seem to correlate with sticker price. Cheaper cars go with a prop rod, pricier cars are more likely to be fitted with hinge springs or gas struts that bear the weight of the hood.
In the cars I’ve had, I’ve noticed that it’s mainly compact cars that have prop rods for the hood and the full-sized sedans have had the self-supporting hoods.
On the car-service difficulty scale, adding washer fluid rates as slightly harder than adjusting the position of your seat. 85-year-old grandmothers can often manage it.
I’m afraid if you are unable to muster the gumption to tackle this (instruction is allowed), you must accept the designation of “helpless female” (or male, as the case may be).
Hey, opening the car hood might seem like a weird thing to be paranoid about, but I am a 55 year old female , and until a few years ago I was scared of ovens. I was so paranoid about getting burned, I hated sticking my hand in there to get something out. Yes I was using a hot pad So don’t be so hard on sara. I bet we all have unreasonable fears. I should have just started a new thread!
I’ll second that and add an “especially” to the tire-changing part. In my family that was a required thing before we were even allowed to get our learners permits.
(I felt like an idiot “changing” a perfectly good tire three times out behind a shopping mall in a drizzle when I already knew how to do it — until the first time I had to do it roadside with cars buzzing around. Lot different then than the usual thing in a garage and all. Then I still felt like an idiot but started to think my Dad was a freaking Einstein.)
Well, it might be wrong. Took a look online, here’s a Subaru cap, here’s a Buick cap.
Yellow and black, just like you said, but those pictures (which I mentioned) would make it pretty hard to miss. Plus, the second part of my instructions ‘read the manual’ would tell her where to find it and probably what color it is.
@kayaker, as long as she’s doing the timing belt, she really should do the water pump as well.
So don’t be so hard on sara. I bet we all have unreasonable fears. I should have just started a new thread!