Bring Back Repair Culture…

Where, exactly, did it all go wrong? Was it the advent of the smartphone? Was it the slow, societal shift into believing everything is disposable? Has it just been an increase in laziness? I don’t know what ground zero was, but the fact remains that these days we just don’t fix things. At the first hint of any sort failure, instead of using our natural, in-built need to be inquisitive and find out why, we instead just throw it away. And that seems… wrong. Especially now, in a time when the ice caps are melting and the polar bears are sweating. We regularly hear ‘carbon footprint’ this and ‘environmental impact’ that. And rightly so, climate change is real and it’s happening all around us. So why is our approach to everything so disposable?

Of course, when I say ‘we’, I don’t mean classic car people. But that’s also not to say I’m putting us on a pedestal. I’m not. However, there is no escaping that in the grand scheme of carbon this and environment that, we’re doing a good thing. The carbon footprint of a car, any car, is considerable. The effort and logistics behind any one car creation are vast. However, rather than throw that effort away when a bulb stops working, we instead investigate, we repair, we overcome. And this isn’t from some sort of ‘holier than thou’ place. We don’t do this to save the polar bears. We do this because it’s what we were taught.

It wasn’t so long ago that cars came with tools. Not gesture tools like today’s one screwdriver and a jack. Proper tools. Spanners, feeler gauges, pliers, little cans of oil and more. And this wasn’t because the manufacturer was being nice. It was because we were expected to maintain our cars, we were expected to be able to repair them and maintain them. Not pass out because the radio stops playing KISS FM. To own a car was to understand it, it was to know when things were awry and it was about having the ability to diagnose the issue, if not actually fix it. It was part of the automotive spectrum. Yet now, it’s not.

Now I’m not saying everyone needs to be a mechanic. For some, the inner workings of a car are considerably intimidating. I’m happy to jump on the spanners, but I am by no means a mechanic. However, basic maintenance is something I have in the bag. Brakes, suspension, engine servicing, some basic electrics, so on and so forth. It’s all in my wheelhouse. Why? Because the knowledge was passed down to me by my old man, and by the big brothers of friends. And that, I think, is the key to bringing back some sort of repair culture. We need to start teaching younger generations how to do this stuff, rather than just sitting there and grumpily complaining that ‘they should know’. How should they know if we don’t bother to teach them?

The modern automotive landscape is one of PCPs and chopping and changing for a different car every few years. There’s no sense of preservation, no understanding or need to know how to fix things. And that’s a crying shame. Not only is that attitude deeply negative from an environmental standpoint, it’s also a huge loss from a societal point of view. Mend, repair, gain that sense of accomplishment, gain that knowledge, build those life skills. That’s what it’s all about. It’s an attitude that transcends cars. We have lost our natural, inquisitive nature because it’s cheaper to just buy a new ‘thing’.

While I don’t want this to be a rant about environmentalism, the fact remains that rebuilding a repair culture is key to making a big difference. If we can repair and maintain the things we own, they last longer. If they last longer, the return on the carbon investment is far greater. If we just throw one thing away and buy another, we are in effect DOUBLING the carbon footprint for that item. We, as classic car enthusiasts, are the key to this. We can’t buy new parts in some cases, we have to investigate, we have to fabricate and we have to repair. We possess the skills and knowledge that the next generation so desperately lacks.

And then there’s the way modern technology can help us. YouTube, for example is rich with information, and videos made by passionate, informed people. These videos explain how things work, or they go even further and guide us through the process. I had to replace the clutch master cylinder on my C Max, something I was only able to do after finding a video that detailed how to do it.

Just the other day I was in a breaker’s yard (a vital element of repair culture, but one that is thinning in numbers) looking for some parts for my C Max. Out of curiosity, I looked up a couple of registrations and to my horror, some cars still had an MOT. One Peugeot 407 in particular had passed its MOT mere weeks prior. With no advisories. I had to ask the oil-soaked man behind the counter why it was there. “Oh, it’s a part exchange from the local dealer, nobody wanted it.” WHAT? I know a 407 is hardly the benchmark for motoring brilliance, but that was a perfectly serviceable, tidy, running and driving car that had been thrown away. Because that’s what we do. It didn’t even get the chance to be repaired, it was thrown away while it was still good. That’s insane.

We, as classic car people, are the flag-bearers, we are at the forefront of repair culture and of how it can so easily be the way of thinking. We are the champions of the right to be inquisitive, to want to understand, to want to repair. I’m not saying we can or should repair everything – things have a shelf life after all. But we should at least try. So take your knowledge, your experience and your passion and pass it on. We only know because the generation before us passed it down, and the next generation will only learn these skills if we pass them on. So do it, engage and educate. It’s the way forward.