At 50 my wife told me she wanted to learn how to work on our seco d and third Gen prius. 3 years later she is the queen of brakes and has replaced an exhaust as well as a variety of other minor stuff we needed done. Doing some more serious work and it dawned on me we have a "school of hard knocks" 15 min from the house. She is now a proud member of our local pull n pay yard and it's become her version of disney world. We take a trip to get what we feel comfortable with second hand used and she learns how to remove and replace the parts we an on working on without the fear of "i might break it" on our cars doing the work "blind" If you want to tackle some more "serious" repairs I recommend going and buying a hose or something as the excuse at the counter for your learning trip. Just remember if you don't reattach your "learning part" put it in the cab of the car
We had a wrecker yard nearby. They were pushed out by the city, to be replaced by an over-priced park-and-ride lot, that's got a smattering of cars, any weekday.
Disneyland is a lot happier place than an automobile morgue... But then again, I don't know your wife that well.
As a kid I pictured Disneyland to be just like the intro on the weekly TV show, magical, in a castle, at the end of meandering hill climb. never got there, maybe for the best. I did look it up on Google Maps once, shattered my illusion.
I tried, I did. I'd been enjoying conversations with someone who worked the counter at a truck stop I went by regularly, who had been doing that long enough to notice the mechanics were making better money than she was, and wondered how she should begin to get a piece of that. I came in one night with Carolyn Coquillette's contact info and said "I'm not sure, but I know who you should ask." Don't know if anything ever came of it. Came a time I wasn't going past that place as often. Think she eventually moved to Texas, so if anything has come of it, it wouldn't be luscious garage midwest anyway.
I trained at community college for EV repair, high voltage, cars that have 800v systems that push 16,000+ amps. Used to wearing linesman gloves with covers. Doing contactors, pyro fuses. PCS, you name it. I also have training in ICE repair, swapping engines. I have a huge tool box full of 1000s of dollars worth of various types of tools for repair / diag / engines / transmissions etc. It's good to get into working on your own car but be careful. Without HV awareness training and proper gear I wouldn't mess with any HV components. It's serious stuff that could end up hurting you really bad or worst case killing you. Just be aware the even the packs in Prius even tho they're a bit lower voltage they have a lot of amps in them, it doesn't take much to interrupt your heart. Good luck working on your prius in the future!
we drove ac we drove across country when I was 10. stoped in Anaheim for a day at Disney, I cried when we left, probably the best day of my young life.
