The one and only

As I already mentioned before I love to read, it‘s not only fiction anymore but also books about cars which I enjoy even more. There is one book which I absolutely adore - Auto Fundamentals. It starts with the basics. It helps you understand how an engine works even when you don’t know the first things about it. And then it continues into more complicated issues and secrets of car systems.

I haven‘t finished this book yet but I made it through about 200pages. There is just so much to learn that it is impossible to catch all of it on first attempt. It tells you what each part does, what makes it run and what can go wrong with it. It will show you how fascinating the car universe really is. 

There is also a workbook available but I don’t consider it to be necessary or particularly helpful. It is a good practise but the textbook is enough itself.

I am putting here a list of some other books I own a value but Auto Fundamentals will probably stay my sweetheart for some time.

Auto Repair for Dummies – Deanna Sclar

Internal Combustion Engine Fundamentals – John Heywood

Intelligent Vehicle Technologies: Theory and Applications – L. Vlacic, M. Parent, F. Harashima

Automotive Battery Technology – Alexander Thaler

Advanced Automotive Fault Diagnosis – Tom Denton

How Cars Work – Tom Newton

Toubleshooting and Repair of Diesel Engines - Paul Dempsey

Auto Fundamentals – M. W. Stockel, M. T. Stockel, C. Johanson

Idiot's Guides: Auto Repair and Mantenance - Dave Stribling

Nika the Car Girl

I became an apprentice about five months ago. Right after I left school to be a mechanic. I studied Mechanical Engineering in university and I stayed exactly one month. The only girl in class with twenty five guys. Sounds good, right? But I was sooooo bored. Don't get me wrong I was interested in the topic but I just hate sitting in the class and listening to the teacher. I just wanted to create something, to fix something not just fill my notebooks with numbers and words all day long. Not that my parents understood (kind of a funny story but lets leave that for another time).

Well, anyway I started to look for an apprenticeship. Wasn't as easy as it sounds. I applied online, I visited this office in the city which was supposed to help young people with finding apprenticeships. Wasn't really enough. The answer was usually 'you don't meet our requirements to become an apprentice'. Yeah, right, I bet what they really meant was 'we don't want a girl in the garage because you will never last anyway'. Maybe not all of them because I didn't know much about cars especially from the practical part but I really wanted to learn. But on my defence I have never got the chance to do the practical things. My dad’s knowledge don’t go further than adding coolant to the maximum and my grandfather bought Renault Megane because it looked nice. So you can imagine why I didn’t have any experience.

Then I got angry, it wasn’t fair that they didn’t want to accept me just because I was not English or a boy. I stopped waiting for the opportunity and just made one for myself. I walked around the garages close by and asked. Oh you should have seen the expression in the faces of some of those mechanics. But then I finally found one where they didn’t care and were in need of an apprentice.

And then Nika the Car Girl started living her dream.