I have been thinking of writing a blog post about women and cars for sometime now, and just haven’t gotten around to it with all my fancy podcasting and such at 3 am. But seeing as how I am now sitting at my local tire and body shop because I had a flat tire on my way to pick up Him and Them and begin our afternoon shuffling to appointments and doing homework, I found a little time to write this post.

The bottom line and main purpose of this post is to tell you that all women need to know a little something about cars.

And if you are like me, when you learn a little something, you will act you know it all. And that’s okay. Because if anything keeps me calm in the midst of a car crisis, it’s me owning the term, “Mechanic Girl.”

So here’s the deal ladies. This is what you absolutely need to know about your cars. And I feel so strongly about this that one of our family summer projects will be to learn more about automotive work.

1. Look under your hood and be able to identify all the parts. This is not as difficult as it may seem. Most of the parts are labeled. Here, reading is half the battle. For the other half, use your owner’s manual to study.

2. Invest in a tool kit for your car. I got mine at Family Dollar for $10. I have gotten more use out of this kit than the money I paid for it.

3. Learn how to jump start your battery. It is now passé to use booster cables with two cars. You can now buy an electronic battery charger that functions as the second car and gets your car up and running in no time. That is, if the problem was the battery. But you should be able to figure out if it is the battery at the very minimum.

4. Invest in a decent jack. If you have to change a flat tire, you do not want to attempt to do it with the little jack that comes in your trunk. That little jack, however can function as a crow bar or hammer-like tool if you need one of those.

5. If you ever have a problem with a bulb or a fuse, you can fix it yourself. Trust me on this one. Replacing fuses and bulbs are cheap and easy. I have paid $163 dollars for one $5 fuse to be replaced, and then when I realized how easy the job was, I promptly bought a box of fuses for $20 and changed out the rest. How did I know what to do you ask? I checked the owner’s manual…which is saved as a PDF document on my phone.

These are all the car repair tips I’ve learned so far, but I’m sure there will be more to come. Do you have any handy repair tips?