London, England - Can you tell a coil spring from a bleed nipple, a big end from a track rod? Do you lubricate regularly and, if so, do you enjoy doing it yourself or might you ask a man in a boiler-suit to help you with his squirter?
If that same man then asked you for an Allen screw, would you: a) slap him hard across the face; b) reach into his tool kit and pass the required hexagonal-holed fastener?
We are, of course, talking car repairs. Not that I am an expert. Far from it! My wife will tell you there are few people more exasperatingly clueless than me when it comes to fixing a minor motoring glitch.
However, like millions of chaps in this country, and perhaps billions around the globe, I like to think I know a little about what goes on under the bonnet. But then misplaced mechanical self-confidence is a secondary sexual characteristic of the male of our species. You see, I have my Haynes manual. What can go wrong?
Haynes has been publishing its ‘owners workshop manuals’ (if that lacks an apostrophe it is presumably because blokes with oily fingers find such fripperies hard to handle) since 1965. In the intervening half-century, this British-founded company has expanded into numerous countries and languages, helping car owners to fix their vehicles at home.
Basic Guide
Haynes has been a wonderful success story, an example of a brilliant idea lasting the test of time, or so we thought.
In the 1950s, a teenager from Somerset called John Haynes wrote a basic guide to the Austin 7. He had bought an Austin for £15 (then R30) while still at school and had souped it up with the help of a friendly smithy (heating the springs to flatten them and make the machine sit lower on the road).
After selling that little Austin for £100 (R200) he wrote a 48-page, five-shilling (50c) booklet about customising cars. To his surprise, the print-run of 250 copies sold out almost instantly.
A few years later, Haynes found himself on National Service in Aden, where a mate of his owned a beaten-up Austin Healey ‘Frogeye’ Sprite. The chums thought they would tidy up the Sprite but soon found that the British Motor Corporation manual which had come with it was flecked with jargon and almost impossible to understand.
They completely dismantled the car, photographed its parts and re-assembled it, recording each section of the operation in a how-to-do-this-yourself manner.
The ensuing booklet, this time with a print-run of 3000, sold out within three months.
Distinctive
The distinctive Haynes strip-down and reassemble had been born. Since then the red and yellow logo of Haynes manuals, once hard-backed and usually printed on paper as rough as inferior newsprint, has become familiar.
Car owners and professional mechanics alike have come to rely on them - until now, anyway.
Last week there came worrying news: a slump in profits at Haynes and fears that 17 percent of the staff at its international headquarters in the United States will lose their jobs.
As a consequence of falling sales, the company will pull out of Sweden and close its presses in Nashville, Tennessee. Meanwhile, its chief executive is stepping down and is to be succeeded by John Haynes’s son, John Haynes Jnr.
To use a motoring analogy, Haynes Manuals have blown a gasket. Are we therefore talking about the necessity of ‘in-car repair procedures’ (which have an expertise guide in Haynes manuals of two to three spanners, indicating moderate mechanical ability) or ‘engine removal and general overhaul procedures’ (five spanners, indicating major surgery and a high level of competence)?
Complicated
It seems unclear exactly what has caused this drift in Haynes’s fortunes. Has the dreaded internet struck, as it has done with many other publishing firms? Some car owners may be fixing their vehicles while consulting websites via their mobiles. Haynes does have an online operation but it is perhaps not as slick as it needs to be.
Or have modern cars become so complicated that it is now impossible to even try to repair them at home?
So many cars nowadays, we are told, have to be linked to a specialist computer for even routine checks. Are the days of home mechanics numbered?
I write as one who has never owned a new car. From my first motor (a wonderful 1962 Morris Minor, registration 140 XHW) onwards, I have driven a succession of second-hand, sometimes fifth-hand, machines, some of them the most dreadful jalopies.
There was the Peugeot 305 which would always overheat if stuck in slow-moving traffic for more than 10 minutes. There was the Mini estate which had so many holes in its floor that when we drove through a puddle, our feet got wet.
'Just going to check the levels'
Then there was my dear, departed Land Rover 90 cab, known as ‘Bluey’ and still much mourned by my children, though not by my bank manager.
The money I spent repairing ‘Bluey’ during our decade together still hurts. There was always something wrong, be it gearbox-related or blown lightbulbs or something requiring welding below the Plimsoll line. I became so exasperated by our repeated trips to the garage that I bought a Haynes manual.
What a manly moment it was when I returned to the homestead that day. I changed into some old clothes, brewed myself a mug of strong tea and headed outside telling my family that I was ‘just going to check the levels’.
This was said with the nonchalance of an old pro’. Haynes manuals are tremendous buttresses for bluffers.
The ‘weekly check’ is an essential part of Planet Haynes: a regular inspection of tyre treads and pressures, the coolant, the oil dipstick, brake fluid, wiper blades, windscreen washer and battery.
I rather doubt that many Haynes men actually bother with these weekly checks but the simple knowledge that they are there in the book is somehow sustaining.
They evoke a world of order and one where car-owners knew that they not only owned but also understood their vehicles. Nowadays it may be the other way round.
Is there not now the more common suspicion, in these days of satnav and multiple safety-warning devices, that cars are there to boss and nag us?
The arrival of ‘autonomous’ cars which drive themselves may accentuate that trend of making drivers feel even more useless and redundant.
Saving labour costs
Back in my Land Rover days, I used my Haynes manual to repair a leaky radiator, replace the bump stops, renew windscreen wipers, fix a door fitting and put right various electrical malfunctions.
This probably repaid the price of the book in terms of saving labour costs at the garage, but that is only part of the point of a Haynes manual. Its greater function, albeit false, is psychological - of making a cack-handed DIY numptie feel empowered.
A Haynes manual, with its black-and-white photographs of able-fingered fellows grabbing hold of manifold upper nuts, or elusive bushes, or greased hoses (enough of this Freudianism!) is a reason to spend time outdoors, lying flat on your back as you gaze at the bottom of your vehicle.
That, in turn, allows you to walk into lunch with some engine oil on your face. Your family, believe me, will be impressed.
A Haynes manual also allows you to bandy a few technical terms around with your professional mechanic. He, for his part, will almost immediately see through your bluster but your children will think: ‘Hey, Dad knows his stuff.’
In recent years, Haynes expanded its operation. In addition to its car manuals it printed manuals to such things as the Flying Scotsman and the USS Enterprise spacecraft from Star Trek.
There have even been Haynes Manuals on gay men’s health, a Haynes guide to babies for new dads (explaining infants in practical terms, the nappy change almost like an oil check) and a DIY Wedding manual.
The company said that some of these editions have been commercially successful but they have perhaps taken the executives’ attention away from the core business.
Whatever the financial difficulties, the Haynes brand remains greatly trusted, if not loved. The manuals speak of an era of relative simplicity, of gender confidence, of horny-handed amateur endeavour.
What a shame it would be, even to useless manque mechanics like me, were Haynes manuals to disappear.
Daily Mail
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