Spending $100 on a game with a 1 year shelf life and still not getting all the DLC is worthy of some hazing for sure, yea

I have a full metric set in the bag :)

I never knew those were called worm drive clamps! My wife will love that lol

Quite the array there! I’ll keep them in mind for sure. I think once I’m out looking to help for a few days I’ll get a much better idea of what I need. I’ll make a spreadsheet of what I go through then report back with the frequency of need

I have a few guesses as to why, primarily cost of living, road design, and inspection enforcement; I’ve never been to CA, but if they enforce vehicle inspection like the memes suggest, that probably plays a large role in general maintenance. These aren’t based on statistics or anything, just a fat ass guess from having lived in a variety of issues, one of which was a place like Houston or, as I like to call them, a city of highways.

For cost of living, there’s poor people everywhere yeah, but a clunker generally costs the same regardless of where you live, plus or minus a few hundred bucks: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4839-W-Engle-Rd-APT-1A-Alsip-IL-60803/58372023_zpid/. These people still “need” cars as much as anyone else. When you’re scraping buy in CA, you probably still have more overall between paychecks than you would spending a similar percentage of your income on recurring expenses elsewhere. I imagine in CA the used car market is generally better because of weather like you mentioned, but also because for “middle” class people buying new cars, the cost of the car and the related maintenance make up a smaller percentage of their overall earnings compared to other places. I believe this would lead to a larger availability of used cars and an improvement in their all around mechanical soundness. That’s nothing a few years of irresponsible ownership couldn’t change, though, so my weightier guess is:

Road design. In the cities I named, from any part of city proper I can get to any other part without ever having gone above 15mph and causing issues. My understanding of SoCal is that most of it is designed primarily for car travel, so most residential/retail zones are connected by large multi-lane roads with speeds limits >=35. The roadworthiness required to do 35 is several orders of magnitude higher than that required to do than 15, so a car can be much closer to death in these cities and still find themselves out on grocery runs. Basically, duct tape and WD-40 both work better at lower speeds where less precision is required :)

Another one I just though of is: fewer parking lots. I probably just see a higher percentage of the breakdowns that occur by nature of no alternative to street parking, whereas it’s hard to tell the difference between a parked and broken down car if they’re out of the way.

I’m sure these these all play a role, and I’m sure there’s a litany of other reasons, too. I can totally see how it’d be weird to imagine such a high rate of breakdowns if you’ve never lived in an area like this. You helped me realize how desensitized I’ve become to it; it’s definitely not normal for most of the country to see a broken down car almost every day.

I’m happy to chat more about it if you’d like; my communication skills are rock bottom right now after a long day so I’m sure this is much wordier than it needs to be, sorry if that’s the case D:

I’ve been wanting to add a flashlight to my EDC and this might finally get me to do it. Good idea :)

Gloves are brilliant, good idea!

The air-fresheners are a great idea, too, especially next to the snacks. I think momentos like that are really good for helping people even when you’re not around.

Good ideas :)

OUT OF LEFT FIELD!!!

This is definitely going to be one of the highest value suggestions here for sure :) My wife and I absolutely LOVE the baby food puree pouch things and they’re less than a dollar each, shelf stable, and super healthy/likeable.

I think you made my day with this one, I smiled the whole way through typing this. You rock <3

Thank you! I won’t dox myself so precisely, but in the US larger/dense cities like NYC, Boston, Philly, Chicago, etc. I’d say I see someone broken down on more than 50% of my >20 minute excursions. Crazy high rate for sure, but if you think about how many residences I ride past in that time I can’t imagine it’s a much higher rate than other equally poor areas of the US.

Edit: specified that 20 was the number of minutes, not excursions… haha

I have the perfect compressor for this; walmart makes one that looks like a drill and takes batteries. Might be a better option in case they don’t have a 12v outlet (I have a 12v one I was going to bring until I thought of this)

They make smaller lithium jump packs that are the perfect size, but again price is an issue. Having said that, I belong to an org that might be able to toss some money at this on trust alone to help. For a high quality one, it looks like it’ll be $5-$10 per jump based on lifespan numbers, which I think they’ll be okay with.

Found the electrician :)

Multimeter is a great idea. My multimeter used to live in the bag I’m using for this, so looks like it’ll continue with its residence :)

interestingly enough, I haven’t yet encountered someone without one. If I end up with more space, this will definitely be included!

Yes! Added.

Excellent point, I think I’ll try to get my hands on one of them. My concern is they’re only good for so many starts and are quite pricey (or you gamble on quality which is spooky with lithium)

Telescoping magnet added for sure OBD Scanner added; your hesitation is legit but IME the people with frequent car troubles often don’t think about stuff like that haha

Perfect! Added to the list :)