Crankshaft Chronicles: 14-Year-Old Andy Didn’t Know Everything About Cars. Just Ask His Mom

It was the summer of 1992. My mother had just bought her first car, a ’92 Mitsubishi Expo LRV Sport, on her own after her divorce from my father. If you don’t remember these cars, you’ll be forgiven. The Expo LRV was one of a trio of tall-wagon triplets also sold as the Eagle Summit Wagon and Plymouth Colt Vista. Ours was a front-wheel drive model in two-tone Tacoma Blue with Kensington Gray trim. It had the 1.8-liter 113-hp 4G65 engine equipped with a 5-speed manual and cruise control. And what better way to break in a new car than a road trip?

A Rite of Passage Road Trip

My sister, Meg, my mom, and I, a 14-year-old car-obsessed kid, took a road trip from the Twin Cities in Minnesota down through Iowa’s Amana Colonies, then west through Nebraska, into Wyoming. From there, it was east across South Dakota and back to Minnesota—around 2,000 total miles.

Both the car and the trip were both rites of passage for us three. My father was not a road trip fan, nor did he want to stop at touristy things. But on this trip, we stopped at all the places we didn’t in the past, especially in South Dakota’s Black Hills. This included Bear Country USA, the Reptile Gardens, Custer State Park, Wind Cave, the Badlands, and more. We explored back roads, ate meals out, and swam at our motel’s pools. We still talk about it. And then there’s the infamous motor oil story …

Mom Provides A Motor Oil Lesson

Several days after leaving, we ended up in Rapid City, SD. It was a warm, sunny summer day, and we pulled into the gas station. My mom began fueling the car, then popped the hood to check the oil as directed by the dealership. She pulled the dipstick, wiped the oil, reinserted it into the tube, checked it, and just like the dealer said, it needed a bit of oil.

Now, keep in mind at 14 years of age, I’m a self-professed automotive know-it-all. I pored over Car and Driver and Road and Track all the time. I could rattle off all sorts of useless bits of automotive info. From horsepower ratings and 0-60 times, to tire sizes and skidpad ratings—I thought I knew everything there was to know about cars. And I simply must’ve known more about cars than my 47-year-old mother.

I follow my mom into the gas station’s store. She bought a quart of 5W30 motor oil and asked the attendant for a paper funnel. I remember being impressed that my mom seemed to know what she was doing. But 14-year-old automotive know-it-all, Andy Lilienthal, was quick to point out to my mom that the paper funnel she got wasn’t going to work.

“Why won’t it work?” my mom asked with a confused tone in her voice.

“That funnel is too big; it’ll never go into the little hole,” I said as I pointed to the dipstick tube. I mean, clearly that’s where the oil goes. Right? Uh … right? Uh …

“That is not where you add the oil,” my mom said. She pointed to the oil cap on the valve cover, which she unscrewed, and then put the funnel in. It, of course, fit just fine.

I’m pretty sure she erupted in laughter. Her son, the car-obsessed teenager, didn’t even know where to put motor oil. I mean, I’d be laughing at my know-it-all gearhead child, too. I was served up a nice slice of humble pie, perhaps with a side of crow to eat—and it was well deserved.

Embarassed but Impressed

I remember feeling kind of dumb and embarrassed. How could I not have known this? I mean … I’m a “car guy.” However, I was a car guy who’d never worked on a car and, frankly, never actually driven a car yet. I was a bench racer with zero real-world car knowledge. My motorhead machismo was taken down a notch that day, something I needed. It was a good lesson in humility.

At the same time, I was impressed that my mom, a 47-year-old mother of two, knew exactly where to put motor oil. My mom’s cool factor went up, as did her car cred.

To this day, we joke about how Andy, the car-crazed kid, thought motor oil went into the dipstick tube, and his mother was the one who educated him about it. It’ll be one of those stories that we probably laugh about until the end of time. And rightfully so.

My mom let me use the Mitsubishi Expo LRV through high school and college, and I never forgot where to put the oil.