In the garage
September 5, 2009 by Leah M. Charney
Filed under Etcetera, Inspiration U, Multimedia, Video
I never claimed to know anything about cars. My father — a scientist — was not the kind you’d find tooling around under the hood. My mother — a nurse and an artist — can craft anything and mend wounds, but cannot change a tire.
I’ve spent my entire automobile life counting on mechanics and boyfriends to change my oil and tell me where that blue smoke was coming from. I’ve dreaded buying a car any time I’ve had to because I knew I had the mark of a sucker on me. I am afraid of my car. As much as I count on it to get me to work and the store and other states, I had no idea what lurked beneath the white metal exterior.
I have, however, claimed that I wanted to learn more about my car.
I’d wanted to know how to change the oil and for what purpose. I fear the day I’m stranded by the roadside because I don’t even know where my jack is, much less how to use it. And I was paralyzed by my inability to do anything about one pesky burned out headlight. It was long past time to take charge and understand exactly what was going on inside of my heavy machine.
Enter Club Workshop.
I stumbled upon the ad on Craigslist for “Auto Maintenance 101.” It might as well have boasted, “Stop being silly, Leah. Take the mystery out of this once and for all!”
Club Workshop is the brainchild of Steve Garran, who together with his wife, Laura, opened the 16,000-square-foot Denver space in September of 2008. An active hobbyist, Steve Garran quit his stressful IT job to follow a dream. That dream involves an auto bay with a lift; a woodworking shop; a metal working shop; and more.
“I realized there wasn’t a place like this where you could do it yourself,” Steve explains.
Laura interrupts, laughing, “You needed a bigger garage.”
This is certainly a bigger garage.
Mike Kiehl is my teacher today. The former repair shop owner grew tired of running his own place and decided to come to Club Workshop. He now spends his days helping members of the club with their projects and teaching classes to folks like me. The auto classes are always small — three to five members max — and today there are three of us total, all women seeking to know more about the machines we depend upon.
Mike puts a Subaru on the lift. Carefully we inspect the undercarriage and all the parts and pieces located there. We discuss why and when to rotate tires. We remove the oil from the car. Once the Subaru is back on land, we finish the oil change and soak in all there is to know about what rests beneath the hood.
Later, when I open my own Toyota I could effectively point out every belt, hose and tank. I can even tell you what they all do.
“I think it is empowering for women to know the basics,” Laura Garran told me in our first e-mail.
I couldn’t agree more. Next time I come back to Club Workshop, I think I’ll learn how to weld.
—By Leah M. Charney
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