Do you know where your stopcock is?

27col

It is quite disturbing for those of us who used to service our cars when we were young, to open the bonnet and not recognise anything under it.

latecomer

Not to mention specialist oil which is only available from certain places, more electronics than the average PC (in posh cars anyway) etc etc

And a word of warning. In fact 2:

1. Free brake checks are not necessarily good. I took my car in for one after hearing noises that suggested at least one of the back brakes were binding (sticking on). I was told it was just brake dust and they'd cleaned it and everything was operating fine. To be fair the noise had gone. It came back within a day and when I took it to my normal garage for its MOT a couple of weeks later it not only failed due to the problems with the rear brakse but required a significant amount of work £300 to fix the problem and the damage that had bene caused. Free is not always best. Get problems inspected/fixed by someone you trust rather than someone cheap.

2. Knowing how to change a a wheel is one thing but if you've had a tyre changed make sure the wheel nuts have been tightened to the correct torque or you might not be able to get the wheel off when you need to.