That brings back memories of pushing my mates car half a mile to the nearest petrol station because he was too cheap to not let it run completely dry.

Stick shift doesn't need a starter, just a shove.

The reason I know this is 7000% bullshit is because I sold a car to a young set of kids, and I end up cutting them my deal on the spot. They said how about 825 I said how about 700? That's how you do this.

yes, people do this for people who they are related to or friends with. def knew people who got gifted cars, or sold undervalue. my sister sold her car once to her friends kid for $3000, when it was worth easily double, but to her $3000 is like $30 bucks to the average person. she had just purchased a $80K Audi, all in cash.

but not for strangers, generally.

Yeah a stranger walking up to you and asking for money is a bit different from this

We saw two ladies trying to take a car wheel off one night so me and the boys jumped out the car to help them out, we took the wheel off the car and they said they would be back once repaired and said thanks as they jumped in another car and drove off.

Then we realized the two other wheels on the other side of the car were missing and we had just helped them finish stealing someone's wheels

The easy litmus test is to offer to buy them the thing they want.

But I've given money to panhandlers twice. First guy said, "hey man, do you got any change? [N-word] needs to get drunk."

The second time was a group of guys scrounging for change in their car because they were trying to get a dime of weed.

He sat down and walked through replacing a starter with the kid. Worst case scenario he just taught a kid that he can work on his own stuff even if he doesn't have to.

I've taken to telling them that someone else helped me out, and I'm just trying to pay it forward, with interest. If they can pay it forward in future, I would be very happy with them continuing the chain.

You still get the dopamine of a good deed, they feel like they can pay you back by passing it on. If they don't, no harm done. If they do, your good deed just got amplified to some other poor sod's benefit. It might even loop back!

I've sold one and forgot I had parts for issues I'd forgotten about. I called the buyer and told them to come pick up the parts, free of charge.

Sus timing though

Back 'round the turn of the century I had an ancient car with a dying starter.

It was a manual, so sure I could start it on a hill. But sometimes you just have to whack the starter itself and it will work!

I think I went months with a straight wooden axe/sledgehammer handle in the trunk as my starter starter until I replaced it.

Hill/push starting a car was pretty common occurrence when I was a teenager, since there was so many proper shitboxes in the town

Starters being dead...99% of the time actually aren't fully dead. The solenoids fuck off and if you wack the shit out of them with a chunk of 2x4 usually it'll get them to engage. Doesn't mean it's going to just keep working but I've done it a few times to get something started and into the garage.

sadly not the community i was expecting. very awkward wank that was