Talking to a kid about glow plugs made me feel ancient

Had a chat with my buddy's son last week, he's 19 and just started diesel school in Nashville. He asked why we still mess with glow plugs when you can just crank the block heater for an hour. That hit different because I remember when block heaters were a luxury add-on, not standard. I told him about the winter of 2011 when my old 7.3 wouldn't fire below 10 degrees and I spent a whole paycheck on a new set of Beru plugs and a relay. He looked at me like I was describing a steam engine. Sometimes I forget how much the basics have shifted in just a decade or two. Anyone else have a young helper make them feel like they're from another century?

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the_faith28d ago

And honestly the thing that really dates me is explaining that glow plugs are basically a starting ritual. Like you plan your whole morning around them. Check the light, wait for it, crank, pray, maybe crank again. These kids never had to sit in a cold cab at 5 AM watching that little coil light and counting in your head. They just plug in, hit a button, and the truck starts like it's July. The weirdest part to me is how fast that knowledge becomes useless. In ten years nobody's gonna know what a glow plug even is, same way most people can't set timing on a distributor anymore. Makes you wonder what basic skill we're losing right now that these diesel kids will take for granted.