Senior Jayden Luo’s first car, a 2006 Volkswagen Passat that he bought for $300, blew up on the highway due to a combination of high mileage and poor maintenance, he said.
However, the negative experience actually motivated him to start working on his own cars going forward, Luo said.
“There was actually zero oil in the engine when I checked, and I didn’t want that to happen again,” Luo said. “So instead of bringing it to shops, I ended up doing all the maintenance myself, so I could trust my own car.”
Today, Luo drives a 2001 Acura Integra LS, which is reliable and—relative to other cars—easy to maintain, Luo said.
“I actually worked on my friend’s car at one point, an Audi A3, and that was really gruesome,” Luo said. “We did an oil change on that, and instead of taking around 30 minutes, that was like two hours.”
The ease of an oil change all depends on the location or placement of the oil filter—where the liquid comes out during an oil change—which varies from car to car, Luo added.
“(In the A3), it’s located deeper than the Integra. The Integra’s (oil filter) is really obvious. You can just go under the car and you’ll see it right there,” Luo said. “But in the Audi, you have to take a skid pad and another couple of things off the car to get to the oil filter.”
For people new to car maintenance, Luo recommends attending classes at De Anza or other community colleges, Luo said.
“The staff teaches car maintenance at these colleges for free for high school students,” Luo said. “I feel like that’s a really good way to start.”
But there are plenty of alternative options for those who don’t feel like attending an extra community college class, Luo said.
“I recommend looking at YouTube videos,” Luo said. “That was probably the most useful area.”
Junior Ronen Sun, a close friend of Luo’s, has similar automotive-centric hobbies; in fact, he owns a Ninja Kawasaki 650, Sun said.
“I’ve rebuilt the entire left side of the motorcycle, done oil changes, and repainted and resprayed body panels,” Sun said.
Luo, Sun, and their mutual friends enjoy attending events like Monterey Car Week whenever they have the time, Sun said.
“(Luo) has a very fixated interest in cars,” Sun added. “He has very specific interests.”
Despite his passion for automobiles, Luo has had his fair share of mishaps on the road, Sun said.
“So one day, (Luo) called me and he said, ‘Oh, I crashed my Civic.’ I asked him how, and he was like, ‘Oh, I sort of, like, went off,’” Sun said. “Mind you, I was sort of worried because that was the only thing he said to me before he basically hung up on me, and I was trying to call him back and everything.”
After calling Luo over a dozen times without a response, he decided to try and find him based on the background of the picture Luo sent, Sun said.
“I go up the mountain and I see his Civic past a ditch on the side of the road, and the whole front side of the car is just wrecked,” Sun said. “I ask him what happened, and he’s like, ‘Oh, I sort of got a little blind, you know?’ And that was his only excuse for crashing his car.”
Senior Dylan Nguyen, another of Luo’s close friends, drives a Toyota 4Runner—though he has yet to do any maintenance, Nguyen said.
“I got it like three days ago,” Nguyen said. “I filled the tires with air.”
Nguyen doesn’t remember exactly when he became friends with Luo; he seems to have simply “spawned into (his) life,” Nguyen said.
“This gay dude I knew had a crush on him,” Nguyen added when prompted for his first impression of Luo.
Furthermore, Luo is a “TikTok car boy” who likes BMWs and “stanced” (extremely low) cars, Nguyen said.
“I hate stanced cars,” Luo said in response to Nguyen’s statement. “That was five years ago!”
Neither Sun nor Nguyen would trust Luo to drive their vehicles, they said.
“I can fix your car,” Luo said. “I can’t drive it—but I can fix it, at least.”
