MDR is the answer – now, what’s the question?

When I was in my mid-teens, I decided to get a job in a small local garage to learn how to maintain cars in preparation for owning my own. Years later, I was fortunate enough to have a company car. One day, it indicated that the oil was low and needed an oil and filter change. I knew what to do – I’d done that stint as a low-paid dogsbody in a garage. So, rather than booking it in (as I should have), I decided to drain the oil, change the filter, and refill with clean oil. I opened the bonnet.

What the hell is this?

I couldn’t recognise what was under there as any engine I’d seen just 10 years earlier. Undaunted, I jacked up the car and looked for the sump plug – the bolt underneath the engine that needs to be removed to drain the old ...