A Fix-It- Yourself Approach

As a secretary, Karen Liable could type "four-barrel carburetor," but she certainly did not know what it did or even looked like. For precisely that reason, she was picked to leave her desk at the Ford Motor Co. last week, don coveralls, and approach a waiting Pinto, the 2,000-lb. subcompact that Ford will put on sale Sept. 11. Her mission: to perform many of the adjustments described in the owner's manual, The Happy Pinto --and How to Keep It That Way. If Karen failed, Ford officials said, the manual would be deemed a failure, and would have to be rewritten in simpler language. As it turned out, Karen did well; she removed the air cleaner, changed the grille, cleaned the spark plugs.

Ford's fix-it-yourself approach reflects an effort by Detroit to turn out cars that can be adjusted easily by the ordinary driver. The trend began with the introduction of two small, easily fixable models--Ford's Maverick and American Motors' Gremlin. As the automakers bring out new small cars, it is continuing. On Sept. 10, General Motors will introduce its subcompact, the Vega, and executives are boasting about how easy it is to repair. Says one: "Just five screws hold Vega's grille in place. It can be removed in less than ten minutes without taking off the bumper. All that's necessary to remove the bumper is to loosen six bolts."

Swing to Simplicity. By making such simple, basic machines, the automakers have decided to try to beat Volkswagen, Toyota and Fiat at their own game. The Vega has only 1,231 parts, the Pinto 1,600. By comparison, a standard two-door Impala has 3,500 parts and a Lincoln Continental 9,000. Partly because big U.S. cars are so full of complicated tubes, wiring and equipment, which mechanics call "plumbing and spaghetti," even easy repair jobs can cost great amounts of money. Mechanics' hourly pay has increased from about $3.78 in 1966 to $5 today. This autumn Ford will sell sets of basic tools, starting at $28.75, and special kits of spare parts for the Pinto. The company estimates that in only a few minutes a Pinto driver can replace the grille for $10, the rear lights for $5.25 and all fuses and lightbulbs for $4.

To promote the Pinto, Ford is also offering buyers a simple, key-shaped tool that it claims serves 27 purposes, from measuring the gap between electrodes on a spark plug to stripping wire and turning regular and Phillips screws. Not to be outdone, G.M. suggests that, with its illustrated and simplified manual, the Vega owner will need only a few tools: wrench, screwdriver, coat hanger, garden hose and--to replace transmission and rear-axle fluids--a turkey baster.

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