The Missing Bit
Ten days, one missing bit, and two very different ideas of success.
My husband has a favorite sentence whenever he’s working on his BMW M4.
“This is the last improvement.”
I’ve heard that one enough times to know better.
There’s always another improvement coming.
He’s a proud owner of that sports car, and he loves working on it. Oil changes and routine maintenance on our cars happen at home. He has added spoilers, worked on the exhaust tips, and made all kinds of improvements to his M4.
For major maintenance, we’ve traditionally gone to the dealership.
But lately, he’s been getting more adventurous.
The more familiar he becomes with the car, the more complex the projects he wants to tackle. What started with routine maintenance and modifications has gradually moved into work he once would have left to professionals.
And that’s how we ended up spending 10 days on a project we thought would take one.
It looked so easy on YouTube
This time, he wanted to install a crank hub cover.
He’s been tuning the car, and the cover provides additional protection to help keep the crank hub secure.
We watched the installation video.
It looked manageable.
Then he got under the car.
The space was so tight that he could barely see where the screws needed to go. He had to feel his way around, try different tools, and eventually buy a small camera just to see what he was doing.
I’m usually the sous-chef on these projects.
He’s the mechanic. I hand him tools, hold the light, and occasionally wonder why we’re doing this ourselves.
After a lot of effort, the cover was finally installed.
We could have stopped there.
But he also wanted to replace some belts.
He wasn’t as confident about that part. We discussed taking the car to a professional, and he thought about it for a while.
Then he decided to try.
And that’s when things really got interesting.
Undoing what we’d just finished
To work on the belts, he needed access to the crank bolt.
The same bolt we’d just covered.
So the crank hub cover had to come off.
All that work we’d just completed? Undone.
Then we ran into another problem.
Our regular torque-wrench accessories wouldn’t fit into the narrow space. We checked AutoZone and Home Depot, but couldn’t find what we needed.
The missing bit was available online.
So we ordered it and waited.
Meanwhile, the BMW sat in our garage, partly disassembled and unusable.
Every evening, he’d go back under the car. Every evening, there seemed to be another complication.
What looked like a one-day project was now stretching across several days.
And I kept asking the same question.
Why don’t we just take it to a mechanic?
We could afford to have someone do it. A professional would have the lift, the equipment, and the right tools.
There was no financial reason to keep struggling.
At one point, even he had enough.
He started looking for professionals who could finish the job.
I was relieved.
But we were still waiting for that one missing bit.
And he wanted to give it one more try.
We finished. Or so we thought.
The bit arrived.
It fit.
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He was finally able to work on the belts.
After all those evenings in the garage, we thought we’d reached the finish line.
Then we remembered the crank hub cover still had to go back on.
And when he tried to reinstall it, the pulley had shifted just enough that the screws wouldn’t line up.
To adjust it, he had to release the tension on the belts he’d just tightened.
But once the cover was back in place, he couldn’t use the crank bolt the same way to tighten those belts again.
We had a catch-22 sitting in our garage.
To finish one job, we had to undo the other.
We had already taken that cover off and put it back multiple times.
I was exhausted just watching the process.
He was the one lying under the car, trying to figure out how to tighten those belts without relying on the crank bolt.
Eventually, he found another way.
By the last tightening round, his hands were trembling from the effort.
But he finished.
And after 10 days, we finally took the BMW out for a test drive.
It worked!
I was so proud of him.
And he was showing the finished work to anyone willing to look.
It was never about the money
I kept thinking about why this mattered so much to him.
My husband already knows when to take a car to a professional. We’ve done that plenty of times.
This wasn’t about proving that mechanics are unnecessary.
And it certainly wasn’t about saving money.
It was about how far he’d come.
He’d started with routine maintenance and simpler modifications. Over time, he’d become more comfortable taking on work that once seemed beyond his reach.
This project was another step.
A difficult one.
For 10 days, I was mostly focused on getting our car back.
He was focused on figuring out whether he could do something he hadn’t done before.
I wanted the job finished.
He wanted to be the person who could finish it.
And suddenly, I understood why handing it over to a mechanic wasn’t such an easy decision for him.
I’ve seen a version of this at work too.
Sometimes the goal is simply to get something done, and bringing in an expert is the smartest choice.
But sometimes a team is taking on a difficult problem because they need to build the ability to solve problems like it in the future.
Those situations may look identical from the outside.
The difference is what we’re trying to gain from the experience.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we should struggle endlessly or refuse help. There are situations where the cost or risk of learning through trial and error is simply too high.
But it does make me think twice before assuming that the fastest solution is always the one someone is looking for.
As for my husband, I have no doubt there will be another car project.
And when he tells me, “This is the last improvement,” I’ll know exactly what that means.
I’ll probably be back in the garage holding the light.
Your Micro Boost
Think about something you’re working hard to accomplish.
Ask yourself:
Am I trying to get this task finished, or am I trying to learn how to do it myself?
The answer might change how you approach the problem, when you ask for help, and what success looks like.
Listen to my podcast directly from our garage
YouTube Channel
https://youtu.be/8Ojh801YJ1Y?si=NyMx4wm7bIF2S7ir
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6RaFtPBKqFXNF21d10Z4l5?si=dRKiDwxURGmJIVmFbHuBGA
Apple Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-46-the-missing-bit/id1860614687?i=1000797614458
Small actions, big impact!
