Which generation knows the most about car maintenance in the UK, UAE and India?

29 Mar 2023

Which generation knows the most about car maintenance in the UK, UAE and India?

Would you be confident checking your oil levels? Do you know the different ways to check what your tyre pressure should be? Are you knowledgeable enough to change a tyre? We wanted to know how many people felt confident answering basic car maintenance questions to find out the most and least knowledgeable generations.

We surveyed adults in the UK, UAE and India to determine who knows the most about basic car maintenance and who needs to brush up on their knowledge.

How is our car knowledge overall?

Overall, participants from all three countries answered 52.81% of the questions correctly, suggesting that almost 50% of people do not know how to maintain their vehicles. Broken down by country, the UK was the most knowledgeable with 69.68% of correct answers, followed by UAE with 50.50% and India with 44.37%. With a knowledge gap of over 25%, the UK took the top spot with flying colours. 

Gen Z Car Knowledge (18-25)

Overall, Gen Z proved to be the least knowledgeable overall, with just 37.28% of correct answers. Participants in the UK performed best with 58.79% of correct answers while the UAE came in second with 42.40% of correct answers and India last with 32.91%. They were the least knowledgeable generation in India and second from the bottom in both the UK and UAE.

Millennial Car Knowledge (26-40)

Millennials were the mid-performing age category with 53.23% of correct answers overall. Those in the UK answered 70.09% of questions correctly while the UAE had 52.18% of correct answers and 44.22% of correct answers in India. Millennials were the third most knowledgeable generation in all three countries.

Gen X Car Knowledge (41-56)

Gen X came in second from the top with their car knowledge, with 65.94% of people answering correctly. The UK had the highest percentage of correct answers at 74.12% followed by UAE at 61.78% and India with 51.04% of correct answers. Gen X were the second most knowledgeable generation across all three countries surveyed.

Boomers Car Knowledge (57-75)

Boomers were the most knowledgeable generation overall with 72.34% of people answering correctly. Participants in the UK were the most knowledgeable with 74.56% of people answering correctly. This was followed by UAE participants answering 63.90% of questions correctly and those in India with 59.91% of correct answers. Boomers were the top-performing generation across all three countries.

The Silent Generation Car Knowledge (76+)

The Silent Generation were the lowest-scoring generation when asked about car maintenance. With just 43.31% of people answering correctly, they proved that over half the people surveyed need to brush up on their knowledge. The UK was the highest performing group with 53.03% of correct answers, followed by UAE with 32.23% and India with 33.76% of correct answers.

Men Vs Women

Overall, women outperformed men with 56.05% of correct answers, compared to 54.69% of correct answers from the men surveyed. However, men did outperform women in the UK with 76.05% of correct answers compared to 70.63% of correct answers. This also continued in UAE with 55.62% of correct answers from men vs 45.01% of correct answers from women and India where 39.99% of men answered correctly compared to 35.06% of women.

Conclusion

Overall, participants in the UK proved to be the most knowledgeable. However, the survey was conducted in English in all three countries which could be a contributing factor. Boomers were consistently the best-performing generation across all three countries while The Silent Generation came in last overall, as well as in the UK and UAE. However, there is a larger population of two wheeler drivers in India so this could have had an effect on the results.

Methodology

We used Google Surveys to gather the data from 1069 respondents in the UK, 1076 in India and 1067 in the UAE. The survey was completed by those over 18 only and conducted in English.

This ran from 28th September 2022 to 9th November 2022. The survey included 10 questions with multiple-choice answers for each question. We asked respondents the following questions:

1. Do you drive?
2. How old are you?
3. What is your gender?
4. Where would you find a dipstick in a car?
5. What does the car radiator do?
6. If you hear a squeaking, grinding or metallic sound when driving, what does it mean?
7. Where do you check the level of your engine oil?
8. Where would you find your tyre pressure?
9. How do you change a tyre?
10. What does a catalytic converter do?

Once the surveys were complete, we combined the data and analysed it to form the basis of this study.

Answers marked in green - Most knowledgeable

Answers marked in red - Least knowledgeable