For 35 years or so, I drove only Volkswagen Beetles.

It was a decision based less on self-image or customer loyalty, so much as good old common sense. They were cheap to buy and maintain, they were dependable, and they handled well. Beyond that, their malfunctions were easy to understand.

Of course, in terms of bells and whistles, there wasn’t a whole lot to them, which I always thought was the purpose of everyday machines in the first place.

Gauges and dials were almost nonexistent. In fact, the earlier models didn’t even have a gas gauge. Instead, they came with an aluminum stick that had gallons and liters measured on it, and all you had to do was put the stick in the tank and you knew how full it was. But even if you were remiss and ran out of gas, you weren’t out of luck. You just yanked a wire under the dashboard which opened a reserve tank, giving you another 35 miles or so to find a station.

The Bugs I had not only had a gas gauge, but had warning lights besides. There were three. A blue one was for high beams, a green one was the oil light, and a red one was for the generator. If anything else went wrong, it was your job to figure it out.

I’d like to think this minimalist approach to warning lights made for a more resourceful driver, a more rugged American, drive-by-the-seat-of-your pants kinda guy. One drill I recall illustrates this perfectly.

I turn the car off, take out the key, and the red light comes on … and stays on. Clearly, it’s my voltage regulator, specifically its brushes are stuck together. This meant that even though the car was turned off, electricity was still flowing out the battery. Obviously, this would drain the battery. But less obviously to anyone who never owned a Bug, this could also set the car on fire.

How’s that, you ask? Simple, the voltage regulator, which VW decided to install under the rear seat, would overheat and if it got hot enough, could ignite the seat stuffing above it.

What to do? Oh, no sweat. You just took off the seat and took a wrench and banged the bejammers out of the regulator till the light went off, which it usually did. If it didn’t, then you disconnected the battery (which also was under the rear seat) till you went to NAPA and got a new regulator.

New and improved?

Such homespun vehicular nostrums are now as far in the past as wooden-spoke wheels, carbide lamp headlights and planetary transmissions. Now everything in a car is high tech. The dashboards on some of the upscale, sportier models seem more appropriate to a Buck Rogers flick than a wheeled vehicle. One of my friends was so intimidated by his dashboard displays that he never learned how to use his CD player.

When it comes to dashboards, my car, a Honda Accord, is on the low-tech side. Still, chances are when a light comes on, I have no idea what it’s about. Actually, they’re not even lights anymore, but icons, and even that word is a sign of these times. Icon used to mean a painting of a religious figure. Now it’s any symbol on an electronic device. Then again, given our worship of computers, maybe “icon” is the perfect word.

Anyhow, in the fall I was driving around when an icon of a tire lit up on the dash. I pulled over and checked the owner’s manual, which told me my tire pressure was low. Simple enough, I figured — I’d just tool into Hyde’s and hit them up for some free air. I checked all the tires, found the offender, and plumped it up to the requisite poundage and was on my way.

This of course was only a temporary fix and I knew it. If a tire was losing air, it’d continue to lose it. I just figured, denial being the wonderful thing it is, it was a slow leak and I had lots of time before I had to have the tire checked out.

As is too often the case, I figured out wrong. A few days later, the icon came on. I did the Hyde’s thing again, and drove off again, but this fill-up didn’t last. The next day the icon was back on. This time when I started to fill it, I was greeted by a loud, steady hiss. I knew immediately what it was, and it wasn’t good: The tire’s valve stem was farpotshket and all the air was rushing out of the tire, never to return.

I hopped in the car and peeled off to Evergreen Motors, where, luckily, they’d just had a cancellation and they took in my car.

While I waited for them to replace the valve, I chatted with Evergreen’s Director of Recreation, Dave Smith, something I always enjoy.

After we’d shmoozed for a while, the tire was fixed and I only had to pay my bill and be on my way. But once I got the bill, I was almost on my way to the hospital to have my blood pressure checked.

No matter how you cut it, a valve stem is a crappy little piece of metal that can’t cost more than a buck or two, but my bill was around 100 bucks! How could that be? Well, in these high-tech days and in my high-tech car, nothing is as simple as a crappy little piece of metal. Yes, valve stems are the same, but in order for me to find out my tire pressure’s low, a la the icon on the dash, there has to be a sensor hooked up to the valve stem. And that’s what cost the many frogskins.

Common sense about sensors

Well, live and learn, which I’m proud to say I did.

Last week the accursed tire icon came on again. And again I went to Evergreen and made an appointment. And when I did, I asked Dave the question I wish I’d been able to ask the last time I’d had tire trauma.

“So,” I said, “do you have to replace the sensor with the valve?”

“No,” he said. “You can replace just the valve.”

“And what happens if I do?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Except your warning light stays on all the time.”

“And that’s all?”

“Yep,” he said. “But since the light’s on all the time, if the tire pressure gets low, it won’t tell you.”

But it will tell me.

OK, it won’t tell me with a vershtunkeneh little light on the dash. But here’s how it’ll do it: Every week or so I’ll check each tire with my pressure gauge (which I paid a buck for during Nixon’s first term and which still works fine). Then if one is low, I’ll go fill it up. And if the valve hisses, I’ll call Evergreen and beg for an appointment.

That’s how I always dealt with all my tire pressure issues.

Primitive? Perhaps.

Unsophisticated? Certainly.

Failproof? You betcha.

And since it served me well for the past 50 years, I figure it’ll do the same for the next 50 years as well.