Trip Preparation -- Mode of Transport -- Then & Now:

1849:

"Good and substantial wagons should always be selected, and however firm and staunch they may appear they should be...examined and repaired before leaving...it is preferable always to have the tires re-set"  The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon & California, 1845

"Today we have been breaking the oxen.  It is a mean job....of all the shapes and tangles cattle were ever known to be guilty of getting themselves into, they certainly performed them....But it was the mule companies which had the real trouble....A wild, unbroken mule is the most desperate animal ever seen.  They kick, bite and strike with their forefeet, making it very dangerous to go about them.  One company had a high old time breaking the mules to harness.  They were lassoed, thrown, harnessed and dragged into place by sheer and simple force.  Each animal had a rope with a choking noose around his neck, at the other end of which was a mad and excited individual who walked, ran, jumped, fell, swore and was dragged..." William Swain Diary & Letters published in "The World Rushed In" by J.S. Holliday

Bruff Gold Rush Diary 1849

"Yoking a wild ox" by William Henry Jackson

2017:  

My 2007 Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV has 169,400 miles.  Thoroughly checked at Yarnell's located, fittingly, on Pioneer Way in Mountain View, CA on April 5, 2017.  Of course the tires were rotated!  My car is checked out and well broken in, so life's good.