Cantankerous is often used to describe difficult people. Cantankerous is also used for inanimate objects that are difficult or irritating to deal with. Suffering from poor product quality, sour labor relations and just plain bad luck, the Halewood assembly plant and its 3,000 workers located outside Liverpool seemed destined for Britain's automotive scrap heap. It would have been a predictable end for a cantankerous plant. The very notion of messing with the inner workings of a computer would have been as horrifying to her as joining a motorcycle gang.
Computers are at least as cantankerous as cars.
Half the battle is figuring out when it's safe to try.