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Doing your own work.

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I'm getting myself to the point where I am going to be the primary mechanic on 1 car that will be by secondary DD. So long as I have one vehicle in good shape, i will do the work on the other so long as I am comfortable with the job.

At this time, I have two cars (one for me, one for the wife). If it ain't super cheap and easy, it goes to the shop because I strongly prefer to have two functioning vehicles.
 
Ah another good point I forget in my last post.

Another thing DIY advocates take for granted: having other reliable vehicles to drive while your other vehicle is being worked on. It becomes impossible when you can't make an emergency trip to the parts store or diagnose the problem part only to find out a replacement is 2-3 days out on special order and you won't have it back together before work Monday morning.
 
exdeath said:
Ah another good point I forget in my last post.

Another thing DIY advocates take for granted: having other reliable vehicles to drive while your other vehicle is being worked on. It becomes impossible when you can't make an emergency trip to the parts store or diagnose the problem part only to find out a replacement is 2-3 days out on special order and you won't have it back together before work Monday morning.
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this is key actually, I taken that for granted. then we got rid of the 2nd car, I had to take the bus to the part store. least now I have a semi -DD, my motorcycle.

- tapatalk
 
If there is a DIY for it Ill do it, but if it I dont fully understand it I wont do it and pay a friend to do it then I can see how its done and then know how to do it. If I need a shop to do work I know a good one too, I have to visit them on Friday for a front end knock bleh
 
exdeath said:
Also many people who preach DIY for everything often take for granted that they also have 24/7 access to a real shop for special service tools, air, lifts, fluid disposal, etc. when shit just got real 😉
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i love having a friend that owns a shop. he lets me use his lift when hes slow and after hours, he has all the tools that i used to have before they got stolen out of my work room too. i do trade off computer work with him tho, ive set him up a decent network as well as remote access, and donated a few computers to his shop as well. its a win-win.

i love working on cars. when i dont have to drive it the next day. right now im redoing the head on my civic and driving my truck. after i finish, ill park the truck and rebuild the front end this winter. where i would normally take it to my friends shop to do the heavy work, im doing this in my driveway. kind of fun, teaching my son and my daughter's bf how to remove/ replace a cylinder head at the same time.
 
jlee said:
I kind of have to with the MR2 - without having a specialty shop around, chances are I have a better idea of how to fix something than an average garage would anyway.
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youre in the valley now, theres no shortage of knowledgeable shops that can help you here. have you been to firebird raceway on the weekends yet? lots of good stuff going on there usually.
 
I do most all of the mechanical work on my vehicles, very rare for me to take anything in to be worked on.
The next project I have is to pull the 5.0 out of my wifes Mountaineer so I can change the oil pan gasket, going to change the rear main seal while it is out. Not really looking forward to this:thumbsdown:

Over the years I have built up my tool collection...
 
Sounds like I'll be getting to diagnose a transmission leak on my boss's car soon 😛 I really hope it is something stupid simple, like a pan gasket failure or something like that. And hoping it is easy to get to...
 
The shitty jobs I try not to do, but only if they're cheap to have someone else do it.
Like my self-adjusting rear drum brakes have so many damm springs it's a nightmare.
I've always done my own disc and regular drum brakes.
 
I'm far past the age of "enjoying" working on the car but still do most of my own work because I'm pretty anal about my car and want work done right. If I do brakes, I take the brackets off, clean and paint them, no shop is going to do that, that sort of detail. I wouldn't mind paying the crazy amounts shops charge these days if they did/do high quality work but so many of them don't give a shit and it shows in the work they do.
 
Hey Kelly,
Still around just not doing as much trading as I used to, well actually not doing as much of anything as I used to......
 
Just keep buying similar cars and you'll be able to keep reusing the same skills and parts.

1st car - 1999 Impreza Outback (gone)
2nd car - 1995 Legacy Outback (gone)
3rd car - 2000 Impreza wagon
4th car - 1993 Impreza wagon (gone)
5th car - 2000 2.5RS

I won't do anything other than change the oil on my gf's Saturn Astra though, even rotating the tires is a pain since it doesn't have good jack points.
 
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Tristicus said:
I hate it. On small jobs, I'll do it. Larger jobs, for myself it is more cost effective to let someone do it..I work way too slow, and don't know exactly what I'm doing and always break shit.
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I'll do brakes and struts myself, oil changes I'll just take it to the shop for.
 
JCH13 said:
Not if you want a paper-trail to back a power-train warranty claim. That's why I do it anyway.
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If you have no warranties it won't matter. For my new car, I have a notebook to keep a log.

My original thought was that oil is quicker and easier than brakes and struts.

t
 
MotF Bane said:
If you have no warranties it won't matter. For my new car, I have a notebook to keep a log.

My original thought was that oil is quicker and easier than brakes and struts.

t
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Yep, it certainly is quicker than brakes and struts. I need my oil changed (in the MS3) every 5-7.5k miles, which is less than twice a year for me (yay walking to work) so no biggie to take it to the shop for that.

I do change my Miata's oil myself.
 
JCH13 said:
Yep, it certainly is quicker than brakes and struts. I need my oil changed (in the MS3) every 5-7.5k miles, which is less than twice a year for me (yay walking to work) so no biggie to take it to the shop for that.

I do change my Miata's oil myself.
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Well, any warranty the Miata may have had has been mercilessly molested. 😛

t
 
JulesMaximus said:
I don't like hassling with oil changes. It is messy, I always seem to spill some somewhere, plus you have to take the old oil down to have it recycled and it really doesn't save me enough money to justify the hassle.
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This was the general consensus here I believe. I had thought about starting to do it, and I still might. But if a 5 qts of oil is roughly $15 plus a few bucks for an oil filter, and it costs $20 to have it done elsewhere... is it really worth $2 to do it yourself?

Granted, if you're doing premium oil, it most certainly can be, as the oil changes run upwards of $40 when the actual difference in oil cost is a meager $5 or so, but if you're just running standard variety oils... not so much.
 
I don't trust half the schmucks doing those $20 oil changes. I doubt they care enough, heck some of them have been caught not even bothering to change the filter.

If I do it, I know it is done right. Plus, for how much I drive and how I want my vehicle to last, I don't use cheapo oil.
 
SparkyJJO said:
I don't trust half the schmucks doing those $20 oil changes. I doubt they care enough, heck some of them have been caught not even bothering to change the filter.

If I do it, I know it is done right. Plus, for how much I drive and how I want my vehicle to last, I don't use cheapo oil.
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I had to get my oil changed mid-trip when I drove cross country. I micromanaged the hell out of the guys...fortunately they were cool with it (friend of a friend ran the shop, so they used my oil/filter and I watched the whole thing).
 
Last time I got my oil changed at the Jiffy Lube/Citgo in my Camaro, they scraped across the thing going in...and didn't bother to stop, just kept going. Made me cringe.
 
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