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OP, first, what region do you live in? If you are in Rust Country, IMHO if you want to be a car guy, first step is to get out of there. If you are a total noob, when it comes to cars, you might be better off taking at least an introductory course in mechanics and maybe body work at a local community college. You could do that even if you are still in Saltville.
Once you are somewhere you can really fool with old cars, in my experience a good "starter" project car is actually an older pickup truck. If your first efforts don't result in a vehicle good enough to show at Pebble Beach, that's more OK with a pickup than a car, and if you want to sell it you will recover more of your money in comparison. Air cooled Bugs are also easy to work on, although the newest ones are so old now that the good ones are spendy to buy, and the cheap ones are really ratty. But you can luck out.
In my experience being able to do my own car repairs, maintenance and upgrades has allowed me to own some great running older cars and have a decent driving experience for way less than the people who buy late models pay.
Some guys do make a sort of paying hobby out of fixing up damaged or just old cars. You have to enjoy doing the work though, otherwise it usually does not pay well enough make it worth doing.
OP, first, what region do you live in? If you are in Rust Country, IMHO if you want to be a car guy, first step is to get out of there. If you are a total noob, when it comes to cars, you might be better off taking at least an introductory course in mechanics and maybe body work at a local community college. You could do that even if you are still in Saltville.
Once you are somewhere you can really fool with old cars, in my experience a good "starter" project car is actually an older pickup truck. If your first efforts don't result in a vehicle good enough to show at Pebble Beach, that's more OK with a pickup than a car, and if you want to sell it you will recover more of your money in comparison. Air cooled Bugs are also easy to work on, although the newest ones are so old now that the good ones are spendy to buy, and the cheap ones are really ratty. But you can luck out.
In my experience being able to do my own car repairs, maintenance and upgrades has allowed me to own some great running older cars and have a decent driving experience for way less than the people who buy late models pay.
Some guys do make a sort of paying hobby out of fixing up damaged or just old cars. You have to enjoy doing the work though, otherwise it usually does not pay well enough make it worth doing.
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~ 1950 - 1977 in USA, continued production until 2003. (Mex)
Air cooled are their own little animal and VERY cold in winter climates, GREAT traction (rear Engine), but not so great steering on Ice.
I miss the 'reserve' fuel tank that you 'kicked-the-lever' when you started running our of gas. You hoped that didn't happen at a stoplight or on a steep city hill.
My buddy makes $$ off doing this, but he flips salvage vehicles. He will buy 5-6 late model totaled vehicles and repair them like new.
He recently did a 2011 Mercedes AMG 5 series and put around 20k total in it, probably not including his labor. He flipped it after using it for a year, for around 30k.
You need alot of capital and experience though before you could make any $$ at it.
You also need the knowledge to do this right AND what to look for in selecting the right project car. Modern cars are designed to sacrifice themselves to protect the passenger compartment in the event of a wreck. If the frame is crumpled, the car will never be as good (or a safe) as it was before the wreck, even if it looks nice on the outside.
That said, salvage cars can be perfectly fine. My first car was a salvage vehicle. It was 11 years old when it was in a parking lot accident that left 12" dent just in front of the rear wheel on the passenger side. It was a two door, so it was still perfectly drivable. There was nothing else wrong with it, it was just so old the insurance company didn't want to fix it.
You also need the knowledge to do this right AND what to look for in selecting the right project car. Modern cars are designed to sacrifice themselves to protect the passenger compartment in the event of a wreck. If the frame is crumpled, the car will never be as good (or a safe) as it was before the wreck, even if it looks nice on the outside.
That said, salvage cars can be perfectly fine. My first car was a salvage vehicle. It was 11 years old when it was in a parking lot accident that left 12" dent just in front of the rear wheel on the passenger side. It was a two door, so it was still perfectly drivable. There was nothing else wrong with it, it was just so old the insurance company didn't want to fix it.
If you buy an older car from 90's how much can you save on car insurance compared to buying an old car from 2000's or buying a new car?
Here's one example from my own insurance statement. I had a 1996 Caravan and a 2004 Caravan. My six-month premium on the '96 was $95.29, and the premium on the '04 was $267.56. The biggest difference was the the '04 had full coverage while the '96 was covered for liability only. Subtracting the full coverage, the liability portion of the '04 was $104.35 so the savings for liability only was less than $10 for the '96 vs the '04.
One CAN save a lot of money if they do their own vehicle maintenance, but you don't jump into a "needs work" vehicle as your first task. That leads only to being frustrated and wasting money, I've seen it time and time again for closing in on 2 decades and it's just sad to watch happen.
If you really want to start saving yourself money, it's better for you to start with a fully functional vehicle and tackle the Maintenance things. Flush the brake fluid, change the pads and rotors/drums, rotate tires, do your own oil changes, hit the lube points (such as they may be), etc... You'll gain experience and comfort all while saving yourself money, and grow into bigger tasks like changing a timing belt/rollers/waterpump, or replacing an alternator. Somewhere along that learning process you'll fall into basic troubleshooting and repair. When I learned, it was nearly all trial and error with only paper reference manuals and the Rare person I could ask (I learned on motorcycles, but an ICE is an ICE). Today you have the internet (as well as paper reference manuals), a TON of reading available to you. Read and learn.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemlock140
i agree, that's not the way to start out. I did all my own work since I was 16, including engine exchanges, body and paint, but before that I had learned from helping my father who did his own work. Without the modern electronics cars were far easier to work on then. Now I do little more than oil changes and brakes, maybe a new water pump or alternator. The rest requires more sophisticated, expensive equipment to diagnose. Even the code scan doesn't tell you what to replace, just what code is set, and it could still be one of 12 things causing it.
Body work is not as easy as it looks, but for rust you have to weld in and replace the metal, I would not attempt it without at least a welding class.
Most people that try what you are thinking about end up selling a "project car" for less than they paid for it or paying a real mechanic more than they could have bought a decent car for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NewHavensFinest
Newer cars are a bit trickier to work on, and more expensive.
Most cars built before 2000 are pretty simple and usually cheaper.
The best advice I can give is to get the manual for the car... NOT the manual you find at the bookstore, which are Chilton and Haynes...
Those manuals are pretty good, but a lot of info is sometimes left out that is very important.
You really need to look for the "official" manual for the car. which usually runs atleast $50. Probably around $100. But its WELL worth it.
these posts, and others, are filled with good information and recommendations. rust for instance is a tricky issue to deal with. as noted surface rust can be handled with a little cleaning and a good rust converter like POR-15. but if there are holes in the metal, then you have a tougher path ahead of you. it means cutting back until you get to good sheet metal, and even then hitting the good metal with a good rust converter, and then welding in new metal that has been properly shaped to fit the area. although these days welding is no longer really needed as there are good panel adhesives that can do the trick, BUT even those require some knowledge to use them properly.
my best advice to you is this. before you buy that car you are thinking about, have a mechanic look the vehicle over, including a diagnostic of any codes the computer is throwing, and have them give you an idea of what needs to be done to the car to make it right. if the mechanic gives the go ahead to buy the car, then get yourself a shop manual for the car, the $50 you will spend is well worth the money.
next you are going to need tools, including your own code scanner if you buy a 98 or newer car. for the recreational mechanic, harbor freight sells tools at a substantial discount. i wouldnt use them in a professional environment as they would not hold up under that kind of duress, but for the home mechanic that uses them a few times a month, they will do just fine. if you decide later on to become a professional mechanic, and after you get a good education at someplace like UTI, or wyotech, then you can spend the money for good tools.
the next thing i would recommend is that you attend classes at your local community college that has an automotive tech program. you dont need the auto tech ll courses, the basic ones will do just fine for your needs. the basic courses are anything that starts with either two digits, like aut70, or any three digit course that starts with a 1, like aut101. you dont need a degree, so dont bother with the higher up courses, just get a good solid basic education.
after that you can start getting your hands dirty and doing a lot of the repairs that you would normally have farmed out to the dealer or independent repair shop. heck you might even learn enough to rebuild engines.
Im no mechanic but i fixed a miss on my newer computer controlled everything (german) car myself, somehow.
For me, i changed the plugs. still had the miss. Went to auto parts store, ran the code, it told my which cyl was missing, moved that coil to another cyl, ran the code again, now that cyl had the miss. bought a new coil, on my way! All for less than the cost of a tech to actually even look at the car. Sometimes you get lucky. But it also could be a whole engine affair as well so you gotta figure that in.
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