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Honestly, I'd want to do more maintenance on my own if I can eventually get all the tools needed to make it easier. I'd also like to have an extra car I could just practice on. Maybe an older model car that would need some help getting back on the road. If I had time, I would take a course on auto mechanics. I wished I had something like that offered when I was in college.
The way my brain works, I need to understand every piece of an engine and how it all works, why it works, and in what sequence it works. All of that before I even attempt to touch it. Once I had a good understanding of that, then tearing into an engine wouldn't be nearly as scary to me. But, it's the fear of the unknown. What will taking this part of the engine off affect other parts of the engine? And the way to teach this all to me is to make it as much in layman's terms as possible. Yes, I'm a smart guy when it comes to information technology, but when it comes to auto mechanics, I have a mental block with some of it.
Use to do my own but I'm older now and cars are different than the ones I worked on I pay someone else to get dirty now I one my share of knuckle busting and loud cursing. When I worked on cars in the 70's they were allot easier to work on.
Do you do all your own repairs and routine maintenance, or let someone else do it for you? If you do them yourself, how much do you do / can you do? Are you a shade tree mechanic, or can you tear a car/truck down front to back and put it back together, or do you not even think about it and let someone else do it! I can do most of my own work, but lack the proper tools to do it, so repairs and service go to the dealer. They charge what it cost me to do an oil change, almost, and Im getting to old to crawl around on the ground to change my own oil, or rotate my tires.
I do about everything myself. I have done even paint and body, but don't have a decent place to paint of my own.
Occasionally I do farm a job out like rebuilding a carburetor to one of the local indy shops.
Live out in the country and have a good big garage - it's damn near as much trouble to drop a car off at a shop as it is to DIY.
I'm capable of handling just about all of the routine maintenance on my cars and have all the tools. Since I moved, I've taken my car to the local lube place because there's no easy way to dispose of the oil and I find it cheap enough to just let someone else worry about the mess especially if the car needs to go up in the air. (rotation, oil change etc)
I still try to do the other stuff like wipers, bulbs and air filters. Going to do brake fluid soon, but not sure about the used fluid. Maybe autozone will take it like the oil.
I do all of the mechanical work on my cars. After I retired I made the decision that I had the time now so I had no excuse to not do the work myself. Complete auto body, engine, HVAC, transmission, electrical, computer, any and all maintenance.
I purchased every custom tool I needed.
Did I mention that I also repair flat tires.
In the 10 years I have been retired, no professional has touched any of my cars.
Before I was retired, I let professional mechanical techs do the work, Every time it was in the shop it was $800 to $2000 dollars. I also caught them ripping me off. On one occasion I had my truck in the shop because the AC wasn't working. A few hours later they called me to let me know that the compressor was needed to be replaced. I said that this is great because you guys replaced it 6 months ago and it has a one year warranty. They checked their records and sure enough they had to replace it for free. Two hours later they called me back and said that they had replaced the compressor and found the evaporator was bad and they had to replace it too. 2 days later I was paying them $1200 dollars to get my truck back. When I got the truck home I looked under the compressor and found grease, they had just cleaned it up to make it look like they replaced it.
They were just looking for a way to charge my for a simple fix. In the last 5 years I have repaired several HVAC systems and still have not had to replace any expensive parts (compressor, condenser, evaporator, etc.) the repair has always been something simple, even as simple as the high pressure port ($5)
I have caught them ripping my off on several other occasion also. So doing my own work has saved me huge money.
I do all of my own work to include dropping transmissions, brakes, hydraulic clutch systems, exhaust and the basic stuff.
Only thing I did not do what tune my car because it wasn't worth paying $400 for the program and then learning how to do it. Spending $250 to have it dyno tuned by a professional was much better, IMO.
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