bluesdog
Well-known member
I began doing my own wrenching for the simple reason that I couldn't afford to pay the shop mechanic.
Then there's the 'HFM' syndrome, where the shop passes the 'simple' jobs on to the yard boy they hired to wash the parking area, with the inevitable over/under tightened, stripped fasteners, scratched paint, holes punched in spark plug wires(!!), and so forth.
In a surprisingly short time, I found I was actually enjoying doing the maintenance and odd repair or customization on my vehicles, and sometimes those of friends.
As Twigg remarked, knowing how stuff works can also be very handy for emergency road side repairs on your own or others' vehicles. I'll never forget the awed looks on the faces of a couple of young ladies when I got their car to start by simply tightening the loose connector on the battery!
I still pay to have my tires changed, and for other tasks for which I currently lack appropriate tools and equipment, and I'm not particularly fond of crawling under the cage, so most of that stuff I leave to the car dealer's service tech.
Then there's the 'HFM' syndrome, where the shop passes the 'simple' jobs on to the yard boy they hired to wash the parking area, with the inevitable over/under tightened, stripped fasteners, scratched paint, holes punched in spark plug wires(!!), and so forth.
In a surprisingly short time, I found I was actually enjoying doing the maintenance and odd repair or customization on my vehicles, and sometimes those of friends.
As Twigg remarked, knowing how stuff works can also be very handy for emergency road side repairs on your own or others' vehicles. I'll never forget the awed looks on the faces of a couple of young ladies when I got their car to start by simply tightening the loose connector on the battery!
I still pay to have my tires changed, and for other tasks for which I currently lack appropriate tools and equipment, and I'm not particularly fond of crawling under the cage, so most of that stuff I leave to the car dealer's service tech.
