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DIY Car Repair: Safety first
I'm going to go over a whole bunch of stuff that you need to get going and things that you need to learn to get going. Before I start everything off, the most important thing that you need to know about working on a car is safety. Things in a car are hot, acidic, sharp and they just generally want to hurt you, and you are going to be under them and you're gonna have your arm your elbow deep in your car and you want to make sure that you're the proper protection.
So gloves, long sleeves, eye protection. The second most important part of the safety is that you're almost guaranteed at some point going to be jacking up your car. you need to learn how to do this. I'm not going to show you how to do this because I'm not going to be liable for you dropping a car on your face. You have to learn how to jack up a car properly. Find someone that knows what they're doing, get them to teach you how to do it. There's a very specific way for every car to jack it up. You need jack stands and I suggest a low profile Jack. spend the money and get a good jacket this makes everything easier it goes up quicker.
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DIY Car Repair: The Tool Box
Here is basically a simple set of tools that will get you going doing your own car maintenance. Things that I recommend that I can't live without are a proper socket set with extensions. Because you're going to need these no matter what you do.
You can just buy these extra, these allow you to go way deep into the car and ratchet things you would not be going to be able to reach otherwise. Don't do something ridiculous like buy this stuff full price because it goes on sale all the time. the set below at regular price is 230 dollars, I got it for 60. So pay attention to the sales at your auto parts store. The gear wrenches are worth their weight in gold they make everything so much easier. You can ratchet a small bolt in a small area. If you're working on a European car you're going to have to get there's a regular socket set
It doesn't often come with this, a set of Torx bolts like that and a breaker bar almost for sure because unless you have an impact gun which is kind of a luxury a breaker bar is going to make everything a lot easier.
More tools
I'm doing wheel bolts and doing stuck nuts and lugs underneath the car. This is a ratcheting breaker bar which is makes everything a lot easier. The next thing you're going to need is a torque wrench any single time you take something off a car a bolt or any kind you have to retorque it to spec. if you don't know what torque specs look it up. They're measured in pound-feet or Newton-meters. this one below goes all the way to 203 Newton meter. That's about all you would ever need there are smaller versions of this but this one is nice and strong and it's easy to torque bolts with.
Other things that you're definitely going to need PB Blaster. This is a penetrating oil, it is one of the things you cannot live without especially if you're working on an old BMW when you get a stuck bolt it makes a huge difference.
Car Repair: Google Is Your Friend
The way I see it is: nowadays there's no excuse to not do your own car maintenance. Because the Internet is such a valuable tool once you figure out how to use it. I hope you've done that by now, everything you could ever need to know about your car is probably on the internet. Unless you have some weird obscure car that not very many people drive. Even then there's going to be a community for it somewhere and people who are willing to help you.
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The first thing that I would do though is if you're just fully getting started out on your own car maintenance you're probably not going to know what the parts of the car are called. This was the biggest obstacle for me when something started making noises, you have to figure out what to search so that you can find what other people have done to fix it.
Get a diagram of your car, find a part break down to find something like that so that you can understand what all the different parts of your car are called. It makes a huge difference when you're trying to figure out what's broken.
Nothing is impossible
Almost guaranteed whatever car is that you drive, there's going to be an online forum for it. Join it now, introduce yourself, be nice, be respectful. Because there's a lot of people out there that know a lot about the car that you drive, and they would be happy to help you, as long as you know that you can do your own research first. https://www.mycarforum.com is an example of those forums.
There's a search function on every forum. Learn how to use it, learn to search up before you just walk onto the front of the forum and say why won't my car start. There's probably a whole thread on why your car won't start and all the possible causes. So learn to use the function to research everything before you actually start asking real questions for real people.
But what you are truly stuck there's always someone in every community that I've been in any way, it's willing to help you figure it out.
Car repair: OBDII reader
Another really handy thing that you should get is an OBDII diagnostic scan tool. You can get one of those ones that plug right into the obd2 port and has its own little screen. But honestly the easier way so just go to Amazon and get an obd2 reader for your phone.
That's a really good way to be able to read the codes in your car. So when you get a check engine light you don't have to pay somebody 50 bucks to tell you what the code is. You can just figure it out yourself. All you have to do is buy it once, and then you don't ever have to go again to get your codes. This is a really obscure code which some of these readers can't read. You can do a lot of understanding of what's going on in your engine using these readers. The more you learn? the better you are to able to diagnose problems.
Patience is a Key
One thing that I really recommend that you get, is some patience. Working on an old car, especially an old European car is an incredibly arduous thing to do. Things are rusted they're old they won't come undone. It's hard like I mean it's physically hard to do. My arms are currently sore from yesterday when I did my differential. My body was stiff all night, it's not an easy thing working on a car, and wrenching on a car. It's something you have to have a lot of patience to do. I can't count the number of times that someone has walked into the garage after I've been working on the car. And they found me sitting there with my head in my hands but not crying I definitely don't cry!
So when you are working on your car I recommend you take breaks frequently. Make sure you're drinking a lot of water if it's hot out. Because you're going to get frustrated really quickly, and it's not worth it. Because if somebody out there can reach it, and do that, and undo that bolt, you can. It just takes time and focus and patience to be able to just go! I can do this, I know it's hard, but we get someone else to try often.
I have walked away gone and done something else. rethink and come back and the bowl came undone right. It's just a matter of being patient with yourself because it's not easy sometimes but it is worth it. In the end, it's rewarding. You save a lot of money. I've easily saved thousands of dollars in car labor just doing my own maintenance in my car. If you have an older car like a BMW you're going to be doing a lot of maintenance. So it's worth learning how to do it yourself it's worth it really is
Start Small with Car Repair
If you just getting into car repair and you just bought yourself your first set of tools. I don't think that you should start by dropping the transmission and doing a clutch. I think you should probably start small. do things like oil changes, change the air filter in your car. simple stuff that you don't need to pay anybody to do.
Change a windshield wiper or something like that. Then slowly work your way up into the more complicated things. I start doing things like brake pads before you would consider doing anything that requires a brake bleed. You would do basic stuff before you considered starting to weld. I still don't weld, I don't have a welder, I just let somebody else do that type of thing for me. Anything that's dangerous, dealing with gasoline, or with spring compression leave that to somebody else. Until you're really confident you really know what you're doing. You don't want to make a mistake that could hurt you obviously. So I think to start small, do some simple things, that's a great place to start. A little scary at first, because you're like oh what happens? what if I can't get the oil in? it's really not that big of a deal.
You gain confidence with time
You start to relax the more that you do more maintenance and it's worth it in the end. Leave yourself enough time to do the repairs because something always goes wrong. I don't think I've ever actually done a big job where I didn't have to leave what I was doing. If you think you're going to change all four brake calipers at 9:00 p.m. the night before a big job interview. you might need to reevaluate your decision-making paradigm! if you leave yourself enough time. like leave yourself a full day, or a weekend or something you've never done before,
You should be fine and always come up with a backup for getting to work on Monday. If you are going to tackle a big job you've never done it before. You really don't want to get stuck without your car. And it's worse if you get your car into a position where it can't be towed to a shop to fix it. I've done that, don't do it at all costs!
Final Words
That's just a really quick overview of what it takes to get in doing your own car maintenance. There's a little bit of upfront cost obviously, buying your first set of tools. But you can slowly build your tool kit over time.
If you don't have a space to work on your car. It makes it very difficult I understand that a lot of people are in that position. Maybe find a friend that you're willing to learn with. And you guys can split the cost of tools and he might have a garage you could work in. But it is very rewarding to work on your own car. Yes you're going to bash your knuckles, yes you're going to burn yourself, yes it hurts, but it's worth it. I would personally with my job never be able to afford an old BMW. if I didn't do my own maintenance.
I would have by now easily put half of the total cost of the vehicle into paying to fix it. That's how much maintenance I've done on it. So that's the thing you have to consider if you learn how to do this. It pays off easily pays off the cost of the tools, everything is paid off. Because you're going to be able to own a car you would never otherwise be able to afford. And that's very valuable especially if you're a car enthusiast
I am online instructor at Udemy. My passions are: Mobile and Web Development, Entrepreneurship and Management. You can read my full biography on My Udemy Page. Feel free to follow me social media to know more about me and the topics and courses I'm teaching.
