Do Your Own Simple Car Repairs

A great way to save money is by doing your own car repairs.  The key to being successful is knowing your limitations, and doing your research.  While cars are big, complex machines, they're really just made up of many, many simpler machines.

Case in point:  This evening, I was with my wife at her aunt Maria's condo for Sunday dinner.  As we pulled into the complex, my father-in-law was looking at Maria's friends' car.  It was a 2002 Honda Accord SE, and it was stuck in park.  Normally, you'd start the car, step on the brakes, and then shift out of Park.  A quick search on the Internet showed this to be a common problem, and had the following troubleshooting tip:  Step on the brakes.  If the brake lights don't come on, you've got a faulty brake light switch.  Sure enough, no brake lights.  Faulty brake light switch.  She was just going to take it to the dealer and get it repaired there.  However, a little more Internet searching showed that the repair is ridiculously simple.  The switch unplugs from the wiring harness, and screws right off the brake pedal.  We took the part to the FLAPS (Friendly Local Auto Parts Store), and $28 later, had the new part, which included a lifetime warranty.  Took it back, screwed the switch back in place, and it fixed it.  Under 45 minutes total, from removal to repaired car, including drive time.

My local library (and maybe yours) subscribes to different databases.  One of them is the Auto Repair Reference Center, with repair information on over 37,000 different vehicles.  That alone is a goldmine of information, but included with it is a listing of labor times for repairing different parts of your vehicle.  For this switch, it listed repair time of 0.5 hours.  Most mechanics in our area charge around $90 an hour, but most have a 1 hour minimum.  Thus, for this $28 repair that took well under an hour to do, they would probably charge close to $150, parts and labor.  I found a post on a message board that got an estimate from a mechanic for...  $150.  $122 saved, and I didn't even break a sweat.

Remember what I said about knowing your limitations being the key to success?  A few weeks ago, my 1999 Saturn was in need of wheel bearings.  They've been grinding for too long, and slowly getting worse.  I'm the original owner, 154k miles strong, so I knew that the bearings, and indeed everything in the front end, was original.  I read up on it, ordered what I needed, and figured it'd be a 2 night job, maybe 3.  Now, when I say I read up on it, I mean finding a good online forum.  For me, SaturnFans.com is it.  I should have heeded the advice of several, no, many people who said it was something they would not attempt themselves.  Once I started, I realized that, oh, my ball joints are cracked, and should be replaced.  And the one ball joint is part of the control arm, so that should be replaced.  And when replacing the control arms, you need an alignment anyway, so, shucks, I might as well replace the struts too.

17 days later, my car was back up and running, with essentially an entire new front suspension.  The 2 years of Southern California winters were fine to my car, but the subsequent 13 years of Ohio winters had severely rusted 2 bolts into place.  After many nights of trying different many things, I was finally able to safely cut the bolts out.  I got an alignment at a mechanic, and had them do a check on the steering/suspension system, and all was well.  According to the library database on car repair, I saved well over $1,000 in labor costs alone.  However, based on how long it took me to repair the car, I would say I definitely didn't pay attention to my limitations.

One final piece of advice:  If you have the time, for the best price, order from RockAuto.com.  And before you order, do an Internet search for "rockauto 5 percent discount".  They always have a 5% discount code floating around.  That $28 part from the local store, was $18, shipping included, from RockAuto.

Do your research.  Be an informed consumer.  Know your limitations.  Or learn them, like I did.  :)