5 ms·

> I work in the tech industry. I'm somewhat rare in that I also work on my own vehicles, do my own maintenance, repair things, build my own stuff around the pro

by tra3 4y ago

> I work in the tech industry. I'm somewhat rare in that I also work on my own vehicles, do my own maintenance, repair things, build my own stuff around the property, etc. A lot of coworkers at various places I've worked over the years view this as somewhere between "eccentric" and "slightly mad." "Why would you do that yourself, just pay someone else to do it!" is the common sentiment. I feel like it's partly a consequence of a highly specialized society. I'm not sure how to fix it. There's an opportunity cost. Why would I change the oil in my car when it's $40 to get it changed at the shop? Since I don't change my oil, I now don't know the basics of how to jack up the vehicle, I don't understand how to use the torque wrench to tighten the drain plug and I'm basically missing all the fundamental skills so I got no knowledge to build on. The other contributor, is that growing up in the city, in an apartment, there was never any opportunity to work with my hands. I still recall a shop class in high school. I got to use a lathe and a oxy acetylene torch. That was many years ago now. Now that I'm older, I make conscious effort to learn how to do things with my hands. There are things that I still must outsource, when they are on a critical path. For example if the car is down because the suspension needs to be replaced, I'm not going to spend 3 months researching and fixing it. We need it now. I've come to really appreciate the famous Heinlein quote: > A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. Im also very much attracted to the idea of a "renaissance man" [1] : > Embodying a basic tenet of Renaissance humanism that humans are limitless in their capacity for development, the concept led to the notion that people should embrace all knowledge and develop their capacities as fully as possible. "Specialization is for insects" indeed. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competent_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competent_man 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath

Syonyk 4y ago
> Why would I change the oil in my car when it's $40 to get it changed at the shop? Because you like your car... Every decade or so, I try a fast oil change place, usually when I'm in a hurry, and it sells me on changing my own oil for the next decade, because it's either obscenely overpriced, they screw up my car somehow, or both. Last time I took vehicles in for oil changes, it cost nearly $200 for my truck (I know it takes a lot of oil, but ffs...), and for the car, they didn't get the airbox back together properly, so I had a nice post-air-filter leak. They even left the bolt they couldn't get lined up sitting in the windshield air inlet tray - because they'd not lined the filter box up right. And, they forgot a crush washer on the drain plug, so I had a dinner plate sized oil puddle under the car in the morning. Sorry, I see no point in paying someone to screw my vehicles up like that.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  I've also had similar bad experiences, usually at large "chain" garages where turnover is probably high. I think it's one thing to pay a mechanic you trust to do some work on your car and quite another to leave your car at a chain garage where it will be prodded at by some kid fresh out of high school and then taken for a joy ride to "test" it. It's also not uncommon for garages to under or over torque fasteners because they're in a hurry. My friend had his power steering pump come off the engine block while he was driving because the garage didn't bother torquing it properly after replacing it.
- cagey 4y ago
  DW took our car to Costco for a free scheduled tire rotation (mandatory to maintain the tire warranty) about a month ago. She called saying "they're saying 'the lug nut broke'"; I was thinking (and asking) "how is that possible (it can't possibly be a defective lug nut)?" 10 minutes later "the stud is broken"; 5 minutes later "they [Costco] admitted to breaking it". The resolution was to have a local shop replace the lug stud and get reimbursed for the repair cost: $125 (the part might have cost $2)! I chalk this episode up to them hiring warm bodies lacking any mechanical experience or aptitude (to the extent of not being aware of "righty tighty, lefty-loosey") and handing them an impact wrench.
  - Syonyk 4y ago
    Huh. A couple months back, I helped someone replace a broken stud in their garage with some C-clamps and hammers. On a lot of vehicles, it's just "press the old one out, pull the new one in." But there's a reason that r/justrolledintotheshop talks about "uggaduggas" as a torque spec - to make fun of the people who just let an impact driver pound away at things like lug nuts. Cross threaded? Screw it, more uggaduggas! It'll snap when someone takes it off? Not My Problem! Oddly enough, it's not always righty tighty. I rode motorcycles that had axles that were the opposite (so normal rotation would tighten them), and it was well known on the forums that if you let a shop just go at it, they'd try to loosen it, tighten it, smash the spacer, and your wheel bearings would then fail in short order. I always either watched the shop take my wheels off, or just took the wheels off myself and took them in to get the rubber replaced (alarmingly frequently - I was riding a lot).
mauvehaus 4y ago
You change your own oil so that you develop the skills to do a brake job, which you do yourself to develop the skills to work on the suspension. That said, depending on where you live and whether or not you have winter, any fasteners on the underside of your car may be rusted to the point where you need the oxy-acetylene torch you used in high school to get the damned things loose. The nuts and bolts on the steering and suspension systems live a particularly rough life.
jjav 4y ago
> Why would I change the oil in my car when it's $40 to get it changed at the shop? The shop might be incompetent and strip the threads for example (very common) which will cost you a lot more money down the road when it's discovered and becomes a problem. But, aside that, even competent shops can't provide the same quality of care than DIY because they have to operate on the booked time it takes to do a job. So they can't deviate from doing exactly what's on the work list. Meanwhile, when I work on my cars I'm taking time to look around and pay attention and address any other upcoming problems I might notice even if they are entirely unrelated to the work I started out doing. And I clean the parts and nearby parts as I go, which a shop could never afford to do even if they cared. Oil changes tend to be a loss leader so you can't often save money by DIY (but I always DIY due to the reasons above). But on other types of work you usually also save a lot of money by DIY. For instance I replaced the fence between us and neighbor for ~$500 in materials. That neighbor had to also replace his other side fence (between him and third neighbor). Identical fence, but cost them over $4K to have it done by a contractor.

by tra3 4y ago

Syonyk 4y ago

> Why would I change the oil in my car when it's $40 to get it changed at the shop? Because you like your car... Every decade or so, I try a fast oil change place, usually when I'm in a hurry, and it sells me on changing my own oil for the next decade, because it's either obscenely overpriced, they screw up my car somehow, or both. Last time I took vehicles in for oil changes, it cost nearly $200 for my truck (I know it takes a lot of oil, but ffs...), and for the car, they didn't get the airbox back together properly, so I had a nice post-air-filter leak. They even left the bolt they couldn't get lined up sitting in the windshield air inlet tray - because they'd not lined the filter box up right. And, they forgot a crush washer on the drain plug, so I had a dinner plate sized oil puddle under the car in the morning. Sorry, I see no point in paying someone to screw my vehicles up like that.

AlexandrB 4y ago
I've also had similar bad experiences, usually at large "chain" garages where turnover is probably high. I think it's one thing to pay a mechanic you trust to do some work on your car and quite another to leave your car at a chain garage where it will be prodded at by some kid fresh out of high school and then taken for a joy ride to "test" it. It's also not uncommon for garages to under or over torque fasteners because they're in a hurry. My friend had his power steering pump come off the engine block while he was driving because the garage didn't bother torquing it properly after replacing it.
cagey 4y ago
DW took our car to Costco for a free scheduled tire rotation (mandatory to maintain the tire warranty) about a month ago. She called saying "they're saying 'the lug nut broke'"; I was thinking (and asking) "how is that possible (it can't possibly be a defective lug nut)?" 10 minutes later "the stud is broken"; 5 minutes later "they [Costco] admitted to breaking it". The resolution was to have a local shop replace the lug stud and get reimbursed for the repair cost: $125 (the part might have cost $2)! I chalk this episode up to them hiring warm bodies lacking any mechanical experience or aptitude (to the extent of not being aware of "righty tighty, lefty-loosey") and handing them an impact wrench.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  Huh. A couple months back, I helped someone replace a broken stud in their garage with some C-clamps and hammers. On a lot of vehicles, it's just "press the old one out, pull the new one in." But there's a reason that r/justrolledintotheshop talks about "uggaduggas" as a torque spec - to make fun of the people who just let an impact driver pound away at things like lug nuts. Cross threaded? Screw it, more uggaduggas! It'll snap when someone takes it off? Not My Problem! Oddly enough, it's not always righty tighty. I rode motorcycles that had axles that were the opposite (so normal rotation would tighten them), and it was well known on the forums that if you let a shop just go at it, they'd try to loosen it, tighten it, smash the spacer, and your wheel bearings would then fail in short order. I always either watched the shop take my wheels off, or just took the wheels off myself and took them in to get the rubber replaced (alarmingly frequently - I was riding a lot).

mauvehaus 4y ago

You change your own oil so that you develop the skills to do a brake job, which you do yourself to develop the skills to work on the suspension. That said, depending on where you live and whether or not you have winter, any fasteners on the underside of your car may be rusted to the point where you need the oxy-acetylene torch you used in high school to get the damned things loose. The nuts and bolts on the steering and suspension systems live a particularly rough life.

jjav 4y ago

> Why would I change the oil in my car when it's $40 to get it changed at the shop? The shop might be incompetent and strip the threads for example (very common) which will cost you a lot more money down the road when it's discovered and becomes a problem. But, aside that, even competent shops can't provide the same quality of care than DIY because they have to operate on the booked time it takes to do a job. So they can't deviate from doing exactly what's on the work list. Meanwhile, when I work on my cars I'm taking time to look around and pay attention and address any other upcoming problems I might notice even if they are entirely unrelated to the work I started out doing. And I clean the parts and nearby parts as I go, which a shop could never afford to do even if they cared. Oil changes tend to be a loss leader so you can't often save money by DIY (but I always DIY due to the reasons above). But on other types of work you usually also save a lot of money by DIY. For instance I replaced the fence between us and neighbor for ~$500 in materials. That neighbor had to also replace his other side fence (between him and third neighbor). Identical fence, but cost them over $4K to have it done by a contractor.