3 ms·

Depends on how much you drive. at 30k km a year the average car is done after 15 years and 450k km.

sseagull 3y ago
Wow, it is not driven nearly that much. It has < 120k miles on it :) But it did spend its first 6 or 7 years in Western NY, with snowy, salty roads a good chunk of the year. There definitely is some rusty spots and corrosion. I think people who do stuff like fix their own cars (and lots of other things) very much underestimate the time it takes to acquire the knowledge, and how much intuition they've unknowingly built up while they did it. Replacing a part is relatively easy, knowing what part to replace is its own skill. So cars is one of those things I will happily hand off to someone else to fix, while I focus on home repair or something.
- evilduck 3y ago
  You've also got to have a place to do it and a modest collection of tools. If you live in dense urban housing you probably aren't up for swapping a transmission for your very first time on the curb of a busy street or doing much multi-day work in your narrow numbered parking spot unless you can borrow a friend's garage to have a place to spread out a little bit. You aren't rolling a toolbox down from your 4th floor apartment, and there's usually a relative void of auto parts and hardware stores inside the city. There just aren't many shade tree mechanics in places where shade trees are rare.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
    Nowadays you can pay a mobile mechanic to come work on your car for a very reasonable rate in most urban areas. I find doing this is usually at least 75% cheaper than the dealerships and much more convenient. I still do minor repairs and things like battery swaps myself and keep an OBD reader in the car for preliminary investigation and research before I call the mechanic. But otherwise I probably average less than $1k USD per year on vehicle maintenance and repairs, tires oil included. Obviously this excludes things like transmission swaps but those are ideally once in a decade occurrences with proper care and maintenance otherwise

Wow, it is not driven nearly that much. It has < 120k miles on it :) But it did spend its first 6 or 7 years in Western NY, with snowy, salty roads a good chunk of the year. There definitely is some rusty spots and corrosion. I think people who do stuff like fix their own cars (and lots of other things) very much underestimate the time it takes to acquire the knowledge, and how much intuition they've unknowingly built up while they did it. Replacing a part is relatively easy, knowing what part to replace is its own skill. So cars is one of those things I will happily hand off to someone else to fix, while I focus on home repair or something.

evilduck 3y ago
You've also got to have a place to do it and a modest collection of tools. If you live in dense urban housing you probably aren't up for swapping a transmission for your very first time on the curb of a busy street or doing much multi-day work in your narrow numbered parking spot unless you can borrow a friend's garage to have a place to spread out a little bit. You aren't rolling a toolbox down from your 4th floor apartment, and there's usually a relative void of auto parts and hardware stores inside the city. There just aren't many shade tree mechanics in places where shade trees are rare.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
  Nowadays you can pay a mobile mechanic to come work on your car for a very reasonable rate in most urban areas. I find doing this is usually at least 75% cheaper than the dealerships and much more convenient. I still do minor repairs and things like battery swaps myself and keep an OBD reader in the car for preliminary investigation and research before I call the mechanic. But otherwise I probably average less than $1k USD per year on vehicle maintenance and repairs, tires oil included. Obviously this excludes things like transmission swaps but those are ideally once in a decade occurrences with proper care and maintenance otherwise