11 ms·

I had a teacher in high school who was blinded (I think only in one eye) trying to do this repair. You could not pay me enough money to do this repair. >This w

• JKCalhoun 3y ago
  Yeah, I'm a DIY'er and I noped-out of this one too.
  • linsomniac 3y ago
    Ditto, but after he charged me $550 it and used bars rather than a worm-drive "winder", I'm thinking that next time I'm going to either get a winder and do it myself (parts were sub $100) or at least get 3 quotes. I went with someone a friend liked, so I didn't do any shopping around, mea culpa. But, I guess he had to pay for his brand new F-250 somehow. :-) I was half expecting him to say I needed other maintenance including new rollers, at which point I was going to call BS, because I replaced those rollers a couple three years ago and I'm about a million uses away from their rated million open/closes. Double sealed ball bearings, ask for them by name.
• the__alchemist 3y ago
  Thank you. I agree on all examples. Absolutely not worth the risk. Not even close. I wince thinking about when I changed my own oil in my 20s... Potentially throwing away so many good years, for so little gain. The car danger can be mitigated if the work is done under a professional lift.
  • cityofdelusion 3y ago
    There is pretty much zero risk if the car is either jacked correctly or put on ramps correctly. Dummies that rely on a single 1.5mm o-ring not blowing out on their hydraulic floor jacks are gambling with their life. Always operate on flat terrain, always chock the wheels, always use the parking brake, always use jack stands, always verify no movement in the vehicle by rocking it, never rely on the floor jack.
    • rpmisms 3y ago
      Ramps are very good. I don't know why anyone would use a jack for an oil change...
      • jtriangle 3y ago
        A jack is basically suicide tbh. Jackstands are fine, provided they're used correctly. Ramps are nice, provided you don't need to take a wheel off, then you're using jackstands anyway, so, if you're buying one or the other, jackstands are a good option. Personally, if you have the space for it, a trench is the best option, I had one previously and I miss it alot. Nothing leaves the ground, car just pulls in and is ready to go. Mine was like 2ft deep, so, maybe a little cramped, but very comfortable once you're in there working. You couldn't make a standable trench at home without engineering it anyway, so, a crawlable trench is really the way to go.
        • the__alchemist 3y ago
          IMO a trench mitigates the danger effectively.
          • WalterBright 3y ago
            They're against the building code around here.
          • darkr 3y ago
            Until you fall into it when you’re not paying attention!
• giantg2 3y ago
  "Notably, "unintentional fall" is the #1 cause of emergency department visits for adults" Most of these are not from DIY, but age realted
  • sbelskie 3y ago
    How is it age related if it is the number one cause for all ages? Am I misreading the chart?
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • mbreese 3y ago
      Look at the spread from #1 to #2. At young ages, the difference is pretty high, suggesting that young kids falling from things is common. In the middle age ranges, #1 and #2 are pretty close, suggesting that falling isn’t that different (from a statistical frequency POV) from the #2 option. But then look at the split at the older age groups. Falling is by and far the biggest cause. By a ton. Starting at 45, the split just keeps growing. And these numbers are higher in general than any other age group, so they skew the “all ages” numbers by a lot. So, while it is a major cause for all age groups, the effect size is very age related.
      • csande17 3y ago
        I would suspect that "unintentional fall" also covers falling over (like, the kind of fall that would happen if you tripped over a garden hose), not just falling off something. The former is the most common cause of emergency visits among the older people I know.
        • mbreese 3y ago
          I figured for all ages it would also encompass falling off something. A chair, bed, etc… one type is more predominant for the younger ages (falling from something), the other is likely more predominant for the older ages (falling down, tripping, stairs, etc).
• cj 3y ago
  My father is a handyman for multiple large apartment buildings. Climbing onto a roof and changing garage springs are 2 things he says he'll never do. I was surprised how specific he was about it. He knows lots of other handymen so I'm guessing he has heard lots of horror stories. Garage springs are no joke.
  • shiroiushi 3y ago
    I've changed garage door springs myself; it was pretty easy. However, there are different types. The torsion ones are the scary ones, and I wouldn't touch those either. Other (generally older) doors have longitudinal springs. When the door is open, the spring is uncompressed, and very easy to change. Just make sure to block the door so it can't close while you're working, and install the safety wire (it goes through the spring so if they spring breaks, it doesn't hit something). Modern doors usually don't have this kind because they take up space in the garage. The torsion kind are on top of the door and stay out of the way.
    • vrc 3y ago
      Oh! This is such a lightbulb comment for me. I distinctly remember growing up with the wobbly side springs, and then after the motor died switching to a “screw driven” system and those going away. Ever since I’ve only seen the “screw driven” ones and when I hear stories about garage door springs I wonder why I’ve never seen them… Now I know where the springs on my current garage door are.
    • yencabulator 3y ago
      > Modern doors usually don't have this kind because they take up space in the garage I'm willing to believe you but can't visualize this all that well. The "extension springs" in my garage door are in the space above the tracks that the door slides on. The tracks are longer than what the door itself would require, to leave room for the springs, but... is that a problem? They're on the ceiling, and some of that space would be occupied by the motor lifting the door anyway.
      • 3y ago
• Scoundreller 3y ago
  > you also could not pay me enough to crawl around under a poorly jacked-up car. Indeed, but it’s not difficult to set yourself up with multiple failsafes. By the time I’m set up to get underneath a car, I’m in a safer situation than driving the car given how many things would have to go wrong for the car to fall on me.
  • WalterBright 3y ago
    I use truck stands that will hold up several times the weight of the car. After I put it on the stands, I also give it several hard shoves to make sure it is secure.
• HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  Right? One of my garage door lifting cables broke, and although I knew how to replace it, the $150 or so that it cost to have an actual professional fix it was money well spent. I've done car repairs for decades, and climbed up on roofs when I had to, but I'm not dicking around with garage door springs.
  • grepfru_it 3y ago
    It’s not that it’s a hard job, the labor cost comes in at around $100-$150/hr as you said. It takes about an hour to do.. But why am I going to do this when my time could be better spent elsewhere? Saving $1000 tiling your shower? That makes sense. Saving $100 and potentially maim yourself in the process? Hello garage door repairman.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
• nullhole 3y ago
  I knew someone in high school who had started work at an auto repair place, and he described the process - and danger - of replacing car springs to me once. I'm sure there are various types of car spring, the kind he was talking about was the stereotypical coil-of-metal spring. There's so much energy in there that a small slip up can be deadly.
  • rootusrootus 3y ago
    It used to be worse. Lots of cars today use a coil-over-strut design that captures the spring. There's still a lot of energy, but it's much easier to manage safely, by the time the nut at the top runs out of threads there's generally little to no force left in the spring. Way back (like... 30 years ago) when I was working on my Mustang, the spring was separate from the strut. You had to drop the control arm enough to unload it and remove it, and there wasn't anything to contain it. I always tied it with a chain or a seat belt, and tried to not be directly in front of it during the unloading process. I knew a kid who got hit in the chest by a spring popping out; he did not make it. Removing it or installing a new one were both quite dangerous for the careless.
    • sokoloff 3y ago
      > by the time the nut at the top [of a McPherson strut] runs out of threads there's generally little to no force left in the spring This might be true on heavily lowered cars, but cars at stock ride height [with stock springs IOW] this is not my experience at all. I sure wouldn't risk my life or limb on it and spring compressors are quite cheap compared to an ER co-pay.
    • hagbard_c 3y ago
      The back springs in many cars are still separate from the shock absorber and it is those back springs which often fail. I have replaced them on several cars and can only conclude that the job can be done safely as long as you use a pair of reasonable-quality spring compressors - two of them, one on each side of the coil so that it can not pop out. These are used both during the unloading of the old spring as well as when installing the new ones.
• willcipriano 3y ago
  Looks like you have to use a bolt to deload, replace and then load a spring. With the risk being you overload it and it snaps in your face? A chainsaw is scarier to me.
  • timschmidt 3y ago
    Battery electric chainsaws are a game changer. I have a little 20v 12 inch that I've felled and limbed 2ft thick trees with. Doesn't jump around, stops the moment you let go of the trigger, isn't noisy or hot. Still have to respect it, but it's a much tamer beast than the two cycle monsters of yore.
• lttlrck 3y ago
  When my spring broke I called a someone local (maybe via Yelp), he came out within 30 minutes, replaced it in 20 and charged me $75. This was only a couple of years ago. Likewise with brake fluid changes. I can do it, but the risk/hassle just ain't worth it for the cost of a pro.
  • pard68 3y ago
    What are the risks of changing brakes? Never thought of that as a particularly risky endeavor before.
    • JoeMattiello 3y ago
      The most common risk is not properly protecting against contamination of the reservoir or not bleeding the system and having air or water in the line. Air will compress and you could have brake failure. Also water, less common but happens, as the brakes heat up, can boil into gas and then also again you have loss of pressure and brake failure. This is why I comment technique for race cars, which always have the risk of possibly boiling their brake fluid, will give a slight pump to the brake before coming up to a corner to pressurize the master cylinder and make sure that it does have a little bit of pressure pushback While you still have a little bit of space to react and ditch if something goes wrong
    • bisby 3y ago
      I would assume "if you don't put them back together right, you can't stop, and cars are deadly enough with functioning brakes"
    • bagels 3y ago
      In addition to the other answers, brake fluid is toxic and removes paint.
      • porkbeer 3y ago
        Only the old dot3 does that.
  • 3y ago
• amluto 3y ago
  I don’t understand why it’s even considered safe to have one of these springs in one’s garage without a solid shield of some sort. While the energy involved is small on the scale of energy storage devices (<1 kJ or about 1 Wh if you believe the article), the speed at which it can release makes it quite dangerous. Your cell phone has a bigger battery than this! But your cell phone battery can’t discharge in a couple milliseconds. Which brings to mind some rather different designs. A rather small motor with a lot of mechanical advantage can easily open a close a garage door, and if a DC or low voltage AC motor is used, it could do so quite a few times even if the power goes out. You can even buy off-the-shelf springless garage door systems! (I’m honestly not sure why springs are common at all in this application. IIRC I grew up with a garage door driven via a motor with a worm gear that engaged with a long threaded shaft, and there were nonetheless a pair of springs. Surely the added cost of a better motor and some upgraded mounting hardware for the motor box would have been less than the cost of those springs, especially installed. Maybe these designs are all essentially unchanged from decades ago when a ~100W (shaft) motor that could operate at a controlled speed even under negative load would have been exotic and expensive?)
  • imoverclocked 3y ago
    > A rather small motor with a lot of mechanical advantage can easily open a close a garage door, and if a DC or low voltage AC motor is used, it could do so quite a few times even if the power goes out. Garage doors are actually fairly heavy. By balancing the weight with a spring, you do a lot of favors to your mechanical advantage systems. (Eg: less wear, less advantage needed, the door can open in a reasonable amount of time…) You also do yourself a few favors for when things fail. (Eg: you pull the safety release and it’s possible to open the door without the motor.) Finally, power isn’t free and motors aren’t either; A spring is a really cheap way to reduce the cost of both of these things.
    • BizarroLand 3y ago
      I imagine that garage door openers would either need to be a lot beefier or would work a lot slower without the springs.
    • 3y ago
• epcoa 3y ago
  > Notably, "unintentional fall" is the #1 cause of emergency department visits for adults [1] The vast majority of those are the mundane falling down the stairs or the elderly in bathtubs, not anything to do with roofs.
  • mnw21cam 3y ago
    But also "unintentional fall" from roofs is the reason that solar power has more deaths per energy produced than nuclear power.
• batch12 3y ago
  > Notably, "unintentional fall" is the #1 cause of emergency department visits for adults Yes. Until it happens to you, it seems like someone else's problem. I say this as someone who found himself staring at the sky with a concussion and whiplash after the ladder decided to walk out from under me on my concrete walkway. (I'll admit that it was probably my error, but I'll never really know since the ladder took a trip too). Now all trips up the ladder are treated with the gravity my younger self disregarded. I'll add that it's very disconcerting to be unable to move or breathe as everything fades out...
  • foofie 3y ago
    [dead]
  • smeej 3y ago
    I have a scar on one hand that I call my "Get down and move the damn ladder" reminder scar. Five of the inches have faded, but there's still one, bright, keloid spot at the base of my right thumb that stares right down at me every time I start to reach for something and think, "This would really be easier if I got down and moved the ladder."
    • ProllyInfamous 3y ago
      From my OSHA30 training (IBEW, about a decade ago) I still remember and often quote that ladders are primary contributing factor to accidents that lead to tradesmen disability. In my more-youthful idiot phase, I recall using a 4" holesaw to drill two holes into the roof awning, while standing atop a fifty foot extension ladder (planted into soil, only). After completing the first, I realized how dangerous this task was... and then still convinced myself to drill the second hole. It seems the general contractor [bossman] hadn't wanted to wait for an already-to-be-delivered bucket lift, which the CCTV guys ended up requiring anyways ("no way in hell we'd do that on a ladder," they said to me). This woke me up that I needed to find better bosses/employment.
• jakogut 3y ago
  > you also could not pay me enough to crawl around under a poorly jacked-up car Absolutely, I agree. However, like any work, there's a safe way and a million unsafe ways to perform it. Crawling under a car on a jack is unsafe. Crawling under a car properly supported by jack stands is perfectly safe. I replaced my own garage doors, not just because of the cost, but also because I could not find a contractor to do it inside of four months. I did my research, took my time, and got two 9x7' doors replaced in a weekend and a half at a leisurely pace for a third of the quotes I received from the pros. The FUD spread online around garage doors is unreal. If you don't know how to do it safely, don't attempt it. If you can spend a few hours learning how to do things properly and safely, go for it. It's not black magic. Garage door installers are people too, and it's not like the training is some dark arts ritual imbued upon them by shadowy figures. It's basic physics, geometry, and hand tools.
• mattmaroon 3y ago
  One of my friends attempted this repair and smashed his hand so badly that the doctor told him it might not be functional ever again. It did mostly recover, but still. NFW am I working on this and the tech can have my $300 once every 15 years.
• bookofjoe 3y ago
  The problem is that you won't know it was poorly jacked-up until it's too late.
• eternityforest 3y ago
  It's amazing how comfortable people are with stored potential energy... I do not like powerful springs and bungee cords and the like. But plenty of people are fine with roofs and springs but terrified of electricity