Right now, The Autopian’s XPEL Nissan Murano Crosscabriolet is in the shop getting a lift kit (!). A technician from Galpin Auto Sports noticed that the oil hadn’t been changed. “Would you like us to do that for you, sir?” the service adviser asked. I — someone with very little time to do pretty much anything these days, as I’m trying to keep both an infant and a media company happy — should have said “yes, please take care of it.” But I said no. And I don’t think that’s ever going to change.
Times are different since this new company and my new family Yoko Ono’d the rust-loving Human Wrench who used to live off Rochester Rd. in Troy, Michigan. I cannot take on multiple wrenching projects at once; I cannot drive across the country in a crap-can and fix it along the way; I cannot get notices from local authorities about my dilapidated cars breaking ordinances. I have, at least somewhat, grown up.
But only somewhat. There are still some things that I don’t see ever changing. For one, I will always own both an “XJ” Jeep Cherokee and a Holy Grail 5-speed Jeep Grand Cherokee “ZJ.” I learned to drive in a ZJ, and the XJ was my first car; these vehicles played major roles in me being where I am today, and I cherish them.
But in addition to always having at least a couple of AMC-designed Jeeps in my stable, there are some things about my wrenching propensities that I just don’t see changing, even if I find myself having to make major adjustments to my overall vehicle maintenance strategy. That’s right: I’ve come to realize that I can no longer do all my wrenching myself. I’m going to have to hand my keys over to a mechanic, and then hand a giant stack of cash to them a few hours later. It’s going to be awful, and a huge hit to my pride.
But there is a line.
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I cannot let someone else change my car’s oil. I just can’t. The job is too easy (especially since I live in a warm climate and have a driveway), lubrication is too important to my vehicles’ longevity, and an oil change is a great way to feel connected to a car without having to break one’s back removing a crankshaft or transmission input shaft or whatever. Fluids in general — engine oil, coolant, diff oil, transmission oil — there’s no reason why I can’t handle them myself, especially if I’m not home alone looking after my infant child (see above; that didn’t go well).
Brake fluid, I’m still trying to decide upon. My BMW i3 has a brake fluid light on, and I can totally do a one-person bleed job. But I won’t lie: It’s going to be a pain in the butt. I have to drive the vehicle up on ramps or take the wheels off and put it on jacks. Then I have to bleed each wheel individually. This is probably at least a few hours’ worth of wrenching, and it’s a dirty job; brake fluid is incredibly corrosive, and the area around brakes is always nasty. Then again, it’s only something I’d do every five years.
Speaking of brakes, there’s another thing I’m never going to farm out: pad and rotor swaps. When I did my now-wife’s Lexus’s rotors and pads, I saved us over $700! Sure, it took me a few hours, but brakes are just too easy, and, at least for me, the job of replacing them is borderline therapeutic at this point, as I’ve done it so many times before.
Aside from fluids and brakes, the other repair I’m never going to farm out is spark plugs. For the most part, this job is painless. Most of my cars are inline-sixes, meaning all the plugs are on one side of the motor; sure, the plug in the back can be a little tough to get to, and the AC compressor can block the front one, but I have 900000 extensions of various lengths, plus socket u-joints — this job just isn’t a big deal, especially since I can order the parts online if I don’t want to run to the store, and especially since I only have to do it every 10 years or so.
There are also quite a few filters that need to be swapped on my cars. The oil filter is, of course, part of the oil change I mentioned before. But there are others; my Jeep Wrangler YJ, for example, has an inline fuel filter underneath, attached to the frame. Plus, all my cars except my BMW i3S have engine air filters that need regular servicing, and my i3 and my wife’s Lexus have cabin air filters near their gloveboxes. These are cheap and, for the most part, easy to do. (The i3’s cabin air filter can be a bit tricky, and the YJ’s fuel filter is a messy and smelly job.)
There are plenty of other regular replacement items that I just don’t think are worth paying someone else to swap. A battery, for example, is something I’d never pay anyone to install. Ditto with a starter motor, as they’re genuinely easy to replace. Yes, they require sliding under the car and getting dirty, but driving onto a pair of ramps, undoing a couple of bolts holding the starter to the bell housing, and disconnecting a connector or two is pretty much all that’s required to remove a starter.
Along with a battery and starter, another thing I’ll try to replace myself is basic electrical connectors and fuses and motors, as these are often fairly trivial to swap, and doing so is usually a rather clean and not very oily job.
One component that’s far easier to replace than perhaps the layperson thinks is the alternator. Obviously, this isn’t true for all cars, but for my Jeeps, loosening the accessory drive belt is simple, and then the alternator usually comes off with a couple of bolts and some jimmying. Other accessory drive parts like power steering pumps are usually an easy swap, AC compressors require a refrigerant recovery that I don’t have any interest in doing, and water pumps … well, on my Jeep, they’re no fun.
I won’t lie; it’s going to be hard to hand off any work to a technician, but I don’t see myself rebuilding a manual transmission again in the near future, nor do I see myself tearing up my Jeeps’ front ends to get to their water pumps. Will I replace the Nissan Murano’s broken CV boot on its front left axle shaft (which the Galpin Auto Sports technician noticed is torn)? No, probably not; I might shove some grease in there, patch it up, and see how long it lasts, but if it goes, a mechanic not named David Tracy is handling that job.
But I’m doing that oil change. I have to, for my own sanity.
If I need specialized tools and knowledge, like a dial indicator, I will not. I am not going to re-gear and install a locker in my axles with nothing but Youtube videos.
Surprised and a little disappointed clicking on the article didn’t take me to a Rick Astley video.
That would have been welcome & far less surprising than David’s outta-nowhere tired slam on Yoko Ono. I’m genuinely flabbergasted both that he knows the reference AND that he’d attempt to mine such a blatantly, wildly misogynistic trope for humor.
There are loads of smaller jobs that can be accomplished easily and save plenty of money. As you pointed out, many engine and cabin air filters fall into this category and yes, can save you a fair few bucks. Other “easy” jobs are now complicated by idiocy, imo. Take for example, batteries. Big box o’ electricity. Easy peasy? Not so much when it requires a computer to tell the car it has a new battery. Do you have the equipment to do that? No? Well, now you’re stuck paying someone who does! Technically, the car will run with just a new battery, but you will not have appeased the vehicular computer gods who must be informed. Yay for modern cars!
For the first time in my life I paid a dealer to install a battery in my car. First of all, it had to be registered. I could buy the tool for that but it was $120 and would only work on one make of car. Then there was some weird fuse box looking thing attached to the positive post that I couldn’t figure out how to remove despite what YouTube showed me. The dealer charged me about $50 over what I was going to pay for a battery anyway. I’m good.
The last battery swap I did when the car was at the tire shop – they tested it and swapped it for less than I could buy the battery elsewhere.
Oil changes are the one I disagree with you on… they’re so cheap that I find it not worth my time to gather the supplies, do them, then dispose of the old oil.
The last time I paid someone to change my oil, the front screw holding the aerodynamic cover didn’t get tightened properly, and a week or so later I was both missing a screw and in the process of ruining the cover as it caught air, folded under and started grinding itself on the road.
I’ve also had cases where I’ve paid to have the oil changed, and they happily took my money but either skipped changing the filter or (more likely) didn’t even bother changing the oil.
Then there was the place that filled (almost) to the bottom of the dip stick range instead of to the top, or at least to somewhere in middle. Saved them some money by doing that to who knows how many cars.
I do my own oil changes to make sure it gets done right.
My dad’s Trax had the oil cap reattached with an impact gun so hard it cracked. In my case it’s not unheard of for oil techs to accidentally drain the transmission fluid instead of the oil on a later gen GTI and accidentally double fill it with oil, so no thanks!
As God is my witness, this happened to a friend of mine about a year ago on his Chrysler 300. That is to say, draining the transmission fluid and overfilling with oil.
100% agree! I stopped paying for oil changes when the shop didn’t tighten the drain plug correctly.
Plus doing it yourself gives you a chance to get under the car and see if anything is out of the ordinary.
As for gathering the supplies, Amazon has everything for all three of my cars. Rock Auto, too. Worst case is ordering from O’Reilly’s online and just running over to pick it up.
For me it’s peace of mind that the job was done right and the opportunity to take a look under the car and check for any other issues.
“Next time, on ‘Wrenching With Mr. Double Negative’…” 🙂
Hey! Some of don’t not like double negatives… 😉
And, I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that.
(insert clip of Harrison Ford here)
Hey, at least used double negatives properly, assuming he meant to say these are the maintenance jobs he will always do himself.
Brake…fluid…light. Is this common now?
Well, on my car the hand brake light will come on if it’s low on fluid or not enough comes back into the reservoir when the pads are worn.
Unfortunately, more and more systems on cars are requiring arcane reset procedures that may require a diagnostic tool to send the command. Depending on how you look at it, it’s to ensure that the dealer’s diagnostic gear is used, which also means that it logs the service into the warranty database. Or, it’s just a way for the dealer shop to guarantee some income. Unfortunately, as these cars age out of warranty and into the used car market, they’re going to fall into the hands of mere mortals who prefer to wrench for themselves or just don’t want to pay dealer service prices to turn off a damn light or indicator on a screen.
And with cars that have electronically-operated parking brakes, you can’t do the rear brakes without commanding the car’s ABS controller to fully retract and reset the parking brake shoes; there’s generally no way to do it without sending the command over the diagnostic port into the CAN bus.
The good news is that a modern bidirectional* OBD2 scanner can reset many of these, since the signals are either standard ones on the CAN bus or proprietary ones that better OBD2 tool makers can program into their devices.
*A bidirectional OBD2 scanner is able to send more than just a code reset command, unlike a traditional OBD2 reader. They often have at least some of the same functions as what was typically called a “Scan Tool” in shop manuals during the OBD1 and early OBD2 days. The basic “scan tool” functions have mostly been pushed down to the realm of the better bidirectional OBD2 tools that can do emissions system tests and read live data from the CAN bus; the shops have replaced them with much more sophisticated diagnostic readers and programmers.
I recently bit the bullet and picked up one of the higher-end Innova scanners to help with some troubleshooting. Well, actually it’s the Harbor Freight “Zurich” label, which is just a re-branded Innova that costs a little less but runs the same software. (Even more amusing is that Snap-On sells the very same device under their “Blue Point” brand as a professional scanner… for twice the price.)
Counterpoint on the battery: Many places will install the battery for you (free) if you buy it from them. These places also tend to have the “mini battery” that will keep your radio presets alive.
Don’t pay extra for a battery install, but if it’s included with the battery purchase… let them change it for you.
I do not trust the employees of batteries plus. I have too much going on at my battery terminals like the winch power lines and the battery maintainer that I will do that myself. also I will do a better job cleaning everything before I attach it. But in general I would tell others your same advice.
Wrenching on your own car is an excuse to buy more tools, because you are still saving money over having someone else do the work. I feel the same about home improvement projects. The big garage is necessary because you need someplace to store all those tools that you are saving money with. Then you can buy that fixer-upper house to put all those skills to work on because you are saving money and you need to justify more projects to feed your need for more specialized tools. Then you get a “fun car” or two to have more to wrench on. Yeah, I pretty much have everything I need to work on cars, copper/pex/pvc plumbing, electrical, tile, drywall, flooring, a good amount of woodworking, yardwork, etc. But I really have saved much more money than I’ve spent on all the tools.
Hell yea. Plus, I can do a piss poor quality job for free. Nothing boils my blood faster than paying a premium for subpar work. No one will care more about your property than you.
But… but… but… he’s right there?!? And… he asked. Isn’t it free??? So confused. This one is an easy “yes”, in this circumstance.
I have never paid anyone to work on any of my cars and never will. With one exception. Back when I had a 5 year old and two other kids still in diapers, I took my cars to Jiffy Lube for oil changes. It’s not much cheaper to DIY it, it’s quicker, and you don’t have to dispose of the used oil. And they only ever stripped one drain plug.
That’s one too many.
You should’ve said yes, that one time. The key word in the phrase “your car” is YOUR. The Murano’s a company car, let the company maintain it, only turn a wrench on it if you’re sure you can get an article out of it, that’s it’s entire reason for being in your life.
Or better yet, dont bother. How many miles were put on the Aztec at the autopian?
For me it’s either take the car to the one shop I trust to work on older vehicles – 30 minutes away – or do it myself. And I’m not as handy with a wrench, but, sadly, I’ve found more and more that most regular shops either don’t want to work on older cars or aren’t equipped for it. If something’s going to break, I’d rather be the one to break it then have another professional mechanic to be annoyed at.
At least, that’s how I find myself putting a new radiator in my NA Miata.
I hear you and do basically all my wrenching, but sometimes I just have someone else change my oil. Usually only on my daily driver and it’s mostly a winter thing having someone else change my oil. It’s cold in Michigan and I don’t want to deal with it. I go to a quick lube, it’s done in 10 minutes with no appointment needed.
And with a coupon it is actually cheaper than DIY.
I won’t do the front control arms on either of my kids Camrys so I will farm them out when it’s time.I looked that job up and was like “no way”!Over the years I’ve learned that sometimes it’s just cheaper to pay someone else.I won’t do timing belts or exhaust work either.I have all the tools and know how but I just don’t want to do those jobs anymore.My knees and back hurt too much.It’s just easier to work my overtime and pay the bill.
What are you talking about, timing belts are easy (once you’ve been forced to pull the engine for an even more serious reason) 🙂
I’ll do most anything, but now I have the funds there’s a few things I’ve outsourced on my Sportwagen. One was the timing belt, the DIY looked hellish. The other is suspension, I got sport shocks and lowering springs installed while it was in for the timing belt. I’m glad I let them do it, particularly the suspension which has just enough NYC grunge on it to put up what I heard was a spectacular fight.
I’ve done suspension before, on a GTI riding on the same platform as the Jetta. Once was enough. They told me I probably couldn’t have managed it at home, given how tricky it was to break everything loose.
But it really took having a shop I could trust to go ahead with those. These guys build and service race cars, but they will work on anything. You could see a Ferrari in one bay, a Miata track car in another, and a Camry in the next one. My dad and I get our track cars serviced there too, so my life is literally in their hands!
Overall agree with your list, particularly on those vehicles. There is work I’m happy to do, work I grudgingly do and job’s I’m not touching anymore.
I always change my own blinker fluid.
You can just let it evaporate and have an excuse.
Even folks who can easily afford to pay others can relate. I no longer wrench out of financial needs, but rather psychological ones.
THIS. I was just explaining to a family member the other day that my job requires me to work long and hard on complicated deals where day to day progress can sometimes be difficult. Heading into the garage on a Saturday morning and beginning and finishing a brake job in a few hours is therapy.
Right there with ya!
I chickened out on my belt pully/harmonic balancer, there’s two ways to do it, drop the engine, or use a bent wrench and do it by feel in a tight space with no visibility, and if you don’t line it up right, consequences could be severe. I made a dry run, decided I didn’t fully trust myself to not screw it up, even if the risk was small, it still existed, and and went to a shop that does it all the time
This should have been a fairly easy job on my NC Miata, but both bolts on the tensioner snapped on me while using a standard length socket wrench, and I ended up having to buy a welder and weld nuts onto what was left to get them out of the block. I am not a good welder, but apparently I was good enough. But what a pain and multiple days of wrenching.
I agree with you on most of these. My Mazda 3 needs to go to the dealer for a recall, and it needs an oil change. I seriously considered paying the dealer to do it while the car was there, but I just can’t bring myself to pay for it.
I think your judgment on changing some of the parts is based on the fact that you mostly have old simple vehicles which are easier to work on. You wouldn’t be singing the same tune if you had to change the starter on a Toyota V8 (which I have), or the alternator or back row of spark plugs on a FWD V6 vehicle.
I really hate doing detailing work like polishing and waxing the paint, and will gladly pay someone to do that as I’m sure they’ll do a better job than me, whereas mechanical fixes usually either work or don’t.
I agree on detailing! For me, it’s too much time, and a detailer can do it 5x faster without potentially screwing something up like I would.
I agree with this assessment. Although, there are some vehicles that have an alternator or a starter in a location that will make you hate working on cars.
You should look up what it takes to replace the starter in a 3.6 powered Chevy Colorado (at least the 2017-2022 models).
First step (supposedly) in the manual says “remove transmission”.
Yikes.
Side note: any work that requires dashboard removals is not for me anymore… I replaced too many shitty blend door actuators with my poor hand dexterity and bad back to ever…EVER do major interior work like that again.
I’ll do pretty much everything myself, though rebuilding an automatic transmission I will pay someone with more experience to do. On a beater I will setup new differential gears, but on a daily driver I will likely pay an expert to do it (the last time I did it myself I had to listen to the differential whine for years). Beyond that, I will do pretty much everything from headgaskets to EFI tuning, though that is always assuming I have the free time to do so; having a job and kids means my free time is minimal, but I squeeze stuff in where I can.
And thanks to the amount of catastrophic horror stories of some oil monkey colossally cocking up what should be a simple oil change, I’ll be doing that myself thank you very much.
Welcome to parenthood. I’m not nearly as avid a wrencher as you but when my kids were younger it was almost impossible to find time for projects.
Also, I generally avoid touching fluids. Sure, I can drop them off at the local waste depot for free but I also know that I will spill and the time between changing the fluid and dropping it off will extend way too long. Suspension, brakes, minor electrical I’m happy to complete.
David, I recommend a power bleeder if you don’t already have one. Flushed the fluid in my Sportwagen in about 15 minutes. I spent more time with the jack, stands, and lug wrench than I did on the brakes.
I really need to get better versed on power bleeders.
I got mine from Motive, they sell attachments for the fluid reservoirs of different makes as well, which saved me the trouble of hunting one down or building it myself. I wish I’d bought one about 15 years ago.
I generally have had better luck with the ones that suck out fluid from the nipple instead of force it down through the reservoir and for those:
Step 1, get a decent air compressor. That may be something you already have or it may be something you have no place to store.
Look up if there’s a complicated brake bleeding procedure that requires a scan tool like on many VW’s and if not you just make sure the reservoir is very full of fluid, go to the farthest away corner and let it suck the old fluid out for about 20 seconds or about 2 ounces. While still sucking tighten the bleeder. Refill the reservoir and move on to the next furthest away corner.
The kind that look more like a pesticide sprayer do work, however I just don’t feel like they do as good a job of removing any bubbles. Nothing beats the old school two-person method of “down” “tight” “up” “loose” over and over. For race cars where I replace the fluid every race I usually start with the vacuum method then finish with the two person method, but for my real car that I sometimes take to track days vacuum is good enough.
BTW, I don’t even bother with jackstands, as soon as the tires off I put it under the car next to the jack, bleed that corner, and it goes back on in about 2 minutes later. To be fair it would be cheaper to just let the car fall onto the rotor if the jack failed and replace that instead of a tire, but old habits die hard and it’s not like you’re getting under the car for this.
If you’re lucky like I am on my RX8, you can access all the bleeder nipples without even taking off the wheels. Those rims look too closed off though and I doubt you can reach around on the back.