Can You Fix It Yourself? Beginner Car Repair

How can you tell when a repair is an easy, at-home project or a job for a seasoned mechanic? Join Scott and Ben as they take a closer look at the ins and outs of beginner car repair.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot com. I welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott, I'm Ben. We're here with
know the spark plug Brown or super Producer as always
spark plugging like where we could go with one. It's
not like a uh, like a precursor to the name.

(00:23):
I don't know how to prefix. I guess okay, like
do it yourself? No oh yeah, yeah, with ladies and
gentlemen are super producer, do it yourself? Noel Brown is here,
you are here, and that makes this car stuff? What
are we doing in today's and well, today I came
across an article and this was I guess it's a
really good time and I'll explain that in just a moment.
But I came across an article in gelopic as reading

(00:46):
through some of the blogs and some of them those
sites that I gather a bunch of information for our Facebook,
you know, our Facebook page and all that, and I
came across one that that it piqued my interest and
I'll tell you why in a minute. But um, it's
titled here are some easy jobs to get you started
with working on cars, And I thought, well, Okay, let's
see what the what the recommendation is here, And it

(01:07):
was a solid article, you know, on good, good bit
of advice. And I was thinking, and our our experience
renters in the crowd here, don't tune out, because I
got some questions for you along the way to UM.
I was wondering if people in general now I feel
as confident about attempting auto repair at home as they
did in the past. I mean, I wonder if you know,
the older people like myself that have a newer car,

(01:30):
are is is is comfortable doing repairs themselves. I wondered
if younger kids that have a relatively new car are
comfortable even beginning anything like this, you know, like the
simple things that we normally would do in the past,
if that's even possible anymore. And then again, what about
others like young kids that maybe have an older car
that you can do a lot of stuff on. Are

(01:50):
they are they confident in doing that? Even so, there's
a bunch of different levels to look at here, and
I find all of it interesting. So I think we
I'd like to kind of step through this article later. UM,
but I guess I also want to ask you two
along the way and what we'll think about this as
we as we talk. But what are you comfortable doing
on your own? You know? D I y fix that
at home or wherever on the road? Even have you

(02:13):
ever been in over your head? That's a really good one. Yeah,
and that we'll get to that as well, I'm sure,
because I've had some that have just kind of like
simple things that have just kind of spiraled out of
control and it happens. But I guess more than anything,
I can maybe give like some a little bit of
advice maybe, um, you know, like some things that some
some general know how type stuff. And it it's not

(02:33):
like a specific tutorial how to change your oil or
how to change spark plugs or anything like that. This
is more just a general, um, you know, what should
you attempt at home? What maybe you should avoid at home?
Why you would avoid it, why you why you should
attempt it? Just I guess just kind of a catch
all episode that that describes a lot of things that
a lot of questions that people may have. Not that

(02:55):
right to you. Yeah, that sounds perfect, all right? So
should I start out by asking Ben, maybe what is
like maybe the most complex thing that you've ever attempted
at home, and then also you know something that where
maybe you were you thought it was easy and then
you got in over your head. Let's see the most
complex thing I haven't I haven't done uh too much
complex stuff. Usually it's just been what I would consider

(03:19):
the basic at home maintenance. You know, oil changes, spark plugs,
things like that. But one thing that stands out in
my mind as something that went a weirdly wrong was
when the brother of a girl I was dating and
I worked on her car and we had to drop

(03:42):
the gas tank and replace it. You've mentioned this one
in the past. I think it was years ago when
you said, but it must have been quite a deal,
because you've every time you talk about it, it seems
like it pains you a bit. It's like it was
really for a while, it's been a heart like a
long hard day to get this done right. I think
we just didn't you know what it was. Whenever you're

(04:03):
going to do any kind of car repair, you should
always make sure you are prepared for the repair, and
we just sort of hopped it. Well, this comes up
in the advice that will give later. I'm sure you've
got a lot of stuff to to share as well.
But these are just some simple things that we'll talk about. UM.

(04:23):
I think you know it's funny. I think back to Um,
this goes all the way back to when I was
in like seventh grade, ben my my first attempt at
doing doing anything really mechanical. UM, where I was a
little bit you're you're daunted by this thing. You know,
it's something that's you know, you're you're not accustomed to
looking at something, you know, a system or an engine
or whatever and tearing it apart. Well, in seventh grade,

(04:45):
I had a h this is an invaluable lesson. By
the way, if you're a kid, this is the way
to do it. The seventh grade my shop teacher, because
the shop was mandatory and it was wood shop and
a little bit of everything. UM he gave at the
beginning of this particular unit, he brought out of the closet,
I don't know, maybe ten or so Briggs and Stratton
lawnmore engines, and the idea here was I'm sure a

(05:07):
lot of people have done this. I don't know if
there's still do or not, but um, he brought out
these lawnmore engines and placed them on everybody's you know
shop bench, and there's groups of three or four people,
and the task was that we were going to completely
disassemble the engine and understand everything that happened, you know,
the how the workings at the internet and how everything

(05:27):
fit together, and then had to reassemble and it had
to start in order to get credit for that unit.
And did you go through something like this too. I
did not go through that in a classroom environment, but
I've had some situations with I always enjoy taking apart
mechanical things, right, even for instance, you know, a cell phone.

(05:49):
One time I got ahold of a microwave that was cool.
But a small engines when I was a kid, always
really fascinated with a lot of them. And then, uh, well,
I know recently, out of necessity, you've had to do
yeah lawnmore engines. Right, Oh, ladies and gentlemen. I hope
I hope that if you, if we're when you meet

(06:12):
Noel and Scott in person, you give them, uh, you
give them condolences for having to tolerate my my unending
complaint about that lawnmower. I think it at a certain
point you just decided it was it was done right. Yeah,
did you ever get it going. I did get it going.
It did get it going, and I eventually just gave

(06:34):
it away. So I wanted to buy it, but I said,
you know, I've done enough with this that I don't
think it would be fair for me. Well, well, anyways,
that's the that's like the simplest form of this really,
And a lot of people learn on a lawnmower engine
and they learned stuff like that when they're young, and
I mean its off, I mean all the way until

(06:56):
you know you're gonna be doing that as long as
you own lawnmowers or you know, um, any type of
law equipment like that, you know, weed whips or whatever.
They're powered. But the thing is like it gives you
that that confidence, and the confidence is is really really
critical here. So if if you're a listener who has
never done anything like this, never never attempted a spark
plug repair, never attempted a lot, you know, an oil

(07:17):
change or anything like that, it's a great time to
do something like this. It really is. Because you've got
so much information available at your fingertips all the time
with a phone or with the laptop or whatever you have.
All that stuff is out there. People have got done
tutorials on on this over and over it. You can
watch your specific vehicle, your specific repair, probably in many places,
exactly what you'll need. They'll they'll give you a list

(07:39):
of tools that you need. They will they will show
you step by step what to do, some tips and
tricks you know, how to avoid certain problems, some issues, um,
maybe even some shortcuts along the way that will save
you some time. It's a it's a really good time
to do this. And the confidence thing once you've done it,
it's so do you find it super satisfying after you've
completed a successful repair? Yeah? You kidding? I mean that

(08:01):
that sense is like I don't know, it's like it
was a dopamine that's released in shooting everybody. It really is.
It gives you like almost a high. It feels really
good to successfully complete a repair like this, and and
these that we'll we'll talk about. You know, this is
just really again a starting point. Um, there's there's more
to discuss even but um, I'll also caution you though
that we're gonna talk about some things maybe that you

(08:22):
know are some some asterisks I guess on this that
will that will let you know maybe not everything is
is cut out for at homework, you know, like some
of some things require special tools, or some some procedures
that are really dangerous, or some things that are more
precise than what you're capable of doing on your work
bench at home. And there's a lot of that now,
more so than there was on cars decades ago. Before

(08:46):
we dive into deep. There are a couple of things
we should do first, Uh, Scott, I have a question
for you. Have you ever had any surprise repairs or
have you had any difficult situation? Have you ever listen
to any previous car stuff episode? Yeah, I've had. I've
had so many things pop up and and just like um,

(09:09):
you know, like things that just blow my mind, like
thinking about them now what happened and how I got
how I was able to limp home with with certain
things happening on the road or you know, great distances
from home, like a timing belt goes out. Yeah, things
like that, and like, um, you know, sometimes toes required,
but but more often than not, in some of my
older cars, I was able to get home you know,

(09:30):
on my own with with whatever I had brought with me.
And that's part of carrying a good kit you know,
specific for my vehicle and also general enough that if
anything happened, I could generally take care of it long
enough you get home using you know, pieces of rope
and and even like a small block of wood to
hold an an alternator in place, you know, like when
that bolt drops out or um, you know, just crazy

(09:52):
stuff like that. But it's enough just to get home
and then you can do the actual repair, or if
you're not comfortable with it, you can you know, send
it off to a probe. But um, older cars were
generally good for that. And this isn't gonna be a
new car bashing episode by any means, because you can
still do a lot on a new car, right, Okay,
But here's this is the second thing. Yeah, it is
a misconception if it's too broad of an accusation. But

(10:16):
in a general trend, we see some conflation where people
say that people say, for instance, younger generations don't care
about cars, don't want to own them, or don't want
to fix them. That also is a misconception, because what
we're seeing is that more and more auto technology is

(10:38):
designed to uh is designed such that the owner cannot
repair it correct right, Like you're in the warranties of
some hybrids and electric cars, you're not allowed to open
certain parts of the vehicle. You know that. Here's something
I just found out. What's a my my car Volkswagen,

(11:00):
And I looked in the owners manual for the fuse
diagram of the problems having recently I'll describe in a moment,
But I was looking for the fuse diagram for what
which fuses control? What simple thing? Right? And I thought, okay,
well I can't find it. It's not listed in the
in the owner's manual. So I opened up the fuse box,
thinking that maybe it's printed on the on the the

(11:21):
cover or or even next to the fuse, you know
sometimes they labeled in that way. It's not there. I
think this requires a either you get a shop manual
of some kind or or something like. I mean, I
just can't believe that, you know, you could be stuck
somewhere anywhere and not know, you know, where your headlamp
fuses or not. No, it's just not not marked anywhere.

(11:42):
And if it is, it's a secret, I still haven't
found it. Um. You know, it's ridiculous that it's stuff
like that's not included in in Owner's manuals now. But
there's other things like that that I'm coming across weekly.
I would say, did you hear the thing about Clark
Howard and the he Uh so he was a big
previous fan, I believe at one point, but his opinion

(12:02):
changed because in the Owner's Manual apparently and listeners right
in if you own a previous and this is true
apparently in the Owner's Manual, which I have not read yet, Uh,
there's no spare tire. When you get to the part
about how to replace or change a tire, there's a
can of fix a flat instead, and then they tell
you to call it toe company or something like that. Really,

(12:26):
so if you can't make it home with a fix
a flat, which by the way, is that's like a
last resort type thing that's an emergency. Is an emergency, Yeah,
And I know that was kind of the trend, was
to include a you know, a twelve volt pump, you know,
and I can't a fix a flat because some of
the cars, let's think like the Crossfire, I think Christ

(12:46):
of Crossfire that was one didn't have room for a
spare and it had run flat tires, which was also helpful.
But you know that only gets you so far. There's
just some strange things that happened occasionally as trends. I guess, um,
the thing with a few uses. I couldn't believe it
until it happened, and then I go online to look
for you know, to look for the answer, and um,
you know, it's still difficult to to locate the answer,

(13:08):
which is a little bit frustrating. But um, and just
for the record, spirit high, I'm not just picking on preous.
Spare tires are are less and less common. Yeah, I
think you're right. I think, I think And if you
do have one, it's more than likely a space saver spare,
a very small one, a tiny don't donut. Yeah. Yeah,
it's typically the kid you have to do the drive
of shame. Yeah, like super slow. And I've always felt

(13:31):
like just such a punk, you know, like so foolish,
but you know, it happening, and those happens to everybody, right,
I mean, at some point you're gonna probably true and
that you knew how to put that on. Its a
motivating factor to to get your tires well. And the
thing is ben Okay, So this kind of leads into
what we're saying it's changing a spirit, changing a tire,

(13:53):
you know. On that's something that everyone should learn. I've
had some some back and forth correspondence with Rudy Smith
recently one of our our long time listen to Rudy
Smith and um, he was talking about how his his daughter,
who um, you know, I think she's in college, and
he had gone through the whole drive, you know, teaching
her to drive and you know how you know the

(14:14):
ins and outs of car, you know, where he's very
thorough and he it was almost practically like a class
that he gave his kids, which I think is great.
And uh and in routine maintenance and you know, just
just what to watch for, you know, like make sure
you always have a tire gauge. If this happens, you
do this, and you know, he had it all laid
out and they even went through practice drills where the
change tires on on the car, you know, like a

(14:36):
you know. The one day I think he how did
he put it? He said, one day I'll pull the
the ultimate trick where I'll deflate one of the tires,
one of the good tires, and we'll discover, you know,
the flat tire and uh and then it'll be her
job to change that, you know, under my supervision. So
they did all that right, and it's a great lesson
to learn. Everybody really on the road should do this,
should should know how to change the tire. And so

(14:59):
not long ago, uh, she got her first for real
flat tire and sort of panicked about it a little bit,
which resulted in a call a call to dad, you know,
to find out, you know, what what should I do? Yeah,
And he said, no, we listen, We've we've done this before.
You know how to do it. He kind of talked her,
talked her through it, and everything turned out just fine.

(15:19):
She remembered all the lessons that he had taught her.
But that's something as simple as that. Now, that's probably
a huge confidence booster for her to do it herself
in a real situation. And I think that a lot
of people need that with other things too. I mean,
that's as simple as that, just to spare tire. That
might give you the confidence to say, well, I mean,
I've I've looked up the directions on how to perform
an oil change in my car. It's pretty easy. Let's

(15:41):
give it a shot this weekend. What's the worst that
can happen really. I mean something like that is pretty simple. Um,
that's that's a good one to start with. Changing filters,
you know, maybe changing air filter, changed air filter. You're
getting me start on air filters man, one of the
number one scams for first if you if you have
time and space, you should be changing your oil at home,

(16:04):
if only to avoid the hassle of people continually trying
to upsell you on stuff and at times deceitfully telling
you that your air filter needs to be changed. That's true.
That happens often. It seems like every time you go
in they tell you the filters have to be changed,
and then many times that's true, and well they're just
they're marked up, you know, so that you can, if
you know how to do something like that, you can say,

(16:25):
now I have that at home. It's I always that's
my line is that I have it at home, it's
on my workbench. I'm gonna do it tonight when I
get home. And the same with cabin air filters. You know,
it's you'll end up paying a lot more for that
part at the oil change place, the quick oil change,
then you will if you buy it off the shelf,
and of course some of that is maintenance, you know,
not maintenance but mark up, brother, because they have to
make money on that and the labor to put it in.

(16:47):
So I get that. And some of the less scrupulous
places have been caught lying to people showing them a
dirty air filters that's not even from the Yeah it happens,
I know it. I know it does happen. But more
often than that, they're they're giving you these svice, But
you don't need to change your air filter every three
thousand miles. If that's when you're changing your oil too.
It's not necessary every time. Well. Another thing that's cool

(17:10):
about these sorts of repairs is that for any listener
out there who has a kid that's approaching driving age,
which I guess counts you as well, right, so yeah,
it's coming up. One of the best things that I've
seen people do is to train your kid, get your
kids more familiar with the car by doing repair stuff

(17:33):
if you haven't started already. Like before, I knew how
to drive, I know how to change drum brakes and
disc brakes, and I hated drum breaks. But I can
still do it. I just tried to avoid it at
all costs. Is an excellent skill to learn. That's that's
that's I guess on the on the beginning list, that's
more a little bit more complex, that's a little more advanced. Yeah,

(17:53):
a little bit, not much, because it's it's really it's
really a lot more simple than people think. Yeah, I
was just you know, I was just like a rug
rat hanging out with my dad in the garage. That's
a great way to learn. And plus you see him
do it, and then you know, all right, well, if
he can do that, I can do that. It's not like,
you know, it required a bunch of extra special tools
or anything like that. And um, we did in the garage.

(18:14):
I remember that part. It's it's possible and it's a
bonding thing, right, Yeah, but you're right, Scott. Let's let's
talk about some of the basic, most simplistic stuff. We
talked about changing a spare, which I agree with you
is something that everyone on the road needs to know
how to do. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you're gonna find
yourself in in a position where you're gonna have to

(18:35):
do this, either on the side of the road or
in a parking lot, or you know, wherever you are.
You need to know the basics of how to do this,
where the tools are in the car, how to follow,
how to follow the step because the steps should be
laid out for you in your owner's manual. And you
can be someone's hero too, Yeah, you can, That's right.
You could. You could assist somebody else in this process
and they will be super happy about it because there's

(18:55):
a plenty there are plenty of people out there that
don't know how to do this, and if you're one
that does know how to, again, you can step into
be a hero for the day. You want to know
something really crazy. I don't think I've ever said this
on air. You might not even know. When our office
was in its previous location. I think I was on
the third level parking debt. We had a we had

(19:17):
a parking deck that was under our building, and the
third level deck was still open to the air right,
and I was there with a coworker when we see
Honda Odyssey drive turn and and drive towards the exit

(19:37):
and the back right tire I think it was the
back right. It's back right, back back left is flat.
Oh man, it's terrible and it's gonna you know, it's
flat to the point where I see it, and I think,
how does she not know? Well, it's only flat on
the bottom part. Oh okay, yeah, that was my bad.

(19:58):
So we have like flatus laid you down. And she's
thinking there's a you know, I said, well it seemed
like it was driving a little weird and didn't you
stop and think about that? And so uh and an older,
older lady as well, So I changed the tire on
her Honda Odyssey. That's like, uh, well, I don't even

(20:18):
know how to just put that into It was emotionally difficult. Yeah,
I guess. I mean it's like your your arch nemesis vehicle.
And I'm just I'm learning. I'm just now learning to
talk about it. But and this is a true story, kryptonite.
You could check with my you could check with our coworker,
Lauren Vogel Bomb. She was there and I said, to

(20:39):
tell anybody, you haven't told me that? No? I uh,
I swear man scouts on her. That's true. You know
what you did the right thing. I'm not proud of it.
Well you did. I know you did the right thing.
And that's the thing is if everybody you know knew
how to do that, then you wouldn't have been in
that position, I guess. But um, it's it's nice that
you can step in and help somebody out. I'm sure
they've done the same thing. And listeners, you probably have

(21:01):
done the same thing as well. Yeah, sure, it happens daily.
I mean you I see three or four people on
the way home that have a flat tire inside the road,
but they look like they're handling it, so I don't.
I don't never stop to do it. You know another
one that's really simple. What's that headlamps? Oh yeah, yeah,
changing headlamps. Now, this one has a couple of varying
different levels too. There's sometimes you get a vehicle where

(21:22):
you'll have to move the battery. You'll have to you know,
slide something out of the way in order to in
order to get at the back of the headlamp. The
older cars, you know, they would you come in from
the front. Really it was more like a lamp. I guess.
You know you can plug it into a socket. Uh.
These you still plug into a socket that they're encased
in plastic now, and that's why you see everybody with
those yellow headlamps. Um the lenses anyways, but it's it's

(21:45):
a little bit more difficult on the on the newer cars.
But also it's a super simple thing to do. And
again big confidence booster because once you've repaired something like that,
then all the bulbs in the in the vehicle are possible.
Really um, nothing is impossible to fix on the car
really mean honestly, if you just have the confidence to
do it, and and if you take a few minutes
to think about the repair, think about it logically before

(22:06):
you attack it, because you want to start breaking trim
trim pieces and um, you know, stripping screws and things
like that if you don't have the right tools and
you know, et cetera. But as part of my advice
that's come up later. Yeah, that's exactly Okay, I'll save
mine alright. What about Okay, we mentioned air filter, that's
the engineer filter. Very very easy. Sometimes it's a few
screws on top of a boy. Sometimes this is that easy.

(22:28):
Other times it's even just clips you know that you
just don't do with your fingers. It's really really simple. Um. Okay,
how about um, while we talked about the the replacing
bulbs and oil and we mentioned breaks, but I want
to come back to that in just a moment Um
spark plugs. Now this okay, this one, this one hits
the personal note here last weekend. You know, we we yeah,

(22:53):
this is tough. This has been a tough week. So
a couple of a couple of months ago, I think
we talked about um dealer service versus doing it yourself.
Right now we're taking it to another mechanic or you know,
whatever the case. Maybe should I take it into the dealership?
Should I do it on my own? I decided that
I was going to start doing the stuff on my
own to save you know, the six or seven hundred

(23:13):
dollars that the you know, the the ten thousand mile
checkouts are gonna call, which no, no, it becomes expensive
because you know, then they they've got your vehicle there
and they start recommending things and if you don't do it,
then you either have to do it yourself because it's necessary,
or um, well there's a couple of options for you,
I guess. But my choice was to you know, look

(23:33):
at the list, you know, they recommended service and have
it done. You know, some of it done at a
shop because the oil changes and things like that. I
just don't have the time to do it on the weekend.
It's easier. So I have that done and I decided,
well I can change the filters. I can, um you know,
look at the spark plugs and see it. They're okay,
and you know, whatever they recommend. Some of the stuff
is just um um inspect not replaced. So I'm confident

(23:57):
doing all that stuff, all the fluids and all that maintaining.
That's that's fine. There's some things that I am gonna
have to go to the dealer for, like you know,
trans fluid change and things like that timing belt. You
know that those issues. But um, it was time for
me to do the spark plugs. And it's a sixty miles,
so I, you know, simply went in to change the
spark plugs and I bought a set of spart and

(24:19):
there was nothing wrong with them, by the way. And
I had done the air filters and you know, the
cabin filters and all that. Simple enough to replace spark plugs.
But they've got these coils. You know that they're not
It's not like the old type of with you know,
the wires that come from the distributor and you know
it's not that way anymore. It's now these coil packs
that that feed down deep into the head, and um,
you know, you pull them out and then you have

(24:40):
to an extension to get the plugs out. So take
them out. Everything works fine, replace the plugs, put in.
What's you recommended by the auto parts store? Asked about
their pre gap and all that. Oh yeah, the pre gaped.
Everything's fine. It's it's it's it's a direct fit for
your car. And the pre gaped well, this is you know,
auto maintenance, one oh one. I guess when I I
did not check the gap on those plugs before I

(25:02):
put them in. In In my haste, I just put them
in thinking that they were going to be gapped correctly
from the factory. I know, I know, I didn't. I
just didn't do it. I skipped that one simple step
and put them in and later found out that they
were gaped way too big and and and varying gaps.
They weren't even consistent in the gap. And I blew
out a coil on the thing on the way. And

(25:23):
but this is like, this is like a day and
a half later when this this problem happens. And so
whatever is happening, you know, the engines bucking and it's
dying on me and it won't get up to speed
and I'm still downtown, so I limp home. I mean literally,
I think it was in limp in mode. It was
exacting very very strange to get home. And I started
digging around online to find out what could cause that,

(25:44):
and of course I remember that I just put spar
plugs in and this seems like an electrical issue, a
misfire thing, So start there, right and just by chance,
you know, there are many many people that say, all
those those coils go out all the time, and here's
exactly what it does. And it was exhibiting all of
those symptoms, every one of them. So I knew that
was probably the culprit. I pulled out the plugs again.

(26:06):
You know, all this, all this stuff is just frustrating,
you know, to no end. Because I'm taking off the uh,
the connectors that go to the coils, and of course
three out of the four clips I break off with
my fingertip because where they are, where they're positioned, they're
they're super brittle now because of the heat that's that's
generated right there. It's just frustrating, like every little step

(26:27):
is like it should be a simple thing or placing
spark plugs. But every little thing was fighting me every
step of the way. And finally I got it all
back together. I got the new coils. I had to
order those, and they missed the truck and you know,
that ended up happening late at night one night, and
it was just the whole thing was troubled. But it
was easy to find somebody else who had dealt with
the exact same situation and gave me a good starting spot,

(26:52):
you know, somewhere that I could go without having a
diagnostic tool because I don't have that yet. But I
think I'm going to get one UM specific for that vehicle,
right because it's still it's still gonna have to check
engine a yeah. So see, I mean this is I've
been working on cars for decades now, really, and something
like this can be so troubling to me. Even as
simple as a spark plug change, something can go wrong

(27:12):
that will cause it to be a bigger repair that
maybe you didn't intend, you know, to tackle, and then
you have to you have to have to think your
way around it or take it somewhere and have them
do it for the added expense of undoing what you've
done and then completing the you know, completing the fix.
So I'm guessing that you've probably had things like that too,
where you started something realized it's just something that you

(27:33):
can't carry on with, you know, like I did this
and now this is happening something different. I'm just gonna
gonna take it into the dealer and then look at it.
Oh wait, okay. Until that, until you said dealer, I
was like, well, yes, I too have started a Pink
Floyd cover band that was just too much wet off
more know, you're You're right, I have. I've been in

(27:53):
situations where, in my case, when I was still living
back home with my phone, it was it was way
easier because they had all the tools than most of
the tools I would need, so I was able to
address a very number of repairs. But when I was
living in apartments or when I was living in smaller

(28:15):
rented houses, sometimes what I would do at that house
versus what I would go to a dealership for was
decided by the access to tools and um, in every position,
did you have a garage available to you as well?
I mean, are sometimes we're in an open parking lot exactly,
and that you can do it there, But uh, it's

(28:36):
frowned upon by management usually really usually usually, But what
do you think I mean? Also, you're susceptible to rain
and things like that, you know, more so than if
you're in a garage, of course. And then if it's
a shared parking lot, you have to be respectful of
other people's space, you know what I mean, especially if
it's a tight lot and you need to jack up
a car and some space to move around it, you know.

(28:58):
But but with with that being said, with that being said,
I've been very fortunate too rarely to rarely get in
over my head. And that's that all goes down to
what I'm gonna say, is my my number one tip

(29:20):
for familiarizing yourself or other people with any kind of
auto repair, especially if you're helping someone who doesn't know
a lot about cars dip their toes in for the
first time. Then the key, whether you are inexperienced or
super experience, the key is always this, prepare, be prepared.

(29:41):
No what I know, it sounds boy scoutish, but have
the entire operation in your head before you actually put
your hands on anything. Yeah, that's where an online tool
of any kind was so so helpful in this situation
and as well as print material, and I take I
take notes before I do any kind of repair where

(30:02):
you know I have well, you know, bad example here,
But the second time around, I had, you know, the
spark plug gap, that torque specs for the for the plugs.
Make sure I have my torque branch, make sure I
had all the right fittings, make sure, um, you know,
I if I needed a specific bit for the job,
you know, like, because that's the thing with these online
tutorials or even in the in the course of the manuals,

(30:24):
you know, the shop manuals. Uh, they're going to tell
you specifically what tools you need, and you might as
well just go ahead and get that stuff out and
ready to go. And if you were missing something, don't
don't start the project yet. Go to the store and
get that specific you know, bit driver, whatever you need
to make this work. If you need a certain length
of extension for your socket set, you make sure you

(30:44):
have that because that stuff is gonna be you get
your car halfway apart, that's not the time to discover
you're missing a tool. Yeah, that's that's I guess the
best way. And and also no one starts out as
an expert. That's the That's another thing is that I
think everybody who start this it feels like, well, man,
I don't I don't know if if if they've never
done in a repair like this before, you might think like,

(31:05):
I don't know if I have the confidence to do this.
I don't. I don't know what I'm gonna encounter. This
is something that usually other guys do. I'm not really
that kind of guy to fix things on my own,
but they might feel like young Scott Benjamin in shop
class saying, well, wait, it has to start when we
put it back together. What am I gonna do with
this engine they just put in front of me? That's
that looks complex, you know, but it's really really simple.

(31:25):
But you don't. You don't know that until you dig
into it and then you realize, like, it's a lot
easier than you think. Um, and if you as long
as you follow the procedures. And that's the other thing
is you got to be able to be able to
follow instructions. And I guess it's the same as like
cooking or anything. You know, it's you have to follow
the recipe in order to make it turn out correct.
And the same thing with this is these procedures that
are put in places because people have done it hundreds

(31:46):
of times, thousands of times. They know exactly what you're
gonna do or how you should do it. Brother, you
just have to follow that that that step by step
and and likely everything will come out okay. So that's
that's the thing is just be prepared, follow the instructions
and everything should work out fine. And just have the
confidence to begin that process. That's the thing. Is It
just just you gotta get in and get hands on

(32:08):
and if it helps, you have somebody that's more experienced
stand by and watch you or guide you a little bit,
and they're happy to do that. You have someone equally
inexperience bring the beer, and you know. That's the thing
is like you could I said this before, but you
can go online and watch YouTube videos of your specific
repair just about anything. Really. I mean, it's it's amazing

(32:30):
what's there. There's so much available right now, and you'll
and you'll need it too, because some cars are just
going to have innately more sophisticated repairs just due to
the design. I think I have mentioned this before, but
one of the great and strange engineering idiosyncrasies about the

(32:51):
Monte Carlo that I had. It was that to change
the battery, which is another thing everyone should be able
to do, which we'll get to. To change the battery,
you had to remove this strut that was under the
hood between the battery and between the battery and the

(33:11):
and the hood. And it took like like four bolts
on it. Uh so it did. It didn't take that long.
It was just the pain. It was very much like
why is this thing here? And then the battery itself
was sideways. It was on its side, and friend, because
the way they had designed this, I guess they hadn't

(33:32):
designed it with well you're saying, the terminals are on
the side, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh got you, okay, yeah,
so the liquids would stay in because the caps are
on the top the yea um, but the yeah, the
terminals are on the side. And it hit me the
first time I had to change it, and every time
I would help somebody with a jump or something started

(33:54):
to irritate me. You know, little things irritate you sometimes,
and especially familiarity breeds a sort of contempt. And I
love that car Man. Every time I opened the hood
and I saw that the awkward placement of the battery is.
Some part of me was like, I'm going to find
the name of the people who designed it, which is

(34:16):
crazy and petty and dumb. But but my my point
being like, there are there are some things that you
will find, depending upon the make model of your car
that will be I guess if we wanted to rate
them in like three arbitrary levels I made up right now,

(34:37):
there would be Uh. The few things are gonna be
very very simple. Systems should always be very simple to
change attire, to replace a head lamp, things like that.
They're gonna be things that are intermediate prior preparation right
prevents pissport performance or whatever it's called. And then number three,

(34:58):
which is more disturbing, in which we've mentioned that we
see the rise of more and more often now will
be the just some mysterious black boxes that you, even
though you own your car, are not allowed to touch. Yeah,
these are the control modules, the electronic control modules that
that in turn control everything in the vehicle and talk
to each other. And the problem is you can also

(35:20):
you can get a diagnostic code reader, and you can
buy a scan a generic scan tool and it and
plug in and it will work, and you can buy
ones that's specific for your vehicle, you your type of vehicle,
and that will be even be better, which will give
you codes that you can then use to make the
proper repairs. But there's kind of a there's a false
confidence that comes about with these. I think sometimes that
you know you can get the codes, but then what

(35:42):
caused the codes to happen? You know, there's there's more troubleshooting,
more diagnostics that have to happen, more um, critical thinking.
I think that has to happen. You can't just blindly
go with what even that code reader says. So you know,
that's an answer, but it's not the end all answer
to everything. I mean, it would help a lot, you know,
if you know what to do with that, but you

(36:03):
still need to think through this whole thing. And that's
that's something that I've learned along the way. UM I
guess a little bit more advice, as I suppose, is
that take a little bit of time to to really
think about it. Don't just dive in and start throwing
parts at you know the problem when you think you
know what it is, because that's gonna get really expensive.
It could cause other problems, and in some situations you

(36:23):
replace sensors that then what anyways, there's there's there can
be problems with doing that, and usually there are problems
with doing that. You want to find the underlying root
cause of whatever you're repairing and go for that. And
if you're not capable of thinking through the way the
whole system works, and it does take some some some
learning I guess you know, some book learning or online learning.

(36:46):
I guess um you have to you have to really
dig into this and and understand the whole system in
order to know that replacing this part isn't gonna fix
the problem. It's gonna come back again, or it's not.
It's not gonna do anything. It's gonna have the exact
same drive ability issues that you have four. But now
you've spent a hundred and fifty dollars on that part
that you thought it was and that's not it. It
was still good. The one that you threw out was good.

(37:08):
So that happens a lot and all this stuff, I mean,
you can't emphasize that enough. Is that you know the
critical thinking, the you know, attacking the root causes what
you really need to do, and that's something that comes
with UM. I guess more um advanced and not advanced.
And it may be advanced knowledge, but I guess just age.
You know, like where you you've done this for a

(37:29):
while now, and you you know that you know that
fuse isn't you know the answer when you gotta blown
fusees and to just keep replacing the fuse, you gotta
find what's causing that fuse to blow. And that type
of thinking, that's what they're they're bigger. Yeah, there are
people who just drive around with extra fuses. Yeah, it's
it's not a bad idea to do that, I guess,

(37:50):
because you know, there's gonna be a situation where, yeah,
you're let's say you're jump starting someone's vehicle and you
you crossed the turn, you make a mistake, you cross
the terminals, something else blows out, the fuse goes. I mean,
then you know what happened and the fuse, you know
why the fuse blood. But my friend, I'm referring specifically
to the people who say, I know there is a
problem that needs to be fixed, but I'll just keep

(38:11):
driving this thing. That's you know, like I know, my
car eats a lot of oil, so instead of finding
the leak, Why don't I just always have to carry oil,
just drop it off. Well, that happens, I mean, and
sometimes that's the stop gap thing that you have to do.
You have to, you know, wait until you've got the
money to fix the part or whatever. And that's uh, well,
and here we are more advice. I guess you don't need,

(38:32):
you know, bucket loads of money to do some of
this stuff. In fact, doing it yourself will save you
a lot of money and labor. If it's something that
you can confidently do on your own, it's something that
you don't make a bigger mess out of, you know,
then then it is costing you a lot more. Let's
say that you get overly confident and you think like, well,
I'm gonna I'm gonna tackle that timing shame myself. I'm
going to do that job at home, in the in

(38:54):
the garage on the weekend, and then you know what
would have been an expensive repair at the at the
dealership or you know, the local mechanic. Let's say it
would have been like twelve bucks to replace it. Because
that those things are deep in the engine. You got.
Sometimes you have to take the front end of the
car off to get to it or whatever. The old
audi that I had it was like that. UM. But
let's say that you tempt at it your on your

(39:14):
own and you get to the point where you know
you've you've either screwed something up and cause you know,
a problem inside the engine, or you know, just along
the way you've given up. You know you needed too
many special tools and it's just too hard and you're
not gonna have this thing done by the time you
need to go to work on Monday. UM. Then it becomes,
you know, instead of a twelve job, now it's like
a four thousand dollar job because you know, I'm having

(39:35):
to mop up what you've made a mistake. You know,
your your your incorrect prepare so that use some good
common sense. I guess I think that's Uh, that's another thing.
It's just you know, really think it through and is
it something that you should attempt on your own. Not
everything is possible at home anymore, like you said, UM,
transmissions that are finicky about the specific types of fluids

(39:57):
they require and the seals and how they're treated, and
they have to be almost assembled in like a practically
like a clean room, UM, where there's no dust, no anything,
because all that stuff can foulow everything up and and really,
you know, inside of a transmission is uh, it's very
very complex. You don't want to tackle that on your
own workbench. In most cases, some people can, it's not

(40:18):
it's not recommended for most people, but there's there's a
few things like that. So so look into it and
get on the forums, talk to other people that have
your specific vehicle, and and they will kind of have it.
They'll say, well, how experienced are you at turning wrench
and you are you? Are you good at this? Are
you generally not good at it? They're going to kind
of gauge your ability and let you know whether you

(40:41):
should or should not attempt this. You know, like, um,
I think it was on you know, on a forum
recently for this whole spark plug coil thing that I
saw someone who said, you know, if you can't do this,
and you probably shouldn't be pumping your own gas. It's
it's that easy. You know, this this part is so easy.
You don't need to work. You know, people who don't
pump through us do that. I do know that, but

(41:02):
you know, you get ready for a little bit of
that on there too, you know, some sarcasm, but you do.
You have to watch out for that anywhere really now
online it seems. But but there will be some people
that are generally are genuinely there to help you as well.
I think it's I think it's fun, it's productive. It
keeps you out of the bars. It's true, it's keeps
you out of the bars, off the side of the interstate.

(41:25):
But it also, um I think also it's an opportunity
that is not going to be as frequent in the
near future because again, I know, I'm I might be
beating a dead buck here, but the overall trend is
pointing toward cars that cannot be repaired at home. I

(41:48):
think you're right, and I think that's a terrible thing.
I agree, And you know what, I've this this week
with this what's going on, and I was reading about
some of the possibility at Ease of what it could
have been. Now the coil packs fixed it and it's drivable.
I'm I'm here at work now, so it's uh, it
definitely worked. But I was looking at some of the
possibilities of what it also could have been, and it

(42:11):
wasn't likely, but it possibly could have been. Um, some
of those things were pretty scary. You know that the
potential problems that that creates similar symptoms in the car,
and and you start reading and you're reading some of
those and you think, like, man, that's something I can't
really I can't tackle that at home unless I have
this specific tool. And if I buy that tool, then

(42:31):
how often am I going to use that tool? And
how long before I make up that cost, you know,
in being able to repair something myself? How long will
that take because it's expensive. Um, it's just the all
these scenarios go through your head, and you're right, and
that I feel like a lot of people now just
say I just can't even I can't even imagine doing
much more than just checking the oil level in the

(42:52):
car and replacing a few filters and that's about it.
I mean that most people are not comfortable plugging in
a scan tool, diagnosed in a card with that and
then thinking about what the issue is, and then you know,
soldering in harnesses and you know a lot of people
aren't comfortable comfortable with that anymore. And so much of
it now is electronic work that it makes it really

(43:13):
really difficult, and that's good and bad. I mean cars
are cars run fantastic when they work well, but you know,
when something goes wrong, it's not something you can always
fix in the grinde yourself. So again it's maybe, Uh,
we've we've talked about the pros cons old versus new,
I'm sure in the past many and I do find
that some of the older cars I was a lot

(43:34):
more confident about diving in under the hood, uh than
my newer vehicles, you know, the past two or three
cars that I've had. Really, um, I just don't I'm
I'm a little bit more leary about jumping in and
doing everything myself. And then there's there's something to that
really yeah. Yeah, like for instance, on the hybrid Escape

(43:55):
that I'm driving now, you know, if something goes wrong
with the electric motor, I that is outside of my
area of expertise. And I don't think you absolutely should
touch that. I mean, there's there's high voltages involved, and
you just don't want to do anything. But I don't know, man,
what a way to go, right? I don't just not

(44:15):
very heroic. I don't think you lie at the funeral.
And oh and listeners, everyone listening also lie at the funeral.
This will be our secret. That's right. Oh my gosh.
Yeah that there again, there are a few things that
you shouldn't tackle, but for the most part, I mean,
I'm here to encourage you that most of the stuff
is pretty easy. It still is outside of the electronic

(44:38):
modules and replace me that and you know, having to
relearn certain things, and um, it seems like most things
you can still do yourself. You can still do a
fair amount of just hardware replacement swap out type stuff
and uh and and still be in good shape. And
if you happen to have an older car, you buy
an older car for project or something. That's a great
place to to start. I mean, it's a it's a
wonderful thing to learn, and you can apply that to

(45:01):
other things. Because now I have I have some confidence
of like, my my phone needs a new battery. It's
had had a real bad situation going on that, but
I'm sort of confident that I can follow the procedures
that are online to replace that battery. It's just a
hardware swap really yeah, and holy smokes, if I can
do these kind of repairs, then listeners, you certainly can. Yeah,

(45:24):
that's true. But then okay, to counter bounce this. I've
tried to repair a broken DVD player before and it
resulted in an actual fire, A fire like that, you
know what. No, No, I wasn't. I wasn't like I
have to see the last ten minutes of Wild Wild West.
The cases open as my mom's DVD player probably told

(45:45):
you this, it wasn't working. I thought, this is like
when DVDs were pretty new, relatively new DVD players, and
I still had a VHS at my house, and you know,
I had repaired that in the past. I mean, that's
a more of a mechanical system than anything, really, and
I successfully fixed VCRs before, so I thought, why this

(46:05):
can't be that much different. I open up the the
case of the DVD player and it, of course just
nothing but electronic you know, electric boards, other boards and stuff.
And I still thought I could poke around and figure
out what was wrong. So I fixed what I thought
looked wrong with it, and I plugged it in to
see if I could make it work. And as soon
as I plugged it in, a small blue and yellow
flame appeared in the middle of I don't know what,

(46:28):
you have no idea what happened, but I mean it
was like maybe a two or three inch flame. It
only lasted for about two seconds and then gone, and
you know a little puff of smoke that's in the
room and just the worst feeling everything you know that's
ever ruined my mom's DVD player, thinking that I could,
you know, fix it. Stuff like that happens occasionally. But um,
I don't know if i'm i'm I'm a little leary

(46:50):
about the phone repair that's coming up. But um again,
I replaced the phone screen. Uh really, yeah, it's it's
you just have to be patient. But the problem is, uh,
a lot of these phones are increasingly like the cars.
Phones are actually in the forefront of this charge. They're
built so that instead of repairing one, it's more convenient

(47:13):
for someone to buy a new one. They have things
like proprietary screwheads plan the lescens. Yeah you have to
buy the screwhead that fits that phone. Things you can
find kits, but also you can find rating systems for
how difficult are easy? Uh? Home or pair is on
the phone? I got some bad news, man. I don't

(47:34):
want to I don't want to like compromise too much
of our personal lives here by saying what kind of
phones we have? You and I have I have had
very similar phone models, and uh they are rated as
terrible to replace, at least for the screen. But you

(47:55):
did it successfully. Yeah, good work. Well, it wasn't quite
the same aim after I got everything sandwich back together,
but it worked. The engine started, you could say, yeah, good,
it's good. Uh, it looked jankie man, to be honest
with you, because I got I had every most everything

(48:15):
back in the right place and screwed down and every
so often it would just be weird because I, you know,
I was working by hand. I've never done this before.
I wasn't as precise as a professional would be at all,
but I am. It did give it give me a
sense of validation. It's like, look, I fixed it. We'll see.
That's the way I feel about it. This week. I'm

(48:36):
feeling that way about my spark plug fix. Yeah, and
that's silly, I know, but but I feel really good
about it because something else happened. I was able to
diagnose that and repair it successfully. And once you're done
with that, I tell you, it's a great it's a
great feeling. It's really a true confidence booster. And this
is kind of I'm just starting to kind of wade
into this car as far as like you know, at
home repairs, with with stuff that's you know coming up,

(48:58):
you know, just regular maintenance stuff. And I gotta say,
I mean I'm not sure yet, but it's almost like
it's starting to uh uh starting. It's almost like we
had a better relationship me and my car now. You know,
before I was a little bit cold about it, and
it's like I've got a little bit more of a
feeling of like, this is my car, and I can
I can handle generally what comes up on it. I can,

(49:19):
I can fix it. And I've had that really strong
with my other vehicles, but you know, this car to date, uh,
not quite as much. UM. I wouldn't say that, you know,
it's a it's a it's an inseparable bond or anything
that we've got yet. But um, I guess I could
see that, you know, after a few years of doing
stuff like this, it might it might improve um our
relationship the way I feel about the car. You know,

(49:42):
like if I'm confident that I can fix some things
and you know, feel good about being able to keep
it on the road. Um, you know at home, you know,
with stuff I do at home, that's gonna that's gonna help.
That's gonna help my uh um my outlook. I guess
about keeping or getting rid of that car. I think
that that plays big into that. Um let's see what else.
So we talked about tools, but we didn't really say

(50:03):
that you don't need to buy like some huge professional
tool kid or anything if that keep it simple and
a lot of cases, I mean, you don't need all
these specialty tools and things that just just buy a
good general tool kid. You can buy a catch all
kit that has you know, the screw drivers and sockets
and all that. And I think of it like a
garage survival kit. Yeah. And and when you have to
change that O two sensor, find out specifically what, um,

(50:25):
you know, what what socket you need for it, and
buy just that one to add to your kit. A simple,
a simple collection of well organized tools is going to
be infinitely more of convenient and more valuable than like
a horder collection of we've all seen this, you know,
just the box of just hammers and bolts and no

(50:48):
or here is a bucket of different sockets. Yeah, Oh
that I just dig through until I find you know,
seven eights. Yeah, that happens and I've seen people that
operate like that and there is no way to keep
your your tools organized, and it makes things a lot
more difficult. Now they somehow managed, but I don't quite
understand how that works out. I'm a little bit more

(51:09):
organized than that in my personal life. I hope, uh,
I hope most people are. Really. I think when they
when they when they start something like this, they keep
the tools all, you know, where they should be, so
they can they can you know, easy access and you can,
you know, quickly grab whatever you need, no real hassle
to that whole thing. And again, you don't have to
go out and buy snap on tools as you're you know,

(51:30):
if you're gonna just begin uh you know, And I'm
not saying that you shouldn't. I'm saying, you know, the
great tools. I'm just saying you don't need to do
that when you're just starting out, if you're if you're
planning to you know, tackle a break job this weekend,
you don't necessarily have to buy the best tools out
there now. Of course, if you and I ever start
an auto tool Empire, then we'll we'll have a kit

(51:54):
for the kind of tools you need. Of course, it
will be crazy expensive, right, like, yeah, yeah, exactly. I'd
like to hear what I'd like to hear more from
our listeners about your craziest repair. Yeah, you know, we
we I think we did a show on this, was it.
It was like Gonzo repairs or something, you know, like
some of the crazy things that you've done. I I

(52:16):
was thinking of one recently and I also brought up
in this, but it doesn't really fit in this. But
now when now we're talking about it, maybe I can't.
On the road. One time I had a I think
it was in my Festiva. Uh, the exhaust one of
the one of the one of the brackets in the
back finally just gave way, you know, rusted out. It
was the original muffler on the thing and one of
the brackets or the clip holding it. So I'm dragging

(52:38):
the exhaust through town, right, and it just happened, you know,
I don't know, half a block back and I pull
over and it's pouring rain outside, and of course the
mufflers all hot and everything, and it's summertime, um, pouring
rain and I'm in the middle of this little downtown
areas Birmingham, Michigan, right, and like on the main stretch
there in downtown, and I've got so I don't know

(53:00):
if I should rip the muffler off because it's still
firmly connected at the front. I don't have the right
tools to do that with me at the time. I
don't know why I didn't, and I needed to find
some way to just you know, hold it back up.
I needed some wire or something like that. I didn't
have that, and I had an old T shirt on. Yeah,
I tore one of the sleeves off my off my

(53:22):
shirt and I used that to kind of like last
so the connector, you know, around the exhaust and hold
it up to that old connector that was still there
and tie it on, and it just it looked like hell.
But it got me home and things like that happened.
I mean, you have to use what you've got and
what's available. And I've done that so many times with
you know, my MG and um I guess on that CRX.
I did that many many times. I always think of

(53:44):
those as my geiver moments. Yeah, I guess. So I'd
like to hear some people's examples of what they did. Like,
have you ever tried that thing where you put an
egg in the in the Radiator or the Pepper Yeah. Yeah,
we had a podcast on that one too, write yeah
was it Pepper in the Radiator? Yeah? I think it
was Pepper in the Radiator? Yeah. And you know things
like that are those are fun to talk about, you
know those things. But but I guess I think what

(54:06):
I really would like to get from our listeners here
is some of the guys that have have been wrenching
on cars for decades, a long long time, and I'd
like to get some advice from those guys, you know,
to to to give to some of our other listeners who,
maybe your brand new to this, are still lacking the
confidence to get out there and do this for the
first time. Like, what are some of the things you
learned along the way that they're just critical? Um that

(54:27):
that would you help somebody out, you know, that would
give them the confidence to go out and do something,
you know, something simple like a like spark plug repair
or change in the oil or you know, even a
break job. Can I just say one more quick thing
about this this if you're thinking about and this is
going back to advice, I guess you said this with breaks,
So you did breaks some uh did both drum brakes

(54:47):
and uh dis brakes. Right. The first time I did
drum brakes, one of the best things that I that
I heard, and one of the best pieces of advice
that I heard from anybody, was that the first time
you do this, and maybe even a couple of times
after you do this, take both sides apart. But as
far as like exposing both sides, but leave one side
connected and the way it was from the factory as

(55:08):
you do the other repair, don't don't attempt to do
don't try to do like you know, remove the shoes
on both sides at one time, leave one intact, and
then you can go around to can I have a
reference point to know what it should look like? Yeah,
it really is. And simple things like that. But you see,
that's advice that you only understand or no, after you've
done it a few times. Here's here's another one, especially
in this age of cell phones, use your cell phone

(55:31):
to take a photograph of the thing as well. That's
really good. That's you, you know, for something where there's
not a paired system like there are with drum breaks. Yeah,
and I just well you know what I did just
recently too this week, um on the intake manifold of
my car. There's a hose that are actually rather just
a an opening for hose, I guess, um a tube

(55:51):
that comes off of the intake manifold, and it looks
like it's missing a hose, and I thought that could
be a vacuum issue if that you know, found its
way off there, if it bounced off. And so I
went online and I just looked up but you know,
a photograph of my engine bay, you know, from from
someone else, you know that somebody's posted, and I was
able to see that there's not supposed to be anything there.
It's just like a breather almost and or something like that.

(56:13):
I don't remember what it was. But um, I was
concerned that, you know, I was missing a hose, and
all I had to do is look at it photograph
of another similar engine, the same engine, and realize that
now it's not missing that part or that should be
you know, it's still open instead of connected. So things
like that. It's it's it's really an invaluable tool and
it's a great time to uh, you know, to have
access to all stuff like this online service manuals. You

(56:36):
don't even have to get the old Chiltern's or Haynes
manuals anymore if you don't want to. I think I
like to have one. I like to have one in
the car with me, and and also like to have
it just you know, the the old dog eared version
on the on the workbench, you know, with with oil
the well everywhere and that thing. But um, it's a
great thing to have, and you can of course pass

(56:56):
that along with a new owner, you know, when you
sell the vehicle. But online versions that are available, and
you can print pages from those if you want to
take it out into the garage for the future. Man,
there's just there's so much advice that we could give
to a new renter that that would be valuable, I think.
But um, I would like to hear from our listeners
and have them writing with some of the I guess

(57:17):
some of the just them of the stage wisdom, wisdom
and some of the hard earned wisdom, some of the
and then the engine exploded and now I know not
to do X. Yeah, here's here's why you do not
do a timing belt job on your owner. Hall, I think, yeah,
I think everybody's got their own stories with this stuff.
So we'd love to hear it. You can check us

(57:38):
out on Facebook and Twitter, where we are car Stuff
h s W. We always have some interesting things that
may not make it to the air for one reason
or another, and that's your way. That's the best place
to find those. You can also check out the podcasts
that we talked about earlier on our website car Stuff
Show dot com and right to us directly. We're like y,

(58:00):
we want these stories like the weirdest, most disastrous, or
coolest repairs you ever did, inside tips for your fellow listeners,
new and old printers alike. You can send those to
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(58:22):
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