It’s been a long time since I did my own auto maintenance and repairs, so I didn’t feel qualified to complete the survey.
I did what I could in maintenance and repairs with my 3/8" drive Husky socket set that I purchased with S&H Greenl Stamps, some assorted screwdrivers, some combination wrenches, a vacuum tube voltmeter and a hammer. I replaced water pumps, mechanical.fuel pimps, and spark plugs. I did the maintenance and repairs out of necessity. As my salary increased, I was able to afford to have shops do the maintenance and repair work. In my job as s faculty member at s university, the demand for publications for salary increases took my time. My pride took over. I had to prove to the new young squirts that this geezer was better than they were both in the classroom and in publications. I thought after retirement that I might go back to maintaining and making minor repairs to my own vehicles, but I have found too many exciting things to do. The last repair I considered doing was to replace a noisy HVAC blower motor in my 2017 Toyota Sienna, but I decided rather than contort my back for an hour under the dashboard, I would have it done by the Toyota dealer a mille down the street. I used to repair our television, stereo system and appliances, but technology has gotten ahead of me and at age 80, I have become lazy.
Yeah I buy tools. Ya never know. In about 1984 I bout a set of crow foot wrenches to work on my diesel injector lines. Never used them since until yesterday. 15/16 crow foot with 18" ratchet extension and was able to get the faucet supply lines tight. Sign in my garage says “he who dies with the most toys wins”.
Thanks everybody for the interest, the responses keep coming in. Thank you so much.
I started doing my own repairs after the bus stopped running to the trucking company I worked for and I had to buy my first car for $20. I had a stay at home wife and two children with two more to follow and there was never any money for car repairs. I found out I had an aptitude for car repairs and I really liked saving .
The saving is more than most people realize because you don’t pay income tax or sales taxon what you save, but you do pay those taxes on the money you pay other people to do things like plumbing, carpentry or electrical work. In the pre Reagan era, the state and federal tax was 43%.
I gave up on the survey at the second question because my only resource for learning how to repair cars was the Moto’s Repair Manuals at the public library. The internet was not even thout of until decades later. These days if I run across something I look for a you tube video but I usually look at at least 3 of them because some of them leave out steps or contain a lot of misinformation.
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I started taking cars apart and putting them together (mostly) when I was maybe 12, because I wanted to. No one else in my family ever did that, no one knew anything about cars, and I had pretty much no specialized tools. That went on for about 10 years when I really didn’t have my own car anyway, and then I did and bought a cheap socket set and I’ve been working on my own cars ever since. I buy better tools when I need them and I used to buy them when Sears had a sale. I read a lot, and now that I’m retired I do all the repairs on our cars and my motorcycles. No training ever as a mechanic, I was a lawyer. Machines just make sense to me and I find ways to do what needs to be done. And YouTube videos can be very helpful sometimes.
I love to buy tools. Fixing my cars gives me a great excuse to buy lots of cool new tools. Recent acquisitions include a pneumatic die grinder, abrasive discs, pneumatic ratchet, and a new tool box for organization.
I looked at that survey and the last question makes me suspicious of it . I was already as I am about any unknown survey . Who is this we that is going to make your do it yourself experience better .
I put that in there because I thought if someone like yourself had a suggestion on how to make the survey better. I could include different questions to make it better. That’s all.
I have always been a technician and thought the rule borrow it three times you buy it was a little out of date. With the price of some special tools these days, I wonder if we should increase that to borrow it five times, you buy it…
OR you can go to your local Autoparts store and use their loan-a-tool program. I have done that a couple of times on certain tools that I know I probably will not use again for a long time.
I don’t like to borrow someone else’s tools. I used to, and still do from time to time, rent what I need, depending. Nail guns for example, the guns come without nails. So I’d buy a box of nails, use half of them, then go back to rent another gun and they had changed guns and use a different nail. So I end up just buying my own (sometimes the pawn shop is your friend if you allow for doing an OH on the tool). Seems like renting two or three times and you’ve paid for the tool.
I don’t mind at all loaning my tools, especially to the younger generation that do not have a large collection and can benefit from the experience. However, you have to allow for damage. I loaned my hand power planer to the neighbor kid and of course he hit a nail with it and nicked the blade. I would have needed new blades sooner or later anyway so no big deal. Such is life.
A friend gave me good advise about renting tools years ago. If you need it one time rent it if you need it a second time rent it if you need it a third time BUY it.
I’m a professional mechanic, as well
When I was getting started, the veteran mechanics said it was okay to borrow a tool ONCE
But if afterwards, you knew you would need it again, then you should buy it
Let me clarify . . .
When I say borrow, I mean borrowing from another mechanic
Because a lot of mechanics I’ve known aren’t too fond of their colleagues repeatedly borrowing the same tools . . .
And there’s one thing I have NEVER tolerated . . . borrowing tools from my tool box drawer without my knowledge
I will . . . and have . . . called out such behaviour in front of the whole shop
If you want to borrow something, ALWAYS ask for permission first
I am not a mechanic but did many things mechanical and needed a tool from time to time. Our 1 mechanic at our site had one of everything and gave me free reign to use whatever I needed if he was not there. Others were also and cabinet was never locked up. People respected him and his tools, bright side is if something went missing, he did not have to pay for a replacement. Guess we for the most part were honest respectful tool users, and I do not know how many tools were ever lost, but we were all part of a team working together, respected others and their tools. He would also borrow things from me if needed, and like him if a soldering station or tvm would disappear I could just order one and not have to pay for it. To be honest my boss was the worst for that. I lost a roll of electrical tape, so I told the secretary to put some on the list for the hardware store. Boss was in his office and said I got it, I’ll bring it back. Don’t worry about it I said. Sure I could buy a 6 pack, but my space was very limited with all the stuff I had, but the mechanic always had some if I needed it. Put together a toolkit bag for tools and stuff we used on a regular basis, Took mine with me every time I went because whatever might be missing. Guess who I suspected
I do borrow things from O’Reilly auto parts store once in a while. They charge you for the tool on your credit card but don’t submit the charge to the banking system for 48 hours. Return the tool and they give you back the paperwork, keep the tool and you bought it. It’s a good system.
It is a good system. Some of the tools they loan out are similar to Harbor Freight quality. So be careful with that. Most times it doesn’t matter. I rented a tool that holds the tension off the torsion bar (basically a big C clamp), got the tool in place, tightened it down by hand, took stuff apart, then noticed the tool was warping under the stress as I was putting things back together. Basically, the C in the C clamp was twisting. I was afraid it would twist enough to slip out of position and send things flying, but my only option was to hurry up and put everything back together at that point. Every once in awhile I’d glance at the clamp 
in fear, say a little prayer, then work faster!
To be fair, I bought the truck used and someone had tightened the torsion keys to full lock in order to get enough lift to fit larger off-road tires. They’d tightened the torsion key bolts with an impact, shearing one in the process. My whole goal was to remove the tension off the bar, remove the piece with the sheared bolt, replace with another piece and new bolt. So, the tool had a fair amount of stress on it holding the torsion bar in “full twist”. Still, I didn’t use an impact or cheater bar or anything.
After I dropped the front of the truck to stock ride height, it rode like a Cadillac in comparison. But somewhere out there in the rent a tool program there’s a very large twisted C clamp.
I borrowed a spring compresser fro Advance when I replaced thhe from struts o a Mopar minivan and did not like the quality so after I got it compresser on my work bench ran a heavy chain through the, .secured with a nut and bolt until I got the strut roughly in place.
Keep up the good work everyone, just checked the response and they keep piling in. If you haven’t yet completed the survey feel free to jump in. Remember this isn’t a survey that is looking at harvesting your email. Just a survey from a community member to benefit community members.
Thanks again everyone!!
I think this is a good idea. In general, you could have a free response option for each question labeled “Other” for those that say the options don’t fit. If you find a similar free response answer being given on a question, you can add it as an option.
The comment about getting started before the internet suggests that “how long have you been working on your own car?” might have been a good question to have on there as well.
Finally, for the 6th question, “What is the reason you attempted to complete the repair on your own?”, one of the options is, “Job was too complicated to attempt on my own” - that sounds like it’d be an answer to why you didn’t do the repair yourself?
For myself, I do work on my own vehicles when it’s something I think I can do, same as household repairs. It helps that I have a father-in-law who’s handy and willing to teach me these things (and lend me his tools). I had a problem with the clothes washer last year that I diagnosed as a stuck valve, so I replaced it for $40. I now have a dishwasher with a problem I attempted to diagnose but was inconclusive, so we’re calling a contractor, but at least I gained experience by attempting it.
Good luck on this - I look forward to the results if you post them. This forum, of course, skews more toward DIYers than the general population, I would think.
Thank you for the good ideas, I think you are right about skewing more towards do-it-yourselfers. I didn’t realize it would end up this way.
There have been a ton of people that have taken a look at this thread, I encourage every one to complete the survey. Even if you do not do repairs often, it will give everyone more accurate results.