A common theme when trying to save money is "do it yourself," but many car owners are hesitant to take that advice and attempt basic maintenance and repairs on their vehicles.
To a degree, those fears are legitimate, because vehicles are more complicated than they used to be. But many repairs and maintenance tasks are easy enough to complete, even for those without many tools or skills.
You could save significant money if you did.
And saving money is only one advantage; you could save time too. Think about the hassle involved with scheduling an auto-repair appointment, driving to the shop and dropping off the vehicle or waiting for the repair.
"It takes a chunk of your day to deliver the vehicle to someone else," said Tracey Virtue, director of operations strategy for AutoMD.com, an auto-repair instruction site owned by U.S. Auto Parts Network.
Some repairs could be done in a half-hour or less in your own driveway whenever it's convenient for you.
"There's a lot you can do that's easy," Virtue said. "And how-to guides are so much more available."
That time and money saved might also help some car owners to stop ignoring maintenance or a repair, a habit that can lead to bigger expenses later. "It will domino," said Pam Oakes, an ASE-certified technician in Fort Myers, Fla., and author of the book "Car Care for the Clueless." "If you didn't repair a $10 coolant leak, it could turn into a $1,000 head-gasket job."
Here are a few maintenance and repair jobs you might want to try yourself — even if you're not handy — along with a few resources.
Replace engine air filter. The filter is easy to find under the hood and easy to replace, usually just requiring removal of a few screws from the filter box and swapping in a clean, $15 or $20 filter for an old, dirty one.
That cost compares with possibly $50 or more if you have a repair shop do it, Virtue said.
"That's going to keep the oxygen going into your engine cleaner and keeps the dust particles out," she said. "It just helps the engine run better and prevents wear and tear on different components."
See your owner's manual for how frequently to change the air filter, typically every 15,000 miles.
Wiper blades. Instructions for replacing blades are often on the package. "It's really easy and cheap to do it yourself," Virtue said. You might save about $10 each time.
And keeping the blades clean will make them last longer, said Oakes, who suggests cleaning rubber blades with paper towels and a kitchen cleaner that has lemon in it.
Light bulbs. Headlights, brake lights, taillights and turn signals all have bulbs that might occasionally need to be replaced. They are generally easy to access and require just turning a bulb with your hand to remove and replace it. Again, a shop will likely charge for time and mark up the price of the bulb. The expensive, high-intensity headlight lamps should be replaced by a professional, Oakes said.
Fuses. If something electrical suddenly stops working on the interior of the car, such as the dome light or dashboard lights, there's a decent chance it's a blown fuse, which is easy to replace. In your car's fuse box is often a spare fuse, Virtue said. Replace fuses one at a time, by pulling one out and pushing in the spare fuse, to see if the problem is rectified.
Savings come from skipping the diagnostic fee at a repair shop, which might run $50 or $100, and your cost is nothing but 10 or 15 minutes of troubleshooting fuses, Virtue said. However, Oakes' general advice is not to mess with anything related to electrical systems.
Headlight cleaning. Older cars can develop a haze over the headlights, which can be a safety hazard because it can reduce the driver's ability to see and make the driver's car more difficult to be seen by others.
Do-it-yourself headlight restoration kits are relatively inexpensive and work well, Oakes said. That might cost about $15 or $20, compared with $50 or $75 at a shop.
