What maintainance do you do yourself

[Tom]

Just wondering how much work people do on their own cars, besides cleaning them and filling the water bottle

Personally I get a mate to do the tricky stuff, hes been showing me how to do various jobs so the next time they need doing I can have a go myself. I've done a few things like fixing the headlamp mechs, repairing the gearbox selector unit, fixing a foglamp wiring, oil change, fuel filters, air filter etc.

 

[Dommers]

Completely off topic but..tom get back on msn and tell me about your ram ive finished my CS match.

 

[Gumbo]

I've been tinkering with cars for 14 years now. I owned a Mini as my second car, and there wasn't a bolt on it that wasn't turned (or sheared off) in the time I owned it, it taught me a lot.

There's some jobs I would leave to a garage, but this diminishes as time goes on. Luckily I am in the trade so know plenty of garages who will work for nothing/beer.

For instance, last week I needed to change a front wheel bearing on the Liz. Took me an hour to strip the hub off, I popped into Norwich to a garage I supply, where The owner pushed the old bearing out, then pressed the new one in. Cost me nothing, I'll just do him some good prices for a bit. Then back home and an hour to put the car back together. Cost me 25 quid for the bearing, would have been £200 to get the dealer to replace it.

If I didn't do this sort of job myself I wouldn't be able to afford the car. Plus it's very satisfying to do it.

I basically do everything I can with the tools that I have. I'll be buying a press at some point, as it would be damn handy, but just a little too much to justify when I can get people to do my pressing for me

 

[old.user4556]

I will:

Change discs and pads myself (loads of guides for a 3 series).

Grease the wheel hubs and wheel bolts.

Change the oil inbetween the official garage times (every 7k miles instead of 15k miles)

Change the air/pollen filter(s) myself.

I would also have a go at changing shocks/springs.

Having a modern turbo diesel, there are lots of parts that I don't have the guts to check/change or have the tool to check the ECU for faults. So that'll be left to an independent BMW specialist to do - fuck paying Eastern BMW's (Edinburgh) £100 per hour labour charges!

 

[Bodhi]

I just drive til something breaks, then get the AA to fix it.

 

[xane]

besides cleaning them and filling the water bottle

I try to avoid even doing those. I just mine serviced and they filled up the screen cleaner for me

After an experience with a couple of relatively new (ex-demo) cars, I will probably continue changing the car before it gets out of warranty, so I assume any tinkering I do myself is going to void it.

Saying that, I did think about getting into car modifications after I managed to install a GPS bracket using the sucker on the windscreen.

 

[Tom]

Well the other day me and a mate changed the ATF on my car. Normally that would cost about £300-£400 at a dealer, it cost us £70 in parts

 

[Meatballs]

I need a mate to help me, if I could I'd do it all, but would be worried that I've not done it right half the time... I took my car to the dealers first time I needed something, rip-off and shit service - I have to go back for a new key encoded, but apart from stuff like that I'll avoid it if possible!