In short, on the upper end it was $4k at the shop vs $2k by myself. The car itself is only worth $500 at this point, so maybe this is the last time I do any more repairs on the car.
So I own a 1999 corolla. It's a hunk of junk but I've been keeping it alive for a decade now. It has yet to develop a truly unfixable problem. It's all been either routine stuff that goes bad since its hitting 240k miles, or salt damage from new england winters. Once it dies, I'm definitely getting another corolla/camry. Not only because I think they're reliable, but since I've developed so much specific knowledge of this type of car I'd be a fool not to continue to leverage it in the future.
Anyways, one of the brake lines started leaking and it made it worthwhile to get to a lot of other random repairs that I had been putting off. So out of curiousity, this last batch of fairly major repairs I put into a spreadsheet. I know working on my car is super cheap from a cash paid perspective, but obviously I spend TONS of time doing it, so I thought it'd be cool taking the opportunity cost into account too.
So I used a site repairpal to get estimates of the jobs, with highs and lows. I have no idea how legit these estimates are, and they may be higher since getting multiple jobs done saves time with the same steps overlapping while the site probably is assuming a la carte.
Anyways, I also combine the cost of the parts that I actually paid with my estimate of time taken for a high cost. It's also important to notice that you're paying for repairs in post-tax dollars, therefore you also have to put in post-tax real hourly wages. And then my guess what it would take if I had to do it again (for a low cost). Since most of my time is taken up by research and just being stumped when things don't go the right way. Then I get a total cost for myself.
One thing I noticed with doing repairs on an old car is that it actually levels with you. IE even though you've amassed knowledge and tools, the things that break become more obscure and/or they are way harder due to more and more rust accumulating. It's extremely frustrating to know that the last time something took 1 hour, and this time you're bogged down with more and more specialized tools, torches, cutting etc... and are now 5 hours in trying to solve the puzzle.
One last thing I want to mention is that these repairs I would say are fairly advanced, and I do not recommend people to attempt all repairs like I do. Over time I found it more and more fun to do repairs. I put on a show in the background and I don't even realize the hours going by. But you're not saving money if you're miserable and increasing the chance of hurting yourself. The other thing is I'm not taking into account the accumulation of tools I've bought over the years. But those have lifetime warranties and I hope to use them for a long long time.
Some rando tips:
- buy a boring popular car (camrys, civics, focus etc) - parts are cheaper (by as much as 3-5x), guides/youtube videos more plentiful, and these cars are more reliable
- don't buy too old of a car. Rust makes everything 3x harder.
- use rockauto and ebay for parts - rockauto always has a 5% off coupon. find on retailmenot. I've never seen a difference between the economy class of parts vs premium/ performance.
- harbor freight for tools - there's always a 20% coupon you can use once a day, and tons of random coupons that I make use of. There's also freebies like zip ties, head lamps, magnetic parts holders that actually come in handy. People shit on HF tools, but for the majority of their stuff, they are fine for self car repair. And most of the stuff has lifetime warranties. Don't buy the important big ticket stuff here like drills, impact wrenches, etc.
- autozone, advanced auto parts - rent major specialty tools here. The quality is complete shit but most simple stuff will be fine.
- must have tools for rust - benzomatic yellow MAP torch ($30), makita wireless impact wrench ($175 used $225 new). impact sockets ($50). angle grinder ($25). Antiseize and grease to keep things from rusting ($10).
- I've never come across a situation where the shop cost was less than the parts + tools cost. Not even close. So I have tons of tools now :)
- Things I think aren't worth doing - wheel balancing & alignment, mounting tires, clutch, oil changes
- when in doubt ask r/AskMechanics
June 20, 2018 at 07:37PM
