[Closed] Working on your own car

Yeah. I grew up taking bike engines apart, and later car engines. Taught me an awful lot about how mechanical things work together, mechanical sympathy too. Not sure so many young'uns get to do that sort of stuff, or if that many are arsed anyway.

I paid the local auto electrics place to change my alternator after years of doing things myself.

First they ordered the wrong part, next the spanner slipped and smashed up my header tank.

I think I’ll go back to fixing things myself.

Agree. How do the next generation of mechanical engineers get their interests started!?

Is it though? I watch mighty car mods on YouTube, a couple of guys who have developed there skills along with cars developing. Certainly tackling things I'd have thought untouchable simply because I've not been bothered to try to work it out. Do they represent what the home dabbler is now doing under the bonnet? Is there a load of home mechanics out there who are more familiar with fuel rails than carbs and ECUs than points. For everyone else that had to learn to keep the cars going they are just happy now by and large you can jump in and it'll start and go.

A guy I used to work with asked new apprentices if they ever made models, played with meccano or the likes if it the answers were all no you could see him deflate a bit

I personally think the age of the personal car has passed, and have no real interest in knowing much about them anymore, but if I have any regrets, they would be over the fact that the technological ‘shells’ in which cars are packaged today make them impossible to work on domestically.

Well, I don't think it's passed yet as there's still plenty of areas in the UK where a car is needed as public transport is appalling. And I still love fettling cars. Currently I have a 2006 V50, the Wife has a 2008 Golf. Both are relatively easy to spanner on. Even on brand new cars the metal bits are home fixable, it's only the electronics that are more problematic, but the advent of the manufacturers diagnostics software becoming available means even that's possible (VIDA/DICE and VAGCOM).

The battery light/warning came on my car. No problem thought I, new battery will be £100 tops and ten minutes with the socket set.

Checked online, special battery required for stop/start. And the ECU needs to know it's had a battery change! Arse.

Battery light usually means Alternator has gone, rather than the battery.

Agreed, that’s one of many reasons I like vans. Commercial vehicles still have a high degree of diy-ability.

While I certainly could do so with older (as in pre 1990 or so) cars I'm disinclined to do so and would rather pay someone to do it. I grew up on a farm and would strip down and rebuild some of the smaller engines during winter if they needed it. None of the last three houses I've lived in, so the last thirty years, have had a garage so I've not had anywhere to do it.

Meccano? Best xmas present I ever got! In fact I've just put it up in the loft (original box) after my brother had a clearout at the family home. Also heading up to the loft were my train set and a couple of hundred vinyl LPs.

Edit: curiously I posted on a (mainly US road) forum the other day. The OP was pondering taking his bike back to his LBS because the quicklink on the chain had been installed the wrong way round! I mentioned that it was pretty easy and didn't even need any specialist tools to do it himself.

From talking to a bike mechanic mate, much of his trade is from roadies who don't seem able or willing to do basic mechanical stuff on their bikes. (Irony alert re: my first sentence!)

Checked online, special battery required for stop/start. And the ECU needs to know it’s had a battery change! Arse.

BMW, perchance? So smart it adapts the charging cycles to compensate for the age of the battery but too dumb to detect when a new battery has been fitted.

Dealing with modern cars isn't particularly hard IMO, possibly even easier as long as you have the right tool which is the code reader or VCDS or whatever your car uses. That's pretty important IMO, it resolves most of the mystery around electronic stuff.

I would be lost if I had to set up a carburettor, I have no idea. Other people do, because they've read about it and figured it out. It's the same for a modern car: you need the right tool and you need a basic understanding of canbus and you're off to a good start.

The coding of the replacement battery takes 2 seconds if you have the dongle and access to the internet. At least it does on VAG cars.

Dealing with modern cars isn’t particularly hard IMO

Have you forgotten the months-long saga you treated us to when you were fannying about with your ECU?

I have a man who does it for me.

That's was what prompted me to get the VCDS and work on it myself.

Sure it had complex symptoms but that can also be true of mechanical cars.

Does anyone else feel a sense of loss over the increasing inaccessibility of cars? Anyone see bicycles going the same way (with electronic shifting, etc.)?

The old school hotrodders improved on production cars because the factory spec was quite shit and it didn't take much to make them perform much better. Modern cars are massively better, but it takes a lot of expertise to wring improvements out of them. They are also much more reliable. I don't miss old cars.

I replaced tinkering with cars with tinkering with bikes. I find it much more satisfying. Compared with a carburettor or auto transmission bikes are pretty simple, even fancy suspension forks generally only need some basic tools to service. I doubt that electronic shifting will replace gear cables except for the very high-end. I can see e-bikes being a nightmare to maintain once they get old, but I'm sure a refurbishment industry will develop.

I used to work on all my own cars until had company cars.
Last car of my own I actually worked on was my old TVR.
I have fond memories of having a beetle engine in bits on the conservatory table when I was a student - Mom wasn't too impressed though lol.
Even though I now have my own car I just stick to the easy stuff.
With a family etc. I don't really have the time to do things like brake pads/disks etc.
And even things like alternator belts etc. aren't that easy any more with the amount of panels and stuff you have to take off.

I like the idea of having a more simple weekend car where you can tinker - maybe when the kids leave home lol

It’s still possible to work on modern cars yourself sure some of the tools have changed but the basic principles behind it are basically the same.

I just have a kit car to do spannering on, leave the garage to work on the daily driver.

@richmars what you got?
Keep toying with the idea of a 7 style kit - Westfield or GBS sort of thing.

Yes, Lotus 7 lookalike, but I had a Westfield years ago. Has a Fireblade engine so all a bit frantic, for short periods only.

neilnevill

Agree. How do the next generation of mechanical engineers get their interests started!?

This is a piss take, right?

This is a piss take, right?

Why's that ? I hope my landy last long enough to teach my daughter the basics of the internal combustion engine .

You might find she doesn't give a crap!

Every time my dad worked on the cars I went out to 'help' or just watch, and I asked questions all the time. My daughters aren't in the least bit interested.

Not really sure where many of you are coming from, sure ECUs need software to go with them but buy the right software and it's either relatively cheap or easy to add a new module for a new make. All that's really happened is the OEMs have added an extra layer of faff to put off home users and give more work to their dealers.

As for tuning, there is plenty to be done. Electric motors can be tuned just as much as their IC counterparts, QOL improvements can eke out more range and even my Mondeo has enthusiast updates for the Convers+ software.

She might not be.

I won't push her.

But I hope she gives enough of a shit to care.

After all we must know where we came from to know where to go.

I still do all my own stuff, its more fiddly now as you have to dismantle so much to reach items, and you need to be careful to plug everything back in before starting the car to try and avoid errors that need a code reader to clear. Cars are full of sensors that go wrong but you just replace the sensor, at least most engines will de-rate themselves or go into limp mode before you seize them up 🙂

Nothing better than getting a garage quote, then doing it yourself and spending £100 of the £600 labour saving on some shiny new tools. I don't think I've paid a garage to do anything in the last eight years. I've renewed the suspension and rear beam axle on my wifes Civic, and my 2014 van has just had a new cambelt and fan clutch.

Electric cars are a bit of an unknown to me but then there is a lot less to maintain on those things.

I chose my current car partly because I knew I'd be able to fanny about with it. Not from necessity or anything, I just enjoy it. It's certainly more complicated than my first car or my motorbikes but otoh I can plug in a laptop and mess with most of the ECU settings including engine tune. It's not easier or harder than changing a jet or fitting a woodruff key or whatever, just different.

neilnevill

Member

Agree. How do the next generation of mechanical engineers get their interests started!?

Most of the current crop didn't start out by working on cars tbh. No more than the architectural engineers started out by building a house. Kids tend to start with simpler stuff- lego, fixing bikes, that sort of thing. Plus school of course.

hols2

Member

The old school hotrodders improved on production cars because the factory spec was quite shit and it didn’t take much to make them perform much better. Modern cars are massively better, but it takes a lot of expertise to wring improvements out of them.

Mmm, to some extent... But not entirely, because improvements aren't necessarily a better/worse thing, it's more fitness for your own needs, and the car was built to suit everyone reasonably well. So handling upgrades are often still straightforward. On my last car, engine tuning meant taking out the really soft fluffy low end power that Ford had inflicted on it to make it more mild-mannered for most people's use.

I find modern cars quite easy to work on, I do nearly all the work on ours. ECU's as above are easy with the right software and reader mine cost about £100 and can do just about everything but I do have access to garage with a Snap-on one which cost me £10 last time to reset a counter.
The mechanics are still basically the same just sometimes a little less space to work in.

The amount of stuff jammed into a smaller space is probaly the worst part tbh! That and the number of things. I replaced an ABS pump control module, that was easy though; I also had to replace a door control module (yes, doors have control modules) because the boot kept popping open by itself. It was a piece of cake once I got the door skin off, but in both cases I needed VCDS to re-code it. But that was a cinch, just copy over the old coding.

Getting the door skin off was a pain because all the clips broke, but trim clips that break have been a feature of VW for decades now. Working on the interior of my Prius is so much easier because stuff either bolts on or has actual re-usable clips that pop on and off without breaking.

A possible solution is to get a car that can be specced with a big V6 but go for a smaller engine. My older Passat 1.9 was available in V6 and there was bags of room under the bonnet 🙂

1988 Volvo 740 GLE estate!

A good friend on our road picked up his father's 740 2.0 petrol estate four plus years ago. It was meant to be just to be used to clear his parents house for sale after thier death.
It's still going, refuses to die or even have anything major for it's MOT.
He spanners it all himself. Consumables are daft cheap. He cracked a headlight and managed to get a scrapper repacement as new spares are beginning to get rare.
It's comfy. It's huge. It wafts.

I would happily run a classic like that if I didn't do as many miles.

Is there a load of home mechanics out there who are more familiar with fuel rails than carbs and ECUs than points.

TBH I don’t remember Weber 40 dcoes being the easiest thing to repair.

Still squirt flash bang though just more modern way of doing the same old same.

Turbos are great thou 🙂

I've enjoyed doing a few things on my smart and mini (both 05).

Last time I did much on my own car you needed a glass spark plug to 'tune' the carb. Have things moved on a lot then?

(Looks up VCDS, likes thread)

Battery light usually means Alternator has gone, rather than the battery

Dash display warning, radio cutting out within 30 seconds of turning engine off, quick search pointed to battery on its way out.

BMW, perchance? So smart it adapts the charging cycles to compensate for the age of the battery but too dumb to detect when a new battery has been fitted.

Aye. When I'm buying a car I check service costs, insurance, price of tyres but never thought to check the cost of a battery! £160 as it turns out for an Exide one the same as OE spec

TBH I don’t remember Weber 40 dcoes being the easiest thing to repair.

I've concluded that anyone that says they miss old cars you can maintain at home has never actually done it.

Ive got a set of twin SU 1.1/4 on the workbench waiting for a rebuild, they'd done 18,000 miles. My other car has done 138,000 miles, and the closest similar job its needed was replacing the air filter.

Points? Yup you need to set them with a feeler gauge about as often as a modern diesel needs a tank full.

Spark plugs, old car, yearly, new car 36,000 miles and they still look like new (there's a suspicious new set in the garrage which makes me think i didn't bother to swap then 4 years ago)

Yep course they haven't

I find I'm under the bonnet of my 80s car more often but for much more trivial things.

Top up fluids , set the belt tension ,Set the tappets (with an 8mm spanner and a feeler gauge) , change the master cylinder seals.

Last time i went under our 2004 cars bonnet I had the camshaft out to adjust the tappets .......

I’ve concluded that anyone that says they miss old cars you can maintain at home has never actually done it.

Huh? I did all my own work on my Volvo, as well as driving an ‘81 Mini as a rolling restoration for a couple of years. That doesn’t include the work I did with others on my previous cars.

I only stopped when I moved to my current house, and, with no garage or enough storage, got rid of my ramps and all my tools.

It also depends on the make of car - some like my Transit are clearly CAD designed and to be quick to build on a production line, subsequently they are a pain to work on and I hate it. Others like my Volvo were clearly designed with thought about further down the line and how people would work and repair it - it's an absolute joy to work on.

trail_rat

This is a piss take, right?

Why’s that ? I hope my landy last long enough to teach my daughter the basics of the internal combustion engine .

I wrote that because I'm a mechanical engineer. I studied mech eng with aeronautics at Brunel and have had a career in engineering since 2000. I have worked in food manufacture, plastic injection moulding, digital inkjet and currently the semi-conductor industry.

But, since I was about 16 virtually every time the subject of mechanical engineering is mentioned, people say 'oh, you're a mechanic, then?' or 'you'll know how to fix my such-and-such' car....

Don't get me wrong, cars are great. Fixing cars is great, taking cars apart and seeing how they work is great. But mechanical engineering isn't cars alone, which a massive swave of the population seem to think it is.

You can be a mechanical engineer without ever having dicked around with a car. I don't really like working on cars, personally. If I had a weekend project, then it would be different. But my car is a tool for transporting me and my family around in and I'd rather hand it over to the local garage to sort out (great bunch of very clever blokes), rather than do it myself.

You can be a mechanical engineer without ever having dicked around with a car. I don’t really like working on cars, personally

True, you can. I never trust an engineer who doesn't like to mess about with old cars though 😉 At the mech eng end of things, in my experience there is a solid correlation between practical-mindedness and a love of taking old cars to bits.

But to answer the earlier question

How do the next generation of mechanical engineers get their interests started!?

I still muck about with all my vehicles: i find it really therapeutic. A lot of manufacturers hide things away under fancy covers. They’re just there to get the average person to sod off and buy garage time. Underneath they still follow the basic principles. Diesels can be a pita as things get clogged up and they’re ruinously complex to get past emissions legislation. It’s a miracle they’re so reliable really.

I managed to source a technical manual for the Giulia recently. Proper fascinating reading for me. Most I’ll touch on it though will be the brakes I reckon. I might do an oil change after a track day.

As molgrips says if you’ve got some decent software you can diagnose & fix most things pretty easily. It’s there to save garages time, so can obviously make it easier to the end user too. Great tool for the second hand buyer - I went to look at a second hand panda for a mate recently. All was fine until I asked to plug a diagnostics unit in. Salesman turned nasty shut the car up and told us to go away! Glad we didn’t buy that one.