Mechanics tend to have a bad reputation no matter where you go...

>dexterity of crippled armless ape
>strength of -100 men
>don't trust anyone else working on car

what do I do

This, but also
this. It's getting pretty hilarious how helpless people are getting. The stupid part is that I'm a stereotypical "nerd" (I work in IT, I was a skinny basement-dweller throughout school, etc), but now I seem to be more competent than all the jocks I went to school with. Plumbing, electrical, mechanics, metalworking, you name it. And those jocks... they work their trade job, go home, watch tv, rinse and repeat, then wonder why they're not cool anymore.

I work 6-18, still have plenty of time and energy, what the fuck is your excuse? Sitting by a desk gave you gut so now you can't fit under a car?

Go to the gym.

This. Nothing pisses me off more than people who work, then go home and play vidya/watch tv, then complain they "don't know how" to do stuff. Do you people seriously have no drive, no motivation to do shit? Go buy a $500 shitbox on CL, watch youtube videos on how to do maintenance/upgrades, repeat until you get good.

Yeah, with Google and youtube there's no excuse why you can't try to do shit yourself

10/10
we live in times where anyone with a fucking smartphone has access to a database with ~95% of the collective human knowledge
"don't know how" is not an answer anymore

also
who /diy/ here?

>parents car needs oil change
>offer to do it for them because why not just need jacks lmao
>they say nty I won't have a clue what I'm doing
>hm ok
>father takes it to some garage normie car place
>waits 3 hours
>pays $70 or $80
>comes back
>ask him what oil they put in
>"idk"
>few days later check the engine bay because engine bays are cute
>fresh wet oil spilled over half the block
>spilled on wiring and other parts and lines and shit

Why

>be good at something
>fuccboi millenials cry about paying for labor
>"b-b-but the part was only $50!"
I guess when youre an autistic NEET you don't understand the concept of working for a living

Posted on a Chinese cartoon forum

Says the guy who wastes all his fucking time on cars and
>doesn't exercise
>didn't build his own desktop
>doesn't have a VPN or home server
>goes out to eat regularly instead of cooking at home
"B-b-but my corolla requires all my free time!"
Maybe you should buy a better car lol

kuso thread

Not making an excuse as I don't have to deal with this anymore but just in case you are all still wondering why people in the post internet age can't learn things even though they want to, it's 99 out of 100 times due to shitty family or relationships filling them up with fear or fud about how the second they open anything, they will break it 100% beyond repair. This is the permavirgin foreveralone in me speaking but I know a couple of guys that before they were married, were the typical Veeky Forums tier mechanics, always had a project car etc and now that they're married... They have been brainwashed and repeat verbatim what she said about how he'll fuck up their car... EVEN THOUGH HE HAS WORKED ON HIS OLD CAR AND FIXED IT PERFECT. Shitty families and marriages will always be anti-intellectual, no matter how easy the information is. Just saying. Some people are just fucking lazy but I f they're not, and you are wondering why, that's typically the reason

>ask him what oil they put in
>"idk"
which means they filled it with the cheapest cooking oil possible
thats why it baffles me that few people do it themselfs
not only its piss easy, many garages also try to fuck you over on it

at least your parents should have learned their lesson

Find the guy who everyone at the race track knows and respects. His shop will be full of race cars and exotic sports cars. And he'll have a fleet of tuned miatas with stupidly beefy clutches to loan out while working on your shit.

In my area it's roughly the same price only they Rey to sell you a service where they top off your brake fluid and window washing fluid and etc etc for way more than it should be.

Also you don't need to deal with the leftover used oil. I still do it myself though since I have heard stories of people fucking up a simple oil change.

One of my friends got an oil change, they flushed out the old oil and forgot to put new oil in

lol neckbeard no car gets mad

>He doesn't fill his engine with the finest grade virgin olive oil
>His engine will never know the feeling of feasting on virgin olives

LMAOing@urlifeRN

I work on my cars as well as my computers

I only take it to a mechanic for "big" fixes which is rare. Do all the servicing and minor shit myself. How can you even bring yourself to talk shit when you're posting from an ancient shitbox of a PC?

My desktop costs more than your shitty little car bro excluding peripherals

None of those things except exercise take any appreciable amount of time. I have never owned any desktop computer I didn't build myself, I cook every day, I lift, and I still have plenty of time to fuck around in the garage.

>Posted on a Chinese cartoon forum
that also has a /diy/ board

Im not that above user but there are people on Veeky Forums that make some serious cool stuff

Goddam I want to wrench my cars so bad, can't wait to own a house with a garage.

I don't trust any shops anymore. None of them give a fuck about your car.

>took car in for 2 rear wheel bearings and oil change
>specifically requested multiple times the check all fluid levels as coolant was low
>$500 later pickup car, check under hood later that day
>coolant is so low there is almost none in reservoir, brake oil is way below lowest level
>job well done

Seriously you are changing the oil, how do you not at least glance around the engine and notice other fluids are low? They just don't fucking care.

When I was in apartments I just did it in my parking space. Just be cool about it, put down cardboard, and never leave things out overnight or when you're gone.

>setting up and maintaining a web server takes no appreciable amount of time
Clearly you have never been go /g/
Building a desktop is easy but hardly anyone does it, then they go spend $800 on a $500 PC just because they were too lazy to watch a youtube video and assemble it themselves.

Same idea with changing your oil

Find a new mechanic who isn't a piece of shit. My tire guy is cool. Oh yeah tires are another thing I don't do myself, as they require special tools to put on (properly without nigging them on with a hairspray can and kitchen lighter)

>$800 on a $500 PC
$1200 on a $500 PC**

It's pathetic, really.

Shop manuals are pretty good too

you have to find the slightly autistic ones that actually love fixing cars.

Like this guy.

Ive gone to 2 mechanics i trust; one was the ones my parents have gone to for years (we had a shit box jeep that was constantly shitting the bed), and now i go to the local mechanic who specializes in old farm trucks. He shoots straight forward and actually tells me just to do some stuff at home.

But stealership story time

>Parents bring in 00 frontier in for A/C repair
>2 days later they call us up with the "fixed" A/C and a list
-Major leak in head gasket
-Cabin filter needs to be replaced
-All belts are shot
>They actually fight us on letting us take the truck home, saying they cant release it unless the repairs are made because its unsafe.
>We take the truck home and inspect the list of "problems."
-was just some spilled oil
-dont have one
-we replaced them last month.

>After all that, A/C shit itself the week later.

Personally I've found that if a mechanic is on the up and up, they won't mind if you ask to come out in the bay and see what they're doing. If they're sketchy they don't want you to see what they may or may not be doing.
My mechanic usually invites me out to the bays to see how the projects are going and bullshit while they work.

>One of my friends got an oil change, they flushed out the old oil and forgot to put new oil in
Ive seen cases where they didn't tighten the oil drain plug properly but forgetting to refill it is almost an absurd level of incompetence

>implying I'm not using Ortice Riserva Extra Vergine oil for Italian cars
>implying I'm not using Takao Nouen no Olive Hatake for Japanese cars
do you even into cars?

Further to this I had the shop quote me on replacing both front struts and rear shocks. They wanted over 1k.

The wife and I are heading up to Canada next month and know a mechanic who is a family friend. His garage is damn near the size of his house and he has a commercial car lift in it. I asked him to do the struts and shocks, plus a outer tie rod, plus a front wheel bearing, he said sure for $260 maple dollars. I'm buying all the parts for $300 US.

Part of the reason I don't do everything myself is because of the way the economy works. If everyone starts doing everything themselves, then the people who used to be paid to do that stuff for you suddenly don't have jobs. That would suck.

Not only that but it's just easier to rely on somebody who's been doing it forever. People don't need to know how to do everything and anything, user.

The only thing that bothers me is when people who don't know a whole lot about what they need fixed - a car, a computer, etc. - try to argue with the guy who's doing the work to fix it.

Wow dude can I be as cool as you

I make decent money being an office jockey and really can't be arsed to do more work when I get home. If the benefit of doing my own maintenance isn't economically worth greater than or equal to what I make at my job, I'd rather just pay someone else to do it.

Goofing off is it's own reward.

HAHAHA, please! You're serious? I'm a communication engineer, basically deal with computers and servers all the time, I still have plenty of spare time whilst doing a 9-5 job and dealing with two households, two cars and a mbike, sounds like you're just another lazy motherfucker spending all his free time administrating his anime-server and posting to /OSG/-threads with your "tuning-stickers" while you pretend on the internet that you "work" on your lowered shitbox civic that you have in your moms name and insurance, you pathetic cuck.

>I still have plenty of spare time whilst doing a 9-5 job and dealing with two households, two cars and a mbike

bs

Those kinds of mechanics are pretty rare, though I do know one personally who goes out his way to spend as little as possible, leading to worthless hackjobs. Most of the bad mechanics I know of are victims of the Dunning Kruger Effect.

I went to a lithuanian shop on my dad's recommendation, they turned out to be bretty gud, undercharged for my clutch job and let me bring in my own parts. Meanwhile the mazda stealership is a bunch of shits, those cunts lost my license plate on an oil change and tried to charge $140 for a diagnostics scan

Fellow /g/uru here. It is NOT the same to get a prebuilt, each part you buy has its own warranty, paradoxically never used because the parts are exceptional. Prebuilts die after 3-5 years and built workstations are retired after 10+ years. You can also buy business class workstations from OEMS for $2-3K but by building it yourself you're getting the same exact shit for $600-800. Only reason why you would not do this is if you are a business and need support for them on a huge level, it will be hard for you to maintain 500 of them. But if it's just yourself, or a 5 man office or less, building a workstation is by far the better option

>Why the fuck do they do this shit?
To make money.
> How do you find a reliable and honest car mechanic?
Reputation. Ask around.
> And how can you tell they meet those qualities?
Reputation.
Quality of cars in their shop. I live in a relatively rich area, so my Friendly Local Mechanics work on aston martins, ferraris, and old Mercs as well as the usual crop of econoboxes.
Content of their yard. If there's not at least one gutted van in it, they aren't worth it. It's also where they park their own cars.
Do they answer the phone themselves? Anywhere with a receptionist is tacking her salary and maternity pay onto your costs. My local mechanics usually don't answer the phone for minutes on end.

God damn!
Spending over $500 for a custom-built computer to browse a Chinese cartoon web board to brag about over spending on computers and peripherals
Fucking kek
I'm browsing on a Dell I bought for $45 with a pirated copy of Win7 Pro and up to date antivirus

Keep helping the economy plebs

God damn!
Spending over $5000 for a custom-built turbo so you can rev your engine at red lights to brag about sikk burnouts you did while driving to pick up your little brother from school
Fucking kek
I'm browsing in a civic I bought for $3,000 with brand new tires and up to date service history

Keep helping the economy plebs

b-but it's WATERCOOLED

it MUST be worth what I paid!

>Nothing pisses me off more than people who work, then go home and play vidya/watch tv
>Do you people seriously have no drive, no motivation to do shit?
Not everyone flips burgers for 6 hours 4 days a week, having his mom cook and clean and do his laundry and shit. Some of us work nine, ten hours a day to make good money to pay others doing some of our shit for us. It's not a matter of drive or motivation, it's a matter of being forced to outsource work. You enjoy working on your car to relax, others work out, cook or watch Top Gear on TV. Life is full of compromises, you have no right to judge others for making different choices.

Meh. You can't save that much money by doing it yourself. Maybe like 20-30% but not like 4-5x factor. Also just because you built it yourself doesn't make it any more durable. Parts still fail.

Fug mang, inspirational

I'm a mechanic since I was 14 yo. I have my own bussiness now, I must be the most stupid motherfucker ever, since I never cheated any of my costumers. But it doesn't matter, because you find all kind of faggots that use google for ten minutes and decide you just don't know how to do your work or are trying to steal their money.

Seriusly, this job kills you if like me you have som kind of empathy. Some poor guy comes with a problem in his car and you know he needs it, so you breaks your bones trying to make it fast and cheap and by the end he thinks it's too much and never comes back. I know others that don't give a fuck, but that's just not who I am.

You know there's a tool to measure brake thickness right? BMW tech here and it's literally like a pen you stick in a small slot in the brake pad. Tells the thickness. I can check all four brakes in a matter of seconds.

Amen brotha

Well, you were the guy who brought a car in because he couldn't tell a wheel was loose.

Agreed.
>parents wants me to go to the Lexus dealership to change the air filter
>they quote me around ~120 dollars for engine + cabin air filter
>I youtube videos on how to do it
>buy the parts
>did it myself
>spent only 40 bucks

Sometimes, I think I should just open a small air filter installation shop and charge them only 20 bux.

I do service work on hvac systems and I feel you there. It sucks when you have to stick someone with an expensive repair when you know they can't really afford it.
I try to hp them out by showing them how to do some basic stuff or where to buy some materials so they don't get clobbered by markup.

Poorfags gonna poor m8
I do most of my own, work but sill use shops for bigger stuff I just don't feel like fucking with

text message then? At least theyll have the time to answer when they can.

>didn't build his own desktop
literally anyone that can work on a car can build a desktop, I learned how to by myself when I was 14

>Plumbing
Holy shit this. I worked as a plumbing assistant for a while and this lady paid us near $80 just to stare at her toilet for 30 seconds and recrimp the flapper chain.

damn I should learn plumbing, I used to get money for doing shit like installing an antivirus or wiping a hard drive, but this sounds even better.

>Be a few years ago.
>Be 16.
>Have Volvo 240.
>Master cylinder is on its way out.
>Take to trusted mechanic.
>He says needs new pads/rotors turned.
>No biggie, but new pads don't agree with the car, car doesn't stop well at all now.
>Mechanic shrugs.
>Take to Volvo dealer.
>Volvo dealer says everything is fucked, and it needs $1600 of work, including brake reduction valves that aren't known to fail.
>Take to another bro mechanic, he puts different pads on, car stops on a dime again.
>mfw car still drives and stops years later, and the brake system obviously isn't in need of any work.

FUCKING STEALERSHIPS

Fix my car user,
you can have my money.

It's because, at least in my experience, dealership techs are told not to troubleshoot. If something is bad, just fucking replace the whole system

I work 12 hour days with a 24 hour duty day every 4th day including weekends and I still have time to wrench on my car, go camping, fishing, shooting, work out and eat out 3 times a week. get under your car and learn some life skills. people like you are the 30 year old man I saw watching a state trooper change his tire for him yesterday.

Seriously, sometimes, like today, I almost feel like I'm better when my workshop is empty, even when I don't have money to pay my debts. I should be happy with all the cars I have to fix, but every one of them is a fucking pain in the ass, and I don't even make real money out of it, because you have to cut your benefit if you want people to come back.

Just think about this, I have some real good clients, guys that never left me and trust every word I say, pay without saying a word and leave my house with a smile. Am I supposed to charge them more, or make them a smaller discount than the idiot that comes with a hundred of different estimations from every other mechanic in town? Cause I can't do it.

Between parts markup and your usual unreasonable hourly rate (i have heard anything from $50-$120 per hour) how are you NOT rolling in the money?

Where does all your money go? Tools? Space/shop rental? Electricity to run the shop?

I will grant you some items probably make you absolutely no money (oil change). But the average person walking in for repairs is looking at spending $100-$400 easy. And most basic repairs can be done do retardidly fast with the right tools these days.

I'm genuinely curious.

>Between parts markup
wich in part goes to the costumer
>and your usual unreasonable hourly rate
25€
>Where does all your money go?
Debts. I have the biggest and most prepared workshop in the city, I had 15 people working here, now we are just three. This country went literally to shit with the financial crisis, and took us in the worst situation possible, with a huge investment just finished.

>The free market economy literally fixes everyting

Nice comeback shit for brains!
I wouldn't get caught dead in a Honda, much less spend that kind of money on shit cars.
Try again, this time come up with an original retort.

>Master cylinder
For a moment I was wondering if your car had a radial engine, then remembered that's also for brakes.

Landline. You've either got to keep calling until someone hears it ringing, or drop by in person.
They do great work, though, and it's a proper garage. Rusting oil drums, gutted vehicles sat around in the unpaved yard, customised vehicles around, and fancy expensive cars up on the lifts being worked on next to Mrs Partridge's 15 year old Fiesta that she hasn't replaced 'because it still goes, doesn't it?'.

I don't think I'd trust anyone else with my shit. I don't trust corporate chains, but someone who trades on their reputation without a need to advertise other than word of mouth is just great.

>unreasonable hourly rate
> For years of experience
> For getting in amongst sharp edges and fragile plastic things
> For owning all the specialist equipment and knowing how to use it
Considering the pain I went through just changing my own oil to save money, I think they're worth it for anything that needs lots of work. I'm only servicing and washing the car myself because I want to learn how.

Jeebus from a crew of 15 to 3 is rough. Didn't realize the UK economy was in the shits that much.

Investment/expansion is risky in any business. Hope you can ride it through and when things get better you can grow your business again at a sustainable rate.

Building desktops is literally playing with legos for neckbeards. And cooking is not a skill. You're a cuck faggot.

Yup. Flat rate does that. I mean, if you can convince them to trouble shoot, they'll charge you hourly, but if they can beat the time on the flat rate paper they're getting paid way more.

>beautiful day out today
>decide to do my brakes
>do my little ritual before I work on my car (gather tools and organize)
>go to pop the wheel off
>tire iron won't budge
>jump on it
>still won't budge
Whoever the previous owner brought it to decided to have the incredible fucking hulk torque the wheels on. Same with the oil drain plug. Fuck those lazy cunts I hope their Chinese jacks fail and crush them to death

So go buy 30k worth of tools and do it yourself.

>Wow, $50 an hour to drywall my house hm seems legit
>Wow, $20 an hour to fix my car, what a ripoff fuck you dude xddd

normie logic

I literally can't afford to work on my own car
i don't think you people realize what a privilege you guys have

Tbh I paid more than that in oil alone for my last oil change (did it myself ofc)... Did I get jew'd?

it recent years it has become illegal to do any work yourself
you would be surprised how much law has be put into place with regards to non professorial liability

.ie ford or who ever is too shit scared of some retard suing them over a his hack job on repair

All car mechanical jobs are literally plug and play.
The parts are designed and machined to fit and fucking bolt together with standardised fixings.

It is very easy to do any mechanical work on a car because all the actual work is done by the engineers.

get under a car and do it yourself for a living

Not everything just fits together like legos and you have to shit cars out quickly to make any money. you can be standing there googling shit all day.

and the architect and the engineer do all the work on a building too you dunce. laborers just do what the foreman/contractor tells them to do

did you think jose hernandez spackling your wall has any fucking clue about building codes or structural load design.

>electrician shows up to plug and play your water heater for $200/hr nbd
>guy rebuilds my transmission for $800 labor and it's a fucking travesty.

should have learned trade instead of art history, gay boy.

well yea but professionals are very busy and don't really have a motivation to take time or do a Thorough job
or really even have the time to get to know the customer and what they need as oppose to what they expect

and what is so hard about changing oil and other consumables that it requires a seasoned expert
stupid little general jobs are clogging up too many specialists

same in the medical field where people qualifiedly to administer most any drug are more often handing out band aids and splints

These excuses keep getting better and better every day, how do you faggots come up with these?

Sounds like the first oil change I did.

I got caught by a sudden gust of wind when pouring the oil, and it went fucking EVERYWHERE. Heater stank of burning oil after.

This.
I guarantee you that after two hours on your back in cramped conditions trying to turn something, you'll see why they charge so much to do it.

That I'm literally too poor to do it myself?
Why are you people pretending its not expensive as fuck

How does taking it to some greasy nigger in an oilpit become less expensive?

>all the equipment and ingredients I'd need
way too much, I just cant afford it

Literally a tire-iron, socket and a low bucket to drain into can be had for 5$, if you're that poor you shouldn't be able to even drive a car. You're just making up excuses.

Im not talking about doing oil m8

besides
i dont know where to get that stuff
i dont know which one is the good one
i dont know where on my car i use that stuff

So you're a retard who doesn't know how to use google, how to solve simple problems and is literally on the level of a woman or a nine year old. Good job mate, give yourself a pat on the back. I guess you have some sort of an aid who comes and makes you food and wipes your ass also?

You're literally this

K
I don't know user, I'm sorry my ignorance and poverty offends you so much.

Jesus christ how fucking stupid are you? All thoses questions can be found on google. Unless your illiterate or just mentally challenged there's no reason you couldn't do it yourself.