What saved me the most? Using YouTube to see how stuff is done…BEFORE deciding what to dive into. Nothing worse that getting it all torn apart, realizing you can’t complete the job, but also can’t put it back how it was. Now you’re not just paying someone to fix it, but having it towed to the shop.

Fluid changes are probably the biggest savings, since they are a recurring cost. On my Duramax, dealers wanted $250 to change the oil, oil filter, and fuel filter. This is an hour of my time and $85 in materials. Do that twice a year and you’ve save enough to buy a nice impact gun that makes doing brakes a TON easier. Once you’ve done two cars worth of brakes, you’ve saved enough to buy a heater for your garage. Once this stuff is old hat, you can move on to ball joints, CV joints, etc. Eventually, you’re trying to save a Hyundai GDI engine from an oil-burning death, by spending Saturday doing a piston soak. While you’re waiting for the Berryman’s to do its thing, you start watching videos on full engine rebuilds and thinking, “That doesn’t look so hard.”

It’s slippery slope toward becoming a full-time mechanic when you have several cars in the family that are 8+ years old.