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Any tips on embarking on basic servicing without garage facilities/expensive tools/and more than base mechanical knowledge? I'd love to get started but have distant but disturbing memeories of attempting this when younger. Oil on the drive, skinned knuckles etc are things that have reluctantly pushed a basic service the way of the local garage. Is there a duffers website somewhere?
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Depends on what make and model of vehicle you're intending to work on...
rg
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Basic 1.0l VW Polo. I've sort of committed myself to this, as on a booze cruise to France before Xmas I bought ten litres of semi synthetic oil on impulse for a tenner. It was such a bargain, just two aisles down from the cases of Stella. Can't drink the oil, though.
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the first thing that i would do is get a haynes manual, if you dont want to pay the £15 for a new one, try looking on the internet auctions.
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Tom,
I think its unlikely that many garages bother with this.
However there is one exception I know of. When my wife had her Maestro Turbo diesel new in 1993 there was a mandatory oil change at 1000 miles.
This was done by the local Rover dealer. I knew that Perkins specified that the engine be turned over on the starter with the fuel solenoid disconnected, to enable oil to reach the turbo and the oil pressure lamp to go out. I was watching the mechanic and sure enough he did this and said why he had done so without my asking. On its next oil change which I did myself I did the same thing myself but it took a lot of churning on the starter before the lamp went out. Next time I saw Steve the mechanic I asked why it had taken so long. Of course what I hadn't noted was that when he did it he had filled the oil filter before fitting.!! Mind you this chap had a very high reputation in town and I couldn't imagine the quick fit oil change men bothering.
Alvin
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Agreed (first time ever? LAS), and I've found a couple of Haynes manuals in car-boot sales. They are pretty hot on safety issues and they all have a section on general DIY stuff at the front.
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This is a difficult question to answer. Cars are getting more complex but basic servicing is, I think, getting easier and most of it can be tackled at home without problem.
My early experiences took place with my first car, a 1937 Morris 8 costing 15 pounds! One thing that appealed to me was that it had been fitted with 'Easy-clean' wheels in place of the original spoked wheels! I bought this car just before MOT testing came in (October 1960, I think). Though the early MOT was not anywhere as strict as it is now, the Morris failed on almost everything. There were several inches free play at the rim of the steering wheel, the brakes were almost non-existent and the suspension leaf-spring shackles barely connected the springs to the body.
I couldn't afford to pay anyone to repair the Morris so I started out on a steep D-I-Y learning curve. Some things went well, others were minor disasters, but I was learning all the time and I made a point of buying tools with the money I was saving. I didn't have the benefit of Haynes manuals of course - it was all 'suck it and see'.
These days there is a lot more traffic on the roads and it is all moving very much faster, so 'suck and see' is to be avoided on anything safety-related, like braking systems. However, armed with a manual, some basic tools, a bit of common sense and, hopefully, a mechanically-minded friend (like this forum!) to advise on occasion, I don't see any reason not to tackle servicing at home. Apart from the cost savings, there's a huge satisfaction in doing the job yourself. Also, you have the benefit of knowing exactly what has been done and what hasn't.
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The oil change is easy enough, make sure you don't overfill and beware of cheap filters that may not retain the oil after you switch off.
One thing I am curious about re oil changes. I used to always worry about the 20 seconds or so that the oil warning lamp took to go out after an oil & filter change, then I read somewher that it is a good idea to fill the filter about 2/3 with oil before screwing it in. Since doing this the oil light has always gone out straight away on first start up. Do garages do this as a matter of routine when fitting a new filter, I wonder if anyone in the trade can tell me? The twenty seconds running without oil pressure can't do the engine any good. Or was I the last person in the country to find out what everyone else has been doing all the time?
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It is not a bad idea to partly fill the oil filter when refitting and it is something I always do. However, the alternative of allowing the engine to run for a few seconds *off-load* whilst the filter fills and the pressure builds up is unlikely to be harmful.
Older (and admittedly lower-power) engines like those used in Triumph cars often had horizontal filters which would drain off overnight. The engine would rattle for a few seconds on start-up in the morning whilst the oil system charged. I converted my Triumph 2500 from a horizontal loose-element filter to a vertical spin-on filter at 180,000 miles, but only because the rattle rattled me!
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On the latest VAG TDI engine I've found that to fill the fuel filter with diesel before starting after changing same saves about a minute of cranking time to get rid of air locks.
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DIY servicing can be great fun and very satisfying! I have done basic (ie non brake) servicing on a a range of old bangers and really enjoyed it.
My current 'second' car is a Merc 190 E 1.8 now at 199, 000 miles, and apart from brakes and one major dealer service at 180, 000 miles I have done the engine servicing since I bought it at 114, 000 miles. (I won't bore you with the details of how this car still has the original clutch etc - evertyhing except the alternator and battery are original, apart from things like tyres and rear exhaust box). Amazing vehicle and I usually just get fed of cars, but not this one! Oil has been changed every 6,000 miles without fail from new.
It's easy and you have the advantage of knowing what you're replacing etc. Synthetic or semi-synthetic oil is well worh the extra cost for a decent engine. It's saved me a lot of money on this car alone.
My first car is an Audi A4 TDi 115, still under warranty and so I can't touch it. Roll on 2003.
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Pat,
I bet you don't fill the oil filter before fitting on your 190E!
David
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No, David I don't prefill the oil filter because, as you're obviously aware, it screws on upside down behind the engine! Dead easy to get at though! Can sometimes remove it without a tool.
Oil sump nut on the Merc seems soft to me and it's easy to round off the corners if you're not careful. I've done this twice and had to go cap in hand to a garage!
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I've always done it -seems common sense. But until now I had never heard of anyone else doing it
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Paul, have you considered one of the local college car maintenance courses ? You should be able to find one and they usually run for about eight weeks with a weekly two hour session. This, I think, is a good start for some good guidance on the basics of effective and economical vehicle servicing for the amateur.
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The first thing to do is either dig a pit in your garage or get a set of axle stands - never go under a jacked-up car!
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Much like CORGI certification for working on domestic gas appliances and pipe work your insurance company will not cover you unless this work was carried out by a CORGI engineer. Same for electrics. It used to be the same for working on car brakes, steering and suspension. You might want to check with your insurance underwriter as to what happens in the case of an accident.
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Remember a garage (Nottingham?) in the 70's which was a diy shop.
You rented a space, pit, lift, special tools whatever you needed, and there was expert advice on hand if you got stuck. Seemed like a good idea at the time, wonder what happened?
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FIF,
These were all the rage in the local city 15 years ago but I think the insurance/liability aspect caused problems.
David
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I'd be a bit careful about digging a pit in the garage. I know a chap who knows someone who did this. Apparently he finished the digging late afternoon and the following morning jumped in it to complete the job. Overnight it had filled up with perfectly clear water.
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Likewise, I had a friend who put in a pit. A few days later he decided to do some work on the garage roof and fell through the roof into the pit. The good news was that the pit had filled with water. The bad news was that he hit his head on a bottle floating on the water! (No serious injury though.)
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That was Autoplus, run by a very go ahead chap named Tom Denne who forsaw the growth in DIY in the home, being extended to the car,at a time when the resale price maintenance legislation had been abandoned and the parts suppliers were able to come up with all you needed at much lower prices than the traditional suppliers. In my Castrol days, we equipped the workshop at Autoplus and, the concept was copied at a number of other sites. I think the increasingly stringent " safety at work" regulations made the project uneconomic as, fairly understandably, the Health and Safety officers, quite rightly, were a bit alarmed at the fact that anyone, after paying an hourly rental fee, could be operating potentially dangerous workshop equipment like four post lifts and power operated tyre changers.
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