Servicing your own car?

decbuck

I planned to do a course on how to service your own car, but ended up not doing it.

Just wondering if there are any sites there explaining how to do it. I am fairly good at odd jobs and feel I would able to do this kind of thing myself with the right instructions.

fletch

It's a great idea learning how to service your own car...labour costs these days are a disgrace but do beware with modern cars some of the smallest jobs require specialist tools and may interfer with the electronics.
Take for example, changing the oil filter in an Impreza requires the engine to be lifted out of the engine bay due to the boxer layout of the pistons.
Simply removing the battery in certain keyfobs can reset the code rendering it useless.
Even trying to tow start a modern car can do serious damage as it can force unburnt petrol into the cat(very costly to repair)

Sorry if it sounded like I was tryna scare u off but my advice is get urself a Haynes manual and you can't go too far wrong really.

decbuck

It's only a punto and I doubt it will be that hard.



What about buying one of these?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=18413&item=7931227198&rd=1

leeroybrown

The other thing to factor in is that to diagnose (it's bad when you have to use that word) or repair a lot of problems with modern cars you need access to the proper cables and software to probe the car electronically.

That said, you should be able to perform ordinary service work easily once you have a proper manual.

Gmodified

get him to send you few screenshots so you can have look. As per basic servicing there is probably more info there you actually need but is nice to have it.


i do service all my cars and it's great , yes it keeps costs lower but you also have assurance that engine has something better then cooking oil

Gmodified

leeroybrown wrote:

The other thing to factor in is that to diagnose (it's bad when you have to use that word) or repair a lot of problems with modern cars you need access to the proper cables and software to probe the car electronically.

That said, you should be able to perform ordinary service work easily once you have a proper manual.

forums are overloaded with this info and in many cases you will get away with using

just a bit of wire and LED specially if you can't get codes through you engine check light (CEL light) which should be more then enough to diagnose sensors and engine management faults

alias no.9

A punto is probably a very good car to start on for DIY servicing, particularly one of the 8v models as they are mechanically very simple and there's plenty room under the bonnet to access most things. Get yourself a haynes manual and you're laughing. For most routing servicing, the only thing approaching a specialist tool you'll need is an oil filter wrench which cost anything between €5 and €20.

Fionn101

what GModified and Alias said, servicing your own car is just all good, saves dollar , you do a better job yourself and it's fun (well i like it)

One tip , don't buy a chain version of the 'oil filter removal tool' , i find strap ones far better.
Punto's are great cars to learn on and also do a check for the ECU codes , it's when the lights on the dash flash like morse code to give an electronic diagnostics .

hope this helps

decbuck

so will i get the cd vesion only £4 inlcuding delivery or will i buy the hynes book?

where would I get one of the oil filter tools. Any car shop?

I'm a little worried, as some of the stuff you have all talked about doensm't really make sense. I presume this will all be on the cd, or in the manual if I buy it.

De Hipster

I'd go for the CD, quick reference & you can print off what you need to have carside.

Gmodified

I have cd's and books for different cars and think that you should start withhaynes manual . Im sure you can download some pdf's from the net too.

you can get the oil filter tool in most carshop places.