Tom and Ray, the two brilliant hosts of Car Talk, take calls each weekend from people trying to figure out the problems with their vehicles. I was listening to their show last week, and they were just giving all around advice on how to go about fixing your car at home. Home automotive repair is an attractive option for many people, as they learn a bit more about their own car, and save a bit of money in the process. The first thing the two said was that for novice home car repair person, they should not have the goal of fixing their car, that their goal should be to walk away unharmed, with all their fingers in the right places, to not accidentally blow anything up and to not break something that was not broken at the same time you fix what is. They are hilarious in the way they phrase their common sense. But this is an issue to take care with, as the parts of a car engine can be dangerous if you are unaware of just how they operate.
If you are working any car, such as a Ford Mustang or Ford Explorer, repair manual should always be close at hand. This will outline the engine and show you how to do the simple maintenance and fix it jobs. Tom and Ray also advice the new mechanic to start with the simple things. By doing all of the simple repairs first you will gain the eventual understanding of the engine and the tools, which will one day allow you to do those more intensive repairs. But to start with the tougher repairs first is setting yourself up for frustration, and puts you and your car at risk. Some of the repairs they suggest to begin with, are exactly the ones that I began with, such as switching out my windshield wipers, changing a head light, a tail light and my car battery. Now for me personally, this is really all I want to do on my car by myself, but for many people this is just the beginning of a life long endeavor.
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