I’m a DIYer and love working on equipment and I’ve got a two-part question: are there particular jobs that home mechanics mess up that y’all end up having to fix later? If so, what things are usually wrong with what the DIYer did or missed that they should have done or should’ve done differently?
Nowadays it’s broken bolts and hacked wiring… in the old days we’d get carburetors in ice cream pails to put back together.
I’ve seen a lot of hacked wiring not slot of people understand basic electrical fundamentals. I see live wires routing under the vehicle exposed, wired directly to the battery post w no fuse and I’ve seen people do repairs and when a bolt breaks or connector tab breaks they Mickey Mouse it together. And if a bolt breaks they j leave it there.
DIYers get stuck on seized spark plugs, sheared off valve cover bolts or complex repairs like timing chain or head gaskets.
Common sense isn’t always common. For example it’s critical to check a cylinder head for cracks/warpage when changing head gasket, it’s critical to bleed brakes/cooling system properly, and don’t try to torque valve cover bolts to 30 ft/lbs because they will shear off.
98% of my sheared bolts are from torque wrench misuse… “Hmmm this doesn’t feel right but it hasn’t clicked yet”
A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
I’ve done this on my own designs. Never done it with anything that had a torque spec, but I made the mistake of looking at the wrong table for the wrong metal and stripped the threads right out of something I’d tapped. I felt like an idiot afterwards. :P
Brakes and wiring. I see a lot of electronic parking brake issues. As for wiring, I see poorly done aftermarket sound systems and LED conversions. Owning a set of torque wrenches, a multimeter, and a service manual will solve some issues. Don’t get me started on lowing and raising ride height without any understanding of suspension geometry.
I don’t own anything with an electronic parking break, but they don’t seem that hard to deal with. What’s the usual issue (or is there one) with LED conversions?
The suspension one made me laugh. I literally have looked at so many lifted vehicles that I could even tell were wrong without a trained eye. I’m pretty nervous to mess with lifts, differential ratio changes, etc. at home. I took those to a good shop. Can’t beat decades of experience, no matter how “interested” in those things I am.