These essential guides will give you the confidence you need to start servicing your own car, truck or SUV
Follow along as we take you from the most basic automotive skills (opening the hood, how to properly use a jack) to common maintenance and repair jobs (changing the oil, jump starting a dead battery), to more advance money saving service jobs (brake pads, drive axle replacement). With just basic tools and help from Haynes, you can save hundreds of dollars on car care.
To help you along on your journey, we’ve created the Step by Step Home Mechanics guides, to inspire your inner DIY-er. Whether you are a seasoned hand or a complete novice, there is no need to fear 21st-century computer-controlled cars, most of the systems are still easy to service.
Why should you maintain your vehicle yourself?
Maintaining and repairing your car, van or SUV can seem a daunting task if your used to taking it to a mechanic, but there are plenty of reasons why you can - and should - do it yourself.
Knowledge, as they say, is power. So, the more you know about your car’s inner workings, the better off you’ll be in the long run. Even if you choose to do no more than the basics, you will still be much more familiar with how it works and what needs to be done when you do take it to a mechanic.
We've been told, by men and women, that sometimes they just use our manual as a guide to avoid being taken advantage off by an unscrupulous shop.
On top of that, nobody is going to care more about your car than you, who has to rely on it to safely transport you and your family. The shop is just in it for the money, and has to fix dozens of cars a week. Do the regular service on your own car and soon you will know ever leak, creak, and rattle, and hopefully, how to fix them.
It’ll save you money!
Every shop has a labor rate, and most start at $100 an hour, with a minimum for even the simplest job. Why pay that for work, like changing bulbs, filters, and fluids, which you can easily do yourself on your day off?
Do it yourself and you can save a lot of money each year. Most of the basics require little to no tools, and even the required periodic service jobs require only a few hand tools.
The tutorials above are designed to get you acquainted with your vehicle, so you will feel more confident in taking an active part in its service and repair. There’s literally nothing stopping you, unless you lose your reading glasses of course.
We take every car, perform each standard service procedure, and put it all back together again in order to write our manuals. Let us impart that knowledge to you, it’s what we do!
