My dad taught me parts of an engine, along with how to service them, when I was in elementary school (mid-80s). I was on a big "learn how cars work" kick at the time, so he figured he'd indulge me and maybe teach a few practical skills at the same time.
I've owned my car for 10 years now, and the total number of times I have had to change my oil, air filter, spark plug, or any other part of the engine is zero. My A1 service indicator comes on and I take it to the dealer, where they relieve me of a large amount of money and give me a car back that drives okay and has no maintenance lights on. I did have to change a tire once and jumpstart a car once, but that's about the extent of car maintenance I've needed.
It's also just...literally not worth your time to do anything else. Servicing your own car rapidly gets into needing a ton of tools, takes a bunch of time, and makes you no money while taking away your free time.
If you genuinely enjoy the process, and it is cathartic and serves the function free time and leisure needs to in your life, then fantastic. But otherwise it's a false economy.
Maybe. It depends on your luck in getting a professional who is actually knowledgeable and competent, and as a secondary aspect, knowing enough to do it yourself generally enables you to accurately judge the job someone else does. For the common oil change and lube, mechanics have a tendency to skip the lube part because there is no easy way to verify it has actually been done —- you actually need to crawl under the vehicle and check the zerks for fresh grease at which point there’s no reason not to just do it yourself and save the money.
It can be difficult bordering on impossible to find a trustworthy independent mechanic. Even an honest one is not necessarily going to be able to be as thorough and have the attention to detail that the owner might. And even though they are faster, they also have to spend less time than might be optimal.
I have a 30 year old car and there are one or two specialists in my city that people recommend. One of them told me I needed an engine rebuild due to an oil leak, when it was actually a specific seal that was relatively minor to replace, and the other correctly diagnosed the problem, and apparently fixed it for a reasonable price, but insisted the oil I was using was too thin, and when I deferred to their expertise, they put an even thinner oil in (I found out later) and lied about it...maybe because they thought I would come back with more leaks...so the only local mechanic I currently trust is a dealer that will work on classic cars and they charge a ridiculous amount.
So, comparing cost and expertise and tools is kind of missing the point. I would always take a new or newish car to a dealer. I have no idea how to find a decent independent mechanic, and I've tried quite a few over the years. If it takes me several times as long to do something, it doesn't really matter if that's my only practical way to get it done right.
> It's also just...literally not worth your time to do anything else. Servicing your own car rapidly gets into needing a ton of tools
It really depends on what service you plan to do. If you're going to do things like changing bulbs, air and cabin filter, wipers, and the battery, you could get along with just a conventional socket set if that.
Oil changes will require a oil filter wrench/cap, a torque wrench, and a funnel. And those tools can also be used for transmission fluid changes.
Once you get to spark plugs and brakes, you'll need more tools, but those services aren't frequent enough to really warrant buying the tools as opposed to renting them.
> takes a bunch of time
I typically will change the oil on my vehicles myself and a oil and filter change takes me about 45 minutes (including the time to drive to the auto parts store to recycle the old oil). The last time I took my car somewhere for an oil change, I had to drive to 5 different places and finally had to settle on one that made me wait about 3 hours before they could get to it and change the oil.
There are certain services or repairs that will take time (brakes, suspension, exhaust) where I would just as well take it to a mechanic to do it for me, but there are plenty of others that don't take much time at all and cost significantly less in terms of saving on labor and your time for setting up an appointment, taking the car there, getting alternative transportation or waiting, getting the car back, etc.
I depends on the car model, but I find that it's quicker to do some maintenance yourself rather than scheduling an appointment, waiting or using their shuttle service, and getting the car back.
The air filter and cabin filter replacement come to mind (and, at least in my Honda Odyssey, can both be replaced in about 10 minutes give or take).
I've owned my car for 10 years now, and the total number of times I have had to change my oil, air filter, spark plug, or any other part of the engine is zero. My A1 service indicator comes on and I take it to the dealer, where they relieve me of a large amount of money and give me a car back that drives okay and has no maintenance lights on. I did have to change a tire once and jumpstart a car once, but that's about the extent of car maintenance I've needed.