10 Mechanic Jobs You Can Do at Home (And Save $5000 in Labor)

There are a lot of jobs that shops overcharge for, but that are actually easy to learn to do yourself. In today's video, I'm going to cover 10 repairs the mechanics would be happy to charge you for, but I'm going to show you how to do them yourself. Now, if you added up what you would save by doing all 10 of these jobs yourself, it'd be an average of $5,000. In the case of some vehicles, $6,000 to $8,000. That's enough to buy another car. I'm Josh. I've worked on a lot of cars over the years and made a lot of mistakes and I didn't want to keep it all to myself. So we started this channel so I could share my experience so you could work on your car and save money as well. Now, let's get into fix number one. Job number one is a transmission fluid change. Now, if you follow this channel, which you should, you know that I like to change my transmission fluid every 30,000 miles or every four or five oil changes. If you take this to a shop to have done, they're going to charge you between $200 and $400 to change your transmission fluid. If you do it yourself, you're basically just paying for the price of the fluid. You're going to save an average of 200 bucks. Keep in mind, transmissions vary wildly depending on the car. Some of them don't have dipsticks and some of them you have to fill differently, but I'm going to show you the general process that covers most cars. Now you want to get a transmission warmed up a little bit before you do this job. Not too hot that you burn yourself. As with any job that we do where we have to get under the car, make sure that your car has got wheel chocks, locks on the wheels and e-brake is set. Then you're going to find the drain plug of your transmission. Take that drain plug out and let the transmission start draining. So you're going to need a drain pan to catch that. And you want to inspect the drain plug. Oftentimes that drain plug has a magnet on the end, which will catch any debris in the transmission. A little fuzz is totally fine. You're just looking to make sure there's no big chunks of metal stuck to that magnet. Then you want to clean that magnet off and it is advisable to replace the little washer on that drain plug. Oftentimes they have an aluminum or a copper crush washer. I generally reuse them if they're clean and in good shape. But it costs a couple cents, so it's worth picking up at the dealer. As the fluid's draining, that's a good time to check the color of it. Usually transmission fluid is like a nice bright red. And when transmission fluid is really old, really broken down, it gets darker and darker, closer to black. The reason you want to check, because if it's really, really dark, really black, you might want to think about doing a couple fluid exchanges in one session, not just one. One trick I like to do at this point is to get a drain pan with really easy to read measurements and I'll dump all the transmission fluid that comes out into that pan or jug so that I know exactly how much I took out. That way I can easily put back in the same amount. This just eliminates the risk that I over or under fill and I have to get back down there and do the drain plug again. Now at this point after you've drained all the fluid out, this would be where you would change the transmission filter if you were going to do it. Every so often you need to change that filter. You just want to follow your manual or the manufacturer's recommendations on when that needs to be done. I don't do it every time I do a transmission fluid change, but essentially that often involves removing the transmission pan, getting to that filter, putting a new one in and then reattaching the transmission. Next, you're going to want to reinstall that drain plug wherever it is. Nice and snug, but not too tight. Often they're aluminum and you don't want to strip anything out. If you're not confident in your ability, torque wrench is a great safety precaution. They're not that expensive and you can look up online what the torque spec for that bolt is and get it exactly to that tightness. Then you're going to put new fluid into the transmission. On most cars it's going to be through the dipstick. Many of them though have fill ports on the side of the transmission. Again, you just want to look up what your car uses. And once you've refilled the transmission with the same amount of fluid that you took out, start the car up, let it run for 10-15 seconds and then you're going to start cycling through the gears. You're going to put it into drive, let it sit there for a few seconds, neutral, reverse, back to park. You're going to cycle through the gears a couple times, just make sure that new fluid gets cycled through the transmission. Then making sure you're on level ground, you want to actually check the level of your transmission if you do have a dipstick, just to make sure everything went okay. On many cars, the checking procedure is actually another port that you open up and you should get a little dribble of transmission fluid out if everything's up to the level. And if you don't get any fluid coming out, then you're low. And lastly, you want to get the car up to operating temperature, drive around for a little bit, then get back underneath and make sure nothing is leaking. As you can see, changing your own transmission fluid is something you can absolutely do yourself. In fact, on many cars that I've done it to, it was easier than an oil change. So it's a mystery to me why people don't save the money and do it themselves. All right, we're on to the second one, which is the most overpriced job, if you ask me, and that is brakes. Now, if you take your car to get the brakes done in the shop, you're looking at a price tag of $500 to $1,200. Whereas if you do a brake job yourself, you're buying the brake parts, pads, and maybe some rotors, got some basic supplies that you need, and you're looking at saving up to $800. Okay, let's get into it. Jack the car up safely. Again, remove that wheel. And first thing that you're going to do is a little trick that I like to do. Before you take any calipers off or any bolts off the back of it, you're going to get a screwdriver, flathead screwdriver, stick it in the back of the caliper in such a way that you can lever the caliper open. Essentially you're compressing that caliper piston before you take anything off. And this is going to save you a ton of time moving forward. Once you've got the caliper all loose, that piston's totally compressed, then you can remove the bolts to remove the caliper and get to the brake pad. Now, one important thing at this point, you want to make sure that you hang the caliper, usually from the shock or the body part of the car. I'll often just use a piece of wire lying around so that it doesn't accidentally fall and break that brake line. That brake line is rubber. Now that the caliper's off, you can easily remove the old brake pads and inspect them. And at this point I'm looking for really deep grooves in the rotor coming from the pads or discoloration on the pads of the rotor from a lot of heat. And the reason I'm checking these things, even though I'm intending to replace the pads already, is if the rotor's in good enough shape, I'll just leave it. I'm a believer that if the rotor's in fine shape, you can just replace the pad. I know a lot of people are going to get on my back for that, but really what you're looking for is the surface of the rotor being smooth and not discolored by heat and not having a lip right here at the edge, meaning that the rotor's wearing out and creating a big groove. If you do at this point decide that you want to take the rotors off and replace them as well, you have to remove the caliper bracket, which is two big bolts backside of the rotor, and that will free you up to get the rotor off. This can be a sticky point. Literally, if this rotor gets stuck on by rust or some kind of corrosion, it can be really hard to get off. We have a great video detailing all the methods that I use to get stuck rotors off, and I'll put a link to that in the description, but what often works for me is a big hammer smacking the rotor right between the lug nuts, being careful not to damage the threads of the lugs. Then I usually pop that rotor off. Then at that point, put new rotors on. Definitely keep in mind that you want to clean the rotors right out of the box. Sometimes they're shipped with oil on them to keep them from rusting, so you've got to get all that oil off using some brake clean. Those go back on, and from that point on, everything is the reverse of the removal. When you're putting the new rotor on, another thing that you want to do is to make sure that the surface of the hub is very clean. Best thing for this is a wire brush. Just get a cheap wire brush, and you're going to clean the face of that hub really well so there's no rust or debris that's going to sit behind the rotor and make it run off-center. Same goes for before you put in the new brake pads. You want to clean those little channels underneath the hardware. Make sure there's no rust or dirt in there that would make the pads want to stick or bind in some way. Another thing that you want to do at this point, which a lot of people miss, is you want to re-grease the slide pins or whatever mechanism that the caliper slides on. It's underneath these little rubber boots, and that grease dries up and will cause your calipers to stick if you don't clean it and re-grease it. Oftentimes at the auto parts store, you can get little tiny packets for like a buck to re-grease these pins, or if you do a lot of brakes, you can get a jar of it for pretty cheap. Lightly grease those things and stick them back. Then when it comes time to slot that caliper over the new brake pads, if you did the screwdriver trick, then you should be good to go. That thing will slide right over. If you didn't, then you're going to have to compress that caliper piston, and they make a few tools to do this. You can get them for free often at an auto parts store that has a tool rental program, caliper compression tool, or back in the day people used to use clamps and blocks of wood and it's a huge hassle, which is why I like to use that screwdriver trick. Once you've got everything reassembled on one set of brakes, so one corner of the car, you want to get into the car and pump the brakes, which is essentially going to re-clamp the caliper over the rotor, and that's also going to reduce the level of the brake fluid in your brake reservoir. If you do all four brakes without pumping the brakes in between, all the re-compressing of the caliper is probably going to overflow your reservoir and you're going to get brake fluid everywhere. After you've pumped the brakes, after the last set of brakes that you change, you just want to check that level. Most likely it'll go back up to the full mark with the new thicker pad. As far as brakes, the fronts are the ones that usually wear out the fastest. You'll probably do three front brake pad changes before you ever have to do the rears, so just keep that in mind. Now because you'll do a brake job usually every 30,000 miles or so, and could be even more if you live in a mountainous region, over the life of the car you'd save thousands and thousands of dollars by doing your own brakes. So totally worth it and not that hard. All right, the next job is replacing your alternator. Now shop's going to charge you $6,200 to do this for you, whereas you could do it yourself, probably save up to $800. Most of that cost is the labor that it takes to put these in, so if you do it yourself, all you're doing is buying an alternator and maybe an accessory belt. Now on this Hyundai here, the alternator is right up here on top of the engine, really easy to access, so this would be a super simple job. Now on other cars, the alternator may be a little bit more buried under engine mounts or maybe an AC compressor, so it's not any harder, just maybe a bit more technical, which is why the shop would charge you so much for labor and why it's a great job to do yourself for all that savings. First thing that you want to do is disconnect the battery, take that negative terminal off, because the positive lead actually goes right to the alternator and you can make some pretty nasty sparks if you forget to disconnect that battery. Once that's done, the next step is to remove the belt that is running this alternator, because that belt's under tension. Oftentimes there's a belt tensioner somewhere in the system, you've got to figure out where that is and release the tension on the belt so that you can slip it off. And in many cars, the alternator is the tensioner, so it'll have some kind of adjustable point on the alternator that actually causes tension on the belt, so you may do it that way. And then from that point on, it's just a treasure hunt, you're getting everything out of the way for the alternator to be able to be disconnected and come out. Just keep in mind on some cars, it's easier to remove the alternator and drop it down to the bottom rather than try to get it up. You just got to be creative. Oftentimes where the alternator is over the engine mount is really kind of sticky there, and I like to get a pry bar in here and help pop the alternator out. Also keep in mind there are going to be at least two electrical connections on the alternator, so before you pop it out and it potentially falls, you want to make sure you remove those wires so that they don't get yanked and potentially broken. All right, once you have the old alternator out, this is a really good time to compare it to the new one to make sure that A, you have the right model, and B, that there aren't some brackets or plugs or covers that are meant to be transferred from the old alternator to the new one. You don't want to find out about that after you've installed the new one and have to take it out again. The next step after you've got the new alternator in and you've put back all the other accessories that you had to remove to get it out, it's time to put the belt back on. And this is where you want to give that old belt a really good look over because if it shows any signs of cracking or of glazing, shiny spots, or it just looks worn in any way, now's the time to replace it. They're not that expensive. When it does come time to install that belt, sometimes it's easy to forget how the belt went on. Oftentimes on the underside of the hood, older cars will have a belt routing diagram, or you may need to get online and just look up your car to see which way that belt routes over all the pulleys. Then you're going to properly set your tension, whether that's an automatic tensioner, which means you don't have to do anything, or if you are using the alternator to set your tension, then you're going to reconnect the battery and test it out. Start the car up and just make sure initially that that belt is running smoothly. You don't want it hanging off one of the pulleys or running really weird because you're going to totally destroy that belt. If your battery completely died as a result of the old alternator, you do want to charge that up before you get the motor running with the new alternator. It can be really hard on old batteries if they're totally dead and then you fire amperage in from a brand new alternator. So what I'll sometimes do in that case is just run a trickle charger on the battery while I'm doing this job. So before you take your car straight to the mechanic for a new alternator, top the hood. Your alternator might be sitting right on the top, super easy to do yourself, and it's a great way to save money on labor. All right, the next job is replacing your starter. Now if you take this to the shop to get done, they're going to charge you 500 bucks to a thousand dollars. I went out and bought this at the local auto parts store for 200. You could easily save $700 doing this job yourself. First step, just like the alternator, you want to pop the negative terminal off of the battery to make sure that the live wire into the back of the starter isn't live anymore when it comes time to take it off. Because if you have a wrench on that nut or you take the starter off and it bumps something metal, you're going to get a shower of sparks. It could fuse to whatever you bump it to. So you just want to make sure that this wire isn't live. You do that by disconnecting the black wire on your battery. Then you're going to just get everything out of the way of the starter. Now keep in mind that sometimes starters are on the bottom of the engine, so you're going to be working underneath, whereas sometimes they're up top. They're usually covered by a lot of stuff, including coolant lines. So that's where it's a little bit different than the alternator. Sometimes you'll get coolant lines that are in your way or maybe even the throttle body, which has coolant running through it. And when it comes to removing those, obviously you could be losing coolant, which you want to either catch or be ready to replace. Also, if you do have to remove a throttle body specifically or anything else that has gaskets, oftentimes those gaskets can be damaged as you remove it. I just bring up throttle body because it's a really common one. And those old paper gaskets tear. And then if you're in the middle of the job and you don't have a replacement gasket, you've got to go out and get one. So oftentimes if it looks like I'm going to have to remove something that has a gasket, I'll just pick that gasket up with the starter so that I'm prepared. Then when you get down to the starter, again, it's going to have two wires, usually a small trigger wire, and then a big fat wire from the battery. And you want to get those off if you can, before you yank the starter out so that you don't damage them. Although I have found that on many starter models, I've had to actually get the starter partially out before I can get my hands to the little clips or to the bolts to remove wires. Once you have the starter out, it's a really good time to inspect the teeth on the flywheel. The flywheel is a big old gear on the front of the motor that the starter actually pops this gear out and engages. And if you're hearing a lot of crazy noises or the starter's not working properly, but you can hear it spinning, oftentimes it can be a damaged teeth on either the starter itself and or the flywheel. So once it's out, you can take a look down into the little hole and you can see the gear sticking out of the flywheel. And you just want to make sure that they don't have big nicks in them or burrs, something that's going to interfere with the operation of the new starter. But if that looks all good, you slam that new starter in there, bolt it up, reconnect the wires, and then reassemble the rest of the engine that you had to take apart to get the starter out. After everything's reinstalled, you can reconnect your battery. Then if it does work and you get the engine running, you just want to make sure that if you did have to remove any coolant or fuel lines, things like that, that you checked really well for leaks. All right, as you can see, another easy fix for you to do yourself and save yourself a bunch of money. Number five is crucial to stay on top of, and that is your radiator replacement. Because if this bad boy fails, it could cost you an engine if you don't catch it in time. Now, if you take your radiator to be replaced at a shop, they're going to bill you $700 to $1,500. You do it yourself, you're buying a radiator and some coolant, you're probably out the door saving up to $1,100. Just some pretty serious savings. A radiator is another one of these busy work jobs, but you can totally do it, often mostly with just a 10 millimeter wrench and a pair of pliers. First step is going to be to drain the coolant from the system. And there's usually a drain plug on the radiator somewhere on the side near the bottom corner or right at the bottom of the radiator itself. You drain that coolant until everything's empty and then you start taking stuff off. Now, the main categories of things that you want to remove are going to be all the hoses that are connected to the radiator. So that's going to be upper and lower radiator hose. And then usually there's going to be some sort of transmission lines. Often they run transmission through these radiators as well. So when you do remove transmission lines, you want to make sure you cap them or keep them up so that you're not losing a bunch of fluid while you do the job. Once you've got hoses disconnected, then you're going to remove any fans that are in the way. Oftentimes the electrical fans or the fans attached to the motor itself are blocking the way for getting that radiator out. Then oftentimes there's going to be some sort of trim or body panel blocking the top of it that you'll have to remove. Oftentimes it comes off in a big piece across the top of the car that will give you a lot more access to lift the radiator out. Lastly, there's usually some annoying little bolts that are attaching the radiator to the AC condenser, which basically looks like a miniature radiator and they're sandwiched together. Those can be a little tricky sometimes, but again, there's usually just a couple of 10 millimeters that attach those. On most cars, you lift the radiator straight up and out of the car. And in a rare few, you have to get the car high enough that you can drop the radiator down underneath it. Once you get the old radiator out, again, you want to compare it to the new one, make sure all the fittings are correct in the right places. Oftentimes you can get the right size dimension of radiator, but it's missing fittings depending on the car model. And again, oftentimes there's little brackets or little pads that you need to transfer over to the new part. This is also a really good time when the radiator is out to check all the coolant hoses that you had to disconnect. Because often once cars get older, the radiator hoses, especially the rubber becomes soft, it stretches, maybe it gets balloon, maybe it gets really embedded with rust or corrosion. And when you put it back onto the new radiator, they're not going to seal. Spend the extra 15, 20 bucks and buy new radiator hoses if the old ones are looking mushy or a little bit suspect. Also, I prefer to use the hose clamp, the screw on hose clamp versus the spring type so that you know that you're getting really good tension. Also at this point, if you had really dirty coolant, really rusty or really contaminated, this would be a really good time to flush your engine of all the old coolant using like a flushing product or maybe just a fresh water. But you don't want to be sending old nasty fluid through your new radiator. Now, as you put the new radiator back in, it's a lot of fittings. So you just want to take your time and make sure that you're not missing any bolts and especially not missing any like electrical wiring clips for those cooling fans. Because if those cooling fans don't go on, you could be right back where you started with an overheating problem, which is serious. Then once you get everything buttoned up, then you're going to put the new coolant back into the system and put in the correct coolant for your car. Don't use universal coolant. I know a lot of people like to do that when they don't know what's in there already, but get the right stuff and it will last much, much longer and do a better job of protecting the engine. Then get the engine up to operating temperature, then let it cool down. So you can take the radiator cap back off and let any air escape. And you're going to top it off with more coolant all the way up to the neck of the radiator and then do that process again. You want to check it a couple of times, a couple of heating and cooling sequences and make sure all the air gets worked out. Then if it's not leaking, you're good to go. Now I'll admit, this isn't always my favorite job. It's a lot of busy work and can sometimes get messy with all the coolant sloshing around. But of all of the jobs that we're talking about in this video, this is one of the ones where you can save the most. We know that 90% of you aren't subscribers to Budget Mechanic yet, which is a real shame. But if you're getting any value out of this video, it's helping you out, save money, work on your own car, consider hitting that subscription button. It really helps us out. Next job I want to talk about is replacing your water pump. If a mechanic does this for you, they're going to charge you $600 to $1,500 or maybe even more. It's part of a timing belt job. Now this one I bought for a hundred dollars and usually they're a couple hundred bucks, maybe 300. So if you do this job yourself, you could be looking at saving potentially 11 or $1,200. The first thing that you want to do is drain that coolant system. Easiest to do at the radiator where you have that drain plug that we already talked about. Once the coolant system is empty, then you want to get the belt, whatever belt is on the water pump off. So just like we talked about with the alternator, you want to find that tensioner, whatever that tensioner is, loosen it so that you can get the belt off. Now this gets me to the part I alluded to at the beginning where some water pumps are actually under the timing belt or the timing chain. It's not as common, but you can get in a situation where you actually have to remove the timing covers and get into the timing belt in order to replace the water pump. That's obviously a lot more work, but it's still something that you can absolutely do yourself. You just want to consider doing your timing belt at that point while you're that far into the engine. Once you have the belt removed from the water pump, it's just an issue of clearing away any engine mounts or any other accessories that are blocking your way. You can remove all the bolts on the outside of the pump flange and pop it off. One thing that often happens that you want to be aware of is that the gasket that's used on the water pump will get pretty sticky. So even after you've removed all the bolts or think you have, it's still stuck in there. If you're sure you've gotten all the bolts out, sometimes it's just you go whack it a little bit with the end of a wrench or a dead blow hammer just to pop that seal loose and then the pump will come out. Another thing to be aware of as you are removing the bolts from the old water pump, you just want to keep track because sometimes some will be longer than others and so it's nice to know which ones go where when it's time to reinstall them. So just keep note of that. Then once you have the old pump off, you want to make sure that the surface, the mating surface is really clean on the engine side. So make sure any old gasket materials cleaned off, make sure there's no corrosion or dirt or grease in there, and then obviously make sure that the old water pump gasket, if it's a rubber one, is removed as well. Sometimes those can get stuck onto the engine. Then as always we're going to compare our old part and our new part, make sure that they match up, and then you want to install the new pump into the engine. So most water pumps like this one will come with a new gasket or o-ring, but you just want to confirm when you're at the store that you're getting the correct gasket with the pump and if you don't, a lot of older ones required you to use like the waterproof RTV sealant. So you want to make sure you buy that if that's what you have. As you're installing the new pump, you just want to be really careful that you're not pinching this gasket as you tighten the bolts. It's real easy for some styles of seal to pop out of their little track and get pinched, and then obviously they're not going to seal, and that's a problem. So you just want to be really slow and careful as you slowly hand tighten the bolts. When it comes time to tightening those bolts, I highly recommend a torque wrench. I don't always use a torque wrench, but in the case of water pumps, I really like to make sure that all my bolts are the same exact tightness and then it's really flat. Torque wrenches aren't that expensive, and you can find the torque specs for your car and your pump. Oftentimes the instructions for torque will also be that you tighten them in a cross pattern. So instead of just going around like a clock, you'd start on one side, crisscross over back and forth until you've done them all, and this just helps it go on really evenly. Now one trick that I have for this job I usually do right now is before I put anything back, I will make sure that the radiator plug is plugged, and I'll refill the system with coolant at this point because I want to see while everything's open if it's going to hold coolant. I like to find out about any leaks that I've created or pinched gaskets right now while I can fix it. If there's no leaks and everything looks good, then you're going to put the engine back together, put that belt back on, make sure it's at the proper tension, and finally I'm going to start the car up, get it to operating temperature, and check everything for leaks. As you can see, other than a torque wrench, there's really nothing special required to do this job, and it's one of those ones where you save big time. Now this next one is one of the simplest and easiest jobs to do on this list, and that is changing your own serpentine belt. Now you may be able to find a mechanic to replace your serpentine belt for $100, but often could be as much as $300 or $400. Now this belt cost me $20, so depending on the type of car that you have, you could be saving up to $300 by doing it yourself. Now we've already kind of talked about the process of removing and putting back on belts with some of these other jobs, but really what it comes down to is finding the belt tensioner, the thing that keeps this thing tight, and releasing that tension so you can remove it. On some cars like this, the tensioner is really easy to get to. On others, it can be a little bit more buried. So keep in mind that sometimes the easiest way to access the tensioner for a belt might even be through the wheel well. You might have to pull the wheel off, pull aside plastic shroud, and have access to the tensioner. The tensioners themselves differ a little bit, but usually you're grabbing a hold of either the nut on the pulley of the tensioner, or you're grabbing sort of a nut-shaped part of the tensioner, or in some cases you actually have to get a lever in there and pry the arm of the tensioner. It just depends on what you have. Now this can be a little bit tricky because sometimes these tensioners are really strong, and you can get a tool which I find really useful, which is basically just a long thin handle with like a three-eighths fitting on the end. You can put a socket or a crow's foot or whatever you want, and you can get that for free at an auto parts store that has a tool rental program. It's going to be your serpentine belt tool, and all that leverage makes it a whole lot easier to push that tensioner back. As we mentioned before, sometimes that tensioner is like the alternator itself, so you just have to find the adjuster bolt on the alternator to release the tension. Now once you get the old belt off, you just kind of want to inspect it again. Obviously the reason you're replacing is probably making some noise, or you already saw some damage. Sometimes if you see certain types of damage, maybe half of the belt has been delaminated, and the ridges are rubbed off, that may give you an indication that something else in the engine is going wrong. Like maybe the belt had hopped off one of the pulleys, or maybe something like your alternator is actually starting to seize up, and the belt is just dragging over it. So it can give you some clues like that. Next step you're going to want to do is hold the old belt up with the new one. Make sure that it's the same size and the same width. That's going to be really important. I've often spent a long time trying to get a new belt on that wasn't quite the right fit, even though the auto parts store said that it was. If you're like me, you can never remember how the routing of the old belt was, so you've got to look it up either on a diagram that you find under the hood, or looking up a picture on the internet. Once you've got the new belt installed, you just want to make really sure visually, and you can reach down and feel the length of the belt, and make sure that it's fully seated on top of every pulley, and not kind of cockeyed, or only half on. As soon as you crank that engine, and if something's crooked, you're going to ruin that belt. Once you're pretty sure that everything's sorted out, you're going to start the engine up, make sure it's not squeaking, grinding, or falling off. And then you've done it. I think most serpentine belts can be installed in 15 or 20 minutes. It almost isn't even worth all the time it's going to take you to schedule, and hire a mechanic, and wait for him to do the job. Might as well just do it yourself. The next job you can do yourself is your spark plugs and coils. Now the reason I group these together is because replacing them both is essentially the exact same job. The coil sits right on the spark plug. Now a mechanic's going to charge you four to twelve hundred dollars to do this, and the reason there's such a big range is because it depends on the orientation of your cylinders. Now on a four-cylinder like this, the coils and plugs are very easy to get to right on the top. On a six-cylinder or eight-cylinder, many of these can be covered up by intakes or other things that make the job way harder, way more expensive. If you do have a six or eight-cylinder like I mentioned before, a big plastic intake will be covering the back three or four spark plugs and coils and making them harder to get to. It's just more nuts and bolts and wires to unplug. It's nothing that you can't do with basic tools. But my rule of thumb, if you do have to take off the intake, which is the most common thing in your way, you just want to make sure you unplug everything that's attached to that intake, air hoses, electrical wires. You want to remove the support brackets. There's always a tricky little bracket in the back holding the intake up, so you want to make sure you check for those. And then the third thing is, it can sometimes get a little bit stuck even after you get all the bolts. You kind of have to rock it and pop it, sometimes smack it with your hand. And then as you're taking it out, just be really careful you're exposing the valves, so you don't want to drop any bits of dirt in there. So just be really careful. But this doesn't mean you can't do the job yourself. It just means maybe a little more busy work. If you do do it yourself, you can save up to $800. Another way you can save money doing this job yourself is, oftentimes mechanics will tell you to replace all of your coils at the same time, which is safe, but not always necessary. So if you have an engine code for a misfire on one cylinder because of a bad coil, you can often get away with just replacing that coil and the rest of them still have a lot of life in them. So that's where it's nice to have an OBD2 code reader, so that you can actually read the code yourself. Or if you don't have a code reader, you could use the auto parts store. They usually read codes for free. And if you can find the cylinder number that the misfire is happening on, you can figure out where the trouble is. And then one way that you can see if it's a coil or a plug is by switching the ignition coils from one cylinder to another. And if the engine code changes to a different cylinder, well you know that it's the coil gone bad. Now because the ignition coil sits on top of the spark plug, you've got to get the coil out first. And as I said on an engine like this, four cylinder, often really easy. You disconnect the electrical plug on the coil, and then it's usually held on by a single bolt. Once you get that off, there's sometimes a little bit of resistance and suction, but you can pop that coil right off the top of the spark plug. You can give them a visual inspection for any cracks or any like burn marks where they've obviously been arcing over to the cylinder wall. For the most part, you can't see a failure of a coil externally. Once the coil's off, you have access to the top of the spark plug. And that's where it's nice to have a dedicated spark plug socket that has a little rubber o-ring inside that catches on to the spark plug and helps you draw it out. Once you get the spark plug out, you can check it for an indication of how healthy your engine is running. You can kind of see what color the end of the spark plug is, and that'll give you some clues. But these are so cheap and easy to do, I recommend if they're easy to get to, you just replace all your spark plugs while you're doing this job. It's going to make your engine run more efficiently. When it comes to replacing the spark plugs, I'm pretty picky about making sure that I get the OEM brand plug for your motor. Mixing brands to save money is not a great idea. There's been a lot of problems I've had with people bringing cars to me where they used off-brand spark plugs. Now, when you go to reinstall the spark plugs, be very careful that you don't cross-thread them. So make sure they go in smoothly and definitely don't over-tighten them because if you strip out the top of the motor, you're in for a world of headaches. So if you're not confident, use a torque wrench. What I like to do is tighten them, and I can feel this little aluminum crush washer kind of getting snug, and then it will suddenly get a lot tighter. And as soon as that point hits, I stop tightening. Then you can throw the coil back down over the spark plug. Make sure it's seated really well. This little bolt flange here should be sitting right on top of the engine. I've had some auto parts stores give me coils that they said were the correct ones, but the gap at the top of the engine was inadequate, and if I would have tightened the bolt onto them, it would have crushed the coil and been a bad deal. Just make sure everything lines up really well as you're putting it back together. Then it's just bolting the coil back down, plugging them back in, and putting back anything else that you had to remove in order to get to the coils. Like many jobs on this list, the main thing you're paying for at the mechanic to get your spark plugs and coils done is all the little 10 millimeter bolts and wire clips that it takes to get to the coil. With a simple socket set, you could be saving up to 800 bucks doing this. That's worth it in my mind. Now the last eight repairs were ones that you've probably heard of before. These next two are ones that are a little less common for the DIYer, but definitely also a great way to save money by doing yourself. All right, the next job is an oxygen sensor replacement, but the process of actually replacing these sensors is very simple and often can be done with one tool. Now you probably pay a shop $200 to $500 to replace an oxygen sensor for you, but after buying the part yourself, putting it in, you could save yourself up to $350. These can get a little bit tricky to diagnose, which is why a lot of DIYers avoid doing it, but we have a video where we break down that process with an OBD2 scanner that you can check out in the link above. Now part of the diagnostic process is figuring out whether your upstream or downstream oxygen sensor has gone bad, and basically that's going to determine whether the sensor you're replacing is up by the engine or underneath the engine just past your catalytic converter. And with either sensor, the process is very similar. You're going to locate it, disconnect the electrical connector from wherever it connects into the car, and that will allow you to spin it out of the exhaust. They make a special tool for removing oxygen sensors, which you can get at a tool rental program, or honestly they're so cheap, like $5, $10 you can buy one, that essentially allows you slip a socket over the wire of a sensor and disconnect it because they can be really sticky. They can, with all the heat that they undergo being in the exhaust, they can get really seized on there. So that tool really helps. Another trick that you can do, if you're removing the old one, you can actually cut the wires off the back and that will allow you to get a full six-sided socket over the O2 sensor with a wrench. You really are struggling to break one. When you're installing the new sensor, you want to make sure it either comes with grease or that you get some extra grease to put on it. Nowadays, like this one, you can see it comes installed with the grease already on the threads, which makes it really easy. Then you're going to screw this up into the exhaust nice and snug, reconnect wires and all the little retainers for the wires, and that's essentially it. After that, you erase the check engine code in your computer using your OBD-II scanner, and you're done. It's a super simple job, saving hundreds of dollars, definitely worth doing yourself. Now the next repair that I think that you should do yourself is a strut replacement. Now a mechanic's going to want $1,000 to $2,500 to do all four of your shocks. I went out and bought this single strut for almost $200, and I could have got it cheaper if I would have got the one without the spring on it and reused my old spring. So doing a set, front or back, of these would save me around $800 to do it myself. And if I did all four, that's $1,600-$1,700 savings, which is a lot of cash saved for you. Now when it comes to replacing strut in your car, really it's about disconnecting everything from it, and then it hopefully just drops right out. Now the trick with the things attached to a strut, unlike some of the other jobs that we've talked about, is they're often bigger bolts. So for this job, you're going to want to have a big breaker bar for your sockets or a pretty strong impact wrench. And so then you're going to start disconnecting things like the ABS bracket and the sway bar end link, and then you're going to get into the big boys. These two big bolts that hold the bottom of the strut on are usually really tight. You're going to have to pop them loose. Now, one thing when you're removing a strut and you're disconnecting these lower bolts, you have to make sure this full hub assembly doesn't bang out of place and fall down and damage any ball joints or axles or anything like that. So sometimes I like to tie this up to the frame of the car to take pressure off it, or if anything, I just lower it down gently. Sometimes if it's a bigger car, what you can do is put the floor jack right underneath the ball joint and actually lift up on it, take some of the weight and pressure of the hub. Now, just a note on these lower strut bolts, if when you pull them out, they don't look like a normal bolt. They actually have like a lobe, like an off-center shape to them. That can mean that this is part of your alignment system, meaning that part of the alignment is adjusted using these bolts. And by removing them, you've thrown off the alignment. Now, obviously, you have no other choice but to remove them. You just have to know that when you put this back together, you might want to immediately go get it aligned so that you're not wearing out your tires. Once everything down below is disconnected, you'll come up here and remove the three nuts at the top of the strut. Now, usually it's just out in the open underneath the hood, but on some cars, it's actually underneath this windshield cowling, and usually there's a little access door or some way to get to these three nuts. But essentially, you want to pull them all off, just knowing that as you pull the last one off, this whole strut is going to want to drop. So you usually want to grab a hold of it as you take the last nut off, and then hopefully the strut can lower down and be pulled out. Then you just need to compare it to the old one, make sure everything's the same. And a really big thing you want to make sure is that because these are left and right specific, that you're putting on the correct one. It'd be a bummer to get it all up inside there and then figure out that your flanges don't line up. So make sure you're putting the right one in. And then keep in mind some struts, the bolt pattern on top is irregular. So it matters which way that it's rotated in order to fit up inside the car. So just take good note of that before you get to lifting this thing. Then the next part is really nice to have an assistant because you're lifting it in and then up into three specific little holes. And you've got to hold it in place there while you get the nut started on top. So it's really nice to have some sort of assistance. Once the strut is attached at the top back inside the car, then it's just all about reattaching everything down below. Some of these bigger joints and knuckle attachment points can be a little bit difficult to get lined up because everything's big and heavy. One trick that I've learned is I take a screwdriver, flathead or Phillips, and I'll jam it in the hole where the bolt's meant to go from the opposite direction that the bolt is going. And I use it to lever and reposition and kind of center up the holes. That way the bolt can more easily slide into place, pushing the screwdriver out of the way. And then I can actually catch some threads and get that bolt tightened. Now a lot of people get intimidated by replacing struts because it's a big, bulky, heavy part. But other than needing some slightly bigger sockets and a breaker bar, they're really not that complicated. Definitely a great way to save money. For all these jobs, we've made in-depth videos describing the process. If you're interested in seeing those, we put the links in the description. If you enjoyed this video, check out this other one we made and all the bad habits that you have that are quietly destroying your car.