Literally fixed my neighbors car the other day.
She knows I'm a Ronin without garage, she had a task for me.
"Ronin Without Garage" sounds like a delightful and lighthearted slice of life comedy manga. Just a mechanic fixing cars and helping people with their problems with zany antics here and there.
Aside from shit that involves taking apart most of the engine I can usually figure it out from YT tutorials.
i've only ever had used, economy sized beaters. the vehicle that gets from A to B without much noise or fuel. my current one is approaching 25 years old. first thing i do when i get a car is to get the chilton/haynes manual. i am not a mechanic but i have one i trust to take my car to. and i can jiggle things, tighten things, wrap electrical tape, look at fuses, and follow a diagnostic tree. i can also follow a maintenance schedule. last time my car had a problem it turned out to be a short in the break light switch, draining the battery. i replaced the switch for $6.
i know very little about engines, but i know even less about electric vehicles. i was looking into what their repair/maintenance schedules are, and from what i can grasp, they are nearly non-existent compared to ICE vehicles. that makes sense in theory, because they are far simpler machines... but i am too paranoid to take it at face value. obviously, if i was being given a free new EV or ICE vehicle, i would choose the EV always. but that's not happening. one day my ancient vehicle is going to die and i'm going to have to pay big for an EV (their price points all seem to be at luxury level, imo) or look for another no frills old beater, and i just hope we're far enough into EV production that i can make an informed decision about what make/model is a "good" one.
I just moved a few months ago to a less shit part of Canada, but the place I used to live had an insane car market. Converting to USD, the under $5000 market simply did not exist. The stealerships were absolutely criminal. Cars between 5k and 8k, there generally would be about 2-3 cars within a 200 mi radius available, they'd be absolutely thrashed, about 20 years old, and around 200k miles. The entire 8k-10k market was American make pickups or SUVs, over 100k miles, 30+ years old. Above that, it was still mostly pickups and SUVs, but you might find a handful of used grandpa buicks that are around 10 years old. Anything that hasn't been in a collision and/or is newer than about 8-10 years would just be new car MSRP money or significantly more. Like $70k for a 2 or 3 year old truck, $40,000 for a 10 year old truck, cars from like 2001 going for around $20,000 because they're uncrashed and have only moderate undercarriage rust. Of course, if you want to sell your car, you're probably not even going to make blue book value.
The only cars for sale by owner would be "you take over payments" muscle car bailout attempts or dudes who found a 50s studebaker with no engine that's mostly rust on their farm and still think it's worth $5500.
My understanding is that the upper plains states like Montana and Nebraska are also similar outside of the cities, and it looks pretty familiar on Craigslist for Wyoming, North Dakota, and even moreso in Montana and South Dakota
Literally how the fuck are people supposed to buy cars in markets like these, where they're also especially mandatory because the grocery store might be an hour away by car?
yeah, i've been out of the used car market for about 13 years at this point. sometimes i look up stuff in my LCOL area and the broader region and it's been real fucked for the last few years. the big lots snapped up a ton of used car inventory and, as you say, want a king's ransom for everything. if my car got totalled i would probably see about repairing anyway, or do some fleet vehicle surplus / salvage title bullshit and end up with some $500 deathtrap. or prowling the obituaries to find and old lady/old man car and offer to pay cash like a vulture. there's a clear pinch going on right now with the transition to EVs, because the logic is to not buy a new ICE vehicle right now and try to limp along with something until the EVs really start rolling out. not to mention, buying a new car has always been a dogshit value proposition... and with interest rates/prices so high and wages so crappy, more people are incentivized to scrutinize the entire notion.
I feel like EVs are never going to get down to a price point, and the goal is to just price half of people out of the auto market just like they've been priced out of housing and everything else.
manufacturers et al do seem to be in the "price discovery" phase, where they are imperceptibly turning the price dial down on EVs to find what is the highest price people will pay, so that when gas prices go up to $12/gallon during the next major military conflict, they will harvest as much money as possible.
I will say Chilton is a good reference of first resort, especially for someone like me who is still learning the basics, but I find the photos and illustrations kind of lacking, and the wiring diagrams advertised on the front cover weren't updated for my model/year. Thank goodness for 30 sub randos on youtube doing the exact repair i'm looking for with one hand while they try to record it with their phone.
e: Oh also it only covered one of the automatic transmissions I could have. Luckily someone wrote an unusually informative Wikipedia article.
most loud squeaks noises are bad belts/tensioners btw, spray some water on it and if it gets worse for a second you found your problem
In my headcanon, he was replying to the person who studied the blade and happy to help. What a brilliant meme. It shone like gold in my memory
Tbh if someone decides to stance their wheels at a goddamn 45 degree angle my sympathy for their car troubles is measured in decimal points
Yeah ok grease monkey, congrats you can now charge me $8000 for an oil change, whoopdey doo. You know what I got?? Bike.
