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Comment by levocardia | Hacker News Reader

I had a teacher in high school who was blinded (I think only in one eye) trying to do this repair. You could not pay me enough money to do this repair.

>This work is risky, but the risk is comparable to doing your own car repairs, or climbing on the roof of your house to clean your gutters.

Notably, "unintentional fall" is the #1 cause of emergency department visits for adults [1], which is why I'd hire a professional to work on my roof too (and wince when they don't wear safety equipment). I'm not sure where "crushed by your own car" falls on the list, but while I'm perfectly comfortable digging around in the engine bay, you also could not pay me enough to crawl around under a poorly jacked-up car.

1. https://wisqars.cdc.gov/lcnf/

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I don’t understand why it’s even considered safe to have one of these springs in one’s garage without a solid shield of some sort. While the energy involved is small on the scale of energy storage devices (<1 kJ or about 1 Wh if you believe the article), the speed at which it can release makes it quite dangerous. Your cell phone has a bigger battery than this! But your cell phone battery can’t discharge in a couple milliseconds.

Which brings to mind some rather different designs. A rather small motor with a lot of mechanical advantage can easily open a close a garage door, and if a DC or low voltage AC motor is used, it could do so quite a few times even if the power goes out.

You can even buy off-the-shelf springless garage door systems!

(I’m honestly not sure why springs are common at all in this application. IIRC I grew up with a garage door driven via a motor with a worm gear that engaged with a long threaded shaft, and there were nonetheless a pair of springs. Surely the added cost of a better motor and some upgraded mounting hardware for the motor box would have been less than the cost of those springs, especially installed. Maybe these designs are all essentially unchanged from decades ago when a ~100W (shaft) motor that could operate at a controlled speed even under negative load would have been exotic and expensive?)

> A rather small motor with a lot of mechanical advantage can easily open a close a garage door, and if a DC or low voltage AC motor is used, it could do so quite a few times even if the power goes out.

Garage doors are actually fairly heavy. By balancing the weight with a spring, you do a lot of favors to your mechanical advantage systems. (Eg: less wear, less advantage needed, the door can open in a reasonable amount of time…) You also do yourself a few favors for when things fail. (Eg: you pull the safety release and it’s possible to open the door without the motor.) Finally, power isn’t free and motors aren’t either; A spring is a really cheap way to reduce the cost of both of these things.

I imagine that garage door openers would either need to be a lot beefier or would work a lot slower without the springs.

What about a counterweight or a piston instead (pistons are used in pull down beds which might be a similar load)

Sure, but then you have to put the counterweight somewhere which would occupy garage floor or wall space. And the counterweight track would have to be enclosed for safety.

It's easy: you dig a deep shaft under the garage and put the counterweight in there.

Of course, there may be some cost issues with this solution...

you have an odd definition for "easy" I think.

garage door springs are safe if you are careful and you use the correct tools and procedures. the instant you take a shortcut with these, you increase the likelihood of a bad outcome.

so, don't take shortcuts, and don't do the work if you don't know what you're doing.

the professionals know this and that's why we pay them, but they're not special creatures with special abilities; they're people who understand that this is a situation which can bite you, and they act accordingly.

Just about anyone can change their garage door springs, if they do so correctly.

Deep shafts have a tendency to flood. And that’s assuming you can drill one in the first place.

Still need to store the same amount of energy. A counter weight or piston also has more opportunities for uncontained failure. At least when a garage door spring fails it is still constrained by the shaft running through the middle.

For what it's worth, I have also replaced my own garage door spring, and I really have no desire to do that again.

The risk isn’t just what the spring does but what happens to something caught in it. Springs can release energy a lot more quickly than a counterweight which can only accelerate a 9.8m/s/s, and therefore more risky to disable.

A few hundred points accelerating at 1g is still plenty of energy. It also comes with it's own challenges when it comes to releasing it.

It also provides a constant force, whereas the force required to raise a garage door linearly decreases the higher it gets. With the consequence that a garage door with a failed motor would slam into its stops over your head rather then into the ground. Followed shortly thereafter by the now liberated counterweight slamming into the ground.

https://www.physics.smu.edu/scalise/www/misc/bricks.html

*Wrong link

Counterweights don’t need to take a straight path to the ground. The force a weight pulls on a surface is based on the tangent.

True but by adjusting the angle you still end up with a fixed weight throughout the run. A spring force changes throughout the movement of the garage door and that’s chosen to match the unusual fact that the garage door’s weight changes as it’s gets progressively rolled up onto the top rails.

A fixed weight but not angle means the force varies. Cut the cable and acceleration would therefore also vary with that angle along the track.

Springs make a lot of sense from an installation perspective and can be easily tuned to match the specific door design, but if I was working from scratch on a DIY project I would prefer to use a counterweight if there was somewhere it fit.

Plus a counterweight is a big fat weight hanging in midair, so it's pretty obvious what will happen if you let it fall (and where it will land), whereas with a spring it's much harder to tell whether it's under tension or relaxed, and what it might do when the tension is released...

Pistons are theoretically safer to work on, because you can depressurize them without physically manipulating them.

See sibling comment above about the variable counterbalance needed for a normal right-angle tracked garage door.

You'd have to match the counterweight to the varying load (i.e. garage door effectively gets "lighter" the more its raised).

Counterweight = a length of chain that lands in a bucket as the door goes up.

That'd be feasible for new-build uninsulated steel doors, but 200+ lbs of chain for wood doors is a lot.

Maybe there could be a mechanism that lets you decouple the spring from the door and instead connect it to a worm drive, which would then be used to take tension off the spring using a power drill, all while it's completely contained in a steel housing.

If the garage door opener breaks, or the power is out, many people might have a really tough time opening the door manually without those springs. They might not be able to even do it at all.

It is still, of course, a valid question to ask if it's worth having dangerous springs up there all the time for the rare event of the opener being inoperative.

Or maybe we just shouldn't have doors that are that heavy?

> many people might have a really tough time opening the door manually without those springs

I think that would be most people. Who can lift over 450lbs from the ground?

450lbs but because it is not straight up but up and back that probably gives a 2-1 leverage so 225lb or 100kg. using your legs to lift it would be in the realm of a regular male weight trainer but not the average jo or jane.

Sure it gets progressively easier as more and more of the door rides horizontally on its rails. But those first few inches where the door is nearly entirely vertical, must be some significant fraction of the total weight, probably >90%.

Not to mention you have to get your fingers or something underneath the closed door in order to begin lifting it in the first place. So the "from the ground" part is not insignificant.

All garage doors I’ve seen had a heavy yank handle on the inside.

That handle's for when the springs are working. It's probably not going to lift hundreds of pounds without breaking.

Your 2-1 leverage assumption is wrong. The first 1' is full door weight plus all the friction in the system. The effective weight will decrease as the panels transition to horizontal, but deadlifting 400 lbs is easier than overhead pressing 200 lbs.

They are surprisingly heavy, which is why you need such a beefy spring. When my spring broke a decade or so ago, I wasn't able to lift the door on my own, and with the assistance of my wife we were just barely able to lift it. Looks like they can easily be 200-500 lbs depend on materials (steel isn't light, but it's lighter than wood for this application), and I guess the issue is that you have to lift hundreds of pounds straight up against gravity.

Could it be made of lighter material. Ironic how the garage door is perhaps the most armoured part of a house

Lighter materials that would provide the same level of durability, security, insulation, and fire resistance would be significantly more expensive. No one wants to pay for that.

But the other 3 walls of your garage are wood?

The other three walls don't have the same demands put on them. For one, you wouldn't need to lift them by hand, so they can be practically as heavy as you want.

It’s less ironic in areas subject to hurricanes. They have a very large area. One of the most damaging possible sequences in a hurricane is when the garage door blows in, then the wind just blows the whole roof off.

I guess it depends what you make it of, doesn't it? Growing up I had a typical corrugated roller door, it was very easy for me as a kid to open it with some of the weight supported by the roller. I think they have springs but they're not as extreme as the tilt/section doors. Apparently you can throw a motor on the end similar to roller blind kits, and they wouldn't have to deal with as much weight as a spring-based door. Of course, I do not live in an extreme weather area (yet).

I lifted mine but probably shouldn't have. I kept sticking stuff under it, a crate, a stool, until I was able to put two step ladders under. The higher it goes, the lighter it becomes since now the horizontal roller starts to take on some of the weight. But it's super dangerous.

When the spring broke, one of them snapped, and the quickly dropping door snapped the other one as well. Surprisingly it didn't damage the door itself. It's a double door so had two springs.

I toyed with the idea of replacing the springs myself but after asking around doing a few searches decided it's best I pay a professional to do it.

My garage door is no longer connected to the opener, I just swing it up manually twice a day. My kid can do so as well without issue. Maybe mine is lighter.

Are the springs still in place? If yes, then they are still doing most of the work.

They exist, but are not connected to anything. It just swings on the rollers.

The springs are different than the opener. I don’t think the springs can be disconnected, they have to be carefully removed. You would know if they were or were broken, because you couldn’t open the garage door.

Side-mounted extension springs can be easily disconnected with the door up (and ideally clamped). GP describing them as "not connected to anything" makes me suspect that they're extension springs, which can be easily/casually inspected and determined to be not hooked up to anything. Torsion springs you probably need to look to see the marks on the spring wind up (or make a straight chalk mark on it and see if that twists uniformly).

The opener doesn't support the weight of the door, that's the springs.

That's why it's surprising how heavy the doors are. Springs make it very easy open and close the garage doors with one hand, so we get used to it. When springs snap, (they all have a limited lifetime) the doors suddenly feel surprisingly heavy.

Don't know your situation but I'd dare to suggest fix the opener, simply because it means not standing right underneath, you or your kid, when the springs snap. It was quite startling when that happened.

I’m not an expert in how springs break but wouldn’t an ejection of material require the spring breaking in at least 2 places that are close enough to not loop around the rod? I’m curious if anyone’s ever been hurt by one breaking (other than when actively working on it).

I’ve also never heard of a shrapnel-based injury. Only door falls or torsion bars breaking arms.

I’ve actually replaced these in two houses, and yes, they’re dangerous, but honestly a little common sense and a straightforward (printed, with a buddy double-checking) list of steps you take with each quarter turn.

It’s super important to have the right torsion bars. Don’t try to invent your own.

I am a terrible person and have done this twice with a couple angle-ground pieces of rebar (almost perfect diameter) + a pair of vice grips.

On the one hand, nothing went wrong because I was careful. And rebar actually works really well.

On the other hand, it was pretty dicey, especially near the maximally-wound state when you're putting serious muscle into another quarter turn.

110% agreed on it being a 2 person job though. Reason #1: so someone is there to call 911. Reason #2: you'll need someone to cable up the drums while you're adjusting the spring, and it's way easier with 2 pairs of hands.

Realistically, any household maintenance task which needs a checklist and a second pair of eyes and arms to be done safely, is often going to be carried out by someone who feels that they can manage without either.

I'm far from an expert but many (most?) kinds of spring are hardened steel. It's not hard to imagine how they might shatter under the right stress.

Anecdotally, yes, it happened to me. An older extension spring setup where each end of the spring had a J-shape hook. The hook itself sheared off of the body of the spring and shot a ~2 inch steel boomerang across the garage. Fortunately my only injury was psychological and temporary.

The replacement spring was constructed differently, with the "hook" portion replaced by two complete loops of metal. The safety cable runs through that and would hold it back during a similar failure.

> I don’t understand why it’s even considered safe to have one of these springs in one’s garage without a solid shield of some sort.

The shield is the steel tube that runs down the middle of the spring. When the spring breaks, it's got an integral safety containment, similar to the aircraft cable that is often run through extension style springs (which are probably far more dangerous when they break, though less dangerous to service).

> I’m honestly not sure why springs are common at all in this application.

They're nicely matched to the load profile of the door. As the door is fully closed, the spring is exerting maximum upward force. As sections of the door transition to the horizontal track, the spring is simultaneously relaxing some, meaning it exerts around half the force when the door is halfway up and very little force as the last segment hits the turn in the track. It's a pretty elegant match of mechanism to the load profile.

> I’m honestly not sure why springs are common at all in this application.

Properly adjusted springs effectively cancel out the weight of the door. This makes it easy to open and close with and without an opener, and greatly limits the danger of a door falling closed under it's own weight, which can seriously hurt someone.

One of my garage door springs snapped unexpectedly while my housemate was opening the garage door. I'm glad nobody was under the door at the time since it slammed so hard it put a bend in the bottom section.

I recently accidentally drained the battery on my car while I was fixing unrelated stuff on the door (and therefore had the door open for 3 hours). I bought a "jumpstarter kit" which is basically a 12000mAh LiIon battery (3.7V) and some electronics. It's just a little bigger than a large mobile phone, but you clip it to the car battery and it's capable of providing 12V at 600A to turn the starter motor for up to 5 seconds. That's 7.2kW from a shockingly small device. I treated it with all due respect.

Some pedantry:

1. It’s unlikely there’s power conversion circuitry in the kit. It’s almost certainly a few cells in series.

2. I’d be surprised if it can actually produce 600A at 12V. It’ll be “12V nominal” into an open circuit, which is really more like 14V for a 4-cell Li-ion setup. But even a 600 cold cranking amp lead-acid battery only supplies 7.2V at 600A.

1: That's not what the manual says. But you're probably right anyway. I haven't cracked the box open to check.

2: Yes, you're right I'm sure.

It’s usually a requirement that, in an emergency, you can disconnect the electric opener and open it by hand. Certainly if there’s no second door to the garage, this seems essential or you’d be trapped if power or anything in the opener fails. Springs make this possible.

The spring counteracts the weight of the door. In the event of motor or electricity failure a well adjusted spring/door will be easy to manually open. A direct drive/worm gear would require an uncoupling mechanism and the ability to lift the full weight of the garage door overhead to get out.

Attention is required when changing these, but they really don't pose that great of a risk. I've been present when one broke, and I've changed them myself. As noted by others - the spring stays contained by the metal shaft. They really aren't worth substituting with something that has more drawbacks when a spring's lifespan is on the order of decades.

> Notably, "unintentional fall" is the #1 cause of emergency department visits for adults

Yes. Until it happens to you, it seems like someone else's problem. I say this as someone who found himself staring at the sky with a concussion and whiplash after the ladder decided to walk out from under me on my concrete walkway. (I'll admit that it was probably my error, but I'll never really know since the ladder took a trip too). Now all trips up the ladder are treated with the gravity my younger self disregarded.

I'll add that it's very disconcerting to be unable to move or breathe as everything fades out...

I have a scar on one hand that I call my "Get down and move the damn ladder" reminder scar. Five of the inches have faded, but there's still one, bright, keloid spot at the base of my right thumb that stares right down at me every time I start to reach for something and think, "This would really be easier if I got down and moved the ladder."

From my OSHA30 training (IBEW, about a decade ago) I still remember and often quote that ladders are primary contributing factor to accidents that lead to tradesmen disability.

In my more-youthful idiot phase, I recall using a 4" holesaw to drill two holes into the roof awning, while standing atop a fifty foot extension ladder (planted into soil, only). After completing the first, I realized how dangerous this task was... and then still convinced myself to drill the second hole.

It seems the general contractor [bossman] hadn't wanted to wait for an already-to-be-delivered bucket lift, which the CCTV guys ended up requiring anyways ("no way in hell we'd do that on a ladder," they said to me). This woke me up that I needed to find better bosses/employment.

My father is a handyman for multiple large apartment buildings.

Climbing onto a roof and changing garage springs are 2 things he says he'll never do. I was surprised how specific he was about it.

He knows lots of other handymen so I'm guessing he has heard lots of horror stories. Garage springs are no joke.

I've changed garage door springs myself; it was pretty easy. However, there are different types. The torsion ones are the scary ones, and I wouldn't touch those either.

Other (generally older) doors have longitudinal springs. When the door is open, the spring is uncompressed, and very easy to change. Just make sure to block the door so it can't close while you're working, and install the safety wire (it goes through the spring so if they spring breaks, it doesn't hit something).

Modern doors usually don't have this kind because they take up space in the garage. The torsion kind are on top of the door and stay out of the way.

Oh! This is such a lightbulb comment for me. I distinctly remember growing up with the wobbly side springs, and then after the motor died switching to a “screw driven” system and those going away. Ever since I’ve only seen the “screw driven” ones and when I hear stories about garage door springs I wonder why I’ve never seen them… Now I know where the springs on my current garage door are.

> Modern doors usually don't have this kind because they take up space in the garage

I'm willing to believe you but can't visualize this all that well. The "extension springs" in my garage door are in the space above the tracks that the door slides on. The tracks are longer than what the door itself would require, to leave room for the springs, but... is that a problem? They're on the ceiling, and some of that space would be occupied by the motor lifting the door anyway.

You're talking about a different kind of arrangement, which I didn't know about before. I'm talking about this kind: https://ddmgaragedoors.com/springs/one-piece-garage-door-ext...

Oh yeah, my garage doors are multiple panels that make a bend as they roll up on the tracks.

"Notably, "unintentional fall" is the #1 cause of emergency department visits for adults"

Most of these are not from DIY, but age realted

How is it age related if it is the number one cause for all ages? Am I misreading the chart?

Look at the spread from #1 to #2. At young ages, the difference is pretty high, suggesting that young kids falling from things is common. In the middle age ranges, #1 and #2 are pretty close, suggesting that falling isn’t that different (from a statistical frequency POV) from the #2 option.

But then look at the split at the older age groups. Falling is by and far the biggest cause. By a ton. Starting at 45, the split just keeps growing. And these numbers are higher in general than any other age group, so they skew the “all ages” numbers by a lot.

So, while it is a major cause for all age groups, the effect size is very age related.

I would suspect that "unintentional fall" also covers falling over (like, the kind of fall that would happen if you tripped over a garden hose), not just falling off something. The former is the most common cause of emergency visits among the older people I know.

I figured for all ages it would also encompass falling off something. A chair, bed, etc… one type is more predominant for the younger ages (falling from something), the other is likely more predominant for the older ages (falling down, tripping, stairs, etc).

Falls hit 50% fatal above a twelve foot drop. Remember kids gravity is an accelerative force. It isn't a static force. You fall faster and faster every second you fall.

Until you hit 'terminal velocity'.

meaning elderly people falling due to mobility/balance issues vs some guy falling off his roof

Among the workplace population, if you look at fatal workplace accidents [1] you'll find that falls are the second-most-common cause of death (deaths on the road are the most common)

Construction workers have the second-highest number of workplace deaths (transportation workers are the highest) and among construction workers, falls are the most common cause of death.

Transport and construction are second and third in fatalities per worker-hour, with 'farming, fishing and forestry' the most dangerous per worker-hour.

So ladders aren't the most dangerous thing out there - but falls are pretty near the top of the list when it comes to workplace deaths.

That's not to say people can't use ladders safely - just if you're hauling a heavy ass drill up a ladder and it's stopping you using both hands, the cable's flapping around your legs, your pockets are full of sharp pointy tools, and it's raining - maybe think twice :)

[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf

I guess the problem I find with using these statistics is that there are a whole lot of people who are... I guess to put it frankly... doing things completely wrong.

For example, I regularly use my table saw but and I see accident videos on Instagram/YouTube where people are doing something inherently dangerous, dumb, and obviously wrong on a table saw that I'd never imagine even trying to do, and then I read replies and everyone is like "oh that's an honest mistake and it could have happen to anyone," which is a complete farce because they should have NEVER even attempted doing it that way to begin with. And if you attempt to explain why this method is dangerous and say something like "oh, you shouldn't do it this way because of the rotation of the blade's spin and the direction that you pushing the piece in means that you pulling your fingers into the blade," they'll attack you and tell you that it's a mistake anyone could make.

I guess it bothers me that people don't try to learn how something works, get into accidents, write it off as honest mistakes, and then thinks everyone makes mistakes as often as them. It's like a major disconnect between learning how to do something and learning how to be good at it and not having imposter syndrome.

When my spring broke I called a someone local (maybe via Yelp), he came out within 30 minutes, replaced it in 20 and charged me $75. This was only a couple of years ago.

Likewise with brake fluid changes. I can do it, but the risk/hassle just ain't worth it for the cost of a pro.

What are the risks of changing brakes? Never thought of that as a particularly risky endeavor before.

The most common risk is not properly protecting against contamination of the reservoir or not bleeding the system and having air or water in the line.

Air will compress and you could have brake failure. Also water, less common but happens, as the brakes heat up, can boil into gas and then also again you have loss of pressure and brake failure.

This is why I comment technique for race cars, which always have the risk of possibly boiling their brake fluid, will give a slight pump to the brake before coming up to a corner to pressurize the master cylinder and make sure that it does have a little bit of pressure pushback While you still have a little bit of space to react and ditch if something goes wrong

I would assume "if you don't put them back together right, you can't stop, and cars are deadly enough with functioning brakes"

In addition to the other answers, brake fluid is toxic and removes paint.

Only the old dot3 does that.

After seeing the quality of work of "pros" with simple oil changes, I wouldn't trust one of them to properly change and bleed brake fluid, unless I was very familiar with their work.

I never replace the brake fluid. I do flush each caliper when changing summer and winter tyres. This means a selected offspring presses the brake twice for every tyre and the caliper has fresh fluid in it.

The fluid only degrades in the caliper, no need to replace it entirely, and no need for a computer when you do it like I described it.

It depends. Brake fluid absorbs moisture, which lowers its boiling point. You don't want it boiling from brake heat when you're really trying to stop. If you live somewhere humid then the whole reservoir can slowly absorb too much moisture and make the fluid unsafe.

Correct. Brake fluid absorbs moisture but the key is that DOT 3, 4, and 5.1 fluid then spreads that moisture evenly throughout itself, so that you never have a pool of water in your brakes but instead a dispersed low percentage of moisture in the fluid.

So even if water only enters the system at the caliper or reservoir, that moisture still spreads through all the fluid in the entire car. That's why you flush it all out when changing brake fluid.

No need to panic. An entire generation never refreshed this fluid and vapour lock was still a rare incident. Replacing 20% of this fluid every year is more than enough.

You are replacing the brake fluid though. Probably more ofent then almost every car owner.

Right? One of my garage door lifting cables broke, and although I knew how to replace it, the $150 or so that it cost to have an actual professional fix it was money well spent.

I've done car repairs for decades, and climbed up on roofs when I had to, but I'm not dicking around with garage door springs.

It’s not that it’s a hard job, the labor cost comes in at around $100-$150/hr as you said. It takes about an hour to do.. But why am I going to do this when my time could be better spent elsewhere?

Saving $1000 tiling your shower? That makes sense. Saving $100 and potentially maim yourself in the process? Hello garage door repairman.

> you also could not pay me enough to crawl around under a poorly jacked-up car.

Indeed, but it’s not difficult to set yourself up with multiple failsafes.

By the time I’m set up to get underneath a car, I’m in a safer situation than driving the car given how many things would have to go wrong for the car to fall on me.

I use truck stands that will hold up several times the weight of the car. After I put it on the stands, I also give it several hard shoves to make sure it is secure.

I knew someone in high school who had started work at an auto repair place, and he described the process - and danger - of replacing car springs to me once.

I'm sure there are various types of car spring, the kind he was talking about was the stereotypical coil-of-metal spring. There's so much energy in there that a small slip up can be deadly.

It used to be worse. Lots of cars today use a coil-over-strut design that captures the spring. There's still a lot of energy, but it's much easier to manage safely, by the time the nut at the top runs out of threads there's generally little to no force left in the spring.

Way back (like... 30 years ago) when I was working on my Mustang, the spring was separate from the strut. You had to drop the control arm enough to unload it and remove it, and there wasn't anything to contain it. I always tied it with a chain or a seat belt, and tried to not be directly in front of it during the unloading process. I knew a kid who got hit in the chest by a spring popping out; he did not make it. Removing it or installing a new one were both quite dangerous for the careless.

> by the time the nut at the top [of a McPherson strut] runs out of threads there's generally little to no force left in the spring

This might be true on heavily lowered cars, but cars at stock ride height [with stock springs IOW] this is not my experience at all. I sure wouldn't risk my life or limb on it and spring compressors are quite cheap compared to an ER co-pay.

The back springs in many cars are still separate from the shock absorber and it is those back springs which often fail. I have replaced them on several cars and can only conclude that the job can be done safely as long as you use a pair of reasonable-quality spring compressors - two of them, one on each side of the coil so that it can not pop out. These are used both during the unloading of the old spring as well as when installing the new ones.

Thank you. I agree on all examples. Absolutely not worth the risk. Not even close. I wince thinking about when I changed my own oil in my 20s... Potentially throwing away so many good years, for so little gain. The car danger can be mitigated if the work is done under a professional lift.

There is pretty much zero risk if the car is either jacked correctly or put on ramps correctly. Dummies that rely on a single 1.5mm o-ring not blowing out on their hydraulic floor jacks are gambling with their life. Always operate on flat terrain, always chock the wheels, always use the parking brake, always use jack stands, always verify no movement in the vehicle by rocking it, never rely on the floor jack.

Ramps are very good. I don't know why anyone would use a jack for an oil change...

A jack is basically suicide tbh. Jackstands are fine, provided they're used correctly.

Ramps are nice, provided you don't need to take a wheel off, then you're using jackstands anyway, so, if you're buying one or the other, jackstands are a good option.

Personally, if you have the space for it, a trench is the best option, I had one previously and I miss it alot. Nothing leaves the ground, car just pulls in and is ready to go. Mine was like 2ft deep, so, maybe a little cramped, but very comfortable once you're in there working. You couldn't make a standable trench at home without engineering it anyway, so, a crawlable trench is really the way to go.

IMO a trench mitigates the danger effectively.

Until you fall into it when you’re not paying attention!

Make sure it is shored correctly!

But fumes can collect in a trench, is that right?

They're against the building code around here.

Another option, if you’ve got the ceiling height is a proper 4 post lift. Expensive, but you can justify it by doubling your car storage space.

Depends on the jack. The people I know that do this use a jack and jack stands rather than just a jack. The jack is just the tool to go up/down.

>The jack is just the tool to go up/down.

This should be drilled into the heads of anyone who touches a jack. It's only a tool for lifting the car onto jackstands.

Lazyness. I've been under a car dozens of times with them, never had an issue, but know it's not the best practice and try to use jackstands... but it's just so much quicker!

Valid, re ramps > jack stands > floor jack. I always used ramps, but still... won't do it again. I'll change plugs + coils etc because you don't need to get under the car.

I’ll also put tires (on rims) underneath in addition to jack stands/ramps.

It’s amazing and honestly kind of sad how risk averse some people are. The reason I don’t change my oil anymore is it just isn’t worth the time and hassle. The “unsafety” of such a task doesn’t even register on my things to be worried about: at all. Jack it up, remember to put on gloves(!!!!) put the fucker on stands and go.

The actual scary thing is I’m pretty sure way back when I was a kid we’d just dump the oil down the storm drain. I hate to think what that was doing to the environment around us.

I’m baffled too. Changing oil in a car is dead simple and effectively zero risk with a proper pair of jack stands and a modicum of common sense and mechanical aptitude.

Not everyone is born with common sense. I sure wasn't. I'll find some way to do something that will leave the people with common sense scratching their heads, saying "but why wouldn't you just...".

There's a kind of meta-common sense which allows people to say "I don't have the ability to perform this task reliably".

All right, I respect that. I’m sure there are plenty of things that I might do that would leave you scratching your head too.

Of course it's safe if you jack it correctly

The problem is if you've only used a jack 0-1 times in your life, you won't know you haven't done it correctly until there's a car crushing you

Harbor freight famously sold unreliable jackstands for awhile. There’s memes about it in the car community.

There's plenty of unreliable jack stands, especially the folding tripod-type is easily toppled. I still use these but I put a few LECA-blocks and/or stacks of lumber under the edges of the car to catch it in case the jack stands fail. This never happened but I prefer not to end up a statistic of the ´man found dead under car on farm' type.

"Potentially throwing away so many good years, for so little gain. The car danger can be mitigated if the work is done under a professional lift."

I use ramps I built - solid 2x12. Those are extremely safe as there's nothing that can break, bend, or disintegrate. It's way more dangerous to drive than to work on the vehicle.

> Potentially throwing away so many good years

How much time did you spend changing oil?? It's a 20-30 min job once you have done it coupe of time and know the ropes. I sometimes do it myself not because I want to save few bucks, but because it's sometimes faster than going somewhere.

I'm assuming you're leaving out the time it takes to drive somewhere to dispose of the used oil and driving back. I grew up in the boonies, and my dad was one to dispose of oil "out back". It was such a shock the day he brought home a proper catch can to have it disposed of properly

Pretty much any big chain auto parts shop accepts used oil. With a proper catch can you still have to bring in for disposal.

This isn't that bad for most people living in the US, given every major auto part chain in the country accepts the fluids for free (o'reilly, autozone, etc). There's often an auto parts store next to the supermarket or close by. Besides, for most cars we are talking about a once every 12-24 month event for only ~5 quarts of old fluid.

You can show up with the used oil in any receptacle you like, there's no such thing as a proper container beyond not leaking, they will take the contents off your hands.

there's a caveat to "most people living in the US" regarding what their lease/deed/HOA contracts/etc say restricting the working on one's car on premises. you'd be amazed at how restrictive they can be. in an apartment, you'll be lucky if they allow you to jack up your car to change a tire. opening the hood for anything more than adding fluids is also a no-no. even single family homes with strict HOAs do not want a car in the front drive actively being worked on (sometimes that comes with "for extended period" caveats, but not always). I gues they figure if you can afford to live there, you can afford to have someone else work on your car at their place not in their neighborhood.

"Don't buy in an HOA if you like to use your hands" is probably pretty fair advice.

HOAs serve a pretty useful purpose: to coarsely/imperfectly segregate people who want to live in an HOA away from people who would never want to live in an HOA and vice-versa.

Those two groups are somewhat prone to having conflicts with each other and HOAs let both be happier than if they were to be annoyed by living next to each other.

We just put it out with the weekly recycling.

I read that as "I risked 50+ remaining years of my life (or serious life-changing injury) with low-probability" not "it took me so many wasted hours with probability 1.0"

I do my oil changes top-side now, using an air-powered Mityvac (MV7300; no affiliation).

That's the factory-recommended procedure for several brands now and works well on my Mercedes and Honda. I was skeptical at first, but did the extraction and then removed the drain plug and the oil I got from the bottom wouldn't have half-filled a shot glass, so that's good enough for me.

As long as the filter is accessible from the top or side, I don't see the need to jack up most wet-sump cars (which is almost all of them).

Recently got one of these myself. Didn’t even get my hands dirty doing the change, wish I knew about fluid extractors years ago (though not all of my cars have had filters so easily accessible)

Thanks for the oil change recommendation.

Video review that seemed legit if anyone interested: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xuYVe-mPsxw

That seems like a fair review. The only things I've needed to do in about a decade was to replace the nylon hose (readily available from many suppliers and therefore cheap). It cracked after a half-decade of sitting outside with corrosive used oil sitting it. I also got a somewhat longer piece so I could have the tool sitting firmly on the ground and still reach the bottom of the sump. It seems like they could have given an extra couple feet without breaking the bank.

One thing to note: you'll need about 5 CFM @ 90 psi to run the venturi, which is more than a little pancake compressor can give, but otherwise isn't crazy for even a medium portable compressor. If you don't have an air compressor and weren't planning to get one, I think they probably make a powered pump version and that would be a better choice.

NOt all crankcases can be drained fully this way. Please test using the drain plug the first few times. Budfy locked up his benz with this shortcut.

I started changing my own oil when I was 16. We only used ramps, never jacks.

I bought an oil/fluid extractor off Amazon. It's basically a bicycle pump sized tank, with a long hose you stuff down the dipstick hole. You then pump the unit up, which creates a vacuum, and pulls the oil up and out of the car. Takes about 5 minutes to get 5 quarts out, and then you just refill, pour the used oil into the now empty bottles the new oil came in, and take it to your oil recycling center

> Notably, "unintentional fall" is the #1 cause of emergency department visits for adults [1]

The vast majority of those are the mundane falling down the stairs or the elderly in bathtubs, not anything to do with roofs.

But also "unintentional fall" from roofs is the reason that solar power has more deaths per energy produced than nuclear power.

> you also could not pay me enough to crawl around under a poorly jacked-up car

Absolutely, I agree. However, like any work, there's a safe way and a million unsafe ways to perform it. Crawling under a car on a jack is unsafe. Crawling under a car properly supported by jack stands is perfectly safe.

I replaced my own garage doors, not just because of the cost, but also because I could not find a contractor to do it inside of four months. I did my research, took my time, and got two 9x7' doors replaced in a weekend and a half at a leisurely pace for a third of the quotes I received from the pros.

The FUD spread online around garage doors is unreal.

If you don't know how to do it safely, don't attempt it. If you can spend a few hours learning how to do things properly and safely, go for it. It's not black magic. Garage door installers are people too, and it's not like the training is some dark arts ritual imbued upon them by shadowy figures. It's basic physics, geometry, and hand tools.

One of my friends attempted this repair and smashed his hand so badly that the doctor told him it might not be functional ever again. It did mostly recover, but still. NFW am I working on this and the tech can have my $300 once every 15 years.

Looks like you have to use a bolt to deload, replace and then load a spring. With the risk being you overload it and it snaps in your face?

A chainsaw is scarier to me.

Battery electric chainsaws are a game changer. I have a little 20v 12 inch that I've felled and limbed 2ft thick trees with. Doesn't jump around, stops the moment you let go of the trigger, isn't noisy or hot. Still have to respect it, but it's a much tamer beast than the two cycle monsters of yore.

It's amazing how comfortable people are with stored potential energy... I do not like powerful springs and bungee cords and the like.

But plenty of people are fine with roofs and springs but terrified of electricity

The problem is that you won't know it was poorly jacked-up until it's too late.

Yeah, I'm a DIY'er and I noped-out of this one too.

Ditto, but after he charged me $550 it and used bars rather than a worm-drive "winder", I'm thinking that next time I'm going to either get a winder and do it myself (parts were sub $100) or at least get 3 quotes. I went with someone a friend liked, so I didn't do any shopping around, mea culpa. But, I guess he had to pay for his brand new F-250 somehow. :-)

I was half expecting him to say I needed other maintenance including new rollers, at which point I was going to call BS, because I replaced those rollers a couple three years ago and I'm about a million uses away from their rated million open/closes. Double sealed ball bearings, ask for them by name.

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