Hacker News Reader

Comment by standeven | Hacker News Reader

Commit to doing all the maintenance on your car yourself to start getting comfortable with it. Easy jobs to start:

-replace cabin air filter -check for even tread wear -top up the wiper fluid -replace the windshield wipers -take off a wheel and look for tears in rubber bushings or grease leaking from seals. -replace anything broken like switches, trim pieces, etc.

Assuming it’s a gas car: -replace engine air filter -inspect spark plugs -check fluid levels: brake fluid, engine oil, coolant -check 12V battery voltage with the engine off and also running -change the oil

View on HN

Gosh, I didn't realize people weren't learning these things anymore, just as a matter of normal life.

I'm an early(ish) Millennial woman from the suburbs, from a family with no meaningful mechanical knowledge or training of any kind, and I've done most of these things.

I would have considered myself pretty ignorant about cars prior to reading your comment. Thanks for shifting my perspective to seeing myself as having at least a useful basic familiarity with things!

Great comment because I wondering the same thing. Do people not do any of those things on their own anymore? At a minimum, changing the oil was something I did with my dad as a kid. The hardest thing I've done was probably change a starter.

ICE's are conceptually pretty simple. Anyone who has built a computer should be able to do basic car maintenance if they want to. The electronics is what makes newer cars more complicated, and I assume EVs even more so.

If you want to sell a few year old used car, the paper trail of the professionally done service is a bonus.

Maybe private party, but I've saved this stuff up before and dealers DGAF.

The vast majority of people make a very stupid decision by selling to a dealer and not selling private party.

A lot of Americans become very low IQ in the context of any car related financial decisions. Off loading their vehicles is one of the classic examples of this. Do NOT sell to your dealer. Carvana is the only exception and only because you can easily offload messed up cars to them without disclosing it.

I've done the math every time I've traded in a car. It's not always worth it, because of the additional time investment, effort, and travel required.

It depends. I've gotten good prices from CarMax before, but like the other responder said, you have to research.

The other thing is that it's not always low IQ, but many people value simplicity. Do I want to show a car, deal with cashiers check fraud, flakey people, etc... or do I want money literally right now? I've sold cars to CarMax and I've sold cars and boats privately. The private price I think I can get has to be considerably more than what I can get with zero hassle.

It probably varies between EV manufacturers, but my Tesla Model 3 has been the easiest vehicle to self maintain that I’ve owned yet. Mostly due to how little maintenance there is, but also because of the completely open and online factory service manuals and parts manuals.

It’s ridiculously easy to look up a part number, order it online from wherever is most convenient, and follow the steps in the manual to replace it.

I had the opposite experience with my 10-year-old Model S.

Most parts could only come from Tesla, including the Bilstein struts (a part number Bilstein refuses to sell to anyone but Tesla). $900 per corner.

USB port between the console? $400. I found a used one on eBay, fortunately.

When the wheel rotation sensor receiver went bad, it cost $2500 for them to install and reprogram the replacement, because they "upgraded" to a different mfr. When that one started to go bad (water ingress, which wasn't cured by the new part), I sold the car and said good riddance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com