Every car owner, regardless how much we love our car, always hate the large bills mechanics charge for their services. While it is a very good idea to have the peace of mind when using a mechanic, and the warranty associated with the work, often there are small jobs that we would prefer not to be paying the $50 to $120 an hour a mechanic will charge for these basic, non safety related repairs.
For small repairs like this, where safety is not an issue, often doing it ourselves is going to be a method to save some money, however when doing these repairs you need the full specifications for the repair and instructions start to finish. In this situation, you need to download car workshop manuals, these can be found online and the best resource we have found is a website called AllCarManuals.com.
At this website, they cover all vehicle makes and models, and provide a wide range of car workshop manuals which will assist you to make repairs exactly the same as the factory mechanics did when the car was new. All the manuals are ex dealership documents, they are the repair guides the mechanics at the dealership used to repair your car when it was brand new, and often this means they are superior to aftermarket workshop manuals where people may estimate things such as torque settings and which bolts to take off first.
If you have a torque wrench, a half inch socket set and wrench, and some spanners in metric and imperial, there is no reason why small jobs, such as alternator / fan belts, or even slightly bigger jobs such as water pumps, can't be done at home.
When doing your own repairs though, remember to take your time, never rush a job, have patience and get it done slowly and properly, forcing bolts off or using incorrect sockets can strip bolts and cause you even more problems. As the saying goes, slow and steady wins the race.
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