Internet comes to aid of DIYers
Two trends in the automotive industry are making DIY maintenance more difficult: the rapidly increasing complexity and computerisation of vehicles, and the reluctance of manufacturers to make workshop manuals available to the public.
On the other hand, certain factors make it easier for the home mechanic to do the maintenance himself. Firstly, modern cars require less maintenance than older ones.
Long gone are the days when cars had grease nipples on steering and suspension joints and you had to jack up the vehicle and crawl in underneath with a messy grease gun every 10,000km. Replacing “points and condenser”, and adjusting the spark timing, chores of yesteryear, went out the window with the arrival of electronic ignition. Spark plugs, which seldom lasted more than 20,000km in the days of leaded petrol, now last twice as long.
The second factor which has come to the rescue of the DIY mechanic is the internet. To a certain extent this makes up for the sorely missed workshop manuals which some manufacturers, especially in the US, were happy to provide in the past at reasonable cost. The sources of assistance on the internet are numerous.
Starting with diagnosing a problem that has appeared on your car, let’s say you have an intermittent misfiring which manifests itself as occasional jerking during acceleration. You would turn to Google and type in something like “causes of car jerking”.
Professor Google will probably suggest various options, like “causes of car jerking at low speed” or “causes of car engine jerking” or “major causes of car jerking”. After a moment’s reflection, you realise it happens at low speed, and you select that option.
The prof now gives you a little window with an explanation which turns out to be nonsense; your car doesn’t even have a distributor, so how can there be moisture on the distributor cap? You look further. Nine further links are suggested and they all look promising. Finally, knowing from experience that aa1car.com is an excellent site, you ask Google to give you aa1car.com/library, and you scroll down the list of topics to “Diagnose Engine Misfire”.
Having read all this, you will have a number of possibilities in front of you. The next step is to search for an owners’ forum for your particular car and scan the discussions for “engine misfire”. Some cars have a propensity for certain problems, and this might help you to highlight a few possibilities on your list.
The final step is to test on the car. You may have to scrutinise suspect components visually and perhaps do some checks with a multimeter. The odds are that you will find the source of the problem by this process, but even if you don’t, you will have learnt a lot about your car, and this will stand you in good stead if you eventually have to call in a diagnostician.
For the record, this story is based on my own search for the cause of low-speed jerking on a Ford Ikon. The reason turned out to be bad plug wires.
In a different situation you may know what you have to do, but not how to do it. Suppose for instance you have to change the gearbox oil on a Chev Spark Lite. You don’t even know where to find the gearbox drain plug, let alone how to refill the box. But YouTube will probably tell you. In this particular case a search for a YouTube video will prove fruitless, but in the process you are led to a website, AutoDaewooSpark.com, with an excellent drawing showing you everything you need to know.
For every door that closes, a window opens elsewhere. That’s how DIY mechanics survive.