The self-service trend: repair your car yourself
You will probably recognize it immediately: as a typical Dutchman, who watches his wallet in a healthy way, you do more and more chores yourself instead of outsourcing them to expensive intermediaries. After all, who still books a holiday at a travel agency? Don't you just 'arrange' that yourself online?
But many people nowadays also do odd jobs for which you need some knowledge themselves, with some support from the internet. Pruning your bushes, tuning your piano or installing a camera system; you can't think of it that way or there are extensive tutorial videos on YouTube. Nowadays you can even sell your house without a broker. All instructions, manuals and explanations that you will ever need are now online for free. We also call it the self-service trend: rather save costs by spending the free Saturday afternoon on doing such a job yourself, than hiring an (too) expensive professional.
What many people could save money on by doing self-service is repairing your car. Garages are expensive, while many repairs are not at all difficult to do yourself. You just have to spend that Saturday afternoon.
Which job do yourself?
How do you determine whether you can do a job yourself or better hire a professional? Somewhere, of course, there is a limit. Rebuilding a bathroom yourself sounds nice and nice, but is not just for everyone. Let alone build an entire house.
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To be able to make that decision properly, you can use the triangle of price, quality and time. Three factors that we generally consider important. We prefer to have the best possible solution for as little money as possible, and then as quickly as possible; but unfortunately that is not possible. In this triangle you can only choose two options; you sacrifice the third.
If you opt for a fast, high-quality solution with regard to the repair of your car, you will end up in the (expensive) garage. You do not save on costs: this is the third point of the triangle that you leave for what it is. Do you want high quality yet low costs? Then you will have to invest time to learn and then do it yourself. Fortunately, you don't have to do everything on your own.
Car parts
On the website AUTODOC.NL you can find a variety of affordable car parts. All you have to do is indicate which brand and type of car you have, and the website will automatically help you find the right part. And the handy thing is: you often find an instruction video on how to assemble this part yourself. Replacing an oil filter or shock absorber quickly becomes a piece of cake.
Self-service is saving
For the perfect maintenance and repair of cars you definitely need a bit of talent, and especially interest. You must want to invest some time and effort in it. It is often great chores to do yourself, possibly together with a friend or family member. With the help you find online nowadays, self-service your car is an ideal way to save (a lot of) money, anyway with the small repair jobs. Does a lot of work have to be done or is the repair major? Then you can always go to the garage.
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Last weekend I was busy doing odd jobs on my wife's car. Just replace a window mechanism. Well take that away. Thick 5 hours of work, 10 times watched the YouTube videos (which are handy by the way), but again and again an annoying screw that you cannot reach or that is too stuck. In the end it worked out well anyway.
Indeed, I hear more and more often that people repair their cars themselves to save costs. If you have the knowledge yourself, this is of course a great plan. Make sure you buy good parts and are sure that you are tackling the right problem.
The websites for ordering car parts make it very easy. If you are a bit handy, tinkering with the car is no problem at all. Certainly for safety-relevant parts, it is very important to choose the quality of the parts to be ordered. You are on the safe side with branded parts of approved quality.
My husband is very handy in repairing cars and has been towing friends' cars for years through the MOT inspection. He now grumbles about the fact that modern cars are becoming less and less manageable. Where there used to be cables, there are now sensors. The replacement is accompanied by adjustment and that is often only possible in a garage. That is simply the modern age.