Save time and money on your next oil change, paint scratch fix, or battery replacement by doing it at home!
Taking your car to the auto shop is never fun, especially when it’s for a simple but expensive repair or maintenance task. Even if you don’t consider yourself handy with cars, you can handle many simple fixes and maintenance issues on your own.
In this handy guide, we’ll show you how to take care of a few simple car repairs at home to save money and time. Discover how you can change your oil, repair a paint scratch, replace a battery, and more without stopping at the auto shop.
Oil Change
The simplest car repair that you can do at home is changing the oil yourself. An oil change can cost as much as $70 or more at a quick oil change place, and if you’re putting a lot of miles on your car every year, that could add up to hundreds of dollars spent on oil changes.
All you’ll need for this simple job is the new oil, an oil filter, and a drain pan. Drain the old oil into the drain pan using the drain plug on the car, close up the plug, and put the new oil in your car—it’s as easy as that!
Paint Scratch
Few things are as aggravating as a large, gnarly scratch across your car’s paint job. You could take your vehicle to a professional shop, but that will require a lot of time and money. Fortunately, in many cases, you can take care of it at home.
Most paint scratches are clear coat scratches, which means only the superficial clear coat of the top layer is damaged. For these scratches, simply polishing the clear coat with a rubbing compound will take care of the scratch.
Broken Valve Stem
Do your tires keep losing pressure without any punctures or ruptures? The issue may be the tire valve, which is the small metal stem that sticks out and is used for inflating and deflating the tire.
If a tire’s valve stem is broken, that tire will leak air until the valve stem is replaced with a new one. Luckily, swapping out the broken one for a new one is easy, even if you’re unfamiliar with working on tires. You can also fix a leaky tire valve without removing the tire.
Battery Replacement
If you own and drive a car long enough, you’ll eventually have to replace the battery. Hopefully, you will recognize when to replace it before the battery dies on you in the middle of the road! If you’re proactive, swapping batteries is a simple car repair you can do at home.
There’s not much to it besides removing the cables, removing the screws, taking out the old battery, installing the new one, and hooking up the cables again. If you’re unsure, you can look online to find a battery tutorial video for your car’s make and model.