/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Hello and welcome to my personal /diy/ blog.

My car was throwing all kinds of error codes and the brakes were acting fucky. I know nothing about cars so after some research I got a decent scanner to run for codes and diagnostics. Upon discovering I had a faulty ABS actuator, I called several repair shops only to find out the lowest estimate would be $2400. Being the broke college student I am, I spent the next 4-5 hours watching various youtube guides on replacing it. Turns out you need to tear apart the inverter, then remove all the brake lines along with a bunch of other bullshit before you can even remove the faulty module. I didn't really have a choice so I got a cheap ass wrench set, a couple of adapters, and ordered the replacement parts from various online retailers (ABS actuator, brake fluid, bleeder bottle, coolant, etc.) for about $300. Once the parts arrived I was scared as fuck but went at it anyways, almost giving up at several points for fear of breaking parts or thing just not going exactly as planned, but I powered through it. After roughly 4 hours of trial and error I finally replaced the module and got everything back in working order. After another hour of bleeding the brakes and topping off fluids I turned the car on and no more errors, no more faulty codes, it just works.

My hands are all busted up from trying to work in confined spaces with rusted-together parts, my clothes are soaked in sweat and grease, my back is on fire, and I feel amazing. Now that I actually did it (and it works!) I feel much more confident in approaching mechanical work, along with the fact that I learned a lot about how the car works, workarounds for tricky angles that tools have trouble with, and troubleshooting along the way. I did the task because I didn't have the money to hire someone, but now I'd love to do it again just for the satisfaction of fixing something myself instead of relying on others. Should I drop out of college to become a mechanic?