With how expensive most of the parts for our cars I don't know how you guys afford to spend on service. Some jobs cost a grand which could be used to buy parts. I forced myself to learn and I am glad I have. Besides the fact that you know exactly what is being done to the car you save lots of money. I have removed turbos twice, the extension manifold countless of times, the lower manifold, the tranny and tomorrow the engine I just blew. I also found that having the right tools makes the job fairly easy. Just a thought.

 

Well, for me, both my wife and I are Software Engineers. You want a wireless E-Commerce software package written, we can do it. Want you RX-7 repaired? Not me!

I'm learning about doing small things to the car, but right now I don't have the time, tools, or workspace to work on the car. So it's not feasible to "get dirty" and try to fix everything that goes wrong with it right now.

I do hope in the future that changes for me, but right now, that's the case. I do know enough about the care, and read enough her in the forums to know if the mechanics are doing what they should be doing. And that helps a lot as most of them rarely do know what they are doing.

 

I used to have mechanics do stuff but i too have realized its way better to do it yourself. I actually love working on the car. it is time consumming though, but well worth the $ saved. plus it really does seem like most mechanics really can't work on these cars.

 

Me too, I realized real quick after I got the car that if I don't start learning to work on the car that I'm gonna go broke trying to maintain it. Now if I have a problem I just dive right in. I get all the info I need on the internet and if you have qustions you can always come to this forum.

 

Service it yourself. Spend the money on tools, and enjoy working on the car.

I have more time than money, so I do it myself, except porting the engine.

Mike

 

Another good way to save money is to seek out good deals on parts and try to plan ahead. If you think ahead, you can keep an eye out for deals and save a ton of money. Its amazing how fickle we RX-7 owners are, so I see people selling brand new parts or barely used parts for big losses, they are perfectly good.

 

Also, finding a club that is in good with local shops is good, too. The club I belong to gets about 20-30% on car parts from the dealer, and local shops. Without these discounts, I think I would have been screwed with just general maintenance.

 

I would not mind paying for service if I could count on the job being done right. After having careless mechanics leave bolts missing or otherwise perform shoddy work, I decided that as long as I did not have to really get dirty, that I could do the work myself. Some repairs or mods are enjoyable, if you have the proper tools and the satisfaction of having the job done right is priceless.

 

This is the first car I've had that I have done all the work on. I had to force myself to learn if I wanted to keep it and still I don;t know where the money goes. Tools are definetely the key. My dad was a mechanic and decided he was tired of it and left all his tools with me. Armed with that and the workshop manual it is not too bad just time consuming.

 

i think it all comes down to a little mechanical inclination, patience, and the RIGHT TOOLS. if you're even remotely mechanically inclined, have the patience (and time) to do the job right, and have the RIGHT TOOLS, then doing the work yourself isn't really that difficult. but having the RIGHT TOOLS is really a BIG HELP !!!

i, too, have had a few botched jobs from the so-called "mechanics". so what's the use in paying someone to do something that i'll have to go back and redo myself anyways. granted, i haven't had the pleasure of tackling anything really hard like transmissions or clutches (at least i think they're really hard 'cause i've never done them before on any car ), but in the last 2-yrs, no one has touched the 7 except me (but then i haven't really had anything major or minor go wrong with it -- knock on wood )

now i did just put in the DP, y-pipe, radiator hoses, thermostat, & replaced some vac lines (accessible from outside the UIM). if i could only get this O2 sensor to thread in i'd be able to finish putting everything back together and crank this baby up sure hope it runs the same (or better )

 

I think one of the best parts about having a car is being able to work on it, learn about it, and make it quicker.

 

It's a project car now that needs a LOT of attention. The attention will either come from you or a shop, and it if comes from a shop, then you'd better have plenty of plastic ready.

This is why most people that own FDs are TRUE enthusiasts because being a constant hobby, they learn how to do things to it.

 

Yup!