+1

doing it yourself is always cheeper but not always better

but you gain knowledge, and thats the most valuable thing ever!

Somewhat true. It can get more expensive if you screw up a pricey part or cause other damage due to your lack of knowledge or experience.

I've seen too many hack jobs from people thinking they knew what they were doing but weren't experience enough to see their own mistakes.

If you aren't comfortable doing your own work, take it to a competent shop and let them handle it.

If you are comfortable working on the car or want to learn, do some research, download the FSM, read about it, try it and be prepared to fail or call a knowledgeable friend to help. And be prepared to tow it to a real mechanic to fix your mistakes.

I agree, it all depends.

I often take my car in for work because the job is best performed with professional quality tools. Transmission repair, engine rebuilds, alignments, require more than wrenches and a hammer to perform correctly. It all depends on the model of vehicle and the nature of the work. A smart DIY'er tries to understand whether a particular job can be done to a satisfactory level using ordinary tools, and if not, what tools are worth buying to perform the job.

The trick is to get accurate information about what DIY techniques are truly good and which ones are cheap hacks that cause more problems than they solve. The Internet both provides great information and lots of misleading advice on this subject, IME.

On the other hand, shops often talk about wonderful tools that perform magic. In many cases those wonderful tools are not there to do a better job, they are there to save time in the garage and make them more money. The DIY coolant flush takes a long time and uses more coolant but it can be just as good as the fancy coolant flushing machines. Likewise, using a helper to pump the brakes and bleed the fluid will flush fluid just as well as a fancy shop system, it just takes two people and more time. In some cases, the shop method is too quick and dirty for my tastes: those in-place fuel injector cleaning machines arguably do more damage than good compared to removing the injectors for an ultrasonic cleaning, and you can't convince me that those automatic transmission flushing machines are better than draining and replacing the trans fluid regularly.

David

A workshop manual is required, and will help a lot with maintenance, of course that can be done with basic tool, and also for learning things.

I prefer to do the work myself as well, but some things I can't do because I live in an apartment complex. There is a place to do work, but anything that requires the intentional drainage of fluids from the car should be done at a shop.

It would be nice if there was a place where you could rent a bay to do work, but I haven't seen anything like that in a while.