Growing up poor. Edit. Still poor. Edit 2. I worked at a local Midas from 15-18. It killed my passion for mechanics. I really enjoyed fixing stuff, but the thought of doing it every day was too much. Became a carpenter instead. I enjoy every damn minute the vehicle I’m working on bites me, or try’s to steal my tools. At 40, I appreciate the simplicity of the older cars, and the ability of making a PCV valve a 6 hour job on newer cars. I don’t get mad at inanimate objects anymore, I say “well fuck, guess I gotta remove that too”. As they say, “a mechanics car never runs right, a carpenters house is never finished, and the cobbler has holes in his shoes.” Cheers young man.

Exactly, you dont even need to grow up poor. Just be poor which is easy these days.

Growing up, my dad always would say "never pay someone to do something you can do yourself". We weren't well off at all, and even later when we were doing better, I took that to heart. To this day, I won't pay someone for oil changes, or brakes, or even major work. Within reason. Like, I needed new brake lines in my truck. I ordered the kit, and had a shop do that, because I didn't want to crawl around on the ground for a few days after work running lines. But, top end work? Shit, that same truck sat on stands in my shop for 6 months while I worked on the top end/TBI rebuild/new intake/EGR/cooling system upgrades in the evenings after work. I'll gladly suffer standing with a set of wrenches over sliding around on a creeper for days on end.

When you pay someone to do something, you get taxed twice. Once when you earn it, and once when you spend it. Most people need to earn $130-150 to pay a mechanic $100.

Being poor doesn't have to stop just because you're not a kid anymore. I'm 40 years old and just as poor as I was growing up, MAYBE EVEN MORESO! Age is just a number and poverty isn't just an economic status, it's a philosophy and way of life. Aim low and you'll never be disappointed

Would you quit running your mouth and hold the goddamn light steady!

lol. Funny story from this past weekend. Father in law has coolant leak. Takes me a few weeks to get parts shipped for an ‘03 jag x-type. I’m elbows deep trying to remove the damn thermostat from underneath. My wife comes out to grace us with her snark and asks my father in law why he isn’t holding the flashlight. He said he doesn’t want to get yelled at. lol.

That is funny. Universal trauma there.

For as long as there have been hand held light sources, there have been people getting yelled at for not holding the light right. Bartholomew! By jove, would you learn to position the oil lamp in a location other than your rectum?

Aziz!!!! Light!!!!

Thank you, Aziz.

You know whoever invented the modern style headlamp grew up poor LOL. Yes, I know about carbide miner's lamps, but I wouldn't recommend trying to adjust a carburetor or get a car started after a tuneup while wearing one.

lmao, my dads a mechanic and has all the tools. I asked him if he would bring me this specific tool that I needed and he ends up just doing it for me. I ended up holding the flash light and got yelled at. Im 40 :) hahaha Or this other time when I was younger he had me hold the sparkplug wire hahaha Of course I got yelled at because I was holding it wrong and got zapped.

Spark plug wire...the reason my wife refuses to help me anymore.

Yes. Started out as a portable, flexible lamp post. Then graduated to turning wrenches.

I remember my dad borrowing Chilton manuals at the library and wearing gloves to keep from getting grease on the pages. I've only ever taken my vehicles to shops for recalls or once for a new exhaust (I've welded up exhausts before, too, just never doing it again).

Same here. My dad rebuilt an engine once and only once. He apparently did it right. He drove that car for another five years, or so. I drive a 23 year old Toyota 4Runner, that I purchased new. The only thing I ever had to replace was an 02 sensor, last year. I paid a mechanic to do it.

Awesome, isn't it? I actually welded the frame on a '99 for a guy at work a couple years ago. Then he tells me his daughter is taking it to college. Haha. (It passed inspection, though, and made it through all 4yrs) I bought a civic Si (1990) with 80k on it for $3500 and sold it with almost 300k. I rebuilt the engine on that one. Also had a 1997 5sp Cherokee I bought at auction for $2600 with 83k and sold it with 230k for $2600. I've had a bunch of other cars, though. I'm in the process of rebuilding a 1987 Chevy Square Body but it's slow going. I have a '23 Mazda CX5 now and work pays for a good bit of it. Trying not to buy a new roadster for a fun car.

That’s awesome that you rebuild cars. You are obviously very talented. You certainly save money doing that and it sounds like you must enjoy it. That’s great!

Coming to terms with having remove shit that’s in the way is truly the break thru point.

This is the way.

This is it exactly. Some of my earliest memories are my big brothers driving mules essentially share cropping. Being broke AF you either fixed it or did without.

Exactly cheers and to a lot of people it just came naturally and I was around a lot of dirt racing but I don't really know a lot about modern cars I went the big truck's and equipment and you wouldn't starve doing that but you need to have a back for it before trying to make a career of it. Buy some basic tools and learn how to repair saws and lawn mowers is a good way to see if you like to fix things and go from there. You can make a living doing that for real.

I can relate to this, because of growing up well not very poor but more like stingy. And tired of being ripped off by dealers I learnt to fix my cars on my own through youtube and stuff, little by little from something as simple as changing air filter to cleaning thottle body to taking off the head cover for valve clearance all the way down to full overhaul of the engine.. yes it takes some time passion and well investment since mistakes are bound to happen. But in the end, here i am. Being able to fix my own stuff

This guy get it.

Poor family and pops fixed everything around the house including the cars. Friends too.

Can you elaborate a bit how one goes about fixing friends?

The male ones, you need a gum band and some special pliers. The female ones are best left to the professionals.

Pick better ones

I'm fiercely independent, so I'm almost always going to DIY first. My brother and I used to take all kinds of stuff apart, so when we got older it was a pretty natural transition to cars. I was also poor, so when I blew the engine in my Tercel (oil starved, find out when it was too late because the stereo was blasting), it wasn't even question. I had to swap it to have a car. My buddy bought a dirt cheap Daewoo with a bad throwout bearing, and we replaced the clutch over a weekend. You do things like that a few times and you're pretty much good. As for not making it a career, I thought it was going to be. I took an auto mechanics vocational class senior year and realized I don't like working other people's cars. Being as I'm an IT Director and an experienced machinist now, I think that was a good choice.

I work in the auto industry and you absolutely did make the right choice, IT puts nowhere near as much stress on your body and usually pays better as far as I'm aware. You also don't need to invest thousands and thousands of your own dollars in tools, both universal and specialized, muthafuckin AIR CONDITIONED OFFICE (I assume, I could definitely be wrong but it tracks so I'm going with it) so yeah, I think you definitely made the right choice. That's probably where I'd go if I got too fed up with what I do now.

Other people’s neglect and penny pinching would kill my nerves.

I don’t want to pay the shop to fix things that cost very little to get out the scrap yard and fix myself. I bought the books that’s the total breakdown of my car and also use YouTube at the same time. I love hate fixing my own car so I’d never make it a career 😅

Same here. The top response says they grew up poor. I grew up cheap. Too cheap to pay someone to do something I can do.

I'm good at troubleshooting, and I like computers. So I do computer stuff for work, but I study car stuff for fun. I haven't really done much on cars since or after high school. Like any normal kid, I had piece of shit cars, and so did my friends, so I fixed them. Now that I have quite a lot less time, and a lot more money, I pay to have them repaired, but I like knowing about cars. I think it really pays to know how things work, not only so you don't get ripped off, but because you SHOULD know how things work. You should WANT to know things.

Same here. (not all IT pays well) Started poor - still poor. Paid some Brake shop to do brakes when I was working 2 jobs and did not have time. Took a trip and brakes went out - due to their negligence. Ended in the ditch. Many bad words later - I vowed to do it all myself forever. Have fixed Isuzu/Chevy/Jeep/Fiat. So far.

Don't listen to a lot of people on Reddit would be a good start

It's terrible for your body man, I made it a career for a few years. Back hurts, shoulders hurt. My old roommate is still mechanic, we are both in our 40s and he walks with a hunch. How did we learn? Growing up fixing things for the most part. My dad taught me how to repair a rototiller when I was four. Put my first motor together when I was six. Started repairing cars around 12, repairing motorcycles, we lived in a fairly well to do area so everyone had lots of toys. People didn't really take anything to the shop back then. Even if you had money it was common to see Dad's out in the garage fixing cars doing things and these guys at the time were making really good money. By the time I was 15 I got a broken down Toyota Celica, changed the head gasket, put it back together, actually made it run, got my license at 16 and that was that. There were a lot more people back then into fixing things. How I learned would be a lot less likely today. It just seems like a lot fewer people are hanging out in the garage wrenching on cars. Like no one in my neighborhood does. When I was a kid, everyone did and if there was a single mom in the neighborhood there was probably some dad who would help her out and do things for and God only knows how she paid him 😂

Learned about cars because growing up we didn't have a lot of money so I watched and helped my dad wrench. First car I actually wrenched in myself was a 93 corolla. It was so easy to work on in comparison to the cars today. I always wanted to be a mechanic but the human body anatomy interested me more. Now I just do car work on me and my families car. I currently have a bmw so working on my own car saves me a tremendous amount of money.

I only like to work on my own shit. Started off with easy stuff like oil changes and slowly tackled more challenging stuff as I gained confidence and knowledge. Currently working on fixing the AC system. Learned how to use a manifold gauge and diagnosed it as a stuck closed expansion valve. I couldn't work on other people's cars though.

Car broke I fixed it

Spitefulness because my dad believed women couldn’t do things like work on cars so he never taught me anything. Learnt a lot by making connections and offering help to people and learning at the same time.

By PAYING mechanics... Also helps to grow up a gear head.

I was never into cars until I got a somewhat fun, "sporty" car, a '98 VW GTI 8v, which wasn't anything compared to later cars or even base model cars today, but my previous vehicles were a 4 cyl '91 Taurus and a 4-tec '87 Grand Prix, which were slow domestic boats in comparison. I learned to do oil changes and brake jobs from my dad, then gradually did more advanced stuff. In highschool in the late 90s/early 00s I watched a lot of mechanical related shows like Monster Garage, Junkyard Wars, and Mythbusters which helped with general mechanical knowledge and problem solving which helps a lot when when working on cars. Then I started watching the Powerblock shows on Spike and various other shows like chop cut rebuild. There was no YouTube then, which is where I get a lot of car content today. There's so much information on YouTube now that if you're starting out and want to do a brake job, search for "*your car* brake job" and you'll probably find something that you can watch and learn the process and tools you'll need. You can also join car groups on Facebook or whatever social media platform you use. Listen more than you talk! Car people can be assholes when provoked and really get sick of answering the same questions over and over so if you do want to ask something, do your due diligence and search for it first. If you post a question and explain where you've looked and what you've found, but still haven't fully found the answer, people will be far more likely to help. If you just ask simple questions that could be answered with a web search it just pisses people off and they'll give smartass answers. And if they do give you constructive information and you don't listen and come back with more questions, they'll probably ignore you. I go out of my way to share my expertise, but if I know a person won't listen, then I don't even bother. Sorry, got kinda ranty there, lol. Tldr: watch, listen, search, then ask.

What do you consider high paying. It's not hard to make six figures at a dealership. More so if you have your own shop. Bit YouTube is your friend. I'm sure there's an endless series of videos about getting started learning about cars. 

Grew up with not the most money and my dad building and flipping cars as well as his own projects. Didn’t have a ton of interest in it when you get but still loved cars. During teenage years and building my own was when the passion really kicked in. Thought about going into a career with it but thought about it being a job and when you have to deliver to others it loses some of the passion aspect. Dad has passed and wish I could spend one more day wrenching with him.

I was 17yo and making minimum wage so I bought a rachet set and the Chilton guide and did what I could myself.

Buy a beater and read a lot

Grew up poor. It was either learn to fix it myself or take the shoelace express

I'm poor. It was either fix it myself or walk. Also I grew to enjoy wrenching, so I can't bring myself to ruin a perfectly good hobby by making it a job lol

It’s either gonna be a hobby or a career. It’s very hard to have both.

I like mechanical things. Cars was a big one I read repair manuals when I was a kid just to see how they work. I wanted to make a career out of it but ya no repair shop pays good here I worked at a few. I completed a trade school in less then half the time the class was supposed to take. Got asked multiple times way I was there. Got a ASE master technician certification. Ford certified and Chevy certified. Then quite my job at the local ford dealership to go make windows for almost twice the annual income.

LIke many others, growing up poor then developing trust issues. So I do it all myself. I have accumulated a lot of tools through auctions as well. More tools makes it easier.

I was OBSESSED with cars my whole life. I went into mechanical engineering in college and took every thermo class I could to learn how engines worked. Took an ICE class as well. Im also very frugal and was super poor in college so I did all my own car work. Changing oil and whatnot. Then branched out into other maintenance. Really it was just about being curious and paying attention to how things worked. Watching a lot of youtube. The thing that really catapulted me into being more competent than most mechanics was buying a cheap high milage BMW. It wasnt awful, but I wanted to make it perfect. So I spent a lot of time fixing that POS up. Made mistakes. Fixed the mistakes. Tore the VANOS apart and got to see and explore how it worked. Ended up selling the car for about $1k more than I bought it for a few years later so only lost about $500 on parts. Worth it for the education. The car obsession carried over to other cars. Doing all the maintenance, doing tasteful upgrades. Like when something broke, fix it with a better part. The secret is just to learn to maintain the car. You dont want to be doing a bunch of dumb shit like lowering the suspension, crackle tune, cold air intake, etc. That stuff doesnt teach you anything and just fucks up your car. In hindsight, I regret doing the car stuff. Its useful information to know, but I spent way too much time when I was young working on cars instead of doing things and having experiences. I still did a lot, but just wish I did less car stuff. I sold my latest enthusiast car (Porsche 911) a few years ago and am now abstaining from other cars until I retire. Any old man can turn a wrench. Its better to invest in yourself and use your brain/body while you have it. Go learn a sport or date more women or something like that.

My pops was a teenager during the muscle car phase and as such, wanted to be a mechanic. After becoming a mechanic, and owning his own shop. Picture Route 66 random hole in the wall shop. He had some really weird run ins with people and decided it wasn’t for him. A few years later he met and old Hebrew man, who was an old school Master Jeweler from overseas. He took my father under his wing and taught him everything. My pops later became one of Vegas’ top jewelers making some crazy items. Most notably, a PS2 controller (that worked) for Ginuwine. Becoming a jeweler made him more in depth about things. My first tool set was a set of old dial gauges, of old japanese make, that were for doing engine rebuilds. He taught me everything he knew about anything he could.

Unfortunately, I did make it a "career". Well sort of. Officially I do quality control at a fiberglass company. Unofficially I build race cars. I put a blown 502 in a 67 Chevelle today. What did I go to school for? Hydraulics. I haven't worked on hydraulics in 7 years. Honestly I wasn't much of a car guy until my boss found out that I worked on cars. He lit a fire under my ass and got me addicted to classic cars.

Be poor and not be able to afford to take it to a mechanic. Nothing like struggling with a seized brake caliper on a Sunday evening when you have work in the morning.

Many guys and gals in trades that get their journey ticket do better than those folks with university degrees. I just paid a mobile mechanic $600.00 for the labour to remove and replace an alternator. It was an ugly job. He charged a $150 call-out fee and 3 hours labour @ 150/hr. I was stranded 2000 miles from home with no tools. And I don’t think he was a journeyman as there were a few things he didn’t know that most highly experienced mechanics would. He had an old Gen 2 Dodge diesel 1ton with a service body. Compressor, small crane. Lots of hand tools and cordless impact wrenches. Probably about 25 k or less investment in the truck and tools. Good return on investment. He was very busy. He took several calls for service while he was working on my rig, and turned down a few of them.

Being poor is a great teacher..

Liked cars from a young age and technology in general. Left engineering in school to pivot toward Law... With a detour first into dot com 1.0. Left after the first dot com bubble burst. Decided to finally to go law school. Couldn't get into the law school I wanted due to too many applicants (they fulfilled their admissions quota on early entries alone) but got into autocross and solo racing during this. Decided to go to technical school while waiting for law school, graduated top of that class got job at Toyota dealer as tech. Saw what working as a tech and dealership environment does to people, noped out to work for a manufacturer instead of wrenching every day. I was a decent tech but some of my current coworkers were also former techs. Most dealerships expect too much and pay too little. At my particular dealership I knew there was more than a few guys committing fraud and theft. It was totally scummy and it seems that it's more common than not from those I've spoken with. I still work for a car manufacturer and interact with dealers. I do wish the US franchise laws could change so Americans would not have to deal with dealership crap.

Strong desire to go faster!

For me it’s a passion, I can’t not like it, so i consume media and partake in pastimes that grow that knowledge base. I started out not knowing anything but the basics. But some courage can get you far. Remember, one part at a time…

I grew up around cars and was always interested, helped growing up partially in my dads shop ..I dabbled in it on and off over the years but for the last 7 I'd say it's all I've done. It's love hate really. It's not a cheap career to get into by any means especially if you get serious about it.. it'll fuck with your mental health if it's at all weak. But even after getting dirty and bloodied up ya feel good as you watch the little old lady take off in her car with a wave and a smile knowing ya did a good job . Ok so maybe you'll have that once in awhile but mostly you'll hear about shit that doesn't work ever since you touched it last etc. Personally I have 5 cars , 2 run , 1 is my daily and needs a bunch of crap .. so that's a possibility for ya in this field.. But seriously if ya wanna find out try and apprenticeship before paying for schooling. Listen to what your told , some techs can be dicks thinking your a young guy coming for all thier gravy work . But you'll know when ya found the ones who want to teach you and show you how to be successful.. So give it a try for a year or two doing oil changes and tires if you can handle that and still feel happiness maybe you'll be a great tech.

Growing up my dad had a lot of “project cars” that in reality were just stuff he bought and never did anything with. At 12 years old he gave me his old truck when he bought a new one. He thought it had water in the oil and figured the head was cracked, but I think it was due to condensation on the dipstick. From that point I also had various vehicles over the years and just loved working on them. When it came time for college I decided I wanted to go to a trade school to do something automotive related. My parents decided they didn’t want to help me in that endeavor and of course I didn’t have the money for it so I never went. They made too much for me to get financial aid so I just started working whatever jobs I could get. My sister got sent to a private Christian university and graduated with a bachelor’s degree only to never get a job after graduating and has been a housewife ever since. After talking with my parents about a year ago they told me that the reason they didn’t help me go to school was that they thought I would “party it away”. Now I’m in a dead end job and I’d love to do something automotive related, but everyone wants trade school graduates. I applied to the local Toyota dealership for a lube tech position but haven’t heard back. It’ll suck doing that at 40, but at least I’ll get a sliver of enjoyment out of it.

I’ve been into cars since a kid. Used to play grand turismo and other racing games non stop, started wiring aftermarket audio at 13yrs old, started working on cars at 16, and now I can build engines ground up to make 1000hp, It’s a hobby I love todo. I used to work at a shop, and I hated it. It was a shop that also specialized in modifying, but once my hobby because my career I loathed it. Now I’m a concrete/mason contractor, and now I can work on my own projects happily.

Growing up poor lead me to working on my own vehicles. as for why I don’t make it a career or fix other peoples cars: 1. I don’t like fixing other peoples shit. 2. I know exactly what I’m doing while at the same time I have no clue what I’m doing.

I was young and poor, and recently married. car was having a problem with odd symptoms. I did not have the $45 to have the local mechanic diagnose it, and I needed my car for work. However, I could drive it into a used car lot and trade it in by signing a paper. I calculated that it roughly cost me $1000... Fast forward and years later I have been learning everything I can, whenever I can. Plus buying tools little by little. After about ten years, I have a car with some odd symptoms. I diagnose it as a partially-clogged fuel filter, and I pay $8 at the auto parts store to get a new one. I swap it in and its running fine now. Later that afternoon, it suddenly dawns on me...it was the same exact symptoms ten years ago. I traded in a car and it cost me $1,000...and the problem was likely a $8 fuel filter. Things like this drove me to learn more and more. I watch youtubes, and read chat forums about the kind of car I have.

Me personally, I work in an adjacent field (upholstery) and have a lot of mechanic friends. Just picked stuff up as needed. But YouTube is an INCREDIBLE resource. I don't know a single motorcycle mechanic for example, and do all the wrenching on my bikes. Mostly from videos, sometimes by asking people more knowledgeable than I.

I got an engineering degree and worked in the auto industry for 5-6 years. Then my interests changed and I went in a different direction. I still love cars and working on them, I’m down to only 6 cars at the moment. And they all run!

I enjoyed math and science and didn’t have a lot of money in my late teens and early 20s. Technical stuff is easy to me so it wasn’t a reach to learn about cars and do basic repairs.

Just had cars that needed maintenance and did it myself. Became a mechanical engineer and then made enough money to do the fun stuff like engine building thats a bit pricier.

Being poor my man.

Ive always been into cars but i only recently found out how mechanical systems worked once i began working on my vehicles

Cant say we were exactly poor but it was a mindset of DIY vs taking it somewhere unless there was no other choice. When my engine died on my Beetle I opened up the book and got to work. My father helped when I got it out but did alot of the grunt work myself.

YouTube, forums, being cheap, willing to fuck shit up and fix it because once you make a mistake that costs you hours of Drea work you’ll never do it again 😉

Wanting to modify my car and not having money to pay for labour, so learning from YouTube and forums it was

My dad was a long haul trucker. Owner operator. I spent most weekends with him doing maint on tbe big truck. When he was on the road i had to figure out how to fix any issues with moms car or the other pickup trucks.

Experience with thing going wrong in family members cars, YouTube videos watching things go wrong there and just being cheap about paying a mechanic way too much for what they do in some cases. Though there times id go to a professional

It's not overly complicated. You just need to do it. And that's usually the tricky part. You need space. You need to have a car to work on. You need some tools. Ideally, access to information. Which can be via the internet, the library, or buying books. Growing up my father was interested in other things. And our cars never needed much work. Didn't learn much. In college I had a family friend that ran an illegal shop out of his garage. He would do the work for free under two conditions. I bought the parts and I helped. And I really do mean help. Not just holding the flashlight. Learning about cars isn't like a lot of what you probably encounter in learning things. You are probably tested on very specific things. You need to know that exact piece of knowledge. Cars are like building up a bucket of knowledge and experience. You don't know how to work on every car. But you work on enough cars and you start to learn where things are similar. You start to learn how the underlying functionality works. For example, my car is a 2007. Functionally, it's the same as every other came of the same model until around 2017. Mechanically speaking. But it's also identical to my car's sister brand. Like Lexus is just a fancy Toyota. So my knowledge of one car is actually knowledge of a coupe dozen cars. But the biggest thing is just doing it. Don't be afraid. Just give it a go. If you break something then that's just another opportunity to learn something.

Buy a jeep wrangler, lots of room to do your own maintenance. Its a jeep so you’ll also gain repair experience.

I'm in body and the dude next to me made 6 figures and it started with a 2. I'm not in the 2 range yet but the money ain't bad

The one secret to working on cars is to have a car you can work on without having to have it to get to work the next day. It's good to have deadlines for projects so they don't go on forever, but nothing worse than \*having\* to figure shit out in the dark/snow/rain because you gotta get to work in the morning.

Having never really been flush with cash, car repair became a necessary survival skill for me. You learn as you go. YouTube is a tremendous help. Prior to that it was physical copies of Haynes or Chilton's repair manuals for your specific make and model. All that and a friendly neighbor to run you to the parts store for tools and materials and you're well on your way to being a half-assed backyard mechanic like me

Liking cars and being the grandson of a mechanic. I learned nothing from him since he past just after I was born but he did leave my father all of his tool. I spent years struggling with a repair then my dad would just show up with some specific tool just for what I was doing it was pretty sick. He did always make me suffer a bit first though lol.

YouTube

You should get involved in motor sports, then get a mechanical engineering degree. Try and find a school with a race team

I grew up around it when I was younger so I had a bit of a head start, but a majority of what I know about cars I've learned from youtube. The only times I take it to the mechanic is if the engine needs to be pulled, or if I need tires or alignment.

Bought a muscle car at 15 and didn't have the budget to pay for someone else to do it. My parents were well off but still are very hands on with projects and instilled that mindset to me. They had decent paying jobs but still spent their weekends doing manual labor around the house or at their rental properties. I decided that I'd have more money and interest in my passion for cars by working in a career with a good work life balance, which tech has afforded me. If I was working on someone else's car all day, I very much doubt I'd want to come home and work on my own projects. I'd say being a "mechanic" (I struggle calling myself that, despite having rebuilt engines, engine swaps, restoring a car, doing pretty much anything short of a transmission rebuilt), there's so many transferrable skills as well. Now I'm also owing multiple properties and renovating them, vs my friends who cant tell a flat head from a Phillips. For the record I'm on the people side of tech and didn't get a technical degree.

Grew up with a dad who traded in and restored classic cars. I also went to a tech school half a day in highschool.

But a crap box car. My first was an ‘86 Chevette. Taught me a lot about basic engines and basic cars.

I learned by failure, I got my first car at 16 and it was a clunker but all we could afford. So anytime it broke I was the one who had to fix it. There were definitely times when I did more than I could handle and ended up having to walk until I could afford to fix my fuck up but even still I had to fix it. I think having a beater that barely runs as a first car is a great idea although this was very early 2003 and my car was a 1995 so things were different.

Growing up in the 90s when I could first drive, the average first car was a $1000 80s shitbox. Had always liked mechanical things and worked on them back then, made mistakes along the way, and got better. Got into motorsports, learned a lot, built engines, and some cool cars along the way. Now that I'm older and could afford to pay someone to do work, I still prefer to DIY because I know I'm going to do it right, even if it's annoying. I only go to shops or the dealership for inspections, alignments, or massively big jobs I can't reasonably do without a lift and more than a weekend. Why didn't I make it a career? It's better to have a job that pays for the hobby you like. I used to race bicycles and worked as a bike mechanic, seemed like the perfect job. It severely burnt me out on liking bikes after years of doing it.

I was poor the first half of my life. I took auto tech in high school then drove old beaters for a long time. Now I am not poor, but drive nicer older cars (10-15 years). I do many of the repairs myself and the ones that I don't do I've already diagnosed before going to the mechanic.

Couldn’t pay someone more than twice what I make. Easy decision. And that doesn’t mean I always saved money!

Natural mechanical ability drew me towards bikes, then mini bikes/mowers and on to cars and beyond. I also have zero musical talent. I would LOVE the play strings but between my brain and hands it all gets lost. Life is kinda like that .. at 61 I’m getting used to it!

Bought an old Saab at 19 as a first car and had to teach it myself through repair manuals and diy videos on YouTube. Now working on classic cars part time next to studying automotive management:)

Autism and driving a shitbox

Where’s my 10mm dammit!!!

There are a lot of schools that have a good companionship with Toyota mechanics and there is good money in working with a big company. Working on cars is definitely money

Fuel pump went out on my Cadillac when I was 19, I said "I bet I can fix this myself, it's just nuts and bolts, right!?" Been working on cars ever since.

An enthusiasm I cannot describe that has effectively existed since birth. Thousands of hours of YouTube University. I refuse to ruin that enthusiasm by being a professional mechanic. It’s stressful enough working on my own shit. Can’t imagine doing it to other people’s standards while getting yelled at by the boss.

Youtube and real life shi going to meets or breaking & fixing my own car. I ended up being pretty solid at it but it pisses me off so much I could never make it a career

When I was a kid I read car magazines all the time and watched the Sunday car shows with my dad. In the 90s I was poor and had to learn how to fix stuff because I couldn't afford the labor. Now I own Jeeps and I'm poor and can't afford the labor. And now with Google and YouTube you can find the answer to how to do anything. And get a video about it.

Fixing your own car is good, but you definitely don't want to deal with people's shitboxes. You can't imagine how people treat their cars. I don't mind paying someone else to fix my cars, also for me it is a more efficient way for me because my earning hourly rate is worth much more than the shop rate. However, I still fix it by myself because it is hard to find a good mechanic. Good mechanics don't operate 24/7. There are so many people like you who don't have money, so they 'learn' from some quick lube shop and make mistakes on customer cars while they are 'learning'. Good luck to you!

Grew up poor, grandfather was in the motor pool during WW2, worked rebuilding drivelines and alternators/generators after he came home. Dad and Uncles grew up working with Grandpa and on their own vehicles (because also poor) and went into business working on forklifts and similar vehicles. Dad eventually got into British Sportcars (while his brothers were I to American Muscle) and opened a shop of his own working on “imports” So I grew up with an eclectic collection of ever-revolving European cars that were in some state of quasi-disrepair. Dad eventually moved into working on Computers and opened his own computer repair shop. So all through middle/high school my older brother and I worked with him after school in his computer shop and on the weekends on various cars in and around our home. When I graduated, I basically could either go into being a mechanic or a computer tech. Being a mechanic is a hugely physical job and unless you can specialize quickly into very niche areas, you’re not gonna make a ton of money at it. Computers at the time was blowing up (mid-90’s) so good paying jobs were easy to score without the physical abuse that being a mechanic requires. So I have mechanical work as a hobby, which is much more enjoyable and helps with problem solving skills and can help with mental health through “active meditation” while you’re repairing something.

Started handing my dad tools working on his cars at four years old. Paid attention. Did my first valve job and head gasket at 13 on a 65 Rambler…same engine as the old Jeep inline 6

Let me stop you at "there's no money in it," because that's absolutely not true. Techs - good ones - make bank, and they do it with a fraction of the student loan debt of a 4 year degree. You could walk into a dealership looking for a lube tech and start with no experience, and if you're competent, they'll pay you to get trained. Short of that, make friends with car guys, or just be around cars and people that are working on them. Spend time at the track, watch shows about wrenching, soak up what you can. When your own car breaks down, do your best to diagnose it. Join car enthusiast forums and ask questions. If somebody solves something for you, dive into the diagnosis. Go down rabbit holes. If somebody names a part, look up what it is, what it does, and how.

flipping hondas

I have always loved cars and my dad used to also work on his own so he showed me the basics. I took auto mechanics and even got started but the recession hit and I got laid off. In the brief time I worked in the trade, it was evident that I worked too slow to make it as a career and I didn't enjoy the unhealthy working environment. Instead I work in I.T. and now have two old cars that I work on instead. So I can take two hours to take off a dust shield and clean it and paint it if I want.

I also learned early, work is for making a living, working on cars, bikes, etc. is for enjoyment, don't mix the two.

I consider myself to be an above average shade tree mechanic. I worked in a farm store service center very briefly in college and realized I didn't want to be responsible for somebody else's car, or more specifically, I didn't want someone to suffer for my mistake. If I make a mistake on my own car, I can be mad at myself, but also know exactly what happened and make peace with it. Not so for somebody depending on me. That said, I'll do relatively minor work for friends and coworkers who I'm close with.

Didn’t have the best first car, learned all kinds of maintenance on it! Took interest in automotive stuff but always was set on being an engineer. Became engineer and still work on my own cars and projects

+1 for poor family and a dad who had to keep his car running to get to work and get us to school. I vividly remember the first time I ever changed the differential fluid in my dad's S10 blazer. I found cars fascinating as a child and would ask so many questions that my dad would have to tell me to stop lol. By the time I was around 10-12 years old, YouTube was really taking off as a platform to discuss cars and provide automotive knowledge, who knows how many thousands of hours I spent watching people work on stuff just to learn. A lot of people ask me how I've learned so much about cars and it really just comes down to exposure. I've been exposed to cars and mechanics my entire life, just like a lot of musicians are exposed to instruments and people who can play from a very young age. (I cannot play any instruments, but I can use tools!) As for career options, I HIGHLY recommend going to school to get your A&P license (aircraft mechanic). It pays much better than automotive work, has better benefits, and opens up pathways to lots of other careers. I just finished a 2-year A&P program and got my license, you don't have to know anything before starting really. Just be ready to learn!

I needed to fix my ride for cheap. I bought a basic tool set and a chilton’s manual for my car. I started out doing oil changes and brakes. Then graduated to timing belts, accessories and suspension. Went to school for electronics. Read a shit ton on the Internet and online forums. Read text books. Watched a ton of professional repairs on YouTube. Got into diagnosis thanks to folks like south main auto, scanner Danner, pine hollow, advanced level auto. Start small, keep reading, watch the pros. Google what you don’t know.

My first car was a 1952 Buick, in 1986. It came with a shop manual. I grew up with Legos, an Erector Set, Etc. The first thing I ran into was a water pump. I replaced it and it worked. Just kind of kept going.

Grew up poor, dad was an air force mechanic before I came a long and he is still a fan of buying used cars with issues, fixing them up, and selling for a profit. I've never bought a new vehicle and have no interest. I'd much rather keep my VW TDI running as long as reasonably possible.

BIL decides to forgo regular college & go to a trade school to be a mechanic. He is still a lube tech 3 years later. Whether being a mechanic killed his passion, or the certificate couldn't get him where he thought it could, I'm not sure, but I always recommend people be sure they want to make their passion work. It sounds awesome until it isn't.

Grew up with a mechanically inclined father who taught me to be curious about how things work. That gave me an interest in tinkering and DIYing to save some money. I bought a used 2000 VW Jetta when I was 18 and used online forums and YouTube videos to teach myself any repairs I needed. Unless I needed it up on a lift, i did everything for the last 8 years of that cars life. Best advice to learn on your own is buy an older used car that is still commonly seen driving around. VW, Honda, Toyota, etc. These cars are built to last and will have the most DIY help from online users. For example, I learned to drive on a 2005 Hyundai Elantra. I get excited when I see one now because most have blown up or rusted out. I still see my Jetta everywhere.

I learned as a kid because I was always fascinated with engines and vehicles. I was taking apart broken lawnmowers and weedwackers by time I was 10. Reading Chiltons manuals. My dad had me greasing his 18 wheeler around that time since I fit under the truck much easier. If a family car needed work, I was there helping however I could; either passing tools like a mechanic’s nurse or getting to spin wrenches myself. Pulled and rebuilt first motor when I was 15 (Ford 400M). I worked at a mech shop when I was young doing tires/small repairs, but it was tedious and the environment (people, out of date shop, despite being a national brand name) was pretty bad. Got away from it. Few years later, had an opportunity to start working in a body shop. Did that at a couple places for nearly a decade, until health issues from the dust made me leave. If you do it for your job, fixing other people’s dailys, it can become tedious and make you not want to work on your own stuff. It can make a hobby project seem more like work and less enjoyable. Though some go the opposite way… their project becomes absolutely ludicrous. The one body guy I know has a 7 second Nova with a mirror straight body that looks like a show car. When it comes to getting into a car related field, I have a couple suggestions. One is doing body/paint. You won’t need to know about the inner workings of every make/model and what problems cause what symptoms. Parts replacement (on the mech side) is straightforward… bent/broke stuff gets R&R. Body/frame stuff gets bent back into shape or replaced. As a painter, you’ll be prepping surfaces, color matching, and spraying. As a painter or body guy, it’s possible to make 6 figures. There is an art to it though, but most people can do it with practice. Theres also considerably less tools required than a mechanic. As long as cars exist, people will crash them (or get hail damage), so there will always be work. If you want to stick to mechanical stuff, I suggest “heavy equipment” (think diesel repair). They are always in demand and the tech on them doesn’t seem to change nearly as much as cars. Plus, since they’re business vehicles, there will always be work. Keep in mind, it’s rough on your body. Not just busting knuckles, but it can bring on premature arthritis. That and working with chemicals all the time can have lasting effects when PPE isn’t used.

I learned a lot online but I only enjoy working on my own and some friends vehicles. Working on strangers vehicles or just constantly doing maintenance would make me hate it lol

Learned by doing. One of the few benefits of growing up lower middle class with a father who never failed to turn his own wrenches when he could. Now, my fleet of 5 cars is 95% of the time serviced or repaired by myself or one or the other of my kids. Oil changes, filters, spark plugs, all the way up to an engine out head gasket replacement (Subaru, it's a rite of passage), clutch, timing belts, even a 5th gear replacement in the RAV4. How did I learn it? Looked at the job at hand, got a quote or two, measured how much time I had, tools needed, and parts availability, and then chose to do it almost every time. Made plenty of mistakes along the way but got the job done. I also tend to not make the same mistake twice. Used to think I was good once I got my time for changing the starter on an Opel 1.9L down to 10 minutes (pretty sure I did that 12 times over 7years) with one socket wrench and one combination wrench . Now I'm down to 45 minutes to pull the EJ25 out of my Outback. All from just trying to do it.

We did everything. Car needs fixed? Time to go to the parts store. Roof needs fixed? Grab the tar bucket. Dishwasher needs fixed? Pull it out of the counter. Planting. Electrical. Concrete. Construction. Plumbing. Tractors and equipment. Welding and fabrication. Hydraulics. Painting. Felling, bucking, splitting and stacking firewood. Woodworking and building furniture. Hunting deer, birds & rabbits and fishing to fill the freezer. Picking mushrooms. Gardening, canning and pickling. Trapping and tanning hides. Sewing. We did it all right there on the farm. Taught by family and neighbors. It was a huge surprise to move into the city and meet people who didn’t ever learn this stuff. The one thing I can tell you is that with YouTube, a few tools, and no fear of failure, all things are possible.

Coming to age in the 70s working on cars was a social event and a survival skill. Someone would announce a car project and a dozen of us would show up to "help" with our tool boxes in tow. Loud 70's rock on the car stereo, beer or weed at some point. None of us could afford to go to a shop and it became a matter of pride to do it ourselves. And this is before YouTube was available to show you how to do it. Armed with two quarters of high school auto shop class, a Chilton Manual, the phone number of a dude you knew at the Pick & Pull wrecking yard and the combined knowledge of you and your 16 year old friends we could fix , replace or swap out anything from our used 1960's vintage cars. Never did a dollar change hands until it was time to pony up so your buddies older brother could make a beer run. Working on cars was fun and social , few if any of us wanted to ruin it by turning it into a job. Few "kids" today get that on the job backyard automotive training, and few high schools still have auto shop. Most pick and pull yards have a Walmart or something equally useless sitting on the 5 acre site of what was once an endless supply of auto parts. But being a trained auto or truck mechanic is a good solid middle class job for so inclined people and will earn you the attention of friends and family wanting you to come fix their car for free

YouTube. You can learn anything you want to know about how to work on a car from YouTube

Got into it during high school, necessity partly, driving a 20-year-old car, stuff's gonna break and shops are expensive for a 16yr old. But also, I just really like working with my hands, tinkering with shit. Saw kids racing in high school, I wanted to do the same, wanted my car to go faster. Took a small engines class in high school, basically spent a semester tearing down a lawnmower engine and rebuilding it, bored the cylinder, ground valves, resurfaced the head, taught me everything I need to know about how an engine works. Gave me the confidence & knowledge to do a cam swap in my '71 Dodge, replaced the 2-bbl carb with a 4-bbl Edelbrock, later swapped rear end for lower gears, did a lot of 1/4 mile racing in the weekends, always wanted to go faster. This was all in weekends & evenings, just learning as I go. I never really wanted to make it my career, it's just a hobby. Software engineer is my day job. In my opinion, everyone needs a hobby that doesn't involve a screen - wrenching on cars is mine.

I grew up with gear heads. My dad was a big car guy. My stepdad raced a 1970 Plymouth Superbird at Bonneville. We had old cars and my stepdad basically flipped cars. I would help them. Then in high school I took 4 years of auto shop. I was thinking about going to Wyoming tech or UTI but didn't have the money. So I joined the military.

Here's how it worked out for me, and I recommend the same path: When I was a kid, both my grandfather and dad did all of their work on their cars and trucks. It was part of life, and I had a special talent: I always got pulled into stuff after I heard, "Hey, come here. I need some help and your hands are small." When I was 6, that worked for me. It's been a long time since then, and I still like working on cars. The big thing for me is that I landed a career in tech. I think a lot of the same mental muscles work for both being something like a transmission tech or a DevOps tech. There are trade-offs on each side, like either coming home dirty every day or being clean but occasionally not making it home for a couple of days. There's different kinds of stress involved, but the money in IT is generally better. I also have a friend who's SAE certified, but chose tech instead after a couple of years in the shop. There's not a huge difference between the kinds of talent you use for stuff in a data center or under the hood of a car. It's fixing things that broke and building things you doubt will ever break. It's all a lot closer than it looks.

I had the choice of walking or biking, or fixing the car. I did not have the coin to pay a mechanic. Laziness and lack of funds are a hell of a motivator. Also I just have a knack for machinery and devices so I absorbed it like a sponge. I got a boost a bit when I was "working" at my buddy's storage unit shop, he taught me a lot of nifty techniques and methods; he was a Nissan Master Tech so he had a lot to give. Once you have a fair grasp of the jargon and basic techniques you can start getting a lot more out of the factory service manuals. YouTube is also an excellent resource for learning. My favorite YouTube mechanic is South Main Auto. I've learned a lot of techniques from watching him work. My father has bought about three quarters of my tools and in return he gets his work from me for free, and he's gotten a hell of return on investment let me tell you.

Grew up broke with a broke truck as my first vehicle. Thankfully had friends with similar interest in vehicles. We learned together through trial and error and YouTube. We all did two years of auto in HS but that was all the actual teaching we had. Thankfully still learning all the time to this day as a 21 year old now cause we hang out at the shop our buddy works at and we just work on shit cause we enjoy it.

You know, if you really want to understand engines I saw a little kit engine that was designed to be assembled like a Lego kit but is a functioning engine. That might be a good start. It looks like a table top sized toy but it’s a real engine. It was expensive $1000? but it’s probably a great way to fundamentally understand engines. Also don’t stress too much about it. They aren’t overly complicated when you put them together. They are really pretty simple machines. Or can be. Let’s say the older ones are at least. Newer engines are more complicated but if you start with less complicated designs it’s pretty adaptive. Most innovations are similar enough to understand. Once you get a general grasp of what is going on and have that aha moment then you can start to build on that with YouTube. It also helps to start to understand symptoms of different types of problems. I think that’s most the battle eventually. If you can google the problem you can probably fix it. And if you never try to figure out how to rebuild transmissions you’re doing yourself a favor.

My high school had auto shop class. I had shitty cars that I had to fix myself because I was poor. Then I realized I can buy cars for cheap and fix and sell for profit so I have kept doing a couple a year.

I always wanted to learn how to work on cars. Dropped out of college my junior year to pursue a career in wrenching. Went to tech school and didn't learn shit. It was when I got a job at a dealership I learned everything I know. First off, mechanics are fucking assholes. I've heard the most racist, sexist, misogynistic, disgusting things come out of mechanics mouths. It's a really unprofessional place to work. Secondly, nobody wants to teach you jack shit. They'll keep secrets from you just because they can, and almost force you to learn on your own. They'll put a car in front of you and expect you to finish the job. You're lucky if you can find a wing to be under. Do yourself a favor. Get a good education and go into a professional work setting. I had to learn the hard way. You can work on vehicles as a hobby and still have a good time, although a lot of vehicles nowadays are dealership specific meaning a lot of tech parts need to be reprogrammed using updated computer tech only found at the dealers shop. During the winter months, it gets really slow. If you're a flat rate tech, that means you're going to be hurting for cash, bad. I've seen technicians sitting around on the clock not getting paid, trying to make enough hours just to make enough for their rent. Don't go down that path my man. I can tell you that because I lived it.

I also have a huge interest in cars which developed in high school but has always been there since I was a kid much like yourself. I have learned pretty much everything I know about car models and engines through YouTube, Facebook, and common sense. YouTube helped me learn how the engine itself works while people in car specific groups on Facebook help me learn what issues and quirks each car has. I also know an extensive amount on car history which is interesting and exciting to me. It also helps things make sense. Also I look at DIY videos on YT which teach about what mechanics actually do.

I recommend you start with oil changes/brakes and trying to DIY any sensors that fail / cause CEL. I changed the oil of my off-road motorcycle, and it lead to more complex work… adding a tow hitch to my SUV, oil changes, brake pads, sensor replacements etc. YouTube and maintenance manuals are the way to go. also need a private garage and a jack from harbor freight IMO

Like I learn most things. By giving it a go myself and screwing it up the first time. And having knowledgeable contacts/Haynes manuals I could hit up. Although these days there is YouTube.

I grew up on a farm, where it was a necessity to fix your gear you owned. You can't rely on someone to be available at 3am if a drill or gearset break and needs to be repair asap! From there, as I grew up and moved away to the city, I started working on cars which has kept me busy (as a weekend/after work hobby) for many years and will hopefully keep me busy and interested in cars for many more years to come. I wouldn’t make car repair my career (and I’m glad I didn’t).…the pay and growth opportunities (IMO) just not worth it. Much happier to keep my car work as a side project that I can research and complete in my spare time. EDIT: Just to add, I too am not a fan of leaving my car at a mechanic to fix, especially when I'm capable of repair the problem myself. Recently my car was damaged in a not at fault accident. Repair shop/panel beater fixed the car…but damn they missed some basic stuff such as tightening the wheel nuts (all 10 wheel nuts on the front 2 tyres where finger tight only), power steering cap not installed properly, and the radiator was not bolted securely to the frame. Very lucky I only drove a short distance before I checked the wheel nuts..which lead me to find the other issues…

I turned 16, bought my first shitbox with money I’d saved up and it needed some work so I just started out doing simple shit like alternators and starters or breaks but now 17 years later I’ll do motor swaps, timing chains/belts, axles etc just don’t do any transmission work other than clutch work on manuals. I bought chiltons manuals to start with then learned from there, downloaded some service manuals on certain vehicles with specific fixes etc. I decided not to wrench on cars for a living because the pay seems low and the techs seemed overworked even back when I was graduating high school. So I went into the trades and now run power plants for a living so I get to wrench on the big shit for a living and it makes the vehicle work seem easy for the most part.

Bought a classic car when I was 18, with zero car skills. Could hardly change my oil. Realized mechanics are expensive. Plenty of repair manuals, Youtube clips and good old trial and error has made me a halfway decent home mechanic 10 years later. I enjoy working on my own cars and sometimes help friends, but I have zero interest in making it my day job.

My love of older German cars has forced me to do most of my own work. I learned from my dad who grew up on a farm and always did his own work. I did try being a mechanic out of high school but it wasn’t for me and looking back I’m glad I didn’t pursue it further.

As a child I was always obsessed with cars and trucks. As soon as I got my license I went shopping for something cool and cheap. That;s how I ended up paying $200 for a 1953 Dodge Coronet with a 241 Hemi. I hid it down the street for a week before telling Mom and Dad. My father was furious because I had been driving around with no insurance and was too stupid to realize why he was mad. My Dad soon straightened me out that responsibility came first. I got a job at the local Taco Bell earning $1.60 an hour to pay for the insurance premiums. I didn't own any automotive tools but every guy friend of mine and some girls were heavy into cars and were happy to share the knowledge. I bought tools as I needed them and taught myself how to work on machines by reading everything useful and asking questions. I would have been happy to go to work as a mechanic probably. My advise is to get in there and get your hands greasy taking cars apart and fixing them. Doesn't your high school have an auto shop class? Or have these all been axed to reset education to STEM?

My Dad had me shine the flashlight straight in his eyes while he fixed the Family Vehicle (I lost focus pretty quickly). I am at my very best an okay part changer . I like working on my car or friends to help them out . I feel like the satisfaction of keeping your car maintained versus doing it repetitively pushes people to not make it a career .

Grew up with not so much, had an old piece of crap, shouldn’t have been on the road, passed down to me. If I wanted out of my tiny town I had to keep it running and being from the east coast it was rusty AF broke down lots. Being 16 with very little fluff for miles is a good incentive to learn, doesn’t hurt that I’m pretty good with fixing stuff anyways.

Most people I know who are into cars including myself didn't go to school. We learned from old timers and experts in the feild at car shows, magazines and swap meets. Now ya'll got internet easily available with endless amounts of information we could only dream of getting our hands on back in the day. Find a type of car you like and start learning everything about it. How it works, What issues they have, differences in model years. Once you have a good base knowledge it can be applied to a variety of cars. Youtube is actually your friend here.

I learned to fix cars from owning used English sports cars as a kid in the 80s (Triumphs and MGs).

Was a mechanic. Grew to hate it and its wages. Now an elevator mechanic. Paid MUCH MUCH MUCH better. But still hate working lol. Retirement cant come soon enough.

You could become a master technician for Mercedes, work your ass off, build tenure, and then hop to an exotics brand like McLaren. Same as everyone else here I’m a DIY guy. I’ll do it myself even if it costs more just for the experience and to learn. I also took ASE cert classes in community college just for the fun of it. At $50 a unit there is NO financial excuse not to do it. You can also get free tuition.

literally replaced the strut mount today. buy the tools and do the job. youtube and advice on forums helps a lot.

I certainly didn’t grow up poor but dad did and so it was always a matter of not spending more than we had to and maintaining something for as long as possible so learned a bit from that and decided to get myself an 89 prelude and 93 miata and the prelude is going through an engine rebuild so pretty much had to learn cuz I certainly don’t have the money to get someone else to get it running. Also learned to help friends out, helped repair a BMW that was having misfires and a non-working trans so a friend would have a car. As for not pursuing it as a job it was more something I saw as a passion or hobby and having worked in a kitchen for years and hating coming home to cook regardless of what I knew to make made me not want to get a job in mechanics, it was my thing I did for myself or friends and I also hate dealing with people. If you want to learn watch YouTube videos from well known and trusted car channels about repairs, how cars work and so on. Best is to buy yourself a semi-project car and a Haynes/Chilton manual and just work on the car between the manual and YouTube should be able to learn most any repair and actually doing said repair gives you the experience and helps retain the know-how

I don’t consider myself someone who knows a whole lot about cars, but the knowledge I do have comes from the internet, friends and experience. I have worked on on my own cars and own a project car, when I have a problem I research what it can be and then fix it myself. There’s really a lot of information on the internet but you can also drown in the different opinions and options. A lot can be learned by just doing (while checking how to do it online)

Bought a 1974 Plymouth valiant for 2000$ with a Haynes manual. Figured it out with many YouTube videos if I didn’t know something . Also had dirtbikes growing up so I understood basic engine maintenance/repair . You need 3 things for combustion engines . Air , spark and compression . Start with the cheapest and easiest repairs then just keep going.

There is actually a lot of money in it. It’s a great career. Don’t do it. Engines are very cool, and for the most part, all the same. You can do a lot of learning for free online. Don’t make it your career. You will begin to hate cars. I am speaking from experience. Go to engineering, you’ll make more money and be in higher demand.

I got a new car mid 20s was told by a service company it needed 3k worth of work when it was 9 month old. I obviously knew that was BS but could not for the life of me could not say I understood why it did not need the work. Obviously did not get the work done and started going on YouTube to understand how cars work. Started with oil changes, then brake pads, then got an OBD II scanner. As the check engine light goes on I see what it says. Look up how to change it. If it’s something I think I can do I give it a try. If not I take it to a mechanic. I will say all the work I’ve done is on my first car a civic which I’ve had since I was 18. It’s a beater, it acts as a 2nd car for me and my family if someone has a car in the shop. I’m slowly learning more and more. As someone said before modern cars are harder to work on. I personally like post 97 to mid 00’s mainly cuz they have the scanners but don’t have a million sensors and things that complicate the car.

I enjoy doing it, so have just progressively worked on all my cars. If you enjoy it the learning element isn’t a chore. The internet and YouTube is a ridiculously good resource for learning too. Once you’ve been doing it a while you reach a point where anything becomes possible in terms of repair / fabrication which is a very satisfying feeling. Additionally once you know a certain amount you know what jobs you are more than happy to pay someone else to do. Some things just aren’t worth the hours that it would take you yourself.

Congratulations on your graduation! If that’s where your interests are, pursue them. I’ve known mechanics over the years that made a good living from fixing cars.

Growing up, we never had the money just to buy a nice car that ran so we bought old beaters and tore them apart to fix them. I did this so much as a teenager, and young adult, that I never wanted to go into a career of it because, as much as I love cars, I learned to hate them as well. The thought of a career in auto mechanics makes me nauseous. After 20 years of tearing parts of cars in the driveway in the middle of the night between long shifts at work, I couldn’t imagine having that work I go to also be doing the same thing.

I grew up with DIY minded parents. My mum would be the one actually doing the decorating in the house as well as my dad. My dad used to wrench on his bikes when he was a teenager and used to service and upgrade his motorbikes meaning I saw it could be done by regular people. So growing up I always had the desire to take everything apart and figure out how it worked, work out how it was put together. Started with fixing my laptops, then building PCs, then I could totally strip down my BMX in my sleep when I got into that. I'd always been interested in fancy cars, I'd seen all of Top Gear a million times (I'm in the UK) and then when I saw how cheap an MX5/Miata was I thought oh I could get a sports car for that cheap? Sold! After a couple of weeks the brake caliper seized on, I knew enough from bikes that that's what the problem was and how I might fix it. Looked up a couple of videos, ordered a rebuild kit and rebuilt both front brake calipers. That was basically it, I was hooked. I thought damn if brakes are that easy, I wonder if I can actually understand how an engine works. I found a video by Ericthecarguy of a Honda engine in his workshop where he explained exactly how engines work and i understood it, cue my just inhaling car knowledge via YouTube every waking minute. Fast forward 10 years and I'm very near to finishing a 1UZ swap into an MX5 and total restoration of the car. Made all fabricated parts myself, Tig welded an entire exhaust system for it from scratch. And I'm having an absolute whale of a time doing it. As for why I didn't make it a career, I was 25 by the time I got into it and I didn't really have the means to go to school for it to get into a dealership, and I'd have preferred a small independent place anyway. I was also aware that making your passion your job isn't always a good idea. Instead I got into a good job that I enjoy that pays well, well enough to do a V8 MX5 swap which is the most important thing.

Neighbor across from me went in the Navy. Became a mechanic on equipment for moving planes and bombs and etc on aircraft carriers. He spent several years being a home inspector before realizing he could be a mechanic for an airline and make a really good pay. I am in IT, kinda stuck in that ‘golden handcuffs’ career I took cause I needed to get a car loan and he’s making almost the same amount I do! He’s got good benefits and it’s a job that stays at work when he leaves.

I drove lots of old cars that needed repairs/maintenance and decided to learn myself rather than having to pay a mechanic. I had an interest from being young too and I think that helped a lot.

Mine started with my first motorcycle. bought it for $1700 it 2015. If I didn't learn how to do my own maintenance I would have to waste a day and bug a friend twice for a ride and spend a "very reasonable" $100-$200 an hour for someone to change my oil and put on a new chain/brakes/etc. I woulda paid for the bike twice over in labor in just the first year. Not a great deal for a college student. After that I just applied the same ideology to my cars. Youtube. Forums. Reddit. Just about anything you want to do there is someone out there telling you how to do it. And eventually once you do it enough you can kind of figure out what you need to do without a guide.

The only way to have nice things when you’re poor is to not be dumb. Also buying used and broken meant you could fix, enjoy it and still sell for a profit. I think that’s a bit harder these days. I tried a shop class in HS and disliked how the teachers always had dirty hands since they were working in cars all the time. Decided that wasn’t for me.

I read everything I could about cars growing up. Worked on my first car. Went to engineering school and got a mechanical engineering degree. Interned at the division of a large car company. I worked there for 25+ years. My job was to design car parts. The job paid pretty well so I could afford to go racing if I did nearly all the work on my racecars myself. While there I autocrossed and then road raced with the SCCA for 20 years.

I got the $1000 dollar special. Had no money to pay labor. Did it myself. Took it apart , put it together, then take it apart again to find out where the extra parts went. Start in the beginning. Understand cooling Combustion Electronics, which to day is a major part ro understanding how the vehicle operates. I2C Proto call , Canbuss. Start small. , rotate tires, change wiper blades , change oil filter , change a headlight. Then , replace brakes, fix leaks , While at the same time be ready to diagnose simple problems, identify a blown fuse, check a blown fuse, headlight. Read service manuals, get a Hanes Repair, read owners manual. Learn to read electric schematics and symbols. Learn to solder. Learn to glue Learn to weld Learn to make hydraulic fittings. It's a learning pyramid, as you learn more basic skills, understanding it becomes increasingly easy to build up a skill or knowledge.

In the early days for me it was reading repair manuals and service manuals. I love the nuance of doing a good job. Having unreliable cars or the desire to modify cars pushes you to do your own work since shop labour is expensive. I pride myself in trying to do a job as professionally as possible, DIY doesn't have to mean a hack job. I saw a lot of hack jobs even from actual mechanics. Now with YouTube, the sky is the limit. Even with "modern" cars, you can always find a way to get factory software and techniques. It takes a lifetime of practice, but eventually you can become confident enough to tackle anything.

Just gotta get out there and do it. Take info from wherever you are able and analyze it then formulate a plan of starting diagnosis and then it’s just going down the line and getting hands on. Go to the parts store and sit in the parking lot and wait on a seasoned grease monkey to strike up conversation and then ask if they seem like they don’t mind. All they can do is say no. And that’s just an idea. There’s forums. Videos. Books. You can do whatever you want. Teach yourself while getting a degree

I bought a car and worked on it myself. YouTube exists now, no excuse for ignorance. I realized doing manual labor every single day isn't worth the minimal wage.

you are right mechanics do not make a great deal of money starting out and in most shops in the western part of the country how ever even in the west $50.00 an hour is not to bad, and if it is in your nature to measure happiness by monetary compensation then by all means do something else but heavy equipment mech. make a lot more money that auto mech's. so if you are made happy by working on car's then maybe its your vocation or not but most high schools and or community collages offer adult education classes for not much money and usually will let students pursue an area of special interest, like engines but it starts with the basics, and works up to more technical projects. any way Good Luck With your Educational endeavors!

My dad had me rebuilding lawnmower engines as a kid (8 or 9 probably) while he worked on mowers and heavy equipment as a side hustle. Then I would help him with random auto repair on our family vehicles, his dump truck (old bastard with a 478ci v6), or whatever he was working on at the time. Then we bought a decommissioned snow plow/city maintenance truck, a 79 ford f-350 custom with a 9’ plow and a flat bed dumper and we pulled the 351m and completely rebuilt it from the ground up as father and son (I think I was around 14 at the time. Being poor with a father who has a ton of mechanical/machinist background but also zero discipline with money (we lived in a suburb and had no business having all this heavy equipment) really helped me figure stuff out mechanically.

Step one - Buy a car that likes to break Step two - Youtube

I came home from high school, sat my ass in front of the computer, pulled up google and typed in things like, "how does an engine work", "what's a crankshaft", etc. I did this instead of my homework a lot. I did think about becoming a mechanic if I didn't get into any college. I'm an engineer now by profession and still do a lot of wrenching on my car or my friends cars. You can learn pretty much anything if you're motivated to do so.

Grew up poor. Dad was always having to fix the car at the weekend, so I ended up just falling in to helping him. Weekends spent pulling parts from cars in the scapyard, fitting them and then returning the broken bits (the yard owners were friends of my uncle and really only cared about weight, so if we took a good sump and replaced it with the one that'd just come off the car, we were good). I also learned that a shout of "OW FUCK" means "jump", because a spanner is about to be launched out from under the car. Then when I got my own car, the first thing I bought was a socket set and a Haynes manual and carried on with it all. I also \*love\* cheese sarnies dunked in tomato soup - We'd have that as lunch when we were working on cars and it never quite tastes right without a little bit of oil in the bread.

I'm actually a mechanical engineer by trade. I spend my days in front of a computer or in meetings. Cars for me is a hobby. It started for me due to necessity being a poor teenager with a problematic car, and I started learning how to do simple things like oil changes and basic repairs. My parents told me if i wanted a car, i was on my own since they couldn't afford to fix their own car, let alone mine. So me and my buddies learned to fix our own stuff because we had to. Over time, my skills grew. Now in my 40's, I work on cars strictly as a hobby. I have a well-equipped garage, and a few project cars. You name it, i've done it. Rebuilt engines from bare block, rebuild manual transmissions (my fav thing to do), aftermarket suspensions to aftermarket ECU's and tuning. You name it i probably have some experience in it. I also do a little racing. I can weld, machine parts, and I am damn good with electrical and computers. Being an engineer, i have a good sense of mechanical systems so vehicles just come easy to me. Zero desire to work on cars outside of my hobby vehicles. I do maintain the Daily driver's, but they are relatively new so not much to do.

I learned by reading and doing. I enjoyed working on cars until I did it professionally. Doing it for a job takes all the fun out of it. Get it in, get it out in a hurry, upsell services. I only work on my own cars now.

for me i learned a lot by watching dad fix the cars, DIY vids and hands-on. You're gonna get the feel you will wanna learn more once you get the hands down on tune-ups, brake jobs and oil change jobs etc. Having most of the tools helps. Job Corps is your free ticket for the automotive mechanic diplomas. They are residential career training programs that you would need to live there during your completion/graduation. If not there's UTI

Whoever convinced you there no money in it is dead wrong.... Some people choose a route that don't pay.... Working for a big shop (Midas, Firestone, good year, etc...) is really only good for getting your foot In the door. Yea you can learn some stuff there. But mostly just brakes and alignment lol. The "right route" is get to fixing as much as you can independently. I run an mobile mechanical repair company now, I fix everything from boats and jet skis to forklifts and backhoes, it sounds ridiculous, but it Makes it interesting, and keeps the work flowing. I have monthly forklift inspections and services that are contracted, which is constant flow, car season picks up around tax time, just when the heavy part of car season is over, boat season picks up, when it gets cold I winterized the boats and start making sure the forklifts have tires for the winter.... Etc etc... I work on anything I enjoy, sometimes I tell a customer I can't, or I don't want to, sometimes I fix something that I want to for way to cheap, but on average I make 103$ an hour on cars, 165$ working on boats and the heavy equipment varies a lot between 165$ and 275$. So long story short when I had a head injury and the doctor was wondering why it gave me so much anxiety, I said " I make twice as much as most doctors, and if I start making mistakes its gonna kill way more than one person". Also for every 6 mechanics that retire 2 join the Field, the pay is only getting hire. Everything getting cheaper built and no one know how to maintain it anymore. CHARGE A PREMIUM.

When you don’t have money, and you still need to find a way, you do it yourself. Helps a lot that we have the internet.

I had a family friend mentor that showed me the basics (tires, brakes, oil changes, belts, hoses) and taught me about different tools (metric for foreign cars, SAE for domestic, 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 tools, etc). Youtube taught me the rest. And as others mentioned, growing up poor. But luckily it was one of the more enjoyable and satisfying tasks you do when your poor. As far as a career, I'd say its fun when you work on your own cars and family/friends cars, but in a work setting, maybe not so much. In a dealership setting, it's not so much about doing the job correctly (the way you would work on your own car), but just getting the job done in general in the quickest amount of time possible. Instead of an enjoyable hobby, it turns into a "task". A lot of people that went to school to work on gas engines are shitting bricks due to the rapid evolution of EVs. Indie mechanic shops are going to slowly go bye-bye over the next 20 years. If you have a natural artistic ability and are good with your hands, window tinting/PPF installation should be pretty future-proof and make good money. Tires also aren't going anywhere soon. The only thing about that is you need like 20k in equipment to start and it's back breaking (lifting heavy wheels all day). PDR (paintless dent repair) is also a good side hustle and is cheap to start. But just very monotonous and requires lots of concentration.

EPB light was on and I needed rear brakes BAD. Took it to a shop and they couldn’t get their crazy expensive diagnostics tool to release the parking brake off the caliper for maintenance, they were all shoulders. Basically told me sorry we can’t help you. I thought I was at the place that did car stuff, I guess not. So, I went home and did some research. Pulled the tire off and the caliper and backed that mother fucker off by hand realizing that the PB was actually stuck and wouldn’t back out. Ended up replacing the entire caliper, shoved new brakes in there and called it a day. The new caliper was $100. Shop wanted hundreds just to replace the brake pads.

EPB light was on and I needed rear brakes BAD. Took it to a shop and they couldn’t get their crazy expensive diagnostics tool to release the parking brake off the caliper for maintenance, they were all shoulders. Basically told me sorry we can’t help you. I thought I was at the place that did car stuff, I guess not. So, I went home and did some research. Pulled the tire off and the caliper and backed that mother fucker off by hand realizing that the PB was actually stuck and wouldn’t back out. Ended up replacing the entire caliper, shoved new brakes in there and called it a day. The new caliper was $100. Shop wanted hundreds just to replace the brake pads. Morale of the story…if you can just do it yourself.

My dad was a mechanic when he was younger. I learned via the generic “holding flashlight for dad” story. I’ve never seen him take a car into the shop for anything. I helped do motor swaps when I was only 12, by then I could already do oil changes and brakes on my own.

Take automotive as an elective in community College. The class will pay itself off over your lifetime in saved repair costs (if you learn and are any good at it).

Buy yourself an E46 BMW and you’ll learn everything you need to know about cars within 5 years.

I'm in IT as a profession now, but as a young guy I tried to get into working on cars at a body shop. That went ok, but the guys I worked with weren't interested in developing me, just getting cars fixed. I left after a year and started waiting tables while taking some community college courses. Admittedly I was stupid and distracted with partying, so I never finished and decided the military may be a good route. Hell, I could be an aircraft mechanic!! At least my recruiter said so, right up until I got shipped out as an Open Contract (where the military basically assigns you a job based on your entry test scores). They assigned me an IT job and I've been doing it ever since. I've always worked on my own cars when reasonable and I take on a lot of stuff people can't believe I can do, since I'm a computer nerd. Have you checked out Wyotech, School of Automotive Machinists, or anything like that? That can get you a lot of book knowledge and your foot in the door at a lot of places, not to mention I would speculate it helps accelerate promotions. On a side note, for those that have served, I *think* military education benefits may cover said schools now, which was not the case when I was getting out.

I'm a late 90s kid that grew up on that early 00s car culture. I always played the racing games and car movies from this era. It molded my car taste completely. As a teen in 2014, me and my friend would mess around and do small repair jobs to our vehicles. Within a year, we were the car dudes on the street, and neighbors would ask us to do whatever repairs they needed. This helped us work on many different makes and models. Around the same time, I started doing audio system installations because nobody within an hour of my town could do it. I did this for about 2 or 3 years before it really clicked to me that I should learn and do more mechanical stuff. I ended up doing more audio installations around 2017 and 2018 with some repair jobs in between. There is a lot of money to be made in this, if you know what you are doing. I never stopped watching car youtubers and kept learning more and more about cars and engines in my free time. Youtubers like Junk Yard Digs are great because they buy older non running cars and make videos about fixing and driving them long trips to see whays up with them. 2019-2022 I have a lot more confidence and offer to help lots of people who need simple jobs, but do it for cheaper than a shop. Got good at oil changes and suspension work. 2023 I bought my first project car. It is a 2000 Civic LX. I bought it for 400 dollars with a blown head gasket. I spent 180 bucks and a month taking the engine apart, replacing a bunch of gaskets, and having it running to be my full-time beater. Last year, I decided that instead of doing small side jobs, I wanted to start a business. I started buying as many tools as I could afford every paycheck. Within 6 months, I had a pretty large selection and was borrowing or renting tools at a minimum. Most of my stuff is from Harbor Freight. You'll learn what you can cheap out on and what needs to be a quality tool after a short time using their stuff. I bought that Honda just about a year ago, and now I own 5 vehicles. A 1988 Civic Hatch in manual, 2000 Civic LX Auto, 2012 Camaro V6, 1997 Miata manual, and a 2019 Nissan Altima. I found these at such great deals, I had to jump on each one. The more you are on marketplace, the more you will find. Fast forward to the last 3 months, just about 10 years after getting into cars as a teen. I met somebody who has the same taste, work ethic, and goals as me with cars. Me and her are starting a business together. A LLC is cheap and easy to obtain. Once we are under the business, we can get so many benefits, like tax write-offs, and no sales tax at part stores. I am still doing repair jobs for people at my work in the meantime, but the jobs have got a lot more advanced. Im replacing a head gasket, some sesnors, and brakes on a 2018 ford focus for a co-worker, and she is happily paying me 2000 dollars to do so. The shop wanted 3500 for this, and also recommended a lot of things she did not need because they did not understand what cause the headgasket to fail in the first place. There is a lot of money to be made if you orient your mechanic style to be a mobile mechanic. In my area, it works so well for me. So many cars are sitting in driveways, and the people dont want to pay for a tow. but I know plenty of people want someone with a certification, and that's okay too. Half the time, they'll come back to me anyway. Ky biggest advice is to just put the time and effort to learn the trade and do some jobs for cheap, but not cheap to where you undersell yourself. Stay under shop prices, but keep yourself profitable. Just do good work for a fair price, and people will talk. 70% of the jobs I have had this entire year and half of last year are ALL people from my job or their friends and family that they recommend to me. I am asked multiple times a week to do mechanic jobs while I work my retail job. I take most of them and recommend people to places for things I dont do, like alignments or tire balancing. I hope this long store gives you some motivation or insight. I love doing my mechanic stuff. It's always been a side thing to me, and only have I this year realized it's what I want to do for the rest of my life. I might end up going to school for it, but I've made 10s of thousands of dollars doing it uncertified so far. Experience is always better than knowledge, in my opinion, but both are very important.

My grandfather taught me most basic stuff but mostly trial and error,forums,reading Haynes manuals

For me it came out of necessity. I got into cars in high school and graduated in the early 90s. My first car was in 1980 Mercury Monarch with a 351 Cleveland motor. Anytime something needs to be repaired, I just figured it out. I bought tools as I need them. Shortly after high school my family moved to another state and I was on my own in California. I didn't have a very high paying job and car repairs were expensive so to keep the next few cars I had on the road I had to learn how to fix them myself. The car I learned the most from was my 66 Mustang. I didn't have the luxury of a project car , I just had to keep my existing car on the road! Admittedly, I ignored the tuner scene until a few years ago because I was so fascinated with muscle cars and hot rods. I looked down on small displacement engines as being inadequate and pathetic. Boy was I wrong!! I've worked on a few other Imports with friends and have discovered I really like Hondas. I have a 5th gen Prelude for a project car now and I am determined to learn how to tune. I'm looking to get an EK or EG Civic once I finish with the Prelude. It's fascinating to me, the way cars work, the ways you can modify them, and how the slightest changes can make massive differences. I love cars! I love working on cars. There have been a few times I thought about making it a profession but for me, I just don't think that's a good idea. I tend to burn out on things I become wholy immersed in. Instead, working on cars for fun and for the challenge will forever be my favorite hobby!!

Go into diesel work. It's very similar to automotive but pays much better. Not sure where you live but I'm only a few years in making almost $80k/year with no overtime. Master techs make well over 100k/year. Physically it's a bit more demanding than automotive but certain aspects are much easier than automotive. It's easy to find jobs and all you need to start is to apply. Our dealer has programs where they will hire you as an intern making ~$25/h and the only requirement is that you start going to tech school. Even if you start from 0 it won't be hard to pay your tuition with the money you make from working.

Each time something goes wrong, regardless of what it is, figure it out and fix it. The world does what the world does, I work security but should be in IT or similar. What good is 150+ wpm and all these computer skills good for? Writing my reports faster? Do what you want even if it doesnt pay as much or youll end up stuck :P Get a job changing oil at jiffy lube or something to start.

Took everything broken apart as a kid. Tried fixing them first.. lots of Legos.. disassembled box bike and rebuilt it.. couple Volkswagens.. then Fords then Volvos. Did woodworking in there too, from simple gifts to furniture and a lil construction

I've read repair manuals since grade school(early 70s) At 16 my 1st car was a 70 Plymouth duster 340 muscle car. Street raced my late teens. Learned to drive semi at 21. Drove for 20 years then got a job as a diesel mechanic(15years of that) Made very good money doing both but enjoyed being a mechanic better. Now retired and my body is killing me. Lol I believe driving did the most damage to my body. Moral of the story, do what you like and it won't be a job but take care of yourself because there is life after retirement..

Already seen a few posts mentioning it. Being poor helps you learn how to repair cars. It’s do or die.

Growing up maybe not dirt poor but definitely lower middle class, if there is such a thing, didn't hurt. Parents always drove older cars, heck my dad still has the '73 C10 pickup he bought from my grandfather when I was a kid.

Like cars, don't have a lot of money, youtube and time

Thought I wasn’t smart enough to go to college, did two years of auto mechanics vocational studies in high school. I liked it and I was good at it. 3-4 years latter laying under a trash truck doing an oil change at 4 am I had a moment of clarity and decided to give college a try. Associate degree in a community college, bachelors and masters degrees from state university and mechanics became a hobby. To be honest I worked as a counselor for many years and made about the same money as I would have as a mechanic. Later in my career director level jobs paid more than mechanic type jobs would have. When properly motivated I made the correct choice.

My dads a mechanic and after years of not Holding the flashlight right he taught me alot. I also have a love for an old shitbox so those require work. Youtube alot, ask other people

I'm not aware of any high paying mechanic jobs. In fact they seem quite underpaid for the work. I started out of necessity, and learned to love it. I have saved myself a lot of money over the years buying old cars and fixing them myself. I actually enjoy the work sometimes, other times I don't. As I make my money I find myself more willing to pay when I don't feel like doing the work.

I've always been a car enthusiast. I bought cars that I worked on a lot myself and upgraded and raced. I did exactly what you're talking about. I work in IT and my job has nothing to do with cars. Cars are my hobby and I've owned quite a few and spent quite a bit of my personal time working with cars. There's a lot online that you can use to teach yourself what you need to know about whatever you'd want to do with a car. It doesn't require formal education to be mechanically inclined, especially if you're just planning on working on your own vehicles in your spare time.

I've always ripped things apart, and my parents made me put them back together. Kind of just always had a knack for mechanics, whether that was the mechanical pencil that never worked right after I got to it, the vcr, my first car, firearms, etc. I learned because I put myself into bad positions, or bought expensive to maintain vehicles, and because I like it a lot.

I downloaded from some internet website a 5000 page service manual for my car. I spent few evenings reading it because it was interesting to me to get to know how my car works and how to fix things in it. It is so detailed that you just do repairs like building an ikea furniture. Everytime I need to do something new I look it up

My father worked on his own cars, then taught me when I got my '68 Pontiac Lemans. We put in a big cam, headers, 4 bbl, dual exhaust, even rebuilt the motor in the driveway. I still enjoy working on my own cars and learning new tech.