Cars and trucks keep getting more and more complicated, but one maintenance job that has remained fairly easy and within the scope of the amateur wrencher is the oil change.
As long as you have a level spot, a pan and a jack stand, you can change out the Texas tea with little drama. But what else are you hoons doing to keep your hoonmobiles happy and hooning?
Older cars that still have things like distributors and carburetors have lots of potential for the DIY mechanic. But what about these new-fangled cars with their fancy-pants fuel injection and self-adjusting engine management controls? Most of them even have sealed for life chassis lubrication, meaning that your grease gun does little more than gather dust on the garage wall.
What do you do with these modern machines? Do you try and do the the fluids and the filter changes, or are you more ambitious and try and dig into things like replacing timing belts and water pumps, despite the 500 or so vacuum lines and wires under the hood? 
Or, do you just truck ’em back to the dealer to fix when the dashboard light goes on?
Image sources: [Photobucket, Janetkruskamp.com]
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