Do you repair your own vehicles or hire someone to do it?

I repair and perform maintenance on my own car and truck unless it’s something major.  I’m also not a big fan of last mechanic where I took my car.  I got him in trouble with his boss, which he really deserved.  

He came out to the waiting room to inform me that he had already spent an hour and a half trying to figure out how to change the settings on my radio (not the reason why my car was in the shop) but he was having a hard time figuring it out.  I tore him a new one right there.  A couple of other customers got up and took their cars someplace else.

I didn’t get billed for those 90 minutes.

This post was edited by Livvie at April 27, 2022 7:14 AM MDT

I always let someone else do it.  

I used to, when I could see everything in the engine compartment. The last time I was able to fix anything was about 18 years ago, when I replaced an alternator in my wife's car. When I went to get a battery replaced 2 months ago, the mechanic too a half hour to get it out and ended up breaking a terminal.

I have a good mechanic who is trustworthy.  That, for me, is a blessing. 

Not now, except for very simple things. I have nowhere to park except in the narrow street, and modern cars are so difficult to work on I have to entrust it to a garage. I cannot even find a published service manual for the thing.

The last repair work I did on my present car was replace the battery - enforcing my making an improvised extension-handle to reach the 'Torx'-head screw holding one of the clamps deep down in a recess. And as for changing what the Owner's Handbook calls a "Cabin Air Filter", I have never managed to find it! (I have the car given a service along with its annual, compulsory "MoT Test" of roadworthiness.) 

I have though fitted it with a reversing-camera, a huge help when parking along my street at times.

Yet in years past I have carried out all sorts of repairs and maintenance on assorted motorcycles, cars and vans I've owned.