DIY Service Jobs

[kennypowers2000]

Hi,

I don't take my car into a garage to get serviced at all. Apart from an annual oil change/air filter change, I don't really do any preventative maintenance.

Apart from oil and air filter changes, what other maintenance tasks are worth doing? My car is 8 years old, with 66k on the clock. I am a novice DIY mechanic.

Cheers

KP

[kennypowers2000]

thisisnotaspoon said:

90% of the service items will be "inspect ............." "check...........".

On the one hand that means there's nothing to actualy do, on the other unless you actualy service 20 Mondeo's a week, how do you know how much play is OK in a certain part or if an engine mount is on it's way out, as it'll always be slightly worse than last time you looked at it.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. I do most of the servicing on my Focus, give the rest a visiaul check, and trust the garrage to highlight anything that I've missed at the MOT. Stuff like the cambelt I get the garage to do, I could probably do it myself by now, but the penalty for failure is high, and it would likely take me a whole day to do, if not a weekend, and I'd rather have the car back in one piece so that I can spend the weekend doing something fun than spend the weekend DIYing it. Whereas fluids, filter and spark plugs takes an hour and saves £100-£200 a year.

Yeah, this is kinda the conclusion I have come to. Some things are not worth the hassle when you tinker with them and it all goes wrong.

But having said that, I would like to do as much as is in my ability as possible. Not sure if I will ever tackle a belt change job, maybe with a bit of youtube help, but potentially could trash the engine.

PS, talking about spark plugs, do the ones from ECP come pre-gapped, so it is a straight replacement with nothing else required?

Cheers

KP