<prompt> Human: Ive been reading personal finance blogs and forums for years now and it just hit me recently - I have never seen a posting regarding repairing and maintaining your own vehicle. There are a lot of posts about starting your own garden which isnt as easy as it sounds - at least for a plant killer like myself, doing your own trading, etc but nothing about maintaining your own vehicle. Considering housing and transportation are the two biggest costs throughout your life youd think diy tips on bringing your transportation costs down would be something that would be talked about. For example, my wife and I found out we were going to have a baby last year so we needed a safe vehicle that could transport the kid, our dog, bikes, motorcycle trailer etc. I found a 98 Volvo turbo wagon for 750 that needed some work, paid about 500 in parts to fix it up and it hasnt cost us any more in the past 6 months my wife has been driving it. One of the side benefits being that the insurance costs are a lot less at least in our area since its an older car and the value is so low on it I dont need to insure the car itself in-case of an accident. If we leased a new car I calculated were saving about 5000 a year when comparing the predictable costs insurance, gas, repairs of the volvo. All that using skills I taught myself. I do the same thing with my motorcycles - I do all the maintenance and repairs myself with tools that anyone can get for 100. I can afford to have a Ducati in my garage since the tco is lower than having a Japanese bike and taking it into a shop to get worked on. Anyone else on reddit that repairs their own vehicles? Besides on rauto :  <response>: rfrugal recommends doing your own car repairs all the time. It comes up here sometimes as well. 