It can be hard to decide whether you are going to perform repairs yourself using a repair manual or take your car in to a local auto repair shop to have their mechanics diagnose or repair your vehicle. There are a lot of things to take in to consideration, from whether you have the correct tools to whether you are willing to put in the amount of time involved and take that time out of your schedule.
One of the prerequisites if you are going to do your own repairs is to learn and then follow proper safety precautions. Auto repair can be extremely dangerous and if you do not take the necessary precautions in each situation it is very possible for you to be severely injured or in some cases killed. Even simple repairs sometimes involve unexpected dangers and nothing can be taken for granted.
The next issue is that you are going to need tools and, depending on the repairs, they can be quite specialized and expensive. The standard tool box will only get you so far when you need things like specialized clamps, joint separators, or diagnostic trouble code readers. For simple repairs, however, you can often get a lot done.
The main advantages of taking your vehicle to a repair shop is that you avoid any risk of personal injury during the repairs, they have their own tools, and you do not have to commit the time involved to perform the repairs yourself. However, repair shops do have a profit margin both on the labor and the parts they install and the repairs and rarely cheap. It is best to get estimates from more than one shop and consider the shops' reputations as well. In addition, there is a whole set of precautions you need to take when dealing with repair shops that are beyond the scope of this article but can easily be found by using a search engine.
