SAVE MONEY ON AUTO MAINTENANCE BY DOING IT YOURSELF!

After a recent trip to the dealership for some minor maintenance and some recall work on my 2002 Honda Civic, I decided it was time I started doing some of the maintenance work myself.  I went in for a $39 oil change and free recall on the air bags.  Ended up with a bill over $200 due to some minor repairs they said had to be done because they were "a fire risk."  Well I didn't want my car catching fire, so I had the work done, but I was skeptical just the same.  They also told me I needed to bring the car back for new brakes all around, with an estimate of $490.  That was just too much.  Looked it up on Youtube and decided I could do the brakes myself.  

I also knew I needed to replace the spark plugs, so I looked that up as well.  For 20 minutes of work and less than $9 in parts, I saved myself $44 to $56 in labor costs, which is the average estimate for changing the spark plugs in my car.  I was amazed at how much better my car runs with the new plugs and how easy it was to do the work.  Also checked the air filter, which didn't need replacing since it still looked brand new.  I figure when I get to the brake job, I'll save a great deal more in labor costs.  Plan on doing that in a couple of weeks.  Have an experienced mechanic watching over me, just to make sure I don't screw those up, but I'm doing all the work myself.  I'm actually pretty excited about the whole thing, since I'll be able to get much more done on my car than I could afford if I were paying someone else to do the work.