Better Hack #5: Be your own mechanic. Cars really aren't that complicated - especially for smart hacker folk like us. I did maintenance on my parents vehicles when I was 12 years old (brakes + oil changes) and have been working on my own vehicles since I could drive. In the past 7 years, I have only spent money on alignments and tire mounting/balancing, to the tune of $300 probably. The kicker is that I'm no more mechanically inclined than anybody else. I learn every time I pick up a wrench, with a bit of help from the good ol' internet. The experience is unbelievably fun and rewarding :)
This is so true. I was really surprised not to find more posts like these, because working on your own car is very fun, gets you away from the computer for a bit, and definitely embodies the DIY mentality most of us on this site have.
That said, if you're in the market and inexperienced [or maybe even experienced], take a prospective car to a professional mechanic. Don't buy a junk car and expect to be able to fix everything yourself, unless you want a fun side project which will require a ton of man-hours [and more money than you'd expect] to complete. But on the overall, doing your own maintenance and fixing smaller problems you encounter [timing belt issues? no biggie!] is very very enjoyable.
