this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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I don't think that's true, the length of time that cars were simple enough to do most of your own maintenance lasted a long time, from the very first cars through to the 80s or so, until computerisation meant the only real fault finding you could do was swapping parts without specialist equipment.
I grew up in the 80s and most people around could only ever do the whole "check the oil level and add some more if needed" and the same for the water for the window wipers.
Granted, nowadays some people can't even do the latter.
I too grew up in the in that era. But grew up in the Detroit area where nearly everybody knew something about cars due to how many people worked in the auto industry and how the knowledge was prevelant and shared amongst friends and peers. Auto shops were still a thing, but largely used for jobs nobody wanted to do, didn't have access to the tools, or didn't have the time to invest
It's true not everyone could do it, but things like checking timing, adjusting carburettors etc is something people can learn from reading a manual or watching a video.
90s-late 00s cars are actually on repairability in my experience, because they already have computers which help you diagnose failures easily with a $20 OBD2 scanner (this saved my ass a couple of times, when I could almost immediately see the error whenever my car died, fiddle or re-plug the wiring of the failed component and keep going), and they don't yet have all the over-complicated, designed-to-fail, hard-to-reach crap that a lot of new cars have.