one, two, three, four!
Rev up your engines!
It's time for the Scotty Kilmer Channel
today I'm going to show you, what basic tools you might think about buying if
you're planning on fixing your own car, now being a professional mechanic,
I have drawers, and drawers, and drawers of tools, but you don't need them all, to
start out with, get a decent socket set, with a ratchet, you can get a decent
ratchet and socket set at any discount auto parts store, a lot of them give
lifetime guarantees, you don't need to buy a really expensive set, I used to
buy really expensive stuff, snap-on, Matco, you name it, but hey I'd buy these
duralast ones from autozone, as you can see here and it says guaranteed for life,
if it ever breaks, I go three blocks down the street and get another one free you
can't beat that, and these days hey, all the cars are
metric, so make sure you get a metric set, then of course if your going to do any kind
of suspension or break work, you need a jack, to jack the car up in the air, now
as tempting as it may be, don't buy one of these little cheap jacks, they're just not
stable enough, get a nice solid jack, hey I got this low-profile large Jack at
Harbor Freight tools, it was only 20 bucks more, than this tiny little one
that I stick in the trunk for emergencies, and with the design of
modern cars, make sure you get one of these low-profile Jack's, so it actually
fits under your car, but of course if you have a truck or a higher vehicle, you can
just get a plain jack that isn't low profile, and of course get a good set of
jack stands, I buy steel ones, the aluminum ones aren't quite as strong,
even though they weigh less, now being a professional mechanic, I cheat and I
use air tools, but then you have to my compressor and air tools, and hoses, and
all kinds of stuff, so if you need power, you can just get a giant cheater bar and
a socket, and use that to get stuck nuts and bolts off, and if that's not
enough power, you can use the poor man's air wrench, a giant piece of pipe, just
stick it on the end of the cheater bar, you get so much leverage anything easily
comes off, because yes I have to admit it, I'm a tool fool, I'm one of those guys that
goes out and buys tools because they look cool, I got tools in my garage some of
them I've actually never used to fix cars, so don't go buying
all these fancy tools that you don't need yet, now when it comes to working on
any car that's 1996 or newer, you really need a halfway decent scan tool, to
analyze what's going on with a car, but don't think that's going to break the bank,
there are scan tools out there that go anywhere from fifty, to two hundred
dollars when on sale, that can do all kinds of stuff on your car, now this
particular model cost me $200 on sale at autozone, and it does an awful lot, I use
it all the time as a professional mechanic, let's say you got four or five
guys, you can each pitch in with 40 bucks, buy one and share it you won't use it all that
often, and it fits all the different cares, so why not go that route, of
course you can go buy a lower price one but take my warning here, do not buy one
of those 20 or $30 Bluetooth ones that work on your phones, because I've seen
them damage cars, at least buy one that's 50 or $60 that stand alone like this,
when you're using other devices often they'll be interference, all you have to
do is get the machine, plug it under the dash into the port, then it'll give you
all kinds information, it can read the codes or erase codes, tell you about the most
status, tell you if it'll pass the state obd test, it will view the live data,
records data, they do all kinds of things that'll help you figure out what's wrong
with your car, let's say even if it gets over your head and gives you information
that you can't figure out, at least you'll have codes, you'll have solid
information, then when you go somewhere, they can't rip you off because you got a
reasonable amount of information and you can say, hey here's what's going on with
my car, and if they don't fix it right and it still has the same thing with the
scanner, you'll know they didn't fix it right, but there's a lot you can figure
out yourself, this car has P0100 code for intake air
temperature sensor, then you to just go to the internet and type P0100
104 for a 2003 Sonata, which is what the car is, and when you google it, you'll see
there's all kinds of articles about what the problem is and how to fix it, Google
to the rescue again, what would we do without it in our modern society, now
another basic tool I advise buying is a giant screwdriver, it makes a great pry
bar when you have to pry things off, and it makes a great listening device,
when you're trying to find the source of car noises, it's also a great emergency
tool, let's say you get in a wreck and the fender is rubbing on the tire, you can
always get it in there and pry it away from the tire, so you can at least drive
home, and of course you want some basic hand tools, like a good set of pliers, an
assortment of different screwdrivers, buy of course you can buy those in any good discount
auto parts store, as a kit like a handy man's tool kit,
and you'll get them all together and don't have to pay the individual prices
where they cost more, so now you know what kind of basic tools you need to
start fixing your own car, and remember if you do eventually need a specialist
tool, hey wait until you need it, then when you go to get the part, buy the
tool at the same place and save time and money that way, because with a little
imagination, you can make some basic tools do some
pretty complex jobs, and remember if you have any car questions, just visit the
Scottiyy Kilmer channel