alan_m wrote:

Luckily it's easy to dismount, remount, and statically balance (and
dynamically test) a tire yourself,

You are joking! I've seen on many occasions how much effort goes into
removing/replacing a tyre from/on the rim using the specialised tyre
fitting equipment.

I think you need to rethink your underlying belief system, because what you
fear is not at all what you should be fearing (IMHO).
https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...+tire+changer+

Hear me out, as I'm not chastising you for having a wholly misguided
incorrect fundamental belief system, but do recognize I'm not at all joking
that it takes about the same amount of time to change a tire at home (e.g.,
to fix a flat or to mount and balance new tires) as it takes for you to
take it to the shop.

But time isn't why you do any work at home anyway, as time (or money) isn't
the reason you do work at home - you do it at home because you enjoy it,
or, because you want it done right.

Speaking only of time though, I admit the first time you mount and balance
a tire at home, it takes forever though, particularly because you have to
learn the hard way how critically important a "drop center" is, to the tire
mounting process.

Once you figure out that the bead doesn't "stretch", you'll remember your
lesson about that critically important "drop center" offset from center in
the wheel rim.

After you figure out the concept of a drop center, you also have to learn
the hard way, on the first and second tires, that the Harbor Freight tools
have some limitations, which you work around.
1. You're crazy if you don't buy the separate bead breaker
2. The mounter's bead-breaker attachment bends on SUV tires
3. You need a wooden board to extend the range of the bead breaker for SUVs
4. A 6-inch vise grip is critical to prevent mounting bar slippage
5. Liquid dish detergent (blue or green) is your friend.
6. Don't believe the claims you need a special valve stem removal tool
7. Did I mention that you're doomed until you recognize the drop center?

There is also the 15/30 minutes for blowing up a
completely flat tyre with one of those little 12V compressors that fit
into the cigarette lighter socket.

The only tools you need to change tires efficiently at home, in about the
same amount of time it takes the shop to do it, are these:
A. A decent compressor & fittings (which you already have most likely)
B. A shrader-valve removal screwdriver
C. A six-inch vise grip, one 2 or 3 foot tire iron, & dish detergent
D. HF bead breaker tool (plus a two-foot board to extend its base)
E. HF tire mounting tool (temporarily or permanently bolted to the ground)
F. HF static balance tool & weights (sitting on a flat spot on the ground)
G. About ten minutes per tire (depending on your experience level)

I can just see all those inexperienced people breaking/chipping their
alloy rims using breaker bars.

You fundamentally don't seem to understand that mounting tires at home is
even more gentle than it is at the tire shop!

In fact, I have stock BBS rims on my bimmer, where the worst that happens
is that a bit of the red paint from the tire iron transfers to the edge of
the rim.

If you actually think that mounting a tire at home is in any way more
damaging to a wheel than what they do at the shop, you really (really
really really) need to rethink the entire underpinning of your fundamental
belief system.

For the money I pay to get a puncture repaired (and dynamically
balanced) by a tyre shop it's not worth the effort to even consider
Do-it-Yourself.

If you talk about money in any other manner other than the amount saved to
offset the cost of the tools, then you're thinking about DIY differently
than I do.

To me, DIY is about the satisfaction of learning & doing the job right.

If all you care about is money, then you'd pay someone else to clean your
toilet, do your dishes, bake your bread, mow your lawn, sharpen your
chainsaw, sweep the driveway, pick up litter on the sidewalk, tend to the
roses, trim the trees, clean the gutters, change your oil, etc.

Saving money isn't why you do DIY, in that almost all DIY jobs are free in
the end in terms of tool cost and material cost, in that it would almost
always cost more to have someone else do (all those things above) than it
would for you do to them.

You decide WHAT you do based on what you LIKE to do, where if you like
baking bread, then you bake bread making it exactly the way you want it
made, using exactly the ingredients you want to use. If you don't like
baking bread, then you buy whatever you can get at the store, even if it's
filled with ingredients you might not want to know you're ingesting.

I happen to like three things about changing & balancing tires:
a. I like LEARNING all about what it takes, and,
b. I like DOING the job any time I want to, and,
c. I like the CONVENIENCE of changing tires in my pajamas.

https://youtu.be/Gg4iPmU9OYs?t=15

Without researching prices, I'll bet here in the UK the
cost of obtaining one or two proper tyre repair patches would actually
be close to the cost of using someone who does it for a living.

You don't DIY to save money - you DIY to have the satisfaction of doing the
job yourself and knowing that the job is done right.

If saving money was actually your goal, you'd DIY everything, since almost
nothing is worth paying someone else to do at the current shop rates where
I live (Silicon Valley, ~$100/hour minimum, ~$200/hour dealer, $150/hour is
a reasonable average).

Saving money isn't why you DIY.

Almost all DIY jobs are free in the end anyway, as you must be aware, where
the tools pay for themselves over time, where changing tires at home is no
different.

The only thing that changes the break-even period is your calculation of
how many tires you change, and the amount of tools you already have (e.g.,
most of us have a compressor already).

Out here, the average for a tire to be mounted and dynamically balanced is
as high as $50 per tire but it's often around $20 per tire, so let's use
that round number (but use whatever number you want because the tools will
always end up being free in the end anyway).

The three HF tools you need cost about $150, so to have even numbers, let's
add another $50 for incidentals like the tire iron & the weights and the
schrader valve screwdriver.

How many tires do you have to change to break even at those numbers?

$200 divided by 20 bucks per tire is 10 tires, right?

You can use any numbers you like, but they all will end up being around a
dozen tires for the tools to break even and be free, and to start paying
for themselves.

Say you're 40 years old, and you have a wife and two teens, all of whom
have a car in the driveway (in the USA anyway). How many tires is that?

4 cars times 4 tires per car (let's ignore the spare) is 16 tires in the
driveway.

If you change them just once, the tools are already well into the zone of
paying for themselves.

Even if you have only two cars (mom & pop), the tool expense will break
even in a couple of years.

There are storage costs. of course, but luckily no maintenance costs to the
tools. As for storage, since I'm in the Silicon Valley where there is no
snow, I just leave the tools outside with all my shovels and rakes and
chocks and jack stands and ramps, etc., but if you store them inside, then
you need to have a shed or an area in the garage to fit tools.

But these tools are no bigger than any of your other tools (e.g., drill
press, table saw, belt sander, etc.) which you store all the time also.

In summary, you DIY because you ENJOY doing the job right, not because you
want to save money, where you'd be hard pressed to find any repair on a
vehicle that you don't save money if you do it yourself.

Can you even name a /single/ common maintenance task on a vehicle that a
DIY doesn't save you money on over the cost for the tools?