"Theo" wrote in message
...
T i m wrote:
63 here with a 39 year old daughter so not sure if we are in the same
category.

I'm roughly the same age as your daughter, and a lot of that chimes.
I've been doing DIY (FSVO) since I was six.
Difference is I had nobody to teach me, so I've mostly learnt it myself.

Being in Generation Rent rather hampers the DIY tendencies, but for a long
time I had an absentee landlord who never spent a penny and didn't care,
so
I did it myself. The downside was it was never worth investing to do
things
properly given you could always be kicked out at 2 months notice, or
indeed
fined for changing things. So the DIY was usually minimalist stuff to
keep things going.

Having moved from 30-year-old to 10-year-old cars I don't do as much DIY
as
I used to on that front, however it's always difficult when you're working
on the street and don't have anyone to help/tell you you've done it
right/make sure you aren't going to die.

There is plenty of that on youtube now.

So mostly avoid stuff on the underneath
(plus crawling around in the cold is no fun).

Yeah, but not normally required anymore
if you are careful about what you buy now.

Previously I did a carb rebuild and a full underseal,
so I can be a slug if I want to be

I have some leaked Toyota dealer software to plug into the
OBDII, which makes fixing stuff on modern cars a lot easier.

And the net makes it so much easier to find a cheap replacement now.

Recently bought a house so lots to do in prospect, although not a lot of
free time to do it in