How I Learned Car Maintenance 

This month, we have a guest article from Jennifer Moore, Communications Specialist Associate and Professional Writing MA Student. Jennifer taught herself car maintenance while in college so that she could keep her aging Toyota Camry on the road.

“I’m no mechanic – I couldn’t change my oil.”  

“I probably wouldn’t be strong enough to change a flat tire.” 

“I don’t know, I’m pretty dumb when it comes to cars. I’d probably mess something up.”  

Sound familiar? I’ve heard these things from all kinds of car owners. I felt this way, too, until my car needed fixing, and I didn’t have the money for a mechanic.  

I was a 20-year-old college student making $10.50 an hour part-time. My ride to school was the family car, a run-of-the-mill early 2000s Toyota Camry with over 180,000 miles. With tan paint and a tan interior sporting a cassette-player stereo, it was the most boring, reliable, nauseatingly predictable car you could get. But I grew up in that car – I put those crayon stains in the back seat cupholder and collected those seashells in the coin tray during 10 years of family trips to San Diego. I loved that car like a Cadillac. And for a thousand bucks, the title was mine.  

The incident happened in 2019. I was on a road trip with my best friend and, being the college students we were, we decided to take an unmaintained county road to a supposed hot spring that wasn’t on the map. The “pothole,” we’ll call it, spanned the entire width of the road and was nearly a foot deep. Before we had time to stop, we had flown over it with a hard bang. “Uh oh.” Nothing was leaking, so we did the only responsible thing you can do when you’re in the middle of nowhere with no cell service and a potentially damaged car – we kept driving.  

The hot spring had turned out to be disappointing, and once we got home, my dad helped assess the damage. That’s where the three-month-long hunt for “the clunk” began. Mechanics quoted thousands of dollars to fix “the clunk”, which was likely related to a suspension part ranging from harmless to potentially dangerous, and they had no guarantee that the constant metal-on-metal sound would go away even if we replaced everything they listed. There was no way I was dumping my life savings on this 15-year-old vehicle or taking on a new car payment, so I started researching repairs on Google.  

I pored through article after article with titles like “What causes a front-end clunk?” and “Symptoms of a bad ball joint.” I started looking at diagrams and exploring all the parts underneath my car. I became fascinated. I would look at a part and ask my dad, “What does that do? Tell me how that works.” I would pick his brain like a curious toddler until he said, “I’m not sure – why don’t you look it up?” 

That summer, we both learned a thing or two (or ten) about car repairs. My dad would say, “I’ll help you out, but you have to look up how to do it and direct me.” So I searched YouTube videos, and we worked together to replace the suspension piece by piece.  

We started with the front struts, which were likely damaged by impact. Next came the sway bar links, which looked pretty worn out. This turned into replacing the control arms and ball joints, a job I hope never to repeat as the joints were terribly seized on both sides. Then we swapped out the motor mounts. All of these replacements gave the car a smoother ride, but the metal-on-metal sound persisted. The clunk was a stubborn foe. 

After browsing the dark recesses of Internet forums, I finally found salvation in the form of one small, $7.50 bushing deep in the undercarriage of the car. Its only purpose was to keep the sway bar, a long hunk of metal that runs along the bottom of the car, from banging around on other metal parts. 

I had to investigate. I shined my flashlight in the blackness beyond the control arm, revealing a dried-out, crusty piece of rubber that my dad and I had somehow missed during our repair adventures. In theory, this bushing was dumbfoundingly easy to replace (just two 12mm bolts!), but in reality, I had to extend my arm for what felt like a mile and loosen the bolts in a cramped space at a heartbreakingly slow pace. But it was worth it for the personal victory of conquering the clunk.  

Even though I probably replaced more parts than I needed to that summer (which can’t hurt on a high-mileage car), the real victory is that with each repair, I felt more and more comfortable with my vehicle. As I got more experience, I started working more independently. I’d do the research, safely jack up the car, and then borrow Dad’s tools to look for a problem. I went from being afraid to change a tire to being able to do basic repairs and diagnose some issues myself. 

There’s one thing that became clear to me during this experience: in our information-saturated age, resources are out there and freely available for those willing and curious. Whether it’s replacing brakes and rotors, a serpentine belt, or the radiator, I can almost guarantee there’s a step-by-step walkthrough video on the internet for any car. Even without knowledgeable family members or all the right equipment, the internet can at least help someone know enough to avoid being ripped off by mechanics charging unfair prices. Just remember that basic car maintenance isn’t something reserved for mechanics or physically “strong” people–it’s for me and you too.