upvote
Professional mechanics might do that, but a home mechanic can get very far one one $200 set, and then another $300 spent over years buying several useful things for each project.

I've replaced transmissions, head gaskets, and done all work for our family cars for two decades based on a Costco toolkit, and 20 trips to the autoparts store or Walmart when I needed something to help out.

Maybe I'm being a little forgetful that yes I bought a jack, and Jack stands, and have a random pipe as a breaker bar, and other odds and ends. But you can go very far for $1k as a DIYer.

reply