since people have different standards of what "fair, good, etc" is.. i never take anyones word for anything. oh that shops great? ok. i let it go in one ear and out the other. heres the way i was taught to see it.. along with the technicians i work with, who btw have built some sick supra, mister twos, and celicas.. "why would you pay some jackass to work on your car? they're just human beings like you. if they can do the work, why cant you? what do they have, that you dont? they had to start somewhere, so did you. so, put the car on stands, and go to work." a few years ago i didnt even totally know what an oil change consisted of. at some point, none of us did. at some point, you knew nothin about nothin. start somewhere tho. you'll gain experience reading through forums, and doing shit yourself. my advice is find an fsm.. thats what anyone who will do work on your car does, cept for the 240 shops and all. if they can read a book, then i surely hope you can too
oh yea.. what scares me about doing my own work on my car (in the end i do it myself anyway) is the fear of something going wrong, and me not having a car for the next day. smartest move you can make is buying a beater, so that when you are working on your car, you dont have to worry about something bad popping up and not having the car the next day. is it just me or does something go wrong EVERYTIME.. honest to good... the only time ive never had something jump in my face was my sway bars and exhaust manifold.. lol. FSM + beater = the win
-Bart