Learn wrenching
 

Well, I finally bought a house recently and with it I got a nice, roomy garage. Well roomy enough for two cars and my bike.

I'm reasonably competent at doing menial auto repair and maintenance tasks. Oil change, spark plug swaps, alternator replacements, etc. I would like to learn more about auto repair without blowing up my current vehicles. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to acquire this knowledge?

Thanks,
Pixel

local community colleges have good and cheap classes to get a proper education on the matter. or you could always buy a used $500 clunker to take completely apart and reassemble.

You can learn a lot about the vehicles you own by buying a factory service manual. It's the same step-by-step instructions the dealers use to troubleshoot and repair your car. The Haynes and Chilton manuals also tell you how to do most any kind of repair you could expect to encounter and are much cheaper.

If you don't like to read though, do like AquaFox says and buy a clunker or an old car to restore as a project and just get your hands dirty. And if you're already into motorcycles, an old one for a project can be pretty cheap, a lot of fun, and somewhat simpler than a car.

Damn, I must be more careful in reading thread titles. I thought this said "Learn Wenching" and I thought I was in for some Renn Faire porn. :(

Buy an old Mitsubishi. Buy a Factory Service Manual for that Mitubishi. Try to keep that Mitsubishi running trouble free for one year. You will learn more about cars than you ever care to know trying to keep that Mitsubishi running.

I owe all of my current automotive knowledge to the two Eclipses and Galant I owned (yes, I was a glutton for punishment).

Gluttony for punishment is a British or Italian car with a Lucas electrical system :)

Join a club.

or, alternatively: find a friend who makes it their hobby, then offer to help out with their current project car. My dad was always thrilled when there was an extra hand around the garage to grab him tools.

hehe. That's pretty hilarious.

Oh, Mitsu's have electrical gremlins too. Especially their turbo'd cars where the heat turns the insulation for the underhood wiring hard and brittle.