I used to love car repair

Do you love tinkering with your car? A lot of us don't, but a few of us really do, there's nothing quite like getting under the hood and getting grease and oil on your hands. I've got a friend who is never happy unless he has black grease under his fingernails from repairing his car.

Doing car repair in your own garage or out on the drive, with a set of tools around you and spare parts cluttering up the floor is awesome, frankly it brings out the best in some people because it opens the mind and shows you how things work.

Most importantly though it's a practical expression of ingenuity, and if you know what you're doing it saves money. DIY mechanics often get a bad rap for drinking too much, playing music too loud, burning rubber in the street, but actually that's a minority. Most car repair enthusiasts are decent folk with a hobby.

But repairing a car is more than just enthusiasm and tools, you also need knowledge and how many of us are trained mechanics - probably not many mechanics know everything as well, in fact they need to read up on different models of cars if they haven't worked on them before, so there is no shame in researching specific jobs you have to do.

Take the example of needing to repair brake system or repair fuel system, these are not car repair topics that can be easily guessed at, you need to know what you're doing, if only to be safe once the car is back on the road.

A few years ago I owned a Mazda RX7, it was a series 2 model, you know the long pointy one with the short back end, small bucket seats and barely enough room in the back for a cat far less a person. But I used to tinker with that car all the time. But you can bet I always made sure I had the right information first. Fast cars need to be safe. Scratch that, all cars need to be safe.