I stand by my position. People interested in Do-It-Yourself auto repair come to the party with a wide variety of skill levels. Repairing your car may be a hobby. It could also be a financial necessity. I have seen posts on various forums that are absolutely scary. In other words, the questions indicate little to no knowledge of things mechanical. Some people want to skip the tough part and just ask questions on the internet. When I learned , what little I know, it was a matter of reading manuals and figuring it out through trial and error. But way back then (60's) things were much more straightforward. Today you could make a mistake that could literally cost thousands of dollars.

The diagnostic steps are the tricky part. Throwing parts at a problem is not a smart thing to do. If a person doesn't have the knowledge, then it is a time intensive exercise to gain that knowledge. I think this is particularly true of electrical/electronic skills. Often a person doesn't have the correct diagnostic tools. Spending a bunch of money acquiring tools to do a job that might occur every 100K miles makes little sense to me. Here's a for instance.

I wanted to go through the front end on my '92. I elected to do the easy stuff myself. All tie rods, idler arm bushing, steering shock, shock absorbers. Then I took the car to my indy for ball joints, rear differential bushings, pinion seal, etc. I knew from a couple of forums that the pinion seal is tricky. Mess it up and may be buying a differential. It's still D.I.Y., but with decisions to farm out what I couldn't do or simply didn't want to do myself. The huge advantage that an independent brings to the party is seeing the same things over and over again. An individual with a couple of cars typically has a much smaller set of experiences.

Want further proof? Get to know a mechanic. Ask them how many times they are called upon to fix what a Do-It-Yourselfer screwed up.

Just my opinion.

Steve