Very nice, Dave, but how about the guy making only $400-$600/month?
Retired or otherwise. He has plenty to worry about. Count your
blessings.
All through life, retired or not, either you pay someone else to do
the work -- have the big bucks/income available and HOPE it's done
right even at that -- or, you don't have the $$ and are forced to DIY.
In the latter case, no one else is going to do it if YOU don't. So I
do a lot of "quality reading" on occasion: auto
service/repair/troubleshooting/parts manuals -- and here in the
Honda/Toyota and Nissan newsgroups -- and hope at least regular
maintenance with quality fliuds/filters forestalls/prevents any
trouble down the road. And I drive my cars gently, don't abuse
them...that helps A LOT.
But I DO take it in to the shop when I have tried everything I can
think of to solve the problem but still can't find it, or, it's
something out of my area of expertise. For example, I will NOT get out
my cordless drill, put in a huge bit, hold the block between my feet
and rebore the cylinders! I used to do that -- just eyeball the bore
measurements in fact, and tried to hold the drill completely vertical
-- but that didn't work to well! Just kidding. ;-)
In those cases (very rare fortunately), it goes in to the shop. But
it's still tough coming up with the money sometimes.
John D.