[Jay H 237]

Ken brought up some good points. Most of the time when you're having work done the most expensive part of the job is the labor (although there are exceptions). By working on it yourself not only are you learning skills and saving money like Ken said, but when you have to buy tools you still have those tools the next time you have to fix something.

To be honest, if I had to pay someone else to do most of the work on my 3 cars I own (Camry, Caprice, and Mustang) I could not afford to keep them all running. While I have spent a lot of money on tools I didn't purchase them all at once. I mostly bought them as I needed them and this allowed me to slowly take over doing repairs that I used to have others do. There are still some things that I can't do or don't want to for safety reasons, like taking the coil springs out that I mentioned before. There are somethings I hate doing but do anyways to save money like exhaust work. I just bought a muffler today from NAPA for my Caprice. Exhaust is terrible work with all the rust, dirt and other crap that falls down while you're working but fixing the exhaust myself will be cheaper than the Chevy dealer or an independant garage.

Working on cars, houses, boats, whatever isn't for everyone. If you prefer to have others do it for you then that's OK too, but if you start doing some of the stuff yourself you'll have an idea why things cost what they do. One word........labor. Just think of what it would cost to compete in FIRST if you had to pay someone to design, manufacture, and build your robot for you. That $5000 KOP would be nothing compared to the labor costs!