By Patrick Cooley
SHENANGO VALLEY — In troubled economic times, many people are doing anything they can do to save a little bit of money here and there, especially when it comes to their vehicles and their homes.
“I was in the garage this morning, and people were bringing in their own parts for the mechanics to install (instead of paying for the parts at the garage),” said Robert, a sales representative for Sharon Auto Supply, who preferred not to give his last name. “And that’s not always cheaper, because usually the garage will charge more for the labor. They will mark up the parts a little bit, but not an astronomical amount.”
Other trends Robert said he’s seen are people buying economy line car parts instead of premium products, and only getting repair work done when it is absolutely necessary.
“People are doing without air conditioning work,” he said. “They would rather just deal with the heat and roll the windows down.”
Other trends, said George Gerhart, the executive director of the Shenango Valley Chamber of Commerce, include car owners doing repair work or having a friend, neighbor or family member do it, instead of taking it to a professional.
According to the Associated Press, Yahoo searches for “car repairs” and “salvage auto parts” are up 77 percent and 99 percent respectively in just the past month, and other car repair search words are at an all-time high.
The problem with this do-it-yourself attitude is that doing your own car repair work might not be as easy as it was just a few years ago.
“Modern vehicles and equipment are a little more intricate,” Gerhart said.
What this means is jobs that might have been simple on cars made just a few years ago can be much more complicated now that vehicle design has gotten more complicated.
“Since we don’t have a Better Business Bureau in this area, we get a lot of complaints (about car repairs not done by professionals),” Gerhart said.
Because of this, he suggests that before anyone gets repair work done that they check with the chamber for information.
“In general, you can assume that a business that’s a member of the chamber is reputable and trustworthy,” Gerhart said.
This do-it-yourself attitude isn’t confined just to automotive work, Dan Woodske, the marketing manager for First General Services in Sharon, a company which deals with homeowner insurance claims, said they’ve seen instances of people trying to do their own repairs on their houses.
“Even if it’s something as simple as cleaning the walls after a fire. If you have a cracked interior, you need to check everything in the house. There are a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that make it a job for the professionals,” he said.
According to Woodske, the Internet and television seem to be encouraging people that they can do their own home repairs. People see a home repair show, and think that it must not be that difficult because people do it on TV in 30 minutes.
“What I really recommend is, if it’s something the professionals get paid to do, you should let the professionals do it,” Woodske said. “It seems the smaller the job, the more you’re going to see someone get ambitious and try to do it themselves.”
