In most of the Auto Parts Chains these days the employees will check your charging system for free. Chains such as Auto Zone and Kragen and Checker have equipment that is portable that they bring out to your car to do this. Yes you do have to drive your car to their store and wait until your turn but your'e going to have to do that anyway to purchase the battery. Why not take advantage of the free expert help if you can get it? If you want to learn watch the guy as he tests your car. If you purchase a battery when you really needed an alternator what is the savings?

Mike M. Has a great point. Any DIYer will have to guess if they have a battery problem. As "automotive technicians" we test the battery, and charging system. If the car has a hard start, then we will continue to test the starter motor, and the solenoid. You have many electrical components on a car that could go wrong, DIYers don't have the tools, or the money for the tools to accurately fix their cars.

Besides, we give customers breaks on labor. Installing a battery is free (labor wise), testing the battery and charging system is free.

Even if you could test the battery, if you have started the car and tested the battery the alternator could have given the battery a 'surface charge' which would give an inaccurate display for the batteries power level.

Hey Chris, you're a Master Tech and you use five bucks of hand cleaner when changing a battery?  What the heck are you doing with that battery, rubbing it all over yourself?  And you need a twenty nine dollar set of tools for it, too?  How about, in most cases, just a couple of wrenches, that most people already have, to loosen the terminals and the hold-down clamp, and even if you did spend twenty nine bucks, you'd use the tools over and over again.  As far as dry-cleaning is concerned, I've never gotten my clothes dirty from doing  a five-minute battery change.  In any event, even it it were a dirty job, who would do it in dry-clean only clothes?  Or a fifty buck shirt?  How about cutting down the potential down side by wearing an old shirt and pants?  Yeesh, no wonder going to a pro costs so much.  Fifty bucks for a shirt?  Do you wear designer clothes to work on a car?  As far as connecting the battery backwards, there are only two wires, positive and negative, and they're marked pretty darn well (plus, minus, red, black).  How hard is that?  How often do you reverse them?  You'd have to be color blind as well as a moron to do that.  Finally, changing a car battery hardly can be compared to setting a broken bone.  Are you equating the skills and training of a mechanic with those of a doctor?  Anyone, even a ten year old, can do simple car repair tasks, but I sure wouldn't want to try to remove my own tonsils.

You are literally making money in DYI's when done correctly. I put 1000.00 into materials, paint,  flooring, slip covers, installing shelving, window treatments and accessories.  It took about 12 weeks to complete and my 1800 square ft home appraised $25,000 higher. I made 24,000 in 12 weeks. I did the work at night and on weekends. My job as a social worker only pays 32,000 a year. No matter how you look at it that is a 66% increase in income had I sold my home this year.  And that's in a terrible market. By the way I'm a 50 year old lady so no excusses.

I'm surprised how easily most people get dissuaded from doing things for themselves just because someone brings in a doomsday scenario.  Sure you probably aren't going to change the transmission in your car or replace your own battery because of the problem in correctly diagnosing the problem.  But let's face it, replacing a lock on the door takes about 5 minutes, and if it doesn't work, you can still call in the locksmith, same fee.  The way I figure it, if there is a possiblity that I am going to do whatever it is again, I should learn to do it, or at least something about it.  That takes about 5 minutes to an hour for some really big things, and then I can make an educated evaluation of whether it could  save me money to do it myself.  I once changed every door knob and lock in my house, about 20 of them.  Saved me a considerable amount of money.  

I believe it is great if you can do it your self, being a trades man,your per hour rate is off, my company charges $99.95 to knock on your door and and hourly rate of $185.00 oh and don't forget the mark up on the parts depending on what it costs us there is a sliding rule, just for this article we will say the part cost me less than 100.00 my cost, we would then mark it up 2.6% the .6% is the PA tax. So any one who feels they can take care of home project  is really saving money, lets face it not may people make $185.00 an hour, oh I forgot the fuel surcharge we started 2 years ago when gas went up to $3.00 a gallon, tack on another $7.70

I recently changed the front and rear brakes on my car - rotors and pads rather than have the work done.  I had received an estimate of $1,100 for the entire job.  Since the rotors basically slide off and on for my vehicle, I decided to purchase the parts myself and spend the hour doing the work in my driveway.  Final cost for the parts plus additional tools....$400.  I love saving $700 in one hour.

You all have terrible grammar and punctuation.

Not everyone is able to fix and repair things around their home.  I worked for a man who was in education, and couldn't do things around the home.  I told him as I made a simple repair that I couldn't be a teacher.  I enjoy figuring out problems at home and repairing or building things that give me the satisfaction of knowing or learing how to do it.

I've seen a lot of bad work done by DIY idiots. On the other hand, I hate hearing people talk about "leaving it to the professionals," like they're better than you and I. The word "professional" just means that they do it for a living. In many cases, like replacing a car battery or doing drywall, that often means they're not smart enough to get a decent job.

Not many people can do what I can do to my house or car... and I'm a retail manager. Our economy depends on the fact that not everybody can do everything. I just hate it when either "side" acts like they're better than the other.