This time we are going to talk about a couple of things that, well, you might want to try yourself, and one thing that you probably don’t want to try yourself.

Let’s start with the thing we shouldn’t be doing ourselves. And that is right here. If we look at this seat belt, it’s all frayed and certainly not safe to be used. So it needs to be replaced, but should you try and replace one yourself? No. Not unless you know all the ins and outs of it because many of these have pre-tensioners on them that use an explosive device that can be dangerous. That’s number one. Number two, the bolts that hold them in place, well they are really, really tight and in most cases require a large wrench and a special torx bit in order to get them loose.

But here’s something that you should be considering yourself. It can be expensive if you take it into a shop. And that is, that the door panels on a lot of cars, they’re held on by these clips. The clips sometimes fall out, the clips sometimes break. They need to be replaced. Well, you can get a set of tools, which as we can see over here, online, that’s inexpensive enough to make it practical to do yourself. Now you can take the door panel off, you can find videos that show you how to do that on the internet.

And once you have it off, then you need to have replacement clips for it. You can go to the dealer and buy them, or, many times you can find online, that you can buy a whole assortment of them that will give you everything that you might need. Put them on, put the door panel back on, and you’ve fixed the problem. And oh, tell the person that slams the door so hard, not to slam the door.

And here’s another problem that we see. Door handles. Most all door handles these days are made out of plastic. And the plastic gets brittle with age and it often fails. Again, you have the option of looking on the internet and finding aftermarket replacements that may have a much longer warranty than the original ones. And they are often less expensive. Something again, that you can do yourself.

And if you have a question or comment, drop me a line, right here at MotorWeek!