That said, I know how to do all of these things, I actually service my car and a motorcycle myself despite the apartment complex's "rules", but I think for a lot of car owners they're not in "safe" space to do their own maintenance. There's also the up front cost of buying tools. I think a lot of car owners in similar situations are relegated to taking the car to a shop for simple repairs as a result. Any advice?

Being able to transform money into convenience is a great benefit of living in a modern inter-connected society. But it's only great while it lasts, and relying on always having this ability is a risky move. When my parents ran into hard times they raised and slaughtered hogs. When things got better we stopped. I don't think I'd be alive today if they didn't have that know how.

If the hard time is temporary, that’s what credit is for. If it is systemic, I’ve got bigger fish to fry - downsizing our house, getting job training, moving near a bus line to save money on car insurance, etc.

It’s just like the BS “Latte Factor”. People are not unable to save for retirement because of $6/day Latte. It’s usually because they have high fixed costs relative to their income.

As many dry cleaners that I see even in the less affluent parts of the city, people are able to afford to do that too.

Most less affluent people who do own their own home (as well as many who could afford it) do cut their own grass.

On the other hand these jobs do take space in my life and in my mind. It is questionable whether we should "force" people to do simple car maintenance. Our society runs on division of labour and everybody places their cutover to experts somewhere else. You say they could benefit a lot from gaining some mechanical understanding of their car's operation. And I feel the same. But they may wonder why they should learn a skill that takes time away from other things important to them.

Sure I may question how they spend their time. But now we've moved away from how knowing basic maintenance is good for you to a more general outlook on life. Watching a tutorial will improve one's future life. But we can't say that watching a car maintenance tutorial will be the right thing. Maybe it's a tutorial on Excel? Which would be more in line with the topic of the article anyway.

So I agree with you in general but not in specifics :-)

Current subthread started with this: "Yes, unpopular opinion these days, but car owners should really know how to do at least the bare minimum of basic car maintenance"

It's probable that Bezos has to give zero fucks beyond what brand he prefers. People living in their car are probably just praying it doesn't break down. In between there is a giant middle ground that composes 80% of the car owning population whose benefit derived from car know how is inversely proportional to their wealth.

Most car owners should learn the basics of how their car works and how it is maintained even if they intend to outsource that labor to others just so they aren't trivially taken advantage of. If we assume that MOST people aren't born into wealth most people could stand to learn the basics during the time when they have more time than money and then they could make productive use of this know how later.

I'm not sure how you can even argue this point.

I don't think your existential proof is a good one. It's like proving Cigarettes are OK by noting that billions use and only millions die.