I was a backyard mechanic as a kid, helping the older guys in the neighborhood overhaul their engines and learning from them. I used to love working on cars. Then the electronics came out and it was a different story. There was no standardization, no computers capturing electronic codes, and trial and error swapping of parts was often the only way to figure out what was wrong. Since auto parts stores would not take returns on electrical parts, diagnosing a problem often meant finding someone else with the same model car so you could swap parts with them. I learned to hate working on cars. However, now everything is standardized and the error codes are so accurate and comprehensive that diagnosing problems is fairly easy again. Most auto parts stores will run a scan for free. I am beginning to enjoy working on cars again. The biggest difference between then and now is the cost. Electronic parts can be very expensive. There was a time when I never would have considered an extended warranty on a car. However, with all the electronics on cars now, mean time between failure of the auto electronics can make an extended warranty well worthwhile. (Though, I do miss the days when you could limp home on bailing wire and duct tape.)