Especially brakes!

Some people haven't got a clue what their doing but refuse to admit it to themselves or anyone, fumble about and make things worse. Just look at anyone in a management position.

Not only that but brakes are illegal to work on unless you're a fully licensed mechanic because it's considered part of the safety system of a car. Heaven forbid op gets into an accident related to a bad brake job, insurance won't cover him and op could be charged and possibly arrested all on his dime. You're lucky the cars are unusable in the drive way.

@Steve97 Well I don't know about Canada but in the USA you can do your own car repairs and even get paid to do someone else's by a friend or acquaintance but you can't legally claim to be licensed if you aren't.

Not likely he was clueless - it may just have been bad luck. I've gone in to do pads and wound up needing new lines, cylinders, rotors, and calipers because I was otherwise unaware of issues that were on the fence. If the guy couldn't afford the parts or whatever... yeah.

I don't believe that to be true, #32. Pads, rotors and the like are fine. The electronic parts of the system like ABS, sure, but not the mechanical parts.

You can do car repairs like oil changes and even engine work but something like brakes and some suspension work and especially air bags (basically anything related to a safety system on a car) you need to have it done by someone licensed. Don't down vote my comments just because you people don't know the law...

Where do you live that it's against the law to do your own car repairs?

49 read my comment carefully. You can do your own car repairs but certain repairs must only be signed off by a license tech if it has something to do with a safety component in a car (steering and braking) and 39 if you know what you're doing you can change pads and rotors but if you do it wrong and the car fails to stop and you cause an accident and the police and insurance finds out the owner installed the brakes and isn't licensed, insurance won't cover it and the owner will be charged heavily.

LOL #32 are you serious? You clearly have no clue what you're talking about. Also, to those of you who have clearly never worked on a vehicle, shit goes wrong, it happens. Old stuff breaks when being taken apart. Good on OP for not wasting money at a garage. Half the time they don't know what they're doing either except you pay for their mistakes instead of your own.

Okay 51, clearly you think you know something. So let's hear it. What's the offence call, and what section of what statute is it under in Canadian law? I'm waiting.

That pun is bad and you should feel bad.

Excellent pun. I smiled. :)

Your dad probably knew a little more about cars then OP did. You don't change the oil and fix the brakes when you don't actually know how to do it. Now it's going to cost even more money to fix both cars then it would have if he had just taken them to a professional in the first place.