Which Manufacturers are *Reasonably* DIY-friendly in 2021?

I'm sure this has been discussed a bit, and is certainly going to be all over with folks' differing experiences, but I've got a bee in my bonnet because I'm all torqued off at BMW for actively making it difficult to find service and repair information. I even broke down today and spent $30 for a day pass to their online TIS, and while I'm sure there's a learning curve, I'm not even finding that terribly useful.

So I'm cross with BMW/MINI. I get the impression that Tesla is very "Apple" in terms of wanting you to take it to the Genius Bar for any service (to be a little more even-handed, Keith has pointed out that they've brought the service to him, but that doesn't really change the DIY-friendliness or lack thereof).

Where are other manufacturers at this point? With BMW and Volvo playing with "car as a subscription" I figure Volvo's probably in the "no user serviceable parts inside" camp?

The Mini is our "appliance." And any new car is going to be similar. I don't want to do much on it, but I also don't want the manufacturer actively hiding service information and telling me that replacing the spark plugs is utterly beyond the skills of the "end user."

Anybody have good things to say about a modern car and availability of service and repair info? Not too many proprietary tools, physical or digital?

You're going to find proprietary tools everywhere, modern cars have computers in them and diagnosing/fixing them requires that you have a computer tool of your own to interface to it.  There's no standard they can follow (OBD2 is ancient), so everyone has their own proprietary one.

The German manufacturers seem to work a lot harder to make it difficult to get access to stuff than the big three American or Japanese manufacturers do, though.  Mazda in particular is friendly to grassroots racers.

Don't buy a John Deere tractor.

Hyundai/Kia aren't bad. A lot of their stuff is shared across platforms so that helps. I agree that zee Germans like to make things difficult just for the sake of making the difficult.

Some cars have aftermarket software that give you extensive access to the computers on the car. The only one I am familiar with is Forscan for Ford and some Mazda vehicles. That allowed me to add new keys into my 2008 Ford for free, and it showed access to all sorts of interesting modules on the car. They say "99%" support from 2000 to 2020, but that 2021/2022 model year cars may have issues for now. With the computer issue solved you can then proceed to how hard is the rest of it to work on. I don't know about newer ones, but the 2008 Taurus X was a mix of really easy and a pain in the ass but the most complex tool I had to buy was a passthrough socket for the rear shocks.

I really don't intend to defend BMW in any way, as I greatly miss the days of newtis.com and would really, really like it if the parts catalog information at realoem.com went past 2019, but here's some first hand, anecdotal information I can pass on in my particular case.  This is an interesting discussion though.

I have one recent new purchase BMW, a 2021 X3e PHEV and a sort of BMW, a 2022 Toyota Supra.

For the X3e, for $30/24 hr purchase, I could download all of the training/familiarization material (OK, I'm kind of a geek that way) and pull copies of maintenance procedures and repair instructions for about anything I could think of at the time.  There is definitely a learning curve, but one of the nice thing about all the maintenance procedures (engine oil and filter, brake pads, most other consumables, etc) is that there's way to pull down a view that has all of the instructions, including access, torques, etc.  Whether or not this is technically within the license agreement I clicked through, copies of these are now something I have locally saved-- it definitely would be a license violation to share the information with others without permission to do so.  While I'd like to have paid less, I'm happy to have been able to get the information in a one stop manner, though integration with parts catalog information wasn't great, but that may be a learning curve issue on my part.  I did all this either last fall or this spring.

Theoretically, it looks like I could download the proprietary diagnostic software and use it as well, but the likelihood of me getting all that up and running (and getting the necessary cables) short of buying at least a monthly subscription is pretty unlikely , but again, some portion of that may be learning curve/personal issue.  And I also think it would only be functional during the subscription period.

I can also say that expanded/completed procedure view seems to be something BMW had only partially introduced on the 2015 i8 I used to own, so it feels kind of new to me-- or it's quite possible the i8 is just unusual that way.  That kind of capability definitely was not there in the bootleg TIS information I used on when I had a 2007 Z4 Coupe and 2008 328xi.

Moving on to the Supra-- well, to start with, access to the repair instructions is cheaper at $20 for a 48 hour period.  There's an entirely different learning curve, and the equivalent training/familiarization material appears to be spread across multiple documents/downloads, and I could find no equivalent expanded procedure view that pulled in all of the repair instructions and technical information for a given procedure-- had to drill down through hyperlinks into multiple other documents.  Again, I may not have made my way through the learning curve, but the information was much harder to collect and reference.  Parts catalog information wasn't any easier to access.  As a point of information, it looks like Snap-On may have actually taken my money for this after accessing this through the mytoyota web site.

So, I pulled the VIN for a BMW Z4 of the most corresponding model off of a dealer's website, paid my $30 to BMW, where I had access to all the same repair information, but it was better organized and easier to reference.  Could also pull the training/familiarization for the Z4 and even some 5 and 7 series docs referenced by those.  Realize the Supra/Z4 is a special case, but I definitely got better value for my money out of BMW.

And as a point of information, for my wife's 2012 Tahoe, the rear gate exterior window switch was broken.  Wildly varying repair information was available through YouTube and forums, with it all on me to figure out which may have been the best.  I didn't consider looking at what a blind AllData DIY purchase would have run me at the time, but looking now, it would be $19.99 for 30 days, but for a single vehicle.  I just decided to have the shop down the road from me do the job.

I'd have to characterize the costs in all these cases as reasonable, however, there is a real problem in that in each case you're making a Forrest Gump box of chocolates purchase.

Laying out the support schemes for a DIYer could be a very interesting editorial project for the magazine, but I suspect that it wouldn't stay current for very long.  If an article included information from the OEMs and what their current outlook/policies are, that would also be interesting.

Shear popularity should help. Let's say that deep diy'ers are 1% of the buying public (or even say 10%) for argument sake. 

If your model sold 50,000 units then 1% is only 50 diy'ers. 

If your model sold 5,000,000 units then the  1% diy'ers community is 50,000

This bigger community of diy'ers will lead to more internet knowledge.  For me, it is Gen2 Prius, a car that really never was intended to be very diy'er friendly.  The internet tells me roughly 1.5 million Gen2 Prius were sold world wide. 

There is a lot of Gen2 Prius diy'er support on the internet. 

VW, because like John says, a lot of those people are DIY and like to show off what they did. 

I can really only speak up through like 2016 or so, but despite the German stigma, VWs are pretty DIY friendly.

There are a few random specialty tools, and you'll want to invest in a decent set of triple square sockets/bits, but nothing too hateful. On the software/diagnostic side, I can't recommend VCDS enough. You'll basically have full visibility over all of the car's systems, and you can program them if you feel daring. Seems like there's a pretty decent community for every model, and dedicated forums to VCDS itself, so pretty much everything is documented. The software and cable cost somewhere around $150, I think.

Subaru makes it possible to access and download their factory workshop manuals for a very reasonable price. I give them a hard time for their engine failure rate, but I cannot fault the access to information in any way. 
 

With the Tesla, the only thing I've had to do is swap out the HVAC filters and that was fully documented with nice little animations. So full points there, I haven't found the instructions for a simple oil change yet ;)
 

John, I'm going to point out that you slipped an order of magnitude in your math. 1% of 50,000 is 500, no 50 :) Your point stands, however.

The answer is one with the strong aftermarket and community support. It seems all DIY knowledge these days is learned from forums or youtube, so the more people creating content for the car, the better the chances of potential problems being solved (despite manufacturer support), and the easier it will be to maintain long term. 

Miata obviously comes to mind. I just bought a new one and it looks really easy to work on. 

I have a healthy distrust of youtube/forum/FB group sources for information, as too much of it comes from people who have managed to stumble through a job once. There's some irony there, I realize. But I'll take a factory service manual over a video any day.

So, new information for this thread - the Tesla parts fiches are online and really good. It's searchable, it tells you if there's any restriction on the part and there's a nice clear zoomable wiring diagram. Basically realoem from the OE. There's a login, but I just used my Tesla username/password that I'm pretty sure I set up before I got the car. From this, it appears that you certainly can buy parts from Tesla despite what Jalopnik keeps screeching about. I was just given this link myself.

https://epc.tesla.com/

I did find some stuff in the high voltage battery section that were marked "RESTRICTED" or "TESLA ONLY", probably to ensure that only certified repair shops touch them because Joe's Discount Body Shop may not have the training to deal with high power electrics and a big giant battery that is just waiting to kill you.

I also found this, which has me really interested: DISCONNECT,BATTERY,PYRO

Keith Tanner said:

I also found this, which has me really interested: DISCONNECT,BATTERY,PYRO

The pyro fuse?  AIUI that's a one-time-use "off switch" for the battery.  The crash detection logic can fire it (using similar logic to airbags and pretensioners) to reduce the chance of high voltage hurting someone, after which it needs to be replaced if the car is put back into service.

Yeah, I was able to figure out why it was there pretty quickly, but it's still kind of a fun part description. Basically a fuel pump cutoff from a functional standpoint.

Neat, you can buy your own Model 3 pyro fuse for $199 on eBay:

https://www.ebay.com/p/14028824657

Looks like it's under an access panel under the back seat. And watching a Youtube video of someone swapping it out makes service access look excellent. At least compared to the Volt where things are buried underneath.

In reply to maschinenbau :

I have access to the factory service portal for the Miata. Let me know if you need any info. 

Not to tangent too badly, but in a thread where I've called Tesla "Apple-like" and Keith's pointed out some nominal DIY parts availability... Repair.org just sent me an update email pointing out that Apple themselves are making parts and tools available for iPhone 12 and 13... https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/apple-announces-self-service-repair/

It's funny to recall that twenty years ago, Macs were actually incredibly DIY-friendly. My first computer of my own was a G3 that I bought when I started learning web development, and it was awesome. To open the case, you just flipped a lever and the whole side folded open, and as it did so, it laid out the internal boards for easy access. It was easier to poke around inside than a PC. If they fully went back to that sort of approach (or as close as you can get in modern electronics) I might be close to forgiving them for stonewalling on my lemon iBook during the last term of my CS studies...

(For Tesla and Apple alike, I'll be happier when I see popular use and not just a press release and parts not explicitly marked "DO NOT SELL," but I can't help feeling hopeful.)

BMW service info is almost universally bad, it assumes that the reader spent $50k to go to BMW school so it leaves some critical details out.

Jesse Ransom said:

It's funny to recall that twenty years ago, Macs were actually incredibly DIY-friendly. My first computer of my own was a G3 that I bought when I started learning web development, and it was awesome.

That G3 is really an exception, one of only a handful of DIY-friendly Macs ever made.  The Mac II/IIfx/etc, the G3/G4 towers, and maybe you could argue the Mac Pro towers as well (they were really expensive). 

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

The time I spent with my one-day subscription to the TIS was incredibly frustrating. There's no real overview of how to use it, and stuff is all over the place. I'm sure it seems much simpler once you know a few key things, but I couldn't find out where to find out those things.

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Yes.  BMW and Mercedes are incredibly bad for that.  Half my time spent on a diagnosis is trying to find info.

As much as I rag on GM, they at least have REALLY GOOD service info.  This fault code sets when X, Y, and Z are true but W doesn't happen.  The circuit is supposed to work like this but the computer isn't getting that feedback.  Check for vacuum here, check for power there.  Here's the wiring schematic including connector pinouts.  Etc

i think Mercedes manuals are translated to English by a surly Russian with a hangover.

bobzilla said:

Hyundai/Kia aren't bad. A lot of their stuff is shared across platforms so that helps. I agree that zee Germans like to make things difficult just for the sake of making the difficult.

My veloster turbo required you to get the car level when changing the oil because the drain plug was on the front of the pan (wtf).  If you tried to drain it from that angle, not only would you not get it all out, it would run all over the undertray instead of coming through the access hole.  On top of this, it had no central jack point front or rear, so raising the car up for service was a pain in the ass.

It wasn't terribly difficult to work on, but those design decisions were not thought out with owner maintenance in mind.

I should say that I'm not opposed to proprietary solutions/tools so long as the availability and pricing are reasonable. I feel like BMW is really making an effort to prevent DIY or independent shops and to produce a situation where you have your choice of excessively expensive dealer-only repair* or buying a new car, and the same vendor gets you either way (yes, you can change brands, but even putting someone in the position of either paying BMW for repair or becoming part of the buying market is a bit too win/win to me.)

I have to confess that I'm surprised in poking around that third-party manual availability seems to be generally sparse for newer cars, so there's definitely some change I need to catch up on that isn't all BMW. That makes Subaru's factory manual that much more compelling, but that's really what this thread is about; who all is making that info reasonably available, and isn't just kinda-sorta allowing workarounds for now and possibly sending a takedown notice to FORscan or whoever next week.

* not that dealer repair is always bad, but I bought a reputable-brand reman alternator for ~$350 when list from BMW is about a grand. And not to be melodramatic, but I consider 12V car batteries which do inkjet-cartridge style authentication to be proof of operating in bad faith. Might a modern battery need more info and monitoring (and cost) than an old one? Sure. Do they need to be keyed to a specific car? You'll have to convince me, and you'll have a hard time doing so.

I feel like I'm hiding something, so I want to point my own foibles in reaching this point:

In my TIS-avoidance and lack of a manual in a format I'm familiar with, and also never having worked on anything built after 2000, I totally misdiagnosed the Mini and swapped out the alternator unnecessarily. It was a dead crank pulley/damper which ate its drive cushion while not throwing the belt. I'd never seen such a thing, and it never even crossed my mind that the belt would be totally intact and tensioned but not moving... My ignorance as someone who's worked pretty much exclusively on much older stuff.

The alternator swap was also made more painful by trying to do it with a YouTube video from Haynes which was good but was for the UK model which differed slightly. I eventually figured out that you have to pull the intake manifold to make room to extract the alternator, though pulling said manifold that far isn't actually that bad once you decide to do it.

I certainly can't blame BMW for all of that, but I feel like the paucity of F55 service info gave me a push, and the dash message which said the battery wasn't charging, and to see the manual "for info on how to take your car to the Mini service facility" was much worse than useless. "Your car is failing. Let us tell you how to pay us to resolve this." No codes stored, just a vague description of the issue and an advertisement.