Javier Herrera

Keep $455 of this year's shop bill in your own pocket.

Stop paying ninety dollars for a forty-minute oil change. Stop paying a diagnostic fee for somebody to find a two-dollar fuse. Stop signing the estimate because nobody ever showed you which lines are twenty minutes of work. One oil change in your own driveway pays for the book.

See the book See the math
Javier Herrera
Instant PDF download One payment, no subscription 15 days to ask for your money back Large type, easy to print for the garage
$455 Kept out of the shop this year
10 Minutes a month with the hood up
400,000 Miles on my tío's old taxis

Who I am

I'm Javier Herrera. I learned this trade at fifteen, in my uncle's garage in Mexico, keeping old taxis alive at 300,000 and 400,000 miles on pocket change. In Mexico a car has to last twenty years, because there is no replacing it, and I've been turning wrenches ever since.

What that garage taught me is that most of what keeps a car running costs a few dollars and ten minutes, and nobody at a busy service counter makes money telling you so. So every job here comes the honest way: what it really does, where the internet gets it wrong, and when it truly belongs at a shop.

The book

Everything my tío's garage taught me, in one book.

It comes as a PDF, in your inbox the moment your payment clears. Read it on your phone next to the open hood, or print the job you're doing and keep it on the bench. Fifteen days to change your mind, no questions asked.

Javier Herrera

The Driveway Repairs

Thirty-five jobs you can do at home, each with what the shop charges and exactly how to do it, plus the honest line where a job belongs at a shop.

  • 35 driveway jobs, start to finish: oil, brakes, battery, filters, plugs and fuses
  • What the shop charges for each one, next to what the parts cost
  • What to buy before you start, and nothing you don't need
  • A check at the end of every job, so you know it's done right
  • The few-dollar tricks from my tío's garage: vinegar, the right cleaner, cardboard under the engine
  • Where the internet gets it wrong, and when a job truly belongs at a shop
  • Instant PDF download, large type
US$9.99 US$24.99 You save US$15
I want the book

Instant download, yours to keep

The math

Where the $455 comes from

An older four-cylinder car, driven about 12,000 miles, in the year its front brake pads come due.

Two synthetic oil changesAbout $90 each at a quick-lube chain, against about $40 each in oil and a filter doing it yourself $100
Engine and cabin air filtersAbout $120 for the pair at a shop, against about $35 for the two filters, no tools on most cars $85
Front brake pads, one axleAbout $250 for a pads-only job at an independent shop, against about $60 for the pads $190
One diagnostic fee you don't payAbout $100 for a shop to read a code or find a blown fuse, against a $20 code reader you keep $80
Kept out of the shop this year $455

Shop prices are typical 2026 US figures from national repair-cost guides (RepairPal, ConsumerAffairs and the quick-lube chains' own price lists), checked in September 2026; parts are ordinary parts-store prices. Brake pads are not a yearly job: a year without them keeps about $265 instead. A dealer charges more than these shops, a big city more than a small town, and your car may need less. The point is the arithmetic, redone with your own prices.

15

Fifteen days, my handshake on it

Read it and do one job out of it in your own driveway. If it isn't what this page promised, write inside fifteen days and you get every cent back, without having to explain yourself.

Questions drivers ask

How much will I really save?
That depends on your car and what your shops charge, so here is the arithmetic instead of a promise. A quick-lube synthetic oil change runs about $90; the oil and filter cost about $40, so two a year keep $100. The engine and cabin filters are about $120 at a shop and about $35 on the shelf: another $85. A pads-only front brake job is about $250 at an independent shop and the pads are about $60: $190, in the year you need them. And one diagnostic fee of about $100, against a $20 code reader you keep, is $80. That's $455. Redo it with your own prices in the box above; it's the only number on this page that matters.
I've never opened my own hood. Is this for me?
Yes. It starts from zero: what the job is, what it costs at a shop, what to buy, then the steps in order, then how to check your own work before you drive away. Start with the easy ones, the filters, the wipers, the fuses, and work up to the oil and the brakes when you're ready.
I don't want to get under a car at my age. Can I still use it?
Most of these jobs happen standing up: filters, battery, bulbs, fuses, wipers, tire pressure, the sensor cleaning. The ones that do put you under the car say so, and say plainly when to use ramps, when to use jack stands, and when to let a shop have it. I'd rather you paid somebody than got hurt.
Does it cover my car specifically?
Not by make and model, and I won't pretend it does. Where a figure changes from car to car, the oil capacity, the torque on a spark plug, the tire pressure, the book tells you exactly where to find yours: the owner's manual or the sticker on the door jamb. Taking that number from anybody else is how people damage things.
Is this just the videos, written out?
No. The videos are where the jobs come from. The book goes further into each one, with the parts list, the steps in order, the mistakes to avoid and the honest limit a video never has time for.
What does it come as?
A PDF in large type, in your inbox the moment the payment clears. Read it on your phone or computer, or print the job you're doing and keep it on the bench.

The estimate always comes on a day you're too tired to argue.

Somebody slides a printed sheet across the counter: the oil change, the filters, a service with a long name, a number at the bottom. You look at it and you can't tell which line is the job and which line is the menu, so you sign it, the way almost everybody does. Next time, you'll know which of those lines are twenty minutes in your own driveway, and you'll be able to say so.

I want the book

Fifteen days to change your mind

The Driveway RepairsUS$9.99 Get the book