Ha !
I always had a Haynes manual for all my ford escorts. The thing to remember is
all their work was done on a new clean car, so where a task reads like it should
take 20 minutes, on your car it will take 4 hours.
I remember spending hours soaking one single bolt that had to be removed.
Yep. AKA the 80-1 rule of car repair:
80% of the time and effort will be spent on 1 stuck / stripped fastener.
Oops, I misread your comment. I thought you meant most people have just one.
mmm
For a specialty hobby, like fountain pen repair, YT videos are invaluable. From the fairly basic stuff like replacing an ink sac or tuning a nib, to very very fiddly stuff like repairing an Onoto plunger filler system, nothing beats a good video.
I’ve also frequently used it for things that (no doubt) younger and more hip people know how to do in their sleep, like changing software settings that are not intuitive to me.
Youtube vids have saved my bacon a few times.
I replaced a stripped gear in my KitchenAid stand mixer. The nearest sanctioned repair shop was 2 hours away and wanted to charge about a fifth of the value of the mixer. That was fun. Who knew they had that much lube in them?
How to replace the rubber gasket in an outdoor hose bib spigot to stop it dripping.
How to replace the float mechanism in a running toilet.
There are more, but these are all I can recall just now.
YouTube has helped that way several times.
Plumbing and car repairs, lots of cooking.
I use youtube to learn piano parts, mostly for pop hit earworms. The vid providers often use software with a ‘waterfall’ of notes across the keyboard which I use to pick up the structure & key of the song. Neat!
I’m one step away from a YouTube success story. Apparently you need chili oil for everything.
mr. romans learned how to reroof our shed and build a good dust-collection system for his woodworking area in the garage, among other things.
The vast majority of things I look up have to do with how to do a specific thing in a computer program or what settings are best for a photography shoot I am going to do that I haven’t done before. During the pandemic I watched some hair cutting videos, which were quite helpful.
I learned how to play James Jamerson’s bass line on Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made to Love Her.” Not such an easy one.
A lady was having electrical problems with a Ford Explorer, 3 trips to the dealer and they had no idea. I watched a video on it and it showed to pull out the dash module and check for cold solder joints. I found 5. Total time maybe 35 min. I was the hero.
I watched a video on how to make a pair of leather chaps. I’ve made about a dozen so far and now have a side business making chaps, saddlebags, purses, etc. There are also several videos for saddle making. I plan to make my own saddle soon.
I’ve been watching videos of how to install a Mini-Split.
After confirming that I understood the basics, I watched a very highly rated video, and watched as the presenter made a huge installation error. I then went through the comments, and 90% were “Wow! I never would have been able to do this without you.” The other 10% were from professional HVAC guys saying “Don’t do this.”
So - my take is: if you need to do something a bit sophisticated, watch many videos, and always read all the comments. Some people simply don’t know what they are doing.
(This is particularly true for car repair videos).
When my wife was going through chemo, to pass the time at the infusion center, and at home when it was hard to find time to get out, I watched a lot of watch repair videos. I mean, a zillion of them.
So now, I know enough to do limited stuff like regulating my mechanical watches using tiny tiny tools and a timegrapher. So now all of my watches run within certified chronometer specs. I’m now working up the nerve to do a full maintenance service on my pocket watches before getting skilled enough to do the same for my much smaller wristwatches.
I Used it for instructions on how to replace a headlight bulb on my car.
Recently used Youtube when I had to replace my windshield wipers. Have also
used it to headlight and tail light bulbs.