Ask HN: How to learn about Automotives

If you live in the UK there maybe a Haynes manual available (not sure if these are available outside the UK). These are books published by Haynes and typically have photographs and descriptions of common faults, engine rebuilding step-by-step guides as well as more simple servicing activities.

Some cars are popular enough to have dedicated websites devoted to them with guides and forums (e.g. Smart car: http://fq101.co.uk).

It should be noted that servicing ones own car comes with pitfalls. You must invest in quite a lot of expensive tools, have a workshop area or driveway to do the servicing and ultimately if you fail to complete the task, you might end up with an unusable or dangerous car.

A good reason to know about how cars work and what goes wrong with them is that when choosing a good garage to have service it, you are in a stronger position and cannot so easily be tricked into having servicing done when it is not necessary.

I second the Haynes manuals (or equivalent if you're not in the UK) - They're amazing. Although annoyingly they don't make one for the Mazda RX8 that I've just bought.

One of the nice things about these workshop manuals is they rate jobs by difficulty and tools required, so you can start on easy stuff like oil and filter change and work up to the more advanced things like head gasket replacement.

I also learned a lot from my Dad, so if you know anyone who's knowledgeable in the field, see if they'll help you, or at least impart some knowledge.

Also, invest in a decent trolly jack and axle stands, I hate the thought of people working under cars supported only by the flimsy scissor jack that came with the car.

YouTube and Haynes manuals. These days, I prefer YouTube and using the Haynes as a reference. Start with smaller jobs to build your confidence and your tools collection (wrenches, jack, etc).

I finished a mechanical engineering degree 2 years ago and as my final year design project, I chose to design and build (in a team with 7 other students) a small offroad vehicle from the ground up [1]. I learned that automobiles, from an engineering standpoint, are a really complex interaction of a very large amount of systems. I was also surprised by how different everything in cars was different from what we learned in school. It made me realize how the curriculum was highly focused on the manufacturing industry (where ~75%, OTOH, of graduates end up working).

Anyways, that being said, if your interest is fixing up your car, then yeah, as others have pointed out, shop manuals (3rd party or official) along with the web (google/youtube) is a very good starting point. I got interested in mechanics as a teen using these resources for small-engined vehicles (various dirt bikes and snowmobiles).

Still, I'll list some references I found interesting from the viewpoint of a young engineer designing a car from the ground up.

Braess, Hans-Hermann et Seiffert, Ulrich. Handbook of Automitive Engineering. Warrendale : SAE International, 2005. (Bosch is the most known "Automotive Handbook", but I liked this one better. Even though it's a 'handbook', it's still interesting to read, as opposed to Bosch which is really a reference. Good focus on passenger cars.)

Limpert, Rudolf. Brake Design And Safety. Warrendale, PA : SAE International, 1999. (Everything on brake systems and safety, with an interesting perspective from accident reconstitution. Good focus on passenger vehicles tool.)

William F. Milliken, Douglas L. Milliken, Race Car Vehicle Dynamics, SAE International, 1995 (known as RCVD, the 'bible' of vehicle dynamics, oriented mostly for race cars.)

Dixon, John C. Tires, Suspension, and Handling, Warrendale, PA : SAE International, 1996. (Similar to RCVD, somewhat shorter and easier to digest IIRC)

Ferguson, C. R. and Kirkpatrick, A. T. Internal Combustion Engines : Applied Thermosciences, Wiley, 2000 (Textbook I used in an undegrad course on ICEs, I liked it. The authors wrote some java applets that implement many basic ICE calculations, fun to play around with: http://www.wiley.com/college/mechs/ferguson356174/apps/apps....)

Wong, J.Y. Theory of Ground Vehicles. Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2008 (Mostly focused on various off-road vehicles, suspension, traction and handling)

Aird, Forbes, Race Car Chassis: Design and Construction, Motorbooks International (July 1997). (Good overview of 'classic' design and construction techniques for race car chassis. Somewhat dated in the sense that it doesn't cover modern composite chassis. Worked well enough as an intro for the design of our tubular space frame)

[1] The project website went offline, sadly. Here's some local media coverage (in french) http://www.lapresse.ca/la-tribune/economie-et-innovation/201...