Why don't you tell us how to fix it?

This question is often put to us by angry people who call us nasty names. They may also accuse us of just trying to make money by forcing them to pay us to fix it.

They are partly right, we are trying to earn a living here. And while the customer whose car you are seeing in the video has paid us to make the video as part of their inspection, nobody is paying us to make YouTube DIY videos.

We don't ask for SuperChat donations. We don't ask you to donate to a Patreon, and we don't even ask you to like and subscribe. In fact, we make no attempt to 'grow the channel' and have no ambition of being professional YouTubers.

It might actually be possible to make a living out of a YouTube channel which shows you how to fix your leaks, although we very much doubt it, and besides, we wouldn't do it anyway.

If you have to ask how to fix it, then you probably shouldn't.

Most of the repairs we carry out are very basic and straightforward. Any person who has mechanical competence wouldn't need to ask a question like, "How do you reseal a door membrane" or "How do I replace a rear vent?"

So you may be thinking, "If the repairs are straightforward and easy, why not just show me?" 

The answer is, that many of the areas in which you would be working are quite dangerous. In the case of electric and hybrid cars, they can be extremely dangerous.

There is plenty of potential to cause expensive damage to electrical systems even on petrol and diesel cars, and it's worth remembering that cars that leak always involve water. Water and electricity is a dangerous combination.

Our staff go on safety training courses to prepare them to work on electric cars, and there is a considerable amount to learn. 

There's also the issue of air-bags. These are essentially explosive devices.

A while ago, I was watching a DIY YouTube video of a guy taking apart a door to fix a leak in a door membrane, during which he thumped and banned around in such a way that he could have easily set off an airbag. Thankfully, the car he was working on did not have airbags in the doors, but next year's model might. Anybody following his advice could lose an eye or a couple of fingers.

An airbag deploys at around 200mph, which means anything between you and the airbag, like that screwdriver you were poking it with, is going to be coming at you pretty fast.

Black Mould can seriously damage your health.

We do give advice on how to mitigate the dangers of mould in your car. There are readily available products available which can kill it at source, and just airing your car out can significantly lower the risk. However, the risk is there, which is why we treat every car before attempting to work on it. This is another factor we would have to take into account if we ever decided to start a DIY channel... which we won't.

We are fully insured to do the work we do, but doubt our insurance would cover us for liability for giving DIY advice on YouTube, which begs the question, is anybody? There are already lots of videos on YouTube showing you how to fix many of the common causes of leaks on popular vehicles. So you have to ask yourself, are they actually giving you good advice?

From what I have seen, often not. 

Many of the cars that come to us have 'bodge job' repairs on them with sunroof drainage pipes glued onto connectors with Araldite, or blanking plates sealed in place with bathroom sealant.

Sadly, we have to delete comments from our videos giving exactly this type of silly advice.

Written by Danny Argent. Last updated 03/09/2025 19:24

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