I started doing my own research before taking vehicles to the shop. There is usually a service bulletin, owner's forum discussion or youtube video for the exact issue. Print the documents/web address, inform the service manager and leave it in the car. This saved me several hundreds of dollars in the last couple years for repairs to my Malibu and the wife's Cruze.
Repairs might be a bit more technical but newer cars are much more reliable than anything from the carburetor era. I sure wouldn't want to go back to the days of pulling heads within 100k. Fuel savings alone make up for a lot of the cost of someone else working on my vehicles.
Don't try talking logic to a luddite.You will never wipe away the rose colored haze on the "good old days".
Jerry
