Buy the tools!
Everybody who's interested - or skint - enough will already have spanners, screwdrivers, hammer, etc. Lots of people have laptops so go to sunny eBay and buy a connector interface for about £30. It comes with basic software which will read fault codes and thus tell you what's wrong in a lot of cases.

Or just moan a lot, go to your main dealer, hold out your wallet and say, loudly and clearly, "HELP YOURSELF".
(The Jannie, Mon 31 May 2010, 11:44, Reply)