A four minute video from a random guy on Youtube saved me at least $200 on snowblower repairs

We got walloped pretty hard with snow the other weekend, and along with it, a long stretch of sub-freezing temps. Turns out my 30-something year old snowblower that we bought for a song a few years ago did not like that combination, and it would no longer go into gear and move on its own power. I could push it, but given that I was recovering from surgery, that wasn't an option.

I was determined not to have to send the snowblower out for repair. Partly because I can't take it anywhere myself (no way to move it), partly because it would be gone for at least a week right in the middle of winter, and partly because I knew it would end up being an expensive repair.

I should also emphasize that I know nothing about repairing things like this. I never had a snowblower growing up, so I never learned that sort of stuff. But I found a video of a random guy doing the most basic, but informative, rundown of what each thing inside the snowblower did, and what would happen if any particular item was misbehaving in a certain way. It wasn't some Youtuber with highly produced multi-cam videos that last 20 minutes to cover a basic topic. It was like watching someone's dad or grandpa just pointing a camera at something and saying "this does this, that does that, hope that helps".

Sure enough, there was a single line in that video that perfectly described the symptom I was experiencing, so I went to the garage, froze my ass off, but in 15 minutes I had the beast working again with nothing more than a socket wrench, four bolts, and a can of rust remover.

Moral of the story: don't be afraid to try to fix things that you have no previous experience with. It could save you a significant chunk of change.