How It All Started
It began in 2012 in a cramped two-car garage outside of Detroit, Michigan. Our founder, Marcus Hale, was frustrated. A simple brake job on his 2005 Honda Civic had quoted him $450 at the local shop — for what he knew, deep down, shouldn't cost more than $80 in parts and an afternoon of his own time.
He bought the tools, watched three YouTube videos, and did it himself. The feeling of tightening that last caliper bolt, knowing he'd done it with his own hands, was intoxicating. But it took him two days of research across a dozen confusing websites to feel confident enough to start.
That frustration sparked an idea: What if all the knowledge, tools, and community support a person needed to work on their own car was in one place?
"I didn't just want to save money on car repairs. I wanted to build a community where people felt confident enough to get their hands dirty and discover what they're truly capable of." — Marcus Hale, Founder & CEO
What started as a personal blog documenting his own garage projects grew into a community of thousands. By 2015, we launched our first curated tool kits. By 2018, our OBD2 diagnostic platform had been downloaded over 100,000 times. Today, Automotive DIY serves over 50,000 active community members and has helped people save millions of dollars in repair costs.