[technothrasher]

It does require more than a few hours, but certainly starting with a few hours of video to understand the basics of automotive engineering is incredibly useful when you want to learn to fix cars. I taught myself years ago starting with a basic Time-Life book and worked my way up to factory technical manuals and research papers. I learned the theory first from books and then the practical later by getting my hands dirty and eventually being mentored by others who knew what they were doing. What I discovered from this path is that many of the mechanics out there have never really learned the first part, and while they're good at repairing what they know, they get stumped when they actually have to diagnose something new because they do not understand the underlying theory.