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Just changed a headlight bulb passenger side Gen 2 Prius.  Oh, my lord ....

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I remember back in the day.... When shopping for new vehicles, the man in the family would always ask the new car/truck salesman to look under the hood.  The prospective new car/truck buyer would look at how easy it was to access things for anticipated maintenance and repairs.
Things like:
1. How easy is it to change the oil and access the oil filter?
2. Changing drive belts, spark plugs, etc.
3. Changing a battery.  No way people back in the day would have bought the need for a special computerized tool to get your car to accept a new battery.
4. How easy will it be to access and remove major components?
5. How much un-necessary/undesired stuff did they add to the car? (for .gov mandates).
6. Jack and spare tire.

Nowadays, people buy vehicles without ever looking under the hood.

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Very rewarding to take something broken and fix it or improve it

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Only silly people do such things!

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The funnest repair jobs are when there is no book and you have to figure everything out, like when given a box full of parts you've never seen before and figure it out, like a puzzle

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drunken, depressed, miserable guys that have not had a psychotic break?

I’m not the least mechanically inclined guy out there.
I have a decent amount of tools.  A lift.  I can cool or heat my garage.  
I have replaced relays or fuses on modern cars or recharged AC and saved people from getting a new compressor they were told they needed.  I have put better discs and pads on modern cars for people for less than they would have paid for just worse parts.  Or time for new shocks and struts.  Now, this is pretty much limited to just immediate family.  And I am not way versed modern stuff.

My set up is more for me maintaining older vehicles.  Which have their own quirks.  Have you ever tried to connect the wiper motor to the arms on, say a 71-74 Javelin, or the extensions need to do spark plugs on an ‘85 Z28.  Let alone how to get to the fuel pump on one.  But for the most part throwing a new rotor in the distributor, rebuilding a carburetor, new wiper motor, repack wheel hubs, convert drums to discs, new starter, throw some relays in the wiring harness, new transmission, etc. is pretty straightforward and easy.

One of my adult kids got the check charging system light on their 11 year old mid sized, Japanese AWD CUV.  They had just put in a new battery a few years ago, whipped out their multimeter, it’s the alternator, and the belt has proper tension.
They asked if I could show them how to change it.  I said should be easy.  Give me a minute.  I looked it up.
This is going to involve like 18 inch extensions and 18 inch shaft wrench, both longer than what I have, and require several hard to get connectors to move part of the wiring harness out of the way, then shifting an AC line out of the way, then moving fluid reservoirs, then you can get belt out of the way and start removing the alternator.  Which also has a bushing likely to shift requiring messing around just to get the new one back in.  Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to have child sized hands on the ends of extra long, extra skinny arms.

Now, open up the hood of a ‘70 Chevelle or ‘68 GTO, ar just about any SBC truck of yesteryear, and you can have a decent alternator plus new voltage regulator for about 100 bucks and have it replaced in 15 minutes without a single curse word or bruised knuckle.  And you could have hands like Hodor on arms the length of Tyrion arms.  Plus the modern CUV alternator will cost two to three times as much.

I would go mad working on stuff like that all day.

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have it replaced in 15 minutes without a single curse word or bruised knuckle.  

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Mechanics are one of the most underpaid professions. That and machining.

Buy all your own tools. Deal with garbage ass cars that they manufacturer can’t even figure out how to fix. Then the dealers pay flat rate which outside of some good weeks, fucks the tech more often than not. Otherwise they would never use that system.

“Can you pull this in quick and look at her window that squeaks?” Oh it was only 30 seconds to clean and lube the upper track? I’ll get you on the next one bro.

I steal every good dealer tech I can find and offer them 30+ an hour to start, working in aerospace assembly.

The dealerships hate this one simple trick

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Try working on boats especially sterndrives.

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Small cars/SUVs are a bitch.  One of the reasons I try to limit my ownership of them.  Daughter just bought a used 2017 Escape.  Engine bay is the definition of 10lbs of shit in a 5lb bag.  Just getting access to the battery is

Changed the alternator in my 2001 Suburban in well under an hour.

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diy mechanic here - profanity is the lubrication that keeps the wheels of civilization turning.

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I'm a toyota fan boy but fuck the location of the starter on the 4.7

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drunken, depressed, miserable guys that have not had a psychotic break?

Snip…..

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Who says they’re not?

The price of having vehicles that are not all gigantic overweight land yachts is that stuff will be crammed in tighter and harder to work on.  And I say that as someone with an affinity for gigantic overweight land yachts.

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Sounds like you are doing the repair based on "the book" procedure.  After you do one or two jobs you learn shortcuts.

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I really don't understand all the fuss about the 4.7 starter, it's easy to get to. If people want to complain about a Toyota starter, they should be complaining about the starter on the 5.7; Toyota crammed it under the B2 exhaust manifold for some reason.

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I look under the hood.
And the I say to myself; "Jesus Christ".
And then my wife buys one.
Only if it's under warranty will I take it back to the dealer.
But I do understand why my mechanic friends hate working on cars.

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@ramairthree

Something I just thought of... If my guess is correct and the vehicle in question is a Toyota Rav4, I highly suggest your kid replace the water pump while the belt and alternator are off. Leaks and water pump failures are extremely common on both the 2.5 and 3.5 engines and you're already 95% of the way to replacing the water pump. If it's the 2.5, the water pump is extremely easy once the alternator is off, in the off chance it's the 3.5, I'd say just send the car to a shop. I'd rather work on a dozen M2s in a row than one V6 Rav4

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I've got two friends that are master mechanics. One works for Hyundai/Genesis and the other owns his own German shop after working at several dealers. They are both doing well and love their work. But they're both competent Xennials/Gen-X like me and aren't afraid of technology and don't do the shit work. They also have the experience, tools, training, and information to deal with all the shit the fudds on GD always bitch about.

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Anybody who complains about working on modern cars has never been under the hood of an 80'-90's fwd from the rust belt.

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Late 70s/early 80s japanese cars with 900 miles of vacuum hoses

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Worst cars I've ever had to work on were a 300ZX twin turbo and a Celica All-Trac.  Horry Sheet.

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300zxtt suck fat wiener to work on but worse are Audi all roads or the s4 with the 2.7tt. Good lord I hate those stupid cars.