A new study from personal finance company FinanceBuzz has found less than half of drivers know how to change a tire, and only one third can perform an oil change on their own.
The study was created from a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults done in May 2025. It found that most people are confident in their ability to perform the most basic car maintenance tasks, with 80% saying they can refill air in tires themselves and 78% confidently saying they know how to replace wiper fluid.
But, when it comes to more significant tasks, just 48% of drivers said they can change a tire without assistance, and only 36% said they can perform an oil change on their own.
“We’re seeing fewer and fewer people being able to do these things that used to be fairly commonplace … that people used to do pretty regularly in their garage,” FinanceBuzz data scientist and researcher Josh Koebert said.
He said the reasoning for the decline can be attributed to a few things. Today, schooling has less of an emphasis on shop classes, for one. But, Koebert said another issue is the addition of modern car features.
“Cars have gotten much more complicated in ways that both helps and hurts. They’re full of all kinds of computers and sensors and cameras that tell you when things are coming. They make it easier to drive, but they can also make it easier to rely on the car telling you when something’s wrong and just deciding, ‘oh, the car says something wrong. I don’t know what it is. I’m going to take it to someone else,’” Koebert said.
The study also found that while the majority of drivers recognized the check engine (77%) and oil pressure (76%) warnings, only 13% correctly identified the brake warning symbol on their dashboard.
Understanding dashboard warnings, tire changes and oil replacement are all tasks that can impact driver safety, according to Koebert, because you never know when you’ll end up on the road alone with a busted tire.
“Being on the side of the road is not a safe place. It’s not a place you want to be, especially in those situations. And if you have the ability to change your own tire, that can get you back on the road … somewhere safe a lot faster, instead of having to wait for someone, especially when you have no guarantee of how quickly they’ll get there,” Koebert said.
If you don’t know where to start, he said a quick and free YouTube video might be all you need.
“I just put in YouTube, my make and model of car. … I find the knowledge from other people who are experts in this that have taken the time to put their knowledge and this information online, and just take a look and go through step by step, and learn from the pros how to do these kinds of things,” Koebert said.
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