Update: I tried saving $600 by doing my own brakes in the Rainier Valley AutoZone parking lot
I watched maybe 40 minutes of videos and figured pads and rotors were basically LEGOs for grownups. Three hours in, it started pouring, I had one caliper bolt stripped, and a guy named Marcus who actually works at a shop two blocks away walked over and asked if I was okay. He showed me I had the pads flipped on the passenger side, which I did not even know was possible. Total damage was $180 in parts, $40 for a ride home, and $260 for his shop to fix my mess the next morning, so I saved negative $300 on this project. The thing that still gets me is my dad did his own brakes in our driveway every fall when I was a kid, and I just assumed that knowledge came free with getting older. It does not, apparently. What jobs did you watch your parents do all the time that turned out way harder than they made it look?