Reddit mentions of Automotive Service: Inspection, Maintenance, Repair

This is the book that I used for 3 years of Automotive Tech and it is 1200 pages of goodness. It goes into deep detail about the systems and how they work then the following chapter is all about how to repair or service them. You can get used copies for under $50 now but it is super informative. Otherwise check Facebook for local car clubs and join in. Most people are super friendly and willing to help or show you things.

This book.

I'm super late to this and don't have any meaningful suggestions to add but I hope you followed through on the interest. I got into the automotive field as a career from the same fire - cars intrigued and intimidated me and I hated not knowing anything about them so I just went for it fully with a college education. Really glad I did, learned a ton, and now I can recognize a lot of the beauty in the complicated mechanisms that non-mechanics can't see.

A lot of mechanics are passionate about cars (go figure!) and if you meet any they'd most likely love to pour their knowledge onto you until you're bored. We love talking about this shit and explaining how it all works.

There are a lot of great books on automotive work. It's helpful to get one of those huge tomes and just start reading it to get some foundational knowledge of the years of technology and development that went into cars as they are today. The more you understand about how things were designed, why they were engineered that way, what problems they were trying to resolve by making that part, the more you'll understand about the interconnectedness of the mechanical pieces and why they are what they are today. You can "understand" the car more as a comprehensive machine. A repair manual for the car you own is a great supplement to add specifics relevant to you on top of basic automotive knowledge.

http://www.amazon.com/Automotive-Service-Inspection-Maintenance-Repair/dp/1111128618

This is the book I bought for my college automotive studies. Only book that was required for an 18 month program! It's a great outline of literally everything in a car. The computer stuff, vehicle communications, trouble codes, electrical systems - all that stuff is really fascinating too. You might like studying it if you're into code.