Do your own heat pump HVAC work?

(If there is a previous thread on this, please point me there.)

Has it ever occurred to you that it is just too damned expensive to keep your modern, complicated house HVAC heat pump system working, and you would like to do your own repairs? I would even like to be able to perform a DIY compressor replacement, because otherwise if your compressor fails you really have no cost-effective solution except to replace the entire outdoor unit. Also, many such systems came equipped with inferior reciprocating compressors, and would be much more dependable if the old recip were replaced by a scroll compressor when the original compressor dies.

The windings on my original recip compressor motor burned up before it even blew the circuit breaker. Those are pretty crappy windings, IMHO! Time for an upgraded compressor.

It seems to me that you could buy a fair amount of HVAC service tools with the money you'd save, and then could do your own repairs in the future for free. You need somewhat different equipment to replace compressors than to do general service work, though.

Whatsay, Mopar guys? Thanks!