Scotty Kilmer

About

Scott Michael Kilmer (born October 2, 1953) is an American YouTuber, author, and auto mechanic.

Scotty Kilmer was born on October 2, 1953, in Niagara Falls, New York. At age 14, he learned to be a mechanic from his grandfather, Elmer Kilmer, who was the chief mechanic at the Texaco gas station which Scotty’s father owned. He studied in Toronto, Ontario at York University and received a BA in anthropology in 1975 and then attended the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, receiving a master’s degree in anthropology. He was in the process of working towards his Ph.D., but eventually quit due to his dissatisfaction with the university tenure system. Kilmer went on to become a mechanic and moved to Houston, Texas in 1980. On the suggestion of his wife, he wrote a book, Everyone’s Guide to Buying a Used Car and Car Maintenance, originally published in 1994. Its release led Kilmer to be on the front page of the Houston Chronicle, which attracted the attention of the local CBS affiliate KHOU.

Before YouTube, Kilmer had a television show on KHOU titled Crank it Up with Scotty. In this series, he showed the audience how to diagnose minor automotive mechanical…