Jeebus, Mike! You post a problem with your vehicle that many, if probably not most of us, would have no objection to fixing right then and there, after a quick trip down to AutoZone or NAPA Auto Parts. Then you lay it out that you're afraid to fix it because of the self-imposed rules you signed up to. Were you looking for sympathy? You make the bed you sleep in.
Fact is, some (many?) of us don't have to deal with HOA's, so they are indeed a foreign concept, with their onerous restrictions and all. Myself, I'm probably buying my parents' farm in the next year, several acres, complete with a 2-car carport, a tractor shed, and a barn that's converted into a machine shop and inventors workshop. Property values there are very nice, and the neighbors do a fine job of keeping the rural neighborhood from looking like a scene from Redneck Rampage, honest. About the worst it gets is if I take the John Deere from the shed down the long driveway to the mailbox and back, or head down the road to plow the snow off the neighbor's driveway. The cold winters take some getting used to, but I'm not concerned about somebody coming down the street with paint chips looking at my siding with a slanted eye - shades of Stepford Wives.
Matter of fact, my entire hometown in Wisconsin is undergoing a growth spurt, and I'll be darned if I'm finding any HOA's there to speak of. Maybe closer to Madison, but that place never reminded me of reality, anyway. Then again, the developers who are making the big population centers even more populous haven't discovered my little slice of urban America. And I pray to Gawd they never do.
So yeah, I stand behind what I said. Given an option to live there or not, I'd choose the latter and tell an HOA to go suck eggs (I'd actually use more colorful language, but this is a family forum). I don't want to be that frog in a pot of rapidly warming water. It's no different than when I left the People's Republik of Kalifornia when they wanted me to register a good chunk of my gun collection with the state. I haven't lost a wink of sleep over that decision.