General auto repair questions answered

[2016 Versa]

Originally Posted by me and my metro

I would look in the recommended maintenance section of your owners manual. I always follow the shorter intervals that are recommended for city/taxi use. Even if your car only sees highway use I would use the city interval.
If there is no recommended oil change interval then 30k miles should be ok. CVT is a great idea in theory however in reality they have been somewhat troublesome. I would love to hear how the success stories CVT cars are driven. I would bet that people who drive for economy have much better success with these transmissions and vehicles in general.

I think Nissan recommends 60K mile intervals but, they have lots of CVT failures, that's the reason I was thinking of going with 30K. When I change it at 30K I'll see how everything looks, fluid, filter and how much metal shavings are on the pan magnets and adjust it from there if needed. Nissan also is supposed to be able to check the deterioration number by how much the fluid has been overheated but, I don't trust that.

[me and my metro]

A friend of mine that used to tow a lot installed a drain plug in the pan. That way he could change the fluid often and only drop the pan for the filter every third time. Worked well for him the transmission lasted a long time and it was a 700r4 GM and they had a bad reputation stock.

[Ecky]

K24 4 cylinder engine, I find I'm very slowly (and possibly only intermittently) losing coolant. I'm nearly certain it's neither going into the oil or the exhaust, but how best to find where it's leaking? I suppose there are only so many coolant lines, but there are also a few gaskets it could be coming out of.

[me and my metro]

I always start with a pressure check. Pump it up cold to the cap pressure, see if it looses pressure. If so how quickly does it loose pressure? Down flow radiators sometimes leak above the coolant level and leak air cold and only loose fluid when hot.

[Piotrsko]

A cheap Chinese white LED flashlight might put out enough UV blue to cause the leak tracing additives to glow.

[Ecky]

I'll probably need to power wash the bay and plastic underbody panels, I know for certain I've spilled some coolant.

[me and my metro]

I work on a fleet of trucks and over the years antifreeze has evolved. We use seven different coolants in our fleet. I know that some companies make a one size fits all coolant but I choose to use whatever the OEM recommended at the time of manufacture. The easiest to spot leaks is the gold coolant used in the International powered Ford trucks. When it dries it leaves a white crust so it is easy to trace back to the source. The biggest source of leaks on our truck fleet is EGR cooler hose connections. Even the factory silicone hoses have trouble with the heat. Hose clamps have become better over time and we use the best stainless screw clamps available.