General auto repair questions answered
 

I am a life long professional mechanic and am offering advice on auto and truck repair issues. I have been a moderator on a Saturn specific site for a couple years but the site does not like my vpn. So I am offering my services here. I will try to provide correct information to all.
Andy

2003 Toyota Tacoma - Clutch not fully disengaging. Flushing/bleeding helped for a day. How do I tell if it's the master or slave cylinder?

Does the system loose fluid? I would suspect the master first if the system holds fluid well. The master has to hold pressure and the slave just pushes the clutch fork or bearing directly.

Thanks! I think the reservoir was full and I saw no evidence of leakage. If it's leaking, it's a slow leak.

Just asking opinion. I have a Nissan Versa with CVT. With Nissan's track record on CVT's how often would you recommend changing the fluid and filter? I've been planning around every 30K miles. It's currently at 21K and I just ordered fluid online a couple days ago but, I still need to order the filter.

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.

What part of Oregun are you in? I'm in Silverton these days.

I've been meaning to track down the speedo issue on my old Ram/Cummins but haven't got aRoundTuit. Probably a loose wire somewhere as the speedo was intermittently working at one point. Do those senders or gauges have grounds? Probably a bad ground I'd guess.

The truck runs the grid heater until a certain speed is reached, and since it can't ever sense that speed, it just keeps running the grid heater.

Sweet Home. Your sender should be a two wire a/c generator type. Check it with a dvom, should be approximately 9 ohms if memory serves me. If it is open or less than one ohm replace it. I have had them fail at less than 1 ohm.

I did replace the sender at one point thinking that the damage the previous one sustained may have been the cause. Some bolts had come out in the differential and caused a bit of damage on the tone ring and scuffed up the plastic on the sender.

The crazy thing is the heads were sheared off on some of the bolts, and the diff still functions.

I should probably sell the motor and scrap the truck. The body has probably 350,000+ miles on it, the headliner is massively sagging, the AC stopped working long ago, the speedo/odometer doesn't work, and therefore the cruise control doesn't work, the wiper motor recently failed and was replaced with a weak unit, the windshield seal let loose near the bottom so you can see the glass pop out whenever you close the door... the front end never did track straight except for a few months after replacing the U joints and track bar. The transmission was weak from the day I got it, and now it locks/unlocks at a certain speed around 53 MPH. The calipers need work again.

Still, it pulls a trailer whenever I need it to.

I have found that harness worn through on a parking brake cable before. If the sensor is still good you might be able to track down the other end and verify the same ohm readings. Probably at the pcm. Sorry I don’t have access to Mopar schematics.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

At least the newer Nissan CVT's have a drain plug. I don't know about the older ones. The CVT doesn't use a standard automatic transmission filter but instead a cartridge type filter inside a housing on the transmission. It would have been nice if they'd have just used a screw on filter. There are also a couple of large magnets in the transmission pan that I want to check, especially at the first fluid drain/fill. I've saw a few pictures of those magnets online where they were loaded with metal shavings. I don't know how long it took for them to accumulate that many shavings but, I don't want shavings turning loose and circulating through the transmission.

Years ago I had a '76 Chrysler that after the fluid had been in it for awhile the transmission didn't want to engage the gears as soon as it was shifted into gear. I'd change the fluid/filter and all would be fine for a few years. One thing I really liked about that Chrysler was that they put a drain plug in the torque converter so you could change all the fluid not just a small amount of it. When I got rid of the Chrysler it had 231K miles and the transmission was still fine.

is it normal for a transmission to shift very hard like a trans with 140k miles on it

it's newer car it only has 2,300 miles on it 2018 sonic model still has some warranty left .. should it be lemon law? no leaks he spent 16k on it and now having this problem bought it brand new off the lot 6 speed auto it's also getting poor mpg like only 22mpg

A problem that shouldn't be there is what the warranty is for.

A problem that has been repeatedly "fixed" under warranty without being fixed is what lemon laws are for.

A computer controlled automatic transmission should actually learn how you drive and adjust to protect itself. If you drive nice and easy your transmission will shift soft and early. If you drive it like a fire truck going to a fire the transmission will shift hard and late. The computer raises the line pressure to protect itself, this makes for quick and very stiff shifts. When you clear trouble codes most newer cars reset the learn function and you have to start over training your car how you drive.

So, if I bought a used 06 BMW 325i with the auto trans and it has never had DTCs cleared, I might expect that it is still working on old driving assumptions? Even after 13 months? Could that help explain slightly hard shifting out of first and second gear?

Because sporty.

It's a feature.

I would expect even a BMW to adapt to your driving style in 10 drive cycles or so. They start off with factory defaults only if the codes are cleared. You should never have soft long shifts in anything sporty.

288,000 miles on my Cobalt, suspension almost all original. I have never replaced struts on any cars but this is the most miles I've ever put on one and think I can get 2 more years out of it (60,000 miles or so). Rust is starting and have had to replace some fuel line already.

Is it worth replacing struts?

Do they really have any effect on tire life if not leaking oil? (One's been clunking on bumps for 5+ years, I think it the top mount).

It ate the current set of front in 18,000 miles I couldn't find anything loose yesterday and had the car aligned once it it's life a 2 years or so ago. Going to try to get the get alignment checked tomorrow and see if he can see something loose that I didn't.

I am sure that new struts will make your car better. The cost of the struts will help save on future tire wear. Delta chassis GM cars do wear front suspension parts. Some struts wear out in 60,000 miles on them when driven on rough roads. Discuss this with your alignment person. Loaded struts come complete and solves the problem with rusty springs also.

I recently had someone tell me there was no way my struts were still good at 260k miles, he was under the impression they should all be replaced at 60k. We did a bounce test and the dampening still seems fine. I can't say I've ever owned a vehicle without a zillion miles, so I'm not the best judge. If it seems fine, it's fine?

if one is broken and you know it's broken you can be liable if that causes an accident i.e wheel falls off hits another car., or you lose control and causes an accident

You said you had a clunk, something is wrong and it may be from rust. Your needs to have a professional alignment person give it a once over. You can then decide what you need to do.

thanks thanks
 

I don't have a mechanical problem to sort out at the moment... I just wanted to say THANKS for being so generous with your time & expertise.

Alignment guy looked at it yesterday and said it's the control arm bushings. Will order new controls arms tomorrow, and take it back to him after I replace them.

He's doing the 15 Rogue tomorrow, seems to jump sideways when hitting bumps on the passenger side and that side tires worn a little more then drivers side.

injured boat motor question
 

I thought of a question! A boat is technically an automobile, right? This is generic enough...

My ~40 year old old 9.9 hp 4-stroke boat motor has an idiotic feature: an incandescent idiot light that you can't actually see when it's sunny out. The light comes on when oil pressure is good.

You can probably guess what this idiot did.

A few summers ago, the oil filter clogged, so the motor overheated and briefly "seized" -- meaning, it stopped running, but the flywheel would still turn (with a fair amount of resistance). After a couple of minutes sitting, it would re-start, I guess because it cooled down enough, and then seize again after a few more minutes. It actually made a squealing sound the last time it stopped that makes me cringe just remembering it.

When I realized what was wrong, I sailed back to the dock.

I flushed/changed the oil 3 times (VERY sparkly), and ran the motor briefly between flushes.

The engine still works, though I think it's noisier than it used to be. I've changed to a thicker motor oil and have used it without incident for a couple of hours since then. But obviously there was some kind of damage done (glitter in the oil), and I'm wondering how concerned I should be. It gets used -gently - about 5 hours a year. Think it's going to self-destruct?

Well now you’ve done it. Of course it is going to die when you need it most. Or it may outlive both of us just to prove us wrong. It is not going to get any better with time. I had an air cooled Honda motorcycle stick a piston due to overheating out in the desert. When it cooled off we bumped it free and rode it the rest of the weekend. However you have damaged the bottom end due to oil starvation. At the very least it needs a crank and a couple rods. You should still be able to get parts for a 1980 outboard if it is a name brand.

Thanks!


What's the most likely evidence of damage from something like this -- connecting rod knock?

Correct, connecting rod to crankshaft is the first high load contact point to fail when the lube oil cushion is missing.

The last time that I checked Shouty had at least eight videos promoting stop leak. Should I have just poured a can, bottle, vial, or cauldron of that stuff into my Civic instead of spending, what? An entire year replacing the head gasket? :)

Is it normal for a head gasket replacement to take a year? What about a heater core?

Is it true that nothing stops leaks like two-part epoxy?

Stop leak is a temporary fix and causes long lasting problems. It is a necessary evil that can get you home and buy you some time. However it always plugs up things that need to flow like heater cores and oil coolers.

Even though it has taken me months to replace each head gasket, when people tell me "Just use stop leak!"--well, I probably stopped listening at "Just."

People give me terrible advice, invariably starting with "Why don't you just..."

Then again, people usually tell me to pay a mechanic or buy a new car.

"No, really, I will just replace the air filter. K bye."

Have you watched Eric the Car Guy's video about stop leak? He dissected a car that had been exposed to it.

It wasn't pretty.

This random Saturn starts and then slowly starts dying. It has a new battery and alternator: https://showlow.craigslist.org/cto/d...118602462.html

I do not know if this was the same problem, but it turned out their terminals were corroded: SaturnFans.com Forums

[those forums were down for maintenance; I needed to use Google cache]

Since this is my day job I get to see what others do to their vehicles first hand. I have used stop leak to get a truck or two to finish the job and back to the shop. It is often cheaper to repair the damage later. I work for a large utility and the objective is to keep the meters spinning and the customers happy. Trucks are just tools and they can be repaired later. I just have to make the correct decision as to risk and return. Stop leak may delay a needed repair but it often adds to the bill in the end.