A Car That Runs Bad Sometimes Is Still Running Bad

Welcome to the Under the Hood Show Podcast. Thank you very much for listening and downloading the podcast app, Russ Evans, who brings us the Under the Hood Show Podcast. Berkeley One Classics, your key to collector car insurance. And road ready wheels, replica OEM wheels at huge savings. Use the offer code hoodie for even more. And by a car dash part, over 200 million use parts ready to ship to you fast. Don't forget we stream the show on YouTube and Facebook. We'd love to have you join us there. Here is the Under the Hood

Show Podcast. This is Under the Hood. Welcome to the Under the Hood Show. We are glad to have you with us. Russ Evans is here to answer your automotive questions. Thanks for joining us under the hood. Shannon Nordstrom is here to do the same. Welcome hoodies. Thanks for tuning in so we can help you tune up. I'm here to answer your calls. I'm Chris Carter 866-594-4150. Should we go right to Oklahoma and Freddie? Let's see if Freddie's there. He's got stuff going on. Freddie, what's going on?

I've got a 2000 Ford Ranger 4.0 motor in it, 4.5. One minute, I get it, I get it, start it and drive it. It runs just as smooth like I'm doing. Next time I get it and drive it, it, it has like, it's something wrong. I don't know exactly. I want to say, cut it out, but it just don't drive right. You know, it just slugged it. You mash on it. It's just slugged it. I don't know. Almost has like, it's got water in the gaffer.

I don't know. I don't know. You know, it could even have something in the fuel that's, if it had water or something there, it could do it. Have you ever tried? Well, I've put a lot of, I've put a question several times. Okay. How to say, have you tried some cleaner or something in there that would help? So this is intermittent and sometimes it does it the whole drive and sometimes it stops. What's the on and off part of it? Yeah. One time I started that and

it runs just like a brand new it. Next time I started that it's just slugged it. It should tell it. Does it ever start? Start out driving fine and then all of a sudden in the middle of that drive, it starts. No. No. No. So it either works good or it doesn't. I feel like that was a good question. I think it was, but I'm going to dig a little deeper here, Freddie. Um, check into that. Yeah, any lights on the dash. No. No. Okay. And have you. Had any

loss of fluid from the vehicle, coolant, oil, anything? Yeah, I've put fuel in it once in a while. And does this, does this

intermittent drive ability happen more when you just first started or when it, uh, no, it happens.

If I'm driving 30 minutes, it'll be that way. 30 minutes. All right. Next time I get it, it runs like a

minute. Very. And how much coolant have you had to add to it? Not very much. Like how often? Oh, six months, four months. I'll put seven in there. Is there any

take on my air condition? It'll be warm. My change to be up high. My temperature gauge go a little higher. So do you have any? Okay, I'm

zooming in on something here that could be a total guess, but do you have any physical leaks that you can see of

antifreeze on any wet? Dripping on the floor or anything? Okay, because you shouldn't lose anifreeze unless you,

if you're losing anifreeze and you can see a drip, drip, drip on the floor, there's probably more dripping than

you realize. That's why you're losing anifreeze. Yeah. But if you're losing anifreeze and you don't see it anywhere,

that means the engine is using it, which it should not. Anifreeze is not like oil. You should not use anifreeze.

So some of those four leaders had a problem with minor cracks. Ideally, you shouldn't be using oil either. Yeah. But it seems like over time,

people were more accepting of using oil and it was there's some there's some tolerance is for oil use that are commonly

expected excepted in the industry and anifreeze. It's anifreeze. It's a closed system with light pressure. It

should not leak. There was some problems here and there with those four leader cylinder heads where they would crack the heads with

minor cracks across the top of them. And if that was the case and those cracks were opening or closing at a certain

temperature, certain drive cycle and allowing some anifreeze to get into the combustion chamber, you could burn that

anifreeze. Never see it go away. And it would affect at certain times the drive ability. Now, I think you'd be

losing more anifreeze if that was the problem. This the amount you're losing doesn't sound like that. Right. So one thing I

would try our partners from KCL, they've got the the best product to put it in there. KCL ultimate. Yeah. KCL ultimate and put that in there

and just try that just to make sure that if you do have a minor anifreeze, we can we can maybe make that stop

and then see if the problem goes away. If not, I would try a fuel filter. There's a number of other things

that could cause intermittent drive ability issues in that vehicle. And the only way they're really going to

find it is if you pay a technician to have tools hooked up to it and he can drive it and watch with live data,

what is going to arrive at the same time it starts acting like that. But if I was going to try home remedy

something to think about, that would be it. And if you wanted to look a little deeper

and you feel up to it, you could pull your spark plugs out and inspect the burn on the spark plugs

and see if any of them look a little different. Because if if any of those looked a little different

than the typical brown, maybe a little black with carbon over the years on that one, because it's

pretty old, you might have a light anifreeze leak getting into a cylinder or two. And it could

even be a coil that's that's a simple side. I would I would when he said he was losing an

anifreeze, I just had so many of those that did that. Yeah, hard to not think about when it's got a

cool loss. But a coil could be doing it. And so that's if you haven't maintained coils on that,

that's something to look at too. Arch into ground. Yeah, look at me. Is that happy out there, Freddie?

So it is. So it is. All right, perfect. I appreciate your time. Thanks very much for the call.

866-594-4150. Can I I have an idea? Can I be the tech who will just like for a certain amount

that's not crazy, I'll drive your car daily and I can put like a electrical I can put electric

bike in the trunk. And so I can I can get to work. And I'm going to go, you know, I'll drive your

car for a week. And it's a hundred dollars or whatever. And then a hundred dollars a week. Yeah,

yeah. Because I'm just going to drive your your cars has an intermittent problem that has to be

checked every morning. They buy the gas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's you know, so you know, because that's the

problem. Now if I bring it to Russ, he's going to I can't pay him an hourly rate to just drive it

all the time. It would be too expensive. It has to be doing the problem. But I'm going to put an

ebike in the trunk so I can get to work and get back. If I do, if it does conke out, you're thinking

about something that could be. That's what I'm going to do in retirement, Chris. I'll give you

the idea. I'll just drive around. Your car doesn't run. I will I'll tell you what's wrong with your

car and what you need to go get fixed. My oh four town and country. Not interested. Let's go to

Arizona. That's 14 and 14. Sorry, Doug. 14. Was that a purpose? No. No. It's good. Arizona and

talk to Gary. You're on the end of the hood show. Gary, what can we do for you?

Yeah, thank you. I got a 2019 Audi Q5. Yeah, I could go for my pull out of my house.

Back up, get on the road and no issue. Then go to half mile down the road to the parking lot.

I want to pull out of there, turn left or right in the parking lot. It just makes it

chunky. Not really a lot of clumsy but you can feel it underneath you. I have no idea what that

is. I want to first got it. It barely did it and I've had it for like four months.

Maybe five months took about three thousand miles. I only got a little worse. No idea what it

is. It's never went across that. It's when you transition into a parking lot or I make sure

I understand that right. He said it did it when this was three months old. I don't want to come out

of it. When I come out of the parking lot, you know, you're turning left or right. I want to go

left or right. That's when I feel it. You know, you said it did it when this car was three months

old. No, no, no. I've only had it for like three or four months. It's a 2019. Yeah, 78,000

miles. That's what I suspect that you have a sway bar link in one corner of the car that is

either in really bad shape or broken. Yep. And it just is catching at certain times.

My son's, well, I guess it should be my daughter-in-law. Her vehicle that we helped her get,

she had a noise and she said it doesn't sound good and my son rally at her. He goes, it doesn't

sound good. I go, so I went and drove the car and I'm like, I couldn't hear the noise. I

would not make the noise. And so finally, we said, I got to get a little more aggressive. Get out of the

car. And so we drove it down in front of our barn and there's like a really rough little drop

off there in a transition. And I drove it across there like at 25 miles an hour and it went,

oh, it was the left rear sway bar link. And it was like a non-displaced fracture. And sometimes

it would catch. It would be perfect. And then the next time it would pop off and then it'd

boom, boom. And it was a $24 sway bar link. But it sounded like the whole vehicle was going to

break in half. That was one of the worst ones I've heard in a long time. The old Taurus and the 90s

would break on the top part would break off. And when the body go up and down, it would hit the

bottom of the wheel well. And it was like somebody hitting it with a hammer. It was just bang, bang.

It was loud. Yeah. This one was the top joint with snapped. Had to hit a pretty good bump. But

boy, she was loud. So that's what I would inspect. Where does Gary bring it to a suspension shop

or the regular brake tire alignment guys? Okay. Or any other shop anywhere they can lift it up?

Or right. Because that's going to be first step is now let's go back to inspection. We made

a hypothesis that it could be that. Yeah. Inspection is going to be get it to a wheel alignment shop.

Let them get it up in the air, shake every wheel, inspect every connection, inspect the sway bar joints.

This one here I could not see what the naked eye of the way it was sitting there until after we were

like. And then we finally found out that if my son would jump on the back bumper, aggressively

up and down. Well, I pushed on one side. We could make it go. And then we could narrow our ears

down their son project. We could narrow our ears down to where the noise was coming from.

And when you bring it in, in a lot of places, we'll do the visually inspect to take a look. But

they might have stuff going on. Yeah. It's not like when we say, I mean, it is a quick thing. But

they don't just drop what they're doing. Yeah. Let me take this one off and then I'll get

real quick. Just what a sway bar link is it's just be keeping the balance of the body as you turn

corners. The body doesn't roll. And so they they shift weight from each side of the other as you

turn. And when those little joints break, when the weight turns the one way or the other, it'll pop

that thing up on the other side. Gary, thanks very much for the call. Good luck. 866-594-41-50.

That's the number to reach is here at the end of the hood show. Let's go to North Carolina and

talk to Todd. You're on the end of the hood show Todd. What can we do for you?

Hello. I really enjoy the show. I appreciate you guys doing it. I've got a 1984 Mustang GT

that I've had since I had six miles on it. It was my daily driver for years,

that sits in the garage and gets driven every now and then the temperature control for the HVAC

is a lever which I assume controls the cable or something. And it's gotten to where it doesn't

move through it throughout its full range of travel. It'll go up all the way, but not

it'll only go about three-course the way down. Is that something? Is the whole dash going to kind

of have to come out for that or can I even get parked for it anymore? I'd like to get it fixed,

but don't know what to expect. Yeah, the parts are going to be go to the go to A's hardware store

and get yourself a lawnmower cable, you know, one of those armored cable looking things with a

thing. It looks pretty similar to that. I had to think a minute. It's been a long time since I've

been in a 84 Mustang GT. Those were really cool. Popular car when we were growing up. There were

hundreds of them around. Worked on a few of those. Sorry, what are you what are you getting in here

Chris? It was really cool. It was really cool. It was really cool. If you were in high school

when we were, if you had a new Mustang GT in 84, 85, 86 Mustang GT, an Iraq Camaro or a Trans Am,

or a Grand National, you were pretty cool. Those are the four newer cars that you were going to

have. And a couple people had a Toyota super or something like that. If they were Uber rich and

weird. But it was the, they just, we just didn't know yet. The Mustang and the Camaro was still

the car. Even if it was a 78 among the Mustang, no, but that was the thing. So they were around.

They had problems with those heaters on those things from that, that body style started in about

79 with that Fox body. And they had problem with that heater cable from then until 86. They would

just start to bind up most of the time. We would open the glove box door, push the tabs,

take the glove box door, fold it down, take it off, take the end off it where it hooks to the

Peter box. Got it one screw in there. It's got like an 8 millimeter head on it or seven.

And then it just comes out. And then we would loop the cable up. You know, you take the cable out,

get yourself some PB blaster spray in there, work it back and forth, whatever it takes to get it going

and then put the cable back on. And it should be fine. It should move. If you can't make it,

now when you take the cable off, you want to move the door by hand. Let's say check the door by hand

manual. Make sure he's working good. I have not seen one stick. And then that was a pretty

armored box. It just didn't go bad. If that is sticky by hand when you do it, then you got

something got in there. There's something else going on. Probably something in it. But if it's

usually just the cable, the cables just get old. They've got a pretty good bend on one end of them.

And that's where it binds up because it gets dry. The factory has, I think, a little bit of dry

teflon or something on it, but they had this problem when they were new just a few years old. And

now that new time has gone along. How many miles are on it now, Todd?

It's got about 138,000. It's got a new Ford Performance Crate motor. So it's got a

source that are ahead. So it's got a 302 and a 5 speed. Yeah, it's a 306. But yeah,

that's awesome. Yeah, perfect. I mean, that was there was, you know, it just didn't,

Vanilla ice have five liter rolling in my five liter, rolling in my five point, five point,

oh, bright top down so my hair can blow. Yeah, I knew you'd know it. I just, I know enough

to be dangerous. We have to guess the color here. We do. Now, let me, so don't say the color, Todd,

but is it a convertible? Yes, or no? There's a T-top. It's not a T-top. It's not a T-top,

not a convertible, just a hatchback. Okay. Because I was going to say if it's a convertible,

I was going to guess white. I'm going to go dark gray, not quite black.

When our business was growing out here in the country, we were selling reparables. And

I was able to sell my, our new egg instructor in Geertsen, a Mustang GT when I was in third,

I was probably 13 or 14 years old. It was a repairable that we had had tipped over very light. It was a,

I believe, an 84 GT five liter T-top. And we helped him fix that. And I think my dad rewarded me

with something that I wanted for making that happen. But that car was like that brown cherry

maroon. Okay. So I'm going to go with that color as my guess just because it's sentimental to me

that it's what you see. I wish Marty Strasberg would have kept that car. That was a cool car. Black. Black.

Well, we're all right in there, huh? All right. What color is it, Todd?

Well, it's a 20th anniversary edition. So all 5,000 of them were white with red stripes.

Oh, that's, he's low production too. I guess I'm going to take that as the, I didn't, I don't get

the full point, but I beat you too. Oh, stay on the line. Berkeley one classics can really help you

out with the coverage of that car because that's a perfect fit for that. And it'll save you a ton of

money. Produce your doggo. Get your set up. We'll get your hoodie. Berkeley one classics and

sure auto insurance, so collector car insurance. Todd, thanks very much for the call 866-594-4150.

Let's go to Florida and talk to John. You're on the end of the hood show. John, what can we do for you?

Hey, how are we doing? I'm back with that 2012 F-150 with the intermittent no crank.

So, I do have a top-down Phoenix Plus scanner that I hooked up to it when it wasn't cranking.

And I got it a ignition code for a loose cylinder, a key or an ignition switch. So I replaced all those.

I got a new tumbler. I re-keyed the new tumbler. I got two new keys that I just got programed to it.

And that seemed to work for a couple two to three weeks.

And on the weekend, I came back with a no crank. So I got a brand new engine battery that I put in there as well.

And then I retested that signal wire. It wasn't getting 12 volts when you were cranking. So I was reading

the live data from the scanner and all the signals were there for cranking, you know,

ignition response to the key. And so I did get a body control module code

that was on there for a while. I was clearing it and it kept coming back. So I was like, okay, now

I finally have a hard code that I can go off of. I think I can find it.

Have you pulled the body control module out and looked at it to make sure it's not corroded

in that kick panel?

I took the plastic for piece off and looked at all the wiring and then I took it off and I was unplugging

connectors and looking at it. I didn't see any corrosion. There's no rust or corrosion on the truck.

Yeah, I got a U0422 code receiving a valid data from body control module.

And so I think I'm having a BCM problem or a globalizer problem.

Well, if it doesn't get good community, if you had a mobilizer problem, it would give you

a code for that. It wouldn't give you just a BCM code. But if you got a BCM U as communication,

it's not communicating. So you've got something going on there. It's either wiring or that BCM

for that problem and then you can diagnose the other part. But if you've got,

if you've got no communication with the BCM, it's not going to start while it's under no communication.

Should he consider just running a new wire down to the starter?

Oh, to start it? No, just to run a straight, just disconnect the factory with

exciter wire, just run a new wire down there. But now with a code, he's got a communication code.

But he said, yeah, communication won't start. So we got to address that. I just hate that

we replace all these parts. He's got an corrosion in the middle of a wire.

Been able to start. Yeah, when the code's gone and it starts and then it comes back and it's

there, that's telling you that you've got a communication issue. That's you're hoping you're

you're really this has been a challenging one for you. Remember when you called the first time,

you're you're willing to dig into it. That is for sure. I feel bad that you haven't got that solved

and that your pieces didn't fix it. But those are this is a pesky one if you're getting back into

that BCM. John, sorry, we couldn't get you all the way there. Thanks very much for the call. Good

luck. The end of the hood show podcast is brought to you by exclusive sponsors like Berkeley One

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Welcome back everybody. It's time to get back under the hood with a motor medics.

866-594-4150. That's the number to reach us here at the under the hood show.

If you subscribe to the YouTube channel and join the hoodie fan club at underthehoodshow.com

you could win a hoodie like Eugene Barnes. Congratulations everybody here under the hood and our

friends over at Berkeley One Classics celebrating 50 years of collector car coverage and Universal

Technical Institute UTI.edu. We are going to go on the road and represent Berkeley One Classics.

We are. We are. Come on out. I don't know if you should say it that way. Why not? We're going to

rep. I don't know that that we're pretty good. When you say it that way you're going to scare them off.

We're pretty free. I'm not worried about myself representing them. Are you just okay? Represent Chris.

No, we have a great opportunity to go down there and we're going to make the most out of the trip

to Texas. We're going to be going to the Toyota headquarters but we're also going to go to Russ's

hometown. We're going to long view so those of you that are from there that listen to the show

that email me regularly. We're coming down. We're going to do a I've been joking call it the hometown.

We're doing a hometown of Russ. For my girls who watch the bachelor at the house,

they're doing a hometown. A couple days. Is that make me the golden bachelor or the rusty

bachelor? It's the Russ. The rust. Rust. Rusty. No, I'm looking forward to it. Russ said we

knew this event was coming up. We are honored to be able to represent Berkeley one in all

seriousness. We're having some fun there. They have a connection with Toyota through Toyota

Insurance. Together, we're going to go down there for a private event that they have at their

headquarters. It's a giant car show for employees called October Beast. They really take care of their

work. It's a neat deal from what we can see by what they've showed us and we're going to be part

of that event and we're excited to be down there but when Russ said that he was going to go down

on Saturday because the event is on Tuesday. Tuesday. Without any of us really talking to each other

at all, Chris had said, hey, I, maybe I could go with you down to where you grew up. At the same time,

I was thinking, I'd kind of like to see where Russ grew up. We both invited ourselves to go

at different times to go visit Russ's hometown and see kind of where he grew up and we've heard all

these stories a few times. We were going to go without all the stories. There's some stories we'll

never hear but we've heard a lot of stories over the years about Longview and just his youth there

and we're excited to go down and see it. It's a little different when you can put a picture and

you're sitting on that road. Well, Russ sees where I grew up every day. I didn't go very far.

There's no real trees so I can see all of it. Just look out the window. There it is.

But I've never seen where Russ grows up and we've spent lots and lots of years together. I think

this is going to be cool. For sure. 866-594-4150. Let's talk to Adam here on the end of the hood show. Adam,

what can we do for you?

Yeah, hey guys. Adam here. First time caller. Long time listener.

I really appreciate the show. Cool. Thanks for calling.

Yeah, no problem. I got F-150 for you today. My F-150 super true EcoBoost.

I get this humming noise occasionally when I'm driving down the road. Here's the details. I

can kind of even feel it through the floorboard and it usually comes about when I'm going higher speeds.

75 miles per hour to 80 mile per hour in that area. Sometimes more so notice it when I'm going

downhill. I kind of ruled out the tires and the drive shaft already because if I flip down to

like fifth year by using the button on the column there, the noise goes away. I go back up the

sixth gear. The noise comes back. What do you guys think I got? Is that something in the

transmission? What do you guys think? Well, it could be transmission. It could even be the rear end.

You're putting a different load on that, but it could be as simple as something on the exhaust system.

The muffler is coming apart inside and rattling a little bit. So when it gets at that certain

RPM, certain load, it just resonates and makes a little tin can kind of sound. That's possible.

We haven't had to do a lot of wheel bearings on those vehicles. We've done a few rear ends and

I think two transmissions we've had to put in to those because of noises that turned into

great big noises. I'm going to guess though that Russ on some of those transmission failures,

which there's been a number of them, there was probably noises that a lot of the users would have

never noticed because they're just not that in touch with their vehicle. Yeah, a lot of times they

just call me and say, hey, my transmission just went out. How much is it cost to put in? Right.

And they probably had a noise for a year and a half and they just never noticed it. People

didn't use to noise. Or I was just going to say, or noticed it and forgot about it. It's still working.

Noise comes on. You notice it. You only notice it. Right. It's not much about it anyway.

Yeah. That's true. You can't drive it until we tell people a lot. We'll just drive it a little more.

If it was something internal that was just not quite right, how many people are going to say,

it's working great, but can you tear it all the way apart? Right. Find out what's wrong inside.

Most people just aren't good. And then replace it. Russ might. I don't think I would either.

I'm going to drive until it breaks when it comes to internals and a transmission like that.

But let's just have him. Let's back away a little bit. It is. We got an EcoBoost here.

And it runs good. No changes in fuel economy. Right. I'm answering the questions for you.

But is it working good otherwise? Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Works good otherwise. Your power seems good

to the same as always been. Correct. Yep. Smooth. Smooth power. You kind of feel when the

turbos come on a little bit. They're not. You can't tell really great with them, but you can tell

when they're grabbing their boost, that all seems normal. Yep. Okay. Well, then you're feeling some sort

of either a resonant vibration like Russ said off exhaust or something coming off the drivetrain

and short of maybe getting a second opinion to listen to it with you from somebody that's got

you know, lots of years of drivetrain experience at a chassis shop, a transmission shop,

you're probably going to be chasing this for a little bit. Inspector, get it up on a hoist with

somebody. Have them inspect the rear end inspect. Pull the cover. Change your fluid in the rear

axle assembly. It's good to do that anyway. How many miles do you say you have on this?

160,000. Okay. Have you ever changed the differential fluid?

I'm not sure that I have. Then you better let's do that. You better inspect it because those have a

very bad habit of getting moisture build up. They get condensation as they heat and cool and they

get moisture in them. The vent can get plugged sometimes. Yeah, they'll ruin the gear or so. So

let's let's do that. Let's bring that thing in and it waltz up in the air or at a shop on the

hoist. They can inspect the driveshafts. They can see what kind of slack and play back and forth

they have. Pull the cover. Look at that gear oil when it comes out. Keep it and see make sure there's

what's in there. How's it look? And maybe you'll find something right there. Maybe it's it's got

wear inside that axle that just it's just moving back and forth and causing a vibration at certain

torque ranges. And so that would be something to check. Inspect for slap and backlash on the axle

assemblies. Look at the snout where it goes into the it's four-wheel drive, correct? Look at the

snout where it goes into the the drive shafts goes into the back. Make sure that the yoke or the yolk

is alright that you don't have play on there could be a bushing on a transfer case. There's

just different things that can happen there. If you haven't changed your transfer case fluid

pull that plug. Inspect that fluid. Have it changed because if you're at 160,000 miles on that too

you might pull one of them plugs and find some filings and you're going to know where your noise

is probably coming from. Adam, thanks very much for the call. Good luck. A lot to go through there.

It's time if he hasn't done that stuff. It's also great that he's got 160,000 miles on. He really

has any problems. But eventually things catch up with us. 866-594-4150. Let's talk to Rick and Florida.

You're on the end of the hood show. Rick, what can we do for you? I hope y'all are doing well.

I really enjoyed the show. Thanks. Thanks. So I've got a 2014 Ford Escape. It's got 130,000 miles.

I've done really good on oil changes. I've had the car about five years and so I've put about

the last 60,000 miles on it or so. But on cold startups now I've got a really apparent

rattle. You don't hear it at idle but as soon as you put throttle to it it rattles in drive.

And this thing, I thought it first maybe it was a lifter noise but it's not at the top in and

it seems deeper. My gut feeling is it's something with the timing chain may be tensioning

but you guys are experts. I just love to get your thoughts on it. After about 10 minutes of driving

this noise goes away. I don't hear the rest of the day. I'm going to ask maybe a naive question

here because I should know the interchanges and stuff but is that a V6 or a 4 cylinder in that one?

It's a 4 cylinder or two liter turbocharger. Turbo, you might want to check your exhaust on that.

One of the two things is the exhaust leaking or the turbo wastegate that's leaking.

It sounds like you've got that will only make noise until it warms up and then it'll go away

until it gets worse and it wears more and then it'll do it all the time. But that could be

exactly what's going on. It's down low on the back of the motor. It does take a good 10 to 15

minute driving for that to stop but it does go away and it stays gone until the next day because I

drive it pretty much all day. I use it for company work and it's it's been driven most every day

but yeah I don't want it to get worse or damage anything so I will look into that. I think that's

a good good idea. Yeah and that's a cheaper repair than you know what it could be.

Does the noise change any if you put it in gear and put light pressure on it like in the drive gear

or reverse gear? Now and you don't hear it until you start to accelerate.

And it doesn't speed up really with the acceleration of the motor rpm.

It seems to be the same repetitious rattle. It just goes away after it warms up really good.

So come to an idle and stop light. You don't hear it at all. But as soon as you put the throttle on

at all, it starts. Sounds like exhaust leak. Let's hope that's what it is because if not,

if it is like a if your timing set is that loose to cause that noise, it would more than likely rumble

all the time. When you start it, you'd hear that continuously. Yeah. So that's what makes us think

we're going down a different road. Rick, thanks very much for the call. Good luck. 866-594-4150. That's

the number to reach us here at the under the hood show. Let's talk to Dennis and Minnesota. Dennis,

you're on the end of the hood show. What could we do for you?

Hi. How you doing? Great. I was calling the fun. You guys helped me out earlier in the

year on a bio-curvee era. An issue where it would stall and you guys helped out. I got it fixed.

And somebody wanted to buy it shortly after that. So I didn't have a whole lot of time to

shop around. I was looking at Mercedes, the GLA class, back in. I think it was like 21 or 22.

And there were a few of them around the country that had ridiculously low miles, like 3,000 or 6,000.

There were a few of them like that. And they were very reasonably priced. I can't remember where I

read. There was an issue with the factory issue with the tranny part. And so they offered factory

rebuy program instead of people who didn't want to wait for the fix on it. And that's why some

of them were priced so low. Can you tell me, are you familiar with that first of all? And then

if so, when it was fixed, would if they had driving on it for even a few thousand miles,

would it have damaged any other part of the car? I'm going to talk in generalities about this sort

of a thing. And not knowing the specifics, I mean, Russ and I are both making eye contact here,

like neither one of us are real familiar with this particular campaign. If there was one,

I'm just going to take your word for it that you saw what you saw. And as a rule of thumb,

the Mercedes, the BMW, that class of German vehicle, if there was a problem with a transmission

that was just systematic and they figured that out and they wanted to make some condolences

to customers and do some things, it wouldn't have been such a problem that would have hurt

anything else on the rest of the vehicle. Unless these things were dumping into low gear going

down the road and you know, revving engines to the moon, there's not much that could happen

with that transmission that would damage anything else on the car. I say that not carefully,

but I feel pretty confident in saying that. If that campaign was such too that they couldn't

satisfy the owner, and if they knew they had a continuing problem, the Mercedes brand would not

put that vehicle back for sale unless they knew they had a fix for it. They have got a

very strong brand in that regard. They're not perfect. They've made mistakes. They've had

vehicles that had some issues, people had to fix, but not at the rate of a highly produced domestic

and such. My opinion would be that when they made the repairs, oftentimes a manufacturer

will extend the warranty on that repair to give the consumer confidence that they could buy this

buyback vehicle and have an extended warranty on whatever they fixed. We see that with some

manufacturers also. They'll say, hey, we know we have a problem. We don't quite have the fix yet.

You can't wait. You're being very difficult. We are going to do something different for you,

or they will offer them a trade-in credit to say, hey, we'll give you X percentage. It may not be

an amazing trade-in credit, but it's above the curve. Enough where they entice the person to

trade into a new model, and then they get that one back and say, all right, we're going to fix this

problem. Those are the questions I would ask. What exactly was fixed? If that was the case,

that will be highly documented within the Mercedes computer systems of the dealership network,

the manufacturer's network, because all those things would have been in a customer management system,

it would all have been highly documented, and they would know exactly what was done when it was

done, who did it, what miles it happened at, what the remedy was, how many times they attempted

the remedy, and when we talked earlier on an episode about a lemon law, the manufacturers,

we have some inside track on some of this stuff. They have extremely good records before they get

to that point, and sometimes these things can go on for months, sometimes they can go on for a

couple of years, and sometimes they buy them back, and they they remark at them after repair,

and sometimes they buy them back and just take them off the road because they just got to

they got something weird going on. They got a they got a they got a wiring harness for the problem

and it's deep in the vehicle. They got to you know, just something, and they just they know that

they're we're going to we're just going to pump this one out and swing again. And so in this case,

if there is a few of them around like that, there is a story that should be able to exactly tell

you with confidence the rest of that story. You shouldn't have to wonder.

Okay, that's great. Oh, do you have time for one more real quick question?

Sure. I'll try to give a quick answer. Yeah, that's that wasn't on you Dennis.

No, there's another vehicle I was looking at after I showed the reviewer, you sent them a

bought a Nissan fix because I had to get something real quick brand new and it's a nice vehicle, but

the other vehicle I was looking at was a 22 Jeep, the smaller version of the Jeep that had an

issue also. If you look around the country or a car dealerships in ads, the 22 seem they seem to

have a whole lot of them or so more so than any other used vehicle. Was there a problem with the

22 Jeep? Was that a Cherokee or was it a small Cherokee or was it a compass or was it a Liberty

compass? It was a compass. Yeah. I would have more confidence in Mercedes program than Jeep's on

that pretty. I got you on that. That that there's a quick answer. Yeah.

Dennis, thanks very much for the call. Good luck. 866-594.

He said it was a compass. The answer for me was easy. I don't know. Just

let's talk to Rhonda. You're on the end of the hood show. Rhonda, what can we do for you?

Yeah. Hi. I have a 2013 Acura MDX and it hesitates quite a bit when I step on the gas.

I don't know. It's really weird. It doesn't matter if it's cold or hot out. It's just when I try

to pick up speed, it just ummm hesitates like that. Can you tell or have you paid enough attention

to watch the tachometer on the engine to see what it's doing when it's not proceeding as you'd

like it to? No, I have not watched that. I'd be curious to know if the tachometer

which shows how fast the engine is spinning is rising and you're not moving or if it is also

blown blundering. Because if you're not super familiar with how that all feels,

we're just trying to determine if you got an engine drive-ability problem or if there's

something going on with the transmission in the vehicle. Well, I've heard that this year of

vehicles with the MDX do have some transmission issues. Yeah, so I mean I just wondered. I'm

just going to say this right now. We hear who these people are. You know what, here's what's

going to happen, guys. With AI, we're going to find out who they are. Yeah, I don't think so.

I think it's all going to be they. They? It's going to be everyone's going to be they. I thought

AI might make they be exposed. It's going to be no wee.

But no, there is trend setting that can happen so fast on the internet about, oh, it's a big problem.

Things can wipe just you watch X tick tock. We do hundreds of transmissions and engines at

our shop. We have only put one MDX transmission in. But they're not as heavily populated around

here either. They're not, but we do other things to those vehicles, brakes, struts. But there are

some campaigns you can find that are well documented that you can find to go back and say, here's

a campaign where Honda Accura decided to buy back or not to buy back but to replace the

transmissions in VIN number from this to this. And if you didn't have it, you know, that's the type

of research that I would ask an Accura dealer. And if there was something that was noteworthy

that it became a campaign, they'll have record of it for your particular VIN.

Okay. There you go. But to start off with, let's pay, let's learn just a little more as

you're driving, which is something that you don't have to know. But now that you're wondering

about it, right, that's what I will try to tell people is, all right, it's not moving well.

Are we are we revving up the engine and not going anywhere or is the engine just not able to get

steam? It's just the old coal engine. It's not getting any steam. It just can't get going.

And that can be as simple as you could have you could have just some coils that are going bad.

How long on the engine? How long have you been driving it and has it always done this?

No, it just started in the last couple of years. And it only has 76,000 miles on it.

I wonder if you might not have it. So it's brand new.

Yeah, I wonder if you might not have some coils going bad or something and it's just a

drivability issue. And it won't show up on a check engine light because it's kind of maybe in the

base ignition. It's not setting a code. Do you got any codes? I didn't ask that.

Any light lights on the dash or anything? No, it's I would pay a little closer attention if you

can. Just watch what's happening when it's not working right. And if the tax kind of jumping up

higher RPMs and you're not moving, then you got to get a little more nervous about transmission.

If the tax is blundering and just kind of bouncing around at 1,000, 2,000 RPMs and you're not

taking off very well, it's a drivability issue and you can get that fixed up.

Because there was a reason I asked that is we talked about it. We rented a car. And I would have

thought that was driving incorrectly until I talked to someone who has one. They said, no,

that's how that's how it takes off. Oh, I didn't like that Chinese rental that I had in England.

I swear it was broken. Yeah. I'm guessing it wasn't. All right, this is the after show. We are now

after the show. Right. Let's talk to Darryl. You're on the end of the hood show. Darryl,

what can we do for you? Well, it's not what you can do for me. It's so what I can do for

somebody else, I guess. I was driving down a little bit ago and I couldn't I couldn't call you,

but the guy had a problem with a parasitic draw. Oh, yeah, there was a gentleman called in with a 23

Nissan frontier of pro 4x. Yes. Yeah. And I bought a pickup out of Chicago.

79 GMC short bed pickup. And the guy had a video of it and he said, oh, yeah,

we just put a new battery and a new alternator on it. And it's good to go. So when I got when I

got it delivered, the battery is completely dead. I mean, there was nothing. And it was still on

the truck. So I got it off the truck and charged the battery. And it was in the morning. And by

night time it was dead. And I thought, oh, my God, what's going on here? And it was driving me nuts

trying to figure it out. And what it was, I pulled the plug. I charged the battery up

and then I pulled the plug off the, you know, the three prong plug on the alternator.

And I pulled that off to where it wasn't it was draining. The alternator was drawn from the

battery. And it was a pretty strong draw because it was in like, you know, four or five hours

of battery was dead. So I pulled that plug and I thought, well, I got to be the alternator, but

new. So I thought, well, you know, I went and bought another alternator. And I put that on and

it was for a 79 GMC. I put that alternator on and the problem was solved. So they just put the

wrong alternator on. And I was thinking, well, maybe this guy's got a shortness alternator or

something that's pulling like my, what I had. That is that is one of the suggestions that Russ

gave him was that, you know, if they would put a heat gun on that alternator, if it would actually

draw down while he had it, remember Russ saying this exactly, then if they would shoot that with a

heat gun and see that that alternator is all warmed up, they would know that it that alternator is

engaging and it's shorted inside. And in your case with that 79 shivvy, it was more likely the

voltage regulator inside the alternator that was engaging. And it was drawn that power very happened

quite a bit on those GM alternators and I'm going to guess it's not so much it was the wrong

one. It was just a bad one right that you had because those GM alternators, they were pretty

interchangeable in those years of trucks. Hey, I got to ask because I'm really curious.

You went online apparently or by auction or by whatever and bought a 79 GMC in Chicago. This

is just recently. Yeah. That I want to hear more. So what would you buy one that's been already

stored or what did you buy? Yeah, it was a black one. It's really a beautiful pickup. I mean,

it's just no rust and it's just straight as it can be. And he got a new leather interior and

a bucket seat and everything. It's a beautiful little truck. So somebody's customized a little bit too?

Yeah. As far as customizing, you know, they put the grill on and the grill in it and the headlights

and then the tailgate, they change the tailgate on it and just little stuff like that. But other than

that, it's pretty much stock. Did you buy it from a family from a private party? Or is it from a

dealership like Gateway Classics or one of them places that advertises stuff for sale?

It was a Gen X cars in Chicago. Yeah. That's where I bought it.

For other listeners out there, there are some extremely reputable classic vehicle resellers

out there. Now prices can be all over the board. But there are also, and I just want to bring

this up as a point because I know my sister Yvette had just she has Vanderbrike auctions and she had

just posted recently. She's got a beautiful collection of Camaro, Chevelles, Nova SS. I haven't seen

that nice of a Nova SS for a long time. Like a burgundy color one. But as she posted it on Facebook,

of course, there's people that are commenting in the public and there's some people say,

these cars aren't real. Somebody just trying to take your money. And of course, I know this is my

sister. You know, she's as reputable as they come as an auction company. But that is so real on

the internet where people, they can take a pretty picture from anywhere of a dog, of a lady,

of a car, a man, things that people desire. And put it up for sale. And you've got to make those

phone calls. You've got to hire a local person. There's inspectors. You can hire to go look at things

because this 79 you got, it sounds like you did a great job. But it could have just as well been

something that somebody pretty up. It didn't exist. I've seen so many people and you sound like

you're older than me. And I've seen that happen where there's people that are my age and older than

me that have gotten totally taken by their desire to get something they wanted that doesn't even exist.

And so I'm glad you got something you wanted and you're happy with it. That's cool. That's really

neat. Darryl, really neat. Darryl, thanks very much for the call. All right. Well, that I think

will do it for the after show. We got stuff to do since you've been gone. We got a lot of stuff to

make up. Yeah, I'm just ready to talk. Yeah, you're you can't shut me up. All right. You can't

shut me up. I'm shut me up. Just turn my mic off. What? I did something I've never done before

other than drive on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road and around about

that we guy diving. Base jumping. No. Okay. It involves an automobile. This is an automotive show.

Yeah. Like goat yo usually. Yeah, I mean, you've talked about goat yo. I'm just saying I drove

on to a ferry and rode across the water in a ferry. Fair enough. I just never that's it's I

I didn't know it was on my bucket list until it was available to do. I apologize because I just

did that too for the first time. It's pretty it's kind of a neat experience. He's the one where they

made you get out or where they let you sit in the car. You sat in the car. Okay, because someone

they make you know, they had a little lounge. You could go it was it said lounge on the side.

It walked in. It was just a little room. Yeah, they had nice toilets on there. You they had

observation deck. You could walk on. It was from Tarbert, Ireland to Tarbert killer room killer room.

I can't remember the names of towns over there, but it was about 20 minutes. Okay. And it saved you

three hours of driving. Yeah, they yeah, that's what ours was across Lake Champlain and it was it

was too short. I thought my wife thought it was plenty long. It was like 20 minutes. Yeah. Yeah,

well, like I think if you go to Wisconsin, you want to drive across, you know, go to Michigan,

you can take the ferry or you can drive around and it's about the same because it takes so long to

get across Lake Michigan versus yeah, and you know, the name of the ferry was the company Shannon

Ferries. Oh, did you get any shirts or any placards or anything? I have a bad habit. I've developed a

buying bottle openers, magnetic bottle openers from places that I go. You can't always find

a bottle opener, so it's turned into magnets. Sure, it wasn't. Oh, Shannon. And I forgot to get one

in Chandler. Oh, so I've been there. Is it fair to buy one on Amazon now? Yeah, for sure. I was

there. I just forgot to buy one. I think so. And then my wife started to tell me there should be a

limit of how many I buy in each place. She goes, she's afraid we might have to buy another refrigerator.

I the garage fridge is the sticker fridge. This is the garage fridge. Kitchen fridge is the magnet

fridge. That's the openers. The open the the garage fridge is in our house garage is where I've

got them displayed on the side actually on the side of the upright freezer. Okay, that's where they're at.

Was that church key? Is that what they call them here in South Dakota? The ones that you put into

like the old doors? No, the oil can. Oh, those are church churches. Yeah. Yeah, that's uh

Jacobson. Oh, Dwayne Jacobson has a huge I think he still has a huge church key collection

from all over the place. He brought like a box one day that was like that he's like these are my

bad ones. So you can. Yeah, my dad has saw a cabinet that he pulled out and showed him how many he

had. And that's yeah, one of our salesman here. It's his dad. I actually had to use one the other day.

I bought something that he needed to use one for. I can't even remember. It was so and of course,

I just had one. I mean, I opened the silverware drawer and it was right there. I no, I no longer

have one in my silverware drawer. I don't know that I've ever used it in my life, but I did that.

What was it? Oh my gosh. I can't remember. We had pull tabs growing up on pop cans, but they were

quickly replaced with the ones you couldn't take off. Right. Uh, early 80s, maybe even 79, but they

they went to the just what they have today and nobody's built a better mouse trap. They're still the same.

But I think the companies that used to make the can openers, they said, well, we got to come up with

something to keep going. So they made the little thing you could put on there and open them.

When they open them for you, it's a it's a it's the same type of thing. But I can remember

open an oil cans with it. You had to use a right either way, an opener and pour it or the one that

stabbed. Oh, the stabber. Oh my god. How many times that I stabbed the can not get it right and I

crushed the can. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's because there's a kid and I didn't do it right. Yeah.

Yeah. You had to get it just right and you had to be quick or it would just

the end make leak and then seal the foam around there was a joke. So you could use them three or four

times and you throw it away and get another one and they'd leak. We'd use them to fill up the

mini bikes and go. I'm having such good memories right now filling up the old eight three wheelers

and all just stuff. That's good memories. So anyway, I have way too many magnets. Sure.

Yeah. So I got to get one from Shannon. Yeah, we do the magnet and sticker when we go some place

not stickers. No, no, too many magnets. So all right, it's got out of hand. There we go.

Thanks everyone. I'm going to have a long view of that magnets and long view.

Go down to the history museum. I'm sure you'll find it.

Tammy, we got good news. We're coming home with magnets.

That'll do it for the end of the hood show. Thanks, like, subscribe, see you later.

With Russ Evans, this is Shannon Nordstrom thanking you for tuning into the Nordstrom's

under the hood show. Have a great day and remember PTLA.

The opinions heard on this program based on the many years of experience of Russ and Shannon

are offered for entertainment value only and as a guide to your repair needs. No claim to repair

or cause is given or implied. Always consult with your own certified technician and follow all

safety procedures before attempting any repair. To be a part of the show, call 866-594-4150.

Find out more by visiting underthehoodshow.com. Under the hood is produced by Prairie House Productions.

All content is the property of Nordstrom's Automotive Incorporated and may not be used without our

permission. Copyright Nordstrom's Automotive Inc.

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