Car Guys Giving Free Advice To Help You

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Now 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, Hoodie. Thanks for tuning in so we can help you.

Tune up. I'm Chris Carter here to answer your calls at 866-594-4150. Got some calls coming in.

Anything breaking that is super important? Cars are always breaking. Always breaking.

I was just telling you guys a story. Last night, I was flying back from Louisville.

Gotta make sure I said that right. Louisville. If I get marbles in your mouth, they said Louisville.

Louisville. Kentucky. And my flight from Louisville to Minneapolis was perfect.

But I got to Minneapolis. I had about a 45-minute layover. I thought I'd catch the

end of the Timberwolves game, which I was able to catch most of it.

And then boarded the plane at 9.14 p.m. in Minneapolis. And we left Minneapolis. Never

left the plane. We did have the option, but I was sitting next to a guy that I got talking to

that was just such a wonderful conversation. We both sat there and chatted. 12.10 p.m.

When we moved, landed in Sioux Falls just after 1 a.m.

Yeah, that made for a late night. But the plane had something broken. The pilot was very good

about giving information. He said, we've got a problem. And we are going to put a different

part on it. And it should fix the problem. And then about 30 minutes later, he came on.

He goes, well, we put the part on and it didn't fix the problem. And we're awaiting information.

And then they kind of, I'm paraphrasing. And he came back on again. He goes,

well, the crew on the ground here thinks that they can salvage a part from another plane over

in the G-con course. And it's going to take about 45 minutes to get that. And they're

pretty confident it'll take care of the issue. And I don't know if he had comforted the

passengers or not. The gentleman I was sitting next to was a very automotive,

super neat guy. And him and I looked at each other, you know, they know it works on the other plane.

But I just hope somebody puts a lockout tag out. And you want to say what you say on the show.

It worked fine up until the accident. But you don't say that. No, no. But I just,

I'm just thinking, they have like a lockout tag out, I'm sure, like we do. You know,

this put it on the handlebars or on the control of what do you call the yoke or whatever.

It's very nuts like that. I didn't tell you guys when we got in late, when we had the thing last

week, I forgot to tell you about the part where when we landed, we taxied and we stopped by the

gates like you normally do. You wait and then you pull into a gate. Well, he throttled up to

pull into the gate and we didn't go anywhere. We just leaned to the left. And I went,

I looked at my wife and said, that's not right. And then he tried it again.

And I said, the left brakes are stuck if we weren't going anywhere. And he says,

uh, passengers, we've got a weird situation here. We're not moving. Maybe give me a minute.

I'm going to call them to come drag us in. And they did. They sent a really big tug for

and they drug us in. And when we got there, the pilot was looking standing on the jet

bridge looking down. He's like, where's the brake rotor? One of the brake rotors and just

came apart like short track racing. I'm like, are you kidding me? There's,

we're seeing a lot more of this. He used to not tell us. Maybe it's just they're transparent.

Yeah. And people are videoed. And I was just on the heels of part of my trip to Louisville

was we stopped in. Oh, this is horrible to laugh at, but no, we stopped in at our member

for the trade association, uh, Sean Garber's place, uh, grade A that was directly impacted

by the UPS cargo plane that crashed. So when I say laughing, it's like,

this is ironic that you're, you're on a plane. You're worried about safety and you're going

to this. And so we have these things in our mind and that was such a horrible situation

because they lost, uh, three employees and eight customers that were at their business

when that plane went down at us at an auto recycle like us. Yes. A facility and he's a

very good operator. Um, he had a scrap division and he had just sold his full service division to

a consolidator in August and all that properties. It was, um, affected. We brought him a check

from the executive leadership of our trade association to put into the

fund for the families and we wanted to give it to him directly and avoid some of the extra

fees from the, from the GoFundMe account, which is great. I mean, it's a great vehicle to do those

things, but we'd, it was a sizable amount of money and we wanted to bring it down and give it to him

in person so they could directly deposit it since we were going to be there for some other business

also. And he showed us a picture on his phone of where the landing gear from the plane was

on their office area. It came, it, thank goodness came down kind of towards the end

of their day or it would have been even a worse tragedy. And so we had that in our mind and just,

it was, it was very good to be able to just step in and offer some words of support. We grabbed

him and his son and we just set a prayer together and, and, uh, they're, they're talking

about going to viewings and having funeral plans. I mean, life can change in a hurry.

And so, sorry, I took that a different direction, but, uh, yeah, I'm on the heels of that on

my head as they're talking about, well, that's what we do. It's auto recycling is our business

every day. We've got it here. I mean, this is real stuff. And yeah. And so when they're talking about

switching parts on the plane and you're like, okay, you know, all right, God, you got my parachute,

I hope. Yeah. 866-594-4150. Let's go to New York and talk to Tom. You're on the

end of the hood show. Tom, what can we do for you? Hey, how are you doing today? Great.

I just want to let you know, I'm a new listener. I just took a part-time job where I'm on the road

for like five hours and I've gone back and I've been listening to your iPods for my whole journey.

Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. So I have a 1968 GTO. I bought it as my first car back in 1981 and

there was some work done to it in our high school auto shop.

460 over, put a new cam in it, a recreational cam. So back in the day, it ran great,

but as I drive it now, either when I get on it or when it's hot out, I have a lot of

valve fat or detonation and I wanted to see any suggestion to what I can do to limit that or

get rid of it. Yeah, really, the problem you're having, unless the timing is just too high

in the car, you've got a couple issues going on. You'll have carbon buildup in there,

which will contribute to this and that can be cleaned out with some fuel injection system cleaner,

some heavy cleaner. There's a lot of them out there. There's ones we use in our shop,

Justice Brothers in a professional setting. BG makes some really good cleaner. They're 44K,

could be used in a carbureted car like that. CRC makes a nice one as well and any of those

will help clean up what's already in there and that's important. That and the timing,

but probably the bigger issue you're having is that that car is the compression ratio because

that was still high compression compared to what happened in the 70s when fuel and everything

took a dive. What fuel are you running in it now?

I try to get the highest I can. Usually it's 90 through octane. I think it's 10% ethanol where I

am here now. I did back the timing down at around 5.5-6 maybe. I can't really go any

lower than that without causing any other problems. You're putting 93 in it, you said?

Yeah. Is that a ram there? I always wondered about those. No, no, it's a 400. Okay, just a standard

400. All right, well the compress, that thing may have, it still made me run an 11.5 to 1 compression

in it and that's a lot. Have you tried octane booster with that 93 in there as well?

No, I was just going to ask that. I've heard a lot of lead additives and so on. Way back when

all of the fuel was leaded so I didn't really have those issues but I was just worried if I

added something like that, is it going to clog things up or have to build up on anything?

No, not really. The issue you're having though with the lead, if you've never put hardened valve

seats in, that's what the lead protects so you need a lead additive in every tank full, no matter what

if they haven't upgraded the heads and the valves and you could try the octane booster and see if

that helps. Otherwise, you could make some changes to the car. For fuel, you'd have to do some

jetting changes on the carburetor in order to make it run the correct fuel ratio but you could run

E30 fuel in it if they have E30 in your area which is a lot higher octane but you would have to,

I would replace the fuel lineup by the carburetor and down by the fuel pump, that rubber end of it,

put a new fuel pump on it that'll be their alcohol resistant now and then replace the rubber

one by the tank because that E30 with a little more alcohol in it, I mean you already got 10 to

15% the tank. There's not a lot of difference with another 15 but that fuel is a lot higher octane

and it could work but it's going to run a lot leaner so you with a fuel injector car it'll

adjust but yours won't so you'd have to do some jetting changes but if you've got E30 readily

available in your area that might be a way to, I mean I would do that myself to try to

overcome it I would rejet it they'll put a sniffer on the tailpipe you know you could have a

performance shop do it they'll put a sniffer on the tailpipe make sure it's running where it's

supposed to be at 14.7 to 1 with a little higher jet little richer jets but then you could

eliminate that octane you're gonna notice it's gonna have a lot more power too

because every time it detonates it's like you know a little bitty hammer hitting the

front bumper and slowing you down a little bit. Tom hold on a second don't go anywhere

and this is a definitely a Berkeley one classic yeah and so we've got to guess the color of your car

Tom and uh I got I know it yeah yeah I think it's red that's my first right out of the gate

just when he when I saw it on the board I pictured it red you did yep convertible or hard top or

what is it hard top it's white white oh it's gotta be gold gold all right Tom what color is it

but for sure you would guess it it's verdoro green oh dubs in the producer

dog oh yeah he wrote it right he wrote it on the screen green he got it let's get him a hoodie

Doug hold on a second Tom courtesy of Berkeley one classic celebrating 50 years of collector

car and like Russ said make sure and that timing is set correctly in five to six degrees it's down

there yeah eight six six five nine four four one five oh that's the number to reach us here at

the end of the hood show let's go to North Carolina and talk to Dustin you're on the end of the hood

show Dustin what can we do for you hey guys thanks for taking the call you bet um I got a 2000 uh

2000 grand marquee with 145 000 miles on it and um I get an intermittent like long crank when it

when I want to um start it and it's like um it's not all the time it's just sometimes

like sometimes it'll sit there for a week and start upgrade um and sometimes it'll sit there

for you know five minutes and then I get a long crank or I gotta crank it four or five times and

then it'll start um when it starts it runs great like perfect there's no stumbling you know it's

not doing anything weird um so you know the first thing was we you know we checked the fuel pressure

and that was fine um on the rail and it wasn't leaking down or anything like that so um I just

didn't know what else to look at next or what you know what makes sense on that because it's so

um you know so intermittent

I'm wondering you would have to check the fuel pressure at the rail only when it's occurring

so you basically would have to leave a gauge on there 24 hours a day

strapped to your wiper blade as you're driving on the road but there's

there's two things you need to check fuel pressure and also see if it's got rpm

when when it's not starting only so that means leaving a scanner connected to it

all the time as well um it's it's very difficult intermittent things like that are hard to

find and um you know when somebody calls our shop and says well I can leave it there for a week

you can just drive it back and forth every day it's like if I drive it back and forth every day

I'm going to charge you for every hour I drive it back and forth it's there's other things to

do in in life um and it's hard for if you've never had a car that's had this happen where

you've had to try to fix it it's hard to grasp what it takes you know I I had an issue with

my truck for five years that I just couldn't catch I would have the scanner on it for a

month at a time I was had gauges on let me and it just couldn't be for a minute you had me you

yeah okay and I I don't have to pay myself to diagnose it and I just kept trying and trying and

trying trying to figure this out and I I wasn't catching it and that just shows how long it can

take to do that now I finally found it and it was something pretty simple and I just stumbled

across it but what would that have cost the average person if they wanted me to do that

with all the time I had on and off probably about 20 000 in labor would they pay that no

you just drive it till it breaks and then once it completely breaks fix it luckily mine didn't

completely break but it was getting pretty bad to put it into a short thought for me is you

got to catch it broken and know what it's missing yeah fuel spark you know as there's no rpm signal

so it's not when it's cranking it's not showing rpm so it's not telling it to spark and then

when it doesn't spark you got to know what didn't work yeah it it is common on that model fuel pump

in that car for it to not always lose prime but sometimes there's a little plastic ball that's

a check ball inside the fuel pump and when you turn the key on it pushes it off the seat it

pressurizes you shut the key off or the pump stops running with the computer turning it off

and the relay and it holds pressure because the ball pushes back well they can get a little

worn spot on there and as that ball rotates around it's just floating around like a ping pong

ball it sits in the wrong spot and it bleeds back so it may only do it once a month once every

six months but it's going to do it and it'll do it quickly and the next time you started it's

fine that's why sometimes it might do it after you shut it off for 10 minutes sometimes it

might do it after it sits for three days you don't know it just depends on where it sits

that is a likely thing as it we've seen it a lot

if that's the case as a fix on that rust could i um could i put like a check valve in the line

without having to get into the tank and get all rip all that part just somewhere in the line

just so it wouldn't bleed back to the tank once it runs like a one-way valve in the fuel line

yes as close to the tank as possible preferably on the sending unit itself and only if you can

find one ford used to make a fix for this car and for the f-150 trucks for this exact thing

and it was a check valve that snapped onto the sending unit on the tank you just unclip the

line move it off about an inch and a half clip this little check valve on and you snap it on

if you could find one of those maybe on ebay or somewhere because they don't sell them new

anymore that i know of you could plug that thing in and that would avert you from having to take

the tank out of the car and pull the sending unit out and that was a great device i don't know why

they have not started selling those again for other things but i think a lot of it has to do

with the lines are just so tight now you can't really move them out of the way enough to put

one on that car you can't they don't think they need it it would be another $1.98 they

don't want to spend no i'm talking about to buy it after i see why can't you go to amazon and pick

one up or o'reilly or whoever auto zone they integrated at all i should have it i thought you

were talking about new did you consistently use the same fuel all the time i mean same same

gas station same fuel but the 87 in the area yeah and i put some like c foam in there once in a while

too just because it you know getting older yeah but you're stopping at the same gas station

same flight pattern all the time yeah okay yeah yeah sure can i ask what um i was talking to a

neighbor and he has a you know he has a crown Vic similar car and he had a similar issue and

he found he changed his like evap system out of evap canister and he said that like there's

a cell annoyed in there that was um you know not closed at all times so he was getting

those vapors like in the current case and it was you know causing it to be really um rich

sometimes and then get a long crank do you have a code would that could be intermittent

no i got no code if it does that you'll have an evap code for excessive purge flow it's it

comes up pretty quick on those when that happens probably not that

could he eliminate that thought by by is any work around you could do to eliminate that

thought you'd have to disconnect the purge system for a while um you know you could

disconnect it at the engine and plug it off and test it but i would only do that if i

if it was doing it every day like every two or three starts because you can't leave it

unhooked like that for a week it's gonna set a code and it's gonna have fumes everywhere

be a mess what color is it do you think do we no i don't think we do but it's blue it's

like six years old like an old cop car just what yeah just really not a grand marquis though

powder blue yeah it's i'm thinking maroon it's uh

it's gold gold dust and what color is your car

it's white okay thick white that's not what didn't they make mark grand marquis cop cars i mean

didn't see very many mercries they're mostly for crown vicks same thing that's all i basically

are but he doesn't want to hear that he doesn't ever hear they're the same thing because i'm

sure there's a thing about that between the grand marquis guys and the crown vicks

Dustin thanks very much for the call 15 years that's how long mercury's been gone

i just looked it up it was the first week of 2011 it's gone oh yeah somebody somebody

called us we said there's no more gm cars anymore yeah well we didn't consider catalac a car

because catalac's got quite a no and they don't i wouldn't consider their cars cars i think

they'd look like spaceships suv's now yeah a lot of them are i saw one of the new ones the other day

it looked crazy the the the big one the lyric or the electric yeah yeah yeah it was really something

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 866-594-415

oh don't forget if you miss an episode of the show you can get it wherever you get your podcast

you can also watch the show on our youtube channel amongst other places if you subscribe to

the youtube channel subscribe and join the hoodie fan club at under the hood show.com you

could win a hoodie it's like lc bramlet hello congratulations you've won a hoodie from our

friends over at berkeley one classic celebrating 50 years of collector car coverage and universal

technical institute uti.edu who is opening a new location another new location in in

utah i better get to utah okay i think it's utah sorry sorry uti i just got from my buddy

john i'm sorry salt lake city utah there you go all right so that adds they're joining like a

some more they got uh looks like houston atlanta salt lake city some new that new one so they got

their joining their conference of stuff they anyways they got a lot we had uh just was it last week

yeah i was just looking at that to make sure i had the right know here gentlemen called in

said he was going to uti was listening to us and that was pretty yep right pretty cool they are

they are growing they're trying to fit the area because some people like i just don't want

to travel that far i can't i've got other obligations so they're making it more convenient so more

people can attend in their area you know save them i think it's a good i think it's a good thing

because of the one thing that so far is that the ai is you know if you've got a kid that's going

into college this year better look at what their career will be 10 years from now i think god there

was a little you know a scientific not a study not a survey that said that something like

90 of the jobs or 94 of the jobs that people do today as a career will be something different

or a very different way to do that job in 15 years so if you've got a kid that's in grade

school right now and they're like hey maybe you want to be uh whatever when you and that

job may not be there so you might want to think about other but auto mechanics they are perfecting

robots like the tesla bots and things that are humanoid that are doing they're getting

there fast but it's probably going to be another and i'm i don't know i would think

from the rate i'm seeing i'm progress i watched some last night on the gen five tesla robot

i think they would be able to do some pretty serious work on cars in another 10 years

like i'm talking you tell it 10 years sounds like a long time it sounds like it but it's not

moving faster than it just so far oh i think it'll move faster but i'm talking in 10 years

it'll be commonplace you know we could have we could say hey we got robots down there tearing

down our cars efficiently and and they'll work 20 hours a day you so what do you say now i i don't

think so the diagnostic parts really hard though the interaction with the customers is hard and

little things that you there's a lot of stuff i think it's going to be one that's easy because

the next generation might they don't want to talk to you they want to talk to a robot

but if we the robot's going to talk to the car right things change so quick though i mean if

you got somebody that's in like high school right now if you say well that'll be safe it'll

be 30 years before that happens i was just thinking the other night i got you know a friend of mine you

guys met in texas we said we missed so much we missed facebook it didn't exist the last time

we talked the internet did not exist the last time we talked graze anatomy didn't exist i mean

there's there's so think about so many things so if we go 30 years in the future i'm just messing

i don't watch that um but the all these things did not well sign felt didn't exist i mean so many

things didn't exist so old yes it's so old yeah but our our technology in cars is jumping

exponentially so the repairs the technology on cars it's it's moving quickly so i guess the

bottom line is i think that uti and automotive training is one of the careers that'll be

plumbing electrical that type of thing i think it'll last a long time the electrical trade is

could be a little tricky because the robots are i've got a grandson in electrical right now and

they're already using radio to pull a lot of wire radio safe radio yeah i know i'll be they'll they'll

never come in and fire 150 employees and make it all automated will it solid let's talk to joe

and idaho joe we're leaving this yeah let's quickly get out of here not okay all right i'm joe what can

we do for you thanks guys you're great thank you hey i got a 2006 dodge dakota and i can't get rid of the

abs and the brake lights let me tell you what i've done the code i get to see 109 which says low

level chassis so i've replaced the whole master cylinder bled the brake changed the speed sensor on

the back axle i don't know if uses are blown i'm at a loss i'm guessing you probably have a bad abs module

that abs module down the last thing yeah this the c code is a chassis code and the abs module is

where that code is generated from it looks at your fluid level so what we do to test it is i go right to

the abs module i get myself a multimeter and i verify the resistance at the abs module the two

wires there is exactly the same as the two wires at the switch and then i verified that with the

chart the switch on the master cylinder i mean and i verified with my chart saying that you

okay it's 2000 ohms or that's closed it's got fluid so i go and verify that at the at the pump

and if i've got the same thing i know my module's bad but if it's different i gotta find out do i

have a wire problem or do i have a pin problem i had one yesterday in a jeep and it had a pin

problem and i checked it the pins they seem to be fine i went to the module i checked it i

had nothing there i took everything apart and i inspected the wires and it was at the back

of the pin where the problem occurred so it it can happen you gotta you just it's it's so simple

once you do you do it and you it becomes a habit but the first time you look at it you're kind of

like whoa where do i start typically wiring is at one end or the other 90% of wire failures is right

at the connector on one end of the other the in between we do find them a rodent or something

but it's rare if i look at it whatever i can if i look down the whole thing and i don't see any cuts

or breaks in the wire huge bends it's probably fine it's probably at the ends but while i'm looking

that other 10% is where i hope i'd rub through on a sharp piece of the fender and i see bare wires

or they had a winter issue in the north here and snow and ice got pulled the harness loose and

it's been slamming against the frame corroded in between yeah we had a four truck in a couple

weeks ago and it was so bad so many things didn't work on it and we had put a transmission

as a well it wasn't this bad before we put it in now it's even worse but the transmission shifts

what's going on somebody had put an engine in it and when they put the engine in it

they pinched the wiring harness under the manifold so there were bare wires well when you unplug

the transmission you touch that harness down below and you push it out of the way

you should be able to yank on it not have a problem well just moving it a little bit

made that exposed wire touch another one and caused the problem so we pulled the intake off

because we knew we had a actuator problem and while the guy had it apart he says uh you want to

take a look at this wires bare got them all fixed put it all back together put the actuator

and runs like brand new does that point in the right direction there at all joe well yeah i

didn't really inspect all the wiring i mean i had it disconnected and it looked good but i

didn't probably get much magnifying glass out and trace that then a little farther it's a it's only

got abs in the back which is kind of odd i thought two wheel rear wheel they call it rwabio but it's

still there's still got a module on there that does that if you were to if you were to go to the

well look at that to find one of those hold that pictures don't use your phone yeah it's right

there on there it is that's the truck it you gotta show the camera yeah show the show the camera

yeah because our youtube viewers can see that and they won't be able to see the picture but

well they can get the idea that russ was not at his phone for yeah oh he's gonna go right up there

look at that if you're on youtube right now you could be getting a show dinner and a show you

have to be quiet

monitor to throw it up on didn't happen that time but if you can't find one of those parts new

that can be a challenge sometimes that's where a car dash part can come in

that was a challenge just talking about yeah no kidding you know i'm trying to show my picture

and nothing i still still not working we're proud of you russ even though they don't see it

there it is yeah it'll be okay so thanks very much for the call eight six six five nine four

four one five oh when you open a hood can you tell like do you have a signature there it is

you can see if you've replaced that motor like yeah i look at the computer and see if we've

replaced that motor the min number but if i pull into the lot and because there was a time i mean

back when you were doing when we put our engines in we try to make it look original okay if there's

something glaring on the top because i remember when you were building them you had a little

that was kind of neat yeah that was a factory performance but with a used engine you put it

in everything certified checked it should be just like the original and we tend to clean

everything off because when it goes into another shop for repair unfortunately some shops go i see

what your problem is that's a junkyard motor what does that have to do with what the car is doing

today as opposed if you clean it off they bring it in say i wonder what's wrong oh it looks like we

need a spark plug where come on but i mean if we needed to know for sure he looks for the heat

tabs that we put on that have our name on them there's an engraved place on there if we

had to know we know okay but otherwise tricksters out there so you want to make sure we can

stamp our stuff you know there's not like a signature move you do where you leave something

there there's a there's a cursive r on the firewall exactly shocked braved let's talk to paul

you're on the end of the hood show paul what can we do for you hi um long time lister i really

like your show thank you i just got a quick question on some oil viscosity i got a 2018

gmc silverado and i run full synthetic 0w 20 but i see on youtube they talk about

0w 20 not not being as good as if you ran 5w 30 you got any comments on that i wouldn't run 530 in it

but they have is it a six liter or six two five three it is a five three you know they have they

have yeah they have changed oils a little bit they have you know they're putting the mobile one super

car oil in the trucks to try to cover up a problem problem with viscosity is if you've got a zero weight

viscosity and you got a five weight we're talking about on the low end zero and a five the zero

provides the same pressure protection at a higher rpm as the five does at a lower rpm but in colder

weather for starts that zero is thinner and it'll it'll spin easier make easier start helps out

with emissions the five weights a little heavier like syrup or butter in the cold it's not moving as

much but it's going to provide more protection at the low speed the low speed it's it's holding up the

the connecting rods and with the bearings there's so there's something in between with the zero

what's just kind of laying there and dragging along that's why they've been talking about

switching to a heavier weight a lot of engines with the exact same bearings ran 530 that are

now running 020 so you got to decide what you want to do the manufacturer says use the zero you

really should use that but i mean there's there's people doing it it's it's it's kind of a personal

preference thing i don't i don't want to see anybody damaging something or having a warranty

issue because they didn't use something if it's under warranty though i can tell you that

it's pretty rare that a dealership is going to pull an oil sample and find out what weight

oils in it when it fails so even now even nowadays when it's been so they will if they suspect it

if you tell them you did or they see a sticker up there and they just don't like you if you

they say i'm paul i was on the end of the hood show the other day and i asked about this

then they'll check paul thanks very much for the call good luck and the w doesn't stand for

wait that just came up in my off-air life the other day winter yeah someone said something i'm like

actually that stands for winter it wasn't my proudest moment but i was a little known fact

866-594-4150 that's the number to reach is here at the end of the hood show let's go to

minnesota and talk to chris you're on the end of the hood show chris what can we do for you

hey i have a quick question i will have had mice problems in it and they've trashed it twice for

$1,800 repaired but her battery keeps getting drained there has to be a short someplace corrected

the battery can't just drain itself a bad battery can you know battery you disconnect the battery

it goes dead disconnected it's a bad battery you got to test it you have to take it disconnected

fully charge it yep we we actually just bought a brand new battery from like just probably six

months ago and again we're starting to have the same problem with it just like dying on its own

like not starting to though i keep telling her that there's gotta be a short someplace

there's a couple i mean the answer there is yes it could if it's drawing something probably but if

you've got the mice problem you that's probably the situation right it could have been yeah it's easy

to say that yeah but you gotta they gotta be able to test that just to see still what kind of draw

you're tested the same way you go to the battery you take the foot of a mouse and a tail of a mouse

want it no right and mickey's nose lights on some of the wire and whichever one's the best

but you test each circuit one at a time with the computer's asleep you find out which one's drawing

current and let's say that's the door door window circuit driver's door that's the one that when

i de-energize i lose this problem the battery never goes dead again years it's worked fine

just yeah that's when we start testing what's going on now we check the switch now we check the

wiring we see oh look we got a short to ground but it's only like a half a volt short to ground in one

of these driver's door wires oh look a mouse shoot on it and it's got a little piece of it just open

enough for it's rubbing on the metal on a painted piece of metal so it's not getting a good ground

but enough to run this thing dead and keep modules lit up we're still testing each circuit

all right so yeah so i'll do that and i can just do that at like an uh old series or or

awry leads or whatever right they have the little computer tester there oh no no ross you need to

back up just a little bit probably yeah the first thing here is that you're going right to the

battery and this is more old school testing for current flow you're not checking the battery for

voltage you obviously want to start make sure you have a good battery with you know doesn't

have a bunch of capacitive resistance inside and you've got a new battery so let's assume that

battery is good and hasn't been damaged yet by too many cycles of yeah because if this has happened

over and over you might have a good battery that it's no longer good right once you're done unless

it's an AGM yeah and then you're going to be able to you need to put a an amp meter in line

to find out what the current flow is after everything has went to sleep it should be

tiny millivolts right that are going through that circuit when this car is what we call go to

sleep means that lights are off interior lights are off some of those computers in that even that

2011 they're energized kind of waiting for something to happen until they go to sleep

and if there's something broken sometimes there's a shutdown module that eventually

will bring the system down fords have that and it'll bring it to sleep well if it's a sleep

and it's still drawing what would be an excessive amount right more than 200 milliamps it's

going to wake it up yeah it only takes a hundred to spike to wake it up and turn every module in

the car one comes on like okay what's going on what do we got to do what are we sensing what's

happening here and so you really need to find out for sure what that draws because if you

is it draw is it drawn at dead like overnight or is this a week long thing no it's it's a week

long or more so because you can get you know this is kind of a boundary line you can have

some of these newer vehicles that without a maintainer on them if they sit for three weeks

two weeks it wouldn't be unusual for them to be quite low or dead in some cars just seem to have

a little more of a natural draw to the way they're built some cars you can sit for six months

six six months i've watched my uconn and parked with nobody around it no doors open at all i

got the hood open and i got a voltmeter on it and it takes about 16 days before it's starting

to get weak and then i'll put them the maintainer back on i was just trying to test it because this

thing sits for four five six months at a time so i wonder how long it'll sit so here it is 14 to 16

days now we're dropping off we're 11.8 volts we're probably still start but i know that it's

going to drop off really fast after that because once it hits a certain voltage the modules start

coming on saying what's going on here and they're looking each other like are you dying yeah

i'm dying how about you well turn on let's see and then it goes dead fast so a couple weeks is

pretty much max on a modern vehicle if it's if it is a couple weeks it might be somewhat normal

but a shop would have to check this if you're not familiar with checking circuits what they do is they

put an amp meter in line the battery cable comes off the amp meter goes in line all the door latches

are locked with the doors open so we can get access to the car inside but they're locked

so they shut all the lights off and the door jars we just we wait for the computers go to

sleep we look and we see on our meter oh we have two amps a draw or an amp a draw that's too much

now we pull one fuse out and we watch it did it drop no we put the fuse back in did the

amperage increase now if it did we got to wait for the computers go back asleep anywhere up to 30

minutes now once it's leveled off to where that original setting was the sleep setting

we pull the next fuse and you could see this could take some time sometimes pulling a fuse

and putting it back in doesn't wake anything up and you're fine other times it wakes every

module up and you got to wait until they go to sleep so what we do we put that meter in line

with all those doors latched we wait a half an hour and we watch our setting if it says

400 milliamps we know that's our baseline and we always want to return to that with anything

we disconnect but now once we pull the one fuse out and not the big ones you pull the big ones

out one big fuse can power seven small fuses so you want to pull the small ones out first

and then when we pull a small one out and that amp draw drops off to basically nothing what is that

oh it's the radio backup power circuit i got a cd changer that's sticking in there probably

let's let's go for that then my next step would be i pull the radio out wait and see and

if i've got no draw i know that radio was the problem sounds impossible and that's why we don't

do a lot of parasitic draw work yeah if you want if you don't know about batteries you've got like

you got this question go to auto batteries dot com they've redesigned it and they're a partner of ours

and they've got a lot of information that you can go to that we can't all get to in this call that

will help you out with with just items that are concerning batteries and very important for us i

don't know if you had the time to open it but i'd sent you a link from a company that was

going to be at apex or sima and i did not get to their booth and find them and they had a new

breakout meter of some sort for finding parasitic draws and people were kind of crazy they took

my idea from my head i don't think i i don't think i opened it but i'm yeah they're just showing

it i don't i didn't quite get what the theory was but this guy was going on and on like he was

selling knives how this is going to save your time to find parasitic draws and it was anyway

i just thought it was a good chance to mention it to rush because if it's something that would be

helpful i'd i'm just oh yeah it's i mean any any way to help find those is is very because they're

a problem i mean it's it drives people crazy but the point we're trying to make here is to you

got to check it to find out what that draw is and it may be that if it's a couple weeks

with the age of the vehicle that that might just be a little bit natural and that's when

you look into the electronic battery maintainers if it's only going to be driven every couple weeks

and if it's at college out in the parking lot an automatic battery shut off they make remote control

ones for about 60 bucks shut the battery off that maintainer man what a slick easy way to

to get it handled though especially if you do it where you bolt it right to the battery

convenient for everybody though if they're parking along the street right kind of stuff i've

got optimal battery maintainers on all my stuff and i don't have to worry about the batteries

that's going to do it for the end of the hood show until next time you can find us at

under the hood show dot com thanks for listening with ross evans this is shannon orts from thanking

you for tuning into the north'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 under the hood show dot 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 ink

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