Car Repair Calls How To Make Them Last Longer

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RoadReadyWheels.com and by car-parts.com 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.

Don't do that.

Oh, just kidding.

Thanks for joining us under the hood.

Shannon Nordstrom is not here this week to do the same.

Really quiet.

He's in the EU working on recycling the electrical work.

The European vehicles.

Oh, European.

Seeing how they do it over there.

He's deep into the industry over there.

They're working on stuff.

They're trying to get stuff going.

I think he's in the vacation part now, right?

I don't know.

I never know.

I don't know that there's a difference when those guys, they go, they do it right.

But listen, your voice, if you lose that all the way, we're done.

So don't.

We'll do the text to speech.

Because don't leave it on me.

You're having some voice issues and if you lose it, I'm playing the music and getting out of here.

Do you remember speaking spell?

Yes.

Merlin.

Yeah.

I'll just type on my phone and I'll song like Stephen Hawking over it.

Let's, we got calls coming in.

Let's keep those calls coming in because without Shannon and with you, ify, we gotta work here.

Let's go to Ohio first and talk to Mark.

You're on the under the hood show.

Mark, what can we do for you?

Yes.

Thank you very much for your entertaining education and helping save the environment.

We intend to do that with our car.

I'll keep these two.

I'll keep these, the one word answers the same voice.

We bought eight years ago, bought a 2016 Toyota Avalon V6.

It was, it currently has only 49,000 miles.

We use it 6,000 miles annually as part in an unheated garage.

I'd like to keep this for our forever car and need some recommendations.

We, first of all, gasoline additives.

Should I, should I be using them and what do you recommend?

Yeah.

Yes.

It's a good idea to, to keep the fuel system clean, which will keep the back of the valves

clean in this car.

Super important to keep this car operating properly.

Also, it helps clean up the ringlands in the, in the pistons.

The, you know, you'll have some of these cars that have issues with oil burning.

And this is because it's a low mile car.

I mean, generally, if you're, if I'm just driving my car 20,000 miles a year,

you should still, you should still run some cleaner in it.

You don't have to do it as often.

Okay.

You know, you, you put a lot of miles on it.

I mean, mileage wise, this one, you're going to do it more often because it's going to be

a time thing more than miles.

And yes, short trips, that's real hard on it.

And there are, yeah, yeah.

You know, there's a few different products we use for that.

Getting up to temperature.

Yeah.

That's, that's really hard on it.

So a, a solvent based, you know, a solvent type cleaner is what you're going to need to clean that.

If you're going into a shop and you've got a shop that's taking care of this car,

oil changes, maintenance, tune up, things like that, ask them about the Justice Brothers products.

It's available professionally in the shop, professional service center.

That's the way to go.

That's what we would suggest.

And as far as if you're not in a shop, if you're just driving this car every day and you don't

get into the shop for repairs, another one of our partners is BG products.

And BG products has some over the shelf, over the counter type products you can use in there.

And if he does have a shop that he brings it to regularly,

it's good to ask them what they would use.

Ask them for the recommendations as well.

But BG makes a BG 44K.

It's also endorsed right by General Motors and Ford as a

Motorcraft 44K and an AC Delco 44K because

their manufacturers right there are telling you they recommend putting a cleaner in.

It's important to run a cleaner through the fuel system.

So that's one thing you can do to keep the car lasting longer.

Okay, I'm changing the oil over 3,000 miles.

Good.

What about oil additives?

That car, you really shouldn't need to do a lot with it.

But with any vehicle, because of the buildup we're seeing on piston rings and oil burning on cars,

I would strongly suggest using an oil system cleaner.

That kind of car, I don't know.

You said that with the miles you're putting on it a year.

You're still at least one of those oil changes.

What are you changing it twice a year?

Six thousand miles, so twice a year.

Yeah, I would do it at least once a year with oil system cleaner in that.

And that is where in his garage, he pours it in, drives to the oil change place.

And has them change.

And it's going to keep that, it's a solvent, it'll clean up everything.

And then you can change the oil, yeah.

Okay, a couple of quick more questions.

The manual says change the coolant.

I've used the test strips that show the range is in the high okay range.

Should I change the coolant anyhow?

Well, it's 10 years old.

So yes, you're at the point where it starts getting high.

It's becoming acidic and that can start eating things up.

So you definitely want to change the coolant in it.

And so you know, you've gone 10 years, you might go another 10 years before you need to change it.

Those test strips are gold because you're testing, you test the freeze protection

and then you test for acidity and the pH.

The acidity, the pH and if you test that and it's good, there's no reason to change it and waste coolant.

Okay, brake fluid, same thing.

I'm testing it with strips and it's showing okay, no moisture.

If it's okay and no moisture, you don't need to change it as long as it's clean.

Okay, a transmission and steering is there.

I assume there's oil in the transmission.

Yeah, it's time to change it.

Yeah, it's time to change that transmission fluid and just look at the steering fluid

and see if it looks dirty.

If it's clean, you're still good to go.

But if it's turning black, then it's time to change it.

One final question.

Any lab analysis on any of these fluids?

No, not really.

Engine oil, you can do that, but it's only going to tell you that what you don't want to hear.

If it tells you that there's metal in it and it's coming apart,

well then you got to put an engine in it.

But otherwise you're fine.

Yeah, there's no reason to do that on this car.

Mark, thanks very much for the call.

Real quick, I think I know the answer to this because I've asked this of other owners.

How much do you love that Avalon?

Oh, I would buy another one in a second.

Everyone I've talked to who owns one has said the exact same thing that they do.

You had one.

Yeah, my son has one, loves it.

Does he still have it?

Yeah, loves it.

He loves it.

And I think the only reason he still has it is because he wants to get a new one.

But they don't have new ones anymore.

And I think he loves that car so much.

It's one of those things.

And everyone I've talked to who's had an Avalon, 100%, they've all said,

I wish I still had it.

I wish I could get another one because they're just fantastic.

Mark, thanks very much for the call.

866-594-4150.

Let's go to Texas and talk to Matt.

You're on the end of the Hood Show, Matt.

What can we do for you?

I'm calling about my wife's 2013 Acura ILX.

She had a rough start condition a couple weeks ago that we ignored until it left us stranded.

We hauled it off to a mechanic.

The mechanic replaced the starter.

Cars started up fine for about a week.

And then the rough start came back.

She took it to an auto parts store.

They put their tester on it and said the battery needed to be replaced.

Replaced the battery and we went through the same cycle again.

About a week it looked good.

And then it started up again.

I checked the alternator after doing some research on YouTube and noticed

there was no charge hitting the battery from the alternator.

It was like 12, 5 or around there.

So we ordered a remand OEM alternator and replaced it.

And we did that yesterday.

And it seems to be running fine.

But I'm not getting a consistent 14 volts charge when the car is running.

I took it back to the auto parts store just to have them run the test again.

And the car failed.

It was at 12, 5.

Their tool said alternator bad.

However, when I turned on the AC and put a load on it,

it all of a sudden went to 14 when I got it back home.

So I'm kind of confused why I'm not getting that consistent

upper 13s after 14 volt charge from the alternator on the battery.

Because it's broke.

It's computer control.

Yeah, it's computer control.

Oh, it's possible that the alternator is no good, the one you put in it.

But it is computer controlled.

The computer looks at the voltage by way of the current sensor.

And then it adjusts accordingly.

So when you turn on loads, like the air conditioner, rear to fog, seat heaters,

it will boost current.

It'll ramp it up.

So it is possible you have a failed alternator.

It's possible you have a failed current sensor.

You could even have a computer issue.

It will need a little testing to find out exactly which one it is.

But I would not be surprised if it's an alternator.

For some reason, lately I have seen a large number of aftermarket replacement alternators

that the first one doesn't do it.

I've seen three in a row to get one fixed.

I don't know what's going on there.

I believe it's probably, it's a diode or something in there at the same part,

same manufacturer that's causing an issue with them.

So it's possible you have one like that.

And what it's causing is low charging voltage.

It's kind of random.

So you may have, you may actually have a bad alternator.

You never know.

That's one good thing about used parts.

Typically they're driven to the wreck.

They're operating just fine.

Otherwise the car wouldn't be driving.

And then they fail.

You know, the car fails and we take the parts off, harvest them and we're good to go.

So that's another option too for that vehicle.

At least it's not one that's extremely hard to replace.

No, no.

It's right there at the top.

My son and I actually did it.

And he replaced the serpentine belt, which was the hardest part of the job.

So is there any way to check, to test the alternator to make sure it's good?

There is.

You need to, you need to have a volt meter that does more than just volts.

It'll be a multimeter that does volts, amps, hertz, HZ for frequency.

And then you look at the wiring diagram and you can see,

you can see what the alternator is getting.

You look and make sure it's got a ground.

You make sure it's got voltage coming in.

And then you look at either, depending on what style alternator you have,

you're looking for frequency or pulse width modulation.

And then it'll tell you there's charge in the service manager.

And it'll say to charge it 50%, we need a pulse width modulation signal of this.

And the layman's terms on this is it's simple as you connect your test leads from your meter

right to that terminal on the alternator.

And if it says, let's say it says 50, pulse width of 50, and it's not charging,

then the alternator's bad.

But if it says zero and the computer's telling it, it needs to be at full charge,

which you can know it is because if you look at the dash and see that you only got 11 and a half,

12 volts, and it's putting out zero, it's not telling the alternator to charge,

which is either a broken wire or a computer issue.

But broken wires are usually pretty simple as far as the computer will say, hey, we got a broken wire.

There's an open here, we're setting a code.

But if you've got no codes, it could be an issue with that.

But it could also be that the computer, when you read your scanner, read the voltage there,

because the scanner may think that it's getting a proper charge.

The computer may think that it's charging when the car is not like, let's say your battery says

12.2 volts, but the computer says 13.5.

It's not going to try to charge it, which tells me we got a problem in the computer.

A lot of things to absorb there, but yes, they can be tested.

Yes, yes, sir. And I don't understand them all.

I'll just listen to this back in that online search.

You will. When you put this together with what you look at online, you'll be like, now I get it.

Just listening to his first part, you can tell that he can follow through on this next part.

That's like the opposite of me.

Well, we don't try to bury anybody with too much stuff that we don't think they'll ever understand.

We try to bury them with stuff that we know they can figure out pretty quickly.

One more step. Just one more step for that.

When you do that all the time, you're like, I don't...

I know.

Yeah. The garden hose.

866-594-4150. Let's go to Washington and talk to Paul.

You're on the end of the Hood Show. Paul, what can we do for you?

I have a 208 Chevy Trailblazer, has about 220,000 miles.

I just seem to be going through a lot of catalytic converters.

I heard Russ say the other day that maybe they were getting plugged up with oil,

but that was on a different car. I was just wondering if there's something I could be doing.

This will do it too, especially on a Trailblazer, but I got to know how many catalytic converters.

I have probably gone through maybe three in the last two and a half years.

That's a lot.

I went to another shop and he said, well, they might be putting in a low quality one.

No, that's true. If the converter for this vehicle is less than let's say 600 bucks,

it's a cheap one. They are not cheap. A good one for this.

Like a walker or something like that or a Magnaflow.

They're going to be probably 800-900 bucks for a converter.

We've got to find out why the converter...

Well, I think I'm saying 400.

Oh, I think that's on the cheap end.

Wait, especially if that's an installed price, that's bottom, bare bottom.

This is what we need to find out.

Okay.

Is the converter failing because it's plugged up and has too much back pressure?

Or is it failing because it's turning the light on because it can't process the gas?

Because if it's the latter and it's just not processing the gas and it's giving you a warning

light, but it still runs just fine because it's free flowing, that's not oil because the oil will

plug it up. But on a cheap converter, they're not much metal.

Okay. What happens is that I usually will get a code saying one of the O2 sensors is not reading

properly. And then my daughter will say, hey dad, I'm losing power. I don't have the power I use.

There you go.

Then we'll take it back in and they'll say, yeah, the catalytic converter is plugged up again.

Then it's probably burning oil. If it's plugging, it's burning oil or it's leaking coolant.

The coolant you could see because the bottle, the reservoir is going to go down.

But if it's oil, then that's, yeah, you're going to burn...

It doesn't have to be much either to plug it.

I mean, you might not even notice.

No, a few quarts will plug one pretty quick. So in a year's time, you could go through,

let's say you change the oil three times a year and you don't even know it's down a court.

That could fill that thing up, especially on a cheaper converter that doesn't burn as hot.

It could plug that thing up. It won't burn up. It'll turn that to ash and burn it out.

So what's Paul's next step?

Well, you're going to have to look and see. When it's pulled off, they'll look and see.

If there's oil in the exhaust, if it's really grimy in there, you can either keep putting

converters on it or get a different engine, move the vehicle along.

You could try some oil system cleaner. It depends on what the wear is.

You'd have to do a compression test and a leak down test,

get a camera in there and see what the condition of the cylinders are.

And if you think it looks pretty good other than a bunch of carbon and dirt,

you can do a complete oil system flush. VG Products does make a complete system flush

that is made to go in and place of the oil and clean everything out.

That may clean up the rings if it's just a carbon buildup, but if it's a wear issue,

there's nothing you can do for a wear issue other than take the part out, put the new part in.

You do want to check the PCV system on this vehicle and make sure it's not

sucking oil in through the PCV valve and also that you don't have a ton of extra blow by.

Because if it's got a lot of blow by, you know, pull the oil cap off while it's running,

if it's just blowing air out of there a lot, that's a wear problem inside.

Okay. It does have like 220,000 miles on it. And I do use about a quart every 5,000 miles.

Well, that's not very high. It's not terrible. They do, they will usually overcome that.

And I don't usually see them clog up a converter with that low of oil consumption.

That is a lot of miles for one of those engines. 250 is about

max that we see on a lot of those, but could be a while. I mean, you might have a daughter driving

to college. Yeah, yeah, I have five of them. So it's been handed down to another daughter now.

And they all love the car, but I'm tired of having all this here in this car. Hey dad,

my check engine like that losing power. That's that's the key. Yeah, that's the that's the tell

all right there. Paul, thanks very much for the call. Good luck. The end of the hood show podcast

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roadreadywheels.com when I got my first specialty car I called up my agent and had him put it under

my regular auto policy and had very minimal coverage even dropping coverage in the storage

months to keep the cost down that was before I met the professionals at Berkeley one classics

I'm Shannon Nordstrom host of the under the hood show with Russ Evans and Chris Carter

Berkeley one classics ensured me with an agreed value policy that means if you suffer a loss

there's no haggle over the value of your vehicle they also show me that I could ensure my vehicle

for what it was really worth and keep my coverage year round and still save money I did not know

that my homeowners policy did not cover my car when it was stored in my garage for the winter

for 50 years Berkeley one classics has ensured a wide range of vehicles from sports cars and rare

exotic cars to antique vehicles including cars trucks tractors and motorcycles Berkeley one

classics makes it easy to get a quote just visit them on the web at Berkeley classics.com and use

their online quote tool or give them a call 1-800-603-3330 that's 1-800-603-3330 welcome back

everybody it's time to get back under the hood with a motor medics 8 6 6 5 9 4 4 1 5 0 that's the

number to reach us at the end of the hood show don't forget if you miss an episode you can always

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could win a hoodie like Bradley Collins congratulations from all us here under the hood and our friends

over at Berkeley one classics celebrating 50 years of collector car coverage and universal

technical institute how about a career in automotive technology think about it look it up

see what it's all about and then go to uti.edu 8 6 6 5 9 4 4 1 5 0 let's go to Mississippi and

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

so i got 2021 uh nissan sentra under uh it's about a mile that i don't have a problem with the

spirit of the rack over there who uh i was the henna tyron in but that's not it it's got

slack up in the rack and i've checked with two nissan dealerships they said they had zero issues

with it i haven't even found anything on youtube about it i was having any issues with those

electric spirit those centers are very strong not quite bulletproof but close to it we've only

had to put one of those in and that hit something it's likely that if this rack has a problem

it has hit something a large pothole or a curb or something and damaged the rack internally

but that would be about all that would take one of those racks out otherwise they're pretty good

she hasn't hit anything but uh let me say it's it's major slack on both sides you know i thought i

would miss it something you know yeah it's pretty expensive they want to it it is but there's not

much to it you know if you've got a problem going on in that rack if the steering wheel turns fine

and then you got the noise the only the only thing in between those wheels and that steering wheel is

the rack so it's all pretty much self-contained you replace that you're replacing everything you

get the tire out ends the the whole rack all of it and all you got is you know the wheel turning it

coming in so that's a pretty good you know nothing's foolproof even if they say they don't have problems

with them and they don't sell a lot of them they can still fail being that they don't sell them

because they don't fail be a great time to pick one up in a salvage yard yeah

auto recyclers car dash part look them up you'll find there's car dash part places in your area

there you'll be able to pick one up there for a whole lot less i looked up this morning for a

Ford Fusion and they had used racks available the used rack was way cheaper than the brand new and

one the fact that they don't go bad means that the used ones people are buying they're not coming

in to get them and they're good the cost is going to be really low because nobody's buying nobody's

buying right does that help you out there to real yeah this is electronic it's not no special

program and you have to go i don't think this one does you'll have to look it up and find out but

i don't think that this vehicle uses that on this one pretty straight straightforward so in and out

there you go to real thanks very much for the call good luck

eight six six five nine four four one five oh let's go to wyoming and talk to toby you're

on the end of the hood show what can we do for you toby i have a oh three grand damn

i have a misfire on cylinder number five um i got a new plug in wire new coil pack

did not change the misfire in five i swapped coil packs even um

so last night we did some more investigating on it um i have i have spark everywhere um i

did a compression check and i don't have any compression in number five

so i don't know we have a little camera thing i stuck down and i can't see anything in the piston

you know or hole or anything um but just not sure where to go from there if i got a valve stuck or

a spring broke or well trying to get some you you check compression so get yourself a tire

valve tool and take the take the valve out of the end of your compression tester and then stick it

back in that hole okay turn the engine until all the valves are closed and put compressed air in that

cylinder put the piston all the way at the bottom both the valves closed on the top and then put some

air into that cylinder and see where the air is going if it's going past the piston and coming

out the oil dipstick or out the the oil fill on the valve cover then the motors jump there's no

fixing to that because it's it's the bottom end but if it's coming out past a valve you either

have something hanging in the valve like carbon which can happen or the valves burnt a lot of

times it's just carbon a chunk of carbon is broke off from you know lack of fuel system cleaning

and things like that and it's it's just falling in the valve and stuck it and what we do is we'll

take the valve cover off and get a rubber mallet a dead blow rubber mallet chris and we'll tap that

valve while we've got air going in that cylinder and it'll break that loose and seal up and then

the engine runs just fine occasionally if we have an engine you know we install a ton of engines here

from our auto recycling facility at our shop and we got we put them in we have to put a year warranty

on them and we do that because we know we've tested everything and it's worked well lately

I'd say in the last 10 years it's very rare that we ever have a problem with a stuck valve

but 10 years ago and going back when we had engines sit longer on the shelf for certain cars

we would often have to if one was on the shelf for say a year and a half doesn't hurt the engine

but sometimes carbon would settle in these valves they would stick so we would put air in the cylinders

tap on the valves they would seal right up then the engines work beautiful after that a lot of

times we'd do a fuel system cleaning afterwards as well and clean them up but I think that that

could be your issue as you might have a valve sticking because that's a pretty tough engine in

that grand damn just don't see a lot of them with one cylinder that's lost compression suddenly

unless you've broken a okay you know a valve spring or something and you can see that by pulling

the cover off but put the air in the cylinder and see where it's going that way you can say oh it's

going by the intake valve and on number five let's get that cover off and see what number five looks

like okay there you go Toby thanks very much for the call I like when I like that I like when the

the solution is kind of a mechanical it's a step it's it's something that you got to do it's all

testing you can find it it's it's not like it's an electronic like a computer where I can't see

inside of right if you can physically see it this is you know 1800s technology and as far as the

mechanical part I like that he's like all right yeah I can do that I wish I want I wish every

caller would do that I just would feel better at the end of the call if everyone could just go

all right thanks I'll do that it would just make me feel better instead of instead of going I don't

understand really what that was but that's okay if they're looking for a lot of people will call the

show they're they know they're going to take it to a repair shop they're not going to fix it but

they want to get a pretty good plausible explanation of what it could be so when they go in and they

say it's going to be 6000 bucks and they say well what is it oh I've heard it on the show yeah that

makes sense but if it's completely opposite they may get a second opinion and I don't want to name

any names but there are techs who call the show while they're working on cars that they can't figure

out again and that's okay I like that I don't want to name any names I I I like that we've been doing

this long enough we got a pass on our knowledge you know I got I got guys that that work for me

that are great and I've I've been told my whole life if you don't pass on the knowledge that you

learn from somebody you were working for you're you're wasting your life you're wasting that

knowledge it's just thrown away so I try to pass it on if I can and if they have questions I want

to answer their questions let's talk to Brian you're on the end of the hood show Brian what can we do

for you hey guys I've got a 2015 Subaru Forester it's my son's car mainly and he told me it was

acting up on the interstate so I took it out this morning and when I got up to about 50 55 miles an

hour the front right end was really I don't know wobbling or not quite wobbling or rattling but

something bad I got you like a bump not a good uh something with the wheel maybe I don't know

we're all gonna die uh it just kind of felt like that not quite that bad I told him not to drive it

over 55 until I figured out oh so it's maybe we're all good yeah yeah um okay well

time to start looking see what's going on our first step you bring that into our shop

our first step would be okay it shakes I'm gonna lift it up before I go drive it oh okay to see

what it's doing I'll tell you why after so we're gonna lift it up we're gonna shake everything

do give the shake down nothing's loose all right spin the tire by hand watch it and as we spin it

is that tread hopping up and down it's got a broken belt in the tire then it was pretty easy

we know what that is if something's loose we'll get that repaired first but after we

have a good feeling that it's safe because the wheel's not loose it's not shaking around it's

tight with suspension everything looks nice no rust through looks safe there tires look good

then we'll say okay now we gotta drive it see what's going on maybe we have an axle shaft

that's a little out of round and make it a shake then then we'll address those but we do the look

before the test drive because you eliminate stuff right off the bat that and years ago I had a

acquaintance in the automotive world that got in a car because they said it shakes like that

they went to test drive it they pulled out on the highway and they just two-lane highway and they

drove about two miles up the road and it was shaking a tie rod and fell off and they drove

right into traffic and it killed the people in both the cars because they drove it and that's

that's where I learned you don't test drive a car that has something falling off so and that's why

it's great to have safety shops that will do a safety inspection on your car you know I've got

a wobble I got a shake something's making a lot of noise can you check it out my steering wheel

sure and they look at it and they say your tie rod ends are very loose ready to come off

we see a number of tie rod ends extremely loose so loose you could probably pop them off by hand

so check them out did help you out Brian yep I will get it taken in right away then Brian thanks

very much for the call that is uh yeah that's because if you go out and drive the car it's

the same as Brian's wobble the wobble's there okay I believe that the wobble's there now I have to

figure it out and you eliminate a few of those right away yeah by looking at it physically yeah

a lot of times we'll just raise it up and go oh yeah right there I've seen them come in with a big

bulge on the tire where they've hit a pothole and sure and I'll see well this tires we gotta let's

put a tire on it first and then see if the rest of the problems are gone away is he gonna have to get

all new tires on it or at least on the front probably if it needs one tire it's gonna need well

they might all be worn out already but if he's got three that are 80% and one that's bad you can't

just put one on it because of the all-wheel drive you're gonna have to replace all four but don't

just give them your old tires that are great sell them and you'll do it like if I brought mine in

and I needed all four tires you would check your system to see if there was one that would match

oh yeah probably not good we can find used ones but occasionally we will have a number of people

will have to do all four tires yeah but then if they have three even 50% I'll say you take these

what am I gonna do them put them on facebook marketplace yeah sell them people with two

wheel drive cars will buy them or somebody that needs a match for them they'll buy the one and

sell the other two and if you go to a tire place if if he goes to a tire place there might be a

a an amount that they'll give him his credit towards those tires because he never know those three

won't be as high as if he's right himself but they gotta make money eight six six five nine

four four one five oh let's talk to brad you're on the end of the hood show brad what can we do for

you hey guys love your show i'm a face listener haven't been for years thanks um so my daughter

drives a 1993 Jeep Cherokee XJ with the 4.0 it's got about 213,000 miles on it and actually runs

pretty good for its age and she's recently noticed that uh there's some jerkiness uh when she's

accelerating up to highway speed not necessarily doesn't seem to be an issue in town uh and once

she kind of gets rolling at highway speed 65 70 something like that it seems to iron out uh so

it took her my mechanic and uh they couldn't reproduce it so it and she did say it's intermittent

and uh so i'm just one of those guys looking for a little bit of maybe some directions maybe what

that might be this model vehicle the way you're describing it under load uphill but only occasionally

it will get worse sounds to me like it might have an ignition system miss coils the coil boots

yeah spark plugs but especially with the miles you're telling me it has on it maybe somebody's

put some plugs in it over the years maybe they haven't i don't know but definitely coils that

that's a tune-up thing our partner standard makes coils with a boot attached that fixes this whole

issue we used to do tune-ups spark plugs spark plug wires distributor cap and rotor all that stuff's

gone now we just have a coil and a coil boot as an integrated unit and they're just not uh

the original ones are not built nearly as strong as the aftermarket standard does a really good job of

beefing up that coil to make it last longer that the heat is the problem with coils it breaks

them down the insulation breaks down and then that electricity in that coil finds the nearest path

the ground which is right out the side to the engine block instead of going to the spark plug

and making a spark so when it doesn't spark it loads up with fuel it misses it gives a little

jerk and it's usually just uphill most pronounced at about 45 miles an hour without downshifting

just give it as much throttle as you can before it downshifts as you're going climbing a hill at

about 45 that's where you're going to find it the reason most cars are at that speed is because

a gear ratio and tire size and rpm they all tend to be the the biggest load at about that 2000 rpm

range 1800 2000 is where you're really going to get that that pressure build up in the cylinder

where it's going to it's going to because of the load it'll cause it to misfire because the

higher the load in there the easier it is for that thing to arc out the side it says hey i can't

spark here anymore because it takes more energy to spark but i can spark out the side and cause a

problem that's why you don't notice it all the time and also humidity in the air temperature all that

affects how that's going to happen you can pull one out if you pull it out look at the coil if it's

got chalky gray marks anywhere on it when you pull it out on the coil or on the boot it's it's

okay just like any carbon tracking they call it yep does that help you out there brad okay that

helps a lot because she did mention on the way out to newton hills you know there's a hill going

out there on on the highway and she said it's really noticeable when she's climbing the hill

and so on a on a straight on a straight away maybe you know you get to that accelerated

acceleration that speed you were talking about and then it would it would do that and then it kind

of iron out yep there you go brad thanks very much for the call by the way that is uh one of my uh

life's goals and we talk about this a lot i want to i i know the hill he's talking about i i've

decided that wherever i end up i don't want it i don't want there to be just a hill that people

know about i want there to be hills you know or the lake i want there to be lakes that's just

yeah do you like warm weather i'm i'll i'll show you a place in a couple weeks i'm iffy on it

yeah but let's talk to it depends sometimes i'm okay with it a lot of times i've i can't do it

let's talk to bruce you're on the end of the hood show bruce what can we do for you

well i have a 2013 dodge ram pickup with a 5.7 motor i just bought it so i decided to change oil

not knowing how many miles were on it and the filter i took off was probably six inches long

the one that gave me was three inches long after driving about a thousand miles my engine

like come on and i had it checked out they said low oil pressure of course i take it to my mechanic

and he says the motor's getting weak well that wasn't good news for me so i did some research and

i found a deal on youtube that that's kind of common with these engines they need a special

filter because they need more i forget what they call them inside the filter

media different media more yeah exactly so they give me a little bit more expensive

filter but and it's been running good sense but what filter do you recommend for this problem

because it sounds like it's pretty common does this sound legit does that sound yeah

ring true for you russ we have not had a problem using either the wicks filter or the ac delco

filters on these vehicles but i've had some come in with issues just like you're describing

and we changed the oil in them and then looked for check the oil pressure and i was like well

it's fine now that we've changed the oil and put our filter on it so those two filters ac delco

and the wicks have been working fine for us i don't know of any other ones i'd recommend because

we don't use anything else i mean that's what i've got on my shelf for stock so

that should be fine well but there are some 5000 miles is there a chance you can just change

the filter when this happens and keep the oil or do you recommend doing the whole thing no i'd

change i'd change it but if you're losing if you're losing it every time with a good filter

there's something going on in that engine you're you've got some wear issues going on it should

just be a matter of one filter every time you change it the same results not that you know

you've got to change it at a certain mileage because it's getting starting to get an issue

i wonder if that you could get a filter cutter take the filter apart and look and see what it

looks like in there see if it's getting clogged with something as it's running and what it is

metal or something else you go ahead bruce youtube video they said go to the prior your

filter they didn't have any problems with that filter so a 2012 filter you could try it if i

bring my vehicle to you if i bring all my you know i've been coming to you for 10 years have you've

been working on all my vehicles you have a filter cutter will you if if bruce were your

customer for 20 years would you look into this for him oh it takes me one minute to cut the

it's laying on my bench where we do the oil changes and it's like oh oh that doesn't look good

and is that just if you use a cheap filter it just doesn't filter as well well

some of they all size they all fix they can't sell filters they wouldn't stay in business if

they didn't sell good ones but sometimes when they they do when they discover there's an issue

so they have like tech boltons for cars at gm forward crash whatever and they say oh we have

an issue with this filter we need to redesign and they change it but for a while they have a problem

and you know how it can be in the news youtube will say oh every one of these is bad no this serial

number range was bad right for six months but everybody said they were bad and now they still

think they're bad when they never really worried was it was just a lot that they built that was

you know a lot of them like one box sure not good uh and now they're fixed otherwise they

they couldn't keep selling because they got to give your money back let's go to wisconsin and

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

hey i have a 2006 jeep liberty uh diesel and uh i had called a while ago it was it sat in the

desert for like five years in nevada and uh you guys we talked through what to do to start it up

it started up and ran great but i got into a small front end accident with it a guy ran a

stop sign in front of me and couldn't get out of the way fast enough but i'm doing the repairs on

that and it's got 155 000 miles while i'm repairing the front end i figured i'd had since everything

is a part on it i was going to redo the timing belts on it to replace the timing belt and and

idlers and the water pump and everything and i just wanted to see if there was anything

i'm going to do it myself there isn't a shop in the anywhere around me that wants to even touch

it and so i'm going to do it myself but it doesn't look terrible to do but i wanted to see if there

was any special tips or anything i should watch for specifically i did get the pin the the pin

kit to lock the cams in position and everything but number one i just wanted to see if i could

get some guidance on that uh what what things i should watch for with it that's it gotta make

sure it's in perfect time mark everything before you take it apart put everything on make sure it

lines up with those same marks and the the cam locks stay in where they're at watch youtube

watch a few people do it before you make that repair yourself and you should be fine watch the

whole video you watch the whole video and watch a torque wrench yep use a torque wrench too when

you're tightening up those components and other than that it's pretty straightforward it's just

mechanical apart back together i'll watch youtube videos and then if it's 10 minutes long i'm not

watching the whole thing you can skip around a little bit a little bit but sometimes i really

should watch the whole thing and maybe more than one but i usually watch the opening and then i

start working and just think i got it good luck there jason also i i'm sure this isn't the case

but he said he found this jeep in the desert i imagine he came across it and there were

bones scattered about and there was a like mad max yeah there was a briefcase in there with

some money and that's the part he's just leaving out of the call that's why he's gonna that's why

he can put in all this work because he found a suitcase full of money in there too probably

not probably that's probably not what the stories somebody else do the repair then that'll do it for

this hour of the under the hood show and don't forget you can go to our youtube channel and

watch the show live while we're doing it and anytime you want on youtube with russ evans this is

shannon orts from thanking you for tuning into the north's under the hood show have a great day

and remember pta la 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

Car Repair Calls How To Make Them Last Longer

Acura Ilx

Nissan Sentra

Ford Fusion

Jeep Cherokee

Dodge Ram

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