Car Repair Tips Live On The Air Do You Need TPMS and How To Fix

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Thank you very much for listening. 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. Yeah. Welcome to 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 Chris Carter here to answer your calls

at 866-594-4150. 866-594-4150. Quick question about, since it's relevant to the entire country

in this span of time, with the cold, is there anything we shouldn't do that will break our windows?

I saw a video the other day that said do this if you get cold and you can pour this on your window

Don't pour anything on it. You don't want to mess with your windows. Just let the car warm up.

When you turn your defroster on, turn it on slowly. If you go out to a car and you have

a crack or you have even some small rock chips you don't know about and you turn the defroster

on high and hot, you just fan and you start it up and walk away as the car warms up,

all of a sudden that heater, the heater doesn't work right away. But when it starts working,

it changes temp pretty quick and if it's 20 below outside and winds blowing,

and all of a sudden this heater now is putting out 160 degree air right on that windshield,

it's going to break. It's just the way it is. We try when we bring a car into our shop when it's

that cold to not run the heater at all. We just leave, we turn it off, we drive the car in,

it'll thaw out the shop on its own. But if you've got a window with a crack anywhere in it,

that's your problem. It's cold, you didn't fix the crack, shame on you because it will crack as

it's used. I've watched cracks in windows in cars as you're driving them, just get longer as you go,

that's because there's a temperature differential. If you want to protect it, fix it when it chips,

that's why they have rock chip repair. That happened to me once I watched it. It was fascinating

until I realized what was, I was like, wow, that's really neat. Oh shoot. When we were kids,

we used to always find the ones out in the salvage yard and then we'd push on them.

You could chase them around and move the cracks. We had that opportunity to do that. It was always

been a fun for 15, 20 minutes. Sure. Didn't have internet back then. Didn't need it.

Yeah, your own web of cracks. If we would have had the internet back then, we would have been stars.

I always think, thank God we didn't have YouTube because my neighbor across the street would be

dead because he was doing stuff just for fun. Let's see if I can do a flip off of the shed.

And we'd all be like, okay, let's see if you can. If we'd have had YouTube, oh.

It's amazing what pops up on YouTube, the stuff we said, oh, nobody will ever see this. And there's

photos or videos. Somebody had an old VHS camcorder or something from the 80s.

And that footage somehow lasted without rotting away. It was stored just right,

you know, on accident on a shelf. And now they, you're like, what? It's like, what did it look

like in the 70s or the 80s or sometimes even the 60s. And they put those on Facebook and you're

like, that is nuts. And what's even scarier is when they take with AI now. Yeah, they take a video

from the 80s that was pretty rough and they run it through the AI machine and it makes it

perfect. Like it just happened yesterday and you're like, our parents were stupid is what

the kids are telling us now, the stuff we did, but you cannot, nothing stays in Vegas.

I just had for Christmas for our family, I took 77, eight millimeter tapes that I had and had

them sent away. And they were from the eight millimeter handicap days. And I carried that

thing around a lot when kind of an era when our son was born and before that, and we watched

some of that at Christmas. And part of it was my dad's auction when he turned 60. He's 82 now.

Things we had never watched. Russ, you're in there. You look like a child. I mean,

but I'm a child. But it was just, and I used, in my case, I used iMemories and they have an AI

enhancement you pay a little bit more for. And they look so cool. And it's so neat. And now I've

got them captured and saved. How many of those were no good, the tapes? I had no failures. You got

lucky. My brother had some that he Sony Sony eight millimeter handicaps, but it was he had an old

windup and battery powered one from my grandfather had it. Then my dad used it in the in like 69

through 78. But my brother found a whole box my mom had under the bed and there were probably

40 of them in there. There was only about an hour of footage out of all those that was still

recoverable because it was so bad. But it was done in the time. I think the tapes are gone now. I

10 years or maybe 15. But it was surprising. Most of it wasn't me, which is really weird because

it was the oldest. But it's it's neat seeing some of that old stuff. The cars, the cars that are in

those videos where it's like, Oh, look, there's grandpa's 1971, you know, that no one remembers

because it was just normal. And there were a lot of there were a lot of cars like you and I when

we went to the auction, the Lambert auction, like what's that? Yeah. And some old guys said, Oh,

that's a those were ever that sedan. It was a daily driver. And there were thousands of like,

I never seen one. Right. Well, yeah, it had a business. It was a business scoop. You could

either have a business backseat or a backseat backseat or no backseat. It was like really just

different things that we miss overall. Like the chivette, we just looked up at the 866-594-4150.

Let's go to Wyoming and talk to Ron. You're on the end of the hood show. Ron, what can we do for

you? A couple of questions. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate you watching you on YouTube.

Thanks. I have a 2017 Buick Enclave that the other day, one of the little notices came on the

dashboard that the tire monitoring system needs service. I looked it up on Google and I guess

one of the things that said to do was check all the tire pressures. But is this something I have

to go to a dealership for? Is it some reset I can do? The only thing you can do at home is

set the air pressures. And if that doesn't work, then you'll need to go into a tire shop,

a mechanic shop that does tire monitors, that someplace that does tires. They need to be able

to take them off so they can replace sensors if needed. Most any name brand tire store anymore

is going to have the equipment to handle TPM. The industry calls it TPMS problems.

If it says service tire monitor, that's a different thing than low air pressure.

That can be a low battery in any one of the sensors. It can be a temperature sensor in the

sensor that's failed. It can be a loss of communication with the sensor. That's different than low

air pressure. It's telling you that it can't read one of the sensors correctly and determine it.

Again, that tire store is going to more than likely have a wand that they'll go out by the

tire with and they can check if it's communicating and they can see if the battery's got power

and then they can narrow it down to say, hey, you got four sensors that we're getting signal

from. They got battery in them. We got something else going on here. Which he probably doesn't,

right? It's probably just one of them's going bad because the air pressure notice is different

from the TPMS notice. I've had that come up before and I just put air in the tire and it

goes away. Second question, I have a 2013 F350 diesel. It's a 6.7. Russ, I know you've mentioned

additives. I think an EG additive. How often should I put that in? Is it a special? Are there

different EG products? Are they all pretty much the same? You would use, on BG products, you would

use the anti-gel in the winter and you use the diesel additive in the summer. The anti-gel is

just to prevent it from gelling up in the winter and keep the, helps with cetane, helps keep the

injection system clean. In the summer, you use the diesel supplement and that is to help prevent

algae growth. Clean it up. It's amazing that something like organic can grow and live in a

tank that's dark with petroleum, right? How often should I use that? Every single

tank full of fuel. If you don't do that, you're running damaging fuel through the system. It's

too dry. It will wear out parts. It'll freeze up. In the winter time, it'll gel up. So you've got to

run that in every tank of fuel. It's very, very important to have that in there at the correct

ratio. Too much of a good thing is bad. If you get too much in there as the unburned fuel,

which happens in every single internal combustion engine, passes by the piston rings and gets into

the crankcase, that's a problem because extra anti-gel, extra diesel fuel supplement, whatever

you're running in that fuel, it's not the fuel, gets into the crankcase and can cause excess wear

and things unbearing. So when you see a product that says use 2.3 ounces or 2.8 or 3, whatever it

is per gallon, use what they recommend because it's a perfect setting. They know you can put more

or less in there. So they want to give you the perfect amount to do the job. Not too little,

not too much. So get yourself the right measuring container for it and put it in at every tank.

You'll be a lot happier that you did. Ron, thanks very much for the call. Two things. One,

I want to warn him that the TPMS, if he has to replace sensors, it's way more expensive than

you would think. If you've got low batteries, if it's just a battery going, it's way,

it will make you question why the system even exists.

When you put the tires on the vehicle, whatever you need to change the tires is when you want to

address the sensors. Secondly, just recently on the show, we were talking about adding to the fuel

and I said, if I fill my tank and then can I pour the bottle in? Remember that? And he went,

a very, very close good friend of mine said, pour it in before you put the gas in, idiot.

And I went, oh yeah, yeah, I could do that, right? I could, I could add it before I filled the tank,

if I know I have. It'll mix it up. Yeah. It'll mix it up. And it made perfect sense when he said it.

I didn't think you were talking about it. 866-594-4150. That's the number to reach us here at the

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

Hi guys, it's great to talk to you. I really appreciate your show. I don't work on vehicles

a lot anymore. I used to when I could still get into those cramped spaces and work,

but now to get too tight, I can't even get in some of those places. But I do have a question about

CV transmissions. You've had it before. I've listened, but kind of let it go in one year

and out the other because then thought, well, never own one. So I don't care. But now I'm thinking

about a Subaru Outback. And I just wanted to know if you have any output or any input as to what kind

of problems a Subaru has with their CVs. Are you looking at a new Outback or a newer one to you?

Yeah, pretty new. New to me, but also pretty new. Okay.

My uncle has driven those cars for the last 15 years and he used to be a racecar driver,

but he doesn't drive like that anymore. He drives like a normal human and they have had

very good success with them. Now on our end of the spectrum, we occasionally see failed CVTs

because they fail. But guess what? We have failed standard transmissions also.

But he would highly recommend one of those cars as a person that is mechanical.

He's been around a lot of different stuff in his life and they like the car. His wife likes the car.

They actually have had an accident in one of them recently that was substantial and they had

a good safety event for the most part. I don't know. If you get where they get too many miles on

them, then you can start getting into some failures if people haven't maintained them well.

There is a service interval that you should follow for sure, Russ. What is it you typically would

encourage people to do? It's about every 50 to 60 on that one.

You're looking at like a 23, 4, 5, 6, 7, somewhere in there. 6, 7.

That's twice that's come up on the show. We've avoided the childish behavior.

Yeah, 25 or 26 depending on what I find on the lots and what I can afford.

Yeah, exactly. Change that. I would say if you get one of those and it's got under 30,000 miles,

CVTs, I tell people, I think that first change is the most important. If I bought a brand new one,

I would drive it probably, probably 6 to 8,000 miles and then I would change the fluid as a drain

and fill and then I would run it up to probably 40 and change it 40, 50. But I think that would be

better to clean it out and clean all the machining stuff out right away than to wait until the first

50, even if the fluid was still pretty clean. If I knew it would be clean at 50 and I was going to

change it then, I think I'd still do that first one because I'm finding people, a lot of people

that have said, hey, I got a Nissan Rogue or whatever with a CVT and I changed that fluid like at 5,

6,000 miles and now I've got 180 on it and it's still working good and I've been changing it

like every 60 and then other people that say, well, I changed it at the first 60 and now it's

out at 90, I see more people that are lasting longer with that early first change.

There you go. Does that help you out there, Bob?

It certainly did. Thank you very much.

Thanks very much for the call. In general, if we're talking about a new car, CVTs in general,

no real concern anymore.

They're just going, they're everywhere. Everybody's got them.

It's a new design. A CVT built in 2040 is going to be much different than a CVT built in

2010. They just keep getting better. They're only a CVT by name. How they operate and how

they're built are much different things.

Which is not to say that you might not have a problem with one of them, but in general,

it's like this. It's like saying, oh, should I buy a turbo car? I heard turbo cars are bad.

An 87-spectrum turbo is not a 2026 Ford EcoBoost turbo. They're not the same. It's a turbo,

yes, but only in name. The turbo itself spins and blows air, but it's a different thing.

Yeah, so I think these transmissions, we're seeing less failures in the newer models,

even newer models that have already hit 100,000 miles.

But those older ones, especially the Fords, the Fords were nightmares. The old Fords like the

Montego's and the, oh.

And the old Nissan's got a bad enough name that there was campaigns done and extended

warranties and long, you know, so I mean...

I think the only thing worse than owning a CVT transmission for chance of a failure is

owning a dual clutch.

Yeah, back in that era.

Yeah, get a dual clutch auto trans of that age. Forget it. You're just gonna...

Even when they worked, a lot of people thought they weren't working.

Because they felt different. So the Ford said, they feel different. They're supposed to. Well,

I don't like it. And enough people said I don't like it, that it affected numbers.

So they had to do something.

866-594-4150. Let's talk to Darian. You're on the end of the hood show.

Darian, what can we do for you?

Thanks for taking my call. Hopefully you're all well on the school day. And I hope your coffee

hot cocoa is extra tasty and warm today.

Cold coffee. I'm good to go.

What can we do for you, Darian?

What a true friend.

Anyways, I got a 93 F-250 and that I got to share with you. So about two years ago,

my alternator went out, tried my battery and a couple of internals in my instrument cluster.

One of them being my speedometer. I ended up trying two resistors and I figured that out

because I wasn't taking it apart. When it was running, I would tell something burning.

And when I took it apart, my neighbor just happened to be walking by and he worked on

circuits. That's electronic. And I showed him because I didn't know what I was looking at.

And he said that you have two burn resistors. Now I took it to my local dealership and they

sent for about 300 or 400 watts. They could send it in and get it replaced. I currently have a

speedometer out of a 96 F-250, which I would pull this thing to add. However,

the resistors are larger, but now I got the speedometer wobble in there.

And so I'm kind of at a crossroads. Do I send the one in and get it fixed or do I

get a newer aftermarket one or do I put a digital cluster in there?

The digital cluster is going to solve all your problems and be guaranteed to work.

I don't know that you could put the 96 and the 93. We ran into this problem with somebody with a

93 and we never could find a good speedometer for it. We went through three or four used ones and

they all had similar issues with voltage, the voltage regulator in the dash. So that voltage,

all these dashes, all these old mechanical type had a voltage regulator in them. That was there

because the vehicle battery goes up and down slightly when you turn your headlights on and

stuff. And if you've ever seen a dash where you pull out the headlights, which to turn the headlights

on and not just the volt gauge moves, but your water temp moves, your oil pressure moves a little

bit or even your attack or speedometer moves, it's got a bad voltage regulator. That voltage

regulator keeps it, I want to say it keeps it like at 11 volts constant. So even if the alternator

gets down as low as 11, you're safe. If it gets as high as 14, you're safe. It keeps it right at

11. So the gauges all work because every gauge in the dash works off of resistance. Voltage

changes resistance. If the voltage changes, the resistance changes. So

it says we're calibrated to work at this speed, this temp, whatever at this resistance. So

I think if it was me and you, you know, you could afford it and you're in the budget,

I would go with the digital ones. Otherwise, see if you could find the exact one. But the

chances are that that exact one won't work if you find, you know, the older 93 or that it'll

break again are very high. So that like Dakota digital. Is there any, I wonder if they make

one for that 93 F 250. Is there anything because that was that 92 to 96 dash kind of unique.

Is there anything besides like my smartphone that I can use as a speedometer? If my speedometer

goes, they make just a Garmin GPS put on the dash plug it in the cigarette lighter. You can get

them as low as like 89 bucks for some of the cheap ones that just show you a basic map and a

speedometer. Do they have the ones where I can put it on the tire like on the 10 speed and it'll

spin and maybe that's what he means by a digital cash. No, no, no bicycle cards, but on the, I

remember those with the fork because there's nothing available. I would just send the other one

and get it fixed, but then you do risk a future problem. Yeah. The end of the hood show podcast

is brought to you by exclusive sponsors like Berkeley one classics, celebrating 50 years,

your key to collector car insurance and by car dash part.com with over 200 million parts,

find them online at car dash part.com and by road ready wheels. OEM replica wheels at a huge

savings road ready wheels.com. Thanks for listening to the under the hood show podcast.

Like Rocket Wren, congratulations Rocket Wren. From 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. I think Rocket Wren is at the monster trucks this weekend. I think

that's one of the tricks going, you know, it is possible and just take a moment here. This weekend

at the Denny Sanford Premier Center is the toughest monster truck series. They're doing it Friday

night and Saturday. It was sponsored by your station groups, the crow. It was sponsored by

Nordstrom's. We've provided the prepared vehicles for that. I'll play the devil's advocate right

now. Is it really the toughest? How do you know they're the toughest? Stop all that. My group,

the crow. No, you said my group, the crow. You did say that, didn't you? Your station group.

Yeah. Which, sure. That station. Sure. Let's put them in the top five of stations.

But why would you say the crow? Who's number one? When I was, when...

I got you. What are you doing? KTWB. All right, now go ahead. I thought Denzel and the crow were

pushing it. Did I miss it completely? No, you're totally right. But why do you,

why would you bring that up instead of my station and KTWB? Could you give me a redo on how you

would have said that? Yeah. Your station, your group at KTWB. That right there. I get it. I see

you exactly what they did wrong now. Well, they had a contest and they're crushing a listener's car.

But whose car was the first ever in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to be crushed by a monster truck

that was not, you know, a personal car? I, for some how, this is coming back to you. I don't

know that. Was it Chris? It was Chris's car, his cutlass. I totally forgot about that. He was,

his was the first. I totally forgot about that. We said, hey, what can we do? And we posted...

Totally forgot about that. The car... Gosh, you guys remember everything.

I tried to post it on Facebook and YouTube and it had already been

glass removed and painted like blood orange for the wreck. And YouTube and Facebook banned it,

removed it and flagged it and said, this is a horrific accident. You can't post grotesque

accident injury. And now they're doing AI videos that look like real, you know,

arm cut off. Oh, are you okay? But they wouldn't let us post his car.

Gosh, you guys remember everything. So anyway, this weekend, Friday night, Saturday afternoon,

in the cold, two shows, it's, hey, it's warm at the Premier Center. The guys that run the event,

I went down and talked to them. They said that the Denny Sanford Premier Center is their,

one of the premier buildings that they come to to do this event because they have such good air

exchangers and they don't have to open a door to get fresh air like they do in most places.

They eat all the chili dogs you want. They can keep the temperature nice inside.

They absolutely love coming here. It's just a wonderful setup. So we're going to have the cars

there and we're doing a fundraiser for the Faith Temple Friday food giveaway. We're going to be

presenting a check from our company for $2,500. The radio station is kicking in. The other event

is kicking in. We're going to have some QR codes up there so you can join in and help support the

Faith Temple food giveaway. Come out and have some fun and watch monster trucks Friday night

and Saturday here in Sioux Falls. As heard on the crow, 866-594-4150. Let's go to George and talk

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

Hi, great. Thank you. Great show. Thanks for taking the call.

I got a 2007 Honda CR-V with 225,000 miles and picked up a battery with a data manufacturer

of three months ago, 10 of 25, and went out, start the car, wouldn't start. Didn't seem like

it didn't want to turn over. So I put a jump box on it and started the car up and

checked the alternator on it and it was 14-6 and I thought okay. So went and got another battery

and then took this one back. Went through a little back and forth because I have a tester as well.

It gives you the state of charge and state of health and cranking amps, what it's rated for,

and all that checked out good on the old battery. They took it, gave it the same check,

and then I had a little back and forth with them because it wouldn't start the car.

I checked the voltage on it when it tried to start the car, put a multimeter on it and looked at it.

It drug it down to 10.8. So they checked it and I'm back and forth and then they put it on some

more sophisticated tester and the battery checked out that it was bad. So they exchanged it

and I was a little leery because the data manufacturer was the same manufacturer date

for the second battery. So now I go out, I've installed it, went to start the car,

and once again it's down to 10.8 and won't start the car on the second battery.

How long has it been in there? How long has that battery got to be in there that it doesn't start

overnight or like, what are you talking? This is the first try. This is the first start.

Oh, you put the new battery in and cranked it and it was low voltage and wouldn't go. Well,

that's either two things. Either the battery is bad or that thing is drawn too many amps,

like the bad starter or the engine is dragon. I mean, that's your choices for a battery that

if it can pull that much current down at the battery, let's say the battery's good.

You just took one out of another vehicle and battery's truck battery put it in there and it

pulls it down that far. That starter either by way of the starter itself being worn out is pulling

too many amps, drawn too many amps, which is we put a number of starters on those with that age,

that many miles, or the engine is tight and causing the starter to pull that many amps.

Battery cables would be a source of resistance, so it would be less voltage pulled out of that

battery. But to pull it down that far either means you got a battery that's weak or you've got

something in the starting system that's overloading it, pulling it down. It should be a little higher.

You get older cars with a big heavy starter and old V8s and things. They'll crank it 10.5 volts.

That was pretty normal on an old battery, but we're talking a different thing. You get into

a fuel-injected car. That's why we have so many cars with AGM batteries and we talk about using

AGM batteries because with all these loads you have in cars, you need to maintain a certain

minimum amount of voltage when you're cranking. I mean, they got a note, well, 20 below or

20 above or 110 above. They got a crank with a number of volts or the computer will not fire

the injectors, won't go. That's why you need a good strong battery in there. So what's Charles's

next step? He may have a bad, he may have got another bad battery and you may, if this is truly

the second bad battery, I would get a different brand of battery. I just like, hey, all right,

we had two same manufacturing date. It's unlikely they're both bad, but it's possible and if it is,

get one of the different date on it because they'd be out of business if they were selling all of

them bad. They're going to be asking questions about the starter or a different brand. Well,

they can, if, let's say you pulled into a batteries plus, they can go out to the car,

they can put, plug on their tester and they'll test the battery. One, okay, we're good to go.

Second test, starter test, crank vehicle and it'll tell you how many amps are being drawn.

Third test, check charging system all on one scanner and they can print it out and tell you

they would know. What if they test it and go, oh, it's charging good, cranking amps are low,

you got a bad battery. We got to do something about it. That's their assurance to know that it's

bad. Somebody comes and buys a battery from me off the shelf and carries it out, which happens

about as often as us installing it. If they do that and they come back the next day and say,

something's wrong with your battery, I need another one. I'm going to test it and if it tests

good, I'm going to say, look, I can't swap this out because it tests good. Bring your car in here

and I will do this, perform this charging starting battery test free at no charge. I'll even charge

the battery for you. If it, if it fails because it's your car, I'm going to charge you 30 bucks

for this test. But if it, if it fails because my battery is bad, I'm not going to charge anything

for the test and I'm going to give you another battery. I can write down and give it to my battery

guy who's going to ask for the test. What did you do? How did you test it? And what, Charles, what,

what's the time it lapsed since you replaced the first battery that they tested as poor

and now that, how long is lapsed between that and the second battery being bad?

Day before yesterday. Okay. So it's happened instantly. So I brought this battery home,

the second battery. I brought it home. It's got, had 12.5 volts on it, 12.5, 2, I think.

That's too low. It had a very, had a very high resistance. Yep. That's, if it was 12.5 off the

shelf, that's too low. Either the battery is discharged, it's not fully charged or it's got a,

it's got something wrong with it. Right. So I brought it, I brought it home. I looked at it

and the fluid was low, low in it. So I put distilled water in it till the, till the cavities had a

little dimple. They had a little wink kind of thing. You shouldn't have to do that. And then I,

I know, I know, but something's wrong with that battery. And so anyways, I put it in the vehicle

and then I put my trickle charger on it. I've got a nice float, float charger maintainer

that brings it up and, and so I went out this morning and it's blinking. I thought, okay,

we're good. And, and I went to start the car and it, and it went dead and that wouldn't start. So I

put the jump box on it and it took, it took about two or 3% out of the jump box when I, when I work,

but it starts with the jump box. Oh yeah, that's definitely, that's definitely a sign of a weak

battery right there. It's been a long time since I bought a battery that was not a sealed battery.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, a lot of them are sealed. You can pry the caps off the run of the stickers.

I know, but I just been a long time since, you know, I've even had one that was the typical

pop the lids off. Yeah. Well, and most of them now are there. I see most of them are going to AGMs

and those who aren't popping any, no, no, you're not popping a lid off any of those. Nope.

So in Charles case, you just got to go back and explain and hopefully get that.

Since it's been just a day and a half and it's the same thing and they tested the last one.

Bring your tools, bring the vehicle and if they got a performance test, do it right in the parking

lot. Not tomorrow or the next day. Maybe. He's in Georgia. Maybe. That's right. Okay. He just

watched over the ice. Thanks very much for the call. Good luck. 866-594-4150. That's the number

to reach us here at the end of the hood show. Let's go to Texas and talk to David. You're on

yes. I've got a 2004 Silverado, Chevy Silverado with a 5.3 and I've got a bad water leak in it.

And I know that it's parked there at my house. My son's way. He's up north working up North

Texas and I go out there and crank up his truck every, oh, at least once every two weeks or

something like that. But anyway, I had it cranked up and running and I'm 82 years old and I'm back

in the garage and I fell. I didn't have my phone in my pocket to be able to call anybody and I

couldn't get up. You know, I believe that dead gum thing you see on TV and help my father and I

can't get up. Yeah, that happens. But anyway, so I don't know how long I was on the floor,

not able to get up until my neighbor across the street came out and I hollered at her and she

I said, first thing, do reach in there and shut that truck off for me because I know it's losing

its water and it's overheating. And they came on over there, her husband came in, we got the

paramedics and they came out and picked me up and got me going. But then since then, I went out to

start it, the key fob, you push on it to lock or unlock the door, it don't work.

I get inside and I put the key in, turn it on, lights on the dash light up, but none of the gauges

move. Amp gauge doesn't move, fuel gauge doesn't move. So seeing the field gauge sitting down on

empty, I thought maybe someone is cycling the gas out. But anyway, so I went ahead and went to crank

it and it cranked and started. But as soon as the starter kicked out, it died. So I don't know

what's actually happening and causing that to continue. Are you okay?

Yeah, I'm okay now. I'm 82 years old. I had broken my femur a couple of years back and

my standing and being balanced and all that doesn't always work anymore.

I got to really be careful. I've fallen a couple of times in the past three months.

All right. That part of the story seemed like what I'd be the first thing to figure out how to fix

and you got that under control. You kind of know where you're at there. So let's, yeah,

we'll stay on the truck now. Oh yeah. Okay. So on the truck, it could be a battery situation

and it may have to have the battery disconnected, let it sit for, so you know it's good and

discharged, let it sit for a good 15 minutes or whatever and then hook it back up, make sure

that battery is fully charged and then see if everything fixes itself. It sounds like it's

stuck in security mode and it's also got low voltage to it, which could have caused this.

And you can avoid having to go out there and start it so often if you,

well, once they fix that water leak, just get a battery maintainer. If you've got power out there,

plug that thing in and just leave it plugged in and it's a specific battery

maintainer that'll say it's meant to be left on there every day, 24 hours a day, forever.

And then you should be able to just a truck like that should be able to sit. It really should be

able to sit for two months, disconnect it and drive it off. So if he's back every couple months,

it should be just fine. He shouldn't have to do anything else but drive it. You know, I've got

a car that'll sit for three or four months sometimes parked and all I do is disconnect the

battery maintainer and turn the key and I drive it away and it works perfectly fine.

There's no reason to store it. Well, I have a charger that I've got on it and it's got a

two amp trickle charge feature. And once it gets fully charged, I turn it down to that and it keeps,

you know, and the battery is kept up that way, but I still, you know, like,

you or your son should invest in a

maintainer, a battery maintainer. It's different than what you're doing.

This might be a two amp and also maintainer if it says on the front, because I've got an old Sears

one that says 60 amp and then it says two amp slash battery maintain and it will shut the

charger on and off at two amps, but there's other ones that are 10 amp or two amp and that two amp

is a full two amp charge and it'll burn the battery up after a while.

Yeah, and I think I have an older one that's similar to yours, Russ. I've had it forever.

But a solid state battery maintainer is what you really need to have on there.

You can leave it on there. You don't have to go out and start the truck or anything.

And I want to jump in because you said invest in and to be fair, I have two. One was $25.

One I got on sale for $12 and it works great. It's not the most advanced, but it works just fine.

Of the advanced Optima battery ones. And I love those things because they tell me battery

condition, they scan and analyze and they'll do multiple AGM or whatever. But for me, I need

something with all the different battery. I got one car with an AGM, one without one with a power

sports battery. But it's not even something to consider that much. It's just you can do it.

Yeah, I said invest. Just go buy. Yeah, yeah.

Invest in a good battery and then get yourself a good maintainer.

But get the water. I also have a maintainer that I used to use on my lawnmower battery.

And I could put that on it out there. But I need to find out, you know,

I'm turn the key. It's got its full voltage on the battery, battery's fully charged.

Turn it all the way over to start and it'll crank. But just as soon as that

yeah, I think it can continue to run might be stuck or not working.

So I think it might be stuck in the security mode because of that. And it may just need a

reset. Where are you at in Texas? I'm down in Netherlands between Beaumont and Port Arthur.

Well, you know, oil coming out the corner refinery country. Probably smell it. Yeah,

exactly. Yeah. Okay. So it's least a little warmer. I would I would find a shop that could

maybe grab it and fix that water leak and then put the put a bit get that battery. I think the

battery that if they reset it, they should be able to get it started. I mean, for me, if I was going

to get one of these going to get the water leak fixed as a shop, I bet I could, I could probably

get there, disconnect the battery for a little bit, hook it back up, jump it. It's probably going to

start. I think it's just, I think his memory is just a little out of order right now.

David, thanks very much for the call. Good luck and good health to you.

866-594-4150. Let's talk to Dean. You're on the end of the hood show. Dean, what can we do for you?

Hi, I've got a 2017 GMC Denali pickup. And I was having problems. I started when I,

with the steering, when I'd go to turn, I was getting this, this click in it.

So I took it in and they replaced that, I think it's like a U-joint where the knuckle is. That was

bad because it's a pretty sharp turn. And just before I took it in, the steering started getting

really hard to turn corners. Well, they fixed that U-joint or that knuckle and I got it back

and it was still having issues with it. So I took it back to them and they put a new rack and pinion

in. And now I got it back. It's still a little tough to turn. It's not like it was originally.

And now when I'm on the highway, this actually started before I took it in, but I get a vibration

anytime I'm over 30 miles an hour. It'll be a vibration on and off, just constantly on and off.

And I still have that. They did say they aligned the front end and I took the tires in and had

them balanced. And I'm kind of at a loss for what to do and my mechanic doesn't know what it could be.

Any ideas? Yeah, typically in this situation, it's usually the tires that are causing this. You

could rotate them front to rear and see if that changes anything, but they'll get wobbles and

stuff in the belt and depending on the road surface, they can vibrate sometimes and other

times they don't. They could still be balanced, but if the cords are a little off, you know,

balance an egg or a square tire if you want. But on the road surface, it's going to shake

and do different things. And then that steering knuckle, that is a common failure. A partner

over a dormant product sells those steering knuckle joints for those steering shafts, the

intermediate shaft and upper and lower shafts and cars and trucks because they're such a

failure rate. So they have an OEM, you know, better than OEM fix. So that was a good thing

that you did that and got the steering because that can also cause a vibration with a loss of

control and shocks. That's these trucks, the shocks are known to go bad on the front of these

and be too stiff and cause bouncing. I know Art Nordstrom had just the truck and his were out

and boy, that thing was just horrible going down the road. It's just every once in a while,

he hit just the right bump and it would shake and then it would go away and be smooth and hit

another bump just right. It would shake and go away, but sometimes it'd drive perfect all day,

but the right bump, the right road would throw it off.

Yeah. Well, mine will do it on smooth, smooth the roads. It'll just give me a vibration just

on and off. Just takes a little. I did have the tires rotated first and then I was still getting

it. So I took it back in and had them just balance the front tires again, but it's still

doing the same thing. When you rotated them, did it make any change at all to the feel?

No.

Yeah. I think that you might want to, you're calling us for an opinion, but I think I would

probably ask for, go to a second opinion at a chassis shop because there's something there that

is going on with, could be a wheel hub. There's something else going on there and you've had

enough parts taken apart on there. It does make me concerned that they want to inspect everything

again and that they touched just to kind of give it a once over. I'm sure your mechanic knows

exactly what they're doing, but just to kind of retrace their steps, look at everything to make

sure nothing was left odd when they did it. And those rack opinions, that shouldn't cause a vibration.

That should have nothing to do with that vibration at all. Dean, thanks very much for the call.

Good luck. If it stays off, he could just drive it in parades, you know, get the ones that's wobbly

and it's kind of a donated to the Shriners. There we go. Good luck. All right. This is the

after show and it's not going to exist. I mean, we get it. Doug is going to feed us so we're

getting out of here before everything freezes, right? He brought sandwiches. So I'm just glad

that we planned this and we're all here. Yeah. How dare you? That'll do it. That'll do it.

That'll do it for the end of the hood show. First, it's the radio station. Now it's your own

pride. Have you subscribed, please? By the way, we did cross it. Somebody did subscribe. We got

over the milestone. Well, thank you, whoever that was. We were over it, right? And somebody

unsubscribed, we think. I think, yeah. It was like 9,000. Then it went to 899. And then it's

nine. Is it 9,001? Tell more friends. I want a 10 in front of that. Let's go. Let's get on it.

Thanks to everybody. I was trying to hit 10 by the end of last. In 2025, we're going for 10.

And by the way, thanks to everybody who comments and gets talking in the chat,

because now you'll go back and look and see, right? We don't take email questions. We take

YouTube questions. So if you have a car question, you can comment on any video we have. You just

go to YouTube and open up our videos and say, I have a car question and type in your car question

and I'll answer you that way. We got some on Facebook today too. So if you ask that, yeah,

you can, that's one way to game the system. But we would prefer you call because it's more fun.

Yeah. And also when we're here, we're thinking about it. We're kind of zoned in. Yeah. We don't

have people bothering us on their shoulders. When I'm not in this, when I'm not in here doing this

show, I don't know anything about cars. So this is the time to get ahold of me.

I would rather that we asked when we're all three together. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Specifically one of us. So we get. So we get. It's not you. It's not you, Chris.

That's a good advice there, Shannon. Thanks everybody for watching The Under the Hood Show.

See you next week. 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 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.

Car Repair Tips Live On The Air Do You Need TPMS and How To Fix

About this episode

Ford F-250

alternator

speedometer

Buick Enclave

tire pressure

TPMS

Ford F350

diesel additive

cetane

internal combustion engine

CVT transmission

Subaru Outback

Nissan Rogue

EcoBoost turbo

voltage regulator

Garmin GPS

Oldsmobile Cutlass

Honda Crv

jump box

state of charge

cranking amps

multimeter

10.8 volts

starter

battery cables

charging system

Dodge Charger

trickle charger

float charger

sealed battery

AGM battery

battery maintainer

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