How your car can maim or kill you (while sitting in your driveway)

Hey folks, welcome back to another edition of My Car Guru.

I'm happy this morning because yesterday I talked on my program about I was having problems

with three of my vintage cars and one of them looked like it was going to be pretty serious.

You know, I've had to really hunt for somebody that can work on these old things.

None of my techs can.

Well, I guess they can.

They just don't have the heart for it.

They like working on modern stuff.

They're young.

Anyway, I know this old guy.

He owns a shop.

Well, he's not that old.

Well, I guess he is.

And he said, bring it on down.

So I brought it on down.

I thought I was going to have to.

Well, the worst case scenario was about $3,500.

Well, it was the best case scenario.

So here's what he found.

Well, let me tell you what it was doing first.

It was a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air two-door hardtop, beautiful, completely restored, amazing car.

The engine had been redone, but they had boo booed when they put the engine back together.

It had a mess and it had a loud ticking noise.

So they removed the valve covers and found that several of the rocker arm nuts were loose.

So what's a rocker arm?

Well, it's just this little lever like looking thing.

Looks like a head of a hammer almost resembles that.

And so deep in that engine, that Chevy small block is a camshaft that has these lobes on it.

And it spins around and it pushes up these little things called lifters.

And those lifters go up into the head and push up on the rocker arms.

When it pushes up on one side, the rocker arm goes down and pushes a valve down,

which opens the valve into the cylinder.

And those valves do one of two things.

They either let air into the cylinder or they let exhaust out of the cylinder.

So when these things get loose, then they can start ticking.

And that's what mine was doing.

So what did he do? He replaced 16 3 8 inch rocker arm nuts.

And while he was doing that, he adjusted the valves, which is very important.

He added one quart of high zinc oil supplement.

What's that for?

Well, you know, it's got oil in the engine, but zinc helps protect some of the parts,

specifically the camshaft, because it's what they consider a soft metal.

If you were to look at it or to bang it on something, it doesn't seem like it's soft metal,

but it is when it comes to the internal part of an engine.

And then they tested it and they delivered it to me.

Wasn't that nice? Labor was $200. Parts was $112.60.

The total was $312.60 and I am elated because now I think that vehicle is ready for the car show season now.

I think we have cured most of the faults that it has, but there will be others.

Why? Because it's an old car and that's okay.

Now I just got to get my Corvair fixed.

It's blowing fuel all over the place and my Ford Bronco, which has to have the carburetor rebuilt.

Then I should be totally ready till something else breaks.

Okay. Why am I telling you all this?

Primarily because I want you to be, well, I want you to scrutinize the bills that you get when you go to get your car serviced.

I've seen so many people, they just pay the bill, fold it up, stick it in their pocketbook or a guy crams it in his pocket.

I just wonder what happens to those repair order, those receipts that describe all the work that was done.

The first thing that a car owner needs to do when they have automotive service and they pay a bill and they get a copy of that is they need to neatly fold it up and put it in their glove box.

Maybe have a folder at home that you keep all of your repair orders in, keep everything.

All of this stuff is being documented. You need to keep it and it really makes a difference when it's time to sell your vehicle or even to trade it.

I mean, if you come into Gateway Ford and you have a five or six year old vehicle and you come up and pick out something that you're interested in buying and we evaluate your trade in to see what it's worth.

And you can pull out a folder with all of the different repair orders and oil changes and everything that you did to that vehicle.

That makes us feel really good about putting possibly top dollar in your trade in because we know that it's been properly maintained.

Otherwise, you really just don't remember every little thing that you did, but if you pull out 15 or 20 different repair orders or maybe more than that,

if you have one in there for every time you had the oil changed and got tires, you got a new battery.

I mean, anything that you spend on your car, put it in a folder or stick it in your glove box because that will add value.

We just had a serious incident happen in our shop this morning, as a matter of fact.

One of my technicians was working on a, what year was that thing, 2024 Ford Explorer.

And it's weird that you can open the hood from the inside and not have to trigger a latch outside.

In order to get your hood up on most cars, you have to flip a switch on the inside, then go to the outside of the vehicle and somewhere along the edge of that hood will be another little release that you have to squeeze to get the hood up.

Well, the Ford Explorer doesn't do it that way. You pull the lever on the inside once, then it then unlatches the hood, then you pull it again to release it all the way.

So when you go out, you can lift up the hood. You don't have to release anything on the outside.

Well, my technician was replacing a microphone on the inside.

This is where you, you know, so that you can speak to the car, you know, or use your Apple CarPlay and make a phone call and they can hear you.

Well, everybody that was, that these people would call say, well, your microphone sounds weird and it was real fuzzy.

So we replaced it under warranty.

Well, in order to effectuate that repair, he had to disconnect the battery so that everything didn't go haywire when he was messing with the wires.

Well, he released the hood, then he went, got done.

He said, well, I need to test drive this thing, make sure it's going to work.

So he hooked up his phone, called somebody from dealership going down the road. All of a sudden the hood flies up on that car.

He's going 40, 45 miles an hour down the road.

The hood slams up against the windshield, you know, smashes it, scares him to death.

He pulls over. Thank goodness he didn't run into anybody else and is able to get the hood relatched and then carefully drives back to the dealership.

So this is a customer's vehicle. What would you do if that happened to you?

Well, number one, you'd probably be mad or upset, maybe not mad, just disappointed.

You know, it was a nice vehicle and it's never had any damage and now it's damaged.

Now you got to replace my windshield.

Now you got to replace it with the hood has to be replaced.

It bent the fenders, the very top of the fenders.

And so guess who gets to pay for that?

Me. Now, unfortunately, when we do that repair, if we do it a body shop, it's going to show up on a car fax.

Well, that's not good because it's going to show minor damage on that customer's history report.

And I wouldn't want mine to say that.

So what do you do about that?

We take pictures of it.

And that's what I did.

I went and took pictures.

I know these people that own this vehicle.

They're friends, matter of fact.

And so I'm going to provide those pictures to them.

They know that it happened.

They know that we're good for it.

Then we're going to take care of it.

They're not really upset.

I was kind of surprised, happily surprised to say the least.

And so now we got to get an estimate, send it to a body shop.

I mean, it's undriveable.

The windshield is shattered and the hood looks pretty bad.

So we're going to take care of this.

But it's so important to have those records.

They'll get a copy of the estimate.

They'll get the photographs.

And they'll put them in their glove box and save it until it's time to trade.

Hopefully they'll trade for us and we'll know what happened.

But if they go somewhere else and trade the vehicle, shows up on a car fax,

oh, this one's been wrecked.

Then they come back to you and they say, folks, we're not going to be able to pay you

what we thought we were going to because it's been wrecked.

It's got damage history.

And then you say, oh, that's not a problem.

Here's the pictures of the damage.

And it was being serviced by the dealership and they actually left the hood unlatched.

And it flew back and busted the windshield.

So it's replaced the windshield, had a little damage on the top of the fenders

and they replaced the hood with factory fresh Ford parts.

And then they painted it and it has a lifetime guarantee on the paint.

So there, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Well, you might leave off that part.

So anyway, they're going to feel better about the, oh, so I see.

So it was just the hood flew up and busted the windshield.

They put a new windshield.

Okay.

Well, that shouldn't make any difference as long as we can.

Can we keep the pictures in the estimate?

Sure.

You can have that.

And so you got that kind of information.

You've got your maintenance records.

You've got all of that.

You're going to get more for your trade in because they see you differently.

The dealership does.

They see you as a responsible car owner.

You know, not one of these folks that come into trade.

Have you ever put brakes on it?

No, I don't remember putting brakes.

I'm sure it did.

You know, not one of those.

You're the guy that says, oh yeah, let me look through here.

Yeah.

Here's the receipt for the break job we did at 40,000 miles.

So you should be good for another, you know, 40,000 miles.

They respect those folks.

They'll pay them more for their trade.

And they probably know that that customer, because they are diligent record keepers,

they expect more for their trade and they deserve more for their trade.

Okay, I'll take my first break.

I'll be back here in just one minute.

Okay, I am back.

I was reading automotive news today.

I know you're thrilled.

You want to hear what I read about?

It was about electricity and it's about the manufacturers of cars.

Switching from a 12 volt system to 48 volt systems.

Sounds like a big jump, doesn't it?

Well, it is.

And one of the reasons that they're having to do that is because vehicles are so power hungry.

I mean, even a heated seat requires a lot of current to make those coils get hot.

There's all kinds of systems in the vehicle that need it and need and consume tons of electricity

just to spin the starter, for example.

But my question was, okay, with all this electricity running around in the vehicle,

is there anything in the car, today's typical vehicle, that if you touch it, it could kill you?

And the answer to that question is yes and no.

Depends on how powerful the battery system is.

So let's look at a traditional 12 volt car.

Most gas engines.

That's what your vehicle that you're driving right now, unless it's a hybrid, has a 12 volt battery on it.

Of course, your hybrid does, too.

That's what is used for a lot of the different components on the vehicle.

And that's what starts the car.

So most hybrids have a 12 volt battery and a 48 volt battery or a much bigger battery than that.

But let's just say it's just a typical internal combustion engine with a 12 volt battery.

Can it kill you?

No.

You can't really be electrocuted by normal battery cables.

It's 12.6 volts.

Even if it's like a battery that has 600 to 900 cold cranking amps, human skin has resistance.

It's high enough that the current won't pass through to your body.

Now, you might get a spark.

It might kill you from excitement, maybe.

I don't know.

You could get a slight burn from a short, you know, if you have a metal wrench, it could like hurt you, burn your skin.

But you're not going to get electrocuted.

So don't worry about that happening.

You know, if you ever jump the car and you see those little sparks, it's kind of scary.

Now, one thing that it could do if your battery has a big crack in the side of it

and the fumes are leaking out of it into the atmosphere around the battery, it can definitely go boom.

It sure can.

And it's really not the liquid that explodes.

It's hydrogen gas above the liquid that explodes.

And that could happen from a loose cable, static electricity, touching the terminals with the wrench, all of that can.

Ignite it.

And guess what kind of acid that is?

That's getting on your skin.

Sulfuric acid.

Yeah, you'll feel a burning sensation within seconds.

It's a chemical burn, like a heat burn.

You'll have permanent scarring if you don't rinse it off quickly in the eyes.

This is really bad.

It can cause blindness in minutes.

It destroys cornea tissue.

I remember one time I was putting gas in a gas can at a local gas station, about a mile from my house.

I was filling up, I say can, it's a plastic container that I put gas in to put in my mowers.

And I was kneeling over with the nozzle down in the can and all of a sudden I got this weird sensation of getting wet, being sprayed on like with a hose.

What had happened?

The gasoline hose.

This is very rare, folks.

Of course it is.

That's why it happened to me.

So the gasoline hose burst.

I don't know why.

It had a bubble in it.

It was, you know, been pinched.

Who knows?

But it was, initially it sprayed me straight in my face.

And I wear glasses.

So a little bit of it was directed away from my eyeball, but a lot of it got into my eye, burned my cornea.

At least that's what I found out at the emergency room.

And they told me how important it was to rinse it out.

That's not as bad as sulfuric acid getting in your eye, for sure.

And so anyway, to finish the story about the gas, the hole got bigger and bigger and it was like a big rooster tail of gasoline spraying all over the place.

I mean, if somebody had been smoking a cigarette nearby or struck a match, it would have been bad news because I was soaked with fuel.

But, you know, like I said, if a battery blows up, you flush with water immediately.

Lots of water for like 15 plus minutes.

And get to the hospital just in case, you know, you have damaged your cornea.

So anyway, getting away from electrical shock.

Yeah, if a battery blows up, it's a really bad thing.

But what else about the electrical system on a vehicle?

How could it possibly kill you?

Like if you reached in and touched a spark plug or something like that, could that kill you?

Well, the ignition system has pulses of electricity that's enough to possibly put you into atrial fibrillation.

And if you're younger, that's less likely to happen than if you're older.

That's why we don't recommend you reach in there and touch the spark plugs or touch anything near the distributor or anything while the vehicle's running.

But other than that, you know, 12 volt system in a traditional internal combustion engine.

Not going to kill you.

Now, what if you are driving a, oh, I don't know, one of the early hybrids, which they had, they were called mild hybrids.

Basically, all they do is when you pull up to a red light, the engine would shut off.

And you could drive pretty far on a battery power, maybe a couple hundred yards, maybe a mile on battery power, and then it would shut off.

That's called a mild hybrid.

But they use a 48 volt system.

And that's technically low voltage.

It can push current through a, through sweaty broken skin, however, you probably won't die, but you're going to get a painful shock.

You could get muscle contraction.

It's kind of like, oh, I remember, I actually touched an electric fence that was designed to ward off cattle.

What I felt from that, I would never want to feel again, because it felt like Muhammad Ali punched me in the chest.

And I'm just glad I didn't have heart issues back when I was in my 40s when that happened.

So that's what it would be like.

If you touch something with 48 volts, then it's going to be like grabbing an electric fence.

Don't do that.

Okay, so a hybrid or an EV that has a high voltage system, these are the dangerous ones.

If you're driving a Tesla, if you're driving any kind of EV, they have 200 to 400 volts on hybrids on EV, full EVs.

They have 400 to 800 volts.

They will stop your heart instantly.

Matter of fact, when our technicians are working on one of these bad boys in the shop,

they have to strap one of their hands behind them because they're not allowed or not allowed.

They won't live if they touch it with both hands, the battery packs, if they touch the wrong thing with both hands.

They're done.

Our electric heart shocker won't even start them up again.

So EVs are way more dangerous than like a 120 volt outlet in your house.

In DC, that's direct current.

It's harder for your body to release.

It can supply a massive sustained current.

It does not rely on any kind of breaker in the house to save you.

The battery itself is a power plant.

It's not something that there's, like I say, there's no breaker there to trip off if you get on to a direct current like an EV battery.

So it's kind of scary, isn't it?

So if you have an EV, then do not touch anything that's orange.

You know, just about everything in an EV or a hybrid, if you look under the bonnet or the hood or whatever you want to call it,

you see something orange, do not touch it because those things can kill you.

I'll be back in just one minute.

I remember back in the 70s, people didn't want to buy cars, a lot of these old country people.

They didn't want to buy it like a brand new Chevy Impala or a Caprice if it had power windows.

And they would say, well, what if you get flipped over in a creek and the windows don't work?

I won't be able to get out.

I'll drown.

I said, well, probably the crash will kill you.

No, I didn't say that.

But yeah, what happens if you're in an EV and you go through high water, which a lot of people do.

You see it all the time in these videos, especially around hurricanes and stuff like that.

Or if you just go off the road and you end up in a pond and you're in an EV and all that electricity will electrocute you?

No.

Modern electric vehicles are designed so that the high voltage system instantly shuts down if there's any water intrusion or if a crash is detected.

So there are crash sensors on these vehicles and the engineers have built in safety systems to keep you from getting electrocuted.

Do you trust that?

I'm not sure I do.

I guess just if you live near water, don't buy an EV and then you're safe.

If you have an EV or a hybrid and you're poking around inside the vehicle like underneath the hood or wherever all the battery connections are, you see something orange?

Don't touch it.

Or if you just have a regular car with a regular gas engine and the battery is dead, just be careful jumping it off.

Hook up the cables in the right sequence.

It's in your owner's manual.

It should be to tell you how to do that.

And just follow that process.

Use a good set of cables with really thick wire.

Don't go pay $12 for a set of jumper cables.

Go to O'Reilly's Auto Parts or Walmart or someplace like that and buy the most expensive cables that they sell because those will have the thickest wire.

I went to Walmart the other day.

I gave my cables to my grandson and so I had to have some.

So I went to Walmart and they had, I think, four different levels of cables and I went to the most expensive one and they had the thickest wire.

And it said it's good for jumping off diesel trucks and things like that.

That's the one you want when you're stuck out in a parking lot and your vehicle won't start.

But you got to make sure that you hook them up in the right sequence and then you won't get the sparks that could possibly ignite the gases in a battery that's damaged.

So these are just some helpful tidbits from the CarGuru.

If you need me for something, call me 423-552-2020.

Now see you on the next edition of my CarGuru.

How your car can maim or kill you (while sitting in your driveway)

About this episode

Chevrolet Bel

camshaft

rocker arm

valve

high zinc oil supplement

Chevrolet Corvair

Ford Bronco

carburetor

trade-in

Ford Explorer

Ford Edge

Apple CarPlay

disconnect the battery

test drive

Carfax

windshield

factory fresh parts

12 volt system

48 volt systems

starter

12 volt battery

hybrid

internal combustion engine

ignition system

high voltage system

Tesla

electric vehicle (EV)

Chevy Caprice

Chevrolet Impala

Holden Caprice

battery connections

jumping a car

jumper cables

jumping off diesel trucks

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