More Help For You To Fix Your Car Live Over The Air with The Motor Medics

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Here is the Under the Hood Show podcast.

This is Under the Hood.

Welcome to the Under the Hood Show.

We are glad to have you with us.

Russ Evans is here to answer your automotive questions.

Thanks for joining us under the hood.

Shannon Nordstrom is here to do the same.

Welcome, hoodies.

Thanks for tuning in so we can help you tune up.

I'm Chris Carter here to answer your calls at 866-594-4150.

866-594-4150, Jason's been waiting while the music played there.

So let's get right to Jason in California.

Jason, you're on the Under the Hood Show.

What can we do for you?

Hi, thank you for taking my call.

I appreciate it.

You bet.

I was wondering if you could tell me everything about trying to track down a misfire.

In the Corolla?

We're going to need more information.

Fourteen.

Yeah, sorry.

In the Corolla, I got a misfire that I'm trying to track down and I usually, with far

dry as far as I find it, it's a little bit slow off the line, you know, from a stop

light or stop light, but it's always good and it doesn't feel like it's, you know,

misfiring an idol or anything and so it picks up and speaks pretty good after I get going.

But usually, between zero and 20, it's a little, you know, like it's really kind of almost

hesitates to want to take off in a sense, but it drives great, you know, so I'm trying

to figure out if it's misfiring, if it's like...

All right.

I think we can have, going to have to pinpoint it a little more on his end, too, right?

I mean, that's the issue here.

Yeah, I'm just wondering if it's got an ignition misfire.

Because on a Corolla, the most common misfire you're going to have is an ignition misfire

on those cars, which comes from coils and the coil boots, but if you pull out ignition coils,

a lot of times we find there's oil intrusion into the holes through that valve cover because

the valve cover gasket is leaked on the inside through the tube seals and they get oil damage

into the coils and it causes the misfire, so you've got to start with that.

You pull them out one at a time and look at each one of them.

Don't pull out all four.

Don't pull out just one, but pull them all out one at a time and look at them.

If there's oil in there, you got to put a valve cover gasket in it and a new coil.

You know, start with that and a new spark plug because it's going to seep into the bottom

of the ceramic on the plug as well and follow it out.

That's where we start and on a car of, you know, of that age, yeah, it's 10 years old.

Coils are kind of right on the edge of replacement time.

They do tend to last a long time on Toyotas, but still I would be thinking about replacing

those coils.

Rarely get an injector that's bad on one of these cars or anything that's dirty or stuck

in that way.

Unless you've got a major internal engine problem, which we don't want, like a valve

or something that's burnt, I'm still just lean towards those coils for almost everything

related to misfires on those.

Well, you said tell us everything, which I, you know, it was a little hard, but that's

where most people are going to start.

It didn't sound like you had any lights or flashing lights or anything.

You just didn't feel right.

Yeah.

You go to take off and when you get a heavier load, it would misfire and stumble and not

want to, not want to go.

Jason, thanks very much for the call.

Good luck.

Yeah.

Start with the coils and then from there it's going to be a whole another whole different

thing.

Right.

Yeah.

For sure.

866-594-4150.

Let's go to Kansas and talk to Joe.

You're on the end of the hood show.

Joe, what can we do for you?

Well, I got a 15 and Paula, a V6 and when you turn to the left to take off, it, it's

going to grab your, I didn't know what they said it could be the traction control, but

they do it.

I didn't know if it didn't.

It can be.

So what happens is that when you turn the wheels off a center, the wires that are a twisted

pair of wires that runs from the body down past the strut to your wheel bearings, they

may have a break in one of them and straight, you're fine.

But as you turn and the wire twists a little more, it can open up the circuit just barely.

It's partially open where it's still kind of bouncing on itself and arcing as the wheel

moves up and down as you're cornering and it can cause the traction control to activate

because it thinks one wheel is turning faster than the other.

It knows by the steering angle sensor which direction you're turning and now it assumes

with its computer algorithm, if I'm turning left, the driver's side wheel will be turning

at a percentage slower than the passenger side wheel.

If it sees that that wheel is turning the same speed as the passenger side or the passenger

side is turning slower than the inboard wheel, it's going to activate traction control.

Okay.

And that can happen with a bad wire.

The other thing that can cause it is the wheel bearings on these things now have changed.

They used to rust and we had, if you listened to our show for a number of years, you'd hear

us talking about rust on these sensors.

Well, now it's got a ceramic magnet on the back of the hub.

You buy a hub and for years people would call, they'd call us at our Nordstroms parts counter

and order a hub and we'd say with or without ABS.

Well, that was the fault of the company making the computer system because by that time they

were the same.

All cars used the same hub.

There was no wire.

So we'd send this part, sometimes we'd ship it to a person, they'd get it and say, well,

this is wrong.

There's no sensor on it because what they did is they read their scanner, saw the sensor

was bad and ordered one.

They didn't actually go take the part off and look at it and realize there was no wire

on their sensor.

So they'd get it.

They'd return it.

They'd get another one.

They'd return it and then they would get one, take theirs off and go, oh, there's no wire

and put it on and say, well, what did you do?

It just had a bad sensor.

Where was the sensor?

It was built on.

So you never hear the rest of the story in single situations.

Those magnets though are very susceptible just with age to crack and fall off.

Not real easy to see.

You would have to pull a sensor out of the wheel and shine a flashlight in the hole and

turn it slowly and look at the whole surface of it to see if any of it is broken.

Now some of them in the back, you can see because they're open and you can turn it and

just look and see and they made it that way so that they can't rust or corrode.

Great system, but they do require some maintenance.

So I'm suspecting that you may have a broken piece of magnet on one of those.

The other thing would be you've got a broken wire going down there and either one of those

is really easy to fix.

It's either a hub or the wire.

That's after confirming that it's the traction control.

It could be, what is there other things it could be?

There could be lots of things, but that's the most common and if you scan it, you should

get an erratic speed signal code from one of the wheels.

That's really common.

It'll say front left erratic vehicle speed.

Okay, so Chevrolet dealer can check that out.

Chevrolet dealer, independent garages.

That is a common readable system by lots of tools.

There he goes.

That help you out there, Joe?

Yeah.

Well, I had it in, put a new hub on about, oh, 25 miles ago and so I took it back in

and they said the other wheel bearing goes, all right, you know, the other side and that

side.

So it would have been then, but I have had them where I've put them on and six weeks

later the other side fails.

The piece falls off of it.

Is at a certain age they start to break, which is close to 10 years old and you'll eventually

have all four.

I had a friend of mine came in with his traverse and I did the left front and then it came

back and I had the right front and the left rear out that same day.

I replaced those and I said, the other one's coming next.

He says, ah, I don't want to spend the money yet.

And he was back in about a month later and hey, it's doing it again.

Joe, 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 talk to Steve.

You're on the end of the hood show.

Steve, what can we do for you?

First off, appreciate your show.

Thank you.

The issue I'm having is my son has got an 07 GMC 1500 with a 5.3 in it and the thing

was having what we were hoping was just an oil pressure sensor issue but when they got

it in the shop, the shop found we're finding metal plates and shavings in it.

So I'm guessing and assuming that we're probably headed for replacing the engine in it.

And I'm just kind of curious to ask, when you get like, a lot of these engines have

like engine oil coolers in the radiators and stuff like that.

Do you replace the radiators or can you just flush them and get the filings out of them?

How do you guys handle that in your shop, Russ?

We replace every cooler on an engine when we replace.

If we're replacing an engine and there's been any failure with the results in any kind

of metal contamination in that oil, the cooler always gets replaced, 100%.

Whether it's a radiator or a standalone cooler or a bolt-on one that bolts on the side of

the engine that uses the heater hose runs through it, it always gets a cooler on it

no matter what.

As we just know from experience that if you don't replace it, you can try to flush it

but they always have a little tiny bit of metal in there that will come out.

If you pull that cooler off and you spray brake cleaner in it back and forth and then

rinse it out, you get a few little flakes.

You blow it out there, you think you got it good and dry, you rinse it out again, you

blow it out, you get a few little flakes.

There's always a couple flakes here and there and all it takes is a few flakes to come out

of there and get into a bearing and then more where to occur and then you damage the engine.

An engine re-manufacturer can tell if that engine failed due to their problem or due

to somebody else's problem.

If they take it apart and they see that there's trash starting at the front of the oil feed

of the engine towards the back decreasing as it gets there, they say the trash didn't

come from internally in the engine.

It was introduced into the oil system and made its way heavily until it filtered down

to the back of the engine and up to the cam and they say that's your engine, you killed

it unless it's got a no fault warranty which some people buy.

For us it's just cheaper to do it.

The best way to do an engine we found is do the whole thing.

When we do them at our shop, we've literally done thousands, like over 10,000 engines at

that shop and that's a lot.

We have a lot of people that are looking, consumers looking for engines because they

want to get rid of their car because they found it's just too expensive to fix so they

say let me scrap the car and they say well wait a second, how about check with us and

see at an engine.

We get these in our shop, we look at them, when we do an engine it's typically if you

come in and let's say we need a reman engine you're going to get fluids, filters, seals,

gaskets, spark plugs, the tune up items like your coil boots, thermostat, water pump, oil

cooler if needed and then once we install it we check external things like we check the

radiator if it wasn't replaced for proper temperature drop inlet to outlet to make sure

it's not going to fry that new engine.

We look and make sure there's zero codes in that engine.

We got to drive it, make sure all the monitors are running, there's no codes at all in there.

We look for leaks, make sure they're addressed, turn it out, then we're good.

We find that I'd say more than 98% of all engines that fail, fail because of something

external and whether that's the driver of the vehicle, they overloaded it, they drove

it too hard, they put the wrong fuel in it over a long period, you know low octane and

damaged the pistons from detonation, they didn't change the oil so the oil system was

the failure, those are all external engines themselves are very resilient and if they're

taken care of they can last a very long time, they're very tough these days so that's kind

of the procedure we follow when we do every engine we have and we've repeated it so many

times now like I said doing thousands of them that we've finally got into this good you

know pattern of we know what'll make these engines last.

Does that help you out there Steve?

Yeah, one more quick question, this rig has just about $200 miles on it, when you do rigs

like that in your shop or do you typically like replace the transmission input seal while

you're in there or if they're not leaking you leave them alone, what's your thoughts

there?

If we have an engine that still turns over so we can unbolt the flywheel and torque converter

properly and remove the engine without disturbing it and it looks nice, a lot of those have

already had transmissions replaced, we don't change them and we typically never have a leak

but if we have to pull the torque converter out with the engine because the engine's locked

up or there was some kind of issue or it's already showing any signs of seepage or anything

they always get replaced and overall we've had good luck with that and that's cars that

were built in the last 20 years before that we had to replace every single one because

at about 50,000 miles an old 350 Chevy in an 80s or early 90s truck would just start

to leak and we had a couple of them, we ended up pulling the motor back out or trans to

put a seal on it just because we wanted to take care of the customer and now we look

at those things as we're doing it just to make sure we don't cost ourselves extra money

and time.

Steve, thanks very much for the call, good luck. 866-594-4150, let's go to Oklahoma and

talk to Bryant here on the end of the hood show, Bryant, what can we do for you?

I have a 2010 Hyundai Santa Fe, it's got about 129,000 miles on it and what it does is if

you're driving it say about 40 miles, you're doing 70 miles an hour and you go up a hill,

it'll bang, like it's downshift and it bangs really hard.

Round town, 50-60 miles an hour round town, no problem with it, it's when you hit that 70

mile an hour speed limit and you go uphill, it makes a large bang. I've had the

engine mounts checked, they're good, I took it to a transmission shop, they ran the codes,

they tried to make it do it, they couldn't do it, they say it is not a transmission problem.

Someone told me it might be the throttle positioning switch.

Does it feel like it's supposed to be downshifting at that speed, would you think that

it shouldn't downshift while you're going that speed or does it, do you think, yeah,

it's got to load, it should downshift now? I think it has a load in it downshift.

Okay, so if that's acting normally, then a bang, if it's a physical

thump like something hitting something, I'm going to be looking for something like an

exhaust shield or the exhaust pipe too close to that. Look at the rear driveshaft, look really

close, because it's all wheel drive, isn't it? It's a front wheel, it's a two-wheel drive front

wheel. Okay, then you can rule that out, so that's one last thing. So you can look at exhaust

shields to see if the shields are loose or hitting something on the all-wheel drives is

real common form to bang on that rear driveshaft, that's why I said take a look at that. But

look up front too and make sure you don't have a shield that's really close, because when you

downshift at that speed, things can move around more than they would at different speeds, because

you've got different loads, the engines at a higher RPM, but you have less of a load on the

drivetrain because you're already traveling and you've got that mass moving, so things are looser,

but things are revved up at a higher RPM, so you could get a bang you wouldn't normally around

town at a lower speed at 30-40 miles an hour. I would look at those really close, but there's

nothing we've seen on a that's really prevalent to a Hyundai compared to other vehicles.

Brian said he goes through town, he was around town at 50-60 miles an hour, he might just be

hitting stuff. Signs, wagons, rabbits. Is there a... It's really strange,

you have to be going uphill and it downshifts, and that's when it just... I mean it's a solid

bang, and then it's fine. Motor mounts are good. In your part of a country where rust shouldn't be

a problem, in our part of the country we get rust issues where cradles will actually start

losing structural integrity and flex because they're getting weak. Maybe the transmission

shop would have noticed if it would have been a pressure issue, if it would have been over pressurizing

the system and making a hard shift between gears, the tranny shop should have noticed that on their

analysis, and they said that all was well. They ran the codes and they said they could not find

anything. And were they able to duplicate the problem? No, they drove it and they said,

well of course where they were they didn't have any hills to go up, but it takes about an hour

you know going into Oklahoma City from where I live and there's some hills and after it gets

warmed up, one guy told me that it's the torque converter in a zero throttle positioning switch

problem and I haven't checked into that. Well torque converter will unlock at that speed,

but when he's talking about the throttle position switch that is your throttle position

sensor. That controls the range of everything at every speed though, so I wouldn't think about that.

A torque converter could make noise at a higher rpm like that as it unlocks then at the lower

speeds. Not typical though. But yeah it's it would usually do it at all speeds all the time.

That's that's something that that's why I kind of shy away from that. You got to find a friend

with a scanner that can hook up to it and duplicate the problem and and watch while you're going.

Well when it happens and see if there's anything out of whack. Brian thanks very much for the call.

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at no charge. That's car-part.com. Check it out today. Welcome back everybody. It's time to get

back under the hood with our motor medics. Let's go and talk to Pete. You're on the

12th Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 5.7 Hemi. Just got it. Getting it for the little woman.

And the push button ignition wouldn't work. We messed around, messed around with it.

And finally just wound up putting the key fob in there and it seems to work okay like that.

And it's always you know I mean it wouldn't shut off before if you get it started but it wouldn't

shut off. Well then we started using the key fob. It seems to be working just fine.

You know I don't know if you guys' wives are like mine but you know the last thing I want is

hey I'm broke down you know. Yeah that doesn't always go well. Something

no it generally doesn't you know. So I'm wondering is that something that is a computer thing or is

it something I can you know should be worried about or get looked at or. I want to clarify

something and I maybe Russ has already got this figured out but when you say using the key fob

explain what you're talking about. Well we took you know the push button deal pop that little

button out and then just put the key fob right in the ignition switch and then use that.

To turn and turn that little button that you push and it just turns like a regular key you know

but it's use the actual key fob deal for it. Yeah if you take it off.

That's their that's their failsafe. Yeah so they've had a lot of there's been a at least a

significant number of those ignition switches that have failed in the dash themselves and they

the fix for it is to replace the whole unit where that button is and the key fobs they get

they come as a set when you buy it you get the switch behind the dash with the button and you

get two key fobs and that usually takes care of it. I've seen a number of these put in so if you're

having to if the button's not really working anymore and you're having to do it manually then

yeah it's uh I think you're probably gonna have to replace that whole thing but the way you're

doing it now the other part failed with the push button this may fail too so you may need to

you may need to get that fixed now before it all fails. I see what you're saying.

That's what I was wondering and what's the funny thing is you know we popped a little button out

of there but I can stick my pinky in there and push that deal all the way down and it'll start

to shut off that way. Yeah and that's usually another indication that switch is bad in the dash.

You don't want that. You don't want that. Chris you would run for a long time. Yeah I would.

I would have a mold of my pinky done so I wouldn't. Yeah you would leave that alone for a long time but

if I were driving it. Based on the situation with his little woman I think that I think that he's

got to get this fixed the right way. I think so Pete thanks for the call. Yeah if it were me

it would go a long time but if it were my wife I would get it fixed I think. 866-594-4150 let's

talk to Donna in Missouri. Donna you're on the end of the hood show what can we do for you?

Yes I just bought a Ford flex and the lights go off and they come back on if I switch it

off and back on they come back on and then they'll stay on for a little while but I never know when

they're going to go off. Oh the old headlights going off on the flex trick. They're flexing.

Yeah but when I touch it they come back on. It's really easy. They call it a multi function switch

because it has multiple functions and the function of that switch sometimes doesn't function the

way it's supposed to and the little contactors inside of there will start to burn on the ends

and not make a good connection. So when the lights are on if you just give a little touch

they'll come back on again if they go out or if you flip it from high down to low

or wiggle it around or if the temperature changes all those things can happen so the fix we found

on most of those is to replace that switch the entire unit on the end and the way they

test it at a shop is just like you did. They'll turn the lights on they'll leave them sit there

for a while wait for them to go off and then they'll just lightly touch the end of it. If they

come back on again they say oh that's a problem it's a switch and then they'll replace it. They

just got to verify that that's what's going on because sometimes you touching the switch clicks

the relay that's in the in the junction box and and that is the problem not the switch but

the ones we've had that we've had to fix were related to the switch itself which replaced the

switch. Well that sounds pretty good to me you know I don't know anything about cars and some

mechanics see a woman coming you know so I wanted to get an idea before I took it in what could be

wrong and that's exactly what we're here for we welcome those kind of calls so we can help you

um not get a surprise when you go in. Well and I'm when you look at the industry as a whole

there are so many good people out there that take care of every customer the exact same way

it's a shame the the ones over the years and the few currently that that do cause that reputation

to exist because it shouldn't matter what you know about your car the repair should be the same

the options they give you should be the same as what's it it's just we got to continue to help

educate people so they know the right questions to ask so we can break that stereotype and also

find out the bad actors and and show them out because that's just wrong. Donna thanks very much

for the call good luck and I've we've learned we had that and if you hit a deer and have the

entire front end replaced oh dear that sometimes will fix the headlight problem too we found out

that in the Avalon. Took care of everything. No problems yeah eight six six five nine four

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

you? I've got a uh 2016 Chevy Silverado 1500 that lurches between first and second when I'm

accelerating from a stop it's very random it doesn't do it every time but when it does you feel it

and as far as you are aware you think everything is normal you don't see any lights no no nothing

like that correct correct correct yeah and I'm at 100,000 miles I'm due for a transmission flush

but that's about it. Which transmission do you have the six-speed automatic or the eight-speed automatic?

I believe it's the eight-speed the z71 version.

5.3 or 6.2?

5.3. Geez leave the guy alone. I'm just asking a lot of questions because I don't know the answer.

Something's going to come out here that's going to help me Chris. Well no I'm just trying to

determine trying to determine if the problem is you know transmission related between you know the

torque converter and the shifting or if it's a engine tune issue where the where it's missing a

beat when he when he steps on the fuel and with 100 miles it really could be either one of them

and so I do lean towards transmission a little bit. Then we've we've replaced so many transmissions

in these things I I like to look at the condition of the fluid and if the fluid is in really good

shape there's no sense in spending your money to flush it because a lot of those are you know 300

dollars to flush out now and there's just no reason to waste that money if if it looks like the

fluid is in good condition. Programming on the other hand has to be done whether you replace

the transmission with a new one or you're using your old one so I would suggest to have that checked

and it's it's going to have some updates because at the miles as things wear they change programming

to account for wear and transmission so you might look into getting that programmed and if you have

a transmission replaced at the same place that reprograms your transmission they should be able

to still do that for free over the next 12 to 24 months depending on how long that software was

purchased for so because a lot of cases in our shop will program a transmission and say you know

here it is here's the fee for programming now if we find out six months later that's not going to

work we got to put a transmission in we don't have to charge you that fee for programming because

we already did and it's already been done it's already been updated and we can put that in the

new transmission it doesn't cost us anymore so we do it as part of the trans service but I mean

we're kind of I don't know we're fast forward into a transmission here but if it lurches between

gears it's not engine it's got to be transmission related yeah and if it's not like a little shutter

going down the road under a light load of like with cruise control on or something like that

you know there was a that era of transmission that they had some that from the factory they

said hey we put fluid in there that didn't coexist well with the assembly lube from the

tranny and then over time they not very much time they would get a shutter in them and then

they would have to flush them and and put in a different fluid and then sometimes flush them

again I had that happen with my 2018 so but that was a different symptom than what you're describing

it seems like to me yeah and they're with the symptom you're describing with someone that is

hooking up a drivability scanner to the vehicle they can they can watch those things as they drive

it if it's doing it all the time if it's repeatable that should be a lot easier to find than it used

to be okay did that help you out there travis yeah yeah that did cool thanks very much for the call

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

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

you hi guys i got a 2003 and i got dogs i got a 2003 uh s10 uh chevy pick up uh four by four uh

four three and uh the hazard lights don't work and i was wondering where is the hazard

flasher module at in that car it's kind of hard to find there's nothing on the net about it

trying to think of the error there if it actually has one or not yeah it does okay

i can't find anything on the net you know they're pretty good about other stuff but there's nothing

does the uh does the turn signal switch work yeah turn that on turn that on and follow the click

i think they're i think that relay is the same on that i think they're both in the same unit

if they're not in the same unit they're next to each other so what we do is we turn it on we

we follow the click because the newer ones they the noise comes out of the speaker because it's

part of the body control module if the click sound is coming out of the driver side speaker

then you have a problem because it's part of the body control module and that that's where

your hazard flashers at but if the sound if there's no sound coming from the speaker it's

actually a relay clicking behind the dash find that relay but yeah they've gone now they've

just gone to sound they actually in the Monte Carlo they are in the body control module they

went away from the the switch on the my first instinct was the s10 was still the old design

you know they hadn't updated that to the newer stuff yeah it still has the old old the old clicker in

it there you go david thanks very much for the call that that's what you want the you want the

noise to be the noise right you want a real click yeah like the ups truck click click click

good old relay you hear those on phone calls sometimes when people call the show sometimes

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

how are you guys doing good listen i got the dodge ram 350 uh i have one for 15 years never

have a mechanical problem so i decided to have a four door i bought one i driving it back from

Minneapolis with a three car trailer behind it is just keep carrying up every 30 50 mile for 75

mile going down to 20 mile and coming back or back and forth so i make it back to sufa took it to

bullion they told me the module box and all the fuse boxes needed 2700 dollars they changed it

after a week pick up the car truck is the same thing i am driving look like i run out of gas

suddenly the car is dying all the way down to 20 mile and pick up

randomized advise me took it to the quarter diesel they say two injectors no good so i say go ahead

change all six of them 3500 and they did everything the promise every problem is going to be soft

i driving it still is doing same thing guys i driving in a freeway 70 miles 65 mile suddenly

going down to turn out a god diesel or electric problem until now nobody find out what's going

on with the truck when i started it runs smooth engine is pretty quiet everything is properly

work only in a freeway doing this i kind of wonder if it is a fuel problem and it's somehow starving

for fuel when it needs more fuel at those heavier loads at the higher speeds where you're pulling

trailer with it driving or whatever and it's just it's needing more fuel something is causing that

to to stop and it it's not a real easy thing to find so we have had this on duramax trucks

that had fuel line issues where the fuel lines would collapse when they would get hot and it would

not allow it to get enough fuel to the engine it would slow way down to 10 20 miles an hour and

then all sudden it'd pick back up because it didn't need that fuel again and it would run for a

little bit and drop back down and if you parked on the side of the road and idled for 10 minutes

and you could take off and go but it was worse than the heat and and some of those we ended up putting

you know in the suction line going to the engine we'd put a clear hose in and look at it and see

if we could see that the fuel was disappearing or put a pressure gauge on it we could read from the

cab that's what you really need to do is put a pressure gauge on there that you can read to

see if it's if it's going into a vacuum because if it's going into a vacuum state on that suction

line it means that that it's not allowing fuel to flow from the tank they make you know systems

you can put on these trucks ones called an air dog that that supplies a good feed of fuel from the

tank to the injection pump at all the times to protect it and it shouldn't need that if it's

operating properly unless it's got a very big performance engine and then you need them a lot

of people put them on to fix the problems they had with the cp3 pumps and and things in the old

in the the dermax diesels and the ram trucks got them too some people did it but this one here that

15 ram is new enough that the fuel system is designed plenty well as long as it's working but

we've seen some strange stuff when working on vehicles like this we found one with a rag in

the tank and every once in a while the rag would would float around it would suck up onto the fuel

strainer and then it would die and and then it would fall off after when the truck sat for a while

it'd be fine and it'd float around the tank and then it would suck up there again that is the

definition of a strange one yeah that would be that would be and we've seen that more than once

where the rag was in the tank um that's that's one possibility but the court diesel they say they

cleaned the whole tank for me they put the new filter on it that's good they would know yeah they

would know that then that fuel system is working and then the you know the companies you you mentioned

they've got a good history of understanding these diesels and you know they have their if the dealership

has their good diesel tech work on it they're usually quite skilled people the specialized

diesel shops they see a lot of this stuff and they typically know what they need to do this is a

this is a bit unusual that it could be that mysterious are you getting a a deep power

light or check engine light or anything when this happens no no no that's my problem that

that the car when i drive in it before doing that is so smooth and this cold weather i turn the key

on starting it fire up right away you're not hearing the engine usually diesel you hear it

everywhere but then when i start driving in a freeway about five six ten mile is just look

like i am running out of gas again or all the power is cut off and going down down and i push

the gas a couple more time and pick up again for another 20 30 mile and man if i got i'm not using

right now because i cannot trust it when you when you took it to the the repair shop were they able

to duplicate the problem or did they have the trailer loaded or you know where they could

duplicate the problem or not no they just drove it and they say that the billion told me this is

the problem with the fuse box and module and stuff so 2800 dollars go ahead do it uh but

matter of fact i spent about 7000 oh it sounds really in these two it sounds terrible i would

you know one thing that i would you might consider russ's i've heard him have customers

where we've had a little bit of a challenge before and said you know what here's what we're

gonna have to do you're gonna have to you're gonna have to pay us a couple hours bring the thing in

hooked up and loaded and we need to go out and do pay us to drive it and duplicate it with our

with our scanner and stuff hook to it so that we can see actually what is missing when this thing dies

and that could be you know the fact that you've already spent so much i feel so bad for you

but uh that might be the commitment it's going to take to figure it out for sure right thanks

very much for the call good luck yeah that is not a fun that is not a fun issue to have to deal with

and the best thing is go back to the place that actually did the work because you've spent thousands

of dollars with them right you know you've got to pick and choose how you don't want to discharge

you more and not do anything but you also you're in a position to ask some good questions and they're

gonna want to get it handled too i would sure think so let's go to virginia and talk to gene

you're on the end of the hood show gene what can we do for you yeah my friend has a 94

four diff 150 in about a month ago periodically every

two or three days or so driving along and said we'd just shut off so his brother said hey let's

take the hose off to the um you know just a few of us just got throttle body and he sprayed some

starting fluid in there things started up and you know it ran and so that's what my friend has

been doing anytime that the thing is has uh the engine is quit um i've listened to it i've never

been around it when the thing has not run but i told him how to listen for the fuel pump you know

the you know the motor but here the last two weeks he hasn't had any problem is there something

else that would periodically it it just acts like like the fuel is shut off

no not you know the only thing i can think of on these that will

cause fuel to just quit but the fuel pump still works most of the time there is an inertia

shut off switch in the cab that when you hit a hard enough bump or crash it will cut power to that

and they were famous for having some issues with the contactors in them not working real well

so you could lose your fuel pump but then when the pump worked it was working fine it wasn't

like a pump that was going out it was the actual power to the pump so if that inertia switch is bad

you know we had a number of them come in that were just jumped the they had cut the wires and

they're jumped across when when we used to buy them we'd call out here to the yard and say hey i

need an inertia switch and they go well we check six vehicles and they are all all the wires were

cut and spliced around them what does that mean well that means the switch is bad so it's possible

that switch is going bad it's a 94 it's 30 years old so it could definitely be losing its contactability

so what's the what do you do there replace it or do you most people jump around them yeah but

you know um yeah you could find another switch for it too i don't know where you'd get one

now you pull it yard self-service you know go on grab another one of another vehicle

they're down in the right hand kick panel that's that's where you're gonna find it you're not

gonna get a new one most likely not or and then also check the wires up by the battery to make

sure the the power wires that feed the battery are not corroded and the two black ground wires

the small ones they've got to be grounded really well they're on the core support if they're

loose or corroded and that'll lose your power to your ecm and then then things will just not work

keen thanks very much for the call that'll do it for this hour of the under the hood show

until next time you can find us at under the hood show dot com make sure if you go watch our

show at youtube or facebook you like and subscribe and do all the things and share it with a friend

we would appreciate it for russ evans shanna nordstrom i'm chris carter thanks for joining us

on the under the hood show with russ evans this is shanna nordstrom thanking you for tuning into

the nordstroms 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 eight six six five nine four forty one fifty 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 nordstroms automotive incorporated and may not be used

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