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"Out of sight and out of mind maintenance" issues that can lead to catastrophic budget busters
"Out of sight and out of mind maintenance" issues that can lead to catastrophic budget busters
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About this episode
Lenny Lawson dives into the often overlooked maintenance issues that can lead to costly repairs for car owners. He discusses the evolution of tune-ups, the importance of regular checks on fluids and filters, and the critical need for transmission maintenance, especially for vehicles with CVT systems. With anecdotes about personal experiences and listener questions, Lenny emphasizes the significance of proactive care to avoid budget-busting repairs. He also touches on tire maintenance and alignment, providing practical advice for keeping vehicles in top shape.
Topics:
tune-ups
transmission maintenance
cvts
tire alignment
fluid checks
preventive maintenance
costly repairs
listener questions
Email Lennie at [email protected]
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Mazda Rx7
"alignment, their tires can go 50, 60, 70,000 miles. I had a guy had an RX-7 one time. He went 70, it was over 70,000 miles on a set of tires."
Car
Ford F150
"And when it shifts, it'll go, it may be a six-speed transmission. It goes one through six, maybe a 10-speed like in my F-150. It's a complex transmission, but they're pretty reliable."
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Honda Crv
"I'll be back in just one minute. OK, so you've owned this Honda CR-V or this Nissan Rogue or this Toyota RAV4."
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Toyota RAV4
"...is Honda CR-V or this Nissan Rogue or this Toyota RAV4. And you didn't know it had a CVT, but it does."
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Well, good morning, folks, or afternoon, wherever you are.
This is Lenny Lawson, the car guru, and just moments ago, I was a housing consultant with
my youngest daughter.
She is wanting to move into the city limits in the same school district as where we live.
Matter of fact, she wants to be as close to us as possible.
I understand that.
I'm a nice guy.
But, no, she wants to be in that school district because she already has a child
in this particular school, and she wants all of her children to go there.
The only way she can guarantee that now is to live in that particular district.
Many of you have probably been through that same type of scenario.
The problem is the houses are very expensive in that district.
Well, everything is.
Housing costs have just gone out the roof.
I don't know what's going to happen, when it's going to give, but at some point,
it has to.
This particular house that she's looking at is exactly where she needs to be.
It would get her kids in that school district.
But it is probably $150,000 over her budget, and she said, Dad, I can't quit thinking
about it.
I said, well, here's a thought.
You can't afford it, so you might as well quit thinking about it.
You know how often do we do that?
I've had new campers on my mind ever since I went camping a few weeks ago.
It's foolish because I don't need a new camper.
I've got a perfectly good camper.
It's a 2018 model.
It's 34 feet long, and it sleeps eight people.
And yeah, the paint's a little faded.
Some of the letters are peeling off of it, and it looks kind of crappy.
And yeah, I mean, the interior is pristine, but I went camping.
I started looking around, seeing all these beautiful campers.
So what do I do?
Yesterday, I went to a, I had to go to Knoxville.
I think I mentioned this, to get my Porsche serviced.
On the way back, I'm driving through, well, right at the Severeville exit.
I know that there's a couple camping stores there, and I'd already been to camping
world.
I'm not going back there.
So I went to A&L RV, and they sell a camper brand called Brinkley.
Now that's a Lenny Lawson camper right there.
Because I tend to go with quality, and I'll pay a lot more for quality.
If I have the perception that this thing is better built than something else, I'm
willing to pay more than that.
Some people aren't.
They just want the cheapest thing they can get.
If I can't afford the best, then I just won't buy it.
I'll just wait until I can afford it.
And the funny thing is, my wife and I had agreed, probably four or five days earlier, that
we're not buying a new camper.
You see, I have this app on my phone, and she has it on hers.
It's called Find My Friends.
Unfortunately, she was tracking me, wanted to see where I was, and she saw that I was
located at A&L RV.
And her message to me in a text was very concise and to the point.
And I quote, get away from there, unquote.
Now quite honestly, if she had been with me, and she was looking at this RV, this
Brinkley RV, she probably would have been a little more lenient.
She would say, well, let's go home and think about it.
But she would have been very impressed because she likes quality stuff, too.
So, you know, but when you can't afford her, you can't really justify it.
I mean, I'm camping maybe on a stretch year, five times a year.
And then my nephew, Max, borrows it.
He goes once or twice.
Why do I need a $100,000 camper sitting in storage the rest of the time so that I can
camp for maybe a total of 10 days, 14 days?
But what do we do?
We rationalize it, right?
We say, oh, I got to have it.
Oh, I've got to have that new BMW, or I've got to have that new Jeep Grand Cherokee.
But you really don't.
And those emotional attachments that we form and the structure that we build underneath that
idea to support it, it's all a house of cards because once we get it home and we get it all
loaded up and then we look at the calendar and reality hits us really hard.
Honey, we can't go camping for a couple of months.
We've got every weekend spoken for.
Or you try to make reservations and your favorite campgrounds are always 100% booked.
There is no logical reason to buy this camper.
There is no logical reason for my daughter to buy that house.
It even has a swimming pool.
She doesn't need a swimming pool.
How much does it cost to maintain?
I mean, this is a big pool.
Very nice, beautiful.
How much does it cost to maintain a pool every year?
Somebody told me a pool that size would be somewhere between $3,000 and $4,000
in chemicals and not counting the extra effort that you have to go through to maintain
that pool.
Now, my wife and I are still arguing.
Really not arguing.
I mean, there's no sense me arguing with her over this.
I want another dog.
Five years ago we had six dogs.
Now we have none.
They all died.
And no, she didn't kill them.
It was just natural.
They were all about the same age and they just went one at a time.
I want another dog.
She says no.
She'll probably win that one too.
Okay, I'll take my first break.
I'll be back in just a minute.
So no camper, no dog.
You know, all I can hope for as far as a dog is concerned is maybe no doesn't mean never.
Maybe it just means not yet.
That's what I'm hoping for.
Okay, let's get into today's topic, which is about some very common things that people
have to have done to their cars.
I've gotten some interesting pieces of mail, well, you know, modern mail, which would be translated
to email from folks who listen to the show and they ask these very, very sensible questions
like when do I need to get a tune up on my car?
Well, you know, tune ups aren't what they used to be.
I mean, let's say 30 years ago, a tune up meant replacing the spark plugs, the points,
the condenser, the distributor cap, the rotor, adjusting the carburetor, and maybe replacing
the fuel filter as well.
Most domestic cars today are very different.
They don't have carburetors anymore.
They have electronic ignition, fuel injection, computerized, everything.
There's no carburetor.
There's nothing to adjust unless you're a mechanic.
And if you're a mechanic, you can get in there and adjust things.
But today when someone says tune up, they come in, we have to clarify a couple of things.
First thing that you need to ask yourself is, why do you need a tune up?
Has your fuel economy gone down?
Does the car not accelerate like it was?
Or is it missing?
You know, do you feel a sputter when you're taken off?
Those are indications, possibly, that you need a tune up at more than likely.
Any of those things is going to activate a check engine light that's on your dashboard.
And if the computer senses anything, if there's any kind of deterioration as far as spark plugs
or fuel delivery or air delivery or exhaust, you know, you're burning more fuel or you're
burning not enough fuel and excess fuel is going out your tailpipe, it's going to trigger
a check engine light.
That wasn't the case 30 years ago.
So today what do we do?
Well, we replace the spark plugs.
I remember when the spark plugs were supposed to be replaced every 12,500 miles.
And then they bumped it to 18,000 miles and then 30,000 miles.
Well now it's up to 100,000 miles on spark plugs.
Why is that, Lenny?
Well fuels have gotten a lot better.
There's a lot hotter spark than there used to be because of the type of ignition systems
that they have.
They use coils now instead of a distributor.
And if they replace the spark plugs and that doesn't take care of the problem, then typically
they'll look at the coils and they're kind of expensive.
A tune-up today will include a fuel filter, maybe cleaning the throttle body if it is
that type of fuel injection system.
You know, if it's direct injection, the only thing to do is replace the injectors
and they're not cheap.
And sometimes they can be cleaned, but that's a tune-up for you.
And the only time you're going to need one is, like I say, if your car is not performing
like it used to.
If your gas mileage has dropped off significantly.
If you feel a hesitation when you try to accelerate or try to just take off from a
stop.
You know, those are signs that you might need to get it looked at.
But as far as regular maintenance, I'll change my spark plugs on a modern vehicle
probably at 100,000 miles.
Some companies recommend 60,000 miles spark plug changing intervals.
Just look at your owner's manual.
It will tell you.
Okay, so as far as air and fluids, you know, you're going to replace your air filter.
The cabin air filter doesn't have anything to do with the engine performance.
It just makes the environment inside your vehicle more pleasant, less dusty.
But it needs to be checked.
It's often a part of a modern tune-up.
I had my Porsche serviced, oil changed it, and it was the second service, so they
replaced the cabin air filter.
I have 6,000 miles on it, probably totally unnecessary, but they replaced it anyway
because it was covered by the maintenance package that I purchased.
PCV valve that needs to be checked or replaced if applicable.
If you have one, it's a positive crankcase ventilation valve.
And then certain fluids, engine oil, coolant, brake fluid, transmission fluid, differential
fluid checked.
All these things are checked, not necessarily replaced.
And you know, going into winter, I'd have your battery tested because your battery
comes out when it's brand new.
It has a certain number of cold cranking amps, and that deteriorates over time.
You know, it's still a 12-volt battery.
Your alternator is going to keep it there.
But you know, sometimes they just won't start, and they don't give you any warning.
Modern batteries are weird.
You don't get the warning.
You don't get the slow start.
It either starts or it doesn't.
And there's no clicking or anything on a lot of these cars, so that's something
else I want to have checked before winter comes.
Okay, let's look at another area that I think gets neglected.
And it has to do with tire wear.
Have you had an alignment in the last two to three years, four-wheel alignment?
If you haven't, then you're past due.
And you may be wondering why your tires aren't wearing evenly between the front and the back.
A lot of that front tire wear is due to the fact that your vehicle is, well, maybe
front-wheel drive.
Most vehicles are front-wheel drive now, that result.
So when they are front-wheel drive, as I mentioned in a previous show, that the
front wheels or the front tires, I should say, are asked to do a lot for the car.
They do all of the power to the road.
They do all of the steering.
They do at least 70% of the braking.
And probably supporting 65% to 70% of the weight of the vehicle is over the front wheels.
And it's so important to keep the tire pressures right and also to rotate your tires.
But occasionally, you need to get an alignment.
How do you know when to get it done?
Well, every two to three years under normal driving conditions, if the car tracks straight, it's
not pulling to the left or to the right.
So if you can feel a slight tug from your steering wheel, like the car wants to go
to the right or wants to drift to the left, it's probably because it's out of alignment.
However, it could be just a tire pressure situation.
So check that first.
Make sure that you have the same amount of air in the left as you do in the right
front tire.
And if you do, then it's time to get a front end alignment.
Because if you don't get it, you're going to wear your tires out prematurely.
So under normal driving conditions, as long as you don't see any of the pulling to the
right or left and the tire wear is even, then every two to three years is fine.
Every 12 months, however, if you drive on rough roads, if you tend to hit a lot
of potholes because the streets aren't very good where you live, or you just
want to be very proactive as far as tire life is concerned, you know, people that
are who maintain their tire pressures, who check it once a month and get an annual
alignment, their tires can go 50, 60, 70,000 miles.
I had a guy had an RX-7 one time.
He went 70, it was over 70,000 miles on a set of tires.
I said, I've never seen anything like that.
What do you attribute to that?
Exactly what I told you.
Tire pressure and alignments.
Another time when you might have to get an alignment is if your warranty, like you
buy a new set of tires and the tires have a warranty on them, they may only be good
if you get an alignment when you have the tires installed.
Not a bad idea to get that done anyway.
But anytime you hit something really hard, like you curb your wheel, you hit
a really hard pothole, and then you notice a pulling or a vibration, or
you notice that after a while your tires are just getting chewed up on the outside
edges or the inside, then it's time for an alignment.
So what's it cost?
100 to 150 for four-wheel alignment with a good computerized machine and a
technician who knows what they're doing.
Probably the safest place they have that done is at a new car dealership,
service department, or at a store that sells a lot of tires.
However, the best alignment person in our hometown doesn't work at a car dealership,
doesn't do anything but alignments.
It's called Forest Hill Alignments, and he's got a rickety old looking shop,
and he does it everything without computers.
It's all manual.
But when he lines your vehicle up, it's going straight down the road.
He knows what he's doing.
He does align it based on the specifications set by the manufacturer,
but they're spot on the money.
So we do all of our own alignments and all of our customer alignments,
but if I have a specialty car, some type of a hot rod or something that's really
different, an antique car, then I'll take it to Forest Hills and let them do it
because the modern youthful technician just ain't that swift on these old vehicles.
So that's important.
OK, what else?
Oh, yeah, I had a listener email me the other day.
I may have mentioned this because she was wanting to buy a vehicle to tow a 4,000-pound trailer.
And so we were going back and forth.
And I didn't realize I thought she was local.
I thought she lived near me and was going to come down and check out my inventory
because she couldn't find exactly what she wanted.
And I thought I might have something.
She's in Ocala, Florida.
That's probably 800 miles from me.
So she's probably not coming up here.
But we were talking about transmissions.
And a lot of people have just regular automatic transmissions that have gears in them.
And when it shifts, it'll go, it may be a six-speed transmission.
It goes one through six, maybe a 10-speed like in my F-150.
It's a complex transmission, but they're pretty reliable.
Then you have the CVT transmission.
What does that stand for, Lenny?
That stands for Continuously Variable Transmission.
And it doesn't have gears.
It has cones and belts.
And it is hypercritical if you have a vehicle with a CVT transmission
that you keep the fluid in that transmission very clean, ultra clean.
And the way you do that is to have it serviced more often
than the manufacturer recommends.
A lot of them recommend that you change the transmission fluid.
Well, let's look at some companies here, Nissan, Honda, Toyota,
and others recommend anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 miles.
Why?
Because CVTs are more sensitive to fluid condition.
So staying on track is very important.
So if you have a CVT transmission,
stay on top of that fluid.
Why it matters, transmission fluid
does a lot of different things.
It not only lubricates, but it cools the transmission.
It provides hydraulic pressure.
And if you have old or burnt fluid,
it could lead to overheating.
It could lead to slipping and shorten transmission life.
And replacing the fluid regularly can
mean the difference between a $250 service
and flush of the transmission fluid or a new transmission,
which can cost today anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000.
And that's just not good.
That's an unwelcome expense, isn't it?
Almost as much as it will cost my daughter
to maintain that pool that she doesn't need.
But people just don't think about the transmission.
I was looking in Greenville.
There's another quick lube place that's opening up.
Five minute lube or something like that.
I mean, do you really want your oil changed in five minutes?
Do you think that's OK?
I mean, yeah, you'll get in and out.
But you're not buying a hamburger here.
You've got non-technicians, just people that have showed up.
They responded to an ad, make $15 an hour so they come in
and they get trained for about a week or so.
And then they're underneath your car, your $100,000 F-250 diesel.
And they're screwing off your motorcraft filter
and putting on some off-brand filter.
And then they're trying to upsell you everything that they can.
And I know it's convenient.
It's quick.
Your life is that way.
You need everything done quickly.
That's not one thing you want done quickly.
You want factory-trained technicians
not only doing repairs to your vehicle
but servicing your vehicle and making sure that it's done right.
OK, I'll take my last break.
I'll be back in just one minute.
OK, so you've owned this Honda CR-V or this Nissan Rogue
or this Toyota RAV4.
And you didn't know it had a CVT, but it does.
And you've put 60,000 miles on it.
Never had the transmission serviced.
What do you do?
Well, if it's shifting OK and you don't see any delays as far as
when it's in between, again, I say in between gears,
but it doesn't have any gears.
It feels like it does because it shifts
like a regular transmission.
The early CVTs were like driving a golf cart.
They would just accelerate and the RPMs would fluctuate
and it was just a really weird kind of a sensation.
And customers complained about it.
They didn't like it.
They wanted the car to shift.
So they designed CVTs so that they would give them
the sensation of a shifting automatic transmission.
But it's just a computer moving the belts around
on top of the cones.
And it feels like a shift, but it's still a CVT.
And you should have had the transmission fluid changed.
But if you didn't and it's shifting OK,
go get it done now.
Make an appointment.
Get your transmission serviced.
But don't get it done at a fast loop place
or even an independent shop.
Get it done at the dealership.
You know why?
Because if you get it done at the dealership
and then you come in 10 or 20,000 miles
later with transmission trouble, they're
going to look up the records and see if you ever
had your transmission serviced.
And guess what?
It's right there.
It's in their computer system.
And you might get some help because more than likely
your CVT is toast.
And they're going to have to replace it.
But they might pay for half of it.
Or they might pay for all of it.
You just never know.
But I tell you, they won't pay for any of it
if you have it done at the fast loop place.
Well, thank you for listening to this edition of My Car Guru.
If you want the My Car Guru guidebook,
just send me your email address.
And I'll forward you the PDF.
It is priceless.
Well, the price is free.
But the value of it is, well, it's hard to determine.
Because if you go in to buy a car without it,
you'll probably pay a couple thousand dollars more
than you would have with it.
It's that simple.
It's really a simple process that
will defeat the, let's say, the bandits in the business.
They will not like you as much.
But they will say the car because that's
their job.
And some of the cars that they sell,
they're going to people that come in without the guidebook
and they don't know what they're doing.
They'll make a home run on them.
They'll make $5,000, $6,000 in profit.
But on you, they won't make hardly anything.
They might make $5,000 or $600.
But doesn't that sound good, though,
to be able to use words to get a better deal?
It's all in the My Car Guru guidebook.
In PDF form, just send me your email address.
And I'll send it to you.
Text it to me, 423-552-2020.
Or send me an email to LennyLawson2020 at gmail.com.
Lenny is spelled L-E-N-N-I-E.
Well, thanks for listening.
And I'll see you on the next edition of My Car Guru.
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