Three Guys Talking Cars So You Can Save ON Auto Repairs

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Thanks for listening to the Under the Hood show podcast.

Here's the show.

This is Under the Hood.

Welcome to the Under the Hood show.

We are glad to have you with us.

Shannon Nordstrom is here to answer your automotive questions.

Welcome, hoodies.

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

Russ Evans is here to do the same.

Thanks for joining us Under the Hood.

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

866-594-4150.

Terry in Nebraska has been standing by patiently.

Thanks, Terry.

You're on the Under the Hood show.

What can we do for you?

I've got a 2003 town and country LXI with 3.8 liter in it.

And I've had it in the shop three weeks today.

And it's got a rear differential seal out.

And I'm not sure which one it is.

But this shop, and it's a reputable shop, they're swear,

and they cannot find a replacement part for it.

I was wondering if you've ever ran into the situation

and where we might look.

So you've got an all-wheel drive town and country,

which is not highly produced.

They were starting to really, I would say,

as they got newer, they made less of them.

I think they made more of them from 94 to 2001.

That was the hot thing in the early 90s.

Topaz and Tempo, four-wheel, the all-wheel drive.

They had a lot of cars that were all-wheel drive

that they just faded away.

People didn't really buy them, so they dropped off,

especially in southern markets.

I would guess O3 had to be almost one of the last years

that they did that.

Well, here's the problem with it.

If you had a rear differential leaking in that,

I think they never made a seal for it.

I have never seen.

I've never been able to get one.

I've only seen a couple leak ever,

and we replaced it with a certified used rear end,

the whole assembly, because there's not much fluid in it,

and usually if it's leaking, it's too late,

and we see that it's dried up on there,

and it's already making noise, and they want us to check it.

So we look at it, and we find that it's burnt up,

and we replace it.

But we've also had them come in where they're very wet,

and we said, well, let's add some fluid to it

and try to find you a seal.

We could not find a seal.

Then there's a lot of parts over the years

that have been made for a lot of pieces of equipment,

not just cars, and that seal gets made just for that unit,

and they buy 10,000 or whatever it is,

and say we're making them, we want them this size

and they do it, and then you can no longer

buy a seal, period.

So it's very possible, and very likely,

that there is no seal available for that,

and there never was, but also they did not leak

very often out of all the ones we had come in,

including the ones that still come in today now,

and then they're just not leaking.

They may be a little dusty where they collected some

from the moisture of the oil back there,

but they just don't have a big problem with the leaking,

so there's no reason that a company would make

a part for it if they don't have a demand,

and typically the demand from what we've seen

talking with Gates and Timpkin and companies

where we've had direct relation with a representative

from that company where we've asked them certain questions

like, hey, how come you don't make dormant products,

our partner?

How come you don't make this part?

Well, last year, for example, we had a request

for 2,000 of those.

It's just not profitable to make, let's say,

less than 100,000 of those.

So to stock it, to have it designed and made

and all that, so they just don't keep it.

And I would guess the request rate for this,

it's probably more than you think,

but less than what production would demand.

I would bet the request rate for a seal

for that carrier on that unit is probably less than,

less than 1,000 a year.

So it's probably more than we think.

I think of that because I look at, like,

Dakota Digital, our friends over there,

and I was like, how many speedometers do you sell

for classic cars?

I didn't think there was that many on the road.

Oh, you know, 10,000 of those a year.

Wow, that's-

Or whatever that number was.

Yeah, it was just amazing how many,

for a certain model of car.

So when we get into something like this

that doesn't really have a call for it,

it's gotta be low.

It's somewhere between, I'd say it's somewhere

between 50 and 1,000 that are requested

in an entire year, so they're just not gonna make it.

If the part is leaking bad enough

that you cannot get it sealed.

There's other methods, the mechanic,

like you said, they could use, they could split it open

and try some, you know, permagascous-type stuff

or different things.

It's gotta be replaced anyways.

I'm thinking it was a rotational seal.

You might even try some stop-leak,

like Justice Brothers' engine oil stop-leak

because the part's no good to you leaking.

I'm guessing they've tried some of those things,

but if not, we would recommend,

and maybe you've done this already,

but if you look under rear differential

on Cardash Part, one of our partners,

Cardash Part is where all of the North American market

puts their parts as one place for them to be displayed

and you can search regionally, you can search nationally

and find an auto-recycler that's near you

that has that part.

Sometimes Chris will play a game and do this in the break

and look things up, but things like this

can be hard to know what to look up sometimes

because you kinda wanna look up a rear axle assembly,

but that's not where our industry categorizes that part

and so I think you gotta look under

a rear differential assembly.

Yeah, because that one actually has two axles.

Exactly, so you have axle shafts, you have the beam,

you have the carrier, and then you have like a torque tube

that comes off that carrier

that's usually sold together with it

because the leaks usually start happening

around those areas if they're gonna have a leak,

but I think CardashPart.com would be a place

that if there's one out there to be found,

that's where you're gonna find it.

So the simple answer for Terry is they need to look

at an entire rear diff.

If they can't find the pieces,

just find a whole other unit

and when you talk to the other facility, tell them,

hey, I don't mind buying this,

but you gotta inspect it to make sure it's dry.

Right.

And then re-lubricate it when you get it,

make sure it's back to factory specs,

install it just like you would a new one

and I think you can get lots of years of service

out of that all-wheel drive van.

Terry, thanks very much for the call, good luck.

866-594-4150.

Let's talk to Michael, you're on the end of the hood show.

Michael, what can we do for you?

I've got a 2001 Mustang with the V846.

I've had it in storage for about a year and a half.

I've got premium fuel in it.

I put stabilizer in it.

And I was talking to,

I plan on taking it out here this spring.

Anyway, I was talking to a gentleman at Sturtervans

and he's got, he recommended maybe a BG44K

as a product to put in the gas tank.

And he said, you don't want to do it

until you start running the car and run it on the road.

And I was wondering if that's a good program for me

and there's a couple other things I like to address.

And I guess the overall process,

I've had it sitting for a while.

It's inside, it's in storage, it's in a warm place

or you know, it was a nice garage and stuff.

I like to get your expertise on that.

Well, the product he's telling you about

is a product to help clean up any sludge

and varnish in that fuel system.

And BG44K is a product made for that.

And it works pretty well.

Our preference in our own shop is Berryman B12 Chemtool.

We believe it does a little better job.

We switched to Berryman B12 about 14 years ago

in place of the BG.

So we're very familiar with the BG products,

but we're also very familiar now with the Berryman

and price and the way it works.

It just works good for us.

Anything we talk about that we're passing on

to our listeners on the show

is because we're using it in our shop daily

and we know how it works.

And yeah, you sure want that to be out on the road

so it's burning that fuel as it cleans it, right?

Yeah, you wanna put it in

and you wanna drive the car and don't over put it

and you really don't need to.

And some products actually don't work as good

when you put too much in.

It's like if you put,

if you've mixed up too much dish soap in your sink,

it's sometimes it doesn't work as good

as with the right amount of water in there

to get the right ratio.

And the water rinses, which was what gas does,

while the chemical cleans too much chemical,

it can be hard on things.

So that's the first thing with that Mustang.

You put it in and drive it

and it'll help with the older fuel you have in there

and preventing things from gumming up

as you run it with old fuel,

but it'll also help clean as you drive it.

It might help pull some of that older fuel through there.

And if the fuel is of good quality

and this has been in a climate,

is it heated and air conditioned or just heated?

That just, I have it so I can heat the garage,

but I normally don't heat it.

I would say that the ambient temperature in a garage

is right around 40 degrees most of the time.

It's about around except for when summer,

it gets warmer.

But I mean, it's in a,

I don't wanna say a controlled environment,

but it's better than just sitting in like a storage shed

or something like that.

I don't get as scared when you say a year and a half

as if you would have said five years, right?

Yeah.

We have customers often that bring us cars

that have been sitting up to two years without running

while they save money to put an engine in

and they've been just fine.

It's usually a car that's four to six years

when they come in and I go,

well, where's your license plate say, 1999 on it?

Well, it's been sitting a while.

I'm like, yeah, it's gonna need more than an engine.

But I think your overall car is gonna be fine.

You're gonna wanna just maybe make sure

and check the tires,

make sure none of them have gotten cracked up,

sitting there from age,

looking for weather checking and those sort of things.

And the date code on that.

Yeah, your first drive, you're gonna wanna,

after you've checked the fluids,

check your coolants, make sure nothing's leaked down,

check your oil, make sure it's all full

and it's supposed to be at the levels,

transmission fluid, if it's an automatic,

just make sure everything's at the levels.

You can see fluid, it's there.

Then I'd start the car up and drive it.

Check the brakes gently the first time

just to make sure nothing is not working there

or a brake line got somehow rotted away

or something that sounds like a pretty clean car.

I doubt that, but just give it a gentle check first.

I think overall you're gonna be just fine,

just driving the car and that first tank of fuel

may not perform as good as the next tank of fuel.

But gosh, even that, I've seen a year and a half

not be a huge problem.

It'll be fine.

Michael, thanks very much for the call.

Good luck.

866-594-4150, that's the number to reach us here

at the Under the Hood Show.

Now let's talk to Joe.

You're on the Under the Hood Show, Joe.

What can we do for you?

I got a 2004 Chevy Impala with the 3800 engine

and starting last winter, I had coolant

puddling on top and after a little research,

I thought maybe it was the intake manifold

in the warm summer months, it didn't pool at all.

But now that it's cooling off again,

I have coolant pooling again.

Sure sounds like a leaky intake manifold.

Yeah, because I mean some of those symptoms

that you said there are the telltale signs

like you originally thought.

Yep, because they shrink when they get cold,

the plastic does and they start leaking.

You're talking about the upper plenum.

That upper part between the upper and lower intake,

that's where they start to come out the side

and they run down the intake.

That and the coolant elbows on the front end of the motor

by the water pump, both of those,

those o-rings tend to leak when it's cold.

They run kind of like a heat pipe

up through that plenum bypass.

Yeah, and the design there just got

where they warped a fair amount in that area over time

and that was always a problem.

Like I said, I know there's replacements

from Dorman that are made.

Metal. Yeah, they're made completely different

than the original OEM one.

Dorman makes a amount of metal

instead of that cheap plastic.

Is the OEM replacements still the same?

Yeah.

They've never changed the part number or anything?

Not that I've seen, you can get other metal ones

but the factory ones, we have ordered,

I remember we ordered just that one time,

I was like, why are they still plastic?

Well, that's what they made.

And then Dorman products,

I'm looking through my parts application online here.

Oh, metal, huh?

Let's try that.

They make complete intake assemblies

that are made of metal

and the oil cooler housings that are metal,

so they upgrade them.

But with this intake,

I'd be really strongly looking at that.

Right around, and the worst part

where they leak is on the driver's side

where the EGR tube goes through there

because of the heat and the cold changing.

But if it's leaking there,

it's considered like a friendly warning sign

and it's given you plenty of time without engine damage

if it needs to be replaced.

Let's do it.

Have you ever noticed anything funky with your oil

when you pull the dipstick?

Have you ever noticed when you pull the filter off,

if you ever cut one open

and if you ever gotten creative enough to see,

you know, any sort of moisture indications

in any of that?

No, the oil's always been clean.

Okay.

It means you still have time to...

Well, if it just...

Sometimes they start leaking down into the lower intake, too.

Oh, yeah.

And you can get bigger problems once that antifreeze,

that glycol in the antifreeze

just kind of wipes the bearings eventually

and takes your lubricity away.

You know, at 20 years old,

it's really a maintenance item to do the lower

and the upper, and replace the upper plenum

and replace those lower gaskets

because we had these fail at five or six years old

and cause engines to need to be replaced,

but as long as those engines last,

and some of those engines we see with 300,000 miles on them

and they get intake gaskets and a plenum on them,

they'll just keep going for a long, long time.

So did we go plenum crazy

and you were gonna tell us you already put a plenum on it

and you don't think that's the problem?

No.

No, I'm just sitting here wondering how big of a job

that is if an average guy can do that or...

Yes.

Yeah, most, I've seen a lot of people that,

if I gave Chris a torque wrench and a gasket scraper

and a pile of shop rags and a YouTube video,

I would say, Chris, go for it.

He could, not a problem.

How many wrenches would this be?

We've always jokingly said about our wrench scale

before one to 10, do we use our wrench scale?

We've gone for between five and 10 depending.

What should we use?

We should really...

I think one to five is a good scale.

One to five, it's probably a two and a half.

It's right in the middle.

It's bigger than...

It's about like putting drum brakes on.

If you can do drum brakes, you can do that intake.

It disc brakes, it's a little different.

That's a little easier.

If you own a torque wrench, you can probably do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It doesn't count.

Some people just buy tools.

I like it.

I do it.

I have one.

I was thinking of you.

To watch the YouTube videos

because the biggest part of this

is gonna be the inspection of the lower intake

when you remove it

to see if you...

To determine if it should be replaced

or taken to a machine shop

to have it cleaned up and machined

because of pitting that's on it.

But if it's clean and free of, you know,

any problems on the surface of that aluminum,

you can leave it and put it back together.

But things to avoid,

don't scrape it with anything metal.

You wanna use like a gasket remover.

They have some sprays for that.

And plastic scrapers available at pretty much

any big box store.

On the chat, Edward says,

one of my first mechanic jobs

is replacing a plenum on a 3,800.

Great beginner job.

Just be careful not to get too much coolant in the oil.

And do not use an abrasive wheel.

To clean.

No.

No power wheels.

Do not do that.

That mistake has been made many times.

Plastic gasket scrapers will do the job.

Sometimes you gotta spray it.

They have gasket remover you can buy

at auto parts stores.

Spray it on and then let it sit a little bit

and scrape it off.

And what we do, we drain the coolant first.

But once we get it all put back together

and we've got shop rags in the valley of the engine

when we're cleaning this gasket off,

get it all put back together,

make sure you use a shop vac vacuum it all out really well.

And once it's all assembled

and you put the coolant in it,

pull the drain plug for the oil.

Then leave it full of oil

until you're ready to change it.

So when it's all done,

you pull the plug, you drain it,

you put a filter on it, you fire it up,

and you run it.

You really don't even have to put a filter on it.

Just drain the oil, put the plug back in,

put four quarts in it, start it, run it like two minutes,

shut it off, then change your filter and your oil.

Then you can ensure you've got all moisture out of there,

coolant, dirt, debris, anything that may have fallen

in there, keep it clean.

The cleaner you can keep it,

the longer that engine's gonna last.

Joe, thanks very much for the call.

Good luck.

Let me just say, I would have done exactly what Joe did.

It would have leaked last winter,

and then when it stopped pooling over the summer,

I would have thought, well, maybe it's fixed.

I'm gonna wait till it gets cold again

and see if it does it like it did last winter.

That's exactly what you would have done.

Yeah, totally.

866-594-4150, let's go to Michigan

and talk to Leonard.

You're on the under the hood show, Leonard.

What can we do for you?

Yeah, I have a 2002 Ford Ranger.

It's a six cylinder, four liter.

Bruns great, but I have one problem.

I cannot find the keys to the car

and it has a chip in the key.

That makes for a slight issue,

but I will tell you that in the last,

I don't know, I hate saying years because I always miss,

but as of recent, there are more specialized locksmiths

out there that have done the right licensing.

They've done the correct technology,

they have the technology and the tools that they use

that the mobile locksmiths are getting where now

they can do these things wherever the vehicle might be.

Now you may not have one in your area,

but I know I could pick up the phone today

and call two of them that would come out to our business

that have the ability to make a key for that,

program it and make it work.

Now just 10 years ago or less,

that vehicle had to get loaded on a flat bed

and taken down to the dealer to have that key made.

Would that be fair Russ?

Oh yeah, for sure.

And now it's as simple as you plug into the OBD2 port

under the dash, you cut the key by the number you have

and hit the button and program it, you're good to go.

Yep, and so I mean, but the technology's-

It's not gonna be $4 like getting a padlock key cut.

No, you're gonna spend probably depending on where you live,

you're gonna spend somewhere between $125 to $275.

For a set of keys, program where you go.

You say you're in Ann Arbor, Michigan?

Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Sweet, yeah, Ann Arbor, you can,

you're gonna be able to pick up the phone

and probably get a dozen of them in your area.

Thanks very much for the call, Leonard.

Paul, you're on the under the hood show.

What can we do for you?

Camber versus tow, these newer cars

don't have adjustable camber arms

and seeing a lot of rear tire wear because of this.

Yeah, we've seen that.

Like Mazda is one of the worst ones for it

and they've now come out with a kit

that will allow you to put adjustable arms on it,

adjustable bolts and things like that.

So a lot of these cars,

there have been aftermarket kits made.

And if you talk to an alignment shop

that does a lot of cars,

they should be able to tell you if that kit has come out

because like when I was at a shop

that did alignments all the time,

we were doing, you know, I was doing a dozen,

sometimes 15 a day and when I do them,

I kept getting these catalogs that was before internet.

Sure, but the catalogs would come

and they'd be like, hey, look,

we've got a new package of adjustable camber bolts now

for front, rear, different things for slots,

different shims, all sorts of stuff.

But you're right, the factory is good.

The factory has admitted to it.

Yeah, they're good, but they're not perfect.

They're like right at the edge of the wear limit.

So any change at all from a pothole and you're done.

You've got to actually physically bend something

to get it back and it's not good.

They should be putting adjustable stuff on all these cars.

And Tesla's newest stuff,

they didn't learn from their old,

the new ones are even not adjustable.

Yeah.

So, and what they do is they cheat the toe

to make up for the camber.

Well, and that just changes your,

that and it also changes the handling on it.

But you know, you got a heavy car like that.

You can, then there's even more issues.

Does this one have the ride control suspension on it too?

Many of them do.

Yeah, but does this one that has the problem

with the camber?

Cause that makes it worse.

They all have it.

Okay.

They all have it.

Yeah. Cause when you got a ride control

and you have the camber problem,

it makes it even worse.

Cause as the thing goes up and down,

it really gets weird.

Paul, thanks very much for the call.

He was asking about a camber and this and that.

If you've got tires that are towed in,

you know, like they're put your two feet

straight forward and then you put your toes

towards each other.

They're towed in.

Pigeon towed.

Yeah.

They will wear when they're pushed in like that,

they're going to wear the outside edge of the tire

all the way around or featherism really bad.

If they're towed out,

put your toes away from each other and your heels in,

they're going to wear the inside edge of the tire

cause it's scraping it as good on the road.

And camber, is that the back and forth?

Yeah. So the camber on that,

if the camber, it can pull to one size

and also call tire wear on one side

or both depending on how bad the camber is off

as well.

So all these things are something that alignment shop

needs to go through on a car.

If you've got any signs of tire wear

before they get too bad.

Yeah. Cause it can go bad fast.

Oh yeah.

The tire real quick.

Oh yeah. Like within a hundred miles if it's bad enough.

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Welcome back, everybody.

It's time to get back under the hood

with a motor medics.

866-594-4150.

Let's talk to Bruce here on the end of the hood show.

Bruce, what can we do for you?

Yeah, thanks for taking my call, guys.

My question is, I bought a,

this summer I bought a 1989 short bed Chevy,

a two-ill drive with a five-speed manual.

I can see it, I can feel it.

4.3-liter V6, right?

Yeah, took it out.

It was tired and I didn't like it.

So I wanted the thing to move a little bit.

So I put a mid-80s, 3.5 in there with a mild cam.

Here's my problem.

Everything runs great.

I have a squeak in that thing

and it sounds like a belt squeak,

but it's by exhaust.

It's really odd.

I took my exhaust loose in front of my muffler.

Still squeaked, I took it.

I took the Y-pipe off and put new gaskets in

between the manifold and the Y-pipe.

It still squeaks.

It's a odd, odd squeak.

If I pulled up your shop,

you would think I got a belt squeaking, but it isn't.

You put your hand over the muffler

or over the exhaust, the tailpipe in the back

and it goes away.

Any ideas?

Sounds like vacuum, like a...

Sounds like the valves might need to be adjusted.

Yeah.

It sounds like maybe you got a valve

that's just a little too tight.

You've got a hydraulic lifter

that's not working correctly

or it's just a little too tight.

So it's passing air by that valve.

It's not 100% seating.

Not enough to cause a huge miss,

but maybe a little bit of loss in power.

But if it's, yeah, if you get a valve too tight,

I've had them happen like that

where just recently we had one

that just was a nightmare of an engine

and got a few replaced in it.

We had to adjust the valves every time in it too

and every time I would adjust it,

I would tighten them up a little bit

and then I'd hear it squeak, squeak, squeak

and then loosen it up and go until it clicked

and then I'd go back a little bit

and found the sweet spot in there

and finally got it working just the way we wanted to.

But yeah, it would squeak when they were a little too tight.

I'm wondering if one's just a little,

it would have to be an exhaust valve.

I'm wondering if that exhaust valve

was just a little too tight on one of those cylinders.

I could be...

Okay, okay, super.

Bruce, thanks very much for the call.

What, where's that bolt or screw

or wing nut or...

They're under the valve covers

and you know, this last one I pulled the covers off,

popped them off, four minutes, you know, flat each side.

Boom, boom, boom.

I pull these things off

and I go to a, I start it up so I can adjust them

and sometimes oil just drips out, drip, drip, drip, drip

and it falls right down into the head

and goes into the oil pan like it should.

Other times you get a little more coming out,

you know, a little bit.

I've done this, it's like drip, drip, drip,

then it squirt a little bit, but not a lot,

but right just enough to leap over the head

and onto the exhaust, man.

That's where it smokes.

This last one I did, when I fired it up,

the back two on the passenger side

shot out like a 40 PSI rocket,

like over the fender and just sprayed everywhere

and there was nothing you could do about it.

It's like, what, how am I supposed to adjust these?

So I ended up sticking sockets over both of them

to keep them from shooting all over the, it was hitting that

and then just going all over the exhaust of course,

but it's like, come on.

That's quite an oil pump in that one.

It was just the two.

So it was just the way that the cheap rockers

and push rods and just the way they,

the angle they were at was no good.

Messy oil, they used to make these plastic,

clear covers for adjusting rockers, Chris

and you could put them on and the top was open.

So you could put your socket in there

and they would hit the side of it and adjust.

I used to have one for the Ford, you know,

with the solid cams because you were adjusting them

all the time.

That was a great little tool.

Did they, then they don't, can't get those anymore?

Oh, I bet you can.

I bet if you looked up clear adjustable rocker arm

adjuster cover, they probably make them

for the old Chevy's and four.

Or it could have one printed for you

in two days, have it on your doorstep.

866-594-415.

Let's go to Indiana and talk to Randy.

You're on the end of the hood show.

Randy, what can we do for you?

Hey guys, thank you very much for taking my call.

I've got a 2011 Dodge Durango

and the hatch won't stay up in the back.

So I'm assuming those cylinders

or hydraulic cylinders need to be replaced,

but I've been Googling it

and some say just one of them needs to be replaced.

Some say both, but wanted to get your guys' take on it.

How many times have you hit your head on it?

Thinking you got it this time?

Several.

Yeah, whatever that cost is for the headache, just buy two.

Replace them in pairs because that's just what I do.

If you put one on, the stress from the other one being bad

will blow out that new one in less than half the time.

Okay.

Less than half.

Not just half because it's half of a repair,

but less because you're put twice the load on that thing.

I have, you guys, if you listen to the show,

you know, I have a little affinity for firebirds

and transams and they've got a huge hatch on the back,

the Camaros and things like that of that era.

And I don't know how many times I bonk my head.

And then finally, you go online,

there is no less than 100 vendors

trying to sell you those things.

Cheap.

Yeah, and they've gotten so affordable

because back in the day, when those would go bad,

they used to be like 80 bucks a piece,

100 bucks a piece and now they're like $14.99.

A pair.

There's more.

There are some of the newer ones though

that we have seen that are specialized

because they run hydraulics and electric and sign them,

they're quite expensive.

But as far as the traditional ones

that are just hydraulic only, the prices went way down

and there's a bunch of people that may come

just jump online and you'll find plenty of opportunities.

But in that mix, there are some that come directly

from overseas that the shipping might take

a little longer, I'd stay away from them.

I'd go to a vendor in the state side

that's got them, that's stocking them and selling them.

You don't want to give them your credit card anyways.

On the element, our hatch is slowly going lower

and lower each time.

You're replacing both now.

And right now it's at my head.

It used to just hit my son in the head

because it looks like it goes up.

And now it's right about where I hit my head

because you put it up, it goes up just like normal

but it's right above my eyesight.

But right at my head, and I bet by the time

it gets down to my wife's height,

we'll for sure get it replaced.

When you open it when it's cold, you might get a surprise

because sometimes they just fall.

They'll open it and all of a sudden.

Are you a lot taller than your wife?

I don't know if I'm offended by that.

Yeah, I mean, just trying to think that

when you said that. Three, four inches.

Okay. Yeah.

All right, just check it.

I'm adult-sized, I'm a little less than average maybe

and going down, by the way.

You must have a hunchback, Chris

is every time I see her, I picture her

as like a foot taller than you.

No, she's, no, I'm...

I'm sorry to call that out. How dare you.

Feel free to come at me with something soon.

It's I good.

I did just have an appointment recently

and it's lower.

It's lower now than it used to be.

You have shrunk?

Yeah.

Let's talk to David.

You're on the end of the hood show.

David, what can we do for you?

Hey guys, I think I'm about tall as Chris.

I feel offended too.

Yeah, thank you, David.

Anyway, hey, I got a 2016 GMC Acadia

that's got about 110,000 miles on it.

And now in the transmission,

when it shifts from second to third gear,

if you're driving it like grandma or grandpa,

the RPM's kind of speed up.

But if you let your foot off the gas,

then it'll shift.

And then if you put your foot into it,

it'll always rev up to that, you know,

3,500 RPM's before it shifts.

I've taken it to my local dealership

and they put a valve body in it

and that did not address the system.

And then I've talked to some other guys

and they go, well, we really don't work on those.

We just recommend putting in a good remanufactured

transmission.

Is there anything else that I should be checking out

rather than replace the transmission so quickly,

I guess.

Well, they're gonna be able to do some diagnostic tests

on that transmission to be able to tell where it's at

as far as the pressures and different things.

Have you ever had any flashing trouble codes come up

on your shift lever or had anything for a check engine

light that you've had to have cleared?

No, not that I know of.

I don't know if they had a code

when they did the initial analysis

that led them to put in that valve body.

They said the transmission fluid was still good color side.

No, I didn't see anything.

Nothing flashed.

I've seen that before on my other view.

No, no, just curious.

There's some bulletins about the valve bodies and those

and that's probably why they replaced that.

We've seen a number of them

that had sticking valve bodies that causes.

And if the fluid's not burnt yet,

sometimes that fixes the problem

but depending on the miles,

if I see one come in with over 100,000 miles

and the fluid's still pretty good

and it looks like it's gonna need a valve body,

typically, I give them two choices.

Our procedures, we're gonna replace that transmission

because of the number we've seen fail

or they can take it to a trans shop

and see what they wanna do.

Of the ones that get fixed,

often they call me back and say,

well, how much for a trans again?

And I tell them and they say,

well, I went and I took and I had the valve body replaced

and it didn't fix it.

So now I need the transmission.

I should have just done that.

I just see most of the time

the valve body doesn't fix it.

Occasionally it does, but sometimes it doesn't.

Are they better now?

Like if it gets it replaced, does the problem go away?

So if you get one, you can get a good certified used one

and it's not like these fail every day and every one.

They're usually pretty good.

You either get a good one

or you get one that's gonna fail.

But if you get one that's remanufactured, yes, Chris.

They have lists that they keep at like ATRA,

the Transmission Rebuilder Association.

They collect data and say,

oh, what's common failure from all our shops in these?

Oh, wave plate problem, valve body problem,

you know, accumulator problems.

All right, well, when we're gonna rebuild these,

we're gonna put in updated parts

that are made stronger to cure this problem.

And then they build it, sell it to you

and hopefully that problem has been addressed.

And most of the time that's fixed it.

Taurus, Ford Taurus had a problem

with almost every transmission with the piston cracking.

Do you remember that, Shannon?

Yep.

And they wouldn't shift.

They got rebuilt.

I've never seen one fail a second time

after that replay.

Man, it was a $10 part.

But unfortunately it was the hairy last piece

you removed from the transmission doing a rebuild.

Clutches and everything came out and boom, there it was.

Shit had a hole in the side of it

to just pull it right out.

But once that was replaced, they just didn't fail again.

But some of them were failing at 30,000 miles

when they were new.

So, you know what, for me, you got a vehicle,

a 2016, that's still worth a ton of money.

It's a sought after vehicle.

I would probably opt for the remanufactured unit in that one.

One year later, it would have been a 17

and we haven't seen the problems manifest yet

that we did in the 16s then back.

David, thanks very much for the call.

Good luck.

866-594-4150.

That's the number to reach us here

at the Under the Hood Show.

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

What can we do for you?

Hi, I've got a 2005 Ford Escape

and the anti-sector alarm will just randomly go off,

you know, flashing horns, all the good things

that you don't want in the middle of the night.

Just kind of wondering if you have any ideas.

I'm not necessarily needing a fix.

I would be fine with just a way to just disable it almost.

Is this the factory alarm going off

that you can activate by pushing the horn button

on the remote?

Yeah, but that's what it is.

There's no way to disable that.

You're gonna have to find out what's causing it

and address that issue.

It's built into the systems of the vehicle.

I wish they had made it easier to disable,

but as a security system, federal regulations say

you have to have so much security in a vehicle

when they build it and everyone's different.

One of them might have wheel locks or something

that goes, I think they've got a point system

that it seems like, but the way they do it,

it can't be something easily defeatable.

So it's not like it's gonna have a fuse in the fuse box

that says alarm and you pull it.

Otherwise somebody could just break into the car

and they'd know exactly where to go

and they'd reach around the dash and pull it out

and shut it off.

So they didn't make it very easy to disable.

If you disable that alarm,

you're likely gonna disable a lot of other things

like your dome lights and your car horn

and all sorts of stuff.

The horn, you could do, there's two things going on.

You shouldn't.

You need a horn when you're driving.

It's amazing how many people call me and say,

do ya?

Roast my horn doesn't work on my Prius

since you guys put it back together years ago, Doug Maschik.

Hi, it works now though, doesn't it?

I just plugged it in and it worked and that's stupid.

That's all it takes.

It just wasn't plugged in under the hood.

That's crazy.

I don't know if I ever told Doug that,

but it just wasn't plugged in.

Either one of them.

It happens.

So you could put a switch on it.

I've seen people that get tired of this

and like old Lincoln's that did it all the time.

They go, what am I gonna do?

I need my horn,

but I can't just put a toggle switch on it.

So they find the horn wire clip

and they put a toggle switch in there

and turn it on when they're driving,

turn it off when they're parked.

That way it doesn't go off at night.

That's what I would do.

I had to.

That was my question if I could just do that.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, and then it won't cause any other damage

or lead in, okay.

No, it'll be fine,

but it more than likely you have a door,

a jar switch that's out in your door latch.

Oh yeah.

There's,

It's just seeing the doors open.

No, that's a whole latch on an O5.

It's not replaceable.

That's an integrated assembly.

If you were to,

I would say,

I'm gonna go out and pull two of those latches,

put them in and see if the problem's fixed.

Would you start on the two front doors?

Yeah.

I would start on the driver's door.

Right.

For sure.

Yeah.

Because that's the most used.

Unless you're always going two people

in this thing as a car pooler, but.

It's just, so that thing has,

it has each door latch has a trip sensor

to set that alarm off,

including the rear hatch.

And it's got one on the hood sensor,

but the most likely is the doors.

And that's pretty much the end of what can set that alarm off.

Inspect every door to make sure

there's not something jammed in the weather stripping.

There's not something in your rear hatch

where maybe the carpet has slid back

and it's not closing all the way

and it's on a hair trigger

because it's not quite down all the way.

I mean, stupid stuff like that can do it too.

Would it help?

So he gets out and brings the keys in the house, locks it,

you know, and then goes out and tries the doors

and wiggles some wood it.

Like three minutes for it to arm.

And then you, what you can do sometimes

if you go out and you tap on the door.

Yeah.

You know, and if it goes off, it's that door.

Sometimes that'll do it

because the way the switch is it's,

they stick, they get sticky.

Sure.

Make sure all your remotes are accounted for.

You know, we had, we had a guy one time

that had a pickup truck with a spare key,

but it also had a remote hook to it

underneath his bed mat or spare tire, whatever it was.

And the tire would rock.

Yep.

And it was unlocking and locking the doors,

drove him crazy until he figured that out.

So there are a few fixes here or even workarounds.

Does that help you, Brian?

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, it does.

Yeah, at the very least I can get in

if I can't figure out the doors.

I can just undo the horn and then the neighbors

aren't yelling at me for it going off.

Yeah.

It'll still blick.

Is there any danger of it,

the lights killing the battery or anything?

Maybe, but it goes probably not all night,

but it's not going to.

More danger of the neighbor killing you

than the battery or of all the dogs that you alert.

Mine went off one weekend and I was,

I was up in Minneapolis.

I was a long way away and I had a neighbor

that did not have my phone number,

but he found a way to finally track me down

and tell me that my horn was going off

and that he had gone over there and crawled under it

and cut the horn wires.

Yeah.

Oh, thanks.

Thanks for doing that.

I'm on his side.

I think.

Oh, it was, yeah.

I can imagine it was pretty annoying.

Hey, Terry in Nebraska,

Kardashian Park, go and look under Carrier Assembly.

They're out there.

Carrier Assembly.

Pretty cheap, too.

Pick your year in town and country,

Carrier Assembly, they're out there.

That's going to do it for this hour

of the Under the Hood show

until next time you can find us at undertheshowshow.com.

Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube page

and our Facebook page

and all the places you can find the Under the Hood show.

Thanks very much for joining us.

We'll see you next time on the Under the Hood show.

With Russ Evans, this is Shannon 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 866-594-4150.

Find out more by visiting undertheshowshow.com.

Under the Hood is produced by Prairie House Productions.

All content is the property

of Nordstroms Automotive Incorporated

and may not be used without our permission.

Copyright Nordstroms Automotive Inc.

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