What would you do if this happened to you and your automobile?

Hey folks, Lenny Lawson again, the new car dealer with the twist.

I tell it like it is, like for example, my wife and I have to go to Florida in January

and I was making airline reservations and there's this one airline, Allegiant, that

has an incredible deal. One way for $39. There were only three seats left, so I

jumped all over it. And then the trip back was also $39 per person. Well then

how come that they wanted to charge $789 to my credit card when the reservation

was complete? It's kind of like going to a car dealership after seeing something

on their website saying $10,000 off or payments as low as $99 a month. Yeah,

they can get them that. They can promise them, but they can't deliver just like Allegiant

couldn't deliver. I made the reservations. It was still, I don't know, I could have gone

with Delta or American and it was going to be about $50, $60 more, but they charge for,

I think they charge for breathing. If you want to breathe while you're on the airplane,

you got to pay a breathing fee. That's what I felt like. I mean, so I had to pay for my seat

assignments. There was so many dollars per seat assignment. Oh, you want to carry on a bag?

Well, if it's like a purse or something, that's going to be an extra $49 each way.

Oh, you got luggage. Oh my goodness. You know, most airlines charge for luggage,

but this was way higher. It seemed like to me $149 for each of us times two because it was a round

trip. I can't remember what else. There was a breathing fee. Let's see. I think that's about

it, but that's very disappointing. You know, when you think you're getting a deal and you're really

not in today's program, we're going to ask the question, what would you do if this happened to

you? Because all of the things that I'm going to talk about are common. They happen to people who

own vehicles and you know, your car life, as I say, is a big part of your regular life. And if you

don't know how to handle these kind of things, it could make part of your life a miserable life.

And that's your car part. So let's jump into the mechanical things first. Okay. So you took

your car in for an oil change. Now, what do I tell everybody to do after they get an oil change?

That's right. When you get home and the car has cooled off, then you open your hood.

Hopefully you know how to do that. Find your dipstick. Hopefully you know where that is.

Pull it out. Wipe it off and stick it back in. Pull it out again and check out your oil level.

It should be right at the full mark. I guess it's important to know which one's full and which one's

not full. But the one at the top closest to your hand, the little handle where you pull out the

dipstick, that is full. And I mean, right after you get an oil change, it should be full, right?

It might be a slightly below that because maybe all the oil hasn't drained all the way back into

the oil pan. But it's important to pull that dipstick out, wipe it off and then stick it back

in and then pull it out again to read it because sometimes the oil will kind of creep up the dipstick.

I don't know why it does that. It's science. But it does. And so you got to wipe it off and stick

it back in, pull it out again and look at it. But and if it's low, what do you do if that happens

to you? Well, you call the oil change place and say, I got short changed a little bit. You guys

didn't fill my vehicle up with oil. It's it's only up to the half markets. It's been sitting for an hour.

And they'll hopefully ask you to bring it back in and give you a coupon for your next oil change

for free. At least that's what you should ask for. Because you know what you could say in a nice way,

you know, if I hadn't paid attention to this and waited the normal amount of time that I normally

do to get an oil change, then this could have done damage to my engine. And if they give you any

feedback on that, it turns into a debate, then maybe you're getting your oil changed at the wrong

place. Well, you may be getting it changed at the wrong place if that happens. Has it ever happened

at my dealership? Yes, it has. And those employees were thoroughly chastised. We have we have this

equipment where you set the amount of oil on it. We don't like pour one quart in at a time. That's

the way we used to do it. And that was probably more well, definitely more accurate at times.

But now they have we have these machines that you just turn the dial to five quarts and it's

supposed to put in five quarts and the guys are supposed to the last thing that they're supposed

to do is is to pull it out and check it and make sure it's full. But but you know, they're humans.

Occasionally, they will fail to follow proper procedures. So that's why you need to check it.

So you know what to do if that happens to you. Let's say you're driving down the road

and your airbag light comes on. Is this a panic situation? Probably not. It's not a reason to

pull over. It is a reason to make an appointment at the dealership that sells the brand of car that

you are driving. So they can diagnose what the problem is because one of the sensors is bad. It

could be one of the sensors in your bumper. It could be a there's this it's almost like a pendulum.

And basically, if you stop really hard or if you had just a sudden impact and it stops you hard,

which you probably would, that triggers the airbag to go off. And maybe there's a problem in

that switch. It also could be your seat belt. I know, isn't that weird? But your seat belt has

a little explosive device in there. It's it's not like made out of TNT or nitroglycerin.

But it's similar. And what it does, it's called a pretensioner. And so what happens when your

airbags go off your seat belt, grabs a hold of you and pulls a little bit tighter. And that's

designed to hold you in place so that you don't come into the airbag with as much or the airbag

doesn't come into you with as much force as it would be if if it didn't hold you back a little

bit more. So that's a good thing. But you need to get that checked out. And another light comes on.

ABS light. What's that mean? Well, that's anti lock braking system. And that means probably one of

the sensors in your wheels has gone bad. It could be something as minor as a, you know, a little

wire, or it could be a fault in the ABS pump that's underneath your hood attached to your

braking system. What does ABS do? Well, analog brakes are were designed. I think the first

manufacturer that came out with those in the United States was was either Audi or Mercedes.

But what they do is they actually pump their brake, your brakes really fast, way faster than you

could. You know how when you're trying to stop on ice and it just won't, it won't stop. Well,

what a lot of people do, if you have any senses, is to just lightly pump your brakes and slowly

you'll stop. Well, that's what ABS does for you. So if you're going down the road, somebody pulls

out in front of you in front of you and you lock it down, your brakes won't lock because if they

do, you lose all steering control and you just slide in the direction you don't want to go.

With ABS, it, it gives brake pressure and then lets it off many times per second.

Allows you to still maintain steering control of the vehicle, but still stops it just as fast.

That's what ABS does. So if your ABS light comes on, is that important? Yes, it is.

You need to get it checked out. Again, take it to the dealership that sells the brand of vehicle

that you're driving. Okay, I'm going to take my first break and we'll keep playing the game.

Okay, what would you do if this happened to you? See, a lot of people just,

they don't know because it doesn't happen that often. It's a rare occurrence, but it's nice to

know, isn't it? It's nice to know what all those little lights mean on your car. I mean,

if you're going to take off in a Boeing 747, don't you want the pilot to know what all the gauges

mean? Can you imagine going to, going up to the pilot and meeting him and, you know, wanting a little

tour of the, of the cockpit and you point at different things and you say, well, what's that

doing? He says, you know, I never, I really don't know. Is that going to give you a great deal of

confidence? Well, your backseat passengers in your car don't have a lot of confidence if a light

comes on and you say, I don't know what it means. So it's important to know what all those lights

mean. Airbag, ABS light, check engine light, oil light. Now that's one that comes on you pull over.

Okay, because that's just important. If you don't have an oil light and you have an oil pressure

gauge and that goes down really, really low, you pull over. That's just something that you do.

I've seen a lot of people not pull over and then they end up with no engine. The engine has to come

out. Okay, what would you do if this happened to you? Your door won't close. You know, you're just

standing there and you're trying to close it and you're banging it and it keeps banging against the

latch. What's wrong? Well, if it's an older car, it could be sagging hinges. They've just, over time,

they've just, they're getting tired and the door just keeps sagging a little bit and it's just missing

the latch just barely and won't close and this happens. What you do is just pick up on the door

handle and close it and then the door will close. But also sometimes the latch plate gets stuck and

that is the little trigger. It looks like a little trigger that's in the door itself and it just gets

flipped down and it's not supposed to be in that position. You have to flip it up and you can do

that with your finger and then the door will close. Now, it's still something you need to get

addressed. You can do it when you get home. Just brace them WD-40 on the door latch and then open

and close it several times and it'll probably be okay. But it could, the spring could be faulty

as well. So it's just something you might need to get checked out if it happens all the time. So

that's happened to me many times. Usually in older cars, you know, just try to close the door and

bang, you know, the door will not, it hits really hard and makes a loud noise, but it doesn't close.

It just bounces right off the hinge. But see, I know what to do about it. So no panic situation

there unless you didn't know. Okay, what would you do if this happened to you? All of a sudden,

the interior of your windows, they keep steaming up in the morning. I'm not just talking about

condensation. I'm talking about, it's like greasy steam. And plus you notice that the carpet is

getting damp on the passenger side, not on the driver's side, just on the passenger side.

Well, I hate to tell you this, but your heater core has failed. It's dripping.

And it's releasing antifreeze into the atmosphere into your vehicle. You would probably smell it.

But some people just say, you know, somebody puts some air freshener in here. No, that's not air

freshener. That's antifreeze. That's an expensive repair, unfortunately. And it usually doesn't happen

on more, well, newer cars. But if you've got an eight or 10 year old car and you've never

flushed your cooling system, it's very possible that your heater core could fail. That's where

the heat comes from. The antifreeze or the coolant that's in your engine goes through the radiator,

cools down, goes into the engine, gets hot again. Before it heads back to the engine,

there's a, there's some of it goes through the heater core, which is mounted in your dashboard

on the passenger side. And that's where your heat comes from in your car. So it passes through it,

then heads back to the radiator to get cooled down again before it goes back through the engine.

But so you've always got hot coolant running through the heater core. And so it's, it's,

it's a big problem. It's very expensive to repair. I hate to tell you that, but that's,

that's what's causing that. Okay, what would you do if this happened to you?

It's a cold evening. You've been to a ballgame or something. You go back out to your car and it

won't start. Batteries dead. You left it, you left your lights on or something. So what do you do?

Well, of course you're going to try to find somebody that has some jumper cables. You should

have a really good set in your car, but most people don't listen to my advice when it comes to that.

So they don't, they find some nice gentleman that has a pickup truck and he drags out his

jumper cables and hooks them up correctly, but the car still won't start. What's wrong?

Well, more than likely you have to let the vehicle sit there and charge. If it's really,

really dead, then he's going to have to rev up his engine and let it run for about four or five

minutes. And then that'll, that'll send enough electrons over to your battery to give it just

enough juice to crank. Now, if it still doesn't, you really need to check those connections again,

because you could have some corrosion on your, your battery terminals or he could have some on

his. You just wiggle the clamps around a little bit until you make sure that you have a good connection.

And if that doesn't work, it may be the fact that those jumper cables that he's

using came from five below, you know, the store that everything's $5 or less.

Folks, you got to have some really thick jumper cables. When I say thick, I'm talking about the

copper wire that's in the jumper cables is really thick. I mean, if you go to a store and you buy

a set of jumper cables for $29, that's not enough. You need to spend $69 or $89 get some really good

cables with really thick wire and really good clamps. And you'll never regret it.

Maybe that's a good stocking stuffer. Okay, let's go into the sales department here. Let's say you

bought a car, you financed it. And then you got home and you decided smartly to review your paperwork

again. You're all excited and everything. And you really don't, you'd rather not do that. But

you said, let's just look at this, something's bugging you and you notice something that you

really didn't know you had. And you actually bought an extended warranty. And you didn't need it because,

you know, you planned on just keeping the car for two or three years and you'd still have the

factory warranty. I mean, why buy an extended warranty, right? But you bought it, you signed for

it, but you didn't realize it. So what happened? Well, I'm sorry to say, but your payments were

packed. That's against the law. But you know, they try to get by with it because, you know,

you weren't paying attention. You signed the paperwork, you bought it based on the monthly

payment, you thought you were just buying a car and paying taxes and registration fees and so forth.

But no, $35 a month or more of your monthly payment was this warranty. You didn't know you

were buying. What do you do? Well, if they're still open, you call the dealership and you say,

folks, I didn't know that I was buying this warranty. I realized my signatures on it,

but I didn't read it. And I want to take it off. Well, you can't do that. Well, yes, I can. And

I'm going to there. They haven't had time to submit the contract to the bank and get the deal

funded. If they tell you, well, it's already funded. Well, they're lying to you. Okay. Now,

if you wait 24 hours, especially during a weekday, then yeah, they've probably got that deal funded.

So, you know, just make sure that you look at the paperwork before you sign it. If they put

a form in front of you, say, okay, what's this for? What's this one for? Okay, why am I signing a

power of attorney? Okay, what is this document? I didn't want a warranty. Oh, I thought she said

you wanted the warranty. No, I didn't know anything about a warranty. And then they'll try to say the

warranty, which is okay. I mean, if you need one, if you're going to keep it five or six years,

I'd buy an extended warranty as expensive as it is to fix things these days. But

yeah, you need to know about it. And if you don't, let's say you buy a car on a Saturday,

and then you better be sitting on the doorstep Monday, if you couldn't get in touch with them.

But leave a message, leave a voicemail message the night of, you know, the night that you bought

the vehicle, even if they're closed, if they if you can call and leave a message, make sure there's

a recorded message on their phone system so that you can say that you called that night.

Then they won't have much of an excuse. Okay, okay, I'm gonna take my last break and I'll

be back here in just one minute. All right, this is going quickly. Let's say that you're driving

your vehicle. You've had it for a long time. You know how it drives. You know how it drives at 45

miles an hour, 55, 65, 70, but all of a sudden, at 60 miles an hour, it's just vibrating like crazy,

and you're steering wheels shaking. What's happened? Well, unless you've picked up a nail,

and your tires are going flat, you've probably thrown a wheel weight. What's that, Lenny? Well,

they use wheel weights to balance your tires, and that is a process done on a computerized

tire balancer. We used to do it manually, actually put it on a level and move the

weights around until the the bubble was right in the center. Kind of crude, but it worked.

These days, most new car dealerships or larger tire stores have what they call a force balancer,

and so it'll spin your tires really fast, and it pinpoints exactly where the weights need to go

to get the tire in balance. Well, they use stick-on weights most of the time on these modern wheels,

and they go on the inside, and the glue just gives out, and after a while, you know, the weight will

just fly off the vehicle as you're going down the road. All of a sudden, your tires vibrate,

and you think your whole front end's fallen off, but it's not. Now, if you feel it in the steering

wheel, it's one of your front weights. If the steering wheel is fine, but you feel it in your

rear end, I mean in your bottom, you know, it's the seats vibrating, then it's one of the rear wheels.

Okay, so those are the fairly benign things that can happen. There are more serious things that

can happen. So let's say that you feel a vibration when you're applying your brakes. Well, that's

because your brakes are about worn out and your rotors are warped, your brake rotors. That can be

fixed most of the time with new brake pads, and typically resurfacing the rotors without having

to buy new rotors. But if the rotors have been resurfaced several times, you're going to have

to buy new rotors. Make sure you use OEM quality rotors. Don't get Chinese made rotors. No offense

to the Chinese, but they're just not as high quality as the ones you get from. Like if you're

driving a Toyota, get Toyota OEM rotors. If you're driving a Ford, then get Motorcraft.

That's the Ford parts brand. So this is important to do this. Let's see what else could be the

let's say that all of a sudden your steering wheel is shaken violently. Now this could be a part on

your steering that has gotten loose. You know, maybe a ball joint has just completely died in

your steering. That's just one of the flexible joints in your steering. And that can be really

serious. I mean, you're going down the road really quickly. You don't want your steering to quit

working. And if you just had your tires rotated and then all of a sudden you noticed this,

man, somebody could have left the lug nut loose. That's really serious. And that could

cause you to lose your wheel altogether. I saw that happen not too long ago to a young man as I

was going out to my daughter's house. He was sitting there in the middle of the road and his left rear

wheel had flown the coupe. It was gone. And we were able to locate it, but the damage was done and

he had to be towed in. Yeah, that's that's frightening. You just gosh, you just got to be

able to trust your, you know, the people that are rotating your tires. But what do you do? I mean,

just like the oil change, I mean, if you get you get it home, you want to check your oil,

do you get out your lug wrench and make sure that all your lug nuts are on there good and tight?

You shouldn't have to. But I know a lot of people who will do that, just because they don't trust

the technicians at the dealership or at the jiffy lube or the tire store. So they they check them.

And if you've been burned a couple of times like that, I don't blame you. I don't blame you for

doing it. But hopefully you're doing business with somebody that that, you know, they check those

things and they're very diligent about it. And they have a checklist. That's why I recommend you go

to a new car dealer for new car service while it's under warranty. And even after it runs out of

warranty, I just think that's important. Well, thanks for listening to this edition of my car

Guru. I like to play. What would you do if it happens to you? We'll do more of that tomorrow,

and I'll see you next time.

What would you do if this happened to you and your automobile?

About this episode

oil change

dipstick

engine

airbag light

airbag sensor

seat belt

pretensioner

ABS

Mercedes

Audi

oil light

sagging hinges

door latch

WD-40

spring

heater core

antifreeze

cooling system

jumper cables

battery terminals

extended warranty

registration fees

power of attorney

wheel weight

tire balancer

force balancer

stick-on weights

tire vibration

brake rotors

OEM quality rotors

Motorcraft

ball joint

lug nut

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