Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor, takes call from Las Vegas. Harry has 2 older GM vehicles. A 2000 Chevy Tahoe and a 2012 Cadillac CTS. Both have some pretty serious problems and unfortunately Ron has to be the bearer of bad news.
-
Harry from Vegas has a 2000 Tahoe burning oil badly on the highway and a 2012 Cadillac CTS with a leaking head gasket or maybe a porous engine block. Ron suspects stuck oil rings and suggests trying Stiction Eliminator before considering a rebuild. The second problem involves coolant loss and a porous engine block seeping coolant, maybe! Tune in for the details
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Rod an Adian. You start to go through the diagnostic routine.
You take it apart, piece by piece. You're working on
that system, bad perch, shoot through wiring, animal or debris
or bugs or whatever you want to call it inside
the canister. And then you come back and ask yourself
the question, how long was it like this?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Doe me what you h that?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Be says to the car Doctor. So it's only when
temperature gets above a certain point, have you disconnected with
the actuators and placed the bulb across them?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Have not?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
That's kind of my corrosion. That maybe what I'm looking at.
Welcome to the radio home of ron an Anian, the
Car Doctor. Since nineteen ninety one. This is where car
owners the world overturned to for their definitive opinion and
non automotive repair. If your mechanics giving you a busy signals,
pick up the phone and call in. The garage doors
(01:07):
are opening, but I am here to take your calls
at eight five five five six hundred and now pee
running well. I see that the phones are lit up
and backed up. Eight five five five six zero nine
nine zero zero. What kind of a mood is run
in this hour? I don't know let's see Harry in Vegas.
(01:28):
Let's start here. Harry. Welcome to the car, doctor, sir.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
How can I help hi?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Doctor?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yes, sir, got two vehicles bought you and one day
two thousand tahoe four will drive. Got about one hundred
and twenty thousand miles on the second engine, which I
bought brand new over the counter at Chevrolet. And the
weird thing it's doing is this. It's got a thirty
(01:54):
gallons gas tanks. It's three it's a five seven engine,
which I think is three fifth right, yep, yeah, okay,
And that thing burned in town, burns about a quart
of oil. Ever, every seven eight nine tanks of gas?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
How many miles? How many miles is that? Harry?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
One hundred and twenty Wow?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
No, no, no, no, how many? And how many?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
No, how many miles? You know that that's seven tanks
of fuel? What is that? Five hundred miles? Nine hundred miles.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
A thousand I'm getting about I think close to three
hundred miles of tank and that's thirty galls.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
So you're you're driving two thousand miles burning a quart
of oil.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
In town, right, But on the highway it doesn't On
the Highway. It burns a quart of oil every two
tanks of gas. Well, listen, that's cruising. That's cruising at
seventy miles an hour.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
At least it's consistent. So I wonder what would happen.
I always think about crank case pressure whenever I hear this.
And this is a real quick, simple thing to try.
I don't think it's going to fix it, but we'll
both feel better because we know we tried something. Is
what if you pull the dipstick out of the tube
so it sits out about a half inch, relieve some relief,
(03:13):
some crank case pressure. Does that make a change?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
You know?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And then you know, looking at or considering crank case
ventilation system, do we have something restricted stuck? Has it
been this way since new? I mean how long ago
is the engine swapped?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Now? You swapped about I don't know, six seven years ago? Okay,
so you just started doing it in about the last
maybe a year and a half two, right, And.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I'm sure you were good about oil changes.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Oh yeah, excellent? Right, I actually break the place in
the PCB valve too.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Right, So and you're using a good quality part, right,
I always have to throw that in just to make
sure right, yep, you know, But do we have a
crank case? Do we have a crank case issue? Do
we have stickier stuck oil rings? If we want to
go for magic in a bottle, you know, take a
look at the hot Shot Secret website, take a look
(04:09):
at some of their additives. Stiction eliminator comes to mind.
Do we have and keep in mind, you're gonna tell
me Ron, the inside of the engine looks spotlessly clean,
because I'm sure you've already looked. You've either pulled a
valve cover, you've looked inside the breather tube or some
such thing. But stiction which is at first I thought
it was a magical word, like who made this up?
(04:29):
But it's actually true for diesels. For example, Ford actually
and Ford actually supports Hotshot Secret with stition eliminator. They
make it part of the repair process for the seven
point three liter diesels because of issues with oil getting
gummy and sticky and binding the and creating injector flow
problems and things like that. I can tell you that
(04:52):
Stiiction eliminator may help this. If we've got sticky stuck
rings and we're looking to clean up the crank case.
So to speak, it sure can't hurt. It's it's it's
an it's an inexpensive attempt because the only other option
after we get through crank case breathing and we're not
able to free up rings, is where's it going? Is
it in the heads? Is it in the bottom end?
(05:14):
And we could spend the money and determine that, but
it's probably going to come down to we've got to
either pull the engine apart or swap it again. And
how much fun is that going to be?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So so, but like I said in town, it seems
to get it doesn't burn that much oil. It seems like.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Right, well, because well that's and that's that's why I
think this is a ring issue because obviously we're all
along the interstate. It's seventy seventy five miles an hour,
and let's be realistic, how many times do we really
drive at seventy five miles an hour in the interstate
where seventy five we're going in New Jersey. If you're
doing seventy five, you're going so slow the eighteen wheelers
are going to run you over. So we're being hot,
(05:52):
we're building higher crank case pressure, and you know, we're pressurizing,
pushing whale up past the rings usually. So that's why
I think I think about binding or stuck or you know,
a seized oil control ring or two or three. That's
why I come back to the stition a later concept.
But there's there's no known commonality to that, Harry. There's
nothing I can do to ease your pain there other
(06:12):
than those two things. And you know another engine. But
and I'm sure GM says it's out a warranty right
sixty seven years later.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So so this this product is called what.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Go to hotshot Secret dot com. Okay, all right, and
you want to look for stiction eliminator.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Okay, all right. I've used it.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
I can tell you right now. I've personally used it.
It's it's green. It looks like it looks like a
bottle of slime that the kids play with, right, but
it's it's this like fluorescent green. It really stands out.
I used it in my ninety seven Ranger. I had
a valve tick that I couldn't get rid of, and
it worked.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So I I always feel like and I'm not a
miracle drug and a can kind of mechanic. But I've
come to the point where you know, science and technology
does seem to help at times, and rather than pull
an engine, I'll try that first. If that doesn't work
and the crank case ventilation issue and the dipstick relief
doesn't do anything, and all the dipstick relief is going
to do is tell me if it's in the crank case.
If that doesn't work, well then I've got to pull
(07:22):
the engine apart. And I would tell you this time,
if you have one, find a local engine builder and
let them go through and either rebuild that one or
build you another motor from scratch.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
So probably should I probably should have done that in
the first place.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Well, there is there is something to be said. And
I've always I've always kept this in the back of
my mind. The assembly line engines are built where on
an assembly line there's no personal touch, there's there's there's
less accountability. You know, the assembly line is always happy
to give you another engine that they built on the
(07:58):
assembly line if the first one fails under the warranty period.
Whereas the engine builder, his reputation rides on that. And
those guys are fanatics and sticklers, the good ones who
make that work, that's their livelihood. So I would I
would tell you, you know, small town USA, find that,
find your local engine builder and support him. At least
you've got somebody to go back and talk to in
(08:19):
the event of a problem.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
So yeah, I'm definitely going to do it that way.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Second question two for a.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Nickel Okay, I got a two. Also got twenty twelve
Cadillac cts. Also about it new It's got seventy thousand
miles on it. It's got the three point seven engine right.
It developed a small head gasket leak into one of
the cylinders. It's burning the coolant. It started about I
(08:50):
think about a half year ago. Now I'm just wondering.
It's only got seventy thousand miles on this thing. I've
treated it almost like the baby. And uh, is there
a problem with this engine? Are you?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Are you sure it's the head gasket?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah. We did a combustion sniff test on it, okay. Uh,
and that's what we got the reading. And also yeah,
there's no leak, external leaking, all right, nothing in.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
The get your hands on gen you got a pencil
and paper, get your hands on GM bulletin twenty two
dish Na dash.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
To forty Okay, can you repeat that sure?
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Twenty two dish Na dash to forty and that talks
about problems with that particular engine. And boy, Harry, I
don't know your luck. You've got to get out of Vegas, brother,
because your luck's not good.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
All right, They've got I think I need a different manufacturer, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Something, because that engine has problems with block porosity, seeping
cooling through water jackets into the engine oil. So that's
why I say, are we sure it's a head gasket?
And in that case, yeah, it's you know that you're
losing coolant internally, and assuming it's a head.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Gasket, yeah, because it's not an oil pant, right, So.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
You know, although the block porosity issue, generally you will
start to see coolant in the oil, but truth be told,
head gasket failure generally you'll start to see cooling in
the oil as well. So maybe this is you know,
if this is a head gasket issue, why can't we
pull the plugs, pressurize the cooling system overnight, let it sit,
come back in the morning and look in each cylinder,
(10:31):
bringing around by hand, see if we see any coolant
on top of the pistons. Let's get a borscope and
looking side right.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
We did we did a combus. We did a combustion
test on the on the radiator right, all right, yeah,
that's fair. It's coming back positive. But what if if
this is got if this is the problem, which I've
almost sure is, what, what do you what do you
recommend as to Fitch?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Find that local engine builder, get them the building another one.
I'm sorry, Hey, Harry, can I can I try and
make your day better? Okay? If you stay on the
line after we say goodbye, give Tom, give Tom your
name and address. I'm gonna send you a card doctor
T shirt. I think you need a boost today, my friend.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Anybody that anybody that I'm about, I'm about a shot
of whiskey.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Well I can't do that legally, but I can't cross
state lines. The reveneurs will come and get me. But
stay on the line and just give Tom your T
shirt size. We'll send you out a card doctor T
shirt and maybe it'll brighten your day. I'm not sure you'll,
but you'll you'll think of us when you're when you're
at the bar having an adult beverage and thinking about
your cars. I'm sorry to condemn two engines in one
(11:44):
one setting. So all right, sir, yeah, well, thank you,
you're very welcome. Harry, you'll be well, hey, yeah yeah,
Harry better get out of Vegas. He can't. He definitely shouldn't.
Go play cards tonight A five, five, five, six zero
nine nine zero zero running any of the card doctor.
I'll be back right after this. I'd ever been with
(12:14):
one mom
Rod an Adian. You start to go through the diagnostic routine.
You take it apart, piece by piece. You're working on
that system, bad perch, shoot through wiring, animal or debris
or bugs or whatever you want to call it inside
the canister. And then you come back and ask yourself
the question, how long was it like this?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Doe me what you h that?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Be says to the car Doctor. So it's only when
temperature gets above a certain point, have you disconnected with
the actuators and placed the bulb across them?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Have not?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
That's kind of my corrosion. That maybe what I'm looking at.
Welcome to the radio home of ron an Anian, the
Car Doctor. Since nineteen ninety one. This is where car
owners the world overturned to for their definitive opinion and
non automotive repair. If your mechanics giving you a busy signals,
pick up the phone and call in. The garage doors
(01:07):
are opening, but I am here to take your calls
at eight five five five six hundred and now pee
running well. I see that the phones are lit up
and backed up. Eight five five five six zero nine
nine zero zero. What kind of a mood is run
in this hour? I don't know let's see Harry in Vegas.
(01:28):
Let's start here. Harry. Welcome to the car, doctor, sir.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
How can I help hi?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Doctor?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yes, sir, got two vehicles bought you and one day
two thousand tahoe four will drive. Got about one hundred
and twenty thousand miles on the second engine, which I
bought brand new over the counter at Chevrolet. And the
weird thing it's doing is this. It's got a thirty
(01:54):
gallons gas tanks. It's three it's a five seven engine,
which I think is three fifth right, yep, yeah, okay,
And that thing burned in town, burns about a quart
of oil. Ever, every seven eight nine tanks of gas?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
How many miles? How many miles is that? Harry?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
One hundred and twenty Wow?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
No, no, no, no, how many? And how many?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
No, how many miles? You know that that's seven tanks
of fuel? What is that? Five hundred miles? Nine hundred miles.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
A thousand I'm getting about I think close to three
hundred miles of tank and that's thirty galls.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
So you're you're driving two thousand miles burning a quart
of oil.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
In town, right, But on the highway it doesn't On
the Highway. It burns a quart of oil every two
tanks of gas. Well, listen, that's cruising. That's cruising at
seventy miles an hour.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
At least it's consistent. So I wonder what would happen.
I always think about crank case pressure whenever I hear this.
And this is a real quick, simple thing to try.
I don't think it's going to fix it, but we'll
both feel better because we know we tried something. Is
what if you pull the dipstick out of the tube
so it sits out about a half inch, relieve some relief,
(03:13):
some crank case pressure. Does that make a change?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
You know?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And then you know, looking at or considering crank case
ventilation system, do we have something restricted stuck? Has it
been this way since new? I mean how long ago
is the engine swapped?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Now? You swapped about I don't know, six seven years ago? Okay,
so you just started doing it in about the last
maybe a year and a half two, right, And.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I'm sure you were good about oil changes.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Oh yeah, excellent? Right, I actually break the place in
the PCB valve too.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Right, So and you're using a good quality part, right,
I always have to throw that in just to make
sure right, yep, you know, But do we have a
crank case? Do we have a crank case issue? Do
we have stickier stuck oil rings? If we want to
go for magic in a bottle, you know, take a
look at the hot Shot Secret website, take a look
(04:09):
at some of their additives. Stiction eliminator comes to mind.
Do we have and keep in mind, you're gonna tell
me Ron, the inside of the engine looks spotlessly clean,
because I'm sure you've already looked. You've either pulled a
valve cover, you've looked inside the breather tube or some
such thing. But stiction which is at first I thought
it was a magical word, like who made this up?
(04:29):
But it's actually true for diesels. For example, Ford actually
and Ford actually supports Hotshot Secret with stition eliminator. They
make it part of the repair process for the seven
point three liter diesels because of issues with oil getting
gummy and sticky and binding the and creating injector flow
problems and things like that. I can tell you that
(04:52):
Stiiction eliminator may help this. If we've got sticky stuck
rings and we're looking to clean up the crank case.
So to speak, it sure can't hurt. It's it's it's
an it's an inexpensive attempt because the only other option
after we get through crank case breathing and we're not
able to free up rings, is where's it going? Is
it in the heads? Is it in the bottom end?
(05:14):
And we could spend the money and determine that, but
it's probably going to come down to we've got to
either pull the engine apart or swap it again. And
how much fun is that going to be?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So so, but like I said in town, it seems
to get it doesn't burn that much oil. It seems like.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Right, well, because well that's and that's that's why I
think this is a ring issue because obviously we're all
along the interstate. It's seventy seventy five miles an hour,
and let's be realistic, how many times do we really
drive at seventy five miles an hour in the interstate
where seventy five we're going in New Jersey. If you're
doing seventy five, you're going so slow the eighteen wheelers
are going to run you over. So we're being hot,
(05:52):
we're building higher crank case pressure, and you know, we're pressurizing,
pushing whale up past the rings usually. So that's why
I think I think about binding or stuck or you know,
a seized oil control ring or two or three. That's
why I come back to the stition a later concept.
But there's there's no known commonality to that, Harry. There's
nothing I can do to ease your pain there other
(06:12):
than those two things. And you know another engine. But
and I'm sure GM says it's out a warranty right
sixty seven years later.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So so this this product is called what.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Go to hotshot Secret dot com. Okay, all right, and
you want to look for stiction eliminator.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Okay, all right. I've used it.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
I can tell you right now. I've personally used it.
It's it's green. It looks like it looks like a
bottle of slime that the kids play with, right, but
it's it's this like fluorescent green. It really stands out.
I used it in my ninety seven Ranger. I had
a valve tick that I couldn't get rid of, and
it worked.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So I I always feel like and I'm not a
miracle drug and a can kind of mechanic. But I've
come to the point where you know, science and technology
does seem to help at times, and rather than pull
an engine, I'll try that first. If that doesn't work
and the crank case ventilation issue and the dipstick relief
doesn't do anything, and all the dipstick relief is going
to do is tell me if it's in the crank case.
If that doesn't work, well then I've got to pull
(07:22):
the engine apart. And I would tell you this time,
if you have one, find a local engine builder and
let them go through and either rebuild that one or
build you another motor from scratch.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
So probably should I probably should have done that in
the first place.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Well, there is there is something to be said. And
I've always I've always kept this in the back of
my mind. The assembly line engines are built where on
an assembly line there's no personal touch, there's there's there's
less accountability. You know, the assembly line is always happy
to give you another engine that they built on the
(07:58):
assembly line if the first one fails under the warranty period.
Whereas the engine builder, his reputation rides on that. And
those guys are fanatics and sticklers, the good ones who
make that work, that's their livelihood. So I would I
would tell you, you know, small town USA, find that,
find your local engine builder and support him. At least
you've got somebody to go back and talk to in
(08:19):
the event of a problem.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
So yeah, I'm definitely going to do it that way.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Second question two for a.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Nickel Okay, I got a two. Also got twenty twelve
Cadillac cts. Also about it new It's got seventy thousand
miles on it. It's got the three point seven engine right.
It developed a small head gasket leak into one of
the cylinders. It's burning the coolant. It started about I
(08:50):
think about a half year ago. Now I'm just wondering.
It's only got seventy thousand miles on this thing. I've
treated it almost like the baby. And uh, is there
a problem with this engine? Are you?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Are you sure it's the head gasket?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah. We did a combustion sniff test on it, okay. Uh,
and that's what we got the reading. And also yeah,
there's no leak, external leaking, all right, nothing in.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
The get your hands on gen you got a pencil
and paper, get your hands on GM bulletin twenty two
dish Na dash.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
To forty Okay, can you repeat that sure?
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Twenty two dish Na dash to forty and that talks
about problems with that particular engine. And boy, Harry, I
don't know your luck. You've got to get out of Vegas, brother,
because your luck's not good.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
All right, They've got I think I need a different manufacturer, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Something, because that engine has problems with block porosity, seeping
cooling through water jackets into the engine oil. So that's
why I say, are we sure it's a head gasket?
And in that case, yeah, it's you know that you're
losing coolant internally, and assuming it's a head.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Gasket, yeah, because it's not an oil pant, right, So.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
You know, although the block porosity issue, generally you will
start to see coolant in the oil, but truth be told,
head gasket failure generally you'll start to see cooling in
the oil as well. So maybe this is you know,
if this is a head gasket issue, why can't we
pull the plugs, pressurize the cooling system overnight, let it sit,
come back in the morning and look in each cylinder,
(10:31):
bringing around by hand, see if we see any coolant
on top of the pistons. Let's get a borscope and
looking side right.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
We did we did a combus. We did a combustion
test on the on the radiator right, all right, yeah,
that's fair. It's coming back positive. But what if if
this is got if this is the problem, which I've
almost sure is, what, what do you what do you
recommend as to Fitch?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Find that local engine builder, get them the building another one.
I'm sorry, Hey, Harry, can I can I try and
make your day better? Okay? If you stay on the
line after we say goodbye, give Tom, give Tom your
name and address. I'm gonna send you a card doctor
T shirt. I think you need a boost today, my friend.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Anybody that anybody that I'm about, I'm about a shot
of whiskey.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Well I can't do that legally, but I can't cross
state lines. The reveneurs will come and get me. But
stay on the line and just give Tom your T
shirt size. We'll send you out a card doctor T
shirt and maybe it'll brighten your day. I'm not sure you'll,
but you'll you'll think of us when you're when you're
at the bar having an adult beverage and thinking about
your cars. I'm sorry to condemn two engines in one
(11:44):
one setting. So all right, sir, yeah, well, thank you,
you're very welcome. Harry, you'll be well, hey, yeah yeah,
Harry better get out of Vegas. He can't. He definitely shouldn't.
Go play cards tonight A five, five, five, six zero
nine nine zero zero running any of the card doctor.
I'll be back right after this. I'd ever been with
(12:14):
one mom
Host
Ron Ananian
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