Ron Ananian "The Car Doctor" Radio Show:
Ron opens the show by discussing recent media appearances, particularly focusing on dashboard warning lights, with a segment on the check engine light drawing significant listener interest across social media platforms. Ron then takes us on a deeper dive into the check engine light; what it means when it turns on and then off intermittently, He emphasizes that modern cars constantly self-test their systems—especially emission-related components—and even transient issues can trigger the light.
Ron stresses the importance of capturing diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) as soon as the light appears, either with a personal scanner, a visit to a parts store, or by asking a trusted mechanic. He discusses common causes like fuel blend issues, oxygen sensor faults, and catalytic converter efficiency (e.g., codes P0420 and P0430). He explains how systems like freeze frame data provide vital context, such as engine conditions at the time of failure, and why clearing codes prematurely can erase that valuable info.
He criticizes the "head-in-the-sand" approach many car owners take, warning against ignoring warning lights before long trips. To drive home the point, he likens a car's self-check to a person’s morning routine—each check step can reveal issues before they become major.
In the second half, a caller named John discusses an intermittent starting problem on his 2003 Chevy Impala. After replacing a crank sensor and checking the fuel system, John discovers that the ignition control module was the root cause. Ron walks through his logical diagnostic approach, including checking spark color, using plastic tubing to test for fuel leaks, and watching for rodent damage (which John found). Ron commends John for his solid diagnostics and suggests replacing the coils as preventative maintenance.
In a later call, a listener named Joe describes a 2010 Impala stuck in park due to a shifter issue. Ron begins diagnosing by asking if the brake lights work—implying a possible brake switch or shift interlock solenoid failure. He continues to diagnose the problem for all; except for the caller, whom does not seem to be listening.
Ron closes with show updates, reminding listeners about a new YouTube video on diagnosing a fuel pump issue in a 2015 Tacoma and reminds everyone about his available T-Shorts and merchandise found on his website.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Ron An Inians. Sometimes there's glitches you can't explain, but
you've got to have the wherewifaal and the calmness and
to stand and deliver and just get through it. I
think that makes you go the car Doctor. There's an
idea for the web store. Is a car doctor calendar.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You and Danny's standing around in various stages of undress
working on cars.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, there you go, there's a thought to have.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Welcome to the radio home of ron An Aian, the
Car Doctor. Since nineteen ninety one, this is where car
owners the world overturned to for their definitive opinion on
automotive repair.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
If your mechanics.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Giving you a busy signal, pick up the phone and
call in the garage doors.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Are open, but I am here to take your call
at eight five five five six ninety nine hundred and
now he.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Ronnie.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We've we've been very busy here in the shop and
car Doctor and and stuff. We're actually making some local
appearances around the country here in the New York area.
We're on War every other week or saw on the
Morning show. We're talking about what dashboard warning lights mean.
And this week we did our segment about check engine lights,
and it seems to us generated quite a stir A
(01:15):
lot of you are reacting to it. By the way,
if you're looking for the link, I think we're going
to get it up on the Facebook page, the link
to the WR conversation sometime this week. I know they're
going to get it up on Instagram. The social media
guys are a little behind right now, so bear with them.
But you can, you know, talking about check engine lights,
right and we talked about if it's steady, we talk
about if it's flashing, and then you know. And this
(01:37):
is what I love about you, know you guys, because
you ask You always ask such simple but very very
important questions. Sarah up on our Facebook page today said,
but what about the check engine light that's at random,
that shows up and then disappears and then comes back.
And you know, Sarah, I love you. It's a great question.
So when a check engine light comes on and goes away,
(01:58):
it means that the car saw a problem and then
the problem corrected itself. How does that happen? Well, it
depends on the situation. Every system and every sensor goes
through a constant evaluation. It's always testing behind the scenes
things that you don't see your experience, but it's there.
(02:18):
It's happening all right. If it's an evaporative emissions fault,
if it's a misfire issue, if it's a two centsor
sluggish to react, if it's a fuel trim problem, it's
always trying to correct and adjust and make it right.
Got to remember what's the purpose of an onboard computer
and the emission control system absolutely positively to maintain federal
(02:41):
emissions levels. That's the number one priority. Fuel economy, reliability, durability,
all that stuff. That's that's that's important, but it's secondary.
Everything is about emissions. So if something was askew, if
we you know, got the bad tank of gas, which
you know that seems to be the standby that a
lot of people still you know it must be a
(03:02):
bad tank against well whatever whatever gets you through the day.
But yeah, it could. You know, a car with an
incorrect ethanol blend would definitely cause a lean fault code
and make the light come on. So Sarah, to answer
the question, when that light is on, the absolute best
thing you can do is record the code. Either scan
it yourself with your own scanner, get out to a
(03:24):
parts house, let them at least record the code, write
it down, or get down to your local mechanic. And
you know, I'm not advocating that everybody stand there and
do something for free, but I think if you're a
regular customer and you've taken every nutbolt, washer, wiper, blade,
break job, oil change, maintenance and service and repair history
to this one mechanic, I think for them to give
(03:44):
you two minutes out in the driveway with a quick
tool to go, okay, yeah it's this particular fault, you
know what, will keep an eye on it. I don't
think that's such a bad idea for business and marketing.
I think that's actually a good idea. And then at
least you know. Then if the problem away in two
days or two weeks because you haven't been able to
get it in or maybe it's not in the budget,
(04:05):
or maybe you're trying to decide if you're going to
replace the vehicle, at least you know what it was
and the reason it goes away. For example, a catalytic
converter fault P zero four to twenty P zero four
twenty or a P zero four thirty. The more common
catalytic converter faults occur because there's a catalytic converter, which
is basically a device that through a catalytic a heat
(04:28):
related or a heat induced operation. Okay, we'll take and
reduce harmful pollutants out the tailpipe. There's a chemical reaction
going on there. And they look at oxygen content going
into the catalytic converter, they look at oxygen content coming
out of the catalytic converter. If the converter is doing
its proper job, if it is being efficient, it will
(04:52):
reduce emissions and it will change oxygen content to the
point that they will see a converter running at about
seventy to seventy five percent efficiency more on newer vehicles. Now,
if for some reason that converter is aging, if for
some reason that converter is struggling, that bad load of
fuel alters, how the two censors react, something causes that change,
(05:15):
and it goes to sixty eight percent, sixty nine percent,
and it's supposed to be seventy. That light's coming on
the next time it runs its test, and then you
go fill up, or you take it out for a ride.
Or the engine that stuck thermostat that was marginal, or
that thermostat was replaced by accident or as system maintenance
for whatever reason or whatever was done, and within a
(05:37):
short period of time, the next time that catalytic converter
self test or monitor as we call it runs and
now it passes, and it does that up to three times.
That light will go out. The code will still be there.
The code should still be there up to so many
turns of the key. It varies by manufacturery you're making
model thirty is a pretty good number, all right, but
(06:00):
there should be a fault recorded. I like to know
when I don't feel good. I like to know when
I get a dizzy spell. I like to know why
my blood pressure went up. And I like to do
the same thing with the car. And it just it's
just information. People are so afraid to go and get
a code scan because they think they're going to find
something they don't want to see. You already know it's
(06:20):
something you don't want to see the check engine lights on.
Nobody wants to fix the check engine light. It's going
to cost your money, but it's going to keep the
car reliable, and that's the whole point. So that random
light and you know, this is why I like to
go because that random light get the information while you can.
You know, I love the people that I don't want
to go get my car scanned because I don't want
to know what's going on. But in three weeks I'm
(06:41):
going on a cross country trip. Well yeah, that's great.
You know, let me know when the engine stops somewhere
south of Toledo, and you know, it could have been
prevented had we, you know, scanned the check engine light
and figured out that, you know, maybe we've got a
misfire event going on, or we've got a problem with
a critical engine sensor that's going to affect reliability and durability.
(07:02):
So you know, but that's why that check engine light
can go on and off. Every car goes through a
self test every time you turn the key. It's like you, Sarah,
when you get up in the morning, you go through
your routine. You have your coffee, you know, you take
a shower, you do whatever, you brush your teeth. That's
your self test. Car does the same thing and if
any one of those things fail, it starts to flag
(07:24):
it and if it fails enough times, the car will
turn on the check engine light, just like you. If
you don't get your coffee every morning, just guessing so,
but you get my point anyway, that's what that random
intermittent check engine light is all about, and it's an
important piece of information. Not knowing what that random check
(07:44):
engine light is what's creating that fault. In my mind,
that's just as bad as the person that says, well,
the check engine light came on, so I just disconnected
the battery to clear the code, because I'm sure it's
just a mistake. That's just as bad. Because when you
do that, and we should talk about that as long
as we're on the subject of check engine lights. When
(08:05):
you just clear the code, oh, even if you're going
with a scan tool and you capture the code it's
a P zero four to twenty or whatever it is,
and you just clear the code. Now you've just erased
something very critical called freeze frame. Freeze frame occurs on
all check edge and light occurrences anything since two thousand
(08:28):
and up. It's supposed to be there between ninety five
and two thousand maldi years, but they never really got
it right. It got better as time went on, but
freeze frame is a video snapshot of what certain sensors
were doing or seeing or reporting at the time of
the failure. It's kind of like if your blood pressure
(08:50):
spiked and you know you're able to take a freeze
frame snapshot, maybe you would be able to see that
you were climbing upstairs carrying three hundred pounds of something
in the hot sun without any shade protection, right, you
could see the exertion your body was going through. Well,
that's sort of what freeze frame is. It can see
how hard or how easy or how whatever the engine
was working in order to get the vehicle you know
(09:14):
where it wanted to go. So when you disconnect a battery,
when you just clear codes for no good reason, you
were erasing all that freeze frame data and now you
have to Yeah, you cleared the code, and then you
have to wait for the problem to happen again, and
then you got to capture it again. So it's it's
it's it's to me, that's just as bad as just
the check engine light came on and then it goes off.
(09:34):
I don't care what it is. A check engine light
is not there for an oil change, and check engine
light is not an indicator of services needed. A check
engine light is an indication of an internal system fault
in one of the emission control sensors or circuits. It
could be a big failure, it could be a little failure.
It could be a big problem. It could be a
little problem. You don't know until you scan it. Period done.
(09:56):
End of conversation eight five five five six oh nine
nine y zero zero, run a naming the car doctor.
I'll be back right after this once again.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Where vehicle not taking you where you want to go?
Well call Ron, He's the expert at making your vehicle
take you where you need it. Eight five five five
six zero nine nine zero zero And now back to Ron.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Let's uh oh, let's go to John waiting there very patiently.
Oh three impalla with a some sort of an intermittent
hard start problem. And John, welcome to the car doctor, sir.
What's going on?
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Hey? Uh so an initial startup, it would start install
or it would it would run, and then maybe a
half hour later it would it would die. And sometimes
it would start right up, no problem. Other times there
were three cycles of the key and then I would
have to hold the gas pedal to the floor to
(10:51):
get it get it going again. Okay, So I pulled
some codes. I had a P zero one twenty eight
cold thermostat right P zero one two activity sensor.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Well here, back back up a second. The one twenty eight. Yep,
the one twenty eight is not necessarily a thermostat. Bye bye,
And I'm a stickler for this. I'm sorry bye. By definition,
it's it's it's thermostat rationality, it's it's it's not seeing
a correct or proper rate of rise once you start
(11:24):
the vehicle. You start the vehicle, it expects it to
hit proper temperature within so many minutes, and if it's
off by ten seconds, it goes boying and it sets
a one twenty eight. So it probably is a thermostat.
But just understand when you look at that, that's and
that that will not affect start unless this thing is
running stone cold all the time, all right, and we're
(11:47):
you know, we're we're constantly running so of Then my
first question for that would be what does engine temperature
come up to while you're driving? You know, do we
see do we see one seventy one eighty, you know,
instead of one ninety five two? And then you know,
I would put a thermostat in, but I don't think
that's your hard start. Go ahead, I'm sorry, I keep going.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
But oxygen sensor low activity, and then an evapp vent
control of four forty six, and then a P eleven
eighty nine engine oil pressure circuit. So initially it felt
like it could have been like a crank sensor or
(12:27):
a fuel issue. I put a fuel pressure gauge on
it and I had perfect, perfect fuel pressure and it
actually died while I had the pressure gauge on and
it held pressure. So I kind of eliminated that. I
started manipulating the wire harness, started tapping on all the sensors.
I looked at the computer behind the air box. I
(12:49):
found a mouse mess with two like mice. I pulled
the connector off the PCM. All the connectors were cleaned,
no corrosion, and then I was kind of going down
the route with the crank sensor, and the car has
one hundred thousand miles on it, and I figured, let
(13:11):
me throw a crank sensor in it. And I didn't
think it was gonna solve it, but I did it anyways,
and the problem still persisted. Did a little research look
at I was looking at the ignition module and I
guess there's a lot of heat appreciated yep, that.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
This has a separate CAM sensor too, right, John, Yes, okay,
all right, you know cam sensors. CAM sensors can cause
this full two. Let's do this. Let's let's talk about
let's talk about looking for what's good. Can we do that? Okay?
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Well, I was just gonna let you know that a
friend of mine happened to have an ignition module for
thirty eight hundred and I borrowed it. They stuck it
in there and it solved the problem. Okay, my, I
guess my question to you is, how would you have
gone about diagnosing that ignition module. I would have.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Well, I would have I would have done I would
have done what you did, and I commend you. I
like I like you know. I would have looked at
fuel pressure. I would have put a plastic tube on
the fuel pressure regulator just to see as it's spitting
any fuel?
Speaker 5 (14:27):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
All right? For the because you talked about a long
extended crank, right all right, And I would have I
would I would should have put a clear plastic tube
on that short piece of clear plastic tube on there,
just to see am I spitting any fuel? Is it
filling up with fuel? Uh? You know. Number one, I
would have done that. I would look at mass airflow
keon engine off grams per second. I should see, you know,
(14:48):
roughly four to four and a half grams or at
least now you'll know what to look for, you know,
just could I have a mass airflow problem? If you
have a mouse in the bottom left corner by the PCM,
did something crawl up into the air and take ducked?
And you know critters and cars, older cars, you know,
I always think about that, all right, So I would
have limited mass airflow. I believe on a thirty eight
(15:08):
hundred of that generation, if I had a mass airflow
or thought I had a mass airflow problem, I could
disconnect the mass airflow in the car would go into
default and run. So keep that in the back of
your head, and then yeah, I would have I would
have I would have tap tested the crank sensor very honestly.
You know, my, my, my twenty four inch three h
extension that's got the battle scars to prove it when
(15:31):
it catches the belt. Uh, I would have tap tested it.
Did you need a special tool to put that crank
sensor in?
Speaker 4 (15:39):
No, I had to take the balancer off and then
there was a plastic cover over that. It's just two
bolts told in the Uh.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, there's there's so many versions of that crank sensor.
I never know which one I'm looking at. But then
I would have if I tap tested it, and then
I would have gotten down to uh, you know, I
would have either scoped it or I probably, honestly, if
I'm dealing with a twenty three year old vehicle, right,
you know, I would have put a spark tester on
the one of the spark plug wires, right, and you know,
(16:11):
what do I see? Do I do I not? Like
you know, we get we get into the arts here,
we talk about colors. What color was the spark? You know,
and then you know I would have sat down and said, hey,
do I you know it's twenty three years old. If
it's an original ignition module, right, while I can still
get one, I probably would have changed it. To be
(16:34):
very honest, I could have, you know, back back in
the day when you know, it was a different story
because we were doing ignition modules on those cars when
they had thirty thousand miles on them, right, and you
had to fight the battle of it's only got thirty
thousand miles on it. It can't be bit, you know.
And then we started to see a rash of those things.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I would also consider, did you replace the coil? No?
Speaker 4 (17:00):
I did not replace. The car runs perfect now with
the new modules.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I would I would probably, I would probably replace the
coils just out of contention, because the coils sit on
top of the module, right right. I always wondered who
the engineer was that designed the electro power plant to
sit on top of the nuclear reactor. So if the
coil spiked the ground and it went into that ignition module,
(17:28):
you always wondered what it would do. So we we
ended up I learned this long time ago. Back in
the day, we would have those cars that seemed to
eat ignition modules, right, and then it became one of
two things we would we would and not. I'm not
saying your car is doing that. It's one hundred thousand
miles twenty three years old. But we learned from experience.
(17:49):
We would do ignition modules, I'm sorry, ignition coils, and
every once in a while you'd have a bad alternator
take it out, so you know things to look for.
You could probably those ignition coils out of Standard Motor products,
and Standard still makes a great coil and a great
module for those cars, so you might want to do that.
Enjoyed the conversation, John, You did it right, brother, and
(18:12):
you got it fixed. That's what counts. I'm ron An
Dye in the car doctor. I'll be back right after
this contract. Well, I guess it's my turn to twelk
(18:45):
eight five to five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
By the way, T shirt sales are booming. I guess
everybody must have bought Ariotomotive T shirts for mom for
Mother's Day. Now that can't be it. Maybe Father's Day
is coming up. But yeah, get out the card doctorshow
dot com if you're looking to click on the merchandise
button like everybody else. So we're doing well and don't forget.
Tomorrow fifteen Tacoma will appear in our YouTube feed around
(19:07):
three pm talking about that fifteenth Tacoma with the fuel
pump issue. I think it's one of the better videos.
We tried a couple of different things trying to show
you guys a little bit of variety of what we
looked at to fix that vehicle, and I think it's
going to do well. So that's tomorrow fifteenth, Tacoma up
on YouTube channel and we'll probably post it up to
Facebook two as well, although Facebook's getting a little funny
(19:29):
on how and what they allow. So but just know
that it's out on YouTube. Get out to our YouTube channel,
Ron and any and the Car Doctor in case you haven't.
Let's let's go to Joe in Pennsylvania. A lot of
Pennsylvania calls today. Ten Impalla. Hey Joe, how are you?
What can I do for you?
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Yes, good afternoon, Yes sir, this Impala. It has a
different kind of console shifter than what's listed on YouTube.
And there's no real release button on you have to
play with and you have to push up and down
on the solenoids sometimes to get it out a park.
And what's bad about this run as Triple I refuses
to tow a car when it's stuck in park. Interesting,
(20:07):
they will not do it. They're afraid that they're gonna
damage the transmission.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Interesting, what do they do if? What do they do
if it's really stuck in park and you're stuck on
the side of the road.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
It'll wait till the next day until somebody comes out
with a dolly or whatever. Yeah, it's crazy, it's ridiculous.
I'm sure you've come across it. Even the local dealer
here said he wouldn't do much for it because it's intermittent.
Well should I do buy a so annoyed for it?
Under there?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
No, So let's let's let's talk about this. Let's and
I'm gonna make some assumptions of generality. Okay, so allow
me that. All right, So this is a This is
a ten in Pala with a three five right right,
and and the automatic trends won't come out of park exactly.
So when it when it fails, when it won't come
out of park, do you know if the break lights work?
Speaker 5 (20:55):
Uh? They fixed it once. They put used parking and
they put other brake light switch on it too, I guess.
And see I bought it from a rebuildable place.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And it was because because that's critical. All right, if
the brake lights work, here's what happens. Right, Joe gets
in the car, He steps on the brake pedal, The
brake lights light up. Joe turns the key on the
the the brake lights switch completes and sends power up
to the body control module. All right, the body control
(21:28):
module sees the breake input request. It thinks Joe wants
to shift out of park because it sees it also
sees park on the on the trans side of life,
and it'll it releases the solenoid. It sends power out
on a separate wire. It sends wire. If you go
down to that shift solenoid, there's a dark green wire
(21:49):
with a white tracer.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
And there's it's different than the ones on the YouTube video.
It's totally different. Even the dealer I went for a
technical service ball and it's totally different.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
How's how's it totally different?
Speaker 5 (22:02):
It doesn't have a release button on the side.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
No, no, no, no, forget that. Look at wiring color?
All right? Do you are you taking this? Are you
taking this console apart on your own? Joe?
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Yes? I took it off because.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Okay, so when you when you look at the shift
control solenoid, what color are the two wires at the solenoids?
Speaker 5 (22:24):
Yes? I believe there's a green one there right, so.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
The dark green wire with the white tracer, and listen,
learn how the circuit works when it's working. Will you
do me that favor?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
So?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, win the.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
Deal or they said the switch was working at the okay, great,
another problem. The break switch was working.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
All right, so so but hear me out, all right,
I want you to put your foot on the brake,
turn the key on, and check voltage at that dark
green wire with the white trace. That should be bad
ory voltage. Then, with the meter still attached to that
dark green white wire, take your foot off the brake pedal.
You see battery voltage go to zero. That shows you
(23:08):
that's the working wire. You with me so far? Yes, okay,
when the problem happens, do we have power on that
dark green white? First question? Absolute, first question. If we
have power on that dark green white, we've just eliminated
seventy five percent of the circuit. Now we're down to
(23:30):
it's either the solenoid or the ground, which is the
other wire coming out of the solenoid.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
Well, a couple of times I had to press in
on the solenoid itself to get it gone.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I understand that, but that's not testing it. I'm talking
about how to test it. Okay, are you able to test?
You have a vault meter?
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Yes, I have many of them. Yeah, Okay. I mentioned
there's wiring faults and problems with wire routing, but.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Well but you have to catch it, Joe. You have
to catch it in the act. All right, it's intermittent.
Now you could you could run a new wire out
of the BCM. But what you want to do is
if you catch it in the act where you're stepping
on the brake pedal switch and you have no power
(24:23):
at that dark green white, trace it back. Get a
wiring diagram that dark green white goes direct to the
body computer. Okay, those wires have been known to break there.
They make a couple of tight turns as they come out.
They have been known to break internally, and sometimes replacement
of that wire does the trick. Sometimes this is a BCM,
(24:43):
the actual computer itself, all right, the dish right, Well,
it doesn't matter where it is. It's it's We can't
wish it was somewhere easy. Now, the other question I've
got is when they put a brake light switch in it,
I wonder if they did a break pedal position calibration. Uh.
(25:05):
They call it a b A Baker Paul Paul BPP,
a BPP calibration, and you need a scantl to do that.
And if they didn't do that, it will replicate the
same problem as a bad break light switch. The computer
needs to learn pedal position, and a new switch replacement
(25:27):
makes sense.
Speaker 5 (25:28):
Well, so I can't just go bypassing it all the time.
That's gonna get old. It Well, it's.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Gonna get old. It's gonna get old very quickly. This
this isn't Listen, This isn't the hardest problem in the
world to solve. Somebody's got to sit down and understand
how the circuit works. And that's that's all I'm asking
you to do. All right. This is a simple solenoid.
It's a power in the ground. Power comes out of
the b CM. BCM looks at you know, break pedal
switch for input. It looks at park position because it
(25:55):
sees it sees park position. When you move the shifter,
there's an indicate on the dish right park, reverse, neutral,
drive and so on. Right, So that's because the shifter
is talking to the body computer, which is talking to
the instrument panel. What I'm trying to point out is
this isn't a straight shot where the brake pedal switch
moves that solenoid. The brake pedal switch puts input to
(26:16):
the BCM. The BCM looks at other conditions. If they're
all set. It sends voltage out that dark green white
over to the shift solenoid. The shift solenoid pulls in.
It's simple, It really is.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
As Chevy dealer said, they wouldn't be able to fix it.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Listen so far, well, and that's true, okay to a degree.
Or somebody's got to take the bull by the horns
about how about this? How easy is it to get
to that dark green white wire.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
Okay, I see it.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Go down to your local lotapart store, buy a one
ninety four bulb. Go go, get a little sidemark or
bulban socket. Cut the dark green white wire, put the
bulb in between. Cut the dark green white wire in
a play where you can easily solder it back together.
All right, Now, every time you step on the shift
or what's going to happen. If the system's working right,
(27:10):
it should light.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
You should also hear it.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Well, you'll hear it.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
They've had that system.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
For early Joe, Joe, You're you're looking too far ahead. Okay,
I love you. You remember the card doctor Nation, But you're
looking too far ahead. I'm talking about diagnosing. You're talking
about expected results on something else. If that bulb lights
and you don't hear the click. Yeah, then you've either
got a ground or a solenoid issue. I'm trying to
tell you how to prove it. All right, If you
(27:39):
if you push on the brake pedal and it does
not light, where's the problem.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
It's in their right switch or the.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Break light switch input because they didn't do a BBP calibration.
You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
All Right, I guess I have to do all that
because I'm afraid I'm gonna get stuck permanently.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yes, So.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
All right, Joe, all right, you're.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Very welcome, sir. You'd be well. I'm running ady and
the car doctor. I'll be back right after this. Hey,
(28:32):
I want to go back and talk a little bit
about John from Connecticut with his three what was that
an three Chevy with the thirty hundred and the heart
start and it was a bad ignition module. Back in
the day we were doing, you know, because we were
a rush there at the end of that call. Back
in the day we were doing ignition modules. It was
always ignition modules and coils because as I was saying,
(28:53):
we always we found that a lot of times and
you would actually see it. You would take the coils
all and look at the bottom of the bakeel light
was cracked out. The ignition coil itself was spiking through
even without the epoxy or the bakel light being cracked
down into the module, down into ground. That it would
be like a voltage spike into the electronic component. And
(29:17):
it can only take so much of that. And over
time we would go through cars that had repeated ignition
module failures and we learned from you know, trial and error,
that it was it was a coil that was taking
out the module. We actually had problems with that system
again when all those cars were out there and you know, geez,
coils and modules sitting together like that. We actually had
(29:39):
more than a few cars where it was taking out
the actual engine PCM, the main engine computer. And we
were ended up doing quite a few where we put computers,
modules and ignition coils in cars in order to fix them.
And it wasn't a random throw parts at it fire
the parts ken and it was everything was fried as
a result of that ignition system. That was really a
(30:01):
bad design ignition system. That being said, I also go
back to we used to use Blue Streak from Standard
as the exclusive replacement because it worked better than the
OE standard had gone through with some redesign. And the
reason I know this is because I was involved in
the redesign back in the day. I was working with
(30:21):
Standard up close and personal at the time, and they
went through. They put better printed circuit board controls inside
their ignition modules, and they made a better than a
mouse better mouse trap ignition coil, so to speak. But
their Blue Streak stuff was top notch then it still
is today. Blue Streak was the quote unquote standard no
(30:42):
pun intended you know to use and look for. But John,
if you're still listening, by all means, I would I
would put I would replace the coil pack on that car,
and you know I wouldn't look back because that was
a common thing. It got to the point with those
cars where those the OE ignition coils and modules were
so bad we were replacing the amount of maintenance in
(31:04):
the fifty to seventy five thousand mile range because we
knew by the time it had one hundred on it,
and here you are at one hundred. As you said,
that coil was going to go bad and leave the
car stranded on occasional problems. We would also see a
bad alternator. We caught a few, not many, with a
bad diode that would alter. We actually caught it on
(31:28):
a scope twice. I remember the print out where we
caught the alternator diode would fail and it would put
out incorrect signal and cause the engine control module to
oversaturate coil dwell time, and that's what caused the coil
to fail. I mean, crazy stuff with those ignition systems,
but not something to take lightly. You never just put
(31:51):
an ignition module on one of those. You always did
coils and modules together. It just made sense. So, John,
if you're still listening to that, and like I said,
standard ignition products, you'll find them online. Just go research Standard.
I think it's s MP corp dot com and you
can get to the blue streak line and look it up. So,
but that's the way to go. Eight five five five
(32:12):
six nine nine zero zero. I'm running nady of the
card doctor. I'm back right after this. It's a second
hang on. So, uh, You've got an email in front
(32:35):
of me from a Tom down in Tennessee that writes
and he said, Hey, run, I heard your comments about
the no start intermittent falling out of the GMC Terrain
first Hour. If you tell me where it's on YouTube channel,
I can't find it. You know, I actually went looking
for it, Tom and it's it's it's before twenty two,
(32:55):
so I'm thinking it's about four years ago when we
first posted that. But the only thing I can tell
you is, and I'll try to find it, maybe put
up on our Facebook page. The only thing I can
tell you is that this was a problem where the
vehicle would shut off at random. You know, the worst
feeling in the world. You're driving down the road and
you just it just cut out. And what I discovered
(33:17):
through some pinpoint testing pretty much what you guys hear
me describe on the show about go to this wire,
check this wire, go to that wire, check that wire.
You know, it's no different in the shop. I'm doing
what I do here there and what I did for
that particular vehicle with this random no start, And I
realized I've got close to one hundred videos up on YouTube.
(33:37):
I think it's one of the first ones. Probably one
of the first one to fifteen would be my guess.
But what I ended up doing was I went wire
for wire, pin for pin, and I discovered where I
was losing voltage signal and traced it back to the
fuse box. And when I opened the fuse box up
the fuse box, it just it's just a series of strip,
(34:00):
copper strips, metal strips, whatever you want to call it.
And one of them had fractured one of the pins
that connect the fused circuit to power whatever circuit it
was powering. And every once in a while it hit
a bump and the contact would just go bang and
it would pop open like a small set of breaker
points almost, and you could see where it was rubbing
because it actually arcd and you could you could see
(34:23):
that the discoloration and the tips where the metal was
you know, power ground or not power ground, but power
power power boing boin and mooin wing. You know, applied
this release, applied this release and so on, and you know,
put a fuse box in the car and fixed it.
But of course I had to take it apart because
I wanted to know why I fixed it. You know,
I knew I had no I knew I had voltage
in nothing coming out. I knew it was the box,
(34:44):
but I wanted to know what it failed in the box.
You'll actually see it in the video, there's a good
shot of a magnifying glass if I recall correctly where
we show you the break. It's very very hard to see,
but Tom, that's what you're looking for. Like I said,
I'll try to put an exact date, you know, maybe
I can. I can repo stet up on Facebook, so
I'll do that as well. I'll do that as soon
as they get off air today, so it's there for
(35:05):
you guys, because it sounds like some people are interested. Anyway,
that's about it for today. Until the next time. I'm
brought an Aenie and the car doctor. Good mechanics aren't expensive,
they're priceless. See you
Ron An Inians. Sometimes there's glitches you can't explain, but
you've got to have the wherewifaal and the calmness and
to stand and deliver and just get through it. I
think that makes you go the car Doctor. There's an
idea for the web store. Is a car doctor calendar.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You and Danny's standing around in various stages of undress
working on cars.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, there you go, there's a thought to have.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Welcome to the radio home of ron An Aian, the
Car Doctor. Since nineteen ninety one, this is where car
owners the world overturned to for their definitive opinion on
automotive repair.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
If your mechanics.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Giving you a busy signal, pick up the phone and
call in the garage doors.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Are open, but I am here to take your call
at eight five five five six ninety nine hundred and
now he.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Ronnie.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We've we've been very busy here in the shop and
car Doctor and and stuff. We're actually making some local
appearances around the country here in the New York area.
We're on War every other week or saw on the
Morning show. We're talking about what dashboard warning lights mean.
And this week we did our segment about check engine lights,
and it seems to us generated quite a stir A
(01:15):
lot of you are reacting to it. By the way,
if you're looking for the link, I think we're going
to get it up on the Facebook page, the link
to the WR conversation sometime this week. I know they're
going to get it up on Instagram. The social media
guys are a little behind right now, so bear with them.
But you can, you know, talking about check engine lights,
right and we talked about if it's steady, we talk
about if it's flashing, and then you know. And this
(01:37):
is what I love about you, know you guys, because
you ask You always ask such simple but very very
important questions. Sarah up on our Facebook page today said,
but what about the check engine light that's at random,
that shows up and then disappears and then comes back.
And you know, Sarah, I love you. It's a great question.
So when a check engine light comes on and goes away,
(01:58):
it means that the car saw a problem and then
the problem corrected itself. How does that happen? Well, it
depends on the situation. Every system and every sensor goes
through a constant evaluation. It's always testing behind the scenes
things that you don't see your experience, but it's there.
(02:18):
It's happening all right. If it's an evaporative emissions fault,
if it's a misfire issue, if it's a two centsor
sluggish to react, if it's a fuel trim problem, it's
always trying to correct and adjust and make it right.
Got to remember what's the purpose of an onboard computer
and the emission control system absolutely positively to maintain federal
(02:41):
emissions levels. That's the number one priority. Fuel economy, reliability, durability,
all that stuff. That's that's that's important, but it's secondary.
Everything is about emissions. So if something was askew, if
we you know, got the bad tank of gas, which
you know that seems to be the standby that a
lot of people still you know it must be a
(03:02):
bad tank against well whatever whatever gets you through the day.
But yeah, it could. You know, a car with an
incorrect ethanol blend would definitely cause a lean fault code
and make the light come on. So Sarah, to answer
the question, when that light is on, the absolute best
thing you can do is record the code. Either scan
it yourself with your own scanner, get out to a
(03:24):
parts house, let them at least record the code, write
it down, or get down to your local mechanic. And
you know, I'm not advocating that everybody stand there and
do something for free, but I think if you're a
regular customer and you've taken every nutbolt, washer, wiper, blade,
break job, oil change, maintenance and service and repair history
to this one mechanic, I think for them to give
(03:44):
you two minutes out in the driveway with a quick
tool to go, okay, yeah it's this particular fault, you
know what, will keep an eye on it. I don't
think that's such a bad idea for business and marketing.
I think that's actually a good idea. And then at
least you know. Then if the problem away in two
days or two weeks because you haven't been able to
get it in or maybe it's not in the budget,
(04:05):
or maybe you're trying to decide if you're going to
replace the vehicle, at least you know what it was
and the reason it goes away. For example, a catalytic
converter fault P zero four to twenty P zero four
twenty or a P zero four thirty. The more common
catalytic converter faults occur because there's a catalytic converter, which
is basically a device that through a catalytic a heat
(04:28):
related or a heat induced operation. Okay, we'll take and
reduce harmful pollutants out the tailpipe. There's a chemical reaction
going on there. And they look at oxygen content going
into the catalytic converter, they look at oxygen content coming
out of the catalytic converter. If the converter is doing
its proper job, if it is being efficient, it will
(04:52):
reduce emissions and it will change oxygen content to the
point that they will see a converter running at about
seventy to seventy five percent efficiency more on newer vehicles. Now,
if for some reason that converter is aging, if for
some reason that converter is struggling, that bad load of
fuel alters, how the two censors react, something causes that change,
(05:15):
and it goes to sixty eight percent, sixty nine percent,
and it's supposed to be seventy. That light's coming on
the next time it runs its test, and then you
go fill up, or you take it out for a ride.
Or the engine that stuck thermostat that was marginal, or
that thermostat was replaced by accident or as system maintenance
for whatever reason or whatever was done, and within a
(05:37):
short period of time, the next time that catalytic converter
self test or monitor as we call it runs and
now it passes, and it does that up to three times.
That light will go out. The code will still be there.
The code should still be there up to so many
turns of the key. It varies by manufacturery you're making
model thirty is a pretty good number, all right, but
(06:00):
there should be a fault recorded. I like to know
when I don't feel good. I like to know when
I get a dizzy spell. I like to know why
my blood pressure went up. And I like to do
the same thing with the car. And it just it's
just information. People are so afraid to go and get
a code scan because they think they're going to find
something they don't want to see. You already know it's
(06:20):
something you don't want to see the check engine lights on.
Nobody wants to fix the check engine light. It's going
to cost your money, but it's going to keep the
car reliable, and that's the whole point. So that random
light and you know, this is why I like to
go because that random light get the information while you can.
You know, I love the people that I don't want
to go get my car scanned because I don't want
to know what's going on. But in three weeks I'm
(06:41):
going on a cross country trip. Well yeah, that's great.
You know, let me know when the engine stops somewhere
south of Toledo, and you know, it could have been
prevented had we, you know, scanned the check engine light
and figured out that, you know, maybe we've got a
misfire event going on, or we've got a problem with
a critical engine sensor that's going to affect reliability and durability.
(07:02):
So you know, but that's why that check engine light
can go on and off. Every car goes through a
self test every time you turn the key. It's like you, Sarah,
when you get up in the morning, you go through
your routine. You have your coffee, you know, you take
a shower, you do whatever, you brush your teeth. That's
your self test. Car does the same thing and if
any one of those things fail, it starts to flag
(07:24):
it and if it fails enough times, the car will
turn on the check engine light, just like you. If
you don't get your coffee every morning, just guessing so,
but you get my point anyway, that's what that random
intermittent check engine light is all about, and it's an
important piece of information. Not knowing what that random check
(07:44):
engine light is what's creating that fault. In my mind,
that's just as bad as the person that says, well,
the check engine light came on, so I just disconnected
the battery to clear the code, because I'm sure it's
just a mistake. That's just as bad. Because when you
do that, and we should talk about that as long
as we're on the subject of check engine lights. When
(08:05):
you just clear the code, oh, even if you're going
with a scan tool and you capture the code it's
a P zero four to twenty or whatever it is,
and you just clear the code. Now you've just erased
something very critical called freeze frame. Freeze frame occurs on
all check edge and light occurrences anything since two thousand
(08:28):
and up. It's supposed to be there between ninety five
and two thousand maldi years, but they never really got
it right. It got better as time went on, but
freeze frame is a video snapshot of what certain sensors
were doing or seeing or reporting at the time of
the failure. It's kind of like if your blood pressure
(08:50):
spiked and you know you're able to take a freeze
frame snapshot, maybe you would be able to see that
you were climbing upstairs carrying three hundred pounds of something
in the hot sun without any shade protection, right, you
could see the exertion your body was going through. Well,
that's sort of what freeze frame is. It can see
how hard or how easy or how whatever the engine
was working in order to get the vehicle you know
(09:14):
where it wanted to go. So when you disconnect a battery,
when you just clear codes for no good reason, you
were erasing all that freeze frame data and now you
have to Yeah, you cleared the code, and then you
have to wait for the problem to happen again, and
then you got to capture it again. So it's it's
it's it's to me, that's just as bad as just
the check engine light came on and then it goes off.
(09:34):
I don't care what it is. A check engine light
is not there for an oil change, and check engine
light is not an indicator of services needed. A check
engine light is an indication of an internal system fault
in one of the emission control sensors or circuits. It
could be a big failure, it could be a little failure.
It could be a big problem. It could be a
little problem. You don't know until you scan it. Period done.
(09:56):
End of conversation eight five five five six oh nine
nine y zero zero, run a naming the car doctor.
I'll be back right after this once again.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Where vehicle not taking you where you want to go?
Well call Ron, He's the expert at making your vehicle
take you where you need it. Eight five five five
six zero nine nine zero zero And now back to Ron.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Let's uh oh, let's go to John waiting there very patiently.
Oh three impalla with a some sort of an intermittent
hard start problem. And John, welcome to the car doctor, sir.
What's going on?
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Hey? Uh so an initial startup, it would start install
or it would it would run, and then maybe a
half hour later it would it would die. And sometimes
it would start right up, no problem. Other times there
were three cycles of the key and then I would
have to hold the gas pedal to the floor to
(10:51):
get it get it going again. Okay, So I pulled
some codes. I had a P zero one twenty eight
cold thermostat right P zero one two activity sensor.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Well here, back back up a second. The one twenty eight. Yep,
the one twenty eight is not necessarily a thermostat. Bye bye,
And I'm a stickler for this. I'm sorry bye. By definition,
it's it's it's thermostat rationality, it's it's it's not seeing
a correct or proper rate of rise once you start
(11:24):
the vehicle. You start the vehicle, it expects it to
hit proper temperature within so many minutes, and if it's
off by ten seconds, it goes boying and it sets
a one twenty eight. So it probably is a thermostat.
But just understand when you look at that, that's and
that that will not affect start unless this thing is
running stone cold all the time, all right, and we're
(11:47):
you know, we're we're constantly running so of Then my
first question for that would be what does engine temperature
come up to while you're driving? You know, do we
see do we see one seventy one eighty, you know,
instead of one ninety five two? And then you know,
I would put a thermostat in, but I don't think
that's your hard start. Go ahead, I'm sorry, I keep going.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
But oxygen sensor low activity, and then an evapp vent
control of four forty six, and then a P eleven
eighty nine engine oil pressure circuit. So initially it felt
like it could have been like a crank sensor or
(12:27):
a fuel issue. I put a fuel pressure gauge on
it and I had perfect, perfect fuel pressure and it
actually died while I had the pressure gauge on and
it held pressure. So I kind of eliminated that. I
started manipulating the wire harness, started tapping on all the sensors.
I looked at the computer behind the air box. I
(12:49):
found a mouse mess with two like mice. I pulled
the connector off the PCM. All the connectors were cleaned,
no corrosion, and then I was kind of going down
the route with the crank sensor, and the car has
one hundred thousand miles on it, and I figured, let
(13:11):
me throw a crank sensor in it. And I didn't
think it was gonna solve it, but I did it anyways,
and the problem still persisted. Did a little research look
at I was looking at the ignition module and I
guess there's a lot of heat appreciated yep, that.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
This has a separate CAM sensor too, right, John, Yes, okay,
all right, you know cam sensors. CAM sensors can cause
this full two. Let's do this. Let's let's talk about
let's talk about looking for what's good. Can we do that? Okay?
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Well, I was just gonna let you know that a
friend of mine happened to have an ignition module for
thirty eight hundred and I borrowed it. They stuck it
in there and it solved the problem. Okay, my, I
guess my question to you is, how would you have
gone about diagnosing that ignition module. I would have.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Well, I would have I would have done I would
have done what you did, and I commend you. I
like I like you know. I would have looked at
fuel pressure. I would have put a plastic tube on
the fuel pressure regulator just to see as it's spitting
any fuel?
Speaker 5 (14:27):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
All right? For the because you talked about a long
extended crank, right all right, And I would have I
would I would should have put a clear plastic tube
on that short piece of clear plastic tube on there,
just to see am I spitting any fuel? Is it
filling up with fuel? Uh? You know. Number one, I
would have done that. I would look at mass airflow
keon engine off grams per second. I should see, you know,
(14:48):
roughly four to four and a half grams or at
least now you'll know what to look for, you know,
just could I have a mass airflow problem? If you
have a mouse in the bottom left corner by the PCM,
did something crawl up into the air and take ducked?
And you know critters and cars, older cars, you know,
I always think about that, all right, So I would
have limited mass airflow. I believe on a thirty eight
(15:08):
hundred of that generation, if I had a mass airflow
or thought I had a mass airflow problem, I could
disconnect the mass airflow in the car would go into
default and run. So keep that in the back of
your head, and then yeah, I would have I would
have I would have tap tested the crank sensor very honestly.
You know, my, my, my twenty four inch three h
extension that's got the battle scars to prove it when
(15:31):
it catches the belt. Uh, I would have tap tested it.
Did you need a special tool to put that crank
sensor in?
Speaker 4 (15:39):
No, I had to take the balancer off and then
there was a plastic cover over that. It's just two
bolts told in the Uh.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, there's there's so many versions of that crank sensor.
I never know which one I'm looking at. But then
I would have if I tap tested it, and then
I would have gotten down to uh, you know, I
would have either scoped it or I probably, honestly, if
I'm dealing with a twenty three year old vehicle, right,
you know, I would have put a spark tester on
the one of the spark plug wires, right, and you know,
(16:11):
what do I see? Do I do I not? Like
you know, we get we get into the arts here,
we talk about colors. What color was the spark? You know,
and then you know I would have sat down and said, hey,
do I you know it's twenty three years old. If
it's an original ignition module, right, while I can still
get one, I probably would have changed it. To be
(16:34):
very honest, I could have, you know, back back in
the day when you know, it was a different story
because we were doing ignition modules on those cars when
they had thirty thousand miles on them, right, and you
had to fight the battle of it's only got thirty
thousand miles on it. It can't be bit, you know.
And then we started to see a rash of those things.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I would also consider, did you replace the coil? No?
Speaker 4 (17:00):
I did not replace. The car runs perfect now with
the new modules.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I would I would probably, I would probably replace the
coils just out of contention, because the coils sit on
top of the module, right right. I always wondered who
the engineer was that designed the electro power plant to
sit on top of the nuclear reactor. So if the
coil spiked the ground and it went into that ignition module,
(17:28):
you always wondered what it would do. So we we
ended up I learned this long time ago. Back in
the day, we would have those cars that seemed to
eat ignition modules, right, and then it became one of
two things we would we would and not. I'm not
saying your car is doing that. It's one hundred thousand
miles twenty three years old. But we learned from experience.
(17:49):
We would do ignition modules, I'm sorry, ignition coils, and
every once in a while you'd have a bad alternator
take it out, so you know things to look for.
You could probably those ignition coils out of Standard Motor products,
and Standard still makes a great coil and a great
module for those cars, so you might want to do that.
Enjoyed the conversation, John, You did it right, brother, and
(18:12):
you got it fixed. That's what counts. I'm ron An
Dye in the car doctor. I'll be back right after
this contract. Well, I guess it's my turn to twelk
(18:45):
eight five to five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
By the way, T shirt sales are booming. I guess
everybody must have bought Ariotomotive T shirts for mom for
Mother's Day. Now that can't be it. Maybe Father's Day
is coming up. But yeah, get out the card doctorshow
dot com if you're looking to click on the merchandise
button like everybody else. So we're doing well and don't forget.
Tomorrow fifteen Tacoma will appear in our YouTube feed around
(19:07):
three pm talking about that fifteenth Tacoma with the fuel
pump issue. I think it's one of the better videos.
We tried a couple of different things trying to show
you guys a little bit of variety of what we
looked at to fix that vehicle, and I think it's
going to do well. So that's tomorrow fifteenth, Tacoma up
on YouTube channel and we'll probably post it up to
Facebook two as well, although Facebook's getting a little funny
(19:29):
on how and what they allow. So but just know
that it's out on YouTube. Get out to our YouTube channel,
Ron and any and the Car Doctor in case you haven't.
Let's let's go to Joe in Pennsylvania. A lot of
Pennsylvania calls today. Ten Impalla. Hey Joe, how are you?
What can I do for you?
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Yes, good afternoon, Yes sir, this Impala. It has a
different kind of console shifter than what's listed on YouTube.
And there's no real release button on you have to
play with and you have to push up and down
on the solenoids sometimes to get it out a park.
And what's bad about this run as Triple I refuses
to tow a car when it's stuck in park. Interesting,
(20:07):
they will not do it. They're afraid that they're gonna
damage the transmission.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Interesting, what do they do if? What do they do
if it's really stuck in park and you're stuck on
the side of the road.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
It'll wait till the next day until somebody comes out
with a dolly or whatever. Yeah, it's crazy, it's ridiculous.
I'm sure you've come across it. Even the local dealer
here said he wouldn't do much for it because it's intermittent.
Well should I do buy a so annoyed for it?
Under there?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
No, So let's let's let's talk about this. Let's and
I'm gonna make some assumptions of generality. Okay, so allow
me that. All right, So this is a This is
a ten in Pala with a three five right right,
and and the automatic trends won't come out of park exactly.
So when it when it fails, when it won't come
out of park, do you know if the break lights work?
Speaker 5 (20:55):
Uh? They fixed it once. They put used parking and
they put other brake light switch on it too, I guess.
And see I bought it from a rebuildable place.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And it was because because that's critical. All right, if
the brake lights work, here's what happens. Right, Joe gets
in the car, He steps on the brake pedal, The
brake lights light up. Joe turns the key on the
the the brake lights switch completes and sends power up
to the body control module. All right, the body control
(21:28):
module sees the breake input request. It thinks Joe wants
to shift out of park because it sees it also
sees park on the on the trans side of life,
and it'll it releases the solenoid. It sends power out
on a separate wire. It sends wire. If you go
down to that shift solenoid, there's a dark green wire
(21:49):
with a white tracer.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
And there's it's different than the ones on the YouTube video.
It's totally different. Even the dealer I went for a
technical service ball and it's totally different.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
How's how's it totally different?
Speaker 5 (22:02):
It doesn't have a release button on the side.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
No, no, no, no, forget that. Look at wiring color?
All right? Do you are you taking this? Are you
taking this console apart on your own? Joe?
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Yes? I took it off because.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Okay, so when you when you look at the shift
control solenoid, what color are the two wires at the solenoids?
Speaker 5 (22:24):
Yes? I believe there's a green one there right, so.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
The dark green wire with the white tracer, and listen,
learn how the circuit works when it's working. Will you
do me that favor?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
So?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, win the.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
Deal or they said the switch was working at the okay, great,
another problem. The break switch was working.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
All right, so so but hear me out, all right,
I want you to put your foot on the brake,
turn the key on, and check voltage at that dark
green wire with the white trace. That should be bad
ory voltage. Then, with the meter still attached to that
dark green white wire, take your foot off the brake pedal.
You see battery voltage go to zero. That shows you
(23:08):
that's the working wire. You with me so far? Yes, okay,
when the problem happens, do we have power on that
dark green white? First question? Absolute, first question. If we
have power on that dark green white, we've just eliminated
seventy five percent of the circuit. Now we're down to
(23:30):
it's either the solenoid or the ground, which is the
other wire coming out of the solenoid.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
Well, a couple of times I had to press in
on the solenoid itself to get it gone.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I understand that, but that's not testing it. I'm talking
about how to test it. Okay, are you able to test?
You have a vault meter?
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Yes, I have many of them. Yeah, Okay. I mentioned
there's wiring faults and problems with wire routing, but.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Well but you have to catch it, Joe. You have
to catch it in the act. All right, it's intermittent.
Now you could you could run a new wire out
of the BCM. But what you want to do is
if you catch it in the act where you're stepping
on the brake pedal switch and you have no power
(24:23):
at that dark green white, trace it back. Get a
wiring diagram that dark green white goes direct to the
body computer. Okay, those wires have been known to break there.
They make a couple of tight turns as they come out.
They have been known to break internally, and sometimes replacement
of that wire does the trick. Sometimes this is a BCM,
(24:43):
the actual computer itself, all right, the dish right, Well,
it doesn't matter where it is. It's it's We can't
wish it was somewhere easy. Now, the other question I've
got is when they put a brake light switch in it,
I wonder if they did a break pedal position calibration. Uh.
(25:05):
They call it a b A Baker Paul Paul BPP,
a BPP calibration, and you need a scantl to do that.
And if they didn't do that, it will replicate the
same problem as a bad break light switch. The computer
needs to learn pedal position, and a new switch replacement
(25:27):
makes sense.
Speaker 5 (25:28):
Well, so I can't just go bypassing it all the time.
That's gonna get old. It Well, it's.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Gonna get old. It's gonna get old very quickly. This
this isn't Listen, This isn't the hardest problem in the
world to solve. Somebody's got to sit down and understand
how the circuit works. And that's that's all I'm asking
you to do. All right. This is a simple solenoid.
It's a power in the ground. Power comes out of
the b CM. BCM looks at you know, break pedal
switch for input. It looks at park position because it
(25:55):
sees it sees park position. When you move the shifter,
there's an indicate on the dish right park, reverse, neutral,
drive and so on. Right, So that's because the shifter
is talking to the body computer, which is talking to
the instrument panel. What I'm trying to point out is
this isn't a straight shot where the brake pedal switch
moves that solenoid. The brake pedal switch puts input to
(26:16):
the BCM. The BCM looks at other conditions. If they're
all set. It sends voltage out that dark green white
over to the shift solenoid. The shift solenoid pulls in.
It's simple, It really is.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
As Chevy dealer said, they wouldn't be able to fix it.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Listen so far, well, and that's true, okay to a degree.
Or somebody's got to take the bull by the horns
about how about this? How easy is it to get
to that dark green white wire.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
Okay, I see it.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Go down to your local lotapart store, buy a one
ninety four bulb. Go go, get a little sidemark or
bulban socket. Cut the dark green white wire, put the
bulb in between. Cut the dark green white wire in
a play where you can easily solder it back together.
All right, Now, every time you step on the shift
or what's going to happen. If the system's working right,
(27:10):
it should light.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
You should also hear it.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Well, you'll hear it.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
They've had that system.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
For early Joe, Joe, You're you're looking too far ahead. Okay,
I love you. You remember the card doctor Nation, But you're
looking too far ahead. I'm talking about diagnosing. You're talking
about expected results on something else. If that bulb lights
and you don't hear the click. Yeah, then you've either
got a ground or a solenoid issue. I'm trying to
tell you how to prove it. All right, If you
(27:39):
if you push on the brake pedal and it does
not light, where's the problem.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
It's in their right switch or the.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Break light switch input because they didn't do a BBP calibration.
You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
All Right, I guess I have to do all that
because I'm afraid I'm gonna get stuck permanently.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yes, So.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
All right, Joe, all right, you're.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Very welcome, sir. You'd be well. I'm running ady and
the car doctor. I'll be back right after this. Hey,
(28:32):
I want to go back and talk a little bit
about John from Connecticut with his three what was that
an three Chevy with the thirty hundred and the heart
start and it was a bad ignition module. Back in
the day we were doing, you know, because we were
a rush there at the end of that call. Back
in the day we were doing ignition modules. It was
always ignition modules and coils because as I was saying,
(28:53):
we always we found that a lot of times and
you would actually see it. You would take the coils
all and look at the bottom of the bakeel light
was cracked out. The ignition coil itself was spiking through
even without the epoxy or the bakel light being cracked
down into the module, down into ground. That it would
be like a voltage spike into the electronic component. And
(29:17):
it can only take so much of that. And over
time we would go through cars that had repeated ignition
module failures and we learned from you know, trial and error,
that it was it was a coil that was taking
out the module. We actually had problems with that system
again when all those cars were out there and you know, geez,
coils and modules sitting together like that. We actually had
(29:39):
more than a few cars where it was taking out
the actual engine PCM, the main engine computer. And we
were ended up doing quite a few where we put computers,
modules and ignition coils in cars in order to fix them.
And it wasn't a random throw parts at it fire
the parts ken and it was everything was fried as
a result of that ignition system. That was really a
(30:01):
bad design ignition system. That being said, I also go
back to we used to use Blue Streak from Standard
as the exclusive replacement because it worked better than the
OE standard had gone through with some redesign. And the
reason I know this is because I was involved in
the redesign back in the day. I was working with
(30:21):
Standard up close and personal at the time, and they
went through. They put better printed circuit board controls inside
their ignition modules, and they made a better than a
mouse better mouse trap ignition coil, so to speak. But
their Blue Streak stuff was top notch then it still
is today. Blue Streak was the quote unquote standard no
(30:42):
pun intended you know to use and look for. But John,
if you're still listening, by all means, I would I
would put I would replace the coil pack on that car,
and you know I wouldn't look back because that was
a common thing. It got to the point with those
cars where those the OE ignition coils and modules were
so bad we were replacing the amount of maintenance in
(31:04):
the fifty to seventy five thousand mile range because we
knew by the time it had one hundred on it,
and here you are at one hundred. As you said,
that coil was going to go bad and leave the
car stranded on occasional problems. We would also see a
bad alternator. We caught a few, not many, with a
bad diode that would alter. We actually caught it on
(31:28):
a scope twice. I remember the print out where we
caught the alternator diode would fail and it would put
out incorrect signal and cause the engine control module to
oversaturate coil dwell time, and that's what caused the coil
to fail. I mean, crazy stuff with those ignition systems,
but not something to take lightly. You never just put
(31:51):
an ignition module on one of those. You always did
coils and modules together. It just made sense. So, John,
if you're still listening to that, and like I said,
standard ignition products, you'll find them online. Just go research Standard.
I think it's s MP corp dot com and you
can get to the blue streak line and look it up. So,
but that's the way to go. Eight five five five
(32:12):
six nine nine zero zero. I'm running nady of the
card doctor. I'm back right after this. It's a second
hang on. So, uh, You've got an email in front
(32:35):
of me from a Tom down in Tennessee that writes
and he said, Hey, run, I heard your comments about
the no start intermittent falling out of the GMC Terrain
first Hour. If you tell me where it's on YouTube channel,
I can't find it. You know, I actually went looking
for it, Tom and it's it's it's before twenty two,
(32:55):
so I'm thinking it's about four years ago when we
first posted that. But the only thing I can tell
you is, and I'll try to find it, maybe put
up on our Facebook page. The only thing I can
tell you is that this was a problem where the
vehicle would shut off at random. You know, the worst
feeling in the world. You're driving down the road and
you just it just cut out. And what I discovered
(33:17):
through some pinpoint testing pretty much what you guys hear
me describe on the show about go to this wire,
check this wire, go to that wire, check that wire.
You know, it's no different in the shop. I'm doing
what I do here there and what I did for
that particular vehicle with this random no start, And I
realized I've got close to one hundred videos up on YouTube.
(33:37):
I think it's one of the first ones. Probably one
of the first one to fifteen would be my guess.
But what I ended up doing was I went wire
for wire, pin for pin, and I discovered where I
was losing voltage signal and traced it back to the
fuse box. And when I opened the fuse box up
the fuse box, it just it's just a series of strip,
(34:00):
copper strips, metal strips, whatever you want to call it.
And one of them had fractured one of the pins
that connect the fused circuit to power whatever circuit it
was powering. And every once in a while it hit
a bump and the contact would just go bang and
it would pop open like a small set of breaker
points almost, and you could see where it was rubbing
because it actually arcd and you could you could see
(34:23):
that the discoloration and the tips where the metal was
you know, power ground or not power ground, but power
power power boing boin and mooin wing. You know, applied
this release, applied this release and so on, and you know,
put a fuse box in the car and fixed it.
But of course I had to take it apart because
I wanted to know why I fixed it. You know,
I knew I had no I knew I had voltage
in nothing coming out. I knew it was the box,
(34:44):
but I wanted to know what it failed in the box.
You'll actually see it in the video, there's a good
shot of a magnifying glass if I recall correctly where
we show you the break. It's very very hard to see,
but Tom, that's what you're looking for. Like I said,
I'll try to put an exact date, you know, maybe
I can. I can repo stet up on Facebook, so
I'll do that as well. I'll do that as soon
as they get off air today, so it's there for
(35:05):
you guys, because it sounds like some people are interested. Anyway,
that's about it for today. Until the next time. I'm
brought an Aenie and the car doctor. Good mechanics aren't expensive,
they're priceless. See you
Host
Ron Ananian
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