Diagnostics Isn’t a Guess: Go the Distance
Ron opens with the truth about diagnostics: commitment, not guessing, gets cars fixed. A stubborn ’06 Acura misfire sets the stage, then real calls highlight trust, process, and the dangers of shortcuts—from a Subaru owner who celebrates his shop, to a Jeep with a rear main leak, a Silverado with a dragging brake, and a Buick Enclave that turned into a parts-cannon case study.
Chapter Markers & Highlights
00:00 – Monologue: The Relationship & The Process
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Story of an ’06 Acura with years of failed repairs.
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Point: diagnostics require commitment (“go the distance”), not poking and hoping.
12:05 – Micah in Maine: Subaru Legacy
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Example of a strong shop–customer relationship.
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Rustproofing mishap solved because both shop and supplier worked together.
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Lesson: trust and respect pay off.
17:45 – Rocky in Maine: ’92 Jeep Wrangler
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Rear main seal leaking after clutch job.
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No miracle fixes; check PCV/blowby.
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Seal job takes finesse; plan proper repair when practical.
24:45 – Ted in Illinois: ’17 Chevy Silverado
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RF brake drags after driving.
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Internal hose failure can act like a check valve—sometimes on the other side.
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At ~100k miles, replace both front hoses and bleed system.
31:00 – Jacob: ’11 Buick Enclave
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Replaced injectors, pumps, cats removed, still bogging/misfiring.
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Lesson: stop the parts cannon.
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Next steps: restore cats, check manifold vacuum, test injectors properly.
Close – Ron’s Reminder
Mechanics aren’t expensive. They’re priceless—when you let them follow the process.
- Grab your Car Doctor gear – T-shirts & more at CarDoctorShow.com
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Follow the wrench – Instagram @ronananian for shop life & behind-the-scenes
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Watch & learn – Auto repair tips & videos on our YouTube Channel
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Got a car question? Call the Car Doctor Hotline 24/7 – (855) 560-9900
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J
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to Ron and Nanian The Car Doctor, nationally
recognized auto expert trusted by mechanics, weekend wrenchers and vehicle
owners alike. Ron brings over forty years of hands on
experience and deep industry insight to help you understand your vehicle.
Join the Conversation live every Saturday from two to four
pm Eastern by calling eight five five five six zero
nine nine zero zero. That's eight five to five five
(00:25):
six zero ninety nine hundred, your direct line to honest
answers and practical advice. Looking for more, visit cardoctorshow dot
com for past episodes, repair tips, and Ron's latest insights,
and be sure to subscribe to the Car Doctor YouTube
channel for exclusive videos, real repair footage and more. Now
start your enginies. The Car Doctor is in the garage
(00:47):
and ready to take your call.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
How good is your relationship with your mechanic or a mechanic,
any mechanic. I've been pondering this one for a couple
of days. Now it's a real story from the shop
this week. An individual walked into the shop about three
o'clock Thursday afternoon. Wednesday afternoon, I've got a check engine
(01:10):
light on, can you diagnose my check engine light? And
that's the way the conversation started. And not a face
I recognized, definitely, not a car. I recognized, oh six
acur one hundred and thirteen thousand miles on it. And
the deeper the conversation got, the more I realized it was.
It was a mechanical total. I'll and I'll tell you
(01:33):
why it was. The approach. It was, what's been going
on with this vehicle? Because I always you know, when
you come in and ask me, can I fix a car?
My answer is, of course, but I have questions for you,
and that's my job, is what I'm about to become
your mechanic on the case. And I said, you know,
how long has the check engine light been on? It's
(01:54):
been on for a while, a couple of years. And
my second question is always who's tried to work on it?
And she said a couple of shops and most recently
her son in law and the son in law had
changed a bunch of ignition parts. So I said, so
this is a misfire problem, to which you replied, well,
it's a cylinder problem. I said, right, it's a misfire problem.
(02:16):
She goes, yeah, that sounds right, and her son in
law had changed a bunch of parts, and I said ignition.
She said yes, she verified that, and I said injectors.
She said, sounds right. And she said the problem goes
away every once in a while and then it comes back.
And so she you know again, She asked, can you
fix that? I said, sure, I can diagnose it. I
(02:38):
can fix it. My question to you is are you
ready for that? Are you ready to have me go
the distance? Are you ready to have someone apply some
diagnostics to this vehicle and fix it? Are you ready
to go the distance? I always think about that movie
The Untouchables, right, remember the Untouchables Sean Connery when Kevin
(02:59):
Costner comes to them and showing Connery initially turns him
down to work with the Untouchables right to you know,
do what he has to do and you know, to
get capone. And then Connery takes Kevin Costner to the
church and he turns to him and he says they're
having the conversation. He says, are you ready to do
what needs to be done? Are you ready to go
(03:20):
all the way? And that's really how you have to
look at diagnostics. After a couple of years after a
couple of repair attempts, You've got to ask yourself, are
you ready to go all the way? Are you just
poking and hoping? And I told her point blank within
the first two minutes of our conversation, I said, listen,
diagnostics starts at two hundred seventy five dollars. And I
realize we're not supposed to talk about money here on radio,
(03:42):
and I get that, but you know what we're gonna
and that two hundred seventy five dollars gets us in
the door for about an hour and a half of
some you know, preliminary testing, maybe some involved testing, telling
us which way to go. Because understand, while a diagnostic
routine has a set pattern of issues and tests to
(04:02):
be performed, every diagnosis is not necessarily the same, and
there are there are varying branches that you have to
go down to get to a diagnostic conclusion. And I
said that two hundred and seventy five dollars may include, gee,
we've got to replace all the parts that you put
in it because they're of substandard quality. It may include
we have to take those out, examine them, change something,
(04:23):
alter something, correct something, adjust something that was put in
because it was done of a substandard quality, because all
of those repair attempts and all of those alleged diagnostics
led to nothing, because it's still broken. And she said,
but why is it so expensive? And I said, have
the previous three or four repair attempts. Has the money
(04:46):
you've spent up to this point yielded any results? And
she said no. And I said, that's why it's expensive
to you, because you don't recognize the value of a
concerted effort, of a diagnostic routine, of an appro coach.
I think some of you get stuck into a rut.
(05:06):
I don't think you see the forest for the trees.
I don't think you see what you're asking of the mechanic.
There's a reason why some cars never get fixed, because
you have to ask yourself, are you ready to go
the distance? Are you ready to put in everything that
that vehicle needs? And if not, as I told her,
this vehicle is mechanically totaled. Unless somebody hits upon just
(05:27):
that right combination by some dumb luck effort, that vehicle
will not get fixed because there's not much left. If
we make an assumption, which is a dangerous thing in diagnostics.
In any other situation. If we make an assumption that
it's not ignition and it's not an injector, there's really
only three things. It can be an engine problem, a
(05:50):
computer problem, or a wiring harness issue. You know, for
a random misfire, for setting a misfire on cylinder three.
Because there's no rule that says it's ignition, there's no
rule that says it's fuel. It's a misfire. It's a stutter.
If it was skipping, it misses a step she left.
(06:11):
I think she got it. I don't think she's going
to get it fixed. And I'm sure she's still looking.
But my point is, what's your approach? Do you ever
think about that approach? And for that matter, and you know,
I always come back to this, I've said for the
longest time. If you're ever twenty one and you've been
driving a car, who is your regular mechanic, who's the
doctor in attendance, who's the person that you trust to
(06:33):
take care of that vehicle on a regular basis, And
if you're constantly changing mechanics, maybe it's you. Are you
looking for the right thing? There are some people I
just you know, I listen to how people think when
I'm in group gatherings and nobody knows I have an anonymity,
nobody knows who I am or what I do, And
I try to tell anybody what I do because it's
interesting to hear the other side. You know, how mechanics
(06:56):
are crooks, how the industry is is slanted, how nobody
can get their car fixed, how everything is so expensive,
but people will keep throwing money down the well into
that same hall without any sequential, logical, common sense, sequence
of repair or approach. Change your thinking, change how you
(07:20):
do it, change what you do. I encourage you. I
encourage you to sit down and talk to a mechanic
and say, hey, what will this get me? No, I realize. Look,
I'll be the first to admit it. There's a bunch
of dopes in my industry. There really is. There are
some of the dumbest people I know turn screwdrivers all
day long.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
You know, I talked to I talked to training directors
and some of the training people that you know put
together classes from around the country and we talk about
different places, and he said, Ron, some of these guys
are as dumb as a bunch of rocks. They're still
banging on hammers trying to fix cars and it doesn't work.
And I get that, So part of that's your fault, though,
(07:58):
because part of that is you've got to demand better.
You've got to go find that shop and support that
shop and not the guy who's doing it cheaper, because
that's what you want to hear. I wonder if that
accurate can be fixed. Personally, I think it's got a
bad cylinder head. Personally, I think the exhaust valve is
loosening the seat on number three. And that was just
from her description. But do I tell her that? Was
(08:21):
I obligated to tell her that standing at the counter
without any proof of diagnostic tests to back it up.
I don't think so. I just know that some people
are going to spin and they're going to go around
in circles, and that's what she's going to do. And
I don't want to see that happen to you. I
want to see you get your car fixed. I want
to see you start to make the approach of what
does it take to keep this car in good running order.
(08:45):
Amanda is a driver for one of our local parts houses.
She's a young single mom. She's working hard. She delivers
parts and somehow this week she figured out who we
are and what we do. You know, she told me
this week, and she must be right. She said, you're famous.
I said really, I said, how can you say that?
(09:05):
She says, well, you're on the radio, you have a podcast,
you do this, you do that. I said, yeah, I
got three affiliates. Look at that, and she started listening
to the show. She came in two days later. She said,
I've got to tell you, I listened to a couple
of episodes. You've changed how I've looked at my car,
and You've made me change and made me think about
(09:25):
how I want to get my car repaired. I used
to hate my car. Now I like my car, but
I don't think so much of my car anymore. Is
just it's transportation, and that's all it's supposed to be,
to keep me safe and get me back and forth
to work, and that I shouldn't get a car beyond
my lifestyle. She said, you really made me think about it.
You know what, That's part of what I'm supposed to do.
(09:47):
And that's the fact that I did that with Amanda
is why I'm doing the opening conversation today about you know,
do you approach your mechanic the right way. I'm trying
to get everybody to think here. You know, it's that
opening comments. It's that first date that decides how long
the relationship is going to go on for and will
everyone benefit from it? Eight five five five six zero
(10:09):
nine nine zero zero. I'm running Ny in the car. Doctor,
I'll be back right after this. Don't go away, hey,
before we go to the phones, I have a question
for Tom. Tom, you realize that we are one week
away from opening day. I know, so for the next
seven days, the Giants are the Giants are super Bowl contenders,
(10:35):
and it could change at the moment of kickoff.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Oh, it'll change it before the moment of kickoff. You
know that we do this every year.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Every year we go through this. Now, their first four
games are with all first place teams, right, yep, So
they have to win. I just want to put it
here on public record. They have to win the first
They have to win at least two of the four, right. Okay,
so you heard it here first. I'm not being megan,
but what are the odds that they lose their They
(11:03):
lose three quarterbacks in the first four games, and they
lose all four games.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
Yeah, it's entirely possible. However, my son and I did
go to the preseason game and they looked pretty good
all preseason Noll Granted, that's preseason, right, but all all
three strings, first, second, and third string all looked pretty good.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
My son's jets, however, wen't want to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
We won't talk about that, so but I just listen.
I wish it's the best. I hope for the best.
I tried it on chat GPT, by the way, I
went to AI and I asked it, what will the
Giants record be this year? Chat gpt is predicting six
and eleven, So we'll see how smart artificial intelligence really is.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
You mean chat gpt actually didn't overload the computer and
drop it offline.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
No, and he didn't say anything really bad, but he
kind of agreed with me that they've got to win
the first two of four. So I'm basing my what
I'm saying on some sort of computer calculation. But anyway,
that's that's the last we'll talk about until next week,
all right, I promise. So let's go talk to Micah
and Maine. Micah, my main man, what's going on? Brother?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Well? First I needed to wish you of related birthday,
Happy birthday, because I missed it this year. I was
kind of busy with other things and usually I send
you a card. But you know, we were born within
seven days of one another, right to the same year,
and I impact.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Back at your brother. So but yes, thank you very much.
So what's going on?
Speaker 3 (12:25):
But well, I'm calling about really what your monologue was about,
and it's about developing relationship and trusting the people that
work on your car. You know, I got a twenty
fifteen Suprew legacy that I keep in great shape and
I always maintain it and my dealership knows that. And
I've got a great relationship with a dealership. When I
go down there for my regular service, usually you know,
bring cookies or cupcakes or something. In fact, we celebrated
(12:47):
ten year old, my ten year anniversary of buying the
car from them, and I brought them three dozen cupcakes
to celebrate with the whole crew for maintaining it as
well as they did.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Now, why you let me ask you something, Michael, Why
do you look at it like that? See your than
a lot of people. A lot of people look at
a repair shop as an adversarial situation. But yet you
embrace it. Was it something in your family upbringing? Was
your dad a mechanic?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
No, but my dad treated people with respect for what
they did, and he always knew. My dad was a psychologist.
That may say something about it do, but he knew
that you treat people for who they are, and you
expect people to be who they are, and that's all
you can expect from people. And the people that I
work with, whether they're doctors, whether they're lawyers, whether they're mechanics, whatever,
(13:33):
I respect them for the work that they do, and
if they're working for me, they're doing their best to
take care of me, or at least I hope they're
doing their best to take care of me. And I
need to trust them just like I want them to
trust me. And I want to let them, let them
know that I appreciate what they're doing for me. And
it's not that I expect something back and forth from them.
I'm not doing this because I expect something better from them,
(13:55):
but they know that I appreciate them. I know that
they appreciate me as a customer. They know that I
maintained my car, and therefore they treat me. I don't
know with more respect. But they know that there is
the respect that I have for my vehicle and for
what they do. So they do what they can for me,
just like I do what I can for them.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Sure a false statement, Micah. You're counting on them to
solve your problem if and when you have one, and
that's a luxury that you treat yourself to.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Fair statement, It absolutely is. And I had a problem,
and I had a major problem. They were a mistake
that was made. And it's not the question that a
mistake has made, it's how do you solve the problem.
So what happened? My breaks were making all sorts of noises.
I was getting that grunting sound right when you come
to the full stop. And I knew that I was
due for breaks, or I was coming close to being
(14:40):
due for breaks. I was told me, told that, I
don't know, six months ago, they said you don't need
it now, we're going to keep an eye on it,
but we're coming close. And I maintained the car regularly,
so I trust them to tell me. So I was
making this noise, I said, well, now's the time. And
I made an appointment to get my breaks taken care of,
and I made the appointment on a Thursday. I brought
the car down they offered me owner and they called
(15:01):
me about two hours later and said, Mike, I know
you used something to take care of the rust, and
I do. I use rust Check, which is a great product.
It's a number one rust control organization in Canada. I've
been using it for four or five years. They said,
there's this goo all over the brakes and all over
the struts. It's run down and we're pretty sure that's
what it is, and we can't work on the brakes,
and you should probably get in touch with rust Check.
(15:24):
So I did, and I've been using them for a
while and I know the owner and I know the
manager called them right away. It's about eight o'clock in
the morning, and the manager said, well, the owner's not here,
let me give him a call. Ten minutes later, the
owner called me at home and he said, I'm going
right down to the dealership and let me take a
look at it. And he went down to the dealership
and he looked at it. And the next minute, I'm
(15:45):
getting a call because I know the service writers, but
I also know the service director. And the service director
calls me and says, Mike got the owner of rust
Check here and he wants to take the car. I said, okay,
for me to give it to him the clean up.
Do you want him to clean it up? And I said, Paul,
it's the name of the service director. Do you want
to clean it up or should I have him do it?
He says, I think you should have him do it,
(16:06):
but I just want permission for him to be able
to take the car from me. I said, fine. He
took the car back to his shop, cleaned it up
within an hour, had it back at my super dealership.
Everything was taken care of, and we needed the breaks
and we did the brakes anyway.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And that's the moral there, right that there's always a
solution to the problem. It's how you approach it exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
And I told when I called, when I spoke with
the owner of uss Check, I said, look, I'm not
angry at you. These things happen. Must have been some
kind of overspray. It takes place. He says he understood that.
He knew I wasn't yelling at him. I just wanted
to get the problem resolved, and he took care of
it right away, and I'm going to go back to
him next year when it's time to do the undercoding again.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You know where else that problem occurs, Micah. And then
I'll let you go is you take your car to
a car wash. And I'm not saying well car washes
are like this, but we've seen cases where people go
to a car wash and they you know, what do
you do? You go through, you get the ap plant
them service, you roll through the line, they wash the car,
they clean everything, and then when they come out they
do tire shine on the outside of the tires if
(17:07):
they're aggressive and they put too much tires shine on, well,
incorrect tire shine or too much tire shine. We've got
cases of it where it's documented it will actually cause
where degradation of the tire itself, but if it gets
on the break assemblies, it will cause a similar problem
to that. So you always have to be aware of that.
Always a pleasure to talk to you, Michah. You keep
them coming and you'd be safe up there in Maine. Micah.
(17:30):
My main man, I love that I'm running any in
the card doctor. I'll be back right after this. Don't
go away. Oh let's see what this button does. Oh
it turns me on. Look at that. I'm on the air.
Let's go over to Rocky and Maine. I have to
make Tom nervous today. Let's go over to Rocky and Maine.
Yeah yet, get get yet? How are you, sir? What's
going on?
Speaker 6 (17:48):
I'm good around you now, not bad?
Speaker 2 (17:50):
What's cooking?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Hey?
Speaker 6 (17:51):
I've got a ninety two jeep Wrangler with a two
point five four cylinder. Okay, And about six months ago,
so hell a little more than that, I had the
whole quat chin slave so on the flywheel, the whole
nine yards replaced. And I told the mechanic, I says,
you know, check that remain while you've got a pirate
(18:14):
and make sure that's okay. And and he did. And
in about a month after I got it back, that
started the leacoln.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Of course, so that's Murphy's law. You're wemon, you're surprised
at that.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
Well, you know, I was kind of of the opinion,
if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right and h
But I guess I got beat on this one. I
just didn't know. I know, you you have a lot
of sponsors of different chemicals and whatnot that do wonderful things.
And I was just wondering if there's anything you would
recommend to maybe put off changing that seal.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
No, I you know, there's listen for all my sponsors
and and understand the greater majority, I think just about
every one of my sponsors as a product I've either
used and that's sort of what's led them to us,
or it's something that I've seen used and that's what
sort of led them to us. So I have great
faith in many of the products. The rear main seal stuff,
nothing comes to mind because frankly, it's probably just tired.
(19:13):
Now you could try, all right, how many miles are
on this little GM for banger.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
Thousand?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Right? So is this a case of excessive crank case
pressure pushing oil out the rear main? You know, what
does the pcevalve, What does the crank case ventilation system
look like? Or and or you know, if you were
to pop the dipstick up, you know, a quarter of
an inch so it can case and drive it around,
(19:41):
does that slow down the leak? And what that would
an old likelihood prove to us is that we have
you know, a moderate amount of blowby and you know,
relieving crank case pressure may help the problem. My My
comment in the back of my head goes though, but
you know, this is a four cylinder GM that's four
ninety two, two thousand. What are we thirty five years old?
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I do?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I have rings that are stuck in the in the grooves,
and it's just it's just time. Does this consume oil?
Has this got an oil burning issue?
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Rock?
Speaker 6 (20:15):
No, it doesn't consume a drop. I've owned this thing
for twenty five years and you know it's I just
use it. I put about a thousand miles a year
on it at the hunting vehicle in Northern Main and
you know.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I'm surprised. I'm surprised they didn't do the rearmain because
they were looking right at it. It's a one piece seal.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
And that was probably my fault. I should have just
told them to replace it.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But that was the moment. Yeah, that that really was
the moment. Yeah, you kind of goofed on that one, brother. So, but.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
I've never had a remain replaced before. Is that something
where you can get into big trouble if things don't
go right doing it?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
You know, it's like any other automotive repair get into
big trouble if things don't go right. Period. Tell me,
tell me in order repair that if things don't go right,
you're not going to get into trouble, right, you know,
it's it's there is a little bit of finesse there.
There's a little bit of experience that's you know, this
isn't you know, doing a remained seal is not something
you want somebody to do for the first time as
(21:17):
a practice step, you know, it's it's I've done more
than a few of those. One of the things I
like for seal removal is I will take a small
drill bit drill into the seal. I will put a
self tapping screw and that becomes my pride point. And
this way, I'm not taking a chance of touching the seal.
So I don't nick the seal, but more importantly, I
(21:39):
don't nick the crank shift right. So you know, hopefully
your guy knows this, if he's old school, I'm sure
he does. It's not something I invented. I picked it
up from the guy in front of me, you know,
So just just know that that's one way to look
at it. You know, at this stage, at one thousand
miles a year, how much of a leak is it?
(21:59):
My real concern. And this is what's kind of got
me scratching my head. Is the guy that put the
clutch in, you know, and he I go, I guess
it wasn't leaking at that point, but you know, is
this a case of is the oil leak going to
you know, somehow damage the clutches? Oil continues to come out.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
The one thing I want to mention, and I don't
want to mention this because now I'm gonna throw darts
and it's gonna put doubt in the back of your mind.
I've seen this twice in my lifetime career as a mechanic.
Flywheel bolts get overtrqued and they warp, you know, they
distort the end of the crank and what is the
seal right against right? You know? Is that possible? Man?
(22:44):
It takes a lot. I've never seen I've never seen
a four cylinder GM product do that.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
But I don't.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I don't base a lot of my beliefs on well,
I've never seen it do it, so it can't be bad,
you know. But it's it's it's always in the back
of my mind. Yeah, it's coincidental, It's it's probably just
thirty five years old and one hundred thousand plus miles
and it's just tired, you know. So I say, I say,
count your losses. Pull the trans pull the flywheel, put
a seal in it, drive it, do a PCV valve.
(23:12):
Drive it. Let's see where we go. Either that or
if it's a thousand mile a year hunting vehicle, you
know what it's going to be. It's going to be
out in the woods and covered in snow and rust
and water and everything else. If we get a nice
if we get a nice coating of oil underneath it,
it'll never rot out.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
So I just redid the whole frame and recoated it inside. Now, yeah,
it just did upgrade on it.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
You know, it's always that last part that you don't change.
You ever notice that It's always that, It's always that. Well,
I don't want to do this because you know it's Look,
it gives you something to laugh at. If you can't
laugh at life, then what's the point. So best answer
I got.
Speaker 6 (23:56):
I think I'm gonna let it leak this fall and
then see what happened and then deal with it before
another season.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, pull, like I said, pull the dipstick up a
little bit. Just so it's going to breathe out the
crank case that way. See see if that makes a difference.
And if it does, then that tells you the PCV
is restricted and it'll give you another direction to go.
All right, okay, so God enjoyed the conversation. Good luck
to you, kiddo.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
Thanks a lot. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Very welcome. Let's uh, let's plug take a pause. When
we come back, we'll go to Ted. I'm running dy
in the car doctor. I'll be right back right after this. Hey,
let's go to Ted at Illinois seventeen Silverado. Ted. Welcome
to the car doctor, sir, how can I help?
Speaker 7 (24:38):
Ron? Thanks a lot for taking my call. I enjoy
your show and I value your advice.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Thank you, thank you. What's going on?
Speaker 7 (24:45):
I've got twenty seventeen Chevy truck Silverado, four wheel drive,
five point three motor, and the right front break was
hanging out the caliper, and you know, you'd take off
and it'd be fine, and after about uh maybe twenty
minutes and several stops, it would start hanging up and
(25:05):
it would get hot. And so I thought, well, the
caliper must be stuck or something. And so I pulled
the caliper off and rebuild it, put new seals in
it and a dust of dust seal too, right, and
put it back on.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And that same thing.
Speaker 7 (25:24):
Nope, nope, yeah right, it wasn't And it's and it's
if I like, if I stop after it does it
if I pull over and either break the brake line,
you know, unloosen the brake line, the caliper line, or
do the bleeder and let a little flood out of it.
And it doesn't really squirt out of their real you know,
hard or anything.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
It's a dribble.
Speaker 7 (25:45):
Does it does come out right?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
It's a dribble. And let me let me ask Let
me ask you a couple of questions to as simple
as they may seem. How do you know the right
front is getting hot?
Speaker 7 (25:57):
It gets hot? I mean you go around to it.
You can smell, and you can the left front you
can grab with your hand and know you know, I mean,
it's warm, right hot, But right front you can't touch.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
But I mean you don't know it from behind the wheel.
You get out of the truck, you drive twenty minutes
to your destination. You get out of the truck, and
that's when you get the sensation that the break is hot.
Speaker 7 (26:18):
Well, when it gets after, you know you could when
you let up on it, you can tell you're slowing
down quicker. I'm used to the truck. I've had the
trucks as it was new, right, so you know, you
can tell it's slowing down a little bit. It's not
as free, and so I can tell that it's it's
tightening up. And then I get a vibration if I
just keep driving.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Okay, that's the answer I'm looking for. So, so we've
clearly got something going on. Right front, you've done a caliper. Right,
how about the left front break hose? And here's here's
here's the reason why. Okay, believe it or not. And
I've seen this both ways. I've seen it where the
(26:58):
right front gets hot and it's the right front hose.
I've seen it where the right front gets hot and
it's the left hose. Because the left hose peels internally
and acts like a check valve, and it constantly applies
pressure to the right front. It doesn't allow it to release.
Speaker 7 (27:16):
I would never guess that why. But I did get
two break lines right order, and they're Dorman. I assume
they would be pretty good.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, it'll be fun and for the right end.
Speaker 7 (27:27):
Last night was getting ready to go ahead and replace
the one that's getting hot, but I thought, I'm just
gonna get both of them.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
I would do both. I would do both. It's going
to eliminate a lot of questions. How many miles are
on this truck?
Speaker 7 (27:41):
Nine ninety five thousand.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
It's a little early. It's a little early, but it's
right on the fuzzy edge of Yeah, okay, one hundred
thousand miles. It's possible. Anything's possible, hard use, highway use,
construction used. What do you do with the truck?
Speaker 7 (27:57):
Well, I actually just drive it back and forth to
the farm and I go hunting with it, and you know,
but I it doesn't get a whole lot of really
hard use. I barely ever use the four wheel drive.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
And I think I think the two rubber break hoses
are the next step. Head and just just pay attention
to when you bleed it? Does it? Does it bleed
equally right and left and and in the rear? Okay,
you know, do any of the do any of the
does any of the bleed give you a sense that
(28:33):
there's a restriction elsewhere in the system, But the most
common cause is one of the front break hooses. As
bad does the truck pull to the right when the
brake gets hot.
Speaker 7 (28:43):
Not really, I mean not really hard or anything. I
mean it just you can just feel it in the
stream right, just feel the vibration and and you know
it's it's happening.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Have you had the occasion. It would be interesting to see.
And it takes some work and you have to be quick,
but you get it to happen. And the way we
would the way we found it in the shop. I'll
say it like this, the way we find things in
the shop. Sometimes, Well, we'll drive the vehicle, we'll replicate
the problem. Yeah, right, the right front starting to drag.
We'll bring it in, get it up in the air
real quick, and we'll crack the left front bleed while
(29:15):
somebody's spinning the wheel. While they're spinning the wheel, the
wheel is tight, we crack the left front. The wheel
spins free, and it's weird. But it proves to us
that it's the hose, even though it shouldn't be the hose,
because well it isn't. It isn't. It's because when the
hose goes bad, when a hose goes bad. Internally, it's
(29:36):
it's kind of like a backwards banana peel. It folds
upwards and acts like a check valve, so the apply
still stays. When we when we burp the side that's
got the bad hose, we dump pressure that that allows
the banana peel to fall forward and pulls the pressure
off the other side. That's the That's the theory if
you went to a if we went to a break
class and we talked to a brake instructor, that is
(29:57):
the verbatim textbook theory that they would spa to us.
I don't disagree, and the theory seems to hold water
because I've fixed more than a few by doing that
test and looking at it. I've cut break hoses open,
I think, and all the break hoses I've ever cut
open in my career, I think I found two bad
ones legitimate, But I'd also have to cut it at
(30:18):
the right moment. I'm not in the habit of slicing
break hoses for the length. And it comes back to
where I originally finished our conversation. It's cheaper at one
hundred thousand miles and eight years old. Put two hoses
on it. Move on. See what you see what you get?
So all right, kid on, if you need more, and
if you need more, you know where to find me.
(30:38):
You were going to say.
Speaker 7 (30:39):
Something, I'm just going to tell you thanks a lot.
I really appreciate the help.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
You're very welcome, sirre I'm here. If you need more,
you'd be well. Bye bye eight five five five six
zero nine nine zero zero running ding the car doctor.
I'll be back right after this. You know, I started
the hour talking about diagnostics. I want to end the
hour talking about diagnostics. This comes to us from Jacob
Guarding as twenty eleven Buick Enclave Ron. My car started
(31:03):
out with a leaking number six injector, diagnosed from a shop.
I replaced all six injectors. I continued to have a leak.
I continued focusing on leaking injectors till I checked fuel
pressure on the fuel line. It's always at twenty psi
and the fuel rail was fifty eight. I replaced both
in tank and high pressure fuel pump. Now I have
sixty PSA in the line seven hundred psi on the rail.
The leaking injector problem is gone. So just to point
(31:26):
out the obvious, you know, that there was some sort
of misdiagnosis done their Jacob right that they told you
it was an injector, it was not. It was probably
in the high pressure fuel pump itself or one of
the other injectors. I'm not sure why we're firing the
parts cannon here, but it seemed like a better diagnosis
could have been done for that particular problem. That isn't
why I'm reading this. After that, I had a bog
(31:48):
shutter problem when I got up to around seventeen hundred rpm,
but it's idol as smooth as can be. When I
would take it for a test drive at that time,
it would hesitate very obviously, but then would start to
throw check engine light with codes of misfire and cylinders
two and three. I was suggested to check out the
catalytic converters. I took the cat off, I took the
two off. I took the two cats off the exhaust
(32:08):
manifolds and houlowed them out, but I left the third
one alone. I have checked for vacuum leaks with starting fluid.
I've tried a new miss aerphlow sensor I took back
since the rings were the same as the old one
new spark plugs, moved coils around to make sure it
wasn't a coil check from the ECM, plugged every coil
and the injector continuity for the injector connector for continuity
to rule out wiring harness. Replaced the perch solenoid on
(32:29):
the intake, and just today replaced the vent solenoid on
the charcoal canister. Now, after the vent's solinoid driving, it
hesitates at first, but I can get it up to
speed with small hiccups. You can feel Whoever, no codes
at all. I am borrowing a top down air diagnostic
pro scan tool and doing an electric throttle relearn as
I typed this out, Jacob, First of all, you need
to put cats back on the car because it's going
(32:50):
to affect how you diagnose it. You can't look at
fuel trim, you can't do any sort of measurements for
diagnostics at this point because it's gonna at some point
it's going to set a catalytic converter fault. And you know,
is that real is it not? I would want to
know where's manifold vacuum when all of this is going on.
(33:11):
I'd want to know if you think this is related
to those two cylinders. If you've done all your ignition,
can you do a flow rate test on the injectors?
If the problem wasn't there until the injectors were replaced,
how do you know you've got good injectors? Where did
they come from? Firing a parts canon is a risk,
and you're now going to face the problems associated with that.
(33:32):
But do some further testing like I suggested, and give
me a call. I'm ronning Andy in the card doctor
till the next time go. Mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless.
You're listening to Ron and Nanian The Car Doctor, nationally
recognized auto expert trusted by mechanics, weekend wrenchers and vehicle
owners alike. Ron brings over forty years of hands on
experience and deep industry insight to help you understand your vehicle.
Join the Conversation live every Saturday from two to four
pm Eastern by calling eight five five five six zero
nine nine zero zero. That's eight five to five five
(00:25):
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channel for exclusive videos, real repair footage and more. Now
start your enginies. The Car Doctor is in the garage
(00:47):
and ready to take your call.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
How good is your relationship with your mechanic or a mechanic,
any mechanic. I've been pondering this one for a couple
of days. Now it's a real story from the shop
this week. An individual walked into the shop about three
o'clock Thursday afternoon. Wednesday afternoon, I've got a check engine
(01:10):
light on, can you diagnose my check engine light? And
that's the way the conversation started. And not a face
I recognized, definitely, not a car. I recognized, oh six
acur one hundred and thirteen thousand miles on it. And
the deeper the conversation got, the more I realized it was.
It was a mechanical total. I'll and I'll tell you
(01:33):
why it was. The approach. It was, what's been going
on with this vehicle? Because I always you know, when
you come in and ask me, can I fix a car?
My answer is, of course, but I have questions for you,
and that's my job, is what I'm about to become
your mechanic on the case. And I said, you know,
how long has the check engine light been on? It's
(01:54):
been on for a while, a couple of years. And
my second question is always who's tried to work on it?
And she said a couple of shops and most recently
her son in law and the son in law had
changed a bunch of ignition parts. So I said, so
this is a misfire problem, to which you replied, well,
it's a cylinder problem. I said, right, it's a misfire problem.
(02:16):
She goes, yeah, that sounds right, and her son in
law had changed a bunch of parts, and I said ignition.
She said yes, she verified that, and I said injectors.
She said, sounds right. And she said the problem goes
away every once in a while and then it comes back.
And so she you know again, She asked, can you
fix that? I said, sure, I can diagnose it. I
(02:38):
can fix it. My question to you is are you
ready for that? Are you ready to have me go
the distance? Are you ready to have someone apply some
diagnostics to this vehicle and fix it? Are you ready
to go the distance? I always think about that movie
The Untouchables, right, remember the Untouchables Sean Connery when Kevin
(02:59):
Costner comes to them and showing Connery initially turns him
down to work with the Untouchables right to you know,
do what he has to do and you know, to
get capone. And then Connery takes Kevin Costner to the
church and he turns to him and he says they're
having the conversation. He says, are you ready to do
what needs to be done? Are you ready to go
(03:20):
all the way? And that's really how you have to
look at diagnostics. After a couple of years after a
couple of repair attempts, You've got to ask yourself, are
you ready to go all the way? Are you just
poking and hoping? And I told her point blank within
the first two minutes of our conversation, I said, listen,
diagnostics starts at two hundred seventy five dollars. And I
realize we're not supposed to talk about money here on radio,
(03:42):
and I get that, but you know what we're gonna
and that two hundred seventy five dollars gets us in
the door for about an hour and a half of
some you know, preliminary testing, maybe some involved testing, telling
us which way to go. Because understand, while a diagnostic
routine has a set pattern of issues and tests to
(04:02):
be performed, every diagnosis is not necessarily the same, and
there are there are varying branches that you have to
go down to get to a diagnostic conclusion. And I
said that two hundred and seventy five dollars may include, gee,
we've got to replace all the parts that you put
in it because they're of substandard quality. It may include
we have to take those out, examine them, change something,
(04:23):
alter something, correct something, adjust something that was put in
because it was done of a substandard quality, because all
of those repair attempts and all of those alleged diagnostics
led to nothing, because it's still broken. And she said,
but why is it so expensive? And I said, have
the previous three or four repair attempts. Has the money
(04:46):
you've spent up to this point yielded any results? And
she said no. And I said, that's why it's expensive
to you, because you don't recognize the value of a
concerted effort, of a diagnostic routine, of an appro coach.
I think some of you get stuck into a rut.
(05:06):
I don't think you see the forest for the trees.
I don't think you see what you're asking of the mechanic.
There's a reason why some cars never get fixed, because
you have to ask yourself, are you ready to go
the distance? Are you ready to put in everything that
that vehicle needs? And if not, as I told her,
this vehicle is mechanically totaled. Unless somebody hits upon just
(05:27):
that right combination by some dumb luck effort, that vehicle
will not get fixed because there's not much left. If
we make an assumption, which is a dangerous thing in diagnostics.
In any other situation. If we make an assumption that
it's not ignition and it's not an injector, there's really
only three things. It can be an engine problem, a
(05:50):
computer problem, or a wiring harness issue. You know, for
a random misfire, for setting a misfire on cylinder three.
Because there's no rule that says it's ignition, there's no
rule that says it's fuel. It's a misfire. It's a stutter.
If it was skipping, it misses a step she left.
(06:11):
I think she got it. I don't think she's going
to get it fixed. And I'm sure she's still looking.
But my point is, what's your approach? Do you ever
think about that approach? And for that matter, and you know,
I always come back to this, I've said for the
longest time. If you're ever twenty one and you've been
driving a car, who is your regular mechanic, who's the
doctor in attendance, who's the person that you trust to
(06:33):
take care of that vehicle on a regular basis, And
if you're constantly changing mechanics, maybe it's you. Are you
looking for the right thing? There are some people I
just you know, I listen to how people think when
I'm in group gatherings and nobody knows I have an anonymity,
nobody knows who I am or what I do, And
I try to tell anybody what I do because it's
interesting to hear the other side. You know, how mechanics
(06:56):
are crooks, how the industry is is slanted, how nobody
can get their car fixed, how everything is so expensive,
but people will keep throwing money down the well into
that same hall without any sequential, logical, common sense, sequence
of repair or approach. Change your thinking, change how you
(07:20):
do it, change what you do. I encourage you. I
encourage you to sit down and talk to a mechanic
and say, hey, what will this get me? No, I realize. Look,
I'll be the first to admit it. There's a bunch
of dopes in my industry. There really is. There are
some of the dumbest people I know turn screwdrivers all
day long.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
You know, I talked to I talked to training directors
and some of the training people that you know put
together classes from around the country and we talk about
different places, and he said, Ron, some of these guys
are as dumb as a bunch of rocks. They're still
banging on hammers trying to fix cars and it doesn't work.
And I get that, So part of that's your fault, though,
(07:58):
because part of that is you've got to demand better.
You've got to go find that shop and support that
shop and not the guy who's doing it cheaper, because
that's what you want to hear. I wonder if that
accurate can be fixed. Personally, I think it's got a
bad cylinder head. Personally, I think the exhaust valve is
loosening the seat on number three. And that was just
from her description. But do I tell her that? Was
(08:21):
I obligated to tell her that standing at the counter
without any proof of diagnostic tests to back it up.
I don't think so. I just know that some people
are going to spin and they're going to go around
in circles, and that's what she's going to do. And
I don't want to see that happen to you. I
want to see you get your car fixed. I want
to see you start to make the approach of what
does it take to keep this car in good running order.
(08:45):
Amanda is a driver for one of our local parts houses.
She's a young single mom. She's working hard. She delivers
parts and somehow this week she figured out who we
are and what we do. You know, she told me
this week, and she must be right. She said, you're famous.
I said really, I said, how can you say that?
(09:05):
She says, well, you're on the radio, you have a podcast,
you do this, you do that. I said, yeah, I
got three affiliates. Look at that, and she started listening
to the show. She came in two days later. She said,
I've got to tell you, I listened to a couple
of episodes. You've changed how I've looked at my car,
and You've made me change and made me think about
(09:25):
how I want to get my car repaired. I used
to hate my car. Now I like my car, but
I don't think so much of my car anymore. Is
just it's transportation, and that's all it's supposed to be,
to keep me safe and get me back and forth
to work, and that I shouldn't get a car beyond
my lifestyle. She said, you really made me think about it.
You know what, That's part of what I'm supposed to do.
(09:47):
And that's the fact that I did that with Amanda
is why I'm doing the opening conversation today about you know,
do you approach your mechanic the right way. I'm trying
to get everybody to think here. You know, it's that
opening comments. It's that first date that decides how long
the relationship is going to go on for and will
everyone benefit from it? Eight five five five six zero
(10:09):
nine nine zero zero. I'm running Ny in the car. Doctor,
I'll be back right after this. Don't go away, hey,
before we go to the phones, I have a question
for Tom. Tom, you realize that we are one week
away from opening day. I know, so for the next
seven days, the Giants are the Giants are super Bowl contenders,
(10:35):
and it could change at the moment of kickoff.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Oh, it'll change it before the moment of kickoff. You
know that we do this every year.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Every year we go through this. Now, their first four
games are with all first place teams, right, yep, So
they have to win. I just want to put it
here on public record. They have to win the first
They have to win at least two of the four, right. Okay,
so you heard it here first. I'm not being megan,
but what are the odds that they lose their They
(11:03):
lose three quarterbacks in the first four games, and they
lose all four games.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
Yeah, it's entirely possible. However, my son and I did
go to the preseason game and they looked pretty good
all preseason Noll Granted, that's preseason, right, but all all
three strings, first, second, and third string all looked pretty good.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
My son's jets, however, wen't want to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
We won't talk about that, so but I just listen.
I wish it's the best. I hope for the best.
I tried it on chat GPT, by the way, I
went to AI and I asked it, what will the
Giants record be this year? Chat gpt is predicting six
and eleven, So we'll see how smart artificial intelligence really is.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
You mean chat gpt actually didn't overload the computer and
drop it offline.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
No, and he didn't say anything really bad, but he
kind of agreed with me that they've got to win
the first two of four. So I'm basing my what
I'm saying on some sort of computer calculation. But anyway,
that's that's the last we'll talk about until next week,
all right, I promise. So let's go talk to Micah
and Maine. Micah, my main man, what's going on? Brother?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Well? First I needed to wish you of related birthday,
Happy birthday, because I missed it this year. I was
kind of busy with other things and usually I send
you a card. But you know, we were born within
seven days of one another, right to the same year,
and I impact.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Back at your brother. So but yes, thank you very much.
So what's going on?
Speaker 3 (12:25):
But well, I'm calling about really what your monologue was about,
and it's about developing relationship and trusting the people that
work on your car. You know, I got a twenty
fifteen Suprew legacy that I keep in great shape and
I always maintain it and my dealership knows that. And
I've got a great relationship with a dealership. When I
go down there for my regular service, usually you know,
bring cookies or cupcakes or something. In fact, we celebrated
(12:47):
ten year old, my ten year anniversary of buying the
car from them, and I brought them three dozen cupcakes
to celebrate with the whole crew for maintaining it as
well as they did.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Now, why you let me ask you something, Michael, Why
do you look at it like that? See your than
a lot of people. A lot of people look at
a repair shop as an adversarial situation. But yet you
embrace it. Was it something in your family upbringing? Was
your dad a mechanic?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
No, but my dad treated people with respect for what
they did, and he always knew. My dad was a psychologist.
That may say something about it do, but he knew
that you treat people for who they are, and you
expect people to be who they are, and that's all
you can expect from people. And the people that I
work with, whether they're doctors, whether they're lawyers, whether they're mechanics, whatever,
(13:33):
I respect them for the work that they do, and
if they're working for me, they're doing their best to
take care of me, or at least I hope they're
doing their best to take care of me. And I
need to trust them just like I want them to
trust me. And I want to let them, let them
know that I appreciate what they're doing for me. And
it's not that I expect something back and forth from them.
I'm not doing this because I expect something better from them,
(13:55):
but they know that I appreciate them. I know that
they appreciate me as a customer. They know that I
maintained my car, and therefore they treat me. I don't
know with more respect. But they know that there is
the respect that I have for my vehicle and for
what they do. So they do what they can for me,
just like I do what I can for them.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Sure a false statement, Micah. You're counting on them to
solve your problem if and when you have one, and
that's a luxury that you treat yourself to.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Fair statement, It absolutely is. And I had a problem,
and I had a major problem. They were a mistake
that was made. And it's not the question that a
mistake has made, it's how do you solve the problem.
So what happened? My breaks were making all sorts of noises.
I was getting that grunting sound right when you come
to the full stop. And I knew that I was
due for breaks, or I was coming close to being
(14:40):
due for breaks. I was told me, told that, I
don't know, six months ago, they said you don't need
it now, we're going to keep an eye on it,
but we're coming close. And I maintained the car regularly,
so I trust them to tell me. So I was
making this noise, I said, well, now's the time. And
I made an appointment to get my breaks taken care of,
and I made the appointment on a Thursday. I brought
the car down they offered me owner and they called
(15:01):
me about two hours later and said, Mike, I know
you used something to take care of the rust, and
I do. I use rust Check, which is a great product.
It's a number one rust control organization in Canada. I've
been using it for four or five years. They said,
there's this goo all over the brakes and all over
the struts. It's run down and we're pretty sure that's
what it is, and we can't work on the brakes,
and you should probably get in touch with rust Check.
(15:24):
So I did, and I've been using them for a
while and I know the owner and I know the
manager called them right away. It's about eight o'clock in
the morning, and the manager said, well, the owner's not here,
let me give him a call. Ten minutes later, the
owner called me at home and he said, I'm going
right down to the dealership and let me take a
look at it. And he went down to the dealership
and he looked at it. And the next minute, I'm
(15:45):
getting a call because I know the service writers, but
I also know the service director. And the service director
calls me and says, Mike got the owner of rust
Check here and he wants to take the car. I said, okay,
for me to give it to him the clean up.
Do you want him to clean it up? And I said, Paul,
it's the name of the service director. Do you want
to clean it up or should I have him do it?
He says, I think you should have him do it,
(16:06):
but I just want permission for him to be able
to take the car from me. I said, fine. He
took the car back to his shop, cleaned it up
within an hour, had it back at my super dealership.
Everything was taken care of, and we needed the breaks
and we did the brakes anyway.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And that's the moral there, right that there's always a
solution to the problem. It's how you approach it exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
And I told when I called, when I spoke with
the owner of uss Check, I said, look, I'm not
angry at you. These things happen. Must have been some
kind of overspray. It takes place. He says he understood that.
He knew I wasn't yelling at him. I just wanted
to get the problem resolved, and he took care of
it right away, and I'm going to go back to
him next year when it's time to do the undercoding again.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You know where else that problem occurs, Micah. And then
I'll let you go is you take your car to
a car wash. And I'm not saying well car washes
are like this, but we've seen cases where people go
to a car wash and they you know, what do
you do? You go through, you get the ap plant
them service, you roll through the line, they wash the car,
they clean everything, and then when they come out they
do tire shine on the outside of the tires if
(17:07):
they're aggressive and they put too much tires shine on, well,
incorrect tire shine or too much tire shine. We've got
cases of it where it's documented it will actually cause
where degradation of the tire itself, but if it gets
on the break assemblies, it will cause a similar problem
to that. So you always have to be aware of that.
Always a pleasure to talk to you, Michah. You keep
them coming and you'd be safe up there in Maine. Micah.
(17:30):
My main man, I love that I'm running any in
the card doctor. I'll be back right after this. Don't
go away. Oh let's see what this button does. Oh
it turns me on. Look at that. I'm on the air.
Let's go over to Rocky and Maine. I have to
make Tom nervous today. Let's go over to Rocky and Maine.
Yeah yet, get get yet? How are you, sir? What's
going on?
Speaker 6 (17:48):
I'm good around you now, not bad?
Speaker 2 (17:50):
What's cooking?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Hey?
Speaker 6 (17:51):
I've got a ninety two jeep Wrangler with a two
point five four cylinder. Okay, And about six months ago,
so hell a little more than that, I had the
whole quat chin slave so on the flywheel, the whole
nine yards replaced. And I told the mechanic, I says,
you know, check that remain while you've got a pirate
(18:14):
and make sure that's okay. And and he did. And
in about a month after I got it back, that
started the leacoln.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Of course, so that's Murphy's law. You're wemon, you're surprised
at that.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
Well, you know, I was kind of of the opinion,
if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right and h
But I guess I got beat on this one. I
just didn't know. I know, you you have a lot
of sponsors of different chemicals and whatnot that do wonderful things.
And I was just wondering if there's anything you would
recommend to maybe put off changing that seal.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
No, I you know, there's listen for all my sponsors
and and understand the greater majority, I think just about
every one of my sponsors as a product I've either
used and that's sort of what's led them to us,
or it's something that I've seen used and that's what
sort of led them to us. So I have great
faith in many of the products. The rear main seal stuff,
nothing comes to mind because frankly, it's probably just tired.
(19:13):
Now you could try, all right, how many miles are
on this little GM for banger.
Speaker 6 (19:21):
Thousand?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Right? So is this a case of excessive crank case
pressure pushing oil out the rear main? You know, what
does the pcevalve, What does the crank case ventilation system
look like? Or and or you know, if you were
to pop the dipstick up, you know, a quarter of
an inch so it can case and drive it around,
(19:41):
does that slow down the leak? And what that would
an old likelihood prove to us is that we have
you know, a moderate amount of blowby and you know,
relieving crank case pressure may help the problem. My My
comment in the back of my head goes though, but
you know, this is a four cylinder GM that's four
ninety two, two thousand. What are we thirty five years old?
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I do?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I have rings that are stuck in the in the grooves,
and it's just it's just time. Does this consume oil?
Has this got an oil burning issue?
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Rock?
Speaker 6 (20:15):
No, it doesn't consume a drop. I've owned this thing
for twenty five years and you know it's I just
use it. I put about a thousand miles a year
on it at the hunting vehicle in Northern Main and
you know.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I'm surprised. I'm surprised they didn't do the rearmain because
they were looking right at it. It's a one piece seal.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
And that was probably my fault. I should have just
told them to replace it.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But that was the moment. Yeah, that that really was
the moment. Yeah, you kind of goofed on that one, brother. So, but.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
I've never had a remain replaced before. Is that something
where you can get into big trouble if things don't
go right doing it?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
You know, it's like any other automotive repair get into
big trouble if things don't go right. Period. Tell me,
tell me in order repair that if things don't go right,
you're not going to get into trouble, right, you know,
it's it's there is a little bit of finesse there.
There's a little bit of experience that's you know, this
isn't you know, doing a remained seal is not something
you want somebody to do for the first time as
(21:17):
a practice step, you know, it's it's I've done more
than a few of those. One of the things I
like for seal removal is I will take a small
drill bit drill into the seal. I will put a
self tapping screw and that becomes my pride point. And
this way, I'm not taking a chance of touching the seal.
So I don't nick the seal, but more importantly, I
(21:39):
don't nick the crank shift right. So you know, hopefully
your guy knows this, if he's old school, I'm sure
he does. It's not something I invented. I picked it
up from the guy in front of me, you know,
So just just know that that's one way to look
at it. You know, at this stage, at one thousand
miles a year, how much of a leak is it?
(21:59):
My real concern. And this is what's kind of got
me scratching my head. Is the guy that put the
clutch in, you know, and he I go, I guess
it wasn't leaking at that point, but you know, is
this a case of is the oil leak going to
you know, somehow damage the clutches? Oil continues to come out.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
The one thing I want to mention, and I don't
want to mention this because now I'm gonna throw darts
and it's gonna put doubt in the back of your mind.
I've seen this twice in my lifetime career as a mechanic.
Flywheel bolts get overtrqued and they warp, you know, they
distort the end of the crank and what is the
seal right against right? You know? Is that possible? Man?
(22:44):
It takes a lot. I've never seen I've never seen
a four cylinder GM product do that.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
But I don't.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I don't base a lot of my beliefs on well,
I've never seen it do it, so it can't be bad,
you know. But it's it's it's always in the back
of my mind. Yeah, it's coincidental, It's it's probably just
thirty five years old and one hundred thousand plus miles
and it's just tired, you know. So I say, I say,
count your losses. Pull the trans pull the flywheel, put
a seal in it, drive it, do a PCV valve.
(23:12):
Drive it. Let's see where we go. Either that or
if it's a thousand mile a year hunting vehicle, you
know what it's going to be. It's going to be
out in the woods and covered in snow and rust
and water and everything else. If we get a nice
if we get a nice coating of oil underneath it,
it'll never rot out.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
So I just redid the whole frame and recoated it inside. Now, yeah,
it just did upgrade on it.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
You know, it's always that last part that you don't change.
You ever notice that It's always that, It's always that. Well,
I don't want to do this because you know it's Look,
it gives you something to laugh at. If you can't
laugh at life, then what's the point. So best answer
I got.
Speaker 6 (23:56):
I think I'm gonna let it leak this fall and
then see what happened and then deal with it before
another season.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, pull, like I said, pull the dipstick up a
little bit. Just so it's going to breathe out the
crank case that way. See see if that makes a difference.
And if it does, then that tells you the PCV
is restricted and it'll give you another direction to go.
All right, okay, so God enjoyed the conversation. Good luck
to you, kiddo.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
Thanks a lot. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Very welcome. Let's uh, let's plug take a pause. When
we come back, we'll go to Ted. I'm running dy
in the car doctor. I'll be right back right after this. Hey,
let's go to Ted at Illinois seventeen Silverado. Ted. Welcome
to the car doctor, sir, how can I help?
Speaker 7 (24:38):
Ron? Thanks a lot for taking my call. I enjoy
your show and I value your advice.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Thank you, thank you. What's going on?
Speaker 7 (24:45):
I've got twenty seventeen Chevy truck Silverado, four wheel drive,
five point three motor, and the right front break was
hanging out the caliper, and you know, you'd take off
and it'd be fine, and after about uh maybe twenty
minutes and several stops, it would start hanging up and
(25:05):
it would get hot. And so I thought, well, the
caliper must be stuck or something. And so I pulled
the caliper off and rebuild it, put new seals in
it and a dust of dust seal too, right, and
put it back on.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And that same thing.
Speaker 7 (25:24):
Nope, nope, yeah right, it wasn't And it's and it's
if I like, if I stop after it does it
if I pull over and either break the brake line,
you know, unloosen the brake line, the caliper line, or
do the bleeder and let a little flood out of it.
And it doesn't really squirt out of their real you know,
hard or anything.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
It's a dribble.
Speaker 7 (25:45):
Does it does come out right?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
It's a dribble. And let me let me ask Let
me ask you a couple of questions to as simple
as they may seem. How do you know the right
front is getting hot?
Speaker 7 (25:57):
It gets hot? I mean you go around to it.
You can smell, and you can the left front you
can grab with your hand and know you know, I mean,
it's warm, right hot, But right front you can't touch.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
But I mean you don't know it from behind the wheel.
You get out of the truck, you drive twenty minutes
to your destination. You get out of the truck, and
that's when you get the sensation that the break is hot.
Speaker 7 (26:18):
Well, when it gets after, you know you could when
you let up on it, you can tell you're slowing
down quicker. I'm used to the truck. I've had the
trucks as it was new, right, so you know, you
can tell it's slowing down a little bit. It's not
as free, and so I can tell that it's it's
tightening up. And then I get a vibration if I
just keep driving.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Okay, that's the answer I'm looking for. So, so we've
clearly got something going on. Right front, you've done a caliper. Right,
how about the left front break hose? And here's here's
here's the reason why. Okay, believe it or not. And
I've seen this both ways. I've seen it where the
(26:58):
right front gets hot and it's the right front hose.
I've seen it where the right front gets hot and
it's the left hose. Because the left hose peels internally
and acts like a check valve, and it constantly applies
pressure to the right front. It doesn't allow it to release.
Speaker 7 (27:16):
I would never guess that why. But I did get
two break lines right order, and they're Dorman. I assume
they would be pretty good.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, it'll be fun and for the right end.
Speaker 7 (27:27):
Last night was getting ready to go ahead and replace
the one that's getting hot, but I thought, I'm just
gonna get both of them.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
I would do both. I would do both. It's going
to eliminate a lot of questions. How many miles are
on this truck?
Speaker 7 (27:41):
Nine ninety five thousand.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
It's a little early. It's a little early, but it's
right on the fuzzy edge of Yeah, okay, one hundred
thousand miles. It's possible. Anything's possible, hard use, highway use,
construction used. What do you do with the truck?
Speaker 7 (27:57):
Well, I actually just drive it back and forth to
the farm and I go hunting with it, and you know,
but I it doesn't get a whole lot of really
hard use. I barely ever use the four wheel drive.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
And I think I think the two rubber break hoses
are the next step. Head and just just pay attention
to when you bleed it? Does it? Does it bleed
equally right and left and and in the rear? Okay,
you know, do any of the do any of the
does any of the bleed give you a sense that
(28:33):
there's a restriction elsewhere in the system, But the most
common cause is one of the front break hooses. As
bad does the truck pull to the right when the
brake gets hot.
Speaker 7 (28:43):
Not really, I mean not really hard or anything. I
mean it just you can just feel it in the
stream right, just feel the vibration and and you know
it's it's happening.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Have you had the occasion. It would be interesting to see.
And it takes some work and you have to be quick,
but you get it to happen. And the way we
would the way we found it in the shop. I'll
say it like this, the way we find things in
the shop. Sometimes, Well, we'll drive the vehicle, we'll replicate
the problem. Yeah, right, the right front starting to drag.
We'll bring it in, get it up in the air
real quick, and we'll crack the left front bleed while
(29:15):
somebody's spinning the wheel. While they're spinning the wheel, the
wheel is tight, we crack the left front. The wheel
spins free, and it's weird. But it proves to us
that it's the hose, even though it shouldn't be the hose,
because well it isn't. It isn't. It's because when the
hose goes bad, when a hose goes bad. Internally, it's
(29:36):
it's kind of like a backwards banana peel. It folds
upwards and acts like a check valve, so the apply
still stays. When we when we burp the side that's
got the bad hose, we dump pressure that that allows
the banana peel to fall forward and pulls the pressure
off the other side. That's the That's the theory if
you went to a if we went to a break
class and we talked to a brake instructor, that is
(29:57):
the verbatim textbook theory that they would spa to us.
I don't disagree, and the theory seems to hold water
because I've fixed more than a few by doing that
test and looking at it. I've cut break hoses open,
I think, and all the break hoses I've ever cut
open in my career, I think I found two bad
ones legitimate, But I'd also have to cut it at
(30:18):
the right moment. I'm not in the habit of slicing
break hoses for the length. And it comes back to
where I originally finished our conversation. It's cheaper at one
hundred thousand miles and eight years old. Put two hoses
on it. Move on. See what you see what you get?
So all right, kid on, if you need more, and
if you need more, you know where to find me.
(30:38):
You were going to say.
Speaker 7 (30:39):
Something, I'm just going to tell you thanks a lot.
I really appreciate the help.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
You're very welcome, sirre I'm here. If you need more,
you'd be well. Bye bye eight five five five six
zero nine nine zero zero running ding the car doctor.
I'll be back right after this. You know, I started
the hour talking about diagnostics. I want to end the
hour talking about diagnostics. This comes to us from Jacob
Guarding as twenty eleven Buick Enclave Ron. My car started
(31:03):
out with a leaking number six injector, diagnosed from a shop.
I replaced all six injectors. I continued to have a leak.
I continued focusing on leaking injectors till I checked fuel
pressure on the fuel line. It's always at twenty psi
and the fuel rail was fifty eight. I replaced both
in tank and high pressure fuel pump. Now I have
sixty PSA in the line seven hundred psi on the rail.
The leaking injector problem is gone. So just to point
(31:26):
out the obvious, you know, that there was some sort
of misdiagnosis done their Jacob right that they told you
it was an injector, it was not. It was probably
in the high pressure fuel pump itself or one of
the other injectors. I'm not sure why we're firing the
parts cannon here, but it seemed like a better diagnosis
could have been done for that particular problem. That isn't
why I'm reading this. After that, I had a bog
(31:48):
shutter problem when I got up to around seventeen hundred rpm,
but it's idol as smooth as can be. When I
would take it for a test drive at that time,
it would hesitate very obviously, but then would start to
throw check engine light with codes of misfire and cylinders
two and three. I was suggested to check out the
catalytic converters. I took the cat off, I took the
two off. I took the two cats off the exhaust
(32:08):
manifolds and houlowed them out, but I left the third
one alone. I have checked for vacuum leaks with starting fluid.
I've tried a new miss aerphlow sensor I took back
since the rings were the same as the old one
new spark plugs, moved coils around to make sure it
wasn't a coil check from the ECM, plugged every coil
and the injector continuity for the injector connector for continuity
to rule out wiring harness. Replaced the perch solenoid on
(32:29):
the intake, and just today replaced the vent solenoid on
the charcoal canister. Now, after the vent's solinoid driving, it
hesitates at first, but I can get it up to
speed with small hiccups. You can feel Whoever, no codes
at all. I am borrowing a top down air diagnostic
pro scan tool and doing an electric throttle relearn as
I typed this out, Jacob, First of all, you need
to put cats back on the car because it's going
(32:50):
to affect how you diagnose it. You can't look at
fuel trim, you can't do any sort of measurements for
diagnostics at this point because it's gonna at some point
it's going to set a catalytic converter fault. And you know,
is that real is it not? I would want to
know where's manifold vacuum when all of this is going on.
(33:11):
I'd want to know if you think this is related
to those two cylinders. If you've done all your ignition,
can you do a flow rate test on the injectors?
If the problem wasn't there until the injectors were replaced,
how do you know you've got good injectors? Where did
they come from? Firing a parts canon is a risk,
and you're now going to face the problems associated with that.
(33:32):
But do some further testing like I suggested, and give
me a call. I'm ronning Andy in the card doctor
till the next time go. Mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless.
Host
Ron Ananian
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