Ron starts this episode with a call on an 05 Sienna that has multiple personality disorder; more than just a miss fire and spends some time trying to convince its owner HOW to diagnose in a consistent manner. His next call is from Richard in Louisiana; he has a 2014 Avalon with a backup camera beeping that stopped working; Ron gets him to the answer with some questions of his own. Ron then responds to an email from a listener in California asking Ron to cover maintaining hybrids on future shows; Ron agrees and provides some quick basic tips with more to come. He then circles back to talk more about the price of gas: The Car Dr closes the hour with a call from Joe in Delaware about a 2016 Ford F250 with broken valve springs : then answers an email on a 14 Subaru that was eating oil : and talks about customer service and why you the consumer should question your mechanic if the answers they give you does not make sense.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ron Ananian, I took out a borscope. A borscope is
an electronic advice, just like plumbers and carpenters use, like
doctors might use, like a dentist might use. And I
stuffed it down under the intake manifold, and I saw
what I expected to say. He's started. He's a boa.
(00:22):
But the car Doctor, when you put in reverse, what happens.
The whole pailet goes out. So somewhere we've somewhere, we've
got a voltage drop, we've got a bad connection, or
we've got an easier path for voltage to take than
to go across the element of the ball. Fulfillment of
(00:43):
the ball.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome to the radio home of Ron Anian, the Car Doctor.
Since nineteen ninety one, this is where car owners the
world overturned to for their definitive opinion on automotive repair.
If your mechanics giving you a busy signal, pick up
the phone and call in.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
The garage doors are open, but I am here to
take your call at eight five, five five hundred and
now pee.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Running.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Hey, let's uh, what's feeling great? Right out of the gate.
Let's get on over and talk to Dan from Delaware,
let's start. The phone calls early oh five, Toyota, Siena Dan.
Welcome to the car doctor, sir, how can I help?
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (01:23):
So like yeah again in two thousand and five, Sianna,
I have about two hundred and forty five thousand miles
on it. Okay, I know it has the original coils
in it. Change the spark plugs about every hundred thousand.
He would take a little bit daily driver and my
(01:43):
wife primary primarily drives it, and she said it was
felt like things were slipping as far as the in
the transmission. So took it out and sure enough it
felt like once you would try to accelerate at certain speeds,
it would it was slipping or slipping. So and it
(02:04):
has the original fluid in it. We kept them in
much longer than we thought we would and kind of
had that worry of doing transmission fluid or not. So
nevertheless changed they did it dropping still with a new
filter in the transmission, it changed slightly maybe, but it
(02:25):
still did the slipping. Before I did all that, though
I put a computer scanner on it, I didn't get
any codes, so I took it to a transmission shop.
They detected a misfire on it. But and they said,
(02:46):
well it could be that so or it could be
the transmissions. And anyway, came back home and put I
didn't put new plugs in it, but I exchanged. Well,
let me go back. I did another scan on it,
went for a long drive on it, and I get
an intermittent misfire. Okay, cylinder like this case, cylinder one
(03:07):
and cylinder five.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
All right, let me ask you this, Let me ask
you this question. Yeah, is the check engine light on?
Speaker 5 (03:15):
No?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Okay, so it's got no check engine light? Correct, all right.
And when you say slipping, define slip. What's your definition
of a slip?
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, we would.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Say you went to like you were doing about twenty
or thirty miles an hour, and then you went to
really engage the gas pedal right, it would go, but
it was there's like power drops, all.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Right, So there's a hesitation, yeah, there wastation.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Then eventually eventually it gets to a point where then
you're fine. All right.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It's so like what sort of scan tool that we're use.
And you're going in looking at your make model or
you're going in looking at ob D two.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Uh No, I just went in your Make model, all right? Oh,
I'm kind of booting it up here as we think
it's a top done brand.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, let's let's go in under ob D two, can we.
Let's the reason I like ob D two is because
ob D two is the same if you have multiple
vehicles in the household. Ob D two is a standard.
The government says, this is what it has to do.
These are the parameters. That's it. Toyota may have a
different opinion, Honda may have a different opinion. Ford may
have a different opinion, and so on. So we get
(04:38):
into you know, when does it set a code. I've
seen situations on Fords, for example, where it's it's just
a blatant dead misfire. You can drive that car around
three days and I'll never set a fault code. It's crazy. Uh,
you know, depending upon their operating strategy I want to
deal with. I want to deal with consistency. So let's
go look under OBD two, you know, look under code
stored and then go look under pending. Are you looking
(05:00):
under pending or are you just going in for code retrieval?
Speaker 5 (05:07):
I guess I was just going in. Well, I was
just using the standard diagnostic feature right where it would
give me the data like data streams and all that.
But yeah, it would show, it would show the misfire,
but no, no code.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
All right, are you are you looking at? Are you
looking at?
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Is there?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Is there a place where you can go look at
pending or just you know, did a set of code?
There's usually two one's current, one's pending, one and one's
about to happen. All right, check?
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Yeah, I'm not able to do it. The guys we're speaking.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
But yeah, okay, check engine light is on? Correct?
Speaker 5 (05:45):
No no, I.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Thought you said it came on while you were driving.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
No, no, no, no, no light it'll it'll I can
see when I have the scan tool connected and.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Driving right, it'll show miss fire.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
It'll show where a missfire occurs.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Okay, what cylinder and again?
Speaker 5 (06:03):
Or what cylinder is?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah? Two and five.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
One in five and five?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Is it at idle or is it cruise?
Speaker 5 (06:11):
It's only only it's certain like seems like torqueloads almost
all right?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Is it? Is it? Is it torquloads. You related to
shift points of the transmission.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Pretty much because right around like that forty, like I said,
when you want to step into it right and get it,
you know, like you're kind of rolling along like maybe
an emerge. All right, you know you're coming off a
yield gramp or.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Something like that. Let's let's let's do this all right?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
If I don't know, do you have the experience? If
I said to you, can you go look at mode six?
Do you know what mode six is?
Speaker 5 (06:47):
I hear it, I've heard it, but no, I mean
i'd have to you know, re reread about it.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So mode six? Did you ever wonder? You ever get
sick in your life?
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Dan? Occasionally? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Right, You're like me. You're like one of those guys
you work outside in the rain, nothing bothers you. I
get it, but you know, you get up on Monday
and you kind of feel crummy, You got the sniffles
in the head cold, and by Wednesday you're sick. The
conditions leading up to Wednesday were your mode six data.
They were the events and the tests that your body
(07:20):
ran to determine is Dan sick or not? And then
you woke up when they didn't go to work, rolled over,
stayed in bed and had the cold all day. Right,
So you can go in to mode six using a
scan tool and look at SIDS and TIDS. SIDS component
ID tids test ID for individual components. You could actually
(07:43):
dial in using the right scan tool and look at
the ignition coil or look at misfires on cylinder five.
Let me say it like that, and you'll see how
many misfires is it counting how many misfires? Is it
counting on one?
Speaker 5 (07:55):
You know?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And is it physical misfire?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Right?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
So that's number one. Number two. What's fuel trim? We
haven't talked about that here, right, Which is fuel trim
off the wall?
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Well, a, yeah, there's It would flip between like say
a negative one and a half to occasionally negative three.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Okay, I'm fine with that short term, right, I think
short term or a long time.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
I'll pick one.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
I'll look I'll have to let me okay, get back.
I have to look at it again.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Because do you have another car in the household? Yeah,
what's what's the other car?
Speaker 5 (08:42):
Well, I've got a ninety seven lane Cruiser, right, I've
got my daughter has a newer car, so she's got
a twenty twenty one Honda. Okay, perfect, it's probably the
newest one.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Let's go. Let's go take the Honda for a ride,
all right, Go look at go look at short term
fuel trim. Go look at long term fuel trim. All right,
they're both gonna be real tight. They're gonna be close,
they're gonna be around zero. Long term is what is
the history. Short term drives long term right. Short term
is what you're gonna have right, what you're eating right now.
(09:16):
Long term is what you ate yesterday, right. Short term
drives long term. So get used to the concept. Look
at it on a good vehicle. Look at it on
a vehicle that's working with no dashlights and no problems.
Understand it there, Go look at mass airflow grams per
second GPS. Right, if your daughter has a two point
(09:39):
four liter four cylinder or whatever, engine size, is typical
mass airflow grams per seconded IDOL on a healthy engine,
we'd expect to see somewhere between two point three and
three grams per second at idol. The grams per second
at idol emulates the engine displacement, and that's true on
any vehicle. That's the beauty of OBD two. That's why
I want to use that. It's standard, right, and love
(10:02):
predicates in most cases, it has to be in Graham's
per second. Instead of looking for what's broken, tell me
what's good on that Honda? Tell me what's good on
the Toyota. All right, the transmission indicator. Let's go back
to the Toyota. The shift indicator on the Toyota. Is
it one two three D D with a circle? What
does a trans shift indicator look like? Do you recall?
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Yeah? Well it did all the lights the standard I
think one light like the second gear lights burned out?
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Right? But what's on the dashboard?
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Yeah? I guess it's Look at the four with a
circle on it?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Okay, So is there a D by itself without the circle?
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Actually a D? Yeah, and I'm sorry there's a D? Yeah? Right?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Okay. Have you tried manually? Have you tried manually shifting
this car? Why not?
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Yes? Yeah? Yeah, yeah I haven't. Actually what I did?
I held it, I put it in third gear.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I want you to start out in first I want
you to start out in first gear. I want you
to first gear from the stop sign when nobody's around
and nobody's talking to you and the radio's not on.
Can you upshift this from first to second, second to
third and so on smoothly and efficiently without hesitation?
Speaker 5 (11:22):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
All right, that's going to tell us something. Obviously, you
want the engine warmed up? How many miles were on
this sienna?
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Like two?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
All right? Did they change the trans fluid?
Speaker 5 (11:33):
No, it's got the original. Well I changed it after
it started doing all these symptoms, and.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
It got it got better, but it's not perfect.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
Yeah, correct, Yeah, it improved somewhat. But still so what
I did when I flipped, I did flip the banks
as far as like a mirrored dim into each other. Right,
and so I'm getting a misfire in like an opposing
cylinder now, but I still have a misfire like in
(12:07):
that bank one. And that's you know, basically or that
cylinder one. I should say, I'll.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Tell you what Sit tight? Sit tight a minute, Dan,
I want to put you on hold, but when we
come back, I'm only gonna have a couple of minutes
because we're up against the clock and I got other calls,
but I want to finish with you first. Don't go away.
I'm ronning any and the car doctor. We'll return right
after this. Need advice on how to maintain that classic
(12:40):
gt O. Ron is the guy eight five five five
six zero nine nine zero zero. Here's Ron. Welcome back, Dan,
you're still there.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
Yeah, so you some of values for you.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
All right, So you did you did move ignition coils
around on this on this five ciena, and did the
misfire follow the coils or did it stay with the cylinder?
Speaker 5 (13:01):
It's it stayed. It stayed with the coil on the
one cylinder. But I'm still getting a missfire. Yeah, even
you know, after I inverted a couple of the cylinders.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
So so so here back up. You had a missfire
on Issu Dan. You had a misfire on one in five? Right, Yes,
you moved the coils from one in five? Did you
move the plugs from one in five?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Plugs and injectors?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Okay, so you move plugs, coils and injectors from both
of those cylinders. Yes, all right, So if you're telling
me the on which cylinder followed the coil? Five or one?
Speaker 5 (13:45):
One?
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (13:46):
One?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
So cylinder one and cylinder one, coil went to another cylinder,
and now it's misfiring on that cylinder, whatever cylinder you
moved it to. Yes, okay, it's yes or no answer, right,
yes or no answer?
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Well, yeah, you know, because I'm looking at the data
streams and it's kind of like varying. It's kind of
weird because let me ask you about a month before
this problems started, I did clean the mass airflow the sensor.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
No, no, forget that. Listen to me. It's a yes,
it's a yes. It's a yes or no answer. The
coil from number one went to what cylinder? And now
it's missing on that cylinder?
Speaker 5 (14:26):
Uh no, No, So I put coil one and I mean, yeah,
coil one on coil two. So the odd numbers are
okay on one half the engine and even so.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You're but but again, you took the coil from number
one and you put it to a different cylinder, and
now it's misfiring on that cylinder. Yes or no?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
Yes, okay, there were multiple there were there were two.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I don't care about anything else. It's it's it's missfire.
It's missfiring. The coil went from one to two, and
it's still it's misfiring on two now right where it
wasn't before.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
H that one it is, but there's still a cylinder.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Okay, you're missing the point. That's a bad coil. Cylinder
one had a bad coil on it, but you're still
missing on number five. It's still missfiring on cylinder five, correct.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Yes, yeah, okay, So.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
You've got a mechanical problem on cylinder five, or you've
got a vacuum leak, right, because you swapped, if you
physically swapped the injector, the coil and the plug from
all from both of those cylinders, and the misfire followed
it on one, but the other stayed with the cylinder,
you've got a missfire on five, or worse, you've got
(15:39):
a trans problem emulating a misfire. But I don't think so, okay,
all right, So so you know what color was the
spark plug on cylinder five when you pulled it out?
Like brown, like a tan, So it looked like the
rest of them.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Yes, okay, they were all pretty even, all right.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
So maybe you maybe you have the fortunate situation of
and you won't know this until you start replacing coils.
Maybe you have the fortunate unfortunate scenario of you've got
a bad coil and you've got a bad trends. So
now you've got to make here's here's your chance to
make your best guess, my friend. All right, you've confirmed
you've proven a bad coil. Agreed, right, So original coils
(16:28):
on a two hundred and fifty thousand mile Oh five, Ciena,
you're gonna put You're gonna put fresh coils in it
all the way around, all right, maybe fresh plugs. What
the heck, you're halfway there. You've already got to plun
them off and see where you go. While you have
the plug out for number five, you're either going to
do a compression test or you're gonna do a cylinder
(16:50):
leak down test. You're gonna verify the engine is mechanically sound, right, okay,
and then you're gonna take it for a ride. And
now you'll find out if you have a trans problem.
I want you to go look at your scan tool
and go look and see do you have a pit
Do you have a data for input and output speed?
Sensor input and output rpm? All right? If the trans
(17:15):
is slipping, you're going to see excessive output speed versus
input input measures at the back of the crank output
measures at the back of the trans. If that trans
is slipping, you're going to see a wide variation of RPM.
Although by now I would have thought it would have
set a fault, but maybe not. What I'm getting at
is it sounds like you've got two distinct, separate problems
(17:38):
at least right if you're if you're sitting at idle,
and this is a bad way to judge it. But
if you're sitting at idle looking at mass airflow grams
per second, that's a three point three leader. What do
you show grams per second somewhere between three and a
half and four. But you see if it's.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
It looked at, I gotta I have one reading. I'm
not sure if it's idling or driving. I think it's
probably driving.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
It's at four, okay, depends on it depends on where
you are. Do yourself a favor. Get a yellow notepad,
start writing down what you're doing, because it's it sounds
like you're all over the place and you're confusing yourself.
Fix one problem at a time, and I'd start with
coil from the sounds of it, because going from one
to two it followed the coil. That's a bad coil.
(18:25):
Start the war there. Just make sure you know you
want to fix all of this before you start spending
money on any of it. I appreciate the call, Dan,
call me back. I'm running Ny in the car. Doctor
will return right after this. Hey, welcome back. Ron Any
(19:05):
and the car Doctor. Let's go over to Richard and
Louisiana fourteen avalon and some backup camera problems. Richard, Welcome
to the car Doctor.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Sir.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
How can I help? Yes, sir, my sessions.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
I have a twenty fourteen tell you at an alon
x lly okay. And she has a backup camera with
a beeper the beeps, but at the long beeps. I'm
not going to told her that it shouldn't beep.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
That's not supposed to beep. He was a factor installed.
What should I tell her? So?
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Is this the camera doesn't work or there's a beeper
that doesn't work.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
There was the beeper that doesn't work. The camera works,
the beeper doesn't.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Okay, to my knowledge, there is no beeper on that
car from the factory already. Yeah, okay. Did she buy
the car new? Yeah, okay, And it's always been I
gave it to her, okay, and it's always beeped that
beat For me, unless there's a setting in the dashboard,
I would look as was the car. This is going
(20:10):
to sound strange, Richard, But was the car detailed or
you know, intensively cleaned anytime recently?
Speaker 4 (20:18):
No?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It was it in for service at all. Yeah, okay,
did it beat prior to the service, yes, okay somewhere.
What did they do during the service? Did they disconnect
the battery? Did they do any sort of electrical work
to it?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
A battery with chains?
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, the battery was changed. That's the key something. There's
a there's going to be this, So this must have
a touch screen center dash right, This isn't right? Yeah, okay,
So the issue here is that somewhere in that center screen.
It could be in the HID and the heads up display,
in the dash cluster, in the in the center cluster,
(21:00):
in this spinometer face, but I believe it's going to
be in the screen to the in the middle of
the of the two seats up front. There's going to
be a setting for backup camera or camera to beep.
That is factory in that car. Yes, that's an This
is an XL E then, okay, right, this is an
XL E this car, This car is an Avalon x
(21:24):
L E. This isn't an XL right, this is an
XL Yeah, this is the fancy one. Okay, Yeah, it's
it's going to be somewhere in that dash display, all right,
and it probably defaulted back to factory settings when they
disconnected the battery if they didn't use a memory saver,
and I'm betting they didn't, Okay, all right, simple as
(21:45):
all right, that's the first place I want you to.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Go, all right, Okay, so I'll tell her ex that.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Okay. So that's it, Richard, just that simple. You're very welcome, sir,
Thank you, You're very welcome. It makes an argument, folks,
for you know when a shop does a battery that
they they use a memory saver. And I'm not saying
a memory saver would have avoided this situation. Memory saver,
in case you don't know, is it's a backup battery.
(22:13):
It's a device that you would plug into the OBD
two connector the diagnostic port under the dash that would
help the vehicle to retain its memory and its settings.
And this is only going to get worse as time
goes on because his vehicles get more and more things
to remember. Okay, you know this is going to become
an issue. Now it's possible on this Toyota that and
(22:36):
I've seen this before. That's why I asked the questions
the way I did. Where they put a battery in
the car, they put a battery in the car, or
they cleaned the throttle plate as a result of service
and maintenance. Richard said it was in for service and
maintenance and depending upon how they disconnected the battery or
how they serviced the throttle plate. Now, when they started
the car up, initially it had a slightly higher rpm.
(22:59):
The idle art was over a thousand, and that's usually
the result of one of those two scenarios. And the
only way to correct that is disconnect the battery, both
cables and touch the leads together.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And you know, as we always talk about, you want
to use a ten on one rot resistor and put
a jumper wire together and leed the computer down a
good five six, seven minutes, whatever you've got time for
longer is better, and then put it together. But I
have seen where some of the default vehicle settings will
go away as a result. So you know, put a
(23:33):
memory saver would have eliminated Hey, you know, we we're
aware of this, or at least you know, if you
used a memory saver and it still happened, you know,
you tried your best and tried to eliminate the possibility
of this happening. So that's why I would say, yeah, definitely,
let's let's do a let's do a quick look through
the maintenance screens, and you know, I think you'll find
it there. A couple of emails, Hey, Ron, I'm a
(23:54):
di wired does maintenance in light repairs in my family
cars during a recent show, Yes, listeners for suggestions on
future topic to cover My current experience in tooling is
limited to nationally aspirated gasoline vehicles. I expect my next
car will be a hybrid, not because I want one,
but that's where the market's going, which I agree. I
think I think part of the market's going that way.
Would you please consider discussing the transition for di wires
(24:14):
like myself to hybrids. What's different? What new tools might
I need? E g. Insulated electrical gloves, et cetera. Fill
in Mill Valley, California. You're gonna need the gloves, You're
gonna need a special DVOM that has a higher scale
of range, and I would encourage you to take some
hybrid safety classes. You know, don't touch the orange wires,
as they say in a hybrid. And other than that,
(24:35):
the rest of it is just pure maintenance. If you
can service a gas car you can service a hybrid
as far as you know fluids and filters and things
like that. You know, hybrid is a slightly different animal.
It's typical front breaks. That seems like the back breaks
never wear out on a hybrid. They surely don't go
through they surely don't go through exhaust, you know, until
(24:56):
they get to the I guess the two to two
hundred and fifty thousand mile mark. And then the it
is just what breaks on one breaks on the other. Right,
it's all the usual stuff. The one thing that's besides
the obvious that there's a battery drive system and a
separate you know drive in place of the transmission, which
you're likely not going to get into at the DIY level.
But there are usually two cooling systems in a hybrid,
(25:19):
and you need to understand the difference between the two,
and you know, service them accordingly and service them on
whatever manufacturer recommends, and you know, make sure and this
one just for fun. This is from Colonel Jerry, United
States Marine Corps Reserve, retired from Las Vegas. He writes, say, hey, Ron,
I listened every week and I'm really enjoying the twenty
fourteen Classic Car Doctor podcasts. It brings back memories. In
(25:41):
twenty fourteen, my mother got divorced from her third husband
and he bought her a new twenty fourteen Subaru. In
twenty eighteen, my mom became too old to drive and
I inherited the car. I always heard about Subaru quality,
but the opposite was the truth. The two point four
Leader was a real piece of Okay, I can't say
that on radio. It was consuming a court of oil
every three thousand miles. Found there had been a recall
for excessive oil consumption. I took it to the dealer
(26:03):
and they told me my vin was not part of
the recall. You know, I've got some great Subaru stories
this week, which I'm going to try and get into
this hour. So yeah, okay, I agree with that comment, Jerry,
but I can't say that on radio either. I quickly
dumped the suber Roof for a twenty nineteen Ford Transit,
which I loved and used as a small van camper.
Listening to your twenty fourteen podcast really brought back memories
and made me laugh about my super Rul debacle. Keep
(26:23):
up the great work. For those of you that don't
know what Jerry's talking about is we've unearthed, Oh you know,
we've got ten years worth of radio shows going back
ten eleven years, and we've unearthed some of the older
ones and we're putting them up on the podcast website.
After this radio show be airs, we then become a
podcast and we've we're putting the what we call classic
Card Doctor from ten to twelve years ago up and letting
(26:46):
you listen to those. And so far all the comments
have been, like Colonel Jerry here, everybody's really happy to
listen to them, and I'm really happy for that that
you guys are enjoying them, because that's what we want
to hear. We want to know. So you can find
that simply get out to our web page Card Doctors
Show and you can access all the podcasts, the current
shows and the old shows right there as we put
them up. And just a real comment I was looking
(27:07):
for this previous hour from Steve in Roanoke County, Virginia.
He says, Ron the nearest me. The cheapest price at
a VP gas station. We're talking about the price of
gas right is at a Sonoco station is three twenty
seven A gallon diesel is right around four bucks a gallon,
so from Steve and Roanoke, Virginia. Always appreciate it. So anyway,
let's pull over, take a pause. When we come back,
we'll go back to the phones. I'm ronin Aian. Don't
(27:28):
go anywhere, coming.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Right up.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Welcome back, Running of the Car Doctor. Let's cruise over
to Joe and Delaware. Joe, Welcome to the Car Doctor, Sir,
how can I help?
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Yeah? Hi, Ron, Sure, my grandson that's two fifty Ford
six point two drove down to South Carolina for a job.
Just scott the truck. Great there the next day running roughs,
throwing a bunch of codes. One of the cats were
turning red and he couldn't even hardly drive it. So
(28:11):
I told him, trying to find a repair shop. Maybe
if you can't drive it all, cut that pipe before
the cat, just so you can move it, you know,
to the shop maybe a couple of miles away. What
he did, and they found, you know, one of the
valve springs I saw. I told him it could be
a vowve springs because I looked on YouTube and a
(28:31):
bunch of people had that problem, okay, and as a
cross vowl spring. They replaced one of the springs. Number
six was the only one bed that fixed it. But
I told him maybe you should have him all done
while there at least at one bank. But you know
he was short on cash, right, But in your experience,
(28:56):
does it just one that goes on those engines?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, it seems to be. It just seems to be one.
You know, there's there's a there's a few bulletins about it.
Nothing specific do they cite. They just say repair the
effected cylinder. And you know, I typically see it on
higher mileage one hundred thousand mile or more vehicles. How
many miles are on this truck?
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I think yeah. You know, you could have the argument
while that valve covers off and the head's open, do
you go ahead and replace all of them? But then
do you go and do the other side? And you know,
how how deep do you get? You know, the majority
of the ones that we saw, and you know, this
one's a little late to the party. This started happening
on these trucks probably four or five years ago. You know,
(29:42):
you would see one cylinder, two cylinders, replace those affected
cylinders and you know you're done. You know, it wasn't
it wasn't an issue after that, so i've you know,
and usually it was and I know it's an updated
valve spring, and Ford offers no explanation. You know, Ford
doesn't have a real answer as to why it's happening.
It's just other than fatigue and vendor. You know where
(30:04):
the springs were manufactured originally, but it's just you know
Chinese well, and you know, and then you worry about
is the replacement spring? Make sure that their repair shop
used a Ford spring. I would want to know that
for certain, because there's far too many offshore counterfeit. You know,
I can't say Chinese because Ford manufacturers parts in China, right,
(30:25):
but they're they're built to Ford spec, you know, allegedly,
which I guess they are because you don't you don't
see a lot of repeats when the valve spring breaks,
but I see, I see an awful lot of alleged
Ford parts, let's say. And it's not just Ford, it's
all the car companies. You know, where there's you know,
stamped by the manufacturer Ford, GM Stillantis, Chrysler, whoever, whatever
(30:46):
we want to call them, Jeep, you know where it's
it's stamped with that manufacturer, but it's not it's it's
it's you know, it's some you know, offshore philanderous brand
for lack of a better way to say it. So, yeah,
it's on fortunate. You know, let him put put the
spring on it, let him drive it, and you know,
let's see where it goes, and chances are he'll be fine,
(31:06):
you know, you know, be happy. He found a shop
down there that would take the job on like that,
and you know.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
They charged him over a thousand dollars for one It's a.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Lot of work. It's a lot of work though, you know,
it's it's you know, and you know the other side
of that is, I'm sure they had to look around.
You know, you always have to remember and this is
why I encourage people, you know, to have a relationship
with a repair shop. Although in his case it wouldn't
have worked, but you know, because no mechanics is going
to be able to predict that would happen, right, But
(31:39):
you know, to have a relationship with a shop because
if he was local around town, to drop it and
ask for open heart surgery is a tough thing. You know,
the shop has to look that vehicle over, they have
to decide as it had good regular oil change maintenance
as it had, you know, the type of service and
care that will allow them to be successful. You know,
(32:00):
it's it's but I know what you're saying. Listen, if
you think the repair is expensive, go price a new truck.
Right that that truck today is seventy grand? Yeah, yeah,
that's that. That truck today is expensive. Well, let's sen
you know, it's probably two hundred dollars worth of parts,
and there's there's easily four to five hours of labor.
If a shop's one hundred and fifty dollars an hour,
(32:23):
you know, do the math. It's not it's not hard
to get to a thousand bucks, you know. And when
you think about it, think about it like this. You
ever have an Have you had an appliance fixed in
your house lately?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Joe?
Speaker 4 (32:38):
I usually fixing myself if I can.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
But you know people come out, well, right, but people
will come out and fix appliances in your house, and
it's typically it's three to five hundred dollars, right, So
that right, Well, well, but my point becomes, that appliance
that you just paid five hundred dollars to have fixed,
you can buy a new one for a thousand. So
when you think of the peron enage of costs to
(33:00):
repair something or to repair is still a bargain, and
that's you know, so it was good as.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Long as he doesn't have any problem, you know, that
doesn't get stuck down there, just got down there. He
just got out of the air Force, you know, no
money really.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, it's well, that's what that's that's what us elders
are here for, Joe. We have to take care of
the next generation. So right, exactly right, that's that's and
that's and that's okay, thank god, we're here to do that, right,
So that's right, that's right, Joe. I got to run.
Appreciate the call, appreciate talking to you. Thanks for being
(33:36):
part of the family and listening. And I'm running any
in the car, doctor, I'll be back right after this.
Welcome back. I want to close out today. I want
(33:57):
to talk a real quick thing about customer service and
some of the bizarre stories that happened at the shop
this week. Two of them happened to be with Subaru.
And it's not a reflection on Subaru. It happened to
be the same dealer, So I think it's more the
dealer than Subaru is a car line. I just thought
it was interesting and unique. And I tell you these
stories because I want you to question everything, right. I
(34:18):
want you to understand maybe it's not so, if it
doesn't make any sense, if it doesn't seem right, you know,
like if it feels wrong, maybe it is. First one
was the proverbial little old lady subrew owner who came
in and wanted to talk to me because her dealer
told her she needed a new transmission. The car wasn't
worth fixing and she should just go buy a new
car and trade that one in. And I asked her,
(34:40):
I said, does the car have any problems with it?
Does it exhibit any signs of trouble? And she said no,
no dashboard warning lines, the trans shifted. Okay. I made
her go back and ask this is a twenty seventeen
automobile with just about one hundred thousand miles on it.
And when she came back to give me the results,
she said, Oh. They explained to me that the reason
they told me that was the rattle that I thought
was the exhaust pipe was internal in the trans And
(35:02):
they then explained to me that what the cost would
be and that there's a quiet recall from Subaru, and
they go back and talk to Suberu, the manufacturer, to
see if maybe they would help me with it. And
I said, aha, You see, there's always a reason, there's
always an answer. So now she's in the process of
doing that. But I tell you this because question everything.
Maybe it'll help you out in the long run like
it did her. I'm on an ady in the car
(35:23):
doctor till the next time. Good mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless.
See you
Ron Ananian, I took out a borscope. A borscope is
an electronic advice, just like plumbers and carpenters use, like
doctors might use, like a dentist might use. And I
stuffed it down under the intake manifold, and I saw
what I expected to say. He's started. He's a boa.
(00:22):
But the car Doctor, when you put in reverse, what happens.
The whole pailet goes out. So somewhere we've somewhere, we've
got a voltage drop, we've got a bad connection, or
we've got an easier path for voltage to take than
to go across the element of the ball. Fulfillment of
(00:43):
the ball.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome to the radio home of Ron Anian, the Car Doctor.
Since nineteen ninety one, this is where car owners the
world overturned to for their definitive opinion on automotive repair.
If your mechanics giving you a busy signal, pick up
the phone and call in.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
The garage doors are open, but I am here to
take your call at eight five, five five hundred and
now pee.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Running.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Hey, let's uh, what's feeling great? Right out of the gate.
Let's get on over and talk to Dan from Delaware,
let's start. The phone calls early oh five, Toyota, Siena Dan.
Welcome to the car doctor, sir, how can I help?
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (01:23):
So like yeah again in two thousand and five, Sianna,
I have about two hundred and forty five thousand miles
on it. Okay, I know it has the original coils
in it. Change the spark plugs about every hundred thousand.
He would take a little bit daily driver and my
(01:43):
wife primary primarily drives it, and she said it was
felt like things were slipping as far as the in
the transmission. So took it out and sure enough it
felt like once you would try to accelerate at certain speeds,
it would it was slipping or slipping. So and it
(02:04):
has the original fluid in it. We kept them in
much longer than we thought we would and kind of
had that worry of doing transmission fluid or not. So
nevertheless changed they did it dropping still with a new
filter in the transmission, it changed slightly maybe, but it
(02:25):
still did the slipping. Before I did all that, though
I put a computer scanner on it, I didn't get
any codes, so I took it to a transmission shop.
They detected a misfire on it. But and they said,
(02:46):
well it could be that so or it could be
the transmissions. And anyway, came back home and put I
didn't put new plugs in it, but I exchanged. Well,
let me go back. I did another scan on it,
went for a long drive on it, and I get
an intermittent misfire. Okay, cylinder like this case, cylinder one
(03:07):
and cylinder five.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
All right, let me ask you this, Let me ask
you this question. Yeah, is the check engine light on?
Speaker 5 (03:15):
No?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Okay, so it's got no check engine light? Correct, all right.
And when you say slipping, define slip. What's your definition
of a slip?
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, we would.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Say you went to like you were doing about twenty
or thirty miles an hour, and then you went to
really engage the gas pedal right, it would go, but
it was there's like power drops, all.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Right, So there's a hesitation, yeah, there wastation.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Then eventually eventually it gets to a point where then
you're fine. All right.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It's so like what sort of scan tool that we're use.
And you're going in looking at your make model or
you're going in looking at ob D two.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Uh No, I just went in your Make model, all right? Oh,
I'm kind of booting it up here as we think
it's a top done brand.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, let's let's go in under ob D two, can we.
Let's the reason I like ob D two is because
ob D two is the same if you have multiple
vehicles in the household. Ob D two is a standard.
The government says, this is what it has to do.
These are the parameters. That's it. Toyota may have a
different opinion, Honda may have a different opinion. Ford may
have a different opinion, and so on. So we get
(04:38):
into you know, when does it set a code. I've
seen situations on Fords, for example, where it's it's just
a blatant dead misfire. You can drive that car around
three days and I'll never set a fault code. It's crazy. Uh,
you know, depending upon their operating strategy I want to
deal with. I want to deal with consistency. So let's
go look under OBD two, you know, look under code
stored and then go look under pending. Are you looking
(05:00):
under pending or are you just going in for code retrieval?
Speaker 5 (05:07):
I guess I was just going in. Well, I was
just using the standard diagnostic feature right where it would
give me the data like data streams and all that.
But yeah, it would show, it would show the misfire,
but no, no code.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
All right, are you are you looking at? Are you
looking at?
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Is there?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Is there a place where you can go look at
pending or just you know, did a set of code?
There's usually two one's current, one's pending, one and one's
about to happen. All right, check?
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Yeah, I'm not able to do it. The guys we're speaking.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
But yeah, okay, check engine light is on? Correct?
Speaker 5 (05:45):
No no, I.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Thought you said it came on while you were driving.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
No, no, no, no, no light it'll it'll I can
see when I have the scan tool connected and.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Driving right, it'll show miss fire.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
It'll show where a missfire occurs.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Okay, what cylinder and again?
Speaker 5 (06:03):
Or what cylinder is?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah? Two and five.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
One in five and five?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Is it at idle or is it cruise?
Speaker 5 (06:11):
It's only only it's certain like seems like torqueloads almost
all right?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Is it? Is it? Is it torquloads. You related to
shift points of the transmission.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Pretty much because right around like that forty, like I said,
when you want to step into it right and get it,
you know, like you're kind of rolling along like maybe
an emerge. All right, you know you're coming off a
yield gramp or.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Something like that. Let's let's let's do this all right?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
If I don't know, do you have the experience? If
I said to you, can you go look at mode six?
Do you know what mode six is?
Speaker 5 (06:47):
I hear it, I've heard it, but no, I mean
i'd have to you know, re reread about it.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So mode six? Did you ever wonder? You ever get
sick in your life?
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Dan? Occasionally? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Right, You're like me. You're like one of those guys
you work outside in the rain, nothing bothers you. I
get it, but you know, you get up on Monday
and you kind of feel crummy, You got the sniffles
in the head cold, and by Wednesday you're sick. The
conditions leading up to Wednesday were your mode six data.
They were the events and the tests that your body
(07:20):
ran to determine is Dan sick or not? And then
you woke up when they didn't go to work, rolled over,
stayed in bed and had the cold all day. Right,
So you can go in to mode six using a
scan tool and look at SIDS and TIDS. SIDS component
ID tids test ID for individual components. You could actually
(07:43):
dial in using the right scan tool and look at
the ignition coil or look at misfires on cylinder five.
Let me say it like that, and you'll see how
many misfires is it counting how many misfires? Is it
counting on one?
Speaker 5 (07:55):
You know?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And is it physical misfire?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Right?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
So that's number one. Number two. What's fuel trim? We
haven't talked about that here, right, Which is fuel trim
off the wall?
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Well, a, yeah, there's It would flip between like say
a negative one and a half to occasionally negative three.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Okay, I'm fine with that short term, right, I think
short term or a long time.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
I'll pick one.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
I'll look I'll have to let me okay, get back.
I have to look at it again.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Because do you have another car in the household? Yeah,
what's what's the other car?
Speaker 5 (08:42):
Well, I've got a ninety seven lane Cruiser, right, I've
got my daughter has a newer car, so she's got
a twenty twenty one Honda. Okay, perfect, it's probably the
newest one.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Let's go. Let's go take the Honda for a ride,
all right, Go look at go look at short term
fuel trim. Go look at long term fuel trim. All right,
they're both gonna be real tight. They're gonna be close,
they're gonna be around zero. Long term is what is
the history. Short term drives long term right. Short term
is what you're gonna have right, what you're eating right now.
(09:16):
Long term is what you ate yesterday, right. Short term
drives long term. So get used to the concept. Look
at it on a good vehicle. Look at it on
a vehicle that's working with no dashlights and no problems.
Understand it there, Go look at mass airflow grams per
second GPS. Right, if your daughter has a two point
(09:39):
four liter four cylinder or whatever, engine size, is typical
mass airflow grams per seconded IDOL on a healthy engine,
we'd expect to see somewhere between two point three and
three grams per second at idol. The grams per second
at idol emulates the engine displacement, and that's true on
any vehicle. That's the beauty of OBD two. That's why
I want to use that. It's standard, right, and love
(10:02):
predicates in most cases, it has to be in Graham's
per second. Instead of looking for what's broken, tell me
what's good on that Honda? Tell me what's good on
the Toyota. All right, the transmission indicator. Let's go back
to the Toyota. The shift indicator on the Toyota. Is
it one two three D D with a circle? What
does a trans shift indicator look like? Do you recall?
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Yeah? Well it did all the lights the standard I
think one light like the second gear lights burned out?
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Right? But what's on the dashboard?
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Yeah? I guess it's Look at the four with a
circle on it?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Okay, So is there a D by itself without the circle?
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Actually a D? Yeah, and I'm sorry there's a D? Yeah? Right?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Okay. Have you tried manually? Have you tried manually shifting
this car? Why not?
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Yes? Yeah? Yeah, yeah I haven't. Actually what I did?
I held it, I put it in third gear.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
I want you to start out in first I want
you to start out in first gear. I want you
to first gear from the stop sign when nobody's around
and nobody's talking to you and the radio's not on.
Can you upshift this from first to second, second to
third and so on smoothly and efficiently without hesitation?
Speaker 5 (11:22):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
All right, that's going to tell us something. Obviously, you
want the engine warmed up? How many miles were on
this sienna?
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Like two?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
All right? Did they change the trans fluid?
Speaker 5 (11:33):
No, it's got the original. Well I changed it after
it started doing all these symptoms, and.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
It got it got better, but it's not perfect.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
Yeah, correct, Yeah, it improved somewhat. But still so what
I did when I flipped, I did flip the banks
as far as like a mirrored dim into each other. Right,
and so I'm getting a misfire in like an opposing
cylinder now, but I still have a misfire like in
(12:07):
that bank one. And that's you know, basically or that
cylinder one. I should say, I'll.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Tell you what Sit tight? Sit tight a minute, Dan,
I want to put you on hold, but when we
come back, I'm only gonna have a couple of minutes
because we're up against the clock and I got other calls,
but I want to finish with you first. Don't go away.
I'm ronning any and the car doctor. We'll return right
after this. Need advice on how to maintain that classic
(12:40):
gt O. Ron is the guy eight five five five
six zero nine nine zero zero. Here's Ron. Welcome back, Dan,
you're still there.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
Yeah, so you some of values for you.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
All right, So you did you did move ignition coils
around on this on this five ciena, and did the
misfire follow the coils or did it stay with the cylinder?
Speaker 5 (13:01):
It's it stayed. It stayed with the coil on the
one cylinder. But I'm still getting a missfire. Yeah, even
you know, after I inverted a couple of the cylinders.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
So so so here back up. You had a missfire
on Issu Dan. You had a misfire on one in five? Right, Yes,
you moved the coils from one in five? Did you
move the plugs from one in five?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Plugs and injectors?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Okay, so you move plugs, coils and injectors from both
of those cylinders. Yes, all right, So if you're telling
me the on which cylinder followed the coil? Five or one?
Speaker 5 (13:45):
One?
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (13:46):
One?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
So cylinder one and cylinder one, coil went to another cylinder,
and now it's misfiring on that cylinder, whatever cylinder you
moved it to. Yes, okay, it's yes or no answer, right,
yes or no answer?
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Well, yeah, you know, because I'm looking at the data
streams and it's kind of like varying. It's kind of
weird because let me ask you about a month before
this problems started, I did clean the mass airflow the sensor.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
No, no, forget that. Listen to me. It's a yes,
it's a yes. It's a yes or no answer. The
coil from number one went to what cylinder? And now
it's missing on that cylinder?
Speaker 5 (14:26):
Uh no, No, So I put coil one and I mean, yeah,
coil one on coil two. So the odd numbers are
okay on one half the engine and even so.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You're but but again, you took the coil from number
one and you put it to a different cylinder, and
now it's misfiring on that cylinder. Yes or no?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
Yes, okay, there were multiple there were there were two.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I don't care about anything else. It's it's it's missfire.
It's missfiring. The coil went from one to two, and
it's still it's misfiring on two now right where it
wasn't before.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
H that one it is, but there's still a cylinder.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Okay, you're missing the point. That's a bad coil. Cylinder
one had a bad coil on it, but you're still
missing on number five. It's still missfiring on cylinder five, correct.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Yes, yeah, okay, So.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
You've got a mechanical problem on cylinder five, or you've
got a vacuum leak, right, because you swapped, if you
physically swapped the injector, the coil and the plug from
all from both of those cylinders, and the misfire followed
it on one, but the other stayed with the cylinder,
you've got a missfire on five, or worse, you've got
(15:39):
a trans problem emulating a misfire. But I don't think so, okay,
all right, So so you know what color was the
spark plug on cylinder five when you pulled it out?
Like brown, like a tan, So it looked like the
rest of them.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Yes, okay, they were all pretty even, all right.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
So maybe you maybe you have the fortunate situation of
and you won't know this until you start replacing coils.
Maybe you have the fortunate unfortunate scenario of you've got
a bad coil and you've got a bad trends. So
now you've got to make here's here's your chance to
make your best guess, my friend. All right, you've confirmed
you've proven a bad coil. Agreed, right, So original coils
(16:28):
on a two hundred and fifty thousand mile Oh five, Ciena,
you're gonna put You're gonna put fresh coils in it
all the way around, all right, maybe fresh plugs. What
the heck, you're halfway there. You've already got to plun
them off and see where you go. While you have
the plug out for number five, you're either going to
do a compression test or you're gonna do a cylinder
(16:50):
leak down test. You're gonna verify the engine is mechanically sound, right, okay,
and then you're gonna take it for a ride. And
now you'll find out if you have a trans problem.
I want you to go look at your scan tool
and go look and see do you have a pit
Do you have a data for input and output speed?
Sensor input and output rpm? All right? If the trans
(17:15):
is slipping, you're going to see excessive output speed versus
input input measures at the back of the crank output
measures at the back of the trans. If that trans
is slipping, you're going to see a wide variation of RPM.
Although by now I would have thought it would have
set a fault, but maybe not. What I'm getting at
is it sounds like you've got two distinct, separate problems
(17:38):
at least right if you're if you're sitting at idle,
and this is a bad way to judge it. But
if you're sitting at idle looking at mass airflow grams
per second, that's a three point three leader. What do
you show grams per second somewhere between three and a
half and four. But you see if it's.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
It looked at, I gotta I have one reading. I'm
not sure if it's idling or driving. I think it's
probably driving.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
It's at four, okay, depends on it depends on where
you are. Do yourself a favor. Get a yellow notepad,
start writing down what you're doing, because it's it sounds
like you're all over the place and you're confusing yourself.
Fix one problem at a time, and I'd start with
coil from the sounds of it, because going from one
to two it followed the coil. That's a bad coil.
(18:25):
Start the war there. Just make sure you know you
want to fix all of this before you start spending
money on any of it. I appreciate the call, Dan,
call me back. I'm running Ny in the car. Doctor
will return right after this. Hey, welcome back. Ron Any
(19:05):
and the car Doctor. Let's go over to Richard and
Louisiana fourteen avalon and some backup camera problems. Richard, Welcome
to the car Doctor.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Sir.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
How can I help? Yes, sir, my sessions.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
I have a twenty fourteen tell you at an alon
x lly okay. And she has a backup camera with
a beeper the beeps, but at the long beeps. I'm
not going to told her that it shouldn't beep.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
That's not supposed to beep. He was a factor installed.
What should I tell her? So?
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Is this the camera doesn't work or there's a beeper
that doesn't work.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
There was the beeper that doesn't work. The camera works,
the beeper doesn't.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Okay, to my knowledge, there is no beeper on that
car from the factory already. Yeah, okay. Did she buy
the car new? Yeah, okay, And it's always been I
gave it to her, okay, and it's always beeped that
beat For me, unless there's a setting in the dashboard,
I would look as was the car. This is going
(20:10):
to sound strange, Richard, But was the car detailed or
you know, intensively cleaned anytime recently?
Speaker 4 (20:18):
No?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It was it in for service at all. Yeah, okay,
did it beat prior to the service, yes, okay somewhere.
What did they do during the service? Did they disconnect
the battery? Did they do any sort of electrical work
to it?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
A battery with chains?
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, the battery was changed. That's the key something. There's
a there's going to be this, So this must have
a touch screen center dash right, This isn't right? Yeah, okay,
So the issue here is that somewhere in that center screen.
It could be in the HID and the heads up display,
in the dash cluster, in the in the center cluster,
(21:00):
in this spinometer face, but I believe it's going to
be in the screen to the in the middle of
the of the two seats up front. There's going to
be a setting for backup camera or camera to beep.
That is factory in that car. Yes, that's an This
is an XL E then, okay, right, this is an
XL E this car, This car is an Avalon x
(21:24):
L E. This isn't an XL right, this is an
XL Yeah, this is the fancy one. Okay, Yeah, it's
it's going to be somewhere in that dash display, all right,
and it probably defaulted back to factory settings when they
disconnected the battery if they didn't use a memory saver,
and I'm betting they didn't, Okay, all right, simple as
(21:45):
all right, that's the first place I want you to.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Go, all right, Okay, so I'll tell her ex that.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Okay. So that's it, Richard, just that simple. You're very welcome, sir,
Thank you, You're very welcome. It makes an argument, folks,
for you know when a shop does a battery that
they they use a memory saver. And I'm not saying
a memory saver would have avoided this situation. Memory saver,
in case you don't know, is it's a backup battery.
(22:13):
It's a device that you would plug into the OBD
two connector the diagnostic port under the dash that would
help the vehicle to retain its memory and its settings.
And this is only going to get worse as time
goes on because his vehicles get more and more things
to remember. Okay, you know this is going to become
an issue. Now it's possible on this Toyota that and
(22:36):
I've seen this before. That's why I asked the questions
the way I did. Where they put a battery in
the car, they put a battery in the car, or
they cleaned the throttle plate as a result of service
and maintenance. Richard said it was in for service and
maintenance and depending upon how they disconnected the battery or
how they serviced the throttle plate. Now, when they started
the car up, initially it had a slightly higher rpm.
(22:59):
The idle art was over a thousand, and that's usually
the result of one of those two scenarios. And the
only way to correct that is disconnect the battery, both
cables and touch the leads together.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And you know, as we always talk about, you want
to use a ten on one rot resistor and put
a jumper wire together and leed the computer down a
good five six, seven minutes, whatever you've got time for
longer is better, and then put it together. But I
have seen where some of the default vehicle settings will
go away as a result. So you know, put a
(23:33):
memory saver would have eliminated Hey, you know, we we're
aware of this, or at least you know, if you
used a memory saver and it still happened, you know,
you tried your best and tried to eliminate the possibility
of this happening. So that's why I would say, yeah, definitely,
let's let's do a let's do a quick look through
the maintenance screens, and you know, I think you'll find
it there. A couple of emails, Hey, Ron, I'm a
(23:54):
di wired does maintenance in light repairs in my family
cars during a recent show, Yes, listeners for suggestions on
future topic to cover My current experience in tooling is
limited to nationally aspirated gasoline vehicles. I expect my next
car will be a hybrid, not because I want one,
but that's where the market's going, which I agree. I
think I think part of the market's going that way.
Would you please consider discussing the transition for di wires
(24:14):
like myself to hybrids. What's different? What new tools might
I need? E g. Insulated electrical gloves, et cetera. Fill
in Mill Valley, California. You're gonna need the gloves, You're
gonna need a special DVOM that has a higher scale
of range, and I would encourage you to take some
hybrid safety classes. You know, don't touch the orange wires,
as they say in a hybrid. And other than that,
(24:35):
the rest of it is just pure maintenance. If you
can service a gas car you can service a hybrid
as far as you know fluids and filters and things
like that. You know, hybrid is a slightly different animal.
It's typical front breaks. That seems like the back breaks
never wear out on a hybrid. They surely don't go
through they surely don't go through exhaust, you know, until
(24:56):
they get to the I guess the two to two
hundred and fifty thousand mile mark. And then the it
is just what breaks on one breaks on the other. Right,
it's all the usual stuff. The one thing that's besides
the obvious that there's a battery drive system and a
separate you know drive in place of the transmission, which
you're likely not going to get into at the DIY level.
But there are usually two cooling systems in a hybrid,
(25:19):
and you need to understand the difference between the two,
and you know, service them accordingly and service them on
whatever manufacturer recommends, and you know, make sure and this
one just for fun. This is from Colonel Jerry, United
States Marine Corps Reserve, retired from Las Vegas. He writes, say, hey, Ron,
I listened every week and I'm really enjoying the twenty
fourteen Classic Car Doctor podcasts. It brings back memories. In
(25:41):
twenty fourteen, my mother got divorced from her third husband
and he bought her a new twenty fourteen Subaru. In
twenty eighteen, my mom became too old to drive and
I inherited the car. I always heard about Subaru quality,
but the opposite was the truth. The two point four
Leader was a real piece of Okay, I can't say
that on radio. It was consuming a court of oil
every three thousand miles. Found there had been a recall
for excessive oil consumption. I took it to the dealer
(26:03):
and they told me my vin was not part of
the recall. You know, I've got some great Subaru stories
this week, which I'm going to try and get into
this hour. So yeah, okay, I agree with that comment, Jerry,
but I can't say that on radio either. I quickly
dumped the suber Roof for a twenty nineteen Ford Transit,
which I loved and used as a small van camper.
Listening to your twenty fourteen podcast really brought back memories
and made me laugh about my super Rul debacle. Keep
(26:23):
up the great work. For those of you that don't
know what Jerry's talking about is we've unearthed, Oh you know,
we've got ten years worth of radio shows going back
ten eleven years, and we've unearthed some of the older
ones and we're putting them up on the podcast website.
After this radio show be airs, we then become a
podcast and we've we're putting the what we call classic
Card Doctor from ten to twelve years ago up and letting
(26:46):
you listen to those. And so far all the comments
have been, like Colonel Jerry here, everybody's really happy to
listen to them, and I'm really happy for that that
you guys are enjoying them, because that's what we want
to hear. We want to know. So you can find
that simply get out to our web page Card Doctors
Show and you can access all the podcasts, the current
shows and the old shows right there as we put
them up. And just a real comment I was looking
(27:07):
for this previous hour from Steve in Roanoke County, Virginia.
He says, Ron the nearest me. The cheapest price at
a VP gas station. We're talking about the price of
gas right is at a Sonoco station is three twenty
seven A gallon diesel is right around four bucks a gallon,
so from Steve and Roanoke, Virginia. Always appreciate it. So anyway,
let's pull over, take a pause. When we come back,
we'll go back to the phones. I'm ronin Aian. Don't
(27:28):
go anywhere, coming.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Right up.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Welcome back, Running of the Car Doctor. Let's cruise over
to Joe and Delaware. Joe, Welcome to the Car Doctor, Sir,
how can I help?
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Yeah? Hi, Ron, Sure, my grandson that's two fifty Ford
six point two drove down to South Carolina for a job.
Just scott the truck. Great there the next day running roughs,
throwing a bunch of codes. One of the cats were
turning red and he couldn't even hardly drive it. So
(28:11):
I told him, trying to find a repair shop. Maybe
if you can't drive it all, cut that pipe before
the cat, just so you can move it, you know,
to the shop maybe a couple of miles away. What
he did, and they found, you know, one of the
valve springs I saw. I told him it could be
a vowve springs because I looked on YouTube and a
(28:31):
bunch of people had that problem, okay, and as a
cross vowl spring. They replaced one of the springs. Number
six was the only one bed that fixed it. But
I told him maybe you should have him all done
while there at least at one bank. But you know
he was short on cash, right, But in your experience,
(28:56):
does it just one that goes on those engines?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, it seems to be. It just seems to be one.
You know, there's there's a there's a few bulletins about it.
Nothing specific do they cite. They just say repair the
effected cylinder. And you know, I typically see it on
higher mileage one hundred thousand mile or more vehicles. How
many miles are on this truck?
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I think yeah. You know, you could have the argument
while that valve covers off and the head's open, do
you go ahead and replace all of them? But then
do you go and do the other side? And you know,
how how deep do you get? You know, the majority
of the ones that we saw, and you know, this
one's a little late to the party. This started happening
on these trucks probably four or five years ago. You know,
(29:42):
you would see one cylinder, two cylinders, replace those affected
cylinders and you know you're done. You know, it wasn't
it wasn't an issue after that, so i've you know,
and usually it was and I know it's an updated
valve spring, and Ford offers no explanation. You know, Ford
doesn't have a real answer as to why it's happening.
It's just other than fatigue and vendor. You know where
(30:04):
the springs were manufactured originally, but it's just you know
Chinese well, and you know, and then you worry about
is the replacement spring? Make sure that their repair shop
used a Ford spring. I would want to know that
for certain, because there's far too many offshore counterfeit. You know,
I can't say Chinese because Ford manufacturers parts in China, right,
(30:25):
but they're they're built to Ford spec, you know, allegedly,
which I guess they are because you don't you don't
see a lot of repeats when the valve spring breaks,
but I see, I see an awful lot of alleged
Ford parts, let's say. And it's not just Ford, it's
all the car companies. You know, where there's you know,
stamped by the manufacturer Ford, GM Stillantis, Chrysler, whoever, whatever
(30:46):
we want to call them, Jeep, you know where it's
it's stamped with that manufacturer, but it's not it's it's
it's you know, it's some you know, offshore philanderous brand
for lack of a better way to say it. So, yeah,
it's on fortunate. You know, let him put put the
spring on it, let him drive it, and you know,
let's see where it goes, and chances are he'll be fine,
(31:06):
you know, you know, be happy. He found a shop
down there that would take the job on like that,
and you know.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
They charged him over a thousand dollars for one It's a.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Lot of work. It's a lot of work though, you know,
it's it's you know, and you know the other side
of that is, I'm sure they had to look around.
You know, you always have to remember and this is
why I encourage people, you know, to have a relationship
with a repair shop. Although in his case it wouldn't
have worked, but you know, because no mechanics is going
to be able to predict that would happen, right, But
(31:39):
you know, to have a relationship with a shop because
if he was local around town, to drop it and
ask for open heart surgery is a tough thing. You know,
the shop has to look that vehicle over, they have
to decide as it had good regular oil change maintenance
as it had, you know, the type of service and
care that will allow them to be successful. You know,
(32:00):
it's it's but I know what you're saying. Listen, if
you think the repair is expensive, go price a new truck.
Right that that truck today is seventy grand? Yeah, yeah,
that's that. That truck today is expensive. Well, let's sen
you know, it's probably two hundred dollars worth of parts,
and there's there's easily four to five hours of labor.
If a shop's one hundred and fifty dollars an hour,
(32:23):
you know, do the math. It's not it's not hard
to get to a thousand bucks, you know. And when
you think about it, think about it like this. You
ever have an Have you had an appliance fixed in
your house lately?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Joe?
Speaker 4 (32:38):
I usually fixing myself if I can.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
But you know people come out, well, right, but people
will come out and fix appliances in your house, and
it's typically it's three to five hundred dollars, right, So
that right, Well, well, but my point becomes, that appliance
that you just paid five hundred dollars to have fixed,
you can buy a new one for a thousand. So
when you think of the peron enage of costs to
(33:00):
repair something or to repair is still a bargain, and
that's you know, so it was good as.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Long as he doesn't have any problem, you know, that
doesn't get stuck down there, just got down there. He
just got out of the air Force, you know, no
money really.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, it's well, that's what that's that's what us elders
are here for, Joe. We have to take care of
the next generation. So right, exactly right, that's that's and
that's and that's okay, thank god, we're here to do that, right,
So that's right, that's right, Joe. I got to run.
Appreciate the call, appreciate talking to you. Thanks for being
(33:36):
part of the family and listening. And I'm running any
in the car, doctor, I'll be back right after this.
Welcome back. I want to close out today. I want
(33:57):
to talk a real quick thing about customer service and
some of the bizarre stories that happened at the shop
this week. Two of them happened to be with Subaru.
And it's not a reflection on Subaru. It happened to
be the same dealer, So I think it's more the
dealer than Subaru is a car line. I just thought
it was interesting and unique. And I tell you these
stories because I want you to question everything, right. I
(34:18):
want you to understand maybe it's not so, if it
doesn't make any sense, if it doesn't seem right, you know,
like if it feels wrong, maybe it is. First one
was the proverbial little old lady subrew owner who came
in and wanted to talk to me because her dealer
told her she needed a new transmission. The car wasn't
worth fixing and she should just go buy a new
car and trade that one in. And I asked her,
(34:40):
I said, does the car have any problems with it?
Does it exhibit any signs of trouble? And she said no,
no dashboard warning lines, the trans shifted. Okay. I made
her go back and ask this is a twenty seventeen
automobile with just about one hundred thousand miles on it.
And when she came back to give me the results,
she said, Oh. They explained to me that the reason
they told me that was the rattle that I thought
was the exhaust pipe was internal in the trans And
(35:02):
they then explained to me that what the cost would
be and that there's a quiet recall from Subaru, and
they go back and talk to Suberu, the manufacturer, to
see if maybe they would help me with it. And
I said, aha, You see, there's always a reason, there's
always an answer. So now she's in the process of
doing that. But I tell you this because question everything.
Maybe it'll help you out in the long run like
it did her. I'm on an ady in the car
(35:23):
doctor till the next time. Good mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless.
See you
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