Ron starts this episode talking about Kia recalling Telluride vehicles that can roll away when placed in park. Next, its a return call from Esther to say thank you for Ron's help in finding a climate control module for an 03 Anniversary Edition Corvette. She was able to find the part and wants everyone to know where she found it. Ron then goes into a talk about a vehicle in the shop this week, an 06 Magnum SRT8 and how it was hard to find parts, even simple ones like lug nuts; even Chrysler had trouble coming up with them. His next problem to solve this week is a call on a 17 Kia Sportage that has had 2 cylinder head failures and goes into limp mode. Ron call s them like he sees them and challenges the caller to take umbrage with the repair shops description. Ron then goes back in time and takes a call on a 94 Civic with intermittent start and helps break it down into simple for all to hear. Ron then recounts finding a correct battery for a 2019 Toyota RAV4 by using www.autobatteries.com as a reference source. He also talks about a 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe that had a loud whirring noise and the steps he went through to solve. He closes out the hour answering an email on 02 E-150 van where the person changed the gear ratio in the rear differential and is looking to calibrate the speedometer correctly.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ron An Aian.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
The problem with turbo cars is in the case of
the Ford, in the case of the escape, you can
buy two parts. You can buy a wastecap management solenoid,
or you can buy the whole turbo baby. You know
it's this or everything.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
The Car Doctor in your experience, does it just one
that goes on those engines.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, it seems to be. It just seems to be
one that you know. There's a few bulletins about it.
Nothing specific do they cite. They just say repair the
effected cylinder.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
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 2 (00:58):
The garage doors are open, but I am here to
take your calls at eight five five five six hundred
now p.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Running.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You just see in the news recently that Kia is
recalling four hundred and twenty seven thousand. Tell you write
SUVs because there's a defect. The vehicle may roll away
while they're parked. And the reason that caught my eye well, obviously,
you know, there's a lot of reasons why that caught
my eye. But we've been talking about this lately that
we're noticing certain manufacturers like Toyotas. We had a customer
(01:32):
with a twenty one Toyota RAF four where push button
car you know start stop, not start stop technology, but
the stop start push button on the dash foot, on
the brake, push the button, it starts. You can shut
that vehicle off in gear and get out of the car,
and it will not be in parking. The parking break
doesn't set. That car will roll away. And I've noticed
(01:54):
a few of them, and it's lately I've been I've
been checking Dodge pickup trucks. Well, I mean the late
model Ram. I should say it's not Dodge, it's a
Ram now, but late model Ram will not allow you
to shut off the vehicle unless it is in park.
And I think that's smart. I think I think Dodge,
I think Ram, whoever they want to be called, should
(02:15):
be commended for that. I think that's a smart move
because the scenario becomes, you know, think about it. You
get in the vehicle and you've got your key fob
device whatever it is, it's your electronic key, it's in
your pocket. If you're not thinking, and so many of
us are not lately, We're just going to shut the
(02:37):
car off, hit the button and get out of the car.
Or maybe the phone rings. Gee you think you think
the phone interferes with driving? Nah, and you get out
of the vehicle on the phone, shut it off, and
you know, is it in park? You have to be
sure it's in park. And you know, I started talking
to some higher ups at different car companies about this
and they said, well, yeah, but the warning on the
(02:58):
dashboard says make sure a vehicle is in park. Yeah,
you think people are paying attention to that. You're counting
on that to tell people what to do. No way,
So this article came out or this recall came out.
According to documents published by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
the intermediate shaft and right front drive shaft of certain
twenty twenty through twenty four teller riides may not be
(03:18):
fully engaged. What this means is if the axle becomes
disconnected the vehicle, it'll go into park. It will go
into mechanical park inside the transmission, but the axle won't
hold it and allow the vehicle to roll over time.
This can lead to unintended vehicle movement while the cars
are in park, increasing crash risks. Key America decided to
(03:39):
recall all twenty through twenty three model year and select
twenty four model year Teller rides earlier this year. At
the time, no injuries or crashes were reported improper assembly.
Improper assembly is suspected to be the cause of the
shaft engagement problem. With the recall covering tellur IDEs that
were manufactured between January of twenty nineteen and October of
twenty three three. KEYA estimates that one percent have the defect.
(04:03):
To remedy this recall, documents dealers will update the affected
cars electronic parking break software and replace any damage intermediate
chaffs for free. And you know, if you ever have
any curiosity, is your vehicle covered under a recall? Although
some shop management programs will tell us that now Mitchell
Mitchell one, our shop management program will tell us that
(04:25):
they've just added a feature recently where every vehicle it
used to be just Toyota if I remember correctly, and
now it's expanded across the board where everything that is
under potential recall from nitsa National Highway Traffic Safety Authority,
is now listed in the program. So Mitchell one has
(04:45):
taken a large step towards keeping us keeping everybody safe
by doing that. But you can do that on your
own as well. More information at mitchell one dot com,
by the way, but you can do that yourself. Go
out to nh National Highway Traffic Safety Authority and there's
a spot there you can plug in your seventeen digit VIN.
If you can't find your VN, it's on that metal
plate in the bottom left corner the windshield, or it's
(05:07):
on your vehicle title, or it's on your registration and
plug it in. It will tell you as your vehicle
subject to any recalls, are there any open recalls? Which,
by the way, if you're purchasing a used vehicle, one
of the best things you can do to research is
go out to KNITS National Highway Traffic Safety Authority and
plug in that seventeen digit VN and it will tell you, hey,
(05:27):
there's open recails, there are no recalls, et cetera. So,
but if you're driving a Kiya, if you're driving, to
tell your ride it may slip away and you should
be getting a recall notice shortly according to this piece
of information. So hello and welcome Ron and Andy and
the car doctor. Aren't we all happy? Now? Well we
are if we're not driving a Kiya. But in any event,
(05:47):
let's let's go to the phones and get this hour going.
Let's go to Esther in Ocean City, Maryland. Esther, Welcome
to the car doctor. How can I help?
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Yes? Hi, hi, Well, I was asked to call back.
I had told you about a week ago with regard
to an HVAC control unit. Oh, this is my two
thousand Corvette three Corvette. Yes, absolutely, and I did find one,
and I was asked to call back so other people
might benefit from it.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Sure, where did you? Where did you find refreshes? Again
with the problemster in case somebody may not have heard that, show.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
My control unit wasn't working?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Right? And this was a two thousand crime so old right?
This was a two thousand and three anniversary edition Corvette?
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Right? And where did you find the part? You were
looking for a heater of ventilation AC control head. Where
did you end up finding the part? What did you use?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Out of Marshville, Ohio? I went on the internet. I
did check the ones that you told me about, but
I wasn't successful, gotcha, So I went on the internet,
excuse me, and I found one at J and J
Auto Wrecking.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Their phone number is eight hundred four two five one
five five five. They're open Monday through Friday nine to
five Eastern Standard time, and their website is Capital J
Capital N Capital J capital ocapital dot com. And I
(07:25):
worked with a gentleman by the name of Andrew. Their
their item. They gave us sixty day warranty, but if
you leave a positive review, they will extend that warranty
to six months.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Wow, Esther, Esther, you should be doing you should be
doing commercials for them. I think you just did. It's okay,
you know what.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I'd rather have help someone else as well. But they
were very very good to deal with.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, we appreciate you getting back to us and letting
us know and letting everybody else know. We're glad your
car is ready for the road. Now you can go
to car shows spring us here right there you go,
So thanks, Esther, You're very welcome. You enjoy the ride.
It's a pleasure to have you anytime. Bye bye. I
think Esther just did a commercial for well, listen, wherever
(08:14):
she found the parts. You know that that's what that's
what counts, because finding parts is becoming a full time
job now. And I say this all the time. It's
it's it's getting harder and harder and harder. Uh, you know,
we can't we can't fix cars without parts. I mean,
it's it's obvious. But as simple as that sounds, you know,
we had a situation this week. We were working on
(08:35):
an O six Dodge Magnum s R T eight, which
is the hot rod version of a the Magnum Wagon,
the Chrysler station wagon from that generation. And we've been
doing some front end work and repairing some of the
problems it had. It had dried out rubber bushings and
some other things going on, and we needed a we
(08:58):
needed lug nuts lugnuts. This came to us as they
used vehicle. The new owner purchased it out of storage.
Somebody had put it in storage. It's only got fifty
six or sixty six thousand miles on it something like that.
It's not a lot of mileage. And we needed lugnuts
and we had to get them at a Chrysler, and
Chrysler had to go scurrying around trying to find them.
(09:19):
And you know, sometimes it's just simple stuff. Sometimes it's
not complicated and high tech, like a like like a
heater control head like Esther's Corvette needed, right, you know,
it's not electronics, it's lug nuts. It's all mechanical stuff.
And in this case, they were a specific lugnut the
customer wanted O WEE Chrysler. And you know, it took
a while to find them. So finding parts is an issue.
(09:40):
And sources like that that Esther cited are excellent. We're
glad that you called and told us that. Anyway, eight
five five five six zero nine nine zero zero. Running
in of the Car Doctor. We'll be back right after this.
Don't go away where vehicle not taking you where you
want to go? Oh well, call Ron. He's the expert
(10:01):
at making your vehicle take you where you need it.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
And now back to Ron. Hey, let's get over to
Phil and Maine seventeen Kia sportage. What's going on here? Phil?
Welcome to the Car Doctor, Sir. How can I help?
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Hey?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Roon?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
That would be Bill.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
That always happens to me.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
That's Okay, sir, Okay, that's Tom's fingers. Tom, Tom's off
Today's He's having a rough day. So how can I
help you?
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Well, I'll give you I will give you the short
of it. Twenty seventeen, Kia Sportage bought it with about
one hundred thousand miles on it mile one hundred and
three thousand, went into limp mode, got it looked at
and number two cylinder no compression. They pulled the head,
they replaced the valves, you know, basically, they had a
(10:49):
top job on it, then drove it for another ten
thousand and the same thing has happened again. Okay, and the
Kia won't cover the top end. The car is covered
through a class action suit for the piston rod boarnings
in twenty twenty six, but not the top end. Wondering
what I can do?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
So, you know this car for everybody's information, this car
is covered under more than a few recalls and campaigns.
It's notorious. It'll set a p thirteen twenty six knock
sensor fault and then they will reprogram it with they
will reprogram it with different software to get correct knock
sensor wiring. I'm sorry, correct knock sensor reading said, it's
(11:32):
not setting an erroneous code and their diagnosis is correct.
They've made some changes in the software strategy.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
Yeah, so done on this car.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
That's been done. So who did the head? Was it
a Kia dealer?
Speaker 5 (11:45):
No, it was the people who sold it to me.
They came up with a price and then they threw
a thousand dollars in towards the head job. You know,
was after it was after their waranty. So they came
to the table for that part of it.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yes, so you know, going back to the shop that
did it. I always want to know if a shop
did the head repair and the head repair failed, and
I don't care that it's the same one, it could
they could have done something wrong. I don't want to
spend too much time analyzing why it's the same cylinder.
You know, there could be a hundred reasons they could
(12:17):
have just done something wrong. Did they only fix that cylinder?
Did they do a complete head resurface? Is it? Is it?
You know, how did the failure occur? In? Just what
sort of failure was it?
Speaker 5 (12:26):
You? Yeah, they did a complete head resurface? Okay, I
did I did see a borscope picture of the whatever
cylinder was it, and tell me on the second time,
the one that's in the shop for right now, I'm
picking it up Monday actually, and that that thing was
so covered with carbon, baked on carbon and chunks. Unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Okay, So is the second one like that as well?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
You know, I kind of find that hard to believe.
I'm not saying I'm not saying anybody's lying, but anybody
can print the picture I would if the vehicle was
running that rich. Let's let's think of it like this.
If the vehicle was running that rich, that out of
fuel compliance, logically, it should have set a fault code,
and you'd be telling me. You'd be telling me I
(13:14):
had to check engine light on, all right.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Yeah. In both instances, the check engine light came on
for like I would say, a misfire, a misfire code
for a few minutes, and then the check engine light
went out, and then the vehicle went into what somebody
calls the limp mode. Right, yeah, I mean it got
me this way, It got me home, right, it.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Limped you home. So you know, think of it like this.
You go to the doctor for a regular physical, you
do that, right, bill, and they do your they do
your your your blood work and so forth. You know,
every once in a while, your cholesterols up, your cholesterols down.
There's always a reason, right, It just it just doesn't
happen by magic for that to have heavy carbon deposits
(14:00):
again on that cylinder. Are they trying to say that
the valve job was the condition but not the cause.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Well, that's what I'm wondering because I've done extensive research
on these engines and you know, not like the old
things were used, so they don't see much fuel right
to clean it out, right, So I'm wondering if there's
a fix for that that I could do periodically that
would help.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Well, So is this the result of because this is
a GDI engine, correct, this is guess or direct injection? Right,
so you know, part of the problem here is that
there's no fuel sprying on the valve to wash the valve.
But then why is it cylinder to Again, what's particular
about cylinder two? Is there a problem in you know
(14:52):
usually what puts carbon deposits in these engines? All right?
Because here think of it like this, there's no there's
no there's no fuel being sprayed at the valve. Right, So,
so theoretically there's no carbon like material or there's no
gasoline that could be derived into carbon that could evaporate
(15:13):
into carbon going at the valve. Correct, yeah, correct, But
what else is there that could possibly be Could it
be oil? Right?
Speaker 5 (15:21):
Well, that would that would be my suspicion.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Right, that would be my suspicion. Do we have a
valve guide that's seeping oil and dropping it on the
valve that's and it's not getting washed away because there's
no fuel spraying at the valve?
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Understood?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Could we have sticky rings in cylinder number two allowing
carbon are allowing oil to wash up? There's the reversion
that goes on in a cylinder when a valve opens.
It's not exactly perfect where all the all the charge
coming in gets pushed in by virtue. Right, there's a reversion.
(15:54):
There's reversion and exhaust. There's reversion and intake where flow
goes backwards, all right, and that that'll shroud the valve.
Could you know, I would like to know what the
top of the piston looked like at the moment that
they took the cylinder head off as well.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Well, they're going to give me some pictures of that
when I pick it up on Monday or Tuesday. So
maybe I'll see if I can figure out a way
to send them to you.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Just sure you can email me. Just email them to
me Ron at cardoctorshow dot com. It's easy. We'll do that,
all right.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
And I had one other quick question. Sure is there
any point of spraying in And I won't use a
brand name. I'll just say spraying and now use a
brand name.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
What are we talking about.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Into the vacuum side of the PCV valve?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Sure? Why not? You know, why not? I'll tell you what?
How about how about some CRC. CRC makes some CRC.
Get you got a local AutoZone? Oh yeah, get that?
You know I love Aozon. You can go down there, boy,
you can look at fuel system cleaners to your heart's content.
They've got one of everything. Right, And let's go down
there and let's go find the CRC section and we
(17:01):
actually do a GDI, a gas direct injection cleaning service
at the shop where we will tie in a can
of CRC GDI cleaner and we will go direct right
into the air duck depending on the vehicle, because we're
trying to we're trying to fog the intake system, not
the injector, but the intake system, so that the cleaner
(17:24):
is carried along in the airflow and delivered to the
back of the valves.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
Yeah, and that's not going to affect the fuel control
because I know they change those at one time and
you can mock them up.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Said spray right, right, And it's not necessarily a spray,
it's usually a kit. CRC makes a formula that is
turbo safe, and make sure that's the kit you're using.
That's the only concern I have is some of the
other aftermarket kits will do damage to turbochargers. So you've
got to be sure that whatever kit you're using, CRC
obviously it's turbocharger safe. But by all means, it's an
(17:57):
intake fogging and that's just part of GDI vehicle maintenance
and that's what we do on a regular basis. So
do that, get down to your local lotozone bill and
that'll work for you. If you have any other questions,
by all means, you know, get back to me and
send me a picture of those valves and the pistons.
But I would ask them how they considered all those
possibilities that we talked about. Because two and two is
(18:17):
making three there, it doesn't add up to me. I'm
running Amy and the Car Doctor. I'll be back right
after this. Welcome back r The Car Doctor here at
(18:50):
eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
By the way, get out the Card doctorshow dot com
find all our latest podcasts. This radio show becomes a
podcast afterwards. And we're also putting up in case you
didn't know, Classic Car Doctor. We found we've dug deep
into the vault and we're putting up older shows, shows
that are anywhere from ten to twelve years old, little
bits and pits and bits and pieces and segments that
(19:11):
you may find interesting. It's a you know, old technology,
a lot of different conversation and you know, just just
Classic Card Doctor. It's it's interesting. So you can find
that there as well. Let's get out over and talk
to Let's go to Rich in Georgia ninety four Honda
Civic and oldie but a goodie. We're talking about oldies here.
So what's going on here? Rich? How's this car? It's old,
(19:33):
it's not starting and I think it's a fuel problem.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Okay, I don't know if it's actually.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
The fuel pump or the every place to relay that
activates the fuel pump.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
And oh the rain.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
So let me so when you say it's a no start,
is this it cranks but it doesn't start exactly all right,
So this is a crank no start condition when it
goes into this rank no start condition. Let's go the
other way. Have you checked it for spark?
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I have, and it has spark, right, all right? So,
and you're sure the relay that you've replaced or that
you're working on is the PGM I relay down to
the left of the steering column. Yeah, you identified it
by wire color. If if you if the vehicle goes
into a if the vehicle is starting, if you unplug
(20:26):
that relay, it goes into a no start condition.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
I haven't done plugged it.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I haven't tested it like that.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Okay, repect the relay.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Part.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
All right. How do you know it's the right relay
since there's so many of them down.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
There by the part number?
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Okay? All right? Just asking so you know, just asking,
do you have any propane?
Speaker 5 (20:52):
No? No, not right now?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
No, No, I'm just saying could you feed it an
alternate fuel source? Hmm right, well the vehicle run on
an alternate fuel source just to see it start. All right.
Then the other question I've got is have you tested
for voltage at at Do this take a vault meter?
You own a vault meter, right, yeah, yeah, check check check.
(21:15):
Check for power at either the injectors or the idle
air control valve. The injectors in the idle air control valve,
if you look at a wiring diagram, gets powered up
by the PGM I relay, all right. If you show
low voltage, go to the PGM I relay. Do you
have low voltage there? If you have low voltage going
into the relay, all right, So instead of just replacing it,
(21:38):
let's test. Let's see how the circuit works. If we've
got low voltage going into the relay, we could have
a we could have a bad or corroded ignition switch.
So it will it will duplicate a bad relay, but
it won't be It'll be the voltage is actually low.
All right, right, and let's start there. I mean, and
(22:00):
if it's not that you know the other side of
this is, well, you've changed the relay with a Honda part.
Although new doesn't mean good I could put you through
the drill of you could unplug the relay out of
the way it's connected, not the electrical connector, but how
it's tucked up under the dash. We used to let
them hang down, hit them with a heat gun and
(22:20):
it would actually cause the car to shut off. And
I guess it's possible even with a new part. New
means never ever worked in my world. All right, But
you know, before we go that far and go all
the way around and say, hey, we got a bad
new part, why don't we actually check and see if
we've got voltage? Do we have signal into the relay,
Do we hear the relay, feel the relay click under
normal conditions? And then do we have good voltage there?
(22:40):
And then when it doesn't start, what does that voltage become?
Is it the same or is it different? If it's low,
I would suspect whatever's feeding it in the first step
before the relay that's feeding it is the ignition switch itself.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Cognition switch.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Okay, all right, now, please don't go out and just
change the ignition switch. You got to check voltage, all right.
I know it's tempting. So otherwise the cycle continues and
we end up in the wrong place. All right, kiddo,
all right, thank you, you're very welcome. You need more,
you know where to find me.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Great, thank you, you're very welcome.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Be well. Yeah, it's it's it's a diagnostic step, right,
it's a diagnostic routine. The PGM, the PGMFI relay is
very common back in the day. You know. Sometimes it
was also the spread of the terminals. Sometimes the connectors
were corroded. But if we're gonna if we're gonna guess,
we gotta stop guessing. We got to start testing. And
(23:33):
that's just very very important. You know, that just makes
me nervous. So you know, you got to know. We
had a twenty sixteen Camaross in the shop this week.
I'll tell you this story real quick. And I tell
you this story because it's about maintenance, all right. It's
about I don't care how old or new something is.
It's still a machine. It still needs basic care. We
(23:54):
had a twenty sixteen Camaross that came in for four tires, which,
by the way, is no cheap proper position either. Their
they're run flats, their thirty five series tires. They are
very heavy and very very stiff sidewall. You know. Of course,
our new Hunter tire machine handled it, gobbled it up
like it was nothing. And in any event, we noticed
(24:17):
that while driving going around corners, the rear end start
at the hop and bounce thirty nine mile twenty sixteen Camaross. Now,
logic would say that, gee, it's you know, the fluid
and the rear differential is worn out. Of course, General
Motors says that the fluid doesn't need changing until sixty
thousand miles. So you know, how could that be? Well,
we pulled out a small sample of rear dift fluid
(24:40):
and sure enough it was just beat up and black
and ugly. And we did a thorough change of rear
dift fluid, added the pose additive that GM calls for,
and the problem solved. And the reason I tell you
this is not to just bore you with something about, hey,
we changed gurial oil and we fixed the problem. But
I think the real answer is that the rear end
(25:03):
of a twenty sixteen Camaross takes a little over a
quart of fluid one court a court and a quarter
to be exact. That's staggering, all right, You've got a
six point one I think it is leader engine up front.
I think it's six to one or six y two
six ' two I'm sorry, six point two leader engine
putting out all kinds of horsepower and torque, and you're
(25:27):
throttling that thing going down the road, and you expect
one court of fluid to hold up over the lifetime
or at least still sixty thousand miles and not wear out.
You know, you've got to do service. You've got to
do maintenance. It's important. I mean listen, If you don't,
the rearrange you break is going to be you know,
the car, and then the wallet you break is going
(25:47):
to be your own when you have to repair the
major component. So you know, don't fall into the trap
of gee, I'm driving a new car. It never needs anything.
Driving a new car means you've just earned the right
and the responsibility to maintain should you want to do so,
to be safe and reliable out on the road. So
the owner of the Camaro was very happy we solved
this problem. He didn't even know we had a problem,
(26:10):
which he just assumed that it was the way the
vehicle was supposed to feel because he drove it so infrequently.
It's a summertime car only, and you know, he kind
of got used to it and didn't realize it had
been going on for a couple of thousand miles, which
was spread out over the course of a couple of
years because he doesn't really drive it a lot. So
just be aware, all right, there's a reason, and don't
(26:30):
be afraid to ask your mechanic. Hey, it's only got
forty thousand miles on it. Are there any fluids we
should be doing now? Because early is better than later?
In my book eight five five five six zero nine
nine zero zero, I'm run an aading of the car doctor.
I'll be cruising back right after this. Don't go away,
(26:55):
walk back running in of the car doctor. We had
a I want to tell you this story real quick.
We had a customer this week with a twenty nineteen
Toyota Rev. Four and it was in for maintenance thirty
thousand mile maintenance, Yeah, thirty five thousand something like that.
And we went through and we did our usual you know,
fuel system cleaning and wiper blades and you know, change
the oil rotator of the tires. The vehicle is you know,
(27:18):
now going on five going on six years old. They
got it early. They got it late twenty eighteen, so
it's getting older, and he had asked about a battery.
He wanted a fresh battery in it because the vehicle,
you know, because of age, and they're getting ready to
go take some trips this summer. They're going to travel
out west, and they didn't want to, you know, take
a chance of getting stuck on the road somewhere, so
I had to put a battery in it. You know,
it's not easy even looking up a battery anymore because
(27:41):
there's so many specific questions that have to be asked,
and all the electronic catalogs don't they don't seem to
be correct, I gotta tell you. And of late, you know,
we've been using Auto Batteries dot com as our reference
resource strictly for battery applications. I mean, we've used it
in the past, we've been using it in the ass
for a long long time for other information. But they
(28:03):
they're making it easy because they ask a couple of simple,
basic questions. Do you have start stop technology, which this
vehicle did, although you wouldn't know it to look at it.
You wouldn't know unless you operated this vehicle. There was
no button anywhere that said hey, start stop you know
other than that. And then if you looked at the
top of the original battery, in very small letters, almost hieroglyphics,
(28:24):
it said start top technology only, so we knew that
the vehicle was a start stop. But Auto Batteries dot
Com helped us find the right battery for this vehicle.
And this is key because that AGM battery is more money.
It is they're typically fifty to seventy five dollars higher
than a conventional flooded battery. That we were able to
get source documentation from auto Batteries dot Com and give
(28:47):
it to the customer and let them see it, and
you know, okay, this is why, this is why this
battery is more money. This is what this battery does
versus a conventional flooded battery, which is important, you know
from just knowledge, right. I always tell you guys, knowledge
is power, So it's important. So again, thanks to auto
Batteries dot Com, we were able to look something up
(29:08):
correctly and educate a customer, just like we try to
educate you guys each and every week. So it's important.
Let's go in the shop. Courtesy of az Pro, AutoZone
and other folks over at azpro dot com. But we
had a twenty thirteen Hyundai Santa Fe this week that
had a loud whirring noise. That was the description on
the work order, and it was in my rack, and
(29:29):
it happened the louder it got louder the more you
drove the vehicle. It would start to whistle and whirr,
and we took the belt off. I took the belt
off because I knew it was something in the belt
area and the noise went away. You know, prior to
taking it off, I had put the mechanic stethoscope. I
listened very carefully to the individual components, and it was
(29:49):
loudest at one of the idler pulleys. There is you know,
two what I consider two idler pulleys and a belt
tension or pulley on this vehicle. So it was loudest
from this one belt idler pulley. So I looked up,
I looked at a belt idler. I went out to
AutoZone azpro dot com and I looked it up, and
you know, they said, it's this idler and this belt. Okay, great,
(30:11):
had it shipped over to us and not through the
fault of AutoZone, but because of the way the manufacturer
indexes the part, it was the wrong diameter pulley and
I kind of went round and round and we kicked
it around and we talked about it, trying to reference
the right one. And then I got an idea, and
you can do this, And this is why I tell
you this story. We got a hold of the original
(30:34):
Hyundai part I gotta I gotta blow up picture and
it's easy to you go online, Hundai Parts online, whatever,
and I found the correct part with the correct Hyundai
part number. It said, you know, it's it's this one,
not that one, even though they were pointing to what
I thought was the wrong pulley. You know, it's interesting
what you can do with part numbers at AutoZone pro,
(30:57):
I'm sorry, at azpro dot com, at the auto zone website,
and you know, I was able to reference part numbers
by doing an interchange, pulling in that part number, and
it brought me to the correct manufacturer pully part number
that I needed, even though it's not listed by application.
And I blame the manufacturer. I want to make that
clear that they don't have an indexed right and I
(31:20):
was able to order the right Pulley from azpro dot com.
They sent it over and the car got fixed. So,
like I keep telling you, sometimes it's a parts game,
and trying to find the right ones it's becomes more
difficult each and every day. So but thanks to az
pro azpro dot com, it makes our job a whole
lot easier and it can to you as well. I'm
running any in the car, doctor, I'll be back right
(31:41):
after this. Don't go away. Welcome back. Look at that.
I hit the button. We're doing good today, Tom. We
almost made it through the whole hour. I'm impressed. Although
(32:04):
there's some weird things that have been happening in studio today,
hasn't there It's been like it's almost like this is
Halloween and it's not the weirdest thing was that bowl
of pretzels you brought out? You like that bullet press.
Oh yeah, yeah, they're good. I'm telling you that's why
I brought him out, because you're here. You'll eat most
of them. I just had a few, so because when
I do that, I tend to finish the bag and
I can't do that. I'm trying to be good. I
(32:25):
want to answer an email from Kevin Kevin's a regular listener.
He's written in before and he's always got some great
questions and some great issues. I suspect Kevin's a tech.
He writes and he says, Hey, Ron, good afternoon. I've
recently changed the gear race shoo on my two thousand
and two forty one to fifty van. I went from
a stock three fifty five to a four to ten gear.
What needs to be done to correct this binometer? I
have a Solace pro, but don't think I can do
(32:47):
calibrations with it. Thanks for any input. Love the radio show.
Listen to the podcast every week and he gives me
his vent and I wrote back, and I wanted to
do it up here on air because I thought everybody
could benefit from this, because you know, changing gear rati
always is even though it's it's I don't want to
say it's a thing of the past. It's not that
common anymore, right, we don't. We don't see many people
doing that, and you know somebody does that. I want
(33:09):
to give them their their due and their their information
that they're requesting. I think that takes a priority in
my mind. And I told Kevin, I said, I don't
think his soulist Pro will do calibrations either. And it's
not because of the tool, but more because of the
vehicle and the way the vehicle is set up. The
vehicles needs. You know, in the shop, I've got a
Triton snap On Triton and I've got to snap On
Zeus Plus and you know, they're part of my arsenal,
(33:32):
but they don't allow me to do that particular reset
or calibration either. But that's because it's a two thousand
and two. That's that's the technology that's there. You know.
I suggested to him to call snap On tech support
and ask they'll be able to tell him, and you know,
just make sure he's got current level software and stuff.
That always helps. I think Kevin's answer, and if anybody
(33:53):
else is doing this, I think the answer for this
is in what Ford calls as built data. When you
flash a Ford Let's say, for example, the old engine
computer that you're trying to install software in or from
is damaged. I mean, that's why you're changing and replacing
the PCM a lot of times, right, Or it's an
accident vehicle. The vehicle was hit and the PCM was crushed,
(34:16):
so you can't extract the old data out of it,
and that's where the information such as gear ratio, transmission type,
tire size is usually stored. So you can go to
a motorcraft website via Ford and look up as built
data using your specific VN so it will tell you
you plug in your vent, it will show you the
(34:37):
software profile that Ford used to build that vehicle when
they assembled it coming off the line. And then what
happens is there will be options for certain things, just
as there were options on the Ford assembly line. If
four to ten was a stocked ear ratio, which I
believe it was, you check that box instead of three
fifty five. Now when you put it together, it will
(34:59):
not not only alter sponometer calibration, but it will also
change how the transmission shifts and reacts to that different
gear ratio as well. So using as built data is
the absolute correct way to go. I'm ronnin Ady and
the car Doctor reminding you until the next time. Good
mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless. See y
Ron An Aian.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
The problem with turbo cars is in the case of
the Ford, in the case of the escape, you can
buy two parts. You can buy a wastecap management solenoid,
or you can buy the whole turbo baby. You know
it's this or everything.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
The Car Doctor in your experience, does it just one
that goes on those engines.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, it seems to be. It just seems to be
one that you know. There's a few bulletins about it.
Nothing specific do they cite. They just say repair the
effected cylinder.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
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 2 (00:58):
The garage doors are open, but I am here to
take your calls at eight five five five six hundred
now p.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Running.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You just see in the news recently that Kia is
recalling four hundred and twenty seven thousand. Tell you write
SUVs because there's a defect. The vehicle may roll away
while they're parked. And the reason that caught my eye well, obviously,
you know, there's a lot of reasons why that caught
my eye. But we've been talking about this lately that
we're noticing certain manufacturers like Toyotas. We had a customer
(01:32):
with a twenty one Toyota RAF four where push button
car you know start stop, not start stop technology, but
the stop start push button on the dash foot, on
the brake, push the button, it starts. You can shut
that vehicle off in gear and get out of the car,
and it will not be in parking. The parking break
doesn't set. That car will roll away. And I've noticed
(01:54):
a few of them, and it's lately I've been I've
been checking Dodge pickup trucks. Well, I mean the late
model Ram. I should say it's not Dodge, it's a
Ram now, but late model Ram will not allow you
to shut off the vehicle unless it is in park.
And I think that's smart. I think I think Dodge,
I think Ram, whoever they want to be called, should
(02:15):
be commended for that. I think that's a smart move
because the scenario becomes, you know, think about it. You
get in the vehicle and you've got your key fob
device whatever it is, it's your electronic key, it's in
your pocket. If you're not thinking, and so many of
us are not lately, We're just going to shut the
(02:37):
car off, hit the button and get out of the car.
Or maybe the phone rings. Gee you think you think
the phone interferes with driving? Nah, and you get out
of the vehicle on the phone, shut it off, and
you know, is it in park? You have to be
sure it's in park. And you know, I started talking
to some higher ups at different car companies about this
and they said, well, yeah, but the warning on the
(02:58):
dashboard says make sure a vehicle is in park. Yeah,
you think people are paying attention to that. You're counting
on that to tell people what to do. No way,
So this article came out or this recall came out.
According to documents published by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
the intermediate shaft and right front drive shaft of certain
twenty twenty through twenty four teller riides may not be
(03:18):
fully engaged. What this means is if the axle becomes
disconnected the vehicle, it'll go into park. It will go
into mechanical park inside the transmission, but the axle won't
hold it and allow the vehicle to roll over time.
This can lead to unintended vehicle movement while the cars
are in park, increasing crash risks. Key America decided to
(03:39):
recall all twenty through twenty three model year and select
twenty four model year Teller rides earlier this year. At
the time, no injuries or crashes were reported improper assembly.
Improper assembly is suspected to be the cause of the
shaft engagement problem. With the recall covering tellur IDEs that
were manufactured between January of twenty nineteen and October of
twenty three three. KEYA estimates that one percent have the defect.
(04:03):
To remedy this recall, documents dealers will update the affected
cars electronic parking break software and replace any damage intermediate
chaffs for free. And you know, if you ever have
any curiosity, is your vehicle covered under a recall? Although
some shop management programs will tell us that now Mitchell
Mitchell one, our shop management program will tell us that
(04:25):
they've just added a feature recently where every vehicle it
used to be just Toyota if I remember correctly, and
now it's expanded across the board where everything that is
under potential recall from nitsa National Highway Traffic Safety Authority,
is now listed in the program. So Mitchell one has
(04:45):
taken a large step towards keeping us keeping everybody safe
by doing that. But you can do that on your
own as well. More information at mitchell one dot com,
by the way, but you can do that yourself. Go
out to nh National Highway Traffic Safety Authority and there's
a spot there you can plug in your seventeen digit VIN.
If you can't find your VN, it's on that metal
plate in the bottom left corner the windshield, or it's
(05:07):
on your vehicle title, or it's on your registration and
plug it in. It will tell you as your vehicle
subject to any recalls, are there any open recalls? Which,
by the way, if you're purchasing a used vehicle, one
of the best things you can do to research is
go out to KNITS National Highway Traffic Safety Authority and
plug in that seventeen digit VN and it will tell you, hey,
(05:27):
there's open recails, there are no recalls, et cetera. So,
but if you're driving a Kiya, if you're driving, to
tell your ride it may slip away and you should
be getting a recall notice shortly according to this piece
of information. So hello and welcome Ron and Andy and
the car doctor. Aren't we all happy? Now? Well we
are if we're not driving a Kiya. But in any event,
(05:47):
let's let's go to the phones and get this hour going.
Let's go to Esther in Ocean City, Maryland. Esther, Welcome
to the car doctor. How can I help?
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Yes? Hi, hi, Well, I was asked to call back.
I had told you about a week ago with regard
to an HVAC control unit. Oh, this is my two
thousand Corvette three Corvette. Yes, absolutely, and I did find one,
and I was asked to call back so other people
might benefit from it.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Sure, where did you? Where did you find refreshes? Again
with the problemster in case somebody may not have heard that, show.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
My control unit wasn't working?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Right? And this was a two thousand crime so old right?
This was a two thousand and three anniversary edition Corvette?
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Right? And where did you find the part? You were
looking for a heater of ventilation AC control head. Where
did you end up finding the part? What did you use?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Out of Marshville, Ohio? I went on the internet. I
did check the ones that you told me about, but
I wasn't successful, gotcha, So I went on the internet,
excuse me, and I found one at J and J
Auto Wrecking.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Their phone number is eight hundred four two five one
five five five. They're open Monday through Friday nine to
five Eastern Standard time, and their website is Capital J
Capital N Capital J capital ocapital dot com. And I
(07:25):
worked with a gentleman by the name of Andrew. Their
their item. They gave us sixty day warranty, but if
you leave a positive review, they will extend that warranty
to six months.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Wow, Esther, Esther, you should be doing you should be
doing commercials for them. I think you just did. It's okay,
you know what.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I'd rather have help someone else as well. But they
were very very good to deal with.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, we appreciate you getting back to us and letting
us know and letting everybody else know. We're glad your
car is ready for the road. Now you can go
to car shows spring us here right there you go,
So thanks, Esther, You're very welcome. You enjoy the ride.
It's a pleasure to have you anytime. Bye bye. I
think Esther just did a commercial for well, listen, wherever
(08:14):
she found the parts. You know that that's what that's
what counts, because finding parts is becoming a full time
job now. And I say this all the time. It's
it's it's getting harder and harder and harder. Uh, you know,
we can't we can't fix cars without parts. I mean,
it's it's obvious. But as simple as that sounds, you know,
we had a situation this week. We were working on
(08:35):
an O six Dodge Magnum s R T eight, which
is the hot rod version of a the Magnum Wagon,
the Chrysler station wagon from that generation. And we've been
doing some front end work and repairing some of the
problems it had. It had dried out rubber bushings and
some other things going on, and we needed a we
(08:58):
needed lug nuts lugnuts. This came to us as they
used vehicle. The new owner purchased it out of storage.
Somebody had put it in storage. It's only got fifty
six or sixty six thousand miles on it something like that.
It's not a lot of mileage. And we needed lugnuts
and we had to get them at a Chrysler, and
Chrysler had to go scurrying around trying to find them.
(09:19):
And you know, sometimes it's just simple stuff. Sometimes it's
not complicated and high tech, like a like like a
heater control head like Esther's Corvette needed, right, you know,
it's not electronics, it's lug nuts. It's all mechanical stuff.
And in this case, they were a specific lugnut the
customer wanted O WEE Chrysler. And you know, it took
a while to find them. So finding parts is an issue.
(09:40):
And sources like that that Esther cited are excellent. We're
glad that you called and told us that. Anyway, eight
five five five six zero nine nine zero zero. Running
in of the Car Doctor. We'll be back right after this.
Don't go away where vehicle not taking you where you
want to go? Oh well, call Ron. He's the expert
(10:01):
at making your vehicle take you where you need it.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
And now back to Ron. Hey, let's get over to
Phil and Maine seventeen Kia sportage. What's going on here? Phil?
Welcome to the Car Doctor, Sir. How can I help?
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Hey?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Roon?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
That would be Bill.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
That always happens to me.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
That's Okay, sir, Okay, that's Tom's fingers. Tom, Tom's off
Today's He's having a rough day. So how can I
help you?
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Well, I'll give you I will give you the short
of it. Twenty seventeen, Kia Sportage bought it with about
one hundred thousand miles on it mile one hundred and
three thousand, went into limp mode, got it looked at
and number two cylinder no compression. They pulled the head,
they replaced the valves, you know, basically, they had a
(10:49):
top job on it, then drove it for another ten
thousand and the same thing has happened again. Okay, and the
Kia won't cover the top end. The car is covered
through a class action suit for the piston rod boarnings
in twenty twenty six, but not the top end. Wondering
what I can do?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
So, you know this car for everybody's information, this car
is covered under more than a few recalls and campaigns.
It's notorious. It'll set a p thirteen twenty six knock
sensor fault and then they will reprogram it with they
will reprogram it with different software to get correct knock
sensor wiring. I'm sorry, correct knock sensor reading said, it's
(11:32):
not setting an erroneous code and their diagnosis is correct.
They've made some changes in the software strategy.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
Yeah, so done on this car.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
That's been done. So who did the head? Was it
a Kia dealer?
Speaker 5 (11:45):
No, it was the people who sold it to me.
They came up with a price and then they threw
a thousand dollars in towards the head job. You know,
was after it was after their waranty. So they came
to the table for that part of it.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yes, so you know, going back to the shop that
did it. I always want to know if a shop
did the head repair and the head repair failed, and
I don't care that it's the same one, it could
they could have done something wrong. I don't want to
spend too much time analyzing why it's the same cylinder.
You know, there could be a hundred reasons they could
(12:17):
have just done something wrong. Did they only fix that cylinder?
Did they do a complete head resurface? Is it? Is it?
You know, how did the failure occur? In? Just what
sort of failure was it?
Speaker 5 (12:26):
You? Yeah, they did a complete head resurface? Okay, I
did I did see a borscope picture of the whatever
cylinder was it, and tell me on the second time,
the one that's in the shop for right now, I'm
picking it up Monday actually, and that that thing was
so covered with carbon, baked on carbon and chunks. Unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Okay, So is the second one like that as well?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
You know, I kind of find that hard to believe.
I'm not saying I'm not saying anybody's lying, but anybody
can print the picture I would if the vehicle was
running that rich. Let's let's think of it like this.
If the vehicle was running that rich, that out of
fuel compliance, logically, it should have set a fault code,
and you'd be telling me. You'd be telling me I
(13:14):
had to check engine light on, all right.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Yeah. In both instances, the check engine light came on
for like I would say, a misfire, a misfire code
for a few minutes, and then the check engine light
went out, and then the vehicle went into what somebody
calls the limp mode. Right, yeah, I mean it got
me this way, It got me home, right, it.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Limped you home. So you know, think of it like this.
You go to the doctor for a regular physical, you
do that, right, bill, and they do your they do
your your your blood work and so forth. You know,
every once in a while, your cholesterols up, your cholesterols down.
There's always a reason, right, It just it just doesn't
happen by magic for that to have heavy carbon deposits
(14:00):
again on that cylinder. Are they trying to say that
the valve job was the condition but not the cause.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Well, that's what I'm wondering because I've done extensive research
on these engines and you know, not like the old
things were used, so they don't see much fuel right
to clean it out, right, So I'm wondering if there's
a fix for that that I could do periodically that
would help.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Well, So is this the result of because this is
a GDI engine, correct, this is guess or direct injection? Right,
so you know, part of the problem here is that
there's no fuel sprying on the valve to wash the valve.
But then why is it cylinder to Again, what's particular
about cylinder two? Is there a problem in you know
(14:52):
usually what puts carbon deposits in these engines? All right?
Because here think of it like this, there's no there's
no there's no fuel being sprayed at the valve. Right, So,
so theoretically there's no carbon like material or there's no
gasoline that could be derived into carbon that could evaporate
(15:13):
into carbon going at the valve. Correct, yeah, correct, But
what else is there that could possibly be Could it
be oil? Right?
Speaker 5 (15:21):
Well, that would that would be my suspicion.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Right, that would be my suspicion. Do we have a
valve guide that's seeping oil and dropping it on the
valve that's and it's not getting washed away because there's
no fuel spraying at the valve?
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Understood?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Could we have sticky rings in cylinder number two allowing
carbon are allowing oil to wash up? There's the reversion
that goes on in a cylinder when a valve opens.
It's not exactly perfect where all the all the charge
coming in gets pushed in by virtue. Right, there's a reversion.
(15:54):
There's reversion and exhaust. There's reversion and intake where flow
goes backwards, all right, and that that'll shroud the valve.
Could you know, I would like to know what the
top of the piston looked like at the moment that
they took the cylinder head off as well.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Well, they're going to give me some pictures of that
when I pick it up on Monday or Tuesday. So
maybe I'll see if I can figure out a way
to send them to you.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Just sure you can email me. Just email them to
me Ron at cardoctorshow dot com. It's easy. We'll do that,
all right.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
And I had one other quick question. Sure is there
any point of spraying in And I won't use a
brand name. I'll just say spraying and now use a
brand name.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
What are we talking about.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Into the vacuum side of the PCV valve?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Sure? Why not? You know, why not? I'll tell you what?
How about how about some CRC. CRC makes some CRC.
Get you got a local AutoZone? Oh yeah, get that?
You know I love Aozon. You can go down there, boy,
you can look at fuel system cleaners to your heart's content.
They've got one of everything. Right, And let's go down
there and let's go find the CRC section and we
(17:01):
actually do a GDI, a gas direct injection cleaning service
at the shop where we will tie in a can
of CRC GDI cleaner and we will go direct right
into the air duck depending on the vehicle, because we're
trying to we're trying to fog the intake system, not
the injector, but the intake system, so that the cleaner
(17:24):
is carried along in the airflow and delivered to the
back of the valves.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
Yeah, and that's not going to affect the fuel control
because I know they change those at one time and
you can mock them up.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Said spray right, right, And it's not necessarily a spray,
it's usually a kit. CRC makes a formula that is
turbo safe, and make sure that's the kit you're using.
That's the only concern I have is some of the
other aftermarket kits will do damage to turbochargers. So you've
got to be sure that whatever kit you're using, CRC
obviously it's turbocharger safe. But by all means, it's an
(17:57):
intake fogging and that's just part of GDI vehicle maintenance
and that's what we do on a regular basis. So
do that, get down to your local lotozone bill and
that'll work for you. If you have any other questions,
by all means, you know, get back to me and
send me a picture of those valves and the pistons.
But I would ask them how they considered all those
possibilities that we talked about. Because two and two is
(18:17):
making three there, it doesn't add up to me. I'm
running Amy and the Car Doctor. I'll be back right
after this. Welcome back r The Car Doctor here at
(18:50):
eight five five five six zero nine nine zero zero.
By the way, get out the Card doctorshow dot com
find all our latest podcasts. This radio show becomes a
podcast afterwards. And we're also putting up in case you
didn't know, Classic Car Doctor. We found we've dug deep
into the vault and we're putting up older shows, shows
that are anywhere from ten to twelve years old, little
bits and pits and bits and pieces and segments that
(19:11):
you may find interesting. It's a you know, old technology,
a lot of different conversation and you know, just just
Classic Card Doctor. It's it's interesting. So you can find
that there as well. Let's get out over and talk
to Let's go to Rich in Georgia ninety four Honda
Civic and oldie but a goodie. We're talking about oldies here.
So what's going on here? Rich? How's this car? It's old,
(19:33):
it's not starting and I think it's a fuel problem.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Okay, I don't know if it's actually.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
The fuel pump or the every place to relay that
activates the fuel pump.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
And oh the rain.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
So let me so when you say it's a no start,
is this it cranks but it doesn't start exactly all right,
So this is a crank no start condition when it
goes into this rank no start condition. Let's go the
other way. Have you checked it for spark?
Speaker 5 (20:05):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I have, and it has spark, right, all right? So,
and you're sure the relay that you've replaced or that
you're working on is the PGM I relay down to
the left of the steering column. Yeah, you identified it
by wire color. If if you if the vehicle goes
into a if the vehicle is starting, if you unplug
(20:26):
that relay, it goes into a no start condition.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
I haven't done plugged it.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I haven't tested it like that.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Okay, repect the relay.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Part.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
All right. How do you know it's the right relay
since there's so many of them down.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
There by the part number?
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Okay? All right? Just asking so you know, just asking,
do you have any propane?
Speaker 5 (20:52):
No? No, not right now?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
No, No, I'm just saying could you feed it an
alternate fuel source? Hmm right, well the vehicle run on
an alternate fuel source just to see it start. All right.
Then the other question I've got is have you tested
for voltage at at Do this take a vault meter?
You own a vault meter, right, yeah, yeah, check check check.
(21:15):
Check for power at either the injectors or the idle
air control valve. The injectors in the idle air control valve,
if you look at a wiring diagram, gets powered up
by the PGM I relay, all right. If you show
low voltage, go to the PGM I relay. Do you
have low voltage there? If you have low voltage going
into the relay, all right, So instead of just replacing it,
(21:38):
let's test. Let's see how the circuit works. If we've
got low voltage going into the relay, we could have
a we could have a bad or corroded ignition switch.
So it will it will duplicate a bad relay, but
it won't be It'll be the voltage is actually low.
All right, right, and let's start there. I mean, and
(22:00):
if it's not that you know the other side of
this is, well, you've changed the relay with a Honda part.
Although new doesn't mean good I could put you through
the drill of you could unplug the relay out of
the way it's connected, not the electrical connector, but how
it's tucked up under the dash. We used to let
them hang down, hit them with a heat gun and
(22:20):
it would actually cause the car to shut off. And
I guess it's possible even with a new part. New
means never ever worked in my world. All right, But
you know, before we go that far and go all
the way around and say, hey, we got a bad
new part, why don't we actually check and see if
we've got voltage? Do we have signal into the relay,
Do we hear the relay, feel the relay click under
normal conditions? And then do we have good voltage there?
(22:40):
And then when it doesn't start, what does that voltage become?
Is it the same or is it different? If it's low,
I would suspect whatever's feeding it in the first step
before the relay that's feeding it is the ignition switch itself.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Cognition switch.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Okay, all right, now, please don't go out and just
change the ignition switch. You got to check voltage, all right.
I know it's tempting. So otherwise the cycle continues and
we end up in the wrong place. All right, kiddo,
all right, thank you, you're very welcome. You need more,
you know where to find me.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Great, thank you, you're very welcome.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Be well. Yeah, it's it's it's a diagnostic step, right,
it's a diagnostic routine. The PGM, the PGMFI relay is
very common back in the day. You know. Sometimes it
was also the spread of the terminals. Sometimes the connectors
were corroded. But if we're gonna if we're gonna guess,
we gotta stop guessing. We got to start testing. And
(23:33):
that's just very very important. You know, that just makes
me nervous. So you know, you got to know. We
had a twenty sixteen Camaross in the shop this week.
I'll tell you this story real quick. And I tell
you this story because it's about maintenance, all right. It's
about I don't care how old or new something is.
It's still a machine. It still needs basic care. We
(23:54):
had a twenty sixteen Camaross that came in for four tires, which,
by the way, is no cheap proper position either. Their
they're run flats, their thirty five series tires. They are
very heavy and very very stiff sidewall. You know. Of course,
our new Hunter tire machine handled it, gobbled it up
like it was nothing. And in any event, we noticed
(24:17):
that while driving going around corners, the rear end start
at the hop and bounce thirty nine mile twenty sixteen Camaross. Now,
logic would say that, gee, it's you know, the fluid
and the rear differential is worn out. Of course, General
Motors says that the fluid doesn't need changing until sixty
thousand miles. So you know, how could that be? Well,
we pulled out a small sample of rear dift fluid
(24:40):
and sure enough it was just beat up and black
and ugly. And we did a thorough change of rear
dift fluid, added the pose additive that GM calls for,
and the problem solved. And the reason I tell you
this is not to just bore you with something about, hey,
we changed gurial oil and we fixed the problem. But
I think the real answer is that the rear end
(25:03):
of a twenty sixteen Camaross takes a little over a
quart of fluid one court a court and a quarter
to be exact. That's staggering, all right, You've got a
six point one I think it is leader engine up front.
I think it's six to one or six y two
six ' two I'm sorry, six point two leader engine
putting out all kinds of horsepower and torque, and you're
(25:27):
throttling that thing going down the road, and you expect
one court of fluid to hold up over the lifetime
or at least still sixty thousand miles and not wear out.
You know, you've got to do service. You've got to
do maintenance. It's important. I mean listen, If you don't,
the rearrange you break is going to be you know,
the car, and then the wallet you break is going
(25:47):
to be your own when you have to repair the
major component. So you know, don't fall into the trap
of gee, I'm driving a new car. It never needs anything.
Driving a new car means you've just earned the right
and the responsibility to maintain should you want to do so,
to be safe and reliable out on the road. So
the owner of the Camaro was very happy we solved
this problem. He didn't even know we had a problem,
(26:10):
which he just assumed that it was the way the
vehicle was supposed to feel because he drove it so infrequently.
It's a summertime car only, and you know, he kind
of got used to it and didn't realize it had
been going on for a couple of thousand miles, which
was spread out over the course of a couple of
years because he doesn't really drive it a lot. So
just be aware, all right, there's a reason, and don't
(26:30):
be afraid to ask your mechanic. Hey, it's only got
forty thousand miles on it. Are there any fluids we
should be doing now? Because early is better than later?
In my book eight five five five six zero nine
nine zero zero, I'm run an aading of the car doctor.
I'll be cruising back right after this. Don't go away,
(26:55):
walk back running in of the car doctor. We had
a I want to tell you this story real quick.
We had a customer this week with a twenty nineteen
Toyota Rev. Four and it was in for maintenance thirty
thousand mile maintenance, Yeah, thirty five thousand something like that.
And we went through and we did our usual you know,
fuel system cleaning and wiper blades and you know, change
the oil rotator of the tires. The vehicle is you know,
(27:18):
now going on five going on six years old. They
got it early. They got it late twenty eighteen, so
it's getting older, and he had asked about a battery.
He wanted a fresh battery in it because the vehicle,
you know, because of age, and they're getting ready to
go take some trips this summer. They're going to travel
out west, and they didn't want to, you know, take
a chance of getting stuck on the road somewhere, so
I had to put a battery in it. You know,
it's not easy even looking up a battery anymore because
(27:41):
there's so many specific questions that have to be asked,
and all the electronic catalogs don't they don't seem to
be correct, I gotta tell you. And of late, you know,
we've been using Auto Batteries dot com as our reference
resource strictly for battery applications. I mean, we've used it
in the past, we've been using it in the ass
for a long long time for other information. But they
(28:03):
they're making it easy because they ask a couple of simple,
basic questions. Do you have start stop technology, which this
vehicle did, although you wouldn't know it to look at it.
You wouldn't know unless you operated this vehicle. There was
no button anywhere that said hey, start stop you know
other than that. And then if you looked at the
top of the original battery, in very small letters, almost hieroglyphics,
(28:24):
it said start top technology only, so we knew that
the vehicle was a start stop. But Auto Batteries dot
Com helped us find the right battery for this vehicle.
And this is key because that AGM battery is more money.
It is they're typically fifty to seventy five dollars higher
than a conventional flooded battery. That we were able to
get source documentation from auto Batteries dot Com and give
(28:47):
it to the customer and let them see it, and
you know, okay, this is why, this is why this
battery is more money. This is what this battery does
versus a conventional flooded battery, which is important, you know
from just knowledge, right. I always tell you guys, knowledge
is power, So it's important. So again, thanks to auto
Batteries dot Com, we were able to look something up
(29:08):
correctly and educate a customer, just like we try to
educate you guys each and every week. So it's important.
Let's go in the shop. Courtesy of az Pro, AutoZone
and other folks over at azpro dot com. But we
had a twenty thirteen Hyundai Santa Fe this week that
had a loud whirring noise. That was the description on
the work order, and it was in my rack, and
(29:29):
it happened the louder it got louder the more you
drove the vehicle. It would start to whistle and whirr,
and we took the belt off. I took the belt
off because I knew it was something in the belt
area and the noise went away. You know, prior to
taking it off, I had put the mechanic stethoscope. I
listened very carefully to the individual components, and it was
(29:49):
loudest at one of the idler pulleys. There is you know,
two what I consider two idler pulleys and a belt
tension or pulley on this vehicle. So it was loudest
from this one belt idler pulley. So I looked up,
I looked at a belt idler. I went out to
AutoZone azpro dot com and I looked it up, and
you know, they said, it's this idler and this belt. Okay, great,
(30:11):
had it shipped over to us and not through the
fault of AutoZone, but because of the way the manufacturer
indexes the part, it was the wrong diameter pulley and
I kind of went round and round and we kicked
it around and we talked about it, trying to reference
the right one. And then I got an idea, and
you can do this, And this is why I tell
you this story. We got a hold of the original
(30:34):
Hyundai part I gotta I gotta blow up picture and
it's easy to you go online, Hundai Parts online, whatever,
and I found the correct part with the correct Hyundai
part number. It said, you know, it's it's this one,
not that one, even though they were pointing to what
I thought was the wrong pulley. You know, it's interesting
what you can do with part numbers at AutoZone pro,
(30:57):
I'm sorry, at azpro dot com, at the auto zone website,
and you know, I was able to reference part numbers
by doing an interchange, pulling in that part number, and
it brought me to the correct manufacturer pully part number
that I needed, even though it's not listed by application.
And I blame the manufacturer. I want to make that
clear that they don't have an indexed right and I
(31:20):
was able to order the right Pulley from azpro dot com.
They sent it over and the car got fixed. So,
like I keep telling you, sometimes it's a parts game,
and trying to find the right ones it's becomes more
difficult each and every day. So but thanks to az
pro azpro dot com, it makes our job a whole
lot easier and it can to you as well. I'm
running any in the car, doctor, I'll be back right
(31:41):
after this. Don't go away. Welcome back. Look at that.
I hit the button. We're doing good today, Tom. We
almost made it through the whole hour. I'm impressed. Although
(32:04):
there's some weird things that have been happening in studio today,
hasn't there It's been like it's almost like this is
Halloween and it's not the weirdest thing was that bowl
of pretzels you brought out? You like that bullet press.
Oh yeah, yeah, they're good. I'm telling you that's why
I brought him out, because you're here. You'll eat most
of them. I just had a few, so because when
I do that, I tend to finish the bag and
I can't do that. I'm trying to be good. I
(32:25):
want to answer an email from Kevin Kevin's a regular listener.
He's written in before and he's always got some great
questions and some great issues. I suspect Kevin's a tech.
He writes and he says, Hey, Ron, good afternoon. I've
recently changed the gear race shoo on my two thousand
and two forty one to fifty van. I went from
a stock three fifty five to a four to ten gear.
What needs to be done to correct this binometer? I
have a Solace pro, but don't think I can do
(32:47):
calibrations with it. Thanks for any input. Love the radio show.
Listen to the podcast every week and he gives me
his vent and I wrote back, and I wanted to
do it up here on air because I thought everybody
could benefit from this, because you know, changing gear rati
always is even though it's it's I don't want to
say it's a thing of the past. It's not that
common anymore, right, we don't. We don't see many people
doing that, and you know somebody does that. I want
(33:09):
to give them their their due and their their information
that they're requesting. I think that takes a priority in
my mind. And I told Kevin, I said, I don't
think his soulist Pro will do calibrations either. And it's
not because of the tool, but more because of the
vehicle and the way the vehicle is set up. The
vehicles needs. You know, in the shop, I've got a
Triton snap On Triton and I've got to snap On
Zeus Plus and you know, they're part of my arsenal,
(33:32):
but they don't allow me to do that particular reset
or calibration either. But that's because it's a two thousand
and two. That's that's the technology that's there. You know.
I suggested to him to call snap On tech support
and ask they'll be able to tell him, and you know,
just make sure he's got current level software and stuff.
That always helps. I think Kevin's answer, and if anybody
(33:53):
else is doing this, I think the answer for this
is in what Ford calls as built data. When you
flash a Ford Let's say, for example, the old engine
computer that you're trying to install software in or from
is damaged. I mean, that's why you're changing and replacing
the PCM a lot of times, right, Or it's an
accident vehicle. The vehicle was hit and the PCM was crushed,
(34:16):
so you can't extract the old data out of it,
and that's where the information such as gear ratio, transmission type,
tire size is usually stored. So you can go to
a motorcraft website via Ford and look up as built
data using your specific VN so it will tell you
you plug in your vent, it will show you the
(34:37):
software profile that Ford used to build that vehicle when
they assembled it coming off the line. And then what
happens is there will be options for certain things, just
as there were options on the Ford assembly line. If
four to ten was a stocked ear ratio, which I
believe it was, you check that box instead of three
fifty five. Now when you put it together, it will
(34:59):
not not only alter sponometer calibration, but it will also
change how the transmission shifts and reacts to that different
gear ratio as well. So using as built data is
the absolute correct way to go. I'm ronnin Ady and
the car Doctor reminding you until the next time. Good
mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless. See y
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