September 9, 2023 • 35 mins
Ron starts this episode with the story of a late model Honda that needed a cat converter, and has for a while : talks about the possible UAW strike : takes a call on an 04 LeSabre with an engine knock and also an 03 Accord with a transmission problem : takes a call on a 99 Subaru Legacy and questions on MAF quality between brands : talks about troubleshooting complicated problems.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ron Anian, is your next Volkswagen gonna have windshields in it?
Me out of beer bottles? Yeah, it's possible, saying called
bear contry. Do. Let's go around here, the Car Doctor.
A good heating system will blow. We'll put out anywhere
between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and forty
degrees abduct temperature, so that you know you know you've
(00:22):
got that much.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to the radio home of Ronananian, 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. The garage doors are open, but.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I am here to take your call at eight five
five five six, ninety nine hundred and now pee.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Running.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We had a late model Honda twenty ten Honda Cord
in the shop this week that needed a catalytic converter.
And uh, you know, it's funny when you let things go,
When you don't repair things right away, it's snowballs. They
start to accumulate. Problems just just mount up. And this
was no exception to the rule. You know, I've always
(01:13):
explained to you and also to customers that you know,
if you ride around with the check engine light on,
you run the risk of problems on an older, high
mileage vehicle accumulating and you won't know. You won't know
until you know. You won't know until you get to
the bottom of it. You won't know until you get
to the end. This particular Honda was sitting a P
zero four to thirty cat efficiency fault one hundred and
(01:33):
eighty seven thousand miles on it, and you know, that
was the only thing wrong with it or that we saw.
So I ran through diagnostics and I did my testing
and measurement and yeah, okay, the cat's not waking up.
This is the radiator side. This is the V six
three point five liter V six the catalytic converter on
(01:55):
the radiator side. Fortunately, because it's a little easier to
get to, you know, a little little convincing of the
bolts to come out because they were rusted in like
everything would expect that, you know, thirteen years old, almost
two hundred thousand miles, and it needed a cat. Well,
you know, first of all, you got to find a cat.
Han didn't have one in stock, nor did they think
(02:15):
they were going to not for quite some time, you know. Fortunately,
a trip to the local supply house we found a cat,
and I explained the difference of the customer. You know,
the aftermarket cat may not last ten years like the
original one or all the original one lasted what, yeah,
thirteen years I spent. You know, there will be there
will be a shorter life cycle of an aftermarket cat.
But there's also a huge price difference. It's half the price.
(02:37):
And we kind of had that conversation. He understood that
we couldn't find two sensors. There was an O two
and an air fuel sensor, until I stumbled upon one of
my suppliers had some ngks in and I verified the
part number on the NJK website, which was always handy,
and we put a couple of NGK sensors in this
and air fuel and an oxygen sensor, and we got
(02:58):
this car back on the road and lo and behold,
you know, or P zero four to thirty problem went away.
This cat was back to working, and both cats lit
off now and I could tell that they were operating
as design. But now I've got to get the car
to run. Monitors monitors are the self test monitors are.
It's like high school, right, what was your worth subject
in high school? Your worth subject? Maybe it was math. Well,
(03:19):
you completed every math test, but you may not have
passed every math test. The math tests that you didn't
pass would turn on the check engine light or you know,
dad's saying you're grounded or moms saying you're grounded until
you pass math. Well, in this case, it was starting
to set a P zero one thirty nine because the
CAT efficiency passed, and once the computer saw that CAT
(03:41):
efficiency was correct, it ran that monitor and passed. It
then started to look at oxygen sensor. And I've seen
this both ways and I still can't come up with
an answer, and I haven't met anybody yet that can,
because my argument is the way the car computer knows
CAT efficiency is it looks at differences in air fuel
and oxygen sensors front and back and decides about effectiveness
(04:03):
and efficiency level. I've seen cars run CAT monitors before
two monitors, and it doesn't make sense to me if
it knows the CAT is good didn't run the two
monitor first. But regardless, that's not the story here. I
just wanted to point that out that I've seen this
and know that I'm still looking for an answer. So
it ran the cat monitor. It passed, It ran the
(04:23):
two monitor, but it was still incomplete. It hadn't run
the two monitor because it saw something with the bank
one sensor too downstream sensor for the rear cat. It
didn't like that cat sensor. That two censor was slow
to respond.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Was it a difference between a new sensor and an
old sensor. Well, i've heard that argument, I've seen that story.
I think it's more the lookup table in the PCM
said that the two sensor has to respond in such
and such a manner over such and such a time.
I don't think it cares or knows one's one's new
and one's all not in twenty ten, and maybe it's
on something newer. I've seen the logic and the strategy
(05:03):
of that, and I could have that argument with you too,
if you like. But I think this is more a
case of just one sensor was getting tired. For all,
it's almost two hundred thousand miles. So I ran it
around and I could never get that car to pass.
I couldn't get it passed. It would never run the
two monitor. It didn't run the two monitor. It didn't
run the fuel system component monitor, one of the three
(05:24):
that it has to have in order to even accept
possibility for state inspection. On a hunch, because I couldn't
prove that sensor bad on a hunch, I changed it,
put a factory fresh NNGKO two sensor in it, just
like I had done to the front, and took it
out for another road test. Bang. It was kind of neat.
(05:48):
Right after so many miles and so many key cycles,
so many trips, right drive cycle is the turn of
the key and I saw the P zero one thirty
nine go away, no faults detected, and within seven minutes
of driving highway speed fifty five crews on. I always
run with the crews on when I run by monitors,
because the car can do a better job of keeping
(06:08):
a steady foot than I can. I think that vehicle
ran it so two monitor and passed. It ran the
fuel system monitor and passed, And the vehicle is ready
for state inspection. And the point is you've got to
be aware driving that car around with a check engine light.
One problem may not be lurking, you may be creating.
And it also depends on you know, how long you're
(06:29):
driving with that check engine light on this particular car.
I knew for a fact the customer wasn't in a
position to spend the money to repair it properly. This
car had a check engine light on for close to
maybe fourteen sixteen months something like that, almost a year
and a half, and they finally got caught up and
were able to do some repairs. And as he said,
you know, Ron, it's cheaper to replace this and put
(06:50):
a couple of grand in it than it is to
go out and buy another car. And that you know
right now, that surely can be said. So you know,
just be aware there is a logical sequence to cars,
and you know, you could be you could have more
after you're done with the first problem. The keys just
got to be moving forward in a positive manner. So
just just a real story from the Bay this week.
The UAW. Has anybody got any updates on the UAW strike.
(07:12):
There's a UAW strike in the news pending. I don't
think I got settled. They didn't read anything about it
that they're talking that there's going to be you know,
the Big three are talking about going out on strike
and if they do, there's going to be a shortage
of car. It's great, just what we need harder to
get something that's already hard to get. So just be
aware if you're thinking of buying a car, now may
be the moment. Now may be the time to do that,
(07:34):
because things might get ugly in the next couple of
weeks or uglier if that's possible. So let's go over
to the phones. Let's go to Joe in Pennsylvania with
an O fort Buick and an engine. Knock, Joe, this
buick may be maybe becoming more valuable by the minutes,
or how can I help?
Speaker 4 (07:49):
I don't know, But anyway, did you ever hear of
the oil fielder problem like a fram causing that it
clogs up and it's only got No. Ninety one thousand
on it. I have these fram oil filters and here
I put on after a few hundred miles in just
started knocking. Well, I changed oil, then put slightly thicker
(08:12):
oil in it with that Lucas stabilizer, and now it's
much much quieter. But it sounded like a knock from
the bottom of the engine. The usually these engines last
quarter million miles. I can't believe it.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, I you know, I have not heard any problems
with FRAM. I will ask you know where you're getting
your FRAM filters from. Is it from a reputable source
or you're buying them online?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
I'm not sure where I got them from. Well, maybe
a flame market or somewhere.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you know understand, okay, that counterfeit auto parts is
such a huge business right now, that there are guys
out there reproducing everything I will not buy. You know,
as tempting as it is, you know, I will not
buy certain things online or flea markets or garage say
I generally don't go to them anyway. But you know,
(09:02):
my concern is anybody can make any filter look like
a FRAM or a Delco or a Wix or a
so on. Think of it like this. If if FRAM
was having a problem with filters on that engine, why
is it just that one engine? It wouldn't be applicable
to other engines as well.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
And garages around here say that they're no good and
online they don't have anything good to say about it.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I haven't heard anything. I've I I don't currently use FRAM.
I know of garages around me that do use FRAM
and they haven't had an issue as a matter of fact,
fram is the preferred oil filter of most of the
engine builders, the performance guys that I'm acquainted with. Now,
maybe that's a better grade of frame or a different
different brand of frame. If you put a different brand
(09:51):
of oil filter on, you know, does the engine operate properly?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Well? Anyway I put that looks heavy duty stabilize it,
which is like STP. I guess right, No, it quiets
it down a lot. I just obviously something happened with
the engine there.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Well, keep in mind that if that filter, if that
filter was restricted, and it was a good quality filter
and a correct frame, not a counterfeit piece, it should
go into bypass and just not filter and not oil
star of the engine. And if it did oil starts
the engine, you would have automatically gotten an oil light
or a pressure warning. Provided all the dash.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
GEDs pressure said one hundred and thirty pounds.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Keep in mind oil pressure is determined by bearing clearance,
not necessarily by filter or oil viscosity. It has some
bearing on it, no pun intended, but not as much
as you might think. So the only way you're going
to prove it is go out to an autopart store
of name brand and buy a name brand by a
real frame filter, or what we'll call a real frame filter,
screw it on the car and see if the problem reoccurs.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
I'll try a nap of gold or something like that.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Yeah, Like I said, should I use like ten W
forty or something like that?
Speaker 1 (11:07):
No, I would use it.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
I would.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I would use whatever spec calls for. Wasn't that a
ten thirty motor back in the day?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (11:13):
I don't know if it says five thirty.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Or whatever, But right, what does it saying? What is it?
What does it say in the oil fill cap?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I don't have a taggling anymore?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Oh okay, then i'd look in the owner's manually. You
have an owner's manual for it.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, I'd look at the owner's manual. I follow that
they were either five thirty or ten thirty oil. You know,
Viscosity's okay? What is it hiding? I mean, listen, if
putting ten forty in it quiets it down and you
get longer life out of it. I mean we're talking
about something almost twenty years old. Have you owned it
since new? Did you pick it up as a used vehicle?
Speaker 4 (11:49):
I bought some elderly lady here right western.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So the you know, the problem kind of becomes you
don't know the real service history of it, and you
don't know what was actually done, so you're kind of
coming in late to the game. So now the rule
is do whatever you have to do to keep it
running for as long as you want to keep it.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Anyway, I got that STP or that Lucas very thick stabilizer,
and now I hate to leave that in there on
a zero mourning.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Well, yeah, it's gonna get cold out there. Were you
alt tuna.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
No between Pittsburgh and Morgantown, West Virginia.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Okay, all right, yeah you're a little south. All right,
Well we're glad to have.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Well, I'll just keep putting better fields and like the
nap a gold or something like that. I don't know
what else to do.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Right, do you have a Do you have a local AutoZone?
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Once you get out the AutoZone, they've got a wide
array of filters and a wide assortment, and they might
have what you want as well, and they'll also be
able to help you with oil selection. You know, I
think what you're going to run into is you could
be running into a restricted oil screen in the pickup
of the pan. All right, they did sledge up the filters.
What does the inside of the valve cover look like?
Is it? Is it brown and cruddy?
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Oh it's perfect, It looks perfect.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Okay, just being sure. So but you know you may
want to find you may want to find and use
some form of a crank case cleaner on the next oil.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Change save that, okay, change all right?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Good good?
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Then, like I I wonder how long this thing's going
to last?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Well, you don't know how long am I? How long
are you? Are I going to last? Right, my friend?
We hope a good long time.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
So all right, all right, kitty, change oil much quicker
than well.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Every twenty five hundred and three thousand, and see what
it looks like. If it's coming out dirty, you know
you're cleaning something up. All right.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
I just figured I had bad luck.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
No, you don't have bad luck, So just simple start
all right. You're very welcome, you're very welcome. Be well,
I'm running any of the car. Doctor, we'll be back
right after this.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Don't go away, Oh god, that's right.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
If you call and we're not live, you can leave
a message and we'll call you back to get you
on the air with Ron eight five six zero nine
nine zero zero.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Speaking of Ron there he is, Hey, let's go to
Delaware and see Dan what's going on here?
Speaker 6 (14:19):
And hey Dad, yeah, Hey, I wanted to follow up
with you, but maybe back in June. It's got a
two thousand and eight months of three with the two
point three leader in an automatic transmission and the UH.
It was a case where the you'd be driving along
any various speeds and then the transmission would drop down,
(14:42):
most commonly from fifth gear to third year. And I thought,
you know, it could be various things with it. But
the odd thing about it wasn't showing any kind of
codes right handfuls today have upgrade or had the computer
(15:03):
the tcm UH reconditioned.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Right there was there was There was a software update
for that car if I recall correctly.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
Right, so here all that and ended up what I did,
I just because I cleaned all the contacts and everything
didn't really seem to help. But I ended up changing
the safety neutral switch and that took the problem away.
It took care of it.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
It's a dream car, right well, I love that, you know,
it's yeah, it's listen. That's all part of it, you know,
and that's that's part of diagnostics. Diagnostics and sometimes telling
you what's good, and we'll tell you what's bad. And
sometimes it gets you down to that point if it's
a bad and what we used to call the neutral
or a manual lever position switch not uncommon. Yeah, you know,
in a previous show, we had a caller Bill for
(15:49):
Maine with a ninety three f two fifty and a
diesel forward pickup and he's got, you know, trans problems
going on, and that was one of the last things
I explained to him that, you know, position if it
doesn't know on a modern transmission with electronic controls, if
it's not sure what gear it's in and it doesn't know,
you know, the only way it knows is it looks
at the MLP, the manual lever position switch or sensor,
(16:12):
which is somewhere you know what we used to call
a range sensor or a range switch. You know, it
says it's in drive. It expects to see drive, and
it knows input chef speed, what output chef speed should be.
It knows what engine RPM should be. It's all there
in its lookup table, and when it doesn't see that,
it loses its mind, then it does exactly what you
were going through. So sure, that's always a possibility. That's
(16:33):
always a possibility. I'm glad it's solved.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
Yeah, thanks, But I have a question for you in
regards to another transmission. I've got a it's a two
thousand and three hundred chord with the V six and
automatic right, and really it's about two hundred and forty
five thousand miles on it, right, and it just some
of the shifting with seemed odd, so I figured we'll
(16:57):
just changed some of the SOLINOI on it and on
the top, on the top of the transmission, I guess
there's a dual dull selenoid there, right. I swapped that,
swapped that one out, and when I went to drive
the car, it didn't like that. You couldn't find the
(17:18):
proper gear, so I took it off. Put you cleaned
it up. But I noticed in the reservoir there's two
reservoirs there, that's what I call them. I guess one
was empty.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
What what?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
What?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
What reservoirs?
Speaker 6 (17:33):
Dan? Well, and maybe not the reservoirs where it's where
the the selenoid is with the you know, I know
what the hants. They seem to be all external, but
it literally sits right on top. It's like underneath the battery.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
I'll tell you what, SI, let me pull over and
take this pause. We'll continue this when we come back,
because you know, sometimes there's re learns involved, and then
where did the solenoids come from? And then if you
put the old solenoid back in. But I'll tell you what.
Let's sit tight, let me pull over, take this pause.
We'll return right after this. I'm running Ady in the car. Doctor,
don't go anywhere.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
Ron's into own the Auto Zone Studio and he'll be
back right after this.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Welcome back to the Auto Zone Studio. Here's Ron. Let's
get back to Dan in Delaware. Dan, you're still there, sir. Yeah,
So you changed what components? Because understand there's there's pressure
control solenoids and then there's shift control solnoids. Shift control solenoids.
I believe you're on the inside of the trends and
(18:59):
the pressure control on top. They're all they're all common
to ground one fifty one on top of the case.
But what did you change? So?
Speaker 6 (19:10):
Yeah, well, if this thing came as a kid, And
I'll tell you at the background, when I did, I
had a different Honda. I had a four Honda pilot
where it was it was showing some codes, but the
transmission and I I swapped out the pressure switches and
like the linear linear or dull linear solenoids, okay, and
(19:32):
it took care of it, took care of the problem.
So with this accord, I was starting to have some
just odd shifts where again it wasn't showing any kind
of codes. So I thought, well, with the knowledge on it,
I'll just I'll just swap out those parts and take
take a chance on it. Because there's some other issues
with the Honda so based or the accord. So it's
basically like a last ditch effort to get some more
(19:54):
knowledge out of the car.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Right.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
But so in miss I made as I look back,
I did all the parts at once instead of maybe
just checking in, you know, individually. So after I put
all like the ab pressure switch in, and then like
I said, there's a like a solenoid on that sits
on the front of the transmission housing, and then there's
(20:19):
one on the top, and there's a few others but
I didn't change those when I took it out first.
Then I can't remember exact scenario, but it it almost
it couldn't find the right gear, but it that way,
and then it did. I did start to notice it
was definitely a transmission fluid starting to burn or something
(20:41):
was burning. I could get that burnt smell.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
So let's let's cut to the chase. If if yeah,
if you put everything back to the way it was,
does the trans shift normal?
Speaker 6 (20:54):
No? But the problem is when I took that top
so annoyed off. There's like two reservoirs. I guess where
the fluid it passes from one chamber to the other
more like chambers. The one chamber was empty. It wasn't
like which I know that's not supposed to be that way,
So put the old parts back on. I damaged the
one part, uh the solenoid when I was taking it out.
(21:15):
It dropped to a crack, so I couldn't replace that one.
But right now, what happened is when I go from
you can't find first gear. It's like it starts in
second or third year. So I didn't know. Could I
have damaged sure when I had that burning smell? Well, no,
let me back.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Let's let me cut to the chase. You know, first
of all Honda parts or aftermarket parts.
Speaker 6 (21:42):
Oh yeah, definitely after market. Like I said, it's.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Okay from Amazon, from a parts house. Where'd you get them?
Speaker 6 (21:48):
Amazon?
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (21:48):
Amazon?
Speaker 1 (21:50):
So you know we're taking and and we're sure of
the look up of the application that they're correct for
the vehicle.
Speaker 6 (21:57):
Yes, yeah, that that's good. They you know, I do
the self click test. I can with my scan toal
I can activate the soellnoid so I can hear it
clicking right. But I'm just wondering if it's maybe the
pressure switched themselves with that.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
You know, Dan, it's hard from my seat here, you've
changed so much, you've changed so much with you know,
everything's unknown here. I've got I've got, you know, lack
of better way to put it, Chinese parts from Amazon
that are an unknown source of quality, and we've changed
it sounds like you've changed the three up top and
the two in the front. You know, you know, were
(22:36):
they installed properly, were they right to begin with, or
they're in the right place, because if memory serves me correct,
there are differences between them. You know, I think you think,
I think you've got to retrace your steps the best
way you can, and you might have to bite the
bullet and go to Honda and replace the parts that
you might have dropped and put real Honda parts on
and start there, or take another shot at something from
(22:57):
a better quality from a parts house, just to just
to try that. What I would what I would specifically
do is I would get a wiring diagram and look
at wire color and if they said red wire goes
to solenoid A and blue wire goes to solnoid B
and so on, that you've got solnoid A with the
red wire and solenoid B with the blue wire, and
(23:17):
you know, line things up that way and at least
that'll give you a fighting chance, you know, not not
the poop, not the poop poo this. But it's just
I'm not sure where we're coming from here, because you know,
we got a mess. Yeah you kind of yeah, you're
you're you kind of made a mess out of this. Yeah,
(23:38):
so now you know, well, right, you know, now I
can and I don't know if you I don't know
if you heard it. I don't know if you've got
a right solnod in the right hole, and if you
heard it with a poor quality part or incorrectly installed part,
or I'm not sure what you did here. Bottom line,
it worked better than this before you replace the parts right.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Unfortunately, Yes, it so.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Look, I'm not gonna look, I'm not going to beat
you up. I applaud your effort, all right. You know what,
we all started out as young mechanics. We all made
our fair share of mistakes, including yours. Truly, you lick
your wounds. You'll learn from the mistake. You try and
back up and get to a good spot and then
go forward. And if not, then there's other cars to
work on.
Speaker 6 (24:19):
Yeah, well, I tell you what you know. Kind of
like you began your show about the cars and repair ability,
I'm at the stage in life where I've had some
nice cars, but now it's just kind of like my
side project to find, you know, maybe find a car
for like around one thousand dollars and just tinker with
it what I can do to it. Sure, Yeah, that's
basically where I'm at. I've got I've got six cars,
(24:39):
and one of them is good, one of them is nice.
That's nice. That's my wife's car. But the rest of mine,
I'm just I'm just tinkering along and maybe.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
You should buy a process. Maybe you should buy all
six the same and then you got parts you can
swap from one another, might make it easier.
Speaker 6 (24:52):
I thought that, what you know, I'm keep in my
eye for that too.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Dan, I gotta go, brother, all right, good luck to
if you get it, If you get it solved, give
us a call, let us know how you make out.
All right, You're very welcome. Bye bye. Yeah, it's tough spot.
Where do you go? You know, that's why it's so important.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
One of the things I encourage you to do, all
of you. If you're going, if you're gonna work on
your own stuff, you know, source of parts.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
We talked about it this hour with the gentleman with
the fram filter. And I've always said to you know,
it's it's quality of parts, and know what you're buying
and where you're getting it from. Remember this, and I
use it all the time. You've got a digital recorder
in your pocket all the time. It's called a cell phone.
Take a picture of whatever you're taking apart, take a picture,
store it. It goes up to the cloud. It goes
up to your Google Accounty, your right phone account, or wherever
(25:38):
it's going. And then, gee, where did that red wire go?
How did this look? It's always there. I took apart
the blend door. I'm sorry, the recirculator door motor actuator
on my seventy two money Carlo a month and a
half ago, because well, I had to paint it, and
I had to restore it. The car. I'm not restoring.
I had to take it apart, paint it, restore it,
played it, et cetera. I just put it together the
(25:59):
other day. Gee, did this lever go this way or
that way? I took out my cell phone. Oh, okay,
there it is, boom put it together. It took me
three minutes. Use your phone, all right. It's it's a
great device to record memories and history and also take
pictures of car parts. Where they went, and what color
wire went where? And what did it look like when
you first took it apart? Something to remember A five five,
five six zero nine nine zero zero. I'll be back
(26:20):
right after this. Don't go away, I'll know you got there.
Welcome back, Ron Nano, the car Doctor. Let's get over
to Terry and Tennessee ninety nine Subaru Legacy Terry, Welcome
(26:42):
to the car doctor. How can I help?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yes, Hi, yes, sir, I can't. I can't hear you
very good? Well, yeah, how's that? I had trouble with
a mass airflow sensor, okay, and I took it to
a good foreign car shop here and he sounds a problem.
Tell me what was wrong? And it turned out I
put in it one of these about every year, a
(27:06):
mass airfo censor. And then later on I got caught
in northern Missouri and he said, well, I can't get
you after market parts. You're gonna have to pay the
money for a new part from the factory Texas. I
think he said, okay, and that worked a lot better.
(27:26):
The greatest thaying ever happened to me.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Uh yeah, what's your question to make why?
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Well, my question is be careful. It's not a question
be careful of after market parts.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Well, yeah, there's a That's why. If you notice anytime
I talk about aftermarket parts versus OE stuff, I'm selective.
I'm also selective of where I send you. You know,
I want you to go someplace. You know, you walk
into a good part supply house, they'll tell you what
works and what doesn't work. That is, if they're being honest.
And one of the fortunes I've had in my career,
(27:59):
in my life, both radio and mechanical, is I always
seem to find the right guys. You know, they'll tell
you what works and what doesn't. You know, we see
it a lot. It's it's bad enough and hard enough
to try and fix cars. It's worse when you have
to diagnose against the bad part that the aftermarkets applied,
and you know, you've got to prove that part that
(28:20):
you sold is good or bad, and it doesn't solve
the customer's problem, and then you got to go back
and rediagnose the whole problem all over again. It hurts
the customer, it hurts your image, it hurts your business,
it hurts the bottom line. It's it's terrible. But now
I want to go back and comment about one thing,
you know, repetitive mass airflow sensor replacement. When I hear that,
(28:42):
I just, you know, I always think about environment, Terry.
I think about environment where the vehicle stored. I think
about spiders, spider webs, goofy things, critters and cars. But
I also you know, mass airflow sensor life contamination and
longevity is also affected by a predicated by quality of
(29:07):
air filter. Got to have a good air filter and
it's got to fit correctly.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Now, yes, I asked a gentleman, Yeah, blow it out
and check it over again.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Well, you know, never blow out. My opinion, my experience,
we never blow out an air filter. I will bang
it out gently in the side of the of the
trash can. But if we run air across an air filter.
In theory, when I took when we were having a
mass airflow class, and I've been to a few in
my career, i haven't been to one in a while,
but the conversation always came down to the air coming
(29:40):
into a mass airflow sensor has to be clean and
smooth and direct, and a poor quality air filter or
an upset air filter, I remember the term. An upset
air filter would would funnel the air in an awkward
position and direction. It would create turbulence, and that can
skew me airflow sensor readings, and that can create problems
(30:04):
unto itself. One quick tip if you ever get your
hands on a scan tool, for anybody out there that
has their hands on a scan tool, take a look
at your mass airflow sensor reading. Look at it at
idle if that subrew, your subrew should have a two
point five liter engine at idle. Yeah, right at idle,
(30:24):
you will see somewhere between two and three grams of
airflow across that sensor at idle, and every car will
be able to show you that reading under OBD two.
You don't even have to go into your make model software,
so you know if you see if you see two
point four, two point five, hey, it's right on the money.
If you see it under under you know under two oh,
(30:45):
if you see one point eight, that sensors under reporting
and could be a slightly uh could it will be
slightly altering fuel trim. So the general rule of thumb is,
you know, within within five percent of the leader displacement
of the engine. So a five point oh, you'll see
five plus or minus five to eight percent of two
point five you'll see two point five grams at idle.
(31:06):
It doesn't work going up. Going up, you have to
do either a volumetric efficiency or a calculated load test
to see if the engine is breathing properly. But I'm
with your brother, nothing like good quality parts wherever you're
getting them, just to be sure it helps.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Keep the I should tell the gentleman here. I like
the guy that runs this foreign car shop. I should
tell him I had trouble. He's after market cart.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
You should hey, listen, you should now in all, in
all fairness to him, he doesn't know until somebody gets
back to him and says, hey, we got a problem,
and then it's up to him to do something about it.
You know. Like Papa said to Mama one day when
I was sent at the kitchen table when I was
a wee little bit of a kid, he said, I'm
going back to take care of take care of the
carpeting I laid five years ago, because it's not right.
(31:51):
And you only get one chance to annoy a customer
and make them an old customer. And I was eleven
at the time. Do the math. That was a while ago.
I appreciate the call, Terry. You'd be well and look
in your endeavors. I'm running any in the car, doctor.
I'll be back right after this. Don't go away, welcome back.
(32:21):
Albert Einstein always talked about research, and he always talked
about how you have to research and research and research
some more. And there was a line in there that
he used something to the extent of You know, research
is important in any diagnosis because you're trying to solve problems.
And as he always said, if you think you've got problems,
my problems in mathematics are much greater. Was it was
(32:41):
a quote something to that effect, And I've never forgotten
that because I always remember that when I'm in a dogfight,
because yeah, I get in dogfights with cars. It happens.
I don't walk up to a car, touch it magically, poof,
the problem goes away. There's there's usually a layered consequence
or issue. I think the number is the seventy five
percent tile. I think seventy five percent cent of the
cars out there today are solved with, hey, you know
(33:03):
the check engine light came on. It says it's it's
this circuit. It's a code, it's a sensor, it's a component.
Easy repair. The remaining twenty five percent, about fifteen to
twenty percent of those cars, they take some head scratching.
That's when you bring out the lab scope. That's when
you bring out the big guns. That's when it's a
repetitive and a layered issue. And the last five percent,
(33:25):
those are the ones that never get fixed. It might
be the customer doesn't want to spend the money. It
might be impractical, it might be impossible. Maybe parts aren't available.
Maybe there's just so much rust and corrosion to take
a component of part that you can't justify where you're
going or how you're going to get there. I've got
a twenty sixteen suburban in the shop right now, and
i'm solving a P zero fifty D two hundred thousand
(33:47):
mile truck. You might have heard me talk about this previously,
and it's got a cold start misfire, number seven cylinder,
likely a bad injector. GM's got some problems with injectors.
If you've got you know, a five to three this
vintage the last seven or eight years, nine years, they've
up the mileage. There's a couple of bulletins out there
extended warranted ten years, one hundred and fifty thousand miles.
(34:08):
But I don't know that. I've never seen this vehicle.
I've got to go through the steps, so I'm looking
at it. It's got a hard missfire on seven cold
I pull the plug. It's the original plug for the car,
all right. And the reason I know that is because
the other plugs are Dentsos. That one's still in ac
Delco all right, so I have to put plugs in it,
(34:29):
make sure they're all the same as it was. The
dnsos were different than the Delko. The length the electrode
went into the combustion chamber was. It was different.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
It was wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
I still don't think that DNSO plug was right for
the vehicle, and I found multiple little problems along the way.
Everything I do makes it better. Nothing has fixed it yet.
But that's diagnosis, step by step. But I'm recording my
steps as I go, and that's what I want you
to do as you go to till next week. I'm
running Indie in the car doctor, reminding you good mechanics
(34:58):
aren't expensive.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Isceless.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
See ya
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Sh
Ron Anian, is your next Volkswagen gonna have windshields in it?
Me out of beer bottles? Yeah, it's possible, saying called
bear contry. Do. Let's go around here, the Car Doctor.
A good heating system will blow. We'll put out anywhere
between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and forty
degrees abduct temperature, so that you know you know you've
(00:22):
got that much.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to the radio home of Ronananian, 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. The garage doors are open, but.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I am here to take your call at eight five
five five six, ninety nine hundred and now pee.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Running.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We had a late model Honda twenty ten Honda Cord
in the shop this week that needed a catalytic converter.
And uh, you know, it's funny when you let things go,
When you don't repair things right away, it's snowballs. They
start to accumulate. Problems just just mount up. And this
was no exception to the rule. You know, I've always
(01:13):
explained to you and also to customers that you know,
if you ride around with the check engine light on,
you run the risk of problems on an older, high
mileage vehicle accumulating and you won't know. You won't know
until you know. You won't know until you get to
the bottom of it. You won't know until you get
to the end. This particular Honda was sitting a P
zero four to thirty cat efficiency fault one hundred and
(01:33):
eighty seven thousand miles on it, and you know, that
was the only thing wrong with it or that we saw.
So I ran through diagnostics and I did my testing
and measurement and yeah, okay, the cat's not waking up.
This is the radiator side. This is the V six
three point five liter V six the catalytic converter on
(01:55):
the radiator side. Fortunately, because it's a little easier to
get to, you know, a little little convincing of the
bolts to come out because they were rusted in like
everything would expect that, you know, thirteen years old, almost
two hundred thousand miles, and it needed a cat. Well,
you know, first of all, you got to find a cat.
Han didn't have one in stock, nor did they think
(02:15):
they were going to not for quite some time, you know. Fortunately,
a trip to the local supply house we found a cat,
and I explained the difference of the customer. You know,
the aftermarket cat may not last ten years like the
original one or all the original one lasted what, yeah,
thirteen years I spent. You know, there will be there
will be a shorter life cycle of an aftermarket cat.
But there's also a huge price difference. It's half the price.
(02:37):
And we kind of had that conversation. He understood that
we couldn't find two sensors. There was an O two
and an air fuel sensor, until I stumbled upon one of
my suppliers had some ngks in and I verified the
part number on the NJK website, which was always handy,
and we put a couple of NGK sensors in this
and air fuel and an oxygen sensor, and we got
(02:58):
this car back on the road and lo and behold,
you know, or P zero four to thirty problem went away.
This cat was back to working, and both cats lit
off now and I could tell that they were operating
as design. But now I've got to get the car
to run. Monitors monitors are the self test monitors are.
It's like high school, right, what was your worth subject
in high school? Your worth subject? Maybe it was math. Well,
(03:19):
you completed every math test, but you may not have
passed every math test. The math tests that you didn't
pass would turn on the check engine light or you know,
dad's saying you're grounded or moms saying you're grounded until
you pass math. Well, in this case, it was starting
to set a P zero one thirty nine because the
CAT efficiency passed, and once the computer saw that CAT
(03:41):
efficiency was correct, it ran that monitor and passed. It
then started to look at oxygen sensor. And I've seen
this both ways and I still can't come up with
an answer, and I haven't met anybody yet that can,
because my argument is the way the car computer knows
CAT efficiency is it looks at differences in air fuel
and oxygen sensors front and back and decides about effectiveness
(04:03):
and efficiency level. I've seen cars run CAT monitors before
two monitors, and it doesn't make sense to me if
it knows the CAT is good didn't run the two
monitor first. But regardless, that's not the story here. I
just wanted to point that out that I've seen this
and know that I'm still looking for an answer. So
it ran the cat monitor. It passed, It ran the
(04:23):
two monitor, but it was still incomplete. It hadn't run
the two monitor because it saw something with the bank
one sensor too downstream sensor for the rear cat. It
didn't like that cat sensor. That two censor was slow
to respond.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Was it a difference between a new sensor and an
old sensor. Well, i've heard that argument, I've seen that story.
I think it's more the lookup table in the PCM
said that the two sensor has to respond in such
and such a manner over such and such a time.
I don't think it cares or knows one's one's new
and one's all not in twenty ten, and maybe it's
on something newer. I've seen the logic and the strategy
(05:03):
of that, and I could have that argument with you too,
if you like. But I think this is more a
case of just one sensor was getting tired. For all,
it's almost two hundred thousand miles. So I ran it
around and I could never get that car to pass.
I couldn't get it passed. It would never run the
two monitor. It didn't run the two monitor. It didn't
run the fuel system component monitor, one of the three
(05:24):
that it has to have in order to even accept
possibility for state inspection. On a hunch, because I couldn't
prove that sensor bad on a hunch, I changed it,
put a factory fresh NNGKO two sensor in it, just
like I had done to the front, and took it
out for another road test. Bang. It was kind of neat.
(05:48):
Right after so many miles and so many key cycles,
so many trips, right drive cycle is the turn of
the key and I saw the P zero one thirty
nine go away, no faults detected, and within seven minutes
of driving highway speed fifty five crews on. I always
run with the crews on when I run by monitors,
because the car can do a better job of keeping
(06:08):
a steady foot than I can. I think that vehicle
ran it so two monitor and passed. It ran the
fuel system monitor and passed, And the vehicle is ready
for state inspection. And the point is you've got to
be aware driving that car around with a check engine light.
One problem may not be lurking, you may be creating.
And it also depends on you know, how long you're
(06:29):
driving with that check engine light on this particular car.
I knew for a fact the customer wasn't in a
position to spend the money to repair it properly. This
car had a check engine light on for close to
maybe fourteen sixteen months something like that, almost a year
and a half, and they finally got caught up and
were able to do some repairs. And as he said,
you know, Ron, it's cheaper to replace this and put
(06:50):
a couple of grand in it than it is to
go out and buy another car. And that you know
right now, that surely can be said. So you know,
just be aware there is a logical sequence to cars,
and you know, you could be you could have more
after you're done with the first problem. The keys just
got to be moving forward in a positive manner. So
just just a real story from the Bay this week.
The UAW. Has anybody got any updates on the UAW strike.
(07:12):
There's a UAW strike in the news pending. I don't
think I got settled. They didn't read anything about it
that they're talking that there's going to be you know,
the Big three are talking about going out on strike
and if they do, there's going to be a shortage
of car. It's great, just what we need harder to
get something that's already hard to get. So just be
aware if you're thinking of buying a car, now may
be the moment. Now may be the time to do that,
(07:34):
because things might get ugly in the next couple of
weeks or uglier if that's possible. So let's go over
to the phones. Let's go to Joe in Pennsylvania with
an O fort Buick and an engine. Knock, Joe, this
buick may be maybe becoming more valuable by the minutes,
or how can I help?
Speaker 4 (07:49):
I don't know, But anyway, did you ever hear of
the oil fielder problem like a fram causing that it
clogs up and it's only got No. Ninety one thousand
on it. I have these fram oil filters and here
I put on after a few hundred miles in just
started knocking. Well, I changed oil, then put slightly thicker
(08:12):
oil in it with that Lucas stabilizer, and now it's
much much quieter. But it sounded like a knock from
the bottom of the engine. The usually these engines last
quarter million miles. I can't believe it.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, I you know, I have not heard any problems
with FRAM. I will ask you know where you're getting
your FRAM filters from. Is it from a reputable source
or you're buying them online?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
I'm not sure where I got them from. Well, maybe
a flame market or somewhere.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you know understand, okay, that counterfeit auto parts is
such a huge business right now, that there are guys
out there reproducing everything I will not buy. You know,
as tempting as it is, you know, I will not
buy certain things online or flea markets or garage say
I generally don't go to them anyway. But you know,
(09:02):
my concern is anybody can make any filter look like
a FRAM or a Delco or a Wix or a
so on. Think of it like this. If if FRAM
was having a problem with filters on that engine, why
is it just that one engine? It wouldn't be applicable
to other engines as well.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
And garages around here say that they're no good and
online they don't have anything good to say about it.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I haven't heard anything. I've I I don't currently use FRAM.
I know of garages around me that do use FRAM
and they haven't had an issue as a matter of fact,
fram is the preferred oil filter of most of the
engine builders, the performance guys that I'm acquainted with. Now,
maybe that's a better grade of frame or a different
different brand of frame. If you put a different brand
(09:51):
of oil filter on, you know, does the engine operate properly?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Well? Anyway I put that looks heavy duty stabilize it,
which is like STP. I guess right, No, it quiets
it down a lot. I just obviously something happened with
the engine there.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Well, keep in mind that if that filter, if that
filter was restricted, and it was a good quality filter
and a correct frame, not a counterfeit piece, it should
go into bypass and just not filter and not oil
star of the engine. And if it did oil starts
the engine, you would have automatically gotten an oil light
or a pressure warning. Provided all the dash.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
GEDs pressure said one hundred and thirty pounds.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Keep in mind oil pressure is determined by bearing clearance,
not necessarily by filter or oil viscosity. It has some
bearing on it, no pun intended, but not as much
as you might think. So the only way you're going
to prove it is go out to an autopart store
of name brand and buy a name brand by a
real frame filter, or what we'll call a real frame filter,
screw it on the car and see if the problem reoccurs.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
I'll try a nap of gold or something like that.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Yeah, Like I said, should I use like ten W
forty or something like that?
Speaker 1 (11:07):
No, I would use it.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
I would.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I would use whatever spec calls for. Wasn't that a
ten thirty motor back in the day?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (11:13):
I don't know if it says five thirty.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Or whatever, But right, what does it saying? What is it?
What does it say in the oil fill cap?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I don't have a taggling anymore?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Oh okay, then i'd look in the owner's manually. You
have an owner's manual for it.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, I'd look at the owner's manual. I follow that
they were either five thirty or ten thirty oil. You know,
Viscosity's okay? What is it hiding? I mean, listen, if
putting ten forty in it quiets it down and you
get longer life out of it. I mean we're talking
about something almost twenty years old. Have you owned it
since new? Did you pick it up as a used vehicle?
Speaker 4 (11:49):
I bought some elderly lady here right western.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So the you know, the problem kind of becomes you
don't know the real service history of it, and you
don't know what was actually done, so you're kind of
coming in late to the game. So now the rule
is do whatever you have to do to keep it
running for as long as you want to keep it.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Anyway, I got that STP or that Lucas very thick stabilizer,
and now I hate to leave that in there on
a zero mourning.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Well, yeah, it's gonna get cold out there. Were you
alt tuna.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
No between Pittsburgh and Morgantown, West Virginia.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Okay, all right, yeah you're a little south. All right,
Well we're glad to have.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Well, I'll just keep putting better fields and like the
nap a gold or something like that. I don't know
what else to do.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Right, do you have a Do you have a local AutoZone?
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Once you get out the AutoZone, they've got a wide
array of filters and a wide assortment, and they might
have what you want as well, and they'll also be
able to help you with oil selection. You know, I
think what you're going to run into is you could
be running into a restricted oil screen in the pickup
of the pan. All right, they did sledge up the filters.
What does the inside of the valve cover look like?
Is it? Is it brown and cruddy?
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Oh it's perfect, It looks perfect.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Okay, just being sure. So but you know you may
want to find you may want to find and use
some form of a crank case cleaner on the next oil.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Change save that, okay, change all right?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Good good?
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Then, like I I wonder how long this thing's going
to last?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Well, you don't know how long am I? How long
are you? Are I going to last? Right, my friend?
We hope a good long time.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
So all right, all right, kitty, change oil much quicker
than well.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Every twenty five hundred and three thousand, and see what
it looks like. If it's coming out dirty, you know
you're cleaning something up. All right.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
I just figured I had bad luck.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
No, you don't have bad luck, So just simple start
all right. You're very welcome, you're very welcome. Be well,
I'm running any of the car. Doctor, we'll be back
right after this.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Don't go away, Oh god, that's right.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
If you call and we're not live, you can leave
a message and we'll call you back to get you
on the air with Ron eight five six zero nine
nine zero zero.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Speaking of Ron there he is, Hey, let's go to
Delaware and see Dan what's going on here?
Speaker 6 (14:19):
And hey Dad, yeah, Hey, I wanted to follow up
with you, but maybe back in June. It's got a
two thousand and eight months of three with the two
point three leader in an automatic transmission and the UH.
It was a case where the you'd be driving along
any various speeds and then the transmission would drop down,
(14:42):
most commonly from fifth gear to third year. And I thought,
you know, it could be various things with it. But
the odd thing about it wasn't showing any kind of
codes right handfuls today have upgrade or had the computer
(15:03):
the tcm UH reconditioned.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Right there was there was There was a software update
for that car if I recall correctly.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
Right, so here all that and ended up what I did,
I just because I cleaned all the contacts and everything
didn't really seem to help. But I ended up changing
the safety neutral switch and that took the problem away.
It took care of it.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
It's a dream car, right well, I love that, you know,
it's yeah, it's listen. That's all part of it, you know,
and that's that's part of diagnostics. Diagnostics and sometimes telling
you what's good, and we'll tell you what's bad. And
sometimes it gets you down to that point if it's
a bad and what we used to call the neutral
or a manual lever position switch not uncommon. Yeah, you know,
in a previous show, we had a caller Bill for
(15:49):
Maine with a ninety three f two fifty and a
diesel forward pickup and he's got, you know, trans problems
going on, and that was one of the last things
I explained to him that, you know, position if it
doesn't know on a modern transmission with electronic controls, if
it's not sure what gear it's in and it doesn't know,
you know, the only way it knows is it looks
at the MLP, the manual lever position switch or sensor,
(16:12):
which is somewhere you know what we used to call
a range sensor or a range switch. You know, it
says it's in drive. It expects to see drive, and
it knows input chef speed, what output chef speed should be.
It knows what engine RPM should be. It's all there
in its lookup table, and when it doesn't see that,
it loses its mind, then it does exactly what you
were going through. So sure, that's always a possibility. That's
(16:33):
always a possibility. I'm glad it's solved.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
Yeah, thanks, But I have a question for you in
regards to another transmission. I've got a it's a two
thousand and three hundred chord with the V six and
automatic right, and really it's about two hundred and forty
five thousand miles on it, right, and it just some
of the shifting with seemed odd, so I figured we'll
(16:57):
just changed some of the SOLINOI on it and on
the top, on the top of the transmission, I guess
there's a dual dull selenoid there, right. I swapped that,
swapped that one out, and when I went to drive
the car, it didn't like that. You couldn't find the
(17:18):
proper gear, so I took it off. Put you cleaned
it up. But I noticed in the reservoir there's two
reservoirs there, that's what I call them. I guess one
was empty.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
What what?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
What?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
What reservoirs?
Speaker 6 (17:33):
Dan? Well, and maybe not the reservoirs where it's where
the the selenoid is with the you know, I know
what the hants. They seem to be all external, but
it literally sits right on top. It's like underneath the battery.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
I'll tell you what, SI, let me pull over and
take this pause. We'll continue this when we come back,
because you know, sometimes there's re learns involved, and then
where did the solenoids come from? And then if you
put the old solenoid back in. But I'll tell you what.
Let's sit tight, let me pull over, take this pause.
We'll return right after this. I'm running Ady in the car. Doctor,
don't go anywhere.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
Ron's into own the Auto Zone Studio and he'll be
back right after this.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Welcome back to the Auto Zone Studio. Here's Ron. Let's
get back to Dan in Delaware. Dan, you're still there, sir. Yeah,
So you changed what components? Because understand there's there's pressure
control solenoids and then there's shift control solnoids. Shift control solenoids.
I believe you're on the inside of the trends and
(18:59):
the pressure control on top. They're all they're all common
to ground one fifty one on top of the case.
But what did you change? So?
Speaker 6 (19:10):
Yeah, well, if this thing came as a kid, And
I'll tell you at the background, when I did, I
had a different Honda. I had a four Honda pilot
where it was it was showing some codes, but the
transmission and I I swapped out the pressure switches and
like the linear linear or dull linear solenoids, okay, and
(19:32):
it took care of it, took care of the problem.
So with this accord, I was starting to have some
just odd shifts where again it wasn't showing any kind
of codes. So I thought, well, with the knowledge on it,
I'll just I'll just swap out those parts and take
take a chance on it. Because there's some other issues
with the Honda so based or the accord. So it's
basically like a last ditch effort to get some more
(19:54):
knowledge out of the car.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Right.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
But so in miss I made as I look back,
I did all the parts at once instead of maybe
just checking in, you know, individually. So after I put
all like the ab pressure switch in, and then like
I said, there's a like a solenoid on that sits
on the front of the transmission housing, and then there's
(20:19):
one on the top, and there's a few others but
I didn't change those when I took it out first.
Then I can't remember exact scenario, but it it almost
it couldn't find the right gear, but it that way,
and then it did. I did start to notice it
was definitely a transmission fluid starting to burn or something
(20:41):
was burning. I could get that burnt smell.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
So let's let's cut to the chase. If if yeah,
if you put everything back to the way it was,
does the trans shift normal?
Speaker 6 (20:54):
No? But the problem is when I took that top
so annoyed off. There's like two reservoirs. I guess where
the fluid it passes from one chamber to the other
more like chambers. The one chamber was empty. It wasn't
like which I know that's not supposed to be that way,
So put the old parts back on. I damaged the
one part, uh the solenoid when I was taking it out.
(21:15):
It dropped to a crack, so I couldn't replace that one.
But right now, what happened is when I go from
you can't find first gear. It's like it starts in
second or third year. So I didn't know. Could I
have damaged sure when I had that burning smell? Well, no,
let me back.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Let's let me cut to the chase. You know, first
of all Honda parts or aftermarket parts.
Speaker 6 (21:42):
Oh yeah, definitely after market. Like I said, it's.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Okay from Amazon, from a parts house. Where'd you get them?
Speaker 6 (21:48):
Amazon?
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (21:48):
Amazon?
Speaker 1 (21:50):
So you know we're taking and and we're sure of
the look up of the application that they're correct for
the vehicle.
Speaker 6 (21:57):
Yes, yeah, that that's good. They you know, I do
the self click test. I can with my scan toal
I can activate the soellnoid so I can hear it
clicking right. But I'm just wondering if it's maybe the
pressure switched themselves with that.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
You know, Dan, it's hard from my seat here, you've
changed so much, you've changed so much with you know,
everything's unknown here. I've got I've got, you know, lack
of better way to put it, Chinese parts from Amazon
that are an unknown source of quality, and we've changed
it sounds like you've changed the three up top and
the two in the front. You know, you know, were
(22:36):
they installed properly, were they right to begin with, or
they're in the right place, because if memory serves me correct,
there are differences between them. You know, I think you think,
I think you've got to retrace your steps the best
way you can, and you might have to bite the
bullet and go to Honda and replace the parts that
you might have dropped and put real Honda parts on
and start there, or take another shot at something from
(22:57):
a better quality from a parts house, just to just
to try that. What I would what I would specifically
do is I would get a wiring diagram and look
at wire color and if they said red wire goes
to solenoid A and blue wire goes to solnoid B
and so on, that you've got solnoid A with the
red wire and solenoid B with the blue wire, and
(23:17):
you know, line things up that way and at least
that'll give you a fighting chance, you know, not not
the poop, not the poop poo this. But it's just
I'm not sure where we're coming from here, because you know,
we got a mess. Yeah you kind of yeah, you're
you're you kind of made a mess out of this. Yeah,
(23:38):
so now you know, well, right, you know, now I
can and I don't know if you I don't know
if you heard it. I don't know if you've got
a right solnod in the right hole, and if you
heard it with a poor quality part or incorrectly installed part,
or I'm not sure what you did here. Bottom line,
it worked better than this before you replace the parts right.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Unfortunately, Yes, it so.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Look, I'm not gonna look, I'm not going to beat
you up. I applaud your effort, all right. You know what,
we all started out as young mechanics. We all made
our fair share of mistakes, including yours. Truly, you lick
your wounds. You'll learn from the mistake. You try and
back up and get to a good spot and then
go forward. And if not, then there's other cars to
work on.
Speaker 6 (24:19):
Yeah, well, I tell you what you know. Kind of
like you began your show about the cars and repair ability,
I'm at the stage in life where I've had some
nice cars, but now it's just kind of like my
side project to find, you know, maybe find a car
for like around one thousand dollars and just tinker with
it what I can do to it. Sure, Yeah, that's
basically where I'm at. I've got I've got six cars,
(24:39):
and one of them is good, one of them is nice.
That's nice. That's my wife's car. But the rest of mine,
I'm just I'm just tinkering along and maybe.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
You should buy a process. Maybe you should buy all
six the same and then you got parts you can
swap from one another, might make it easier.
Speaker 6 (24:52):
I thought that, what you know, I'm keep in my
eye for that too.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Dan, I gotta go, brother, all right, good luck to
if you get it, If you get it solved, give
us a call, let us know how you make out.
All right, You're very welcome. Bye bye. Yeah, it's tough spot.
Where do you go? You know, that's why it's so important.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
One of the things I encourage you to do, all
of you. If you're going, if you're gonna work on
your own stuff, you know, source of parts.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
We talked about it this hour with the gentleman with
the fram filter. And I've always said to you know,
it's it's quality of parts, and know what you're buying
and where you're getting it from. Remember this, and I
use it all the time. You've got a digital recorder
in your pocket all the time. It's called a cell phone.
Take a picture of whatever you're taking apart, take a picture,
store it. It goes up to the cloud. It goes
up to your Google Accounty, your right phone account, or wherever
(25:38):
it's going. And then, gee, where did that red wire go?
How did this look? It's always there. I took apart
the blend door. I'm sorry, the recirculator door motor actuator
on my seventy two money Carlo a month and a
half ago, because well, I had to paint it, and
I had to restore it. The car. I'm not restoring.
I had to take it apart, paint it, restore it,
played it, et cetera. I just put it together the
(25:59):
other day. Gee, did this lever go this way or
that way? I took out my cell phone. Oh, okay,
there it is, boom put it together. It took me
three minutes. Use your phone, all right. It's it's a
great device to record memories and history and also take
pictures of car parts. Where they went, and what color
wire went where? And what did it look like when
you first took it apart? Something to remember A five five,
five six zero nine nine zero zero. I'll be back
(26:20):
right after this. Don't go away, I'll know you got there.
Welcome back, Ron Nano, the car Doctor. Let's get over
to Terry and Tennessee ninety nine Subaru Legacy Terry, Welcome
(26:42):
to the car doctor. How can I help?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yes, Hi, yes, sir, I can't. I can't hear you
very good? Well, yeah, how's that? I had trouble with
a mass airflow sensor, okay, and I took it to
a good foreign car shop here and he sounds a problem.
Tell me what was wrong? And it turned out I
put in it one of these about every year, a
(27:06):
mass airfo censor. And then later on I got caught
in northern Missouri and he said, well, I can't get
you after market parts. You're gonna have to pay the
money for a new part from the factory Texas. I
think he said, okay, and that worked a lot better.
(27:26):
The greatest thaying ever happened to me.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Uh yeah, what's your question to make why?
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Well, my question is be careful. It's not a question
be careful of after market parts.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Well, yeah, there's a That's why. If you notice anytime
I talk about aftermarket parts versus OE stuff, I'm selective.
I'm also selective of where I send you. You know,
I want you to go someplace. You know, you walk
into a good part supply house, they'll tell you what
works and what doesn't work. That is, if they're being honest.
And one of the fortunes I've had in my career,
(27:59):
in my life, both radio and mechanical, is I always
seem to find the right guys. You know, they'll tell
you what works and what doesn't. You know, we see
it a lot. It's it's bad enough and hard enough
to try and fix cars. It's worse when you have
to diagnose against the bad part that the aftermarkets applied,
and you know, you've got to prove that part that
(28:20):
you sold is good or bad, and it doesn't solve
the customer's problem, and then you got to go back
and rediagnose the whole problem all over again. It hurts
the customer, it hurts your image, it hurts your business,
it hurts the bottom line. It's it's terrible. But now
I want to go back and comment about one thing,
you know, repetitive mass airflow sensor replacement. When I hear that,
(28:42):
I just, you know, I always think about environment, Terry.
I think about environment where the vehicle stored. I think
about spiders, spider webs, goofy things, critters and cars. But
I also you know, mass airflow sensor life contamination and
longevity is also affected by a predicated by quality of
(29:07):
air filter. Got to have a good air filter and
it's got to fit correctly.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Now, yes, I asked a gentleman, Yeah, blow it out
and check it over again.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Well, you know, never blow out. My opinion, my experience,
we never blow out an air filter. I will bang
it out gently in the side of the of the
trash can. But if we run air across an air filter.
In theory, when I took when we were having a
mass airflow class, and I've been to a few in
my career, i haven't been to one in a while,
but the conversation always came down to the air coming
(29:40):
into a mass airflow sensor has to be clean and
smooth and direct, and a poor quality air filter or
an upset air filter, I remember the term. An upset
air filter would would funnel the air in an awkward
position and direction. It would create turbulence, and that can
skew me airflow sensor readings, and that can create problems
(30:04):
unto itself. One quick tip if you ever get your
hands on a scan tool, for anybody out there that
has their hands on a scan tool, take a look
at your mass airflow sensor reading. Look at it at
idle if that subrew, your subrew should have a two
point five liter engine at idle. Yeah, right at idle,
(30:24):
you will see somewhere between two and three grams of
airflow across that sensor at idle, and every car will
be able to show you that reading under OBD two.
You don't even have to go into your make model software,
so you know if you see if you see two
point four, two point five, hey, it's right on the money.
If you see it under under you know under two oh,
(30:45):
if you see one point eight, that sensors under reporting
and could be a slightly uh could it will be
slightly altering fuel trim. So the general rule of thumb is,
you know, within within five percent of the leader displacement
of the engine. So a five point oh, you'll see
five plus or minus five to eight percent of two
point five you'll see two point five grams at idle.
(31:06):
It doesn't work going up. Going up, you have to
do either a volumetric efficiency or a calculated load test
to see if the engine is breathing properly. But I'm
with your brother, nothing like good quality parts wherever you're
getting them, just to be sure it helps.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Keep the I should tell the gentleman here. I like
the guy that runs this foreign car shop. I should
tell him I had trouble. He's after market cart.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
You should hey, listen, you should now in all, in
all fairness to him, he doesn't know until somebody gets
back to him and says, hey, we got a problem,
and then it's up to him to do something about it.
You know. Like Papa said to Mama one day when
I was sent at the kitchen table when I was
a wee little bit of a kid, he said, I'm
going back to take care of take care of the
carpeting I laid five years ago, because it's not right.
(31:51):
And you only get one chance to annoy a customer
and make them an old customer. And I was eleven
at the time. Do the math. That was a while ago.
I appreciate the call, Terry. You'd be well and look
in your endeavors. I'm running any in the car, doctor.
I'll be back right after this. Don't go away, welcome back.
(32:21):
Albert Einstein always talked about research, and he always talked
about how you have to research and research and research
some more. And there was a line in there that
he used something to the extent of You know, research
is important in any diagnosis because you're trying to solve problems.
And as he always said, if you think you've got problems,
my problems in mathematics are much greater. Was it was
(32:41):
a quote something to that effect, And I've never forgotten
that because I always remember that when I'm in a dogfight,
because yeah, I get in dogfights with cars. It happens.
I don't walk up to a car, touch it magically, poof,
the problem goes away. There's there's usually a layered consequence
or issue. I think the number is the seventy five
percent tile. I think seventy five percent cent of the
cars out there today are solved with, hey, you know
(33:03):
the check engine light came on. It says it's it's
this circuit. It's a code, it's a sensor, it's a component.
Easy repair. The remaining twenty five percent, about fifteen to
twenty percent of those cars, they take some head scratching.
That's when you bring out the lab scope. That's when
you bring out the big guns. That's when it's a
repetitive and a layered issue. And the last five percent,
(33:25):
those are the ones that never get fixed. It might
be the customer doesn't want to spend the money. It
might be impractical, it might be impossible. Maybe parts aren't available.
Maybe there's just so much rust and corrosion to take
a component of part that you can't justify where you're
going or how you're going to get there. I've got
a twenty sixteen suburban in the shop right now, and
i'm solving a P zero fifty D two hundred thousand
(33:47):
mile truck. You might have heard me talk about this previously,
and it's got a cold start misfire, number seven cylinder,
likely a bad injector. GM's got some problems with injectors.
If you've got you know, a five to three this
vintage the last seven or eight years, nine years, they've
up the mileage. There's a couple of bulletins out there
extended warranted ten years, one hundred and fifty thousand miles.
(34:08):
But I don't know that. I've never seen this vehicle.
I've got to go through the steps, so I'm looking
at it. It's got a hard missfire on seven cold
I pull the plug. It's the original plug for the car,
all right. And the reason I know that is because
the other plugs are Dentsos. That one's still in ac
Delco all right, so I have to put plugs in it,
(34:29):
make sure they're all the same as it was. The
dnsos were different than the Delko. The length the electrode
went into the combustion chamber was. It was different.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
It was wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
I still don't think that DNSO plug was right for
the vehicle, and I found multiple little problems along the way.
Everything I do makes it better. Nothing has fixed it yet.
But that's diagnosis, step by step. But I'm recording my
steps as I go, and that's what I want you
to do as you go to till next week. I'm
running Indie in the car doctor, reminding you good mechanics
(34:58):
aren't expensive.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Isceless.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
See ya
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Sh
Host
Ron Ananian
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