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Ham Equity
Apr 16, 2013

i hosted a great goon meet and all i got was this lousy avatar
Grimey Drawer
My parents are old, and own a 2011 Subaru Legacy. My mother is terrible about backing out of places, in that she says she can't see, and backs out at roughly .001 mph. Where is a reliable place to get a ballpark for how much it would cost to have an aftermarket backup camera installed?

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Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

That's a stereo shop kinda install.

And how much it costs will vary wildly based on the equipment and how nicely you want it installed and what kind of car. It can be quite literally as easy as a camera that screws onto the license plate with a single wire tapped to the reverse lights that has a cigarette lighter plug-powered screen suction cupped to the windshield.

Which is probably what you should start with, as I doubt it's going to help for someone who isn't comfortable using their mirrors.

obstipator
Nov 8, 2009

by FactsAreUseless
Is it inexpensive to customize the lock/unlock sounds of a car? I have a 2013 Elantra that I want to make customized obnoxious mp3 noises when I hit the lock/unlock button on the key remote.

Christobevii3
Jul 3, 2006

Thanatosian posted:

My parents are old, and own a 2011 Subaru Legacy. My mother is terrible about backing out of places, in that she says she can't see, and backs out at roughly .001 mph. Where is a reliable place to get a ballpark for how much it would cost to have an aftermarket backup camera installed?

The backuvu dashcam that has front and rear is $379 and you could install yourself as an option

Godholio
Aug 28, 2002

Does a bear split in the woods near Zheleznogorsk?

obstipator posted:

Is it inexpensive to customize the lock/unlock sounds of a car? I have a 2013 Elantra that I want to make customized obnoxious mp3 noises when I hit the lock/unlock button on the key remote.

Seems like something you could program an arduino for.

Mitchnasty
Apr 15, 2009
I'm picking up greasy old pickup truck on Tuesday, a 1998 Dodge Ram 2500 with a club cab and 8 foot box. It's misfiring on cylinder 8. I'm going to do a compression test right off the bat but I figured I'd pop in to see if anyone has had problems with their 360ci misfiring.

Christobevii3
Jul 3, 2006
Probably be worth doing the distributor if it hadn't been done recently

Senior Funkenstien
Apr 16, 2003
Dinosaur Gum
Can you guys recommend a cheap manual car or truck? I've never learned how to drive a manual so I want to get something to beat up on and learn

EightBit
Jan 7, 2006
I spent money on this line of text just to make the "Stupid Newbie" go away.
Try to get something that would look fun to drive. Most of those cars, if they have a manual, will have a good one that is fun to drive, not one with no clutch feel or gears that are too close together.

Christobevii3
Jul 3, 2006
You can usually buy rangers from the mid 90s for cheap.

spog
Aug 7, 2004

It's your own bloody fault.

Senior Funkenstien posted:

Can you guys recommend a cheap manual car or truck? I've never learned how to drive a manual so I want to get something to beat up on and learn

A hire car for the weekend.

Bajaha
Apr 1, 2011

BajaHAHAHA.


spog posted:

A hire car for the weekend.

Good luck finding a manual rental in North America.

StormDrain
May 22, 2003

Thirteen Letter

Senior Funkenstien posted:

Can you guys recommend a cheap manual car or truck? I've never learned how to drive a manual so I want to get something to beat up on and learn

Do you have a car use you need to fill? You can just set a Craigslist alert for all manual cars within your price range and wait until something fun comes up.

Edit: hell you might even have a co worker with a spare car to borrow for a week as long as it comes back with a case of beer in the trunk.

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 
Now that I'm 10 minutes from work by streetcar, 30 by foot, I drive my 2009 Mazda 3 maybe four times a month and it's covered in a parking garage the remainder of the time.

This isn't going to change for the foreseeable future. How does this affect my oil change interval, if at all? I don't expect to get significant use out of my car by the sticker deadline, and definitely don't expect to hit the mileage limit. Is there anything about oil that mandates a "best by" date, or is the date on the sticker just a general average for "if you drive like a normal person this is probably when the oil will have gotten lovely"?

Unless the oil turns to poo poo in a few months on its own then I am probably good to extend the change deadline a little?

I should maybe just sell it but to be honest I like having it in a pinch, and the insurance isn't really a blip on my radar so..

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Make sure that when you do drive it, you get it fully warmed up - it's amazing how much water will build up in an engine crankcase when a car is parked. I'd change the oil every six months to one year in your shoes, you don't want to go any longer than that if you can avoid it.

epic bird guy
Dec 9, 2014

Martytoof posted:

Now that I'm 10 minutes from work by streetcar, 30 by foot, I drive my 2009 Mazda 3 maybe four times a month and it's covered in a parking garage the remainder of the time.

This isn't going to change for the foreseeable future. How does this affect my oil change interval, if at all? I don't expect to get significant use out of my car by the sticker deadline, and definitely don't expect to hit the mileage limit. Is there anything about oil that mandates a "best by" date, or is the date on the sticker just a general average for "if you drive like a normal person this is probably when the oil will have gotten lovely"?

Unless the oil turns to poo poo in a few months on its own then I am probably good to extend the change deadline a little?

I should maybe just sell it but to be honest I like having it in a pinch, and the insurance isn't really a blip on my radar so..

Oil change intervals are in Xmonths or Xthousand miles. Time takes a toll on oil as well as use, breaking down detergents and lubricants present in the oil. Your car's manual should have a recommended time interval. Whether or not you are using synthetic oil is important as well.

E: Also, oil change intervals are scheduled so it is getting changed before it gets lovely.

epic bird guy fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Dec 28, 2015

Javid
Oct 21, 2004

:jpmf:
I'm looking at needing to replace control arms on my car. The wide variety of arms available on rockauto range from $18 to $80 each, is there any reason to not just get the $18 ones?

I'm also told I could just replace the bushings, which are cheaper than the arms but not staggeringly so; is it enough extra work to not be worth it over just doing the whole arm?

Fender Anarchist
May 20, 2009

Fender Anarchist

Well it really depends on whether you have a blue or red car.

Generally speaking it's not worth it to do bushings, a lot of times your ball joints are worn too so with the complete arm you get those replaced as well. It also depends on whether you're doing it yourself or having a shop do it; you can discount your own time and save on parts, but at a shop what you save on parts you'll make up for in increased labor charge.

I'm assuming this is for your 89 Cougar you mentioned earlier in the thread? If so you at least don't have to worry about towing or, probably, racing duty, so which part you get is less critical; that said, I recommend against getting the very cheapest part unless you're just fixing the car to sell, which doesn't sound like the case.

totalnewbie
Nov 13, 2005

I was born and raised in China, lived in Japan, and now hold a US passport.

I am wrong in every way, all the damn time.

Ask me about my tattoos.
I know most car batteries are made by one or two suppliers, so are there any cheap brands I should avoid? Or a cheap "safe" brand?

Javid
Oct 21, 2004

:jpmf:
Yeah, no racing or towing. Here's all the options now that I found the share button on their site:

http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/raframecatalog.php?carcode=1198627&parttype=10401

Some of those are for the rear or bottom front; I'm specifically concerned with front upper.

I've bought other Dorman aftermarket stuff; are they decent? That's the second cheapest and still reasonable.

Senior Funkenstien
Apr 16, 2003
Dinosaur Gum

StormDrain posted:

Do you have a car use you need to fill? You can just set a Craigslist alert for all manual cars within your price range and wait until something fun comes up.

Edit: hell you might even have a co worker with a spare car to borrow for a week as long as it comes back with a case of beer in the trunk.

I do need a beater for daily short runs to the store and whatnot.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Dorman is usually a safe bet. I would avoid the cheapest-possible brands on Rockauto; while I ended up using them all anyway, one of the control arm assemblies (very similar to that, '98 Ranger) came with a balljoint boot that was poorly crimped on. It was still reasonably tight when I sold it but I'm sure it will wear out much sooner than the others.

And I'd strongly recommend replacing the whole arm. You get a new balljoint out of it, and it's a big pain to try and replace those bushings.

Godholio
Aug 28, 2002

Does a bear split in the woods near Zheleznogorsk?

totalnewbie posted:

I know most car batteries are made by one or two suppliers, so are there any cheap brands I should avoid? Or a cheap "safe" brand?

Any major store brand should be fine. Sears Platinum has a particularly good reputation for one reason or another. I'd check out the local parts stores (autozone, etc) and compare prices and warranties for whatever battery size/CCA is correct for my car, then decide based on that.

Javid
Oct 21, 2004

:jpmf:

IOwnCalculus posted:

Dorman is usually a safe bet. I would avoid the cheapest-possible brands on Rockauto; while I ended up using them all anyway, one of the control arm assemblies (very similar to that, '98 Ranger) came with a balljoint boot that was poorly crimped on. It was still reasonably tight when I sold it but I'm sure it will wear out much sooner than the others.

And I'd strongly recommend replacing the whole arm. You get a new balljoint out of it, and it's a big pain to try and replace those bushings.

Yeah, it's hard to argue with $23 each to just replace the whole thing. Thanks.

Christobevii3
Jul 3, 2006
Ac delco and duralast gold are the two best batteries in that order. Otherwise just get the $60 batteries Atwood's has that last 4 years

H110Hawk
Dec 28, 2006

Senior Funkenstien posted:

Can you guys recommend a cheap manual car or truck? I've never learned how to drive a manual so I want to get something to beat up on and learn

Coworker bought one off Craigslist sight unseen for maybe $700 Tapout stickers and rattle-can-black-matte paint job included. It had no oil on the dipstick 3 quarts in of whatever autozone had on sale for the cheapest, drove it for 2 weeks, then flipped it for a similar price.

0toShifty
Aug 21, 2005
0 to Stiffy?

Senior Funkenstien posted:

Can you guys recommend a cheap manual car or truck? I've never learned how to drive a manual so I want to get something to beat up on and learn

One of my friends found a 96 Chevrolet S10. it was an absolute stripper truck. Single Cab 2.2L 2WD 5 speed no radio, factory non A/C. It was wonderful and simple. Don't see that too often. It was $500 and inspected.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Godholio posted:

Any major store brand should be fine. Sears Platinum has a particularly good reputation for one reason or another. I'd check out the local parts stores (autozone, etc) and compare prices and warranties for whatever battery size/CCA is correct for my car, then decide based on that.

To add to this, when you buy a battery these days you really are buying the warranty and service to go with it. The core battery itself is largely identical to any other battery on the market for your car that isn't an Optima / Odyssey, so buy it from a shop that you trust to be close enough / easy enough to work with when the battery does die.

randomidiot
May 12, 2006

by Fluffdaddy

(and can't post for 11 years!)

Christobevii3 posted:

Ac delco and duralast gold are the two best batteries in that order. Otherwise just get the $60 batteries Atwood's has that last 4 years

Deka/East Penn has been manufacturing AC Delco for quite awhile now - along with most of Napa's batteries, AutoZone AGM batteries, and Diehard Platinum.

totalnewbie posted:

I know most car batteries are made by one or two suppliers, so are there any cheap brands I should avoid? Or a cheap "safe" brand?

Honestly I'd buy based more on the warranty and how easy it will be to get it swapped out if it fails, so whatever parts store chain is big in your area. I'm personally a fan of East Penn's stuff, but all of the parts houses have decent batteries.

East Penn is drat good (Napa's full line of car batteries, Duralast's AGM batteries, Sears Diehard Platinum, O'Reilly's edit: some O'Reilly's). Johnson varies from decent to excellent (Johnson makes Duralast Gold, I believe they make the majority of CarQuest's and Advance Auto's line as well, Costco's Kirkland line, and of course, Interstate - but they also own Optima, and Optimas have really gone to poo poo). Advance will be your cheapest option if you have them in your area, since you can always find a hefty coupon online (usually 20-30% off), order online, then pick up the order in the store. They're far and few between here, the closest one to me is about a half hour drive - but if I need something expensive or need a lot of stuff at once, they're my go-to simply because of the coupons (they beat out Rockauto by about $30 when I did brakes/rotors on my mother's car recently - before shipping).

Last time I looked at the battery rack at Walmart (Everlast - store brand), the majority of them had Johnson stickers on them. But Walmart often won't exchange a battery unless you have the receipt.

randomidiot fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Dec 28, 2015

Elmnt80
Dec 30, 2012


Actually, oreilly's uses both east penn and johnson controls for their superstart batteries depending on battery availability and geographic location. An easy way to tell is the part number on the battery will have a j on the end if it was done by johnson. :eng101:

But really, shop based off of warranty and service. If the dude behind the counter is a dick when you buy the battery, he'll be a bigger dick when its warranty time. Make sure they have a system that can pull up your warranty information without a receipt and make sure its full replacement, not a percent off a new battery. And don't loving buy one from rural king.

MetaJew
Apr 14, 2006
Gather round, one and all, and thrill to my turgid tales of underwhelming misadventure!

H110Hawk posted:

Coworker bought one off Craigslist sight unseen for maybe $700 Tapout stickers and rattle-can-black-matte paint job included. It had no oil on the dipstick 3 quarts in of whatever autozone had on sale for the cheapest, drove it for 2 weeks, then flipped it for a similar price.

Do you even bother registering it at that point? I don't want to scam the system or get in trouble for not owing sales tax or something stupid, but it seems like those factors would make this idea more tedious to execute.

That being said, I hate having to pay sales tax on a private sale, used vehicle because the idea of an item taxed over and over makes some weird libertarian-lizard part of my brain feel funny.

Mitchnasty
Apr 15, 2009

Christobevii3 posted:

Probably be worth doing the distributor if it hadn't been done recently
Most likely hasn't. My first plan of action if the compression test is okay is do to plugs, wires and distributor.

Safety Dance
Sep 10, 2007

Five degrees to starboard!

A friend of mine has a beater Geo Prizm. He says that the car runs like crap (stutters, stumbles, but will idle) when cold and damp, but once it reaches operating temperature, it's fine. He can get it to start by kicking the pedal while cranking until it starts sputtering, then it's fine.

He's already replaced the plugs, wires, and ignition coils. Any ideas what his crapbox needs?

H110Hawk
Dec 28, 2006

MetaJew posted:

Do you even bother registering it at that point? I don't want to scam the system or get in trouble for not owing sales tax or something stupid, but it seems like those factors would make this idea more tedious to execute.

That being said, I hate having to pay sales tax on a private sale, used vehicle because the idea of an item taxed over and over makes some weird libertarian-lizard part of my brain feel funny.

If I were a gambling man the sales slip said $100. Yes, you register it so you're insured. It's cheaper to beat the hell out of a beater than to burn out the clutch on your new fancy car.

randomidiot
May 12, 2006

by Fluffdaddy

(and can't post for 11 years!)

H110Hawk posted:

If I were a gambling man the sales slip said $100. Yes, you register it so you're insured. It's cheaper to beat the hell out of a beater than to burn out the clutch on your new fancy car.

A lot of states go by book value now.

General_Failure
Apr 17, 2005
'87 Lada Niva.
Still battling with the clutch. It's a pretty standard hydraulic clutch system with a threaded rod on the SC for manual clutch adjustment.

Issue: Declutching point is near the floor.

Tried:
Bleeding clutch.
Vacuum bleeding clutch.
Readjusting SC to factory setting.
Readjusting SC past factory setting, ensuring the TOB wasn't touching still.

Result of the last step was interesting. Instead of the clutch pedal feeling dead until declutching occurs, there's resistance in the pedal before declutching, which still seems to happen at roughly the same point.
What's going on? I can't work this out. I'm considering another vacuum bleed because I still don't 100% trust the fluid but beyond that no idea.

spankmeister
Jun 15, 2008






General_Failure posted:

'87 Lada Niva.
Still battling with the clutch. It's a pretty standard hydraulic clutch system with a threaded rod on the SC for manual clutch adjustment.

Issue: Declutching point is near the floor.

Tried:
Bleeding clutch.
Vacuum bleeding clutch.
Readjusting SC to factory setting.
Readjusting SC past factory setting, ensuring the TOB wasn't touching still.

Result of the last step was interesting. Instead of the clutch pedal feeling dead until declutching occurs, there's resistance in the pedal before declutching, which still seems to happen at roughly the same point.
What's going on? I can't work this out. I'm considering another vacuum bleed because I still don't 100% trust the fluid but beyond that no idea.

It's Russian, use a sledgehammer.

Tony quidprano
Jan 19, 2014



No clue but I'm shocked that an 80s Lada has a hydraulic clutch.

spankmeister
Jun 15, 2008






spankmeister posted:

It's Russian, use a sledgehammer.

I actually have no idea but it seems like the right thing to do.

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General_Failure
Apr 17, 2005

spankmeister posted:

It's Russian, use a sledgehammer.

Mm. No. Although I have used the sledgehammer on it plenty of times. The hydraulic parts aren't old either. Everything I've found on low engagement points for hydraulic clutches indicates hydraulic issue as I would have presumed.


1500quidporsche posted:

No clue but I'm shocked that an 80s Lada has a hydraulic clutch.

Sure does! Not 100% sure but I think they always had them.

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