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Note that if you are buying a new car in California, it must be a California-emissions car. You can't get around it by importing a car from an out-of-state dealership.
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Feb 8, 2015 23:30
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Parts Kit posted:I'm still not sure exactly what grease I should be using for this. You want something like this, I think:  Just general purpose high-temperature grease. It should cost like four bucks.
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Feb 11, 2015 19:42
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Traditionally, you should wipe it with your sleeve, and then absent-mindedly swipe your sweaty brow with your sleeve, leaving a perfect small but obvious streak of grease so everyone who sees you can tell instantly that you are a Real Man who has been doing Real Work on his car. This gives you a completely legitimate and unassailable right to drink beer while hanging around in the driveway at 10 AM.
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Feb 11, 2015 22:28
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Uthor posted:Wait, you need an excuse to do this??? It's the "unassailable" part. Spouses can't say poo poo. You are Fixing Things, which is a task only possible with the correct superior german lubricants. You can of course drink beer at 10AM whenver you drat well please, but some people will bitch and moan about it if you're just doing it at the office or while making breakfast or whatever.
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Feb 11, 2015 23:00
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The best way to seal rubber is with this amazing product called rubber cement. It's been around forever but it really is precisely the right thing for gluing rubber. Silicone is a flexible sealant but does not adhere well to rubber, especially oily rubber. Ordinary superglue (Cyanoacrylate) is brittle and thus completely inappropriate for most automotive repairs. Gorilla Glue makes a CA with additives to give it a little flex, which you might give a try, but really why bother when rubber cement exists and is so much cheaper?
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Feb 27, 2015 23:00
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b0nes posted:A good friend just got into a car accident, she got rear ended and her car is totaled. I have a car that I'm not using, and she needs a car for a month till her insurance company helps her out. I planned on donating my car to a local church because someone recently got me a newer car. Can I let her use my car without transferring it on her name and let her use her own insurance? I really need that tax credit. You can loan a car you own to someone. Your insurance is usually what covers them. Check the fine print of your policy to determine exactly how long you can loan a car to someone before you have to tell the insurance company and/or add them to your policy. If she wants her insurance to cover her, she'll have to register the car with her insurance company and pay the premium. It is not ethical to loan a car to someone that you know isn't safe to drive. I don't know what you mean by "obliged" exactly; legally, obviously the car has to be roadworthy according to the laws of your state irrespective of who is driving it, but gently caress the law, don't give a car to someone that you know isn't safe to drive regardless. It should not take her insurance a month to assess the car's damage, total it out, and send her a check! A week is more typical. The key question you asked, though: no, you don't have to transfer ownership to her in order for her to drive it. Either it can be on your insurance, or she can get insured, but ownership isn't necessary for her in either case.
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Mar 21, 2015 18:00
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Mange Mite posted:Any tips on shipping a car cross-country? There's like a billion tiny brokers out there and it's real hard to figure what the best way to do things. Make sure the shipper fully insures you against damage. Take extensive pictures of the car from every angle, documenting every scratch and ding and dent that's already there, and make sure they know you've done this.
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Mar 21, 2015 18:02
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Mange Mite posted:Do you know any particularly big/reputable services or is it more local? I don't, sorry. I've read about other goons' shipping horror stories in AI, and the insurance thing and photos thing has been important.
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Mar 21, 2015 18:32
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b0nes posted:When I was talking about ethics I wasn't trying to imply the car would explode on impact. It's safe to drive but it really could use some tires in the future, and an alignment. OK, I don't know how much you know about this stuff, so I'm going to lecture you and if I'm off base, I apologize. But it seems to be a common area of severe ignorance among the public, so folks in AI tend to have to say this stuff a lot, which is why I suspect you might not be aware of it. What is the most important safety feature of a car? No, not seat belts. Not brakes, either. Nor the crumple zones, nor the safety glass, nor the air bags. The most important safety feature of a car is its tires. The tires limit the driver's ability to maintain control in an emergency, whether that's braking, turning, or sometimes accelerating. Whatever the grip the tire can summon, in whatever the current conditions, is the maximum the car and driver can do to avoid accidents. It follows, then, that if a car has poor tires, it's more likely that the driver will have an accident, and if there is an accident, it's more likely to be more severe. Tires that still have "some" grip may give you a longer stopping distance than otherwise: even if the antilock brakes come on, they will modulate braking in accordance with the ABS system's detection of how whether/how much the tires are breaking loose from the pavement and starting to spin, and that is a function of the quality and condition of the tires. Similarly, in an emergency turning situation, maximum pressure on a single tire may cause it to break loose and go into a skid; the better the tire, the harder you can take an emergency corner without losing control. So if the tires are in poor condition, they should be replaced. If they are still within their normal tread life and are not otherwise damaged, then fine. If the tire still has 10% of the tread left before you get to the wear indicator bars, and there's no cracking, chunks missing, uneven wear, etc. then fine... drive on the tire until it's done. But walk through a parking lot and look at the tires, and if you know what a worn out tire looks like... you'll see something like every fourth vehicle has tires with excessive wear. Throw in tires that are obviously underinflated, so old they're cracking, or are mismatched, and it's more like one in three or even one in two. It's awful. Alignment goes hand in hand with tire condition. Slightly less important, but a car that is misaligned doesn't just produce uneven wear on the tires... it can behave unexpectedly or poorly under certain extreme steering/braking/accelerating conditions. The same is true of suspension and steering components. So nobody here has any way of really knowing exactly how bad your tires are, or how bad your alignment is. Our default answer is going to be "get it fixed" because you don't want to be partly responsible (ethically, if not legally) for your friend getting into an accident because you provided a car that wasn't as safe as it should have been. Sometimes people come into AI and tell us that the reason they have mismatched tires, or don't get their car aligned or suspension fixed, is because they can't afford it. While I'm very sympathetic to the fact that people in poverty or near-poverty situations are sometimes stuck with few options for getting to work, and not enough money to get things fixed... nevertheless, driving an unsafe vehicle is a matter of life and death. If a person cannot afford the basic safety-related maintenance of their car, then they can't afford to drive. Hopefully that's not you, but you'll have to make that assessment. If you're not sure how to tell, take pictures of your tires' tread, tell us details about the alignment problem, and we can tell you if we think it's safe or not.
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Mar 22, 2015 02:58
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I would lift that corner of the car and set it on a jack stand, deflate the tire, and then pull out the thing. Then re-inflate, lower, and see if it'll hold its air for a week. Deflating it will remove some of the pressure holding it in place, and also give the bead a chance to re-seat evenly when you re-inflate while the wheel's in the air.
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Apr 10, 2015 05:27
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I'm pretty sure it's just a mistranslation that mistakes the word for a screw-drive gear, with the word for the shape of normal transmission gears - "helical." Helical gears are used, in part, because they're much less noisy than straight-cut gears; but they're still not silent. If you want to hear what straight-cut gears sound like, drive your car in reverse. The reverse gear is usually straight-cut, and it's much noisier and whinier. Some race cars deliberately use straight-cut forward gears (I think it's a stronger setup? Can deal with more torque?) and they're noisy as gently caress.
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Apr 20, 2015 22:47
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Months ago, while replacing the oil pressure sending unit on my 1992 Chevy S-10 with 4.3l V6, I was forced to pull out the distributor (not just the cap, but the entire shaft) in order to access the unit. When I reassembled, I realized that the marks I'd made on tape and stuff to put the cap back on exactly where it was before were hosed, because it physically wouldn't fit like that. After a lot of trouble (basically trial-and-error with distributor cap position until the truck would actually start and idle), I took it to my mechanic, who re-replaced the oil pressure sending unit with a different one that A) didn't leak, and B) was a smaller diameter, that allowed the wires from the distributor cap to straddle it (and a nearby fuel line) the way I guess they were supposed to. The truck has had an occasionally stumbling idle since then, has felt a little down on power, and has stalled a few times while stopped at a light (in Drive, brake on). I've been thinking the timing wasn't quite right, but when I trial-and-error tweaked the position of the cap, nothing seemed to improve. I went ahead and replaced spark plugs, wires, and the entire distributor cap, but no change. Today the truck failed CA smog check. The smog technician said the ignition timing was "22 BTDC" and it's supposed to be 0. This is with the timing connector disconnected. This truck is equipped with some sort of electronic device that automatically retards the timing or something? I'm not sure exactly, but obviously with it plugged in, the truck was able to start and run despite this drastically wrong timing. But not well enough to pass smog: it had slightly higher than allowed HC (hydrocarbons, e.g., incompletely burned fuel), and massively high NO (I assume the same). So here's my question. Adjusting the distributor cap is easy as hell. You just loosen a bolt that holds down a clamp, and then you turn it. But, the two plugs that come out of the cap tend to interfere with the oil pressure sending unit, and a separate fuel line. So there are certain positions where it simply cannot fit. Should I: A) go back to my mechanic to have him fix it? He claimed the timing was correct when I got it from him, but I had to monkey with it again when I replaced the cap, rotor, plugs, and wires later. B) just rotate the cap myself? If so: is there a 1:1 relationship between the cap and the timing, such that if I rotate it the correct direction precisely 22 degrees, it will now be in exactly the right spot... or, is it one of those deals where I need to rotate it a small amount to affect the timing by a larger amount? I think the "degrees" has to do with when the #1 cylinder is at TDC in relation to when the spark is fired on that plug, but I'm not entirely sure that those degrees measure where the distributor cap is positioned, as opposed to by how much the crank shaft has turned or something else like that. If I do rotate the cap myself: my Haynes manual doesn't say which direction to turn to get before TDC vs. after TDC (that is, to advance or retard the timing). It also claims there is a timing mark on the main pulley, but I spent a lot of time dangling flashlights down there and I could never find it... we also couldn't find it using a timing strobe when my dad was over here helping me monkey with it. So the best I can think to do is just rotate the cap the correct direction exactly the right number of degrees. If the truck seems to idle better, then I'll get it re-smogged, but it's gonna cost me money so I really don't want it to fail again. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 04:54
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some texas redneck posted:As you advance it, you'll hear the idle come up a bit (you'll probably need to unplug the timing connector as well). Advance it until it sounds like it's starting to struggle a bit. Back it off a little until it smooths out, back it off slightly more. Go for a drive, see if it pings. Shut it off, try to start it - does it start really easy, or does it sound like the starter is struggling? If it's struggling, you'll need to back it off a little more. With a little research: looks like the distributor rotates clockwise, as seen from above. I think this means to advance the timing 22 degrees, I need to rotate the distributor cap counter-clockwise (that is, make the spark fire 22 degrees earlier in the cycle, so move the #1 contact "backwards" in the cycle). Yeah? Each adjustment requires me to disconnect some stuff, so it's very difficult to make a lot of fine adjustments and start the truck in between each one. Well, not difficult, but time consuming. e. I wonder where my protractor is.
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Apr 29, 2015 05:08
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The distributor would only fit back in one way: it seemed to be keyed. I did not rotate the engine during work, so there's no way I got it in 180 degrees off. I'm 99% sure it's back in there correctly. StormDrain posted:The distributor rotates at half speed, since you only need a spark on every other revolution of the motor. You'll need to rotate it only about 10 degrees which would get you closer to zero. If you have a 90' angle, cut/fold that in half and you've got 45, you can cut that in half and get 22.5. Cut that in half again and there's your angle, 11.25' or so. This is really useful! I was all set to go try and rotate it 22 degrees. So, rotate counterclockwise 11 degrees and I should be spot on. I'm going to give that a try, and if it's still not right, I'll take it to my mechanic. In other news, wife just called; some motherfucker rear-ended her in stop-and-go traffic (at like 15 MPH). She pulled over immediately; the other driver drove away without pulling over. She said it was some really expensive-looking car, too. She's fine, but she says there's a "new rattle" when she drives. Greeaaaat.
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Apr 29, 2015 17:17
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StormDrain posted:Here's the video you probably need to find the timing marks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e74qmYkFMGc I printed a protractor I can cut up lol. Just wanted to point out, for anyone that didn't watch this video. Fuckin' Chevy, in their infinite wisdom, put TWO timing marks on the main crank pulley. WHY? Who the gently caress knows, but they did. THANKS YOU FUCKERS. This video tells me how to find the correct one. Yup.
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Apr 29, 2015 17:56
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Parts bin engineering, gotcha. So, I rigged up my TOTALLY ACCURATE DIAL GAUGE OK and a printed protractor and I rotated the distributor cap exactly 11 degrees counterclockwise:   I did this with the engine running, and the little brown wire that connects the computer disconnected, per the manual. As I rotated the cap, the idle got rougher. After it was in position, the idle stumbled for maybe 20 seconds and then the engine died. With the wire still disconnected, the engine will start and run for a little bit, badly, before dying. E.g., adjusting the timing this way made it worse. Now what?
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Apr 29, 2015 18:54
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Knobjockey posted:If the smog technician was correct (you're at 22°BTDC and it should be TDC), you needed to retard the ignition rather than advance it. You're now something like 44°BTDC. Turn it clockwise 22° then use (borrow, hire or buy) a strobe to get it spot on. OK, thanks. Makes sense, now I think about it... to retard, move the contacts further along the circle so the spark happens later in the spin. Yup. My dad has a strobe, but he's 50 miles away and I need to get this smogged in the next two days to avoid a late registration penalty. Because I left this to the last drat minute, of course. I figure if I get within a degree or two, it'll at least pass smog, and I can fine-adjust it next time my dad comes around. UPDATE: I had to unplug one of the two plugs on the distributor cap, and then pry a fuel line away a couple mm in order to cram the plug back in wedged against it, but that allowed me to position the cap exactly where it's supposed to be. And my god the idle is perfect, smooth as buttered silk. Thanks dudes. I'mma get it re-smogged this afternoon hopefully. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 19:31
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THE STORY CONTINUES Failed smog again  It's still 5 degrees BTDC. So, my eyeballing it with a paper protractor taped to the top of the cap, and going the wrong direction first, left me 2.5 degrees of cap rotation short of the target. The allowable spread is plus-or-minus 3 degrees of 0TDC, so I fail for that. But. Much more concerning; it's blowing too much smoke. "visible smoke from tailpipe" fails visible inspection. HC (PPM) is still way above allowed at 15mph, and pegs right at the max of allowed at 25mph. The NO is way back down to normal levels, though. The engine has 219k miles on it. The truck does not get driven much; in the last five years, probably less than 2k miles. It spends a lot of time sitting. I have to wonder if maybe the wear, plus the idle time, has left it with a bit of a gap around the piston rings and she's burning oil. Do you guys think that's the most likely culprit? Or, is it just that it's been driven with poor timing for a hundred or so miles, and maybe has a lot of soot build-up?
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Apr 29, 2015 23:15
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IOwnCalculus posted:If it were a tooth off, you'd be a lot further than 5 degrees off since the distributor gear does not have anywhere near 72 teeth on it. Yeah, the distributor shaft is keyed, you can't put it in any teeth off (which also made it a big pain in the rear end to reinstall, it took me ages to get it oriented exactly right so that it would slot in flush). It's fine, I just need to rotate the cap another 2.5 degrees. Doing this without a timing light was always going to be not super accurate. The main thing is, it looks like the smoking issue isn't entirely due to the timing being wrong. some texas redneck posted:Do the basics - new plugs, new cap, new rotor, and change the oil (old/dirty oil will cause your HCs to go way up, especially if it's burning any oil). Adjust the distributor a little more to get it where it should be. New oxygen sensors probably won't hurt, they may be fouled by running with the timing all hosed up, but I'd probably do those last if it fails again. I put in new cap, rotor, plugs, and wires three months ago. I also had an oil change when my mechanic did the re-replaced oil pressure sender, just before I put on the new parts. Also went through two tanks of gas in the last four months. Oh, and it now has a new battery, too. And, while I was doing the rest of that, I also ran a can of seafoam through it (some in the gas, some in the oil, just a week or two before the oil change). Didn't get into it too much, but basically, my brother doesn't have a car and after a couple years of unemployment it looks like he's finally going to get a job. (He enrolled at the steamfitter's union, passed the tests, has been taking classes, and is slowly moving up the list... word is, the next job they'll be taking apprentices at will start mid-May.) At my dad's request, I've been getting the truck into shape so that my brother can borrow it for a little while, until he's able to save up enough money to buy his own car. So the truck sat for a long time, but I've driven it a bit every couple weeks to keep it from getting too hosed up. I spoke to my mechanic yesterday. He made a similar suggestion about thicker oil. He said he usually uses 5w30, so that's what's in the truck now; a higher viscosity will help reduce oil intrusion into the combustion chambers. There are special "high mileage engine" branded synthetics, so I'm thinking of doing a change and putting that stuff in. Plus, get the timing exactly right, and then as you said, drive the truck on the freeway for a bit, get it good and hot. The mechanic also mentioned that blue smoke could potentially be a leaking PCV valve? I went ahead and submitted the registration today, so I wouldn't have to pay a late fee. CA DMV shows it as "incomplete" but that means I haven't broken the law by driving on an unregistered car if I drive it after today.
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Apr 30, 2015 17:46
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IOwnCalculus posted:It's only keyed to the oil pump so it is possible to get it off if the pump gets turned, but again if you were trying to do that you'd be off by a hell of a lot, not just a few degrees. I never turned the engine over or rotated the crank in any way while the distributor shaft was removed, so I'm pretty confident it's fine. I just need to turn the cap slightly farther. 2.5 degrees of rotation off from where I measured it is well within the tolerances of my ghetto duct-tape-and-printed-protractor measuring methods. Thanks for the oil recommendations. I'll give one of those a try. This truck never sees low temperatures (the coldest it gets is a few overnights each winter that dip below freezing, and I'm basically never driving at 3 AM in January) so a higher-viscosity oil is not going to be a cold-weather problem.
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Apr 30, 2015 20:04
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I have to pass smog once every two years. I can go with a high-viscosity oil once every two years if that's what it takes. Also, this engine can handle a higher viscosity than 5w30. The shop manual says 10w30 for temps of 0F and above. Since I never seen temps below about 30F, I'm comfortable with a higher viscosity... 20w on the low end will be fine, especially during these summer months when a "cold" start is still likely to be at least 50 degrees. If this were a low-mileage engine, I'd probably agree with you, of course. In this case, it's an engine from 1992 that has 220k miles on it. If it's leaking oil into the chambers, it's because the piston rings and/or the cylinder walls are worn enough to let oil ooze past, in a larger quantity than it did when new. Reducing the amount of oil penetrating to the cylinder won't accelerate wear, since we're only attempting to replicate the amount of oil that's "supposed" to be there. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Apr 30, 2015 |
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Apr 30, 2015 22:19
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I'm pretty sure he's talking about one of these:  They're on stilts, so you can just back right under them, so that part is potentially a one-man operation. But the tailgate has to come completely off, first.
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Apr 30, 2015 23:46
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Every old car needs routine maintenance. For old cars, routine maintenance items include every wear item in the vehicle; not just tires, brakes, oil, but also engine parts, transmission parts, electrical stuff, basically everything that can wear out. If you want to learn to work on a car, just get a car that is a decade out of warranty and then do all the maintenance stuff yourself, as it goes wrong. Eventually something "expensive" will go wrong, like you'll need a new clutch or something, and that will be a big step up from just replacing brake rotors and faded headlights and fixing the adjusting seat that won't adjust any more and all that kind of nonsense. The other half, I think, is the easier part. Just go through the first six or eight pages of AI, find every project thread that has at least ten pages, bookmark them, and read them. Also bookmark this thread, and read it as you have time. I've learned so drat much just from other people working through their projects, figuring out what's wrong, goons giving advice (both good and bad), etc. that I can talk with reasonable competence about cars and fixing cars even though I've spent a relatively tiny amount of time actually fixing my own cars. The one thing a person should not do is deliberately saddle themselves with a lovely car that they actually need to use as reliable transportation. It's fine to have a second car as your project car, but you don't want to be trying to learn how to fix a car, on the fly, that needs to be running in order for you to get to work in the morning. That's the situation where you have to take it to a mechanic, in order to have some job security. All you'll learn is how much money it costs for your mechanic to fix your poo poo all the time.
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May 1, 2015 06:56
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IOwnCalculus posted:It's a 220k-mile GM V6 that's already burning oil. Any minor change in internal engine wear due to running a thicker oil is not going to be what does that engine in. Exactly this. Also, this truck is worth maybe $1500 as it sits. It's got rust (it lived near a beach for many years, so the cancer has been stopped, but the rust is there), it's got a big dent on one side, the A/C stopped working years ago and we had it removed rather than pay over a grand to fix it. I want a beater for my brother to get to work for maybe a couple months, and after that, it will go back to sitting in my driveway and getting used for the occasional run to Home Depot or a furniture store. If it gets 12k miles of engine wear over the next 2k miles, that's acceptable. It just has to pass smog.
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May 1, 2015 21:44
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CharlesM posted:Yes, buying a car there will be easier because then it's the seller's responsibility to get a smog certificate, so you don't have to worry about that. As a Californian I can tell you that despite the state law that the seller must get a smog before selling, approximately 0% of craigslist cars will have their smog cert when sold. A lot of sellers are going to be surprised if you point out the requirement. Dealers know what's up and do it themselves, of course (and then tack on a charge for it on top of the quoted price, LOL). Also, for 99% of people, California's restrictions have no particular effect on their ability to buy and drive what they want. You have to replace OEM emissions equipment (such as a catalytic converter) with the exact same one; most people drive normal cars and can do that. If you do an engine swap, you have to keep the OEM emissions equipment with the engine; most people do not swap engines in their cars. The AI complaints make (a little) sense for automotive enthusiasts who are the type to want to do a catback straight pipe or an engine swap, but that is almost never applicable to people like Gnossiennes.
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May 4, 2015 16:50
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Yeah, but 40km or so is way more reasonable than 900km. Is the dealer trying to get you to buy the 900km car, or is he offering you a properly new car with all the stuff you want, perhaps shipped in from somewhere?
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May 4, 2015 22:09
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Oh drat, that reminds me, I meant to respond to this:ChewedFood posted:So I've been working on this Mazda Protege5 that I got off of a guy at work for $400 with a blown head gasket. The Mazda Protege5 does not have a Haynes or Chiltons. What are you working from? Just a general 323/Protege 1990-2003 manual? It may be wrong in some particulars. There is a shop manual available in a horrible hybrid HTML/PDF format. They're listed here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Mazda_Guide/Protege_5 e. Oh yeah one other thing worth mentioning: your Mazda 2.0L FS-DE engine is a non-interference engine. There are sites that state otherwise, but they're wrong. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 01:13 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 00:07
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Enourmo posted:Seriously? drat. Every resource I ever saw said otherwise. Just to be absolutely clear: the 2.0 FS-DE available in the North America Mazda Protege5, sold from 2001 through 2003, is a non-interference engine. Mazda used a bunch of other variants of their FS engine and I don't know about any of those other ones. It's entirely possible that the turbocharged 170hp version of this engine (the FS-DET) sold in Mazdaspeed Proteges of the same era could be an interference engine, and that is possibly (speculating) the reason why a bunch of car people online insist the engine is interference when discussing the Protege5. The Protege5 was also available Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 01:43 on May 6, 2015 |
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May 6, 2015 01:33
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Super low-hanging fruit: check the evap line. Not becuase it's super likely you're losing a lot of fuel from it, but because it's a cheaper fix.
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May 10, 2015 03:20
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Paradoxish posted:A while ago I posted about a family member's ancient '96 Maxima that was suffering from intermittent stalling/hesitation problems. I'm just spitballing here but have you checked the fuel filter?
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May 16, 2015 21:05
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2003 Mazda Protege5 with the Mazda FS-DE 4cyl inline engine. 100,000 miles. This weekend I replaced the valve cover gasket, because it was leaking a little oil onto the exhaust headers. First I just want to brag a little. One of the valve cover bolts sheared instead of coming out. Gentlmen: BEHOLD  Yes, that's right. I successfully used a bolt extractor without breaking it off in the bolt. ANYWAY, once I had that all worked out, I replaced the valve cover, re-connected the wires I had disconnected, and tried to start the car. But it won't start! The engine turns over (but seems to be struggling to do that) but it won't catch. Since it was running perfectly before I took off the valve cover, and I did nothing that would have disturbed the fuel system, I started with the assumption that the most likely problem is spark. And, since only one of the four spark plug wires basically dangles loose and flops around when the cover is off, I pulled that wire, pulled the plug it was attached to, and had my wife crank the engine. To my surprise, the engine started immediately! It puffed air out the spark plug hole as expected. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the plug. I re-gapped it, replaced it, torqued to the high end of spec (~15+ ft-lbs), and tried again. Same symptom as before, only it was even harder for the engine to turn over. I put a battery charger onto the battery (the charger is currently reading 6 volts, so I suspect the battery may be partially discharged) but the car won't start even with the charger hooked up, although it turns over easier. Do the symptoms suggest I've got a bad wire? Or plug? Or maybe while disconnecting/reconnecting the coils etc. that are mounted to the valve cover, I might have broken a brittle wire? My service manual says to test spark by doing this: quote:• Remove high-tension lead from spark plug. I don't understand what's meant by "Hold with installed pliers." With no spark plug in the lead, there's a huge distance for the spark to travel. Are they suggesting sticking a pair of pliers into the lead to make a connection, and then holding the pliers near the frame or the ground terminal of the battery? Isn't that kind of dangerous?
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Jul 14, 2015 03:01
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So how should I test for spark? Pull the spark plug, stick it in the lead, hold the side of the plug near ground? Is it safe to hold the thing with my hand while I crank the engine?
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Jul 14, 2015 04:22
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Progress report: battery tender was down to 4 volts. I tested the wire for that cylinder using a voltmeter and it was fine. Reinstalled, and engine started with all plugs & wires installed. My current operating theory: battery was low. Previously, it didn't have enough juice to start with all four plugs installed, but pulling one plug reduced the load by enough for the engine to start. Now that the battery is charged better, the car can start. Alternate theory: there's an intermittent fault or short that I cleared by just jiggering with poo poo and maybe it will come back. I think I'm gonna let the tender sit overnight and then see how it does tomorrow. Maybe replace the battery before our 10-hour trip to Portland on Saturday.
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Jul 14, 2015 04:58
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Godholio posted:Depending on the charge rate of your tender and how low the battery was, that might not be enough time. I had to leave a battery charging for about two, two and a half days when it was flat. Hm. Well, I drove the car into the garage, and it starts now, so I'll just take it out for a 30-minute drive tomorrow, get it up to freeway speeds, and then see how its doing. I think if I bop over to autozone they can test it for me.
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Jul 14, 2015 06:56
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This morning the battery charger is down to just under 2 volts... and I can hear the battery bubbling merrily. That... doesn't seem ideal. I can add distilled water, but shouldn't it like, not be electrolyzing the water until the battery is fully charged? This is a very dumb old charger from Sears from like 1980 or so. I've taken it off for the moment.
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Jul 14, 2015 17:04
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Oh. OK yeah I'm an idiot: the gauge is D.C. Amps. It was at just under 2 amps when I took it off this morning. It was around 5 amps when I first attached the charger yesterday. It's in a reasonably well-ventilated spot in the garage, I left the hood open, and I was careful about sparks nearby. I'm aware of what hydrogen + oxygen can do. I'll take it over to autozone for testing later today. It's definitely an older battery, I can't read the labels until I take apart the clamp and box that holds it in place. I cleaned quite a bit of blue corrosion off the terminals before I reconnected it yesterday.
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Jul 14, 2015 18:37
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Final (hopefully) followup. Autozone tested my battery. It was at 100% charge, 12.7 volts, and needed to be replaced. New Duralast in the car, and it starts super-easy and all is well. Thanks for your help, goons.
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Jul 15, 2015 02:55
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Jippa posted:I have recently got my first modern car (a 2002 golf). Having previously only driven a 1983 golf in which every thing was manually operated it's a bit of shock to the system. Your golf has a mirror with a motor actuator thingy behind it. The motor and mirror are enclosed in the body-colored pod. What your manual is telling you is not to adjust the mirror itself by hand. But you can still fold the whole pod by hand. There will be some resistance initially (which keeps them stiff against the wind when driving) but then you overcome that resistance and they'll fold back.
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Aug 3, 2015 19:42
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k-uno posted:Quick question: has VW's reliability gotten any better in recent years? My wife and I are trying to decide between a lightly used 2014 Corolla or a lightly used 2015 Jetta 1.8T as a cheap, dependable economy car for city driving, and the Jetta is a lot nicer to drive, but I've heard that VW has had a number of issues in the past that have left us wary. I've had friends whose Audi's have become basket cases after 60k miles or so (as they say, the T is silent), and I know VW went through a long string of problems with coil packs and breaking electrical accessories. Has the brand recovered somewhat, or should I stick with the Toyota? Slavvy posted:No. Stick with Toyota. VW's reliability has gotten better. It hit a low point in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and has gotten better in the 2010s. There's a lot of VW hate on this forum, and like most places, reputations tend to severely lag the reality. Toyota and Honda have also slipped somewhat from the time in the 1990s when they had a simply enormous advantage over other makes. These are both generalities, though. There are always specific models from a carmaker with specific problems, and others that are particularly good. A Prius is just about the most reliable production vehicle ever made, for example. And more broadly, Toyota still has a substantial advantage in reliability over VW. But there's been a rising tide, and it's important to point it out. Basically all cars are way more reliable today than cars made 20 years ago. The sorts of things that go wrong on "unreliable" cars are usually niggling electronic issues, like door lock actuators or radio knobs. Any modern car, including a Jetta, can be expected to not just totally break down and leave you stranded somewhere. VW's want their special oils and can't be neglected as much as Toyotas and Hondas, but if you do what the user manual says to do, you should have a car that will make 250k to 350k miles. Like I said though, there's always specific issues for specific cars. The 2015 Jetta's reliability ratings are not great. Initial quality is all about the first 90 days, and the ratings suggest a lot of Jettas wind up back at the dealer to have stuff fixed. That sucks, but you're looking at a lightly-used one where that sort of thing has probably been dealt with. The 2014 Corolla does better. But it's not five stars across the board, which is what the general reputation for Toyotas might have you believe. In fact it does not get a single five-star quality rating in any category from JD Powers. In fact it gets the same 3-star rating for Body and Interior Quality as the Jetta. Where it really stands out is overall initial quality, four stars vs. the Jetta's 2, and that basically translates to "a lot fewer wind up back at the dealership in the first 90 days, for any reason." I think your wife should buy whichever car she prefers to drive. If you get the VW, budget slightly more for maintenance. If you get the Corolla, compare the cost of a 2014 used Corolla to a brand new Corolla with the same features, and decide if the tiny savings is really worth it vs. a brand new car.
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Aug 4, 2015 20:50
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Used car warranties are often pretty crap. Is that a factory/dealership warranty, or something else? Anyway, congratulations on your nearly-new new car! I agree that VWs tend to be more about an interesting driving experience and less about car-as-appliance, like a Toyota. Definitely do read the owner's manual and keep up on the scheduled maintenance.
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Aug 5, 2015 01:51
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