Basically the mod injects fuel into the exhaust system which leads to unburned fuel escaping the system, so yeah not good for mileage and not good for the environment. It’s a lose-lose all the way around…
I live in oil country and see these pieces of $#!& rolling around everywhere. Rig pigs with too much money and small dick energy.
12 years is pretty good for a Ford. At least in my experience.
That’s what I’m sayin’!
It’s a good year, make and model
I’m a truck chick. Always have been. Current truck is a 2007 Nissan Frontier (manual transmission, thank you very much). Great truck. I dread the day I have to replace it as I prefer manual trannys and you just can’t get them in the States anymore.
This past weekend my 2007 Toyota Sienna minivan started running rough while waiting in line at the BK and had a check engine light flashing on and off…
Took it to my friends shop and had a diagnostic done and discovered the #4 cylinder ignition coil was arching which was a sign of it going bad. They recommended replacing the spark plug but wasn’t necessarily required.
Luckily #2, #4, & #6 ignition coils are easy to get to but if it was numbers 1, 3, or 5, then the whole top of the engine has to be taken apart just to reach them and that would have cost several hundred dollars 
I just happen to have a spare ignition coil so I changed it myself and saved over $300 in labor 
Suspected frayed wiring harness. I could get to inspect it by removing the glovebox completely, but it’s a PITA dealing with removing interior trim pieces, and I likely would just not bother putting back in the glovebox, which would make for an unpleasant ride.
The other way “in” is by removing the intake manifold, but I don’t have space to do that.
After taking down a stop sign a little bit ago (new tire, complete alignment, but LF door doesn’t open all the way), car is scraping against some inclines, and speed bumps. Took a handsaw and cut all the mudflaps etc., but no joy.
Incomplete combustion, probably due to the PCM being screwed up due to the wiring harness.
OBDII code throwing rear knock sensor failure, which is almost certainly not true.
Cracked CV boots, but not leaking grease that I can see. I’m not going to remove the axles to replace those myself. Not urgent, anyway.
2000 Toyota Camry XLE, v6 sedan.
That one’s keeping the air in. You can still drive on it.
Damn right!
I used the auto repair shop a taxi cab company uses, right next to my usual after-work hangout.
Literally everyone, cabbie or just neighborhood folks said “Dan (the main wrench) is the man!”
Yeah.
Not only did he get the knock sensor and some other codes cleared from the OBD2, he reset it so I didn’t have to go through the whole “n numbers of RPM cycles and x miles etc.”
MF PASSED emissions control just today!
And he undercharged me by $0.64 for the labor! ($890 dollars less $0.64, which was about exactly the amount of my federal tax refund, and had a hundy left over from that too!)
AND whatever was screwed up in the PCM, that incomplete combustion problem seems to be gone.
South Carolina doesn’t have vehicle inspections. The state did away with them back in 1991.
So we’re going on a cruise to the Bahamas the last week of April and I was looking at my tires and saw the front tires are looking pretty rounded so I’ll probably get them rotated before driving 3 hours south to Charleston to catch our cruise.
The rear tires that will be moved to the front are worn but are good enough to drive on this trip but our next cruise in October is to Bermuda out of Norfolk VA. It’s around a 5.5-6 hour road trip and I don’t think the tires will be good enough to drive on by then so I started looking around online and found an ‘off-set’ of 3 tires at a discounted price because it wasn’t a complete set of 4 so I bought them. I’ll have 6 months to search around for a 4th tire to complete the set 
My dad informed me that he’d ordered parts for my mom’s car, and that “we” were going to be working on the project this weekend. Water pump, thermostat/thermostat housing, hoses, coolant.
No problem.
So, most everything went relatively smoothly. Yay! A few difficult connectors to disconnect and stubborn to remove temp sensors. One of the hoses really didn’t want to come off of the radiator/overflow tank connections… and, managed for the most part to not get soaked with coolant…
Then we put everything back together.
Again, mostly smooth as silk, well, relatively, smooth as silk for any project where he and I have to work together without swearing so loud the neighbors call the cops…
Then I get to the lower radiator hose…
It won’t go on.
I’m squeezing and pushing, I’m grabbing the front of the bumper with my right hand and the hose with my left trying to hug everything into place…
Nope.
Time for a bigger hammer…
Even tried wrapping zip ties around each end to try pulling them together…
Nope.
After over an hour of fighting the last new part to put back on to the car (still needed to put the fan and airbox(not bag stupid autocorrect) back in) reached out to a few fellow car people for help.
One of them showed up, tried it, couldn’t get it on either.
Looked at the old hose, looked at the new hose…
The new hose had the temp sensor half an inch closer to the fitting… the radiator inlet* was hitting the temp probe.
(Why in God’s name are these things plastic?)
Would have broken things before it went together.
So, new temp sensor went in the old hose and the old hose went on the radiator. Everything got buttoned up, refiled, checked for leaks, air bled from system…
But … that one damn hose is still sitting there. I really hope they take it back and refund the money. The bag it shipped in is long gone, of course.
But, major service complete on the car. Saved well over $1000 compared to having the stealership do it…
But, man I’m sore and stiff today…
Went to my long time mechanic shop to get my van looked over before my 3 hour road trip south to Charleston SC for our upcoming cruise. They cleared several old codes in the computer and found a screw capping off a vent hose that allows gas fumes to vent off into the atmosphere and not inside the minivan… I have been smelling a fuel smell inside the minivan off and on for a while now. No idea who put that screw in that hose nor how long it’s been there but it’s open now like it should be.
Just had to pay for a diagnosis and the van should be fine for the road trip.
Hey, people of the car!
What exactly do you all think is happening with the scraping of a part of the undercarriage (driver’s side, right rear) when going over speed bumps or even making sharp, deftly executed turns where there is a hill involved?
I’ve looked underneath, can’t see anything. I cut off the mudflaps with a handsaw a long time ago…no difference. Nothing is loose in the trunk…full-sized spare is securely screwed in place, yadda yadda.
That is where the gas tank is located, and it’s an 18.5 gal tank. Fairly big for a mid-sized sedan that is pretty low-slung to the ground. I’m thinking that could be it.
Tempted to bring it in to the shop for a diagnosis, but it’s kind of inconvenient to find the time.
No idea, but maybe you can duct tape a flashlight and a GoPro under there and film it while you drive around
Only thing that comes to mind is the exhaust pipe/muffler/catalytic converter… If it’s loose or sagging, that’ll do it.
It’s definitely something…wrong side for the muffler and exhaust pipe on this model, but I’ll find it as soon as I get a new jack handle and just look more closely and start taping stuff up with gorilla tape.
Even better! I have a former “friend” who is 5’0". First I tape her to the undercarriage, and then tape a GoPro to her, and then…drive around and stuff!
Foolproof!
Hmmm.
The simulated effects of using paddle shifters over a CVT are not really apropos. It’s not going to hold a “gear.” The ECU makes sure of that.
You can almost drive the tach into the red by aggressively down-“shifting,” or “engine braking,” basically.
But the good news is that a CVT these days can probably reach 100,000 miles.
Perhaps even more! < /sarcasm>
But, I have three years left of dealer warranty on this used Toyota, so I can expect three years out of this car.
It will be an interesting experience to see how she (the CVT) can do on icy, steep hills this winter/next spring. I don’t expect much, but she can probably handle it.
She should have had a transmission flush and change already, at just over 30,000 miles, but I’ll have to contact the now-elusive salesman to flush it out of him.
// ETA, yes I did do some research etc. beforehand, took her on a test drive, and so forth, and while I’m not a gearhead, I know how to do some basic shadetree moves on a car (as long as it’s in a Haynes/Chilton manual!), as well as basically can drive them, but nothing that can replace actual conditions on the road.
This is probably my extent of knowledge of Car Talk.
Unless Turbo Teen counts
