QTDDTOT : Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Threads

A place to ask all your short automotive related questions.

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Is this a problem serious enough to validate selling a 2015 Civic SI Coupe with 25k miles for 18k? This is the only thing on the car fax that is sketchy as fuck.

Complete newfag to cars, and I brought a summer project car to learn. It's a 2000 Ford au2 Falcon. It was working when I brought it, but now it won't start, and I'm not entirely sure why. I was hoping you guys could give me some suggestions on what to check.

>Car peripheries work; all my dash lights turn on and my radio has power
>When I turn the key I used to get 3 clicks then the engine wouldn't start
>If I kept the key turned a few seconds later there would be 3 more clicks then the same thing
>Was worried it was the battery
>To that end I recharged my battery as well as changing the battery terminals
>Issue wasn't fixed, same thing, but now I don't even get the 3 clicks
>Feels as if the engine wants to start but there's something preventing it
>There is fuel in the car; I know because I put it in myself, plus the fuel guage works fine
>Tried starting it from both parked and neutral, same issue each time


Anybody have any idea what stuff I should be checking? I'm not even sure where to start. Failing that, what kind of information would be helpful in determining what's wrong with it? I don't even know how to ask for help properly.

Is the mustang's clutch type differential a 1 way or something else entirely?

fucked up starter or solenoid perhaps? The clicking sound is the electromagnet in the solenoid trying to engage the flywheel and spin it. If it got worse after a charge I would first check the wiring and then replace it. Check battery voltage too, it may be hosed and not putting out enough juice to crank the car. Should be above 12v.

When I checked it read 12.36V on my miltimeter at DC 20. I was thinking the solenoid or starter too, after browsing forums. Not sure how to test the motor, but I'm probably gonna head out and check my solenoid soon. My Dad thinks the battery's cold crank amps are lower than they should be, so I guess I'll try swapping the battery for a different car's battery and see if anything good happens as well.


When you say check the wiring, which wiring do you mean?

Is there a name for the squiggly coloured thing?

Well seeing as how those 2 years are a fucking mystery. YES.

You and your dad are both dopes. Short the starter solenoid.

Take a plastic or wooden handled screw driver and with the key in the run position touch the metal of the screwdriver on both terminals. This will energize the starter and should start the car.

Also if the starter is easily reachable, try to smack it with a heavy object, sometimes this is enough to unjam them for a while.
You can use a piece of wood, place it on the starter and then start hitting the wood with a hammer, so you don't scape and and bend the starter itself. Give if 3 or 4 good hits, try to crank, repeat a couple of times if it doesn't crank.

If it comes back to life, then it means the starter is dirty as fuck and needs to be cleaned, don't drive like that thinking you fixed it, it will jam itself again in the near future, there are shops who can refurbish your starter for relatively cheap if you want, or you could go to a scrapyard and buy another one.

>place it on the starter and then start hitting the wood with a hammer
>repeat if it doesn't work
Why not just hand crank it?

Sticker or decal

I'm not sure what you mean by hand cranking a starter

Based on the ports of exit and entry, I am 99.999% sure it was an American servicemember's car. Norfolk is THE Navy town.

Sorry maybe I should have specified. I'm wondering if there is a name for that sort of style. Where the colour gradients from one colour to another and is angle upwards away from the front wheels?

hand crank...what?
You gonna take the starter off the transmission and try to free it by hand? Good luck, the magnets in there probably have more torque than you do, and if there's shit stuck in there keeping the rotor from spinning, you are better off just leaving it on the car and giving it a whacking.

So i decided to buy a nice auto rwd new car for my first, only problem is i dont have the balls to drive it rough because it was expensive.

Is it such a horrible idea to buy a cheap manual shitbox for a year so i could hoon around in it?

>sell expensive new rwd car
>buy cheaper but still newish rwd car
>hoon
>do cheap maintenance when needed

Thats the financial equivalent of getting fisted.

Honestly I don't know m8, sorry

anyone know anything about the '06 mazdaspeed 6?

any known issues/things i should know? looking to get one

What are the best reliable, cheap used cars one can buy in the UK? I've been thinking that it might be nice to get something that I don't have to worry about in any way.

How do i learn to fix cars?

>buy $500 shitbox
>buy the manual
>buy some harbor freight tools
>use google + your cars internet forum + manual to troubleshoot
>throw parts at it till fixed

be prepared to spend 2k on learning.

I'm looking for a new project/weekend car stuck between two here. My final goal would be aiming for somewhere around 600 whp when the work is done.
>2008 Pontiac gto, currently has some bolt ons but I'm likley to replace them anyway, 100k miles but great condition and already has pretty decent suspension work done that I will keep.
>cheap
>2010 challenger r/t, 100% stock, 55k miles but needs some suspension work since the front end was basically shitting itself.
>not quite as cheap
What would you choose?

>the engine blows itself often even with moderate boost.
>stock reliability is average
>parts are easy to find since some people want these cars around, not hard to rebuild but expensive
Fun cars when properly nodded though.

thanks


do you have an opinion on the infiniti g35 or g37?
i hear they consume oil more than other cars (or i might be thinking of the 350z/370)

i want to open a small business that provides custom interiors for luxury vehicles.
think of it as brabus but just interior seats.
for starters i want to provide just custom luxury seats then hopefully do full interior kits.
what do i need to learn?

I've posted in these threads before never seem to get help but I'll try again - help me b/o/ys please!
On my first start of the day (cold) the engine runs like this:
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streamable.com/2zjc4
I got no clue what it is and I want to fix it myself.

has anyone ever pushed in their clutch while in cruise control? I want to try it to see what happens but im skurd

92 miata btw

First, keep in mind most luxury cars are sold with plenty of options for customisation, leaving your business somewhat redundant, especially in these times where everyone and their mother can lease a car way more expensive than they can afford that will already come with the interior they want and that will leave them with little financial room for upgrades such as the ones you want to sell.

That said, there are plenty of old cars, even not luxury ones, that people want to keep in good shape or even upgrade, so that's probably your main target.

I would suggest focusing your initial business on cleaning and detailing interiors, and then sell upgrades as a side business for people interested. The world is full of cars that for one reason or the other have dirty interiors and a lot of owners can't be bothered with the pain in the ass involved in cleaning it, so focus on that at the start, it's something affordable for most people and you have a much larger pool of possible clients.

So learn how to clean inside cars, what products are best for the various materials you will encounter and what tools will make your life easier and the work faster.

Custom interiors are a whole different beast and one that requires a lot of patience and practice, not to mention it being prohibitively expensive for most people, so I think you should first practice a lot on throwaway stuff like seats and door panels found at the scrapyard if you don't already know how to modify them. Once you think you are good or you can find other people to work for you, then start offering your custom interior to people who come at you to clean their cars.

Focusing your main business on such a niche and expensive market will probably make your life miserable and will lose you lots of money, especially if you don't even know what you need to learn.

Never tried an old mechanical cruise control, but on the electronic ones the car keeps accelerating for half a second before it realises the clutch has been pressed and disengages cruise control immediately.

It just goes up for like 300 RPM and then it drops to idle, nothing scary or dangerous. I think the worst that could happen is that the car keeps accelerating until it stops at the rev limiter because it has no way to detect the clutch pedal position and you have to manually turn the CC off. Again, no big deal.

Where do i buy harbor freight tools?

I like my g35 it has 156k miles and there are quite a few concerning rattles and squeaks but its quite a performer as long as you keep up on oil

At 7/11

So I'm gonna pull a piston on my SBC to re-ring or replace it. When choosing a new connecting rod bearing, how do I tell if the bearings are over or undersized?

Those cars use the same engines (3.5 and 3.7) they do tend to burn a little oil but with regular maintenance those cars are reliable and fun to drive. Aftermarket parts are common too.

Calipers and find out the measument spec.

thanks for the great advice

...

Is a Volvo 240 a good first car/enthusiast car?
In that same vein are there any recommended mods to make it handle better?

How good is kelly blue book at determining how much a car should be worth?
Like is $16k (USD) too much for a 2010 mustang gt with 45k miles? (It has a leather interior w all the bells and whistles too which adds some $)

The dealership seems pretty unwilling to haggle, but it's also my first time buying from a dealership. Thing is the struts were shot when I test drove it and they said they'll have a mechanic look at it, and if they do get back to me I wanna try to get it down about a thousand at least. Would this still be too much?

You could almost get a 2011-2014 GT for that much...but private party.
Kbb is a decent estimate of what a dealer will charge you. I would still look hard for a dealer selling 10-20% below kbb

I would be down to get one from a private seller, but my dad just doesn't trust getting a car from them because it's more likely they were beat up and he just doesn't trust people. For example he has a backwards logic that if a craigslist listing has the "title: clean" thing the title definitely isn't clean and they're trying to hide something. Really annoying. I'm pretty much confined to dealerships.

I hooned my 3000k+lbs land barge over the course of the last few months, which includes late and hard breaking. Now, when I break hard, the pedal starts to feel stiff, and I get a grinding sound.
Is it time for new breaks, or did I fuck something up?

pads or probably worn rip off the wheels and check them

>Is a Volvo 240 a good first car/enthusiast car?
a great first car/DD, not exactly sporty but easily modded and turbo'd
>easy to swap a B5234T in it using junkyard volvo parts

>In that same vein are there any recommended mods to make it handle better?
upgrade anti-sway bar, IPD makes a great kit

Where can i sell a good windsheild?

Thanks for the advice man!

just don't become Mrcummy, ok?

i want to know this too
related: if the answer is eBay how do you package auto glass for shipping?

like a solo jazz pattern?

>smell burning coolant
>change motor oil
>no milkshake

now what? my car is going through coolant like crazy. no leakage through the radiator cap, but i'm waiting on it to arrive from rockauto. will incorrect mix amount be an issue? i'm running 70/30 but i think i'll dial it back to 50/50

also, how long did you guys in cali wait for you cuztomized license plate? its been like 4 months and i've not heard of the dmv yet

...

Have any of you flown out of state to buy a car and drive it back before? What did you look at/ask about besides the carfax/vin check and pictures to determine whether it was a safe bet to make that trip?

I feel like most of the stuff that I'd need to know before buying is stuff that can only be done in person, but I wanna get some of it out of the way before I blow a couple hundred dollars on a plane ticket. So far I'm thinking maintenance records, a diagnostic summary, and pictures of the underside of the car/wheel wells.

Which is the fastest Golf I can buy in the UK that isn't a GTI/R etc.?

Hey otists, I have a question about my b230f, and how it would go if I were to put b230ft/fk turbo, exaust manifold and intercooler etc....
The engine is healty, 12 bar all round (174.045 psi) compression and that is cold. No metal in the oil and excellent idle.
My question is: Will my engine blow the fuck up if I have anything over a tiny amount of boost?

Any common problems with the e46/e30? should I get rid of my RX8 for it?

What is the point of those little black strips they put on the front of vans and trucks sometimes? They're for stoppping bugs or something right? I don't see how they would work.

You mean bug deflectors ? Read for yourself

So they change the aerodynamic flow to send bugs and little rocks over the car? I'm surprised that works.

Honestly.
The only think fb is good for is for the [YOUR SHITBOX] Owners Group.

you should be able to pick up your plates within 2-3 weeks, not 4 months.

I'd start looking at all the coolant hoses, even the small ones. If you're losing coolant, it's pouring out somewhere. My issue related to that was I had 2 hoses swapped and didnt hold any pressure, so 217+ it would be flowing out the overflow bottle. 50-50 is best for most environments, but if it freezes where you live, 60-40 would be better unless you've been advised to go 70-30. Have you checked your heater core for leaks? (smell) also is that pitcock or whatever the drainbolt for the radiator is called, is that tight? if you have some UV dye, you can put some in your car and then shine a UV light in the engine bay and near the heater core

Oh user, spinning out at 5mph is what I was made for

Would a chrome wrap on the roof make the cabin cooler?

Thanks user

theoretically yes, in practice, no. unless you wrapped the whole car including the windows, there'd be little to no effect.

There's a wire in the engine bay near the exhaust manifold and its connection has a hard black deposit coming out (?) Of the two parts. It looks like a thick black liquid spilled out and turned into a rock, there's some on the body near it too. What is this stuff

I put universal 50/50 colored green in my F-150 but the book that comes with the truck is asking for something something premium yellow. Will my truck be all right?

Any tips on removing a seized brake nipple? Im worried im either gonna round it off or brake the thread.

Fuck, truck year is 2004

Eh, the ford gold is only recommended because it has their own additives in it. I've always thought coolant additives were a waste of money anyways. Don't worry about it, you're fine

if it was already green you're fine
if you flushed the system you're also fine
if you have no idea what i'm talking about
it's time to learn how to drain and flush a coolant system

>assuming seized from rust
use a product like pb blaster or heat it then cool it to break it free
>inb4 but i'm afraid to use fire
brakes get hot, a little propane torch isn't going to break your caliper/cylinder

iirc redblocks have forged internals
>in other words it's a swedish 3/4 scale 2jz
>boost away my dude

fire has been humanities friend for tens of thousands of years.

should a clean out the caliper once i get it out? I can imagine tiny specs of rust getting mixed up with the brake fluid if i don't.

>doesn't afraid of fire
good job
>what do with caliper?
if it's old or rusty and the boot around the caliper is torn or gone
you should get a rebuild kit and replace the boot
otherwise if boot is intact and caliper is not seized it's fine
>remember to grease the slider pins

Well, it was orange and the reservoir walls were orange, maybe burnt, and I kinda just filled it to the cold fill line. Should I flush it immediately? The other user said it was okay.

I would choose the Challenger cuz I like it better

What is the best way to have sex with another man in a hot hatch ?

Rollin

I've been looking at the Tacoma as my next vehicle, I specifically want to go between 03-09 and spend about 12k, on a 4x4 with a manual trans. My options aren't exactly limited, but I keep seeing people post "4x4" on the ad, but then in pictures you don't see a stick y your the transfer case. Is it on the column? Am I dumb and don't see it?

>is my rusty coolant okay?
>what do you mean, i have to change the coolant every 3-5 years?
rest in piece of pepperoni freeze plugs
this life was too cruel for you

roll

Please respond

read the sticky. Honda civic would be your best bet for cheapness and reliability

Is there any reason to buy high end wheels for my shitbox? To my knowledge, tires are the important bit and as long as I don't have wheels that bend, I'm golden.
Why should I buy enkei wheels over some chinesium copy?

My 2001 4cyl Camry has been getting awful gas mileage recently. I've calculated my mpg through at least two tanks of gas using the odometer to be about 20 mpg and I feel it's getting worse. Any idea what it could be? I've heard that it could be bad alignment/MAF/dirty air filter etc. I changed the spark plugs and air filter and saw no improvements. I drive my car for a living so it's hitting me pretty hard. If you know any way to diagnose this issue I'd appreciate it. A lot of the possible issues I've read up on say that they would cause loss of a few mpg's but none really seem to be able to cause the loss of 10+ i'm experiencing. It's been this way for at least the past several months.

>Want a '00 - '04 Outback
>Have no use for a wagon
>People tell me the sedan version is shit

Should I consider getting one anyway? I just fear it might be a bit big for me. More used to driving compact sedans.

Here are a few things off the top of my head to look into:
>make sure the spark plugs are properly gapped
>check tire pressure (higher pressure = better mpg)
>replace fuel filter
>dump a small bottle of fuel injector cleaner in the tank next time you refuel (you'll get worse mpg's while it's in the tank, but it helps)
>check the catalytic converter
>check oil / coolant
Do you do mostly highway driving?

Thanks for the help.
>make sure the spark plugs are properly gapped
I bought some good quality pre-gapped ones for my model. Hope that's alright.
>check tire pressure (higher pressure = better mpg)
This was the first thing I checked. I have them at 42 psi or so at the moment.
>replace fuel filter
>dump a small bottle of fuel injector cleaner in the tank next time you refuel (you'll get worse mpg's while it's in the tank, but it helps)
I'll do these and hopefully they will help.
>check the catalytic converter
I live in CA and had to do a smog check last year. If it passed then it's most likely fine right?
>check oil / coolant
Both good. Leaks some oil but I keep it topped off between changes.

Driving is about half and half. I do city driving but it's mostly in the afternoon after 6pm when the brunt of the traffic has died down.

How much time do I have, Doctor?

im from there, can confirm. but that probably doesnt mean anything bad in most cases. just that it got bought, it did grocery getting and then it sat for a while and decided it was better to sell

The cat is most likely fine, if it was really bad your engine would be sputtering / having trouble idling.
I would also check the thermostat / coolant temp sensor, if the computer thinks the engine is cold, it will use more gas to get it to the right temperature.

>Check tire alignment
>Check cylinder compression

Years ago I had an old Hyundai Excel shitbox. Would get 38 mpg with a THREE SPEED AUTOMATIC, FUCK. Noticed mpg started going to shit. Did compression test and 2 cylinders were super low. Low compression = engine has to work harder (use more gas) to achieve normal power level.

Something's up with my turn signals. 2001 P71 Crown Vic. When I engage the stalk, nothing happens, no light up from either left or right, nothing. I know it's not the bulbs because my hazards still work, both lights flash (on the dash and the headlights/tail lights). I replaced the multi-function switch but that didn't do anything. I replaced the LCM, that didn't fix it (and then promptly returned it).

Any guess to what the culprit is?

Thanks I'll check those out.

What did you do? I have a compression tester handy but I don't think I'd be able to fix it if that were the case.

So to be clear you replaced the switch in the stalk? What about the Relay? Is getting power when you turn the stalk in either direction?

Youll need a multimeter to see.

>Compression test guy

I sold the car. It was a super cheap car I used for commuting, nothing else. If your car winds up having low compression, it's new/used motor time! Which is why I sold mine while it was still running.

Have you noticed ANY subtle differences in the way your car drives, accelerates, cruises, etc? Low compression will make your car bog down going up hills & hard to start. Don't freak out, I kinda doubt its a low compression scenario.

Is the eclipse a girls car? And if so should I care if I can get a good deal?