DCsportsfan53

What kind of car first of all and what are you considering premature wear for tires and brakes?

I've had so many people tell me, including "professional" mechanics, that they've checked the fuse and it's good only to find a blown fuse that no matter what someone tells me I always check it myself. Are you 100% sure the fuse isn't blown? How did you check it? Otherwise, the series resistor for the blower motor could be the culprit, have you tried all fan speeds? Many cars send direct power to the motor on highest speed bypassing the resistor so when the resistor fails you'll only have the highest speed. Also could be the switch itself or the motor itself. Impossible to say exactly but I doubt it would be a 4 figure repair.....unless it's one of those electronic/automatic climate control systems and the control module ate it.

Heel toe does, rev matching isn't too hard to learn. you're not doing your car any favors down shifting without it, though. The savings to your brake pads are minimal and clutches and mounts are a lot pricier than brake pads.

A clutch is wearing any time the pedal is not fully released or fully depressed so that time should be minimized. What rpm you shift at isn't really a factor, smoothness is. The more you make the car jerk and buck, the more wear and not just on the clutch. If you do downshift, I enjoy it myself, you should learn to rev match as this will save wear on all components in the drivetrain. That said, if you're getting 100k plus on a clutch you're not doing bad. Slave cylinder failing is not related, their internal seals fail over time, nothing to do with driving style but the failure can lead to a clutch failure by contaminating the disc with brake fluid. This reminds me of a conversation I've had with my wife more times than I like. She has a habit if coasting in neutral down a hill then back into 4th with a jerk and I ask her why she wants me to have to replace her engine mounts and axles? Either rev match or leave it in gear, dammit.

I played the hell out of that game on Nintendo 64, I can hear the voice in my head now.

If the head gasket blew are you having the head checked for warping at a machine shop (or yourself with a straight edge)? If so the machine shop should be able to get it spotless in their hot tank for not much coin.

Was the car actually low on oil when you added and how much did you add?

Is it a steady on/off blink or is it flickering? More likely an issue with the charging system. I've seen that several times on older cars with external voltage regulators. The brushes wear out, make poor contact and you get the flickering battery light. Someone else can chime in on that particular car as to the alternator having an internal or external regulator. If external it might be a cheap fix. Also could be something like a poor connection or a slipping belt but I think those would be less likely. Not too familiar with that particular car but I imagine it has a serpentine belt, not the old v belts so slipping belt is less likely.

Cannot believe I'm going to be the first one to suggest this so here goes. Vet min plus incentives?

Now that's what I called pwned, unsonny.

Felines are evil, evil creatures I tell you.

It's clearly from some kind of TV show or something. Must we break out the granny panties for everything?

:rotflmao: It took me a second to figure it out but when I did.....that made my ****ty afternoon much better.

Timing belt replacement varies greatly between manufacturer and engine. Outside of visually inspecting the belt for obvious wear and cracks, there is no way to no it's on it's way out until it snaps and then you're SOL. If the tensioner's locking up you may get warning noise from it before it takes the belt out. Bottom line, don't play with it, expensive engine damage will likely result if it fails. Consult your owner's manual or look it up online and don't exceed the recommended mileage/time interval of replacement. Not worth the cost. ---------- Post added November-21st-2011 at 09:54 AM ---------- Ren, send me a PM and I'll get you in touch with someone. A good friend of mine for over a decade, and probably the only person other than myself I would trust to work on my car, is the only tech at a small shop is Silver Spring. They have very reasonable rates, he knows his stuff and is honest.

So glad I didn't renew this year, such a good decision.

I was more noticing the bed that appears to be purpose built for sex swings and harnesses.

Not going to help on a Lexus, you're thinking of old fashioned drum brakes. There's really nothing to adjust on disc brakes. Is it a squeeling or a grinding you're hearing? How often? More when cold or first starting out in the morning?

Predicto, strut and shock replacement on a 91 Cabriolet is straight forward and relatively simple. [url=]http://www.germanautoparts.com/Volkswagen/Cabriolet[/url] is a good place for parts, good prices and a stand up small business that does things the right way, been using them for over a decade. Your car may be fitted with rebuildable shocks (inserts that go into a housing), the $38 OE option or with one piece units, the $67 OE option on that site. If you wind up getting aftermarket struts/shocks at a shop, see if they can get you KYB GR2s, I find them to be very reasonably priced, durable and better riding than similar options. Whatever option you choose for parts, make sure the repair includes all the associated hardware, ie the strut mounts/bearings, the bump stops and dust boots. Probably also a good idea to have the front suspension components checked before/while doing this, in particular the front suspension. The tie rods and ball joints should be checked for any play and check the integrity of their rubber boots, which hold grease in the moveable joints. Secondarily, control arm bushings would be a good thing to check, particularly if you hear that clunk while backing out of a parking space. As far as shops to go to, definitely doesn't need to be a dealer but, and this is just in general, stay away from large chain repair shops. Find yourself a trusworthy, small independent shop, for something like this they don't need to be VW specialists or anything, I just find the quality of technician and work at the chain tire/lube type stores to be spotty at best. Zoony, can't say I've had much experience with aircooled engines in general, what'd you have in mind?

Typically from my experience with German cars when O2 sensors throw range/performance faults they need to be replaced and usually they don't throw those faults due to other problems. The heater circuit faults, in particular, have nothing to do with fuel trim. There is a heater inside the sensor to heat the sensor up, the wires to the sensor and from the ECM are separate from the actual O2 signal ones and the circuit is simply being monitored for circuit integrity, ie the circuit is good, open or shorted. This is not going to affected by anything else with engine. Seeing as how you have many O2 faults for bank 2 and misfires on cylinders 4-8 a harness problem may be likely. One thing you can look for is check the routing of the harnesses underneath the car. They may have been poorly routed and allowed to make contact with the exhaust pipe and melt the wires and/or fuse them together. Given the faults I'm still going to say the first thing I would try is unplugging the O2s in the engine bay and seeing how it runs.

If you have a scanner that will read value blocks there's probably one that monitors misfires and gives you a live misfire count. You could try swapping coils, plugs, injectors, ect and watching to see if the misfire moves with the part. Definitely should replace that O2 sensor as well, maybe try running it with the O2 unplugged and see what happens. In most cars the front O2 sensor is responsible for mixture readings and reports as such to the ECM, the rear O2 monitors the performance of the catalytic converter and doesn't play a part in fuel trim. Running as rich as it sounds like you are I would want to know that 1) the ignition system is in proper order (does the car have a single ignition coil and wires or individual coil on plugs? I'd imagine it's the second one) and that you don't have excessive fuel pressure and/or an injector stuck wide open. As far as an air leak, if it's large enough to cause the car to run this poorly, in all likliehood, it's should be pretty easy to hear it and track it down. Modern cars are very adept at adjusting to conditions and in my experience, shouldn't throw an O2 sensor code like you are getting because of a vacuum leak, you'd more likely have a system too lean or too rich fault. A smaller air leak that isn't easily detectable would cause codes but the ECM should be able to compensate for it to where you won't notice much from a driving standpoint. Obviously my experience is primarily with VWs but Krautwagens tend to be similar enough. Also, while there is likely an issue with the O2 sensor, unless something is shorted in just the right way it shouldn't affect cold start running the way you're describing because the system should still be in open loop at the point as the O2 sensors won't be warm enough to read yet. Edit: Looked back and saw you do have a fuel trim fault. Also, those O2 sensor faults are primarily heater circuit faults. The heater in the O2 sensor helps get the O2 up to operating temp quicker but doesn't play a part in detrmining fuel trim. Judging from the heater circuit faults for multiple O2 sensors a wiring harness issue such as shorted or broken wires between the O2s and the ECM are a possibility. For now, I would start by trying to address the fuel trim issue first, definitely worth finding the O2 harness connectors in the engine bay and unplugging them to see how it runs then. The ECM should be able to use an internal map and input from other sensors such as coolant temp, ambient air temp, mass air flow, ect to make the car run reasonably if the O2 sensors are the culprit. If that doesn't give you any discernable improvement (my suspicion is it won't) start audibly listening for wooshing air in the engine compartment and checking for broken vacuum lines. Continue with a fuel pressure test (pressure testers are cheap and a $13 Haynes manual will be able to guide you through using it) to check for the possiblility of a stuck open fuel pressure regulator or injectors.

Depends on the car. Me personally, I don't like to go over 5k even with synthetic but I know many manufacturerer's specify much higher mileage intervals nowadays. Depends a lot on the driving, too. The more stop and go/short trips and dusty roads you drive on, the better it is to change it sooner. If you don't have particularly harsh commuting habits then I'd just go by the manufacturer recommendations. I still use dino oil in all my cars and change every 2-3k miles. I would say 5k is a good number for quality synthetics like Mobil1.

This goes back to one of my favorite autmotive sayings....ride big pay big. Seriously though most of it is that many modern cars, especially performance/luxury cars require synthetic oil, which is usually above $12 a quart. So if your car takes 6 quarts of oil at $16 a quart that's where most of the expense is. Find out what the exact oil standards/weight are for your vehicle and buy it ahead of time and bring it with you if you want to pinch a few pennies. I would stick with the manufacturerer's oil filter, though and make sure the oil meets the specifications, not just the weight. Could be a broken exhaust hanger or portion of the exahaust. Does it sound like there's an exhaust leak or broken muffler? The other thing that would come to mind is one of the driveshaft support bearing/bushings is shot allowing too much movement in the driveshaft.

The system is pressurized as the coolant heats with engine temperature, it will normally run around 180-200 degrees at full temp. Just let it cool for a few hours after driving it or check it in the morning. You're just waiting for the engine to cool down.

Whenever and however they feel like it. There's no rhyme, reason, process or order to how the ticket office does anything, that's the bottom line.

Add my 2 seats to that. And yeah, they won't release any numbers.