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Not fun turning corners without one, the car will lean over significantly without a sway bar to hold it more level.
I understand exactly what you mean about counterfeit parts. Excellent points made.
I tend to either go with rockauto, partsgeek or Amazon also. If I use eBay, I look at that feedback rating a lot. Tons of buyer beware in there.
I don’t like most of what Scotty does, but most of that has to do with his attitude. He does have some skills, but he treats his channel like it’s on the power block on spike. It isn’t. The glorious part of YouTube is that you can watch both novices and experts really take their time and break it all down. Scotty doesn’t do that. That’s why I dismissed it as mildly annoying and mildly entertaining fluff.
I saw a clip of his on why you shouldn’t buy an English made car. He was right about things like changing a fuel pump requires removing the entire rear suspension THEN the fuel cell. That is a genuine giant pita. I appreciate well engineered cars. The thought and intentions that go into them are wonderful to contemplate and.enjiy as you drive. If your in a real shop environment, then your options to love them even more are there. I don’t like them because I’m no longer in a shop. I’m partially disabled and working on cars in much the same fashion as the well intentioned but unskilled diy dudes, on the ground with minimal tools. If I had a floor.lift and garage of my own to use, i would welcome more exotic imports. I also know that factory trained techs have little issue with them because they are trained on them and they are used to them.
If you make highly decorated chocolate cakes daily, then that task is common for the person trained on that. If the average dude just wants a simple chocolate cupcake, then having to follow a grand factory trained recipe in a specially equipped shop becomes very daunting.
I used to specialize in autobody that did common wreck repair, but also frame of reatorations, resto mods and licensed salvage rebuilds. I stopped doing that in 2002 when I left Texas and moved bqck to my hometown in Iowa. Around that time is when there was a giant uprising of diy shows, like power block, monster garage and many others. It was both mind blowing and kind of annoying that I can, and have done a lot of that stuff and now I just watch it on TV occasionally.
I’m no stranger to very complicated,stuff, but when I’m in a customers driveway trying to hang some.parts correctly and maybe make small extra improvements where possible, it sticks a horn in my side when I have to spend most of the day removing additional parts to get to a small thing that could have been so very simple if it were designed logically. Got a Dodge ram? Ford Taurus? Want to change the heater core? Remove the steering column, then the entire dashboard, then replace it. You have a Toyota? Peel a bit of carpet back near the gas pedal, then remove two screws for a panel, then the heater core pops out like a cassette tape. One job is all day, the other is less than an hour. Same thing goes for the fuel pump.
The cost of ownership has to be addressed. There are multiple car manufacturers that want to make it illegal for the home mechanic to fix anything. It could then be argued that they make some things difficult on purpose. That tends to rub salt in the eye of the average dude. I can appreciate the complexity of of supercars, custom builds and other high dollar stuff. If I had to defend one point that Scotty makes but poorly communicated, is that some of this stuff seems to be designed to piss people off. Cars are not made of unicorn farts and Godzilla’s piss. Car manufacturers should not try to perpetuate the myth that they are by making them nearly impossible for the home mechanic to fix.
A part of what I do locally in addition to hanging parts, is to inspect cars that my customers wish to buy. In this, I also advise on what not to buy. I tend to advise against purchasing anything from Mitsubishi, Saturn, Cadillac, all Chrysler Jeep Dodge, and almost all European makes, sans Volvo. I do this for numerous reasons. First of all, personal experience. If I work on 50 Mitsubishi cars and trucks and find they are assembled oddly and have a poor history of lasting, then I say they are bad. There are some that last for ages, I know I will get responses on that, but the law of averages says that there will be some who love them and some who hate them. I go by personal experience as a tech and my customers feedback.
I usually tell them to buy Toyota, Honda Nissan, subaru, some gm and fords models and sometimes Volvo.
Most of my customers are.buying used cars. Things that will need work now or in the near future. In these cases, which are common, people have to play the odds. Is this going to cost.morw than I can afford to keep it going? Will it cost more to fix and maybe enhance than it will ever be worth? Is that a bit of mild rust, or is it rotted in structural areas?
I do a lot of work for low to middle income people. These are good folks that have little desire to consider the engineering aspects of its design. Some of these folks are difficult just to convince to do simple maintenance for at times, but I try to educate them as much as I can without making their eyes glaze over.
So again, yes I appreciate the technical aspects of it all, but such a small fraction of people buy cars in my town based on the engineering aspects. They have to have a lower cost of ownership, meaning being easier to service.The parts from eBay thing doesn’t bother me because I know they make most parts already. As a professional tech, he’s correct about German and European cars. They are fun when new, but a genuine pita to service. I also agree with him on the Toyota thing, because that brand runs well for ages and are usually a breeze to service.
He doesn’t handle criticism well at all. He is also very incomplete in his instructions. He has an annoying opening and he is kinda annoying and snarky in the way he comes across. I stopped watching his channel a while back.The car is injected. It has barely 80k miles on it and it ran fine before this. I’ve been back over this a lot and my brain is locking up.
I’m not the exploding coil guy. It’s my friends thing, not mine. I stopped by to see the weirdness, but I didn’t have time to remove the upper intake to look in the spark plug hole. I’m just curious as to what possible causes there could be for this. It really is a pampered SUV.
If there are exhaust issues, like the cat may be coming apart inside, can cause frequent egr issues.
The first code could be a clogged injector. The other two are closely related to the egr system. A year and a half is plenty of time for carbon to build up, especially if you run ethenol in the tank. If the egr is the vacuum operated kind, not electric, you can remove it and clean it out. I would start there.
Many Chrysler products for more than 15 years have recalls on the clockspring. Look up recalls on your Jeep, then print it out and go to the dealership. They won’t research it for you, that is why you need to find it and print it out. This may be a free fix for you.
If the clockspring is not the issue, then a crash sensor on the front half of the chassis may need to be replaced, like it may have been in a prior accident.Eric did a really fun video on flushing the heater core out, worth the watch for sure.
When you dilute the mix, I strongly advise against using tap water. It has minerals in it that can cause corrosion inside the whole system.
Look at the store for distilled water. It’s about a buck a gallon and it will prolong the lifespan of the coolant.
If the heat takes a long time to build, or never get very warm at all, then do the core flush.
Change the thermostat regularly. I use the failsafe kind from Autozone. When they fail, they fail open to save the engine from overheating.Sometimes, a very good high pressure wash in the wheel bearing area behind the tire can clear the code.
The abs sensor is a small magnet with a measured voltage applied. As the reluctor wheel spins in the bearing assembly, that magnetic sensor tells the abs computer if the wheel is still spinning or locked. If more than one wheel registers as locked, the abs releases some brake pressure to keep the car from skidding.
This magnet based sensor attracts metalic dust off the road and in time, it can cover the business end of the sensor. That will cause it to throw a code. A good washing with pressure can sometimes be all you need.The majority of auto body shops charge $85 or more per hour. The body shop I used to work in was smaller, but popular. The boss would sometimes offer a job price instead of charging by the hour. That kept us competitive. If you could post some detailed pics of the issues, I could give more advice. Many Nissan models seem to be switching over to a bolt in core support which eliminates welding. It’s also true that the aftermarket parts are often a bit smaller than the original ones. A core support on many vehicles is not too hard to replace. I can’t imagine it takes more than one day. The original color is a mystery to me also, but basic black will blend under the hood. In rust prone conditions, I would weld it in, then use a sealing primer, then an etching primer, then paint several layers of paint, then several layers of the clear coat. I’ve done this for classic cars I’ve restored and they are still rust free 20 years later. You can always use some truck bed liner, but that is likely a bit of overkill in my opinion.
I’ve been through a similar problem last year on a Lexus rx300 suv. It was closed very hard, but the latch was already in the closed position, so it managed to latch again, but for one last time only. The latch mechanism was bent very badly. I had to crawl n the back hatch area from the back seat. Then, I had to get as much of the top of the inner hatch panel off as possible, then reach in carefully and low to unbolt the latch, so it would open, then the rest was way easier.
Research how the inner panel comes off. It may be clips that snap in, or screws, or both. You may need to replace the inner hatch panel too. It would be very helpful if you were to post pics from the outside and the inside of the rear hatch.
If your in eastern Iowa, I can look at it and help somehow if you like.Problem solved!
It was an odd one.
The owner told me today that the electric windows and sunroof are also not working. The fuses for the windows and radio were again, just fine.
The fuse for the backup light was blown. I replaced that and all is well again! I’ve seen odd stuff, but this threw me for a loop.College man, that does tell me what I need on that Honda, after I get the unit to power on again.
The only fuse I found burned was the underhood fuse for audio amp. All fuses in the interior fuse block are good. It worked great before I change the alternator but now it won’t even power on.
Do you know if the head unit has a separate fuse in the back?