My awesome 1990 Toyota Pickup (6 cyl., supercab), fondly named Ol' Rusty, has a measly 245,000 miles on it and still running strong. The one problem is that when it is very cold out such as this morning (-10F), I get a terrible noise coming from under the hood just in front of the steering column. It sounds like a belt rubbing, but I can't find it. It happens when I start going faster than 20 mph and goes away once the engine is completely warm. When it's happening, the speedometer jumps a bit. Interestingly, if I warm the truck up for 10 minutes or more so that the engine is completely warm, it still happens when I first drive the truck. Is this something I need to worry about or can I continue to ignore it like I have been for the last 3 years?
View 2 RepliesI've got a problem with my '96 Tbird that's really stumping me. It started with a little shake when I gave the car gas. I don't know if it's related, but I ran over some debris on the highway at around 70mph. [No chance to avoid, unfortunately] That same day it felt like the car was missing, and throughout the week it got worse and worse. It would shake harder and faster with increased RPM's. By the end of the week, it was so bad I kept the car off the road.
I thought it was a bad misfire, so I changed the plugs, then the wires, then the EGR and EGR solenoid [from JY] and swapped a coilpack from my other car. It ended up being the harmonic balancer, it spun a 180, not a surprise on an 18 year old car. I've never had one go bad, so I didn't even think of that as a possibility with the way the car felt. [I've been working on cars for a long time.] It never threw a code once, so I had nothing to go by to begin with.
So over the weekend I swapped out the balancer, and buttoned everything up. Ran fine! No shake! But then I had gotten a new problem.
The idle started to get bad. Very bad. It would lope, lope then almost try to stall, especially when the fans kicked on or I put it into gear. Since this car is my daily driver, I had it at work while I started to undo the new stuff I put on it. I started with the just unpluging the battery for 3 hours. Didn't work. So I pulled the new plugs, reverted them back to the old ones. It didn't work. Leaving work that day I noticed if I pull the IAC connector, the idle smooths out some, but it doesn't stall. [Suspect, maybe?]
So I figured it was the EGR, or solenoid, so I changed them both out. Nothing worked, still was horrible. Frustrated I changed out the coil pack and wires. It's still horrible.
I don't drive the car now, it stalled out a few times in traffic on the way back before I swapped everything back out.
The icing on the cake is that it has not thrown a single code except for when I unplug the IAC. And the only code it throws is barking at me for doing so.
It really feels like a bad vacuum leak. I've run down every single line and there's nothing leaking or rotten. The IAC is in question, but the car was working perfectly fine for at least a year with no problems whatsoever. So how the IAC went bad right after changing everything and a new harmonic balancer is way beyond me.
I'm thinking too maybe I damaged the Crank Position Sensor when I installed the balancer, since it was a one piece unit with the pick-up gear. But, I was careful with it, used a puller installer, and there is appropriate distance between the sensor and gear. Also, I'm not sure, but I doubt the Crank Sensor going bad would effect idle. Any RPM above 1500 is smooth, and doesn't surge.
I have a Jeep Liberty 2002 Sports. When it is cold and the car has been sitting for a while, when I start the car, the steering wheel is locked or hard to move. I have not tried to force it. But it will move if I rev the engine to a certain point. Once I rev the engine I can move the steering wheel again. I have left the car to warm up before revving the engine, but this does not work with the steering, I have to rev the engine in order to "unlocked" the wheel.
View 7 RepliesThe seat belts in a Subaru WRX have been replaced with 4 Point Racing Harnesses. The air bag light now stays on. Does this mean the air bags are inoperable or will they still deploy in case of an accident?
View 2 RepliesThis car has 100,000 miles, regular checkups, smog checks, good maintenance. There is a gas-like smell in car as one begins driving, for past year which can be avoided by pressing the recycle air button. No check engine warning light goes on. mechanic will be checking for sensors adequacy and gasoline gauge (possible misread?)
View 4 RepliesI have a 96 GMC Jimmy that will not start..... I have replaced the spider fuel injector and now I get the right fuel pressure. I have random non regular spark that is very week. I have replaced the ignition coil, spark plug wires, spark plugs, distributor cap and rotor, cam sensor, the ECM, and the ignition control module. The crank sensor checked out to be good. I do not know where else to check...
View 7 RepliesI have a 2000 Corolla CE with 48k miles that I bought 2 months ago. I took it in for an alignment and balance because it was pulling to one side and the steering shakes slightly at 70mph.
The before measurements was this:Left Front:Camber: 0.0Caster: 1.2Toe: 0.17
Right Front:Camber: -0.7Caster: 1.6Toe: 0.28
Front Total Toe: 0.45Steer Ahead: -0.06
Rear Left:Camber: -1.0Toe: 0.50
Rear Right:Camber -0.7Toe:-0.04
Rear Tota
My 2001 S2000 is a great car, but I'm having trouble getting people to ride with me. It seems that after being driven for awhile the passenger seat gets hot. I did have my dealer check the heat shield and they said it's fine. What's causing this and how to I fix it?
View 7 RepliesRecently I've been noticing a gas smell after parking my car after the drive home from work, but engine performance and mileage efficiency didn't seem affected, and I found no visible evidence of leaking on the ground (nor in the engine, but I likely don't know the right places to look).
Today, with the engine running, I looked around the engine to see if I could locate any gas leakage -- I located the fuel pressure regulator (I think; a golf-ball sized acorn on the right of the engine with a hose coming in the top and a pipe coming out the bottom and going down and to the left) and didn't see any leaking during my brief test. I'll check it again after my drive home tonight.
One new thing I did discover, though; while in park, when I slowly pressed on the accelerator, there would be a point where the engine started losing power and going into a rev/slowdown cycle: about a second or two of revving, then a half second of slowing down. This was while cold and in park; I've not experienced this in normal driving.
My cousin owns since brand new, a 2008 Nissan Altima 2.5, automatic, 61k miles (90% of that highway)-immaculate condition. No longer under factory warranty.
Driving to the airport a few days back the car starts-every 2 minutes or so- bucking and almost stalling, although it never did stall. He flies off and upon returning 5 days later, while driving back home the car starts acting up again. The symptoms are more severe now and getting progressively worse: there is loss of motive power and the max speed is 15-20 mph. He takes it straight to the local Nissan dealer on the way home. Nissan Dealer takes it in for diagnosys on the spot: leaking radiator internally, allowing coolant in the transmission.