Unexpected Car Maintenance Thread!!

[Theo]

Not sure if its just my car or just me but I thought it might be fun to start an unexpected car maintenance thread.

This shit gets really expensive.

I can go first with my latest this weekend:

- Passenger door window regulator - Just did the drivers door earlier this year. Do they go out in pairs?

- Main air bag module failure - This part IS NOT CHEAP!!

- Dimming Rearview Mirror Failure - Did the gel glass replacement and it went pretty well - Saved around $400

I am knocking on SO MUCH wood right now as I don't have any error codes or idiot lights on and no ware items need attention right now. I realize I just jinxed myself. =(

[Josh (PA)]

So last week, the e46 started hesitating and stumbling at idle. Read the code, said Camshaft position sensor. I took it to York, PA (a shithole in the middle of the state) for my daughter's hockey tournament. Stuttering got much worse, so I replaced the CPS in the parking lot in between games. Thought all was good, cleared codes and nothing new came up. I started driving home and it stalled a 1/2 mile from the rink in downtown. Turned out to be the fuel pump. I replaced that on the side of the road. All in about $450 for the CPS and fuel pump.

Last month the e61 had its two turbos replaced. Bill was $5500, my aftermarket
warranty covered about $3600 of it.

Month before it was the fluid filled engine mounts, ~$1000

Week before that, my wife hit a pothole and flattened two tires on the 1er.

I could go on and on. When it rains it pours.

[Theo]

ITS NOT JUST ME!!

[John V]

About a week before a 500 mile tow, my truck started pulling hard to the right on braking. Seemed to come and go, but it was definitely there. Checked the alignment, ball joints, steering, etc and everything was fine. All the brakes seemed to get equally hot, and none seemed to be dragging.

Disassembled the rear brakes and found that the pads were completely locked up against the carrier due to rust buildup. Same pads and carriers that I replaced four years ago after buying the truck. Removed the carriers and took them to my bench grinder to grind off the rust. Brakes back to normal.

[Theo]

Slightly surprised about the amount of self maintenance. Nice to see.

[Nick M3]

I finally got sufficiently pissed off about the crap shift mechanism in K's iX to do something about it.

Of course on the iX, that means pulling the transfer case. By the time I was there I went ahead and pulled the transmission and did the clutch.

Here's what came out:
https://instagram.com/p/BIyNxIzBgrt/

[clyde]

About a week before a 500 mile tow, my truck started pulling hard to the right on braking. Seemed to come and go, but it was definitely there. Checked the alignment, ball joints, steering, etc and everything was fine. All the brakes seemed to get equally hot, and none seemed to be dragging.

Disassembled the rear brakes and found that the pads were completely locked up against the carrier due to rust buildup. Same pads and carriers that I replaced four years ago after buying the truck. Removed the carriers and took them to my bench grinder to grind off the rust. Brakes back to normal.

I thought this was going to include the wrong front pads with an audience story.

[clyde]

Slightly surprised about the amount of self maintenance. Nice to see.

A few weeks ago, the Focus was nearly overheating at the end of autocross runs. To the point it was chime and flash a message "pull over as soon as it's safe." No codes ever (and probably no actual overheating, because that's supposed to set a code and there were none, but certainly not right. I start looking to see if anything is visibly wrong, and, yes, something was.

The Mk3 Focus has something Ford calls Active Grille Shutters. They're plastic slats forward of the radiator (and intercooloer in the ST's case). Normally, they are closed and block airflow to the radiator/intercooloer unless it needs more air for cooling or some certain conditions are present. When they're closed, the car has a tiny improvement in aerodynamics and probably allows Ford to claim a meaningful improvement in MPG they can apply to CAFE but will probably only save a real world owner a single gallon of gas over the car's lifetime.

The shutters are arranged in four banks. An electric motor moves an arm linked to the first bank to open and close. Each bank is connected to the next with another arm. Three of the four banks on my car were stuck closed and one was stuck open.

Had to remove the headlights and front bumper cover to get to them. After all the in bolting and in clipping, the bumper did not come off cleanly like it should have. It was hanging somewhere and there's not supposed to be anything for it to hang on. Eventually, I said "fuck it" (always a good move :rolleyes: ) and pulled hard. What I learned was that the sleeves for the screws from the front license plate holder had pierced the bumper impact bar and mushroomed behind it (probably when a drunk very slowly reversed into me at a stoplight on New Year's Eve a couple years ago). Once the bumper was off, I could finally check out why the shutters were stuck. They had just popped out of place. 15 seconds from there to have it working right again, which beats replacing with a new assembly at $350ish.

Next...

Two weekends ago, I drove over something, probably a pothole, on the Capital Beltway. There was an immediate vibration and by the time I got to the shoulder, the low air pressure light was on and when I got out, the driver rear was down to 7 psi. Changing to the spare was one of the more frightening experiences of my life.

I also learned that I've rounded off the edges of the OE lug nuts in a way that makes the all in one wrench not want to fit. The scissor jack is cool in that it has a rather substantial mating surface to the frame rail, but it's packed in the car in such a way that you have to spend time lowering it to fit under the car. Not something I appreciated.

Got home and found the tire had a nice gash in the sidewall and the wheel was bent pretty nicely. Found a guy selling individual wheels at a reasonable price, but I had to pick up in Altoon, PA last Wednesday. Six hour road trip after work. Super nice weather. Took the Jaguar with the top down. Was pretty nice. The wheel had lime green plastidip applied. Took most of it off last Thursday night before running out of light. Need to finish that and get new tires mounted.

Next morning, Jaguar didn't start. Cranked and cranked, but didn't start. Think it was flooded (apparently kinda common). It started right up after I got home from work. :dunno:

[clyde]

And the green wheel

[jpgurl]

And the green wheel



That is amazing. :eeps:

[Theo]

Ok these stories are making me feel like a whiner. Holy SHIT!!

[John V]

Hmm... what else.

Oh, yeah. On the way to Lincoln last year the truck started throwing misfire codes and bank 1/2 lean codes. I have a scan tool that does real time data so I monitored it while driving the steep climb up the I-68 Sideling Hill cut. The O2 sensors looked like they were responding correctly but the fuel trims were really high indicating the MAF sensor was under-reporting airflow (or there was a huge air leak somewhere which I was pretty confident was not the case). I found a pick 'n' pull in Lincoln that had a 6.0L Silverado and snagged the MAF sensor. All good since then.

Last summer the Mazdaspeed3 made me a liar about its bulletproof reliability when it lunched its A/C compressor at 155,000 miles. I'm ashamed to admit I took it to the dealer to get fixed. It needed to have a recall done anyway (something about the windshield wipers) so it was convenient, and I don't exactly have regular access to A/C tools. They did a great job, though, and the cost was reasonable.

I had to put a new steering box in the truck a few months back.

Hm, noticing a trend. I really need a new truck.