Saturday, February 2, 2008

Newer Cars Are A Bitch To Work On.


WARNING: All who are bored easily with car shop talk, please disregard reading further.

Signed, The Management


I can remember way back when....I had a Porsche 914 and man was it easy to work on. I get this new ride(I have dubbed the Stinger Missle) and I...ABSOLUTELY...HATE...to work on it! I had my "check engine light" go off and so I let the great guys at Auto Zone give it the gratuitous free scan tool check and they say that it just gave a dealership code(more on dealerships later), so they don't know "clearly" what it could be. Well, the car runs normal but, the gas mileage went to shit! So, my hypothesis is that it is an O2 sensor, only thing that makes sense since there is no sputtering(fuel pump). As you can see by the photo, this is what a blown O2 sensor looks like. Smoked like a quarter sack at a Pink Floyd concert. Hypothesis quickly turns to theory. The big issue for me here was the location: under the car, inside the wheel well and close to the frame, I.E. NO DAMN WORKING ROOM! The old cars had plenty of wiggle room where as now you have to drop the engine just to change the oil and spark plugs.

I am too lazy to change my own oil, but as soon as I heard "Dealership", I could feel an irresistable pull on my credit card that was going end up being used for a bill that would land me in the hospital with an aneurysm. So, my inner grease monkey got the dust knocked off of him and got put to work.

What a waste of a great day. (end of rant)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

We have a 2004 Tundra and a 2002 Bug. The Bug is a pain in the ass. One of my headlights went out and I figured it'd be no problem for me to just pop a new bulb in. Yeah. Right. After trying and trying and trying, I gave up and enlisted the help of my neighbor, who is a mechanic. He couldn't do it, either! the light was almost impossible to remove, then, once removed, impossible to get back in! After 3 weeks, yes 3 WEEKS, we finally got the light all fixed. Totally hours working on it probably was about 4. 4 hours to replace a light bulb in a bug! I just know the other bulb is going to go out soon.

Anonymous said...

'Smoked like a quarter sack at a Pink Floyd concert.'

Hehe. Yeah...I had floor seats at a Floyd concert back in '94. You got that right!

The Lorax said...

Smartest thing ever? Put the damn battery in the truck. Especially for when you don't back into parking space and your cell dies. Doh!

The CDM said...

Forgot to mention that the O2 sensor also cost me a little over $240! Wow, bend over as you walk in the door.

Busplunge said...

Friend of ours has a late model Malibu or Impala, don't remember which, but the battery died. The fender support brace, windshield washer apparatus, numerous hoses and stuff all had to be removed just to get to the battery box. Then that had to be taken apart. Next time, I told her, we're taking it to Wal-mart.

Busplunge said...

'Smoked like a quarter sack at a Pink Floyd concert.'

getting a little Dan Ratherish?