any mechanics on the board?

[scott81425]

ok, so i'm having car troubles (have dumped A TON of money into my car, and i'm not seeming to get its problems fixed) and my mechanic is telling me that next we need to fix something, and i was looking for a second opinion. maybe i could describe the problem my car is having, and someone could tell me if that sounds like a solution.

[Skipper the cigar aFISHinodo]

I am not a mechanic but when I forst got my license I did all my own work including changing clutches, transmissions, fixing transmissions (automatic and manual), rear end, carborators, distributors, rotors, tune-ups, shocks, everything that was connected to the electrical system, cam shaft, timing chain and of course the manditory fuel issues(hey, I had a $300 car... it needed lots of tender love and care)

Having said that, this was a simpler day. you probably do not have a carborator nor do you have a distributor... so much has changed...

 

'esplain your problam...

[scott81425]

i don't know how to change my own oil. i can wire an electrical system without much problem, but i just can't understand an engine. here is what is going on. i own a dodge intrepid. it had been running really rough, and stalling and dying out frequently. so, my mechanic says we need to replace the fuel pump, and the car runs again. but i can smell gas all around it. so we replace the fuel rail. runs fine for a while, the it gets really rough. replaced the spark plugs, and the spark plug wires, again it runs ok for a while. then progressively it started getting worse. so my mechanic uses his scanner to find the error codes, and finds that we're misfiring all over the place. its a 6 cylinder engine, and we were firing on 3. so i invested in 6 new injectors, and it runs MUCH better. but right at 30-45 mph and at idle it runs terrible. rumbles and shakes. now he says i need a new o2 sensor, because i'm not getting enough oxygen mixed in with the gas. does that sound right? thanks for any advice.

[MikeD]

I just had my O2 sensors replaced.  they will go bad with bad fuel or simply with age/mileage, and since you had some sort of fuel pump/injector problem to start with it probably didnt help.

Not replacing your O2 sensors will eventually make your catalytic converter go which is more expensive than the sensors to get fixed.

[Not A Nice Person]

One of the things you need to replace is your mechanic.

Seriously.

Not that he's wrong, necessarily, but that he's hunting and pecking and trying this and trying that on YOUR wallet. This has happened to me before, with a truly cursed Ford Escort . . . after hundreds of dollars spent at my usual mechanic---who was a WIZ at keeping my old Ford truck running like a champ---I broke down and called the stealership.

"Does the problem only happen when it's raining?" he asked.

"You psychic or something?" I replied.

$10 part, $32 out the door installed. Frack me.

What I'm saying here is, when it gets "mysterious," don't keep going to someone who sees your make and model once in a blue moon. Like when YOU come in. Take it to someone who's worked on hundreds of them. It might just be a "characteristic problem" of the car.

NANPâ„¢
[cigar]

[scott81425]

i hear what you're saying nanp. however, in his defense, these are all things that actually needed to be fixed. and he does work on quite a few of these, he's also been the mechanic for my entire families vehicles for years. and everytime something has gone wrong, he has actually fixed it. i'm just pretty sure i should have gotten rid of it when i started having problems and it was worth more money.

[Skipper the cigar aFISHinodo]

One of the things you need to replace is your mechanic.

Seriously.

Not that he's wrong, necessarily, but that he's hunting and pecking and trying this and trying that on YOUR wallet. This has happened to me before, with a truly cursed Ford Escort . . . after hundreds of dollars spent at my usual mechanic---who was a WIZ at keeping my old Ford truck running like a champ---I broke down and called the stealership.

"Does the problem only happen when it's raining?" he asked.

"You psychic or something?" I replied.

$10 part, $32 out the door installed. Frack me.

What I'm saying here is, when it gets "mysterious," don't keep going to someone who sees your make and model once in a blue moon. Like when YOU come in. Take it to someone who's worked on hundreds of them. It might just be a "characteristic problem" of the car.

NANPâ„¢
[cigar]

this guy is simply changing parts until he gets it right!

This is not acceptable.

Let me share a story with you.
I used to work in a gas station. Doing simple tune-ups and pumping gas (& back when it was necessary, fixing flats). A guy came in with a small truck which he used for a small part-time gardening business. His truck would run fin then suddenly stall for no apparent reason. My boss took this job himself. First he confidently said it was the fuel pump. Changed it and it ran fine on the lot. The guy drove off but was back the next day. Same problem. Bossman said it was electrical so he changed the coil (on older vehicles this can really boost performance as these things weaken over time and the spark gets "cooler". Again, runs fine but comes back the next day with the same problem. Let me shorten this story, they changed the carburetor, ignition wires, fuel pump again (suspecting it was defective) fuel lines, fuel filters... A few other things I don't recall... the problem would not go away... until someone looked into the gas tank. There was a leaf in there. It was randomly floating around and would occasionally get sucked into the fuel intake in the tank. After it stalled form lack of fuel, the suction would go and the leaf would float off and the truck would run fine again for a while. This only happened at speeds above idle where the suction was great enough to hold the leaf in place.
 
Some of these guys are not good at diagnostics. Further, they are not motivated to be good at it. They get paid by the hour.

[Not A Nice Person]

Heh heh heh . . . we used to do that to officers' jeeps in the SeaBees. With ping pong balls. [lol]

After a $700 carb, among other attempted remedies, my problem turned out to be a design flaw peculiar to Escorts . . . a "warm air trap door" on the air cleaner that opened UPWARD to draw in preheated air in order to improve cold starting. Operated by a small electric motor and a sensor, and when the motor burned out---that "$10 part"---the trap door stayed open. Pointing UP. In exactly the right spot for rain, entering through the hood vents below the windshield, to pour directly into the carb.

yeah. Try running on THAT sometime. :?

It's not that he's not a good, trustworthy mechanic and all that, Scott. It's just that sometimes these can be things the factory only tells ITS mechanics about.

NANPâ„¢
[cigar]

[scott81425]

ok, one other thing i should mention, is back when the car first had its problems, i took it to the dealership to be checked out. they told me it was a lost cause, and i needed to order a new engine, or start looking around junk yards for them. even told me how much it was going to cost to swap them. i then had another guy look at it, who in a roundabout way said to replace the same exact thing my mechanic replaced. so i have had a few different opinions here.

[Not A Nice Person]

[user=380]scott81425[/user] wrote:

ok, one other thing i should mention, is back when the car first had its problems, i took it to the dealership to be checked out. they told me it was a lost cause, and i needed to order a new engine, or start looking around junk yards for them. even told me how much it was going to cost to swap them. i then had another guy look at it, who in a roundabout way said to replace the same exact thing my mechanic replaced. so i have had a few different opinions here.

Well, I'm not gonna argue about something I read on the internet, or impugn a trusted family mechanic (or your judgement).

I'm just gonna ask: who's been more right now?

NANPâ„¢
[cigar]