Q:When a mechanic tells me I need to replace a part, how can I be sure
they are not over charging me for the part? Can I purchase the part
myself and take it to the mechanic to install?
A: There are a few things you can do;
To make sure the part they want to replace needs fixing, you can request to be shown the bad part, and you can take pictures or even video it, most cell phones will record a few seconds. With this you could get a second opinion from me through our ‘Ask Tk’ form.
You can certainly buy your own part; I advise calling several different part stores before purchasing. Understand that different brands of parts come in different quality, with different prices and different warranties.
After you have the repairs done you can request the old parts as well.
I am sure you have seen that some cars have headlights that are faded, dirty looking and yellowed. Maybe even your headlights look like this. Do you ever wonder why?
Headlights didn’t used to do this, so why does this happen nowadays? The main reason headlights become faded and yellowed is because now they are made of different types of plastic, instead of glass…
The plastic degrades easily by UV rays from the sun. There is another factor at plays here as well; the plastic is less chemical resistant, and picking up road grime only aides in the degradation process.
All this yellowing and fading does not allow a lot of light to shine through, in turn may reduce your ability to safely drive at night.
So what can you do about this yellow headlight issue? There are several options I can suggest depending upon the severity of the headlight lens degradation.
- For light to medium degradation there are refinishing kits on the market. Refinishing is normally fairly easy. They typically consist of several very fine grits of wet sanding paper (1000 to 2000 grit) and a finishing polishing compound.
- For more severe headlight degradation there are basically two options: send off for professional refinishing (you can find companies online that do this) or replacement. You can go with factory replacement or with an aftermarket company that makes new headlight assemblies for most cars, sometimes at fewer costs than factory OEM parts.
Q: I drive a 2008 Acura turbo RDX. Acura recommends the higher octane grade gas. Can I go to the lower octane too? Does Turbo make a difference in gas selection?
A: I have to agree with Acura here… minimum octane rating for your engine (2.3 liter 4 cylinder with 240 horsepower) is 91.
Premium fuel is part of a turbocharged gasoline engine. Understand this; it is not that your engine won’t run on lower grade fuel, it will, however you won’t get proper performance from your engine with a lower grade gas. You will have less power and you will not be able to gain RPM as easily. This will make the engine actually use more gas to get the same performance as with a higher grade gas.
The biggest problem however will be the fact that you may also get unwanted noise from your engine (knocking or clattering). Your engine has a “Knock Sensor” that will sense this and it will attempt to adjust ignition timing to eliminate or reduce the knock. Long term knock can be damaging to your engine.
So though you might think you save money by buying lower grade gas, you in fact will do the opposite, you will end up spending more on gas and on possible engine repairs.
Q: Should I replace my timing belt in my car? It is a standard drive… I have owned this car for 10 years, it has 190,000 miles on it and I have never replaced anything on it except for an exhaust pipe.
A: A big yes, you should replace your timing belt. You should replace the timing belt somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 miles, manual transmission or automatic. The owner’s manual normally has the timing belt change intervals mentioned. Severe engine damage could occur if belt breaks, so changing the belt in time is crucial.
When the check engine light comes on, you should always have it checked out…
But what does it mean exactly, when the engine light comes on? The main thing your engine light is telling you when it is on is that there is something wrong with the Emission output of your vehicle…
When your engine light comes on it means that something in the drive train of your vehicle (the engine, transmission or differentials) has malfunctioned to the point that it has changed the standard fuel and exhaust emission output, for the year, make and model of your vehicle.
For example, an engine miss would change the output of your emission. When the engine miss-fires (misses) it expels unburned fuel and air out the exhaust, causing more pollution.
The exhaust has oxygen sensors which monitor the amount of oxygen in the exhaust emissions, when the oxygen levels are out of parameters too long the computer in your vehicle, that receives all the information of the performance of your vehicle, turns on the ‘check engine’ light. You may never feel your vehicle run badly and still the check engine light would be on. The computer in your vehicle will also store a trouble code and it will freeze frame data of the event, making it easier for a technician to diagnose your vehicle and see what the exact problem is.
There are numerous emissions monitored that way, for example, the amount of fuel vapor that returns to your fuel tank is also monitored. That system goes through routine testing; it lightly pressurizes the vapor return hoses, piping and fuel tank. If it would leak off pressure (which means raw fuel vapor being emitted into the atmosphere) this system would notice and it would turn on the light as well.
The stored data in the computer of your vehicle, like I mentioned, makes it easier for the technician to find the cause of the problem, with the data of the computer he can pinpoint the location that gives trouble. Understand though that that when someone accesses the trouble codes in the computer of your vehicle, it may have a sensor reference with it that says something like: ‘O2 sensor lean’ or ‘rich’. This does not necessarily mean the sensor itself is lean, rich or bad in any way, in this case the sensor might tell us the oxygen levels are way off, but this is where the technician checks under the hood…
At one point I had a customer call my garage one day frustrated because he had four new oxygen sensors and his check engine light kept coming back on. The part store had sold him new oxygen sensors because their ‘trouble code reader’ said “‘Oxygen sensor too lean” and they thought the sensor were bad… However when he pulled up to my garage I could hear what sounded like a large vacuum leak on his engine (sucking air in where it is not supposed to go in). When he explained his concern, I installed my Diagnostic Computer, and sure enough he had an ‘Oxygen sensor too lean’ code, but when I examined his engine I found the vacuum leak. Al I had to do was a slight repair with a vacuum hose worth 50 cents; clear the code in his computer and a road test after.
In this example the oxygen sensors had been performing properly, but they were not actually ‘lean’, instead that was their way of telling the computer that there was too much oxygen leaving the engine, the cause of this was the vacuum leak. The air inlet sensor did not know that extra air was entering the engine, but the oxygen sensor in the exhaust did notice the extra oxygen that was leaving the engine, from the emission program in the exhaust, this illuminated the ‘check engine’ light.
