Thomas Hundal
Thomas is a Nu Rave-blaring, heel-toe downshifting, maple syrup-swilling, chassis-geeking, junkyard parts-hauling, floppy-haired Toronto-based scenester who's been writing about cars since college. His current fleet includes a 2006 BMW 325i with the six-speed manual gearbox and a 1999 Porsche Boxster with the five-speed manual.
thomas@theautopian.com
Instagram: @thomas.hundal
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My 2000 XJ looks like it has bad ball joints when it’s parked. Thing is, I can’t find any slop in them at all. No matter how hard I pull and pry, that wheel doesn’t wiggle or tilt. Yet it clearly seems like both front wheels are tilted inward.
They’re the original ball joints. I’ve owned the jeep 22 years at this point and grease them every year or so, so they’ve been cared for. But, I really should just replace the damn things anyway.
So it is supposed to have a little negative camber. I don’t have numbers, but it should have just enough camber to be barely visible if you look at it really hard.
If it’s way more camber than that, and the ball joints are absolutely not loose, you may have a bent axle housing. Is there anything sufficiently horrible in this jeep’s history that that’s even a possibility?
No. It’s never taken any kind of hit that would have bent the axle. I’m thinking it may be a combination of the wheels not being fully centered after parallel parking, and being parked on a tilted surface with worn tires that add to the optical illusion.
Well, my 2016 Mazda 6 front suspension is rattling and I don’t have a lift or any good way to get under there. I tried with just a jack and couldn’t find a problem. So I took in into the shop and the mechanic showed some rods related to the linkage I think (I don’t remember) were loose and he replaced them. Fine…but then at the end of the day they were like–oh, more rattles, maybe new struts? Well, I can’t do struts either without replacing the springs, and the replacements available are junk. Quality replacements are so expensive I might as well have the dealer do it. But I had to get the car back. Now it sounds just as bad as it did before I took it in. It seems prof mechanics are just guessing as much as you are. They just have a lift.
Lastly, the adaptive cruise buttons remap randomly. How’s that for dangerous? It’s a software glitch most certainly. After a period of driving the + button flips with the – button. Sometimes the Off button turns into the + button and the Off doesn’t work at all. Fun times. The mechanic want’s to replace the entire steering wheel, I think. Um…. no. Besides, I think it’s a software problem.
70% of the time, rattling like that is the sway bar end links being worn out, when worn they generally feel loose and easy to rotate as long as both wheels are at the same height (so if the whole front end is jacked up, or both front wheels are on ramps). Getting under the car with it on ramps can help you at least feel if anything is obviously loose… Try to twist the sway bar links or move the bar itself, shake the strut or spring, use a lever next to the bushings or ball joint on the lower control arm to see if they deflect much, see how much play is in the driveshafts, have someone turn the steering wheel to see if there is any slack in the tire rod ends or between the hub and wheel…
Some further diagnostics could help though… Does it make a noise when only the left wheel hits a bump, or only the right one, or both? What about when both front wheels hit a bump simultaneously, like a speed bump?
The heater valve on my BMW E12 (‘78 530i) failed recently. It started with my setting out to replace a broken U joint (the knobs on the dash are connected to the heater valve and air distribution valve with a sort of plastic U joint on either end of a sliding shaft – these eventually break and are NLA but I found a couple f used ones). In trying to get the broken half of the U joint out of the heater valve, suddenly…part of the heater valve came out. F***. Then it just dribbles or pours coolant on my right foot when I run it. Heater valve has been NLA for a couple of years. I luck into finding a NOS valve at a shop in CA. It is an absolute whore to replace. Four little 9mm nuts on the back to remove it, two of them you can see if you stick your head down where the pedals are, the third you can kind of see but can’t really put a wrench on it, the fourth is completely hidden. Removing the valve in the car requires, among other things, taking a cheap 9mm and hammering a 90-degree bend in it so you can reach over the top of the valve blind and turn the nut in 30-degree increments, then somehow threading the new nuts onto the back of the new valve when you can’t put fingers on them and can’t see them. The alternative is to take the AC and heater/blower units out of the car to replace the valve on the bench, which is at least all afternoon’s worth of work to R&R.
I am doing a brake service on my 911 prior to taking it on a trip weekend after next. Flush and replace the fluid, and replace the soft lines at each corner with new ones. It seems like every damn fitting is a different size. Bleed screws are 9mm in front and 7mm in the rear, hard lines are 11mm front and 12mm rear, soft lines coming off are 15mm and 17mm, new Goodridge stainless lines going on are 9/16 and 11/16. Good grief!
An intermittent “service steering lock” on my Caddy gives me anxiety but not sure what could be done now. Also procrastinating changing the plugs on my 14 Crosstrek that spent it’s first seven years in Chicago winters.
I turned what should’ve been a simple brake/rotor job on my 98 Boxster into 6 wasted hours, a broken bolt extractor bit and still managed to not get the bolt out. Porsche had the great idea of making the brake line bracket have a bolt threaded directly into the wheel assembly that lives to cross thread and then break the bolt head. It’s so common that there are kits out there to replace the bolts with permanent studs to save yourself the exact headache I’m going through.
A recent turnover of the Z4 engine exposed a hateful new radiator leak. Sigh.
That’s just an opportunity to upgrade!
-I jest: my condolences
I’ve been chasing an issue with brake feel on the RX8 for over a year now. There are no leaks in the system and with the engine off (no vacuum assist for the booster), it feels nice and firm and the pedal doesn’t sink at all even when I’m standing on it with all the force I can. Feels fine right after starting it up too, but after a bit of driving the first few pedal applications would be very squishy, like the system needed to be bled. Well… It’s been bled probably 10x now, using every combo of pressure, vacuum, check valves, and the two-person method, even repeatedly bleeding, then driving on a dirt road and slamming the brakes to actuate abs, then bleeding again. So far I’ve replaced the slide pins and other hardware (they were seized on some corners, or we’ve allowing the pads to move adequately), rebuilt all four calipers (the pistons were sticking a bit and not freely retracting), replaced a slightly bent wheel, both front wheel bearings (one was a bit loose, probably from the same incident that damages the wheel, and the other had rust on the face preventing the rotor from sitting flat), all four rotors and had two of them re-turned so the measured run-out when installed is about 0.001″ or less, all four sets of brake pads since some had worn on a bit of an angle from the stuck slide pins, and wire brushed the two older hubs to remove rust that was keeping the rotors from sitting flat.
All in all, the brakes are feeling much better but there still is additional squish in the pedal on the first application after driving for a while and not using them… The second press feels fine but the first is still a little disconcerting, and I’ve really run out of ideas for what it could be. I’m going to swap in another set of pads on the chance that the formerly new set may have worn at an angle or something while I worked out the other issues too, but I’m at a bit of a loss for what to try next.
I have a much simpler system on my MGB, but had a very similar experience for a while where I would have to pump the brake sometimes to get pressure. Replacing the master cylinder was what finally got that feeling to go away.
I was considering that, but there’s never been an instance where it didn’t build pressure, or wouldn’t do so with the car stationary and engine off. It’s next on the list if new pads don’t do it though
I’ve had the MGB over 4 years now and it’s actually been shockingly dependable, but last week I changed the front brake calipers and after I was done I tried to take it for a test drive and made it about 40′ in reverse before the car died. When it would start, it struggled and died. I’ve replaced the coil, plugs, checked the carb floats.. Same result. I’m currently waiting on a gasket set/rebuild kit for the carb and I cleaned it all up (because I had to take it off the car to get to the float bowl.). Of course I did all these things before checking the fuel filters, and after I thought more about what would cause issues after a brake job, the only things I could think of was moving sediment in the gas tank when the front of the car was jacked up. The tank is under 10 years old and the fuel filters, fuel pump, and all the flexible fuel line was replaced last year, (and the carb bowl was full of gas), but maybe the flow is restricted. We’ll, I always have to remind myself that I bought an MGB so that I’d have something to wrench on. It doesn’t disappoint.
Don’t forget to take a look at the distributor, too. Points, condenser, cap & rotor. It may not have been caused by your brake fiddling at all, and it’s just a happy coincidence that something went wrong. It’s British after all.
I just discovered on my GT6 that the rear shocks are bottoming out at the ride height I’m at. Which means I’m gonna be replacing the leaf spring AGAIN for what feels like the hundredth time.
Yeah a distributor cap and rotor are on the way too. I don’t have points, because it was converted to an electronic distributor. It seems like a fuel issue though.
1994 300ZX (NA). I’m getting ready to sell it, but it had a pretty serious oil leak from the valve cover gaskets. It was oozing on to the exhaust manifold, so it was smelly and potentially dangerous. How hard could valve cover gaskets be?
Oh, what a fool I was. It took a solid two weeks of evening work just to remove the intake manifold. Back when they designed this car, Nissan decided that running coolant through the throttle bodies would be a great idea. This provides the advantage of, um, nothing. But it does mean that there are tons of little coolant hoses that you need to get out of the way to remove the manifold. These are naturally intertwined with the vacuum hoses, which are actually required, and which look identical.
And then there are the EGR pipes, the bolts of which cannot be reached by adults. I had to borrow a friend’s teenage daughter (who has tiny hands) to get the bolts started.
After deleting all the crap, the process of reinstalling the manifold was pretty easy. But now the car idles way too fast. I think I may have fixed a vacuum leak that the previous owner just dealt with by raising the idle. Maybe. I sure can’t find any leaks now. But adjusting the idle on a 300zx? Ha! That requires removing an electrical connector that’s completely inaccessible and has a retaining clip that must be removed with dental picks. Guess I’m calling my friend with the teenage daughter again. At least she’s a good sport and likes wrenching.
tl;dr 300ZXs are pain. I’ll miss this car when I sell it, but not too much.
Generally, the presence of a vacuum leak causes a high idle… You don’t take care of a vacuum leak by raising the idle. I’d double check all your vacuum hoses and their positioning, it’s likely that there was an old hose that got cracked during removal or something was put on the wrong vacuum nipple and is now connected post-throttle instead of pre throttle or vice versa
You can find a vacuum leak by taking a spray can of something flammable (eg WD40), can carefully spraying a small amount where you suspect a leak, whilst the engine is running. You’ll hear the engine note change when you spray the leak.
If you use starting fluid or brake parts cleaner(which are both much more flammable than wd40), you don’t make a giant mess of oily wd40 that will never fully evaporate.
I sprayed brake cleaner all over each junction and the engine did not notice any of it. Just purred along at 1500 rpm. That’s why I don’t suspect a vacuum leak. Probably should try it again, though, in case I missed something.
I had issues with high idle on my Accord(no idle adjustment) that were not caused by a vacuum leak. In fact, I never figured out exactly what the problem was: but I did discover that a passage through the intake manifold and throttle body(from the idle air control valve perhaps) was letting lots of air into the intake and causing my high idle. I solved this problem by cutting a block off plate out of a soda can that sandwiches between the throttle body and intake and blocks this passage.
It still feels like that was a really wrong thing to do, and it really sounds like I invented a bandaid solution for a malfunctioning idle circuit. But the car idles smooth and strong, cold high idle works as it should, and it gets great gas mileage, so whatever I did, it really worked.
I guess what I’m saying is that conventional wisdom and internet advice may not apply to complicated and unconventional intake systems, and don’t be afraid to get redneck with vacuum if that’s what it takes.
Well, that’s what I thought, too. But I spent 15 minutes tooting brake clean all around the engine bay, and the car never noticed. So now what?
This line out of context is entertaining me way more than it should.
I’ll never forgive my daughter for threading a bolt on the Z4 on seconds, that my friend and I had tried for an hour together and two more hours by myself to thread to no avail.
Funnily enough, that same friend’s wife has offered her “tiny raccoon hands” to help should another such situation arise.
I don’t know what it is with millions of coolant hoses on the intake and throttle body, specifically on 90s Japanese cars. My 91 and 92 Accords have a similar glut of coolant hoses, similarly difficult. The coolant flow and temperature(somehow) directly regulates the idle air control, so if you have bubbles in your incompletely bled cooling system, it will have a ridiculous idle and severe surging. Solved by adding a touch more coolant. So weird.
After I toasted my high-mileage BMW’s motor, I spent weeks swapping in a lower-mileage one. I still have a P0505 code and can’t find the presumed vacuum leak. And, on its’ first large drive loop, the AC died.
now, I’m an hvac tech, but I play with large industrial systems all day: I don’t want to futz around in that little engine bay with aluminum piping after work
The Mondial still has a bunch of issues–the new top is great, but it won’t keep the interior dry unless the rear windows work, and the front seat won’t slide, among many others–but what’s especially frustrating is that after replacing the fuel bypass valve (one of two used units for sale in North America), it still dies without throttle when warm. It’s not impossible to drive, just super annoying…and more so because we already fixed that.
I’m a Saab owner, so by definition there are multiple things annoying me right now.
– I can flash the high beams but they refuse to stay on continuously. I checked the factory service manual and the number of modules and connections associated with keeping the high beams on is hilarious and maddening.
– None of the cargo area lighting works because the sensor that tells the car the hatch is open is broken. It is, of course, built into the hatch latch and costs $300 to replace.
– The brake booster has a small leak, which mostly just creates the mother of all rev hang phenomena.
– The exhaust manifold gasket leaks. Fixing it requires removing the turbo and cooling system, because of course it does.
The Volt is starting to make some noise going over bumps, so I’m thinking new front struts may be in order before too long.
My ’94 Fleetwood has a really annoying little plastic squeak that comes and goes. I know, 90’s GM… hard to believe. I’ve gotten it narrowed down to the an area around the instrument cluster. I’m thinking taking it apart and reassembling with some foam tape will do the trick there.
Then there’s the XK8. Top down, everything is great – convertible cruising at its best! Top up and it’s suddenly all rattle rattle thunder clatter, boom boom boom… (♫ don’t worry call the Car-X man ♫). Okay, it’s not that bad, but there are a
lot ofcompletely normal amount of interior rattles for a cheap, 24 year-old Jaguar.I have zero complaints (knock on wood) with my two Audi’s. Shocking for VAG products, I know. The Q7 has never rattled, that thing feels like it was machined from one solid ingot. The S5 used to rattle like a 1992 Chevy Lumina, but much time spent with foam tape and Kilmat has eradicated every rattle, squeak and groan. My only frustration right now is that FCP Euro delayed my shipment of a whole lot of parts for over a week just for an oil filter, so I wasn’t able to do a brake job and oil changes last weekend as planned.
Currently disassembling the dashboard on a 1964 IH Travelall so that I can swap in a good, tested wiring harness for the one it came with—where the PO had taken a pair of dikes and cut the fuse panel out, instead of just disconnecting the bayonet clips and leaving me with numbered wires.
I’ve got the passenger side off, but there are two or three things still hanging on behind the gauge panel, and I can’t get a bead on what they are.
Bonus: I followed the cable behind a mystery knob on the dash to a dealer-installed PTO off the side of the transmission, attached to…nothing.
With my Prius v?
Occasionally get rattles from the center armrest cupholder. Dealership applied NVH tape and it’s lessened, but still happens sometimes. Don’t know a foolproof way that wouldn’t involve making it way uglier and/or useless.
Oh, and the top glovebox is a little loose because one or more of the tabs must have broken one of the times I removed it for accessory installation.
But other than that…nothing annoying me but the ever-present fear and pessimism of knowing that someday it will die, whether suddenly in an accident or by the inexorable passage of time that waits to take us all.
It’s not annoying me anymore, but this past weekend I had to yet again rebuild one of the seatback pockets in my E39 wagon. If you know the 16/18-way Comfort/Contour seats in the E38 and E39, you know. Basically, instead of a simple vinyl/fabric pocket with an elasticized top, like most cars have, these have a vinyl-wrapped hard pocket with spring-loaded hinge closures. All of this is made of 20+ year-old plastic, so breakage, and consequently, drooping pockets, is extremely common. I’d already replaced the plastic on both of my front seatback panels (with used parts), but the passenger side broke again, so I found a panel with good hinges at Pick-N-Pull and, because it wasn’t a color match for my interior, again pulled out the plastic innards and swapped them into my old panel.
Yes, a drooping map pocket bugs me. I’m anal, I guess.
Going well beyond annoying, it’s a great treat when your mechanic calls you, as mine did this week, and says, “You need a new transmission. Know where to find one?” Saab life!
The AC lost the charge (suspect leak) and a weeping pinion seal.
Took the running boards off the 4Runner because there was a little bit of paint bubbling near where they meet the rockers. Thought it’d be a quick afternoon of flap wheeling and painting. Nope, shit’s fucked with rust. Truly had no idea and I’ve been under the vehicle a bunch of times. Currently taking a break after doing some shamefully poor Bondo work. It’s not gonna be pretty but I’ll just throw the running boards back on and try not to think about it ever again.
My 986 has a fuel trim fault code (1124/1126 O2 sensor lean trim limit) that I’ve been struggling to fully diagnose for months. I’ve bought tools, cleaned everything, replaced parts, and while I did manage to fix the accompanying EVAP code by replacing a solenoid, I still can’t figure out the O2 sensor code. I have a list of steps to diagnose it, but I need to drive a full ECU diagnostic cycle for each step to see if the code returns, and some of these steps involve replacing expensive parts that may or may not be totally fine. The car runs perfectly well and has no other issues, even fuel economy is normal.
The driver’s door on my ’64 F100 coach-built crewcab rattles and squeaks. I’m mostly worried about the wear it is putting on the hinges. I have put some strips of weather seal in there to reduce the movment, but they don’t last.
There has been some squeaks from the suspension forever. No way to really figure out where they are coming from, so just a part of the quirkiness and uniqueness of the truck!
For the door, you could try some ultra-high molecular weight (UHMW) polyethylene tape.
It’s designed to stop squeaks and to reduce friction between flat surfaces, e.g. on kitchen drawers. I used it on the overlapping parts of a steel bed frame and it worked great.
My Kia has a squeaking dash. First I thought it was coming from the gauge cluster or the cluster hood plastic. Finally found a TSB that it’s actually the dash mounting tabs on the firewall. The TSB says to put felt on the tab, then screw it down. By time I found the TSB, it was past my warranty for squeaks to be fixed.
Rebuilt the BMW cylinder head. Now it has valve clearance issues. Bought some PlayDoh to measure how badly I am forqued. Corvair was running great but then mysteriously wouldn’t start at the grocery store. Wiggled the battery cable and it fired right up. But the cable was already clean and tight…
Almost since I’ve had it, the XJ8 has been doing this thing where all the gauges randomly go dead and every light comes on, but the car still drives and the HVAC still works. Also the gas gauge. If you turn the car off and back on, it will start. Or sometimes not. To fix this, open the trunk for about 30 seconds and retry. After many years of searching, I finally found a TSB that addresses this exact failure, but it involves the ABS harness and that’s above my talent level, so I’m just accepting things as they are. Other than that the car is nearly faultless and I love it. Jaguar things.
The Yugo will start and run but not idle without holding throttle.
The 924 will start and run and rev, but while in gear it refuses to accept throttle. It has been this way since I had it detailed two years ago.
About half the tires in my fleet are date coded “probably would be a good idea to get new ones about two years ago”.
Other than the above, everything is fine, that makes it no less frustrating, especially considering cash is tight right now.
If it makes you feel any better, my F-Pace does a vaguely similar thing. Once in a blue moon, the infotainment stuff will reboot itself. If I am on a call via bluetooth when it happens, the call goes from the car to the handset; when the reboot is complete, the call will be handed back to the car. The call is not dropped, which is nice, and the reboot takes maybe 30 seconds so it’s not a huge deal but it is a little odd.
As you said, “Jaguar things”.
The Peugeot still isn’t driving, it should have been, but some moron (me) installed the differential seal backwards, so now I am waiting to get a new one from England because of course I can’t get them stateside, so 30 seconds of stupidity means $50 down the drain and another week it sits in the garage.
Then the Cruze makes all sorts of dumb noises, and oil is leaking onto the exhaust, so that leads to wonderful smells. I thought I had that fixed, but apparently it wasn’t the valve cover. Oh on that note, when attempting to replace the valve cover gasket, the massive ignition coil block that serves all 4 plugs broke in 2 places, so 10 cents in plastic and rubber meant I had to replace a $200 part, so that was fun.
The wife’s car is doing great though!