I don't disagree and I was expecting a bill for 1500, but I think this guy liked the challenge. He doesn't do all the work, but he still does some, although my experience is he's tied to the phone a lot. Not sure i can even out the score, but I'll definitely give him some easier work and ask him if he forgot about the MAF. If so, I'll happily pay for it and labor, not out to take advantage of anyone.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
Are the K&N aftermarket air filters a bad idea? I've had one in the Mustang for about 60k of the 83k we've put on it. It cleans up pretty easy and by now has paid for itself. I saw some posts about them letting lots of dirt into the engine. The intake throttle body looks very clean inside. We don't have much sand in Indiana.
They're okay if you maintain them and don't over-oil them. (common error)
The "bad' part is that they don't do anything for performance except make nice noises.
RE: CLOSING THE TOPIC: -- I'd only do that by consensus. Anyone can retire individually any time they wish of course.
Normally we just let them die a natural death, them make them "read only" and archive them, which I will certain do for this one at some point. There's lots of interesting stuff in here that we've all 'built', so to speak.
I don't disagree and I was expecting a bill for 1500, but I think this guy liked the challenge.
That's part of why we take on cars like that, the challenge helps us study at a level that can't be taught. However at the same time its part insecurity. If we give up on a car and therefore fail to fix it then the experience is typically used to bad mouth the shop, or of course the tech inside the shop. I've worked under managers where if a tech failed to diagnose and fix something no matter how complicated, (random, intermittent) it created anything but a teaching moment.
He doesn't do all the work, but he still does some, although my experience is he's tied to the phone a lot.
So he likely put in lots of quiet time hours when the shop was closed and nothing else was going on. That's the routine that I use. The random stuff has to sit while profitable work is put through the shop. But there are some problems that simply demand tons of effort and its all unbillable time.
I had another shop install a computer in a Ford product and they needed it programmed and they provided the original key and a second and a third aftermarket keys. In the end it was discovered that the aftermarket keys could be trained to the vehicle if they were done as additional keys, but the car simply refused to learn them correctly. Any one of them could be learned as the first master key but then no other keys would learn. They all simply wouldn't lean as a second key if the original was used as the first one, and the onboard diagnostics didn't assist in determining why that was occurring. (You must have two master keys learned to start the car) It took a lot of time to confirm that everything on the car was working correctly. By getting another key from the dealer, the two O.E keys trained just fine and then both of the aftermarket keys learned as well.
Not sure i can even out the score, but I'll definitely give him some easier work and ask him if he forgot about the MAF.
Good for him and that's nice of you. There really is no way to get to fair from here. If they charge for the time, they would be treated as rip-offs and you'll have people coming out of the woodwork claiming they could have done the job in a minimal amount of time. (Generally its a false claim but they want to be hero's and once the shop has provided the answer, well its like getting to cheat on a test at that point) By the shop not charging for the time, the tech doing the job typically doesn't get paid for the time that it took. The tech will be told "If he knew what he was doing it wouldn't have taken him that long so its his fault that he didn't make any money". Then the shop manager typically plays the "I'll give you some gravy work to make up the time".
I'll definitely give him some easier work
I'll bet I have a customer list a thousand names long that only come to us after others have failed, or that are sent to us by someone and we efficiently solved the problem only to have them never return. (until they run into another nightmare that is)
We have cars today that do not have a scheduled interval for the replacement of the air filter and it can be considered a lifetime component.
From the front seat of the car, doing hard acceleration and plotting the calculated engine load pid a dirty air filter can be proven without ever touching the air cleaner. On top of that many systems use air filter indicators that can be reset. If it isn't popped, just leave it alone other than a visual inspection to make sure that it hasn't been damaged by a rodent.
BTW, the engine load pid calculation, and/or if you want do a VE calculation from the MAF sensor reading on a hard acceleration are ways of proving if a non-OE filter actually made any difference at all.
I have always held filters up to the sun to see if they were dirty enough to clean or replace. I used compressed air and gumout carb spray to clean the K&N the last few times. I don't have any oil on it. I recently read that it is a myth that a dirty air filter can reduce gas mileage because the MAF sensor adjusts fuel air ratio for the limited air that might only be getting through, but that power loss could be up to 11% for a overdue air filter. The myth busted is supported by my trip to NC over Mem Day weekend. My DIC said I averaged 38.8 on the trip there (460 miles) and while there I put in the first ever new filter at 33k miles. Then I got 38.5 on the return trip to IN. I reset it as I left NC.
Is there any test I can do with my OBDII/CAN scanner to determine how well the old engine is running? I don't know what engine load pid is.
I suspect an explanation for the dirty filter not always giving an improvement when replaced is that a lot of that dirt is larger particles which as not embedded into the fine pores of the filter matrix. They show up but aren't a major impediment to air movement.
On the other hand, if we drove through fine dust a lot, such as concrete dust, that would clog the smaller openings and cause more of a loss of free air flow.
I caught part of today's rerun on Motorweek on PBS and they were talking in Goss' garage about something about air filter not giving any improvement for the cost involved. I wondered if that was the K&N type filter.
I trust the manufactured filter material much more to catch particles, larger and smaller, than I trust the particles to happen to hit and stick to a steel wire coated with oil, which is what it sounds like the K&N filters are. We used that kind on some farm equipment back in the 19XX's when I grew up on the farm.
I'm not sure why people would expect any difference with a K&N filter. After all, all cars have throttle plates (well, most do), so the amount of air going in doesn't change. I suppose you might gain some micro-HP at full throttle, maybe kinda, if the engine displacement was large enough.
But you get nice noises and perhaps a tad better throttle response if your foot is sensitive to such things.
I haven't noticed differences in performance/FE for the engine air filter changes, either. I certainly DO notice a distinct change for the cabin air filters, though! New ones make a huge difference in the air flow immediately after the change.
I use K&N filters in my cars simply because the filter is a reusable product. I clean them annually and per K&N instructions (most notably.... do NOT use compressed air to clean them). Haven't had any issues and, more importantly, there was absolutely no change to the used oil analysis results (both wear metals and particulates) before and after, so I can comfortably say that there is no additional particulate getting into the crankcase as a result of the reusable filter; at least, none that is not cleaned up by the oil filter, and I run 10-15K between oil changes (annual).
2018 Subaru Crosstrek, 2014 Audi Q7 TDI, 2013 Subaru Forester, 2013 Ford F250 Lariat D, 1976 Ford F250, 1969 Chevrolet C20, 1969 Ford Econoline 100
I notice a distinct difference on my carburetor-fed vehicles. FE is so poor on them, I wouldn't expect a difference there (and don't drive them enough to car or track closely), but throttle response, power, etc., is noticeable. But, then, those older rigs have terrible intake systems. Opening them up so they can breathe better overall makes much more difference than the filter, alone, ever could.
2018 Subaru Crosstrek, 2014 Audi Q7 TDI, 2013 Subaru Forester, 2013 Ford F250 Lariat D, 1976 Ford F250, 1969 Chevrolet C20, 1969 Ford Econoline 100
I see where you're coming from and can appreciate that you feel the original intent of your participation has run its course. The good part is that the info is out there now.
As with any good conversation, it changes with time: Sometimes wandering far astray and other times coming home to roost. Disagreements or no, I think most of the rest of the participants here (myself included) enjoy your participation at Edmunds, so I hope you'll decide to stick around when you have the opportunities to do so.
2018 Subaru Crosstrek, 2014 Audi Q7 TDI, 2013 Subaru Forester, 2013 Ford F250 Lariat D, 1976 Ford F250, 1969 Chevrolet C20, 1969 Ford Econoline 100
I would like to see an unbiased study of the two types of filter, OEM and K&N, to learn how much more particulate matter makes its way into the combustion chamber with the oil on wire mesh. As much as oil filters have been studied, there must be something out there by someone without a dollar benefit involved one way or the other.
it may be the answer to a question no one asked, since OEM air filters do a really good job already.
Unless one's vehicle has been hired to participant in a re-enactment of Rommel's Desert War, I really don't think anyone has to give their OEM air filter a second thought.
I found one answer to a study. It is relatively well done by a guy who understands that it's not a scientific study in a laboratory using contaminated air of a standard level of particulate. He drove each filter for 500 miles in the Pacific Northwest. He used a second filter to catch what the first filter missed. Said it made his Miata a little slow on high air flow demand situations. :grin
Of course, he received lots of criticism from some defending their favorite brand. There's a lot of money at stake for aftermarket filter types beyond the OEM style. There also is a lot of ego involved as well, just as some people react bad to criticism of their favorite car some reacted here to air filter drama.
Mr_Shiftright has it right: the answer to the question not asked for most of us in normal driving.
Unless one's vehicle has been hired to participant in a re-enactment of Rommel's Desert War, I really don't think anyone has to give their OEM air filter a second thought.
I have to laugh at that. When we do on the very rare occasion have a vehicle with a genuinely clogged air filter its quite often not all that easy to diagnose. Different vehicles produce different symptoms.
Another shop had an F250 that they knew the air filter was only three months old, it had a severe loss of power and would randomly run out of control rich, and then out of control lean on successive pull outs from a stop. What I found was the filter was crushing and changing shape and that caused the air density to be erratic as it flowed through the MAF sensor which resulted in it sometimes over estimating the airflow, and then in turn under estimating it. It only took me a road test and watching the fuel trims and the calculated barometric pressure reading and I knew it was an airflow issue, but a filter getting crushed into different shapes by the pressure differential across it wasn't what I was expecting to find. But I gotta say the look on the other shop owner's face was priceless when I nailed in ten minutes what he had been fighting with for a week. The truck was a construction vehicle that they service all the time and he knew the filter was brand new, "so it couldn't be that", but it was.......
2006 Toyota Tacoma had an engine put in it and then it started setting codes for lean exhaust, and after replacement of the O2's and air/fuel sensors it finally settled into setting P0138, and P0158. One is B1S2 voltage high and B2S2 voltage low. Bank #1 downstream sensor voltage was going to .1v or lower and staying there, while the bank #2 downstream sensor would go to .8 and stay there. Bank 1 A/F sensor voltage was 3.1v, indicating rich,. and bank #2 A/F sensor 3.45 volts indicating lean.
Now before I say what was wrong, see if you can figure it out or what could you do try and prove what was wrong with the truck.
FWIW fuel trims were adding fuel to bank #2, and taking fuel away from bank #1
Tomorrow is trash day and barrels wouldn't fit out by the Mustang, so I decided to move it. Put it in neutral and push it forward a foot or so, no need to start it. I did need to turn the key to the On position to shift out of park. Did that and NOTHING. Car is completely dead. After a few wtf's, i decided to hook up my jump box to see what would happen. As soon as I hooked it up and turned it on, the headlights lit up. I got in the car and tried to start it, but the box needs recharging. Last night I let one of the kids take it. When I asked them if anything unusual happened with the car, everything was fine. Are you sure? I might have left the headlights on. Grrrr.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
I just took another inch off my positive cable and re-attached it on my 15 yr old Mustang. This time I wire brushed the exposed copper strands, soaked them in baking soda along with the top post mount aftermarket terminal with a bolted strap. Then sanded the terminal ID and wire brushed the lead post OD. Then I wrapped the cable attachment area with electrical tape to keep it dry. The negative terminal was slightly loose too. The car wouldn't start about a month ago and after waiting a while it did start. The strands I cut away were crusty and green
Yeah, wrapping a connection with electrical tape will not prevent moisture from entering and the resultant corrosion. Though, it will help keep out gobs of water.
To do a connection like that right, you need to be able to create a gas tight connection between the cable and the connector, which usually requires special tools.
That said, I would not hesitate to put on a new connector before getting a whole new cable.
That said, I would not hesitate to put on a new connector before getting a whole new cable
Those quick fixes have been around and failing for as long as I have been a tech, and today they have been found to also be the direct cause of some really strange failures. How many times have you volt drop tested your battery cables with those ends on them a few months or so after they were installed? The voltage drop that occurs across the cable is of course the result of the cables total resistance. The nightmare that we deal with comes from the fact that the battery is not just there to start the car, its also responsible to supplement the alternator output under certain conditions and absorb voltage spikes from components turning on and off. The battery isn't just a source of power, its also the largest capacitor in the charging system. If you have excessive resistance in the battery cables and or portions of the charging circuit, the AC voltage spikes can become great enough to corrupt some input signals to some of the computers on the car.
If you take note of the highlights and make comparisons you would see that B1S1 (bank one, sensor one, upstream) shows rich, while B1S2 the downstream sensor on the same bank shows that its lean. There are a couple reasons that could cause that to occur, one would be an exhaust leak between the sensors and checking for that none was found.
Let's look at the other bank now. B2S1 is showing that it's lean, while B2S2 is showing that it's rich. Now unless there is a sensor or circuit issue that really doesn't make any sense.
So how could we rule out a sensor issue from the front seat of the car? A hard acceleration drives the system rich, and both upstream and downstream sensors reported the condition correctly. A closed throttle decel then results in a fuel cut-off or extremely lean and all of the sensors reported that correctly as well. So at that point one or more could still be innacurate, but they are definitely working for the most part. (Rich has the upstream sensor voltage dropping to 2.4v while the downstream sensor reports .8v or more, lean the upstream sensor goes to 4.99 and the downstream drops to .1v)
We find bank to bank fuel trim issues from time to time, but fully expect to see both sensors on either side reporting the same condition and the fuel trim data showing that the PCM is trying to correct for it. The data seen in the fuel trims was really confusing, while it appeared to be making corrections, it was going the wrong direction according to the upstream sensors. Bank #1 was rich and fuel trim was adding fuel instead of taking it away, bank #2 was lean and the fuel trims was taking fuel away.
This truck was demonstrating a condition that proves the downstream O2 sensors have more authority than the upstream air/fuel or O2 sensors have. Combine that with bank #2 downstream sensor reporting more fuel than the upstream sensor was reporting and the only thing that makes sense is someone has cross connected the down stream sensors sometime in the past. They even secured the harnesses in place on the brackets on the transmission just like they are supposed to be making it difficult to notice visually.
We stopped in a parking lot and disconnected the downstream sensors, released the harness from the brackets and re-routed them across the top of the transmission to the opposite sides and re-connected them and then road tested again. Now the downstream sensors were on the correct sides and the system functioned correctly. The troubling part there is the shop that originally put the engine in didn't have anything to do with that part of the wiring harness that was above the transmission, they didn't cause the problem. But both they and the second shop made the same mistake, they "assumed" the that problem was related to the engine replacement instead of just troubleshooting it. By starting with that assumption in place they were blinded to all the possible causes and got trapped. Between them they each had fought this for a week, and with a disciplined approach it was diagnosed and corrected in about a half an hour.
Now for the kicker, the codes would set as pending within a few minutes of driving, and if you shut the engine down and then restarted the truck would light the MIL (check engine light) in a few minutes after that. That pending code and subsequent MIL would prevent many of the other tests the computer has to run from being performed. That means the truck could easily still have other issues that can cause the MIL to come on, but there is no way to know until the computer gets to run the tests and that of course explains why a tech can do a good repair only to have the light come back on a few days or a week later and it really is a different problem even though to a customer the light coming back on looks like "its doing the same thing".
The troubling part there is the shop that originally put the engine in didn't have anything to do with that part of the wiring harness that was above the transmission, they didn't cause the problem.
That just further reinforces, to me, how important it can be to know the history of a vehicle. Very good point, though, about not allowing oneself to be blinded to possibilities through assumptions.
Also, recurring MIL illumination is exactly the reason why I finally decided to get a code reader. There are tons of code possibilities, but only one light. On a couple of my older cars, they would set the MIL without a code (or, in one case, with the same code regularly... P0420), but unless I checked it to see what was set, I would be blind to any other code that might have popped in there that I would want to have addressed. Ah, the joys of owning older (yet newer) cars!
2018 Subaru Crosstrek, 2014 Audi Q7 TDI, 2013 Subaru Forester, 2013 Ford F250 Lariat D, 1976 Ford F250, 1969 Chevrolet C20, 1969 Ford Econoline 100
Doc, would you say that battery cables should be considered a regular maintenance item? If so, and barring any evidence of excessive corrosion, etc., what is a reasonable schedule? I'm thinking that time is more of a factor to increased resistance than usage, but perhaps not?
Also, are modern vehicles more stressful on the cables than older ones? For example, the battery cables on my 1969 Chevrolet C20 are original, with 73,100 miles on the ticker.
2018 Subaru Crosstrek, 2014 Audi Q7 TDI, 2013 Subaru Forester, 2013 Ford F250 Lariat D, 1976 Ford F250, 1969 Chevrolet C20, 1969 Ford Econoline 100
The difference between your 69 Chev and today, aside from the fact that today they have almost every single copper strand whittled down to within inches of its collective cable life (just enough to 'do the job' and no more) (co$t + weight), is that back then, when you turned to the car off, basically unless you had an electric clock, it was off as in right off. No draw on the battery except for its own natural state of discharge, and exasperated by trace moisture/dirt between the posts. And consequently, less chance of a terminal corroding. Doesn't eliminate it though as we well know. But nowadays there is so much OEM draw even after the car is shut off, that that current will exasperate an area prone to electrolysis. In some cases there can apprx .35 amp, especially if you have an aftermkt car alarm. And of course you have the press fit terminals that squash the wire. If the grade of copper is clean (as in, inside the wire itself) and if you can keep outside moisture from getting at it from both ends of the terminal, especially the exposed bundled end, then the better chance of fending off premature resistance. But many forget that there is another end to that wire, like the pos one down at the starter and that one is often in a worse environment if any of the protective boots or wx seals get outta position. So either end can be a source of grief.
If the mfgrs soldered these ends, then that would stop the gas/oxygen from getting to the connection. I did this with my bike connections when it was brand new. They had barely a heavy enough gauge wire to do the job, and when I had soldered them, I actually ended up with a faster cranking speed. Bike batteries are even worse than car b cuz they are trying to save weight and lead and $ by using smaller ones every year it seems.. smaller as in less lead and thereby fewer CCA's.
On my truck, in particular, there is absolutely no draw from things like clocks, etc. I don't even bother to pull the battery in the winter time, because it holds charge just fine through 'till spring. The first battery I put in there, back in 1999, lasted a full ten years with only seasonal use and never being removed from the vehicle. I'd like to see a modern rig manage that feat! :-)
2018 Subaru Crosstrek, 2014 Audi Q7 TDI, 2013 Subaru Forester, 2013 Ford F250 Lariat D, 1976 Ford F250, 1969 Chevrolet C20, 1969 Ford Econoline 100
You're welcome. We just learned another reason why you keep the old guy around :thumb up:
I almost bought a 66 with the coil rear live axle. Some one had put a 350 with a 3 speed auto in it. It was surprisingly free of rust, but had been masked you could tell. I loved the dash in those. In fact the dash and grill were other reasons I almost got one. Alas I couldn't allow myself to be so extravagant as I could only use it in the summer, and I need a truck at times in the winter also. I would never salt it after seeing the work that had gone into bring it back for real world use. I figured I would get 18-22 miles/ Cdn gal if I kept it under 50 and did gentle starts as it had the 4 barrel with 2 the goal keeping it on the 2 small barrels. It was a 1/2 ton with stepside fenders and the wood floor. Pretty truck.
Re your battery, I would still put it on charge at least once or twice through the winter. I suspect it has a nice cool place to be (that slows discharge rate) but not freezing below 20 unless you do make sure it has a charge on it every once in awhile. Storing in the sun under a window in the heat is about the worse place you could store a battery as the heat accelerates discharge rate.
All that said though, maybe you better not change what you're doin', haha cuz it's workin' for ya.. Can you show us a pic of your truck? You got my curiosity piqued now.
Oh, gosh.... I haven't taken a photo of Ol' Yeller in so long.... But, here's a couple of good shots. It doesn't look much different today than in 2002 (heck, it only has 5,000 more miles now than then!):
Well, heck. The links post through perfectly in preview, but are stripped upon posting. So, here are the raw links... if you want to see them, just copy and paste the address (less the '-' that makes the line break) to a separate browser tab and it should come up just fine. This forum is having some issues, I tell ya.....
(don't try to click on these as if they are links. The website won't let me make them links, yet tries to do it itself, and then fails miserably)
I should definitely store the battery indoors along with all my others (it sees temps as low as -55F [appx -47C?] during the winter). But, "should" and "do" are two different things.... [insert embarrassed Emotorcon here]
2018 Subaru Crosstrek, 2014 Audi Q7 TDI, 2013 Subaru Forester, 2013 Ford F250 Lariat D, 1976 Ford F250, 1969 Chevrolet C20, 1969 Ford Econoline 100
Boy, that is a fine looking old truck, eh? I thought it was a 1/2 ton, but see that it must be a 3/4 since it has the camper on it and it's still looking pretty sturdy?
It looks quite rust free too eh, you guys are blessed with sand instead of salt I recall you saying a few years ago. What's the powertrain in it?
As for the -55 and your battery, that one is an odd combo...obviously the battery is really clean between the terminals and your winter must be like ours, not too humid. But with those extra cold temps it is a wonder it doesn't freeze and crack a case once the voltage drops much more than about 11.8 or so? Don't hold me to that figure though..doc would know for sure probably.
But if the battery is obviously of a very good quality, and if it is maintaining its voltage obviously well enough to not freeze, then those cold temps is also probably why you have gone all winter without a charge cuz the chemical reaction has slowed so much due to the cold. Interesting. I think that is the coldest example of a battery un-tended to over a winter that still performs the following spring I have ever heard of. Cool. Like I say, you're doing something right, so ya better not follow any of my advice here, haha
BTW, if you do bring it in, cool is way better than a warm house. If it is too warm you really will have to throw it on charge at least once over the winter. A tiny electronic limiting .5 amp trickle charger thrown on for a day once a month rotated between your others would do the trick and help keep whiskers from forming inside on the plates, which will reduce output.
You know another thing that kills batteries in modern cars? Is the under hood temps are so much hotter than back in the ol' days..
Some folks have a real problem buying a new battery until the old one fails. I got caught a few years ago on a 5 year old battery because I wasn't paying attention. I even had the buy date written on the battery top with a marker. Got it jumped at a local flea market --- drove a mile down the road and got a new one for $79 with the old core.
As for the -55 and your battery, that one is an odd combo...obviously the battery is really clean between the terminals and your winter must be like ours, not too humid. But with those extra cold temps it is a wonder it doesn't freeze and crack a case once the voltage drops much more than about 11.8 or so? Don't hold me to that figure though..doc would know for sure probably.
A battery at 40% state of charge will have an open circuit voltage of about 12.1v.
BTW an acceptable parasitic drain is a specification for a given battery and is related to the batteries reserve capacity. We look for under 50ma (.050 amps), a drain of 350ma will deplete a battery in about a week. The reserve capacity is the amount of time that a battery that is fully charged can produce 25 amps of current without falling below 10.5v, and should be able to crank an engine. Many batteries have 120 minutes of reserve capacity, that is 50 amp/hrs. That means a .350 amp drain will take just about 150 hours to deplete a battery.
Doc, would you say that battery cables should be considered a regular maintenance item?
Not a regular replacement item if that's what you mean, but they do require cleaning and resealing services on an as needed basis. Once bad enough though, its better to replace them than to try to only do the cable clamp. One thing everyone seems to forget is the other end of the cable, they fail too from the movement of the engine/transmission as well as from road salts.
Also, are modern vehicles more stressful on the cables than older ones? For example, the battery cables on my 1969 Chevrolet C20 are original, with 73,100 miles on the ticker
It takes a lot more current to crank up that truck then today's cars demand, so from that perspective the older ones stress the cables a lot more. As mentioned in one of the other posts the cables today are an integral part in helping ensure as little noise as possible from the charging system, so from that perspective they have their own demands.
The battery in my wife's 04 Impala is original. We have no garage and the car lives outdoors here in New England. Will see how it does in its 11th winter which will soon be here.
"If the mfgrs soldered these ends, then that would stop the gas/oxygen from getting to the connection."
Only if the soldering operation was done correctly. Another problem with soldering connectors like that on is that it now creates a rigid interface with no flex, so it could, under the right connections, fatigue and break.
Crimp connections, done right, are generally considered better than solder joints. They are more repeatable (providing the crimp tool is maintained), and to a large extent you take the skills of the operator out of the equation.
But like you implied, solder joints are very good when you have to pass a large amount of current with minimum drop.
The problem with trying to exploit the life-span of a battery in (especially modern) cars, as doc pointed out, battery or connection issues can allow damaging AC spikes, is that depending on the type of battery failure and how long it takes to surface, you can do expensive damage to the rest of the electrical systems of the car. Most of these cost a lot more than a new battery. I'd say the single biggest inadvertent mistake a car owner does when they suspect they have a battery problem, is replace the battery without confirming that maybe it was a connection fault somewhere, which means the new battery is not going to miraculously fix those connections. And unfortunately the connection issue can be temporarily masked by disturbing the connections during the battery replacement, only to resurface shortly after.
Another problem with soldering connectors like that on is that it now creates a rigid interface with no flex, so it could, under the right connections, fatigue and break.
This is an excellent point.
Yes, crimp connection success for relatively long life depends a lot on how well the robotic jig is set up, that and the purity of the wire being used..and of the connector itself too off course.
I thought I had written down the draw on my CRV when I had battery troubles last winter with a faulty 1 yr old battery. Perhaps my memory has failed me, but the draw was what I considered a LOT and as you point out 350mA could kill a battery in a week, and that is what it did on my car. Back in 04, I found out that when checking draw with many bike alarms, Scorpio, and...crap..can't remember some of the other popular brand names, that guys were killing their batteries in no time..One would fly out on business and come back 10 days to 2 weeks later to brand new battery that was flat. Found out that the big draw item was the aftermkt alarms. And they pull a lot of mAs...I wish I could remember the number.
Since my car often sits quite awhile between drives, I put an electronic trickle charger on it now year round if I know I'm not going anywhere for a few days. The Honda battery is especially weak, it claims similar CCA's to larger bodied batteries, but in my opinion, the closer the plates are jammed together to get the dimensions down, the more prone they are to corroding/sulphating during longer than average discharge periods. I know there is one poster here that has had good success with their Honda-sized batteries...but then their 12 month climate cycle is totally different than mine, so maybe that makes the difference.
C'mon, do you REALLY want to head into winter with a TEN year old battery?
I mean you can change that battery on YOUR terms or you can wait until you get stranded some dark snowy night and pay whatever price you have to pay not to mention the trouble and inconvenience you may have to go through or worse yet, a family member.
When I bought my 7 year old MINI, the shop's scan tool picked up on a weak battery and that was all I needed. It was the original. Outta there! Car worked fine with the old battery but you really want that reserve for cold weather or hard use.
Modern cars get very wonky when battery voltage drops.
I'm going for the 11 winters. It will break my record of 10 winters set by the 04 Impala and my 93 Nissan pick-up. (Speaking of that 93 pick-up, it was the most trouble free vehicle I ever owned. At 219,000 miles it still had the original battery, clutch, brakes, and exhaust system. Correct, it spent most of its life on the highway).
Comments
He doesn't do all the work, but he still does some, although my experience is he's tied to the phone a lot.
Not sure i can even out the score, but I'll definitely give him some easier work and ask him if he forgot about the MAF.
If so, I'll happily pay for it and labor, not out to take advantage of anyone.
The "bad' part is that they don't do anything for performance except make nice noises.
RE: CLOSING THE TOPIC: -- I'd only do that by consensus. Anyone can retire individually any time they wish of course.
Normally we just let them die a natural death, them make them "read only" and archive them, which I will certain do for this one at some point. There's lots of interesting stuff in here that we've all 'built', so to speak.
That's part of why we take on cars like that, the challenge helps us study at a level that can't be taught. However at the same time its part insecurity. If we give up on a car and therefore fail to fix it then the experience is typically used to bad mouth the shop, or of course the tech inside the shop. I've worked under managers where if a tech failed to diagnose and fix something no matter how complicated, (random, intermittent) it created anything but a teaching moment.
He doesn't do all the work, but he still does some, although my experience is he's tied to the phone a lot.
So he likely put in lots of quiet time hours when the shop was closed and nothing else was going on. That's the routine that I use. The random stuff has to sit while profitable work is put through the shop. But there are some problems that simply demand tons of effort and its all unbillable time.
I had another shop install a computer in a Ford product and they needed it programmed and they provided the original key and a second and a third aftermarket keys. In the end it was discovered that the aftermarket keys could be trained to the vehicle if they were done as additional keys, but the car simply refused to learn them correctly. Any one of them could be learned as the first master key but then no other keys would learn. They all simply wouldn't lean as a second key if the original was used as the first one, and the onboard diagnostics didn't assist in determining why that was occurring. (You must have two master keys learned to start the car) It took a lot of time to confirm that everything on the car was working correctly. By getting another key from the dealer, the two O.E keys trained just fine and then both of the aftermarket keys learned as well.
Not sure i can even out the score, but I'll definitely give him some easier work and ask him if he forgot about the MAF.
Good for him and that's nice of you. There really is no way to get to fair from here. If they charge for the time, they would be treated as rip-offs and you'll have people coming out of the woodwork claiming they could have done the job in a minimal amount of time. (Generally its a false claim but they want to be hero's and once the shop has provided the answer, well its like getting to cheat on a test at that point) By the shop not charging for the time, the tech doing the job typically doesn't get paid for the time that it took. The tech will be told "If he knew what he was doing it wouldn't have taken him that long so its his fault that he didn't make any money". Then the shop manager typically plays the "I'll give you some gravy work to make up the time".
I'll definitely give him some easier work
I'll bet I have a customer list a thousand names long that only come to us after others have failed, or that are sent to us by someone and we efficiently solved the problem only to have them never return. (until they run into another nightmare that is)
From the front seat of the car, doing hard acceleration and plotting the calculated engine load pid a dirty air filter can be proven without ever touching the air cleaner. On top of that many systems use air filter indicators that can be reset. If it isn't popped, just leave it alone other than a visual inspection to make sure that it hasn't been damaged by a rodent.
BTW, the engine load pid calculation, and/or if you want do a VE calculation from the MAF sensor reading on a hard acceleration are ways of proving if a non-OE filter actually made any difference at all.
Is there any test I can do with my OBDII/CAN scanner to determine how well the old engine is running? I don't know what engine load pid is.
Put a new one in---not a bit of difference in performance or gas mileage.
On the other hand, if we drove through fine dust a lot, such as concrete dust, that would clog the smaller openings and cause more of a loss of free air flow.
I caught part of today's rerun on Motorweek on PBS and they were talking in Goss' garage about something about air filter not giving any improvement for the cost involved. I wondered if that was the K&N type filter.
I trust the manufactured filter material much more to catch particles, larger and smaller, than I trust the particles to happen to hit and stick to a steel wire coated with oil, which is what it sounds like the K&N filters are. We used that kind on some farm equipment back in the 19XX's when I grew up on the farm.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
But you get nice noises and perhaps a tad better throttle response if your foot is sensitive to such things.
I use K&N filters in my cars simply because the filter is a reusable product. I clean them annually and per K&N instructions (most notably.... do NOT use compressed air to clean them). Haven't had any issues and, more importantly, there was absolutely no change to the used oil analysis results (both wear metals and particulates) before and after, so I can comfortably say that there is no additional particulate getting into the crankcase as a result of the reusable filter; at least, none that is not cleaned up by the oil filter, and I run 10-15K between oil changes (annual).
As with any good conversation, it changes with time: Sometimes wandering far astray and other times coming home to roost. Disagreements or no, I think most of the rest of the participants here (myself included) enjoy your participation at Edmunds, so I hope you'll decide to stick around when you have the opportunities to do so.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Unless one's vehicle has been hired to participant in a re-enactment of Rommel's Desert War, I really don't think anyone has to give their OEM air filter a second thought.
I found one answer to a study. It is relatively well done by a guy who understands that it's not a scientific study in a laboratory using contaminated air of a standard level of particulate. He drove each filter for 500 miles in the Pacific Northwest. He used a second filter to catch what the first filter missed. Said it made his Miata a little slow on high air flow demand situations. :grin
Of course, he received lots of criticism from some defending their favorite brand. There's a lot of money at stake for aftermarket filter types beyond the OEM style. There also is a lot of ego involved as well, just as some people react bad to criticism of their favorite car some reacted here to air filter drama.
Mr_Shiftright has it right: the answer to the question not asked for most of us in normal driving.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I have to laugh at that. When we do on the very rare occasion have a vehicle with a genuinely clogged air filter its quite often not all that easy to diagnose. Different vehicles produce different symptoms.
Another shop had an F250 that they knew the air filter was only three months old, it had a severe loss of power and would randomly run out of control rich, and then out of control lean on successive pull outs from a stop. What I found was the filter was crushing and changing shape and that caused the air density to be erratic as it flowed through the MAF sensor which resulted in it sometimes over estimating the airflow, and then in turn under estimating it. It only took me a road test and watching the fuel trims and the calculated barometric pressure reading and I knew it was an airflow issue, but a filter getting crushed into different shapes by the pressure differential across it wasn't what I was expecting to find. But I gotta say the look on the other shop owner's face was priceless when I nailed in ten minutes what he had been fighting with for a week. The truck was a construction vehicle that they service all the time and he knew the filter was brand new, "so it couldn't be that", but it was.......
Now before I say what was wrong, see if you can figure it out or what could you do try and prove what was wrong with the truck.
FWIW fuel trims were adding fuel to bank #2, and taking fuel away from bank #1
Put it in neutral and push it forward a foot or so, no need to start it.
I did need to turn the key to the On position to shift out of park.
Did that and NOTHING. Car is completely dead.
After a few wtf's, i decided to hook up my jump box to see what would happen.
As soon as I hooked it up and turned it on, the headlights lit up.
I got in the car and tried to start it, but the box needs recharging.
Last night I let one of the kids take it. When I asked them if anything unusual happened with the car, everything was fine. Are you sure? I might have left the headlights on. Grrrr.
To do a connection like that right, you need to be able to create a gas tight connection between the cable and the connector, which usually requires special tools.
That said, I would not hesitate to put on a new connector before getting a whole new cable.
Those quick fixes have been around and failing for as long as I have been a tech, and today they have been found to also be the direct cause of some really strange failures. How many times have you volt drop tested your battery cables with those ends on them a few months or so after they were installed? The voltage drop that occurs across the cable is of course the result of the cables total resistance. The nightmare that we deal with comes from the fact that the battery is not just there to start the car, its also responsible to supplement the alternator output under certain conditions and absorb voltage spikes from components turning on and off. The battery isn't just a source of power, its also the largest capacitor in the charging system. If you have excessive resistance in the battery cables and or portions of the charging circuit, the AC voltage spikes can become great enough to corrupt some input signals to some of the computers on the car.
Let's look at the other bank now. B2S1 is showing that it's lean, while B2S2 is showing that it's rich. Now unless there is a sensor or circuit issue that really doesn't make any sense.
So how could we rule out a sensor issue from the front seat of the car? A hard acceleration drives the system rich, and both upstream and downstream sensors reported the condition correctly. A closed throttle decel then results in a fuel cut-off or extremely lean and all of the sensors reported that correctly as well. So at that point one or more could still be innacurate, but they are definitely working for the most part. (Rich has the upstream sensor voltage dropping to 2.4v while the downstream sensor reports .8v or more, lean the upstream sensor goes to 4.99 and the downstream drops to .1v)
We find bank to bank fuel trim issues from time to time, but fully expect to see both sensors on either side reporting the same condition and the fuel trim data showing that the PCM is trying to correct for it. The data seen in the fuel trims was really confusing, while it appeared to be making corrections, it was going the wrong direction according to the upstream sensors. Bank #1 was rich and fuel trim was adding fuel instead of taking it away, bank #2 was lean and the fuel trims was taking fuel away.
This truck was demonstrating a condition that proves the downstream O2 sensors have more authority than the upstream air/fuel or O2 sensors have. Combine that with bank #2 downstream sensor reporting more fuel than the upstream sensor was reporting and the only thing that makes sense is someone has cross connected the down stream sensors sometime in the past. They even secured the harnesses in place on the brackets on the transmission just like they are supposed to be making it difficult to notice visually.
We stopped in a parking lot and disconnected the downstream sensors, released the harness from the brackets and re-routed them across the top of the transmission to the opposite sides and re-connected them and then road tested again. Now the downstream sensors were on the correct sides and the system functioned correctly. The troubling part there is the shop that originally put the engine in didn't have anything to do with that part of the wiring harness that was above the transmission, they didn't cause the problem. But both they and the second shop made the same mistake, they "assumed" the that problem was related to the engine replacement instead of just troubleshooting it. By starting with that assumption in place they were blinded to all the possible causes and got trapped. Between them they each had fought this for a week, and with a disciplined approach it was diagnosed and corrected in about a half an hour.
Now for the kicker, the codes would set as pending within a few minutes of driving, and if you shut the engine down and then restarted the truck would light the MIL (check engine light) in a few minutes after that. That pending code and subsequent MIL would prevent many of the other tests the computer has to run from being performed. That means the truck could easily still have other issues that can cause the MIL to come on, but there is no way to know until the computer gets to run the tests and that of course explains why a tech can do a good repair only to have the light come back on a few days or a week later and it really is a different problem even though to a customer the light coming back on looks like "its doing the same thing".
That just further reinforces, to me, how important it can be to know the history of a vehicle. Very good point, though, about not allowing oneself to be blinded to possibilities through assumptions.
Also, recurring MIL illumination is exactly the reason why I finally decided to get a code reader. There are tons of code possibilities, but only one light. On a couple of my older cars, they would set the MIL without a code (or, in one case, with the same code regularly... P0420), but unless I checked it to see what was set, I would be blind to any other code that might have popped in there that I would want to have addressed. Ah, the joys of owning older (yet newer) cars!
Also, are modern vehicles more stressful on the cables than older ones? For example, the battery cables on my 1969 Chevrolet C20 are original, with 73,100 miles on the ticker.
If the mfgrs soldered these ends, then that would stop the gas/oxygen from getting to the connection. I did this with my bike connections when it was brand new. They had barely a heavy enough gauge wire to do the job, and when I had soldered them, I actually ended up with a faster cranking speed. Bike batteries are even worse than car b cuz they are trying to save weight and lead and $ by using smaller ones every year it seems.. smaller as in less lead and thereby fewer CCA's.
On my truck, in particular, there is absolutely no draw from things like clocks, etc. I don't even bother to pull the battery in the winter time, because it holds charge just fine through 'till spring. The first battery I put in there, back in 1999, lasted a full ten years with only seasonal use and never being removed from the vehicle. I'd like to see a modern rig manage that feat! :-)
I almost bought a 66 with the coil rear live axle. Some one had put a 350 with a 3 speed auto in it. It was surprisingly free of rust, but had been masked you could tell. I loved the dash in those. In fact the dash and grill were other reasons I almost got one. Alas I couldn't allow myself to be so extravagant as I could only use it in the summer, and I need a truck at times in the winter also. I would never salt it after seeing the work that had gone into bring it back for real world use. I figured I would get 18-22 miles/ Cdn gal if I kept it under 50 and did gentle starts as it had the 4 barrel with 2 the goal keeping it on the 2 small barrels. It was a 1/2 ton with stepside fenders and the wood floor. Pretty truck.
Re your battery, I would still put it on charge at least once or twice through the winter. I suspect it has a nice cool place to be (that slows discharge rate) but not freezing below 20 unless you do make sure it has a charge on it every once in awhile. Storing in the sun under a window in the heat is about the worse place you could store a battery as the heat accelerates discharge rate.
All that said though, maybe you better not change what you're doin', haha cuz it's workin' for ya.. Can you show us a pic of your truck? You got my curiosity piqued now.
Well, heck. The links post through perfectly in preview, but are stripped upon posting. So, here are the raw links... if you want to see them, just copy and paste the address (less the '-' that makes the line break) to a separate browser tab and it should come up just fine. This forum is having some issues, I tell ya.....
(don't try to click on these as if they are links. The website won't let me make them links, yet tries to do it itself, and then fails miserably)
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/q71/s720x720/581805_10201- 582591427594_1625673276_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/q71/s720x720/1170682_1020- 1582591307591_2005225903_n.jpg
/facepalm
It looks quite rust free too eh, you guys are blessed with sand instead of salt I recall you saying a few years ago. What's the powertrain in it?
As for the -55 and your battery, that one is an odd combo...obviously the battery is really clean between the terminals and your winter must be like ours, not too humid. But with those extra cold temps it is a wonder it doesn't freeze and crack a case once the voltage drops much more than about 11.8 or so? Don't hold me to that figure though..doc would know for sure probably.
But if the battery is obviously of a very good quality, and if it is maintaining its voltage obviously well enough to not freeze, then those cold temps is also probably why you have gone all winter without a charge cuz the chemical reaction has slowed so much due to the cold. Interesting. I think that is the coldest example of a battery un-tended to over a winter that still performs the following spring I have ever heard of. Cool. Like I say, you're doing something right, so ya better not follow any of my advice here, haha
BTW, if you do bring it in, cool is way better than a warm house. If it is too warm you really will have to throw it on charge at least once over the winter. A tiny electronic limiting .5 amp trickle charger thrown on for a day once a month rotated between your others would do the trick and help keep whiskers from forming inside on the plates, which will reduce output.
You know another thing that kills batteries in modern cars? Is the under hood temps are so much hotter than back in the ol' days..
Well, in 1996 I sold our next door neighbors a new EX Accord.
In 2008 he finally replaced the battery.
Car has never been garaged and never once failed to start.
Me? I would have chickened out after five years and just replaced it out of fear it was about to strand us somewhere.
http://www.lectriclimited.com/battery_faq.htm
http://www.trojanbattery.com/tech-support/faq/maintenance.aspx
A battery at 40% state of charge will have an open circuit voltage of about 12.1v.
BTW an acceptable parasitic drain is a specification for a given battery and is related to the batteries reserve capacity. We look for under 50ma (.050 amps), a drain of 350ma will deplete a battery in about a week. The reserve capacity is the amount of time that a battery that is fully charged can produce 25 amps of current without falling below 10.5v, and should be able to crank an engine. Many batteries have 120 minutes of reserve capacity, that is 50 amp/hrs. That means a .350 amp drain will take just about 150 hours to deplete a battery.
Not a regular replacement item if that's what you mean, but they do require cleaning and resealing services on an as needed basis. Once bad enough though, its better to replace them than to try to only do the cable clamp. One thing everyone seems to forget is the other end of the cable, they fail too from the movement of the engine/transmission as well as from road salts.
Also, are modern vehicles more stressful on the cables than older ones? For example, the battery cables on my 1969 Chevrolet C20 are original, with 73,100 miles on the ticker
It takes a lot more current to crank up that truck then today's cars demand, so from that perspective the older ones stress the cables a lot more. As mentioned in one of the other posts the cables today are an integral part in helping ensure as little noise as possible from the charging system, so from that perspective they have their own demands.
http://bit.ly/16V3KXh
http://bit.ly/13rGaTd
Only if the soldering operation was done correctly. Another problem with soldering connectors like that on is that it now creates a rigid interface with no flex, so it could, under the right connections, fatigue and break.
Crimp connections, done right, are generally considered better than solder joints. They are more repeatable (providing the crimp tool is maintained), and to a large extent you take the skills of the operator out of the equation.
But like you implied, solder joints are very good when you have to pass a large amount of current with minimum drop.
This is an excellent point.
Yes, crimp connection success for relatively long life depends a lot on how well the robotic jig is set up, that and the purity of the wire being used..and of the connector itself too off course.
Since my car often sits quite awhile between drives, I put an electronic trickle charger on it now year round if I know I'm not going anywhere for a few days. The Honda battery is especially weak, it claims similar CCA's to larger bodied batteries, but in my opinion, the closer the plates are jammed together to get the dimensions down, the more prone they are to corroding/sulphating during longer than average discharge periods. I know there is one poster here that has had good success with their Honda-sized batteries...but then their 12 month climate cycle is totally different than mine, so maybe that makes the difference.
C'mon, do you REALLY want to head into winter with a TEN year old battery?
I mean you can change that battery on YOUR terms or you can wait until you get stranded some dark snowy night and pay whatever price you have to pay not to mention the trouble and inconvenience you may have to go through or worse yet, a family member.
Seriously....is it worth it?
Modern cars get very wonky when battery voltage drops.
Seven years was a good long life to be sure....time to go, on YOUR terms!
Ah...OK....good luck!
I ran my timing belt until it broke at ~180k. Was really hopping to have it last the life of the van though.
Only once did I intentionally pull a Kramer and run the van out of gas.
Suppose that timing belt snapped while you were on the freeway driving 70 MPH is traffic with a semi on your rear?
And, you must have had a non-interference engine?
If you had an interference engine and the belt broke the pistons and valves could have met one another with dire results.
Your choice. Me? I just don't like breaking down at the side of the road nor does my wife!