Question About Car Maintenance

[utgrad73]

If you're already checking headlight fluid may want to get into the blinker fan while you're in there. Save trouble down the road

Don't forget the loose nut behind the steering wheel. May need to be re-torqued!

 

[sparcboxbuck]

Depends on the scratches. A good clay bar treatment would likely work wonders and won't cost nearly as much. I spent all day and <100 on my new VW and the difference is unreal.

Ive done the clay bar thing already. There are a few things that are beyond the clay bar and my polisher. But yeah, for sure, the clay bar and a couple of beers and a nice day can do wonders. I usually do the clay bar every spring to get the winter crap off the surfaces. It always amazes me how good it looks after.

 

[Taosman]

Audi A4s are the best Audis.
The A3 is crap. The worse Audi. Bad engines. Poor quality.
All the German cars aren't what the once were......reliable. And the dealers suck.
If your dealer is a good one, you're lucky and will probably be alright.
The visors in my wife's Min(owned by BMW)i came off in her hand! Mini knew they had a problem and had a service bulletin out so it didn't cost us but the time. When we had the first one replaced we asked to have them both replaced. They refused until the other one broke. A day later it came off in my wife's hand and we had to make another trip. On a routine oil service they over-filled the engine oil and caused a blown seal that caused a wiring short. Sure, they fixed the engine seal but you get the idea they are just incompetent. Do not buy a Mini unless you have a great dealer!
I hate dealing with car issues!
Give me a car built in Japan any day.
Every Japanese built car I've owned has gotten at least 160,000 trouble free miles.

 

[Crump's brother]

Audi A4s are the best Audis.
The A3 is crap. The worse Audi. Bad engines. Poor quality.
All the German cars aren't what the once were......reliable. And the dealers suck.
If your dealer is a good one, you're lucky and will probably be alright.
The visors in my wife's Min(owned by BMW)i came off in her hand! Mini knew they had a problem and had a service bulletin out so it didn't cost us but the time. When we had the first one replaced we asked to have them both replaced. They refused until the other one broke. A day later it came off in my wife's hand and we had to make another trip. On a routine oil service they over-filled the engine oil and caused a blown seal that caused a wiring short. Sure, they fixed the engine seal but you get the idea they are just incompetent. Do not buy a Mini unless you have a great dealer!
I hate dealing with car issues!
Give me a car built in Japan any day.
Every Japanese built car I've owned has gotten at least 160,000 trouble free miles.

160000 boring as Hell miles.

I have a VW, and a good dealer. I love my turbo Jetta, it's only around until the warranty runs out, by then I'll have another old Benz to tool around in. My 85 W123 has 325K, I'm looking for a clean W126 to drive. I do agree that German cars are slipping, but Toyotas and Hondas aren't what they were in the 1990s either.

 

[Taosman]

Boring or wasting your time doing maintenance.
I don't love doing maintenance on my cars now.
I've had some great maintenance free cars like the original RX-7.
Great car even if you had to make sure it had oil in it all the time.
Where I live one "group" owns all the luxury car dealers, so if they owners don't care you get lots of dealers who think you owe them when buying a German car from them.
That's just wrong and I refuse to deal with any dealer who isn't respectful. Who just doesn't care about your car after the sale.
There's just no reason to put up with a bad car dealer any more.
I'd love to have a new M235 or Audi S4 but I won't buy a car from the area German car dealers.

 

[matcar]

I have a TDI VW and wife has A5. They are every bit as good in terms of quality as the '86 4000 I had.

 

[Crump's brother]

Boring or wasting your time doing maintenance.
I don't love doing maintenance on my cars now.
I've had some great maintenance free cars like the original RX-7.
Great car even if you had to make sure it had oil in it all the time.
Where I live one "group" owns all the luxury car dealers, so if they owners don't care you get lots of dealers who think you owe them when buying a German car from them.
That's just wrong and I refuse to deal with any dealer who isn't respectful. Who just doesn't care about your car after the sale.
There's just no reason to put up with a bad car dealer any more.
I'd love to have a new M235 or Audi S4 but I won't buy a car from the area German car dealers.

Fair enough, Taos. I was thinking Camry-not Wankel powered fun.

 

[scarletmike]

This thread fits best for my current car maintenance angst.

Had our Sentra for...coming up on 2 years, which means the cabin air filter is coming close to getting replaced (we kept pretty low mileage on it until recently when the wife started having a 45 minute commute). When I took it in for the last oil change the dealer quoted me about $85 for that part change. I declined since they said it wasn't necessary yet but would probably want to change it next time I bring it in (I don't think the cabin air filter on my 98 Century has been changed in at least 6 years, doing that myself soon since I know that thing definitely needs replaced). Knowing how relatively simple changing the filter on my Century is (engine filter is a lot easier, but still not a complicated process) I decided to look up where the Sentra's filter is located and how it's changed. Holy crap, they wanted to charge me $85 to look under the passenger side dash, flip a switch to open the filter compartment and slide the old one out and new one in!? It takes less than 5 minutes (I checked myself). Hell no, I'm not paying that much for something I can easily do at home...if the damn OEM filter was actually available to purchase anywhere (still under warranty, don't want to stick a 3rd party filter in and have them try to screw me over because of that)! Seems the OEM parts aren't available at aftermarket locations yet, and the filter is listed for $30-35 at dealers. Wonderful. Hopefully they show up at regular retail places before my next maintenance interval around Christmas time.

 

[sparcboxbuck]

This thread fits best for my current car maintenance angst.

Had our Sentra for...coming up on 2 years, which means the cabin air filter is coming close to getting replaced (we kept pretty low mileage on it until recently when the wife started having a 45 minute commute). When I took it in for the last oil change the dealer quoted me about $85 for that part change. I declined since they said it wasn't necessary yet but would probably want to change it next time I bring it in (I don't think the cabin air filter on my 98 Century has been changed in at least 6 years, doing that myself soon since I know that thing definitely needs replaced). Knowing how relatively simple changing the filter on my Century is (engine filter is a lot easier, but still not a complicated process) I decided to look up where the Sentra's filter is located and how it's changed. Holy crap, they wanted to charge me $85 to look under the passenger side dash, flip a switch to open the filter compartment and slide the old one out and new one in!? It takes less than 5 minutes (I checked myself). Hell no, I'm not paying that much for something I can easily do at home...if the damn OEM filter was actually available to purchase anywhere (still under warranty, don't want to stick a 3rd party filter in and have them try to screw me over because of that)! Seems the OEM parts aren't available at aftermarket locations yet, and the filter is listed for $30-35 at dealers. Wonderful. Hopefully they show up at regular retail places before my next maintenance interval around Christmas time.

Damn dealerships... They're very happy to take your money and run.

The convertable top on my Audi started acting funny a few weeks ago. I traced the problem back to the hydraulic pump motor. Apparently after some time the brushes in the motor start to get a bit dirty and the electrical contact is crap leading the motor to fail.

Suffice it to say, the dealership wants around $2,000 for the total job. Pull and replace the motor.

Here's the rub... the motor is just fine. The contact points only need cleaning.

So, I disassembled the trunk and got to the motor behind the amplifier in the passenger's rear wheel well. Pulled apart the motor and sprayed a q-tip with starter fluid. Spun the motor a few times... used a couple of q-tips... blew it out with my air compressor and reassembled the car.

Total job took 40 minutes, two beers, 4-qtips and 4 squirts of starter fluid.

$2,000 saved.

 

[kinch]

Audi A4s are the best Audis.
The A3 is crap. The worse Audi. Bad engines. Poor quality.
All the German cars aren't what the once were......reliable. And the dealers suck.
If your dealer is a good one, you're lucky and will probably be alright.
The visors in my wife's Min(owned by BMW)i came off in her hand! Mini knew they had a problem and had a service bulletin out so it didn't cost us but the time. When we had the first one replaced we asked to have them both replaced. They refused until the other one broke. A day later it came off in my wife's hand and we had to make another trip. On a routine oil service they over-filled the engine oil and caused a blown seal that caused a wiring short. Sure, they fixed the engine seal but you get the idea they are just incompetent. Do not buy a Mini unless you have a great dealer!
I hate dealing with car issues!
Give me a car built in Japan any day.
Every Japanese built car I've owned has gotten at least 160,000 trouble free miles.

I have an Audi A4 turbo. Yeah, love it.

 

[scarletmike]

One of the more auto-minded members here wouldn't happen to have a good idea what kind of hose/tubing my 98 Buick Century coolant reservoir tank cap uses? When I had the water pump and engine hoses replaced a while ago the shop evidently lost the hose from the reservoir tank cap so they stuck some pretty thick, generic tubing on there. It works, but only for a day or two before it slides off the cap and falls into the tank leaving no way for the coolant to flow back into the radiator. Starting to get annoyed with popping the hood every other day and fishing out the tube. The hose from the radiator cap to the overflow tank cap looks and feels the same, but I think it's a different thickness, so I'm hesitant to use that. Any thoughts?

 

[BUCKYLE]

Could you just use a hose clamp?

 

[Saw31]

One of the more auto-minded members here wouldn't happen to have a good idea what kind of hose/tubing my 98 Buick Century coolant reservoir tank cap uses? When I had the water pump and engine hoses replaced a while ago the shop evidently lost the hose from the reservoir tank cap so they stuck some pretty thick, generic tubing on there. It works, but only for a day or two before it slides off the cap and falls into the tank leaving no way for the coolant to flow back into the radiator. Starting to get annoyed with popping the hood every other day and fishing out the tube. The hose from the radiator cap to the overflow tank cap looks and feels the same, but I think it's a different thickness, so I'm hesitant to use that. Any thoughts?

I assume this is what you're talking about.

Link

At least it will give you an idea of what the part name and number is...

 

[scarletmike]

I think so. Wish they had a better/larger image so that I could really tell what part(s) I'm looking at. I'll take that over to the Buick forum and see if they can help narrow it down.

Thanks.

EDIT: Never mind, got the images to load in Chrome, and that's not the way the cooling system in the 3.1L V6 in the Century is set up.

 

[Saw31]

I think so. Wish they had a better/larger image so that I could really tell what part(s) I'm looking at. I'll take that over to the Buick forum and see if they can help narrow it down.

Thanks.

EDIT: Never mind, got the images to load in Chrome, and that's not the way the cooling system in the 3.1L V6 in the Century is set up.

Rock Auto Link

IF that is the name of the part you're actually looking for, here's another place to try...

Look under "cooling system".