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Honestly I am losing faith in a lot of the shops ability to fix things around where I live. On my wife’s car we had been chasing a coolant leak for 5 years, taking it to at least 4 shops. No one could figure it out. The car’s turbo went on it and my buddy and I repaired it. The leak is now fixed.
I know these things are often not easy to diagnose, but the plug problem above is very shocking. I even printed out instructions on how to troubleshoot it from the service manual and and still they couldn’t figure it out. They told me it is almost certainly the sensor (which I had already replaced), which is at least a 300-400 dollar item and wouldn’t resolve the problem.
In the end it was just me and a multimeter in my garage – an untrained hack of a mechanic following simple instructions.
This is a while ago now, but I found the culprit. It’s a dead pin on the wiring harness plug. So much for the shop’s thorough analysis – WTF?!?
Also, the insulation above the plug looks like it’s been cut and the wiring on the dead plug is exposed to the elements.If I probe the sub-harness connector (where it goes into the cabin) and the exposed wiring I get 0 resistance. But when I do the same with the dead plug pin I get infinite resistance. This would tell me that the problem is in the plug and the wiring is good.
Is there any way I can repair the plug connector without buying a new harness. I am afraid to go to the Lexus dealer.
You know what, that’s a good suggestion. I may try checking the balance of the tires.
Thing is when I first start braking the wheel shakes, but if I keep pressing down harder on the pedal it goes away.
We also have some terribly rutted roads here too, so sometimes it’s hard to tell whether it’s the car or the roads. But I’m pretty sure on this
one that it is something on the car. Just don’t know if it’s a braking component or a suspension component.These are new rotors, but look quite shiny (see picture). Is that surface normal for new rotors?
Honestly I would just drive the car and stop worrying. When there is a big problem the car will let you know – you will get engine fault codes, strange noises that are hard to ignore, loss of fluids, car will run like sh*t or won’t run at all. Until then just drive and enjoy. Even on the remote chance the engine does fail at some point, Civics are a dime a dozen and you can probably pluck a used motor from a boneyard for a few hundred bucks and install it for a grand or two or less. It is the cost of driving a car. That being said, you are not driving a Yugo – Civics are one of the more reliable cars out there.
I think I need to check out the wiring in more detail. I noticed there was some corrosion on the terminal but I cleaned it out with electrical contact cleaner. Maybe something else is there – break in the wiring or the connector itself is damaged. What’s the best way to troubleshoot the cable? Measure the resistance across the terminals?
Honestly I wouldn’t worry about it. If you think of all the what if’s you’ll drive yourself crazy. Obviously it’s not ideal, but there are other filter elements there and it’s likely that there was only a small drop in filtration.
You are assuming that the engine is damaged and that assumption is probably false. The engines in modern cars are surprisingly resilient and a torn pleat in an oil filter over one oil change is unlikely to cause any long term damage.
Recently the turbo on my wife’s car failed and when we dropped the oil pan it was fully of dark, thick, chunky molasses type-oil. It’s taken three short oil + filter changes until the filter is mostly clean of black tar balls. Since we got this car used, the oil was circulating for god knows how long. The car now runs fine and does not consume excessive oil.
I would be more concerned about the condition of the oil itself. Was the color still somewhat translucent (good) or dark and opaque (bad)? Was there small chunks in it or was it free of particles? The oil acts as a lubricant, but also as a cleaner.
If it were me, I’d replace the filter with a good quality unit, fill with a high quality synthetic oil and call it a day. Then tighten up your oil changes to 3000-5000miles.
[quote=”coffee412″ post=138344]Yes! Got it lose and finally got a full break job completed. Now it brakes really nice 🙂
I actually used the pipe that fits in my hydraulic jack for my breaker bar and some PB Blaster.
I think sometimes walking away from a problem and just thinking about it you come up with solutions.
Thanks for the replies,
coffee[/quote]
Glad you got it off. Things on the outside of the car (suspension, brakes, etc) tend to be simple in theory but hard in practice – particularly if the car is older and the climate is harsh. I have had many jobs go awry due to corrosion. Enjoy the new brakes. I just did mine too.
You can probably do it yourself. Throw a towel on the floor of you car. Get a jug or pitcher of water and pour it in the suspect areas one at a time. Check after each one which of them makes a wet towel.
Can you get someone else to sit in the car and look while you pour water over the suspect areas? Might tell you which one is the culprit.
How long is your breaker bar? I have a 24″ one that works well for stuff like this. You could purchase a larger diameter steel pipe and slide it over the breaker bar to get more leverage if it isn’t enough.
You could also try heating the bolts with a plumbing torch to break the corrosion.
On this car, the sensor is press fit into the back of the wheel hub bearing. It looks something like this:
http://images.apwcontent.com/is/image/Autos/bec0516249_is?wid=250&hei=250&DefaultImage=noimage
The wheel hub bearing then goes into the steering knuckle and is attached by 4 bolts. I actually changed out the wheel hub and wheel speed sensor assembly. So everything looks spic and span and new – no cracks, no rust, just shiny new metal.
I was very surprised to get the same error message after it was replaced. What are the chances of getting a factory original defect on a part of this nature?
A common mode of failure in turbo cars is that the oil sludges up due to neglect then a piece blocks the oil hole in the turbo. The bearing gets starved of oil and wears quickly. You’ll get a large amount of axial and/or radial play in the turbo shaft which will allow oil to leak by. If you are consuming a lot of oil and getting smoke out the tailpipe it can damage your cat.
I would hazard to guess that the turbo failure probably caused the cat failure. I would also take a look at the oiling system of the car – drop the oil pan and see if it’s full of sludge. I had this in my SAAB recently and, although the oil looked good on the dipstick it was like molasses in the pan when we dropped it. If you don’t address this the turbo (and cat if you replace it) will go bad again.
For the cat sometimes they’re not that price if you’re prepared to go aftermarket. I had one done in my pickup for $200 taxes included + installation after it rotted out. There are perfectly good brands for a decent price if you avoid the stealership.
Anyway that’s just my two cents.
I tried the chisel (several of them) for a while and it didn’t budge. I finally took the knuckle off and got it pressed out at a shop.
That thing was stuck on tight. You can see all of the galvanic corrosion where the hub once was.
