VBdenny

Gotta love the dealers. You can almost hear them drooling on the phone.

Man, never steam clean an engine. What that does it spray steam, or hot water vapor, under very high pressure over all those sensors and electronics under the hood. The same parts Toyoto so very cafefully protected from water intrusion. Look under the hood of you LS after driving in the rain sometime, it is almost completely dry. Then go look under the hood of a Chevy and it is all wet with spray. You probably had a vacuum line knocked off or broken by the pressure. You may also want to check all your vaccum lines as steam cleaning ages them rapidily. The most likely cause of the problem you are having is water in one or both of the distributor caps. Most problems are electrical in nature. Sorry to go on and on, good luck with it.

I check that out (the air filter issue) and you sure are right. I went and looked at mine and it doesn't look like it is cut in the picture, I think they just removed the whole front portion of the housing. I must agree with you that it probably cuts the airflow.

I have about given up on aftermarket brake pads, not that I didn't give them a good shot. Tried many brands and had dust from some, squeels from others and both from most. Now I stick with OEM and have never had a problem with them other than the price. I very much enjoyed the post with the technical data on brakes that alsalih shared, that was quite interesting and I would like to hear more on that, maybe a thread on brakes. Probably sounds rather boring to many of you, but I like hearing how parts are rated and that kind of thing.

I never noticed much difference between brands although I'm not to good at checking milage on a regular basis since I don't want to know how much I spend on gas. I just close my eyes and put it in. Oil hit $64 a barrel today. Ouch!

Thank you, thank you very much. It just came out!

Hey kuhl show us a closeup picture. By the way, those are nice wheels for 2 bills.

As many of us know, it sure is easier to keep a car clean than it is to get it clean. I can wash and wax my cars in 2 hours but that is only because I sepnt 10-15 hours at one point to prep it. So you only have a little time? do it in stages. Do the roof and sides pillars one week, maybe the hood and trunk the next, the sides go quicker unless you are tarheeled up (just a little joke there). I do several steps. Wash, clay, cleaner, wax. After it is done I can just wash and add a quick coat of wax. I usually wax once every 6 months because if youl et it go too long, you are back to square one. Maybe wait a month though, that Carolina sun is pretty hot this time of year. We were in the outer banks a couple weeks ago.

They don't sell cars near where I live. Interesting though.

Besides, it is only considered aggressive driving by a bunch of people who are terrible drivers to begin with. I consider aggressive driver as doing things like tailgating, cutting off intentionally to annoy, hand gestures, horn honking, brake checking, you know stuff like that. I don't think fast driving is aggressive but here in passive America, some people do. I say Get on it boy!

Sorry if I touched a nerve. I have had several Fords each with major problems, rust through, etc. I would have my eye tooth drilled without Novicaine before I paid 25 grand for a Ford. Sorry, I don't mean to bash either but they just have major problems. I think Ford pickups are pretty good and very dependable vehicles it is their other vehicles that are terrible. For 25 grand I'd go buy a Toyota Corolla S and put 7 grand in the bank.

Sounds like he has "run out" of money and is looking to you to correct that. I would prefer a mechanic give me a more detailed description.

I get a pretty steady 18 or 19 mpg in town and about 24 on Interstates. You must have something wrong to get that bad. I would almost suspect a cylinder not firing correctly with it being that bad but that would certainly send a code. I put a K&N airfilter on and it seemd to help a little but nothing like what you need. You sure someone isn't doing a little siphon job on you?

where is it?

The first thing I would check would be the connections on the battery terminal.. When you jump a car they can get pretty hot and perhaps it is just a bad connection. It's free to do yourself so I'd start there.

Going back to the Taurus. My brother bought a new one in 98 which had multiple problems until the engine let go at 60,000 miles in 2001. Since he was upside down in the car, he bought a 2001 Taurus which has had oil leaks, transmission leaks, starting problems etc. He just took a trip to NYC with his family and it stalled on the way and when he got it started again, the check engine light was on and it is running terrible. I hope he gets the piece of junk home. A 2001 car with under 60,000 miles should not have all these things happen. Maybe Ford trucks are great but the FWD cars are junk. Maybe the 500 label is to make people think they are in the Indy 500 or something. To pay 25K for a Ford is absurd.

I will try charging mine and putting the sniffer on it. I got a diagnosis of a bad compressor but from everything I've read the ac light blinks when it is bad. Sure would be nice to have some ac again. I don't drive the car much when it is hot because of it.

Starting the engine is when the most wear occurs. Taxis in NYC typiclly last 400,000 or more miles since they are hardly ever shut off. So how much is gasoline in Blue Thunder land? and do they bother you for driving 100mph?

Most auto parts stores will scan for free.

I am getting ready to sell my 92 Caprice so I took it up to get a new inspection sticker as they sell better with a brand new one and it was expired in June anyway. I wasn't happy to find out that the right front lower ball joint was bad. Quite bad, not sure how it got that bad since last year. I went to Autozone and picked up a new one for ten bucks and they lend you the tool for free. You put down a hundred deposit and keep it as long as you want. Took me about three hours but now I am good to go. I think it is great that Autozone lends specialty tools for free since there are some jobs you must have a special tool to complete.

I ahve a few pictures from that Nationals, I'll see if I remember how to post them and let you know.

I give them your VIN but maybe just change the last couple of numbers since the last 6 are sequence numbers anyway.

Since they are on my car all the time and it seems a lot more likely that some idiot on the road would do this than someone on LOC. I'm in Virginia Beach and not that hard to find.

I have fixed a couple V C R's I did a google search and found a D I Y site that tells you what to check and in what order. Sorry I don't remember the site but it told me what I needed to know.

I try not to be aggressive. I really do! but... you know how it goes. I don't cut people off to badly or give the finger or anything but I do like to move right along and I get though traffic pretty well.