Had a 2014 Hyundai Sonata with that ticking noise everyone talks about. Took it to a garage up in Portland and the guy told me it's just the injectors, timing chains are basically lifetime parts. I trusted him for 6 months until the chain jumped a tooth on I-5 and bent half my valves. Should have listened to the forums instead of a guy who was stuck in 1998. Has anyone else had a mechanic give you bad advice that cost you real money?
I was driving through the Fort Pitt Tunnel in Pittsburgh last week when my 2012 Chevy Cruze just lost all coolant pressure. No warning light, no puddle on the ground before I left. Turns out the plastic thermostat housing cracked right at the seam, a known flaw on these 1.4L engines. I limped it to a shop two miles away and the guy said he sees three of these a month. Has anyone else had their coolant system just give up without any signs first?
It fixed the AC switching from floor to defrost, but I had to take the whole dash apart for 4 hours to get to it. Has anyone else found a cheap part that turned into a full weekend project?
I drove over a curb in a grocery store parking lot and it ripped the fuel tank strap right off. Ford put the tank below the frame on those 90s Rangers and one good bump could leave you stranded. Has anyone else had a gas tank mount fail on a late-model truck?
Went with a buddy to check out a 2013 328i on Craigslist last Saturday. Seller wanted $6,000, which seemed too good. Car drove smooth for 10 minutes. Then I popped the hood and heard a faint rattle on cold start. That's the N20 engine plastic timing chain guide problem. It's a known failure point around 80k miles. When it goes, the chain eats the engine. Has anyone else dodged a bullet on these by listening before buying?
Had a customer bring one in last month. He said the fan only worked on high speed and he'd been dealing with it for like 6 months. I pulled the blower motor resistor and it was completely melted. Chevy put that thing right in the path of the evaporator drain so any moisture just drips down onto it. Had to replace the whole harness too cost him around $200 in parts. Has anyone else seen this same dumb design on their Colorado or Canyon?
Bought this Forester 3 years ago from a guy in Portland who swore he replaced the head gasket at 120k. Everyone told me I was crazy for buying a Subaru from that era because they all blow. Last week I passed 180k miles and zero coolant loss, no white smoke, nothing. Has anyone else had a miracle Subaru that dodged the head gasket curse?
I bought this car used and thought I got a deal, but the water pump failed without any warning. The mechanic told me it's a known issue with the plastic impeller they used on that engine. Has anyone else dumped this much money into a timing chain service that just should've been built right from the factory?
Everyone always trashes those EJ25 engines for blowing head gaskets around 100k miles, but at least you could fix it for like $1500 and move on. My buddy's Focus had that stupid DPS6 dual clutch transmission that started shuddering at 40k miles and Ford quoted him $4k for a replacement. I'll take a predictable failure over a grenading gearbox any day lol. Has anyone else dealt with that DPS6 nightmare?
He said the Dart had potential but they used cheap plastic for the coolant crossover and it warped every time. Has anyone else seen a Dart make it past 80k miles without a major repair?
My buddy's 2002 Explorer blew its intake manifold at 78k miles on the highway near Atlanta. The plastic part actually cracked and dumped all the coolant out in under 2 minutes. How does a company charge $35k for a vehicle and use plastic where engine heat is a guarantee?
I went with the cheap ones six months ago and both ball joints are clunking already so now I get to do the whole job again and spend double what the OEM ones would have cost in the first place, has anyone else been burned by saving a few bucks on suspension parts?
The plastic bracket snapped after 200 miles of highway driving and the dealer wanted $140 for a replacement so I just used two bungee cords and a piece of rubber mat from a floor jack, has anyone else rigged up a cheap fix for these GM cars that doesn't cost as much as the battery itself?
He said it starves the timing chain tensioners around 80k miles and Ford knew about it since 2004. Has anyone else watched a 3V Triton spit out a chain guide and just walked away?
I put a cheap radiator cap from an auto parts store on my 2003 Subaru Outback last summer. It looked fine but the seal gave out at highway speed near Flagstaff, Arizona. The coolant boiled over and I didn't notice the temp gauge until the head gasket blew. Has anyone else been burned by a simple part that looked the same as OEM?
I bought this 2007 Ford Focus used for $3,500 back in 2021. Within the first year the alternator died on me while I was stuck in traffic near downtown Phoenix. I paid $400 to have it replaced at a shop. Then 8 months later the new one started whining and failed again. That time I swapped it myself for $280 from AutoZone. After another 9 months the same thing happened. Turns out the coolant from a bad hose was leaking directly onto the alternator and killing them. Who designs a car where coolant drips right onto the most expensive electrical part? I ended up selling the car for $1,500 just to get rid of it. Has anyone else dealt with a car that keeps eating alternators for no good reason?
My friend Alex who builds LS engines for fun told me my knock sensor was probably pulling timing like crazy on 87 octane. I laughed it off for like 6 months until I logged my IATs and actually saw the timing drop 8 degrees under load. Put a tank of 93 in my 2013 Mustang GT and the car felt completely different, no more pinging on hot days. Has anyone else had a tuner or mechanic talk them out of cheap gas?
Last Saturday I was swapping out a dead battery in my 2015 Fusion and this older guy walks up in the parking lot. He sees me cussing at the serpentine belt and asks what year it is. I tell him and he just laughs. He said Ford engineers put the alternator on the bottom passenger side on purpose so it'd get soaked by puddles and die every 60k miles. Said they did it to sell more parts. I always thought it was just bad luck but that dude made me realize how much of car design is intentional crap. Anyone else hear stories like that about specific models?
I used to follow this popular channel's method of speed-bleeding by cracking the bleeder screw and pumping the pedal fast, but a shop owner in Denver told me that technique can snap the bleeder off if the threads are corroded. Last Saturday I tried his slower one-person method with a hose and bottle, and it worked perfectly without me having to buy a $50 power bleeder. Has anyone else been burned by following flashy repair hacks that just don't hold up on rusty cars?
I had a 2014 Focus for 3 years and thought I was just bad at driving stick. Then a mechanic friend rode with me and said "your clutch is slipping because the transmission can't decide what gear to be in." I changed nothing because Ford said it was "normal" - until the whole thing grenaded at 48,000 miles. The TCM module failed and left me stranded on Route 22 in Pennsylvania for 2 hours. Has anyone else had their dealer actually fix one of these under warranty?
My old truck always had this random miss at highway speed around 55 mph that drove me nuts for almost a year. I tried new plugs, new distributor cap, even cleaned the carburetor twice and nothing fixed it. Finally my buddy at the parts counter suggested swapping the plug wires from the $25 set I bought to a proper set that was closer to $60. He said the cheap ones can have internal resistance that varies way too much and cause intermittent issues. After I put the new wires on that miss vanished completely on the first drive down route 21. It ran smoother at idle too and even felt like it had more pull going up hills. Has anyone else chased a random misfire for way too long only to find it was something as simple as wiring?
Met this dude at a gas station outside Denver last summer while I was filling up my work van. He starts pointing at his Mini going on about how clever the designers were with the space and handling. I asked him how many times he'd replaced the coolant expansion tank, cause those things crack like clockwork, and he got real quiet. Then he admitted he was on his third one in 18 months and asked me if I knew a workaround. Has anyone else run into owners who won't admit their dream car has dumb problems?
I was idling at a light on Broadway in Nashville last Tuesday and my whole dashboard started vibrating so bad I thought the engine was gonna fall out. Turns out these cars have a known transmission defect where the clutches go haywire in stop and go traffic, Ford even got sued over it. Has anyone else had the DPS6 dual clutch system just give up on you in the middle of town?
I've owned this 2018 F-150 for about 3 years now and I've been swearing at the window switches the whole time. You know how they put the 4 window buttons in a row, but the rear switches are flat and the front ones are raised? I kept hitting the rear window when I wanted the passenger window. Drove me nuts every single morning on my commute from Denver to Aurora. Last week I took it into a shop off Colfax to fix a rattle in the door panel. The mechanic there, an older guy named Ron, explained it was designed so people in the back seat don't accidentally hit the raised front switches. He showed me a TSB about it. Still feels backwards to me, but at least now I know there was a reason besides just bad engineering. Anybody else have a car feature they hated until someone explained the logic behind it?