Random Thoughts... [Automotive Edition]

Blind_Io;n3543675 said:
You clearly have not seen my paint.

jnX9UvH.jpg


And that was over 60,000 miles ago.

The above is why I'm all but convinced that I need to bedliner my truck when it's back up and running.
 
prizrak;n3543678 said:
Dude that's like nails on chalkboard for me, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME????

Dude you live in NYC, isn't every car scratched-up apart from what those Bumper Bully things cover?
 
Spectre;n3543688 said:
The above is why I'm all but convinced that I need to bedliner my truck when it's back up and running.

^ This.
 
Labcoatguy;n3543690 said:
Dude you live in NYC, isn't every car scratched-up apart from what those Bumper Bully things cover?
Nah NYC cars are pretty mint, since they are all leases they are rarely older than 2-3 years
 
Blind_Io;n3543675 said:
You clearly have not seen my paint.

jnX9UvH.jpg


And that was over 60,000 miles ago.

*eye twitch*
 
*cringe*
 
I plan to bedliner the lower half of the doors and the fender flares at some point, but I am waiting until the sliders are ready to come off for new powdercoating first. I will have to pull all the trim and then get everything prepped and sprayed. I don't plan to do the whole truck because it's already way too heavy, just the fenders and the lower body to address rock chipping and rock rash.
 
TC;n3543598 said:
I used a drive-thru car wash for the first time in my life the other day. They opened this big shiny new car wash facility a year or two ago and it did a surprisingly good job.

Too good a job in fact, because I can already see myself just going there from now on, instead of spending an hour hand washing my truck at 5am before the sun hits my driveway.

I bought my last car new and tried to avoid machine washing it. This one has already had some repair work done to it and has done 140,000km so I'm not too worried anymore.

Not all car washes are the same, I have to say. Not even all machines that are made by the same company. The one I sometimes use is made by WashTec and does one hell of a job. I've even had a comment or two that my car is so clean just because I drove it through their cheapest wash program the day before. :lol:
 
This was very strange, for “its cold and snowy” reasons I haven’t started the Mustang in about a week and a half so decided to fire it up today. The needles on the speedo and tach did this strange thing where instead of sweeping up and then down went all the way down and shook there for a bit then did the sweep and settled. Starting up again it was normal. No codes or anything and at least idling the car is fine, it’s also not that cold out, warmer than the coldest I drove it in. My only thought is that it didn’t like sitting around for as long as it did
 
Probably low voltage from the battery.
 
Yup, my mustang did a full sweep when the battery was low. Since I’ve had it on a tender, that’s not happened again.
 
That was my guess as well, but I would think that a low battery wouldn't be able to start the car. Oh well it's warming up so I'll be starting up more often ;)
 
The strange needle behavior is back, in addition to it it forgot my settings for the display and steering setting (did remember the color settings). So it's all pointing me at a low battery voltage, though I don't get how it's starting the car if the voltage is too low to keep my settings.

Here is the video of the flutter:

EDIT: Had a thought, maybe the battery has enough juice to start up but that causes enough of a dip in voltage for the car to forget some settings, obviously once the engine is actually running it has all the electricity in the world.

Now question is should I bother going to a Ford dealer to get a new battery (just the part, not exactly difficult to replace a battery) or just pop down to my local Autozone and get one there.
 
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Tested battery with a multimeter last night and it was reading 11.8 so went to replace it.
Ended up just getting an AZ battery only one they had for my car was the Duralast Gold with a 5 year warranty so hopefully it will last 3 or so.
 
prizrak;n3543978 said:
Tested battery with a multimeter last night and it was reading 11.8 so went to replace it.
Ended up just getting an AZ battery only one they had for my car was the Duralast Gold with a 5 year warranty so hopefully it will last 3 or so.

11.8V is obviously not good, but you can't use voltage to decide how healthy a battery is.

A good battery can be down to 11.8V because something in the car is drawing power. Charge it back up (and fix the issue) and it'll be fine.

A completely wasted battery can show 13.8V if it's fresh off the charger, but it won't be able to power anything for very long let alone crank an engine.

Also, a battery should last way longer than three years for most people. I tend to kill them fairly quickly because I have a parking heater that wears the battery down every morning and a 10 minute drive to work which means it doesn't always have time to charge properly. The OE battery in my last car (owned since new) lasted four years. The OEM battery in my Opel (same manufacturer, Varta) was still able to crank the engine just fine but the heater kept turning off in the morning with a "low voltage" trouble code.
 
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Perc;n3543993 said:
11.8V is obviously not good, but you can't use voltage to decide how healthy a battery is.

A good battery can be down to 11.8V because something in the car is drawing power. Charge it back up (and fix the issue) and it'll be fine.

A completely wasted battery can show 13.8V if it's fresh off the charger, but it won't be able to power anything for very long let alone crank an engine.

Also, a battery should last way longer than three years for most people. I tend to kill them fairly quickly because I have a parking heater that wears the battery down every morning and a 10 minute drive to work which means it doesn't always have time to charge properly. The OE battery in my last car (owned since new) lasted four years. The OEM battery in my Opel (same manufacturer, Varta) was still able to crank the engine just fine but the heater kept turning off in the morning with a "low voltage" trouble code.

I'm farily certain that it had the original battery so 5+ years sounds normal. Doubt there is a drain, mainly because it's not the first time I left the car sitting around for a while and it wasn't being touched. Either way I'll see what's going on tonight since battery is replaced it shouldn't have the isuses.
 
Someone needs to talk me out of getting a 2003+ Subaru Outback Legacy or Forester as a daily. I don't have a particular car in mind at the moment, but I'm seriously considering one to take some miles off the Xterra and put another snow car in the fleet so we aren't risking the Taurus in winter conditions (snow tires for that thing are spendy as fuck).
 
Blind_Io;n3544016 said:
Someone needs to talk me out of getting a 2003+ Subaru Outback Legacy or Forester as a daily. I don't have a particular car in mind at the moment, but I'm seriously considering one to take some miles off the Xterra and put another snow car in the fleet so we aren't risking the Taurus in winter conditions (snow tires for that thing are spendy as fuck).

I see you like headgaskets and engine removal.
 
I kind of have to agree with Spectre here, from what I hear newer models are actually worse than old ones when it comes to reliability. Just get a 1st gen Xterra ;)

Unrelated: It was the battery after all, everything working fine after replacing it.
 
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