I’m a low mileage driver and always go way past the recommended change based on time (think my place puts 6 months on the sticker) and have never had issues. No idea if thats fine or not but I’m lazy when it comes to car shit and don’t really care about my vehicle, hasn’t come back to bite me yet. I drive 6k miles a year and probably change oil every 12-18 months
I’d try to not go over 10,000 miles between oil changes, but that’s just like, my opinion, man. You’re probably fine.
These are bs accessories for sure. You’re not going to keep your tires topped off with nitrogen cause finding an air pump is way more convenient and just as good. And anyone who wants to steal your wheels will have no problem getting a wheel lock off.
I used to pound a 1/2-inch drive 12-point socket over the locking lug with a hammer and then take it off with an impact gun. Super easy.
I owned two new Hondas over the years, a 1992 Civic and 2007 Odyssey. Never had an issue with the Civic, the van has been a pos and dealer service is piss poor. The power steering pump would howl whenever the temperature dropped below 40 degrees and we brought it in for the recalls, but they couldn’t fix it. An independent shop replaced the serpentine belt as part of a regular service and the problem went away. Dealers suck.
Honda and Toyota were the top tier quality wise forever but both are resting on their laurels and allowing other manufacturers to catch up. I recommend shopping a few other brands. Hyundai was complete garbage in the early 90’s, but they have caught up quality wise.
On my van, I had pulled the rear door handle too hard, and it had resultantly come free from the linkage to which it connects, so I couldn’t open that door from the outside.
I removed a couple/3 screws, and the entire assembly that also includes where the license plate is mounted comes loose and allows for access, and I was able to reconnect it!
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So I ended up in a situation where I had to jump my wife’s car.
I know almost nothing about cars, so I watched a few youtube vids before attempting to do it. The whole experience was a massive display in ineptitude. It took me 10 min just to find where the battery was in my car (apparently it’s in the fucking trunk).
Anyway, here’s my question. Based on my limited car jumping experiences I’ve just hooked up the positive terminals to each other, the negatives to each other (in the proper order), started the working car, and then started the dead one.
However, in all the instructional vids I saw it says to actually connect the negative terminal of the good battery to a piece of metal on the dead car to ground it (and not on the negative terminal of the battery itself). So I went in with the intention of doing that, but my cords are short and I couldn’t find a piece of metal under the hood that met all of the criteria for a good piece of metal on the car to use. So, I YOLOed it up and just hooked it to the negative electrode on the dead battery as I remembered, and everything worked fine.
So, I guess the question is why are all these vids telling me to do it this other way?
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It works either way, but it’s safer to connect the negative cable to ground somewhere away from the battery in case the battery is emitting hydrogen. It’s common for there to be a small to moderate spark when you connect the cables.
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Yes. I think an explosion is unlikely with most modern car batteries (they’re sealed) but I had it happen when I was a teen. I got hit with shards of plastic that left minor scars on my hand and also got showered with battery acid. Fortunately the only permanent damage was my clothes were ruined. I’ve been pretty careful to find a ground away from the battery since then.
I jumped a friends car and his terminal covers had been put on reversed. Im sitting in my car while he hooked the batteries up. Started the car and the cables burst into flames. Somehow he pulled them off and did not get burnt. The rubber had melted off almost completely.
Yikes. I’d like to think that on an unfamiliar car I’d look for a more reliable indication of which terminal is which (especially if the one labeled/color coded GND wasn’t the one closest to the chassis) but who knows, especially if I’m in a hurry (as usual) or it’s dark (of course).
Yeah I didnt hook the cables up but I cant talk shit. I can overthink the simplest thing sometimes.
One time I drained all the transmission fluid out of a car instead of the oil and then added oil lol. I never learned any of those things as a yute.
Took shop in high school but my shop partner had already taken the class the year before (yes I know that is strange). So he disassembled and reassembled a motor in a couple of days and we played tetris every day for 2 weeks. (Shop teacher used a curse word for the password on the class computers)
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So the car got scratched against a wall. OK, fine, I scratched the car against a wall. Anyway, I don’t care about the aesthetics, but it looks like the primer layer is exposed in a few places. Really not much, but it’s there nonetheless. From googling it seemed that that possibly means it needs attention, but most of the results were from people trying to sell me paint touch up products or repairs. Is it actually something to care about?
(I live in rainy northern europe if that changes things.)
When I get my new Safari Campervan I’m not going to be like this, but I’m sure I’ve gone over 15k miles between oil changes lots of times (I drive a lot and don’t pay much attention to this) and have never had related problems in a car except a 1970s TR7 where the oil pan fell off and the engine seized and I bought an old Chevy S10 that already needed a rebuild when I got it. My current truck has 270k miles. Back when I was a kid engines were generally thought to be old at 100k miles and transmissions at 50k miles. Cars basically last forever nowadays if you don’t drive like you’re on a race track, or maybe if you’re on salty roads back East.
I may make up for neglect in maintenance by really driving very easy on cars.
I don’t worry much about oil changes in my 20 yo car. The 4-cylinder engine burns oil, maybe as much as a quart/300 miles. By the time 3000 miles rolls around, that’s 10 quarts so most of the oil in there now is pretty new, ha. It’s been over a year since I last changed it but I don’t drive much rn. I hate oil change places and if I changed it myself, I’d have to do it in the street so I might let it go another year.
I just got home with my 2002 GMC Safari. It runs very strong, but has some problems. It has 297k miles. It consumes oil. I’m not sure how much. I added like 3 quarts on the 1100 mile trip. There’s no obvious smoke. It sometimes wants to stall at idle, mostly when cold, but not always. Those are the two most pressing problems.
I’m not exactly sure where to start, but I figure maybe change the oil and look at the spark plugs? (I’m kinda busy and this won’t all happen fast). The dipstick sorta sucks. I wish there were a better way. Is there? A lot of motorcycles have a little window built into the engine where you can see the oil.
Oil consumption is likely not a quick or easy fix unfortunately. In my experience it’s likely blowing past the piston rings, or working its way through valvetrain and valves. That can also cause some of the stalling at idle problem. A good shop can do a compression and/or leakdown test to see which cylinders aren’t sealing properly.
Dipstick is your best bet as well. The only other real option is to just drain out all the oil and measure it.
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One of my dodge trucks burns oil and it will not show anything on the gauges until it’s so low that the oil pressure drops when you go around a corner.
Blower fan, alternator, and a fuel pump all went out on vehicles this week lol.
That’s almost half a million km! You have sure gotten value from that car! 
Beyond my paygrade lol. A lot of Subarus with turbos burn oil right off the factory floor.
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