Sunday, March 14, 2010

Automotive Work Today

Not much, really. Have to change the spark plugs and serpentine belts on the YF's car. No points or cap/rotor, as her Nissan Sentra has the "Coil On Plug" design, so all I (should!) have to do is carefully remove the coil assembly, remove the old plugs, put the new ones in, and put the coil back on. She got the dreaded "Check Engine" light the other day, so I put my OBD-II scanner on the connector, and it read out "Cylinder #3 Misfire". Hmmmmm.....47,000 miles on the original plugs, so probably time to change them even though the Service Manual says they're good for 105,000 miles ( !!!! ). Cleared the fault code, and it's been running happily ever since. On the other hand, I could probably just give it an "Italian Tune-Up" and it would be good for a while, BUT...she's big on replacing consumable parts if there's the slightest doubt they might be bad, and *I'm* big on "Happy Wife, Happy Life", so I'll swap them out.
The serpentine belts might take a little longer. When she got her oil changed last week the guy was like "OMG!!! You NEED your belts changed NOW!!!!", so she called me. Rather than pay the oil change place $85 to install new belts, I told her to decline the "service", and bring the car home. Were the belts *that* bad? NO....glazed a bit, but no cracks or missing ribs on the drive side.
Got 4 new plugs, and both belts, for $54 at the Autozone down the street, so today I get to play mechanic.
Hmmm...where'd I put my silicone dielectric grease?

2 comments:

  1. I've noticed the platinum tipped plugs have dropped in price a bunch over the years. I really need to put plugs in my chebby truck - 140k! I used to take better care of my wheels.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, they sure have. "Economies of Scale" and all that stuff. I'll do most of the work on my/our vehicles, except for oil changes. I'm just too damn old to be crawling around underneath my vehicles, and then have to worry about properly disposing of the used oil and filter.

    ReplyDelete

Keep it civil, please....

Annnnd.....We Got Zip.....

 Total snow was about 6~8", but half o0f it melted as soon as it hit, and we never had more than 3" on the ground at any one time....