Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with car and carrepair

Where can I donate a car to be used for auto repair training?

EatenByAGrue — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:55:04 -0800

I'm looking for a charity that will take a non-operational car, use it to train people in auto repair by fixing it, then sell it or give it to someone that needs a car. This is in the SF bay area. I realize that the tax law no longer treats car donations favorably, and I'm not really interested in how much of a deduction I get. Nor does it matter to me what the charity is, as long as it's for what I think is a good cause.

I'm mainly looking for two things:

(1) that the proceeds from the car's sale (or the car itself, if not sold) go as much as possible towards the charitable cause, as opposed to a middleman; and

(2) that the charity provides disadvantaged individuals with an opportunity to learn a marketable skill by teaching them for free or at a reduced cost how to fix cars, and specifically the car being donated.

I seemed to remember a radio ad from a few years back when car donations were all the rage describing a charity operating according to just this scenario, but I don't remember it and all my web searches have only turned up organizations outside of California. Thanks for the help.

What screw do I use, and where do I get it?

Zonker — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:42:30 -0800

While changing the lightbulb in the front turn signal on my car (a 2003 BMW 330i), I managed to lose the screw that connects the turn signal assembly to the car. What kind of screw can I get to replace it? I imagine there must be some standard size to use, but if so, I haven't been able to find it. Assuming I can just buy a garden-variety phillips-head screw, what's the specified size?

I've been trying to find the reference to the original part, on the RealOEM site and elsewhere, but while I can find the page for the signal assembly and various pages for mounting parts, I can't seem to find the entry for the particular screw that I need.

I wanna be a mechanical vagrant!

TheNewWazoo — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:27:07 -0800

I love renting a house in urban Atlanta! I hate renting a house in urban Atlanta! Can anyone help me find a place to fix my car... myself? So as much as I love living ~150yds from a MARTA station, and as little as I drive my car in town, and as nifty as my urban garden is, my car occasionally needs repair. I'm quite handy and would love to do minor stuff myself, but my steeply-sloped driveway and busy street precludes home repair. Can anyone help me find a public or co-op garage east-side ITP where I can work for a day or two?

Blinker stopped working on my 2000 Dodge Neon

SpacemanStix — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:22:26 -0800

My blinker on my 2000 Dodge Neon has been working only intermittently. Could this be a fuse issue, or would it not be working at all? The most common response is that the blinker will blink two or three times (in either direction) before giving out and needing to be reactivated. There have been times that it doesn't activate at all, and times where it keeps going fine for a short while without any breaks in service. I don't know enough about car repair to do anything requiring new parts or wiring. Could this possibly be a faulty fuse? This is probably the extent of my ability to fix it. If so, I'd like to try and see if this works before taking it in for more expensive repairs.

Getting rid of a dead car from far away.

NortonDC — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:14:12 -0800

My car died far from home. What's the best way to get rid of it? Relevant points:

I already have another car, so I definitely want to get rid of the old car.

The old car is in Waynesboro, VA.

My home is very close to Washington, D.C.

It's a long trip.

The car is a 2000 Honda Accord V6 2-door, 115,000 miles, the extra-fancy edition, with a some visible but non-obvious damage on the rear bumper area.

The engine has very low compression in two cylinders, for which the recommended repair is to replace the engine, which is projected to cost $3,500 to $4,000.

I put $750+ in new Michelins on the car a month before it died.

The mechanic made an offer to buy it as is for $500.

I want to be rid of it quickly but I also need to make sound money decisions, so what should I do?

CarRepairFilter: Can I fix a broken trunk indicator light myself or does this have to go to a mechanic?

jeffderek — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:21:05 -0800

CarRepairFilter: Can I fix a broken trunk indicator light myself or does this have to go to a mechanic? I drive a 2002 Saturn SL2 that until this week had given me absolutely no problems that weren't routine maintenance related. Friday morning the trunk open indicator light came on in my dash area, even though the trunk was closed. I opened the trunk and shut it again, with no noticeable result. It was firmly latched shut, but the light stayed on.

Later that afternoon it went away, but now seems intermittent. It is on significantly more often than it is not. This would be only a minor irritation, but my car won't lock the doors using the key fob unless all the doors are closed. When I hit lock, it beeps at me three times telling me the doors aren't closed (because it thinks the trunk is open), and it doesn't lock the ones that are. Furthermore, this morning while I was driving the trunk suddenly popped open about 20 feet from my house. I'd slammed the trunk shut pretty hard before leaving, so maybe it just didn't close properly, but now I'm worried about putting things in the trunk. I'm fairly certain its closing properly, but I worry.

I called the Saturn dealership, and they wanted $119 to take a look at it, and then of course I'd have to pay something exorbitant to fix it.

Is this something I can do on my own? What should I be looking for? Will the Chilton's or Haynes guide help me here? I'm willing to buy the guide if it will have information I need to fix this problem. Alternately, if this isn't something I should do myself, can a normal mechanic do it or is electrical work more of a dealership specific thing?

I'm completely ignorant of most car repair beyond changing a tire and my oil, but I have significant audiovisual and some electrical experience, and feel fairly confident in dealing with wiring, I just haven't ever worked in a car before and don't know quite what i'd be getting into.

Thanks!

Recommended auto mechanic near Arlington, MA

Mayor Curley — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:29:25 -0800

Do you have a mechanic to recommend near Arlington, MA? My beloved old Volvo has a bunch of little issues that need addressing. I'm in Arlington Heights, but I will go a bit out of my way if anyone has someone reliable, reasonable and fairly timely to recommend.

vroom vroom!

bitteroldman — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:46:37 -0800

CarMaintenanceFilter: Do I really need new spark plugs and a fuel-injector cleaning when I just got them done? April 2006, 67900 miles (10860 km), Mechanic A
I had my spark plugs replaced.

June 2007, 78000 miles (124900 km), Mechanic B
I had my fuel injectors cleaned (with the cleaning compound, using the injector cleaning machine)

Dec 2007, 78200 miles (125133 km), Mechanic C
Regular maintenance, but they tell me that my injectors need cleaning and sparks need to be replaced. When they tell me this, they don't know that I had the work done.

Mechanic A - seems to be reputable and very knowledgeable
Mechanic B - no real proof, but I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are honest and skilled as well
Mechanic C - this is the car dealership. Does this make them more honest or reputable? I don't know.

FWIW, I live in a relatively cold climate (winters of -10 Celsius, about 5 F), and have driven rarely in the past year (about 2700 miles, 4300 km). Most of the time, the car sits in the driveway.

So my question is: Did either Mechanic A or B do a shoddy job, is Mechanic C trying to rip me off, or is it "just the way it is", even though I was under the impression that the above-mentioned work would last a whole lot longer than 1.5 years (or 11000 miles) - I am told that sparks should last 25000 miles (40000 km) and injector cleaning should be good for 12000 miles (or 20000 km).

What's wrong with my car's clutch?

killdevil — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:23:05 -0800

Standard-transmission-filter: the point of engagement of the clutch (in my mid-90s Acura Integra, if it matters) has suddenly moved, and I now have to push the clutch pedal almost to the floor in order to get the transmission to disengage. What's going on, and how much is it likely to cost to repair? Coupled with a shift in the pedal's point of engagement has been a drastic loss of "springiness" in the clutch pedal until it reaches the point at which the transmission engages.

Any ideas what might be causing this?

Worry about my car tail lights or not?

mygothlaundry — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 10:23:03 -0800

Should I worry about my car tail lights or not? I have a 98 Saturn station wagon (150K+ miles, I've owned it all this time) and today when I took it in for inspection, they told me the brake lights - in fact, all the tail lights - weren't working. Then, 30 seconds later, they worked fine. A couple people have told me, over the past year or so, that I had a tail light out. When I went in today, I told the guys to go ahead and replace the tail light. Well, they brought the car into the shop and then came out and told me, "Hey, you have no brake lights! No lights at all back here!" This, obviously, scared me and then, 30 seconds later, they tried again and the brake lights - and all the tail lights - worked fine. So they passed it but now I'm worried.

The car has pretty much always had some weird fuse/electrical issues: the brights light on the dashboard flashes on and off randomly, as does the alternator light and the dome light hardly ever works then suddenly, it will work for a day or two before going away again. This is the first time that these issues have migrated to the outside of the car, though.

Is it possible that I have some kind of weird electrical thing going on whereby my tail lights work sometimes and sometimes don't? Should I be worried about this possibility? Should I take the car somewhere (where?) to check this out? Should I check it out at home with a friend? How? I really, really don't have any extra money right now so I'd very much prefer to avoid spending any but, OTOH, no brake lights is pretty serious - IF it's happening.

Timing belt in 2003 Hyundai Accent

advil — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:25:29 -0800

car question: timing belt replacement on Hyundai 2003 Accent at 60k? From googling, it seems that most people recommend replacing the timing belt on at least some versions of the Accent (this one is a 1.6L interference engine, I understand) at this mileage.

What I would like more information on is the following, from the 60k service information the mechanic printed for me (out of ALLDATA): "In California, replacement [of the timing belt] is recommended at this mileage, but not required." What does this mean? Are there other states where it is required? Is CA overly or underly strict? Is it just that it's really hard to predict the lifespan of a rubber timing belt and this is the safest answer? (I do already understand that if the belt does go in an interference-type engine before being replaced it can cause major damage.) Thanks!

Take you ridin' in the car car

bilabial — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 05:43:09 -0800

Hollywood, FL Car Repair Filter: help us maintain our 2000 Isuzu Rodeo and our 2001 Honda Accord. It's time for a tune-up. We took our cars to the big name place right around the corner from us for oil changes back in June. I didn't care for the customer service there (they pretended to have looked at something, suggested I check the oil every week to make sure it wasn't burning or leaking oil, and then report back to them "in a while." Instead I found that the muffler pipe was broken and that's what was making that terrible racket!)

So we think we need a smaller shop, but neither of us happens to be particularly savvy when figuring out if we're being snowed by the mechanic. Who should we see in the Young Circle neighborhood or surrounding area?

We're not set up to be dropping dealership cash on oil changes and minor repairs. Nick would probably prefer to take his Accord to the dealer for major stuff, I'd rather avoid an Isuzu dealer forever.

Bonus points, where in Hollywood can I get a spare made for the Rodeo that's not a dealer? (I didn't know it was a funny key, but the places I've checked haven't had a blank.)

Is there a mechanic in the house?

donpedro — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 11:14:36 -0800

I drove for about nine months on a bad oxygen sensor. Will my car suffer any long-term ill effects? The check-engine light (not the emergency one) came on in January. I called a mechanic, who said something was most likely wrong with the emissisions system, such as a bad O2 sensor, but nothing to keep me from driving it. So I didn't get it fixed, and went on my planned road trip that weekend.

Nine months later (yesterday), I finally took care of it. Yup, the O2 sensor. The car now drives noticeably better, with much improved pickup. I hadn't even realized the drop in performance, but now that it's fixed, Wow: Like night and day.

But -- and I was too ashamed to ask my mechanic this -- I'm a little worried about whether the car may have suffered any lasting damage due to my not attending to the problem for so long. I don't drive very much -- I estimate I put about 4K miles on it during the period in question. Should I worry?

DIY auto repair guidance?

billybunny — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 10:29:10 -0800

I want to fix a couple of things on my car. However, looking under the hood causes to me to collapse with the vapors, forcing me to go purse shopping for an hour to mitigate the effects. Does anyone have an online walkthrough-to-fixin-up-your-car for guys like me? (Details inside.) I need to replace some sparkplugs and seal/replace a vacuum hose that's leaking. The garage I took it to wanted an arm and a leg (they took out a hacksaw and everything), and I've been told that it'd be super-cheap to fix all this stuff myself.

Plus I don't know shit about what I'm doing. So, yeah, online help? It's a 99 VW Passat, if that helps to narrow down the search. I've googled, but everything I find intimidates and confuses me.