Live from the Car Care Studios, it's the CNC Auto Show with your personal on-air and online automotive service advisors, Aaron Clements and John Ryan Mooney. So climb in, buckle up, and enjoy the ride on the CNC Auto Show. And we do welcome you to the CNC Auto Show. We're here to share information on ways to make your car safer, more dependable, and make it last longer for less money. I'm Aaron Clements and here with us is Amanda. Hello. Amanda, you've been awesome helping answer these automotive questions.
Appreciate you being here. We're here to share some tips, have some fun, share some information on ways to make your car safer, more dependable, and make it last longer for less money, less hassle. Amanda's actually, she's part owner and the district manager of CNC Automotive, and she works with people all day long. She works with cars all day long. So it's a perfect fit to help us answer the automotive questions. I think many of you will be very amazed at the knowledge base that's there and how much she can help answer these questions. Okay, give us a call.
800-224-9090. That's any Saturday morning, 80510 Eastern Time. Also, watch us live on Facebook, listen on iHeart. Watch us on YouTube. Yeah, watch us on YouTube.
Just the main thing, just do it because we'd love for you to be there. Amanda, where were we going? We were going back to Joe. Yeah, we were talking with Joe. Joe, you had another question.
Yes, yes, thank you. And I wanted to say I heard that our cars are what makes the show fun and exciting, so now I feel a lot of pressure. I think I might have, I don't know, I wish I had a more exciting car to talk about, but I have that 03 Durango. And what happens on that is it's a 5.9. It's got about 120,000 miles on it.
It's got the big engine. And when it's driven just about long enough to warm up completely and you stop at a stop, it's like there will be an electrical burning smell. And it seems to dissipate later in driving, and it's not really there like before it's warmed up. I told my wife, I said, well, as long as nothing's on fire and everything is working, I don't know what to do about it besides check under the hood and make sure nothing's crossed over something like a wire crossed over the exhaust manifold or something like that.
So it's just something that we've just been living with for years. And like I say, everything works on the car. It's just like that burning smell that happens when you stop at the first light after the car is completely warmed up. Does it seem like it's coming from under the hood?
Can you kind of tell where it may be coming from? You can't see any smoke. You just smell a burning smell, an electrical burning smell. So it could be under the hood, under the dash. But it's not, like I say, everything has worked on the car. And I've looked under the hood and I can't see anything, you know, obviously it stands out where something has come out of a, like a wire has come out of what is running the wrong way over something hot or something like that.
Joe, I could tell you some common things that make a burning smell under the hood. Commonly an alternator would, they get hot when they start going bad, they can get hot and they can produce a smell. But usually if it's been, you say it's been doing it for almost a year.
Oh yeah, I'd say it's probably longer than that. Yeah, an alternator would have disintegrated by now. They'll normally make that smell for about two weeks and then boom, they're out. Some of the other things is if a battery starts going bad, but it's the same way. It'll make a burning type smell, but it won't go a year with it making that burning smell. It'll normally go out. If you suspect that it is definitely a burning smell. Well, he thinks it's electrical. I don't know if you looked at the fuse box.
I mean, everything looks normal there. I'll tell you something fun, Joe. I'm going to tell you something fun that you'll enjoy. This is what we do when we're looking for certain electrical smells. You can go to just about any parts store or you can go to even... O'Reilly's.
O'Reilly Auto Parts will be a great place to get this, but they make these little heat guns and they're not that expensive anymore. And you can take that little heat gun and when you're smelling the smell, aim that under the hood. And if you see, let's say you look at the alternator and it looks red and everything else is not red, then you can say, well, that's getting hotter than it should. You can look in the fuse box and if you had one relay that's a lot hotter than all the others, it might be red.
The others might be yellow. And they're kind of fun to play with anyway. Well, that's one option. I mean, yeah, if you're trying to find it and suspect something under the hood. I mean, there's so many electronics inside the car, too, that might be producing a little bit of an electric burning smell when they're going bad.
So it's kind of hard. I would maybe start under the hood. I would get someone with a really, really good sniffer and let that person ride with you. And then as soon as it has the problem, the two of you jump out. Well, it's doing it at a red light. Well, you have to pull over from the red light. Well, hold traffic up. Call the police and tell the police to hold traffic because you got to find this. And let that sniffer person get out.
And you say, go get them, boy. And that person just nose around. Next thing you know, boom. They'll hold it with the heat gun and see. But yet checking those relays and for excessive temperature there. And I mean, it sounds like it has been doing it that long and it only does it that first light.
I don't think it's going to be anything that's going to give me any problems about halfway to church. Joe, it sounds like my sniffer idea went out like a lead balloon. Actually, no, no. Actually, that's pretty good because like I say, it always happens about the same place. So I know exactly where a place to pull over right there is. Oh, beautiful.
You won't have to call the police to hold traffic. That's really a good idea. My wife is really good with that kind of thing.
So you can see it. I always want to know what's that smell, what's the smell. So somebody is going to walk up while you two are doing this and say, what in the heck are you doing?
I hope y'all are able to find it. All right. And if we don't, it's not the end of the world.
But I do really appreciate the sense of smell. I thought of that after I talked to the call screener and I said, hey, I want to ask about this one. Well, Joe, keep us informed. Take videos of this happening, if you don't mind. Oh, OK. I do have one question about your, the question about the belt.
Sure. That question, is this a vehicle with a serpentine belt or is it a vehicle with like three separate little belts? It had the three separate little belts on there.
Well, actually it had one serpentine and one regular belt. OK, so I'll think on this a little more and see if I can come up with, I'm hoping that maybe I'll either help myself or help somebody else figure it out. Exactly. OK, thank you, Joe. And Joe, keep us informed on your car smell. Bye bye. OK, number 800-224-9090.
All you got to do is give us a call. We're going to shoot over here. Where are we going Amanda? Tony, but we only got a minute before the break, but maybe we could get some initial information. Tony, I see you might have an answer to our tech tip quiz. I'm going to read the question real quick. We're going to put you on stage real quick and then we're going to see how it goes. Sean owns an 06 Chevrolet Colorado 2.8 gas engine, had been driving for a while drinking coffee.
He had to pull over, repair something and loosen the belt. Why? And let's put you on stage. Tony, what is the answer to today's tech tip quiz? Go ahead, Tony. Tony, you may have to take the break and... Tony once. Tony twice. All right, Tony. We'll put you back on hold.
Try one last time. Tony. All right, Tony's already on stage.
He's geared up. If he don't answer when we get back, we're going to have to move over to Zach. OK, we'll be right back after these messages. As we navigate the COVID-19 crisis, O'Reilly Auto Parts is dedicated to serving you. We've been deemed an essential business, so our doors will stay open.
We encourage you to buy online, then pick up curbside. Together, we're committed to getting through this. Let's head back down to the car care studio with Airman Clements and John Ryan Mooney. C&C Auto Show is brought to you in part by O'Reilly Auto Parts, your professional parts people. And we're back with you with the C&C Auto Show. If you have a question about your car, truck or SUV, you give us a call.
That's 800-224-9090. And watch us live on Facebook or YouTube or whatever. Just tune in.
Watch us. OK, here we go. We were talking with Tony.
Tony. Yes, sir. If I'm not mistaken, you may have an answer to our tech tech quiz.
Is that right? Well, I'm going to give it a shot. Didn't we already put you on stage? OK, well, I'll tell you, I'm sitting here listening. You've got a great show going on this morning. Some of the interesting answers and some interesting questions. I always get a kick out of it.
Well, we enjoy it. Thank you. But I'm going to tell you, I'm sitting here listening to this problem. And so you figure the old boy is going down the road, been driving a long time and he most likely needed to make his head stop. He probably had a low fuel light come on, pulled in, got gas, jumped out, paid the bill. You know, credit card machine probably wasn't working like usual and jumps back in, pulls out on the road.
Realizes he ain't got his seatbelt on, can't put it on, has to pull off the road again, open the door, get his seatbelt out of the door, put his seatbelt back on to keep on moving. And that's just a guess, though. Amanda, he put a lot of thought in.
I'm going to let you talk to him. I think we should give it. You are correct about the light that came on. You're the first one that guessed the light correctly. But I think we could combine your second part of the answer with one of our past answers.
Well, we got two others up there, though. The same. Hey, Tony, he had been driving for a long time. He had been drinking a lot of coffee. What happens?
What else might he need to do? Let's go over to the next. Tony, you were so close, man.
You were so close. Thank you, Tony. Alrighty. Okay, the number to call, 800-224-909. Oh, now Mason did that to him.
You waited till he hung up, didn't you? Let's try Zach. Alright, let's go over to Zach. Zach, welcome to the C&C Auto Show. Hello. Am I reading this right, or do you have an answer to our Tech Tip quiz?
Yes, I have the answer. Let me read you a question. John owns a 2006 Chevrolet Colorado 2.8 gas engine. Been driving for a while, drinking a lot of coffee. A light came on.
He had to pull over, repair something, and loosen the belt. Why? And Zach, all eyes are on you.
What is the answer? Oh, thank God. I was so worried somebody else was about to get it. Alright. Zach, today's your day, man. I can feel it. Yes, sir.
What is it? Okay, so his fuel light came on because he's been driving a long time, so he pulled over for the pit stop to get some gas. And like you said, he's been drinking a lot of coffee, so he had to loosen his belt to go to the bathroom. Whoa!
Let me see what the judges say. Shawn had been driving his 2006 Chevrolet Colorado 2.8 gas engine for a while when the low fuel light came on. Since he'd been driving and drinking coffee for a while, he had another issue. He had to pull over, add gas, loosen his belt so that he could pee. And I couldn't find a nice way of putting that, but... Go to the bathroom?
Go to the bathroom, okay. The way Zach put it. Thank you, Zach.
We could even get better. He had to go to the... I was so worried there for a second because you gave away that big hit before the other break, and then the other guy cheated up with loosening the belt. Yeah, he was very close, too. But Zach, we're going to disregard the other part and say he pulled over to go to the restroom. Yeah, but good job. Zach's the winner, finally.
That one's gone two weeks. Zach, congratulations. You're the winner. Thank you very much. You stay on the line, we'll get your information, and we'll tell you where you can retrieve your stuff and be inducted to the Tech Tip Quiz Hall of Fame.
It's huge. Thank you, sir. All right, thank you. Thank you. Okay, the number to call, 800-224-9090. Do you want to issue a new Tech Tip, or...?
No, no. We're going to go to smells. We're going to talk about some car smells here. Okay. Okay, one of the next deals... Well, that's kind of... Okay, Zach's still there. Okay, now, a sweet, syrupy smell inside the car.
We talked about it a little early. That's generally a smell associated with coolant. So, as we mentioned to the caller, it's a sign that there may be a coolant leak somewhere, possibly an issue with your heater core.
You do not really want to mess with that. That might end up doing damage to your engine if you have an issue with the coolant flowing properly and cooling off the engine. So, if you smell that, or if you see smoke coming from your vents or anything like that that indicates an issue with your coolant system, it's recommended you go ahead and get it looked at by a professional, or search the coolant system yourself to see what may be going on there. Unfortunately, the heater core is buried in the dash, so it can be very hard to isolate the particular issue with that.
Pretty much, you have to search the rest of the system to see if there's anything else going on. If there's definitely a coolant issue, then that normally leaves the heater core. And a lot of people think that the heater core, all it is, is the biggest issue is that it can leak coolant, but also it can produce steam. And if you're riding down the road and it's nighttime, you're in heavy traffic, and you get some fog on your windshield, and you hit the button expecting the windshield to clear, but instead it steams over, and it would be you're flying IFR then. You're no longer, you have zero visibility, and that can be bad in heavy traffic. So, heater core needs to be looked at, and not to mention, I don't want to hear this talked about much, but breathe and antifreeze can't be good for you.
No, it's definitely not. So, that sweet smell, I wouldn't mess around with that at all. I would get your vehicle looked at as soon as possible. Okay, give us a call at 800-224-9090 if you have a question about your car, truck, or SUV. Amanda, what's a burning oil smell? That indicates an old leak, but if you want to mention more about that after the short break.
Wow, you're absolutely, good catch, Amanda. Okay, when we return, we'll be ready to answer your automotive questions, share information on car smells, and what they might mean to you. Give us a call, the number's 800-224-9090, and you can watch us live on Facebook, YouTube, other stuff. And we'll be right back after this.
It's time for more Good Stuff with Aaron Clements and John Ryan Mooney. Music Is your check engine light on? Don't ignore it. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today and let the professional parts people scan your vehicle for free. They'll retrieve codes, discuss possible solutions, even help you find a professional technician if needed. They can also help you find a service center online. Just visit OReillyAuto.com and click find a repair shop. When you see a check engine light, get the answers you need from the professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts.
We are here to answer your automotive questions, share information on car smells, number 800-224-9090, that's 800-224-9090, or watch us live on Facebook, iHeartN. YouTube. Okay. Let's go over to James. James, welcome to the CNC Auto Show.
And what can we help you with today? Yes, sir. I've got an 87 Jeep Wrangler and the clutch, I cannot, just like I can't push it far enough in to get it to go into here.
Into the first gear. Okay. And that has a hydraulic clutch, right? Yes, sir, I believe it is. Okay.
Are you, your clutch fluid, has it gone down any? I think it's good. Okay. I'm pretty sure it's good. I've been setting it up now for about three years waiting on, you know, somebody to be able to work on it. Okay. I've been listening to you guys for quite a while.
Well, we appreciate you listening very much. And I would double check the clutch fluid, make sure it is good. And then I would push, what's happening is either your clutch master cylinder or your slave cylinder. Now, usually if it's the slave cylinder that's bad, it would be leaking. I might be wrong, but I think that slave cylinder is built into the throwout bearing, which is between the engine and the transmission. Which if it is, that means that the transmission has to come out to replace the throwout bearing. Okay. So, that makes the clutch master cylinder look a lot more attractive because it's easier. To what now?
How can I get it to you guys to work on? Well, a couple of different ways. Does it have any clutch at all or is it pretty much completely no clutch? Well, there's none. You can't get it in gear without really, you know, jamming it really hard. Okay. But once you get going, you can work the gears.
Okay. You may be ahead of the habit. Towed may end up being the easier way. Now, there's ways sometimes you can butter one along, depending on where it's at, as far as driving one with very little clutch. You can like put it in gear, in second gear, take off. But of course, when you try to go to your next gear, you're not going to be able to do it very well. So, you may come out ahead just to have that one towed to take a chance.
Well, so you prevent taking a chance on an accident or not making it. So, towing would be the best way. Okay. Do you all have towers, sir? We do, yes.
Yes, you can give whichever location is closest to you a call and they can definitely have a record driver come pick it up for you. Okay. And James, I'm going to mention this, that this show plays in other areas. And so, I don't mention CNC Automotive very often, but I just absolutely have to get a plug to our wonderful tow truck driver. Terry Wilkins is absolutely awesome. He has a huge amount of experience in towing. And so, he just knows how to get out of any situation. And then along with that, and because of that, he drives pretty much a brand new tow truck.
It's what it's, bought it in January. Yes, yes. So, he's just awesome.
So, thank you for giving me that opportunity to mention him because he just is so fantastic. Can you shoot that number to me real quick? Just dial 706-724-0900. Okay. All right.
Well, I'll get it up there first of the week. Thank you, James. Thank you. We do appreciate that call very much. Okay. Thank you, guys.
Thank you. All right, Amanda, we have a car that has a rotten egg smell. What are some of the things that can cause a rotten egg smell? Besides actual rotten eggs?
Yeah, rotten eggs can. That's usually your catalytic converter. And pretty much what that is doing is filtering the exhaust fumes out of your engine. So, if for some reason it's not working properly, what you're smelling is just a lot of those chemicals not breaking down properly. And generally, you might smell it more towards the rear of your vehicle.
If you smell it, they can easily do some. And a lot of times, you might have a check engine light on also because converters can set check engine lights. But what you're going to want to do is just have them test the efficiency of the converter. And they do that by measuring those fumes at the front and the back of the converter. And also, a lot of times, the converter gets blamed for a lot of stuff to start with. I mean, everybody has heard, yeah, it's the catalytic converter. And sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. But also, along with that, many times the catalytic converter can be producing a smell, but it's not its fault because a rich mixture or lean mixture in the engine can make the converter smell bad. So, I mean, it gets no respect at all. I mean, it gets treated badly, blamed all the time for stuff.
But also, it can be bad through no fault of its own. So, if you have a converter smell, you do want to determine whether you have a fuel mixture problem or a bad converter problem on there. I may not tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to go ahead and throw out another tech tip quiz.
Sounds good. Now, this tech tip quiz will be a little confusing, though, because it will sound similar, but it is different. This time, Bill was driving his 2017 Chevrolet 3500 diesel truck in Colorado when a light came on. He had to pull over, do something, and tighten a belt. And if you know the answer to that tech tip quiz, you give us a call and find out what came on and why he had to tighten a belt. Okay.
So, if someone knows the answer to that, all you have to do is call 800-224-9090. And, Amanda, what would it be if someone had a rubber smell coming from their vehicle? Rubber burning, I'm assuming. Yeah, kind of like a rubber burning. You could have an issue with, for one, the belts.
If a belt is starting to rub against something, it shouldn't. And that would be causing a burning smell. Or it could be related to the tires, even. Yeah, if they're spinning their tires right then.
So, you know, those are the two main things. If you smell it coming from under the hood, then it's definitely most likely one of those engine belts. Probably want to pull over and get that checked out. You might have some smoke coming as a result of that rubbing against something. What else could be rubber? Well, those are the main things. Yeah, usually a belt slipping, like you mentioned something scrubbing a tire.
But those are the main things. All right, how about gas smells? What's some of the things that can produce a gas smell, and what should you do if you have a gas smell coming from your vehicle? You probably don't want to mess around with a fuel smell at all, even though there are some small vapor leaks coming from the back evaporative emission system that may lead to a fuel smell in the car. But if you're smelling it really heavy, then I would definitely recommend pulling over and trying to figure out, because there's a strong possibility you got a fuel leak, and you definitely don't want to mess around with a fuel leak. Especially if it's a strong fuel smell coming from near the engine, because that's where you have your ignition, and you have your gas, you have your ignition, boom, that can cause a problem.
Now, a little slight fuel smell, and especially if it's coming from the rear of the car, the engine in the front, you smell around, I would just try to locate it, make sure the fuel cap's on good. I would start with that, yeah. But then have it checked out. But if it's strong, I would consider not doing it. If you're looking at it yourself, make sure you keep a fire extinguisher nearby. Pull it out of your house's garage. Yeah, shut it off immediately.
Okay, we'll be right back after this. Welcome back to more of the CNC Auto Show with Airman Clements and John Ryan Mooney. The CNC Auto Show is brought to you in part by Optima batteries, featuring 99.99% pure lead Optima batteries will last up to three times longer as traditional flooded batteries. Optima batteries, the ultimate power source. Learn more at OptimaBatteries.com.
We are here to answer your automotive questions and share information on car smells and what they might mean to you. The number 800-224-9090. And you can also watch us live on Facebook, listen on iHeart, or YouTube. Yes. Okay. We had a tech tip quiz laying on the table. I am going to go ahead and mention that again. This time, Bill was driving his 2017 Chevrolet 3500 diesel truck in Colorado when a light came on. He had to pull over, do something, and tighten a belt. If you know the answer to that, give us a call.
That number, again, 800-224-9090. And we are talking about smells that cars can make. Amanda, what should a person do if they have an oil burning smell? If you have oil, an oil burning smell, there's a good chance there might be a leak somewhere.
Maybe it's dripping on to something and that's what's causing the smell. So, I would definitely recommend either inspecting it yourself or having it inspected. You're probably going to need to check out the top of the engine, underneath the vehicle, see if you can locate the leak. Sometimes it's hard to see an oil leak because as you drive, the oil kind of coats everything if it's leaking pretty good. So, you might have to rinse it off real good and then drive it and then check it out. Our technicians have to do that often to find a leak.
But that's a good possibility on there. You want to also make sure that your oil level is what it should be and that you've been regularly changing your oil. There could be an issue. It could be smelling and burning oil out the cow pipe. That's a good thought.
I didn't think about that one. But if you know your oil level is good and it's in good condition, it's just possible that it is leaking somewhere slightly even. But it might be leaking just right on an exhaust pipe or something that's causing a burning smell. What about a really bad, I mean almost like a crappy type smell coming from the backseat? What could that be?
I have no idea. Well, on that one, I do recommend checking out the baby's diaper because sometimes that just happens and sometimes you just have to pull over and change the part. That's true, yeah. Me and my husband have had those situations before. It can be rough, especially on a trip. It happens from time to time. Okay, how about an exhaust smell? What do you think on an exhaust smell? We kind of touched on exhaust issues already. But you might have an exhaust. We had a caller already that had an exhaust leak. But if you're smelling exhaust, then yeah, the whole exhaust system needs to be checked out and you need to figure out if there is a leak somewhere there or a converter issue or what may be going on. But it is, I mean, it's probably one of the easier ones to isolate because you can usually see under a vehicle, you can see the whole exhaust system from where it leaves the engine to where it comes out your tailpipe and you can isolate the smell. And along with that, an exhaust smell can produce fumes inside the vehicle. In the winter months, you may be driving, you may have an exhaust leak. Those exhaust fumes can be pulled into the car now. Cars are designed to pull a certain amount of outside air in, even if everything is sealed up tight.
So it don't happen as bad as it used to many years ago. But I wouldn't play around with smelling exhaust fumes because you're on a long trip. You've been smelling these exhaust fumes for a very long time. A couple of different things can happen. You can be very grouchy when you arrive at your destination or you can be riding down the road and fall asleep. So until you know what those fumes are, until you find out what's happening with the vehicle, I would recommend leaving the car ventilated, maybe roll some windows down a little bit. And we didn't mention it with the fuel smells and vapors, but if you have longer commutes and you're noticing that you're getting a headache, for instance, throughout your commute and you might have a hint of a smell here and there, people don't realize that fuel vapors, any of that getting inside the cab and you sitting in there for extended periods of time, it can give you headaches and start to affect your health after a while. So I tried, I wouldn't take any of that lightly.
Especially if you do that day after day and then you smell this and you may have a health problem and it may turn out to be something that you're smelling every day in your vehicle. Yeah. Okay. Are you ready to go to calls? Yes. All right. Let's go over to Darren. Darren, welcome to the CNC Auto Show and what can we help you with?
Yes, sir. I have a 2004 Explorer XLT and sometimes when I'm away from my truck, like when the truck is parked in my condominium complex or whatever, the alarm goes off. So after a while, about 30 seconds or so, it does stop, but the horn starts blowing. I lean toward the car thinking somebody's stealing it. Now, here's what happens.
You've got a couple of things going on. The door lock switches on that car are built inside the latch assembly and when they start going bad, they can get closer together to where they're showing the computer that it's closed at that time. But then when it gets colder and the temperature changes, then boom, they can break contact or they can show connected. And then as it gets colder, they can break contact. Then as far as the computer knows, somebody tried to open your door in the middle of the night. Does it seem to do it like in the middle of the night or something when the temperature starts to drop a little bit?
Okay. That's a good possibility. Do your neighbors get upset with you? And sometimes early in the morning when I crank my car up or truck to leave, the door locks go wild. They're clicking in and out like lock, unlock. Yeah. Now with that part, I would check the battery because that sounds like a possible low voltage condition.
Some of this may be tied in together. If you check your battery and it checks bad, I would replace it first, but that may not solve your alarm problem. What do your neighbors do when your alarm goes off late at night? Well, I mean, I can hear where I'm at, but it doesn't last long. Oh, okay.
So they don't get too upset with you? It's usually during the night and it goes off. And nobody's yelling to cut that off or anything like that?
Not yet. Because once I get up out of bed and go to the door to check on it, it stops. Okay. Well, what I do, first have the battery checked, find out if your battery's good or bad. If it's bad, have it replaced. See how it does, knowing that there's going to be a high probability that you're going to have a door latch switch that's going to be bad. And a technician would be able to hook a laptop up to it and be able to tell if one of those has a problem. Sometimes the technician may go around and bump each door. And when they bump it, if it shows open, you may even be able to try that yourself. Wait until the time that it would usually go off. If you say, well, this usually goes off about 12 o'clock midnight.
Walk out there at midnight and slightly bump each door. You might be able to tell which one it is and save you some diagnostics on the vehicle. But if it don't show up from that, you wouldn't need some testing. Okay? Let us know how it goes. Good luck with that one. Thank you.
I'm glad his neighbors are not getting upset with him because that's a good thing. Okay. Time clock is on E. We need to pull over. We'll be back on row no time. I'm Aaron, here with Amanda.
The show producer is Mason Rogers. Amanda, sure enjoyed you being here very much. I enjoyed it. See you all next time. And we'll see you next time with another CNC Auto Show.
