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, truck or SUV safer, to make it more dependable and to make it last longer for less money. I'm Aaron Clements here to answer your automotive questions, your tips and have some fun. But, and this is kind of huge for me, I like this, Amanda Clements Drake is here with us. Amanda's part owner and district manager of CNC Automotive, of the CNC Automotive stores. And I am here to tell you right now she's been around cars her whole life and she is sharp.
So I want you to be ready to call in and ask her some questions. Good morning everybody. And Amanda has someone else here with her. And with Amanda today, we have her son Ryder. Ryder, good morning and welcome to the show. Thank you.
Wow, that was neat. Okay, we are going to be answering some of those automotive questions and sharing tips and a lot of other things. But one of the things that we thought it would be a great idea to touch on is a very common thing that people see as they're driving their vehicle. And sometimes it can be scary is when a warning light comes on and the car is talking to you. It's letting you know something. But at one time it used to be just one or two things that we talk about.
Now there's many. So we will go through a lot of these warning lights. We'll talk about them, give you some ideas on what you should do if certain warning lights go on.
And we'll go ahead and start with one of the very basic items. Amanda, in talking about warning lights, one of the basic things that we want to mention is why are some red and some are yellow or amber or a different color? Well, the color difference mainly just has to do with the urgency of the issue. So if something is red, that means you need to take care of it immediately. Usually it means you need to pull over and shut your vehicle off. Yellow is usually more something that you just need to address as soon as you can. It's letting you know that there is an issue, but it's not an urgent issue. I didn't know if you wanted to add anything to the color difference. No, you said that absolutely perfect.
I don't think I could say anything to add to that. Yeah, the main thing is if it's red, address it immediately. Right when you see the red light come on. If it's yellow, just as soon as you get to your next destination.
Kind of caution. Okay, Amanda, one of the things you already know that we do during the show is we go to callers and we have one waiting and we will go over to Billy. Billy, welcome to the CNC Auto Show. Well, good morning. Let me read the tech tip quiz to Ryder. Oh, okay. Hey Ryder, Billy here wants to read you the tech tip quiz. So here we go.
Billy, we're ready. Bill went on vacation and it was two hours from where he lived to go on vacation. It took him two hours to get there and it took him six hours to get back. There was no problem with the car. There was no traffic or nothing like that.
Why did it take him so long to get back? That's a hard one. That was last week's tech tip quiz.
Yeah, nobody answered it. Right. So do you know? I think he's got an answer for us. Let's listen.
We'll put you on stage. Okay. Okay, Billy, what is the answer to last week's tech tip quiz? Bill left where he was staying at and got almost home and realized he forgot something. He had to turn around and drive back, which added another, going home was two hours, going back there was two hours. He retrieved what he forgot and he came back home and that was two hours. So that took the six hours. Oh, Billy, that was a good shot. You evidently thought about this some during the week.
Is that right? All week. That's a good answer. I've been thinking about it all week. Well, that makes it hard to do this.
I thought that was it too. Billy, we do appreciate it. Thanks Billy. I hope you get better. Thank you.
You're welcome. Thank you. And hey, Ryder. Hey. Hey. All right. Cool. Awesome. Thank you guys. Thank you. I've got a number to call. 7 0. No, I'm sorry.
800-224-9090 is the number to call. And if you have an automotive question, Amanda will be glad to answer also. And Ryder will all be here ready to answer your automotive questions. So if you've had a light come on or a light's been on for, let's say over a year and you want to discuss it, you give us a call. We do run into cars from time to time to where a dash, we call it the Christmas tree, a dash looks like it's got a Christmas tree up there because of so many lights being on.
And sometimes they're ones that people are just not concerned about, but it is a great idea to know what each one of them mean. Now, Amanda, if a person is riding alone and their red oil light comes on, what would you recommend? Well, you may mention what that looks like. Oil cans, sometimes just oil cans. Well, I was going to say, everybody might not know that, but yeah, if you have a little oil can that pops up and it's red, that usually means an issue with your oil pressure. And that is usually something that you need to address right away. It means that oil may not be properly being distributed throughout your engine and that could cause some serious engine damage pretty quickly. So that's usually a light that you want to address immediately. If you see it come on, it could mean something simple as a pressure sensor, meaning that it's not reading right, but your oil is distributing correctly, or it could be something major and there could be a lockup.
Yeah, and it's not worth taking the chance. I've seen, you wouldn't believe how many times over the years I've heard someone say, well, the light came on, but everything was okay. And so I only had a block to go to get to my house. And so I drove it that block to get home or to get to the store or get to wherever they were going, but it started making a noise. Well, once it makes that noise, many times it's too late. You've got a really nice engine that's turned into pretty much a boat anchor after that.
And it's just not worth taking the chance on wondering, hey, is this real or is this not real? Because once that metal's gone inside there, there's no way to put it back. Yes, because I'm sure a lot of people listening know, but that oil is what lubricates those moving parts. So if that is gone, then all you have is, like you just said, metal on metal and it's very quickly that can cause some major engine problems. So yeah, that's one of the key lights.
Hopefully nobody sees that one very often. But yeah, that is a key, a major one right there. Okay. So if someone has a question about an oil light, give us a call.
And that's 800-224-9090. And we will be able to give you more information on that if needed, but pretty much take that light seriously. Okay, let's go over to the temperature light. Red temperature light comes on.
What should you do then? Well, the thermometer, it normally looks like a little thermometer in most vehicles. If that comes on, it typically means that your engine is overheating. Your engine has coolant running through it that keeps it from overheating. And if there's any kind of issue with that cooling system, say it's a coolant leak and the fluid's gone, so it's not distributing properly.
There's a blockage of some sort. That light will come on to let you know that that system is no longer working properly and your engine temp is starting to rise. So just like a temperature gauge, if you start to see your temperature gauge on your dash start to go into the red, you would want to take that very, very seriously. Just like you would want to take that thermometer light coming on seriously.
You want to take it to a shop immediately if you see that light. All right. Amanda, I was going to go ahead and give the answer to last week's Tech Tip quiz, because we have a new one for this week.
The question had to do with, it took a certain amount of time, several hours, I don't even have it in front of me, but it took a certain amount of time to get to its destination, but it took much longer to get home from the same, from the destination. I don't know if you have time before the break though, you may have to take the break first. No we don't. We'll cover that as soon as we return. Thank you. Let's head back down to the Car Care Studio with Airman Clements and John Ryan Mooney. And we do welcome you back to the CNC Auto Show. We're here to answer your automotive questions at number 706-863-5800.
Give us a call and we will be here to answer those automotive questions that you have. We have Amanda here with us and we have Ryder here with us. They're both sitting there ready to answer automotive questions. Also I want to ask Billy. Billy was our first caller. He called in and mentioned something about the Tech Tip quiz.
I'm going to get him to call back in and I'm going to drop, I'm going to give him a couple of hints on that Tech Tip quiz. And so Billy give us a call and I think that also Ryder may have a joke that he would like to tell us. Ryder? Ryder came up with a joke on his own so here we go. Okay here we go Ryder. What the mechanic say to the car? I'm not sure.
I'll fix you up. Oh! He created that all on his own. And I will say Ryder also rides motorcycles and does very well with that. He's entered a few races happening Amanda. Yes he has. He has a PW50 and he's in a racing series right now. So yeah. And how old is Ryder?
Tell him how old you are. Five. Wow that's amazing.
Ryder's gonna do good on the radio I can tell. Okay number to call 706-863-5800. We're also talking about warning lights and we're going to go over to Billy and uh Billy welcome back to the CNC Auto Show. Could you give us that question to the uh of last week's Tech Tip quiz again? The question or the answer?
Uh the question. The question was that Bill went on vacation and it took him two hours to get there but and there was no bad traffic there was nothing wrong with the car or anything and it took him three out of three extra three hours to get back. Okay all right now on the answer it took him six hours to get back.
What would um did he go oh what's a great uh great tip here um Billy did I necessarily say that home was still home? You didn't well you didn't say he left on me you just said he left and went on vacation took him two hours to get there and then it took him six hours to get back. Okay so if he if he took him if he left and went on vacation does he necessarily have to go to the same place when he gets back?
No he doesn't. Now is there a chance that he moved no he doesn't. Now is there a chance that he moved and he went on vacation and then he moved to a different house and he just went on vacation and then when he come back home his home wasn't the same home? That's right it was it was six hours away instead of just two. Oh Billy you are the winner that is. That was a tricky one. Thank you. Hey Billy. I was sitting there okay I was gonna tell you what my next answer was gonna be.
I was sitting there thinking okay he he moved when he moved uh the time zones I mean the uh the time changed and they moved the clock clock up and then he stayed there long enough and then they moved the clocks back the other way and so he lost two hours that way and then he had to travel a little further to get believe me I've been thinking about this thing for a week. Well Billy that's the reason I want to make sure you won if you thought about that thing during the week you deserve to win and congratulations. Thank you so much. Well thank you. Thank you so much. Okay bye Billy. You too Billy. Bye bye. Bye bye. Okay the number to call is 706-8635-800 or you can call 800-224-9090 either one will work.
You can also watch us live on Facebook and on listen on iHeart. Okay Amanda what if the world famous picture of an engine comes up? The engine is your check engine light.
It is the most common light that people see because it has so many different possibilities that could be going on. Several codes, pretty much a code will tell you the system that's being affected and it could be anything from a vapor leak coming from your fuel cap to a running issue. Anything to do with your exhaust system so the code will pop up and generally what we recommend doing is if you have a check engine light come on you can stop by any repair shop, any CNC automotive and they can do a quick scan on it and that will tell you the code and what the code does is it gives you the system that's being affected that has a fault and that lets the technician know what diagnostic procedures he has to do to find out what actual part may be malfunctioning. So that's typically how that works and if your check engine light comes on it is good to get it looked at as soon as possible so if you know if it's a system that needs to be addressed ASAP or if it's a system that you might could wait a few months until you address. Don't just put a little sticker over it and pretend it's not there because I've seen that. Just go ahead and go get it quick scanned so at least you know if it's something urgent or not. Yeah Amanda putting pictures and lottery tickets and all that on your dash to cover stuff up is not good. If something's there it's better to know it. Yeah might as well know what the problem is instead of just pretending it's not there. Okay we're gonna um wow I'm gonna read the new tech tip quiz real quick and we will uh and of course the winner will win a prize package which includes the I answered the tech tip quiz coffee mug and the question is Sean owns a 2006 Chevrolet Colorado with a 2.8 gas engine he'd been driving for a while when a light come on he had to pull over repair something and loosen the belt why and if you know the answer give us a call and also if you have a question about a vehicle warning light or any other question about your car just give us a call and again that number seven oh six eight six three five eight hundred or you can call two two four eight hundred two two four nine zero nine zero you can watch us on Facebook and listen on our heart we'll be right back it's time for more good stuff with Aaron Clements and John Ryan Mooney the CNC auto show is brought to you in part by Dorman products it's absolutely freezing in many parts of the country if your climate controls have stopped working you can seamlessly and quickly restore operation with a new or remanufactured climate control unit from Dorman learn more at Dorman products dot com and we are here to answer your automotive questions share information on warning lights and the number eight six three seven oh six eight six three five eight hundred or two two four nine zero nine zero that's eight hundred two two four nine zero nine zero you can also watch us live on Facebook listen on our heart whatever's good we're ready and we can do it and we will open and Ryder will tell us another joke real quick Ryder what is your next joke what did the car say to the car I am not sure beep beep oh very good that's another Ryder original yeah and he wrote these yeah he writes his own material okay let's go over to Jim Jim welcome to the CNC auto show what can we help you with I've got a comment if I may absolutely for lamps and also got a question for you we are ready for you the warning lamp you spoke about check engine before there there is a distinction between yellow lights and that is of course red was very important yellow not so until a yellow light flashes isn't that correct yes if it's flashing it means you do need to address it immediately so if you got a flashing one it almost becomes a red light in terms of urgency yes yes that is correct good and the other thing is you'll probably touch on a couple of these but it's always being a distinction between when your car won't go being a totally different environment to when it won't stop so that brake light is very important and also the supplemental restraint system that it's under stopping conditions if those are up and illuminated you've got reliability of on things that you thought you could count on that you really cannot because either your supplemental restraints not going to work properly or your vehicle is not going to stop the way it normally would because anti-lock for example may be out of commission yes yes and I think we were going to briefly touch on some of those a little bit later but yeah there is there's several other additional lights that could come on yeah you're absolutely right Jim sometimes when that light comes on it realizes that there's either a sensor or a part of the system that it's not receiving correct information from so it will ignore that signal and insert a value of its own which will normally lower the performance in some way make it inoperable in some ways on some systems it depends on exactly what system or what part of the system it's having to it nor but you're absolutely correct it can lower performance but still run okay yep good and I have a question about engine oils I recently bought a new piece of equipment and it has a recommendation for oil service categories sj or later and I came over to a container of oil I have and I see it has an api service s as in sam p as in peter so does later simply mean that the second letter of the two in this case the j needs to be further down the alphabet than the j to be meeting or exceeding that requirement is that how I interpret that that is correct normally the later the updated version will be can be used for the previous version it's just updated but to be sure it don't hurt to go to the internet because it there are some cases to where you do have to it can be a different type additive that's been added to that oil especially especially on diesel type stuff but yes in that case it is just an updated type oil so in recent years it's additives that are changing to accomplish certain requirements of newer cars or are they just higher refinement levels what's happening with oil that makes all these different grades now both of those yeah it's both it's additives because certain engines uh require uh certain additives be uh be put in there and then uh and then others they um they can just be a better refined oil than others and and then of course some vehicles call for some can be semi-synthetic oils can be used other vehicles full synthetic oil needs to be used but what I normally recommend there's so many variables in that that I recommend going to the owner's manual on each vehicle to be sure and people don't have to do that all the time they may buy a vehicle and go ahead right after as you're setting up your initial change intervals that you plan to do and all the other information go ahead and do that research because it's well worth it but you won't have to do it but that one time if you plan to keep that vehicle for a period of time because once you know the type oil to put for sure to put in there kind of like you're doing now if you like to do your own research um you know there's obviously the option of you know going to a repair shop letting them uh you know research and put in the correct oil but if you like to do that O'Reilly Auto Parts or a parts vendor they're happy to help you research and make sure you get the correct oil for your vehicle and that way you're making sure but most what I'm seeing mainly as you know with newer cars is the oil is just more and more refined for these just more and more precise engines it's just requiring a very thin oil is what I'm seeing and Jim what we have of course when we're writing a vehicle up for an oil change it automatically pops up into our computer and says this is the type oil and all the recommendations for the oil and does that with just about any fluid that we put in good thank you I heard you had a new tech tip quiz and I was thinking about it since you read it off and yeah you read that one more time I might be able to give you a wrong answer for that well I would love for you to do that okay here we go uh Sean owns a 2006 Chevrolet Colorado with a 2.8 gas engine he had been driving for a while when a light come on he had to pull over repair something and loosen the belt why oh see okay then I definitely have the wrong answer because I was trying to apply uh Amanda and Ryder as you may have heard the Aaron factor yeah yes I had the notion that the light that had come on was at his local waffle house or something like that and he went in there and but the repair part throws me off because I thought he was going to go in and repair something in other words he ate instead of repair I've got that's my hurdle right now on the quiz but the belt that he had to loosen was the one around his waist because he ate too much that's definitely an Aaron answer yeah it would be wouldn't it well Jim you're pretty good except for the light that come on you're getting a little bit on was the he was there very early and he was there when they opened so on come the lights inside so he goes in to eat what other light would make you pull over Jim oh the only other light they'd make you pull over might be the blue one behind you oh well but anyway maybe we've hinted at a little bit maybe give somebody else a chance for one of those mugs today what do you think that's great that was a good answer well the only other thing is if you had a low fuel light you would have to stop for that oh well I don't have a clue so I'm trying to read his face you are all over it yeah all right that's good that's going to give somebody else a chance as I said a moment ago to have one of those mugs I have one so let's let somebody else get one what do you think sounds great Joe that'll work all right thanks for your help today all of you thanks Jim thank you for calling in Joe okay the number to call 706-8635-800 or you can call 800-224-9090 we're talking about warning lights or answering any automotive question that you might have writers even telling us a few jokes over there which has been really good and let's go over to Fred Fred welcome to the CNC auto show what can we help with oh good morning I got a 72500 it's um 2003 and when you turn the key to on you know on the dashboard you get the light bulb test you get your SRS and ABS and all that stuff then then they go out and then if you start the car it'll come on again well when I turn the key to on so uh you don't you don't get a light bulb test only the check engine light comes on and uh if you start the truck and everything is normal and the problem fixed itself but I'm pretty sure it's going to come back again because at one time I also lost the uh the clock and the radio went off so I think I'm probably missing some kind of standby power or something yeah and uh I got one thing I got a you know an economical code reader and I got I got some code from the SRS I got you 1000 hey Fred one one three zero one yeah can we answer it right after the break yes okay thank you Fred we'll be right back welcome back to more of the CNC auto show with Aaron Clements and John Wright and Mooney CNC auto show is brought to you in part by blaster and pb blaster don't bust your knuckles bust your nuts with pb blaster number one for breaking free rusted parts we were talking with Fred about his Chevrolet 2500 that had a instrument issue and uh it sounds like it's resolved itself temporarily but may come back Fred mentioned to us again what that instrument cluster was doing at one time okay when you turn the key to on you don't get the light bulb test you get the check engine light but you don't get the uh SRS and ABS and all that okay but if you don't even look at that if you just turn the key to start you won't even notice it's there okay uh you also mentioned that some of your gauges were uh working uh intermittently also correct no no not the gauges just those just those lights the rest of the instrument works okay um it sounds like maybe some of those um lights in the panel may be going out and that may be as far most of the time with those you can't replace the individual lights in them you have to replace the whole cluster you may eventually start having more issues with the start having more issues with some of the other lights and the other gauges in the cluster we've put a lot of clusters in uh Chevrolet's around those years um I think you said it was an 03 and they're really not that bad to replace they make a lot of aftermarket instrument clusters including Dorman Dorman I believe makes instrument clusters you could check on there uh usually three to four hundred dollars um I'm go I'm leaning towards maybe it's just a light issue in the instrument cluster um and it may not be to the point to where you would want to replace it just because of that but you may start having other issues with the cluster it will probably get worse because that's signs that some of the solder joints uh are starting to break loose and they can they can act up one minute not the next but other things more than likely will follow so you're doing great going ahead and checking on that now so you'll have a game plan if it does get worse I'm like Amanda uh as long as it's working and it's something that's not gonna cause you to break down on the side of the road or anything I would probably wait till it until it gets worse or does it again yeah you got one other thing happens too and this happened a long time ago before this other one you know I'm I'm like up the indicator lights up too it's not just like a solid point or that transmission indicator lights up sometimes that works good but sometimes it's dense so that's probably a bad side or joint in there too I would think right yeah all of those are pointing toward an instrument problem we see all kind of things like the gas gauge can act up at times I've seen that speedometer act up at times it just seems to be a different items on those but we do run into a ton of them yeah and like Amanda said a great option is that Dorman uh reman instrument cluster if you can get one yeah I would I would look on their website and see if that is an option um versus a factory one yeah Dorman does a great job because they'll go in and actually find out what caused the original units to fail where yeah where their weak point is and then they'll beef it up and then they'll they'll uh yeah do that procedure in the reman process and make it actually stronger than the original one was yeah I have a Dorman gate on my Dorman switch for my four-wheel drive in my dash you know the uh yeah that went that went bad I mean I had somebody oh hey you know what let me ask you one thing real real quick to find that that that code went out when that four-wheel drive switch went bad I was in Connecticut my cousin's in the automotive business so he looked up the code for me and it said the most likely would be the switch right but now we might have lost hey Fred uh hold on hey Fred hello Fred he's breaking up a little bit we might yeah we might have to get Fred to call all right uh say that last part one more time because we didn't hear all of that okay hang on a minute I'm gonna try something better okay okay the um to read codes in the message center you know where the odometer is and if there's something wrong it gives you a message on it or it tells you when to change your oil uh-huh yes to buy it to buy something to read those codes would that be real expensive do you think well on changing your oil a lot of people don't know this but on practically I would say by far most cars maybe mall there's a procedure that you can use for instance okay so if you're mentioning uh engine or computer codes yeah you can um you can get a just a code scanner from probably uh O'Reilly's for instance um and that all that does what I mentioned when a service advisor will do a quick scan that does that step and you can get the code and then you would just have to have a way to research the code what the code can mean and it does generally just point to the system so I'm guessing yours had a four-wheel drive fault code um stored in it yeah it's a service four-wheel drive yeah see I I have a I have a chief scanner from um you know Harbor Freight but I can't I can get engine codes and SRS and um you can't get the full drive but I can't get those up yeah I can't get those codes in that message center yeah yeah and some there's more expensive generic scanners um you know there's all different levels and some of them will read certain systems and not all some of them will read certain uh manufacturers and not all um but you know you can go up to a few thousand dollars getting a scanner that will read more codes um you know at at the shops we have the factory scan tool for chevalets um and that would be the MDI and that would definitely scan all systems so there's just different levels you'd probably have to do some research to figure it out uh what each scanner can do yeah that'd probably be too expensive then for a backyard mechanic to buy one of those yeah it depends on how much I would not go spend that much money on just one one one or if you just don't use it a few times because you can you can rent the uh machine and a technician machine and a technician well I was gonna say yeah for certain systems if you don't see them a lot you could just you know get it diagnosed at a shop for that those items and then the ones that you can do um with this with a quick scanner um but yeah there are there are tools out there of all different levels and um price points and they're actually I think getting more and more affordable for the baseline stuff than they used to be okay well thank you for the information I'll keep an eye on that thing okay thanks for calling Fred take care thank you for the call okay the number to call 706-8635-800 if you have a question about your car truck or SUV marie the uh tech tip quiz one more time and we have Sean owns a 06 Chevrolet Colorado 2.8 gas engine been driving for a while when a light come on he had to pull over repair something and loosen the belt why did he have to do that and if you know the answer to that question you give us a call and we will be able to answer that we're talking about warning lights uh on vehicles and what some of them what your vehicle is trying to tell you on uh as far as when a warning light comes on we've talked about why some are yellow some are red uh we've talked about uh like that the oil light if it comes on what you should do what you should do if the temperature light comes on both of those are big um you want to act immediately if either either one of those do come on and we'll be talking about a lot more well we talked about the check engine light also so we'll be talking about a lot more of those lights plus we'll be going to what is that uh linda linda we'll be going to linda uh after that and we'll be right back with more of the cnc auto show
