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 want you to jump in, buckle up, and hold on. I am Aaron Clements and I am your driver today.
So we are ready to go. You'll learn how to keep your car safe, dependable, and long lasting as we ride along. And have you ever been faced with the decision on whether to keep or sell your car? And that's really not an easy decision to make. Along with answering automotive questions today, we will give you information on the way to make the decision that is right for you. And all that information is absolutely free.
You just need to pay to shipping and handling. And well, I'm joking about that, but I'm not joking about answering your automotive questions because I do love to do that. And I take that very seriously when I do that. And I also want to say I enjoy the opportunity to be able to come in here and spend some time with each and every one of you on the weekends in most cases. And we appreciate that very much. So to make it even more fun, you can give me a call.
And that number 800-224-9090. You can also watch us on Facebook and you can also dial 706-8635-800 and watch us at ccautoshow.com. A lot of different ways to be a part of the show and we always like that. Now, normally one of the first things that we do during the show is to crank up a tech tip quiz.
And we do have one today. And it's an amazing quiz. And of course, an amazing person will win the quiz because this is it's a huge deal. You win a prize package. And in that prize package, it includes a tech tip quiz coffee mug that you're able to show everyone that you are a winner.
And we will we will give the question. Bill bought the car. Well, Bill bought a used car. He did something when he was buying the car that saved him 1000s of dollars.
What did he do? If you know the answer to today's tech tip quiz, you could be a winner. So give us a call. Again, 800-224-9090. Now I want to mention one of the first items I was going to talk about having to do with a decision to keep a car or sell a car. And if you're trying to make that decision, first have an inspection done on the vehicle and find out what you're dealing with. That way you'll know what's good, what's bad, what might be needed.
And in some cases, if there's doubts in in your mind, you may even want to get a second opinion. We had a car that was here just last week. We had someone had diagnosed it as a head gasket being bad on the car.
And the person was thinking about just getting rid of the cars. It turned out the coolant jug wasn't sealing good. And that made it where it wasn't holding pressure on the system.
The water was boiling and it made it and the engine was running hot because it would get air in the system. And we were able to do a hundred dollar repair instead of a twenty five hundred dollar repair. And of course, the person may have sold their car.
So that don't happen all the time, don't happen real often, but it does happen from time to time. So feel comfortable with the with the decision that's made on your car when this vehicle is checked out. I'm going to go over to the phones and we will start out with Jim. Jim, welcome to the CNC Auto Show. What can we help you with? Good morning, Aaron. I'm calling on behalf of my brother in law's car today that we were working on a little bit yesterday regarding air conditioning. If you give me a little moment, I'll set the landscape for you. Absolutely.
We're ready. OK. Oh, it's a 1985 Buick, which is a transitional year for Buick. You had both rear drive in front of you. This is the front drive, which has the three point eight liter transverse mounted V6 engine. It's got hardly any miles on it.
It's really in great shape that way. The history and we're talking about air conditioning, not boiling cold today. And here's what we've seen and here's what we know. The air conditioning compressor was changed years ago. My brother in law has a black light. He does see a little green out on the rear of the compressor where that that harness of pressure hoses come in and are mounted to the back of the unit. We see that. And I have some gauges. We put some gauges on the car and powered it up. And here's what we see. The unit cycles. But not cycling all the time.
And that was weird. It cycles when you first power the system on and then it will start to run more steadily. We're seeing high pressure gradually increased to about 250 and the low pressure will move in a corresponding way with high pressures. High pressure goes up. The low pressure comes down, obviously, and it'll go through the cycle process.
We're in the lower 20s. It will kick the system off. The pressure on the low side goes way up and it comes back on again when it's cycling. But when it's running steady, we've got about 28 pounds on the low side and about 250 on the high. But the thing that puzzles us is we've got an ambient temperature 85 or so outside, air conditioning temperature out of events with a thermometer 70. And if you go to the engine department and feel the high pressure, the narrow line, it is hot. OK, it's hot. But the low pressure side is almost like ambient temperature. It's no coolness to it all.
So I have a theory about what maybe one of his problem, but I'm curious what you think. Oh, we did have a little can of one R134. We did add a little bit of that just to see if that would stop the cycling.
And it didn't. So we bailed on that pretty quickly because we didn't have the ability to evacuate and recharge. So why do I have that condition of a hot high pressure line, a low pressure line that's not cold in the least and a drop in temperature of about 10 to 15 degrees? About 10 to 15 degrees through the event. OK. Have you looked at the orifice tube?
Have not. OK. Those are all symptoms of an orifice tube being restricted. And it's not real difficult to pull the orifice tube out and inspect it. But one of the items that would have to be done is the system would have to be evacuated.
The refrigerant would need to come out of the system and then, of course, look at the orifice tube and if it needs to be replaced. Now, what happens a lot of times if that orifice to what replace when that first compressor went bad, then all of that debris from that old compressor would have circulated through there. And that orifice tube would have acted like a filter.
It would have just held all of that debris in it. And then, of course, you don't get any flow to through the orifice tube. And so the low side actually comes down too fast and the compressor cut off very quickly and the high side actually go up a little higher than it should when that happens. So definitely inspect the orifice tube.
And if it's restricted, you would have to make a decision. Did that debris come from the old compressor or is there a chance that your condenser may be restricted? Because also the way some condensers are made, not so much that one as a lot of the later model ones. The condenser is designed on a lot of cars now that the holes are so small till it almost acts like a filter. So we replace more and more condensers now than ever before because of the way they design. And when something goes wrong in the system, that fluid circulates and stops it up. Well, it shows me it's good to pay attention to this, your show, year by year basis, because those are the things I told him because I've heard these things on your show before, including the bit about a condenser. And when I was talking to him about it, I said, I think it's probably a plugged orifice tube, a screen that's there.
But I don't feel real strong about the condenser being a problem because my high pressure or his high pressure line all the way away from the condenser, all the way now back by the evaporator is hot, which tells me the system isn't in my mind. In theory, passing the gas doesn't sound good. But anyway, this is like radio anyway, passes the gas. I'm going to put you on hold just for a second. I'm going to put you on hold just a second.
We got a hard break we need to hit. Be right back. Let's head back down to the car care studio with Airman Clements and John Ryan Mooney. The CNC auto show is brought to you in part by Optima batteries. Optima batteries are up to 15 times more vibration resistance than traditional flooded batteries. Optima batteries, the ultimate power source.
Learn more at Optima batteries.com. I am back with you. Call us at 800-224-9090. That's on any Saturday morning, 805 to 10 Eastern time. You can also dial 800-7068635800 and also watch the show on Facebook.
Give us a call. And we were talking with Jim and we'll get Jim back up here. And Jim, we were talking about the AC problem on the 85 Buick front wheel drive.
And I always appreciate you giving so much great information on the vehicle, determining whether that was a rear wheel drive or front wheel drive was very helpful. And we talked about the AC pressures being different than they should be. AC not getting cold. And we talked about the orifice tube may be restricted. And you were telling me something else about this vehicle.
What was it? We were also talking about the possibility that the condenser might be the restriction point. But since the high pressure line passed the condenser all the way back by the orifice tube whilst hot gave me the hope, let's say, and the belief that the condenser was properly passing the refrigerant through it. And now if it had been a hot high pressure line going into the condenser and not so hot coming out, let's say, while you're idling, of course, it would be cooler to some degree because that's its job. But since it was really hot sitting there at idle all the way back by the orifice tube, we were hoping that that would be the problem because after the orifice tube is when we are seeing the unusual temperature difference and that being the ambient temperature low pressure side hoses.
So we're going to hope for that. And I think the biggest thing is what orifice tube looks like. If you pull it out and it's just completely jam packed with debris, then I would be more prone to say, hey, you might be ahead to go and do a compressor. If you check it and it's got just a smaller amount of it in there, then you are more prone to be able to say, well, I might be able to just put an orifice tube in there.
It works. But even very good memory as you were talking, things started coming back to me about some of the things that we did on those model cars. I remember that because of them having some problems with debris continuing to flow through the car and people would try to flush the condenser, which on that model you can reasonably flush them because it's more of a serpentine type condenser, as opposed to the newer models use a cross flow design that can't be flushed. But with that, they even made an orifice tube.
Matter of fact, they probably still make those. It was an orifice tube that had a wider area to where it goes through a little filter looking thing before it actually gets to the orifice tube. So it would catch debris before it got to the orifice tube. So if you put another orifice tube in there and it solves the problem but gets restricted again, you may even decide to check on one of those little kits that you put on there that keeps the orifice tube from getting restricted and just filters it before it gets to it. And we're going to hope also that in this case, since it has had a compressor replacement in its past one time, that either the orifice tube was overlooked at that time or even if it was changed, and let's say they did it correctly, that, as you just mentioned, that there might have still been contaminants in the system floating through that now have finally frustrated this orifice tube and maybe just putting in a factory one and a proper refrigerant recharge will give us what we need.
But one thought of the last thing, should he soap and rinse off the backside of that compressor or if he sees some green dye around that connection point, and again, it could have been during assembly that this happened, let's say, and that way he didn't run the system a little bit just to see if the green reappears to try to identify any seal problem back there. Does that wash off good enough with soap? It will. Yeah. And that would be a very good idea to do that. And oh, and last thing, make sure your cooling fans are working.
I'm sure you already have. But make sure the cooling fan is cutting on and that because you have to have airflow across that condenser and idle. Yeah. Yes. Yes, it was. And that's a good point always, because without that you will frustrate the system again. Yes. But that's great.
Okay. And about your theme today, one of the reasons you want to decide to keep your car or not has to do with a lot of folks not having a good service facility that they can rely on. They've gotten frustrated, like this air conditioning system on this car is frustrated. And they say, I'm just not going to bother trying to keep the car because they've had bad experiences. You just got to find a good shop sometimes and those folks might end up keeping their cars longer.
And I know I have found one of those in CNC Motors. So thanks a lot, guys. We really appreciate that very much. And you have a wonderful day. Good day. All right.
Bye bye. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.
The number to call 706-863-5800. And it is time to go talk to Caesar. Caesar, welcome to the CNC Auto Show.
We got about a minute, but that may give us time to do what we need to do. Hold on. Caesar. I would like to answer the quiz. Well, we're going to put you on stage.
And then we will ask the question. Bill bought a used car, something when he was buying the car that saved him thousands of dollars. What did he do? And Caesar, all eyes are on you.
What is it? Caesar. Oh, we lost Caesar. Okay. We it's time for a real quick break.
We'll be right back after these messages. Aaron Clements here. When you have rusty nuts and bolts to bust, you use PB Blaster, but sometimes you're not spraying more than you need. Well, not anymore with Blaster's new ProStraw with control flow technology. It's the better way to spray with a new flip up clear plastic straw and a cool volume adjuster to control the flow from a widespread down to just a drop.
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And remember, don't just seal it, K-Seal it. And I'm back with you and ready for your automotive questions. The number's 800-224-9090. You can also call 706-8635-800 and watch us live on Facebook. And we will go over to Cliff. Cliff, welcome to the CNC Auto Show. What can we help with? Cliff, we are having some issues here. And I'm going to put you on hold and we will try to pick up shortly.
Okay, the number to call is 706-8635-800. We might be having a few little technical issues. One of the things that we run into from time to time when you're broadcasting from an automotive repair shop, and that's what we're doing, we broadcast here.
The signal goes to several different places and then it goes out on the air. But it is something that is a lot of fun for me because I get to spend a lot of time in the shop and a lot of time on air. So that makes it a lot of fun. Okay, we were talking about making the decision on whether to keep a car or sell a car. And one of the things you want to do is first decide what you need to do to the car or find out if the car does what you want it to do. And that's very important because if you need a five or six pass in your vehicle and you have a two-seater, that would be a reason that you may want to trade the car. Or if you have a car but you need a truck, that would be another reason that you may want to trade. So if you're deciding on whether you want to keep your current vehicle or get another vehicle, answer that question.
Does it do what you need it to do? And if the answer is yes, that may be a big plus for the opportunity to keep the car or at least a big one on the plus side. Now also, another big decision that you may want to make is whether you like the car and if you enjoy driving it.
Because that's a big time important item is being able to enjoy what you drive. Okay, we're going to go over to Cliff. Cliff, welcome to the CNC Auto Show and what can we help you with?
Yes, sir. Well, I just got a question about a dryer. I have a 93' Ford truck and they replaced everything on it except for the dryer. And he told me he recommended that I replaced it. And I was wondering, do they go bad or I don't even really know what it does.
Do they go bad? Yeah, I can tell you what it does. It's actually called more of a filter dryer, so it has two purposes. One, it pulls moisture out of the system.
And moisture is terrible in an AC system because it actually can not only cause corrosion, but it can also cause the issue to where the AC would not get cold. So keeping moisture out is important. Have you ever seen a little, if you open a bag of potato chips or certain items you open, you'll see a little bitty small item in there that feels like rocks or sand or something like that inside there? Oh, yeah.
I've seen it. Well, it pulls moisture out of the bag and stores the moisture in there. That filter dryer is doing about the same thing in an AC system. But also that dryer filters there.
It's got a little screen inside there and it catches debris. So it can get stopped up and it can get, the desiccant bag inside there can get completely full in it, not pull the moisture out of the system or hold the moisture out of the system. So yes, without question, I recommend replacing it. And matter of fact, at one time they used to say anytime you open the AC system for any reason to replace it, the newer filtered dryers are built a little differently to where they last a lot longer than they used to. But anytime you do something major to the system like an AC compressor, and I recommend it even when you do a hose or any maintenance to the system or repairs, I would recommend doing the filter dryer. So anytime you open the AC, you need to go ahead and replace that? Well, that was more on older ones.
The newer dryers don't actually pull the moisture into them like older dryers did. So in many cases you could open the system and like replace an O-ring or do this. But if you've got a car that's four or five years old or if you've got a car that the compressor has gone bad on it, I would recommend going ahead and putting a new dryer on there because it's good maintenance, makes the system last longer, can make the system colder, and you'll just be ensured that it's not restricted on the inside and also it'll continue to pull the moisture out of the system. So I would say in most cases if you do repairs on the system, I definitely would.
If this car is four or five years old and you even open the system, then it would be a good idea. It's more than four or five. But yeah, the compressor froze up. He said the dryer could have been what caused it. Oh, he's absolutely right.
Yeah, what they're telling you is 100% correct. A filter dryer being restricted can. And also the compressor going bad can cause the filter to go bad also.
But either way, I would recommend replacing the filter dryer with the repairs that are done. Could you read the detective too? I didn't get to hear you.
Oh, absolutely I can. Are you going to answer it for me? I don't know.
I never heard it. All right, here we go. We're going to lay it out for you. Bill bought a used car. He did something when he was buying the car that saved him thousands of dollars.
I'm talking about thousands of dollars. What did he do? Hold on. We need to put you on stage. You thought you was going to get out of that, didn't you, Cliff?
But no, we got you out there. All right, what is the answer to today's tech tip quiz? He bought an extended warranty. Oh, extended warranty.
Let me see what the judges say. Oh, Cliff, I am so sorry. No, it was not an extended warranty.
That's really not a bad thought, though, because I guess it is possible if something really, really big went wrong and he had an extended warranty that could save some money. So it's a good thought, but not the answer. Well, I hope you all have a great weekend. Oh, I hope you do the same. And thank you very much for calling. Bye bye. Thank you. Okay.
The number to call 7 0 6 8 6 3 5 800 or 800 2 2 4 9 0 9 0. And we will go over to Ken. Ken, welcome to the CNC auto show.
And what can we help you with? I got a 2017 Dodge Ram 2500. And right after I got it, the anti-lock brake service came on. I took it back to the dealer and they fixed it on the warranty.
Well, now it's come back on again a year later. It's not a warranty now, but the service anti-lock brake. And I noticed the cruise control doesn't work as long as that problem's on. I was wondering, is it a sensor in there or something for the anti-lock brakes that they changed out or what?
Yeah, on the anti-lock brake system, it's very much like the drivability part of the vehicle. That monitors the things in controls, the things as far as your engine running. Let's say that if something goes wrong with your throttle position sensor, your temperature sensor or your map sensor on the running part of the car, it will still continue to function.
It may not function at the best performance, but it will function. But the main thing it does is cut the check engine light on in that case. So you'll know something's wrong, but you'll still be able to drive the car. The ABS system is the same way. If it senses that it's got something wrong, and that could be a wheel speed sensor, that could be even a brake light switch, there's low brake fluid.
There's a lot of things that can affect it, a lot of inputs going into it. Well, the system is designed in a way to where if something happens in the anti-lock brake system, your regular brakes will continue to function fine, but it cuts the light on and says you do not have anti-lock brakes right now. So if you slammed on brakes, your wheels would lock up like brakes used too many years ago. So the next step is to check for trouble codes in the car, find out what code it is, and then the technician will follow a chart that will say this. Now, before you take it and have the diagnostics run, check your easy stuff yourself. Make sure there's no brake lights burned out, make sure the brake lights work properly, and make sure the brake fluid is good. Sound good? Brake lights and fluid and what else? Brake lights, fluid, and no bulbs burned out in the system.
No bulbs. Okay. Alright, I appreciate it. 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 LiquiMoly, a specialist for automotive chemicals. LiquiMoly offers gear oils, additives, car care, greases, paste, and many more products in addition to the highest quality motor oil.
Drive to liquid-moly.com for more information. And we're back with you with the CNC Auto Show. The number to call is 800-224-9090.
You can also dial 706-8635-800. We're going to go over here and talk with Randy. Randy, welcome to the CNC Auto Show, and what can we help you with?
I want to try to answer the tech tip. Oh, you know we're going to need to put you on stage, don't you? Yep. Alright, Randy, be still. I'm going to read the question. Bill bought a used car. He did something when he was buying the car that saved him thousands of dollars.
What did he do? And, Randy, all eyes are on you. What is it?
I think he did a pre-purchase inspection. Oh, now that is a good idea. But, you know, Randy, if you think about it, for my tech tip quiz that I normally have, that would be a little easy, though, wouldn't it? Do you think that I would pick something that easy? Well, I thought you were giving us the easy one. Yeah. But, no.
But that is a very, very good suggestion that you're making. Pre-purchase inspection, if you're buying another car, can be huge. And I've seen people save a lot of money.
One example, I'm going to mention this just real quick, because what you're saying is important. Somebody's getting a good deal on a vehicle, and let's say it's a Honda, and they're getting at a fairly good price, but they know that they're kind of at the top of the budget, and they're spending there, but they say, well, I'll buy the car, be able to drive it a good long time without having to spend a lot of money. Well, they have the pre-purchase inspection done, and they find out that the vehicle's timing belt has not been replaced.
It does have a timing belt, and also it needs front brakes. And so they may get into $1,200 to $1,500 worth of maintenance that needs to be done there. And if they're not expecting that, it can be kind of huge for them. Now, I definitely wouldn't say still don't get the car, because it would be worth doing it, but you may even be able to work with the seller, and the seller may pay part of it, or the seller may even do it. But at least you would know that you're on an even playing field when you purchase the car. So, Randy, that was a great suggestion, a great idea.
It should be a winner, in my opinion, but, I mean, the judges do all that. I don't have anything to do with it. Can I ask a quick question? You sure can.
I would love for you to. I don't think it's a problem, but I just wonder what makes it do it. I got a 2500 Duramax truck, and whenever I go over certain speed bumps, it's usually a real sharp one. You know, I let off gas and ease across it, but then whenever I mash the gas again, it revs up before it gets going again. What makes it do that? Well, my guess is that the transmission is in between shift points.
It's at that certain speed, and more than likely it has to do with the speed that you're coming down, and you're letting off the gas, you're giving the gas again, and that probably, the computer program is probably set in a way to where it's not, it's moving from one gear to another gear and has that little bit of a lag in where it's at. I would recommend, just in case, and there may not be one for that, but just in case, I would recommend checking to see if there's any service bulletins on that, and sometimes you can even find that on YouTube. You may look on YouTube and they say, yeah, my truck did this same thing, or little chat rooms. My truck did this same thing, and I had to get it programmed, or you might find some information to where there's an updated program for the Duramax that has to do with transmission, but also sometimes they'll issue an updated program on a car and not tell you what it's for. It may be that, but I would find out if there's any updates due on the vehicle, and if there's not, I would make sure the transmission fluid's good due to a general checkover, and you could do that the next time it's due for an oil change, so you don't want to spend extra money for that. But other than that, I don't think I would worry a whole lot about it. Enjoy that truck.
Those are beautiful. Hey, thank you very much for calling, and the number to call is 706-863-5800. If you have a question about your car, truck, SUV, all you have to do is give us a call, and let's go over to Ron. Ron, welcome to the CNC Auto Show. Well, good morning. And good morning, Ann. Oh, you're going to answer our Tech Tip quiz? All right, well, hold on.
We're going to put you on stage. The question is, Bill bought a used car. He did something when he was buying the car that saved him thousands of dollars.
Not just hundreds, but thousands of dollars. Ron, what is the answer to today's Tech Tip quiz? I'm thinking he did one of those Carfaxes, and check the history of that vehicle. See, it's been flooded or had wrecked or was a damaged vehicle or whatever. Oh, so he found out the car had been hit more times than a famous boxer.
Yeah. Ron, that is a very good try, because the Carfax is also a good idea. The thing I want to mention on the Carfax is that remember that the Carfax has only the information that has been given to them. And an example might be that if somebody was involved in an accident and the accident report was wrote up by the police officer, it was sent in and the insurance company repaired the car, they sent it in, there would be a lot of information about that accident. But let's say that Mr. Brown had a pretty bad accident, but he didn't want to turn it into his insurance, and he would just rather pay it because of other issues, and he paid it all himself. And the insurance company and the body shop wasn't one that reported that, which many do not. And it wouldn't be on Carfax. So you still, even with the Carfax, you want to have the car inspected. But it is still a very good thing to have when you're purchasing a used vehicle.
And Ron, thank you very much for a good shot at that one. All right, I got one more small little question. Absolutely, you can. I've got a 2019 Subaru WRX, and I was thinking about maybe putting one of those Cobb tune kits on it. Is that worth the money, or is it I'm going to void my warranty, or is it not worth the money to just get a little bit extra horsepower?
Yeah. Now, you're talking about one of those cold air intake type deals. Yeah, that may also sell a machine, a Cobb tune kit.
Yeah, that tuner. Unless you're trying to get the vehicle to do something that it's not doing now. For instance, there are some tune kits, people pull trailers or people want more horsepower out of a truck or things like that. Many times they buy them and they can serve a purpose for that. Now, it does, if they find out that it's on there, it does void the warranty as far as a lot of things that can happen on the vehicle may not be covered. But if the vehicle, if you're just doing it in order to try to save some fuel mileage and you just do normal driving and not out on a track or anything like that, in my opinion, you would be wasted money to put it on there because the vehicle is already designed well. It already has the best combination of power to fuel mileage and performance that you can get.
So, yeah, I don't I don't think I would do it unless I was trying to solve an issue or get it to do something that it wasn't designed to do. You just gave me a bunch of money. Thank you. All right. OK, we are out of time for this segment. And it is it is time to close out where actually the time clock is on E and we need to pull over. But I'll be back on the road very shortly. I'm your host, Aaron Clements. Our show producer is Mason Rogers, and we would like to say thank you for riding with us in the CNC Auto Show.
