Ongoing General Automotive Thread 2.0

[Icantwhisper]

Originally Posted by curves2000

I can't speak for Mercedes but generally speaking flushes for things are fancy ways of adding cost and complexity to service packages. Flush this and that when in reality it's a basic fluid exchange or commonly referred to as a drain and fill. For future reference on something like a dif as the fluid just comes out and then is filled.

If your receipt/work order has the results of the multi point inspection showing that they checked the condition and level of fluids which indicated good, use this as an example of why this would be a dealer fault as opposed to a previous leak.

Don't have car back yet but looks like they may have over filled the diff, once it heated up from driving it was coming out the vent and making a mess, they've cleaned it up but kept it over night to make sure that's what it was. Power train is under warranty so I'm not paying for any of this as far as I'm concerned.

[Bill Bumface]

Last time I did a starter on a car, it was an E46 BMW 325xit. I think book time on that job was 8 hours, and involved dropping the transmission to get access. I did it without dropping the transmission, and I think it took me 11 hours by the time I finally remembered how to put all of the stuff I needed to remove back together.

Last night, I did the aforementioned starter on our Subaru. It took 45 minutes end to end. It definitely feels like a much cheaper, more basic vehicle than the euros, but damn there's something to be said for cheap parts and easy access to simple systems.

[Sliver]

Not sure how it took me a year to figure this out, but I can put my Tremor into sport, switch back from 4A to 2WD, disable traction control, do a brake stand and rip the hugest patch off a launch. Just randomly tried this out on my commute this morning. Everyone needs to smoke the tires now and then. Fk yeah

Also, took the Tremor to Waiprous on the weekend. Man...these new 4x4 nanny things are so sick. Had gearing, left/right angles, forward/back angles, and RPMs in my head-up display. Used this one-pedal crawl control thing for going up and down hills. Also have an offroad cruise control thing that I set between 2kph and 5kph depending on terrain. Embarrassed to say I didn't have to use the rear dif locker, but this is a huge and hilarious upgrade over the last truck I did substantial 4x4ing with, which was a jacked up 97 Ranger.

Should have filmed it...I'll do that next time.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Last time I did a starter on a car, it was an E46 BMW 325xit. I think book time on that job was 8 hours, and involved dropping the transmission to get access. I did it without dropping the transmission, and I think it took me 11 hours by the time I finally remembered how to put all of the stuff I needed to remove back together.

Last night, I did the aforementioned starter on our Subaru. It took 45 minutes end to end. It definitely feels like a much cheaper, more basic vehicle than the euros, but damn there's something to be said for cheap parts and easy access to simple systems.

I once changed a starter on a Jeep Grand Cherokee in a campground. Easy access is heavily under-rated.