Showing posts with label CHECK ENGINE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CHECK ENGINE. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Yes, the gas cap was on!


Hi John,
You hit the nail on the head when you said my Tundra had warranty issues.  I took it to Toyota of *****and and they did ~$2000 worth of work.  It was all covered under warranty except $7 for gas for the loaner.  They found code P2442 and water in the air valves. (Thats what I had too, JP) The invoice says they performed TSB repair replaced valves and both air pumps.  It took almost all week last week to get things straightened out, though.  

The first guy I talked to in service (on Monday) said he was 99% sure it was a loose gas cap.  He said to tighten the cap and drive it for a couple days to see if the dash lights cleared.  He said it wouldn't hurt to drive it.  Of course, it didn't help the light situation.  I called back Wednesday late afternoon and talked to a different guy who said to bring it in right away.  I took it in Thursday morning and picked it up Friday afternoon, good as new (almost!).  Thanks for your help.
GS
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When I first saw this 08 Tundra, it was in limp-mode and 4-wheel drive. Have you ever seen a vehicle that goes into 4WD if an emissions component is bad??? 

I like the safe diagnosis, the one that covers everything - "loose gas cap". Hmm, well new to me and I've been doing this automotive service/repair thing for a living since 1974... hmm

Is it a new-car warranty issue???

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

When is it really empty?


The question should actually read when is my gas tank empty. I just wanted to see if any of you would suffer pangs of memory guilt. Better yet, do you have a history of driving the car plain out of gas. Do you?

Is it more than likely if the engine stalls and won't restart that your first thoughts are of gasoline? Or what about the light that resembles a tiny gas pump. Does it flash or steadily glow yellow? And it's been doing that for nearly thirty miles so far...?

Look at what 30,000 miles of repetitive vapor driving left in a new fuel filter. That crap was the fuel pump, it was new, but now it doesn't work. look. 


One fact we all seem to forget, this includes myself, our vehicles have fuel pumps. These fuel pumps feed the fuel injection system; they're the heart of the system you could say. These fuel pumps are submerged in the gas tank for a reason.

The internal parts of a fuel pump are cooled and lubricated with the fuel in the gas tank. Let the level run low and the fuel pump wears out at an accelerated rate. So to keep the fuel pump alive try to make QUARTER FULL the same as empty.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Tune-Ups - REQUIRED!

The photo included in my post is to visually stress the importance of routine maintenance. A simple spark plug change with estimated cost of $145.00 would have saved this person an additional $1100.00 on the replacement cost of two damaged catalytic converters.

The owners manual gives a mileage interval to replace a normal wearing part. There's good reason too, the spark plugs pictured here aren't just normally worn, they are actually worn away.

Much more material is gone than what I would expect to find at the correct replacement mileage.

That brown coloring is was un-burned gasoline, money just being tossed blown out the tailpipe as the SUV went down the road.

The CHECK ENGINE or SERVICE ENGINE SOON lamp had been flickering away for hundreds of miles.

BTW.. Why do they call those warning lights, "idiot lights" anyway?

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

It is so rewarding to finish!

Six hours to trace out all fuel system controls; both electrical and mechanical. The bad part was found. It was the PCM or computer that was cycling powers and grounds off so rapidly a lab scope with a high millisecond grid was the only tool that saw the problem. Using a breakout box paired with a lab scope was the trick. Diagnostics time, and final restoration of this Ford trucks’ sensors system would all be a learning experience. Sorry about the tech speak; just excited.

Someone had to find the problem; you can’t just throw away hard to diagnose vehicles. Lucky me, I guess.
This what it looks like when things are working!
One millisecond of data


Other problems found were engine oil mixed contaminated with gas.
DPFE was melted down. The catalytic convertors had been removed and tossed!
All four of them were needed for the system to work properly.
Spark plugs were so carbon fouled they were useless so they were replaced with original brand Motorcraft Platinum plugs.
Incorrect O2 sensors were not helping the problem either, new OE cost almost the same as NAPA. All testing drilled down to a PCM not supplying ground OR power to internal board component logic modules.

But what caused this to happen? My guess is a simple jump start, zappp! Do you have any ideas?