What are some car-repair jobs you always wished you could do but have never done?

[clare]

Well, there was a LOT of design work to ammortize.

GM never made a penny on the Olds Toronado and Caddy El Dorado because of the significantly higher cost of the powertrain (which was also used in the GMC Motorhomes) The Citation was also an expensive proposition for GM - cost more to build than the old nova/ventura/ etc.

Volume has brought the price down.

Chrysler is still building RWD ( 300, charger, challenger, etc) - GM still builds the Camaro and Corvette and Ford the 'Stang.

They are still competetive (well, not the Corvette).

Manufacturers can cheapen up any design if they can design to use existing parts.

[clare]

They were first actually VARNISHED, then Laquered a few years later.

[clare]

You mean Knucklbuster boltheadrounders??

[Xeno]

They are but I never bought any. I prefer proper ones.

[Xeno]

I suggest you read up on the topic. You can have stratified charge and homogeneous charge in the same engine and these are the two different strategies employed. Typically, in the higher load range the charge is homogeneous in composition and the fuel is introduced into the combustion chamber during the intake stroke. Under part load conditions the engine uses charge stratification with the throttle valve fully open and fuel is injected during the compression stroke.

[Xeno]

Changing camber on a strut still changes toe.

[Frank]

I've never painted a car. I suppose some day I'll give rebuilding an automatic transmission a shot, but I've been lucky so far.

I've done things ring and bearing jobs but everything is holding up better nowadays.

[Xeno]

Normal load, not full load.

You ask the customer how they use the vehicle and adjust loading accordingly. Load will alter camber readings hence also toe. Set the vehicle up with the load the owner normally places in it and you wont go wrong.

[Xeno]

You haven't worked on earthmoving machinery, that much is clear.

[Xeno]

Getting rid of regular maintenance and tuneups seems to have done the trick.

[Xeno]

The fuel system *still exists*. It just no longer looks like a carburetor.

Technology, pure and simple. And competition from OS makes.

They were underrated for the task. It's something that immediately came to my notice the first time I did a timing chain change on one.

A decently rated timing chain should be good for 200k miles at the least. That would see most engines out.

I've had all sorts. I prefer FWD.

I consider my *time* as being valuable and I have many better things to do with it than work on servicing my own car.

[rbowman]

That was my experience. Coming from RWD experience I had to learn how to drive FWD. Traction control and stability control is raining on my parade though and I can't turn them off. Many RWD cars now have the same stuff and if you can't turn it off I doubt you can steer by throttle either. It's for the children...

[Xeno]

If it was going to take me three weeks to do a wheel alignment on my own car, it would be taken to the professional wheel aligners and they would get the job.

It's not that they have to, it's that they *can do it in 1/2 hour*. In fact, with the right wheel aligner, I could do a full wheel alignment in significantly less time.

It'll be unheard of around here too.

Doesn't matter to me but I have better things to do with my time.

As a professional mechanic, I have all the professional tools at hand anyway.

Care more, maybe. Less experience tends to mean more mistakes are made. That has been my experience dealing with cars that home mechanics have worked on.

You don't pay the tradesman for what he does, you pay him for what he knows and his *experience*. These days that can also include access to TSBs and relevant factory data.

That also applies to mechanical work and, over a 50 year span in the trade, I have seen more than my fair share of examples that attest to it.

[Xeno]

Lots of traps for the unwary in that little task.

[RS Wood]

I can't argue but my point is that I've heard everything. The problem is that the advice has to be both logical and actionable.

Saying "buy only Brembo or Meyle" is actionable, but not logical. Saying "don't buy Chinese crap" is logical but not actionable.

For advice to be useful, it has to be both actionable and logical. I've never heard that in rotors other than buy solid and don't buy drilled/slotted rotors.

Other than that, there's no way for a person to tell if one rotor is gonna be better than another.

Hence pragmatically ... a rotor is a rotor is a rotor is a rotor.

I'm never talking racing. They drive on bald tires for heaven's sake in racing! :)

I'm not gonna disagree that we all can see the mark of good quality on some things when we have two to compare in our hand, but it's too late if you order on the net.

Yup. I have nothing against good suppliers. I use Brembo and Meyle but if someone else gave me a rotor at a better price, I'd consider them too.

That's not the measure of warp. Warp is measured on a flat bench. Just like head warp is measured.

The only person who says their rotors warped that I will ever trust is one who measured the warp just like you'd measure head warp.

If they haven't measured it, it's not happening. And nobody measures it. So it didn't happen.

It "could" happen. But it doesn't (on street cars). The problem is the temperature never gets hot enough.

Now they can be "warped" from the factory; but that's different (and rare).

I think we're talking about two different kinds of disc brake systems. I had the Nissan 300Z which had the rear disc also as the rear parking brake, but my bimmer has the rear disc and a separate rear parking brake.

The piston arrangement is different as is the way to retract them.

You don't *twist* pistons in disc brakes that I own that don't have the parking brake as part of the disc brake itself.

At least I don't.

How?

Nope. How you gonna tell runut from warp with a dial gauge?

Now you're straining credularity.

How you gonna tell runut from warp with a dial gauge?

On the entire freaking Internet, find *one* picture (just one) of a technician actually properly measuring brake rotor *warp*.

Just find a *single* picture please. Just one. On the entire freakin' Internet.

Find one.

That's not warp. Nothing on this planet is going to fix warp. There's not enough metal to remove.

Which is why I wish I had done these half-dozen jobs:

1. Alignment
2. Transmission
3. Engine
4. Tires
5. paint

I never once said "never" but "almost never" which is different, and we're only talking street, and I have references that back up everything I say whereas you provided zero references for what you said.

I'm not here to argue opinions. I only argue using logic.

Just read the references I provided and then provide some references that back up your point of view.

The "Warped" Brake Disc and Other Myths of the Braking System

The 'Warped Rotor' Myth

Warped Brake Rotors - Vibrating Reality or Internet Myth?

Stop the +IBg-Warped+IBk- Rotors Myth and Service Brakes the Right Way

Raybestos Brake Tech School, Part One: Rotors Don't Warp

[RS Wood]

I'm not gonna argue vehemently because, in practice, while I've seen those "wavy" rotors too, my rotors tend to be smooth so I don't deal with "scoring".

However, anyone who says "any scoring of rotors will fail it" has NOT looke up the manufacturer's spec for scoring tests.

I have. Long ago.

The result was shockingly huge.

I don't remember the actual number but I remember being shocked at how huge it is. Something like tens of thousanths of an inch in width huge.

We're talking Grand Canyon in rotors.

I may be wrong but if someone says "any" scoring, that's just preposterous. Let's see a manufacturer's spec for anyone who says that.

Sorry. It's just not logical that 'any' scoring fails a rotor.

[RS Wood]

I was joking, but I still don't get why I see people use them all the time when they slip too much because they fit so badly and only on a few edges and they are huge compared to the right-sized box wrench so they don't fit in a car.

I'm gonna start a "Save the bolts" non-profit political group to enact stringent adjustable-wrench control laws!

One rounded bolt head is too many. :)

[RS Wood]

Good point. But I would rather have paid $100 for the tool to measure to know that I twisted the bolt as far as it could go.

In the case of my rear camber, it was maxed out at 0 degrees, so, in hindsight, I guess I could have done it sans any measurement at all.

:)

[RS Wood]

For me, I get a new car when the old car has a repair that isn't worth paying. That's less likely nowadays as I'm retired on a low budget.

[RS Wood]

Thanks for summarizing the most important advantage. I've found that anyone who can't summarize the most important factor generally does not understand the issue.

So thank you for summarizing what is new information for me. Much appreciated!