My wife and I gave our 2008 Subaru to our oldest son a few weeks ago. We thought we were doing him a favor. It turns out we unloaded a minor problem for us only to give it to him. Being a responsible father means that it is now my problem again. The clutch was getting really close to burning out. Now it is slipping and we get to repair it. What does this have to do with the Internet? That is how we diagnosed the problem and also the means for figuring out the best course of action to fix it.
My son described the problem to me over the course of two or three verbal paragraphs. I did a quick search on the Internet and discovered the clutch is slipping. It is only a matter of time before it burns out completely and the car is no longer drivable. Next I looked at what it would take to repair it. You can get a clutch replacement kit for about $200 online. The only question is if it is enough to completely repair the clutch. A quick search revealed a nice video talking about the problem and roughly how to fix it. Armed with a lot more knowledge and a few more Internet searches, my son and I are confident we can solve the problem on our own.
This leads me to the question of today's entry: What did we do before the Internet? It feels like any time there is a problem I need solved or a question I need answered, the Internet has one. Not all of the answers are correct, but there is a lot of guidance that didn't exist before. Now I get to spend a Saturday working on the car with my son.
Showing posts with label Subaru. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Subaru. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Fixing Cars
It is a good thing I am working from home this week as two of my cars are requiring service attention. Last Friday my wife was out running errands in her Subaru when the air conditioning went out, probably associated with our dirt-road vacation last week. Then the "check engine" light came on in the Jeep Cherokee or XJ my kids drive. I don't know how people worked on cars before the Internet.
I was notified of my wife's Subaru problem before she even got home. So I started looking on the Internet to see if there were any common problems on her car. It turns out the clutch is less than reliable. When she got home, I opened the engine, looked at the air compressor, and could immediately see that it was indeed the clutch. Unfortunately they don't just sell clutches and I needed a whole new air compressor. Too bad those things are like $700 for just the part. As I have mechanical breakdown insurance on her car, I only had to cover the deductible and so I had a professional shop take care of the repair. Decharging and recharging the A/C system seemed like too much of a hassle to deal with at home. Had I been willing to do the work myself, there were YouTube videos showing me how.
Yesterday the Jeep XJ's warning light came on. While the car still ran, it is not a good idea to keep driving it until the problem was diagnosed. I pulled out my trusty OBD II computer, plugged it into the Jeep's socket under the dashboard and read off 2 codes that were being thrown: P0171 and P0133. A quick search on the Internet said that the fuel system is running lean and that the oxygen sensor before the catalytic converter is giving a slow response. My experience with OBD II codes is to deal with the 2nd one and it should take care of the first. Further searching on the Internet suggested that the O2 sensor needed replacing. So this morning, I headed to the trusty auto parts store before work and picked up a new one. My son then helped me replace it. Then I unplugged the battery for 15 minutes to reset the car's computer. I then let my son drive the Jeep for a bit to see if the engine light would come on again. So far, it hasn't.
Cars are getting much more complex to repair on your own. However with the Internet, it is also getting easier to fix certain problems.
I was notified of my wife's Subaru problem before she even got home. So I started looking on the Internet to see if there were any common problems on her car. It turns out the clutch is less than reliable. When she got home, I opened the engine, looked at the air compressor, and could immediately see that it was indeed the clutch. Unfortunately they don't just sell clutches and I needed a whole new air compressor. Too bad those things are like $700 for just the part. As I have mechanical breakdown insurance on her car, I only had to cover the deductible and so I had a professional shop take care of the repair. Decharging and recharging the A/C system seemed like too much of a hassle to deal with at home. Had I been willing to do the work myself, there were YouTube videos showing me how.
Yesterday the Jeep XJ's warning light came on. While the car still ran, it is not a good idea to keep driving it until the problem was diagnosed. I pulled out my trusty OBD II computer, plugged it into the Jeep's socket under the dashboard and read off 2 codes that were being thrown: P0171 and P0133. A quick search on the Internet said that the fuel system is running lean and that the oxygen sensor before the catalytic converter is giving a slow response. My experience with OBD II codes is to deal with the 2nd one and it should take care of the first. Further searching on the Internet suggested that the O2 sensor needed replacing. So this morning, I headed to the trusty auto parts store before work and picked up a new one. My son then helped me replace it. Then I unplugged the battery for 15 minutes to reset the car's computer. I then let my son drive the Jeep for a bit to see if the engine light would come on again. So far, it hasn't.
Cars are getting much more complex to repair on your own. However with the Internet, it is also getting easier to fix certain problems.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Good to be Home
Last night I got back home after a busy week of travel. I visited ten states over a five-day period. Now I am ready for a relaxing week at home. However I may be heading to the San Francisco area shortly. I just hope I have time to rest up a bit before getting back on an airplane.
Last week was incredibly busy. I did half of my travel on airplanes and the other half in a car. It was a great chance to give my mobile office a really thorough workout. I brought my MacBook computer and iPhone. In all honesty I probably could have left my laptop at home as I used my iPhone 95% of the time. In the end, the only real need for the laptop was for its USB port so I could charge my iPhone. Still it was nice to have the laptop just in case I needed the real keyboard. As I said in a previous post, the iPhone keyboard is not nearly as easy to use as a full-sized one.
The iPhone was great for travel in the car. I brought my wife's Subaru Outback Sport as it gets the best gas mileage of the three cars I own (averaging about 30 mpg). It is less than two years old and has an iPod adapter in the center console arm rest. The iPod adapter works with the iPhone with some minor deficiencies. You only have access to the MP3-player features and so if the phone rings, you have to disconnect it from the car and answer it by hand. It would be great if I could hit a button on the steering wheel like many blue tooth equiped vehicles. The only other deficiency is that the adapter will charge an iPod but not an iPhone. That really wasn't an issue because I spent a whole day in the car listening to music and still had plenty of battery power when I pulled into my driveway.
I think the biggest success of the trip was that I spent over 20 hours in the car and never listened to the same song twice. The music capacity of most MP3 players is amazing. When I was a teenager doing road trips, I used to have to carry a box full of cassette tapes. Most tapes were good for between an hour to an hour and a half. Furthermore you often got stuck listening to songs that were just "OK" instead of favorites. Over the past couple of days I was able to listen to all of my favorites and that made the ride go that much quicker.
The second biggest success of the trip was that fact that I drove close to two thousand miles and didn't get a single speeding ticket. Yea, it was a good trip.
Last week was incredibly busy. I did half of my travel on airplanes and the other half in a car. It was a great chance to give my mobile office a really thorough workout. I brought my MacBook computer and iPhone. In all honesty I probably could have left my laptop at home as I used my iPhone 95% of the time. In the end, the only real need for the laptop was for its USB port so I could charge my iPhone. Still it was nice to have the laptop just in case I needed the real keyboard. As I said in a previous post, the iPhone keyboard is not nearly as easy to use as a full-sized one.
The iPhone was great for travel in the car. I brought my wife's Subaru Outback Sport as it gets the best gas mileage of the three cars I own (averaging about 30 mpg). It is less than two years old and has an iPod adapter in the center console arm rest. The iPod adapter works with the iPhone with some minor deficiencies. You only have access to the MP3-player features and so if the phone rings, you have to disconnect it from the car and answer it by hand. It would be great if I could hit a button on the steering wheel like many blue tooth equiped vehicles. The only other deficiency is that the adapter will charge an iPod but not an iPhone. That really wasn't an issue because I spent a whole day in the car listening to music and still had plenty of battery power when I pulled into my driveway.
I think the biggest success of the trip was that I spent over 20 hours in the car and never listened to the same song twice. The music capacity of most MP3 players is amazing. When I was a teenager doing road trips, I used to have to carry a box full of cassette tapes. Most tapes were good for between an hour to an hour and a half. Furthermore you often got stuck listening to songs that were just "OK" instead of favorites. Over the past couple of days I was able to listen to all of my favorites and that made the ride go that much quicker.
The second biggest success of the trip was that fact that I drove close to two thousand miles and didn't get a single speeding ticket. Yea, it was a good trip.
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