How to Install LED Headlight Bulbs in Your Car (LED vs Halogen)
Scotty Kilmer:
one, two, three, four!
Rev up your engines!
it's time for mechanics Monday, welcome
to my new segment mechanic Monday, every
Monday I'll be getting back to you guys
by hosting a giveaway, giving away tools
and Auto products, that I've tested out,
and today I'm giving away a pair of LED
headlamp bulbs, now many modern cars
already come with LEDs in them, but the
problem is, they can be super expensive,
now a while back they started putting
LED headlights on top end cars, but when
they broke you had to buy whole
assemblies, and some of them were as much
as twenty four hundred dollars apiece,
now the LED headlights are brighter and
actually use less energy than
conventional headlights, this particular
pair is about fifty one dollars on
Amazon, comes with a two-year guarantee
believe me don't buy the $19 ones I've
tried them out and they all burnt out pretty
fast, here's the original halogen bulb,
you just twist it to the side, and it
comes right out, then you just unplug it,
and plug the new one back in,
just goes back into the hole, snaps in,
and you turn it until it locks, and as you
can see, it's got one, two, three strong
LEDs in it, so it does full coverage it's
not one of these jobs were it's got one
or two when it's bouncing all over the
place, this has a nice beam that comes
out right, now here's the factory halogen
in the daytime, and here's the new LED
bulb, you can see it's much brighter just
look at the difference, this has the LED,
where the other side still has the
halogen, just look you can tell how much
brighter it is, and of course do the other side
too, and snap it into the hole too and
twist it until it locks, and here we are in a
day time, you can see it's nice and
brighter, but of course the real test is
the night time, so now we got to wait
until it gets dark, and here we go, here's
the new LED lights, we can see how bright
they are when they're turned on, and
here's the conventional halogens that it
came with, the factory ones, you can tell
the difference, headlamps burn pretty hot,
let's see what the temperature is with this temperature tool,
go down here and
measure it, it's over eight hundred and
sixty-seven degrees, now let's check the
temperature of these LED headlights
instead, there are only 128 degrees,
the LEDs run so much cooler they're not
going to warp the plastic, they're not going to
make it get cloudy, I love using these
LED replacement bulbs, and since they run
cooler, of course they're going to use a
lot less energy, that's why they use LED
in a lot of modern cars, it's for more
efficiency, and remember to have a chance
to win these tools, just post a nice
clean non-offensive comment in a YouTube
comments below, and the winner will be
picked randomly by a computer,
and since entropy is the end state of
all matter, that's a fair way to pick a
winner,
thanks for watching this video and good luck in the
contest, so if you never want to miss
another one of my new car repair videos
remembering to ring that Bell!
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How to Fix a Water Leak in Your Car
Scotty Kilmer:
rev up your engines, if your car has
water leaking inside it, then today's
your lucky day cuz I'm gonna show you
how to find where the leak is coming
from and how to fix it, now water leaks
come from about four main places in
cars, the first one is if it only happens
when you turn the AC on, that means your
AC evaporator is clogged up, the water's
building up and spilling inside the car
so, jack your car up in the air and stick
a jack stand under there so you don't
get crushed, then crawl under the car and look
for the drain hose now it's a black
rubber hose that in many cases you can
see from the bottom but in this case
this power steering is in a way so we'll
get to it from the top and we'll go
inside the hood here's the firewall when we
go down here, here's the AC drain hose
there's the end of it here,
something inside gets clogged up all you
have to do is put a garden hose over
this little hole and in this case the
garden hose is a little bit too big, so I
get another hose that I can stick the
garden hose in and then stick the other
end of this hose I'm the drain hose to
clean it out, the other end of this hose
just slips right over the drain hose and
if you want a tight fit, you can put a
little duct tape on it so that it's
really tight and it doesn't leak, then
you just give the hose a bunch of
quick bursts and that can clean out the
debris, it can be that easy just do it
every once in a while and pray that you
don't have a Jeep or other chrysler
products cuz many of them, the drain hose
is inside the frame of the car and you
can't get to it they were evil, you gotta
take the whole dash apart to clean that and
it cost a fortune, another reason not to buy
them and don't put your hose away yet
cuz here's the second place that they
often leak from, your intake vents
suck in air but they also suck in
dirt and leaves and there is an actual
little drain dam that runs under them
and the water is supposed to drain down to
the fender and come out right down here,
as you can see here there's some of the
dirty little needles from the trees that
fall out they're trying to make their
way through, you got to make sure that
this drain is clean and not clogged up
with stuff, mine is getting clogged up
with stuff, so you get your hose again
and squirt it off,
clean all the crud out and if it's
really bad like this, you might have to
get an ice pick or get an old coat
hanger take it apart and poke it up
there to get all the crud out, because if
these drains get clogged up,
then the little drain areas that they go
through the little gutters will back up
and water will come dripping inside the
car and the same thing holds true for
the inside of your doors, look at this, the
inside of the doors they have a little
drain holes in it too, here's the drain
hole, you need to clean these out every
once in a while because none of these
seals on the windows are perfect their not
made to be, water always gets in gets in
the door and then it drains out the
bottom, those drains are clogged the door
will fill up with water and water I'll
get in the car and you'll hear it sloshing when
you take corners and speaking of water
leaks, check the trim inside the seals
make sure it's not cracked, look at that my
own car tried to bite me, now being a
professional mechanic I actually have
ultrasonic machines that can find these
leaks where there's holes faster than
you can, I use this ultrasonic bomb you
turn it on, you're not gonna hear
anything, but it makes an ultrasonic
sound and you throw it in the car, then
you put on these headphones plug them
into the ultrasonic listening device and
check for where there's an air gap
you'll hear the noise coming out louder,
when the noise gets loudest that's where
the break in the material is and then
you'll be able to find the rip even
faster, well I doubt most do it yourself
guys are gonna go buy this but the
advantage of this is, let's say that the
trim isn't cracked but the door or the
window is askew and it's not gripping
right in one part, this will pick it up
really fast, but if you want the cheap
man's way to find air leaks where water
can come in, just get a bucket fill it
with water and a little vegetable dye
like red that really stands out then
when you pour it all over on the inside
where you see red dye coming in, you know
that's where the leaks coming from, now
the fourth and last one I'm talking
about today where leaks commonly come
from, are sun roofs leaking, now it might
sound a little crazy but all Sun roofs
leak to some extent, the seals out here
aren't perfect seals there's little
drains inside to sunroof that take the
little bit of excess water that get in
and drain them out on the bottom of the
car, when you look inside the sunroof
look right here, there's a drain hole
that big circle, now some cars have as
many as four drain holes in their sunroof, find
out how many yours has and clean them
every once in a while, you can squirt a
little
hose in there to clean them, sometimes I
used a little compressed air, you just
want to make sure it's clean because
you're always getting water inside that
drain pan inside it, that top seal isn't
perfect and if those little holes clog
up, then it'll start dripping it on the
top and get all over the place, now I
have to clean my wife's all the time
because I park it under this beautiful
Chinese Arbor Vita tree, which puts a lot
of stuff out, so I'm always cleaning it
out so she doesn't get wet, it's a little
more labor-intensive yes but being on
hot humid Texas that shade keeps this
car looking good and keeps the leather
from cracking, so I don't mind cleaning
it every once in a while to save all
that other stuff by putting it in the
shade, so now you know how to find and
fix water leaks in your car, so if you
never want to miss another one of my new
car repair videos, remember to ring that
Bell!
Why Not to Put Wheel Spacers on Your Car
Scotty Kilmer:
rev up your engines, today I'm gonna talk
about why not to use wheel spacers on
your car, now lately quite a few people
have been asking me, Scotty is it
alright if I'm gonna get bigger wheels
to put wheel spacers in my car and some
guys say, hey I'm gonna get a wider
traction so I want to put wheel spacers
so my tires are out further, well it's
not a good idea and here's why
using spaces is basically just a rig, you
get the spacers they go over the hub and
bolts on over that, it's just a cheap way
to get bigger rims to fit on a car or to
make your wheels go out further, these
are really cheap ones here
they make ones that actually have in
sets, where they bolt to your hub and
then they have new studs sticking out
that the wheel goes on, but they all do
the same thing, they push the wheel out
further, it's basically a cheap way of
modifying the suspension system on your
car, guys do it because maybe they got a
wheel that doesn't fit right,
so they'll put spacers to make it fit or
they want to have their tires out
further, so that it handles differently
or has more acceleration with bigger
tires, but it's just kind of a cheap way
of ringing things and it's not a smart
idea, in that sense it's just like the
video I made a while back about why not
to change the muffler on your car to
one that makes more noise, the engineers
have designed these things, they spent
decades perfecting suspension systems,
they created them so the tire rides
perfectly and will wear evenly but still
can corner are really well and
accelerate in corners without skipping,
and guess what, when your tire is bolted
onto the stock hub, all that geometry is
correct, from the angles of the top to
the bottom, to where the tread contacts
the road, this was all carefully designed
so if you get a spacer and stick it on
here, it's gonna make the wheel sit out
further and the theory is, a wider track
you're gonna get better grip, but really
from what I've read from the engineers,
the most you're going to get better
doing that is one two maybe two,
which isn't much and since doing this
moves the tire out further, that changes
the entire geometry of the suspension
system, which often leads to more tire
wear, it can make your steering effort
harder, it can make your steering
somewhat unresponsive under harsh
braking because of the change in this
geometry, and lets face it, if you modified
your car to go faster, the last thing you
want is unresponsive steering when
you're braking hard, and because it's
changed the way that the tire sits, it
also can wear your wheel bearings out
faster, they're loaded differently and
they weren't designed for that load they
were designed for a load that was closer
to the center of the wheel bearing, so
the wheel bearings can wear out faster
now you have to use your head when it
comes to trying to modify your car, come
on, these engineers have been designing
these things and they started with basic
wagon technology in the stagecoach days
and got into the sophisticated cars that
can break handle and be a nice ride, you
start modifying it by sticking your
wheels out further, hey it's just a dumb
idea really, now big wide tires are
fantastic for drag strips, because you want
the most contact you can, to get all that
power to the ground, so that it takes off
and doesn't just sit there spinning
skinnier wheels, but hey we don't drive
quarter mile races, we drive all
over the place in our cars and you're
gonna ruin all other aspects of it just
to get one thing of, going in a straight
line a quarter of a mile faster, now I do
admit that spaces are better made than they used
to be, these are the cheap ones, the
actual expensive ones look like this,
they are quality made, they bolt on and
then they got their own studs and nuts
to hold your wheel in, it's not like
they're gonna fall off if you put them
on correctly, because again decades ago when
I was a young mechanic, some of these
kids I actually saw the wheels fly off
because they were just using cheap ones
and not bolting them on right or they were
so thick that there wasn't enough for
the nut to go onto the stud
so it wasn't holding it much and they
would just fly off when they took off
fast, that's not a problem with modern
vehicles with these well-made hub
centric
really quality products, but still it's
ruining the original design of the
vehicle, and sure guys are always gonna
do those kind of mods on jeeps and stuff
especially ones that they take off-road
I mean if you've ever been in a Jeep,
they ride like crap anyway if you're
gonna put these giant wheels and you're going
rock crawling, it's a specialist vehicle
that you're having fun with, it's not
something that you drive every day on
the road, because if you do all the
fillings in your teeth are gonna fall
out, so now you know the truth about
wheel spacers and why you should really
stay away from them, unless you're going
to the drag strip or rock crawling, so if
you never want to miss another one of my
new car repair videos, remember to ring
that Bell!
The Truth About GM’s Huge Layoffs and Why You Should Be Mad About It
Scotty Kilmer:
Rev up your engines,
today I'm going to tell you the truth about
GM's plan to layoff a bunch of workers and
to shut down a bunch of US factories,
well if you remember a few years back they
got the big bailout because the said they
were going bankrupt so the government gave
them a bunch of money, and oh to save American
jobs and now their just leaving anyways, so
what's the truth behind what's really happening,
now I've read and watched a bunch of these
reporters these experts saying, oh market
forces you have to follow the market forces
blah blah blah,
but here's the truth and to understand it
you need to a little about history,
now I learned to drive on a Chevy biscayne
it's kind of like an Impala, it's a big American
car, back in the 1960's when they made solid
cars that everyone in the world knew, hey
they were good cars and they lasted a long
time,
back then everyone said, oh the Japanese cars
are piles of junk what are they making,
well guess what, they kept making better and
better cars as time went on from Japan,
while the quality of the American cars starting
going down and down,
to give you an example, the Impala used to
be a great car, in the 60's everybody wanted
an Impala they were very popular cars their
pretty well built, they could last a really
long time, but not so recently the Impala
was one of the models that their going to
stop making,
basically the didn't build them all that well,
I had customers with them and every single
person that owned one when they finally got
rid of it said, I'll never buy another one
of those pieces of junk I had more problems
with the transmissions and the engines and
the old ones didn't used to have very many
problems,
so these experts that talk about market forces
is forcing them to shut down these factories
and layoff people, that's basically a lot
of bs,
they were just making the cars poorly and
they were making models that people didn't
want like the Chevy Cruze, which not only
was it a model that people didn't really want,
it was really poorly made, I had a customer
with one, he's been through 3 automatic transmissions
that went out completely in the first 75,000
miles of driving that car, that's just crazy,
and look at another one of their failures
that their not gonna making anymore,
the Chevy Volt, hey they tried to compete
with the Toyota Prius and they failed massively,
the cars were garbage compared to what Toyota
was putting out, so they can talk about market
forces all they want, a lot of the problem
is they were making vehicles that were either
poorly made or people didn't want to buy them
because they didn't like the way they looked
or the way the handled,
and unlike the Japanese like say a Toyota
Corolla, they started out with a basic car
and they keep improving it over decades, GM
was like, oh that model didn't work we'll
get rid of that one and try something else,
it's much better to build something and perfect
it over time than to just say, oh that didn't
work lets try something else and see if that
works,
some of their ideas are, oh we'll go to just
a bigger vehicle, SUVs and trucks that make
a lot of money, well talk about short sighted
again, now just because gas is cheap they
think, oh we'll sell these giant vehicles
for a bunch of money, well guess what people,
gasoline is a limited things, the price is
only going to go up and it will probably happen
relatively soon, and then all those big cars
people are going to not be driving those anymore
and then they'll be in a even bigger mess
than they already are,
and as far as I'm concerned, GM's idea of
shutting down these factories down in the
US and laying off all these Americans, hey
that has to do more with them making a profit
in China not the US,
realize that from the last data I could find,
the Chinese produced 24.5 million cars and
at that same time period the US produced 4.1
million cars, a big difference,
and as for GM itself, GM sells 70% more cars
in China than they do in the US, and these
cars are all made in China,
so if things continue like this, I wouldn't
be surprised that if someone in the US wants
to buy a GM car in the near future, it's going
to be made in China not in the US,
even though we taxpayers bailout GM the last
time, their big thank you is, bye we'll see
you in China,
they didn't seem to say, oh the market is
forcing them to do that when they took all
that taxpayer money, you know their giving
these promises about US jobs and stuff but
as soon as they see a way to make their cars
in China, sell them in China and probably
import those Chinese ones over to the US,
hey those guys are basically laughing at the
average American,
and it's bad enough they were making cars
that had faulty ignition switches and then
they cheated and changed the parts numbers
so they think, oh people aren't going to figure
out that we made these bad ignition switches
that some people were killed in wrecks because
the cars stopped running,
you know their not interested in telling the
truth about the problems that they have, but
taking taxpayers dollars and then shutting
the factories down years later anyways and
moving all the stuff to China, hey all I got
to say is, you can vote with your dollars,
don't buy their products, nobody is going
to force you to buy one of their products,
at least not yet, hey take Toyota for example,
they make a bunch of them in the US and they
have for decades, you might end up driving
a Japanese car around that's made in the US,
where if you buy a GM it's going to be a Chinese
made car, the world is upside down on that
one,
so it's really a double edged sword when you
think about why GM is laying off all these
workers and closing all these factories down,
they've often made poorly designed and built
cars that didn't last so their base that used
to be, oh when I was a kid people would say,
oh I buy a new GM car every 3-4 years, well
that base is gone and then they want to make
them cheaper so their going to move all their
production to China where they can make them
cheaper,
now the Chinese factories are all modernized
so they have less labor that they have to
deal with, but from what I read about them,
they have really good quality, for example,
buicks are like the real popular car for the
upper level management guys to ride around
in a Buick in China,
kind of like it used to be in the 1950's in
the US, a little time warp there,
so basically, the real problem is greed, they
want to make their cars cheaper so they can
make more profit and eventually they want
to make the most profit by building their
cars somewhere else where they can make them
cheaper and in the modern factories more efficiently
than in the old factories in the US, my hometown
Niagara Falls had the same fate itself, when
I was young, there were factories everywhere
building all kinds of stuff but they were
old factories, first they moved the factories
over the Mexico, then they even moved them
further to the East because it was even cheaper
there than it was in Mexico,
so if you think about it as a career, hey
you probably wouldn't want to get involved
in either building cars in the US or working
for the company that builds them because you'll
find that your job will probably vanish in
the near future, so if you never want to miss
another one of my new car repair videos, remember
to ring that bell!
What's inside a BULLETPROOF CAR?
WHAT'S INSIDE? FAMILY:
Why it’s Illegal to Remove the Catalytic Converter in Your Car
Scotty Kilmer:
rev up your engines, Adrian says what do you think about removing
the catalytic converter in order to
boost the power of a turbocharged engine
is it harmful to the engine, well realize
that it's against law to remove a catalytic
converter in United States you're breaking
federal law, but I mean I talked to guys
they live in Montana where they don't
have any kind of inspection and they do
it, and the only thing that a catalytic
converter does, is it slows down
pollution, it burns
unburned hydrocarbons if you remove it
from a modern-day car, all the kinds of
lights and stuff will come on, but it' isn't gonna
hurt the car will actually run better,
cuz it'll breathe better but it will
pollute more, you're braking the law, but the
only thing or reason a car has a catalytic
converter is to burn hydrocarbons, if you
remove it of course you remove that and
then it will just go through the exhaust
and there's less back pressure and when
you set them up right they of course
will run better, you know race cars don't
have catalytic converters on them, cold
wild says Scotty my car has a check
engine light when I turn the key to
accessory, when I start the engine it
goes away, what could it be should I be
concerned Thanks, okay no cars are made
that way, here's how it works, if you have
a normal car and you turn your car to
the accessory and don't start it, the
check engine light is supposed to stay
on that shows you that the bulb still
works then when you start the car the
computer does a bunch of tests, if it
finds a problem that'll turn the light
on and leave it on, if it doesn't, the
light stays off that's totally normal
almost all cars sold in the United
States are set up that way, as I tell
people when they're looking for a used
car, if you're looking at a used car good
idea to have a scan too, like I
showed you get twenty four dollars
scan tool easy cheap enough stuff, but if
you don't have a scan tool you turn the
key to the accessory and a check engine
light doesn't come on, odds are they took
the bulb out and then you definitely
would want to scan it cuz even if they
took the bulb out, the scan tool would
still read a problem if there are any
stored inside the computer, Eto says scotty
just bought a used 2008 mazda cx9 what
do you think about this SUV, well I would
have never bought it, I had a customer
that just bought one of those and
then they brought it to me a week after
they bought it, was running like crap and
I said you're gonna have to rebuild your
engine it's got a problem it's gonna be
anywhere from twenty five to forty five
hundred dollars I am NOT a fan of those
things, but you've already bought it, so
change your oil a lot,
and on that baby I'd change it every four
five thousand miles religiously, because
they do have engine problems as they age, if you
don't have any engine problem and you change
the oil every four or five thousand
miles, hey it might be a decent car you
never know, but I've had customers have very
bad experience buying those things
secondhand there's a lot of them where there
VVT valve system will break down a
lot and then it cost thousands to repair
them as they do break down, so if it does
run good now yeah I haven't any problems
change the oil all the time, edward says
Scotty what do you think of a 2005
pontiac grand prix GXP was two hundred
two thousand miles, and a new tranny for six
grand
although it does need spark plug wires and a
new ABS passenger side wire, thoughts okay
well if it really has a new transmission
I would want the
paperwork and I would call the place
that supposedly did the work to see it
was really done and six thousand dollars
more than I'd pay for a 14-year old
Pontiac but if you like it and it runs
good and that transmission really was a new
one put in or remanufactured one
installed in it, ahhh have some fun driving
around, just don't drag around in it
because you'll burn that transmission
out too, the problem of that vehicle is
the engine is stronger than the
transmission, if you want to drive it
normal and use it as a toy car nothing
wrong with that, but don't think you can
drive that car as an everyday driver and
put thirty thousand miles a year on it
cuz it will fall apart in front of your
eyes if you do that
Armando Lopez says Scotty I'm 17 I'm
getting a 2009 or 2010 g37 Infiniti
coupe do you think it's reliable, I'm
getting from car max do you know about
those cars, okay you're 17 you're getting
a g37 Infiniti coupe you're gonna pay up
the wazoo for insurance cuz that's a
sports car, the problem with those cars
are they're good cars, they're well make
cars but as they age they're expensive
to repair, Nissan Quality has gone down
since the company Renault the French
company bought them out and merged with them
years ago, the quality isn't what it used
to be the problem with the g37 is, it's a
high-tech car they break when they break
the parts cost a fortune,
I'll give you an example, I had a customer with
one, the power steering hose went out, the
only people that could get it was the
dealer and it was like 350 bucks for
hose assembly, where for say a Toyota I
could get an aftermarket one for 50 bucks an autozone that works fine
but I couldn't get it for the infiniti,
so realize that, I wouldn't go that
high-end if I were you and seventeen and
getting the car, unless you have a rich
father who's gonna pay for everything, then
go right ahead,
Melod says is a Hyundai
2013 with 126 thousand miles a good car to buy
are there problems with their engines too,
here's the thing
Hyundai and Kia they're kind of a merged
company, Hyundai I bought 33.8% of Kia in
2013, so they're kind of like a merged
company and they ended up recalling 1.2
million of their 2.0 and 2.4 liter
engines if that car has one of those
engines don't buy it, but if it has a
different engine they can be a decent
vehicle, don't pay too much for a used Hyundai the Korean car the resale values are
kind of low, so if you can get it cheap
enough it could be a decent car, so if
you never want to miss another one of my
new car repair videos, remember to ring
that Bell!
Why Not to Buy a Used Hybrid Car
Scotty Kilmer:
Rev up your engines,
today I'm going to help you decide whether
it's a good idea or not to buy a hybrid car,
now lately people have been asking me,
Scotty I'm thinking about buying a hybrid
car, what do you think about that,
well we'll start with a little history lesson,
hybrid's really started with submarines,
they have diesel engines that would recharge
the battery,
or run the propellers and then necessary and
they were under the water,
they would run only on the electric battery
power,
now the early Honda hybrids used a system
that was rather similar to the submarines
but it was a failure,
people didn't like them, they hardly sold
any of them and they were really slow,
as an example of this,
in 2013 Honda only sold 4,802 Insights,
while Toyota sold 145,172 Priuses,
so right off the bat I'd say don't buy a Honda
hybrid car,
if you want to get a hybrid car you want to
use the Prius design, which actually most
manufacturers use,
and that's an Adkinson cycle 4 cylinder engine
combined with a hybrid generating system,
and using a hybrid battery pack to store the
electrical power,
now the early hybrid used nickle metal hydrate
batteries,
and they were rechargeable,
the modern ones use lithium ion batteries
but for a long time they used nickle metal
hydrate batteries,
now in the case of the Priuses,
originally they had 28 Panasonic hybrid modules
and each module had 1.2 volt cells in it,
which would make 200 something volts for the
whole system, the price of these batteries
has come down over time,
now you can get a new one for about $2,600,
but I don't advise going any cheaper than
that,
there are places that recondition them, but
really you got an old worn out battery that's
made out of a bunch of little batteries,
if they replace a few of the battery cells
in them, hey the other ones are still old
and they're only going to break down over
time,
you really have to go new if your planning
on keeping the car for a long time,
so you have to decide how long your going
to drive your car,
in the case of the Prius the newer ones come
with a 8 year / 100,000 mile warranty,
so if your happy with that you'll never have
to worry about the battery,
but if your planning on buying a used hybrid
car that's more than 8 years old that has
more than 100,000 miles on it,
then you might want to think twice about that
one,
because not only do the batteries cost a lot
of money,
but other repairs cost a fortune too,
like this one that burnt out the generator,
a customer towed her Prius over to my place
because it died while she was driving down
the road,
and found out that it wasn't putting out any
charging voltage at all,
so I checked all the fuses and relays and
they were all perfectly fine,
then I thought, hey it just needs a new alternator,
but guess what, a Toyota Prius doesn't have
an alternator,
it uses a generator that's built into the
transfer case,
now if it would have been an older Toyota
like this old Celica,
the alternator is right here,
you just take off a couple bolts and a fan
belt and replace the alternator,
you could get a rebuilt one for $100 or so
and put in on in about 10 minutes,
but sadly in this hybrid system that's not
the case,
it doesn't use an alternator to charge the
battery, it uses a generator,
inside the transfer case here it's not seperately
serviceable,
I did a lot of research on the internet and
you have to buy the entire transfer assembly
for $3,459.68,
and if that wasn't bad enough, it takes over
10 hours of labor to take it all apart and
put it all back together again,
so most places are going to charge over $5,000
to do the job, and unfortunately in these
2002 Priuses it's very common for the generators
to short out they overheat and melt,
and unless you want to keep buying giant batteries
and recharging them to drive the car,
you have to fix it to make it able to drive,
and then of course you have to factor in the
cost of the car,
they cost a lot more, how much gas mileage
your actually going to get, and does this
amount to a profit over time,
a lot of times it doesn't for normal people,
but I recently came back from Seattle and
all the Uber drivers there were practically
all driving Priuses,
since they get such better gas mile with regenerative
braking,
in town, and a lot of taxi drivers do a lot
of in town driving,
you see all these Priuses because they're
cheaper to operate, it's a business and your
putting a lot of miles on it,
but if your just driving your car normally,
you might find that the extra expense of buying
a hybrid, and if your like me and want to
keep your car for 100,000's of miles,
the extremely high repairs your going to do
as they get old,
it's not really worth it buying a hybrid for
somebody who drives like that,
now my opinion on hybrids is this,
I see them as a type of stop gap technology,
there half way between gasoline cars and electric
cars and since your not fighting a war in
a U boat,
it's really not that necessary for most people,
so if you never want to miss another one of
my new car repair videos, remember to ring
that bell!
5 Used Cars You Should Buy
Scotty Kilmer:
rev up your engines, today I'm gonna talk
about the five best used cars that you
can buy, now I know there's lots of people
out
there talking about what's good and
what's bad but really, if you want to
learn about what used cars to buy, ask a
mechanic like me, because just out of
curiosity I Googled, some of that advice
on the internet, whoa stay away from it,
I even saw some that had three of the
top five being chrysler products, which
every mechanic knows they're some of the
worst made vehicles out there, to say
they're good to buy used, you don't want
to listen to people's advice that don't know
what they're talking about, I hate
it when I buy something that doesn't
hold up over time, and over the last 51
years
I hate it when my customers buy cars
that don't hold up over time, hey I like
my customer I want them to tell their
friends about me to say hey he's a good
mechanic he knows how to fix your car
and it isn't always breaking down all
the time and he's making up stuff just
to make money, so of course
don't listen to used-car advice from
somebody say who only works on Jaguars,
he's gonna tell you to buy a Jaguar you
know, I work on all kinds of different
cars, I don't care what people drive but
if they want a good car
I'll give them advice and here's my
advice on the five used cars to buy, and
number five is a 2012 Honda Accord, and I
know some people are gonna say, hey
Scotty you warned us about Honda's with
weak automatic transmissions, and that is
true the 2005 to 2010 Honda Accords with
automatic transmissions have a recall
for their automatic transmission because
it had a design flaw, but not to 2012,
I've got customers with 2012 Honda
accords and they love the cars, from my
experience of my customers cars the four
cylinder ones seemed to the last absolute
longest, some guys want the v6 s because
they want more power and stuff, but they
do have a tendency of wearing out a
little bit faster and the 4's have
plenty of power and get quite a bit
better gas mileage, and a lot of family
guys love these Accords because they're
zippy sporty cars, you get a four-door yeah
you can fix a whole family in there
but it's not like you're driving around
in a minivan, and here you want to
realize another thing about buying a
used car, don't always go for the
cheapest price, because a lot of the reason
cars are cheap is because they aren't
very good cars, you're gonna pay a reasonable
amount
of money for a 2012 Honda Accord
that's in good shape, but hey I've seen
them with three four hundred thousand
miles on them,
so you're gonna get a lot of mileage out
of the things, as long as they don't
already have three or four hundred
thousand miles on them, now
number four on the lists of 2012 Ford
Fusion, used their often seen as an
inexpensive family saloon, one of the
reasons this those were made when Volvo
and Ford were having to get together
part way, the first time I ever had one I
rented it when I was on vacation at an
airport, and I was totally impressed by
how it rode, I was never really a fan of
the Ford Taurus myself, but when I rented
this
fusion I was impressed, they proved to
be very reliable cars too, and they
didn't have the transmission problems
that a lot of the Taurus hand, it was a
pretty good move, now I mean Ford's not
making cars anymore they said they're
only gonna be making one the Mustang and
then SUVs and trucks, but the Ford Fusion
is a really solid built car, and since
Ford isn't going to be making cars
anymore, you can generally pick up a used
car cheaper, because when a company stops
making cars the value of the old one
goes down, if they're still well made,
Ford still gonna make parts for them, hey
you might get a really good price on a
used fusion, now number three on the list
is a 2013 Honda Civic, those things were
reliable solid little cars
Honda sure went a long way from their
first Honda that they sold in
the United States to this Honda Civic,
you'd think they came from different
planets if you look at both cars, a lot
of young people like the civics because
they're zippy, a lot of guys soup them up
and put a lot of horsepower in there, Honda
engines they can take it, but at the same
time they're very dependable
transportation, I have many middle-aged
and older people, they bought civics
and they love them,
and they would say it always starts, it never
breaks
down, and it hardly uses any gas, and sure
they hold their value, which is the
reason I say don't go too cheap when
you're buying a used car
think about expense over time,
that's one reason my son who I was going
to get him I used Tacoma pickup
truck, he end up buying a new one because
he said, dad I'll probably keep this
thing for 30 years, it's gonna cost me
hardly any money per month if I keep
this thing for 30 years
so I'll just buy a brand new one, but if
you're buying a used car and you want to
save a lot of money,
hey that Civic is a great pick, yeah
you're gonna pay more for it certainly
then a used Chrysler or used GM smaller
car, but it's gonna outlast them
sometimes two, three, four times as long
with probably maybe 20% of the repair
bills that you're gonna spend on those
cars that aren't as well made, and of
course realized if you're buying used like
that, your insurance rates, because let's
face it you buy a brand new car, say
it's wrecked or stolen or flooded
whatever, the insurance company has to buy
you a new car, that's a lot of money, well
they used cars they have less value so
the insurance is less on them too, and
with the smaller four-cylinder engine
the insurance is less on that, because
it doesn't have the big power of a v6 or
a v8, you're saving all kinds of ways if
you get a you Civic, now number two on
the list of best five used cars to buy,
is a 2012 Toyota Corolla, Corollas can
run virtually forever if you take care
of them, I remember years ago a mechanic
friend of mine he was having a party, and
they said let's see if we can blow up a
Toyota Corolla engine, so he emptied out
most of the engine oil and that put a
brick on the accelerator and it was just
sitting there revving, and it ran
for quite some time and then finally one
of the cylinders blew and went bang and the
cylinder broke, but then it was still
running awhile and only three cylinders
I mean the things are really strongly
designed, Toyota used the Corolla
design on a lot of cars, that's a 07
matrix it's really a Toyota Corolla, my
Celica it's a 94 Celica,
it's really Toyota Corolla too
it has the same engine, transmission, just
a different body style and a little bit
different suspension is all, I gotta laugh
these days when I get some customers say
I just have to get an SUV for my family,
and I say my kids, two sons, me, my wife we
road around for years in an 81 Toyota
Corolla four-door, they fit in that
Corolla we went all over the country in
that thing, and did it ever leave us
stranded,
no it didn't, and one big advantage of
buying a car like a 2012 Toyota Corolla is,
they made tons of them, they sold tons of
them, so there are always going to be a
reasonable amount of them out there for
sale, if a company makes a really
good car but they don't sell all that many
of them their aren't gonna be that many used
ones for sale they're gonna be hard to
find, but there are Corollas all over the
place in all kinds of different shape, maybe
you're a fixer-upper, so you're gonna buy
one that maybe has 300 thousand miles
you get it cheap, fix it up and drive it
around, or maybe you don't really care
that much about body style, so if they
didn't take care of the paint and had a
few dents on it, you just drive it
around that way as a beater car and you don't
care to put any money into it, because
since they made so many of them, there is
an insane aftermarket for those things,
let's say you go and you need to get a
Fender, well you go to the Toyota dealer
and the fender who knows what they want
maybe five or six hundred bucks, you can get
one made in Taiwan for like $50, sheet
steel stamped on who cares you're just
gonna have it bolted on and painted, so
you can get parts that work perfectly
fine dirt cheap for those things, so take
advantage of mass production if you want
a really good car for getting you around
hey get to use Corolla, now number one
on the list is the 2011 Toyota Camry
which is no surprise to most people, and
I know some people are gonna say, Oh
Scotty what a boring pick 2011 Toyota Camry,
well yeah that's exactly why I
pick it as a good used car to buy, it's
boring, you buy it it's not gonna break
its gonna start every time, and their
still fun to drive they got more zip
than a Corolla does, but they're totally
dependable, here again though I say, I
advise people buy the four-cylinder
version, it's got plenty enough horsepower
to get you around, the 6's, hey they're gonna
get worse gas mileage
and they will wear out faster I
mean yeah okay
so it might wear out at 300,000 miles
instead of 500,000 miles, but still it's
gonna wear out fast, and as an
interesting fact generally the cheaper
models of manufacturers sell more cars
than the expensive ones, but in 2011
Toyota in the United States sold more
Camrys than they did Corollas, normally
it's cheaper models that sell more, but
the Camrys were so well made that they
actually sold more Camrys than they did
Corollas in the United States in 2011
you can easily fit a whole family in a
Camry they got tons of room inside I've
had customers that are real tall at six
six or six seven and they'd always say, I
can't
get a Toyota I'm too big I don't fit in,
I said get in a Camry and sit in it and see
what you think, and they did and they said,
whoa
hey comfy car enough room for me
you're gonna pay a reasonable price for
one of these cars, they hold their value
because they're so well made, but don't
do like one of my customers did who was
looking at a used Camry and then they
said, oh look I can get this Chrysler at
half the price and it's got a v6 engine
and leather seats and all this, and then
a couple years later they came in and
they said, we got to get rid of that
Chrysler what a pile of junk and what did
they do, then they went out and bought a
used camry, so my advice on that one
is, learn from other people's mistakes, if
you don't have to make the mistake
yourself
hey learn from somebody else's mistake,
make sure you get a decent used car
because there's the old saying, oh I
never buy a used car cuz you're buying
somebody else's problems, well if you're
gonna buy a camry, if it was taken care
of it's not gonna be anybody's problem,
but of course as I always tell people
when they're buying a used car,
have a mechanic check it out before
you buy it, because you can't trust
anybody when it comes to buying used
anything, cars can be wrecked, flooded,
stolen, started on fire there's all kinds
of things that can happen, so you want a
mechanic
to check it out and with this modern
technology on all these late model cars
hey when we mechanics plug our machines
in, we get more history make your head
spin, and within an hour any mechanic
can tell you, yeah that's a really good
car or no stay away from that one, so now
you know the five best cars that you can
buy used if you want peace of mind, and
have a nice solid reliable vehicle to
drive around in, so if you never want to
miss another one of my new car repair
videos, remember to ring that Bell!
The Truth About Marvel Mystery Oil for Your Car
Scotty Kilmer:
rev up your engines, dog 996 oh hey
Scotty what's your opinion on Marvel
Mystery Oil, Marvel Mystery all I've been
using that stuff since I was a kid, it is
a very good oil we get old junkie
engines we'd soak them in it, break the
rust loose sometimes get them running,
it's a very good oil for getting rust
and crud out, the thing is you can't use
it like we did in the olden days we
would actually pour it in the carburetor
and it would help lubricate the valves
and clean stuff out, some old timers will
continue doing that on modern cars, no
don't do that because it's an oil and if
you pour oil in your air filter, that
won't ruin the catalytic converter, it
can ruin the oxygen sensor, you don't
want to do it on a modern car and the
old ones you could, but it is a very good
oil if you got old rusty stuff you can
soak em in them, you got an old car that
you're fixing up you can soak the stuff
in it and put it in and lubricate stuff
with it, but you don't pour it into the gas
of a modern car you don't do it in a
modern car, mr.sheng says yo Scotty what are
your thoughts on a 2014 BMW X3 with
40,000 miles for $19,000, well if you
consider how much money some fool paid
for that thing when it was brand new,
you're saving a whole bunch of money
but they become endless money pits, and
your decision on that would be, how long are
you gonna keep it, cuz let's say you're
gonna keep it for two or three years
well if you keep that thing for two or
three years and then try to sell it and
then the thing is gonna be eight nine
years old
you paid 19 grand you'll be lucky if you
get six for it, so if you're willing to
lose that kind of money and buy a BMW go
ahead, the mileage is low enough that it
shouldn't have any serious problems, but
if you plan on keeping that thing
forever don't waste your money you'll
lose all 19,000 when it starts falling
apart and then nobody's gonna buy it off
of you when it needs an engine or
transmission, osvaldo D says hey Scotty
what do you think about a 96
four-cylinder Toyota Tacoma, any issues I
might run into, Toyota Tacomas were one
of the best smallish pickup trucks ever
made, a lot of those years had a problem
with the frames rusting, it's old enough
now that if you got one that was bad
just jack it up in the air, crawl under there if that frame is
rock-solid you hit it with hammers and
there's no rust that doesn't go in
there's absolutely nothing wrong with
buying that, but if the frames rotting
don't buy cuz it needs a new frame,
unless you can call Toyota and pretend
that you've already bought it and say
hey I got this 96 Tacoma the frame si rotting
on it, will you give me a new frame free
and if they say yes, then but it and let them
put a new frame, I had customers do it
and they got a new frame put on by
Toyota, turbosquid says Scotty I got
a 09 Civic and the battery terminals
keep corroding, I changed them multiple
times, the corrosion keeps coming back
how can I fix this, okay well if you
really want to fix it permanently just throw the
battery away and get another one,
you got a crappy battery it's outgassing
too much, if battery's are cheaply
made, then the outgas would be by the
battery terminals and that acid in the
vapors will eat them up, and start
corroding them, if you want to try the cheaper
fix, go to like autozone and they sell
those green and red battery terminal
protectors, you take the terminal battery
cables off, then you clean them all off
then you put those things on and they
absorb some of the acid and then put the
cables back on, but if that happens even
with that, then just get another battery it means your battery is no good and it's
outgassing too much it shouldn't outgas
too much and of course do have your
alternator load tested, because if it's
putting out too much voltage it'll boil
the battery all the time and then it
will out gas too much so, that's a simple
test mechanic like me can do it minute
with equipment to see if it is, Alex
Bachman Scotty my wife's 2012 Honda Civic
EX has a check charging system light, we
have had several mechanics check the
alternator, starter, battery, and the general
charging system, each mechanic said all
the systems are fine what could this be
realize that you got a 2012 Honda, the
charging system in that car is
run by the main computer and
a lot of times that has a problem and
that's what it does, it'll give you that
warning, if you find a guy like me that
will honestly put his gauges on your
car while you watch, and if he checks the
battery with it and then checks the
alternate and if he says the battery's
good and the alternator's charging fine,
just ignore it, but if he says no it's not
charging right it could easily be a
problem in a computer or the wiring
coming from the computer, I see that a
lot in Honda's as they age because they're
so complicated, they're making things too
complicated, instead having a little
mechanical voltage regulator to regulate
the voltage, they now do a computer that
controls the whole thing and of course
when it breaks then you gotta buy a
computer that cost over a thousand bucks,
so more planned obsolescence on the way,
lakeside Oats Scotty I'm thinking about
getting the 2002 oldsmobile Alero with
one hundred and sixty-three thousand
miles on it, should I go ahead, that's a
reasonable amount of mileage if you're
not paying much go ahead
they can be o.k. vehicles not great but
they're not terrible, you get it cheap enough and
it runs okay why not but don't pay
much it's not worth much being it's a
17 year old GM car, it's value is
practically nothing, if you can get it cheap
and it runs okay, go ahead, so if you
never want to miss another one of my new
car repair videos, remember to ring
that Bell!
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