Join us on this episode of Drive Radio as we explore the intricate world of car maintenance with insights from our expert panel. While John takes a well-deserved vacation, our backup crew is here to dive deep into some critical automotive issues, kicking off with a detailed look into battery and alternator troubles faced by caller Eric. Gain valuable tips on diagnostics, potential fixes, and what to watch out for to ensure your car remains a well-oiled machine.
SPEAKER 12 :
It’s 106 miles to Chicago. We’ve got a full tank of gas. It’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hit it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Our lady of blast acceleration, don’t fail me now.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s time for Drive Radio, presented by Colorado’s select auto care centers.
SPEAKER 13 :
Ba-ba-da-ba!
SPEAKER 03 :
Whether you need help diagnosing a problem. I want to ask you a bunch of questions and I want to have them answered immediately. Or just want to learn about all things automotive.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, how exactly does a positrack rear end on a Plymouth work?
SPEAKER 03 :
It just does. Then you’ve come to the right place. So start your engines, buckle up, and get ready to ride. Drive Radio starts now on KLZ 560 The Source.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good morning. You have Drive Radio on KLZ 560. And John’s on vacation this week, so we got the backup crew today. We got Ken from Toon Tech. How are you doing today? Doing great. Always great to be here. It’s nice to meet you for the first time. Nice to meet you too, Josh. I’ve heard you plenty of times on the radio. Well, thank you. And then I have Justin from Ridgeline Auto Brokers. How are you doing today, Justin?
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, good morning. Good morning. How’s everyone doing? Good. Doing great. How’s it driving?
SPEAKER 07 :
No problems. No problems? Yeah, just a little bit on the wet side, but I thought it was wet. But, yeah, nothing frozen. So it was good, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
There were a couple of multi-car accidents on 25, one northbound and one southbound, me coming in, people just going too fast. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I didn’t have any problems, speed limit plus. So, yeah, it was good.
SPEAKER 06 :
Everyone be safe out there today. That’s right.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s still cold all day today. Yeah, it’s still cold, yeah, at least with the sun coming out. It’s getting a little melting going on.
SPEAKER 05 :
It is, but just remember those shady spots. Right. As I was telling Larry earlier, as you come onto Parker Road here, there’s always a shady spot, and it gets a little slick there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, and overpasses and stuff. Yeah, the bridges. Yep, for sure.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, let’s go straight to the phones with Eric.
SPEAKER 16 :
Hello?
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello. Eric, how are you doing this morning?
SPEAKER 16 :
Hey, how’s it going? Good. Hey, you guys, I got one that’s kind of weird. I have a 1979 Pontiac Le Mans. It’s a 231 V6. And anyway, my battery went out about six months ago, so I took it in, and it was bad. I got my money out of it, though. It was about three years. And anyways… They sold me a top of the line one because he gave it to me at a discount because I just barely missed the date for the, you know, the warranty. So he said, hey, I’ll give you a discount. So I bought the top of the line one. So I put it in and it ran fine. Everything’s great. And then about a month ago. The alternator, I noticed, started to heat up, got real hot, especially the pulley. And I thought, well, the belt is slipping because it’s an old belt, you know. So I put a belt on it. Same thing. So anyway, sometimes after I drove it for a while, I went and checked it, and it was just kind of warm. So I thought, well, maybe that’s normal, you know. So anyway… A couple days ago, I went to start the car, and the battery was completely dead. I mean, dead. So I took it to the store, and they tested it, and the man said the inside of the battery is completely destroyed. It’s not even putting out no amperage on the amperage test. It’s completely destroyed inside. So I got another one. another brand new battery, put it in, and I tried to start the car, and the car acts like the battery’s dead. I can get it to crank, and I got it to start, but then I shut it off and tried to start it again, and all you get, it just goes, you know, that sound that you dread hearing. It goes, and then stops. And anyway, my question is, Is it possible that the alternator is bad, and could the alternator cause a battery to become completely destroyed inside if the alternator is bad? Because it was making this worrying noise a little bit towards the end there, but that’s my question. Would an alternator… Completely destroy a battery.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, it sure can. If it’s overcharging, it’ll get hotter than normal too. And if it’s overcharging the battery, then it cooks the battery inside. So it’ll definitely make that happen. But with your issue with it not starting after you put the new battery in, that’s not alternator related. There’s something else going on there probably, whether it be a connection issue or something like that.
SPEAKER 16 :
Uh-huh, because I tried to start it with the new battery, and I got it to crank, and then it started, and then everything ran fine. The starter is real healthy and everything, but then I turned it off, And then I tried to start it again, and it made that same thing. And it’s acting like the batteries did. So my second question is, if the alternator is bad, do you think I ruined the new battery by doing that?
SPEAKER 07 :
And it’s just been a short time that you’ve run it with the brand new battery in it? A minute? Yeah, no, you wouldn’t ruin it that quickly, no.
SPEAKER 16 :
Oh, I see. So the brand new one I just put in, In all likelihood, I didn’t ruin it, even if the alternator’s bad enough. Right, no. Yeah, I wouldn’t cook it that quick.
SPEAKER 05 :
Where I would start is make sure those battery cables are tight and in good shape. Because sometimes you got it to start, and then they’re not getting enough current down the starter on the second time. So make sure the battery posts are clean on that battery and that the cables are clean, too. So if you don’t get those battery cables clean, sometimes you’ll have an issue, too.
SPEAKER 16 :
yeah and so being a side post battery you want to pull those bolts completely out of the out of the connection there and and make sure everything’s clean in there too yeah i well i i put new i put new bolts and i cleaned it okay the um uh and did check that but uh
SPEAKER 07 :
the do you think i should have the alternator check it or do you think i should have taken in and yeah i mean i guess when you start it and and run it i mean obviously it starts and runs now are you able to get it over and have the shop check the charging system and everything like that well i uh i can’t it still doesn’t want to start it acts like the batteries did but i i finally got it to start you know and i’m afraid to take it you know yeah yeah that you might not get it started again right exactly well the alternator is not keeping it from starting and unless i mean unless the bearing is uh starting to fail and just keeping the engine from turning so i mean that is a possibility uh you said there was a whirring noise usually a whirring noise would be just the internal maybe overcharging or something but A grinding noise or a growl type noise would be a bearing failing, which could keep the engine from wanting to turn freely anyway.
SPEAKER 16 :
So you think it’s probably not the alternator, even though… The first brand-new battery I had was completely destroyed.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. The alternator wouldn’t keep it from starting. Like you said, it doesn’t want to start now, and the alternator would not keep it from starting. It’s a power problem to the starter or even a starter issue, something along those lines. I mean, there’s, yeah, there’s, yeah, basically the alternator’s not in play when you go to start it. So, yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
So the alternator doesn’t have anything to do with it when you go to start it, then? No, it doesn’t. Nope. Oh, I see. So, uh, if, if the, uh, when it, when the first battery got destroyed, do you think it’s that, that the alternator destroyed it when the first battery got destroyed?
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s possible, or it could have just been a defective battery. It’s just kind of hard to say, like you said, the alternator getting hot, I mean, and a whirring noise. I mean, that kind of is, you know, could be an issue that it’s starting to fail and overcharging it more than likely. with that kind of symptom, but yeah, kind of hard to say, or maybe the battery was failing, causing the alternator to want to charge it more too.
SPEAKER 06 :
So it’s kind of hard to say how that, it would be nice to know what the voltage out of that alternator is just to kind of, you know, Take that one off the table if it’s charging correctly. If it’s putting out 15 volts or something, then you know, hey, yeah, that could be cooking the battery. But if it started once and then ran for a minute and didn’t start again, is there any chance this is like a resistance issue on the wires or even just a bad ground? Yeah, like Josh was saying, be sure to check those cables and stuff. Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER 05 :
And the other side on the battery, where you put the battery, is it held to the car securely? Because a lot of times guys put batteries in and the battery bangs around, so you said it was destroyed on the inside.
SPEAKER 01 :
It breaks those plates.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and then the battery’s destroyed that way. So that’s another thing to make sure that that battery’s tied into that car, you know, like bolted down with a good clamp into the car.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, and then I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but the first one that got destroyed… The man at first told me that I was in warranty, and then he went to ring it up, and then he goes, oh, sir, I’m sorry, you’re out of warranty. And he goes, well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you a big old discount on top of the line since I screwed up, you know. And he gave me a really good deal on the top-of-the-line AGM battery. I don’t think that matters, does it, on an old car?
SPEAKER 05 :
It really shouldn’t on the starting side, you know, on it.
SPEAKER 16 :
On the charging the battery end, does it matter if it was an AGM battery then?
SPEAKER 05 :
I think it’ll be fine on that older alternator. Yeah, I think it should be fine.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, and then I got one more question for you real quick. I don’t know if you can answer this.
SPEAKER 05 :
Can you wait on hold? We got to go on break real quick. Can we do break and then come back?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, sure. Hey, thanks a lot, you guys.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you. Just pitch and hold.
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SPEAKER 05 :
And we’re back. KLZ 560 Drive Radio, and I’m here with Ken and Justin. And let’s go back to Eric with his question on his battery. Eric, are you there?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yes, sir. I’m here. Are you guys there?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, we are.
SPEAKER 16 :
We sure are. Sir, another question I was going to ask you is I’m going to take that – I haven’t had a chance to take that alternator off because it’s 10 degrees outside and I’m getting a cold. I don’t feel like messing with it. But anyway, if I take it back and I take it back to the store and they determine it’s defective, could they void the warranty on the new battery, the one I just put in, because the alternator is defective?
SPEAKER 05 :
I don’t think they will, but I’d take it to a different store just in case. Just in case. Just in case. Yeah, you’re not bound to buy it at that store. So even if it’s a store you like, I would probably just take it to a different store and let them run the test on it and then go from there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, I see. Yeah. And, I mean, we’ve had batteries, you know, brand new defective. I mean, you know, you install them and, you know, and then you redo your test and everything and it’s like, okay – it’s not passing. And, and you don’t know if they, those batteries have sat on the shelf for, you know, two or three months or something like that, or if something happened in shipping or, I mean, you just don’t know. And that’s why we always, you know, Test first and test second after we do the repairs and make sure everything’s good.
SPEAKER 06 :
Defective parts, they’re built into the cost. So don’t feel bad about returning a part. Right. Because you’re in that cost that you’re paying, you’re paying for the ones that come out defective anyway. Right. So don’t feel bad about having to return one defective and getting a new one.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and, you know, I mean, they would just warranty it out for you. I wouldn’t see it being an issue just because, I mean, you only ran that thing a minute. There’s no way that alternator would cause a failure on something like that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Is the part store going to be able to bench test that, or is it going to be best to try to get that thing started and test it while it’s running on the vehicle for America?
SPEAKER 07 :
I mean, it’s kind of hard to say. Yeah, I mean, they used to be able to bench test them, but I don’t know if they’re still able to bench test back that far now or not. But, I mean, it’s not like there’s a lot of difficult electronics to it. But, yeah, it’s kind of hard to say if the person you hand it off to would even be able to do that or if they have the equipment for it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I would just definitely call the parts store before you even remove that alternator.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, exactly. So, yeah, I mean, if that battery is defective, Yeah, get it to where it’ll start and run first and then take it in and have them.
SPEAKER 06 :
Eric, have you tried to charge up that battery? The brand spanking new one? Yeah, have you tried to charge it back up at all?
SPEAKER 16 :
No, I have not. I don’t know if it’s dead. Do you think it’s dead already, or is that possible?
SPEAKER 06 :
I would charge it up myself and then run the whole experiment all over again. Maybe you’ve got a power draw somewhere as well that’s killing that battery, but it’s hard to know without charging it back up. Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay. So if I buy one of those 2-amp chargers at Home Depot, would that work, just a little dinky little 2-amp one?
SPEAKER 05 :
It will. It’s going to take all day. About a couple days. You’re going to at least need a full 24 hours for it to bring that battery up. They’re not overly expensive, though.
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s nice to have one in the garage anyways. Sure.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, exactly. It is. I mean, you know, the best thing I think to do is, as we were talking off air, let’s check those battery cables and make sure. I know you’ve got the bolts probably tight on the side posts, but make sure you can’t turn that battery cable. You’ll make sure it’s actually tight against the battery. We don’t have an issue there. And the other thing would be to get the whole car, if you can get it to run into a shop so we can see the whole picture. You know, we can see the battery. We can see all the wires. We can see the alternator. You know, instead of taking the alternator out and testing it by itself, sometimes the answer is no. In the car and not in the components of the car. And when we can see the whole picture, it makes it so much easier to find the problem than, you know, one part at a time. Oh, I see.
SPEAKER 16 :
Now, when the battery would heat up, is that indicative of it’s charging and it’s going to town on charging when it gets hot like that? Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean usually they heat up from being charged or a draw so something’s pulling a lot of current out of it so you know they’ll get warm like the always the trick on cold days back in the day was to turn your headlights on so you actually put a load on the battery which heats up the battery and then you’ll actually have a warmer battery so it’ll help start so a warm battery could be from either it getting too much current into it or actually getting just normal current into it or it could be from a load on it so you know the starter pole that will make the battery warm up because that’s the biggest load that the battery ever sees yeah well what was heating up was the alternator itself that’s what was heating up yeah and then and the alternator heating up could be two things like kim was saying earlier it could be the bearings going bad in the alternator and making it heat up or the alternator will naturally heat up as it’s producing current to you know feed the car like if you have a radio or the lights are on or to replace the voltage you know used to turn the starter so it will heat up from that so
SPEAKER 06 :
If it’s easy enough to get that belt off, I mean, that alternator should feel pretty smooth. It shouldn’t have any, like, pepper-grindy feel to it or anything like that. If it’s easy enough to spin that, I mean, you could do that too.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, just make sure it’s not keeping the engine from turning.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, it does. It spins real nice. Okay. Good. The bottom line is you said that a bad alternator – could not destroy a brand new battery. I mean, a bad alternator could destroy a brand new battery, but if you take a brand spanking another brand new battery, put it in the car, it should start. It shouldn’t act like the brand new is dead. Right, yeah, it shouldn’t act like that, yeah. And the alternator probably could not cause that, correct?
SPEAKER 07 :
Correct. Not that short a time.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, you guys. Well, I appreciate all the time, and thanks a lot. I like your show. It’s a great show.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, it’s funny, we had that Buick that just came in, one that we recently sold, and these folks called and said, hey, we’ve got some problems going on with this car. It started with just the radio would turn off and turn on, but the rest of the car was running fine. Well, then they called back about a week later and said, The electronic parking brake light was on and this was on. And, yeah, I mean, this car came in and it was putting out 15.25 volts. And, yeah, I mean, it made this car very, very upset. All these newer vehicles do not like, you know, proper voltage. Wide ranges. Yeah, they do not.
SPEAKER 03 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 06 :
So hopefully this older one’s a little bit easier for Eric to figure out than some of this newer stuff where they are very temperamental with all the new modules and things.
SPEAKER 05 :
They are. They’re very much Goldilocks all the time. Oh, they are.
SPEAKER 06 :
Sensitive cars, these new ones are.
SPEAKER 05 :
They are. And also, you know, a lot of this one wasn’t, but we’ve had in the past where it’s not just a component, it’s the software, you know? So there’s a reflash from GM on a lot of them where they start having this issue and… And everybody wants to tell the alternator what to do, and the alternator doesn’t know who to listen to all the time.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, exactly. Well, and when you have a regular battery and then auxiliary battery and all these things needing voltage and correct voltage and all at the same time.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s almost step one on diagnosing anything nowadays, especially on an EV. But, yeah, test the charging system whenever you’ve got anything going wrong with your car. I think that’s the place to start. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
It is. Yeah, test your power supplies because it all requires proper power, for sure.
SPEAKER 06 :
I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen a tech go down a one, two-day road trying to diagnose something, and it come down to a battery or an alternator.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER 06 :
You’ve got to have a good charging system, especially if you’ve got a late model vehicle. Right, yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
And what we’re seeing a lot with the EVs, you know, and a lot of the hybrids, too, is it’s the 12-volt battery that’s causing the main issue because they all got AGMs. And as we’ve all learned with AGMs, they’re sometimes hard to find a bad one because they’ll come in and they’ll be happy. And then two seconds later, they change in temperature or whatnot, and that battery is gone. pretty much gone pretty quick.
SPEAKER 06 :
So on the older ones, you know, after they’ve been in the car for a while, quick question for you guys, cause this is something I wouldn’t know before we go to break the start stop batteries. If you don’t replace the small start stop battery, will that cause an issue with your main 12 volt battery?
SPEAKER 07 :
Not as far as I know, not as far as we’ve run into. Okay. Yeah, mainly it’s just to power your accessories, you know, when it shuts off so you don’t have the dimming and the brightening.
SPEAKER 06 :
The dealers are telling customers that if they don’t replace the small start-stop battery that they’re going to have an entire charging system issue, and I’ve yet to see that.
SPEAKER 07 :
We have not seen anything.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Yeah. At least a couple Jeep stores have told our customers that recently. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. With that, let’s go to break.
SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
And we’re back. We’re here with Ken and Justin from Ridgeline Auto Brokers and talking about AGM batteries most.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, AGM batteries, charging systems.
SPEAKER 05 :
Charging systems. Yeah. Give us a call if you’ve got any questions.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, this is a live show January 24th, so we are here to answer any questions. I do sell cars, so if anyone has questions about buying cars, selling cars, whether it be from a dealer or a private party, we’re happy to answer those questions. The number is going to be 303-477-5600. 303-477-5600. Give us a call. We’d be glad to answer your questions today.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. And I guess one of the things that people don’t know is that you can do VIN number inspections being a licensed auto dealer.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, yes, absolutely. If you’re going to the state or state patrol or to, you know, Air Care Colorado for your VIN inspections, out-of-state VIN inspections, you can just come to us and we’ll just do it for free for you. It takes us, you know, two, three minutes. Sure. Instead of waiting in line for 45 minutes at Air Care Colorado. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I was down there the other day watching that happen, man. They were taking an hour just to get your vent inspected, so.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, really? Oh, boy. Yeah. Well, and it’s funny. My car plates expired this month, and just the weekends have been crazy, so I haven’t had a chance to get an emission test, and I was going to do it this morning before the show, you know, just get in line and just head this direction. They closed. Right, yeah. Yeah, because of the cold. They’re closed until 11. Yeah, and I looked that up just to make sure, you know, and I’m like, because I was pretty sure that they would be, and yeah. Yeah, sure enough, they’re opening at 11 and closing at 1. So it’s like, eh, it’ll not be next weekend, but, you know, sometime in February.
SPEAKER 06 :
We always forget about holidays, too. We’ll go over there because we pre-emissions test every vehicle that we sell. And we always send, you know, our lot guy down there on a holiday. And then, you know, like MLK Day, we just assume that they’re open because we’re open. No, of course, they’re closed. But, yeah, those cold days, they don’t like having the door open.
SPEAKER 05 :
Makes sense, yeah. It’s been a rough week for getting emission tests running. It has. It’s been a short week for getting it done. The holiday on Monday and being so cold. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and I’d have my wife do it. She has a little bit more time during the day. But, you know, she just doesn’t really care for my car. So it’s like, I understand. It’s like, okay, no problem. It’s just, yeah, I’ll get it. It’ll just be in the grace period. Yeah. What kind of car are you driving, Ken? I mean, it’s nothing special. It’s a 2009 Chevy Cobalt SS. And so it’s, you know, she doesn’t like smaller vehicles. That’s a fun little car. It is fun, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Is it tuned up at all or just factory? It’s all factory. Yeah, cool.
SPEAKER 07 :
I mean, it’s reliable.
SPEAKER 06 :
Most of those cars are not that way, so you kind of got a unique one.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, exactly. And I got it from… a lady that worked at the emission, uh, emission technical center and she bought it new and yeah. So yeah, we serviced it up until I bought it and then, you know, I owned it since. So yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s fun, but yeah, my wife hadn’t, Unless it’s a Tahoe or a Suburban, she’s uncomfortable.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think that’s what we forget as technicians, and that is that we drive all kinds of cars all day long. Right. And I know with my wife, you know, she has her car and she likes to drive it. But to drive a different car is a big deal for her. Sure. And it’s true for a lot of people. But as technicians, we’re like, ah, it’s just another car.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, right. And I mean… Yeah, she likes driving trucks. I mean, it’s just easier to get in and out of, and I get it. And mine’s just a commuter I got for fun. Yeah, that’s what I drive mostly.
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s funny, as a dealer, we’ve got a practice of reconditioning the vehicle, and then Josh and I will drive a different vehicle home every day to quality control our work. And you’d be surprised, we’ll usually find one or two little things that maybe we missed that we need to tweak. But when you go to the grocery store and you come out, You have no idea what car you drove that day.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right, right. You hope it has a working key fob. Give me some noise. Let me know where I parked and what I drove. Right, exactly.
SPEAKER 06 :
You start to learn those creature comforts that you really don’t want to live without. We’ve got an F-150 right now that’s a base model, and we’re used to getting in a car that’s got heated seats, leather, that kind of stuff. And this thing’s got vinyl floors. Oh, right. And you’ll hit like a cold patch of air coming in, and you can feel it through the vinyl floor. It’s amazing. You know, those little creature comforts of these cars that some of us just can’t live without. Right. We just don’t have a choice some days because we’ve got to make sure everything works right.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s it. Well, and even like if I bring a customer’s car like home or whatever, you know, you, I mean, for me, I’m in my car, you know, 60 miles a day. And so, you know, you, you know, where everything is and stuff like that. And a lot of the newer cars, I mean, maybe some of our listeners have run into this too. You get into, you know, your daughter’s car, your, you know, a friend’s car, whatever. And you’re like, I don’t know where anything is, you know, and what are all these symbols, you know, hieroglyphics, I don’t understand.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, all the, you know, a lot of people are used to the washer fluid, you pull the stock towards you, right? Well, what we forget is every Subaru that we sell, we forget to tell people that it’s the button on the end of the stock we get the phone call every time we don’t go over it about how the the washer sprayers don’t right we knew what we did wrong we should have showed them yeah it’s at the end of that stock on that car right right exactly one yeah you know you go to hit the cruise control and it turns the wipers on or you know something like that you know yeah just crazy stuff
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean, that was even me this morning coming down, driving the car. When you hit the button lightly, it just sweeps the wipers. Oh, okay. And you have to push it hard, and then the squirters come on.
SPEAKER 06 :
I’m like… Went and bought yourself a gallon.
SPEAKER 05 :
I did. I bought a gallon thinking the thing was empty, and then it pops like it’s full, and I get back in, and I’m like, oh, put my glasses on, and then you can see how it’s got the symbols on there that, you know, light push for this and full push for squirters.
SPEAKER 06 :
You got 100 gallons worth of washer fluid in the shop, and you just went and
SPEAKER 05 :
paid 6.99 for a gallon because it’s gonna be slushy i won’t be able to see on the way home because you know it’s gonna be all this slush getting on the windshield and you won’t be able to see through it so that’s right i was like i’m not doing that so anyways you can take it home and put in your your wife’s truck oh yeah i got it i got it last night to to plug it in you know that way it started up for a nice and i don’t know it just seems like the the diesel truck starts up a little a
SPEAKER 06 :
little better when when we keep that block warm oh yeah yeah i mean that that truck’s never got washer fluid in it i forget i just need to go out there every now and then yeah normally i keep like six bottles you know in my garage and now i got like six bottles of def but no washer ill prepared i was right well and that’s that’s one thing you know on the diesels especially with the cold weather yeah plugging them in you know you’re way better off for sure yeah i
SPEAKER 07 :
with the cooler temperatures and things like that, which we haven’t. This is really the first cold snap we’ve had this season. So, yeah, if you forget to plug that in, you might have some issues getting them started.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s going to be a long crank this morning.
SPEAKER 06 :
What do you guys think about idling cars, a car that sits outside? Is that something that we need to be doing, or should we be able to just crank that car, throw it, and drive and go? What are you guys’ thoughts on that?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, for me, yes and no. So I believe, you know, in cold weather like this, a couple minutes idling should be okay. And then when you go to take off, don’t, you know, if you’re getting right on the highway, maybe a couple, maybe three, four minutes, but don’t put it to the floor when it’s cold, you know, let it warm up because it will warm up quicker as you’re driving too. Yeah. So, I mean, that’s my thoughts on it. But, yeah, I wouldn’t do it more than a couple minutes. Well, I mean, with the remote starts and key – you know, stuff like that. I mean, they’re going to run for, you know – 15 minutes.
SPEAKER 06 :
You’re right. Exactly. We’re all spoiled now. I know. Stuff.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. And, you know, and it’s one of those things that – Yeah, I don’t believe in warming them up really, you know, on the gas engines anyway very long just because, you know, just all the condensation and stuff like that. And they warm up quicker when you’re driving.
SPEAKER 06 :
Is there a minimum amount of time on a cold day like this that we should be driving the car? You know, you hear that that condensation, you know, builds up if you’re only doing like a two-minute drive or three-minute drive. Right. You kind of get that gumminess in the car. oil cap type of thing. Right. Should we be driving up to at least op temperature before we’re shutting something off?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, on any drive, you should always want to hit op temperature. Okay. Other than that, you build up sludge and everything else.
SPEAKER 06 :
And like engine op temperature versus transmission op temperature, does it take the transmission longer to get up to op temp than oil and coolant?
SPEAKER 05 :
As you know, checking the transmission fluid on those 10 speeds, it takes a long time. Right, to get them heated.
SPEAKER 06 :
Even though it’s thin, like these new low-viscosity…
SPEAKER 07 :
So they run that fluid in the cooler. They run it on the hot side of the radiator. So they want that transmission up to 200 degrees-ish. So if your engine’s having a hard time getting warmed up, the transmission is too. And I don’t think it is important on the transmission and the gearboxes just because they don’t have any combustion process or any heat building. So they are less likely to build any condensation or anything like that. is kind of my thoughts on that. But the engine, of course, you have got the combustion and you’ve got everything else going on, so it’s creating moisture and things along those lines that are more detrimental.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I appreciate you guys’ opinion on that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, so, I mean, you know, 10 minutes, it should be up to operating temperature. And, you know, I mean, if you can. I mean, if you can’t, yeah, it’s, you know. Not hurting anything. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s not the best for it, but it’s not going to kill it overnight. So, yeah, that’s my opinion. you know my take on that because yeah it’s you know not all people you know if they take their kids to school and come back and school’s five minutes away hey you know it’s uh it might not be 10 minutes but that’s just the their need to drive so yeah that’s one thing that we notice driving different cars every day is some cars heat up right away and others take a really long time right the newer the cars get the quicker they heat up yeah because i’ve noticed my my uh one of my trucks it By the time I get to, it’s a mile away. And if I get in and go, I mean, that thing is up to 160 degrees already in that one mile. So it heats up quick. Where the older cars, you know, you might drive four or five before you get up to 180 or something. Gotcha.
SPEAKER 05 :
Gotcha. Sounds good. Well, on that note, let’s take a little break.
SPEAKER 1 :
All right.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
And we’re back. KLZ 560 Drive Radio with Josh and Justin and Ken. So what are you guys thinking today? What else do we got to talk about?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, we got the cold weather out of the way, that’s for sure. We did get that out of the way. Charging systems out of the way. Right, yeah. Maybe Steve in Steamboat, maybe he’s got a couple things for us to talk about. Not yet.
SPEAKER 05 :
Not yet.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. So did you get any of the diesel and gas mix-up cars in?
SPEAKER 07 :
So we got one in, and we see that every now and then. You have a customer who will put diesel in and stuff like that, and we haven’t really seen any. anything detrimental you know over time you know once we get all the diesel out get you know fresh gas in it and stuff like that you know start up smoke you know we’ll finally get it started once we get it purged out and get it started it’ll smoke really bad for you know i don’t know two three five minutes maybe take it for a drive with you know fresh gas in it and it’s all good
SPEAKER 05 :
Good to go.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. And do you guys see any of that?
SPEAKER 05 :
We had a lot of customers thinking they had it. I did a lot of fuel tests before. But nobody actually had bad fuel. They just had other driving issues. It kind of corresponded with after going to the gas station and one of them that they thought was part of it. So I did a lot of, I pulled a lot of fuel and tested it to make sure, you know, we didn’t have any contaminants in it. No, you know, spark plugs or fuel pump or things like that. But it wasn’t related to the.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, exactly. One, and two, like, with the way it was contaminated. So if you went in on an empty tank and you filled up with that, you’re not making it out. No, you’re not. You’re not making it much past the parking lot. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
And let’s go to Steve in Colorado Springs. Good morning, Steve. Good morning, gentlemen. How are you on this Arctic Bridger day?
SPEAKER 07 :
Good, Steve.
SPEAKER 15 :
Hey, real quick before I get to the question I wanted to call about, this diesel – In gas, we only had one station in Springs, which was the Costco that we happened to go to and buy a fuel pump. We dodged the bullet. But as you can imagine, there’s like 47 stations, and I have no idea how many thousands of people got diesel in their fuel. And now they’re saying, from the mechanics side, it’s costing $3,000 to $7,000 per car to fix some of these things. And then, of course, something I hadn’t thought about, you’ve got diminished value. On the car, when you go to sell it or trade it, because who wants to buy a car that says diesel run through it? Yeah. Anyway, so the sharks, as in the plaintiff attorneys, they’re lining up like they’re a bunch of orcas going after baby seals.
SPEAKER 06 :
It looks like we’ve got about 1,000 complaints so far with the Division of Oil and Public Safety. Yeah.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, you know, I’m sure these companies have insurance for it. I think Sinclair— would be probably primary since they screwed up the delivery. What’s your thoughts?
SPEAKER 05 :
And I’m sure all the gas stations I know have insurance because we had a gas station that got it mixed. And, you know, usually they file with the gas station, and the gas station filed with their insurance, and their insurance is insured by somebody else. Right, exactly. That’s what the lawyers get to do is to figure out who they actually get the cash from at the end.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah, I think it’s a slam dunk for the plaintiff attorneys, but that’s just me.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, yeah, they’ll just settle it. Yeah.
SPEAKER 15 :
Okay, go ahead. Anyway, I talked to John about this briefly. This goes back a ways. X3, I take you to the Christian Brothers for a window regulator replacement. Okay, fine. They call me. It’s done. Go over, pay them $12.70. And I go out to the car, and the locks don’t work. I call out both the service tech that worked on it and the service manager that wrote it up, and they’re kind of like Hogan’s Heroes. We know nothing. And I could even get… You know, when you’re down to that, you’re only down to the driver’s door. You can’t get the deck open. You can’t get the fuel door open. So fast forward. So now I’m researching. I talked to John about this a little bit. But if you look at the manual on this thing, the power locks are one of only a couple things, like courtesy lights that are hot-wired to the battery bus, because they have to be. They have to be able to communicate with the pub to open the locks. So anyway, apparently… What I can tell, oh, and by the way, when Christian Brothers charged me under 270 bucks for diagnostic, they said it’s the module. Excuse me. Or the door locks. It’s kaput. But they couldn’t fix it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Huh. And so the window, it started with the window not going up and down, and then as soon as you got it back, then the door locks, all the door locks wouldn’t work, or just the driver’s side door? And this is the driver’s side window.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, which window?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, which side? None of them worked. None of them worked, okay. None of the locks worked. And then the window that they fixed, was all the windows or just one of them?
SPEAKER 15 :
Just the left rear.
SPEAKER 05 :
Left rear, okay. Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
I mean, on a lot of these BMWs, or even on, you do a GM master switch, a newer GM master switch. When you put it in, it’s got to be programmed to the car. It does. I’m wondering if we’re running into the same issue on this BMW, which you’ve got to have some pretty advanced diagnostic tools because when you start programming BMWs, it’ll start dropping the other modules after it too. So you end up having to reprogram the whole car sometimes when you do these installs.
SPEAKER 05 :
And then what year X3 is this? Sorry? What year is it? 06. 06, okay. So what module? So usually on a BMW, we have a thing called the footwell module. It’s basically a glorified body control module. It controls everything from the headlights, the turn signals. On some of them, it controls the windows. When you have the key fob that lets them go all up and down, the footwell does that. So it could be a bad footwell module on this thing, too, that can cause all this. And it does control the door locks on it.
SPEAKER 1 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
footwell yeah footwell is what they call it it’s basically a body control module but but bmw calls it the footwell module because a lot of times they put it well on minis they put it like right by the driver’s left foot lower than the water line so it’s always full of water all the time on on many coopers um on the x3 it’s actually on the drive or on the passenger side kind of below the airbag behind the glove box because i just did one the other day so on that one if you don’t mind me
SPEAKER 15 :
Thank you. I appreciate that. If you don’t mind me jumping back to last hour, about two weeks ago, John, when you were talking about backup generators with Jersey Joe, I had been researching backup generators on Lowe’s. It’s about $7,700 for a 26 KW. Then you fill out a form. They’re going to send a contractor by to go through the issues, you know, on the gas line and electrical, et cetera. But I couldn’t find out. I was kind of concerned about family down in East Texas that are subject right now to all this freezing rain and power failures, which they had a bad time four years ago.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right.
SPEAKER 15 :
The whole state froze up because they were 30% dependent on solar. And when that all froze up, so then people were dying left and right. Anyway, everybody in my family there, there’s like six households, have backup dinner. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 07 :
yeah good thing to have it you know yeah for for anybody for that matter but yeah especially when the power grid is kind of it’s not the best anyway so yeah for sure when there’s no back all right well thank you very much all right thank you guys thanks steve well now we got the power company shutting off the power with the high winds if you got some backup power that’s kind of nice yeah right oh
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it’s interesting to think about, you know, whether we should all be starting to put in backup generators and what that entails too, you know. Like if you’re going to pull natural gas to run it, usually the natural gas runs when the power is out. Or you’re running diesel or something like that. Or you’re running diesel and then, you know, with diesel, it’s a lot of work.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, you’ve got to swap that out twice a year or however frequent or treat it or whatever, yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and even with the normal, you just don’t let it sit in the backyard and expect it to wake up after you haven’t touched it in four years and do its job. You need to be out there quarterly, if not at least once a year, making sure this thing works.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think Generac requires a yearly service on it in order to keep the warranty on it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Makes sense.
SPEAKER 06 :
Which, I mean, that does make sense because you don’t sit down there not running all the time. Exactly.
SPEAKER 05 :
And, you know, and if they just sit, then they’ll build up condensation and lock up and do all kinds of things like that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, right. Well, and so I got an email from actually GM related, but they have actually battery backup, power backup, you know, large inverter and stuff like that. And it’s like, Well, that’d be great, but you just don’t know how long the power’s going to be out. If it’s out for an hour, which, you know, an hour or two, no big deal. But, I mean, is that going to be able to run your house or run the certain circuits you need?
SPEAKER 06 :
particularly want um is it gonna how long is that gonna go and then once that’s out then you’re back to square one so yeah yeah how long do those batteries last too well true yeah yeah do you need to replace them i guess i’ve never looked into that like those tesla the tesla battery packs and stuff like that how many cycles do you get out of it yeah exactly just like any other battery i guess it’s only gonna yeah cycle so many times decreases over time it’s the top of the hour so we need to go on break again
SPEAKER 14 :
Still haven’t had enough? Go to drive-radio.com, email your questions and comments, download previous programs, and find lots of useful information, including your nearest Colorado Select Auto Care Center. That’s drive-radio.com. Thanks for listening to Drive Radio, sponsored by the member shops of Colorado Select Auto Care Centers. On KLZ 560.
