My work vehical upgrade thread.

[cypress]

I am approaching 140K on my 2007 Civic. I cannot stress it enough to replace fluids and be on top of your maintenance. Just replaced the transmission fluid two weeks ago. Next is the coolant and than after that is the brake fluid. Like I tell people all the time. "Take care of your car and it will take care of you."

 

[coffee]

Since the warm weather has arrived and things are slowing down a bit I have had more time to donate to my car. The winter sure has been rough on it. If I were to give this thread a subtitle it would be "Keep your mobile office clean!".

I took a good look at my car and thought "Man, What a mess it is!" There is dirt everywhere and the carpet is full of dirt and crap. What is most discusting is where I spilled a chocolate malt between the front passenger seat and the right side of the car. This was when I was sick and feeling dizzy and just accidently dumped it - thats of course another thread. Also, My leather interior was pretty groody looking too. I was very embarrassed at the condition of my ride. Well, If your ever in the same situation and suffering from "I'll clean that later.." syndrome then read on as this is best way I have found for cleaning the leather and carpet in your car!

As for the leather seats, There is a wide variety of cleaners available on the market. Stuff like "Mother's Leather conditioner and cleaner". I took a quick ride up to Walmart to pick out the best cleaner for my leather. I actually came back kinda bewildered from all the different brands available. I thought to myself "Time to see what you tube suggests". So, I spent a bit of time investigating cleaners for leather. What is interesting is that I have seen quite a few videos from all kinds of people and that they seem to report basically the same thing - All these fancy leather products are really not necessary and do not do a good job of cleaning leather. What all these people are using is a good degreaser. So, I went back to Walmart and picked up a spray bottle of "Purple Power". This stuff was one of the least expensive degreasers on the shelf. If your interested, Here is a link to it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/4320P-Industr...d=1461753040&sr=8-1&keywords=degreaser+purple

I have to say, This stuff really cleaned up the leather! Before, The leather in my car looked like it came out of a junkyard. It was in really poor shape with all the dirt and grease on it. Especially the arm rest between the front seats. This "Purple Power" stuff cleaned it up in no time. I was of course worried that it might harm the leather but what I found out is that most leather interiors have a protective coating on it. From my understanding - unless your driving some really upscale expensive, handbuilt auto - the leather will be coated with a protective clear coating. Therefore all those expensive leather products will not soak into the leather to "Enrich it" as they say. They will not get past the clear coating. Anyways, I do not have any "before" picks - sadly. But I will post some after picks.

Next was the absolutely terrible carpet condition in the car. Even my floor matts had pretty much seen better days. There was even a rub spot that went all the way thru the drivers side matt where my heel rested below the gas peddle. Therefore, I had to replace them all. So, Walmart again. I picked up a fine 4 pc set for about 24 bucks. Good enough. But what about the carpet? Well, I took some of that purple power to some of the bad stains (My brush with the chocolate malt too) and let it soak in for about 5 minutes. Then I went to it. This is how I did it:

Get yourself a bucket of hot water, Some Wisk liquid laundry detergant, A decent scrub brush, A wet/dry shop vac. I mixed in about 1/4 cup of detergent to a gallon of hot water. Then dunk your scrub brush in and scrub your carpet until you get a good foam all over it. Do one area at a time. When you have it all covered then take the shop vac and suck it up. Thats really it. My carpet came out like it was straight from the factory! No kidding around. Just forget about all those expensive cleaners and get the job done right with this combo of cleaners. The cost was pretty darn small. I think I paid about 2.50 bucks for the purple power and the cost of the detergent was extremely small since I used so little of it.

Here are the after pics of the interior of my car. You would think that I took these pics from a dealer show car

Below is my driver's side door panel. Hey! Looks like when I first bought the car

Here is a shot of passenger side - sorry, it was early morning and the sun was not up yet

Below, My Ultra clean back seat

So, Thats how its done Believe me, My car looked like a sess pool inside. Its just that it was a very hard winter on it. Then getting sick and spilling the malt and all. But now its like factory new.

Remember, A clean work car is a happy car! Especially if you have a client riding in it or whatever. Its important to keep it clean. After all, Its your mobile shop and appearances do matter

 

[cypress]

Wow that's incredible. I have vowed myself to detail my car once a month and keep it clean. You definitely feel different when the car is clean inside and out lol.

 

[coffee]

Wow that's incredible. I have vowed myself to detail my car once a month and keep it clean. You definitely feel different when the car is clean inside and out lol.

Im really happy about how it turned out.

I have a few more things to do with it before I call it good for another 50k miles --> Flush the tranny out. I do not think its been done ever since the car was new. I base this on the previous owner and the condition of the car when I bought it. I think he just used it until it needed repairs and traded it in.

I tell you, My car is so clean I feel like I have to take my shoes off before I get in --lol.

Thanks for the reply

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Be careful with a tranny flush. Depending on how many miles are on the car it may do more harm than good. I have seen transmissions that were neglected for many, many miles get a flush for the first time and they work great for a short time then need a full rebuild. Typically if the fluid doesn't smell burnt and still has a good red color you should be ok. Once it's burnt or brown/black it needs internal work.

 

[gadgetfixup]

In my first career I was in lead tech and head of the transmission department at the largest Buick dealership in North America. I can't tell you how many transmissions we repaired because someone botched a transmission filter change. Never flush your transmission fluid as a routine. Check your fluid and as long as it's the right color and full, you're good. Transmission fluid isn't like motor oil because isn't exposed to combustion debris or mega tons of dirt from air being sucked through it. They are mostly sealed hydraulic units with filters able to catch much more dirt than will ever enter through their vents. Transmission servicing was introduced, not by manufacturers, but by quick lube places as a way to make extra money. A transmission service will never do anything good for your vehicle but if done wrong will cause you an expensive repair.

 

[coffee]

This is interesting. What are your opinions on this?

Buick recommends a fluid change every 50k for my car. I think what I will do is change it rather than flush it. I did buy a replacement tranny pan that actually has a drain plug in it. I do not think the fluid has been changed as there are no record of it. I wont flush it but I hate the idea of only getting about half of it changed with just a change instead of a flush. I will check the fluid first to check the color though.

Thanks for the advice

 

[gadgetfixup]

He's full of crap is what I think. I've rebuilt literally thousands of GM automatic transmissions and taught transmission repair classes at GM training center when it was still open in Burbank, CA. When transmission fluid turns dark it's typically caused by heat. When fluid is dark brown what you're seeing is the actually clutch material that has left the plates and suspended in the transmission fluid. Burnt clutch material is dark brown or black. I have vehicles with more than 300,000 miles on them that have never had the transmission fluid changed and the fluid is still as pink as the day the car was new.

With GM cars typically the transmission filter has a pickup tube so the fluid is pulled (sucked) from the pan to the pump. The most frequent problem we saw back in those days was shops would nick the o-ring or cut it allowing the transmission oil pump to suck air instead of pulling a steady stream of fluid from the pan. The air would mix with the oil through the pump and if you know hydraulics you know oil won't compress but air will. So when the transmission fluid is full of air bubbles and enters clutch packs they slip longer than they're designed to slip. Practically all those hydraulic circuits have accumulators to soften the shift (application of the clutch), allowing clutch packs to apply slowly but the introduction of air into the hydraulic system allows much more slippage and actual burning of the clutch material. That was the most frequent reason for failure. The second most frequent reason was leaking pan gaskets. Of course a transmission losing fluid and operation without proper fluid level will exacerbate damage.

I'm surprised Buick has introduced such a low fluid change interval in their operator's manual. More likely to keep return business in their dying service shops than practical purpose. My Chevy Equinox has a sealed transmission and if you just want to check the fluid you have to support the engine and pull a motor mount to access the plug. That vehicle has about 250K miles on it and I recently had a cooler line rust out and start leaking. The fluid that leaked looked just like the fluid I purchased to refill it.

All that said, changing the fluid and doing the job right won't hurt anything.

 

[brandonkick]

I used to be BIG on keeping the car "clean" inside an out. My car is very battle worn at this point, shes heading for 200K miles
and has some fairly major issues that really caused me to lose a lot of my motivation to keep it clean (either inside or out).

There are some big rust spots on the roof which need sanded, primed and painted. I haven't ever painted a car before. There are
also some rust spots forming near some of the wheel wells, looks like surface rust at this point. The driver window can't be put down
as the track that the window sits in pulled off the door. The bracket that mounts to the door actually rusted away to nothing and it's
a two piece bracket. So the windows don't go down very well either. Being that it's a two door, the doors are bigger and heavier. The driver door recently needed work because it was sagging so much it wasn't shutting. The driver seat also needed replaced, as a bunch
of springs broke in the backrest.... it was tough to find a seat in decent condition for a car that's nearly 20 years old. But for a 99 monte carlo that I paid 4K for back in 06.... I can't really complain. I'm just not nearly as interested to make sure it's washed, waxed and cleaned up inside all the time. I might give it a once over each year but that's about it.

I am still also big on the regular maintenance. I keep the oil changed on a regular basis, but as noted above I don't think I've ever replaced the tranny fluid and I have heard from many sources that your better off leaving it alone at this point.

I'd say the biggest thing, besides staying up on regular maintenance would be to do the research on a vehicle before buying it. If it's more than a year or two old you will find out what cars are the real crappers and which ones are decent. I had my eye on a 06 Chevy Trailblazer for my daily driver upgrade. Those things have rock solid drive trains, with very limited "major" problems. The majority of the feed back was that they are well built machines that last easily into the 200-300K range with very few problems. Other vehicles, like say the 2000-2004 jeep grand cherokees... had that AWFUL 4.7 engine that replaced the 4.0. I had a friend who had two of those engines go on him in a matter of 4 years. After the replacement engine went, he junked that thing. It was widely reported that those engines were crappers.

So buy a quality built machine, and do some regular maintenance. That's the key to getting the most out of your vehicle.

 

[coffee]

I am approaching 140K on my 2007 Civic. I cannot stress it enough to replace fluids and be on top of your maintenance. Just replaced the transmission fluid two weeks ago. Next is the coolant and than after that is the brake fluid. Like I tell people all the time. "Take care of your car and it will take care of you."

I did a coolant change just a few days ago. Nice thing about buicks (cynical) they dont bother with a drain plug on the radiator. I had to pull the bottom radiator hose to drain it out. Of course since this is the case, The hose clamp was buried about 4 inches in towards the radiator. I went on down to harbor freight and bought those really long needle nose plyers. That did the trick

 

[coffee]

Look what my neighbor gave me last night!

Played with them today. I think my car is about complete - lol.....

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

I have some Alpine Type R 12's I wish I had somewhere to put.

 

[coffee]

Late yesterday I tested those sub woofers out. I was at a stop light with some teenagers playing their rap music next to me. I decided I would see what their reaction was - I loaded up the Rolling Stones "Can you hear me knocking?". They looked at me - "The old man in the Buick" and couldnt believe it. Then they got annoyed because my music evidently was too loud ---- CAN YOU HEAR ME KNOCKING!