February 04, 2005

Curious George: Good auto repair site? Is there a good in-depth auto repair site online? I have the obligatory Haynes manual, but it only gives a sketchy picture of the process without describing the big picture. Most websites I've found are like "how to change the oil", or deal with intricately specific & obscure problems. I want something that teaches me everything I need to know about a job, with good techniques, concepts, and advice.

Specifically I want to *thoroughly* flush my 94 Chevy Lumina van's cooling system. The auto shop wants $340 to do that and replace thermo/coolant sensor -- to hell with that. However I can't find anything that gives me a concept of what I am accomplishing. Scanning radiator flushing on Usenet I find that I have to take into account things like warming up the engine so the coolant thermostat releases and "tricks" like using a garden hose to get the crud out. This seems to happen every time I tackle a repair job. The Haynes manual is great but it's like having a flight manual in the cockpit without knowing flying techniques. Half the time I can't even find the part it's referring to, or what its purpose is. Know what I'm sayin'?

  • Here's a pretty basic but thorough thing about flushing a radiator. $340 seems a little steep to do a coolant change and swap out a sensor unless it's really hard to get at.
  • If you can't gather sufficient information to do it yourself, you might want to check a quick oil change place (if you can get someone to recommend one, that would be great, they don't all do good work). Typically they would do it much cheaper than a dealer. and...$340 is absurd for less than an hour's work and the cost of a thermostat
  • If you want to do a throrough cooling system flush yourself, Prestone has a kit to do it. You have to put a T-fitting into one of your heater hoses (which may be tough to get to), but once you do that, it basically involves connecting your garden hose to the T, turning on the faucet and running the engine for a few minutes with the water running. Your system will go to totally clear water. Then you add coolant back into the system to displace water until you get the proper concentration. Once you get the T-fitting installed, the rest of the job is much simpler than an oil change. I used to do that all the time, but I don't know that there's much benefit to it really; when you get down to it, getting all the old coolant out is just not that important. As for online help, I like the CarTalk DIY Guide and Bulletin Boards [reg. req'd to post].
  • Speaking of auto repair, I'm currently waiting for a locksmith to show up to repair or replace the igition switch in my truck which some inept bastard mangled last night in a botched attempt at theft. ARGGGHH! Hang 'em all!
  • *sigh* =ignition
  • The previous comments are right...on my '95 Jetta flushing the coolant system and replacing the thermo-sensor is (apparently) a major pain in the arse, yet my local guy did it for $75 (even after saying he had to leave it hooked up to the vacuum system for 5 hours!) so I would *definitely* get a second opinion (the first place I tried wanted $150). It sucks that finding honest mechanics is so bloody hard...