slo5oh

My 98' seems to sit low in the back. Almost like the late 80s and 90s 4-Runners. I swear the car has a 5 to 10* slant with the front sitting higer. btw... I still have not replaced the shocks I think may be bad since I get a bang from the rear when they seem to bottom out. The rear being lower should not be from this... but then... what do i know?

Copper plugs work better, they always will provide a better spark, but they won't last 100k like platinum. That's the reason dealers have gone to platinum. Just because it lasts longer doesn't mean it's better. My cars will always get copper. I agree that carbon build up can cause lots of problems. I've seen a different product that worked similar to the seafoam you are describing, it plugged into a vacuum line and sucked a bottle dry in about 5 minutes causing the exhaust to blow nasty smelling white smoke, but once done the car that was hardly idleing now had a steady idle and ran a lot more smooth. I've seen old racers do this using a 50/50 mix of brake fluid and water pouring it slowly down their carbs. I'm sorry, but carbon buildup should not occur that fast. At 30k you should have very little carbon buildup, 60k will have some... now at 100k you will have enough that it may start causing problems. I run about 1/4 bottle of redline fuel system cleaner (added to a full tank) every 30k 50k just to keep everything clean since I run the cheapest gas I can find. Sounds to me like your jeep has other problems. I would let it run normal until it's got the rough idle then check the cyl pressure on each cyl. You probably have one bad or leaking injector that's causing the extra carbon buildup.

That's a totally different engine. So is my '98. Damn... I'm sorry to all of you with this problem. The tube riding all the way down into the oil is beyond a stupid design flaw.

Change your oil now... If you can put redline in. I think you want ATF D4... I'll check my bottle at home tomorrow. The books are wrong on what redline oil to use. I got the guy selling it to me to call Redline and they told him right one.

Thanks... it's obvious everyone loves the KYB GR-2s. Tire rack has the best price I've seen so far... but I'm going to try to get summit to price match to tirerack since they ship for $9 and won't charge me tax. Thanks everyone.

My brother found a good subie mechanic in Sac. Post back here if you want me to call him and get the name and #. I know an honest mechanic out in Modesto. He's not a subie guy, but he's honest, reasonable and good at what he does.

You bought it new. Take it back to the dealer and MAKE them give you a rental while they fix it. That way they will get to work on it FAST. I've seen mustangs have that problem... it's usually a bad Throttle position sensor (TPS). Could also be some goo on your MAF contacts.

I get a funky rattle in my sunroof, sounds like tin touching something vibrating... and the plastic part on front of dash rattles on the drivers side... I can hold it and the rattle goes away. I have yet to pull it out, but I think it's a broken clip that's supposed to hold it. OH... and my whole trunk rattles BAD when the 2 10s are thumping Lenny Kravits American Woman.

Damn, I was thinking that may be the case. Any idea where the best place is to get a set of those KYBs (inexpensive?)? I just dropped almost $500 for new tires and an alignment.

First off... what year is your car? shell gasoline? Shell is high in sulphur. It runs through your engine gets transformed into sulphuric acid and on it's way out eats holes in your exhaust. The early signs of this are holes in your exhaust tips (the small pipe sections behind the mufflers) Replacing the 2 cats with 1 would depend on the state you are in. I would call a local smog referee and ask. As for 02s it depends. If the car is too new (last couple years) it will have 4 O2s (at about $150 each), there should be 2 in front and 2 behind the cats. If the car is a couple years old or more you have 2 and they should be in front of the cats either in or behind the headers and they are much less expensive. If you love your car take it to a smog shop and tell them what you want, if you are low budget (like me) then watch your local papers, penny saver, etc, for a "parting out" ad on a car like yours and take the entire exhaust for $50.

I know the rear shocks in my car are toast. Looking for experience here!!! Who has run what shocks and liked or disliked them??? Who recommends what shocks??? Before you ask I drive about 50% of the time like I'm a grandfather, 10% of the time like the average jerk on the road, and 40% like a crazed lunitic. I know I need to put stiffer sway bars on it, but right now the rear shocks are blown and I want to replace them with something that will last and make me happy.

Mine is also a 98, but I have about 112k right now. It had about 60k when I bought it. These cars are so picky... it could be a tire out of balance, low in air, too much air, I recently put new tires on my car because I was experiencing some serious problems. I was getting 4x4 binding, also the noise you get from a failing wheel bearing, and my rear tires were wearing out the inside lip on every other rubber groove. I know.. that one is real strange. The tires were just about bald anyhow, dry and cracking in places, so I sprung for new rubber all around and had the alignment done. The alignment was only off a little but they still charged me . Double check that your tire pressure is even all around first. I'm looking to replace my rear shocks (or struts?) now... I'm going to start a new thread seeing what everyone recommends.

Any good one will. Out here in the bayarea you can get it at any of the different Monument Car parts. They carry all the flavors of Redline.

If you live near the central valley (in communist held california) I'd be happy to let you use my pressure washer If not, are there no self car wash places near you? Great write up. Me and 2 of my friends got some serious looks when we changed the water pump in a mustang in the parking lot of a gas station.

Mine had sludge stuck to it. You wouldn't even know it was metal. It's only the stuff fine enough to slip through your oil filter.

on magnets: I put one on my '98 when I bought it with about 60k. The first 2 oil changes coated the magnet enough that the roughly 2mm diameter magnetic shaft was about 4mm. On my last 2 oil changes I have had almost nothing stuck to the magnet. I am now at about 110k and the last oil change was last weekend. For oils I have used, here's what I have found: petrol based - garbage Redline 5-30 wt. - too thin when cold, would get some valvetrain noise at 2k or more until engine warmed up. Mobile 1 5-30 wt. - works great, no problems Mobile 1 10-30 wt. - works great, no problems I run synthetic oil because I drive a lot. I probably put 3k on my car a month, so with full synthetic I feel safe running it about 3 months (roughly 10k) between oil changes. As it is I'm spending less for an oil change then you pay at jiffy screwb, or pingsoil. It's $20.02 for 5 qts of Mobile 1 at Walmart and I can pick up a good filter for about $1.50. Their generic (supertech, I think) is a good filter.

I broke all the blades off an aftermarket electric fan in my mustang when I hit a 3' puddle that all but ate the front of my car. I made it through the puddle and didn't discover the broken fan until 2 days later. My puddle was on a road and I hit it at about 20mph. :)If you are losing money by not working you should fix it yourself, buy a new radiator, double check the fans are ok, and then try to get Dave to reimburse your costs. Be sure to double check your insurance. They may pay for it, but as someone above said, this is an "act of god" incident and they CAN NOT raise your rates because of it.

That's the crazy part... I swear the fluid book at the car parts store said it takes somewhere around 8qt on a simple "drain".... maybe that was a full R&R takes 8qt.... oh well.

So I drained the ATF from my auto on Saturday. I was expecting it to just about fill my 10qt oil pan (specs say it drains about 8ish qts). The container I poured it in showed me that I only drained out about 3.5 qts. What's that about? I am on an almost level surface. The driveway is about a 5% slope and I had the front on the uphill. I put 3.5qt of redline back in it and the dipstick shows it's about in the right area. I didn't drop the pan and change whatever filter is in it, but that can't be too much more than one qt. tied up in the filter. Anyone know what happened?

my '98 doesn't have that problem I pull (fast, but not at race speeds) wipe, reinsert, pull again and can always read it just fine. The trick is to check both sides... one side always gets smeared. Look for the lowest level that is covered completely with oil, thats where your level is. My driveway is on a about a 5% slope uphill and I always get consistant reads, Hot, cold, 1000 miles or 5000 miles... at 10k I was about a quart down so I switched to 15-50 wt. mobil 1. Really burning 1 qt in 10k is low usage, but I have 110k now and I think i'm adding about 4k a month.

Sorry, it's a '98 2.5RS

How many qts does it take to change the front and rear diff fluids?

misfire in the cyl? most probable causes: bad spark plugs (but why is another question) bad plug wires corosion on plug wire connections head gasket failure (probably not with the 2.2) bad coil bad gas I would do a simple tune up: new plugs, wires, and pick up a tube of dielectric grease to coat all the connections. Then pull your battery cables for a half hour and let her relearn everything. You will probably have to wait a week before resmogging it after clearing the codes. read your plugs when you pull them out. There's a great website for this, do a google search. White is bad, black is bad, green is real bad, tan to brown is good. *edited to add* After the tune up run a bottle of redline fuel injector cleaner in it. I usually use half the bottle with a full tank every 20k or so.

A couple months after I got my subaru my neighbor gave me 2 sets of xenon ultra-white bulbs. He bought them on clearance for a car he later sold. The first set have been in for almost 3 years now, without a problem and are way brighter then the stock ones were.

Lightweight Shockproof?? what's that?