Vehicle Maint. Questions

[ozone]

Here's one of many reasons I do as much work as possible on my vehicles...

[jbhtexas]

Originally Posted by isufbcurt

Also with a paper filter you can clean them out, you just take and air hose and blow it out

Hopefully using dry air at low pressure with an appropriate tip so as not to damage the paper...

[travman23]

Most of these newer cars can go as much as 5000 miles between oil changes if you have to stretch them out. The new Chevy's have an oil life monitor that helps you gauge when to change it too. Doesn't hurt to do it every 3000 though but if you get busy you can stretch the changes some on these newer cars.

As for the air filters, I can't remember if it was a K&N one that one of my co-worker showed me but he found one that would add like 16-18 more HP to my Monte Carlo but it was like a $238 filter. I already have 303 HP under the hood so for $238 not really sure that would be worth a few extra horses plus I wonder if it would void my warranty considering this particular filter you'd have to take off the existing filter box and attach this one so technically that's a modification to your engine I would think? I don't know but I'm sure that particular filter isn't worth the money for what I would get in return.

[isufbcurt]

Originally Posted by jbhtexas

Hopefully using dry air at low pressure with an appropriate tip so as not to damage the paper...

It is the air from my air compressor and i wouldn't consider it low pressure. On our racecars we blow the filters out this way after every night we race (2 - 4 times a week on a dirt track) and we use a filter for approximately 10 races before replacing it. I have never had any problems doing it this way and our race engines turn 8000 RPM's, make 750+ hp and cost approx. $12,000 each so believe me I am not gonna do anything that I don't believe in to my babies. I figure if it is good enough for my racecars it is good enough for my Explorer.

[herbiedoobie]

You can get away with high pressure air on paper filters, as long as you are very careful, and inspect the filter afterwards to make sure you haven't damaged it.

On rip-offs: Ames is packed full of places for students to get ripped off doing car maintenance. The place on the corner of Duff and Lincoln Way took me for $100, when I dropped off my car to get a fuel line replaced. The line from the tank to the front of the car had cracked, allowing fuel to drain onto the ground. Dumb*sses replaced a radiator hose and charged me $100, despite the spreading pool of gasoline from the 20 gallon tank which drained while they were working on it.

Nearly all brake work is a complete ripoff. I can replace a set of brakes in under half an hour for very little cash. When I was stupid, and didn't know as much about cars, I've paid up to $400 for new brakes.

Learning to do minimum maintenance is a reward in and of itself. I have friends who are forced to continually buy new cars, and live in constant fear of being stranded someplace, because of their own incompetence/lack of car maintenance knowledge. Doing the routine maintenance yourself leads to a form of independence that is priceless, imo.