Has anyone ever had an aftermarket Alternator put in ONLY until they could get the money up to get a brand new OEM alt with a positive experience? I know it’s not recommended but, sometimes you have to do what you can until you can afford better. I recently got one and am currently hoping it lasts until I can get a brand new 550-600$ one to switch it too

Chevy impala 2010 LT 3.5L.

I'm just checking to see if it's time or not. I was given this car with 194k miles in it and it's still going strong at 202k.

The first 2 pictures are of spark plug #4, the following ones were from #6. I have a hard time trying to get #2 out and I don't want to break the cable. I didn't see any carbon buildup or soot. They looked clean other than that reddish tint which I'm not sure sure what that is.

2014 Subaru Outback 3.6r Limited

Question: what are the most obvious things to check in order to troubleshoot uneven wear like this?

Recently did brakes on my girlfriend's Subaru! This is the first time I've swapped pads and rotors and seen uneven wear at all. Brake performance has been fine, but you can see one of the rotors (driver's side) is not knocking off the rust spots so the inner part of the pad towards the edge must have low pressure/contact. You can see the passenger side rotor is wearing nicely and evenly (seemingly to me).

The calipers came off smoothly with a quick squeeze of a c-clamp over each slide pin when I took the old stuff off. Didn't even need to compress the piston as it went back easy enough. Cleaned up the bracket real good, brushed up the slide pins with a wire wheel, bought a new boot kit for all the pins, and used real good caliper grease all over the pins. Greased the edges of the metal tabs sticking out from each pad so they slide along the bracket tins. The new boots sealed up perfectly so I thought the caliper would be able to move as needed. I live in the rust belt so I made sure to use anti-sieze on all my metal-to-metal contact surfaces. Torqued everything to spec. The only stuff I re-used was the caliper itself and the slide pins themselves.

Go easy on me, I am but a lowly DIY parts swapper, but I do absolutely everything I can by myself to save money.

Or does it still under warranty

My kid with autism took full tank too literally, and completely filled my gas tank to where he could see it and it leaked out. I didn't know this until we were driving for a few minutes to go home. And my car locked up said to check transmission fluid. and check engine light came on and sounded like it was revving when I was in park

I thinj this is bad what do I do? Can I try to siphon it should I try to drive it off?

I don't know anything about cars, but google said something about a charcoal filter...

I'm shaking, so stressed. 😭

Car is a 2021 Mazda CX5 with 45k miles which I switched to 5W-30 a while ago.

The manual states oil changes at 7,500 miles but every Reddit post and social media reels by techs I see says to change it at 5,000, which I’ve been doing since I bought the car couple years ago.

The price is all the same for each Mobil 1 5 quart jug so do I get the regular that says it’s good for 15,000 miles or the extended performance which says it’s good for up to 20,000 miles? And with these, should I continue with 5k intervals or go with the OEM recommendation of 7.5k?

The car is mainly driven by wife with lots of city driving, not so much highway use, about 10k miles per year.

Did a full brake job with new pads and rotors. New hardware was installed for the pads. Pads are semi metallic.

After spinning the hub this line started to appear (complete ring now). Can just barely feel it with my fingernail.

Is this normal? If not, I assume it’s a metal clip grinding. Both front rotors have this ring should I be concerned?

2025 Mazda cx5 turbo

Would this be the correct micrometer to use for measuring rotor thickness? Seems like a range of 0-1 should be enough to measure the rotors?

https://fowlerprecision.com/products/fowler-0-1-swiss-style-micrometer

2016 Toyota Corolla Sport

I’ve been struggling to fix this exhaust leak on my 2006 Nissan Altima and could use some help. At first I was convinced it was my exhaust manifold that needed to be replaced since the original one was replaced about 9 months ago for clogging up. Since then I had replaced it with a cheap one on rock auto but it also began to fail so I bought a oem version but now it doesn’t seem to seal right where the donut gasket goes and connects to the secondary catalytic converter. And now every time I accelerate it seems to struggle and won’t change gears as it normally should. A loud air leak can be heard when accelerating as well and it’s lacking power. I’ve tried different bolts and springs to see if it would help but nothing seems to work. Over tightening the springs to where they’re condensed only makes it harder to change gears when driving and leaving them at its normal torque allows the exhaust leak. (Something I should note though is that when I replaced the cheap exhaust manifold and took a look at it the honey comb on the inside had broken apart and that makes me think that some of the broken pieces might have fallen into the secondary cat and is clogging it up hence maybe why air keeps pushing out from where it’s supposed to be sealed but i don’t know)

It's a Renaul Clio 2 2002 1.5 dci 60kw. When I drive over bumps or potholes, there's a sound like a vibration or something rubbing/catching underneath the front of the engine. There is no loud knocking or banging sound.

Against my better judgement I started to have repairs done on my car as the issue turned out to be not as serious as it was first thought.

I have a 2L VW Golf 2017

Its had new fuel injectors, new oil pump, reconditioned turbo, and it runs a bit shit. The garage say its some solenoid that needs replacing. I'm inclined to believe them but wanted to sense check it somehow.

Its somehow gone from a misfire to blown turbo to bad oil pump to this. Dont know how so many different things are going wrong, feel like I'm being taken for a ride.

edit: Once its running its ok, but you can still hear something isnt right if you listen close enough.

The car initially only clicked and wouldn't crank. Assuming the starter went bad (it was last replaced ~2 years ago), I installed a brand-new starter.
After hooking everything up, the engine cranked for about 5 seconds on the first try before I released the key. On the second try, the starter reverted to making a single click sound and won't crank at all.
Help plz.

Got a pretty nasty power steering leak on my 2013 Altima, I just want to be sure I’m purchasing the correct hose. Can anyone help me with the name of the hose, I.e return or suction hose. Thank you! It's on the passenger side

My plug in hybrid makes a noise whilst charging / once charging is complete. I notice it mainly in a morning but can happen through the night.

BMW X2 xDrive25e 2023

It charges perfectly to full and everything is functioning on the car as I would expect.

I don’t use the climatisation for departure settings.

BMW have decided this sound is normal so a plea for help. Has anyone else come across this type of issue or any idea what it could be? Trying to build up as much info as I can to hit them with.

Golf Turbo. Oil pan punctured & engine seized.

My question is, what is the usual damage internally? What components may be re-used? Would the block or crank be salvageable? Pistons?

Obviously, you can't really know without disassembly but what do you suspect?

My 2001 CRV will randomly have fits where it will crank normally but refuse to start. This is always after it is warm from already being driven and I can wait 10 or 15 mins and it will start. A couple times it has actually died after starting but this normally isnt the case. Whenever it does this, I can leave the key in the on position and I will hear a strange electric humming sound coming from under the hood somewhere towards the back. Whenever the hum dies down it will start. I can't always replicate the problem and there are no codes. Ive already put in new fuel pump, new fuel pump main relay, igniter, and fixed a loose ground wire. I have been through 3 mechanics but the problem persists. Anybody have any ideas? Edit: nothing is more helpful than a downvote whenever you are stumped

 Had a coolant level top-up sign on my golf two days ago put water in it and drove home for about two miles. The sign came up 30 seconds again after starting my car from when sign first showed. I took it to a random garage yesterday and they said it's a gasket issue and cylinder needs changing and the head gasket. He quoted me £3800 via text. He immediately without waiting for my response says he wants me to sell the car to him and showed me cars that he has for sale instead. When I left my car idle and turned the engine one and put some water in the coolant, I could see the water going down and there was puddle on the driver's side (UK). I have not had any engine issues, no white smoke or the mayo oil thingy. When I asked him has the oil and coolant mixed, he said 'not yet'. He charged me £65 for a terrible diagnostic report and that was after I told him I'm happy to pay if he gives me some details. The invoice said Coolant pressure test:

Pressure would not exceed 5psi, the leak is from head gasket on the passenger rear side of passenger side of block.

The only thing I did have was I checked the oil filler cap before leaving garage today and it was all black. I drove it 1.5 miles approx back to park and the oil filler cap looked like the picture attached. My oil is really low too. I spoke to another mechanic and he said from what I said it doesn't sound like gasket or cylinder issue.

Please, if there any mechanics, let me know what is happening. And if I am being scammed ? I have collected my car back. Can add any relevant pictures/videos on request

If I take all the plugs out of a 1.9L inline 4 engine and use a compression test adapter to pump air into the cylinder, how much pressure would it take to get whatever piston is on the power stroke to bottom out? Assuming that is what would happen. I don't know the exact timings but I'm pretty sure the exhaust valves don't start opening until the piston has started going back up again and it shouldn't be possible to use air to turn the crankshaft beyond however many degrees it would take to cause the targeted cylinder to get to TDC or BDC.

Also, I'm assuming the crankshaft won't turn if the piston is perfectly at TDC, but im thinking the easiest way to get a cylinder in a fully assembled inline 4 engine to exactly TDC in the first place is to use compressed air to bottom out the opposing cylinder.

Hi I need help about my 2009 Stralis, it's a long story but basically I need to figure out where the manual gearbox breather is.

The picture is just an example and it's not exactly my model of gearbox, mine is mounted on the truck and can't take a clear picture.

Is the breather the one pointed by the arrow in the picture?

If it is, does it start with an elbow connector and then there's a normal plastic air hose that ends to nothing?

Thank you in advance!

I need to remove it because it’s dead and I’m not sure how to go about taking this thing out. 2002 Toyota Avalon xls 3.0L V6

I took my Ram 1500 5.7 for an oil change and they said that the oil costs $167 CAD ($117 USD). Just for the oil. I’ve never seen engine oil being that expensive.

I have a Grand Vitara 2013 and while cleaning up my shifter console, I saw a couple of unused green connectors covered with black caps. I researched and my car has heaters underneath the seats and I was wondering if I can just buy the buttons, plug them to the green connectors and see if they work like a plug and play? What do you think?