Piston Slap: Synthetic Oil's Historic Race to The Bottom?

TTAC Commentator RS writes:

How much Synthetic Oil is actually in Semi-Synthetic Oil? Why is that info so hard to find?

Read more
Hammer Time: What's In Your Oil?

Two hundred thousand miles.

It’s a beautiful moment for many a car owner.

As for me? Well, I admit that I cheated when I saw that number flash by in my wife’s car back in March. Like many an enthusiast, I had bought it used and was planning on keeping her daily driver for the long haul.

The question for me was, “How long would the long haul be?” Since I buy, fix and sell a lot of vehicles, and have deeply imbibed the fluids of wisdom at the Bob Is The Oil Guy web site, I decided to live my life on the wild side.

I performed an oil analysis.

Read more
Piston Slap: The Cavalier's Not-So-Silent Ricochet

TTAC Commentator Silent Ricochet writes:

Hey Sajeev, it’s been a long time since I sent my first email about my 2002 Cavalier Z24 making rattling noises at low RPM. The noise has since then gotten slightly more noticeable and I finally decided to take some action and really look into it. As a quick refresher, in First and Second gear, between 1500 and 2000RPM under moderate throttle, the car will make an awful rattling noise, like that of pennies in a coffee can kind of noise.

After looking at several cavalier and J-Body forums I stumbled upon a ridiculously popular thread that contained all the information I would ever need…

Read more
  • Jkross22 Their bet to just buy an existing platform from GM rather than build it from the ground up seems like a smart move. Building an infrastructure for EVs at this point doesn't seem like a wise choice. Perhaps they'll slow walk the development hoping that the tides change over the next 5 years. They'll probably need a longer time horizon than that.
  • Lou_BC Hard pass
  • TheEndlessEnigma These cars were bought and hooned. This is a bomb waiting to go off in an owner's driveway.
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Thankfully I don't have to deal with GDI issues in my Frontier. These cleaners should do well for me if I win.
  • Theflyersfan Serious answer time...Honda used to stand for excellence in auto engineering. Their first main claim to fame was the CVCC (we don't need a catalytic converter!) engine and it sent from there. Their suspensions, their VTEC engines, slick manual transmissions, even a stowing minivan seat, all theirs. But I think they've been coasting a bit lately. Yes, the Civic Type-R has a powerful small engine, but the Honda of old would have found a way to get more revs out of it and make it feel like an i-VTEC engine of old instead of any old turbo engine that can be found in a multitude of performance small cars. Their 1.5L turbo-4...well...have they ever figured out the oil dilution problems? Very un-Honda-like. Paint issues that still linger. Cheaper feeling interior trim. All things that fly in the face of what Honda once was. The only thing that they seem to have kept have been the sales staff that treat you with utter contempt for daring to walk into their inner sanctum and wanting a deal on something that isn't a bare-bones CR-V. So Honda, beat the rest of your Japanese and Korean rivals, and plug-in hybridize everything. If you want a relatively (in an engineering way) easy way to get ahead of the curve, raise the CAFE score, and have a major point to advertise, and be able to sell to those who can't plug in easily, sell them on something that will get, for example, 35% better mileage, plug in when you get a chance, and drives like a Honda. Bring back some of the engineering skills that Honda once stood for. And then start introducing a portfolio of EVs once people are more comfortable with the idea of plugging in. People seeing that they can easily use an EV for their daily errands with the gas engine never starting will eventually sell them on a future EV because that range anxiety will be lessened. The all EV leap is still a bridge too far, especially as recent sales numbers have shown. Baby steps. That's how you win people over.