Piston Slap: Sucking At Fluid Changes?

Longtime TTAC Commentator ajla writes:

Hi Sajeev,

I do a more through job at the time of purchase, but every year after I do a drain/refill on the radiator and replace some transmission fluid by using my fluid extractor to vacuum up as much ATF as possible through the dipstick tube.

I know that I’m not getting all the fluids exchanged this way, but my question is how much of a positive impact is this regiment actually having on my cars? Am I just wasting my time? I haven’t suffered a mechanical failure since I started doing this, but I don’t know if that proves much.

Keep in mind that the vehicles I tend to own are 20 to 30 years old.

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Piston Slap: Double A (Beep! Beep!) Em, Cee, Oh... (Part II)

TTAC commentator M0L0TOV has an update for us:

Hey Sajeev,

I figured I’d send you an update so people would know what happened to my situation. Well, I went ahead and tried to contact AAMCO. First I tried contacting them via their website but almost a week had passed and no response. So I contact them via their Facebook page, the next day I got a response with a phone number, name, and e-mail address of somebody at corporate to contact. I sent them an e-mail, I got a call from the owner of the Aamco where I had originally taken my car within ten minutes.

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Piston Slap: Double A (Beep! Beep!) Em, Cee, Oh…

TTAC commentator M0L0TOV writes:

Greetings All-Knowing Sajeev,

I am looking for some insight on an ongoing issue with my workhorse. I have a 2003 Ford Focus ZX-5 with 160,000 miles. A little bit over a year ago, I had Aamco rebuild the automatic transmission on my car for the tune of $2500. Apparently, my car seems to have an appetite for transmissions, I’m on #4 now (original, warranty, junkyard, Aamco).

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GM Throws In Free Scheduled Service

A free-maintenance program introduced earlier this year to get its full-size pickups moving was expanded across the entire 2014 line. For most 2014 vehicles, Chevrolet, Buick and GMC dealers will complete an oil and filter change, four-wheel tire rotation, and conduct a 27-point vehicle inspection based on what’s called for in the vehicle’s maintenance plan.

According to GM CEO Dan Akerson, this plan sells more cars:

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The Mortal Sins Of The Auto Business

Die, sucker!

Automortal Sins will be an infrequent series about the true sins in the auto business. It won’t be the sins which some bloggers regard huge. We won’t blame lapses in styling, branding, we won’t lambast OEMs for abandoning sports cars in favor of appliances. Building the wrong car once in a while is a minor iniquity compared to the huge, most egregious, and definitely mortal sins committed by automakers every day, without the smallest amount of remorse. Here is the first one:

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Watch Out: Your Dealer Is In Trouble, And He Needs Your Money

Five years ago, car dealers throughout the country were hit hard by carmageddon. Now, they are about to get hit again where it really hurts: In the workshop, where the real money is being made. The auto sales collapse of 2008 winds its way through the years like a diet through an anaconda. While showrooms were empty five years ago, now it’s the service bays that are deserted.

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Pulled Plug Story Infuriates Saab Faithfuls

The story on Saab pulling the plug on the diagnostic computer, and hence on repairs that need that access, ruffled a lot of feathers. The Church of St. Victor is so angry at the apostate article that it broke its self-imposed code of silence and mentions TTAC by name. Delusional as they are, they believe that their links send us traffic. Selfless as we are, we probably have done more to Saabsunited’s fame than any other site. Ingrates as they are, they call our story

“the most stupid article I have ever seen! This website has no clue how things work and this is why we never refer to them… I’m making a one time side-step from that policy!”

In their rage, they overlooked a small detail …

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This Is What A Year's Supply Of Saabs Looks Like

Portland’s 82nd Avenue is one of those streets that exists in nearly every American city. Unofficially demarcating Portland proper (“the right side of the tracks”) from the extensive working-class suburbs that bleed into Gresham (“the wrong side of the tracks”), “Shady-Second” is home to a vast strip of wall-to-wall buy-here-pay-here lots, used-car hustlers, and small repair shops that line both sides of the road from Sandy Boulevard all the way down to Division. Like every other used-car strip in every other town in America, it’s where folks go when they need a car and don’t have much money to spend. Unlike most other low-cost car Meccas, however, 82nd Avenue is also home to Oregon’s last remaining Saab dealership. And it’s something of a symbol of the hell that Saab dealers are going through right now.

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The Autobiography Of BS: How I Failed To Make Volkswagen Lots Of Money

Volkswagen just sold one of my inventions, and I didn’t get a dime for it. Volkswagen didn’t get rich on the sale either. After more than 20 years of trying not too hard, Volkswagen is getting out of the non-OEM service business and sells its Stop + Go chain of quick-fit shops to the management.

“It was supposed to be an all-out assault on the non-OEM service business,” writes Automobilwoche [sub] in an eulogy. The attack ended in defeat.

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Best Buy Eyes EVs

Electronics retailer Best Buy raised a few eyebrows when it began selling Brammo electric motorcycles alongside its flatscreens and Xboxes a few years back. Two years after that agreement was announced, however, Brammos are sold at only three West Coats Best Buys (one here in Portland, OR, two in California) and Brammo is expanding its own dealership network independently of the big box chain. Was Best Buy’s Brammo experiment a disappointment? If so, it’s not stopping the retailer from pursuing other electric vehicle opportunities, as Best Buy’s mobility and transportation honcho Chad Bell tells Automotive News [sub] that it’s talking to electric car firms about a possible retail deal.

We are having conversations with some of the startups. I would say the conversations are going well. We are very excited about several partnerships that we can’t talk about yet. We probably get more traffic in a weekend than some of these dealers do in a month. The benefits for a small automaker trying to cobble together a sales and service network are obvious.

And despite the emphasis on startups and his use of the term “cobble together,” Bell insists that electric mobility is a long-term strategy for Best Buy.

According to Bell, even business opportunities like contracts for special EV customer training for dealerships are a possibility. But the shape of EV dealership experiences is still unclear, as (for example) Tesla has insisted that it doesn’t need a widespread dealer network because EVs need “next to no maintenance.” But clearly EVs aren’t fundamentally different from gas-powered cars in their needs for a service network. For example Tesla has not been able to deploy a multi-speed EV transmission on its Roadster (in fact, Brammo just announced what appears to be the first geared electric vehicle), and even its single-speed Roadster needs a $1,000 annual “tune up.” As geared EVs become more common, their maintenance and service needs will likely increase, and doing without dealers will become less of an option. Whether Best Buy and its “Geek Squad” can step into that breach (let alone actually sellelectric cars) remains very much to be seen.

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Mr Goodwrench, RIP

Born in 1977, Mr Goodwrench was a marketing brand used to sell GM parts and service at franchised dealers. Now, after 33 years in service to The General, Mr Goodwrench is passing on to join Pontiac, Oldsmobile and HUMMER in GM’s crowded brand graveyard. Automotive News [sub] reports that

GM marketing chief Joel Ewanick wants the vehicle brands, not corporate, to be the stars of GM, and that includes service and repairsEwanick has made it clear that he intends to continue the post-bankruptcy trend of shifting emphasis away from GM as a corporate brand and towards GM’s four vehicle brands. As an umbrella brand for service and parts for all of GM’s brands, Mr Goodwrench can be considered the latest victim of GM’s corporate restructuring. But Goodwrench was in failing health before Ewanick’s brandicide spree, and even embodying the brand as the satirist Steven Colbert didn’t convince GM’s US dealers to emphasize the Goodwrench service brand. GM won’t officially comment on Mr Goodwrench’s condition, but the brand is expected to survive in the Canadian market, where it allegedly continues to enjoy consumer cachet.

In order to honor the passing of this past-its-prime symbol of GM’s decidedly mediocre service reputation, we’ve assembled a few Mr Goodwrench ads below the fold.

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Cadillac Wants To Provide Ritzy Service On The Cheap

Cadillac contracted the services of the Ritz-Carlton to train Cadillac dealers to provide 5-star service. The Ritz Carlton, first recipient of the Baldridge award in 1999, has a side business in training other companies to provide quality service.

Don Butler, Cadillac’s marketing VP, said to Automotive News [sub] that the program will emphasize customer treatment rather than facilities. For instance, he said, a dealership employee might take an umbrella and walk a customer out to his or her car when it’s raining. “It’s simple,” Butler said. “It’s the things that don’t cost a lot of money.” If he would only know.

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  • Analoggrotto TTAC is full of drug addicts with short memories. Just beside this article is another very beautiful article about how the EV9 was internationally voted by a renowned board of automotive experts who are no doubt highly educated, wealthy and affluent; the best vehicle in entire world. That's planet earth for you numbskulls. Let me repeat: the best vehicle in the world is the Kia EV9. Voted, and sealed, and if you try to deny it Fanny Willis is ready to prosecute you; but she will send her boyfriend instead because she is busy.
  • MaintenanceCosts Our Bolt is not going away for a while but if I had to predict today what would replace it, I'd predict an EX30. It checks every box for my wife.
  • Ajla Both Biden and Trump are on record caring ~0% what the WTO says and the US government isn't bound by WTO rulings.
  • Honda1 The FJB Inflation Reduction Act will end up causing more inflation down the road, fact! Go ahead and flame me libbies, get back to me in a few years!
  • Cprescott Fisker is another brand that Heir Yutz has killed.