What do you drive?

[2s2k]

I daily drive my boss his 'old' 2011 530d now. It had about 126 000km  when i got it and will use it until the leasing ends in september 2015

 

It has some cool options like:

 

M-sport suspension

Hifi professional

Navigation Professional

Runflat tires

All black interior

 

 

[Gerowen]

Since this topic seems to be kind of the "go-to" topic for talking about our cars, I guess I'll share some photos I took of some maintenance I've been doing on my pickup the past few days.  In the next few days I'm going to flush fresh brake fluid through the pickup, and then start doing some major maintenance on the Ford Taurus.  The brake lines on the Taurus rusted out on me the other day so it's on jack stands in-op at the moment, and when I took off one back wheel I noticed one of the springs had broken, so I'm gonna be banging on it for a while after I do the brake fluid on the truck.

 

1999 Dodge Dakota

3.9L V-6

211,654 miles

 

Flushed the radiator out and re-filled it with fresh fluid, cracked open the differential and checked out the gears, cleaned and painted the cover, then put on a fresh gasket and filled it with new fluid.  I drained the manual transmission oil and put fresh in it.  I took off my brake drums to check the brake pads (I've got discs in front, drums in back) and painted the drums and the axle end cap since they both had a little bit of surface rust starting to appear.  I even drained and re-filled my washer fluid reservoir with a bottle of orange RainX brand fluid that's supposed to be a de-icer (down to -35), bug gut and water repellent.

 

Some of the jobs I did because I had never personally done them since owning the vehicle, and some of them were just in preparation for the cold months approaching because I hate having to get outside and mess with stuff when it's cold outside.

 

Anyway, here's some pictures I took.  You can click on the pictures for full size photos, I just didn't want to blow up everybody's browsers.

 

Some of my tools laid out with the differential cover.

 

Got to take a look at the inside of a limited slip differential for the first time ever in my life.  There were no chipped teeth, no metal chunks, etc.  This was actually a much easier job than I thought.  The only real hard part was scraping off all the old gasket material before applying the new one and putting it all back together.

 

I scraped the cover clean since it had dirt, tar, and rust all over it, then painted it flat black and painted the fill plug red.  Once I put it on with the fresh gasket, I painted the bolts flat black as well.  Looking back, my buddy told me the bolts may have looked better as red.

 

Here's the brake drums after their first coat of paint.  I added a 2nd coat and let that dry good before putting them back on.

 

Here's the brake drum put back on with the axle end-cap painted flat black.  May also help keep wheels from corroding and sticking on there as well in the future.

 

Here's the brake drums with a tire hung on the lug bolts.  It's not actually tightened down if it looks a little crooked, I just sat it on there to see how the drum looked.

[Draconian Guppy]

Since this topic seems to be kind of the "go-to" topic for talking about our cars, I guess I'll share some photos I took of some maintenance I've been doing on my pickup the past few days.  In the next few days I'm going to flush fresh brake fluid through the pickup, and then start doing some major maintenance on the Ford Taurus.  The brake lines on the Taurus rusted out on me the other day so it's on jack stands in-op at the moment, and when I took off one back wheel I noticed one of the springs had broken, so I'm gonna be banging on it for a while after I do the brake fluid on the truck.

 

1999 Dodge Dakota

3.9L V-6

211,654 miles

 

Flushed the radiator out and re-filled it with fresh fluid, cracked open the differential and checked out the gears, cleaned and painted the cover, then put on a fresh gasket and filled it with new fluid.  I drained the manual transmission oil and put fresh in it.  I took off my brake drums to check the brake pads (I've got discs in front, drums in back) and painted the drums and the axle end cap since they both had a little bit of surface rust starting to appear.  I even drained and re-filled my washer fluid reservoir with a bottle of orange RainX brand fluid that's supposed to be a de-icer (down to -35), bug gut and water repellent.

 

Some of the jobs I did because I had never personally done them since owning the vehicle, and some of them were just in preparation for the cold months approaching because I hate having to get outside and mess with stuff when it's cold outside.

 

Anyway, here's some pictures I took.  You can click on the pictures for full size photos, I just didn't want to blow up everybody's browsers.

 

Some of my tools laid out with the differential cover.

 

Got to take a look at the inside of a limited slip differential for the first time ever in my life.  There were no chipped teeth, no metal chunks, etc.  This was actually a much easier job than I thought.  The only real hard part was scraping off all the old gasket material before applying the new one and putting it all back together.

 

I scraped the cover clean since it had dirt, tar, and rust all over it, then painted it flat black and painted the fill plug red.  Once I put it on with the fresh gasket, I painted the bolts flat black as well.  Looking back, my buddy told me the bolts may have looked better as red.

 

Here's the brake drums after their first coat of paint.  I added a 2nd coat and let that dry good before putting them back on.

 

Here's the brake drum put back on with the axle end-cap painted flat black.  May also help keep wheels from corroding and sticking on there as well in the future.

 

Here's the brake drums with a tire hung on the lug bolts.  It's not actually tightened down if it looks a little crooked, I just sat it on there to see how the drum looked.

wow, wish I could do all that!

[Gerowen]

Just recorded this yesterday.  This may benefit those of you who drive a manual transmission.  Obviously the exact location and size of bolts on your particular vehicle may vary, as well as the exact amount and type of oil to use, and how often it should be changed, but this video is meant to serve as a general over-view of how to change the gear lubricant in a manual transmission.  For instructions specific to your vehicle, I recommend picking up the Chilton or Haynes manual for your car from your local parts store.  They usually run $20-$30, but they will tell you anything and everything you will ever need to know about your vehicle from the torque specifications for every bolt on it, to how often to change your various fluids, etc.

 

If your boss is a pansy, there's one or two occurrences of language that may be considered NSFW.

 

[Gerowen]

Cleaning up and winterizing my wife's Ford Taurus.  Painted her brake drums purple, getting ready to put fresh brake pads on the back, and had to install a new coil pack because the old one was going bad and causing it to drop a couple of cylinders if you hit the gas to take off.  I replaced the spark plugs just for the heck of it, but the ones that were in it looked fine except for one of them that was in the cylinder that was misfiring because of the bad coil.  Just to be safe though, I went ahead and replaced all the plugs and put the new coil pack in and it seems to be idling just fine now.  Won't be able to take it for a test drive until I finish my evening bus run and put the new brake pads on the back, but so far no check engine codes in the computer.  Also sanded/cleaned the battery terminals and cables and spritzed them with anti-corrosion goop.

 

I am a tad concerned about the brake drums.  I couldn't find any purple high temperature paint, so I just got Krylon paint+primer.  The brake drums in my pickup don't get hot, but I also do about 75% of my stopping by just down-shifting and don't use the brakes until the last bit.  In an automatic, you don't really have a choice, you kinda have to use your brakes for all of your stopping, so they might get hot enough to burn this paint off, not sure.  We'll see I guess.

 

Top down view of the engine with the new coil pack (the thing where all the spark plug wires plug in)

 

The purple brake drums.

[Gerowen]

FINALLY!

 

Got my wife's Ford Taurus squared away today.

 

2006 Ford Taurus

3.0 litre V-6

171,000 miles

 

Have had one headache after another with this car.  Finally got it all up and running this evening.  Had to replace brake lines a week or two ago cause' some of them rusted out.  Then she wanted her drums painted purple, so I decided to oblige.  Well when I took one of the drums off I discovered one of the brake shoes was cracked in half, so I went ahead and replaced all 4 of the rear brake shoes (disc brakes on front).  Not only that, but when I took it out to test the replaced brake lines, I discovered that it had a new problem, a miss on one of the cylinders.  Based on its behavior I figured it was a bad coil, so I replaced the coil, and also replaced all 6 spark plugs because when I checked them before while diagnosing the issue, one of them was burned pretty bad (the mis-firing cylinder), so when I replaced the coil I replaced the spark plugs as well.

 

So today I replaced the coil, replaced all 6 spark plugs, replaced all 4 rear brake shoes, and painted her brake drums purple.  Just took it out for a test drive, and it's awesome, drives like a brand new car.

 

The new brake pads mounted, and the broken one in my hand.

 

First brake drum mounted after being painted.  I also painted the axle end-cap flat black to try and prevent the wheel from corroding/rusting to it.

 

First wheel mounted after being painted.

[Draconian Guppy]

FINALLY!

 

Got my wife's Ford Taurus squared away today.

 

2006 Ford Taurus

3.0 litre V-6

171,000 miles

 

Have had one headache after another with this car.  Finally got it all up and running this evening.  Had to replace brake lines a week or two ago cause' some of them rusted out.  Then she wanted her drums painted purple, so I decided to oblige.  Well when I took one of the drums off I discovered one of the brake shoes was cracked in half, so I went ahead and replaced all 4 of the rear brake shoes (disc brakes on front).  Not only that, but when I took it out to test the replaced brake lines, I discovered that it had a new problem, a miss on one of the cylinders.  Based on its behavior I figured it was a bad coil, so I replaced the coil, and also replaced all 6 spark plugs because when I checked them before while diagnosing the issue, one of them was burned pretty bad (the mis-firing cylinder), so when I replaced the coil I replaced the spark plugs as well.

 

So today I replaced the coil, replaced all 6 spark plugs, replaced all 4 rear brake shoes, and painted her brake drums purple.  Just took it out for a test drive, and it's awesome, drives like a brand new car.

 

The new brake pads mounted, and the broken one in my hand.

broken-pad.jpg

 

First brake drum mounted after being painted.  I also painted the axle end-cap flat black to try and prevent the wheel from corroding/rusting to it.

drum-mounted.jpg

 

First wheel mounted after being painted.

final.jpg

Confess, you're just posting this to make us all feel useless and worthless :P

[Gerowen]

Confess, you're just posting this to make us all feel useless and worthless :p

Nah not really.  I've been taking all these pictures to share on Facebook anyway, so I figured I'd post them here in the "car" topic as well, :P

[mulligan2k]

Nissan 350gt - think of it as a 350z with two extra seats, although mine was sold in Japan with 'skyline' branding. Its also sold under the Infiniti arm of Nissan as the g35

 

I've swapped out the standard rear bumper for a replica of the 'ken style' rear, an option available at factory

 

[Gerowen]

Nissan 350gt - think of it as a 350z with two extra seats, although mine was sold in Japan with 'skyline' branding. Its also sold under the Infiniti arm of Nissan as the g35

 

I've swapped out the standard rear bumper for a replica of the 'ken style' rear, an option available at factory

 

Images snipped

 

Looks sharp, :-)

[Gerowen]

Started work on re-painting mine today.  Using Krylon Dual Paint+Primer True Blue Gloss.  It was T-boned at one point so the driver's door is actually from one vehicle, and the driver's side fender is from a different one, so the door was green, the fender was silver, and the rest of the truck was blue.  I used my tail-gate as a test bed just to see what it looked like since it's a work truck cause' the tail-gate will get beat up anyway.  Total amount of money spent on the painting job so far, including tape and stuff, about $15.  I had tried re-painting the door/fender with "Dupli Color", but the stuff was bad to splatter and run, and the Krylon seems to work 100% better.

 

All photos can be clicked to enlarge.

 

It's a 1999 Dodge Dakota Sport.  Here's a photo I took today of the front fender on the passenger side to show what it's "supposed" to look like.

 

Here's what the driver's side looked like a couple of years ago when I first got the truck before I started working on it and fixing it up.

 

Here's the tail-gate sanded and stenciled with painter's tape.

 

First coat of paint on the tailgate.

 

Tried painting the letters by spraying red paint into a bowl and spreading it on with a q-tip, but the paint dried too fast when I tried spraying it into a bowl, so I instead just made a stencil and painted over it.

 

Tailgate done and put back on.

 

My buddy Wes working the sander and re-discovering the original color of the door.

 

Me working the sander for a while.

 

Applying paint to the door.  After doing 3 coats on the tailgate, we only had enough to do about half the door, so I'll pick up a couple more cans and blend in to finish the lower half, fender, and the rest of the truck.  The color is close enough that I'm happy so I'll do the door and fender first, but then I'm gonna do the whole rest of the truck cause' the old paint looks pretty rough in places, plus it is a little bit different with a little bit of a glittery effect, so I'm going to re-do the entire truck in this one uniform color.

 

Edit: Here's the paint I'm using.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

2013 Mercedes-Benz C300.

 

Also my first car. Just purchased it today in fact.

 

Edited October 6, 2014 by LogicalApex

[+Random Stranger Subscriber¹]

2013 Mercedes-Benz C300.

 

Also my first car. Just purchased it today in fact.

 

2014-10-04.jpg

you image is too large and does not resize well...

 

i like the newer merc designs a lot.     what is it, white and basic package?      c300 is nice for a first car :)    i guess you did not need a car before?

[+JHBrown Subscriber¹]

2013 Mercedes-Benz C300.

Also my first car. Just purchased it today in fact.

2014-10-04.jpg

Nice ride. I have a 2014 E550 in the same color that I picked up in July. Hope you got a good deal on maintenance. It's a bank account murderer without it. ;-)

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Nice ride. I have a 2014 E550 in the same color that I picked up in July. Hope you got a good deal on maintenance. It's a bank account murderer without it. ;-)

Didn't add that yet... Will get some quotes lined up to get it sorted.

[Gerowen]

Didn't add that yet... Will get some quotes lined up to get it sorted.

Yeah work out some kind of maintenance deal.  I've never owned one, but I've heard that parts and labor are both fairly expensive for Mercs and BMW because of how difficult they are to work on.

 

It looks like a sharp car, congrats on your first one, :-)

[tsupersonic]

Nice ride. I have a 2014 E550 in the same color that I picked up in July. Hope you got a good deal on maintenance. It's a bank account murderer without it. ;-)

Congrats! The new E550's are nice, and I love them in coupe form. They are quite fast and very discrete. Yes to maintenance and repairs - they can be expensive. I've had a dealer repair on my old CLS 63 that was quoted at $8k! If you are out of warranty, try to find a nice reputable shop that you can go to rather than the dealer. 

[Xerino]

Picked up this yesterday for $1100 at auction, 2008 Ford Police Interceptor, and yes Im keeping that awesome hunk of metal on the front lol

[+LogicalApex MVC]

you image is too large and does not resize well...

 

i like the newer merc designs a lot.     what is it, white and basic package?      c300 is nice for a first car :)    i guess you did not need a car before?

 

Updated the post with a smaller image. Should have done that from the start, but I guess the forum uploader no longer does the automatic scaling.

 

Yeah work out some kind of maintenance deal.  I've never owned one, but I've heard that parts and labor are both fairly expensive for Mercs and BMW because of how difficult they are to work on.

 

It looks like a sharp car, congrats on your first one, :-)

Thanks!

 

Looking into quotes on the maintenance now. I was quoted a high price at the dealer on a plan from VehicleOne. I passed on that as I wanted to get more details and so far I'm seeing a better deal extending directly with Mercedes so I'll likely go that route.

 

My Wife thinks I'm nuts as I've been against owning a car forever (hence my late addition to the car owner club). But hopefully it works out well for us and I can get advice from the seasoned members here.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Nice ride. I have a 2014 E550 in the same color that I picked up in July. Hope you got a good deal on maintenance. It's a bank account murderer without it. ;-)

Finally got the maintenance sorted out. The dealer offered a plan backed by Ally for almost $4K for 5 years/75K miles. I wasn't keen to taking that on the spot so declined, especially since third party warranties can be a nightmare with exclusions (or so I hear). Found a good price at a MB dealer for the MB direct extended warranty. Paid a little under $3K to push me up to 7 years/100K miles bumper to bumper. Which is great as I learned that the Ally backed plan (VehicleOne) excluded almost all of the electronics in the car...

 

Seems like a good price for the insurance especially since I purchased a former rental car. Also nice to know OEM only parts will be used.

[Gerowen]

Finally got the maintenance sorted out. The dealer offered a plan backed by Ally for almost $4K for 5 years/75K miles. I wasn't keen to taking that on the spot so declined, especially since third party warranties can be a nightmare with exclusions (or so I hear). Found a good price at a MB dealer for the MB direct extended warranty. Paid a little under $3K to push me up to 7 years/100K miles bumper to bumper. Which is great as I learned that the Ally backed plan (VehicleOne) excluded almost all of the electronics in the car...

 

Seems like a good price for the insurance especially since I purchased a former rental car. Also nice to know OEM only parts will be used.

Glad you got it all sorted out, :-)  I purchased a 3rd party extended warranty for my 2006 Ford Explorer, and then the throttle position sensor went out (random acceleration, or random dying, etc.).  I never bothered actually "reading" the warranty, it just came as a package deal with the bank that financed the purchase, but when I tried calling to get that and a number of other small issues fixed over the years, I discovered that the extended warranty only covered the drive train (engine, transmission, differentials, transfer case, and drive shaft components).  None of the electronics, body, suspension, frame, or anything like that was covered.  Wish I'd paid more attention.

 

On a side note, I FINALLY got around to changing the valve seals on my pickup truck.  I've been talking about doing it for a year or so and finally got up with a buddy of mine who has a shop air compressor and changed all of my valve seals.  I've had a leaky one on cylinder 3 for the longest time that would cause a short puff of blue smoke on startup, and I've been talking about changing the valve seals for a year or so and finally got around to doing it.  Also in the process of doing that, I tightened down on my rocker cap screws with a torque wrench set to the factory spec and that eliminated a slight "rattle" I've been hearing for the longest time that almost made the engine sound like a miniature diesel.  One of the push rods probably had a thousandth of an inch of slop where it disengaged the rocker and would then "smack" it when it came back up, and by tearing it all apart to replace the valve seals and re-torquing everything to the factory specs, I eliminated that small amount of play.

 

I'm just really glad I got that one job out of the way before really cold weather hit, I was getting pretty tired of burning an extra quart of oil between oil changes.  I would have taken pictures, but neither me or the guy whose shop I used had ever done it before, and I really didn't want to go taking pictures and videos of any screw ups that happened in the course of doing it for the first time.  We ended up not having any issues except having to fanagle the little valve spring keepers back into position with an extendable magnet rod, which we expected because of the nature of how they work, but it was a really time consuming job (4-5 hours) and once I got elbow deep in my engine bay I didn't feel like digging out the camera to take pictures.

[Draconian Guppy]

Started work on re-painting mine today.  Using Krylon Dual Paint+Primer True Blue Gloss.  It was T-boned at one point so the driver's door is actually from one vehicle, and the driver's side fender is from a different one, so the door was green, the fender was silver, and the rest of the truck was blue.  I used my tail-gate as a test bed just to see what it looked like since it's a work truck cause' the tail-gate will get beat up anyway.  Total amount of money spent on the painting job so far, including tape and stuff, about $15.  I had tried re-painting the door/fender with "Dupli Color", but the stuff was bad to splatter and run, and the Krylon seems to work 100% better.

 

All photos can be clicked to enlarge.

 

It's a 1999 Dodge Dakota Sport.  Here's a photo I took today of the front fender on the passenger side to show what it's "supposed" to look like.

 

Here's what the driver's side looked like a couple of years ago when I first got the truck before I started working on it and fixing it up.

 

Here's the tail-gate sanded and stenciled with painter's tape.

 

First coat of paint on the tailgate.

 

Tried painting the letters by spraying red paint into a bowl and spreading it on with a q-tip, but the paint dried too fast when I tried spraying it into a bowl, so I instead just made a stencil and painted over it.

 

Tailgate done and put back on.

 

My buddy Wes working the sander and re-discovering the original color of the door.

 

Me working the sander for a while.

 

Applying paint to the door.  After doing 3 coats on the tailgate, we only had enough to do about half the door, so I'll pick up a couple more cans and blend in to finish the lower half, fender, and the rest of the truck.  The color is close enough that I'm happy so I'll do the door and fender first, but then I'm gonna do the whole rest of the truck cause' the old paint looks pretty rough in places, plus it is a little bit different with a little bit of a glittery effect, so I'm going to re-do the entire truck in this one uniform color.

 

Edit: Here's the paint I'm using.

Dude... every time you post... My car has a couple of bicycle scratches... you make me feel useless :( Would you consider coming down to Honduras, Central america, with material included :P when ever I can afford you :laugh: 

[TAZMINATOR]

Dude... every time you post... My car has a couple of bicycle scratches... you make me feel useless :( Would you consider coming down to Honduras, Central america, with material included :p when ever I can afford you :laugh:

 

Depends on how deep the scratches are....

 

if they are light scratches, you can buff it out with a buffer or get a touch-up paint kit. 

 

If they are deep scratches, you can sand it down and prime it up, then paint it.. a few times.. then put clearcoat over it. There are videos on how to do this at YouTube.

 

If you want a new color on your whole car, you can get PlastiDip paint... Spray over the current color... and you won't worry about at all. You can find information about plastidip car via Google or YouTube.  Depends on what color you have right now on your car... PlastiDip may have the color that match yours... if so, you can paint one part of the car instead of whole car.

[MrBear5587]

2014 Ford Fiesta ST-3
"Race Red"

Standard at the moment. May get the Mountune kit in the future.

[MrBear5587]

2014 Ford Fiesta ST-3

"Race Red"

Standard at the moment. May get the Mountune kit in the future.

 

Cleaned this morning :)