Thursday, May 01, 2025

Darn Car

 I had to mow the front yard yesterday.  I was quite a physical mess from the previous few days of heavy constant lifting and lack of sleep.  But the front yard--yikes, overgrown and I have a neighbor who likes to complain.

It took me awhile--most of the day actually.  Had to take breaks.  Weed eating and mowing.

Today is nice too but my back is too sore to do the backyard.  No can do today.

But a friend from Lebanon who just broke with her husband of about five years since he'd been cheating on her for a year probably she said, came over.  I'm helping her with cat litter for a month as she takes a CNA class to hopefully get a job soon.  She'd been working with her husband.

I can't carry currently the big walmart box litters she wanted, two of them, so she drove me in her car.  I got a few groceries too and we chatted about old boyfriends and relationships in general.

I had to get a headlight for my car.  One was out.  I got it last night at O'Reilly's and put it in.  Then I checked the oil and nearly dropped dead.   It was down over a quart.  I'd checked it right before the FCCO trip too.   I do have to carry oil now cause it can go down but never that fast and that much.

Which began frantic youtube searches and a call to that mechanic who replaced the power steering pump late last summer.  Just to ask opinion if he had one.  He said to bring it over Saturday he'd check for metal bits in my oil filter.

I guess its a good way to see if oil use is because the engine is falling apart.   There are so many possible reasons though, like bad rings so no good seal, bad valves etc.   I'm hoping maybe its just the PCV valve, because those are cheap and easy.  

But he'll also do a compression check and oil pressure chcek.  Both those tests tell quite a lot.

I'm not so sure the rings could be bad because I'd have power loss I'd think and I don't.

So I'm hoping on an easier cheaper finding and one that does not involve me needing a new engine, for gosh sakes.

I have a bunch of dash lights on again, but with this car, seems like those end up always to be a bad O2 sensor.   

So I'm ignoring them for now.   

Here, check out this youtube video on checking your oil filter for metal bits.  I didn't know I could be doing this every now and then.  Its really easy.


11 comments:

  1. Good luck on the car front. It is always something. Often several somethings...

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    1. Yup, what can I say, its an old age thing.

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  2. That's interesting about cutting the oil filter open to check for bits of metal. I remember in one of my older cars, after using it for short trips for a while, a trip on a freeway would see the oil level drop very quickly. I assumed some impurities or something burnt off when the engine became properly hot.

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    1. That's interesting Andrew. That FCCO trip was the longest I'd taken in quite awhile. Maybe that's all it was.

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  3. Fingers crossed it's an easy, inexpensive fix.

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    1. Yes, I hope so too. It does have quite a few dash lights on. But they were on when I bought the car. I'd get something fixed and they'd be off awhile and then be back on. I got used to mostly ignoring them. Not if the check engine light starts blinking, but....otherwise.

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  4. Hopefully it's an easy fix. Fingers crossed.

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    Replies
    1. You got me on what is going on. Seems to be running the usual, rough at the start, when cold, then fine.

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  5. I hope this is an easy fix for your car. It's amazing that you have kept the car going for this long.

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    Replies
    1. Me too. It's a great car, the best, has been perfect for me.

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  6. Your resourcefulness never fails to impress me. Necessity does inspire us to research things, doesn't it? Be well, my dear.

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