SOLVED! Post 2853 Leaking Injectors, Dealer Techs Rock! Extended Cranking after Engine Swap 3.4L 5vz

Unblankingbelievable.

Exchanged the wrong part at Oreilly last night. For the wrong part again.

Eric discovered this fun fact this morning, when he was trying to install it before leaving for work.

Guess what that discovery led to? Lots of this Which is why I am sick of fixing vehicles

Another day of being housebound and stressing about vehicle problems. Way too many of those since Nov. 30.

And Eric? He's on his way back to Oreilly. Again. I don't even know what his plan is at this point and I don't even care to know.

Dude. How bad can one person's luck be with vehicles, all within such a short time span?????????????? I swear, we were fairly normal people with normal lives and vehicles that were fairly problem free for many, many years until 11/30!! And now this vehicle shitstorm just won't stop!! For years we talked about replacing the Civ even though it was still running just fine, to avoid exactly what's happening now. Between what we spent on the Taco in TOTAL during the 1st half of 2015, plus what we will likely have to fork out in the remaining months of 2015 to replace the Civ - that is a lot of $ to spend on vehicle stuff in one year. For us anyway. Guess we should have used those payment free/problem free years to save for this anticipated disaster, because deep down we both knew the odds of being in this kind of situation were pretty high, considering each vehicle was so high in miles/years. But we didn't. We went on lots of fun vacations instead.

Maybe I should hitch a ride to the nearest Toyota dealer and demand 0% on a brand new Corolla for like 5 billion years to keep the payment down. Would certainly be the fastest way out of this mess, although it may not be the most economical way to go, at least we'd wind up with a car that would last a really long freaking time.

I remember a time when $7500 would buy you a pretty nice 5 yr old Civic with 70K miles that would last you 17 relatively problem free years. And sure, your dog would eventually eat the drink holder, but hey, that's not the car's fault. Sigh. I guess I've been driving that thing for so long that I completely lost touch with how much cars cost nowadays?

Argh, so damn right now y'all.

Thanks for letting me vent TW. There, all better now.

 

LOL.

I know we've beat you around with it, but this would be the perfect time to buy new. Just google every single car company you'd be okay buying from and see who has the best interest rate. If you can tolerate the car and it has good warranty, lock it down. Just go in, sign, and forget about it. No commuter is going to be a thing of beauty anyways and then at least you'll have piece of mind for over half a decade. Even after that, if you buy any of the cars people have talked to you about, odds are you can get 10 years out of it without any major issues.

 

Feel better now?
The Civic just got jealous of all the attention you've been lavishing on the Taco, put a couple bucks towards her and start treating her nice, instead of threatening to burn her up or junk her!

 

Might not be a bad idea buddy. Just talked to Eric, and he plans to try again with the Oreilly excitement tonight. Won't hold my breath. Or, I suppose 3rd time is charm?

Thinking I may try to forget about the car dilemmas for today, and do some gardening and refinish a table my grandpa built that I've been meaning to get done forever. And maybe attempt that yummy sounding crab cake recipe from @keakar . Distractions sound pretty good right now Just getting too frustrated about the whole thing...time for a short break from it.

 

Just fix the Civic, save up your $, and later, get another vehicle...

 

^^^^^^^^^ agreed, I dont know where you got this idea that it isn't smart to buy new or it "may not be the most economical way to go" because every used vehicle I ever bought I spent a few thousand fixing all the bullshit wrong with it from new front ends on just about every one, to them "all" needing new tires and battery, then all the undone maint like brake jobs bearings, tranny flushes, and they always start needing new sensors so that's another $200-$300 under the hood replacing all the sensors.

with a new car, you just park in driveway and smile every time you use it knowing you can throw all your tools away because you don't need them anymore.

 

found a fixer upper for you Jen, just needs a little TLC and no need to finance it http://neworleans.craigslist.org/cto/5126544344.html

 

lol

 

Eric's doing the brakes. Apparently Oreilly finally got the part right. He's bleeding the system now. Should hopefully be done soon, then at least we'll have a temporary fix, which would be a huge improvement over the current situation! At least then Dolly & I will be back on the road so watch out! There's a bit of light at the end of the tunnel again, hurray!

How's everyone out there in TW doing?

P.S. I am not going to admit this to Eric yet, but I am considering fixing the Civic. Like, all the way fixing it. We got a part to fix an oil leak off of Rock Auto a couple weeks ago, so if he gets the brakes sorted out, I suppose we'd put that part in since it was pretty cheap and would not even be worth returning at this point. Assuming that works out, then suddenly the list of safety/mechanical issues drops by 2 important items (brakes & oil leak). At that point, I could see CV boots and that other crap seeming worthwhile (likely cheap parts also, since we ain't playing the "only OEM for the Taco" game with the Civ - poor Civ is lucky to get the CORRECT aftermarket! ). Tires would be the final decision to make after that stuff......either buy new tires with the hope/intent of driving that POS for another year or so, OR skip the tires and trade the Civ in ASAP (well, as soon as we can make up our minds about WTF we want! ).

Pros and cons to both scenarios, that are likely best discussed over tacos and margs

Uh oh. Eric just drove off. Must have finished bleeding them. Here's hoping he comes home alive.

 

Brakes work again in the Civ, hurray!! That means I get my truck back

Except now we gotta replace the driver's inside door handle AGAIN in the Taco. This will be the 3rd or 4th one we put on. Last 2 were cheap Oreilly ones, so I think I'll get one from the dealer this time if I can. At least the original one lasted quite some time. These aftermarkets break within a few months it seems! Until it's replaced, I get to reach out the window to open the door, yee haw!! Maybe I should just slide in and out of the window Dukes style while running errands today?

Anyone else have this problem with door handles in their Taco?

 

Give me a chance to see if I have those handles. I think I do. Not home now but can check this evening.

 

Sweetness, thanks buddy!! Didn't even think about that option, you rock!!

You wouldn't happen to have any 2015 Corollas in the bed of your '98 would ya?

 

No Corollas. Might have some Coronas, though.

 

I just checked my shop web cam, I can just make out the passenger side door handle on the camera. I know that neither side was broke when I took it off the road. I got no reason to believe the driver side is not present. Will double check later.

 

wow, and poor little me I have to go look for things when I need em lol.

you getting high class with video monitoring equipt., you afraid the wife might sabotage your shop to keep you outta there?

JEN, at this point since you are so undecided in all this, you may as well just get another olc civic with around 100k miles and don't have any issues. it is the cheapest way to get what you want and its a known quantity you are very familiar with.

I wouldn't be fixing anything else on it (but yes put that doo-dad thingy in for the oil leak) or it will be a money pit nightmare and may completely fall apart.

yours went 225k miles so don't hesitate buying one at 100k miles, because just keep in mind that it has another 10 years and 100k miles left in it.

 

pick one of the top three cars on this list and go test drive all of them then buy one, don't overthink it, its a car, you are not adopting a baby here even though you are researching it like you are lol.

http://www.cars.com/for-sale/search...pId-feedSegId-mkId-mdId-pseudoPrice&pgId=2102

yes its a long drive but all the good civics are between 150-200 miles from you so its going to be a road trip no matter what. the civics near you are all high mileage ones you don't want so do all the research you can on the list then plan a trip with eric to go test drive your top 3 picks and then BUY ONE!!!

not just saying that to be silly, its obvious you want and need what you already have, just with no issues and under 100k miles on it.

by picking your top 3 choices you have a backup incase the one you decide on sells before you sign the purchase agreement because it can even happen while your looking at it. if anyone else wants it they will take it from you if you don't jump on it. not saying don't be thorough but don't be undecided either. go there on a mission to buy one of those three that day and you will both be very happy. otherwise let Eric leave you home babysitting dolly and let him go buy one of them.

if you are still liking the corolla these are the only 3 near you fitting your wants: http://www.cars.com/for-sale/search...d=28113&mdId=20861&searchSource=GN_REFINEMENT

again, its still going to be a road trip either way.

another thing to keep in mind is if you trade your civic in on the car you buy, its value is deducted from the sales tax an besides taking the value off of what you owe on the new one it can knock a few hundred more dollars off the sales taxes you pay on the one you buy.

by the way, you keep saying the civic isn't worth anything but what year and model is it? what is the KBB trade-in value on it?

 

The KBB on the Civ? $5 tops. JK, not sure lately. Was ~$2K or so last time I checked, but that was at least a couple years ago.

The tax thing? That's the one awesome thing we have on our side - Oregonians do not pay sales tax, even in other states! Flash your Oregon ID and you are tax free!

Thing is, Eric made a good point about the Civic last night. If we got another used car, and the CV boots went out, or the tires were bald, we'd fix the stuff and move on. It's only if something seriously major went wrong (engine or transmission) that we'd ditch a commuter car. And the Civ engine IS leaking oil, pretty badly, which is the big reason I was ready to pull the trigger on it - no more engine problems for me, thank you very much! But it still runs awesome and never has any weird drivability issues, starting issues, none of that. So it seems like the engine is actually working well, as long as oil is kept in it. And if Eric replacing one stupid $25 seal fixes the oil leak, that seems worth it. Then the remaining repairs we are looking at are not insanely expensive and are pretty normal maintenance items for a car that old/high in miles - even Honda and Toyota parts like CV boots are allowed to eventually wear out (as long as they hold up to 17 years of my driving style first!! ).

So that's why I am reconsidering it. Yes, it's a risk that things will keep breaking, and we'd wind up wishing we would have just replaced instead of tossing a couple hundred at it first. But I think a couple hundred is worth the gamble to me, in hopes of buying us a bit more time. Waiting until early next summer to replace the Civ would be the easiest for us financially - we racked up a hefty bill with the Taco repairs! And then we could feel more comfortable buying something nicer/more expensive at that point, plus have more time to look between now and then, to figure out what we really like. Remember, we tend to keep our vehicles for 15-20 years. So this actually IS kind of like adopting a baby for us!! Plus I think about all we spent to revive the Taco, then realize poor little Civ has been hauling our asses around for years longer than the Taco has, is older and has more miles than the Taco, and other than a billion distributors (that we now have a lifetime warranty on ) very rarely needed repairs all those years/miles....and is now finally asking for a teeny tiny microscopic fraction of what we spent on the Taco - well, it does seem kind of silly to not at least give her a couple hundred in parts and see what happens......especially when I think about replacing her with the same damn car, only newer and at a much higher price than a couple hundred + tires.

The tires are the real commitment decision. All that other crap is just some time spent and I'm betting no more than $200 for the other parts we'd need in total - besides tires. Tires do not make sense to buy unless we really think the car can last at least a year. So the tentative plan for now is to fix that other crap (oil leak, boots, bushings, etc) first, then if that all goes well, and no more major oil leaks, we'd probably get new tires & alignment in the fall. If that stuff doesn't go well, or more crap continues to break, or oil starts spewing out of other places in the engine we'd trade it in now - we'd just spend less than what we would have if we'd waited til next summer.

Whaddya think of that plan @keakar / TW?

Wait, on second thought, maybe we should do a "if you can't say anything nice ("nice" = agree with me ), don't say anything at all" approach to that question? Feeling more settled on this decision than any other option we've looked at in the past week of Civic crisis mode.......not sure if I'm up for one of these from TW peeps right now.... At least go easy on me if you think this plan is , mmmkay guys?

 

If the Civic is still in good running order other than a small oil leak and some new tires I wouldn't get rid of it. Why trade a set of known small problems for a potentially unknown set of problems in a used car. All of the used cars you keep looking at are off warranty and will have no guarantees that they weren't traded off for the exact same reasons you want to get rid of the Civic.

 

If you were ready to buy new, I'd say go buy new, but considering you seem to be set on getting another used car I couldn't justify trading away the issues you know for the issues you don't in another used car.

 

The camera is more for safety. Because I do much welding and grinding, my policy is to not leave the shop for 30 minutes after done welding. Because of my regular job, im on call for much of the time. If the phone rings, I have to go to work right then. I can't wait my 30 minutes if I have to go to work. I can watch my shop via the web cam and use my smart phone to view remotely. I am extremely paranoid about fires and the camera gives me much piece of mind...plus it's another gadget, that's kind of cool too.