My New "until" Car

[Ekh]

So, the car I've been commuting in (whilst waiting for my Elio) is in perfectly good shape. Old, noisy, but good.

However, it's a manual, and my wife cannot drive it. We needed something she can drive, for the rare occasions that she needs to drive further than the Leaf can take her.

So we picked up this beauty on craigslist

2002 PT Cruiser, Touring Edition, with 124k, all for a cool grand. And it looks just as nice on the inside! Only problem is an intermittent overheating issue at low speeds (its fine on the highway) that the sellers mechanic said was a blown head gasket (it's not). Common problem for PTs at this age, and it's almost never the head gasket. Usually it's a $5-$20 part like the radiator cap or the coolant temperature sensor. For $700 under blue book, I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Oh, and it's got a second horn. Dual-tone compressed air horn that sounds like a little train. I'll probably put it into my Elio in the future!

Might it not have been cheaper to teach her how to drive a standard shift?

If the problem is the fan not coming on soon enough, that's a relatively simple fix. Same with the cap, of course. I used to simply remove the thermostat to make sure it wasn't the problem but that has an emissions penalty as it doesn't allow the car to heat up as fast) You can easily tell if it's a blown head gasket with no special tools or anything. Crank it up, take off the oil fill cap. Turn off the car. Was there a lot of air blowing out the cap? No? Then the pressure isn't getting past the rings too much OR going through a gap in the head gasket. Is there white paste on the fill cap? When water mixes with oil at high pressure/temperature, it makes a white paste that is horrible for everything. Everything fine there? Is the coolant level going down? If so, the coolant is either going into the oil (which it mustn't as you don't have the white paste), out the exhaust (hold a hand over the exhaust tip and see if it gets really wet. A little moisture is expected unless you live in a zero humidity area), or onto the ground. I had one vehicle that leaked coolant very slowly out the weep hole of the water pump. But, that is easy enough to check as is a leak onto the driveway (not to be confused with air conditioner drainage which is normal... Unsure? Taste it. I know - gross. Don't swallow any, of course, but if it tastes like plain old water, it probably is from the AC but if it tastes sweet or just plain wrong, it's from the coolant system.

Wow, sorry about the "word diarrhea" there.

Excellent shade tree diagnostics!

 

[Ekh]

It sounds like a cheapo bluetooth OBD2 dongle and Torque-style app would be good to get actual coolant temp numbers since those needles can be pretty misleading. On the Miata, the needle position between not-ready-to-be-wailed-on and properly warmed up is about the same. The good thing about the dongle and app is that you can use it on any modern car, not only for diagnosing issues and reading/clearing codes but for extra gauges as well. For example in the Elio

I have one of those. It doesn't like my Subaru's special codes, but is otherwise worthwhile.

 

[Sethodine]

Might it not have been cheaper to teach her how to drive a standard shift?

She tried to learn once but it freaked her our (grinding gears I think). Now she gets anxious about even considering learning, so I stopped pushing the issue. I consider her peace-of-mind to be worth the cost. That said, I'm glad that the AMT in the Elio will have the advantage of being an automatic, while also being just as easy to fix as a manual.

It sounds like a cheapo bluetooth OBD2 dongle and Torque-style app would be good to get actual coolant temp numbers since those needles can be pretty misleading.

I have a decent OBD2 scanner that can give me the temperature, although honestly I didn't think to check those numbers against the gauge. Thanks for the idea!

 

[W. WIllie]

I hear the bad thing about the PT cruiser is changing the serpentine belt. A BEAR to do. (Or was it the timing belt? ICR.)
Good price though. Drive it until it dies and then walk away from it.
You can always wire in an override switch for the fan while in traffic. i do that on all my vehicles.

As an "oldtimer" fix. on the thermostat. NEVER completely remove the thermostat, just cut out the spring that holds it closed. Then there is a restriction for better warm up.