Ekh
Elio Addict
Might it not have been cheaper to teach her how to drive a standard shift?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!
Excellent shade tree diagnostics!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.