Beta Don

We drove a couple of barn door vans while shopping for our passenger van and I never did get used to the 'dead spot' in the center when looking in the mirror, so we knew when we bought one it HAD to be a lift gate - We never buy whatever they have on the lot . . . . we shop for exactly what we want, even when buying used. Often times, it ends up being not so close to home, but it's worth it to get what you want instead of settling for something you won't be happy with for the next several years Our 2017 Volt was 1,000 miles from home and we flew up and made a vacation out of bringing it home. Our motor home was 600 miles away in Florida and we made that a 3 day trip, driving over in our TC and coming back in two vehicles. Our 2014 TC was in Georgia, 350 miles away and again it was one car going over and two coming back. I'm trying to remember the last time we bought a vehicle closer than 100 miles from home . . . . the fact that I can't recall one either means it's been a really long time, or I'm just getting old - Probably both! ? Don

It may not be as bad as it sounds - I know on Mazda Miatas, which have a similar valve cover to our TC's (the spark plugs are in a deep well which has an O-ring at the bottom to keep oil out of the plug wells) that a frequent cause of oil in the plug wells just means you need to have the valve cover gasket replaced . . . . and use a little silicone gasket cement on it when you do the job. I can't really imagine how a burned valve gets oil in the plug wells But, as others have suggested, take it to a qualified mechanic and pay him what he's worth to diagnose and fix your TC Don

Your issue is probably all due to the oil you found on one of the spark plugs - Until you find what's causing that and get it fixed, everything you're doing is just putting a band--aid on a deep wound which is never going to heal You bought this sight unseen from 10 hours away without a mechanic checking it out thoroughly? ? Lesson to be learned there! Don

OEM mounts are usually engineered for maximum passenger compartment comfort, so when that's an important consideration, I always stick with those. Aftermarket mounts come it two types. High performance mounts which limits the drive train's ability to move to basically no movement at all and to heck with creature comfort and then the odd off brands whose only selling point is they're cheaper than OEM mounts I assume your original mounts were found to be separated? . . . . otherwise, you wouldn't have gone to the time and expense to change them, right? Don

I've towed a 1400 pound trailer about a thousand miles - I wouldn't want to tow anything heavier than that, unless it was just going across town. The van will do it, but it works awfully hard doing so, especially if you're anywhere that has hills of any size. My trailer was small and didn't present a lot of wind resistance. I certainly wouldn't want to mess with a 2,000 pound travel trailer! IMO, 1,500 would have been a better absolute upper limit than 2,000, as that would take away the temptation to tow most any travel trailer. Our 6F35 transmissions are not known to last long when subjected to abuse and towing a travel trailer is about as abusive as you could possibly get Don

With 115K on the original fluid in severe stop and go service, it may be the first sign you're about to spring for a new trans! I changed the fluid in mine at 25K. It's not a simple procedure, as there's no way to drain the torque converter, where most of the fluid is trapped. Draining the case and refilling it gets you only about half new and half old fluid - Draining and refilling it 3 or 4 times is necessary to get a 90% or better exchange. Cross your fingers and hope for the best Don

Gen 2's have EPS, electric power steering, so there's no pump, no fluid and no leaks Whatever his issue is, it won't have anything to do with those! Don

Fuel mileage depends most of all on how and where you drive it After I did my dash upgrade to the Titanium dash with the color LCD screen, I was a bit miffed to discover that the overall 27.8 average fuel economy number I'd been seeing for the last 15,000 miles was gone ? In it's place, the new dash was showing 19.3 mpg, which was the number from the Titanium my new dash had been 'rescued' from We had a 1,200 mile trip to do - 600 miles to Titusville Florida to pick up a used diesel motor home I had bought. I reset the average mpg and I drove it over averaging pretty close to 70, or just a little under and my wife drove it back following me in the motor home at 62 to 65 mph. Now that we're home, I was anxious to check our new number - 29.3 mpg over the past 1,200 miles!! This is largely flat land, average speeds of right around 65 and possibly 20 or 30 miles of stop and go city traffic - We had to deal with four separate traffic accidents which stopped traffic on all three lanes and we moved a car length at a time for several miles. At one point, a wreck closed I-295 completely around Jacksonville and all traffic got dumped downtown right at rush hour. If not for all those delays, I think we would probably have averaged 30 mpg Don

Thanks for posting the pictures! I agree that the larger mirrors are very nice and I was contemplating getting myself a pair, but I actually prefer the blind spot mirrors on the smaller ones to the ones on the larger set. I don't care for the location at the bottom and the vertical height just looks a little 'squished' to me - I can see what's happening better (with regard to the blind spot) with the smaller OEM mirrors . . . . and the blind spot feature is the most important thing to me I think you just saved me $250! - Thanks!!! Don

Fuel injectors are electric switches. When they are switched 'On' they deliver a certain amount of fuel. A computer controls the time they are switched 'On' and it uses all sorts of parameters to calculate the exact number of milliseconds for each Intake cycle. The single most important parameter is the reading from the O2 sensor in the exhaust. By measuring the amount of unburned oxygen in the exhaust they can determine how rich or lean the engine is running. The next important parameter is from the mass airflow sensor - You can calculate a rough idea how much fuel you'll need by measuring how much air is being let into the engine - Floor it, demanding more power and the throttle position sensor gives the computer a 'heads up' that more air will soon be coming, so the computer responds with more milliseconds which means more gas. It's an ever fluctuation computation which changes from one RPM to the next As the governments CAFE standards got tighter and tighter, demanding more fuel efficient vehicles, the manufacturers began sensing every little thing which could improve fuel economy, including temperature (but I'm not so sure about humidity, though it could be measured in there somewhere too) to 'tweak' the computers program even more, all to improve fuel economy When you understand how a modern fuel injected engine works, it really gives you an understanding of how crude and imprecise the old carburetor system actually was - We *thought* that we really had carbs tweaked to fine tune exactly what the engine needed, but compared to a modern engine, all we were really doing was dumping fuel in one end and *hoping* we weren't flooding or starving the motor, because with a carb, things were almost never optimal. Since running too lean had terrible consequences, carbs always erred on the rich side of things. Ever walked behind a finely tuned, highly cammed engine loping along at idle? You can SMELL the raw gas coming from the exhaust, and yet when you stomped on it, that engine made TONS of horsepower, but if you ever let it get even slightly too lean, you'd need a whole new motor! Don

Thanks! Great website Double Nickels it looks like they were available in the USA every single year from 2014 on - Factory price appears to be $185 per side Don

Backing *into* a parking slot has never made a lick of sense to me . . . . and most of the people who do it never seem to get centered in their own space, so when I park next to them, there's hardly room for me to open my door - I wish back in parking could be outlawed Pulling in front, it's easy to get centered in the slot and then backing out, you just hold the steering wheel fixed and you'll back out in the same track you pulled in with - No danger of hitting the car on either side of you like there is when you back in. My Chevy Volt has radar sensors in the back end which alert me to any cross traffic and the screen in the dash shows me which direction it's coming from and when I see the car pass on the screen, it's safe to start backing again Around here, when we see a car sloppily backed in to a space (it's actually pretty rare to see anybody who has backed into a parking space) we just say (under our breath) "California Driver!" ? Don

We truly live in different worlds. I've never seen a 'commercial zone' where I couldn't drive my passenger car, nor a street with signage saying 'Commercial Vehicles Only' - Quite the opposite, all I ever do see as far as restrictive signage on streets around here is 'No Trucks' Don

Me too! The first TC we ever drove was a cargo van and I never got used to the blank spot right in the center when using the inside mirror - I had to check 2 or 3 times to make sure things were clear. Carolyn liked it even less than I did, so we decided then and there that whatever we bought, it would have the liftgate We've just been spoiled by driving cars with excellent visibility all around. I know there are guys who make a living driving panel vans with no side or rear windows and they never give it a second thought - I'm sure they see all they need to with just the side mirrors, but for me, that just isn't comfortable at all Don

Well, obviously . . . . I think we all knew that - But which ones are a factory fit for the Gen 2 TC?? Don

Is there a thread here somewhere on your mirror upgrade? I looked back a couple years and didn't find one. What mirrors did you use and where did you get them? This sounds like something I might want to do! Thanks! Don

Sadly, that last update was more than a year ago and nothing since . . . . I wonder if he ever did get it driveable . . . . and it would be interesting to know what adding a manual trans to a Gen 2 TC cost him it total - I'm thinking maybe he could have bought a new 2019 for about the same money ? Don

The optimal speed for best gas mileage is probably somewhere between 40 and 45 - Fast enough to allow the engine to pull it easily in 6th gear, but no faster. Any increase over that will cost you mpg's. Driving an EV, you can easily see this as every EV has a 'range meter' which calculates how far you can go (before the battery is depleted) based on how much energy you have used over the last 10 or 15 miles. Our little Mitsubishis will go about 100 miles at city speeds of 25 or 30 and about 75 or 80 miles at 40 or 45. Maybe 60 miles at 65 to 70, but going faster than that will cut your range to only 45 to 50 miles - It decreases dramatically above about 65. So, half as far at 75 as you can go at 25 or 30. Wind resistance at higher speeds is a range killer and in an ICE vehicle, that translates to lower gas mileage. So, if you're not in a hurry, slow down and you'll go farther on every gallon. And if you ARE in a hurry, maybe you should have left home 10 or 15 minutes earlier Don

My interior lights go off after a period of time when the doors are left open. You didn't say how old your TC is or if it's the original battery or not. An aging battery will eventually give up the ghost doing ordinary things it can handle when it was newer and in good shape. If your battery is more than 4 years old, at least it gave you a warning that it's time to replace it, rather than just not starting one morning when there's someplace you really needed to go ? Don

Many people obviously don't live in a place anything like you describe. We have no 'stop and go' traffic. I've never paid a dime to park anywhere. Our city has bus service, but it doesn't run within about 10 miles of where I live, so a 10 mile walk to catch the bus wouldn't be a good option. For sure we need to own a car or we couldn't live where we do . . . . we might have to move to where there is stop and go traffic like you describe and paying $20 to park - We wouldn't call that 'living' - We'd call that 'surviving' and we just wouldn't care to live like that I would say most people do indeed need to own a car - Maybe a lucky 10% or so could survive without one . . . . but then are they really 'lucky'? . . . . or just surviving Don

We've been driving EV's as our daily drivers now for more than 7 years. There are LOTS of EV owners who recharge at home using 100% solar power every day . . . . and many of the Tesla recharging stations have huge solar arrays. Solar charging cars is neither a dream, nor a distant one - It's been happening for years I do agree that an EV is not the answer for every trip everyone needs to make, obviously, as we also own a TC. But, for most of the population, an EV is perfect for most of the daily trips they need to make - In our case, we have to keep a trickle charger on the TC to keep the battery up for those times we need to use it. Day in and day out, we drive pure electric cars and occasionally (couple times a month) we drive our Chevy Volt for trips too long to make in our EV's I'm a firm believer in using the most practical vehicle for the trips I need to make - On the opposite end of that spectrum are those who daily commute in a 6 passenger pickup that has neither hauled anything, towed anything or gone anywhere with more than two passengers for several weeks. They *might* need to tow something 2% of the time, they might need to haul something that won't fit in a car (a standard sized washer or dryer will fit in the back of our little Mitsubishi EV's) 5% of the time and they might need to go somewhere with more than 4 or 5 people 10% of the time . . . . so of course they bought a truck to drive everyday. If they had one more practical vehicle for those everyday one or two person trips and only drove the truck when they needed a truck, that same $40,000 truck would last them 30 years and they'd never have to buy another one EV's don't 'fall short' of many of your needs - They may not meet your every need, but they're certainly practical for many, if not most of them Don

Vehicle CNG tanks are VERY expensive. CNG is stored at extremely high pressure, nothing ;like LPG. Tanks rated for vehicles are heavy steel or aluminum and then wrapped in many layers of fiberglass, necessary to keep them from EXPLODING in an accident. Honda sold CNG cars in the US (Only Washington, Oregon and California I think) for several years 15 or 20 years back. You refueled at home overnight using a little pump which could generate the 3500 psi or so it takes to fill the tank Hydrogen fueled cars are great . . . . if you live in Iceland. It's pretty hard to find refueling stations anywhere else. They use geothermal steam to produce the electricity to break water down into Oxygen and Hydrogen - A very energy intensive process. You could probably drive an electric car 1,000 miles on the amount of solar electricity you would need to generate enough hydrogen to power your car 100 miles. Truly a neat idea, but hardly practical, which is why you won't find a hydrogen refueling station on any corner in the USA anytime soon Don

It's not that hard to wire in an ACR (Automatic Charging Relay) which will automatically recharge your camper battery anytime the engine is running. The ACR will make sure your loads on the camper battery can never discharge the vehicle battery, as any time the engine isn't running, the two systems are kept completely separate The TC has a huge alternator (90 amps I think) which won't be taxed at all keeping your golf cart batteries full up and you'll have plenty of power for the ice maker, lights, fans, radios, even a TV if you like Look for a Blue Sea Systems 7601 ACR - Amazon sells it for about $60. Not terribly difficult to wire up. It comes with instructions Don

I think he needs a Volt, Bolt or Tesla - Electricity is everywhere . . . . and it's not tied to the price of oil Don