Jump to content
Ford Transit Connect Forum
   

Double Nickels

T.C. Member
  • Posts

    334
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    20

Everything posted by Double Nickels

  1. It sounds like you need to scan the computer for codes. Radio, speedometer, gauges, heater..... Possibly related to the body control module. Refer to the owners manual. Check the fuses for the body control module.
  2. Engine air filter is a must. Cabin air filters are suggested. While you have the belt off, look at the water pump and check the pulleys. If you are already in there, it wouldn't hurt to replace the thermostat. If you still have the OEM brakes....... I would change the pads, resurface the rotors, and bleed the lines. It would also be a good time to refresh the suspension components. The front should be okay. Although you never know. You could find a leak or something. If the van was used for cargo, maybe rear shocks. I doubt if you will need new coil springs. And with that many years & miles...... new tires. Maybe buy a new battery. It could very well be the OEM battery. Add some new wiper blades before winter.
  3. I would replace the radio. Get something more modern. You can listen to XM with an app on your cell phone. A modern radio will use Apple Car Play and Android Auto. The newest radios connect to your phone without wires. Your van radio is fairly simple to remove. The plastic trim panel pops off with trim removal tools. Remove the wire harnesses at the top, The radio is held in place with 4 bolts. Disconnect the wire harness and antenna at the back of the radio.
  4. Some are also lazy. They don't want to do the work. They would much rather do simple things like oil changes with a coupon. Some mechanics just don't know how to do it, and they know that they don't know how. I'll admit that I don't know enough and that a customer should try to find someone with training in automotive electronics to troubleshoot and look for parasitic power loss. Good point. A lot of people leave things plugged in the 12V ports. Radar detectors. CB radios. Dash cams. It may not be the battery. The battery could be fine. The alternator could be fine. It could be the starter. Bad solenoid. It could be wiring at the battery terminals. Or a bad ground. Maybe check the starter's connections. My Dad used to say check the battery first, but then look for more. Fuel pump? Fuel pump relay? Are the spark plugs okay? Where do they get their "spark"? The coils. Where do those wires lead? It's a lot of work. There have been a few posts with bad starting, or similar.
  5. Somewhere along the line, you have to set the price point for feasibility. The value of a van which has been out of production since 2013, vs how much money and time you are willing to invest. If you had an open budget, you could experiment. Go out and get a bunch of different things that might work, and try. Most people aren't comfortable with that. If you had an open budget, you could re-engineer the van. It's a front wheel drive van. You could cut and weld to heart's desire. Remove the entire rear end. Replace everything. Get a rear end from another vehicle with disc brakes. But at what cost? This project does sound like you can make it work. Not like the guy who tried to put in a Ford Focus engine and stick shift. If anyone remembers that build, with all the years and who knows how much money. Just for fun, look at what these guys did with a little van. They didn't make it stop better. They made it go faster.
  6. A microfiber wand helps. Sprayway is a popular product.
  7. That dealership ripped you off. According to the Ford website, orange coolant is changed at 100,000 miles. However, that coolant change is not your problem. If the dealership technician did anything wrong, those problems would have happened 30,000 miles ago.
  8. The moral of the story is to mark your gas cans, use different colors, and only fill your van from gas station pump hose. Stay in the habit of only adding fuel at a gas station. Never fill your van from a can. Reserve the cans for things like your lawn mowers and motorcycles.
  9. Why are you eating in the driveway? Is that like sleeping on the couch? Coolant does not burn off. It's not like an old car burning a quart of oil every 1,000 miles. It's very common for the coolant to go 100,000 miles and still be at the same level. And in today's modern vehicles, some people do not flush the cooling system for 100,000 miles. Coolant has to be going somewhere. You may have a leak somewhere. I hope that it's not mixing with the motor oil in the engine. Hopefully, you just had pockets of air, and that has now been corrected when you added more coolant.
  10. The cooling system is pressurized. The Transit Connect's cooling system uses input from a series of sensors to electronically open and close different valves which route the coolant. Sometimes when you do a fluid exchange, you drain the system, fill it, and then you have pockets of air which need to be "burped" out. Those pockets of air can cause problems with the cooling system.
  11. I know who they use. That shop does most of the work for local area dealerships. It's a weird arrangement. That shop doesn't actually do any of the work. All the dealerships call that 1 shop. Then that shop subcontracts the work to other affiliated shops. And the dozen shops in that network all order parts through that one shop, so that the shop is able to renegotiate pricing for the parts, and they all split the difference. It's not a scam. Just smart business. Shop A is getting every dealership's calls by hook or by crook. Shop A can't possibly do all of the work. So he goes to shop 1, shop 2, shop 3, and so forth. In return for the "business to business" exchange of labor, Shop A offers to get all of their parts, at a discount. Shop A goes to the glass distributor and says, "I order 10 times the volume of any other shop, I want a volume discount on invoices" Shop A gets $100 worth of glass for $95, then sells it to his affiliated shops for $97.50. And all of those affiliated shops exchange "business to business" labor when 1 shop gets a little busier. If shop 12 has too much work, shop 5, shop 6, shop 7, will send over a few guys with their service vans and tools. Safelite is the 500 lb gorilla. They have franchises all over the country. They have an advertising campaign of print media, radio, television, online, physical billboards, et cetera. There are other chains. There are other franchises. None as well known. And then there are independent shops, who can charge less, because they aren't supporting corporate shareholders' dividends. Safelite quotes are the bar to measure by. A lot of shops tell you how much cheaper they are, compared to Safelite. I compared what I paid, to the Safelite quote.
  12. Every day in America, I see trucks with all sorts lights on bumpers, grilles, A-pillars, on the roof, on the roll bars........ I believe the spirit of the law, and usually the letter of the law, applies to how you use them. If you're just driving down a public street or highway, and you have them on, then there may be cause for a traffic stop and conversation. Every state has different regulations in regards to how you mount them, aim them, and when you can use them. In some states, if the lights are not higher than the headlights,, and the beam is aimed so that the useable portion of the light beam is on the road surface, the lights could be driving lights or fog lights. Driving and fog lights are always aimed on the ground, so that you can see the road. The problem usually is with high powered lights pointing straight, or slightly upward, directly into the eyes of oncoming traffic. Any light mounted above the headlight level is definitely an offroad use light. You don't aim these on the road. You aim these into the horizon, so that you can see above the road level - trees, animals, people on the street, down a dark alley, etc. Common sense tells you not to use it on a public road. If you really want the police to leave you alone, don't turn the lights on, or cover them. Different types of covers are produced for light bars. You may even have seen police cars with the rooflights covered. Or you can make your own. Some fabric and velcro. Or a t-shirt with zip ties. Or you have a tailor make a professional looking cover with straps and snaps.
  13. Back in high school, a lot of the kids tried to do their own tint. Seemed easy. Wash the glass with soapy water. Cut the tint film to the correct shape. Soapy water in a spray bottle and a squeegee. Work out all the bubbles. You're done. Most people could wash the window and get it pretty clean. Only problems were cutting the film with precision, and getting all the bubbles out. And everyone's home tint turned out bad. Not 1 kid I knew, got it done right. I wouldn't even know where to start. Soapy water was where it started and ended for me. What kind of soap? Dish soap, hand soap, laundry soap, Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo, or rose water body wash that your girlfriend paid $50 a bottle?
  14. Mine was shattered. A piece of gravel or rock chip of some sort. I'm lucky that I had tint film holding it all together. The whole piece of glass is "spiderwebbed". Safelite's online quote was $100 - $200 higher than every local shop. And my deductible is so high, that I will have to pay for this myself.
  15. Which model year? Which model? When there's a leak, you have fluids where it's not supposed to be wet. All sorts of electrical problems can result. Corrosion. A short. Not just a belt squealing. Remove the tire. Remove the brakes. Remove the wheel well lining. Get some photos. Let's see what it looks like.
  16. I always keep 1 eye open for good prices on oil. This is the most outrageous advertising claim I have ever seen. Who is will to try using this 500,000 miles, or 15 years? How? How can that possibly work? What kind of miracle snake oil is in that bottle?
  17. It's a part of the algorithm of the intelligent oil life monitor. Even if you barely drive it, the car's computer wants you to change the oil after a year. Maybe the oil isn't really burnt or contaminated. The additive package has not been depleted. You still have condensation. A little water sludge, which probably would have burnt off if you were driving the car more. I just ordered some oil on Amazon. A 6 gallon box. Only $60. What did it cost them to ship a 6 gallon box of oil, and the customer gets free shipping?
  18. Imagine all of the spare parts you could get from that place.
  19. You will rarely be on a perfectly level surface. But the grade on your driveway will not give you a good dipstick reading. The dipstick allows for a wide margin. On a lot of cars. 1 quart. Don't worry too much. As long as you are not consistently below the low range. On some cars, like Mercedes, Subaru, Hyundai, and 1970's era Fords, burning oil was a real problem. On some modern Fords, burning oil is still a real problem. I haven't heard about it with the 2.5 liter engine. Oil leaking is not a known issue either. Unless a lube shop did something wrong. Yes. Do check your oil. Do it as much as you need to, to feel comfortable. A dipstick is not a precision measuring device. It's still good enough for you to see how dirty the oil looks. Not that the naked eye is really able to see how contaminated the oil is. You can always hold it to your nose to check if the oil smells bad or burnt. Just don't taste test it.
  20. I thought that something like that, in a modern car, could be turned on or off via the body control module. It can be done with a SPST relay. Tap a "key on" circuit for the coil to trigger the relay. Cut the 12v power line. Use the fuse end for common. Use the power port end for normally open. When the ignition is turned, the relay will send power to the power port.
  21. Assuming that someone does not have symptoms at the moment, it does not mean that you won't have problems later. If defective sealant was used, the odds are, that sooner or later you will have a problem with it. I'm not an expert. But I would think that the sealant used to fix the vans, is not defective. At least not from the same batch that they used in Spain where the vans were assembled. To be on the safe side, I brought my van in. The dealership used a glass contractor. It wasn't half a day. Just like when a glass shop replaces a broken windshield, it does not take that long. The actual job of removing the windshield, and remounting it, was less than an hour. The dealership wanted the van to sit there overnight, so that the seal could cure. The next day, they sprayed it with a hose to test it. Two of the lowest paid "technicians" got that job. I stood there with the service adviser, and we watched. One guy got into the van and sat there. The other guy sprayed it for about 10 minutes. No leaks. So far, so good. I expect that to be the end of it. If done correctly, that sealant should be good for at least the next 10 years. By which time, I may no longer even own the van. If you have a recall notice, get it fixed. It's free. You don't want to have a leak 4 or 9 years from now, and go searching around the whole house looking for that letter.
  22. It was just about time. The OEM tires were worn. My van only drives on city streets, paved roads, and highways. No off road, dirt trail, or sand, mud, snow, etc. No high speed cornering, or sudden stopping. No heavy loads. My driving does not require a performance tire. I just needed an inexpensive set of tires to drive around town and circle the mall parking lot. I tried to balance pricing, with availability. I am not driving an hour to save $10. The tires were in stock - as opposed to some competitors who advertised tires that were not in stock. Nationwide chain, so if I am farther from home, I can still get a flat repaired under warranty. I know. A lot of you guys prefer "better" tires. I get that. For me, and the way I drive, I don't need anything that good. As long as the tread holds up for the remainder of the warranty, I am okay. My local retail outlet of America's Tire / Discount Tire / Tire Rack had Sentury. For my use, it works fine. I can't tell the difference when I'm out running errands.
×
×
  • Create New...