Mark: Hi, it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik, talking cars this morning. How’re you doing Bernie?

Bernie: Doing very well

Mark: So actually, we’re talking trucks, I lied a little bit, we’re talking again about a 2008 Ford 350 diesel 6.4 litre diesel that had some exhaust manifold gasket issues. What was going on with this truck?

Bernie: Well this truck came to us with a couple of issues, one was a lack of pawer but not related to what we’re talking about today, that was one issue, the other is a very loud noise under the hood, a tic tic tic tic type of noise. So we had a look at it and found there’s an extremely bad exhaust leak at the rear of the next exhaust manifold, right where the manifold bolts onto the head, so assuming the gasket was blown out was our initial assumption.

Mark: So, we’ve gone over these vehicles, other vehicles in this line before, so I know this is a pretty extensive and complicated repair, was it?

Bernie: Yes, of course, it’s a Ford diesel. You know these well from our conversations too. There’s not much simple on a Ford diesel, actually for most diesels for that matter but definitely nothing simple on this vehicle. It was a cab off repair. I suppose we could of struggled and done it with the cab on, but I really really can’t imagine it would have been a lot of fun and really the amount of extra time it takes to take the cab off, makes the job well worthwhile, we can inspect a lot of other components at the same time and because we have to take the turbo charger off too, it just made sense to do everything all at the same time with the cab off. Once the cab is off, it’s still a complex repair. There’s still a lot to do to get to the manifolds off, they’re buried in there and really it’s still not easy.

Mark: So did you have to replace the manifolds?

Bernie: We did in this case. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t but what we found of course they, actually both of them had leaks and both had broken bolts at the back of the head. But yes, we did have to replace the manifolds. It just made sense financially to do them as opposed to having a machine shop do them, replace the studs on the manifolds, by the time you add all that up it’s just cheaper to replace the manifolds. Same cost to replace the manifold and you get brand new ones. I’ll share some photos while we’re at it here. Ok there’s the, this is the right hand exhaust manifold bolted up to the head and you can see this isa bolt, this is one of the bolts that bolts the manifold to the cylinder head, you can see no bolt head here, this one was gone, same with the other one down below. So those were both missing, broken off. What have we got here, this is our, you can see the evidence of the leak, this is on the left side this is where the leak was really bad and this black soot is all exhaust soot, it’s a diesel, very sooty and the gasket, there’s the manifold, this is the gasket right here, that’s what was blown out and a further view, this is with the manifold off and you can see the severe leak out the back here. This is all diesel soot and bolt holes here but no bolt hole here because the bolts have basically broken right off, and a final view, the gasket and this is the gasket at the rear as you can see, it’s missing a complete chunk, it’s just burned away. So there are the photos, the pictures tells it all.

Mark: So you didn’t have any shots of the cab off which would of been kind of cool, but what parts did you end up replacing with this service?

Bernie: So as I mentioned, we did do the manifolds, we inspected the Y-pipes, the pipes at the back because these are things we’ve replaced before. There were in good shape on this vehicle so we didn’t do those but all the bolts for the manifold, we replaced all of them because they get stretched and there’s no sense in using the other bolts. There’s a risk, there’s also a risk when we assemble it when a bolt looks good and it’ll snap so all those bolts are replaced, all the gaskets and that kind of takes care of it.

Mark: Any other parts or pipes that you replaced while you were at it?

Bernie: No actually just what I mentioned before, the manifolds and the bolts.

Mark: So this is a second kind of encounter with a 6.4 diesel recently. Are you seeing a lot more of these?

Bernie: We are. I really noticed a lot more of these are coming to our shop, I guess they’re getting older now, we used to see nothing but 6 litres and we still see a lot of them but diesels last a long time, so even though the 6 litre is a lot of work and can be an expensive vehicle to fix, it’s still a diesel, still got a lot of value so I imagine we’ll be seeing those for years and years to come. Yeah, there’s a lot more 6.4’s come into our shop, they’re getting older, things are happening to them, fortunately not blowing head gaskets with the frequency of a 6 litre but there’s still lots of the expensive repairs that they need and anything on a diesel tends to be expensive. The parts are high priced and the labour is very intensive. They pack a lot of stuff into the engine compartment.

Mark: Well isn’t that part of that, isn’t part of that where the pressures that diesel generates and that’s super high temperatures and stuff too as well from that fuel?

Bernie: Absolutely and I was thinking to myself as we are doing this hangout, why should these bolts break at the back of the manifold, like why would these be the ones? Well these are on a, on these vehicles with the regeneration system. They inject extra fuel into the rear cylinders so it creates all that extra heat to burn the soot out in the back, so there’s a lot more going on in the rear cylinders of these engines than there is in the front three on each bank. So bolts can snap anywhere, but it kind of makes sense when you think about all that extra heat, there’s just a lot more strain in that area. And really I mean diesels used to be extremely dirty and they’ve cleaned them up really well but all the problems with diesels are really 99% of them seem to be happening because of the emission equipment on them that’s where all the cost comes. So you know, having a clean diesel comes at a price. It’s amazing, quiet, very little pollutants coming out the back except for Volkswagens and a bunch of other liars now out on the market, but you know, compared to what they used to be with that black smoke and the stench, it’s pretty amazing what’s been accomplished, at a price.

Mark: Yes, so there you go. If you’re looking for service for your 6.4 litre diesel or any diesel that you might have in Vancouver, the guys to see are Pawlik Automotive. They’re experts in it as I can attest, they looked after my TDI which I’m happily returning to Volkswagen on Monday, you can call them at 604-327-7112 or check out their website pawlikautomotive.com. Thanks Bernie

Bernie: Thanks Mark.

Mark: Hi it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik of Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, 17 time winners of Best Auto Repair in Vancouver as voted by their customers. How’re you doing this morning Bernie?

Bernie: Doing very well.

Mark: So we’re going to talk about, we’re doing a bit of a reprise I guess, we’re going back to Ford Diesel’s, this time it’s a 2008 F350 with the 6.4 diesel, there was an alternator problem, what was going on with this truck?

Bernie: Yeah so this vehicle as brought to us, towed in actually with an under hood wiring fire or an electrical fire under the hood, so that’s what the vehicle came in to us, pretty, potentially, serious issue.

Mark: So what did you find?

Bernie: So what we found upon inspection, we found that the lower alternator had basically had an internal short and meltdown. We didn’t see any flames. We hooked the batteries up and it started getting hot pretty quickly so we can only imagine that was a bit of a fire coming out of the alternator and it seemed like that was about the worst area of the damage was just the alternator itself. But yeah, it was the lower alternator.

Mark: So you say lower, is there an upper alternator?

Bernie: Yeah there is on some diesel vehicles. Ford’s and GM’s for sure, I’m not sure of Dodge’s, but those two brands you have the option of a dual alternator on some of their diesels. So yeah there are actually two of them on this vehicle.

Mark: Was there any other damage beyond the alternator?

Bernie: Fortunately for the owner of this vehicle, no, other than the belt, the drive belt was damaged but I mean, that would probably be something that would need to be replaced anyways but no, fortunately there wasn’t and it was a good thing for him because there is a lot of wiring that sits right above the alternator and I guess the way it caught on fire it didn’t cause any further damage. So very lucky that it got caught. I’ll share some photos. Our 08 Ford, nice white Ford four door F350 with the diesel and we’ll go to the next photo which is, this is the alternator. This is a lower alternator, it looks rather ugly, it’s had a fire extinguisher sprayed on it, things have melted onto the alternator and also the pulley was seized as well. So whatever happened, is a complete meltdown internally and the alternator would even turn anymore, so that’s our alternator. The belt goes here, one of the mounting holes here, but normally they’re a nice shiny aluminum piece without all this fire extinguisher debris.

Mark: So how unusual is this?

Bernie: You know for all the time I’ve worked on cars, which is a long time, this is only the second time I’ve ever seen an alternator meltdown like this. So yeah, pretty, extremely rare. Not sure what would cause it, just some sort of internal short inside, I mean there’s a lot of windings and wires inside an alternator. I’ll say it’s a pretty complex piece plus it’s directly hooked to the battery there is no, sometimes there is a fuse link but for the most part, it’s a direct connection between the alternator and the battery. So there is a lot of potential power that can flow through it, especially if it’s a short.

Mark: Anything that the owner could’ve done to prevent this problem?

Bernie: No, as an owner of the vehicle, this kind of thing is just a random failure, nothing you can do, no amount of good maintenance will prevent this kind of thing and the good news is it is extremely rare. So usually when alternators fail, they just don’t put out enough energy to charge the battery and they need to be replaced or the bearings will fail and they’ll cause a noise and that’ll eventually cause a problem. But with a short out like this, this is extremely rare. One thing I will add to, that if this happens to you in your vehicle, a lot of times your insurance will cover it because it is a fire, not a mechanical failure. So for the owner of this vehicle, he did have a portion of the bill covered by his insurance which was a really good thing.

Mark: So there you have it. If you have a failure in your alternator or you’ve got some weird noises or your car isn’t charging properly, the guys to see in Vancouver are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at 604-327-7112 or check out their website pawlikautomotive.com - we have 5 plus years of videos on there, tons of information. Thanks a lot Bernie

Bernie: Thanks Mark.

Mark: Hi it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, Vancouver’s favourite auto service experience. How’re you doing this morning Bernie?

Bernie: Doing very well.

Mark: So, we’re going to talk about a 2005 Toyota Sequoia that had a brake issue. What was going on with this vehicle?

Bernie: It was brought to our shop, the client had some concert about the brakes needing to be replaced. I did drive the vehicle for a while, dropped them off at the airport. Out shop is located close to the airport, so it gives a good opportunity to offer some extra customer service and test drive a vehicle at the same time. Really didn’t notice any issues with the brakes but he was under the impression they needed to be replaced.

Mark: So when you checked the vehicle, what did you find with the brakes?

Bernie: Well, pretty severely worn. Really really rusty, very badly worn pads and rotors, nothing metal on metal which is probably why I didn’t experience anything but they were worn, the pads were worn down quite extremely. There’s a lot of rust on the brakes.

Mark: So is this pretty typical with brakes? What causes all the rust on brakes?

Bernie: Well usually, most of, I mean, naturally the vehicles are out in the, if you’re in a rainy climate or snowy climate, you’ve got a lot of moisture that accumulates on your brakes, so naturally rust will build up on brakes over time. Now this vehicle is from Whistler which is, you experience snow for four to five months of the year and a lot of road salt, so wherever you have a lot of road salt, that’s a lot harder on the braking system of the vehicle. I’ll share a few photos here and you can’t a really good idea what’s going on with the rust wise. Here we go, you looking at the brake rotor? Yeah so, this is the front brake rotor, now you can, normally this is a very shiny piece of metal from where my mouse pointer right out to the edge of the rotor, normally this is a very shiny piece of metal. As you can see, the only shiny bits of metal are about half the rotor in the middle, and the outer edge is rusty and the inner edge is rusty as well. So this is basically just from cycling with the road salt and eventually it keeps attacking the metal and it’s very rusty. Of course, once you have that, there is less area for the brakes to apply. Here’s a close up again, you can see there’s a whole edge of the brake pad that’s not applying against any metal, it’s just applying against flaky rust which definitely affects your braking ability. Another view we have here, this is the brake caliper, now this part we replaced as well and along with the brake pads. You can see that this part of the brake pad here, where my mouse pointer is, this is the actual pad material, the wear out part of the material and this piece is the backing plate. So when you want, so once you wear down to the backing plate you get the grinding sound which is referred to metal on metal brakes. You don’t want to go that, definitely never want to go that far. You can see on this brake pad, it’s almost worn down to metal on metal, extremely thin and also worn on an angle and you may ask, well why would the brake pads be different? All primarily due to the caliper brake pistons. These are the pistons here, these pistons are obviously sticking, especially this one more than the other because it’s more wear in this area. So the caliper pistons are sticking again it’s another hazard of living in salty climates. Calipers get attacked a lot more as well. This is a different view of the brake pads, looking from the top side, again you can see the pad wear extremely different from side to side.

Mark: So in effect, is one side of those calipers actually doing the work and the other is is not?

Bernie: Well, they’re both working but one is doing a lot more than the other. Once you get uneven pad wear like that, you’ve got one side that’s pushing harder than the other and especially if you have one side of the vehicle like say the right side caliper is seized and the left side is not, then you get a severe brake pull and you hit the brakes. That wasn’t noticeable on the drive I took, you know but driving down a mountain highway road, going high speed you might, you would probably have noticed a difference. The brakes will certainly be a lot better after we replace them because you’ve got a lot more surface area, everything is moving freely so you get much better brake activation.

Mark: So how often do calipers need replacement?

Bernie: It really varies from vehicle to vehicle. There are some shops that I think it’s their belief system that you should change the calipers every time you do the pads and rotors and you know, there is some merit in theory to doing that because you know these other parts, there’s rubber seals and the calipers they’re heating up and cooling down and they don’t have the same effectiveness as they would have, but normally what we do is we to it on a case by case basis. If there’s any evidence of problems like this, the calipers get replaced. If the seals are torn, the calipers get replaced. Generally once you get over ten years old, there’s certainly much more need to replace calipers just from the age of the vehicle. But again, if you’re getting into a lot of fancy imported vehicles, the calipers can be insanely expensive, you know a thousand dollars a piece and there’s really not reason to change those parts just because you’re changing the brake pads. It’s something you analyze every time you do a brake job and see what needs to be done.

Mark: So I am assuming once you change all those parts, it looks almost like it’s all brand new then?

Bernie: Yes, I don’t have an after photo but everything is shiny and new and it looks really nice.

Mark: The customer is happy with their stop on a dime, give you nine cents change Toyota Sequoia

Bernie: Exactly, exactly and I mean it does look great and of course being in the climate it’s in, given in a year from now it’ll probably look a little rustier but it takes a few years in this climate for it to, and that climate up at Whistler for the brakes to look like that, but it you live somewhere where there’s road salt six or eight months of the year, every couple of years your brakes could actually wear out at this kind of rate.

Mark: Any last thoughts on the Toyota Sequoia?

Bernie: Great vehicle. It’s a full size SUV, reliable, it’s Toyota, it’s awesome.

Mark: So there you go. If you’re looking for a service on your Toyota or your Sequoia in Vancouver, the guys to see are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at 604-327-7112 in Vancouver or check out their website pawlikautomotive.com. Remember they are 17 time winners of Best Auto Repair in Vancouver as voted by their customers. Thanks Bernie

Bernie: Thanks Mark.

Mark: Hi, it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik we’re talking cars. How’re you doing this morning Bernie?

Bernie: I’m doing very well.

Mark: So Bernie, you’ve been doing car repairs for over 30 years, we have this little series running where we’re talking about the reliability of all sorts of different vehicles. Today we’re talking about the Toyota Sequoia. How reliable are Toyota Sequoias?

Bernie: I’d say to put it very simply, very reliable.

Mark: All right, that’s pretty definitive. What kind of competitors are there in this category, what does this vehicle even look like?

Bernie: Well it’s a full size SUV, let’s while you say what does it look like, let’s just share a photo real quick, so there is a 2005 Toyota Sequoia, as you can see it’s the full size, pretty much full size SUV, equivalent I would say to a Suburban, actually probably not as big as a Suburban, but maybe a Tahoe, a Chevy Tahoe, Ford Ex, a little smaller than a Ford Excursion, not an Excursion that’s a massive vehicle, the Expedition, the Ford Expedition. You know a little bigger than an Explorer so kind of in that category of mid to full size SUVs. So for competitors, I mentioned them really it’s the Chevy Tahoe Suburban type vehicle of the Ford Expedition/Explorer category and how does it fair?

Mark: How does it fair against those?

Bernie: I’d say very reliable. I’m not such a big fan of the Ford products, there are a few issues that they have that are I would say, put them on a much lower scale of reliability. I put the Toyota way up there. I find the Tahoe’s and Suburbans are really highly reliable as well. They’re all kind of equivalent quality vehicles.

Mark: What about some of the other Japanese and Korean makes?

Bernie: You know for some reason I can’t think of another imported vehicle that’s of this size and of these sort of model years that’s equivalent to it.

Mark: So this is bigger than like a Kia Sedona, this is larger.

Bernie: Yeah, this is larger. This is a body on frame truck, this is a full, actual real truck. Now I know that Nissan has the Nissan Titan, the pickup but I don’t believe they have a SUV version of that but the equivalent pickup trucks in the Nissan and full size Toyota are comparable.

Mark: So what kind of problems do you see with this vehicle?

Bernie: Well not a lot and I will say to be fair, we don’t see a ton of them because there’s not a lot of them on the road. They’re not a huge selling vehicle like a, there’s a lot more Tahoe’s and Suburbans and we work in a lot of Ford products. We don’t see as many of these vehicles and really I mean, very few issues with them. They are very reliable. I always look at research and what other people are seeing on them, there’s a few complaints of transmission issues in the earlier years, so earlier meaning around 2001 up to about 04, that vehicle I showed you in the photo is 05, by that time the transmission concerns seem to be non existent. But there’s very little it seems to go wrong with them and all we do on them with the clients we have is basic maintenance services, brakes, oil services and whatever other maintenance items are required.

Mark: Does this vehicle use a timing belt?

Bernie: Yeah, it does. Up to around 2010 on the 4.7 litre V8, they’re all timing belt engines so that’s something you need to address; 08 and newer there’s a 5.7 V8, those are all chain driven and once you get into the 2010 years and up, they’re all chain driving engines. So but yeah, the belt is something that definitely needs to be done and usually I think the service interval is about 168,000 kilometres which is a 105,000 miles I believe. So that’s when you need to replace it.

Mark: what about timing chains, do they ever need service?

Bernie: Not unless, not normally, I mean a timing chain, there’s no replacement interval on it. It’s meant to las the life of the engine, however long that is and sometimes that’s really up to how well you take care of your engine. Timing chain engines you really got to be rigorous with your oil changes, follow the maintenance schedule of sooner. Don’t leave it too long. It’s, that’s when the timing chains wear. There’s a lot of plastic guide rails and pieces and that’s when they deteriorate. So you really don’t want to do anything to cause your timing chain, timing chains to need replacement because they are so expensive to do

Mark: What about the resale value on these vehicles?

Bernie: Really high and that’s actually, I’d say that’s where the Toyota’s have an edge over the Suburbans and Tahoe’s and especially the Fords. Toyota’s always, they’re higher price to buy generally speaking for equivalent model, so you’re going to pay more to buy them but over time, the depreciation on Toyota’s is generally a lot less. So the good news is if you buy a brand new one you actually retain more of your value in the vehicle but when it comes to buying a used one, they often cost more money to buy but they’re, they are durable, they’re reliable. So you’re paying money for that. But yeah, the resale value is good for Toyota. I remember for years, the Toyota Forerunner actually had the highest resale value of any vehicle. You buy a new one for say $50,000 you can sell it three or four years later for $45,000 so that’s outrageously good resale value and I’ve heard that the FJ Cruiser which is a kind of unique little sport utility vehicle, again they have extremely high resale value. So that’s one thing that’s very positive about Toyota’s.

Mark: This would be a vehicle you’d recommend?

Bernie: Absolutely yeah, it’s a great vehicle. If you’re looking for a good quality, large SUV, you can even get these with three rows of seats, so you can haul a big family around, they’ll use a lot of gas, it’s a big vehicle but again super reliable, very nice ride, they’re available in a range of models right up to fully luxurious so, just short of a Lexus in terms of luxury features, so pretty amazing, very good vehicle.

Mark: So there you go, if you’re looking for a Toyota Sequoia they get the mark of, the stamp of approval from Bernie Pawlik of Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver. If you’re needing service on your Toyota products these are the guys to call 604-327-7112 or check out their website pawlikautomotive.com. Thanks Bernie

Bernie: Thanks Mark

Mark: Hi it’s Mark, Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, we’re talking cars. How’re you doing Bernie?

Bernie: I’m doing very well.

Mark: So we’re going to talk about a Mercedes S500 wiring harness replacement, what was going on with this car?

Bernie: well this car was brought to us by a client of ours for a couple years and he had an intermittent issue. The car sits in a garage for a long time, takes it out for a drive, maybe for 15-20 minutes, stops the car, gets back in, drives it, runs really rough for a while. It had been serviced at the dealer, it’s a very low mileage car, previously I think, just exclusively serviced at the dealer. They replaced some distributor caps, a few things but still the problem persisted and what we figured that was likely based on the symptoms, that there was a wiring harness problem which is a fairly common issue to these vehicles.

Mark: So a wiring harness replacement sounds like it could be pretty expensive?

Bernie: It is actually extremely expensive, not really as labour intensive as you might think on this vehicle because of the age of the vehicle, but the part itself is extremely expensive, but what happens with this wiring is it actually disintegrates. It’s a defect that Mercedes has had from about 91 to 96 model years, sometimes extending into 97 from what I read and basically the wiring just, the insulation they use, some kind of insulation that basically flakes apart. There’s really nothing you can do about it. I’ll share a couple of photos. Here’s our 94 S500, a real nice, real nice condition, a four door sedan, lots of leg room front and back, very luxurious features for a car of this age. So this is the complete engine wiring harness, this is the old one that removed from the vehicle. Basically this harness goes from the fuel injection computer goes to all the various sensors and also the fuel injector so that’s kind of primarily what it controls. This vehicle being of the 94 vintage, it also has an ignition computer which is a separate thing, doesn’t seem to be any issues with the wiring on that particular side of it, but it’s with this particular wiring harness. Now let’s have a look at some of the wiring. So this, if you can see here, this is the wiring connector to one of the fuel injectors, maybe you can see this insulation is just basically broken right off the wire and another view here, this is with the plastic cover stripped away, you can see the insulation is just cracking, cracking, cracking all the way up. This is happening on every one of these wiring connectors. So basically what we figured was happening with this vehicle, and we don’t know for certain, is that you know, sometimes when you run the vehicle a wire would short out or something, a bad connection would occur and that would cause the engine to run roughly. Incidentally, it never happened when I drove the vehicle and I drove it quite a few times but this is the kind of nature of intermittent problems. Now again, it’s one of these things where we replaced it because there’s no other obvious fault and the wiring is such an obvious issue that it makes sense to do it. The other thing that can happen with these, with this particular issue is that these wires short out, it can cause failures of other components, like it could actually blow the ECU, you know extremely expensive. So if you’re going to keep the car and you want to do it, you got to fix the wiring first.

Mark: So I think you mentioned this, but this was was a certain range of years, all different models of Mercedes in those years?

Bernie: Yeah all models of Mercedes from 91 to 96 and I was reading somewhere into 97, so anything around those kind of model years is when that insulation happened, is bad. Yeah it affects all models anything from a four cylinder C series up to the S, any AMG’s anything, it affects them all.

Mark: So would it have been maybe more cost effective to just have insulated those wires?

Bernie: Well there’s a lot of them and they all deteriorate so unfortunately not. I mean, I guess if you really wanted to go cheap and you’re really handy, you could probably take the wiring harness apart and replace each individual wire but you know with all the connectors on there and the precision that’s involved in all these components, it just makes more sense to replace the complete harness. It’s not a cheap part, only available from Mercedes or there are people who actually custom rebuild them but the price, the price is less but I don’t know, I just trust the OEM harness a lot better and the new ones have been redesigned not to rot which is an important thing.

Mark: So this is a 94, getting pretty old, was it worth doing this repair?

Bernie: Well that’s a good question and it really depends on the car, I mean for the owner of this vehicle there was some sentimental value, the car is very low mileage, only 57,000 kilometres, essentially it’s like a brand new car still, so really well maintained. So if you you care about the car, it’s a nice, Mercedes are nice quality vehicles in any model line, it’s really how much do you care about the car. There’s certainly some models like the AMG or an S or SL series, they’re still worthwhile, and some are collectible so you know, they’re definitely worth the money. You just got to sort of assess it yourself. For a C series car, four door sedan probably not but you know, for a nice one yeah, it’d be worth it.

Mark: I’ve actually ridden in one of these, these are a very, very nice car.

Bernie: It’s a super nice car. It’s got some amazing features like little blinds that go up on the back window so you don’t sun shine in and the leg room in the back again, you could take four large men and put them in this car and they’d be extremely comfortable driving right across the country. So you know there’s something to that, even the back seats recline and they’re amazing features for a 1994 car.

Mark: So there you go, if your 94 or early 90’s vintage Mercedes is showing some issues, you want yo call Pawlik Automotive, they can look after you. You can reach them at 604-327-7113 or check out their website pawlikautomotive.com. Thanks Bernie

Bernie: Thanks Mark

Mark: Hi, it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, Vancouver’s best auto service experience, 17 time winners of Best Auto Repair in Vancouver as voted by their customers. How you doing Bernie?

Bernie: Doing very well this morning.

Mark: So we’re going to talk about a little bit newer vehicle today, a 2010 Jaguar XF with the all too common check engine lamp problem. What was going on with this vehicle?

Bernie: So the vehicle was brought to us by our client, the check engine light was on on her dash and recently she had some bodywork done on the front of the vehicle, there was a small collision and had some body work done and a short time afterwards the check engine light came on. So she figured it was possibly related to that and she wanted us to see what was going on with it and see whether that was in fact the case. It wasn’t related to the accident but the check engine light was on.

Mark: What did you have to do to diagnose this?

Bernie: Well basically the first procedure we plug a diagnostic scan tool into the vehicle and see what trouble codes are stored. Every time a check engine light comes on, there’s a trouble code that’s stored in the vehicle or codes, there could be many of them depending on what faults there are, but there was one code in this case for a problem in the EVAP system and the EVAP system captures fuel vapour and prevents fuel vapours, gasoline vapours from escaping into the atmosphere which creates a lot of pollution and haze and a lot of those issues. So that’s why they have these complicated systems to keep gasoline fumes inside the vehicle.

Mark: So what other procedures, well that’s maybe a little, sounds a little more complicated. Don’t you just plug the scan tool and it tells you exactly what the problem is?

Bernie: No and a lot of people have that misconception that there’s a magic box you just plug in, tells you what it is, away you go, you fix that part and the car tells you what’s wrong. Not the case at all, I mean this magic box, the diagnostic scan tool will give trouble codes and information, it’ll give an explanation as to what the issue is, but it will not tell you what exactly is wrong with it. Now in this case, there was a circuit problem with one of the EVAP system valves and from there, well we can make an assumption, oh it’s this piece, let’s just change it, but really the proper way to diagnose it is having that information. It gives us an area to go, ok this is where the problem lies, from here we have to test the circuit. So we have to test the circuit from the computer back to the valve which is located in the, way in the rear of the vehicle, buried up above the differential. So those are the tests we need to do to verify whether the part is bad, whether there’s a wiring problem, whether the computer itself is bad because it can be any of those things.

Mark: So in other words basically, you just get an indicator of here’s where the issue might be, but then the issue could be caused by a bunch of different things failing or it could be upstream or even downstream of where the computer is telling you that it is.

Bernie: Exactly and it’s important to know some, you know with a lot of these trouble codes is whether the problem is being caused by the actual component or whether it’s being, something else that’s causing the component to read a fault. So like a lot of diagnostic systems, as cars get newer the codes are more and more specific as to where the problem lies but it’s still requires testing and verification to know and there are hundreds of things that can cause a check engine light to come on. So we can fix this problem this week, next week the light will come on because something else failed and you know, it’s kind of frustrating for an owner because you go, hey you just fixed that last week and it’s like well, it’s something else this time.

Mark: So what ended up being wrong with this Jag?

Bernie: So there’s a, so the EVAP system has an item called the charcoal canister and on the canister there’s an item called a leak detection pump, there’s a valve on the pump that opens and closes to atmospheric pressure, it’s a vent valve and basically the valve had failed. So that’s what was wrong and we found that as I mentioned through testing the circuits and making sure that everything was working fine but we actually verified that the problem was in the pump itself.

Mark: So that sounds pretty complicated to be honest with you. Was this a difficult part to replace?

Bernie: It is. It’s basically, Jaguar installed this part then they put the rear differential, it’s a rear wheel drive vehicle so the rear differential sits underneath it and there’s no room to even access the wiring connector for testing. So we have to do all the tests from the front of the vehicle but anyways, to get the component out, the rear differential has to come down, the exhaust system has to be removed, an axle shaft, there’s a lot of pieces that need to be removed. Once those are out, then the parts really easy to change. But its quite a few hours of worth of work to replace the piece.

Mark: Not exactly a Formula One car.

Bernie: No not as fast at taking tires on and off a Formula One that’s for sure.

Mark: So when a check engine light is on, is it always necessary to fix it?

Bernie: Well I would say, yes and no and it depends on what, why the light is on. So first of all you should fix it because you’ve got a warning light that’s telling you something’s wrong, now if you live somewhere where there’s emission testing and your vehicle needs to go in for a test, yes you’ll have to fix it because if the lights on, it’ll fail the test. We live in Vancouver, they don’t have emission testing any more so it doesn’t really matter from that point of view. My first question to anyone who’s got a check engine light on, is how is the vehicle performance? The performance is exactly, feels exactly normal then it’s probably ok not to fix it immediately but it’s alway worth having it scanned to see what the cause of the problem is. An EVAP problem is not going to affect your vehicle performance most, 99% of the time. It will create emission issues but so that’s up to your conscience as to how much you care about the environment. But if you have an engine misfire code or there’s some other codes that are a lot more serious, it’s important to fix them but those usually will be associated with engine performance issues. So key thing is get the code scanned by a professional, have some assess what it is and then you can decide what between yourself and your mechanic or your service provider, do I need to fix this right now? Depending on your budget, depending on if you have a holiday you need to go on, you know if this codes wasn’t fixed on this vehicle immediately it wouldn’t really affect the car right away but it’s a good idea to fix it and then of course if your check engine lights on for one problem you know of if something else happens you won’t know that there was another problem that’s occurred. It’s good to fix things as they happen because it’s, even though it costs money to fix it, it’s cheaper to fix them one by one that it is to wait till there’s 10 codes and go oh my god it’s like way too much money, I need to get rid of the car.

Mark: So that sounds like a really good plan actually. Get your check engine light checked to find out and get an idea of what the problem is and the you can decide whether you want to repair it to not.

Bernie: Yeah exactly that’s exactly the best way to do it.

Mark: So there you go, if your check engine lamp is on here in Vancouver the guys to call are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at 604-327-7112 to book an appointment, book ahead they’re busy, or call I already said that, you can check out their website pawlikautomotive.com. Thanks Bernie

Bernie: Thanks Mark

Mark: Hi, this is Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, we’re talking cars. How’re you doing Bernie?

Bernie: I’m doing very well Mark.

Mark: So we’re going to talk about the Toyota Camry first thing, how reliable is the Toyota Camry?

Bernie: Overall I’d say it’s a pretty good car. There are a few issue through the years, the Camry has been around for a long time and overall I’d say it’s a very good car.

Mark: So Toyota has a pretty good reputation for reliability and I trust that Camry is pretty much the same?

Bernie: Yeah they are. There’s a few, we’ll go through a few different model years. There’s been a number of generations of Camry, I started trying to figure it out and it’s probably like six or eight, cars been around since the early 1980’s and it’s change a lot. They used to be a very narrow type of vehicle, they’ve gone to a wider body vehicle, I’d say generally always reliable for the era they’re in. When you compare a 1980’s car you have to kind of compare to whatever other 1980’s models were around, not to modern standards. They’re really good vehicles overall. Some interesting issues that I can remember from some of the earlier Camry’s which was carbon buildup in the engine. So you get these cars where they wouldn’t go up a hill, like when you get to the top of a steep hill, all of a sudden the car couldn’t accelerate any more. Problem was actually really simple. It was carbon buildup on the valves of the engine. This is kind of like a beginning of an issue that you know for decades now we’ve done fuel injection cleanings and combustion chamber services to eliminate that problem but what would happen is that intake valves would get covered in carbon deposits and the fuel injectors will be injecting fuel and will all getting soaked and absorbed into the carbon and so as the engine is going up the hill, it wasn’t getting enough fuel. So it’s kind of an interesting issue but something that I remember from the older Camry’s. Also the older Camry’s you get transmission problems as well, but these are so far in the past. I can’t remember the last time I saw those 80’s generation Camry’s. Camry is one of those cars, it’s a good practical car and once it’s lived it’s lifespan, people just send them to the trash can so to speak.

Mark: So how about the later ones, how are they?

Bernie: The later ones are good, I mean they’ve got progressively better. There is an issue with Camry on around the 2007 model year. A lot of excess oil consumption, a lot to complaints around that, so with Toyotas, what I’ve found and I’ve said this many times before you really have to change your engine oil on a regular basis. Now I’m not blaming necessarily bad maintenance, but because there are some obviously engineering defects but really with the Toyota, you’ve got to change your oil every five to eight thousand kilometres depending what kind of oil you use, what’s in there, but really change it early. It’s the best thing you can do for a Toyota. But definitely around the ’07 model year, a lot of companies of excessive oil consumption. So that’s not a great thing, so something to look out for if you’re purchasing a used Camry from a decade ago.

Mark: So one of the things that we mentioned a lot is timing belts and I guess do all Camry’s have timing belts and how often do they need replacement?

Bernie: So Camry has used timing belts through the years for quite a while, they use it right into the 2000 model year on the V6 engines, generally the interval on them is around 160,000 kilometres but in the earlier models the interval was more around 96,000 kilometres or 60,000 miles. So you just need to know which year and model it is to find out when the timing belt interval is. But the 4 cylinders have not used a timing belt in a long time all the newer sixes are all chain driven, so you don’t need to worry. But the best thing to do is, you can look up the information or call a mechanic you trust and get the information.

Mark: So in the late 2000’s, Toyota had the sudden acceleration issue, non-issue blown up kind of thing, were Camry’s one of the affected models?

Bernie: They were. Camry’s were one of the models, I was doing a little research before we got on this hangout, and around the late 2000’s when the recall starting coming out with sudden acceleration issues. Camry is definitely one of them, I think there’s about 5 million vehicles affected. It was a big recall. To put things into perspective, a lot of the problems were just floor mats sticking on the accelerator pedals, that was part of the issue. We see that in a lot of customers cars when people come in with complaints of things and the car doesn’t go fast enough because a floor mat stuck underneath the gas pedal or, you really have to be careful, you have to watch our for your floor mats are positioned on your car, not just Toyota but any car. Anyways, the recall dealt with floor mats and then they actually redid the accelerator pedal because their did seem to be some issues with the accelerator pedal and they did some reprogramming with the vehicle in order that if you, it’s an electronic reprogramming but if you push the brake on the vehicle and you had a foot on the accelerator at the same time, it would actually cut the engine power which is interesting because I notice that when we go to diagnose modern vehicles. A lot of older techniques we would use, sometimes would be to put the right foot on the gas pedal and accelerate and put the brake on and we would use this technique for certain things and I noticed on a lot of newer cars you can’t do that. The moment you put the brake on the car, the engine won’t run anymore. It’s kind of frustrating for a mechanic to do a diagnostic when you’re limited to certain things, the computer limits you but that’s one of the safety features they put in. It’s good idea because obviously if your car is having run away acceleration, you want to be able to stop it.

Mark: So overall, it sounds like this is a pretty good car.

Bernie: Yeah, I like Camry’s, I mean there are a few years with a few issues like I said with the oil consumption so you to to watch that but overall they’ve been throughout the years very reliable, it’s kind of to me a large Corolla, maybe not quite as reliable as a Corolla, but pretty close.

Mark: So there you go. If you’re looking for service for your Toyota Camry in Vancouver, the guys to call are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at 604-327-7112, you must book ahead, they’re busy or check out their website pawlikautomotive.com. Thanks a lot Bernie

Bernie: Thanks Mark

Mark: Hi, it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, talking cars. How’re you doing this morning Bernie?

Bernie: I’m doing very well this morning.

Mark: So we’re going to talk about the Nissan Altima. It’s been around for a couple decades, how’re these cars for reliability?

Bernie: These cars are fair, they are very popular, they’ve been around as you mentioned, since actually 1992 when they started. Most of the models that we see are somewhere in the early 2000’s and getting newer and the early models were ok, just a good sort of good basic reliable car, four cylinder engine. Once they go into the early 2000’s, they started kind of jazzing thing up a bit. They introduced a 2.5 litre engine which was mostly reliable and also offered a 3.5 litre V6 which was kind of pretty cool in smaller car, lots of power, peppy. So it was a nice option, same engine you find in a Maxima, so it’s kind of a nice blend between the large car in a slightly smaller body.

Mark: So the 2.5 litres were mostly reliable, can you talk maybe a bit more about that?

Bernie: Yeah, so mostly reliable, when I think about an engine being fully reliable you’d really not have much wrong with it other than you change spark plugs when they’re due or the timing belt if it needs to be done. But otherwise it’s, nothing much else would happen, maybe the odd little oil leak but the 2.5’s suffered a few problems. They, engine misfires on some of them would develop and that was because the head gasket would leak coolant into the combustion chamber, so that’s a pretty expensive repair. It’s a timing chain driving engine so it makes a head removal quite a job, so that’s one issue. The other sort of mid 2000 2.5’s developed a lot of oil consumption issues, for some reason around the 2005 model year, and complete engine failures that need to be rebuilt. So that’s something you’ve got to watch if you’re buying an older one, that might be, oil consumption might be an issue. Again, I don’t know how much that is attributed to bad vehicle maintenance, you know there’s certain engines that you can abuse and others you can’t and if you know and generally there’s a lot of the population that don’t do their service on time. So anyways, to make a long story short, there are some issues with the 2005’s for oil consumption.

Mark: Any other issues with these engines?

Bernie: No, they’re actually pretty good otherwise, yeah, other than that yes, no come to to of it, there’s a reason I put that question in there. Camshaft and crankshaft position sensors fail on these 2.5 litre engines a lot and we, usually when we get these vehicles towed to our shop because the customer can’t start the vehicle. It’s cranking over but the engine won’t start, it’s usually a failure of a cam or crank sensor. It’s an extremely common issue. So if you own one of these vehicle and then suddenly it wont’ start for you, that’s probably what’s going on, not 100% guaranteed but usually what’s going on. You can almost guarantee with these engines that at some point you’re going to have something, so that was the other thing.

Mark: Do Altima’s use timing belts?

Bernie: No they don’t, actually none of the engines use a timing belt, they’re all chain driven so that’s one thing you do not have to worry about with an Altima. Now actually reflecting on Nissan overall, over the decades, but Nissan, they’ve used timing belts on a few engines but for the most part, they’ve really been a timing chain, most of all their engines have been timing chains. So when things go wrong, it does cost a lot more to fix but generally chains are must more reliable. Key again, change your oil regularly.

Mark: Any issues with other areas in the car?

Bernie: Well there’s a few complaints in other areas, like in these earlier 2000, early to mid 2000 models, pretty much are the engines are the kinds of things we see issues with. But some of the newer models, around 2009, there’s issues with the steering lock jamming up and causing problems and the vehicle not starting so that’s a pretty major issue. The other really large complaint that I came across, not something we’ve seen or fixed with these cars, because these cars were still fairly new, the 2013 models a lot of transmission problems, it uses the CVT variable transmission and there’s a lot of issues with these. Nissan have a lot of issues with the CVT transmissions in a variety of different models, they’ve been a big adopter of them but they’ve had problems with them and they usually back them up with extended warranties but that’s definitely an issue with those vehicles. Other than that, pretty good car overall.

Mark: Any final thoughts on the Nissan Altima?

Bernie: Definitely a very worthwhile car to look at, again you know with any used car if you’re looking to buy it, do your research, look at what the problems are in particular model years and get an inspection done. It’s critical and if you own one, just take care of it, change the oil, change the fluids when recommended.

Mark: So there you go. If you have one of these vehicles and you like it maintained properly, the guys to see in Vancouver are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at 604-327-7112 or check out their website at pawlikautomotive.com. We have years worth of videos on there, tons of information. Thanks Bernie

Bernie: Thanks Mark