**The Folly of Undercarriage Accessories**

When it comes to cars, one can't help but wonder about the practicality and necessity of certain accessories that come with them. The undercarriage is perhaps one of the most overlooked areas of a vehicle, yet it's where many of these accessories reside. For those who are curious, let's take a look at some of the undercarriage accessories and their supposed benefits.

The first item on our list is air dams or beauty covers, which come in various shapes and sizes. According to one enthusiast, "they're a complete waste of time." He explains that they're only necessary for people who live in extremely cold climates, as they help retain heat and warm up the engine more efficiently. However, for most drivers, these accessories are simply unnecessary and can be removed without any adverse effects on the vehicle.

Another undercarriage accessory is the master cylinder reservoir. This part of the braking system is responsible for holding fluid that's fed to the brake lines. However, some drivers have reported issues with this component, such as squirting fluid upwards into the reservoir like a straw when they apply the brakes. According to one driver, who recently replaced his master cylinder, "don't ever buy a rebuilt master cylinder." Instead, he recommends purchasing a brand new unit to ensure reliability and safety.

The realm of electronic components is also home to various undercarriage accessories, such as alternators. While some enthusiasts claim that these components can be easily rebuilt or upgraded, others advise against it due to the potential risks involved. In particular, they warn about the pitfalls of purchasing rebuilt or Chinese-made components, which may not meet high standards of quality.

**Real-World Concerns: A Pilot's Experience**

One driver recently shared his experience with a 2011 Honda Pilot equipped with a 3.5 V6 engine and over 126,000 miles on the odometer. The vehicle would sometimes start or spin when the key was turned, leading to a visit from the dealership. However, despite their efforts, they were unable to replicate the issue, leaving the driver with more questions than answers.

The driver decided to take matters into his own hands and cleaned out the fuel filter, as well as sprayed some spray cleaner under the hood to help improve performance. While these steps didn't entirely resolve the problem, they did seem to help stabilize the vehicle's behavior. However, the driver is still on the lookout for a more definitive solution, such as checking the fuel pressure or replacing the fuel pump.

In this era of rising fuel costs and increasingly complex vehicles, it's essential to stay vigilant and take proactive steps to maintain our cars' performance and safety. By following these tips and being mindful of potential pitfalls, drivers can enjoy better running cars and avoid costly repairs down the line.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enrev up your engine well if you've seen anything about uh elon musk and his tesla giga press that he has you know everything he has a giga he's got this thing about giga now it is fascinating because most cars hey they're made out of hundreds of individual parts on the frames the underpinnings of the whole car this giga press makes two huge single castings for the front and the rear of the underbody in connection with the battery pack that's part of the body structure now yes technologically this is fascinating because it greatly reduces weight and simplifies vehicle assembly so it's cheaper for him to make when he puts them together but if you think about it you got a big piece a big piece and a battery holding it together you don't want to get a wreck in the tesla goodbye to that car because hey all those giant pieces are one piece and if they break that's the end of the car i had a customer years ago who had an audi one of those v12 audi engines in right and he had bought into thinking he's going to make some money fixing and selling it well that frame was an aluminum frame that was all pressed together nobody could fix it nobody would weld it he ended up having a big pile of junk and he lost money on it because nobody could fix it so they couldn't sell it at a profit you start making everything out of one or two pieces when they break and you got to replace it that's the end of the car when it's in a wreck and if using the battery as part of the structure there's a brilliant design too when the battery goes bad or you get an erect then the battery breaks and that battery is probably 10 15 000 you know it's great innovations like if you got a rocket ship i understand the technology because the governments pay for the rocket ships and they've got endless pockets right well you got a car and it breaks and it's got rocket technology and then you got to buy another car well you're going to be really sad that it was made with just two pieces and one of them broke and that was the end of it they don't think of a long thing yeah it's cheaper to make them that way it's more efficient but if it ever gets in a wreck or it breaks boop the battery bags in half or one of these giga press pieces break no one's gonna be able to fix the things especially when you're using aluminum you got big old pieces and they break they are not easy to weld sometimes they're almost impossible to weld back together again especially since they're part of the structure of the vehicle you don't want to change the thing breaking when you're going down the road and the battery's part of the frame structure poof there careful brakes oh you can buy another one you buy another one what the heck exactly like those little electric race toys that the kids have they're always breaking them but they only cost 40 50 bucks when they're a hundred thousand dollars it's kind of another story oh well it broke i'll buy another hundred thousand dollar one brand 101 says scotty i'm interested in buying a 2010 toyota avalon with 125 000 miles on it owner's a senior can't drive and want 6 500 bucks as minor scrapes on the bumper if it checks out what's a good price with coronavirus the prices have gone totally bananas and i'll give you a thing in the past i bought a 2002 es-300 lexus for my wife it had 65 000 miles i paid three grand from a customer of mine and it had minor dents and scratches on it that's too much money as far as i'm concerned but the market has gone insane it is what 12 years old's got 125 000 miles i'd offer him five and hope the guy came down now you're not gonna find another one probably from the original owner an old guy who can't drive anymore but with dents and scratches the values of the car go down if he took that car with that mods and dents and scratches to like carvana that buy used cars they probably only offer them three grand for it with dents and scratches because they'd have to fix the dents and scratches in order to sell the car up you see cars with dents and scratches the value goes down if it was perfectly clean another store but people see dents and scratches that really knocks the values of the cards down quite a bit d-batch1715 says scotty can you do a video on the upcoming reboot of the aptera electric car it posted some models at a thousand mile range thank you i will only make a video if i can get my hands on one of these cars and then i will tell you the truth from my experience of them or if somebody out there buys one when it comes to these companies that claim they're gonna make this they're gonna make that it's a waste of my breath analyzing it because they don't even exist yet there's so many guys out there trying to con the world into putting their money into their electric gold mine and then you find years later or even months later the company goes bankrupt and everybody's money goes down the toilet you can't comment on any of that stuff until it's actually out there and people are driving them around and you see how they last over time not just oh what a great idea can go this far blah blah blah blah you gotta see him in the real world like the ford maverick that's coming up i'd love to get my hands on one i know four is not going to send me one because they don't like me telling the truth about problems that they have if they did they wanted to be honest send me one i'll road test it honestly give me it for a week but that's not going to happen anymore they used to send me cars but they don't anymore because they didn't like that i was saying bad things that were bad you know i'll say good things about good but i'm going to say bad things about bad there's somebody out there buys one hey bring it to clarksville i'll test it i'll check it out put my equipment on it look at it but it has to be tested and truthfully you got to weigh over time too because you don't know these people they claim a thousand miles range they claim oh the battery is good for 15 years then you find when they're three or four years old the batteries drain don't last longer go out entirely you never know until time goes on don't trust anybody with what they claim just don't you gotta test something out over time even i've been fooled by not testing things long enough now all those companies send me stuff he said are you going to make a video again to make me just say let me test it out it's got electric batteries got an electric motor in it give me a year at least because i want to see at least will it hold up a year because i've got so many chinese pressure washers right none of them even lasted nine months before they broke they were such junk they worked fine in the beginning but then they were broken within a year i hold all of my analysis out on any of those electric cars so they've been out a while and they're actually produced wretch-esque says i got an o4 matrix xr does taking a plastic junk off the bottom matter things are scraping parts are gone do i really need that stuff well not really it's a matrix on the high-end cars like a v12 audi they got to have the bottom sealed because if you're going that fast you need the suction to hold it down but let's face it you're not driving you're made just 190 miles an hour it doesn't go that fast it's mainly for the ratings that they build them that way so they're more aerodynamic oh you tear all that stuff off maybe you'd lose i don't know a tenth of a mile a gallon gas mileage on the highway probably not even that it doesn't affect all that much my matrix is missing it my wife's lexus miss and all that stuff i'm not spending a fortune to buy all that crap under there it really doesn't do much of anything it's just there to make them more aerodynamic for the testing of fuel mileage and stuff i mean cars didn't have those things in the past they ran perfectly fine just like those beauty covers on top of the engine they're a complete waste of time the only thing they're good for is like if you live in alaska because they'll retain heat a little bit more when it's really cold so the engine could warm up a little bit faster but for everybody else they're a waste of time too you can take them off throw them away those stupid beauty covers on the top of the engine under the hood they really don't serve any purpose either justin shepherd says i fixed my 79 catalan on a new brake line so it doesn't leak but i noticed the master shown their forces fluid upwards into the reservoir like a straw blowing up i put in a rebuilt unit from advanced auto what could be wrong well i can guarantee you got a crappy rebuild don't ever buy a rebuilt master cylinder your life stands on that buy a brand new one the only thing when you step on the brakes if it squirts up it means the master cylinder is not working right and it's throwing pressure through the feed the cylinder on the top of your master cylinder reservoir cylinder holds fluid it just feeds the master cylinder if you push and it's squirting up that means instead of your master cylinder pushing the fluid to the brake lines it's pushing it up you got to crap you but don't ever buy a rebuilt one and these days especially most of them are made out of aluminum it pits inside you can't rebuild them they don't work all that well back in the day they could be done professionally because they were cast iron and they would re-bore them so they're a little bigger and they put oversized seals and they work perfectly fine because cast iron can be honed right aluminum when it pits goodbye just buy a brand new one don't ever buy a rebuilt master cylinder you know alternators stuff like that hey they're electronic they're pretty easy to rebuild yada yada it's not your life at hand if the master cylinder fails and you get killed because you run into something hey only buy brand new master cylinders and quality ones try to stay away from the ones made in china because they're often not all that high quality even their new ones aren't that good you don't want to chance your life with a crappy master cylinder on your brake system john kay says i got a 2011 honda pilot with the 3.5 v6 126 000 miles when i turn the key sometimes it starts other times it'll spin for 45 seconds before it starts i took it to dealer they said they can't replicate it you got a lot of mileage first thing i'm going to do is just change the fuel filter if it's clogged it can do that now if it's not there try my video make your car run better with a little spray cleaner you get two cans of spray cleaner one to clean the throttle one to cleave the mass air flow sensor pray that helps if it doesn't odds are your fuel pump is starting to go out now as long as it starts what the heck but if you want to find out if it's that when it's cold hook up a pressure gauge or pay a mechanic leave it in his garage overnight first thing in the morning to check if he starts it up and it won't start and see the fuel pressure is low replace the fuel pump when they start to go out they do that and it's 11 years old with 126 000 miles it could be that the fuel pump is starting to go up try my cleaning first a lot of times that'll fix it and fuel pumps aren't cheap on those things and sometimes even something like running a can of really good fuel injector cleaner like bg fuel tank cleaner put it in the fuel tank sometimes the injectors just a little bit worn that'll clean them out and if you find that fixes that's the cheapest fix at all if you can't find the bg i tried that royal purple stuff when i was in rhode island and it worked good too and places like autozone and o'reilly sell the royal purple fuel injection cleaner it's not cheap i paid 20 something bucks for the big bottle but i gotta say it really helped the guys toyota out that i put it into so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that bell you\n"