**The Perils of Buying a Used Car**
Have everything ready and no codes yet? Now you don't have any codes but those are all flashing on probably if you just drive it three four hundred miles including the highway so it'll go away if it doesn't it can be a rat's nest it could be a catalytic converter doesn't allow it to finish the check and it's bad enough that it won't finish the check but not bad enough that it'll trip the code for the catalytic converter. You're kind of in the twilight zone of car analytics and I've seen that so many times on cars at least when I'm in Tennessee no one cares if it's doing that but it runs okay people just say what do i care nobody expects these things they don't inspect them you don't care if it runs okay but if you live in a state where they do emissions testing you can't get it inspected and you can spend a fortune there's so many weird things that can make it do it because if it trips a code at least you know where to look but if it doesn't trip a code but it won't set those off and they keep flashing red with the scanner you can't get inspected but you don't know where to look for the problem it's hellacious for us mechanics because we need somewhere to start if there's no code it makes it a lot harder to figure out why isn't this thing finishing all the checks and it just flashes not ready not ready. It can be a snicker heart ourselves what are your thoughts on a Volkswagen Passat Station Wagon 98-2005.
**A Cautionary Tale**
I'm thinking about buying one think again think again I had a lady customer in Houston she bought it new and loved I love my station wagon seven years later this is the worst car I ever had I put so much money in this pile of junk and I mean the thing only had like 68,000 miles on it too it wasn't like it was high mileage they're just piles of junk they're over engineered everything is Volkswagen half the parts are made out of plastic they crack and break. She had to replace the door handles like three or four times they kept snapping off because they're made out of cheap plastic don't waste your money on that car they're terrible vehicles now they're fun to drive when they're running that's why she loved it when she bought it new but as it was breaking all the time it cost a fortune. The AC and Houston broadcaster fortune to fix it whoever if the car was 68,000 miles if the AC broke and of course it broke way before then so that's when she got rid of it poorly designed extremely expensive to repair and parts are also extremely expensive to buy even if you do your own repair.
**A Mechanical Nightmare**
So if I were you I'd run away you want an older station wagon look for like a Honda Accord Station Wagon or a Toyota Station Wagon a Camry Station Wagon back then those are great vehicles they could run forever and didn't cost a fortune to fix like those stupid Volkwagens do Kelly says I got an '08 Toyota Land Cruiser V8 everything's fine but the cruise control doesn't turn on what's wrong. Okay well unfortunately that's all a computerized system there's nothing that you can fix yourself because it's all electronic it's not like the old days where there was a vacuum line that went to the throttle and the vacuum hose could fall off there's nothing you can really do I'm checked the fuses maybe it blew a fuse but I doubt it usually it's the control module goes bad.
**Troubleshooting Without a Code**
You couldn't fix that then you got to reprogram the computer but I mean look around maybe it blew a fuse but then again if it blew a fuse there's usually a reason to blow a fuse and if you just put another fuse and guess what it's going to blow too so if you can find a guy like me we can hook up our machine we can go pretty fast to see hey what's going on. And all the ones that I saw it was a control module and that's a really expensive endeavor but you never know sometimes you get lucky and it's just the brake light switch.
**The Brake Light Switch Solution**
The brake light switch is part of that cruise control system so if you're a riverboat gambler you can get them anywhere go to Auto Zone just make sure it's a brake light switch for that or for one that has cruise control because there's one without cruise control and one with cruise control you have to get the brake light switch for cruise control. It just bolts on and off under the dash on top of where your brake pedal is it's easy to change maybe that'll fix it you never know that's the only thing that you can do cheap yourself so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that bell.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enrev up your engines come audrey says love your channel i'm getting a 20 22 rep for retail price msrp did i make a good buy in today's market well you made about the only buy you can they'll never sell them cheaper now not until we get a recession and interest rates go real high and then they'll have to because people won't buy them anymore but that's about the best deal that you can get my son is just buying four-wheel drive tacoma and he had to pay a list and he's been waiting he had to wait like six weeks to get the thing there's nothing you could do with these days it's just that the prices have gone bananas and that's about the only deal you can get you okay they didn't jack it up or not normally though toyota the japanese owners they frown on their dealers raking their customers over to calls so they're not as bad as like ford were oh we got the new broncos we'll sell them for 20 grand more than lists you know toyota generally doesn't allow their dealerships to do that because they don't want a bad image they're smarter they're not thinking short-term greed like the american dealers are sarah ben says my 2016 ford focus is shaking during acceleration 65 000 what do i do i hate to break the bad news to you but it's probably your transmission they should have junk all of those ford has they either buy back the car or they have to fix the transmission free take it to a dealer and see what they say the only problem is it was one of those class action lawsuits and they caught a deal and as usual the slimy lawyers are doing this that and everything else and the deal was well if they don't fix it they have to buy it back but it's like they have to pay between two thousand and twenty five thousand to buy it back every single customer i had with one they offered them two thousand twenty five hundred you know they're going to lowball and you probably peed not to take that kind of money unless you got it really cheap but take it in they're supposed to fix them free they have those stupid automatic transmissions with piles of crap ford made them wrong they knew it now they either got to fix it or buy the car back start there and see what happens because if you're going to pay a mechanic to fix that transmission hardly anybody knows how to work on those transmissions it costs four or five grand easy to have somebody actually fix it correctly richie says are vortex engines any good the vortex engines themselves are generally pretty good engines the problem is the fuel injection system that general motors put on was crap had all this plastic stuff and as they age man a lot they leak and then it cost a fortune it's just the ancillary stuff on it were absolute crap just like the gms that had diesel engines on them right the diesel engines themselves are okay but all the electronics and the computer fuel injection stuff for those diesel engines is not good and it breaks all the time the engines could run forever they're not going to run forever if the fuel injection system isn't working correctly and had a lot of problems with them as they age francisco says scotty i'm looking at a used ford f-150 extended cab check out with a 2.7 ecobooster 3.3 liter v6 what do you think go for the 3.3 liter v6 you don't want an ecoboost engine the turbos wear out it has dual turbos turbo on each side they're very expensive they wear out in fords but with the bigger engine that's going to last longer yeah it doesn't have the same horsepower but it's got enough horsepower to get you around especially you're talking about buying used who knows what people took care of now if i ever did buy a dual turbo engine i doubt if i ever will but if i did i would change the oil filter every four thousand miles with the best synthetic oil i could get because it lubricates the engines it lubricates the turbos and you don't know what the previous owners have done so i would not buy ecoboost used i'd go with the non-ecoboost one that's a bigger engine that can take the strain better aiden says i got a 2016 buick encore it blows warm air when the ac is set to low what could be causing this i'm assuming when you put it on high it blows plenty cold it could be the simplest thing on earth and pray it is and that's it's a little bit low on refrigerant and they'll often do that also check the cooling fans you got two cooling fans on the radiator turn the ac on watch them maybe only one's blowing and that's totally typical if ones were blowing and not the other you get some airflow but it won't flow enough that could also be it and then pray it's not the compressor's starting to go out because they can do that or pray that you don't have an electronic problem i've had customers gm's that if they kept the cars for 10 years they would have to replace that computer control unit in the dash three times if they're still poorly made prey it's not that first have the refrigerant checked it could be easy as just low on refrigerant pray it's that vape king says remanufactured ac compressor yes or no i generally say no and here's the reason why when i was a young mechanic they were all mad at a metal now almost everything inside there's plastic most of them even have plastic pistons i'm not making this up plastic pistons it's all plastic crap most of them are not made to be remanufactured and i read a study a few months ago a guy in florida was an ac expert studied remanufactured ac compressors and he said most of them only put out one-half to one-third the refrigerant power that a brand new one did that's how poorly remanufactured there are i personally have had much better luck buying if you want to save money buying chinese made new ones than i have with ever getting the remanufactured ones because at least the chinese ones are brand new and they're plastic too but it's brand new plastic do you really want a plastic thing that was broken and then fixed that never bodes well plastic is not rebuildable you can't fix the stuff it's just you throw it away so you got to go new on most if you're going to do it you know you just have to because you can't really fix them they're too cheaply made it says i got an o6 mini cooper s 99 000 miles how long do you think it'll last me well you know i'm not a fan of them but i had a guy a few months ago bring one here and he had 145 000 miles on he loved it they didn't put any money in it but this is a gigantic butt he was nuts about his car he changed the oil himself every 4 000 miles with full synthetic oil he really took care of that thing and it still ran quite well but on the other hand the average american who doesn't maintain stuff i've had people buy those the engine blew up at 65 000 miles because they didn't take care of them they are made in england and so they got a lot of quality control problems in them if you really take care of them they can last and users got 99 000 so maybe you've been taking good care of it just don't beat it you know don't make a point of doing burnouts and going super high rpms all the time because it'll destroy them they're not all that strong they can be fun puddling if your type of guy doesn't look good 70 75 that's it they might last forever but if you're pushing the limits no it'll wear out pretty soon tom banta says i have an anova 60 100 piece scanner pretty good scanner i don't get code numbers flashing red dots or oxygen sensor evapocator what does this mean 2001 kia well it means if you've been driving any length of time like weeks and you go on the highway go in the city it means that for some reason your car's computer will not run through the drive cycle so you can get your car inspected when the red stuff is on that that monitor is not ready and you can't get your car inspected if it's a state that inspects remissions because you have to have everything ready and no codes now you don't have any codes yet but those are all flashing on probably if you just drive it three four hundred miles including the highway so it'll go away if it doesn't it can be a rat's nest it could be a catalytic converter doesn't allow it to finish the check and it's bad enough that it won't finish the check but not bad enough that it'll trip the code for the catalytic converter you're kind of in the twilight zone of car analytics and i've seen that so many times on cars at least when i'm in tennessee no one cares if it's doing that but it runs okay people just say what do i care nobody expects these things they don't inspect them you don't care if it runs okay but if you live in a state where they do emissions testing you can't get it inspected and you can spend a fortune there's so many weird things that can make it do it because if it trips a coat at least you know where to look but if it doesn't trip a code but it won't set those off and they keep flashing red with the scanner you can't get inspected but you don't know where to look for the problem it's hellacious for us mechanics because we need somewhere to start if there's no code it makes it a lot harder to figure out why isn't this thing finishing all the checks and it just flashes not ready not ready it can be a snicker heart ourselves what are your thoughts on a volkswagen passat station wagon 98 to 2005. i'm thinking about buying one think again think again i had a lady customer in houston she bought it new and loved i love my station wagon seven years later this is the worst car i ever had i put so much money in this pile of junk and i mean the thing only had like 68 000 miles on it too it wasn't like it was high milds they're just piles of junk they're over engineered everything is volkswagen half the parts are made out of plastic they crack and break she had to replace the door handles like three or four times they kept snapping off because they're made out of cheap plastic don't waste your money on that car they're terrible vehicles now they're fun to drive when they're running that's why she loved it when she bought it new but as it was breaking all the time it cost a fortune the ac and houston broadcaster fortune to fix it whoever if the car was 68 000 miles if the ac broke and of course it broke way before then so that's when she got rid of it poorly designed extremely expensive to repair and parts are also extremely expensive to buy even if you do your own repair so if i were you i'd run away you want an older station wagon look for like a honda accord station wagon or a toyota station wagon a camry station wagon back then those are great vehicles they could run forever and didn't cost a fortune to fix like those stupid volkswagens do kelly says i got an 08 toyota land cruiser v8 everything's fine but the cruise control doesn't turn on what's wrong okay well unfortunately that's all a computerized system there's nothing that you can fix yourself because it's all electronic it's not like the old days where there was a vacuum line that went to the throttle and the vacuum hose could fall off there's nothing you can really do i'm checked the fuses maybe it blew a fuse but i doubt it usually it's the control module goes bad you couldn't fix that then you got to reprogram the computer but i mean look around maybe it blew a fuse but then again if it blew a fuse there's usually a reason to blow a fuse and if you just put another fuse and guess what it's going to blow too so if you can find a guy like me we can hook up our machine we can go pretty fast to see hey what's going on and all the ones that i saw it was a control module and that's a really expensive endeavor but you never know sometimes you get lucky and it's just the brake light switch the brake light switch is part of that cruise control system so if you're a riverboat gambler you can get them anywhere go to auto zone just make sure it's a brake light switch for that or for one that has cruise control because there's one without cruise control and one with cruise control you have to get the brake light switch for cruise control it just bolts on and off under the dash on top of where your brake pedal is it's easy to change maybe that'll fix it you never know that's the only thing that you can do cheap yourself so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that bell you\n"
