A buddy recently bought a new for him 2009 3/4 ton 4wd truck. Nice looking but does not run the best so he asked if I could troubleshoot. Little test drive and yep its got some issues. No check engine light so I figured cleaning injectors would be a nice cure all and not too expensive.
Cleaned the injectors and throttle body drove it around a bit and much better but still not quite right, Got back to the shop and hooked up the laptop and started running diagnostics. Got an error message tha Ive never seen so dug out the manual and found out that there were uncleared codes.
Hmmm no check engine light, but onboard computer has uncleared codes. Not a good sign and I was thinking bad computer so I called a friend that knows everything about Ford Trucks and told him what was going on. No idea, bring it out and he would take a look. Hooked up his computer and was able to bypass the codes and do a full diagnostic. He found all the error codes faulty components almost every sensor had failed or was failing.
Crawled under dash with a flashlight and discovered that someone had neatly bypassed the check engine light. I had my list and called the owners with the bad news. After a few choice words, How Bad is it. All the parts thru Rockauto were ~$450. He ordered the parts and we spent about 6 hours replacing everything including re attaching the check engine light. Hooked engine analyser up, cleared all codes, ran dianostic and everything is clear. Started truck everything seems OK. Took a test drive and major difference. It runs and runs great!
Got back rehooked my PC and ran diagnostics all checks normal. While I was fiddling around, the truck owner called his mechanic and said he needed prices to do all the repairs. Good thing he was sitting down. Everything we had done totaled $3600 from his trusted mechanic who by the way could not get the truck in for 3-4 weeks.
So buyer beware. Snip, Snip, strip, strip, twist and no check engine light. I've run across several similar situations; missing air bags, bypassed sensors, taped over CE light.
Although he was happy with the 25,000+ purchase price, I choke at the thought. Please make sure you trust the seller or have a good mechanic that can check things out because as the old saying goes. "Not all things are as they seem".
In this case guy was lucky, we were able to diagnose and fix before anything major happened.
Several years ago a buddy bought a well used car for his daughter. Had to have air bags because "shes a girl and does not always pay attention"
Unfortunately, about 6 months later she rear ended a stopped Dump Truck on her way to school broke her face badly and after about a dozen surgeries you cannot tell anything had ever happened other than she does not look like she did before the accident.
In her case, the car had been wrecked previously, nicely repaired but no airbag was installed. A new pad was in place so it looked legit and no one thought to question it.
Many things we take for granted even though we have no proof. "Yep, I bought my daughter a nice little car and it has airbags and I hope she does not need them but it makes me feel better about turning her loose".
I have no idea how many years are going to pass before my friend comes to accept the fact that he did everything right. He still feels guilty over the damage to his daughter.
Cleaned the injectors and throttle body drove it around a bit and much better but still not quite right, Got back to the shop and hooked up the laptop and started running diagnostics. Got an error message tha Ive never seen so dug out the manual and found out that there were uncleared codes.
Hmmm no check engine light, but onboard computer has uncleared codes. Not a good sign and I was thinking bad computer so I called a friend that knows everything about Ford Trucks and told him what was going on. No idea, bring it out and he would take a look. Hooked up his computer and was able to bypass the codes and do a full diagnostic. He found all the error codes faulty components almost every sensor had failed or was failing.
Crawled under dash with a flashlight and discovered that someone had neatly bypassed the check engine light. I had my list and called the owners with the bad news. After a few choice words, How Bad is it. All the parts thru Rockauto were ~$450. He ordered the parts and we spent about 6 hours replacing everything including re attaching the check engine light. Hooked engine analyser up, cleared all codes, ran dianostic and everything is clear. Started truck everything seems OK. Took a test drive and major difference. It runs and runs great!
Got back rehooked my PC and ran diagnostics all checks normal. While I was fiddling around, the truck owner called his mechanic and said he needed prices to do all the repairs. Good thing he was sitting down. Everything we had done totaled $3600 from his trusted mechanic who by the way could not get the truck in for 3-4 weeks.
So buyer beware. Snip, Snip, strip, strip, twist and no check engine light. I've run across several similar situations; missing air bags, bypassed sensors, taped over CE light.
Although he was happy with the 25,000+ purchase price, I choke at the thought. Please make sure you trust the seller or have a good mechanic that can check things out because as the old saying goes. "Not all things are as they seem".
In this case guy was lucky, we were able to diagnose and fix before anything major happened.
Several years ago a buddy bought a well used car for his daughter. Had to have air bags because "shes a girl and does not always pay attention"
Unfortunately, about 6 months later she rear ended a stopped Dump Truck on her way to school broke her face badly and after about a dozen surgeries you cannot tell anything had ever happened other than she does not look like she did before the accident.
In her case, the car had been wrecked previously, nicely repaired but no airbag was installed. A new pad was in place so it looked legit and no one thought to question it.
Many things we take for granted even though we have no proof. "Yep, I bought my daughter a nice little car and it has airbags and I hope she does not need them but it makes me feel better about turning her loose".
I have no idea how many years are going to pass before my friend comes to accept the fact that he did everything right. He still feels guilty over the damage to his daughter.