A few months ago, the heater blower motor in my 2000 Honda Civic started making a buzzing noise. It sound like maybe there was a leaf or something in there touch the fan blades. As time went one, it seemed to get worse.
I decided to pull the fan out and see if there was something in there. I pulled out my Haynes and Chilton guides. The motor was pretty easy to remove. It was located under the dash, behind the glove compartment. It was mostly just awkward laying on my back to get to it. There were just three screws holding it in. I just removed the three screws, and it dropped right out.
The fan and motor were covered by a black soot like powder. I didn’t see anything like a leaf. I removed the fan blade from the motor, and washed it off. I blew off the heater blower motor with blasts of compressed air from my compressor. I put the fan back on the motor, and reinstalled it. It made an awful noise. It sounded like the fan was rubbing against something. I pulled it out again, repositioned the fan a little bit, and reinstalled it again. It was quieter, but pretty much how it had been before I messed with it. I searched online, and found this was common for heater blower motors in Hondas.
I decided to try something else. I bought some oil especially for electric motors. It was made by 3-In-One, and I found it at Home Depot. I pulled the heater blower motor out again. First I sprayed in WD-40 to clean the old gunk out. Then I lubed it as well as I could with the electric motor oil. I reinstalled the motor. It was subtly quieter than before.
I debated about buying a used motor at a auto salvage yard. But I thought I might be buying a motor that would encounter the same problem. I looked for OEM motors, and found they were not cheap.
I stopped down at the local auto parts store and bought an aftermarket replacement heater blower motor. It was significantly cheaper than the OEM models I found online. It didn’t come with the fan. I removed the heater blower motor from the car again. I swapped the fan from the old motor to the new one. Since the fan just clamps on a shaft, I positioned it as close as I could to where it was on the original motor. There was a small plastic plug piece that the motor wires fit into. I followed the included instructions to fir the wires into the connector so that the fan would rotated in the proper direction. I installed the new motor. Installation went a little easier as I had stopped at Sears and bought a screwdriver type handle with a flex shaft to hold small sockets. This allowed me to reach the small screws much more easily.
The new motor was quieter and had way more power than the old motor. It was well worth the effort of replacing it. And I will have the car for quite a while, so hopefully it will last the life of the car.
After my wife rolled my 1989 Acura Integra, I needed a new car. I headed back to the Acura dealership, but they didn’t have anything. I then went to their associated Honda dealership (not the ones who insulted my 1979 Honda Accord). I would have liked a hatchback of some sort. My wife thought it would be good to get a 4 door, so that if we had guests come into town, we could drive them around. That seemed like a good idea at the time. I bought a 1990 Honda Accord for around $10,000 I think. This was probably in 1995. I was about $3000-$4000 more than I paid for the Acura Integra. In hindsight, I would have rather had a $6000-$7000 hatchback, or two-door sporty car, and I could have rented a 4 door car on the rare occasions we have guests. Whatever.
Overall, I liked the car. It was nice, and actually had an upgraded stereo. It had about 60,000 miles on the odometer when I bought it.
When the car had about 120,000 miles on it, I took it to get the timing belt replaced. I took it to a reputable local shop. They did the work which isn’t cheap as they have to remove a lot of stuff to get to the timing belt. About a month and a half later, the car overheated on my way to work. I found that the water pump had failed. When the jerks at the shop had replaced the timing belt, they never replaced the water pump. They never mentioned that this was usually done. They never said a thing about it. I learned after the fact that the water pump is usually replaced as you are only paying for the part, since they are already removing it. And that putting a worn water pump on with a new timing belt can cause the bearings in the water pump to fail due to the tighter belt. I had never dealt with these guys again.
After the water pump failed, and the car overheated, the car started to burn a little bit of oil. It had never done that before.
I drove it until it has 235,000 miles on it. The body had very little rust or damage. I had been driving on back rode when the car just died. I could get it started, but it would stall as soon as I tried to drive it. We towed it to the mechanics shop and left it parked there. I called him when they opened. He opened the engine, and found the valves had fried. It would not be cheap to fix. The cheapest option would be to drop another engine into it. I ended up trading the car plus some cash to the mechanic for a 1989 Chevy Lumina with under 100,000 miles on it.
The mechanic ended up dropping a used engine into the car, and selling it.
Besides the cost of getting brakes replaced, there is another cost that many don’t even think about. Using them costs you gas. Every time you step on the gas pedal to accelerate your car, you are spending gas money to buy forward motion. You are spending gas money to keep that forward motion. Since internal combustion engines are relatively inefficient, a large chunk of your gas money is already wasted in the heat that the engine puts off, and in friction. But there is not a lot you can do about that.
But every time you use your brakes, you are converting the forward motion that you paid for, into heat put off by the brake pads rubbing against the discs, or the drums. This is energy that will never be regained. That is gas money down the toilet. But you need to use your brakes, right? Well yes, but experts say that people overuse their brakes. Some more than others. Many people will race from stopping at one red light, to stop at the next red light. Or they will drive close to the car in front of them, and are forced to hit the brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of them. I have seen some idiots who drive on the freeway who seem the drive gas, brake, gas, brake, gas brake. I have no idea what their problem is. All they have to do, is take their foot off the gas when they want to slow down.
If you want to save gas, and radically lengthen the life of your brakes, try driving as if you have no brakes, or very poor brakes. How would you drive if you had no brakes? Would you be speeding from one light to the next? No, you would be watching ahead, and if you saw a red light, you would remove your foot from the gas, and coast to slowdown, hoping the light will change before you get there. Or you can slow down using the brake incrementally, hoping to retain some forward motion when the light turns green. You surely wouldn’t be tailgating anyone, if you didn’t have good brakes. You would try to leave a buffer between you and the car in front of you. If they slow down, you can simply remove your foot from the gas, and coast for a bit to slow down.
Many people speed to turns, when they could coast to slow down as they approach the turn, and minimize the use of the brakes. Some nutty hypermilers don’t even brake here, just taking the corners at higher speeds. I am not sure if I recommend this though.
Use your brakes less, and your gas mileage will go up significantly, and your brakes will last a lot longer!
Everyone knows that Hummers get really crappy gas mileage. But can a brand new, gas sipping economy car in perfect running condition get worse gas mileage? You bet!
What’s the worst gas mileage you can get in a car? 0 mpg! (thats a zero mpg) People always complain about the price of gas. But then I see people wasting it, getting 0 mpg!
Last week, I was in the parking lot at my work. I saw a guy sitting in his big parked SUV talking on his cell phone. Just sitting yacking away, while the engine was running. It was warm out. Maybe he had the AC running too. So he was moving a 0 MPH and burning gas. So he was getting 0 MPG!
Yesterday I was at a gas station. I went to pull into a pump. There was a truck parked in such a way as not to be at the pump, but to block anyone else to getting to it. I ended up having to go around and come in from the other side to a different gas pump. As I was filling up, I saw the truck was running. They left the truck running while one guy went into the store, and the other guy was cleaning the windshield. So for the time that took, they were getting 0 mpg!
There are lots of places where I see people getting 0 mpg! In line at the gas station waiting for an open pump. Sitting in line at restaurant drive through. Long stop lights. Waiting a train crossings. In all these places, the drivers could save gas, by simply shutting off their engine. I have read that if the engine is off for more than 10 seconds, then you have offset the cost of restarting the engine again.
But then there are the little things too. How about when you start the car, then put on your seat belt, adjust the radio etc. How about putting on your seat belt, adjusting the radio, then starting the car when you are actually ready to go. Just one time doesn’t use a lot of gas. But when you are in the habit of doing it day after day, probably multiple times, it adds up.
Even a gas sipping economy car can get 0 mpg! So next time you are sitting in your car, not moving, but with the engine running, think about how you are getting 0 mpg. Consider shutting off the engine until you are ready to go.
I really liked this car. I bought this car after moving back to New York State. It was bright red, two door, and sporty as heck. And I paid like $5000 for it. It was the first car I ever financed. But I was working for a good company now, and I had good credit. It was also the car that I owned for the least amount of time.
I don’t remember why, but my wife was driving it, and I was in the passenger seat. Someone up ahead had stopped, and the car in front of us hadn’t noticed, and ran into back of then without any brakes. My wife realized just a little too late that the car in front of us had come to a very sudden stop, and slammed on the brakes. We skidded into the back of that car. If we had had maybe 10 more feet, we probably would have been okay. But the front of the car was damaged. But insurance covered it. The work was done at a local collision center, and you couldn’t even tell that the car had been in an accident.
A few months later, we drove the car across country back to Seattle. Driving through eastern Montana, I had the car up over a 100 mph for long stretches. It drove so smoothly. We spent a couple weeks there visiting family, then drove it back. We had spent the day in Rapid City doing tourist traps, and then started driving east. We planned to drive a few hours, then find a motel to stay in. I woke up in the hospital. My wife again had been driving my bright red 1989 Acura Integra sporty car that I really liked, while I had been sleeping in the passenger seat. She dozed off, and ended up rolling the car. The car was totaled. The body was twisted beyond reasonable repair. Fortunately, we only received minor injuries. I guess that is a testament to how solid the car was.