March 28, 2020 • 35 mins
Ron starts his 1500th show chatting with his first big time radio general manager, Bob Bruno : tells his best car story about being towed and having the wheel fall off the car : takes a call on an 06 Focus with a nasty rattle on start up : takes a call on a 19 Escape S that has no CD player, and the caller asks if you can put the radio/CD from an 18 Escape into it : takes a call on a 15 Volvo where the entertainment system has frozen up : and answers an email regarding the use of K-Seal.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Ron. And you know, folks, I gotta tell you, if
anybody's worried about me retiring, I'm not gonna happen. They're
gonna have to drag me out of the place with
a wrench in my hand. Down your hands. The car
Doctor that took your advice, and I got my wife
a night nights their vehicles. She had an owie islander
(00:24):
and she's got out thirteen and mom is happy now, right, correct?
And if mom is happy, everybody's happy. Welcome to the
radio home of Ron and Nanian, the Car Doctor, since
this is where car owners the world overturned to for
their definitive opinion on automotive repair. If your mechanics giving
you a busy signal, pick up the phone and call in.
(00:48):
The garage doors are open, but I am here to
take your calls at eight five five five six and now.
A long long time ago, when the world is still
cool and dinosaurs roman the earth, when God was but
a youngster and dirt had just been discovered, a new
radio host was bored. Now your host of the Car Doctor,
(01:16):
Ron and Anien. How in the world is your car?
That is what we want to know. Our goal is
to improve your cars condition in the world by giving
you the information that you need to keep it that way. Gooday, afternoon,
and welcome to the Car Doctor. My name is Ron
and Adian, owner of our automotive located over on Zazi
Street in Waldwick, New Jersey. So Hi there, listeners, how
are you today? I'm here to answer all your car
(01:37):
repair questions live, but I understand we have what I'm
gonna call the first caller of the show. We have
George from Yonkers with an eighty four Christ from New
Yorker and a corrosion issue. Good afternoon, George, and welcome
to the Car Doctor. How can he How can I
help you? George? I have a second car that is
very little used and it's not garaged. You know, listeners,
(01:59):
it's it's tough when you get into a higher mileage
vehicle and uh, you know, what do you do with it?
And you know, how do you resolve the problem? And
I always say this, if the car is broken, a
good technician can go through that car in an hour.
I don't have spark, I don't have fuel. What am
I looking for? I've had a good time and I
hope you have to until next week when we'll be
here again to answer any and all of your car
(02:19):
repair questions. I'm checking out. Joinus now by calling eight
five five five six zero zero zero to congratulate Ron
on his fifteen hundred show. Um do the dancing girls
he running? Geez. All of a sudden, I feel older.
Holy cow, hundred book of Tom Ray have in store
(02:43):
for me today? Tom, are you there, Tom? Yes? And
you know what that's gonna teach you about leaving old
tapes out on the countertop there at the studio. Well,
I listen, and you know that's uh gee, Tom, do
I really sound better? You be nice sound and so
ly better. You know, everybody in this business listens to
(03:03):
the first tape the first time they were on the
air and a cringe. Oh my god, Tom, I can't
believe that was really me, you know, but but but
here we are, here, here, we are d look at us. Well,
you know I played it. I played it when I
put this thing together, and my wife said, that's Ron. Yeah, yeah,
it's you know. I. Well, I was always blessed and fortunate, right,
(03:26):
I had great and I had great people teaching me
the business. I came up at the right time. I
had some of the greats in the industry show me
right from wrong. And I kind of I always said,
I kind of went to the you know, the the
Catholic School of radio broadcasting where you got wrapped on
the knuckles digitally if you did something wrong. And I
learned right from wrong the hard way, and it worked.
It seems to have worked. Here we are one of
(03:47):
those people that you learned from that. You know, it
was kind of responsible to get you where we are today.
And you know, last time I saw you were picking
up bottles outside of the the fence at the dump.
But anyway, um, this is I managed to get Bob
Bruno from w R Radio on the phone, my former boss.
Look at this, big time boss. Yeah. Really we're carried
(04:10):
through Talk Media network and uh, you know the show,
the thing just it just has a life of its own.
It just it just continues to evolve. Well that's that's great.
And by the way, you remember, Waldwick was our first home.
We bought our first home there. Right, yeah, you know
it's so funny, right we're here. I am in Waldwick.
You were in Waldwick, then you were in MAMOI I
used to go past your house every day, that's right.
(04:31):
I remember I'm looking for a show. Now I on
my way into the city to do the show. And um,
you know, listen, I have I have better memories of
you than that, Bob. I you know you you taught
me tough love, alright, tough radio love. It was we
were we would all come on. Now. We were at
Jacob Javitt's and we're doing the show. It was the
(04:52):
first time you guys sent me out on remote. And
I was only there about three maybe four months. And
it was Easter nineteen ye something like that, remember, yeah,
And and there was probably four or five thousand people
in the room and we're setting up this big giant
remote and we're probably thirty seconds to air, and you
lean over and whisper in my ear, so do you
(05:14):
like working at w O War? And I just I
just looked up and went, what, well, I'm trying to focus,
you know, I'm scared to death. My teeth are chattering,
and um, you know I asked you about it afterwards.
I don't know if you remember this, and you said
to me, Ron, I was trying to put you under
the gun so you'd react with all the pressure. I
want you to always think like you're under pressure, you know, Bob,
(05:35):
it worked. Well, that's great. Well, you know what, you're natural.
You've had a long run and that tells tells me
that you're uh. Your initial success on w O War
was well founded and uh. And you know, we had
a great line up on the weekend, as I recall,
you know, with with You with the with the Car
(05:55):
Doctor Show, and we had told the garden hunting line
was Ralph Snott Smith and the Pet Show with Eckstein
and the Travel Show with Arthur Fromer and oh a
lot of good stuff. It was. It was the golden
age of radium. Will Yeah, it was the golden age
of radio, Bob, exactly, exactly. Yeah, speaking of golden ages,
(06:17):
I understand that Tom is still with you. Huh. Yeah,
you know, listen, I'd be lost without Tom. Tom. Could
you know? Tom could get us on the air in
the middle of the desert with a juice cannon a string.
He uh, he doesn't pretty amazing. I think he's actually,
you know, Tom knows how I feel about him. I
think he's uh, the brightest, the smartest, the most capable
broadcast engineer in the history of the medium. And by
(06:40):
the way, Tom, you've misspelled medium. It's I you am
not e U m oh. Yeah, you gave it to him, Bob,
because I know I love I love Tom. He is
the best and you're the best, and I can't I
can't live without testing your Tom. I'm gonna get off
(07:00):
the air here and let you get back to business.
But because you are the car doctor and you do
know everything about cars, I'm gonna give you a pop quiz.
You're ready ahead, I'm ready. Okay. When is a car
not a car when it's a trup? No, when it
turns into a driveway? Okay, Next one, what is where
(07:25):
does a Volkswagon go when it retires? Oh? God, I
was I was thinking into the river? But go ahead
where the old volks home? The old volks home. You
know what? Fifty Volkswagon at the bottom of the Hudson
is no A good start, a good story. Hey listen,
I'm gonna run. I love you guys, and seriously to
(07:48):
uh Tom, you are the best, and run. Uh what
can I say you? You've you've got a great run going,
keep it going, God bless you and that engine going.
Thanks Bob, I appreciate what I really do. Yeah. Um,
A true gentleman and uh, um, one of the one
of the best in radio, Bob Bruno. Um, Bob, And
(08:11):
I'll tell you the second Bob Bruno's story before we
take the pause. Bob invited me the the two weeks
after o Or hired me, and they brought me into
the city and we went out to lunch Midtown and
it was one of those fancy you know. The waiters
were the penguin suits and the palm trees and you know,
real highfalute and root and Tuton and uh, you know,
(08:32):
Bob takes me to lunch. Jerry Crowley was with us,
our our sales manager at the time, and they got
to talking to me and knowing me, and Bob said,
I'm going to give you one piece of advice you
never forget. And I said what's that and he said,
never think you're bigger than the process. And I looked
at him and he said yeah. He said, never think
you're bigger than the process. As long as you continue
to be true to yourself and true to what you're
trying to do, he says, you'll always be a success.
(08:54):
You know what. Second was the second best thing Bob
Bruno ever did to me. Next to the Jacob Javits thing,
which I never forgot that the the the deer in
the headlight, look that that created? Uh staring down the
barrel of four or five thousand people? And are you
happy working here? Like? Oh my god, what are we doing? Bob?
I love you, Thank you for taking the time. Zero
(09:15):
nine zero zero. Hey, when we come back, I've got well,
how good is your best car story? Wait? Do you
hear mine? We're gonna talk about it when the car
doctor returns celebrating fifteen hundred. Don't go away, I got
I got time writing on the wall, so you don't
(09:42):
forget to call for car advice? Done right? Eight five
five five zero nine zero zero. Now back to row. Okay,
you know what, let's uh, what is your best car story?
Here's mine? Mind save in my life? It really did.
I was sixteen, I was a I was a typical kid.
I just didn't know what I wanted to do with
my life. And I saw one movie, American Graffiti. I'm
(10:06):
not gonna lie, and I thought that fifty five Chevy
was the coolest thing in the whole world. Hey, I
gotta go get one of those. I gotta make one
of those. All right, And I did found a hundred
and twenty five dollar street racer at a Jersey City,
New Jersey. You could look in the headlights and see
how the tail lights, no engine, no interior or nothing,
just a bare shell for a buck and a quarter.
And that's the way it was in nineteen seventy four,
(10:27):
and we flat towed at home. We hooked it to
the back of a G t O sixty five g
t O with a toe bar and flat toad that
I actually had to sit in the in the car
on a milk crate and steer it. Which you don't
think about the dumb things that you do, right, And
every great car story sort of has a dumb thing,
and it a dumb part that you just say, wow,
I would never do that as you get older. And
we we towed it all the way up Root three,
(10:48):
up to Roots seventeen. And you know, the great part
of the story as well, we did make it home eventually.
But the great funny, thank god we're alive, part of
the story is we're towing it up Root three and
it's cold, it's dark, it's it's probably ten eleven o'clock
at night, and I hear clunk rattle, rattle, rattle, clunk, rattle, rattle, rattle.
(11:09):
Parts are falling off it, which looking back, probably wasn't
a great sign of things to come. As We're towing
it up the highway and I can hear something falling apart,
but I don't know what it is, and I've got
no way to signal the guys in the car in
front of me, because you wouldn't think of that, right,
you're sixteen, the guy toing is eighteen. You don't. You don't.
Your brain hasn't developed that far. You're not thinking that
(11:31):
far ahead. And after about another three or four minutes
of something falling off, the left front wheel falls off
because what was falling off it was the lug nuts.
The lug nuts weren't tight. The left front wheel falls off,
and the car goes down on the left sparks flying everywhere.
All of a sudden, the tow vehicle they woke up.
They pulled off to the shoulder. Dirty Ernie jumps out.
(11:52):
Dirty Arnie was in the past in your seat. Don't
ask how he got that name, And um, dirty Yarnie's
in the pass in your seat. He jumps out into
the middle of the root. Three I'll never forget the
look on Ernie's face when he picked up the tire
that had fallen off, and the two eighteen wheelers went
by him, one on each side, and he was in
the middle at the sixty miles an hour. He just
(12:12):
it took him about ten minutes to talk. He bent over,
picked up the tire, looked up so the two trucks,
and just froze right on the white line because that's
where it landed. Thank god, we managed to find two
of the lug nuts. We took one off of one
of the other wheels, put it back on. Check the
rest of them. They were all tight. Evidently the guy
when he put the wheels on didn't tighten it. And
why would we check that. We would assume right we
(12:34):
were kids. We didn't know got the car home. And
that's really the beginning of it. But that car, in
in everything that it did to me, taught me how
to do things right, because I did so many things wrong.
And that's part of what makes a great, great car
story great. It's not a story about the car was
the fastest, or it looked the best, or it you know,
(12:58):
it did any thing else. That car taught me about life,
because life is like going to repair, all right. Life
is that series of experiences and accidents and and good
things and bad things, and you learn along the way,
and you skin your knee and you get up and
you move forward, just like we're going through right now,
right with the world situation being what it is, we're
(13:18):
just skinning our knee and we're just figuring things out
and we're getting up, and we are going to get
up and we are going to stand tall, and we
are going to be able to do it again, and
we are going to get back to normal. But I
never forgot that car eventually, and I held onto that
car a very long time. Um, I just couldn't part
with it because of all that it did for me
and all that it taught me and all the experiences
(13:39):
I had with it. I just sold it three years ago,
maybe four. And somebody said to me once, They said,
how would you possibly sell that car? That was your life?
And yeah, to a degree it was. But you know what,
it was time for somebody else to have the experience.
It was time for somebody else to really enjoy that car,
because you see what you realize it or not for
(14:01):
everybody out there with a classic car in the garage
or a classic car story in their head, or cruising
or late night street racing or whatever it is you did.
You're not really owning that car. You don't own those cars.
You're just the caretaker. You just sort of get to
take care of it until you give it to the
next guy, and then they pass it on to the
next generation. And that's the great thing about cars. They're
(14:22):
they're always going to be there to educate you in
so many ways, just beyond just the mechanics and physics
of how a vehicle operates. I never forgot so many
things from that car. I never forgot the the frustration
of being stuck on Route three with that left front
tire on the ground. I never felt so bad as
when I saw Ernie almost get killed when he got
(14:43):
flattened by the eighteen wheelers. And we still talk about
it and joke about it to this day, fifty years later,
and it's it's crazy, but it's a bonding moment. And
I think that when I people ask me, you know,
my kid wants to be a mechanics Should I let them?
What can they look forward to? I always think of
that story because that story sort of typifies what you
(15:06):
have to look forward to. It's it's it's just one
unexpected turn after another, just like life. And that's the
way it goes. That's my car story. Let's uh, let's
wander over and um let's over Steven san Diego six
Ford Focus line too, and let's see what's going on here, Steve.
Welcome to the car doctor, sir, help us celebrate? How
(15:27):
can I help you? Yes, I sure ken this, Steve.
And I just got myself a Ford Focused two thousand
and six. And when when I bought it, the engine
mounts were shot to pieces. There's one that it's like
a full of oil, right, Yeah, that's not surprising. They're
always bad, Steve. Well, there was nothing in it, not
(15:48):
no sense about being any oil in there for a
long time. So there's three months out, replaced them all
and it's it's a million times better than it was.
But there's still a pronounced rattle and it's only on startup,
only when I put it in gear. And if I
put it in neutral and red the engine, it's fine.
But if I put it in gear, it makes a
(16:09):
nasty rattling noise and after a while it goes away.
When when you say rattle, Stephen or you're talking about
it's an automatic, right, you're putting it in. You're putting
it in, you're putting it in drive. And there's a
resonance that you feel through the steering wheel. Yes, and
a noise of a noise and a resonance. Oh what
kind of a noise? A rattle? Yeah? So I was
looking at all the heat shields because that seemed to
(16:31):
be like a reasonable match for the noise. But they
all seem in good shape and not lose anything. Okay,
can you get it up in the air, you know,
on the lift, put it in gear and duplicate the noise,
and then possibly with your hands wrapped in rags, hold
the heat shields. Sometimes they don't appear loose, but they'll
they'll they'll buzz. There's a vibration to them, all right, Okay,
(16:53):
that you won't necessarily and again it depends on the
severity of the rattle or how much of a rattle
you've actually got, uh, you know that a possibility. And
then the other thing is have you looked at the
exhaust Do you have any rusted clamps, exhaust hangers, anything
dangling loose? You know, something like I looked at I
looked at the exhaust. It looks okay. Um. I was
(17:15):
wondering it's kind of seemed like a long shot, but
maybe the probably I think it has been driven around
for a while with these mounts shot And I wondered
if maybe the exhausted manifolded cracked or one of the
joints that had become damaged and it wasn't visible, but
once it heated up, it you close up a little
crack or something, and you only hear it when it's cold. Yeah,
(17:38):
but if the exhaust actually had a leak, it would
sound more like exhaust than you know, a rattle per se.
So try this all right, and then call me back.
You know, look at the way the mounts are installed.
You know, if if the if mechanic did him, or
you did them, consider loosening you did them. So consider
loosening the mounts up. Started up, not a whole lot,
(17:59):
but started up. Let them find neutral, all right, Let
them find a neutral state and then tighten them back up.
Maybe there's too much load on the mount one way
or the other. Maybe that'll change it. But take a
look at the exhaust too. I'm on any of the
car Doctor. We're back right after this. Hey run any
(18:31):
of the car doctor. Welcome back. Let's get on over
to step in May nineteen escape. Steve, you're on with
the car doctor. Help us celebrate? Brother, what's going on? Congratulations?
Thank you sir. What's what can I do for you? Well?
I have a nineteen escape, yes, the baseball and on
(18:51):
all of these nineteens nineteen escapes they have only a radio. Uh,
starting with nineteen eighteen had a radio and CD. So
my question is would I mess up anything if I
pulled the nineteen radio out of the dash and put
(19:11):
a radio with CD. I love this question. You know,
this is the question I asked at class two months ago.
We were we were doing scope class and controlled area networking,
and I asked this. I asked something very similar to
this question. And and you're not gonna like the answer,
(19:31):
but you know you're you're thinking like me, brother, that's
I like the question. So here's here's the problem. Okay.
You know you look at it from the outside and
you see a radio, and then in some cars you
see a radio and a CD player. All right, it's
it's behind the dash or in the car that we
don't see and you know, somewhere in the network of
(19:53):
the vehicle, that car is a controlled area network, it's
a can system, and and there's modules, there's there's pathways
of information that have to relay things back and forth
between different modules. You're seeing a you're seeing a display.
How they do it behind the desk could be totally different.
It can be different. It can be different from a
(20:14):
nineteen escape that was built in January versus a nineteen
escape that was built in February. Because of the pluriferation
of electronics, do you ever go out and buy a laptop? Okay,
and then two weeks later your wife says, had like
a laptop, and you go to the store and you
want to buy the exact same one and maybe and
(20:37):
they don't have it or or or they have that
same model. And then you take it apart and you
look at the chips and the chip set is different
because because technology just keeps marching forward, and that's the problem.
So well, right, so, you know, one of the questions
I asked and then I brought up, is so does
(20:58):
that mean the after market automotive stereos companies, you know, Pioneer, Panasonic, Sony,
you know whoever all of them? Right, are they done?
Because you know, what are you gonna put it in?
Where's where's the car to to put that in? You know,
it's it's got to be something older, So it's got
to be something really and older, because you know after
(21:24):
model year that's when can proliferation really took off. But
you know who's gonna put two thousand dollars worth of
stereo into a two thousand model year car? Right? So
you know, can it be done? Yes? You know what's
the cost? You know, and the argument you're gonna get
(21:46):
all right, the argument you're gonna get here, I'll relay
it like this. I just I actually did just buy
my wife a laptop. She needed a laptop or laptop
of seven years old. It was dying a slow death.
And I said, oh, let me, you know, I've got
some time now we're home a little bit obviously, let
me let me change. Let me get to a laptop.
I can set it up this way, I can do
it while I have the time, instead of when I'm
in the middle of you know, the usual work week.
(22:08):
You know, do you know you know how hard it
is to find a laptop with a CD player? Now,
and when when I asked, the argument is because nobody
listens to c D s anymore. Well, I I dispute
that as far as myself. Well well, and the other
side of it is, what was the CD player for
(22:28):
in a computer? It was to install software or in
a program. Right everything everything is on a USB stick
or it's downloaded right off the net. There's there's there's
no hard material anymore. So what you could probably do
and I would talk to a stereo install shop because
I'm thinking I did a little research after I had
(22:50):
asked the question in class two months ago. I'm thinking
that the aftermarket stereo companies are catching onto this. I
don't know that you'll find a CD player, but I
believe you'll you'll find a way. You have a smartphone, Steve, No,
I have a dumb phone. Okay, well see now, so yeah,
it's you. You may have to get a smartphone and
(23:12):
then you would put your music on the smartphone and
then your phone would plug into a port on the
front of the radio and that would be an input
channel and then that would play your music. And that's
how you would do it. Yeah, And that's how I
charge my phone from the car. You know it has
the square plug, and I plug into my radio charges
(23:32):
that way, So I guess I could send it in
the opposite direction to send music into the car. Yes,
if you can look on the radio, does the radio
offer you a source input feed? Um? If it? If
it gives you the option of source input or source
and you can tell it external or you know, phone
(23:55):
or whatever the whatever the wording is, then yeah, you
could play from your phone. You and I listen you,
and I think like Stevie and no one saw you
and I are dinosaurs, were thinking like I want to
see d player and you know doesn't exist. Doesn't exist
on my on my dash it says phone or it
says media. So I think I could do what you're saying.
(24:18):
So and you could, uh, now you want to get
really high tech. What you could do too is if
you have unlimited data streaming on your phone, not that
I've used anyway. Well, if you have unlimited data on
your phone, all right, and you can well you you
have a dumb phone. See, if you have a smartphone,
you could put Amazon Music on your phone and you
(24:41):
can actually stream right from Amazon Music through your phone
into your car's radio. You don't need to see D
player anymore. Yeah. Um, And what I've found from maybe
like Crutch Realists inplace like that, that or a local
installation place, is that they at least know of some
(25:01):
aftermarket CD players that could be routed into the cars speakers.
That's possible too, and then that could also that might
also work where and I've seen this for the for
the laptop where they make external CD players. They'll plug
into the laptop or the car and that will channel
through the radio out to the speakers that way, and
(25:22):
you could do that too. Yeah, so there's there's ways
around it maybe, right, but it's it's cumbersame, it's difficult.
So so uh that confirms what I what I thought
that it might uh mess up with the uh pulling
the factory radio out and putting another forward radio limb.
(25:46):
Right yet it there's the electronics are likely not there.
But I'll give you the good news. The good news
is that if you had a smartphone and you podcasted
The Car Doctor, you could stream that into your car's
radio while you're driving and download and listen to all
four nine episodes. Oh cool. That it might take a while,
(26:08):
It might take you a while. You can take a
long trip. Would you have the time for it right now? Anyway?
All right, brother, right, you're welcome Steve, be well, be safe,
Thank you, thank you, sir, very very happy. You're glad
to be here for you guys. Uh yeah, technology is changing.
Oh boy, it's changing. We're here to chelping change with it.
So stay tuned. I'm running any in. The car Doctor
will be right back. Don't go away, welcome back. I'm
(26:41):
naming the car Doctor eight five five five zero nine zero.
As a matter of fact, is a follow up to
that to Stephen, mean, get used to this one, Steve,
if you're still listening for everybody else, they're gonna get
rid of radios. That's right, car radios are gonna go
away in the not too distant future. There are car
companies out there actually talking about it. I can't mention
brand names. I'm sort of sworn to secrecy, but trust me,
(27:03):
you'll be shocked because they're both very major brand name
companies and um, they're they're trying to get rid of
radios and it'll just be it'll just be streaming off
the internet, and um, you know, you won't have radio
stations to listen to anymore. So the world is going
to change yet again, and probably within the next eighteen
to twenty four months from what I'm hearing. So we'll say,
(27:25):
let's get over to Stephanie and JB in Pennsylvania with
a fifteen Volvo and a radio problem. Radio problems seem
to create radio problems, so let's see what's going on here.
Welcome to the car doctor. How can I help? Y
Um all, we got sixty and this has happened to
us twice. We bought it used. But the infotainment center
(27:47):
as it's called. Um, we'll just um, something happened at
one pover Um we've there's there's you like, some kind
of um upgrade that needs done. But and the dealer
you know, doesn't know anything about it. And I forget
(28:10):
what happened. But the guy that was working on a
on a body issue said that he did a hard start,
which meant disconnecting the battery and putting it back on
and it came back. Um, recently I changed the battery
and uh it's gone again. I just don't want to
get to the dealer and you know, spend a ridiculous
(28:31):
amount of money just to bring this back. But all
the goodies are going you know, you know the everything
except you know the basics, radio, no nothing, Now anything
I can now is does this have is this a
display navigation style system or is this just strictly a radio?
(28:51):
Now it's it's got the whole nav and rear camera
and everything. So first of all, um, not not trying
to hurt your feelings, but get over not trying to
spend any money. It's a Volvo, it's a high end
car and there's very specific repair procedures involved to maintain
and repair that vehicle. So the first yeah, and you
(29:14):
know that story, right, Um, The first question I would
have and the only way you're going to know this
you know, and you can't even trust looking up in
information systems that there are no reflashes or software updates
for that vehicle. The first thing you have to do
is tie into Volvo's flash system. Are there any software
updates for the radio for the vehicle in general that
(29:36):
might be related to what you're describing. So that's the
first step. So if if if you've got a mechanic
that can do that, great, If not, dealer only all right,
and then and then after that, if that doesn't solve it,
they've got to go through normal diagnostics, look for trouble codes.
No trouble codes. Uh, this could be the unit itself.
(29:57):
And that's that's the problem. That's what you're chasing, trying
to get down to. Uh. You know, I just I
just went through this on my wife's car on a Ford.
I have gone through this on Toyota's I've gone through
this on GM product and it seems like they all
take the same general path of diagnostics. Software updates, scan
for codes, you know, basic diagnostics. Then it's component level
(30:20):
the problem is in and in most of the cases
I've dealt with, they've either been intermittent or they'll happen
at random, and then you have to try and duplicate them,
and you can't. You have to go into that that
hard restart as you called it, where you're you're taking
power away and doing a dead boot as we sometimes
refer to it with a computer, and that dead boot
(30:40):
is the key. If the dead boot fixes it disconnecting
the battery or pulling the unit out of the dash
and leaving it disconnected, depending upon the make, sometimes that works.
You know, that dead boot tells me that we're resetting
a module, resetting a processor, just like a computer, and
you know it's it's it's it's pointing more and more
towards the component after software's trot. Does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, Um,
(31:06):
you know your mechanic that works on it, does he
have Volvo capable scan tool? Can he speak to the car?
I'm about forty five minutes from a Volvo dealer, And
that's another point, you know, it just makes it more
about um a nusance item to do well. And luckily
it's it's been eating. It's free. So I got a
(31:29):
guy here in in Altuna that that you know, I
trust for everything. But hey, and the place actually where
I got it, um, you know, both need to refer
me back to h you know, the dealer. Yeah, it's
one of the questions, you know. Whatever anybody asks me
how I want to buy this car of that car,
if it's if it's if it's a Volvo, it's, if
(31:51):
it's a Mercedes, if it's a higher line European, the
first question I always ask is who's going to fix it?
And if they tell me their local guy, like your
guy there in Altuna, that that you've been working on
for years and years and he's your guy, I said.
You know, the first thing I always say is you
got to go and talk to Bob or Fred or
whoever it is and say, hey, I'm gonna buy this.
Can you fix it? Because it's it's it's and it's
(32:12):
not a matter of his capability, all right, It's not
a matter of how smart he is. It's a business
decision on his part. Can he afford a Volvo specific
scan tool? Can he afford the electronics and the diagnostics
needed to work on that? And and you know, deal
with it, which is is part of the issue too.
(32:33):
Go talk to your mechanic, tell him what we talked
about and see if that makes sense to him. And
then after that, I think it's time to get back
out to the dealer and uh, you know, go from there.
Call me back in the next week or two. Let
me know. If the dealer can't solid for you, we'll
dig a little deeper. But I appreciate the call and
hate everybody out there, and I'll tune a p A.
I'm running any in the car doctor. We're cruising away.
We'll be back right after this. Don't go, hey, run
(33:00):
any of the car doctor. Welcome back. Let's do a
quick piece of email This one comes to us from Cathy. Hey, Ron,
I've got a two thousand two Chevy trail blazer the
radiators seeping down one side. My mechanics said it's about
eight hundred dollars to replace it because he has to
remove the entire front bumper, grill clip, etcetera. I want
to know because I'm out of work right now due
to the due to the virus. Uh, due to the
(33:20):
world situation. She puts, um, would case seal fix this? Uh? Yeah,
you know what, Cath, you could do k seal k
seal dot com for more information. You know, k Seal
is a great cooling system sealer. It'll do the job here.
And even if you wanted to do it on a
temporary basis, I would still put k Seal in this. Uh.
(33:42):
You know, Listen, a lot of factors come into this.
All right, It's an O two bullet trailblaser. It's eighteen
years old. You don't say the mileage. I'm gonna guess
and say it's probably got a hundred and fifty thousand
miles on at anything eighteen years old, it seems this
vintage usually does. Uh. You know, would you put eight
hundred dollars into it. That's kind of tough to come
up with, right now, would you do a uh, you
know what they consider I don't know how temporary of
(34:04):
a patch case seal is because I've used k seal
as a permanent fix and a lot of vehicles. But
you know, you could use k seal and just monitor it.
You know, where do you go with the vehicle? If
you're around town driving and you're doing eight thousand miles
a year and you want to try k seal, You're
not gonna hurt anything. And if the radiator starts to
seep again in a year or a year and a half,
(34:27):
you know it's not gonna hurt to put a radiator
in it because k seal doesn't damage the cooling system.
The technology on how k seal works, and it's it's
the only sealer on the market that works like that
is different than everything else. It doesn't clogg the cooling
system like so many of the other steelers out there
do today. And it does work. As a matter of fact,
and I've said this for a while now, why everybody
(34:48):
doesn't have a little JARRK seal in the glove compartment.
We've stucked up on toilet paper and everything else for emergencies.
You know what. Stuck up on k seal too, because uh,
you know what, if you're out in the country, your
mechanics closed. Having a bottle in the car sure does help.
K cl dot com. I'm running any of the car
doctor looking up. Thanks for joining me this hour. Until
the next time. Good mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless. See
(35:10):
you
Ron. And you know, folks, I gotta tell you, if
anybody's worried about me retiring, I'm not gonna happen. They're
gonna have to drag me out of the place with
a wrench in my hand. Down your hands. The car
Doctor that took your advice, and I got my wife
a night nights their vehicles. She had an owie islander
(00:24):
and she's got out thirteen and mom is happy now, right, correct?
And if mom is happy, everybody's happy. Welcome to the
radio home of Ron and Nanian, the Car Doctor, since
this is where car owners the world overturned to for
their definitive opinion on automotive repair. If your mechanics giving
you a busy signal, pick up the phone and call in.
(00:48):
The garage doors are open, but I am here to
take your calls at eight five five five six and now.
A long long time ago, when the world is still
cool and dinosaurs roman the earth, when God was but
a youngster and dirt had just been discovered, a new
radio host was bored. Now your host of the Car Doctor,
(01:16):
Ron and Anien. How in the world is your car?
That is what we want to know. Our goal is
to improve your cars condition in the world by giving
you the information that you need to keep it that way. Gooday, afternoon,
and welcome to the Car Doctor. My name is Ron
and Adian, owner of our automotive located over on Zazi
Street in Waldwick, New Jersey. So Hi there, listeners, how
are you today? I'm here to answer all your car
(01:37):
repair questions live, but I understand we have what I'm
gonna call the first caller of the show. We have
George from Yonkers with an eighty four Christ from New
Yorker and a corrosion issue. Good afternoon, George, and welcome
to the Car Doctor. How can he How can I
help you? George? I have a second car that is
very little used and it's not garaged. You know, listeners,
(01:59):
it's it's tough when you get into a higher mileage
vehicle and uh, you know, what do you do with it?
And you know, how do you resolve the problem? And
I always say this, if the car is broken, a
good technician can go through that car in an hour.
I don't have spark, I don't have fuel. What am
I looking for? I've had a good time and I
hope you have to until next week when we'll be
here again to answer any and all of your car
(02:19):
repair questions. I'm checking out. Joinus now by calling eight
five five five six zero zero zero to congratulate Ron
on his fifteen hundred show. Um do the dancing girls
he running? Geez. All of a sudden, I feel older.
Holy cow, hundred book of Tom Ray have in store
(02:43):
for me today? Tom, are you there, Tom? Yes? And
you know what that's gonna teach you about leaving old
tapes out on the countertop there at the studio. Well,
I listen, and you know that's uh gee, Tom, do
I really sound better? You be nice sound and so
ly better. You know, everybody in this business listens to
(03:03):
the first tape the first time they were on the
air and a cringe. Oh my god, Tom, I can't
believe that was really me, you know, but but but
here we are, here, here, we are d look at us. Well,
you know I played it. I played it when I
put this thing together, and my wife said, that's Ron. Yeah, yeah,
it's you know. I. Well, I was always blessed and fortunate, right,
(03:26):
I had great and I had great people teaching me
the business. I came up at the right time. I
had some of the greats in the industry show me
right from wrong. And I kind of I always said,
I kind of went to the you know, the the
Catholic School of radio broadcasting where you got wrapped on
the knuckles digitally if you did something wrong. And I
learned right from wrong the hard way, and it worked.
It seems to have worked. Here we are one of
(03:47):
those people that you learned from that. You know, it
was kind of responsible to get you where we are today.
And you know, last time I saw you were picking
up bottles outside of the the fence at the dump.
But anyway, um, this is I managed to get Bob
Bruno from w R Radio on the phone, my former boss.
Look at this, big time boss. Yeah. Really we're carried
(04:10):
through Talk Media network and uh, you know the show,
the thing just it just has a life of its own.
It just it just continues to evolve. Well that's that's great.
And by the way, you remember, Waldwick was our first home.
We bought our first home there. Right, yeah, you know
it's so funny, right we're here. I am in Waldwick.
You were in Waldwick, then you were in MAMOI I
used to go past your house every day, that's right.
(04:31):
I remember I'm looking for a show. Now I on
my way into the city to do the show. And um,
you know, listen, I have I have better memories of
you than that, Bob. I you know you you taught
me tough love, alright, tough radio love. It was we
were we would all come on. Now. We were at
Jacob Javitt's and we're doing the show. It was the
(04:52):
first time you guys sent me out on remote. And
I was only there about three maybe four months. And
it was Easter nineteen ye something like that, remember, yeah,
And and there was probably four or five thousand people
in the room and we're setting up this big giant
remote and we're probably thirty seconds to air, and you
lean over and whisper in my ear, so do you
(05:14):
like working at w O War? And I just I
just looked up and went, what, well, I'm trying to focus,
you know, I'm scared to death. My teeth are chattering,
and um, you know I asked you about it afterwards.
I don't know if you remember this, and you said
to me, Ron, I was trying to put you under
the gun so you'd react with all the pressure. I
want you to always think like you're under pressure, you know, Bob,
(05:35):
it worked. Well, that's great. Well, you know what, you're natural.
You've had a long run and that tells tells me
that you're uh. Your initial success on w O War
was well founded and uh. And you know, we had
a great line up on the weekend, as I recall,
you know, with with You with the with the Car
(05:55):
Doctor Show, and we had told the garden hunting line
was Ralph Snott Smith and the Pet Show with Eckstein
and the Travel Show with Arthur Fromer and oh a
lot of good stuff. It was. It was the golden
age of radium. Will Yeah, it was the golden age
of radio, Bob, exactly, exactly. Yeah, speaking of golden ages,
(06:17):
I understand that Tom is still with you. Huh. Yeah,
you know, listen, I'd be lost without Tom. Tom. Could
you know? Tom could get us on the air in
the middle of the desert with a juice cannon a string.
He uh, he doesn't pretty amazing. I think he's actually,
you know, Tom knows how I feel about him. I
think he's uh, the brightest, the smartest, the most capable
broadcast engineer in the history of the medium. And by
(06:40):
the way, Tom, you've misspelled medium. It's I you am
not e U m oh. Yeah, you gave it to him, Bob,
because I know I love I love Tom. He is
the best and you're the best, and I can't I
can't live without testing your Tom. I'm gonna get off
(07:00):
the air here and let you get back to business.
But because you are the car doctor and you do
know everything about cars, I'm gonna give you a pop quiz.
You're ready ahead, I'm ready. Okay. When is a car
not a car when it's a trup? No, when it
turns into a driveway? Okay, Next one, what is where
(07:25):
does a Volkswagon go when it retires? Oh? God, I
was I was thinking into the river? But go ahead
where the old volks home? The old volks home. You
know what? Fifty Volkswagon at the bottom of the Hudson
is no A good start, a good story. Hey listen,
I'm gonna run. I love you guys, and seriously to
(07:48):
uh Tom, you are the best, and run. Uh what
can I say you? You've you've got a great run going,
keep it going, God bless you and that engine going.
Thanks Bob, I appreciate what I really do. Yeah. Um,
A true gentleman and uh, um, one of the one
of the best in radio, Bob Bruno. Um, Bob, And
(08:11):
I'll tell you the second Bob Bruno's story before we
take the pause. Bob invited me the the two weeks
after o Or hired me, and they brought me into
the city and we went out to lunch Midtown and
it was one of those fancy you know. The waiters
were the penguin suits and the palm trees and you know,
real highfalute and root and Tuton and uh, you know,
(08:32):
Bob takes me to lunch. Jerry Crowley was with us,
our our sales manager at the time, and they got
to talking to me and knowing me, and Bob said,
I'm going to give you one piece of advice you
never forget. And I said what's that and he said,
never think you're bigger than the process. And I looked
at him and he said yeah. He said, never think
you're bigger than the process. As long as you continue
to be true to yourself and true to what you're
trying to do, he says, you'll always be a success.
(08:54):
You know what. Second was the second best thing Bob
Bruno ever did to me. Next to the Jacob Javits thing,
which I never forgot that the the the deer in
the headlight, look that that created? Uh staring down the
barrel of four or five thousand people? And are you
happy working here? Like? Oh my god, what are we doing? Bob?
I love you, Thank you for taking the time. Zero
(09:15):
nine zero zero. Hey, when we come back, I've got well,
how good is your best car story? Wait? Do you
hear mine? We're gonna talk about it when the car
doctor returns celebrating fifteen hundred. Don't go away, I got
I got time writing on the wall, so you don't
(09:42):
forget to call for car advice? Done right? Eight five
five five zero nine zero zero. Now back to row. Okay,
you know what, let's uh, what is your best car story?
Here's mine? Mind save in my life? It really did.
I was sixteen, I was a I was a typical kid.
I just didn't know what I wanted to do with
my life. And I saw one movie, American Graffiti. I'm
(10:06):
not gonna lie, and I thought that fifty five Chevy
was the coolest thing in the whole world. Hey, I
gotta go get one of those. I gotta make one
of those. All right, And I did found a hundred
and twenty five dollar street racer at a Jersey City,
New Jersey. You could look in the headlights and see
how the tail lights, no engine, no interior or nothing,
just a bare shell for a buck and a quarter.
And that's the way it was in nineteen seventy four,
(10:27):
and we flat towed at home. We hooked it to
the back of a G t O sixty five g
t O with a toe bar and flat toad that
I actually had to sit in the in the car
on a milk crate and steer it. Which you don't
think about the dumb things that you do, right, And
every great car story sort of has a dumb thing,
and it a dumb part that you just say, wow,
I would never do that as you get older. And
we we towed it all the way up Root three,
(10:48):
up to Roots seventeen. And you know, the great part
of the story as well, we did make it home eventually.
But the great funny, thank god we're alive, part of
the story is we're towing it up Root three and
it's cold, it's dark, it's it's probably ten eleven o'clock
at night, and I hear clunk rattle, rattle, rattle, clunk, rattle, rattle, rattle.
(11:09):
Parts are falling off it, which looking back, probably wasn't
a great sign of things to come. As We're towing
it up the highway and I can hear something falling apart,
but I don't know what it is, and I've got
no way to signal the guys in the car in
front of me, because you wouldn't think of that, right,
you're sixteen, the guy toing is eighteen. You don't. You don't.
Your brain hasn't developed that far. You're not thinking that
(11:31):
far ahead. And after about another three or four minutes
of something falling off, the left front wheel falls off
because what was falling off it was the lug nuts.
The lug nuts weren't tight. The left front wheel falls off,
and the car goes down on the left sparks flying everywhere.
All of a sudden, the tow vehicle they woke up.
They pulled off to the shoulder. Dirty Ernie jumps out.
(11:52):
Dirty Arnie was in the past in your seat. Don't
ask how he got that name, And um, dirty Yarnie's
in the pass in your seat. He jumps out into
the middle of the root. Three I'll never forget the
look on Ernie's face when he picked up the tire
that had fallen off, and the two eighteen wheelers went
by him, one on each side, and he was in
the middle at the sixty miles an hour. He just
(12:12):
it took him about ten minutes to talk. He bent over,
picked up the tire, looked up so the two trucks,
and just froze right on the white line because that's
where it landed. Thank god, we managed to find two
of the lug nuts. We took one off of one
of the other wheels, put it back on. Check the
rest of them. They were all tight. Evidently the guy
when he put the wheels on didn't tighten it. And
why would we check that. We would assume right we
(12:34):
were kids. We didn't know got the car home. And
that's really the beginning of it. But that car, in
in everything that it did to me, taught me how
to do things right, because I did so many things wrong.
And that's part of what makes a great, great car
story great. It's not a story about the car was
the fastest, or it looked the best, or it you know,
(12:58):
it did any thing else. That car taught me about life,
because life is like going to repair, all right. Life
is that series of experiences and accidents and and good
things and bad things, and you learn along the way,
and you skin your knee and you get up and
you move forward, just like we're going through right now,
right with the world situation being what it is, we're
(13:18):
just skinning our knee and we're just figuring things out
and we're getting up, and we are going to get
up and we are going to stand tall, and we
are going to be able to do it again, and
we are going to get back to normal. But I
never forgot that car eventually, and I held onto that
car a very long time. Um, I just couldn't part
with it because of all that it did for me
and all that it taught me and all the experiences
(13:39):
I had with it. I just sold it three years ago,
maybe four. And somebody said to me once, They said,
how would you possibly sell that car? That was your life?
And yeah, to a degree it was. But you know what,
it was time for somebody else to have the experience.
It was time for somebody else to really enjoy that car,
because you see what you realize it or not for
(14:01):
everybody out there with a classic car in the garage
or a classic car story in their head, or cruising
or late night street racing or whatever it is you did.
You're not really owning that car. You don't own those cars.
You're just the caretaker. You just sort of get to
take care of it until you give it to the
next guy, and then they pass it on to the
next generation. And that's the great thing about cars. They're
(14:22):
they're always going to be there to educate you in
so many ways, just beyond just the mechanics and physics
of how a vehicle operates. I never forgot so many
things from that car. I never forgot the the frustration
of being stuck on Route three with that left front
tire on the ground. I never felt so bad as
when I saw Ernie almost get killed when he got
(14:43):
flattened by the eighteen wheelers. And we still talk about
it and joke about it to this day, fifty years later,
and it's it's crazy, but it's a bonding moment. And
I think that when I people ask me, you know,
my kid wants to be a mechanics Should I let them?
What can they look forward to? I always think of
that story because that story sort of typifies what you
(15:06):
have to look forward to. It's it's it's just one
unexpected turn after another, just like life. And that's the
way it goes. That's my car story. Let's uh, let's
wander over and um let's over Steven san Diego six
Ford Focus line too, and let's see what's going on here, Steve.
Welcome to the car doctor, sir, help us celebrate? How
(15:27):
can I help you? Yes, I sure ken this, Steve.
And I just got myself a Ford Focused two thousand
and six. And when when I bought it, the engine
mounts were shot to pieces. There's one that it's like
a full of oil, right, Yeah, that's not surprising. They're
always bad, Steve. Well, there was nothing in it, not
(15:48):
no sense about being any oil in there for a
long time. So there's three months out, replaced them all
and it's it's a million times better than it was.
But there's still a pronounced rattle and it's only on startup,
only when I put it in gear. And if I
put it in neutral and red the engine, it's fine.
But if I put it in gear, it makes a
(16:09):
nasty rattling noise and after a while it goes away.
When when you say rattle, Stephen or you're talking about
it's an automatic, right, you're putting it in. You're putting
it in, you're putting it in drive. And there's a
resonance that you feel through the steering wheel. Yes, and
a noise of a noise and a resonance. Oh what
kind of a noise? A rattle? Yeah? So I was
looking at all the heat shields because that seemed to
(16:31):
be like a reasonable match for the noise. But they
all seem in good shape and not lose anything. Okay,
can you get it up in the air, you know,
on the lift, put it in gear and duplicate the noise,
and then possibly with your hands wrapped in rags, hold
the heat shields. Sometimes they don't appear loose, but they'll
they'll they'll buzz. There's a vibration to them, all right, Okay,
(16:53):
that you won't necessarily and again it depends on the
severity of the rattle or how much of a rattle
you've actually got, uh, you know that a possibility. And
then the other thing is have you looked at the
exhaust Do you have any rusted clamps, exhaust hangers, anything
dangling loose? You know, something like I looked at I
looked at the exhaust. It looks okay. Um. I was
(17:15):
wondering it's kind of seemed like a long shot, but
maybe the probably I think it has been driven around
for a while with these mounts shot And I wondered
if maybe the exhausted manifolded cracked or one of the
joints that had become damaged and it wasn't visible, but
once it heated up, it you close up a little
crack or something, and you only hear it when it's cold. Yeah,
(17:38):
but if the exhaust actually had a leak, it would
sound more like exhaust than you know, a rattle per se.
So try this all right, and then call me back.
You know, look at the way the mounts are installed.
You know, if if the if mechanic did him, or
you did them, consider loosening you did them. So consider
loosening the mounts up. Started up, not a whole lot,
(17:59):
but started up. Let them find neutral, all right, Let
them find a neutral state and then tighten them back up.
Maybe there's too much load on the mount one way
or the other. Maybe that'll change it. But take a
look at the exhaust too. I'm on any of the
car Doctor. We're back right after this. Hey run any
(18:31):
of the car doctor. Welcome back. Let's get on over
to step in May nineteen escape. Steve, you're on with
the car doctor. Help us celebrate? Brother, what's going on? Congratulations?
Thank you sir. What's what can I do for you? Well?
I have a nineteen escape, yes, the baseball and on
(18:51):
all of these nineteens nineteen escapes they have only a radio. Uh,
starting with nineteen eighteen had a radio and CD. So
my question is would I mess up anything if I
pulled the nineteen radio out of the dash and put
(19:11):
a radio with CD. I love this question. You know,
this is the question I asked at class two months ago.
We were we were doing scope class and controlled area networking,
and I asked this. I asked something very similar to
this question. And and you're not gonna like the answer,
(19:31):
but you know you're you're thinking like me, brother, that's
I like the question. So here's here's the problem. Okay.
You know you look at it from the outside and
you see a radio, and then in some cars you
see a radio and a CD player. All right, it's
it's behind the dash or in the car that we
don't see and you know, somewhere in the network of
(19:53):
the vehicle, that car is a controlled area network, it's
a can system, and and there's modules, there's there's pathways
of information that have to relay things back and forth
between different modules. You're seeing a you're seeing a display.
How they do it behind the desk could be totally different.
It can be different. It can be different from a
(20:14):
nineteen escape that was built in January versus a nineteen
escape that was built in February. Because of the pluriferation
of electronics, do you ever go out and buy a laptop? Okay,
and then two weeks later your wife says, had like
a laptop, and you go to the store and you
want to buy the exact same one and maybe and
(20:37):
they don't have it or or or they have that
same model. And then you take it apart and you
look at the chips and the chip set is different
because because technology just keeps marching forward, and that's the problem.
So well, right, so, you know, one of the questions
I asked and then I brought up, is so does
(20:58):
that mean the after market automotive stereos companies, you know, Pioneer, Panasonic, Sony,
you know whoever all of them? Right, are they done?
Because you know, what are you gonna put it in?
Where's where's the car to to put that in? You know,
it's it's got to be something older, So it's got
to be something really and older, because you know after
(21:24):
model year that's when can proliferation really took off. But
you know who's gonna put two thousand dollars worth of
stereo into a two thousand model year car? Right? So
you know, can it be done? Yes? You know what's
the cost? You know, and the argument you're gonna get
(21:46):
all right, the argument you're gonna get here, I'll relay
it like this. I just I actually did just buy
my wife a laptop. She needed a laptop or laptop
of seven years old. It was dying a slow death.
And I said, oh, let me, you know, I've got
some time now we're home a little bit obviously, let
me let me change. Let me get to a laptop.
I can set it up this way, I can do
it while I have the time, instead of when I'm
in the middle of you know, the usual work week.
(22:08):
You know, do you know you know how hard it
is to find a laptop with a CD player? Now,
and when when I asked, the argument is because nobody
listens to c D s anymore. Well, I I dispute
that as far as myself. Well well, and the other
side of it is, what was the CD player for
(22:28):
in a computer? It was to install software or in
a program. Right everything everything is on a USB stick
or it's downloaded right off the net. There's there's there's
no hard material anymore. So what you could probably do
and I would talk to a stereo install shop because
I'm thinking I did a little research after I had
(22:50):
asked the question in class two months ago. I'm thinking
that the aftermarket stereo companies are catching onto this. I
don't know that you'll find a CD player, but I
believe you'll you'll find a way. You have a smartphone, Steve, No,
I have a dumb phone. Okay, well see now, so yeah,
it's you. You may have to get a smartphone and
(23:12):
then you would put your music on the smartphone and
then your phone would plug into a port on the
front of the radio and that would be an input
channel and then that would play your music. And that's
how you would do it. Yeah, And that's how I
charge my phone from the car. You know it has
the square plug, and I plug into my radio charges
(23:32):
that way, So I guess I could send it in
the opposite direction to send music into the car. Yes,
if you can look on the radio, does the radio
offer you a source input feed? Um? If it? If
it gives you the option of source input or source
and you can tell it external or you know, phone
(23:55):
or whatever the whatever the wording is, then yeah, you
could play from your phone. You and I listen you,
and I think like Stevie and no one saw you
and I are dinosaurs, were thinking like I want to
see d player and you know doesn't exist. Doesn't exist
on my on my dash it says phone or it
says media. So I think I could do what you're saying.
(24:18):
So and you could, uh, now you want to get
really high tech. What you could do too is if
you have unlimited data streaming on your phone, not that
I've used anyway. Well, if you have unlimited data on
your phone, all right, and you can well you you
have a dumb phone. See, if you have a smartphone,
you could put Amazon Music on your phone and you
(24:41):
can actually stream right from Amazon Music through your phone
into your car's radio. You don't need to see D
player anymore. Yeah. Um, And what I've found from maybe
like Crutch Realists inplace like that, that or a local
installation place, is that they at least know of some
(25:01):
aftermarket CD players that could be routed into the cars speakers.
That's possible too, and then that could also that might
also work where and I've seen this for the for
the laptop where they make external CD players. They'll plug
into the laptop or the car and that will channel
through the radio out to the speakers that way, and
(25:22):
you could do that too. Yeah, so there's there's ways
around it maybe, right, but it's it's cumbersame, it's difficult.
So so uh that confirms what I what I thought
that it might uh mess up with the uh pulling
the factory radio out and putting another forward radio limb.
(25:46):
Right yet it there's the electronics are likely not there.
But I'll give you the good news. The good news
is that if you had a smartphone and you podcasted
The Car Doctor, you could stream that into your car's
radio while you're driving and download and listen to all
four nine episodes. Oh cool. That it might take a while,
(26:08):
It might take you a while. You can take a
long trip. Would you have the time for it right now? Anyway?
All right, brother, right, you're welcome Steve, be well, be safe,
Thank you, thank you, sir, very very happy. You're glad
to be here for you guys. Uh yeah, technology is changing.
Oh boy, it's changing. We're here to chelping change with it.
So stay tuned. I'm running any in. The car Doctor
will be right back. Don't go away, welcome back. I'm
(26:41):
naming the car Doctor eight five five five zero nine zero.
As a matter of fact, is a follow up to
that to Stephen, mean, get used to this one, Steve,
if you're still listening for everybody else, they're gonna get
rid of radios. That's right, car radios are gonna go
away in the not too distant future. There are car
companies out there actually talking about it. I can't mention
brand names. I'm sort of sworn to secrecy, but trust me,
(27:03):
you'll be shocked because they're both very major brand name
companies and um, they're they're trying to get rid of
radios and it'll just be it'll just be streaming off
the internet, and um, you know, you won't have radio
stations to listen to anymore. So the world is going
to change yet again, and probably within the next eighteen
to twenty four months from what I'm hearing. So we'll say,
(27:25):
let's get over to Stephanie and JB in Pennsylvania with
a fifteen Volvo and a radio problem. Radio problems seem
to create radio problems, so let's see what's going on here.
Welcome to the car doctor. How can I help? Y
Um all, we got sixty and this has happened to
us twice. We bought it used. But the infotainment center
(27:47):
as it's called. Um, we'll just um, something happened at
one pover Um we've there's there's you like, some kind
of um upgrade that needs done. But and the dealer
you know, doesn't know anything about it. And I forget
(28:10):
what happened. But the guy that was working on a
on a body issue said that he did a hard start,
which meant disconnecting the battery and putting it back on
and it came back. Um, recently I changed the battery
and uh it's gone again. I just don't want to
get to the dealer and you know, spend a ridiculous
(28:31):
amount of money just to bring this back. But all
the goodies are going you know, you know the everything
except you know the basics, radio, no nothing, Now anything
I can now is does this have is this a
display navigation style system or is this just strictly a radio?
(28:51):
Now it's it's got the whole nav and rear camera
and everything. So first of all, um, not not trying
to hurt your feelings, but get over not trying to
spend any money. It's a Volvo, it's a high end
car and there's very specific repair procedures involved to maintain
and repair that vehicle. So the first yeah, and you
(29:14):
know that story, right, Um, The first question I would
have and the only way you're going to know this
you know, and you can't even trust looking up in
information systems that there are no reflashes or software updates
for that vehicle. The first thing you have to do
is tie into Volvo's flash system. Are there any software
updates for the radio for the vehicle in general that
(29:36):
might be related to what you're describing. So that's the
first step. So if if if you've got a mechanic
that can do that, great, If not, dealer only all right,
and then and then after that, if that doesn't solve it,
they've got to go through normal diagnostics, look for trouble codes.
No trouble codes. Uh, this could be the unit itself.
(29:57):
And that's that's the problem. That's what you're chasing, trying
to get down to. Uh. You know, I just I
just went through this on my wife's car on a Ford.
I have gone through this on Toyota's I've gone through
this on GM product and it seems like they all
take the same general path of diagnostics. Software updates, scan
for codes, you know, basic diagnostics. Then it's component level
(30:20):
the problem is in and in most of the cases
I've dealt with, they've either been intermittent or they'll happen
at random, and then you have to try and duplicate them,
and you can't. You have to go into that that
hard restart as you called it, where you're you're taking
power away and doing a dead boot as we sometimes
refer to it with a computer, and that dead boot
(30:40):
is the key. If the dead boot fixes it disconnecting
the battery or pulling the unit out of the dash
and leaving it disconnected, depending upon the make, sometimes that works.
You know, that dead boot tells me that we're resetting
a module, resetting a processor, just like a computer, and
you know it's it's it's it's pointing more and more
towards the component after software's trot. Does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, Um,
(31:06):
you know your mechanic that works on it, does he
have Volvo capable scan tool? Can he speak to the car?
I'm about forty five minutes from a Volvo dealer, And
that's another point, you know, it just makes it more
about um a nusance item to do well. And luckily
it's it's been eating. It's free. So I got a
(31:29):
guy here in in Altuna that that you know, I
trust for everything. But hey, and the place actually where
I got it, um, you know, both need to refer
me back to h you know, the dealer. Yeah, it's
one of the questions, you know. Whatever anybody asks me
how I want to buy this car of that car,
if it's if it's if it's a Volvo, it's, if
(31:51):
it's a Mercedes, if it's a higher line European, the
first question I always ask is who's going to fix it?
And if they tell me their local guy, like your
guy there in Altuna, that that you've been working on
for years and years and he's your guy, I said.
You know, the first thing I always say is you
got to go and talk to Bob or Fred or
whoever it is and say, hey, I'm gonna buy this.
Can you fix it? Because it's it's it's and it's
(32:12):
not a matter of his capability, all right, It's not
a matter of how smart he is. It's a business
decision on his part. Can he afford a Volvo specific
scan tool? Can he afford the electronics and the diagnostics
needed to work on that? And and you know, deal
with it, which is is part of the issue too.
(32:33):
Go talk to your mechanic, tell him what we talked
about and see if that makes sense to him. And
then after that, I think it's time to get back
out to the dealer and uh, you know, go from there.
Call me back in the next week or two. Let
me know. If the dealer can't solid for you, we'll
dig a little deeper. But I appreciate the call and
hate everybody out there, and I'll tune a p A.
I'm running any in the car doctor. We're cruising away.
We'll be back right after this. Don't go, hey, run
(33:00):
any of the car doctor. Welcome back. Let's do a
quick piece of email This one comes to us from Cathy. Hey, Ron,
I've got a two thousand two Chevy trail blazer the
radiators seeping down one side. My mechanics said it's about
eight hundred dollars to replace it because he has to
remove the entire front bumper, grill clip, etcetera. I want
to know because I'm out of work right now due
to the due to the virus. Uh, due to the
(33:20):
world situation. She puts, um, would case seal fix this? Uh? Yeah,
you know what, Cath, you could do k seal k
seal dot com for more information. You know, k Seal
is a great cooling system sealer. It'll do the job here.
And even if you wanted to do it on a
temporary basis, I would still put k Seal in this. Uh.
(33:42):
You know, Listen, a lot of factors come into this.
All right, It's an O two bullet trailblaser. It's eighteen
years old. You don't say the mileage. I'm gonna guess
and say it's probably got a hundred and fifty thousand
miles on at anything eighteen years old, it seems this
vintage usually does. Uh. You know, would you put eight
hundred dollars into it. That's kind of tough to come
up with, right now, would you do a uh, you
know what they consider I don't know how temporary of
(34:04):
a patch case seal is because I've used k seal
as a permanent fix and a lot of vehicles. But
you know, you could use k seal and just monitor it.
You know, where do you go with the vehicle? If
you're around town driving and you're doing eight thousand miles
a year and you want to try k seal, You're
not gonna hurt anything. And if the radiator starts to
seep again in a year or a year and a half,
(34:27):
you know it's not gonna hurt to put a radiator
in it because k seal doesn't damage the cooling system.
The technology on how k seal works, and it's it's
the only sealer on the market that works like that
is different than everything else. It doesn't clogg the cooling
system like so many of the other steelers out there
do today. And it does work. As a matter of fact,
and I've said this for a while now, why everybody
(34:48):
doesn't have a little JARRK seal in the glove compartment.
We've stucked up on toilet paper and everything else for emergencies.
You know what. Stuck up on k seal too, because uh,
you know what, if you're out in the country, your
mechanics closed. Having a bottle in the car sure does help.
K cl dot com. I'm running any of the car
doctor looking up. Thanks for joining me this hour. Until
the next time. Good mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless. See
(35:10):
you
Host
Ron Ananian
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.