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You should be able to buy all of the suspension bolts at the car dealership parts department. If you want to try to buy generic bolts that will work, you will need to measure the dimensions of the bolts (length, diameter and thread pitch) and try to find matching ones on-line or in a hardware store. For all modern cars these are metric measurements. Note that many OEM bolts have built-in washers and the ones you find from fastener stores will not, so you will need to find appropriate washers for under the bolt heads. Finally, you will need to match the grade of the bolt. Every fastener should have a number stamped on the head (like 8.8). This is the grade indicating how strong the bolt material is. You need to match this. In a pinch you should be alright exceeding the grade (like use a 9.8 in place of an 8.8), but that is not ideal because the higher strength bolts are also more brittle and may load up the joint a bit differently for the same torque spec.
And please do not even start the job until you have a torque wrench and the torque specs from the shop manual.
No definitely not! Any substance on the threads of bolts drastically changes the amount of load (stretch) you will get from a given amount of torque. You will over-stress the bolts if you torque them up and the threads are not clean and dry. If you don’t over-stress the fasteners, there is a chance that bolt or nut will oosen in-service due to vibrations. You are using a torque wrench set to the proper torque for each suspension fastener?
The only proper and safe way to install critical fasteners, like suspension bolts and nuts, is with a torque wrench set properly. The torque specs can be found in the shop manual for your car, and is probably accessible online. Fastener torque is designed to provide a certain clamping force without over-stressing the fastener or part and preventing the parts from loosening due to vibrations.
The answer is generally no, you don’t have to get an alignment because you have probably not had to remove any of the adjustable pieces. There are some tolerances to consider, for instance if you had to disconnect the big bolts attaching the strut to the hub, the slop in the bolt-to-hub interface could allow up to about 1/4 degree of camber change, depending on how you put it back together. If you are fussy about alignment settings you could have that checked, but if your camber on one side is off enough to matter, you will notice the car pulling to one side or the other.
Toyota/Lexus ball joints tend to last a very long time, so if you only had to replace it because it ripped, you do not have to replace the other side.
If you have a limited slip differential between the front and rear axles, it will always be slipping and wear-out quickly. Some newer vehicles with electronically controlled couplings between the front and rear will not be able to control properly (and their clutches will wear-out or overheat) if the 2 axles are always rotating at different speeds
If you have a limited slip differential between the front and rear axles, it will always be slipping and wear-out quickly. Some newer vehicles with electronically controlled couplings between the front and rear will not be able to control properly (and their clutches will wear-out or overheat) if the 2 axles are always rotating at different speeds
The rolling diameter is just the diameter of the tire adjusted for the distortion of the tire against the road due to the weight of the car. It is a bit smaller than the diameter that you might measure with the tire off the car.
If an AWD car has different tire sizes from the factory, they will have the same rolling diameter. The AWD system doesn’t care what the width and aspect ratio are, just the effective diameter. Ultra high-performance AWD cars will tend to have wider tires on the axle that has more weight and gets most of the power.
You can’t really get away with removing the emissions systems in states with inspection laws and with vehicles with OBD-2 that will light the Check Engine light. I am not a big fan of the aftermarket tuning companies because they typically allow lots of smoke in their calibrations. You can get better performance with some of these aftermarket cals. The SCR systems went into production around 2010. In general, I would not buy a modified used Diesel truck.
The problem with buying spare tires and storing them for eventual use is that tires have a limited shelf life. You should not drive on tires that are more than 8 years old (some people say 6 years). This is because the rubber in the tires degrades from exposure to atmospheric Ozone, sunlight; even from atmospheric Oxygen. If you want to preserve your spare tires as much as possible, store them in a sealed plastic bag in a cool area, in the dark. In the future, I would not buy extra matching tires to store for eventual replacement use, unless you tend to get a lot of flat tires (I don’t).
My experience with cheap new tires is that if they are not defective from the start (out of round or other geometry problems) they will generally be safe. One thing to keep an eye on is the sidewalls; look for signs of bulges. I also recommend reading reviews of any cheap brand of tire you might consider.
There are big differences in the performance of different tire brands and models. Big differences in grip (handling and braking power) dry and wet, big differences in noise, and differences in longevity and fuel economy (rolling resistance). The best (and generally most expensive) tires do well in all of these areas, though grip and longevity are usually a compromise (one for the other).
Small differences in tire wear on an axle are not important unless your transaxle has a limited-slip differential. A normal open-differential handles small differences in rolling diameter with no consequences.
I would say that you are correct about suspension alignment stability. Remember that potholes can also bend suspension components and alter your alignment. Also getting the alignment checked is a good way to check for suspension component wear if you have a good and trustworthy mechanic.
The DPF traps soot and the worst-case operating regime for a Diesel engine creating soot is rapid acceleration. This is because when the “gas pedal” is depressed rapidly, the engine controller lets the engine run richer than normal for a short while to let the turbo spool-up as quickly as possible. In the old days, you would actually see black smoke at the tailpipe; today the engine doesn’t go that rich (and the DPF traps any soot), but these increasing load transients create the most soot of any operating regime for a modern Diesel engine. So to minimize the frequency of regenerating the DPF, try to do your acceleration as smoothly and gently as possible. Avoid stabbing the throttle pedal. The other way to avoid actual regeneration is to drive at very high power levels for an extended period of time to get the exhaust hot enough to passively regenerate the trap. Driving up a long grade at high speed should do it. Low load cruising should be pretty easy on the DPF because the soot output of the engine should be quite low. The downside of light loads is that the catalysts cool off and none of the soot is burned-off.
When a DPF regenerates it burns the soot off, but the soot leaves a little bit of ash behind and eventually the DPF will have to be cleaned or the engine back-pressure (from the ash clogging the DPF) will hurt performance and fuel economy.
The SCR catalyst should never clog up, but the SCR system uses an injector (like a fuel injector) to spray the Diesel Emissions Fluid (DEF) on the SCR catalyst substrate. This consumes the stored NOx emissions. The most unreliable part of the SCR system is going to be the injector and pump because it has to exist in a relatively harsh environment. NOx accumulation tends to be roughly proportional to engine power level.
1. I mean to say a minimum of 250k miles. Worst-case of all the automotive engines in production. 300 to 400K is quite attainable. 250 K is just an estimate of the the cases of well-maintained cars that I know of. Of course these examples are all more than a dozen years old now. Engine technology is and has been continually improving, so the average life of well-maintained engines has improved over the last dozen years. An example; about a dozen years ago GM and Subaru were still making engines with head gasket problems that would emerge about the time the warranty expired, but they seem to be well-past those problems. The other thing to remember is that it isn’t just miles that take the toll on an engine, it is also time. If you drive 40K miles per year, you can still expect more than a decade of life from your engine.
2. I didn’t mean that Toyota has been making engines longer than the American companies. I meant that Toyota has been making extremely durable trouble-free engines longer than most companies. There are a number of sources of reliability data on cars including JD Powers and Consumer Reports. Based on their data Land Rover has been near the bottom of the list for a very long time. I should point out that being at the bottom of reliability rankings today is pretty close to being at the top 15 years ago.
3. Crash standards and the public’s appetite for luxury and lots of options make it difficult to keep the weight down. By the way, weight generally helps in vehicle-to-vehicle crashes, but is actually a hindrance in vehicle to barrier crashes.
4. I am recently retired from a Tier-1 automotive supplier. I am now doing consulting as Roth Automotive Science, LLC. You may be interested in this POV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1E8SQde5rk1) If you do all of the required maintenance by the book (the owner’s manual!) you should expect a modern engine to last at least 250,000 miles.
2) Today, pretty much all of the major manufacturers build (roughly) equally durable cars and engines; but Toyota, Honda, and the German manufacturers have been doing it longer. The least reliable car company today is probably Land Rover and I would not buy one, even if I wanted and expensive overweight SUV.
3) I don’t like that cars are still getting heavier. Weight is the enemy of everything you want a car to do and lightweight cars generally are more fun to drive. I also don’t like that manual transmissions are getting harder to find in decent cars. My POV is that driving should be fun.
4) EV’s are coming and are infinitely more sensible than Hydrogen fuel cells for the environment. Fortunately, Hydrogen seems to be dying away in most parts of the world. EV’s are not currently as environmentally beneficial as most folks think. The reason is that we have to look at the Well-to-wheels CO2 impact and not just the “tank-to-wheels” POV. See this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1E8SQde5rkYes! Driving habit #1: Use the bar graph on the left side of the instrument panel to try to optimize the amount of regenerative braking and minimize the friction braking. The harder you press on the brake pedal, the more blue bars you light up, but any braking beyond max # of bars (in the down direction) is friction and represents energy you don’t get to put into the batteries. This will mean look ahead and plan you braking when you can.
tip#2: You will notice that in normal driving, the car goes into EV mode whenever you lift off the gas pedal or get into very light loads. When you have to accelerate, the lighter you press on the gas pedal the longer you will stay in pure EV mode. The point that the car transitions between engine on and off is very dependent on the state of charge of the battery pack (gauge on the right). While you are getting used to the car, use display screen that shows the hybrid system diagram so you can understand what mode you are in in different driving situations.
tip #3: Minimize use of AC. Even though the Ioniq has electric AC compressor, it is still a major energy draw and can cut your fuel economy by more than 10%. In all but warm weather (when you really need AC), stay out of automatic climate control and choose to turn the AC off, because in automatic mode, the AC compressor runs more than it really needs to. Also in cold weather try disabling the automatic defrosting mode, because that also turns on the AC compressor. I do find the automatic defrost useful in warm rainy weather.
tip #4: Do not warm up the car before driving (like with remote start). Just get in and drive. Modern engines do not need more than about 10 seconds of warm-up before you start driving. Idling is the slowest and least efficient way to warm up the engine.Enjoy your Ioniq!
I do not understand the question: warranty cost is incurred by the OEM by definition. Most pre-cat failures occur after the warranty period on old vehicles
