Five Easy Pieces - Surprisingly Easy Component Replacements

In this episode I will discuss five components that, depending on your car, might be very easy to replace. I'm going to talk about engine air filters, cabin air filters, fuses, ignition coils and the mass air flow (MAF) sensor.

Don't Fear the Engine Cover article by Haynes

If you buy this test light through my Amazon affiliate link, you can support the podcast: test light on Amazon

a good video on checking fuses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dze5J0LWphA

Stay in touch, share your thoughts, recommend your trusted mechanic as a guest, get good tips and find out when episodes drop by subscribing! Email us at goodcarmapodcast@gmail.com and visit the website goodcarmapodcast.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The content of this podcast is presented for informational purposes, and the perspective and opinions expressed are based on the experiences of the hosts and guests and do not replace doing your own further research or having your car inspected or serviced at a qualified shop. Hi, and welcome back to Good Karma Podcast, where I hope to help demystify cars one conversation at a time and help provide peace of mind instead of panic when it comes to what's going on under your hood. And today is not going to be a conversation. I'm coming to you solo again, but it is on a topic that I hope does both things. I want to talk about five easy and some pretty surprisingly easy things, DIY things that you can do on your car, specifically components that you can replace. It's not really about repairs, it's about easy replacements. For now, I want to just plant the seed of these ideas of components that you could potentially do yourself. It always depends on your specific car and the design of your car. These things in many cars are super easy to access. That's not necessarily going to be the case for your car. So this might not work for everybody, and it might not even be up your alley to want to do this, but I am hoping that it will at least spark an idea that there are things that maybe you didn't even consider were possible. Oh, and obviously, if your car is still under warranty, I don't recommend you do anything on your own car, which probably most people would not do anyways. The things I'm going to talk about are engine filters, cabin filters, fuses, ignition coils, and the mass airflow sensor. So as a disclaimer, again, I'm not saying go out and do these things just based on listening to me talk for a few minutes. But again, obviously continue to do your own research if any of this is compelling to you. Plenty of videos out there. I'm going to post some videos. But these are pretty cool things to know that is possible to do yourself. And okay, so before we even get into accessing these components, I want to talk for a second about the engine cover. Nowadays, so many engines, I don't know if it's all feels like it. They have plastic covers, which makes it seem like the engine is off limits. Oh, nothing to see here. And I remember hearing there's thoughts it was designed to be like an intimidation factor, pushing people away from even considering doing their own repairs. And so I Googled it, and the first thing I found was an article by Haynes, which is they publish manuals on how to do things on your own cars and also all kinds of vehicles, motorcycles, scooters, even snowmobiles. And I'll have a link to that in the show notes. The title of the article was Most Surprising Thing Preventing People from Working on Their Cars: the plastic engine cover. And so the article is indeed saying there's an intimidation factor, people think they're going to break it, or it just feels too daunting to remove it. They go so far as to say it is a superficial add-on that you don't need at all. So I can't opine on whether it is completely unnecessary. But their suggestions for what to do with your engine cover include turning it into a litter box or filling it with ice for beer at parties. So all that to just say don't feel like because when you open your hood, you can't see engine parts. That means your engine is off limits. And the engine covers, there's lots of different ways they're installed. Some are just kind of plugged in there with rubber grommets that you just pull out. There might be a combination of a screw and rubber grommets. You might need a regular screwdriver, a Torx screwdriver, which not everyone necessarily has, but it's an easy item to buy. And some have things that look like a big plastic giant screw that would need like a flathead, but really it's not a screw. It just needs a quarter turn on each one. And then you can just pull it right out. Anyways, take a look on YouTube or search up how to remove yours if it is not obvious. Okay, so once you do have the cover off, let's talk about the engine air filter. This is similar to the engine cover. The air filter sits in uh housing, usually plastic housing, which itself you can open it easily with either screwdriver or if you're really lucky, your car uses clips. And there's maybe three or four clips that you unlatch and open it, pull out the filter, put the filter back in, make sure a couple of things. One is just be mindful that you're paying attention to the orientation of it. A lot of air filters are not symmetrical, which is great because then there's really usually just one way to put it back in, but it is good to pay attention while you're doing that. Also, you might want to take a minute to look underneath it and see if you if there's any additional dirt or leaves you can hopefully vacuum out if you have a little vacuum or at least just pull out. It can be a really easy job. It is important to buy a good quality filter because it is what's standing between the outside air and your engine. So you do want to have one that's the material not going to degrade or fall apart. So that is good to get a good quality one, but the job itself is gonna be the same, pretty simple. And hopefully, again, it'll be just that simple. Some designs you might have to loosen a couple of other things around it, but again, just take a look on YouTube and you might save yourself a decent amount of change. Okay, next I'll say a little bit about cabin filters and changing cabin filters. This filter is for filtering the air between the outside and the cabin. So it's really the air you're breathing. It's a really important filter to keep clean. And it's a good idea to just keep an eye on it and check it periodically. And I'm not gonna say exactly how often you should change it because it depends on where you are and a lot of different factors. But I would say at least once a year, you're probably gonna want to have that changed. And cabin filters get pretty ignored. I don't think everyone knows they need to be changed. It's definitely not an oversell if you are being recommended a new cabin filter. Don't feel like or they're trying to just push something on you. It definitely is important. And if you're being recommended a new one after a year, or maybe if you have no idea when it was last changed. And again, though, this can be a really easy one, a very easy one, depending on your car. And the thing that really surprised me is that a cabin filter replacement can be more expensive than an engine filter replacement, which seems crazy. Okay, so you access it most often through the glove compartment, which is by the way, really good to know if you are getting it done at a shop or the dealership. It's good to know that they need to go through your glove compartment to do that. So if yours okay at the moment, but historically that has not been the case, you know that they have to go in there and consider if there's going to be a stuff avalanche when they have to access it, because they have to not only just open the door, but so this is what you do. You not only just open the glove compartment, but what you would do if you are changing it yourself is you open the glove compartment, squeeze the sides of the glove compartment drawer further further inwards so that another latch kind of unhinges and it drops open even further. So things will fall out for sure. So once that's open all the way, sometimes it's not just squeezing, sometimes there might be a little like buttons to turn on the sides of the drawer. But in any case, once it's open, in best cases, it'll be very clearly visible. There's a cover that you pop open, pull out the old one and pop in the new one, and that's it. Again, I would suggest being very mindful before you take anything out of the orientation. In my experience, the cabin filter is easier to lose track because it's very symmetrical, even it fits in all directions. So you have to pay attention to assuming it the old one was installed correctly, that you put it in the same way and it will have markings on it, but sometimes the markings is just an arrow and it's pointing in the direction of airflow. But if you have no idea what direction the airflow goes, then it's not helpful at all. Usually the airflow will go down, so it's pulling into the blower motor that's underneath it. But I've seen ones where if there's words on it, the words will end up upside down when it's correctly installed. So it's not intuitive. So it is good to just to make sure you look it up and are inserting it the right way. And if you've got all that down, that's that's potentially a 35-second job. And you could save, I don't know, you spend $15 to $30 maybe on the filter. You're saving, I'd say at least $50 just for a few seconds of work. I think that's worth it. And one other point about when you're removing the filter, I would say, especially if you know it's been a really long time, like years, or if you have no idea how long it's been, I like to pull it, the filter out very slowly and gently. And I keep a trash bag handy right there because it can be caked with so much dust, it will shock you. There could be leaves and feathers and all kinds of things. So you really want to be careful not to knock it around by accident so that the dust starts flying around. I would even wear a mask personally, but if you're if you're careful, it shouldn't be uh any issue at all. But know that it might be a very surprising amount of dust that that comes out on those. Okay, next I want to talk about fuses, but just very generally, because fuses is a huge and involved topic about the electrical aspects of the car. And I do want to get into that later. Who and I have an expert that I can talk through it with. But again, this is definitely just like a seed planting type of overview that just in and of itself, replacing a fuse can be a very simple job, especially if the fuse is located in the panel inside the engine bay. There can be fuse panels around the car. Sometimes they're underneath the dash, like kind of near your knees or on the side of the dash. But in any case, just the act of replacing a fuse can be very simple, kind of like pulling a Lego piece, especially if you have if your car still has the fuse puller that is often located inside the cover of the fuse, somewhere in the fuse panel, or if you open the cover and look inside the cover, it might be there. There's usually going to be a diagram of what fuse is where. You could check your owner's manual as well. So this, I'm just generally saying if you've identified or have been told which fuse is bad, changing the fuse itself is not an ordeal kind of job. I would suggest people definitely. I I again I will post some videos myself, but there's lots of videos on how to check fuses. There's correct ways to check fuses with a multimeter or a test light. It can be really easy. A test light is another great thing to have in your car if you get more comfortable with it and you blow fuse somewhere. You can pretty easily check which fuse is bad. And if you keep a few extra fuses in the car, you can change it. And just a couple of things that are very important to keep in mind about fuses is that a fuse is going to blow if there's too much current or too much amperage flowing through the circuit. And the fuse is there to protect everything else in the circuit. So it sacrifices itself so that nothing else gets fried. Each fuse in the car has its own specified amperage, and you have you just have to make sure you replace it with that exact number of amperage rating. You can't don't go less or higher, just stay exactly the same number. And the other thing to keep in mind is there is a reason that the fuse got blown. And so just replacing the fuse is not going to solve the problem. So it's definitely something that will still need further investigation. I guess it could be some one-off thing, and maybe you'll be fine. Sometimes it can be an intermittent problem. So replacing the fuse might help to get you going or relieve the problem until it either happens again or gets resolved. Okay, and the next one that I want to talk about is really probably my favorite example of replacing a component that sounds super advanced and hardcore, but on many cars, it's really doable, and that's changing an ignition coil. So again, depending on your car, this could be as easy as unplugging a connector, removing a bolt, slipping out the coil, and putting in a new one, and then putting the bolt back and replugging the connector. So if your car is that easy, it would be great to just know how to do that. It's an emergency situation when one goes bad or a couple go bad, or after a certain amount of mileage, it's recommended to replace them and you could just replace them yourself. So for cars that are called coil on plug, so each cylinder has a coil and a spark plug. So if you have a four-cylinder car, you have four of each. If you have a V6, you have six coils and six spark plugs. And if your car is not firing on all cylinders, which would mean that there's no spark in that cylinder and no gas is being combusted, that cylinder is not functioning. And there can be a lot of reasons why that might happen in an individual cylinder, but a common reason is the ignition coil going bad. So if you are, if you do lose, if one cylinder does go bad for whatever reason it is, you will almost certainly get a trouble code, an engine light will come on. And if you use your scanner that you have in your car, you might see a code like P0301, P0302, et cetera, up to four if you have a four-cylinder car, six if you have a six-cylinder car, eight, twelve. And when it's very obvious that it's a specific cylinder, you'll get that kind of code and meaning P0301, meaning cylinder one is not functioning, p0302, cylinder two is not functioning, etc. So you you're pretty well directed to exactly what cylinder is the issue. And and again, there could be many reasons, it's not necessarily the going to be the coil. I would keep in mind that these bolts do have torque specs. I just 100% recommend using a torque wrench. This would be just an inch-pound torque wrench that you would probably need. I never would recommend just tightening it by feel, but if you absolutely are in that situation that you have to do that, I would just say be careful not to over-tighten it. Please don't get yourself into a situation where you're trying to do a cool DIY and then, you know, end up costing yourself a bunch. Okay. I don't know. I think that's one of the coolest, lesser-known, wow, that's easy kind of replacement. And that brings us to the last one I want to talk about today, which is one I have talked about before and do have a video out on that, is the mass airflow sensor. For today, I just want to introduce the idea or reiterate for those who have seen the video. If you do get recommended, or if it is the case that you need a new mass airflow sensor, again, keep in mind that just because there's a code that references a mass airflow sensor, don't feel that means you have to run and replace one. There could be other reasons, electrical connections, or maybe it needs to be cleaned. Maybe there's other kinds of issues like vacuum leaks. But let's say, so I'm not going to get into diagnosing. If it is a matter of just replacing it, that is usually a very easy sensor to locate, is going to be connected to the big air intake hose that is right after the air filter box. Again, very similar to the ignition coil. This sensor may be as simple as unplugging the electrical connector, removing some screws, pulling out the sensor, and putting in a new one. For I forgot to mention when we were talking about the ignition coils, that those electrical connectors sometimes it's real easy to unplug. Sometimes there's a little lock on the side or a clip. You do want to be very careful. You don't want to accidentally break anything. Obviously, don't force anything. There, if you're trying to force it, there might be a little lock that that's not so obvious. So be sure to identify that first before you keep going. And again, I'm sure there's videos for every single car. If you just search up your own car, year make model, someone's got a video out on it. Also, always, of course, be careful. Try not to drop the screws. This definitely can happen very easily. Screwdrivers with magnetic tips are awesome. And also so good to have on hand a telescoping magnet in case you need to extend that out and use it to pull up a screw that might fall down, or even a clip. I had I was replacing an air filter and I didn't even know it was possible, but the clip fell out. The clip kind of shimmied out of place, and next thing I hear is a clink, and it had hit the inside of the skid plate. And luckily, I had my boroscope, so I could use the little camera to find it. And I had my magnetic tool, so I I shimmied it in there and got it out. I didn't even know those clips could come off like that. But in any case, that's why it's good to take your time and to have fun tools like retractable magnets. Okay, so that's it. I do hope that this has sparked some kind of interest in looking into these things further and being able to do these yourself if you ever need to or want to. I hope some of this has demystified a little bit the complexity of some replacements. And I hope that these give you some peace of mind that if you're in a situation where you need or want to do it, that it might be something that's very doable. Thank you so much for listening. If you have done any replacement components or any kind of repairs on your car that you feel like you would love for other people to know is not so bad. I'd love to get ideas for more things to talk about. If you want to send me an email on goodkarmapodcast at gmail.com and maybe I can talk to you on the show. As always, if you can leave five stars, if you like the show, or drop a comment. Oh, or subscribe. I never remember to ask people to subscribe. That would be so helpful if you would hit the subscribe button. And I look forward to speaking to you next week on a new topic. And until then, keep up with your oil changes and I'll see you down the road.