What could be the cause of a car’s temperature gauge to fluctuate?
There are several possibilities.1) faulty teperature gauge. In this case the gauage will have to be replaced. This is relarively simple and inexpensive depinding on the make and model of the car.2) Issue with the radiator, coolant of the car. This could be caused due to insufficient coolant, leakage of coolant, damage to the radiator of the car. This will require extensive repair. In this case, it is advised to get the issue diagnosed and fixed at the earliest to avoid engine damage due to over heating.Hope this helps. :)
How do I replace my 2000 Ford Focus Timing Belt?
You don’t.As a mechanic of 15+ years, please take my advice on this one:Serpentine belt, yes. Timing belt, no.A serpentine belt is often confused with the timing belt. It’s on the outside of the engine and is named thus because it serpentines around several pulleys (alternator, power steering, AC compressor, idler, tensioner, water pump, harmonic balancer, etc). This provides power to those pulleys that I just mentioned as well as helps the alternator produce electricity to run the spark plugs and recharge the battery. A typical serpentine belt can be changed with a few tools (sometimes only 1!) and usually in half an hour or less.A timing belt is inside the engine and helps keep the engine in time. “A timing belt, timing chain or cambelt is a part of an internal combustion engine that synchronizes the rotation of the crankshaft and the camshaft(s) so that the engine's valves open and close at the proper times during each cylinder's intake and exhaust strokes.”* This is a much more intense job that requires AT LEAST the timing cover to be removed and the belt must be replaced PRECISELY. If you’re off even ONE tooth, you can possibly ruin an engine if it’s an interference motor. When replacing the timing belt, it’s recommended that you purchase the timing belt kit that includes the timing belt, the timing tensioners, and seals. There’s no point in getting all the way down to the timing belt and not replacing the other parts while you’re right there already. Otherwise, all the labor will need to be duplicated later on to replace these parts if not replaced at the time of belt service.If you don’t know what you’re doing, I HIGHLY recommend NOT replacing your timing belt yourself. You may end up paying a professional to replace your engine instead. Let the pros do what you cannot. A wise person knows their limits and acknowledges them. Take care of the little jobs yourself like air filters, wipers, maybe even oil changes if you don’t mind getting dirty and laying under the car. But let the people who are trained to do the big jobs help you.Good luck!*Timing belt (camshaft) - Wikipedia
How to recharge the A/C on a 2000 outback L wagon?
Depends on Recharging????? Are we talking about your A/C hasnt worked in a while & could be possibly no way to get the R134A into the system anymore without pulling a vacuum????? To do it correctly & not cause an issue down the road from over charging(Which is bad), the correct way to do it is take it to a repair shop & hook up the A/C machine. Evacuate the system & then pull a 15-25min vacuum on the system(Depends on if it has been opened for long periods of time). Once that is done, then charge the A/C system with the correct amount per specs. Also the vacuum serves two purposes, 1 it removes all air & moisture if any were present which is bad & the second thing is it helps actually pull in the refrigerant without creating any air pockets unlike if you were to just add a can of Walmart special to the system. Also, our machines already have leak dye added so if there is an issue or possibly a leak in the system, there should be green dye leaking out & is easily to see. Usually on Subaru's, the A/C hose crimps leak first then the compressor & seals on the compressor
Does running the AC in your car use additional fuel?
Yes it does. (That’s your short answer, I love cars and engineering so the following is a nice long answer)A vehicles air conditioning system removes heat from air through a phase change. The entire system is sealed under vacuum, and in these conditions, the liquid coolant in the AC system will boil at a very low temperature. When the liquid boils it expands rapidly and pulls heat from the system.Experiment: place your hand in front of your mouth, open your mouth really wide and breath a heavy lung full of air into your hand. Notice how hot the air feels? Now make a very tight “o” with your lips and blow onto your hand, almost like you’re whistling. Try to breathe out at rate where the gust of air coming from your mouth is moving about the same speed as it was in the first part of the experiment so you can rule out velocity. Notice this is cool? The air is coming from your lungs both times so why does it behave in this way? The science is that when you leave your mouth open and puff the air out, it travels as one big mass carrying the heat of your body. When you make a small opening, the air comes out into the atmosphere and starts to spread out dissipating heat.Now back to your car. The AC uses an evaporator, a condenser, and a compressor. The evaporator is inside the cabin of the car, and it is where the liquid refrigerant becomes a gas before a fan inside your car blows the hot air through and removes heat making you feel cold air. The gas moves back through the system where it is brought back to a liquid phase in the condenser. In order to condense more easily, the gas is compressed by the compressor. Compressing this gas requires quite a bit of energy and this energy comes from a belt running off of an accessory pulley on your engine. When you turn in the AC, a compressor clutch engages the compressor to he engine and put an extra load on the engine. The engine must burn more gas to overcome this load and it is being less efficient. It also takes in slightly more load from the alternator to pull the current to run the blower fan motor in the dash board that the AC uses, but this loss is negligible in comparison to what the compressor needs.
Is it okay to drive your car without thermostats?
If you take out the thermostat then the coolant will just flow 100% by the water pump. Assuming that your system is properly sized so that cutting off flow with the thermostat will result in the proper operating temperature being met then running without a thermostat will always result in a lower than intended operating temperature.Here are some things that will happen:Your engine will run cooler than the desired temperature most all of the time andit will pollute more since it is tuned to run at the designed temperatureYour heater will take longer to become effective since the coolant is used to warm the heater core heat exchanger so you may, on cold days take longer to warm the cabin andmore importantly, it will take much longer to defrost the windshield using the defroster function.Probably it won’t hurt short term to the car engine itself, I don’t think. But in the long term operating it significantly below the designed temperature could have a number of effects, perhaps on lube viscosity, various carbon buildups that lead to other engine performance problems and possibly permanent damage.I once had a mechanic shop replace the thermostat and flush the coolant. When I get it back the car took forever to warm up the heater and get the engine to the temperature. I eventually took off the thermostat housing and found he had placed it about half way off and clamped it down with the housing out of position- it didn’t leak but the gap on one side pretty much made it free flowing.
Is a,mercury sable a good car?
Was gonna trade my explorer 2000 for a Mercury sable he says it got transmission rebuilt mercury has 175,000 mine has 178,000 i need something more fuel efficient
What happens if you attempt to drive with a broken serpentine belt?
The serpentine belt powers many different accessories and required pieces of equipment on an engine. You can live without the air conditioner. The car is usable for a short time without the alternator working if you have a good battery. You can man handle the steering wheel without power steering. Some cars have a smog/emissions control pump that needs to work or the engine will run rough or even not at all.BUT, you will overheat your engine if the water pump is not turning and pumping coolant through the engine and radiator. You could make a short drive of 5 minutes or so before engine heat would be a problem. Hopefully, that is to a mechanic who will replace the broken serpentine belt.
How long does it take to repair a head gasket?
You don’t repair a head gasket, you replace it.Once I had a rally car - a bit of a ratty old junker if the truth be told - that had a 2.3 litre overhead cam engine. It was a bit like this, only this one is way nicer:Anyway I was heading off to do a rally on some Friday night. On the Thursday, the day before, I took it out for a blast around the lanes to shake down any last-minute faults, and blew the head gasket. It was too late to do anything about it that night, so next morning, I got up at the crack of dawn, stripped the engine down to the point of having the head off (it was OHC, so that involved also removing the cambox, timing belts, etc. plus the exhaust manifold, inlet manifold and carburettors) By then it was almost 9am, so I drove to the nearest big town - 25 miles away - to get a replacement head gasket set. 25 miles back, and by 10am had the head all cleaned and ready to be reassembled. Engine back together and running by 12pm, I then had to drive it 250 miles to where the rally started. It all went smoothly and I made it with plenty of time to spare.So the answer to your question, for me, on that occasion, for this car, was about 6 hours, including an hour to fetch the parts. Sometimes what you need, apart from the basic skills, which in my case don’t amount to all that much, is a great big incentive!As I recall, the rally ended in disaster, but that’s another story.