What is the average cost to replace brakes and rotors?
If there is one component of a vehicle that should be well maintained, invested in and understood, it is the brakes on your car. Having a quality, well-installed and reliable brake system is absolutely vital to the safety of yourself, your passengers and other drivers on the road.It costs an average of $100 to $300 per axle to get pads replaced by a professional service center or mechanic. The pads themselves range from $35 to $150 for a set of 4 (one axle), depending on the material and quality of the pads and the make and model of your vehicle.If the front right wheel’s pads need to be replaced, you should get the ones on the front left wheel replaced at the same time to ensure that both sides wear out uniformly and prevent the car from pulling to one side when you press the brake.If your rotors need to be replaced as well, this could end up running you around $250 to $500 total (including pad replacement). Rotors themselves range from $30 to $75 each (some higher performance rotors are $100+). Prices depend heavily on type, quality and brand.Here you can find top rated sites that sell the best and highest quality auto parts online for good price and free shippingCar PartsAuto Parts WarehouseAdvance Auto PartsJC WhitneyOscaroGet All PartsIn addition, if the calipers (which are responsible for closing and retracting the pads) need replacing, you’re looking at a parts cost of $70 to $130 each for a common make and model or $100-$300+ for a high end vehicle. Rear calipers cost slightly more than those for the front.A complete brake repair job for one wheel including pad replacement, new calipers, rotors and labor can cost anywhere from $300 to $800.
I want to change the automatic transmission fluid on a 2005 Nissan Xterra 2WD?
Hi my husband works at a dealership. He said 80 dollars is good deal...because the tool to do it costs 70 bucks. He said you are also getting a filter, new gasket, and new fluid (if they do it right). IF you decide to buy the tool, it can be cheap to do it yourself from now on. He also mentioned that your truck should still be under warranty, so it's probably a good idea to go ahead and take it in. That way, if they do it and mess up, they will make good on their work. If you do it and mess up, you could void your warranty and be out a lot more than 80 bucks.
Will driving with a oil leak in the valve cover gasket hurt the engine? If so, how can this be prevented?
Is it an oil leak or an oil seep? Does oil run down the side of the engine leaving a clean trail as oil drips on the ground? Or does it just form a nasty, mucky oil-dirt combination that slowly builds?If it's actually a leak, get it fixed now. You can lose sufficient oil to starve the engine and cause premature wear or even failure. On top of that, you have an oil slick being left wherever you go, oil is probably dripping on the exhaust causing nasty fumes (not to mention a potential fire hazard) and you are having to spend money on oil that is just going to hit the ground. Not to mention it's not exactly good for those plants by your driveway to have oil washing into them.If it's a seep, don't ignore it. Get it fixed. If you have to wait a week or 2 for financial reasons, that's understandable, but don't push it out too far as it can develop into a leak. In addition, the dirt, cottonwood fluff, dandelion seeds, etc that can get stuck in the slime will do a few detrimental things. For one, it insulates your engine raising operating temperature a bit. Most cars engine oil relies on the side of the block and the oil pan to radiate heat away. Remember, oil functions as a lubricant, cleaner, and coolant! If the block and pan are caked over in grime, it is harder for the oil to transfer it's heat through the pan and into the air. This grime can also pose a serious fire hazard. Not fun.
How serious is a Pinion Seal Leak?
I would say pretty serious depending on the vehicle. As others have stated, it really depends on how bad the leak is, but i will go ahead and assume that it is actually leaking, since that is what was stated.The first thing to analyze is what is a leak? Anything from a wet film around the seal to a drip of fluid forming, but not dropping would be seepage, if the formed drop actually falls to the ground, it is then considered a leak.There are two problems to consider with a pinion seal leak. First, obviously you are losing fluid from the diffential. With reduced capacity of differential fluid, your ring and pinion gears lose cooling and lubrication, which will cause the gears and bearings to overheat and can catastrophicly fail. I've seen ring gears stabbed through the cover, driveshafts twisted like pretzels, and even an incident where once the differential gears locked solid it ripped the transfer case off of the transmission destroying both.The second thing to consider is the root cause of failure of the pinion seal. Sometimes it just failed from normal wear and simply needs replaced. However, it is fairly common as well for the failure to be caused by too much runout of the pinion, caused by either incorrect preload on the pinion, or failure of the pinion bearing, the former often being caused by the latter. In this case total gear failure is imminent, and will definitely cause catastrophic failure.Even barring catastrophic failure, and the very least, with lack of fluid you will wear the gears and bearings out way faster, and will generally cause the differential to “howl” especially at highway speeds.All of that being said, I've seen people ignore a pinion seal leak for years with no consequences, but you are playing with fire.
What are some of the things that can happen if I keep driving my car with a broken tie rod?
Tie rods have an adjustment that keeps your tires in alignment. They also provide the link between your steering wheel and the front tires. You turn the wheel, the tire rod pushes the tires left and right.Worn tie rods can cause shaky front wheels, misaligned front tires, imprecise steering, excessively worn tires. A broken tie rod would allow one tire to flop to the side causing instant loss of steering and a crash if you are going fast enough.A least, you will be wearing out your tires much faster than you should. You will be replacing those tires sooner than later.At most, a worn tie rod could cause an accident because your steering isn’t accurate.If you are still driving your car, you don’t have a broken tie rod. You may have severely worn tie rods if your front tires are wearing unevenly (can be caused by a poor alignment as well), aligning the front end doesn’t fix your tire wear problem, or your steering wheel wobbles while you drive.They aren’t that expensive to replace and much less expensive than adding a new set of tires to that cost or an accident.
What are the symptoms of a bad inner tie rod?
Symptoms of tie rod failure can include clunking or clicking when turning the wheel or while traveling over a bumpy surface, noticeable steering slack (moving the steering wheel left to right when the wheels are straght), vibrations when driving, reduced turning radius either left or right and a simple way of checking for wear is to turn the wheels to the left of checking the left wheel and to grab the tie rod with both hands and to move it about. If it moves freely then it needs replacing, if not fixed soon complete tie rod failure would release either wheel from any steering input leaving you stranded and in a dangerous situation if it fails at higher speeds.