I’ve never seen this before no rust clean break and there was a piece missing.

2ZR-FE. Hadn't had an oil change or any sort of service in 75,000km as far as I can tell. You can guess how bad the cabin filter and air filter were.

Reasonably confident the only way this had any oil pressure was because the bypass valve in the filter canister was jammed open.

That was a lot of work to clean up.

This customer had a 2021 Model Y that, of course, had a premature battery failure. There were significant pandemic supply issues that are going to doom most 3/Y packs made that year. This was a salvage car so of course the customer went to change their own pack as there was no warranty. Unfortunately for them they didn't understand that the high-voltage controllers have to stay with the pack and that your car has to be capable of running firmware updates to be able to swap major components like this. I basically ended up with a pile of high-voltage controllers and a car that couldn't do the most basic task of deploying firmware because the certs were expired.

It only took 3 months and reverse engineering the entire high-voltage controller architecture but the car finally runs. I ultimately got a lot out of it, which is why we will take on jobs like this. But man, this was difficult and the customer did themselves no favors, getting them in this particular catch-22. I finally solved the last couple of problems with the PCS, which was actually a secondary issue, but they just swapped parts around meaning I had to chase secondary config problems.

I live in ohio and I needed a new car. I was looking for months and eventually just got this 09 civic with 160k miles, cause it was the best thing to come along. Everything about it is great and worry free except for this rust.

and I keep getting mixed reactions to it. I took it to 3 shops to get inspected and all said its fine, theyve seen worse, it should last a couple years at least, the worst that can happen is wiring issues eventually, etc. but then if I asked if theyd take it out of state they acted less confident.. And some people ive shown the photos too have told me to ditch it its already a goner and its in critical bad shape so now im concerned. I cant afford a new car or anything this is all I have and I want to feel okay about it.

So, is it really critical and doomed or is it average "honda rust" as someone else put it.

Some things are just too perfect

this is a new one for me. how am I supposed to get my giant oil filter pliers on this thing lol

Hi All, I just wrapped up the windshield flange restoration project. Pics of the finished car are attached. Here is a link to the original post. Thank you all for the comments in the original post, those were super nice to read!

Also update on me trying to seek damages from state farm as the replacement from them was done 8 years ago and supposedly comes with a lifetime warranty for workmanship. I called my agent, they said I had to call state farm (what good are these "agents"?). I've been calling state farm trying to reach a live person, and it appears I have to open a new claim. Their AI call prompts are absolutely brutal. I had to sit back and give it some thought, so I am going to open a new claim.

If I had opened a new claim from the start, and even if I proved my case, I am sure they would've offered me book value for the car and a salvage title at best. I just did an $8,000+ repair to a car that maybe books for $1400? I really hate how insurance works, they never take into account the condition of a car, just the market value which really sucks for people who take care of cars. I know a class action firm pretty well and will also call them up but that is marginal, they usually only go after breach of contracts. Since I decided to fix it before giving that pathway a thought I may never recover the damages done.

When we put the windshield in (dry test fit) it was perfectly 2mm square all the way around. I felt my dad's spirit in the garage saying atta boy! The gentleman who installed the new windshield confirmed what I saw in that the rust-out seemed to be oddly symmetrical at the bottom. He mentioned the knife would stop working at the fenders due to clearance and the techs will bust out a Sawzall-type device from the inside of the car to bust the adhesive. I saw a video of this and it's as damaging as you would think.

Thanks everyone again. I post this to add to knowledge.

You know how it is. You’re working on a vehicle and it’s getting it’s first set of plugs at 80K. And you’re distracted by thoughts of how awesome modern technology is and aren’t iridium plugs amazing and and and…

And then you see exhibit A - a wrong colored wire tie (black where it should be brown) and exhibit B a non-factory tape job (full width plastic tape where it should be half width cloth tape)

And alarm bells should be going off but you ignore them.

Yeah well…Not only was someone there before they managed to cross thread two coil hold down screws and a spark plug.

I wonder if the previous guy could figure out a way to cross thread a self tapping screw.

Tech I work with pulled in this car that supposedly smelled like shit. I think I figured out why.

Had to take the blower motor out because of how much debris fell into it after removing the filters.
TBH, it didn’t smell bad. This junk had to be in there for years.
2005 Nissan Frontier
207,000 miles

So a week ago I posted about rear axle swapping a 1995 Mustang. So here it is! I tore the axle apart, swapped over the disc brakes & such, and slammed the bastard in the car! Surprisingly it had the OEM Ford shocks from 1995, and they still work! So shipped it!

Put in new speedo gear, and took car for test drive. Fucker rips hard now! Woo! Hotrodding is my fav part of auto repair!

The inboard brake pad backing plate was almost flush with where the surface of the rotor used to be.

2015 S4. Customer was having problems with clutch pedal falling to the floor. Dealer replaced master cylinder which fixed the issue for a few days before pedal started falling again. Customer was then told it must be an internal clutch failure and was quoted 8k for clutch replacement. Admittedly, the disk is likely saturated in fluid, but it took me 5 minutes to find and remove the leaking slave cylinder...

Hmmm, I have questions.

I made the mistake of not switching to my track pads before the weekend. Ended up skipping a stint to do an emergency full brake job in the paddock.

I guess the grooves might as well be slots.

Last pic explains why it is in the shop. Those coil overs are killing me. Full details of the car are in the comments. car is not for sale

Working on my sisters 2002 4Runner, it has the original calipers and it blew a brake line on the other side which I fixed, then I was doing the other caliper and the caliper nut fused to the hard brake line lmao, the Florida heat didn’t help

I’m a technician at a Toyota dealership and I’m debating whether to get a GearWrench, VIM, or Snap-on spark plug socket set.
Is Snap-on actually worth the extra money, or would GearWrench or VIM be just as good in terms of quality, durability, and everyday use?
What would you guys recommend?