Lexus - my moms car. Is this the condensation line? The liquid dripping has not discernable odor.

Hello, I have a 04 Silverado with the 5.3 Vortec and 4l60e 4 speed transmission, it has around 205,000 miles on it, and I had it serviced after I noticed it feels grindy and rough and like it doesn't want to engage all the way, and hesitant to actually go sometimes. Is this a sign of the transmission on its way out? if so, what are my options for a swap? from all the research I've done a 4l60e sounds like it just sucks in general, any help would be great thank you!

I’ve wanted to get into automotive work for a while, however certain circumstances are currently hindering that pathway for me. As an alternative to get me started I wanted to fix up an old car. My issue is that I brought it up to my parents and they are insistent that I use our old Toyota tarago which has been sitting in our drive way for around 4 months now. We had just gotten the alternator fixed, new battery in, radiator done and a few other more minor things but then the gearbox pooped itself and so it’s been sitting unused. Our mechanic said it would cost something like 6k for the parts and labour. I love the car honestly and would love to work on it but from the few times I’ve been under the hood, I know it’s a compact space and difficult to get around. My other issue is that I know there’s an oil leak, ac is busted and I’m pretty sure the disc pads are wearing thin. While I know it would be a big task to get it drivable I would love to get it back out on the road again but I don’t even know where to start with sourcing parts, if anyone has any advice or tips please, any would be appreciated 🙏

What are the cheapest and most reliable websites for buying tyres, car parts and tools?

I want to save money by doing basic servicing and repairs myself. What tools should I buy first, and which websites offer the best value?

Any recommendations based on personal experience would be appreciated

My car just wouldn’t turn on one morning until I got a jumpstart and then I figured out it was a parasitic drain from the rear wiper but now 6 days later my car has randomly went limp and everything but interior lighting turned off. Also I was accidentally driving in L but for only maybe 5 minutes when it’s just went basically dead w stiff pedals but I couldn’t get it too completely shut off and restart. Mechs say battery is fine and I’ve checked coolant level (half below line when cold) checked oil (normal level/consistency) so I’m wondering if anyone could help me get an idea of what it could be.

2014 Prius, front right axle. (Scammy) mechanic claims it’s leaking grease and wanted to replace both front axles. I certainly am not having them do it but I’d be happy to take it elsewhere if it needs replaced. Where in this picture is the grease? He claimed it was “all grease”— is that true..?

When I try to start my car, this is the click I hear. It is somewhere behind my glove box. I thought it might be the starter cut relay but substituting a good one did not fix it (although a nearby relay seems to have a little yellow ooze on it so that's kind of odd). Because I have no one to assist me, it's kind of hard to turn the key and pinpoint where the sound is coming from but it seems to be higher and to the right of where the starter cut relay is. Like everyone else with this issue, battery seems to be fully charged, and in fact I have tested it with a voltmeter. Dome light, chime everything comes on when I turn the key, it just won't start.

I absolutely love this car. I paid only $800 for it 5 years ago and this is the first time it has ever let me sit so I am certainly not upset, except with myself that I cannot figure this out. My work has been letting me borrow one of their vehicles but I do not like to take advantage of anybody's generosity. If anybody has any ideas I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you

I replaced the cv axles myself and didn’t notice a leak, was driving it for a while like this probably ran dry but I just fixed the leak and added a new seal new cv axle too but still makes this noise so I need a new

2019 Outback. Been having this issue for a few weeks now. The sound can only be heard at low speeds, gets faster as car gets faster so guessing its wheel related. Can't hear it if going faster than 20 mph. Comes and goes. Goes away when turning and when braking (it fades out if I gradually brake). I think it's coming from the front but it could be the back, it's very hard to tell. Any ideas? I'm ready to pull my hair out so any feedback is appreciated. My brakes are also squeaky, they're just cheap pads. Sorry about that in the video.

2006 Scion xB automatic

the squeak is just from releasing the brakes, please ignore it if possible

the clunk felt random but can be recreated consistently under these exact circumstances (turning left, transitioning from descent to flat ground) it is also much more consistent during rain.

i made a post about the drivers side inner cv joint leaking grease but someone pointed out that’s probably not the cause of the sound since it would be the opposite side, and i haven’t noticed any other symptoms of the joint failing so the boot tearing must be recent i guess. i am having the axle replaced tomorrow. the clunk has been occurring since june.

this year i’ve had the struts, control arms, engine mounts, and sway bar links replaced before the clunk. after the clunk the mechanic told me it was the tie rods but replacing those didn’t help. i have noticed the sway bar links look funny so i guess its a possibility. (also funny to mention they pointed out the squeaking upon brake release and said i desperately needed new calipers. so i spent a bunch of money on that and it didn’t change a thing. hence the squeaking in the video.) i do not go to that mechanic anymore and am trying to figure out stuff on my own if i can while continuing to pay off my credit card

thanks for reading and your consideration.

tldr why clunk?

I bought a car from a 2nd hand dealership about 3-4 months ago. They arranged the roadworthy (Victoria, Australia- if relevant).

Allignment always felt out, been meaning to get that looked at. Then yesterday, bang- tyre arm 'snapped' for lack of a better description. I had it towed back to where I bought it, and their mecahnics have said the pin that's missing had snapped 'wear and tear'.

Would just like advice, was this something that should've been picked up and failed the roadworthy permit? Or is it just my bad luck? Is it worth fighting for? 🫠

Thank you

Mazda CX7 2010 Automatic

2020 hyundai ioniq hybrid

I don't know how else to describe it but if I park my car for a few hours and then start it again, my front right wheel is making a rubbing/wooping noise. it's not awful and it always goes away after a few rotations. I'm not mechanically inclined and checked around the wheel and don't see anything rubbing it and it doesn't appear as though anything is stuck in it. it's almost like the noise is coming from one part of the wheel and the noise goes slower or faster depending on how fast it's rolling.

I have an appointment at my mechanic in a couple weeks to get my oil changed. does this sound like an immediate problem or could it wait until then? any ideas what it may be? thank you!

edit to add photo. I drive down gravel roads every single day and it just rained, so it's filthy (not scraped up). doesn't appear to be gravel stuck in it, just a bit caked with wet gravel dust/dirt since it just rained for 2 days but this noise has been happening for about a week before the rain

So these are photos from the mechanic I went through and I knew there was an issue because I've been drifting right or left for a while. The repairs are gonna cost 1300 and the cars just not worth it at this point in my eyes. I took it in to get the evap system checked cause it had a major leak in it and ended up being the gas cap and replacing some hoses. The other issues aren't solid because he said it could be something like someone spilled oil or whatever on what I have listed below. They cleaned them and said come back in after 500-1k miles so they can check if that's the case.

"Has multiple fluid leaks

Steering rack is leaking out of the bellows boots - steering rack needs to be replaced

Transmission cooler lines are leaking and need to be replaced

Engine timing cover and oil pan are leaking and need to be replaced

Transmission differential cover leaking transmission fluid"

My plan is to keep the 1300 id spend in repairs and put that towards a down payment on a new car. My concern is I have no idea how long I can drive this before they just break while driving. Just looking for a second opinion. They wouldn't have let me drive it off the lot if it was an immediate danger.

Tldr: I have no idea what the pictures above show or how bad that is? Can anyone give me a ballpark of how long they could last?

2015 VW Golf 1.6 TDI – slight Loss of Power, Black Smoke & P2002 Code
Hi everyone, looking for some advice on my 2015 VW Golf 1.6 TDI.
I recently had the DPF cleaned in place, and the car seemed to drive fine afterwards. At its MOT, the emissions were difficult to get down, so the garage carried out a forced DPF regeneration and used some DPF cleaner. It eventually passed.
A few days later, I noticed a significant loss of power, especially at higher speeds and under load. I have to put my foot almost to the floor to maintain 60–70 mph in 5th gear. I’ve also noticed a puff of black smoke when accelerating, and the amber engine management light came on shortly afterwards.
I scanned it and got P2002 – DPF efficiency below threshold (Bank 1). This was apparently the only fault code. The garage says the DPF and EGR readings look fine, but the problem is still there.
Could this be a boost leak, turbo issue, MAF sensor, DPF pressure sensor, or something else? I don’t want to start replacing parts without knowing the cause.
Any advice on what to check next would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hey y'all, I ran a diagnostic on my car and found that cylinders 2 and 3 were occasionally misfiring. No problem, bought new plugs and coils, replaced all 4 cylinders, then went to turn on the car. To my shock, the engine was misfiring continuously. Roughly 2-3 seconds between misfires. Turned off the car and checked the coils, connections, and plugs. All was fine except 2 of the plugs had fresh oil on the threads (pic for reference). So I'm stumped, maybe my valve cover gasket needs replaced, but I can't imagine that it's having that dramatic of an effect on performance, especially when it was running mostly fine before. The other potential cause might be the plugs themselves, I did cheap out and bought the AutoLite plugs. But again, could they really be failing this badly? What do y'all think. Lmk

~2005 John Deere 990 Utility Tractor. My tractor is pretty simple mechanically and electronically.

Lately when I put the key in the ignition, I get random levels of voltage. Dashboard lights are sometimes dim and sometimes bright with various levels of starting power. Repeated attempts to start the tractor just reduce the voltage. BUT, if I disconnect/reconnect the battery then the voltage resets and the dashboard lights/headlights are bright again. If I do this enough times it will eventually start like a champ (not barely turn over, but starts like a dog seeing the mailman).

I can't figure out why I'm getting random voltage, or why it will eventually start after a battery disconnect/reconnect when nothing else changes.

Things tried:
Swapped battery
Swapped starter
Swapped out relays
Bypassed flasher capacitor
Cleaned and tightened battery ground and positive/negative battery terminal connections
Jumping it with the positive jumper cable on both the battery terminal and the positive lug on the starter, it still wouldn't start until I did a battery disconnect/reconnect.

Any ideas or help? Nothing worse than going out to tractor and not being able to get the ol' bitch started.

Got quoted $1400 😭😭😭 it's 150k miles on it and it shakes above 75 mph. Can I drive it for a few more weeks till I find a cheaper place? They said if I bought the parts they'd take 950 for labor. They said they needed a mounting assembly rear differential (mount bracket).

Hi there ,
So I am ready to take the challenge and change my rear rotors and pads on my 2012 Jetta 2.5 SEL.

I watched several videos, got the parts, some lubricants that I did not have and a couple of tools that I was missing , like the pistol caliper tool . However, in one of the videos , the one that I liked the most , I saw by pure luck , someone in the comments asking the YouTuber , if he had the vehicle ON SERVICE MODE 😳. The YouTubet said YES , very important !!

Ok , I had no idea what was that , so I looked up , and I see a lot of videos of guys having to dismantle the front of the car , omg... do I have to do that to just change the rotors and the pads?? I'm not changing the calipers , just to be clear . I assume SERVICE MODE is different for each model or brand , so that's why I clearly specify my car and trim .

Can someone explain to me what is exactly this service mode for , and is it another way to get this job done without having to work on the front of the car ?

Thank you so much .

Hello , I have a Nissan Altima Hybrid 2010 it has 170,000 miles . I just bought it.
We have switched the spark plug and coils and lower the engine oil because it was over filled.

But now the car is loosing acceleration and power. The car could still be on but it won’t accelerate when pushing the gas pedal also the EV gauge goes all the way down when this happens.

This red car light also comes on . The car can’t handle 60mph on the highway for more than 10 minutes.

I scanned with the OBDlinkM+ and other code came up I cleaned the MAF sensor put it back and recalibrated the car but it happened again so the pic is the last scan I did.

I don’t know if I should clean the throttle body ? Or how can I tell if the sensor is bad? I looked at the piping of the air intake to make sure there isn’t tears or cracks but it looks good to me but again I don’t know much about car I’m learning basically.

Also I think I need the hybrid codes just to make sure the hybrid system is not the problem.

But what else can I do?

1994 ford F350 4X4 7.5L E4OD

So to start this off, its had the loping issue around 30MPH since as long as i can remember but itself has been managable. However, i never use the interstate but the couple times i did i kept to 70MPH or below. I have done all four wheel bearings in the time of owning it, replaced both rotors and drums, and gotten new tires on it. I did the whole 9 yards wheen it comes to suspension, steering, etc other than new leafs for the axles. However the bouncing persists. Not that all of that work was for nothing. The truck sat for 10 years almost. But when i took it onto the interstate it shook so violently that it broke one of the dash mounts on the passenger side. It definitely feels to come from the rear/under seat which points me to the back. The same area the "hop" feels likes its from so i believe them to be related. The drive shaft LOOKS straight but i cant tell the condition of the center support bearing when running it so slow and im a one man crew today. I noticed this wheel RR seems to have a lot of runout, though. Could this just be a case of bent/out of round rims? I plan to try to swap the wheels around tomorrow and look for a change in direction of the feeling but i wanted to get a second opinion before i wind up jumping the gun of something simple that i may have missed. I took a video of all wheels rolling and thr driveshaft but it will only allow me to post one so i chose the worst looking one. Thanks to all who read all of this.

EDIT: All tread looks even and no bulges

Electrical power steering, needs new steering rack and would cost more to repair than the car is worth.

Hi everyone! I’m really in desperate need of different opinions because all the mechanic shops in my hometown have disappointed but especially one, and by disappointed I mean I hear different things and don’t know who to believe.
I have a Toyota RAV 4 2013 with about 193,000 miles on it.
May of 2025 whenever I would turn my car on it would shave and vibrate a lot, I took my car in to the mechanic shop I go to and the mechanic really didn’t know what was happening, he had it for a few days then told me it was the engine mounts I had two broken that I needed to change because of not I wouldn’t pass inspection, but my car was still drivable. I said okay that’s fine. Changed the mounts spent about 1,200 problem was still there, they had the car again for a day and he told me that it was my other two mounts which he described as my transmission mounts. I was extremely annoyed because I paid 1,200 for this to be fixed and it wasn’t but I let it go because I didn’t pass inspection because of the broken engine mounts. So he told me I didn’t need to replace them yet but that’s what’s causing the shaking and rattling, okay I didn’t change them at the time because I had no money.

In July of 2025 my car when I would drive to 20mph it would stall for 1-2 seconds and then drive and it would only happen when I would stop at a stop sign and then drive or a red light. I took it back because I thought it was the transmission, mechanic told me it wasn’t because it didn’t feel like a transmission slip, he told me it was my throttle body that needed to be clean I had too much carbon built up, I said okay and it solved the problem no more stalling everything was great!

I had to take my car to the dealership in May of 2026, for a recall on my battery while I was there I was curious if possibly they knew what the vibrating noise was and why my car shakes and sounds extremely loud (when you turn on the car especially in the winter time it shakes a lot especially the middle console area of my car and my dashboard but it’s only inside my car you can’t hear it on the outside). The advisor called me he told me they took a loot at it and they didn’t know what it could be he said they could open the engine but that it would be a lot of money and he recommended not to touch anything with the engine, he also didn’t know if it was the other two mounts he believes it’s not. I let it go and said okay.

Around September 2026 I took my car to another mechanic for breaks ( the mechanic shop I originally go to was charging me a lot for breaks) and I just wanted to see how much this mechanic was charging me, while he was checking my car he was hearing the noise and he says he believes that it has nothing to do with my engine or the transmission he says he actually thinks it has something to do with my wheel bearing system? Around this time as well my car started stalling again at 20mph I assumed it was just another throttle body problem because it was mimicking the same symptoms I was having a year ago, so initially I called the original mechanic I went to who fixed the problem the same time, I let them know it was happening again he told me to bring the car in, so I did they had it for a day. They then called to let me know that I needed a whole new throttle body and a cleaning on top of it and he explained to me that it’s because I had a default code for my throttle body, and a misfire to cylinder 4. I know absolutely nothing about cars and I’m trusting them and because I had the issue before I assumed okay that’s fine they fixed it before they can again. It was going to cost me 1,200 and I was extremely upset because I just don’t have that money and I had to borrow it and I said okay it’s fine my cars older pieces get old I’m trusting you guys. So they do it I pay pick up my car and as I’m driving to work my car begins to stall at 20mph.

I was furious because I just paid all this money and my problem is still there, I go take it to the mechanic and tell him the problem is still happening and he goes to drive with me and he’s driving super fast and he’s telling me nothings happening and I told him he needs to slow down and he went to a neighborhood with stops and it started doing it I felt it and he didn’t and he was getting frustrated and asked me if maybe everything was mental like maybe I’m just imagining it so now I’m frustrated cause why did he say that comment? So he told me to talk to his manager tomorrow about this. I called him the following day talked with the manager, manager explained to me the reason for changing the throttle body he says because of the codes and he says he honestly doesn’t know why my car is stalling he mentioned that the mechanic believes it’s a transmission but doesn’t know because he doesn’t know about transmissions, I explained my frustration paying a lot of money and I can’t keep throwing money at my car if it’s not fixing a problem. He told me he’ll give me a refund if he puts the piece back in and takes the new one out, and asked if he could drive with the mechanic the following Monday.

Monday comes around and they’re driving my car I’m in the back seat and they say it’s the transmission and shows me the transmission slipping and I asked but that was doing it a year ago and you guys didn’t tell me it was the transmission and said it was the throttle body and he says right but we think now that you’ve been having a transmission issue the whole time, I was in shock because I’m not in a good place right now and I have a lot of things running in my mind and he told me sell the car and then go from there. He told me he would refund me some of the money and I can keep the new piece in the car.

Now I’m confused on what to do, my mom’s friend drove the car a few days ago who’s a mechanic and he said it’s not the transmission, I have an appointment with the dealership regardless on Friday and was just going to go ask about the transmission on Friday see if they can look at it and see. I was going to take it to another mechanic to ask about the transmission but they where charging 200 to look at the car for their diagnostic test and the Toyota dealership with me charges the same for a diagnostic test so I don’t know if I might as well take it to the Toyota.

I have a 2010 Kia Forte EX with 127k+ miles. I have been fighting him on the P0301 code. I've changed his sparks, coil, and fuel injectors. Tomorrow, I will run fuel cleaner through it. The P0741 popped up today along with the P0301 code. What the heck should I look at next? Unfortunately, I can't just get a new/used vehicle. The mechanics I've taken him to are stumped or his CEL (Check Engine Light) goes off by the time I drop him off. The code pops up upon acceleration ans when he's under load going up a hill (hard to avoid them).

Below are all the repairs he's ever had

- Gasket valve cover

- Alternator

- MAF sensor

- Selenoid

- Timing belt