This weekend I decided to winterize Little Pig, dig a little deeper into my gas mileage problem, and ask the question I said I would ask...
Solved for now but worth sharing: rear brake noise
The Mobil 1 in the car, being in it for just 6 months and less than 3000km, I saved them in three clean oil bottles, and the oil filter too, knowing that I have UOA supporting me running this crap to a year and beyond, to be returned to the car come spring with fresh topups.
Question 1: True or false? Engine oil drained from a car should never be reused, no matter how short it has been run.
Now to the main program: Little Pig and the Goblet of Gas, aka find out why my gas mileage took a hit and take steps to improve it.
First item on agenda: try the Pennzoil Ultra 5w-20 I bought from Walmart. That necessitated an oil change and the aforementioned saving for reuse of not-so-old engine oil.
Second item: spark plugs. I bought 4 new plugs and put them in. $4 a pop, unlike $14 for the dual-pronged platinum ones Big Pig needs.
I read the old plugs, they mostly seems normal, except for noticeable carbon deposits and oil on the one from cylinder 2. This reminds me of the puddle of oil on the bottom of the intake manifold. So that needs addressed. Also tested spark plug wires. All within spec. No action needed.
Third item: PCV valve. I see oil consumption, puddle of oil in intake, oil on spark plug. Looks like oil got sucked out of crankcase and fudged up the burning. So I tested it with a blowgun. The reverse flow seems to leak a bit, and it's blowing up oil. PCV had never been replaced before, so time to try that. Phoned up Don Valley North, they have them at $17. Need to buy newspaper and gas up Big Pig as well. Great. Bought it in put it in.
Final item for today: Knowing that my brakes seem to drag on all wheels, I then inspected the front brakes too. Didn't touch the rears this time since I did that before...
I find highly uneven wear on both sides, where the inner pads wear a whole lot faster than the outer pads. still haven't touched the indicators. Great. I may have sticking calipers. So off they go for a deeper pad check.
After the calipers came out, the sliding pins seem to slide just fine; it's the pad themselves that are stuck! Outer pads I can wiggle them out, the inners had to be banged and pried before they'd come out. I don't feel like using grease on brake pads so I just cleaned the works, swapped the beefier outer pads to the inner positions, freed the pads up as much as I can and put it back together. The way the inner pads are worn and the feel of the inside of the rotor indicates my brakes are indeed dragging.
Question 2: Can I have sticking brake pads but not sticking calipers?
Question 3: Any problem with swapping brake pads like I described? Assuming my work didn't solve my brake issues, can I at least get brake wear equalized and make them last a bit longer?
To do: Put on winter tires and block the grille.
Linear Mode
