r/CarTalk

Are there any "thief proof" gadgets/ways that are effective. Nowadays you cannot trust your car and tracker on their own

I’m not sure where the responsibilities lie when it comes to leased vehicles, but my stepfather has been in the hospital for the last couple months and the car he had been driving is now a pack rat hotel. At this point it’s not looking like he’ll ever be able to drive himself again so we’re probably gonna have to return the car here soon, my plan was just to clean up the engine bay as much as possible to kinda hide the fact that it has them and then return it(provided they haven’t eaten through any wires or caused any real damage). If they take it back and figure out it’s got pack rats is that gonna be our responsibility if they caused hidden damage? My mom isn’t doing very well mentally due to all the stress so I’m trying to take as much off her plate as possible. Any advice is appreciated!

While it seems oil change intervals are more important than actual brand, additives, base, etc., I can’t seem to ever win this battle in my head come time for oil changes.. From my lawnmower/small engines, cars, trucks, Peterbilts, I have a lot of engines it’s safe to say lol. I go back and forth between spending money on boutique oil, and buying whatever is on sale at the time; and at the end of the day, I still change it every 5,000 miles or so no matter how easy or hard I am on any particular engine. On the big truck side of things, you hear of many owner operators getting a million+ miles between engine rebuilds just running T4 Rotella or similar grade oil, and changing it every 10-15k miles. Same with lighter duty diesel engines, guys getting 500k-million miles just doing routine maintenance with off-the-shelf oil from Walmart. So why is this “which is the best oil to run?” dilemma such a thing given all the proof over the years that spending all this money on Amsoil Signature Series (for example) isn’t necessary? Because you see it all over the place, and I’m definitely guilty of having this issue as well lol

this might sound dumb but I know nothing about cars Every time I park for extended periods of time, my car seems to leave oil droplet stains. I don’t have a lot of money atm but I plan to get the whole car checked soon. Is this a big issue or am I okay to make my commute to work (15miles) for another week?

I’m looking at a 2018 Kia Forte LX 44k miles for 15k or 2016 Hyundai Elantra SE 24k miles for 13,500k.

Kia forte has had 3 owners but has an automatic transmission. But I’ve been looking at reviews and people are saying the transmission will go out before 100k.

Hyundai Elantra has had 1 owner but has a CVT transmission. And I know they are bad transmissions. But I was wondering if I put a transmission cooler and maybe heat shield will it last longer?

Any advice will help. I need a car that’s going to last me a long time.

I have a 17 Ford Edge with 21 inch factory rims and it's time for new tires; that said given the cost of those massive ass tires I'm considering just getting the smallest factory size (18s) rims and appropriately sized tires and enjoy a nicer ride. I'm looking at tire racks wheel and tire package where I can just get the wheel/tire/tpms all put together and balanced and ready to put on in my garage and that's really tempting, but I also occasionally see rims that have basically collapsed, sheered in half, etc. and lots of comments mention cheap after market wheels which make me think I should get refurbished factory wheels instead.

Am I being paranoid? Are rims from tire rack generally decent quality? There are a few sets there that look really nice and are a good price, but I don't want to have an incident at seventy because my rim sheered in half.

Hey guys,

I recently bought a 2014 Ford Focus with a 2.0 diesel engine and I'm really confused. Everywhere on the internet and even in the owner's manual, it says the tank holds 60 liters. But when I filled up for the first time, the tank was full at 47 liters, even though I only had a range of 50 kilometers left!

This really annoys me because I wanted a car with a big tank and a lot of range. Has anyone else experienced something like this? Or any idea what's going on?

Thanks in advance!

The Kia Stinger is an absolutely amazing car that was just released in the wrong decade.

I’m curious to hear y’alls opinions on oil intervals, and any experience with oil testing. As oils have gotten better and better and filters have improved alongside them, is it reasonable to expect more from our fluids?

Here’s the context: I have a 2016 Mazda 3 (2.5L na 0w-20), and a 2019 Mazda CX-5 (2.5L T 5W-30), and a friend has a 2021 Hyundai Elantra (2.0L? na 0W-20). We both run the advanced synthetic types rated for 20k, and oil filters to match, but change the oil (with filter every time) well before that point. I’m changing at 5k, but my friend pushes it to 7k. We both feel like it’s cheap insurance to make sure our engines are healthy and sipping on nice, clean oil, but I’m wondering if we’re operating on outdated knowledge. Is the limitation of 5-7k based exclusively on the amount of wear and particulates from the engine wearing, or are these newer oils preventing wear (and therefore particulates) by holding up longer, and can therefore justify longer intervals?

His last oil change was at 61,817, so a 7k interval would put us at high 68k’s but we’re thinking of doing 7,603 miles for this next interval. There’s no way this is going to cause any problems, but now I’m wondering if I should be doing 7k intervals too.

I know the only way to truly know if these intervals are safe is to get the oil tested, so I’m curious if anyone has experience with similar vehicles or at least newer vehicles and modern oils. I’ve heard good things about Blackstone Labs, and even better things about AMSOIL and would love to hear some numbers from those who have done it!