Here's Why You Should Remove Your Gas Cap Right Now

rev up your engines okay today i have a 2014 rav4 second owner and i'm going to talk about a tune-up and maintenance and just realize there's really no such thing as a tune-up these days you got to go way back in time when cars actually needed tune-ups even this 94 soccer didn't need a tune-up it's got electronic ignition fuel injection there's no carburetor to adjust and tune but that doesn't mean you just leave your car alone take this 2014 rav4 116 000 miles and it's presently running fine but the owner understands you got to maintain a car now she does her own oil changes that's the main thing on a toyota but there are other things that came with no maintenance records so she doesn't know the history and it's running fine but let's say yours isn't running fine and you think hey in quotes tune-up will fix it the first thing you do with any cars hook up a scan tool because you could do a tune-up spark plugs air filter fuel filter all kinds of stuff if the sensor's bad it's still going to run bad so always start with a scan doesn't matter what kind of tool you're using they all give you pretty good codes and it's so easy to do just turn the key on so the idiot lights are on and the car isn't running then go to the data port and plug it in the card reader starts working right there everything's green here there's no powertrain codes or anything since this is a decent scan tool i'm going to do a bit more than that i'm going to do system status as you can see i can do an all module scan which really gives you an idea it behooves a mechanic working on your car to do this you can see this takes less than two minutes and in that two minutes i can learn an awful lot a new mechanic in chicago this was over 40 years ago and even 40 years ago in chicago when you took your car into an accredited repair shop in the city of chicago they had to do this you had to pay for it but they had to do it and tell the customer everything that was wrong with a car they made a law for that but you can see it's pretty fast no codes on any of these things everything's zero so far ah and we found a few things we care about some of them the engine there's three we care the main body we'll look at that too navigation system who cares everybody has phones these days and the tire pressure monitoring system doesn't work anymore and that's mainly because it's nine years old the batteries are dead on most of the sensors she didn't care about that what we're going to care about is two things the main body we'll see what that code is tire pressure warning communication so that's the same as the stupid tpms system that we know isn't working we don't care about that keep scrolling up what do we have engine and ect now that might mean something it's got evap emissions control incorrect purge flow these often do that that's code one code two is there's a gross leak on the system okay and code three is a startability malfunction so it was off a trip to startability just because the battery is a little bit weaker it was really cold outside that i'm not worried about i'll test the battery tell she needs a new one but the other ones are emissions codes evaps codes for the evap system sometimes it's obvious we'll look at the obvious things first now the evap system it's part of getting rid of gasoline vapors and not venting them in the atmosphere sometimes it's as simple as a bad gas cap as you look at this one it's the original gas cap it's still got the little hanger on it i'd say the whole thing is a bad gas cap no bad gas cap won't keep your car from starting running okay the only thing is you can't meet the emissions standards when it's time to get your car inspected so you can change the gas cap this is clarksville tennessee they own a mission test car so nobody cares about that but it is a toyota and notoriously when people change the air filter they often knock some of these hoses off so we're going to look at all the hoses and look closely with a strong flashlight to make sure none of the hoses have come off these hoses back here will often come off but no they're all plugged in i don't see anything missing they shake them they're not loose or anything these are all on so that's probably just the gas cap we'll get another gas cap anyways later on but she wants me to maintain it she did get spark plugs spark plugs wear out over time they may be the original one so she bought a set let's put them in gotta take the stupid beauty cover off take the coils off oh we got a 10 millimeter socket of course we don't want to lose the stupid parts so my advice put them on a safe place like the cowling here and i can't go anywhere we'll wiggle it and pull it up and we got a 5 8 magnetic socket so it doesn't fall when you take it out i'm going to pull out the first spark plug there are beginning but then they twirl once you get them going they're relatively long threads out we go see where the magnet sticks in good won't fall out so let's examine the spark plug as you can see it's worn it seems to me to be the original one and it's got a little speckling on it which is normal when they get this old it's not black from running too rich you'll always get a little bit of build up for impurities and fuel but it's time to change it for sure now these are iridium spark plugs so we'll replace them with iridium spark plugs they last the longest why mess around you pay a few bucks more if it lasts 116 000 miles and still running good who cares about spending a few extra bucks and when you're going to put them in notice this is all already plated do not put any type of anti-seize stuff this keeps them from season it's already played you put nic stuff they won't be in there right and they can actually screw themselves out from slipping leave these alone just put them in naked easy enough to do see it doesn't fall you don't want it falling if it falls you can crunch the top and make it too short you don't want to fall in that's why you get the magnetic ones like i do first you put them in finger tight then put your ratchet on turn until it's snug okay it's snug now turn it maybe 15 20 degrees more that's plenty tight enough now if you're a fanatic or an amateur you can get a torque wrench do the correct torque wrench settings i've been doing this a long time with something like that i know it by feel if you don't get a torque wrench set the torque wrench at 18 pound feet of torque and torque them down if you want to do that and of course we got to do all four you got to have them even take out the 10 millimeter bolt wiggle it a little now this one won't come out because the wiring loom is too short so you got to squeeze this and pull it off which is almost impossible with fingers still a pair of pliers the pliers will squeeze it then it pops off makes it easier and then you can compare spark plugs to see if the engine is worn unevenly but in this case it looks pretty much just like the other spark plug some are black and some are white means that the black ones running rich or if they're all black means all systems running rich i don't expect anything in this because there are no codes but you want to look at them anyway now as we can see number three is worn pretty much the same same color as the other they're all even so far then we'll take out the last one guess i'm getting old i can't do that one with my bare fingers as we look at the last one it's about the same too they're all worn evenly they're worn out they're old they've been in there 116 000 miles so it's time to change them and also realize that these iridium spark plugs come pre-gapped do not recap them if they've been bent or something take them back and get another one they're not made to be re-gapped you can easily damage that thin little iridium wire that's in there and of course put all the coil on plugs back in their holes plug them until they click get here click and bolt each one down first just do it finger tight then it's tight now a little bit more that's it then start looking at everything you wouldn't believe how many times i got cars that didn't run bad the only thing wrong was the air filter was sturdy here's the air filter here's a good test there's the blazing sun let's stick this in you can't see the blazing sun through it so it's time for a new air filter so i'll get new air filter as long as that we'll get another gas cap too so i'll put the new air filter in as you can see when you look into the sun with this one look you can actually see through it it's not blocking the sun because it's a clean filter so we'll put the filter in fits right in got to make sure that they line up good and that snaps in place nice and tight you said previously make sure you didn't knock any of these vacuum lines off and speaking of leaks you pop the gas put it in a new gas cap they just screw on you turn until they click now i've erased all the code so we'll take it for a little ride see if any of them come back it's a typical rav4 it shifts fine you step on it it's got enough power then it ships back nice and quiet you're pretty high up in the air what are you even with that it handles decently i mean not the greatest handling vehicle it's a little suv after all it still rides good with the original shocks and struts on it not being a super heavy vehicle these things wear things out a lot slower than a big giant suv plus they get a lot better gas mileage than a big giant suv now she drives it around in eco mode all the time so i'll just leave it on eco no it's a little rattling when you hit bumps these rav4s aren't the quietest vehicles especially these ones that are a few years old they do tend to rattle the plastic stuff but i mean it runs perfectly fine as we come to a stop doesn't shake little bitty four cylinder engine with mileage on it but idle's fine but not just for kicks we'll re-hook up the scan tool with the key on engine not running there's no power train codes or anything but it was like that before so we did before we'll go to the full system scan oh module again and we'll scan it and we're off to the races i certainly don't expect everything to have gone away because we didn't work on the tire pressure monitoring system that's got problems could cost a thousand dollars or more to change all the sensors and the control unit looks like it's got problems real expensive air pressure gauge that's cheap but let's see what happened with the evap coat that would cause it to fail emissions if you do emissions testing in your area here we go the all module scans done so zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero there's one here the main body and what does that say tire pressure warning system we know that's a problem so we don't care so we'll keep going navigation system we knew the navigation system didn't work before we didn't work on it who cares these navigation systems on cars are crap your phone does a much better job it updates itself you're already paying for your phone so why pay extra for a crappy toyota system that you gotta update and it doesn't work that well so we don't care about that either we'll continue on the only other code is tire pressure monitoring and we know it's got problems so we actually fixed the evap system leak large leak you say large leaks out of the gas cap replace the gas cap that fixed that so if you lived in an area where they inspect cars you would pass the emissions test here in clarksville nobody cares but if you're someplace else that gas cap would have fixed that problem so what have you learned today well even though cars don't need tune-ups anymore there's things that you can easily do yourself every once in a while to maintain your car correctly air filters spark plugs and in this case it had evap system leak we fixed it by replacing the gas cap there are things you can do yourself and if you have a scanner if you don't go get at least a cheap scanner because then you can see if there's any problems before you work on the car so then you'll know that if you fix them and after you road test them the machine will say did you fix that problem or did you not fix the problem it's pretty cut and dry so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that bell [Music] you

Channel: Scotty Kilmer

Views: 936,855

Keywords: auto, auto repair, car, car diy, car repair, cars, diy, how to, mechanic, repair, scotty kilmer, car review, car advice, car life hacks, last longer, life hack, life hacks, car problems, doing this will make your car run better and last longer, how to fix car, how to repair car, how to make car last longer, how to make car last forever, how to make car last long, how to make car run smooth, how to make car run better, how to make car run faster, car maintenance, car tips

Id: cR49k6UwxV8

Length: 12min 18sec (738 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 02 2022