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Whoa, that's got me thinking. What's the purpose of the oil in 2 stroke fuel? I thought that in addition to lubricating, it got combusted, and that was how a 2-stroke engine worked. Is there any advantage to using a synthetic oil in a 2 stroke engine? Should you use the same ratio of 2...

The other possibility is that by being very gentle on the brakes you're not getting the discs bedded in properly. Bedding means getting an even coating of brake pad material all over the brake discs which somehow seems to prevent or minimize later pad build up. You do that with a series of...

You don't need a hard stop. A long hill where you use some brakes (giving you hot rotors) with a stop at the bottom (where you hold the pads against those hot rotors) would do the same thing. I had a really long hill on my usual commute and geared down (manual transmissions) but still had lots...

Can you bed in brake discs once there has been pad deposition? I didn't think that was possible.

Rather than warped rotors I suspect you may have a pad deposition problem. Which you can avoid by not sitting with your foot on the brakes after a hard stop. I've had 2 Toyotas ('81 Celica and '00 Solara) and had no problem with "warped rotors". But then both had manual transmissions so there...

I don't know if any Mazda products meet your requirements but keep them in mind. People tend to forget about them but they make a good product. I wouldn't consider Kia or Hyundai products. Such beautiful designs but mechanically questionable.

I have a similar story with a near miss concerning my Volvo. I took it to a quick change place once (and once only). After changing the oil the oil change guy said my transmission fluid was really dirty and should be changed. It had been changed only a few months before so I asked him why he...

While that could be true it doesn't seem to be. The fill volumes seem pretty "unrounded" in either language. I suspect that a round number of quarts or liters is of no interest to the engineers developing engines. Put on a reasonable size oil pan, determine the too high and too low amounts...

I'm probably old school (maybe dumb school) but I think an oil level anywhere between the add and full marks is just fine. When changing oil I aim low and and add oil until I get close to the full mark. Between changes I never add oil unless the level gets below the add mark - which it never...

Tesla owner here. I think all vehicles including EVs should be charged a fee proportional to their use of the roads (meaning mileage and weight). ICE vehicles pay something approximating that through annual license fees and fuel taxes. The fairest way to do that for EVs would be to collect...

77 here and too busy for most auto maintenance. Today my wife and I sifted 5 wheel barrow loads of compost. Put the clear coat on paint repairs I did yesterday on the Tesla. Social club event tomorrow morning. Mowing the lawn tomorrow afternoon. Polishing and waxing half the Tesla tomorrow...

When I was a kid many houses had lightning rods on the roof with heavy cables leading down to a ground rod pounded deep into the earth. I haven't seen one in decades. What's up with that? Were they over reacting? Why aren't houses being struck today?

At one point in my career I had access to a small fleet of "company cars". We got a nice new one for our fleet and I had the oil changed at about 1000 km. The finance people gave me a really hard time about that - like that was wasting the government's money. I said (speaking as a mechanical...

One of my former staff, a cardiovascular surgeon, (yes he was that old) also invented the cardiac pacemaker. Only problem was he couldn't figure out how to implant it. The solution was to push the electrode down to the bottom of the ventricle and trigger the ventricle from the reverse direction...

My Birthday is July 1, Canada Day. That's sort of fitting don't you think?

What a bunch of young guys on here. I'm not the oldest, but one of the oldest. Turned 77 a few days ago. Spent today touching up minor stone and careless door opening chips on the Tesla. That and chasing deer off our property. Tomorrow it's driving grand-kids. Life is not as easy as when I...

I have to mow wet grass sometimes (it just never dries out). I bag the grass and scrape off the underside of the mower (with fingers and a wooden stick for any hard bits to minimize any damage).

I'll bet it sounds wonderful.

No. The cooling system including the heater is an almost closed system. You typically get air into the system when you drain and refill the coolant. You fill the radiator and the overflow tank and a few days later you will often find the overflow level is low - it's just getting rid of the air...

If the coolant was changed recently it's just getting rid of the entrained air.