This is stupid enough, but for a moment there I thought he was going to question the germ theory of disease, which would be even worse.

Like the Lannisters, but even dumber than Cersei in the books.

I’ll check it soon and take a picture to share. I have zero pride left in this area, so I’m willing to do it to double check that I’m doing it right!

I’ll send off for that testing kit, too. That seems like exactly what will help me get a better picture of what is really happening.

If you look at the days of supply on hand, Lexus, Toyota, and Honda have the lowest. No surprise there. The models they have in the 25 list are not the ones people would want the most, either.

If I was an automaker, I do believe I would try to figure out what Toyota and Honda were doing right with the majority of their lineups.

There’s at least two shops I trust pretty well. I don’t have the sort of relationship with them where I actually interact with the mechanic–everyone has a front office these days. I do think I can trust what they do and the info they do share, though. I’m pretty confident I can get a prepurchase inspection when I need.

I think you’re right. What’s not super comforting is that Kia expects the damned things to burn oil, apparently. They’ll do a replacement if you burn an amount they consider beyond spec. The fact that there’s a consideration for how much oil it’s okay to burn tells me I’m likely never to be a customer again. I’ll be damned before I get anything that doesn’t have multi-port injection or dual injection going forward. From what I’ve learned, GDI can be okay, but city stop and go driving allows more chance for deposits. Someone here (a former Hyundai/Kia mechanic) advised me to take it on the road and put my foot down on it occasionally. I don’t know how much it helps, but I do have some visible exhaust when I do, so I feel like there’s some benefit, given that I’m usually way below highway speeds in my daily use.

I did read up on the Fusions and saw the issues. As long as you stick to the hybrids beyond the 2010-12 range and avoid the Ecoboost engines on the non-hybrids, they can go over 250,000 miles, apparently. Some people swear by them. Of course, Ford no longer makes them 🤡

As I’ve said elsewhere, I really wish I could get another Honda or Toyota. I’ve got a CR-V hybrid for my wife, and I love that thing.

When I do eventually get another one, I do plan to research everything and get a prepurchase inspection, for sure.

I’ve done the intake cleaning with the spray into the intake that goes into the throttle body. After I waited an hour, I took it on the road and put my foot down going onto the interstate. Put out a Billie of white smoke like you wouldn’t believe. Changed the oil after as directed.

Is there something else that needs to be done with that?

I’ll look into that Valvoline oil, for sure.

The fusions under consideration are 10 years and 8 years old respectively, so I’m thinking all original warranties are invalid. Given that they are dealerships, I would imagine there would be a three to five thousand or 60 to 90 day warranty for these used vehicles.

Like I’ve said elsewhere in the comments, I’ll be monitoring levels and adding as needed going forward. If I never get my knocking again, I think it’s a pretty good indication that my working theory about this whole thing is right. However, I am interested in the oil testing you mentioned. How would I go about doing that? Do the testing facilities provide some sort of kit for collecting the oil? I know I can Google this stuff, but I’d be interested to see what your recommendations are.

As for the methodology of checking the oil, I’ve always pulled the stick, cleaned it off, stuck it back in, and then read it when I pulled it again. It’s been suggested that since I haven’t necessarily checked it when the engine was cold that I might be getting a bad reading. I have not tended to read it cold because my driveway has a pretty steep grade, so I always need to move the car to make sure I get an accurate reading. It’s also possible that I’m not reading it right, but when I read it as full, it looks the same way as it does when I’m presented with the dipstick after my oil changes, with the oil covering the section between empty and full on the stick.

God, I feel like such a flipping idiot. Who doesn’t know how to read their oil dipstick?

I’ve heard some people talk about Seafoam like it was the best thing ever, but I’ve also heard some people suggest it was worthless or even harmful. I’m willing to try it, but is there any chance that it might cause me some trouble?

Yeah, the thing that keeps me going with it is that I have no payments. I bought it new, and it’s been paid for a couple of years. However, if something serious does go, and I don’t get a warranty replacement thanks to the class action lawsuit regarding these engines, it’s going to be next to worthless. An OEM catalytic converter was quoted to me as somewhere between $3,000 and $4,000. I was able to get an aftermarket one installed for about $1,200, which is no small expense for me, but at least it wasn’t as high a percentage of the car’s value. I’m just wondering if I have more expenses like this, when does it make economic sense for me to cut my losses and get what I can get for it?

I have been doing the oil changes significantly sooner than recommended, so I’ve got that under control. I’ll just have to be checking the oil in the proper fashion going forward in between changes and adding when I need it. Am I just going to add a little bit at a time, checking readings in between additions until it reads full?

I change my own air filters regularly. The coolant has been flushed really recently. The only thing that I have left to do right now is have a transmission fluid exchange. It is overdue for that. I haven’t had any problems with misfires that I’m aware of, so I don’t think I’m quite ready to change the plugs and coil packs, but I do know that that’s on the horizon. I’ll look at my maintenance schedule and see if there’s anything that I’m missing.

I think the reason I’ve been so clueless about the oil burning is that I didn’t see any leaks anywhere, and I’m not trailing black smoke, so I assumed there would be no issues with oil loss without those signs.

When I checked it, I made sure it was on level ground, because I’ve made the mistake of checking it in my driveway (which has . I pulled the dipstick and wiped it before reinserting and pulling it. It was wet all the way to the top of the target area when I did that, but I had been running the engine within the last 5 minutes, so it seems like I sabotaged myself. I’d always thought that if you ignored the reading when you first pulled it and then re-dipped it, you would get a good read. Apparently I’m a damned idiot.

The recommended oil change interval is 7,500 miles. I’ve been trying to do it at least every 5,000, but I’ve effectively been doing it every 3,000 in the last two oil changes.

I’ve heard the knocking before, but I thought that issue had been resolved when I had my catalytic converter replaced. What I didn’t recognize is that I had an oil change around the same time so it’s entirely possible that when I stopped hearing the noises it just had enough oil. The symptoms I had for the catalytic converter failure were more serious-- severe power loss and such, but it looks now like the knocking I would hear sometimes was likely unrelated.

I would change my own oil, but my driveway is on a pretty significant angle, and I’m concerned that if I change and the only place that I really have to change it, that the angle will make things not drain properly or lead me to overfill or underfill. I’m also fairly afraid of messing up and trashing the car.

I do try to do things that I feel confident about. I do change the air filters, both engine and cabin. I’ve changed the PCV valve, though it played merry hell on my nerves when I couldn’t get the original off easily. I eventually was able to loosen it and get it off without damage, and I installed the replacement without issue, but I’m always worried about doing something stupid.

When I was younger, I was bold enough to change my own brake pads on a Nissan hardbody truck, but I later got myself into trouble when I tried to replace the distributor on that same truck and had to have it towed. Since then, I’ve been cautious about what I would do for myself. I really wish there was some sort of damn class I could take. At the very least, I’d feel a hell of a lot better if there were Haynes or Chilton manual for my car, but apparently that’s not a thing with some automakers these days.

I’ve seen there’s a lot of issues from 2010-12, and that there are less issues later with the hybrids. The Ecoboost engines in the non-hybrids, though, are apparently disasters waiting to happen.

I wasn’t considering a Ford at all until I saw a 2012 with less than 50,000 miles at $8,000. Once I read about the power steering issues in those years, I decided against that one, but I did see a lot suggesting that Fusion Hybrids are durable in a way that most American power trains are not these days.

Yeah, I’m just constantly paranoid with all the issues with Kia engines. I already had one of the major issues with this car (catalytic converter failure), and every noise makes me cringe. I’m probably overreacting, but I’m afraid of the car blowing up and leaving me with nothing. Kia’s supposed to replace them via an extended 150,000 mile power train warranty, but I have seen people complain that they’re denied sometimes. I’m just always nervous about it, and this is not the first time I’ve heard this noise around the oil change interval.

Technology Connections is brilliant. You truly learn something when you watch his stuff.

I mean, if we had to choose a trivial non-zero amount, I’m sure Big Mustard Seed would be right there with them.

You guys sound welcoming, but how do you deal with the net deck mothef…er…person? When I tried playing Commander, every time somebody used tutors of some kind to pull something that either gave them unbeatable attack power or rendered them and/or their creatures impossible to damage or unblockable.

I appreciate your input, but again, I hate having 100 different cards. I want the old 4 card max 40-80 card decks and no commander. I also don’t want to be going up against meta-saavy players who bring in broken card card combos that I’ll lose to by turn 2.

Of course, I also miss banding as a mechanic, so I know I’m in an extreme minority.

To start, raise the income tax rates for corporations and high earners in the USA back to the levels before Reagan.

Eliminate the veto powers afforded certain countries in the UN.

Remove the bs cultural stigma against socialism in some countries.

Enforce international law and prosecute crimes against humanity.

Aw, geez…