Rushing air sound and loss of power?

[exdeath]

Smelling oil, cat not working, exhaust smells terrible...

How often are you having to replace engine oil?

 

[LTC8K6]

How long did you drive it around with the "something is wrong" light on?

You may have killed the cat yourself.

 

[TridenT]

Ugh. I had to come all the way fucking home (making my trip about a week and a half short) because the fucking battery draining light came on Saturday. It would happen whenever I was braking at low speeds or stopped sometimes. It was intermittent and would only flash on and off. It wouldn't just stay on. I didn't feel like risking it and I thought, "Well, it's something with the alternator. If I keep the RPM up it doesn't come up... but if I keep doing city driving it might drain the battery... and then I'm stranded."

Drove 1,000 miles north... here I am. Car works fine. It hasn't exhibited the issue since I fucking left LA. Whatever. I hate this fucking car sometimes. I can't trust any mechanics to actually fucking fix the problems correctly either. I tightened one of the nuts on the alternator today because it was a bit looser than it should be (I had no tools in LA). It wasn't even that loose either... I mean, we're talking the difference between screwing a cap on regularly or screwing it on with all your might. That's the difference.

Anyway, whatever. I'm here... what OBD2 bluetooth scanner do you recommend? I saw that BAFX one, but it has mixed reviews... as pretty much all of them. 🙁 What info could I get from it besides codes for a 2000 honda civic ex though?

 

[Zenmervolt]

Ugh. I had to come all the way fucking home (making my trip about a week and a half short) because the fucking battery draining light came on Saturday. It would happen whenever I was braking at low speeds or stopped sometimes. It was intermittent and would only flash on and off. It wouldn't just stay on. I didn't feel like risking it and I thought, "Well, it's something with the alternator. If I keep the RPM up it doesn't come up... but if I keep doing city driving it might drain the battery... and then I'm stranded."

When was the last time the belts were changed? If there's a loose or slipping belt you'll see symptoms like that. That would also explain why the issue only happened intermittently if the belt was only slipping sometimes.

I can't trust any mechanics to actually fucking fix the problems correctly either.

At this point, it's sounding like no-one is able to fix the car because you've let the car go to absolute shit by not paying any attention to it and now there are a billion things wrong with it. Just fixing one symptom at a time isn't going to make everything right again.

ZV

 

[TridenT]

When was the last time the belts were changed? If there's a loose or slipping belt you'll see symptoms like that. That would also explain why the issue only happened intermittently if the belt was only slipping sometimes.



At this point, it's sounding like no-one is able to fix the car because you've let the car go to absolute shit by not paying any attention to it and now there are a billion things wrong with it. Just fixing one symptom at a time isn't going to make everything right again.

ZV

That doesn't sound like me at all.

And to the belt slipping (which it didn't make a noise about if it was slipping), I did check the tension. It seems on there pretty well. The guy supposedly tightened the alternator belt at the shop I had to first stop at in Sacramento when my car died. I checked it yesterday and it wasn't loose. It felt pretty snug. It was changed 5,000 miles ago when I put in a new alternator. It's pretty new (3-4 months old).

 

[Zenmervolt]

That doesn't sound like me at all.

So far in this thread you have:

(1) Admitted to ignoring the check engine light for an unknown number of miles.
(2) Ignored the responses given.
(3) Posted a video of you intentionally abusing a car that you knew to be malfunctioning (it's just plain stupid to beat on the car as you did to force the problem to show up).
(4) Driven over 1,000 miles in a car where you thought the alternator was failing for no legitimate reason.

Just from what you've said in this thread it's abundantly clear that you're not terribly mechanically sensitive and you don't make the best decisions on how to deal with things even when you know that the car is malfunctioning.

No-one likes to hear it, but when a car starts having problems all the time, the fault almost always lies with the owner.

ZV

 

[TridenT]

So far in this thread you have:

(1) Admitted to ignoring the check engine light for an unknown number of miles.
(2) Ignored the responses given.
(3) Posted a video of you intentionally abusing a car that you knew to be malfunctioning (it's just plain stupid to beat on the car as you did to force the problem to show up).
(4) Driven over 1,000 miles in a car where you thought the alternator was failing for no legitimate reason.

Just from what you've said in this thread it's abundantly clear that you're not terribly mechanically sensitive and you don't make the best decisions on how to deal with things even when you know that the car is malfunctioning.

No-one likes to hear it, but when a car starts having problems all the time, the fault almost always lies with the owner.

ZV

1) No shops in California would show me the CEL codes for free. I called over 10! I'm not going to pay $80 for an OBD scanner (Which is the only ones available in store). I had a passenger at the time and couldn't just stop at some random place for a day while a mechanic looks over the car. Similarly, I already explained that I didn't think it was an catalytic converter code. I figured it was the same CEL code from the having messed around with the radio wires (Did you not read this thread and my explanation on that?). It was unfortunate that about 5 different things broke on the way down (Not from bad maintenance or unawareness of the car's condition either. More of bad luck and shit coming loose (Which is because of bad luck. I made more than sure that things were quite more than adequately tight when I installed the new alternator).).
2) Some were not helpful (and wrong), like yours now.
3) Abusing the car? Hardly. If I was redlining the whole time, then that would be abuse. I wasn't even close. I was trying to hear the problem because I was trying to figure out where it was coming from and what was causing it. I did the video to get some help diagnosing it. Just about EVERYONE got it wrong.
4) And yeah, I didn't have an option. Drive vs not drive. How else was I supposed to get home? I didn't have any tools on hand and the problem seemed to only occur at lower RPM (so I figured loose belt (which I tightened later) or something else is loose or the alternator can't put out the juice at low RPM for some other reason) I'll just let you know this: Almost exclusively no mechanic shops are open from Dec 22-25. And the one I did get my car repaired at wasn't going to be open until after new years. I wasn't going to wait around and pay hundreds of dollars in staying somewhere, another car to drive meanwhile, and so forth.


I need suggestions on OBD2 bluetooth scanners and not your bullshit tirades that don't belong here.

 

[sontakke]

Amazon sells $30 standalone code reader. BT+Torque on Android platform can be had under $20 if you shop around and do even a little bit of research. If you can't afford either of that, I don't have any other suggestion.