I hate how I go to a car meet with me bf (only girl) and I’m tryna talk to people about their cars because I’m into cars. Everyone either ignores me or walk away. My bf has a G8 and I’m currently working on getting a colbolt ss or a G8 aswell. Like girls can be into cars too, I may not know as much as them but I know a good amount (engines, hp, mods, etc) I may not be a mechanic but I know enough to have a convo with people about cars bruh. I felt like because I’m a girl people don’t care about what I have to say.

only caught a glimpse of it and it was too far to take a good photo of…

no badges on the car or wording on the emblem but it looks like a metallic blue circle?

if anyone has any sort of clue what brand this is that would be awesome!!!

Gets pulled over by his own car instead😂

OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer

OEM part are expensive, sometimes unreasonably.

I live in a (very) hot country so parts related to car cooling system/AC, OEM is almost a must if you heavily rely on the car.

-Personally I have replaced headlights with aftermarket ones, very happy

-CV axels boot, literally costs only 10% of OEM boots 😳

- Nissan Altima full head gasket cover, also working fine since 3 years

Those are the good ones.

Bad experience with aftermarket parts:

-Engine mounts: failed after less than 2 years (light driving)
-Horn, relace the original one with aftermarket (because it sounded very bad) and the aftermarket ones lasted only about a year and half.
- Taillight (one side) replaced with aftermarket and whenever I use the turn signal on that replaced side, it turns on and off very fast in a weird way.

I am interested to see what are you good and bad experiences with aftermarket parts?

I bought a car off Facebook, a few issues I have fixed myself but I'm wondering if I'd be able to 3d print a mirror cap to save some money on it. Would it make sense to 3d print it or would that be an unreliable fix and should just shell out the extra money for the actual piece?

I have a 2009 Camry with 148,000 miles on it that I’ve had for 6 years. I will be using it a lot more than usual for a new job and I got an oil change from a company. They did an inspection and came back saying the front CV axles are torn at the clamps, leaking grease, and I should replace them. Is this a serious safety issue? Do I really need to replace them? I don’t have a ton of money right now and I don’t know much about cars so I would love any feedback, thank you!

(sorry about the wind)

Got a lowered Civic Si sitting on coilovers. I picked up a VEVOR triple-bag pneumatic jack a few months ago and have been using it about twice a month for tire rotations and brake work. It slides under the car easily and raises it in about five seconds once connected to the compressor.

The fast lift is convenient, but lowering is less controlled than I’d like. The release valve feels close to on or off rather than gradual.

I also noticed the jack starting to move sideways when I tried it on sloped, uneven asphalt, so I won’t use it there again. I use jack stands before doing any work under the car.

Anyone else using this style of air jack on a lowered car? Does yours lower gradually, or does the release valve feel abrupt too?

Storm damage in Erie Pa.

I test-drove a mid-2010s Corolla this week and realised my usual routine is basically checking the air con, listening for bad noises and going around the block. It felt fine, but I kept wondering what problems only show up once the car is warm, under harder braking or on rough roads. What’s the one test you always do before buying, and has it actually found a fault for you?

I will start this by mentioning I'm not a "man yells at cloud" boomer. I'm turning 20 and I'm NOT challenged by technology.

I HATE how bloated phone navigation is. The goal of safety is to make the phone something that shouldn't be a distraction AT ALL, and modern phone apps absolutely fail this. Here are some examples:

- Waze can list you events listed by users (car accidents, police, etc). Great, right? What isn't is it basically telling you "HEY IS THIS STILL HERE??? CLICK IF IT'S STILL HERE" brother, I am DRIVING. I don't want to seek out a car for no reason, then look down on my phone to click "yes" and have animations and sound effects. I know, yes I'm amazing now show me the map.

- Google's "we found a better route". Oh boy I have SO MANY ISSUES with this. Basically, now you can tell Google to NOT take toll roads, and it shows you routes with no toll roads. Cool, right? So you start driving, and then it "finds a better route" by going through 15€ in tolls, to save ~20 minutes. I wouldn't have issues if it didn't fucking default to picking the faster route within a few seconds. You're actually looking at the road and didn't hear it say "fuck you I'm rerouting" because of garbage sound mixing (more on that later)? Yeah, you're gonna pay the toll companies or waste a ton of time

- Also at least on my phone/radio setup the sound mixing sounds ass. Basically if I want to hear where to turn it implies blasting my ears with music volume levels that'd make some recall the early 2000s tuner car era.

- Also the UI just... Isn't good for actually being in a situation where you drive? Waze has you look down, swipe up, and scroll all the way down to "stop navigation" when you want to turn the nav off. Google is better but not perfect.

Meanwhile I have an old TomTom unit that basically just works like this:

- Type address

- set it to avoid certain roads if needed

- start navigation

- tells you where to turn, and where the speed cameras are if you pay for it (TomTom, I expect my device with "lifetime updates" to NOT have speed cameras paywalled, thanks I hate it)

And when you're done? You just turn it off. And the UI is made by people that realized that it should be easy to use because it's going in a car and you need a no-nonsense interface for it. and it also tells you how far the next rest stop/fuel station is, and has a button to add a stop in the navigation.

WHY. CANNOT. GOOGLE. DO THIS.

Cars a 2015 Nissan pathfinder sv
My rear driver side tire blew today and destroyed the lining behind it and a hose. Can anyone tell me what hose this is? It smells like gas.

I'm really frugal (and need reliability in rural Canada) and always use hand tools when I can. I have no impact gun since my ancient pneumatic Ingersol-Rand died years ago. The rear hubs on my wife's civic are on their way out, and the 4 bolts that hold the hub on are pretty rusty. Is it worth buying this impact gun to do the hubs? I assume the front ones will go soon also, it's at 100k miles now on OEM hubs and I'll need to remove the axle nuts. Is the 1/2" gun overkill or should I go for the 3/8" model? Stick to a ratchet and socket?

Thanks for any help here!

I love the feel of older cars, but driving without modern navigation or a backup camera can be annoying. I'm thinking about installing an aftermarket Android head unit and a reverse camera to modernize my daily driver.

Have you guys done this to your older cars?

I'm not good with cars but my brakes suddenly stopped while I was driving downhill. The front part of the rotors is stuck, rusted on. Hitting it with a hammer and WD40 is not working and we dont have a crowbar. Help?? Bertha [my 2008 Mazda 5 Grand touring] tends to have the stupidest issues. T^T

UPDATE: We got the one off!!! Wd-40 and some prying off with a screwdriver and hammer. Now we're working on the other but its being stubborn. Currently hitting with a BFH like instructed, will report back 🫡 met a neighbor while doing this too, v fun but stressful experience so far. BFH is helping relieve stress.

UPDATE TWO: FINISHED!! We got both rotors off and everything looks good. I definitely need an alignment and a general check but the rotors and pads are replaced! My mechanic friend drove it after installing everything, and there was only a slight shake from the alignment. Here's hoping, my dudes.

I own a 2019 Honda Accord LX (the 1.5T notorious for blowing a headgasket) with ~126,700 miles. My headgasket, is in fact, blown. Luckily they released a warranty for free headgasket repair as long as your car is under 150k miles and has specific codes (which I do have). Also we did a boro scope check and confirmed coolant on spark plugs 2,3, and 4. We booked an appointment for Tuesday then got a call today saying due to a branded title, our appointment is canceled and ineligible for free repair. They sent over the CarFax and it says that the vehicle was marked with 124,868 miles on 12/20/25, 5 days before the sale to Owner #3 (who sold it to us private-party). On the documented title transfer to Owner #3 on 12/25/25, it says mileage is 124,789 miles. It looks to me like Owner #3 mis input the mileage by roughly 100 miles, and because of that the title was marked branded. And also because of that, I may have to spend hella time and money fixing it up. Is this reversible? We do our own maintenance so I don’t have documented mileage.

(EDIT FOR TLDR)
TLDR; Is a branded title due to a suspected misinput reversible without documentation of current mileage? If not, what should I do? It’s making me ineligible for an important warranty.

Unlike car body, the wheel cannot be installed with paint protection film. Is there any product out there that can protect the surface of the wheel from getting chips?

Can anyone recommend a brake rotor cleaning product on Amazon that can restore the area with the arrow to look clean and shiny like original?

Front driver side tire. Just noticed it today. Idk how long it’s been like that. Can I drive it or no?

My 1973 z/28 4 speed car. Put a set of vintage gold Moroso valve covered and matching air cleaner. Decently built 350 if you understand the hood you’re cool

Hi, I would really appreciate your opinion about a coolant problem I’m having with my car.

I have a 2014 Volkswagen Golf 7 GTD, 2.0 TDI 135 kW, engine code CUNA, manual transmission. The car has around 220,000+ km.

The main problem is that I have been losing a lot of coolant. At one point I was losing around 6 litres in 5 days. I initially thought it was an external leak, but the problem was difficult to locate.

Here is everything that has already been checked/replaced:

The head gasket was replaced.

The cylinder head was also replaced/repaired because there was a problem with the head.

The head was properly installed with a new gasket.

The EGR cooler was replaced with another used unit.

The water pump is new.

The small radiator/coolant circuit was checked and there were issues with it previously.

Some coolant hoses were found to be damaged/perforated and were replaced.

The coolant expansion tank was replaced with a new one.

The cap was also replaced.

A cooling system pressure test was performed and no external leak was found.

I have done two CO₂ tests for combustion gases in the coolant, and both were negative.

There is no visible oil contamination in the coolant.

After the head gasket and cylinder head repair, everything was completely normal for around 2,300 km. The engine temperature was stable and I had no significant coolant loss.

After those 2,300 km, the problems started again — the engine started overheating under load and I started losing coolant again.

The overheating now behaves strangely. If I drive normally, the temperature is stable, but if I push the engine a little harder, the temperature starts rising again. If the temperature reaches around 100–105°C, it drops back down very quickly as soon as I release the throttle and drive another 100–200 metres with less load.

However, if it gets as high as around 130°C, it does not cool down nearly as quickly. Before the head gasket/cylinder head repair, I had a similar problem where the temperature would rise under heavy load and then drop again when going downhill or reducing the load.

So the fact that it can heat up under load and then cool down very quickly when I release the throttle is still present, although the problem was completely gone for approximately 2,300 km after the repair.

However, I still have a coolant problem.

There is noticeable pressure in the expansion tank. Even after the car has been sitting overnight following a drive, there can still be some pressure when I open the cap. When the engine is hot, there is obviously more pressure, and if I open the cap, the coolant level rises significantly.

The strange thing is that the coolant sometimes appears to come out around the expansion tank/cap area because the level rises and the system builds pressure. I have also seen coolant leaking underneath the expansion tank area after parking the car. The expansion tank is new, but it feels somewhat loose/poor quality to me.

When the engine is running and warming up, I can also see very small bubbles/foam-like bubbles in the coolant, especially around the return flow into the expansion tank. It looks like coolant and air are circulating together rather than being completely clear coolant flow.

The car can sometimes lose a noticeable amount of coolant, but the pressure test does not show an obvious external leak.

Because the head gasket and cylinder head have already been done, and the CO₂ tests were negative twice, I am trying to understand what else could cause this combination of symptoms.

In your opinion, what would be the most likely cause at this point? Could this be a cooling system circulation/bleeding issue, faulty tank/cap, trapped air, EGR cooler, oil cooler, thermostat/housing, or could combustion gases still be entering the system despite two negative CO₂ tests?

What would you check next before replacing any more parts?

Thanks, I’d really appreciate your honest opinion.

I had my car at the mechanic for 2 weeks they couldn’t figure out the sound, all i know is they didn’t take the tires off, my suspicion is that it’s something to do with the brakes, when i brake over a bump it goes away and i’ve even accelerated over a bump while lightly tapping the brake and the sound is still gone, my girlfriend and i both agreed the sound is the exact same on the driver and passenger side, neither side is louder or quieter, can anyone help? 2018 Ford Focus Hatchback SEL