The Dad Advice Thread

[Marie Monday]

lmao not a Kia Soul, that takes me way back to this good old bit of cringe

[music_collector]

I've changed sparkplugs before. It's one of the more straightforward things to change in a car these days.

[WWWP]

I’ve ordered the correct spark plugs, and now only need a few tools to complete the job. I found out AutoZone will let you borrow tools so I will update on Saturday once I get in there.

[GD]

Originally Posted by Marie Monday

lmao not a Kia Soul, that takes me way back to this good old bit of cringe

Is it weird that this will still randomly pop into my head even tho I haven't seen it for probably 10 years lmao

[SGR]

Originally Posted by GD

Is it weird that this will still randomly pop into my head even tho I haven't seen it for probably 10 years lmao

"there's nowhere in my car to plug my iPod in..."

I feel that same struggle, but now it's with new vehicles thanks to bluetooth becoming the be all/end all to music device interfacing. When I bought my Mercedes a couple years ago, whether it had a way to plug my iPod classic in was a determining factor for me (and it did).

I still run my iPod when I'm listening to music in the car, a much smoother and less distracting experience. The only thing worse than not having a way to plug my iPod in is having to use a god-awful touchscreen, the bane of modern vehicle media centers. IT HAS NO HAPTIC FEEDBACK, HOW CAN I USE IT WHEN IM DRIVING?!?

Thankfully, most manufacturers are coming to their senses - Mazda has eseentially axed any touchscreens for future models. They're waking up....slowly.

[GD]

Originally Posted by SGR

I still run my iPod when I'm listening to music in the car, a much smoother and less distracting experience. The only thing worse than not having a way to plug my iPod in is having to use a god-awful touchscreen, the bane of modern vehicle media centers. IT HAS NO HAPTIC FEEDBACK, HOW CAN I USE IT WHEN IM DRIVING?!?

Thankfully, most manufacturers are coming to their senses - Mazda has eseentially axed any touchscreens for future models. They're waking up....slowly.

tell me about it. in my neck of the woods there's actually been proposed a ban on any new cars with touchscreens (because of traffic safety concerns)

[WWWP]

Things are going well - I've removed all of the bolts and cylinders and have all the right bits and pieces.

On the third cylinder, the bolt is broken off in the thing that it gets threaded into (see image below). My question at this juncture is whether or not I can proceed with changing out the spark plugs and dealing with extracting that broken bolt piece later? Perhaps zip tying down the cylinder in the meantime so it can't jostle loose?

[Plankton]

Zip tie the cylinder? What?

No. DO NOT ZIP TIE ANYTHING.

Are you saying a piece of the mounting bolt fell down into the motor? If so, and you can see it, get a magnetic extractor tool, otherwise you'll need to remove the head cover. Thats another entire can of worms.

If you leave that piece of metal in there, you'll destroy the motor.

[WWWP]

No, nothing fell in. The bolt that fastens the cylindrical piece that sits over the spark plug broke off when I was trying to remove it. There are no unaccounted for pieces, I’m just wondering how important it is that the plastic cylinder be fastened by bolt in the short term.

[WWWP]

I bring up zip ties because that’s what I found when I opened the hood!