Yeah, that’s my plan. Gonna keep the appointment tomorrow and get em replaced. I’ll see how it feels once they are replaced. Hopefully it resolves the problem.
I wouldn’t say I drove it commuter-style. I worked as a courier using this car for about 5 years now. Some days on the road totally suck when you drive around all day in big cities and deal with assholes, so every now and then I drove it quite hard. Thankfully, I’m otherwise a pretty mellow driver. I’ve read that driving cars hard every now and then is actually good for the engine, minus the broken engine mounts. Not sure how true that is.
Yeah that’s in the ballpark for the cost of the mounts. I am getting a fairly good deal at $990 I think. Looking forward to driving it after they’re replaced. I’m sure you can imagine how crappy it feels after 50k miles with 3 broken mounts.
If you still work as a courier, I’d recommend keeping this car on the road as long as possible. Delivery work is hell on cars, and my personal preference is to beat up an old car rather than torture a new one with that kind of thing.
Yeah that’s basically what I was thinking. I’m in the process of transitioning to a new job and I really only need this thing to last another 7 or 8 months. I think you’re right, all the starting and stopping has really done a number on it.
Haven’t been driving the car at all since I finally started my new work-from-home gig, but I drove it to the grocery store today and noticed after I got home that it was running-on or dieseling or whatever you call it. Lasted maybe 30-45 seconds. This is after my recent repairs where I had the power steering pump replaced, hose clamps replaced, and 3 engine mounts replaced.
This was happening immediately after I picked my car up from the shop, but at the time I thought I was hearing some machine in an apartment unit that was in front of where I parked. I remember trying to figure out what the heck I was hearing, thinking hmm it kind of sounds like my engine is still running? But it’s turned off… Maybe this apartment is being cleaned or repaired?
But yeah, today I heard it again and thought okay hold up… popped hood, and sure enough the engine was still running. Never had that happen before, and I’ve had every other car problem under the sun it feels like (most of which when I owned the '81 Volvo).
What are the odds, based on the timing, that this was caused by the mechanics? Maybe a less experienced technician goofed something up? I CANNOT keep throwing money at this thing. I’m just completely tapped out.
I can see dieseling with a carbed car as it sucks in fuel. A fuel injected car cannot suck in fuel since elec injectors are off? Or can someone explain that?
The odds are almost nil. Cars diesel because there’s gunk built up in the cylinders that stays hot enough to ignite the fuel/air mixture. You don’t often see it happen on modern vehicles for a number of reasons.
Are you sure the engine was running and not just the radiator fan, which will run after shutdown if the computer determines it’s necessary?
If you’re absolutely sure it was the engine, was it running smoothly or very rough? If it was running smoothly, then the problem is probably electrical - the car isn’t getting the message from the ignition cylinder to turn itself off.
If it was running rough then that’s probably dieseling, which again would be odd on a vehicle built in the 2000’s. Sometimes you can eliminate dieseling just by running some Seafoam through the car (follow the instructions on the can).
Hmm, well it did sound smooth so maybe the fan. That was actually my first guess until I looked it up and all I could find was info about engine continuing to run, so I made an assumption.
I guess I’m just wondering why it started immediately following these repairs if it wasn’t caused by them. Obviously could be a coincidence, but you can’t blame me for wondering.
Don’t know what the weather’s like where you are, but it was miserably hot here for a good long time. Really hot weather can make that fan run longer after shutdown, which makes it more likely you’ll notice it.
Also, there’s a bias factor after you get work done on a car: We naturally worry that the mechanic screwed something up and so we pay closer attention to what it’s doing after we get it back. That can make us notice things that have been happening for a long time, but we never heard/saw/smelled/felt it because we weren’t scrutinizing it.
I feel that I should urge you to get a new(er) car right now. You’ve lost confidence in this one, and every noise or vibration in the future is going to worry you.
The weather has been about 95-100 for months and months on end with high humidity, so no real sudden change there. Been steady since June basically.
I used to be a computer tech and the same logic that I’m using here used to kill me. It felt like someone was saying something to the equivalent of “ever since you fixed my toaster, my fridge suddenly isn’t working” and I would have to explain how deeply unrelated and purely coincidental the problems were.
Maybe I’m being the kind of customer I hate, but really I just dropped thousands of dollars AND they did a test drive and gave it a thumbs up, and then immediately I get home and turn it off and it starts doing that. So honestly it makes one wonder. I could be completely ignorant, and I have a rudimentary (at best) understanding of cars, so that’s likely. It just sucks really bad. I absolutely cannot afford to pay for any more repairs.
Regarding these two comments about me over-scrutinizing - sorry, but if I hadn’t been paying attention to changes my car would probably be inoperable right now. I think that’s kind of silly and bad advice to just ignore new symptoms. Obviously it doesn’t run as well as it used to, but sudden changes like this set off alarm bells in my head. If my car had ever seemed to run after turning off, even if it is just the radiator fan, which it probably is, then this wouldn’t be concerning. But the fact that it’s doing so for the very first time ever without a profound weather change (it’s actually been starting to cool down to low-mid 90s) immediately following a repair? I assumed many times that there were cars that were on around me when I got out of my car. I kept looking to see. I would park behind a car and hear what I thought was an engine running, but I wouldn’t see anyone in their car, so it was confusing until I realized it was coming from my car. I’m absolutely sure this has never ever happened before, because I was insanely confused when it did.
I’m not interested or able to drop money on a new car if this one is capable of running longer. My feelings and reaction to how it sounds and drives are meaningless and not a reason to get a new car. Doesn’t matter how confident I am, I need a professional to tell me they are confident in it. And he did. But my confidence in his assessment had diminished because of this new occurrence, combined with the smell that’s coming from under the hood, which smells strong and abnormal and concerning.
Edit to add: Sorry, that came off as so rude. I apologize… This is just stressing me out, on top of a million other stressors. I appreciate all the input here and don’t want to disrespect anyone for going out of their way to give advice.
Sounds like you had to deal with my mom. Every time I fix anything for her, anything else that breaks in the house over the next two weeks was probably my fault.
What I’d do in your situation is to first determine exactly what you’re hearing. After you turn the car off, do the gauge lights/etc turn off? If not, the engine may still be running.
Pop the hood while the noise is still happening and look at the serpentine belt. Is it moving? Then the engine is still running. If it’s not, the engine is not running. Then look at the radiator fan. Is it spinning? Then that’s what you’re hearing, and it’s nothing to worry about because it’s supposed to do that.
If you’re particularly concerned, leave the car alone for awhile and then come back out and see if the fan’s still running. If it is, there’s a problem, but if it’s not, then the fan was just doing what it’s supposed to do.
I can almost guarantee it did it in the past, and you just didn’t notice. It’s possible it’s doing it more now - maybe the car isn’t cooling as efficiently as it was when new (radiator fins get damaged over time, etc) and so there’s a little more heat to deal with after you shut it down, but as long as your temperature needle isn’t rising above its normal position, I wouldn’t worry.
Just a quick lil update - just got off the phone with mechanic. He asked if there was any leaks, and I realized that there had been a puddle of fluid under my car before driving it yesterday. In the moment I thought well surely that didn’t come out of my car, but then when he asked me, I realized that it had been parked throughout several heavy rainstorms, and surely the fluid DID come from my car. He thinks there’s a possibility that the smell is due to some fluid that is leaking and being burned off, and also that that’s why the engine is running hotter and in need of cooling after shutting off for the first time.
I don’t think it’s quite as likely as you think to have occurred before. Remember, I’ve been driving this thing for hours and hours every single day for years, turning the engine on and off up to like 80 times a day, often in very quiet, remote areas where I can hear very clearly if there was continuous noise coming from the vehicle, and I have never heard this before.
I think I mentioned it a few times in other comments, but I used my own car as an independent contractor delivery driver. Basically, delivering Amazon Prime packages. I was also a medical courier for a while, and I also did DoorDash here and there. But when doing Amazon deliveries, typical number of stops per day was 30-80, depending on how many routes I picked up. It varied wildly, as did the total driving distance and distance between stops. Sometimes you drive a block and sometimes you drive an hour between stops.
I think it is possible for dieseling to occur by the engine sucking crankcase oil into the intake manifold. IIRC this was a puzzler topic one time on the Car Talk radio show, although I think that particular car had a diesel engine. But maybe such a thing is possible on gasoline engines too. Maybe a mechanic could temporarily disconnect the PCV system, see if doing that had any effect. (A failing PCV system is a likely candidate for providing a pathway from the crankcase to the intake manifold.)
Another fun update: Took it to shop today and the radiator is cracked and leaking radiator fluid, which explains the overheating, the leak, and the smells. And also explains why, yes, the rad fan running was unusual for this specific car.
