My wife and I come from the era of 60’s VWs where if you stepped on the clutch or the accelerator and nothing happened you got out your coil of tie wire tied it to the broken cable end pulled it through tied it off and were back on the road.
She bought a 2008 Aveo to save on gas. She was getting over 40mpg until she added 25lb of emergency tools and another 25lb of emergency food and water.
She went out to drive to the post office and came back in and said the throttle cable is broken. Can you come help me figure out how to fix it? I open the hood and stick my head in there while she steps on the accelerator; nothing moves; the engine speeds up about 100 rpm according to my practiced ears from adjusting idle on a carburator. But in examination of the throttle body I found the problem. There is a 1/16th inch plastic tube that runs from one end of the throttle body to the other but there is a 2 inch gap in the middle with a rat turd in its place.
I scrounged up a piece of 1/4 inch tubing that fit tight on the 1/16th and she was good to go.
Does the Aveo have a throttle cable or is it all electronic?
Should my wife stop carrying 25lb of tools in the car?
P.S. she has added a rat trap to the car kit.
I got really good at driving my old VW Bus without a clutch when I had a series of clutch cable failures in rapid succession. Those were the days!
If you can’t locate a throttle cable it’s a pretty good bet this is a drive-by-wire car. Ask your mechanic or Chevy dealer to be sure.
The rats aren’t after the tools, but they might be going after the 25 lbs of food. How long does your wife plan on being stranded? Does she really need that much?
Rodents are also known to chew the insulation from wires, and sometimes chew right through the wire itself. This can wreak all kinds of electrical havoc, especially under the hood.
I would want to trap them BEFORE they get to the car.
Good luck.
Funny.
As a surprise, I went to my girlfriend’s work and found her VW bus which had no heat.
Lying on ice in the parking lot, I found and wired open her hot air inlet. The cable had broken.
As I was placing tools in my car parked on the street, she came out and drove away!
I don’t recall if she was surprised at having heat.
Just because the heater boxes were wired open doesn’t mean the Bus had heat.
She probably never noticed the difference. I used to scrape frost off the inside of the windshield all winter.
Wasn’t it nice to be able to slide under a Bus and work on it without having to raise it with a jack?
Yes. T’was nice having clearance!
Often I must park a vehicle straddling the gutter.
That’s when the neighbor’s sprinkler up hill comes on.
25lbs of tools isnt hurting anything
More weight means more fuel and pollution.
Take only what’s needed.