The tasters last comment- good thing we didn’t step in it.
If you’re old enough you may recognize the reference.
Personally I wouldn’t put anything that came out of something’s ( or someone’s ) tailpipe in my mouth. YMMV.
It never bothered me to taste fluids as long as they’re clear, but Dag is right, it might trigger a reaction in someone else.
Hey, it’s oxygen, hydrogen, H2O, carbon, nitrogen, and NOx. I figure I’n a carbon based lifeform that’s mostly water anyway. As long as there’s no ethelyn glycol in there, I’m comfortable.
People are afraid to put a little liquid on their tongue from a vehicle to taste it to see what it is.
But then they have no problem in eating a McRib and ingesting it!
Go figure!
Tester
It’s certainly not a matter of fear. Rather, I think it’s unwise and unnecessary. Frankly, if I ever saw a professional stop by my vehicle’s tailpipe for a diagnostic tasting, I’d be inclined to exit as soon as possible.
Me too, TT, but we’re not talking about doing diagnostic testing here, only the OP checking to see if the tailpipe drip is actually water. There’s no indication that any problem exists.
Tasting tailpipe emissions is a form of diagnostic testing. You’re perfoming a test to ascertain the composition of the fluid. I’d be curious to hear your definition of diagnostic testing.
I hooked up my scanner to the OBD computer to determine what codes existed but I didn’t do any diagnostic testing, I’m just trying to determine if the CEL is due to an O2 sensor error. This would seem to be analogous to your position, right?
Regardless, I’d prefer to rely on my sense of vision, smell and touch without resorting to tasting any fluids eminating from my vehicles…
TT, if you consider this to be diagnostic testing, than can I assume you’d be willing to ask money from someone to do it? I wouldn’t.
Nope it would not be analogous. Diagnosis suggests to me any and all testing and analysis done to determine the root cause of a problem. Diagnosis can be as simple as looking for glaze on a fanbelt to locate the source of a screech on acceleration, or as in-depth as analyzing oscilloscope traces to determine a faulty coi or an erratic sensorl, but it always involves some known or suspected problem. When you plugged in your scanner to try to determine the cause of the CEL, you were doing diagnosis.
For this situation, if the fluid upon tasting suggests that a problem exists, then the diagnosis begins.
Having said that, I’ve already admitted that tasting the fluid was not a good recommendation of mine.
Wow. I didn’t say you had to do it. I only said that you could do it. I figured you were all smart enough to decide what you would and wouldn’t do. I’ve actually only gone that far once, a long way from home, and with very few actual tools. I was trying to figure out if I had antifreeze mixed in with something, so was the motor dead or could I get it started. It was so long ago I don’t even remember the details…I’ve had a lot of crappy cars in my life.
TSM, c’mon now. The diagnosis begins the minute you start assessing ANY condition on the car. Of course your tasting is not the entire diagnosis or definitive on its own but if you’re doing it it’s absolutely part of your diagnostic procedure. I said DIAGNOSTIC TESTING. That’s a process not a conclusion.
It shouldn’t take careful reading to see i am against the practice and therefore no i wouldn’t be charging for it. Can’t for the life of me figure how that question arose.
This all started for me when an admitted professional mechanic said tasting was a valid and acceptable practice. The rest of you tasters are just plain crazy 
We’re quibbling over semantics, my friend.
I’ve already admitted that in hindsight I’ve reversed my decision to support tasting as a recommendation, although I personally have no problem doing it.
And I’ve already admitted to being crazy.
Our only disagreement now is whether or not tasting constitutes a diagnostic act. Call it a diagnostic if you’d like, I’ll call it a pre-diagnostic taste-test, and we’ll both be happy.
Okay; I’ll go with water, and leave the tasting to the pros. Er, ah.does that include wine? Many thanks to all, especially for the lessons in chemistry. Anyway, the car is still running. Happy Holidays!!