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Bobby MSME

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Bobby MSME last won the day on September 4 2022

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About Bobby MSME

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  1. Like I said before, my first new car had manual tranny. It was very good in rural areas away from traffic. But driving in traffic to work everyday in Chicago was a very bad idea with manual tranny. You are going to wear out the clutch or the throw out bearing. Slushbox automatic is great for driving in traffic since the power is transmitted through liquid oil which does not wear anywhere near as fast as a friction disk which is the clutch. I have owned dozen different cars all with automatic slushbox tranny's, and never had a transmission problem driving for 55 years and a few million miles.
  2. Now 4.5 years old, my 2017 Spark LS tranny & engine are still running like a well oiled machine. It starts at the flick of the ignition key, idles smooth as butter, and still has enough power to keep up with traffic at 70MPH. The only problem I have noticed is if car is coasting at low speed (typically 5-15 mph) without foot on gas pedal, and if I press the gas pedal suddenly, the engine rev's up but the CVT does not catch up quickly and accelerate. That is the ONLY scenario when the CVT does not respond quickly. So I have learned to never stomp on the gas pedal at less than 20 m
  3. Buy automatic tranny next time. I have bought only those since 1967. Never had trouble with any of the many.
  4. My 2017 Spark has no such smell. May be an issue with some material used in 2015 models?
  5. The battery in our 2011 Chevy HHR is 10 years old, the car has 61,000 miles and was purchased new in 2011. The battery is still working good, so not gonna replace it. The car was always garage kept but has seen wet & cold weather in WA state for many years. So why has the battery lasted 10+ years? My best guess is it is located FAR FAR away from the hot engine. It is actually in the rear under the trunk (HHR has a hatch in rear). So in my 2017 Spark LS, with CVT, I covered the battery with insulation pads. Will be interesting if this tiny battery will last 7+ years
  6. In my younger years I must have changed 100's of spark plugs. Never used any torque wrench. All I did was tighten the spark plug with the usual manual wrench with gentle force. Never had an issue. Spark plug is not subjected to mechanical load. Just has to be tight enough so it does not get lose from engine vibrations. Torque values should not matter much here. But I never had to deal with a spark plug and coil combo situation. I have designed thousands of bolts subjected to extreme loads. There it was critical to torque the bolts to create tensile pre-stress in th
  7. I never had such issue recently with electronic ignition. But had that issue frequently in years gone by with cars which had the old fashioned distributor. Moisture would get inside the distributor during night parking and the car would not start in the morning. Replacing the distributor cap would fix the problem.
  8. I never floor the gas pedal at speeds below 60 mph. At car speeds above 60 mph, the CVT does NOT get confused and accelerates car smoothly. Only problem I have had for 4 years is when coasting at around 10-15 MPH and then pressing hard on gas pedal. In that situation the engine gets rev'ed up but the CVT belt just slips and thus car does not accelerate. So I have learned to NOT stomp on the gas pedal when car is coasting under 20 MPH speed. The controlling computer program has bugs in this situation. A gradual pushing down of gas pedal works just fine. Ab
  9. My daughter and her 6'-1" boy friend visiting for a week fit comfortably in the back seats of my 2017 Spark LS. With caveat my wife was in front seat and she is only 5'-2" and had her seat adjusted forward. Best part was finding parking space in my tourist town was much easier than our SUV.
  10. I have known that since I started driving in 1962, that under powered engines yield lower MPG in city driving. The 1.4 is better suited for the Spark in my opinion.
  11. After almost 4 years of driving my new purchase 2017 CVT Spark, I am reaching the conclusion that this tranny is NOT designed for hot rodding. Mine works great so long as I don't stomp on the gas pedal. Even at road speed of 60 mph, gentle acceleration causes no shudder and the car has no problem reaching 75 mph quickly. But I am AVOIDING stomping on gas after decelerating to under 30 MPH. That is when the CVT acts most confused. FWIW.
  12. Thank you all posters...I expected many posters with few MECHANICAL problems with their Spark. The Apple play stuff is something GM probably bought as an assembly so unfair to blame GM. My Spark 2017 is 3.5 years old and does lots of short runs under 5 miles. Mileage is low but I am happy about zero leaks, zero breakdowns, zero fail to start, zero CEL's (check engine light) etc. STarts at the flick of the switch and runs like a clock every time.
  13. MY 2017 Spark LS has expired the bumper to bumper warranty, after 3 years. Still has the power train warranty in effect for about 2 more years. The Spark runs like it was when new, and has only 18,000 miles on it. Is it worthwhile to buy extended warranty for this car? Warranty is bumper to bumper but has $100 deductible for each repair. Warranty will last for 5 years from sign up, or 70K miles max. Cost $195 down, $89/month for 36 months. -or- $3408 up front. Any opinions will be appreciated.
  14. I am no hands on mechanic, but do have a degree in mechanical engineering. I have replaced brake pads only once in my life by myself, since with my driving habits, I rarely need to replace brake pads. It was on a chevy nova with all drum brakes. It was not difficult even for a novice mechanic like me. I understand disc brake pads are easier than drum brake pads to change. Here is a video to help with disc brake pads replacement. Video for drum brakes:
  15. I miss the cars of 1960's which had almost no sensors and therefore less headaches. So long as the car started quickly and ran without loud sounds or bad vibrations, we just kept driving them and nothing bad would happen. Your problem in particular seems more annoyance than real problem. So long as the car is not overheating, or you can not get enough heat inside the car during cold weather, if I were you, I would just keep driving with existing thermostat.
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