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" Q: I own a 2000 model Chrysler Town &amp;amp;amp; Country with a 3.3 liter engine. We bought it used with 80K miles on it. I love the vehicle, it runs well and rides like a dream. But since the day we bought it it has had a problem starting. It has never failed to start but it has to work to get there nearly every time. The starter turns over quickly (as it should) and it cranks for a good 4-5 seconds (more on bad days) before it starts, and when it does the smell of good old unleaded permeates the cab. I&amp;#039;ve had people tell me they stopped at a light behind me as we were leaving work and they could smell the fuel from inside their vehicle. I replaced all of the injector O rings. No help. I&amp;#039;ve taken the problem to our local shop and was taken for a fuel pump. No help. A second shop tried to tell me there was a recall on it for a cracked fuel rail. Chrysler&amp;#039;s web site and my local dealer both deny this. Any clues? A: From the symptoms, I&amp;#039;d say it&amp;#039;s a leaky fuel injector dripping fuel into the manifold after shutoff. After the engine has cooled off, start it and run it for a few seconds. Now pull the injectors one at a time and see if any of them have wet tips. If, so, I&amp;#039;d try a fuel-injector cleaning machine. If you can beg or borrow a fuel pressure gauge, attach it to the Schrader valve on the fuel rail and see if the system retains pressure after shutoff or if it bleeds down. Q: I read and enjoy your column in the Boston Globe every Sunday. My husband and I recently purchased a large tract of land in the country; it looks like a pickup truck is in our future. We&amp;#039;d love to be able to get by with a compact truck, but are wondering what your thoughts are regarding whether a compact is up to the task of plowing our 300-foot-long paved driveway. We&amp;#039;re finding that putting a plow even on some new full-sized trucks would void the truck&amp;#039;s warranty! Thanks for any advice and recommendations you might offer. A: I think you could manage it, if you use a compact-truck-sized plow. Q: I have a question in regard to AmsOil synthetic 0W-30 formula motor oil that is supposed to go for 25,000-35,000 miles. What can you say about AmsOil&amp;#039;s reputation? Do you know or have you done any testing on AmsOil products? Do you know if the claim they make about oil life is accurate and the additive package lasts for the given mileage? There is another brand - Synlube - that claims even longer mileage life. What do you think about these long interval oils? A: AmsOil is an excellent product. I use it in my race car. I&amp;#039;m not familiar with Synlube, so I have no comment. No oil, no matter how excellent it is, can last 25,000 miles without being changed. It&amp;#039;s not a matter of the oil degrading or the additive package being exhausted--and I don&amp;#039;t believe it&amp;#039;s possible to build an additive package with that kind of endurance--but more a matter of contaminants like unburned fuel atmospheric dirt and wear particles from the engine building up in the crankcase and diluting and contaminating the oil. Q: Please explain the difference between &amp;quot;Slip&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Non-Slip&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Limited Slip&amp;quot; axles. Given the choice of 3.5 or 3.7 or 4.1, which is better for gas mileage, or towing or long distance driving? A: Generally, the taller (lower numerically numbered axle) ratios provide the best economy. Exception would be a heavily laden truck that can&amp;#039;t pull a trailer or weight without downshifting to a lower gear for more power. I can make a better recommendation if you provide me with more info. Q: I have a heated garage here in MA and an air compressor too. I never think to check my tire pressure when the tires are cold, I only think of it after I&amp;#039;ve driven. I then forget again 8 hours later. Instead of trying to compute the addition/subtraction of 2 to 3 p.s.i. above the actual pressure in your tires (with the barometric pressure changes and then the variable of a heated garage), is it permissible to raise the car off the ground a few inches, bleed all the air out of each tire then refill to the target pressure? If that works, I think that&amp;#039;s a much more accurate way of arriving at the target pressure. Does the tire get hot after driving or is it the air inside the tire that gets hot which falsely elevates the p.s.i. reading?  A: The tires get hot, which heats the air inside them. Taking the load off the tires by jacking them up won&amp;#039;t make much difference, nor will bleeding them down.  Here&amp;#039;s what to do: Check and set the pressures cold at least once. And that means after a few hours outside in the cold, not in your heated garage. Then drive the car about 10-15 miles and check the pressure, which will be higher than the cold pressures. Now you know what the exact offset will be. I like to check pressures every couple of months as the weather changes, because a tire inflated to 32 psi in the summer will have as much as 5 psi less in the cold of winter, and vice-versa. Q: I changed out my brakes and now my abs and parking brake lights won&amp;#039;t go out and the brake pedal is soft on my 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab. I check the brake lines and there is no air in the lines and yet my brakes are still giving me problems. What could the problem be? A: I&amp;#039;ll bet you didn&amp;#039;t bench-bleed the master cylinder. There&amp;#039;s air trapped inside the master cylinder that&amp;#039;s almost impossible to remove with normal manual bleeding procedures.  It&amp;#039;s called bench bleeding because new master cylinders, which have no brake fluid whatsoever, can be bled before they&amp;#039;re installed. You can perform this procedure with the m/c installed on the car.  Get a pair of bleed tubes. You can buy these at the auto parts store, but all you need is a single 18&amp;#039;&amp;#039; steel brake line. Cut it in half and deburr both cut ends. You can hacksaw it, but I usually use a tubing cutter, the same kind you use on copper water pipe. Clean thoroughly to remove any metal shavings. Install both lines into the m/c&amp;#039;s outlet ports, and bend the free end of the tubing up and over until it&amp;#039;s inside the mouth of the brake fluid reservoir and submerged in brake fluid. Top off the reservoir with fresh brake fluid and pump the brake pedal its full excursion until the fluid being recycled is free of bubbles. Wait 5 minutes for any small air bubbles in the reservoir to settle, and repeat.  You now have removed all of the air from the m/c. Remove the bleeder lines, one at a time and reattach the car&amp;#039;s normal brake lines. Now you can bleed the calipers normally. Q: Just read the article about gas saving devices. All of which made sense except for the last one. The hydrogen generator should have worked if the O2 sensor had been modified to compensate for the added oxygen in the exhaust. I know several experimenters working on this system and they all say this is the last problem that needs to be overcome. The ECM senses more O2 in the exhaust ( lean condition ) and dumps more fuel into the mix. In reality the fuel is almost completely burned but still has excess O2 in the exhaust. 14.7 to 1 should not be a set in stone rule. Vehicles can run on leaner mixtures when HHO Gas is introduced into the combustion equation. I myself am working on my own HOD (Hydrogen on Demand) system. And yes, I am up against the O2 sensor as well. A: You&amp;#039;re wrong. When you electrolyze water to make HHO, (also known as Brown&amp;#039;s gas) you get not only oxygen but hydrogen, both of which are introduced into the intake. And when the plug fires, the extra oxygen will simply recombine with the extra hydrogen and gives you water vapor, not excess oxygen. You are right about one thing\u2014if the O2 sensor sees an extra proportion of oxygen in the exhaust, it will richen the mixture and decrease fuel economy. Not only that, you&amp;#039;ll only get about 20-30% of the energy in the Brown&amp;#039;s gas back by burning it in the engine, because most of the energy from the heat in the combustion chamber is lost before it gets to the rear wheels. Multiply that the losses in the alternator changing work, siphoned off the crankshaft, into electricity to power the hydrogen generator. The output of these hydrogen generators is far too small to provide any significant amount of hydrogen or oxygen, anyway. And one more thing: I never tested a hydrogen generator for that article, so you must have me confused with someone else. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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