rev up your engines today I'm gonna show you how to fix a car just moving the tires
around yes sometimes it's that simple now my rav4 customer has a problem it's
an older car ten years old it has 180 something thousand miles on
it so it's got where and the problem that they're complaining about is at
higher speeds when they break they feel like the car is losing control so you
have a problem where you feel you're losing control in your braking force
cars check the brake system you got to start logically a brake fluid is full
and when I look under the vehicle and check all the wheels the front can walk
around I check the back once inside and all I don't see any leaks well I figured
it probably isn't leaking because the fluid was full but you never know could
be starting to leak but they're bone-dry so they're not leaking and a
pull off the right front wheel to see what the brake pads look like okay yeah
this thing's still hubcap dinosaur technology here father go double-check
the brake pads we can see in here there's still plenty of thick they
really suck there's plenty of brake pads nothing's particularly worn this is just
surface Rust steel is always gonna rust so there's really nothing wrong with the
braking system there's not leaking fluid or anything anywhere and when I pull on
the whole assembly it doesn't wobble back and forth so the tie rods good and
up and down it doesn't wobble so the ball joints good now this is an old car
it's got the original struts on it this is just a dust car it's real but it
strut itself it's dry it's not leak now here's where most dishonest mechanics
are gonna take you for a ride don't say oh you got 180,000 miles your struts
are worn out now I'm sure they're worn it's got
hundred eighty thousand miles on them but I took it for a spin it rode good
when you hit bumps it didn't particularly bounce around too much the
only problem it really has is at higher speeds when your brake doesn't feel
right it doesn't feel stable now of course with the jack up and air and
check this side too but it doesn't have any play either really
and again the strut as you can see in here the Rubber dust cover is ripped again
but the strut itself it's dry it's not leaking but as I said a lot of mechanics
they see it cars ten years old 180,000 miles they're gonna sell a set a very
expensive struts that a customer saying oh that's why the struts went out but
in this case that is not what's happening, now if sometimes the
back struts are worn that'll make it handle weird when you brake at high
speeds but hey we push on it doesn't particularly bounce it doesn't have bad
rebound on either side when you force you thing it's still pretty stiff for a
car it's got a hundred and eighty something thousand miles on when you
start up and look doesn't have any particular warning lights on the only
warning I was the airbag which was checking itself and turned off so
there's no kind of warning with the brake system well but what could be
possibly wrong at this thing feels like it's kind of losing a bit of control
when you brake at high speeds well understand this when you brake your car
where is the braking occurring the brake squeeze the rotors but what's actually
stopping the car if you guessed tires you're right tires hitting the
ground that's what's stopping your car and if you have any type of problem
especially with the front tires being worn maybe being out around when you
brake at higher speeds you're gonna feel that now of course check the tire pressure
on all four time something that's as dumb as differential tire pressure you can
cause all kinds of squirrely stuff when you brake hard but in this case all four
tires we're pretty close to 32 and a half PSI so it's not the tire pressure
in this case so let's check the tires take a close look well when we look at
the back ones we see these are really pretty new tires see they still got
these little nubs for the moulds they've got a lot of tread and they're an
excellent shape in the back on the left and again on the right there so you can
see the little molding now they're still sticking out let's go to
the front is the right front door you can see ethanol's knobs are worn off and
even though it's got red they're not in as good shape as the back ones works and
we go to the drivers front tire we see the same thing you can see here there's
one little hub here but the other ones are broken off this tire has more wear
the back ones do which isn't surprised on any modern car most cars are
front-wheel drive the front tires drives the car they wear out more cuz they're
pulling stuff they also do over 90% of the braking and when you corner they're
leading into the corner so if you got tires that are weaker in the front a lot
of times you're gonna feel that when you do harder braking now I've had this
personal argument for years with the supposed to tire experts and they say in
modern cars put the best tires on the back well that's a load of baloney now
of course you want four good tires that's common sense you don't want to be
driving on bad cars but when you look at this car as I took the right front tire
out to check the brakes you can see it's no got tons of tries it's not like a
normal tires but the back ones are indeed newer and in better shape so
there's nothing wrong and putting these still decent tires in the front on the
back and putting the ones that look brand new in the back to the front
because let's face it you brake more on the front tires the front tires wear out
faster than the back tires they also have to have the best traction for
taking off without the tire slipping I had an argument years ago with my matrix
there it would slip when you took off fast especially was a little bit wet
outside and it had really old tires that were seven years old on but I thought
well I'll change just the front ones so they'll have better grip and they won't
slip and it'll ride better right so I go to the tire place and say I want two new tires
on this in the front and following the stupidity of many companies these days
they didn't listen to a word I said and they sold me two new tires but they
put them on the back I got in the car I said I want them in the front
I don't want them in the back and they said no we put the good tires on the
back and the other ones on the front that's our policy
I said well your policy is nonsense brought it on I don't have a tire
machine so I can't take tires off rims and change them I just took the new
tires they put on the back put them in the front and put the old front ones in
the back now yeah maybe I should have bought all four new tires but the other
tire still had about 80 percent of their tread left on it because we don't drive
that much to 3,000 miles a year so they had plenty of tread life but I didn't
like them slipping so with these brand new tires on the front of the matrix guess
what it didn't slip any more when I accelerated hard whether it was rained
whether it was uneven pavement it stopped the slipping by putting the good
tires on the front and not the back and then the case of this rav4 I mean
all fronts tires still do have a ton of tread on it just like my matrix so I'm
gonna put the front ones in the back and the back ones in the front so I'll put
the front on Jack's stand and jack the back up in the air and take off the tire take
off the hubcap again let's swap the tires roll it out of the way and get the new tire
these electric impact wrenches are good for taking tires on and off they
all get them too tight and here comes a wayward tire I will Jack it back up in
the front do the other side cut up and far then we jack up the other side in
the back and we'll swap these tires hey here comes the one that used to be a
frog now it's going on the back you see these are different hubcaps
the original ones have the toyota emblem the other ones are aftermarket
but you can only see one side of the car at a time so who cars then the tire that was on
the rear is going on the front now we reach under get the jack stand off and
let it down and take it for a ride away we go
you're not when we break at higher speeds guess what it just stops nice and
straight the only problem here is the noise you
hear because I stopped so fast and activated the anti-lock brakes because
it's cold and slippery this morning that has nothing to do with the problem
that's just the ABS kicking it if I stop a little slower here you'll see you
don't hear any of the noises that was just the ABS activating you get an old car like
this yeah they're gonna make noise even my wife's Lexus if you slam on it real
hard abs will make weird noises as its activating so now you've seen how
sometimes something as simple as moving your tires from the front to the back
and the back the front can solve a problem that you had and here's some
bonus questions and answers Bernie's a fool says got an 01 Ford Taurus I
don't have any power brake assist it's just like a rock and I got a push super
hard to make it stop when you don't have any power assist
there's one of two things wrong either the brake booster itself has gone
bad or it's not getting vacuumed 2001 so it's a 19 year old car so what you want
to do is check that hose that goes to the brake booster on it there's a check
valve sometimes the check valve goes bad so if you pull off and suck in it's
you're an open then if you suck on the other side it should close if that's
not work and replace that it could be that simple that's okay follow the hose
down it then clamps onto the intake manifold which is where the vacuum
pressure sucks in to make it work the thing is 19 years old the hose could easily be
cracked somewhere and then sucking air and you won't have any boost now if all
that's okay then your power booster shot and you'd have to get another one at
least it's a Ford Taurus 2001 you can get remanufactured boosters you don't
have to buy the five $600 brand new one the rebuilt ones work perfectly fine you
can get them all day long for a hundred something bucks you don't have to buy
the brand new super expensive one those been out so long that guys rebuild them
all the time so if you never want to miss another one
of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell