Hello All:

It was very slushy here in MN for a couple of days. When I took my 2003 AWD XLS out, it seemed quite a bit of slush ended up underneath. Well, eventually, as I accelerated, it growled like a Harley and the power was way down (didn't accelerate very well). What gives? The next morning, it was fine - I think all the slush melted away. When it snowed and turned slushy again a few days later, the same thing happened. Any ideas as to what may be causing this?

I have 70,000 miles on it.

- TinkerMan

 

water in the muffler possibly?

 

That would have to be quite a bit of water, no? I have driven my car in quite a bit of water during the last year, when it rains by my house, the storm drains cannot handle the sudden surges of water from the downpour, and on more than one occasion the water level has risen to 8"+. I haven't had the misfortune of this occurance though. Hmmm, try posting this thread on the "Tech Help" section of the forum, probably get a lot more responses, the mods and admin don't really come in the Outlander portion of the forum that I've noticed.

 

Sounds like you had some slush all up in yr Outlander....if it went away the next day then that might have been it. I'd bring it in to get looked at just incase.

 

70K miles+No warranty= they find all kinds of things to "experiment" on before they actually find the problem. Maybe if you wait until it happens again and take it in, but I think if you take it in before then it'll be financial suicide...those vultures will be hovering over your carcass. You could of course, just get a second opinion after they tell you what is wrong, providing they don't tell you they need to do a computer diagnosis and charge you $80.

 

Yeah, I learned that suicide method the hard way. As you may recall, my fuel economy went down about 20% (suddenly), I also was hearing some grinding sounds like a wheel bearing was going bad and there what appeared to be a leak from the valve cover gasket. Well, I brought the Outie in and they did all sorts of diagnostics (including hooking up the computer which was $89). In the end, I paid $180 and all that was done was to replace the air filter and oil filler cap! The original problems that I brought the car in for were not fixed. Jeez!

I figured that my decrease in fuel economy will cost me about $300 per year in extra gas. If I brought it in to get fixed properly, it would cost me more than that. So, I might as well live with the poor fuel economy since fixing it will cost me more!

I love my Outie, but I think that the mechanics who work on them have no clue on how to fix cars.

- TinkerMan

 

Man....maybe I have something wrong too. My gas milage is just the worst!!!

 

Well, I gassed up today and recorded 18.3 mpg. So sad, I used to get about 22+ mpg with the same type of driving before early December. Almost overnight, it dropped to the current abysmal levels. Pity, because out of all my former cars, this one and my 1994 Acura Integra seemed to rank highest on my "fun to drive" factor - and I've owned some nice cars such as Audi A4 and Infiniti G35. The reason why I rank these higher because I look at not just the performance, but also the price that I paid for them (got them brand new), maintenance costs, etc. Sure, the A4 and Infiniti are high performance cars, but the cost of these are over twice as much as the Integra and Outlander (I got the Outlander used with 22,000 miles - so it was cheap - mitsus seem to depreciate like crazy - good for used car buyers!). I don't feel that the performance of those 2 "high performance" cars is worth twice the cost. Maybe 50% more maximum, but not twice! Cars now are overpriced!

Back to the fuel economy issue. Many of the mechanics think that it is because of the winter fuel blends. Well, in previous winters, I never experienced this type of fuel economy drop! They say to wait until the summer blends are being sold again to get better fuel economy - yeah right! Bozos!

 

Try putting in a bottle of fuel additive, see if that helps any. Maybe your all crudded up. For a few dollars, try the Lucas fuel additive.

 

I put a bottle of fuel injector cleaner last month with no effect, unfortunately.

I'm having an oil change next Tuesday and will have them check out my wheel bearings. Finally it is making a loud enough noise for any person who is not deaf to hear. Previously (a month ago), I could hear the grinding sound, but the mechanics could not hear anything - therefore there was nothing for them to change, they said. If they hear it, change the bad bearing and my fuel economy goes back to "normal", I would be so happy! I have a feeling it is one of the rear bearings - at least it sounds that way, but it's kind of hard to tell.

Hard to believe that I'm saying "My wheel bearing is finally making a strange noise"!