upgrades, gas mileage, performance

[heartfire9]

New to the site. Looking for advice. I have a 2004 base. I have loved this car. The only upgrades have been Michelin pilot tires and AR rims. I have 105,000 miles with no problems. Well, wait, I do have one. A strange tapping in the dash. Goes away at freeway speed. (Or, maybe I just don't hear it then.) A knowledgeable friend says it may be the fuel filter mounts may have come loose. Comments??? I will be moving across the US in a few months and want to tune up, spiff up and generally give her some good attention. I was thinking spark plugs, wires, distributor cap etc. Anything I can do to make her run better. Not looking for out of specs kind of stuff. Just running better. Air intake change???? Any input greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[keithvibe]

Quote, originally posted by heartfire9 »New to the site. Looking for advice. I have a 2004 base. I have loved this car. The only upgrades have been Michelin pilot tires and AR rims. I have 105,000 miles with no problems. Well, wait, I do have one. A strange tapping in the dash. Goes away at freeway speed. (Or, maybe I just don't hear it then.) A knowledgeable friend says it may be the fuel filter mounts may have come loose. Comments??? I will be moving across the US in a few months and want to tune up, spiff up and generally give her some good attention. I was thinking spark plugs, wires, distributor cap etc. Anything I can do to make her run better. Not looking for out of specs kind of stuff. Just running better. Air intake change???? Any input greatly appreciated. Thanks. tapping or squeakingcopied from http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=9977 STEP 8: PREVENT RATTLES BEFORE THEY DEVELOPMany have commented on rattles within the dash, located directly in front of the driver. While I have never experienced these rattles, VibeOwner was kind enough to point out that he traced the rattle back to the Cruise Control module. That module is visible in this picture as the silver boxI removed this box, and placed a piece of Armaflex directly over the hole the box screwed into.I then rescrewed the box down over the armaflex, so at no point did the metal of the box bracket contact the metal of the dash. This screw WILL NOT tighten beyond a certain point and will continue to twist freely. I sense this may be a reason rattles eventually develop. Anyway, don't worry, it's a design flaw.* Another potential source of squeaks is the passenger side air vents. As you can see in this picture, the vents are simply screwed onto each other, making it possible they can rub back and forth, yielding a squeak.The fuel filter is built in to the gas tank... so your friend is well, ummm wrong lolThe car.. heck all new cars don't have a distributor cap anymore. but you can change out the air filter, plugs, wires, cabin filter.If you want to go with a Cold air intake, you will need to buy one that is carb legal being you will live in cally.100,000 miles... you will want to change out the fluids as well. coolant flush, new hoses, new thermostat. if your are an automatic your well over due for a transmission fluid change. If your a manual you over due on that as well.

[WaveAction]

i got some rattles under my dash too..but dont wanna rip out the whole thing like whoever above did..i'd be too afraid to mess something up..

[heartfire9]

Thanks for the feedback. I have done the transmission,(automatic), flushed out the radiator and such around 50k and will do those again. I am moving away from CA to North Carolina in June. I don't have to worry about CA laws then. What can I do to improve gas mileage without sacrificing performance??? As far as the "noise" in the dash. I tried turning off all the fans. It is a rythmic tapping. Not a squeak, not rubbing. I tried turning on and off the wipers to see if there was a connection there. None. I definetly don't want to rip out the dash, but also don't want to pay someone for this kind of work. Saving money for other work, tires, etc. Is there a seperate cabin fan that always runs where the cabin air filter is?? I thought it seemed to be coming from the cabin air filter area. Maybe I will check that out. No distributor. LOL!!! OPPS!!!

[joatmon]

some vehciles have a central coil and ignition module, with spark plug wires running to each plug, and after a large number of miles, those plug wires may need to be replaced. However, these cars have "coil on plug" which means that there are no spark plug wires to replace, there are four ignition coils, one directly connected to each spark plug. I wouldn't normally expect one of those to go bad or need to be replaced as part of a tune upQuote, originally posted by heartfire9 » As far as the "noise" in the dash. I tried turning off all the fans. It is a rythmic tapping. Not a squeak, not rubbing. I tried turning on and off the wipers to see if there was a connection there. None. I definetly don't want to rip out the dash, but also don't want to pay someone for this kind of work. Saving money for other work, tires, etc. Is there a seperate cabin fan that always runs where the cabin air filter is?? I thought it seemed to be coming from the cabin air filter area. Maybe I will check that out. Some peoeple have had failures with the motor assembly that moves the recirculate door open and closed, resulting in a tapping sound only affected by turning recirculate on and off, check out http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=24332

[heartfire9]

Thanks much. I would bet this is it after looking at the pics and hearing the descriptions of the type of sound it is and where it is coming from. Thanks for the info on coils and wires and plugs.

[heartfire9]

Just wanted to let you know. It IS the recirc motor/sensor problem. I figure for now, I will leave it in the position that the sensor is still working. At some point I will deal with it. Thanks for the info.