My problem with Hyundai

Last year I bought a brand new Hyundai Sonata.  Below is a letter I recently wrote to them explaining my problems.  I sent it off around two weeks ago, still haven't heard anything from them, don't really expect to.  I would suggest you look for another brand if you're considering purchasing a Hyundai.

To Whom it May Concern,

On July 1, 2011, I purchased a Hyundai Sonata from the dealership in XXXXX, CA.  After a bit of negotiating, I was able to get it for what I believed to be a fair price.

I’m writing this letter to you to inform you why I’ve soured on Hyundai.

With the purchase of the vehicle, came a three month free trial of Sirius/XM radio.  While I didn’t really care if it came with the car or not, my wife and I tried it out.  We weren’t too impressed with the service.  My interaction with the sales representatives from Sirius/XM was very frustrating and troublesome.  They constantly harassed me at home by calling continually and bothering me.  I finally took one of their calls and had to just hang up the phone on them, they were very pushy and in my opinion, rude.  I know this has more to do with them than Hyundai, but your company is the one that decided to offer the three month free deal, so I hold you responsible.

Next came a couple of issues with the vehicle itself.  While on a trip from my home in XXXXX, CA to San Antonio, TX, I discovered that my speedometer was off by what I consider to be a large margin, about 2.8% or right at 40 miles in a 1340 mile one way trip.  While on this trip, we also got several warnings from the TPMS.  We had to stop several times to make sure we weren’t running on flat tires.

When we got home from this trip (we put on over 3000 miles), I brought the car in for it’s 7500 mile service.  I notified the Service Department of the issues and they told me they would check it out.  When the vehicle service was completed, I was told that nothing was going to be done about the speedometer since it was “within” specs.  According to the service manager, the engineers who figure all of that stuff out decided that the inaccuracy of the speedometer was acceptable to them.  I was also told that there was a wide spread problem with the TPMS on these cars and it might be to my advantage just to take the bulb out of the warning light.

The 2.8% inaccuracy in my speedometer is not acceptable to me.  Telling me to just take the bulb out of the dash to fix my TPMS problems is not acceptable either.  It is hard for me to believe in this day and age that a vehicle speedometer could be that far off right from the factory and you can’t get the TPMS to operate properly.

If in fact the problem with my speedometer is acceptable to Hyundai, if makes me wonder what else is going to be inaccurate or troublesome in the future and be acceptable to the company?

A couple of other issues that come to mind.  I always take good care of my vehicles.  I try my best to get them in for service in a timely manner.  I am doing this with the Sonata.  On my last oil change, I was promised a free car wash.  I called and made an appointment to have the oil changed.  Brought it in on time, and was told that the person who does the car washes was not there due to being out delivering parts.  Now, they told me I could wait, but when I asked, they said they didn’t know when he would return.  My time is worth something too.  I’m not going to wait around with no idea when I might get the car washed.  One last thing, every time I’ve brought the vehicle in for maintenance, they do a check of the tire pressures.  Every time I’ve brought the vehicle home, the tire pressures have been no where near the recommended pressures in the owners manual or printed on the drivers door “B” pillar.  This last time, I had the front left tire over inflated by 15 psi.  Apparently attention to detail is not common at this dealership service department.

When I purchased the vehicle, I gave my word to the Sales Manager that I would bring in my car there for service for at least a year because they were giving me such a “great deal”.  My word is my bond.  I planned on doing what I told him, but since they aren’t living up to their side of the deal, I don’t think I need to live up to my side any longer either.

I’m sure you can tell that I’m not a happy camper.  It is funny that a company that touts it’s vehicles so much refuses to stand behind them.

Instrument Cluster removal on an E34 BMW

This will probably be my last post concerning the two E34 BMW's I've owned and written about here. My Mom just turned 86 recently and decided that she doesn't want to drive any longer. She had a ten year old car that only had 26K miles on it that was in really good shape. She gave it to me, hence I no longer need the 95 525i that I've owned for the past four years.

The 95 BMW's registration was up for renewal, so I needed to get it smogged. These old BMW's can put you through the wringer when you try to smog them. I did what I had to do last time I smogged this car, new air filter, new plugs and fresh oil change. Took it down to the Smog Test place after driving it hard on the freeway for about 30 minutes to get it nice and warm. The Smog guy got to it in about 10 minutes, but it failed. Didn't know it at the time, but the "Check Engine" light was not working. In California, that is an automatic fail even if you pass the rest of the test, which I didn't.

On my way home from the Smog Test, I decided to just get rid of the car. I had a much nicer, newer vehicle to use and really didn't care what I could get for it. I called around to some local wrecking yards and got someone to give me $500 sight unseen. This was on a Friday afternoon. I then started thinking about this buddy of mine who enjoys working on cars and is quite a good mechanic. I talked to him at Church on Sunday and he said he would buy it for $500.

He picked up the car this morning.

Before I handed it off to him, I decided to go ahead and at least change out the bulb for the "Check Engine" light. I figured while I was in there that I might as well replace the Gear Shift indicator light in the dash that burned out a while ago. I had some of the bulbs for the dash for over a year.

So, this post is mainly to give you some extra photos to look at above and beyond what the Bentley manual shows (their photos aren't always the best quality).

If you came here looking for a complete "how to" on how to remove your cluster, you won't find it here. The Bentley manual has excellent instructions on how to do this. I'm just enhancing the procedure a bit with some color pictures that are clearer. If you don't have a Bentley manual, I would suggest buying one.

If you look in the Bentley manual under Instrument cluster, removing and installing (Section 620-2) it gives you the step by step for removing it.

To remove the cluster, you have to remove the drivers air bag and the steering wheel. The air bag removal instructions are in section 721 and the steering removal instructions are in section 320 of the Bentley.

Just make sure you disconnect the battery before you attempt any of this.

These pictures added below should help you during the process:

Once you have the battery disconnected, you need to remove the air bag. You need to unplug the connector under the steering wheel column to do that. The picture in the Bentley isn't real clear. In this picture, the yellow arrow points to that connector. It has orange on it as stated in the manual. I took the air bag out of the 93 525i I had and the plug seemed to be a bit different that the 95 525i. As long as it had ORANGE on it, that will be the right plug. If you remove the plug denoted in the picture with the green arrow before the air bag plug it makes the entire process easier.




Once you have those plugs disconnected, you are ready to remove the air bag. Just follow the instructions in the Bentley. My air bag used the T27 Torx to remove it.

Once the air bag is free from the steering wheel, you need to remove the plugs attaching it to the steering wheel. It's fairly simple to figure out what you need to do at this point.

With the air bag completely removed from the steering wheel, you can remove the steering wheel. Again follow the instructions in the Bentley.

With the steering wheel gone, the cluster comes out fairly easy. Follow the instructions to get the cluster out. Make sure that you cover the steering column with a towel or thick rag. I did, but didn't secure it as well as I should have and it fell off. While I was working on the cluster, with the towel gone, I ended up scratching the bezel to the cluster.

This next series of pictures show the cluster coming out.

This one shows the cluster still attached to the cables. The four green lines show the location of the plugs that plug into the back of the cluster:




This picture shows the cluster removed and the four cables that were plugged into the cluster (see green lines):



This pic shows the cluster out of the car. The picture is the back of the cluster. If you look at the plug sockets, you can see a small black lever to the left of each plug except for the second from the left. Those levers release the plug from the socket. This car is 17 years old and those levers are made of plastic. I tried my best to gently manipulate those levers, all but the one worked fine, the other one broke even though I was trying to do it as gently as possible.



These last two pictures show the location of the bulbs that I needed to replace. The first one is the "Check Engine" light, as you can see, there was no bulb there, that's why it wasn't working. The second pic is where the Gear Shift indicator light bulb is located.



Installation is reverse of removal. Just remember that you need to plug in those two plugs under the steering wheel. If you have any questions, leave me a comment or email me. Good Luck!

Good Bye to a Friend---

I just recently retired from my long time career as a Firefighter. With retirement came the opportunity to travel a bit more and see more of this beautiful country that we live in.

With the traveling came a desire to get a bit more reliable vehicle for the longer trips we would be taking. So it was with a bit of regret that I had to let the 93 BMW 525i go that I had been driving back and forth to work for over 18 months. Even though it had been about one step from the junk yard when I bought it, it served me well after I spent a lot of time and money on it to get it in decent shape. I was happy to have had it for the time I used it. It was a bit frustrating getting it fixed up, but fun at the same time. I learned a lot about E34 BMW's and myself while working on that car.

I know a guy who is a very good mechanic, that was looking for a vehicle for his family. I ended up giving it to him. The thing that made up my mind for me was the transmission threw a TRANS PROG+ code one day as I was doing some errands. I didn't want to sell it in that condition and didn't want to spend a bunch of money getting the transmission fixed. I offered it to my friend who jumped at the chance and he is now trying to figure out what is wrong with it exactly. Doesn't appear that the transmission is completely gone, may just be a bad sensor. Hope he gets it running and can keep it going.

So, I still have the 95 BMW 525i left that I did the Head rebuild on a couple of years ago. May be getting rid of that one too in the not too distant future. Anyone out there looking for a decent car for a fair price, hit me up, maybe we can make a deal.

Thermostat and Water Pump replacement on a 93 BMW 525i

I try and stay away from making posts about stuff that you can readily find in the Bentley manual. The information in the Bentley concerning the Thermostat and Water Pump are very adequate and if you follow that information you will be able to complete these jobs with no problem.

What I thought that I'd do in this post is give a few tips I've discovered while doing these jobs four different times now.

The reason I did the replacement of the thermostat and water pump so soon is because I developed a leak. Actually it was leaking for a good year or so, but only occasionally. Once in a while I'd notice some coolant on the ground, I couldn't tell where it was coming from exactly, but I knew it was from the front of the engine, so more than likely it was the water pump. I like to change out the thermostat when I do a water pump since I've got everything apart anyway, so I ordered the things I needed. I got a new water pump, thermostat and housing, radiator hoses and belts. I could tell the belts were getting wet from the leak and figured it would be a good idea to change them out too.

Here are some tips that should make your job a bit easier if you have the Bentley and follow it.

To get to the water pump and thermostat, you need to remove the fan and housing. They say you need a special tool to hold the fan pulley, but you don't really need it. I used a 1 1/4" open end wrench to loosen the fan nut. Remember, it is a left hand thread, so you turn it the opposite way to loosen it. Here is the tip you can use to get it loose without the special tool. If you look at the picture below, you can see where I've drawn the arrows. Take a mallet, I used a rubber one and hit it in the direction shown. It probably won't break loose the first time, maybe not even the 10th time, but it will eventually break loose. I started using a propane torch to heat up the fan nut so it would break loose easier. If it won't come loose without it, try the heat.

This pic shows the location of the fan nut without the wrench:


This pic shows with the wrench:


With the fan and housing removed, you can now proceed. Before you attempt to remove the thermostat housing or water pump, you need to drain the coolant out of the system.

Here are a couple of tips that might help.

First off, I jack up the front end of the car and put two buckets under the radiator, see pic:


Make sure all of your heater settings in the car are set to HOT, best way to do this is to turn on the key, turn the knobs and wait for about 30 seconds and then turn off the key. Then I open the radiator drain. I completely remove the drain plug and to do that, you have to remove the retaining pin (see pic, you may not have the retaining pin, one of my 525i's was missing it the first time I did this). It drains much faster without the plug in the hole.


Make sure you remove the radiator cap too so the coolant will drain quicker.

Once the radiator is drained, you still need to drain the rest of the coolant in the block.

You do this by removing the block plug. The block plug is located on the passenger side of the motor right between the exhaust headers. Depending on how much of the original shielding you have underneath your car you may have to remove several panels to let the coolant drain properly. Both my cars had only a couple of pieces of the shielding up, so it came apart easily.

This series of pics shows the location on the block plug:






Once the coolant is drained, you can finally get down to business.

This picture shows several different things. The location of the thermostat housing and it's bolts (red arrow housing, dots are bolt locations). Yellow arrow shows threads of water pump where fan attaches to, yellow dots show bolts that hold fan pulley to the water pump. White arrows show locations of the tensioner pulley's for the belts. You will use one of a few different things to remove the belts, either an allen wrench, torx wrench or socket wrench. Just depends on how your car is set up.


Once you have the belts and radiator hoses removed, you can work on taking the thermostat housing and water pump out. Thermostat housing is easy, just remove the four bolts. The water pump can be a bit more challenging, but not that bad. If you look in the Bentley, it tells you that you need two M6 bolts to draw the water pump out of it's seat once you have removed the four mounting nuts. I looked high and low for those M6 bolts the first time I did this job. I went to the local BMW Dealer and even they didn't really know what I was talking about, but I finally ended up with what I needed. To make your job easier, the three small bolts that hold the thermostat housing on are M6 bolts and work perfectly for drawing out the water pump. You just thread them into the ears on either side of the water pump and slowly turn them a little at a time and it will draw the pump out. One of my cars didn't even need to have that done, the pump pulled out easily by hand.

If you look at the picture below, you can barely see where the M6 bolts push against to draw the pump out, I didn't take a picture of the pump installed, this is after I had already removed the pump. You can also see above where the thermostat and housing fit.


Once you get to this point, the Bentley does a very good job of instructing you on what to do. It's pretty much just reverse of the removal to install. Make sure you use BMW coolant and distilled water, not the green stuff to refill the system. All of the torque specs are listed in the Bentley and should be followed. Other than that, good luck with your project.

Update to...An Experiment

Back in February, I started an experiment with an oil additive called Auto-Rx. I was having some lifter noise at start up in my 93 BMW 525i, especially when it was really cold (at least for the California High Desert). Read this post for more information.

Here is an update. I just finished the first rinse phase of the experiment. So far I'm pretty impressed with the results.

When I started this back in February, I was averaging about 25.5 MPG. As of right now, the last four tanks of gas have averaged me about 27.5 MPG. The motor seems to be running cleaner and I'm not burning/using anywhere near the amount of oil I used to before the first phase of the treatment. I know it's running cleaner because I don't get any soot build up on the tips of my exhaust pipes. Prior to the treatment, I was always wiping soot off the chrome tips, now none. I also used to burn about a quart of oil every 1K miles, last time I added, I had over 2K miles and it didn't even need a whole quart. Another thing is that nearly all of the little oil leaks I had before are gone. I get an occasional little drip, but nothing like it used to be.

When I did the first phase oil treatment, I also added the Auto-Rx to my transmission, differential and power steering according to their direction for each. Didn't notice much change to the differential, not saying it didn't benefit from the treatment, just that I didn't notice the difference. As far as the power steering, all of the little leaks in that system have gone away, and it feels a bit tighter in the steering too, that could be the new tires I put on a while back. But the leaks are history and I know that the Auto-Rx is responsible for that.

The big change came with the transmission. About 300 miles after adding the product, I was leaving work to go home one morning. I drove out of the parking lot onto the street up a slight incline. As I did so, it didn't feel like normal. Probably 200 yards from the parking lot the transmission downshifted extremely hard, went about another 50 feet and then did it again. I stopped along side of the road thinking I had just blown up the tranny. I got out of the car looked under to see if I could detect any problem, no leaks, so I figured I might as well try to see if it would drive. Much to my surprise, it acted like there was nothing wrong. I drove home, all 40+ miles without incident. After putting on about another 700 miles I changed out the trans fluid and filter per the instructions to get the product out of the system. I drove the car probably another three thousand miles, when I experience the same hard downshifting again, almost exactly in the same spot that it happened the first time. This time, when I got to the stop sign, I just kept going... no problems again. It's now about 2000 miles since the last incident, and it seems to be just fine. Better than fine actually. The tranny shifts much more crisply and doesn't hesitate like it used to. I'm convinced that the Auto-Rx treatment did wonders for that old Transmission. The car has over 200K miles on it, not sure if the trans has that many, but I know it was abused before I bought the car due to the condition of the fluid and filter the first time I changed it after I bought it.

So, I'm pretty happy with the results I've had in this car. When I did the treatment on this car, I also added it to my wife's 03 Honda CRV and my daughters 95 525i. The Honda was just starting to leak some oil, but stopped shortly after adding the Auto-Rx. My daughters 525i was averaging about 17MPG, mainly because she drives all short trips, no highway driving. I checked the mileage on it recently, and it is getting almost 19MPG now. I know she hasn't changed the way she drives.

Lastly, here are a few pictures I took yesterday of the oil filter housing top and retainer bolt, dip stick and inside of filter housing. I started the second cleaning cycle with this oil change. If you checked out the previous post, it doesn't look like much of the varnish had gone away from the pieces of the housing. I didn't take any pics of the dipstick and bolt the first time, but I can tell you that both of them were the same brown varnish color before the treatment. Now they are back to their natural colors.






Anyway, this is all FYI. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. And, no, I'm not an employee of Auto-Rx. I just feel when you find a good product you should let people know about it.

Rear Transmission mounts and Exhaust Hangers on a 93 BMW 525i

One day before leaving for work, I was cleaning the windows on the 93 525i. I finished up cleaning the rear window and was about to go put my window cleaner and dirty rags away when I noticed some dirt on the chrome tips to the exhaust pipe. I bent down to wipe it off and when I touched the pipes, it moved about two inches to one side. It shouldn't have done that.

I got down on one knee and looked up under and found that both of the hangers to the muffler had rotted away. One was completely gone nowhere to be found the other was just about half there hanging from the top mount. I decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to drive it that way.

I got in my SUV and drove to work. While there, I looked around to see if I could get the hangers locally. I check AutoZone, they didn't carry them, NAPA had them, but they were special order and cost about $5 each. I looked at autohausaz and they had them for about $2 each. I needed to do a few other things that I'd been putting off, so I went ahead and ordered everything that I was going to need to take care of the projects I wanted to do.

For this post, I'm going to focus on the Exhaust Hangers and Rear Trans mounts. I ordered the front mounts too, not knowing if I needed them, but thought I'd rather have them and not need them than vice-versa.

As always, the parts came quickly, actually before I could do the work. So after sitting in my garage for several days, I finally got the time to work on the projects I wanted to do.

I had known that the rear trans mounts were cracked for almost two years. I didn't have them when I could have used them when I replaced the guibo and the center driveshaft bearing when I first bought the car. I figured if it got real bad, I'd do it later. Since I was possibly going to have to drop the exhaust system out of the car, I thought I might as well do it while the exhaust isn't in the way. A side note, I had been having a weird vibration when starting from a stop. Between 15 and 20 MPH and about 1700-2000rpm, there was this very fast vibration. I thought it had to do with the tires and changed them, but that didn't solve the problem. I then remembered that the rear trans mounts were cracked and that they had probably gotten worse. I also thought that with the exhaust hangers gone, that could possibly be causing the vibration also.

So, not having any repair instructions from the Bentley manual for either of these repairs, I just sort of winged it. Here is what I did...

I put the car up on jacks as high as they would go. Then I crawled under the car to check on the rear trans mounts. Surprisingly, it appeared that it would be a fairly easy job. I will explain along with pictures I took.

This picture shows the cross member that the mounts attach to. The green dots show the bolts that mount to the undercarriage (there are four bolts, one isn't visible on the photo). The red dots show where the mounts attach to the cross member and the transmission.


I took my floor jack and supported the transmission under the sump. I just took the weight off of the cross member. I used a piece of wood to distribute the load across the sump instead of having one small spot carry the load. Once that was done, I removed the four bolts holding the cross member. When it was loose, I pulled it off and both the mounts came with it, even though I should have had to remove the nuts that attached them to the cross member.

This picture shows one of the old mounts next to one of the new mounts:


As you can see, the old mount wasn't just cracked, it was torn all the way through. Both of them looked like that. I had to remove the part that attached to the transmission. Once I did, this is what it looked like:




After I got the broken parts off of the transmission, I then installed the new ones on the transmission first. Just make sure you orient them correctly, the mounts are not the same, there is a right and left sided one, also it appears you have to make sure you put the correct side to the transmission and the cross member.

I made sure the studs from the mounts went through the cross member and then threaded the mounting bolts to the cross member. I would suggest that you do it however you think would be easier. Couldn't find any torque specs for the bolts, so I snugged them up to about how tight they were to remove them.

Now for the Exhaust Hangers...

Here are some pictures of the front hangers on and off the car, as you can see they were getting ready to fail also:






For some reason, I didn't take any pictures of the new hangers before I installed them. I can't figure how to explain how I replaced to front hangers. You sort of have to thread them on the holders that are attached to the undercarriage and then pull them over the parts on the exhaust system. I found it easier to place my floor jack under the center muffler and jack it up a bit so I didn't have to stretch the hanger so much. I used a couple of screw drivers to help manipulate the hangers too.

Here are some pictures of the new ones installed, I figured I took the picture, I might as well show them:





Once the front hangers were in place, I left the floor jack in place and started the rear hangers.

These were a bit more difficult. It would have been much easier to do if the exhaust was dropped, and if you have the stock muffler in place you may have to drop the system to replace them. In this car, I have two glass packs in place of the OEM muffler, so there is a bit more room to work around. I also think that the reason these hangers failed after not even two years is because they are exposed to way more heat with the glass packs instead of the OEM muffler.

These pictures are of the right and left side hangers installed:




You can see that the holders are two piece. One attached to the car and one attached to the exhaust. I put the hanger on the part attached to the car first and pulled it down into place. I then added the lower holder. It wasn't easy with the little room there. I used a bit of grease so it would slide through the opening easier.

I wish I could give you some trick to make this easier, but I don't know one other than dropping the whole system, then you can get to the holders much easier. When I put them on just after I bought the car, the exhaust system was out of the car, so all I had to do was hang both holders and then fish the studs from the holder through the mount on the muffler.

Here is a picture from below of both hangers installed:


That's it for now, good luck if you're trying to do this.

Next up... Water pump, Thermostat and Coolant Replacement.

BTW... The vibration I talked about is gone, but I'm not sure if the Trans Mounts or the Exhaust Hangers fixed the problem, Oh Well...

Replacing the fuel pump on a 93 BMW 525i

Not too long ago, I started having some weird problems with my 93 525i. It usually happened right after I started the car on cooler mornings. I would drive for a bit then when I'd get to a stop, the car would have a loping idle and want to sort of surge forward. If I put the car in neutral it would take a few seconds, but the idle would smooth out. It didn't happen very often, but it was still bugging me.

I hooked up my code reader and there were no codes. Thought it might be a vacuum leak somewhere, so I checked and found nothing. Then the problem stopped for several weeks.

One morning I went out to go to work, cranked the starter and it wouldn't fire. Tried a few more times and it wouldn't start. Didn't have time to mess with it, so I drove my other car. The next day when I got home from work, I was going to find out what happened. I went out to the car, cranked it over and it started right up. I came away scratching my head over that.

It ran fine for about another month. I had driven home from work and had to park in a place other than my normal spot because my daughter had a bunch of friends over. Later in the afternoon, they had all left so I moved the car, it ran fine. It sat there all night until I went out to drive the car to Church. I cranked it, the motor acted like it wanted to start, but quickly died and then nothing.

Over time, I had found that you could hear the electric fuel pump fire up before you start the car. If I put the key to the #2 position, it would make a short whirring noise and then shut off once it pressurized the system. The morning that I tried to start it before Church, the whirring noise was more of a grinding noise. I tried starting it several more times during the day and nothing.

I decided that the fuel pump was DOA. I ordered a new one the next morning from autohausaz. I had to wait to make sure that I got the correct one. Apparently there are two different versions that work on my car, so I needed to remove the old one to make sure I ordered the right one. The two versions were about $70 different in price, so I was sure that mine would be the more expensive one. I got up early and started the job. I read the Bentley manual instructions on how to remove the pump, but skipped the part where it tells you to drain the fuel tank. Probably not the best way to do it, but it's what I did. All of those reports of gas tanks exploding are greatly exaggerated, I know from experience.

Anyway, the removal of the fuel pump/sending unit is fairly simple. I took some pictures and will post them with explanations below. BTW, when I took out the fuel pump, I discovered that I had the cheaper one, so I saved about $70, that doesn't normally happen to me, I always seem to be on the short end of the stick in situations like this.

The fuel pump is in the fuel tank. To get to it, there is an access hole under the carpet of the trunk. Here is a picture:


Here is a picture of it with the access cover off:


This picture is a close up of the top of the fuel pump/sending unit. To get it out, you have to remove the two fuel lines (I marked the left one with the electrical tape to make sure I put it back together right), the electrical connector and the eight mounting nuts that hold the plate to the tank. To remove the electrical connector, you have to slide the metal clip towards the back of the car. I put a small screwdriver in where I drew the green arrow and pried back and it came right off.


Once you have everything loose and disconnected, the plate will want to push upwards. There is enough play in the fuel lines and wiring to where you can take the sending unit out of the tank so you can get your hands on the retaining clips that hold the fuel pump in the mounts in the tank. Make sure that you make note of how everything is oriented as you remove it from the tank. The Fuel Lines from the mounting plate to the pump have to twist around the sending unit so it sits properly in the tank. I wasn't really careful when I removed mine, so it took me a bit to figure just how it went back in. I didn't take any pics of me removing the unit since no one was home when I was doing it. Here is a picture of the entire unit after I got it out of the tank:


The two red arrows I drew on the last picture (click on the picture to enlarge it) show the clips that hold the pump in it's mount in the tank.

This next pic show the wires connected to the old (bad) pump:


The new pump came with a different type of electrical connector, spade bits with a plastic clip the spade connectors clip in to. The pump is made by Bosch. They supplied everything you need to change the connectors except for the proper crimping tool for the job. I did my best to get them tight, but apparently my best wasn't good enough. I'll get to that in a bit. Here is a pic of the set up on the new pump. I made sure I oriented the wires the way they were on the old pump:


Also, note that I drew red arrows on the previous pic showing the clip locations from the top of the pump.

Other than changing the wires, all you have to do is transfer the fuel lines over to the new pump.

Installation is just reverse of removal. I would suggest that you replace the rubber gasket to the pump/sending unit. I took a couple of pics to show you how it goes on. I didn't pay attention when I removed the old one, so I had to play with it a bit to get it on right. There is a little indexing mark on the gasket to help you orient it right, I drew green arrows to show when it needs to be to go on correctly.

This pic shows the mark:


This one shows where it needs to be installed to fit properly (just to the right of the bolt):


Once you have everything back in and secured, make sure you torque the nuts to 89 inch pounds.

I then tried to start the car, but nothing. I tried a couple of more times, but it wouldn't start. I took the pump back out and found that I hadn't done such a good job of crimping the wires, one had come loose when I put it back in the tank. I tried to get the spade connectors out of the little plastic clip without damaging them, but was not successful. I ended up buying some solderless connectors of the same type at Radio Shack and put them on. The plastic clip was no good any longer, but the spade connectors were really tight once I put them on the spades.

I put everything back together and tried again, NOTHING. Cranked but no fire. The only other thing that I could think of that could be wrong was that the wires were not hooked up to the right terminals. I took everything back apart, switched the wires, put it back together, and SUCCESS. After being so careful to get the wires in the right position, Bosch swapped the terminal locations. I read through all of the installation material that came with the new pump and there was no mention of any wiring changes at all.

At least it works now, and it seems to actually run a bit stronger than before. I think maybe the old pump was weak before it finally gave up.

Good Luck if you try this, it isn't really very hard. If things had gone right the first time, the whole job would have taken me about an hour.

One other thing, I changed out the fuel filter while I was at it. They recommend doing so in the installation paperwork that comes with the pump.