Thank you. 
You’re welcome.
Hi sulavaca,
What is the chinese word for “head decoke”? Seems like some cars need to have their heads done post 90k. Anyway I can tell if it needs it without stripping it?
You could ask for a pressure test or a drop down test to be performed which may give you some impression of any loss which may be related to valve seats or piston rings. You could also put a scope into the plug hole to examine the cylinder innards. If you are suffering pinking or engine run on after you turn off the ignition, then you could be suffering a large coke build up. Your spark plugs may often give signs as to what can be found inside to if you remove them and inspect at the ends of them.
You could ask for:
Chi(4) gang(1) tou(2) ching(1) tan(4)
air cylinder head clean carbon
Maybe redwagon could clean my pinying up for me as I’m not always accurate with that.
Its not always the case that vehicles need their heads cleaning so early though. If the oil has been changed regularly, and the car has not always been used for short runs, then it may be just fine.
Oooh…thanks for the indepth, I like to have you check out a car, but I wont be there…could you PM your bank details and I will reply with the details…the dealer is at Taipei Shi. Forgot your rates so do let me know
Well thank you very much for your custom. Your PM is in the mail with details. Our rates are posted on our website: actaiwan.com/index/timetable and the present rate for Taipei City inspections is NT$3,000 although once the new site goes up the price will be updated. Hopefully that may be another week.
[quote=“sulavaca”]You could ask for a pressure test or a drop down test to be performed which may give you some impression of any loss which may be related to valve seats or piston rings. You could also put a scope into the plug hole to examine the cylinder innards. If you are suffering pinking or engine run on after you turn off the ignition, then you could be suffering a large coke build up. Your spark plugs may often give signs as to what can be found inside to if you remove them and inspect at the ends of them.
You could ask for:
Chi(4) gang(1) tou(2) ching(1) tan(4)
air cylinder head clean carbon
Maybe redwagon could clean my pinyin up for me as I’m not always accurate with that.
Its not always the case that vehicles need their heads cleaning so early though. If the oil has been changed regularly, and the car has not always been used for short runs, then it may be just fine.[/quote]
My pinyin sucks… sorry.
Decoke is not usual practice on modern engines. For the most part, fuel-injected motors run so clean you do not get the heads coked up with combustion reside. When they are worn enough to burn so much oil to coke the heads up, it’s usually cheaper to source a new(er) engine than rebore the block, replace the valves and guides etc.
In any case, 90,000km is very early indeed to have these kind of problems! 
[quote=“redwagon”]My pinyin sucks… sorry.
Decoke is not usual practice on modern engines. For the most part, fuel-injected motors run so clean you do not get the heads coked up with combustion reside. When they are worn enough to burn so much oil to coke the heads up, it’s usually cheaper to source a new(er) engine than rebore the block, replace the valves and guides etc.
In any case, 90,000km is very early indeed to have these kind of problems! [/quote]
This is why I mentioned short runs, as with frequent short runs the oil can suffer ‘thinning’ due to excess fuel being injected, running past rings and into the sump. The thinned oil can eventually make its way more easily into the combustion chamber, coking it up. This shouldn’t be too common a problem however and you can usually tell from the colour of the oil and the smell (smell for petrol) as to whether it is seriously affected by the phenomenon.
Is there any engine oil addictives that one can use? I know there are some injector addictives one can add to the fuel tank, but havent seen any that you can add with the engine oil?
They sell engine oil additive, automatic transmission oil additive, additive for everything is available but i don’t really believe they would work if there is a problem already.
Ah so when I get the car, me going to rev it often especially on ramps to highway “clearing out the carbon” it is 
That should work well. you can see some cars throwing black smoke when they hit the gas, i think that’s what it happens and they are not diesel cars i am talking about
Painted wheel wells? I wonder why.
- Aesthetics?
- entire car resprayed?
The car in questions looks like its been raised too…I dont think those are standard boots?
Yes. Its had what we call a flash over, which means that it hasn’t had its components properly removed and covered before spraying. These jobs range in quality although are normally quite a poor and cheap method of repair. Its hard to tell the extent of the repair however by this picture. It may be a localised scratch, dent or worse, a crash repair. It does appear to show a new damper in that shot, which may not tell anything precisely, but would raise a question in my mind as to whether or not the suspension was damaged in a possible collision, tying in the obvious paintwork. Of course it could simply be an innocent repair or lift (it certainly looks to have been lifted). It appears to have also had new brake pads fitted and a tyre. All done quite recently it seems. I wonder what the vehicle’s level of repair or servicing was before being taken in my the dealer? Is it also true that the wheel shows signs of being resprayed? If indeed it has then that paint shouldn’t stay on there for long without peeling and flaking off. Alloy wheel rims are notoriously difficult to respray without properly processing.
Is that a kink in the rear chassis, in the area in front of the rear tyre at the ten o’clock position, or is that just as it should be? This is very hard to tell by just a picture alone.
According to the dealer, the car was serviced by Mitsu for the first 3 years and after that it was serviced outside…the wheel wells are painted all around 
Car is 2000 model…so for a ten year old car a respray could be normal to freshen things up? 
Tyres are new…it looks rather crummy the rims look horrible, but i didn’t realize till now its been repainted!
Would you be able to spot major accident damage?
this is the only other picture that my missus took of the wheel…
Major accident damage is normally very easy to spot as to keep the vehicle from being written off and financially viable to repair, they generally employ quite cheap and very obvious repair methods. Most serious accident damage to vehicles renders them useless and not viable if repaired by a process which can successfully disguise evidence of an incident. As also explained a previous post, if the chassis has been replaced properly and legally, the number will have to have been updated by the Motor Vehicles Office and will have an additional R at the end of its number. If it hasn’t been properly replaced, which might leave no trace of damage, then it will likely have been pulled and welded. It should certainly show signs of tampering anyway, which should be evident to an inspector.
BTW that last picture doesn’t offer me any more information than the last. I can neither see the same area of the chassis as the other side. I’m afraid that the information I can gain by these pictures alone is not evidence of anything more than respraying so far.
Thanks for the through check on the Paj…good thing you were through else I would have gotten a lemon… :bravo:
BTW can you recommend a good paint shop in Taipei for a whole vehicle respray inside out
Sounds like you found something you were looking for!? 
PM sent.
I’m glad I could help, and thank you for your custom.
Hit and miss again! Grrr…saw a Defender but realised it was sharing plates with a Rover Montero!