So my car has been dripping a drop or two every time I drive and of late, I see some smoke coming from the engine hatch garnish after I stop. The theory seems to be that some oil is dripping onto the headers or exhaust causing the smoke.
I had Don at Hilltop Auto look at it and after he verified that it looked like a very small leak, he asked me to get it steam cleaned and then put some UV dye and bring it back for a look. I have a new set of billet cam plugs from sos for him.
There seems to be a wide variety of prices for this service. http://www.ajautodetailing.com/steam.html wants 145$ and up while http://www.detailplussunnyvale.com/ in Sunnyvale wanted 75$. Since Detail plus wanted much less and came with pretty good Yelp reviews, I went there. Close enough to me in Sunnyvale right off Wolf on El Camino. They did a fantastic job! The owner allowed me to peek underneath (on the sliding platform) and see if any more cleaning was needed. It was dripping a bit but I could find some deep places that needed more cleaning. I gave the guy who was cleaning a 10$ tip and pointed to a couple more places near the oil filter and he did a great job. After the cleaning, they blow dried the top of the engine and I think I'll take it for a drive now to try to evaporate any water remaining. The engine bay looks fantastic and all the aluminum is glistening. I will add some photos of the engine bay itself a bit later. I wanted to post this before I forget.
They don't cover the alternator and use some reddish de-greaser. If you are particular, you can possibly take some Alu foil there and your own paint/alu safe degreaser.
I am including some pics to help people see what this is all about in case there are people (like me) who have never seen steam cleaning before. The video and photos are with my Evo and while not great are surprisingly usable.
Video of the process. Click on image below to take you to the video
I had Don at Hilltop Auto look at it and after he verified that it looked like a very small leak, he asked me to get it steam cleaned and then put some UV dye and bring it back for a look. I have a new set of billet cam plugs from sos for him.
There seems to be a wide variety of prices for this service. http://www.ajautodetailing.com/steam.html wants 145$ and up while http://www.detailplussunnyvale.com/ in Sunnyvale wanted 75$. Since Detail plus wanted much less and came with pretty good Yelp reviews, I went there. Close enough to me in Sunnyvale right off Wolf on El Camino. They did a fantastic job! The owner allowed me to peek underneath (on the sliding platform) and see if any more cleaning was needed. It was dripping a bit but I could find some deep places that needed more cleaning. I gave the guy who was cleaning a 10$ tip and pointed to a couple more places near the oil filter and he did a great job. After the cleaning, they blow dried the top of the engine and I think I'll take it for a drive now to try to evaporate any water remaining. The engine bay looks fantastic and all the aluminum is glistening. I will add some photos of the engine bay itself a bit later. I wanted to post this before I forget.
They don't cover the alternator and use some reddish de-greaser. If you are particular, you can possibly take some Alu foil there and your own paint/alu safe degreaser.
I am including some pics to help people see what this is all about in case there are people (like me) who have never seen steam cleaning before. The video and photos are with my Evo and while not great are surprisingly usable.
Video of the process. Click on image below to take you to the video
and that DIDN"T include stream cleaning.) I've been told that lots of places don't want to deal with the environmental issues associated with it here in California.
