So I have heard its not good to clean the engine the typical way on late model diesels...I currently have a 2008 Duramax and use a hudson sprayer with a Simple Green dilution, hosed off, dried with a leaf blower and finished with CD2 detailer. Today is the first day it acted funky afterwards when I started it. Weird horn honking noise... How do you clean yours or don't you. Repairs on modern diesels can get real spendy real quick and I don't want to set myself up for a huge repair bill simply from cleaning my engine.
I also have a 2004 GMC Yukon. It only has about 50000 miles on it. It has never given me a problem until mid last year when the check engine light came on (had about 37000 miles then). I read the codes and cleared them. They would return with 15 miles. There are a couple sensors on top of the engine (I forget what they are called now) that work with the fuel mileage efficiency. So I took it in and the dealer confirmed what my code reader reported. These sensors and the wiring harness to them had coroded. It was about a $800 repair. The dealer stated it was likely caused from washing my engine. The water would pool up on these sensors and corode them. This was plausible as after washing the engine, I would start it up and let it idle for about 5 minutes and then park it in the garage and perhaps the water had not dried up. I looked around online and it looks like it was a very common problem on the 4.8/5.3 Vortec engines caused from water just like the dealer said. I now am hesitant about washing the engine after desert trips because of the cost of that repair.
I also have a 2004 GMC Yukon. It only has about 50000 miles on it. It has never given me a problem until mid last year when the check engine light came on (had about 37000 miles then). I read the codes and cleared them. They would return with 15 miles. There are a couple sensors on top of the engine (I forget what they are called now) that work with the fuel mileage efficiency. So I took it in and the dealer confirmed what my code reader reported. These sensors and the wiring harness to them had coroded. It was about a $800 repair. The dealer stated it was likely caused from washing my engine. The water would pool up on these sensors and corode them. This was plausible as after washing the engine, I would start it up and let it idle for about 5 minutes and then park it in the garage and perhaps the water had not dried up. I looked around online and it looks like it was a very common problem on the 4.8/5.3 Vortec engines caused from water just like the dealer said. I now am hesitant about washing the engine after desert trips because of the cost of that repair.
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