Agellius CM

If you put the key in and turn it to the ACC position, there is power, the radio works, etc. But if you then turn to the Start position, the car won't start. 

However, if you turn the key directly to Start without stopping at ACC, the car starts. 

Any idea what could be causing that? 

Thanks! 

In the last couple of months, every website I visit makes me click a cookie consent button. I understand this is supposed to be for our good, but all it does is add another annoyance to web browsing since I always click OK. Is there a way to click OK automatically whenever a visit a webpage, like a Chrome plugin or something?

I would appreciate any info. Thanks.

I just bought a used 2010 Nissan Altima, and I find the ride at high speeds to be harsh and jarring at times. This is something I didn’t notice during the test drive. From my online research I know there are various ways of softening the ride, including getting smaller rims with taller tires for more cushioning, and changing the struts and/or springs. My question focuses on the struts/springs.

It seems like it would make more sense to change either the struts or the springs first -- but not both, since that would cost a lot of money – and see what effect that has on the ride, before doing the other. If one or the other works, then I may not have to do both. But I’m not sure which to try first.

If I change the struts first, I’m not sure that would help if the springs are too stiff. And if I change the springs first, I’m wondering if that will do any good if the struts are too stiff. In fact, I’m wondering if softer springs would hurt the stock struts, and vice versa, if softer struts would cause a problem with the stock springs.

Can anyone advise which would be the better bet?

I have a 2004 Toyota Sienna CE with V6. It seems like whenever I hook up my code reader to check a "Check Engine" light, afterwards the engine idles extremely low. I have to keep light pressure on the gas pedal to keep it from stalling. Any idea what's causing this?

I have also noticed that this happens when I disconnect my battery. Is the engine computer getting reset maybe?

Any info would be appreciated.

For a while I was taking a beta blocker (Metoprolol) for ventricular tachycardia. The doctor eventually decided that the condition wasn’t dangerous and said I should stop taking the medication. Since I stopped taking it I have noticed that I experience more sinus pressure, for which I take Advil. While on the Metoprolol I took a lot less Advil in general. Before I started taking the Metoprolol, I would take Advil at least a couple times a week for sinus pressure and headache.

My blood pressure has always been good, although it went even lower on the Metoprolol. Could the pressure I feel in my head be somehow related to blood pressure? Or is there something else the Metoprolol was doing that reduced the feeling of pressure?

My friend was driving my car on a trip and 2 or 3 times revved the engine past the redline while accelerating onto the highway. It was only in the red for a couple seconds each time. Now I notice a rattling or grumbling sound in the engine when accelerating. The engine seems to run more or less OK, but not as smoothly as before.

Could revving it past the redline like this have caused any damage to the engine?

Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

My son is a high school senior planning to major in Comp Sci. He has received major scholarship offers from Ole Miss, Kentucky and Oklahoma. He likes Ole Miss the best and it's the cheapest. Oklahoma is the most expensive but ranked the highest.

Does anyone have any opinion of the U. of Mississippi for Computer Science, in terms of finding a job later on?

We would appreciate any info. Thanks!

My son is in 10th grade and is a language wiz. He finished high school Latin (Latin 4) in his freshman year, and now studies Greek on his own, reading, for example, Aristotle in Greek.

I would like to give him every advantage in putting his ability to the best possible use and getting into a good college linguistics program. Any advice in that regard would be appreciated.

But for now, I am wondering if there are any summer linguistics programs for high school students in the Southern California area. I searched the web and found some that are out of state, but wondered if there are any locally.

I would appreciate any information.

My son is 18. He is attending college out of state, but will be home for the summer. He has never had any kind of a job. He really doesn't have any manual skills to speak of, although he's smart and an A student. I never held a summer job myself since I didn't go to college. Does anyone have suggestions for summer jobs that he might apply for?

I have some ideas of course, but others might have good ones that I haven't thought of. Thanks.

I recently changed two sprinkler valves. There was no shutoff valve, so I added one, which meant I had to push the valves over a little bit from where they were before. That meant I had to put in some elbows and a short extra length of PVC, so that the valves could connect with the pipes leading to the sprinkler heads, since they were no longer lined up (I hope this makes sense).

What it boils down to, is now I have PVC pipes going straight down from the valves, then horizontal for a couple inches, then they make a right turn to meet up with the underground pipes leading to the sprinkler heads.

When I tested them everything seemed to work. But early the next morning my whole family was awakened by a loud banging in the pipes. My question is, could the banging be caused by the extra elbows that I put in the pipes to make them change direction to meet up with the valves?

When we bought our house 6 years ago, a Japanese maple was planted in the flower bed right next to the corner of the house. It seemed like a small tree so I didn't think much of it. But now it's getting bigger. Some of the bricks in the flower bed are getting put out of joint, and I'm wondering if the roots are likely to damage the foundation of the house?

Any info would be appreciated.

I read an article that said fire pits have been removed from Huntington and Bolsa Chica State Beaches. (http://beaches.uptake.com/blog/california-beach-fi... It's not clear if all fire pits were removed or just some of them. Does anyone know the answer?

I am thinking of buying a 2000 Toyota Corolla with 121,000 miles. I went to see it this morning and when I started it up I noticed visible smoke coming out the exhaust. Not very thick but visible. The smoke did not hover around and accumulate, it just flowed out about 2 feet and then dissipated.

After it had been running for a minute it was no longer visible. But then I revved the engine a few times and got out and looked at it, and it was visible again.

About 20 minutes later they moved some cars out of the way so I could test-drive it. Then they started the Corolla and pulled it out. At this point I no longer saw any smoke at all.

The salesman said it's normal for a car to smoke a little when it's first started after sitting overnight. They are going to do a safety inspection and smog test today and will let me know the results. My question is, if the car passes a smog test, would that mean the smoke I saw is nothing to worry about?

Any help would be much appreciated.

I am trying to decide between two cameras. I am not any kind of an expert at all, but I remember using a Minolta Maxxum 3xi back in the early 90s and it was easy to use and took nice pictures.

But someone also has a Maxxum 400si for sale, and I am wondering which of the two is better.

One difference between them is that for manual focusing, the 3xi has "acute-matte" and the 400si has a "pentaprism". I don't know what the difference is between them. Would one be clearly better than the other?

Many thanks in advance for your help.

I have a vacuum-tube-based record player that produces a loud bassy hum through the speaker. I have replaced all the electrolytic capacitors but the hum is still there, if not even louder. I also replaced the rectifier tube. My next step (per advice of a friend) was to test all the resistors. One of them is supposed to be 21 ohms but tests at 50 ohms.

My question is: Does that mean twice as much current is going through the resistor than should be, or does it mean only half as much is going through? I'm going to replace it regardless, I'm just trying to understand how it works.

For what it's worth, the resistor is attached to two of the holes that the rectifier tube plugs into.

Any info would be much appreciated.

My son built a project which was supposed to generate electricity to light a lightbulb. He didn’t follow any instructions but came up with his own idea, based on something he read in a book.

What he did was put some strong neodymium magnets on three vertical, spinning shafts, with a copper coil in the middle. Then he soldered the copper wire onto a 2V LED from Radio Shack. He did burn off the enamel from the ends of the copper wire before soldering. But it doesn’t work. The LED doesn’t light and there is no reading at all on the voltmeter.

Is there any way to make this thing work as it is? Or is the design just totally wrong?

From what I’ve read I suspect it can’t work unless the magnets are all facing the same way. But his magnets are facing all different ways since they are spinning on three separate shafts. (He spins one shaft, and the forces from the magnets on that shaft cause the other two shafts to spin. Pretty clever, I thought.) Does it seem like that would be the main problem?

I have a service manual that says you are supposed to stick two screwdrivers in the inspection hole, using one to lift a lever while using the other to turn the adjustment dial, to loosen the brake shoes so that the drum will slide off. But I can find any lever in there, in fact I can't find anything that moves at all. I think I have located the adjustment dial, but not the lever that is supposed to release the dial when you lift it.

I hope this makes sense. Can anyone offer any assistance?

A few months back, my niece reported to me that our bathtub faucet was on full blast in the middle of the night, apparently all by itself. I figured she was exaggerating the facts to make it sound like we have a ghost or something, so I ignored it. But today my wife told me she woke up at 4:00 a.m. and heard water running. She too found the bathtub cold water faucet running -- not totally full blast but definitely all the way on, not just a trickle.

Either we have a ghost, or there's a reasonable explanation for this. If it's the latter, can anyone tell me what it might be?

Thanks!