hey guys Chris fix here so I constantly get asked what's the best first car and that's a great question because you want something that's safe reliable gets good fuel economy has a lot of cargo space has nice options is fun to drive and is relatively inexpensive to own well today I'm going to show you what I think the best first car is and it's this right here underneath this car cover which I'm going to remove in a second but not only am I going to show you what the best first car is I'm going to show you how to properly maintain it because let's just say you're a parent or Guardian for that first time driver you want your son or daughter to go out there and be safe let's just say you are the first time driver you want this car to be reliable so you don't get stranded so I'm going to show you how to do all the maintenance to keep your car in tiptop shape and just as a quick overview you can see everything we're going to be doing we're going to be installing a dash camera we're going to be changing all the filters all the fluids light bulbs we're going to be installing a brand new lithium battery that has a built-in jump starter so you can't get stranded we're going to be replacing all the brake pads and rotors installing new wiper blades and more that way this car is good to go for that first time driver all they have to worry about is focusing on the road and the reason why we're doing this is because this car is very special now you might be wondering why I bought a car for a new driver well this is going to be a very special video cuz this car is going to a charity called building homes for Heroes there's a family down in Florida who has fallen on hard times they could really use a car so this car is going to them and hopefully it helps out and so you have a little background let me introduce you to the family that's getting surprised with this car this this is Nazarea, Bella, Bentley, and Kevin and Nazarea is now the legal guardian over the family due to the passing of their parents my name is Nazarea Montrond and I am the daughter of army Sergeant Alberto Montrond, my dad was on a Rescue Mission in Afghanistan when he was with his three other soldiers and they had ran over an IED killing them instantly without his efforts that day of coming out there and splitting the force of the enemy there's a good possibility that I wouldn't be here today now sadly after sergeant Montrond's passing their nana also passed away and then their mother also passed away leaving these four kids to take care of themselves she um told us that she was going to be up there with our Nana so she said that she was going to be right behind her so if I did have something to say to her before she passed I would like well just thank you for being my best friend now this is where building homes for Heroes stepped in and gifted a mortgage-free home for these kids that way they wouldn't be homeless and they could focus on school and just being kids I know that my mom is going to be happy that building homes for Heroes is like taking care of us getting us a home so I think you guys could understand the significance of this video the significance of this car right here I'm going to bring this down in person and surprise them at the end of the video so Kevin and Bella are the first-time drivers this is the perfect first car for them them and now let me show you what this car is so let me introduce to you this fully loaded 2013 Ford Escape Titanium and I got this car for a pretty good deal and if you're wondering how to find your own first car for a decent deal let me show you so to find a good first car for a good deal jump on your computer and type in AutoTempest and this site searches a bunch of different car for sale websites all in one click instead of spending forever searching each individual site separately you can see right here it searches eBay Motors cars.com true car and all these other sites so you get the idea it even helps you search sites like Craigslist in a larger area not just your local town and same thing for Facebook Marketplace that way you don't miss any good deals now this site is how I found my $300 Del Sol which I think would be a very bad first car it's just too small but some good first cars that I found on this site are the $500 Trailblazer the $4,000 Chrysler 200 that's only 3 years old and has 50,000 Mi the $2,700 Prius which gets 50 m a gallon so you get the idea there's lots of great deals to be found so let me show you how first you need a filter by budget and that could be different for everybody my first car was a 92 Cadillac DeVille wasn't worth very much but it's what we could afford now in this situation for this car I'm going to put $8,000 as my Max next you want to filter by mileage I'm putting the max mileage at 150,000 Mi because I've noticed just after about 150,000 Mi stuff starts to wear out and it could be less reliable so there are plenty of great first cars but I personally think a small SUV is among the best for safety such as a Honda CRV and if you look here you can see you get a decent one between $5 and $6,000 or you could go with a Toyota Rav 4 which is also in that price range another option is a Mazda Tribute but just like the Honda and Toyota these are all early 2000 cars so another option is a Buick Encore which is about 10 years newer and I mean just look at this one it's a 2014 with 100,000 Mi it's a pretty good deal and it's a nice blue color too so I think you get the idea there's plenty of small SUVs that are safe and affordable and finally I focused on the Ford Escape because it has some of the best crash test ratings it's also listed as one of the least expensive cars to ensure and it could get 30 m a gallon so after searching a bunch of different SUVs AutoTempest found this fully loaded Ford Escape Titanium on eBay Motors the ad says everything is working from the engine to the transmission to all the power options which in my experience I could safely bet money on not everything's going to be working but at least it's a good start heck this car even Parks itself everything looked good it was only a few miles down the road so no shipping costs plus it was a no Reserve auction so with only a couple seconds left I bid to $7,750 and excitedly watched as the timer went to zero and I won the car so if you're looking for a first car definitely check out AutoTempest which is free and makes it a lot easier to find good deals and I do want to thank these guys for creating the website and supporting the video to make finding a used car at a good deal a lot easier and just to give you an idea this is the window sticker from the car I just won you could see right down here they wanted $112,000 at their lot I got this car for $44,000 Less so remember there's room to negotiate so now let's jump right into it and let me show you had to get all the maintenance done on your first car so that it's safe it's reliable and it's ready for the road so let's get started and to make this easy for you guys I made a first car maintenance checklist which has everything that you need to make sure that your first car is properly maintained that way you don't forget anything and I'll be sure to include a link to this for free in the description you can download it you could use it that's the whole point of me making it and we're going to go through this as we work on the car that way we don't miss anything so the first thing we're going to do because this car is going to Florida with a sun is very intense I want to get this car tinted so I headed over to my local Tint Shop in Tom's river which I've passed by a bunch of times but I've never used my friends highly recommended them so let's get this car tinted all right you can see this is the factory glass right here you can see it's not tinted so if we get our tester on here to see what it's at you can see we have an 80% visual light transmission which means 80% of the light is going through from the factory glass 63% of the UV radiation is blocked and 80% of the infrared radiation is blocked which is really good but we could improve this with some new new tint so not only is the factory glass clear so it lets light in but it also lets the heat in so this mimics the hot Florida sun it's an infrared light and I can actually feel the heat on my hand through the glass so what we're going to do is we're going to put a tint on here that's going to block most of that heat out so first they find the make and model in the computer and you can see it has all the glass Dimensions ready to go then they hit cut and the tint cutter cuts out each window perfectly which is amazing technology to make this job so much quicker and easier and check this out now all they have to do is peel off the surrounding cut tint and just like that we have tint for the two front windows so next up right over here many windows have a soft felt right in the window channel so these guys cover that up with some tape that way the felt doesn't come off and get stuck behind the tint next they clean up the glass to make sure the tint is adhered to a nice clean contaminant free surface then the window is sprayed down with a special spray that allows the tint to be moved along the window without sticking instantly and with that sprayed down the pre-cut tint could be added and you can see how the spray allows them to slide the tint along the glass so they could align it properly once line they squeegee out all the liquid from under the tint and now the tint adheres to the glass and won't move and finally they wipe down the tint with a microfiber towel and these guys make this look so easy all right so now our window is tinted with 35% tint it's looking great but it's not just about the amount of light going through it's the amount of heat and if you put your hand here oh man that's awesome what a difference from before I can't even feel the heat and I also want to compare this tint with no Tint by putting the meter on it so let's check this out so we should have 35% tint and check it out so we're at 35% of light coming through we have 100% of UV radiation being blocked and we have 99.1% of infrared radiation being blocked that is huge what a difference now the team finishes up the rest of the car tinting the other front window with 35% tint which is the legal limit in Florida we're also tinting the rear glass which is tinted from the factory but a combination of this ceramic tint over the factory tint gives us about a 20% final tint for the rear windows which is perfect they're also tinting the back glass for those super bright headlight lights these days and that way we'll have 360° protection then finally we're tinting the front glass with the lightest ceramic tint they have it allows 88% light in that way you can't even tell it's tinted but again that ceramic is going to block that UV and infrared to keep the interior cool it'll also prevent that Dash from cracking due to sunlight here's a before and after to the naked eye you can't even tell the difference but the driver and car are protected okay so the car is done and I did try to pay these guys they would not take my money they said after hearing what this car is for this is Their donation to help out so I really appreciate that so if you need to get your car tinted in New Jersey check out Tronics Autosports tint shot in Tom's River not only are they good people but they did an awesome job on this car and I'm all about supporting a small local business so with the tints done now let's get this car all fixed up and maintained for our new drivers and the first thing I always do is use a Bluetooth OBD2 scanner to scan the entire car that way we know if there's any problems and as usual the OBD2 port is located right below the the steering wheel so plug in the scan tool turn the car to the Run position and let's open up the app then let's hit read codes and we want to do the whole system scan which scans everything from the transmission airbags ABS basically every computer in this car so after a few minutes you can see we have no codes for the engine or transmission or anything like that but we do have three generic codes first one is for a third brake light second one is for the license plate lights and the last one is for the reverse camera so let's go investigate so all three of those codes stem from problems in the rear here the first one is our third brake light isn't working hit the brakes and as you can see we have our normal brake lights working but our third brake light is not working sometimes there's a loose connection sometimes the bulb goes bad sometimes it's a pinch at the wires hopefully it's just a bad bulb the other problem that we have is our reverse camera and our license plate lights are not working to better show you this let's shut off the lights and these should be on there we go so just by tapping it the light came on on the other side but it's not coming on on this side so the bulbs bad or there's some corrosion in there we could easily fix that and then the final problem is under here with our reverse camera and you can see the reverse camera is loose it's supposed to be in a mount here and if we throw the car in Reverse check this out the camera should show us what's behind the car but in this case it's just saying that the camera is unavailable and we need a contact the dealership which we won't be doing so let's tackle these one at a time starting with our third brake light so to get this light off just get a plastic panel clip tool and pop the light outwards it's just held in by some metal clips now this right here is the wiper fluid hose and and this is the electrical connector so let's unplug the connector and check for voltage using a multimeter you can see there's two slots in the connector one is power one is ground so just probe the two slots with the multimeter press the brakes and with the brakes pressed you can see we're getting just under 12 volts which means the lights are getting power so we know the third brake light bulb is bad so now we know we need to replace it so let's remove the washer fluid hose so out with the old and in with the new so the washer hose just press fits right on and then we can connect the wiring harness and before we push this in let's test the brakes press the brakes beautiful okay so now let's get this pushed in the rest of the way and you got to love simple Diagnostics and an easy fix all right so with our third brake light fixed we're good to go here so now let's move on to our license plate lights and this will be really simple just carefully pop the housing out of the trunk and usually this comes out more but it seems kind of stuck so let's grab onto the bulb holder and spin the housing instead and there's our bulb which you can see is burnt out so out with the old incandescent bulb and in with the new LED bulb not only will this be brighter but it's going to draw less power and have a nice white light so push it back in there so there's a click good and now let's test this out by turning the lights on perfect let's do the same thing for the other side so remove the old bulb and install the new LED bulb then get the housing back on there and let's push it back into place all right so our license plate lights are fixed and those LEDs look great that white light looks amazing on the plate now let's go and fix the reverse camera so this camera was just wedged in here and I could actually see some moisture behind the lens so we know it's bad besides the bad camera we're also missing the bracket that holds the camera in place so in order to get the piece that holds the camera in you need to buy this whole trim piece and that's expensive so I was able to go to the junkyard and grab one from a junk car and it has the piece right here that holds the camera so that saved me a ton of money so that's the piece we need and all we need to do is pop it out good so out with the old and in with the new and just connect it to the wiring harness so it clicks then we could add our bracket and let's pop this into place and finally don't forget to remove the blue lens protector okay so let's see if we fixed it pop it into reverse and boom there we go and it even integrates the backup sensors into the display so now with everything fixed in the back here let's go scan the computer and see if we fixed it all right check it out all the codes are gone so we fixed everything so if we take a look at our maintenance checklist we scan the computer and fixed all the trouble codes and we were replace the light bulbs that were burnt out so now let's get the car up on ramps and change out all the [Music] fluids so with the front of the car and ramps let's jack up the rear of the car so it's somewhat level for the fluid changes and gives us more room underneath to work and always use jack stands so let's get this one under the rear subframe and then slowly lower the car onto the jack stands and I like to keep the Jack under here so it has slight pressure that way it's Extra Protection just in case a jack stand fails so with the car level and safely lifted up in the air a I like to come over here and give it a good shake to make sure it doesn't budge and it's not so we are good to go to change all the fluids and the first thing we're going to change is the engine oil and filter then we're going to change the transmission fluid and finally the coolant so let's get under the vehicle and get started oil changes are simple just break the drain plug loose with a ratchet get the catch can under the drain plug and hand loosen the plug and a trick is to push the plug as you're loosening it into the oil pan and then pull it out quickly and that'll prevent you from getting oil all over your hands now we just need need to let the 6 quarts of oil drain out and once that's done hand tighten the drain plug and then snug it up with a ratchet this only needs to be snug like 15 ftlb of torque just like that don't overtighten it now we could sneak over to the front here and let's replace the oil filter you should be able to remove oil filters by hand but this one's on here really tight so an oil filter wrench helps crack it loose and now we can loosen it the rest of the way by hand with the filter removed make sure there's no gasket stuck on the mounting surface here and you can see there's no rubber or anything so we're good to go now this next part is highly controversial I want to hear what you guys have to think about it I personally fill up my oil filters with new oil when possible because then the engine doesn't run dry for a few seconds when you first start it and what's not controversial is always lubricate this gasket with a little bit of oil that way the new filter is easy to remove for the next Oil Change good now let's install the filter so line this up and then hand thread it on and remember you only tighten oil filters by hand that way you can't overtighten it and I like to write down the current mileage on the filter that way we know when it was last changed now on top of the engine we can remove the oil oil fill cap which says use 5W30 and we need to add 6 quarts of full synthetic oil this is a turbocharged engine so using a highquality oil is very important good then let's close this up and start the car so now we're going to let the engine run for about a minute to let the oil circulate after letting the engine sit for a minute or so we could pull the dipstick out then we want to clean it off to have a fresh reading then reinsert it and pull it back out again and check this out we are filled up perfectly to the end of the cross-hatch marks which means we're good to go all right so with our oil completely changed now let me show you how to change our transmission fluid and this is a sealed transmission so there's no dipstick so let me show you how to do that and first let's head under the car so this right here is our sealed transmission you can see although it's sealed we have a drain bolt right here and we have a fill check bolt right here so this is where we're going to check the transmission fluid level to make sure it's full when we add more fluid now we add more fluid up top let me show you so if we come up top into the engine bay and take a look look right over here you could see the fill plug right there and you always want to make sure you could remove the fill plug that's the first thing you do otherwise you drain the system and you can't add fluid because this is seized or something and you can see we could remove it I'm going to put it back in that way we don't get any dirt in there so we know that's removable let's go back under and drain all the fluid so first let's crack the fill bolt loose and then we can remove it the rest of the way by hand and you can see the transmission fluid that's coming out which means it was slightly overfilled which I find pretty common because many people don't fill the trans properly like this transmission needs to be hot to get the correct level but don't worry I'll show you that in a second it's easy now we could remove the drain bolt good and actually didn't make a mess and that fluid's not looking that great now I don't expect it to look cherry red but I don't see any red at all it's just dark black so this is definitely overdue for a change now with that empty we could get the drain plug back in and then snug it up it's very important we don't overtighten this this is just an aluminum case and you can easily strip this out all right so now we're going to come back up to the top here and let's let's fill this up so we removed about four to 5 quarts and that means we're going to fill this back up with around four 4 and 1/2 quarts doesn't have to be perfect we just want to get within a qut and you can see here we have about a half a qut left in this 5q bottle so we're spot on let's get this fill plug back on so we don't get any dirt in the transmission good and now let's go start the engine now you want to run the engine to get the engine up to operating temperature which means the transmission will be warm beautiful so with the car at operating temperature now what we want to do is have our foot on the brake do not let the car move cuz we're on jack stands and we're going to shift into the different gears so go in reverse wait a couple seconds let that fluid go into the reverse gears go into neutral go into drive again you're opening up the valve bodies you're letting the fluid go into the channels in the transmission then we can go into sport mode and then just travel up the Prindle that way we know all the fluid is mixed throughout that transmission so we could get the correct transmission level so now with the engine running we want to remove this fill check bolt right here good and you can see we slightly overfilled this which isn't a big deal just let it drain out this is good enough so tighten that bolt back up so it's snug and now we're filled at the proper level and that's all there is to do to change your transmission fluid very simple but very important you saw how dark and dirty that old fluid was it's good that we got new fluid in there so next what we're going to do is change our antifreeze this is also very important so so let me show you how to do this it's simple either go to your radiator or if you have a reservoir we're going to work from the reservoir and only remove the cap on a cold system because if it's hot it will be pressurized and it could shoot hot coolant all over you and that wouldn't be good and the reason why we removed the cap is because this is a closed system otherwise so now we're allowing air to go in so when we drain that coolant we're able to get more coolant out of the engine and radiator so now let's go under the car and let's drain the radiator so the radiator is located right under here and what you're going to want to do is look in the corner and you can see right there in this corner is the petcock which drains the radiator so right there's a better shot of the drain and to keep things from getting messy you could see they give you a little spot to slide a 3/8 in inner diameter hose over right at the end of the petcock and I like to use clear tubing that way we could actually see the coolant coming out now carefully use the pliers and open that valve here and it's pretty tight in here with the intercooler hose in the way so a Long Reach hose Grip Pliers fits in here better and that really isn't working either okay maybe an angled pliers like this will work and there we go so this is the perfect example of why US Car Guys and car girls always make an excuse to buy new tools so now we can let the radiator drain out and this coolant is looking pretty good but looks could be deceiving and I'll show you why in a second now with the radiator completely drained I like to close the valve right away that way we don't forget about this and then try to fill it up then all that new expensive coolant spills out cuz I've done that before so visually our coolant is looking pretty good it's not dark it doesn't have black specks of rubber or anything in it it's not contaminated and it's the correct color for this car but looks could be deceiving which is why I have these coolant test strips to test this out so all you need to do is dip the test strip into the coolant so it covers the strips completely for a couple of seconds so the top tells us the percentage of antifreeze in water we want that to be about 50/50 and the bottom tells us the acidity we do not want it to be acidic so if we take a look at our test strip at the top we have just about 50/50 and that's exactly what we want now if we take a look at the bottom you can definitely see we are more on the acidic side so it's a good thing we're changing this coolant so out with the old and in with the new and we're using Peaks O It's Made for North American Vehicles right on the bottle it lets you know Ford 2011 to 2019 so we know our 2013 is with ins speec and this is the correct antifreeze do not mix and match antifreezes there's different types this is an O an organic acid technology they have inorganic acid technology they have h8 there's all different ones you don't want to mix and match so now let's add our brand new coolant now normally I like using a spillproof funnel like this but as you can see we can't get it in here because the wiper cow's in the way and this helps remove all the air from the cooling system which is important and it's even hard to get in here with a funnel that has a long end like this so what we're going to do is we're going to quickly remove this wiper cow we need to anyway to get to the spark plugs and change the battery and this only takes a couple of seconds to remove so to get this off first let's remove the wiper blades so take off the cap at the end of the wiper loosen the nut with a ratchet and remove the nut the rest of the way by hand and now the wiper should come right off good and now the wiper Cal can pop right up now for the other side do the same thing remove the nut completely and wiggle the wiper off the stud then we can pop the Shroud up on this side as well and let's get this out of the way now there are two 10 mm bolts holding in this plastic piece that's hiding below the Shroud so remove both of those and now that that's loose let's remove the reservoir for the master cylinder this is held in by two torque screws so unscrew those and finally unscrew the two last 10 mm bolts over here and now the hard plastic shroud could come right off giving us plenty of room so add the adapter into the reservoir and then fit the funnel on top and you want to fill the funnel all the way up with the correct coolant now we can start the car and already you can see the water pump sucked a bunch of coolant down into the system so let's Top This funnel off now you see those bubbles coming out of the coolant in the funnel that's exactly what you want to see since this funnel is the highest part of the system it's going to force all that trapped air out of the entire cooling system so with the car at operating temperature no more bubbles are coming out plug the funnel with the included plunger and remove the funnel you can see the coolant is at the max fill line so just put the cap on and tighten it down all the way so all the bubbles bubbled out of the cooling system also you could feel the heat the heat is nice and hot so you know there's no air stuck in the heater core so now we could go and shut off the car and that's all there is to doing a simple drain and fill on your cooling system we changed about half the coolant this coolant was in pretty decent shape already so adding that new coolant will be perfect you want to do this about every 50,000 Mi on a car and that'll will keep your cooling system nice and happy all right so we changed out our oil transmission fluid coolant there's no differential in this car and there's no transfer case in this car and we'll add wiper fluid when we change the wiper blades so let's keep chugging away at this list now we have our cowl off so let's go and change the spark plugs which are right under here let's go change out our battery which is right there and let's change the air filter which is right there so let's change out the spark plugs first so let's pop off this engine cover and the four spark plugs are located right underneath these coil packs and each of these coil packs is held in by just one bolt so it's pretty simple to unscrew these and of course I say that and this bolt right here isn't accessible unless we remove this intake tubing so grab a flathead screwdriver and loosen up the clamp now we could separate this and move it out of the way okay now let's finish removing the last two bolts good now all four of the coil packs could be pulled off the spark plugs and as you can see we don't even have to disconnect the wires so it's very important we vacuum this up otherwise when you replace the spark plug you could actually get dirt into the engine and CA cause damage okay so to remove the spark plugs I like using this magnetic spark plug socket so just get it down in the well over the spark plug break the spark plug loose with the ratchet and loosen it the rest of the way by hand and the spark plug comes right out because it's held in by the magnet and if we take a look at the tip here you can see it's actually pretty clean there's no oil on it it's not black doesn't look like it's been overheated so the engine's running pretty good you can still see that fine wire platinum on there and you can see the little puck at the end of the electrode and while this might look good let's check the gap for wear so we start down here and work our way up until we have some resistance and we could see resistance right there at like 033 034 Factory Gap is 030 so there's just only a little bit of wear nothing horrible so it's a good idea to change these spark plugs anyway they last about 100,000 miles we're at 130 so out with the old and in with the new the exact OEM spec always match them up to make sure they're the same and these two are identical and although these are preg gapped I always carefully check the Gap just just in case yeah you can see look at this I don't want to keep going but you can see it's like 0.045 Gap and it's supposed to be 03 so we have to close this Gap and I actually have a really nice tool that's designed to make this simple so you just screw the spark plug in like so and then you tighten down this stud which pushes the top of the electrode and closes that Gap that should be good so let's unscrew it and now if we check the Gap you could start to feel some resistance here and boom spot on 0.030 Gap and that's perfect now we can install the spark plug that's gapped properly and the old school method was to add a little bit of anes on this but the threads on the new spark plugs have a coating so you don't have to but what I do like to do is add a little bit of silicone paste also known as dialectric grease right to that white ceramic part around the plug you don't need a lot just a thin layer and this insulates the high voltage coming out of the coils and little details like this make all the difference so slowly drop the spark plug down into the well and you always want a hand tighten spark plug so you don't cross thread them by accident and then to stay consistent I like to use a torque wrench and the spec on this is 9 ftlb good so now we need to repeat this process for the other three spark plugs and I'm going to knock this out real quick since you guys know the steps if your car's spark plugs are old and worn changing them out could get you better fuel economy could restore lost horsepower and it could help the engine run more smoothly and efficiently so it's a great thing to do and I have an entire video on everything you need to know on how to change out the spark plugs which I'll link in the description for you so with all the spark plugs in now we can get the coil packs back on the spark plugs and make sure you push them all the way down and finally tighten up each bolt that holds the coil in so it's snug good and the last thing to do is get that intake tube back on then tighten down the clamp so it's snug and that's all there is to replacing spark plugs it is that easy so with that done now let's move on to replacing the battery now with a car battery for a firsttime driver or for any driver you want to make sure your battery is in good shape so you don't get stranded so I have a battery tester right here you could also go to your local part store they'll test batteries for free but let me show you how the health of the battery is so just connect black to negative and red to positive and this is a regular flooded battery we want cold cranking amps and it says 590 cold cranking amps on the battery so that's good and now it's testing the battery and you can see it says we have a good battery it's perfectly fine at 100% health so this would be fine for any first time driver but since this is a special project we're going to be installing the newest technology a brand new lithium battery so let's unscrew the two nuts holding in the battery tie down and remove the bracket then we can loosen up the positive cable and wiggle it off the post and set it off the aside then do the same thing for the negative cable and now the battery could come out and this is an old school lead acid battery so it's a little heavy so out with the old lead acid battery and in with the new lithium battery now besides this battery having a jump start feature another good thing about it is it's a lot lighter so if we take the original battery and put it on the scale you can see it weighs 30.8 lb now lithium batteries are lighter so let's see how much oh man check that out 13.2 lb so that's about 18 lb lighter which is impressive so let's get this installed now although you'll never see this you guys know I have to clean the battery tray so spray it down with soapy water and then we could use a brush to agitate all that dirt and loosen it up and then finally we could wipe it clean with the microfiber towel to remove all the dirt now we can get the new battery in here which is a lot easier because of how light it is then we can get these protective caps off and get our negative cable on the negative post and snug it up and do the same thing for the positive cable get it on there and snug it up and finally let's get the tie down bracket in place and tighten it up so the battery's held in and doesn't move just in case there's an accident good and that's not going anywhere and both cables are nice and tight as well and can't forget about the battery cover so let's get that on there as well beautiful so with our new lithium battery installed since we can't easily get to that button cuz we'll have that shroud right here there is a remote control to jump start your car if you let your battery go completely dead you press this button and it gets enough power in that battery to be able to jump start the car so we'll put this with the key that is an awesome feature to to keep a new driver from getting stranded so with the battery done now let's go and replace the engine air filter okay so there are four 10 mm screws holding this cover on and once all those are loosened this should pop right off good and there's the old filter this pops right out and check out how dirty this is I'll bet you this is the original filter just like almost everything else in this car so out with the old and can't forget about vacuuming the air filter box and cleaning it up with a little bit of soapy water then we could dry this up and check it out that's much better and in with the new and this new filter is going to help that turbo breathe much better now the air filter cover goes on top and then evenly snug up all four bolts so it seals that filter in that's all there is to replacing an engine air filter now before we go and reinstall our wiper cow I want to check the turbo which is located right back here the reason being is these EcoBoost engines are known to have wastegate failures that'll create an under boost code the engine won't run right and that's not good in order to fix it it's over $2,000 in Parts in labor and I don't want the family that I'm donating the car to I have to worry about that cost in the future so let's go check the turbo so unfortunately I think I heard something before when the engine was running for the coolant change which is why we're looking at this now and there is a new p0299 check engine light which is basically pointing to the wastegate so let's take a quick listen so you hear that metal vibration noise that's coming from right at the turbo and this is such a common problem I'm pretty confident it's the internal wastegate and just to be 100% sure I'm wiggling the wastegate which should not have any play and this does so it is time for a new turbo all right well I'm glad we checked that because that was definitely a future problem so we have a brand new turbo and all the supporting Hardware that way we could have a perfect install now this is a 6-hour job I was not expecting to do this so I'm going to real quickly get this done so I'm about 2 hours in and as you can see I have a tent set up because it is raining but that's okay because if you come right over here behind the engine against the firewall is where I'm working check this out I got the turbo completely loose so let's slide it off the exhaust manifold studs and this should fit right here in this small Gap good and now the turbo is out all right so out with the old and in with the new and the reason why we had to replace this turbo is because we have a worn out wastegate this right here you can see how much play is in this wastegate this is a very common problem on EcoBoost engines and actually this is a very common problem on many turbo cars so with a loose wastegate it allows the exhaust gases to bypass the turbo and it doesn't spool it up as quickly and it just exits through the exhaust so you see how much play is in this wastegate check out the brand new turbo that does not budge at all there is no play as it should be and hopefully it lasts that way for a good long time so let's get our new one and let's install it so the new one needs to go in in the exact same way the old one came out so let's see if I could remember how this goes okay good there we go now we just just need to get everything bolted up so we could try her out and with the magic of editing all right moment of truth start her up all right so the engine is running properly we'll let it warm up and then we'll hit the gas to get it in boost to make sure we're good to go so we're pretty much at operating temperature and since the oil lines and coolant lines were removed to replace this turbo you always want to check for leaks and we're looking real good I don't see any leaks at all all right rev It Up one more [Music] time beautiful okay you can kill it all right the new turbo is successfully installed and sounds great so let's reinstall the wiper shroud so let's get the lower hard plastic piece in place and tighten down the two bolts on this side then tighten down the two bolts on the other side then let's tighten down the master cylinder reservoir and finally we can install the wiper shroud which should just pop in place good so now we could go and install our wiper arms but as you can see our blades are falling apart so let's replace them to remove this wiper just press on the clip at the end and slide it out and then the wipers should come right off the arm just like that good now the new wiper blade has an adapter that you push on until it clicks in place and you can see how the middle spot on the adapter allows the wiper blade to press on so just align the wiper and press it together and it's that easy so now when installing the wipers how do you know what angle to put them at well this is pretty simple first right here you can see there's a mark on the Wind Shield what you need to do is you need to line this Mark up with the wiper blade and then once it's lined up push it into place tighten down the bolt and torque it to 20t lb and don't forget to add the little trim cover same thing for the other side align the wiper blade with the mark on the glass press it into place and torque down the nut to hold it in that's all there is to it and we installed some of the highest quality silicone wipers that you could get which last way longer than the less expensive rubber wipers so even in a heavy rain the new driver is not going to have any problem also also this car has Auto wipers which automatically adjust the wiper speed based on how much it's raining which is pretty cool and one last thing we can't forget we have new wipers so we need to make sure the wiper fluid is topped off and I'm specifically using the bug cleaner windshield wash because I hear there's a ton of bugs down in Florida so this should help keep their windshield nice and clean so we just finished topping off the wiper fluid so we're done with all the fluids in the car and we changed the spark plugs replace the battery Chang the engine air filter the belt was recently replaced so that's good and we have new silicone wipers installed and there isn't that much to to do so let's get this done that way we can surprise the family with the car I can't wait okay so next up let's come over to the passenger side here and let's install a brand new cabin air filter which is located right under the glove box right over here and this right here is where the filter is on this car so let's get this trim piece out of the way good and the screw holding in the plastic cover is a Torx so get your Torx key in there and unscrew it all the way and be careful not to drop this good now we could remove this plastic airbox cover and the filter can come right out now for whatever reason this filter is really crammed in here and doesn't want to come out without being distorted a little normally there's more room for these to slide right out so you don't make a mess so looking at our old air filter you can see there's a bunch of mold on here which isn't good to breathe in if we look on the intake side you can see all the pollen and road debris that this filter is caught this thing's all clogged up so out with the old air filter and in with the brand new one now the new one's really nice not only will it filter the air but it's also got an anti mobial coating that way we don't get any mold or anything on our filter so let's go get this installed now you can see right up here on the air filter it says airflow this is very important we want our air flow going into the car so we want to install it just like that but first let's vacuum out this mess on the carpet and I always like to vacuum out the area the filter sits in because usually there's dust and dirt that gets trapped there good now we can get the new filter in and do your best not to crush the new filter when sliding it in then get the plastic cover back on and tighten up that torque screw to hold it in place good so with our cabin air filter installed since we're down here and we have this cover off you can see we have our fuse box right here let's go hardwire the dash cam to the fuse box let me show you how now I think having a dash camera in the car of a firsttime driver is essential really anybody should have a dash camera it helps so much cuz if you get into an accident it'll help you see who's at fault if somebody hit your car you could see the license plate stuff like that and it's just a good theft deterrent device now normally you would install it with one of these that plugs into the cigarette and there's just a bunch of wire and it just doesn't look good so instead we're going to use one of these hard wire kits and it comes with all the fuse Taps and all the wire you need to connect it that way when the car turns on the dash camera turns on when the car shuts off the dash camera shuts off so let me show you how to check the fuses so we're going to connect one of these fuse Taps right into our fuse box but we need to find the fuse that's only hot when the car is on so you're going to want to grab your multimeter and set it to DC volts now your black lead you're going to touch to Bare metal like this piece of metal right here and hold it there and then you want to grab your red lead and touch your red lead to the metal point on the fuse either metal Point works and you can see right there that one is 12 volt and that's with the car off so that fuse is always hot and if we check here that is also 12 volts so that fuse is also always hot now let's go up to this fuse right up here and you can see there's no voltage and that's with the car off so with the car off that doesn't have any voltage that's what we want now let's go turn the car on real quick and with the car on Let's test the voltage so we have 12 volts right there so that is going to be the fuse we're going to tap that 7.5 amp fuse because there's no power to that fuse when the car's off and then when the car is on there's power so let's pull the fuse out then install it into the open slot in the fuse tap so it's seated all the way in good and now just push your fuse tap into the empty spot just like that and then this could be connected to the hard wire kit so this right here is a hard wire kit we have the wire that runs to the camera and then we have the two wires that we need to connect we have a red which goes to battery positive and a black which goes to ground so we already have our red here and we could connect our red like that those two just push together and then now we have a ground that we need to connect to a bare piece of metal like this right here so let's just unscrew this bolt a little connect the ground and tighten it down so we have a nice tight secure ground good then we could reinstall the kick panel trim and press the two panel Clips in to secure it so now we need to run the wire to the rearview mirror in the area we want to install the dash camera and we want to do this as neat as possible so the easiest way to do this is run this up from the glove box along the side here and then run it in between the dash pad and the B pillar and you want to tuck it into where the two trim pieces meet that way the wires basically disappear and it's a nice clean install now we could run the wire up the a pillar again tucking it in using the plastic trim tool and at the top we could tuck the wire under the headliner all the way to the rear viiew mirror now get your dash camera and this is an extra small design so it doesn't take up much space and we want it right about here being sure to stay off that black dot matrix in the glass then just peel the double-sided tape off and check out the footage on the screen before you place it that way you know it's level and that's all there is to installing a dash camera with a hard wire kit and hiding all the wires so it looks good and so you have an idea this is actual footage from the dash camera it records your speed location and has pretty good video quality this is one of the more affordable cameras that actually work well and the camera and hardwire kit together is just around 100 bucks so I'll be sure to link this exact kit in the description to make easy for you to find now that the dash camera is done I noticed when I was driving this car the coolant temperature is slightly above the normal operating temperature Mark and I'm about to show you why so if we take a look behind the bumper where the intercooler condenser and radiator are you can see there's a ton of road debris clogging everything up preventing air flow from going through efficiently I mean just look at this there's even a bird that got stuck in here reducing the air flow so normally I would try to vacuum everything out but it's pretty clogged up and a vacuum isn't going to cut it so let's remove this plastic air funnel and disconnect the inner cool Co ER and put some rags in there so we don't get any dirt inside the intake and just look at this mess holy smokes and now it makes sense why she was running warmer than normal look at all these leaves now you want to be extra careful you don't bend the fins on the condenser when you do this otherwise air is not going to flow through and you just wasted your time anyway so the safest way to do this is to get a hose and flush all the crud out of the fins just make sure the water pressure isn't high enough to bend the fins and since I removed the intercooler this is the perfect example of what we just did to the condenser and radiator just spray down each row of fins and force out all that crud that got stuck inside and allowing more air flow over the intercooler is going to help keep the air cooler going into the engine and thereby increasing horsepower and efficiency which is never a bad thing and just like that we have a nice clean intercooler so reinstall the intercooler remember to take those Rags out of the piping and reinstall the plastic air funnel and real quick since we have the bumper cover off we have easy access to the old crack fog light lenses so out with the old and in with the new and these not only look better but are going to throw more light making this car even safer same for the other side out with the old crack fog light and in with the crystal clear fog light and with those new fog lights installed now we can get the front bumper installed and now the car could run cooler okay so the cabin air filter is replaced got the dash camera hardwired the fuel filter is not serviceable because it's attached to the fuel pump and we cleaned out all the leaves and stuff from the radiator next up we're going to be doing a complete brake job so brand new brake rotors brake pads and brake fluid on all four corners and with the brake pads we're going to be using galvanized mechanically attached brake pads which are some of the best on the market that way it meets OE spec which is very important so the car stops every time so we're going to start with the rear brake since I'm also doing a brake fluid flush and you always want to start a flush from the rear calipers since they're the furthest away from the master cylinder now let's pop the spring on the side of the caliper off and now we can remove the caliper from the bracket and set it off to the side so it's not hanging from the brake line and finally remove the pads next we want to remove these two bolts right here which hold in the caliper bracket so remove the top bolt all the way and remove the bottom bolt all the way and now the bracket comes right off next you're going to have to hit the rotor a few times with the hammer to break it free and now the rotor should come right off since this Hub has a little rust on it I'm using a metal wire brush to remove that rust that way the rotor sits flat on the Hub if you leave the rust there it could cause rotor run out and it could cause either a vibration or a pulsing feel in the brakes I'm also adding a thin coat of copper anes to the hub surface that way the rotor is going to come off nice and easy for the next person who's working on these brakes now for the new rotor you always want to spray it down with some brake cleaner and wipe it down with a towel on both sides new brake rotters have cosmoline grease from the factory that keeps them from rusting in the packaging which you don't want to contaminate your brake pads and check out all this grease that we removed now we can get the rotor on get the caliper bracket on add some medium strength thread Locker to the threads of the bolts so vibrations don't loosen them up while you're driving hand tighten those bolts into place and torque both bolts down to spec which is 70 ftlb now since our old brakes were worn we need to push this piston back into the caliper to make room for the thicker new brakes this brake piston tool makes easy work of this by fitting right into the caliper like so and then you just turn it and it pushes and twists the Piston back into the caliper and that's all there is to it now we can install the brake pads which need a light coat of antias on the end of the pad at the ear at the back of the pad and on the other end of the pad and this prevents the brakes from squeaking and then the pad slides right into the caliper bracket with the friction material touching the brake rotor I only mention that because I've seen people put pads in backwards and you don't want to do that and we want to make this as perfect of a brake job as possible so I'm pushing out the caliper guide pin at the top then you want to clean it off real good and you want to add a thin coat of silicone paste on the pin which helps the caliper slide freely in and out that's very important so the brakes don't bind up and just look at how smoothly this moves in and out now you want to do the same exact thing to the bottom guide pin as well and the little details like this make all the difference now we can tighten down the caliper guide pin bolts to spec and then install a new spring on the caliper just like that finally we want to flush and bleed the caliper so get your wrench on the bleeder valve and then get a clear vinyl tube over the bleeder valve that way we could bleed the car by ourself now we want to top off the master cylinder with some brake fluid that way we don't run dry and introduce air into the system which would not be good so now we can crack the bleeder valve loose then we just want to pump the brakes about 20 times or so until the brake fluid runs clear and is bubble free you can see some of that air bubbling out which is exactly what you want to see and just wait until you see the color difference between this old original brake fluid compared to the brand new fluid then we can wipe off the bleeder valve and put the dust cap back on good so out with the old brake fluid and in with the new look at that difference and you can see this brake fluid is probably the original brake fluid and definitely needed to be changed now the reason why you change brake fluid is because it's hygroscopic it absorbs water so it lowers the boiling point of that brake fluid so if the brake fluid gets hot it could actually boil oil when you're pressing the brakes create air and then you'll lose all braking power which isn't good the water in the brake fluid could also cause corrosion in your braking system so like your brake lines could rust and that wouldn't be good cuz you could lose your brakes that way as well so this was way overdue so out with the old brakes and in with the brand new brakes and that's how you do a proper brake job so we're going to be doing this on all four corners so here we go let's do the rear passenger side front passenger side and finally the front driver side all right so our brake fluid is top off and we just finished doing an entire brake job on this car new pads rotors and brake fluid this car is going to stop on a dime for years to come now while brakes are very important they're only as good as your tires and we're going to start out with something that everybody forgets to check the spare tire so let's get the pressure gauge on here and that isn't good 6 PSI this spare is basically a flat tire and that's the perfect example of why you need to check your spare even if you're not a firsttime driver it's worth checking to make sure it's actually usable so let's inflate this up to 60 PSI so that's your sign to check your spare tire and make sure that it's actually filled up with air and useful as a spare now let's check the other tires real quick and the first thing you want to do is check the date code on the side of the tires so find the letters dot on the tire right there and over to the side are four numbers in an oval like this 2422 and that means this tire was made on the 24th week of 202 22 you don't want tires more than 6 years old because they start to dry out and lose grip and if they're over 10 years old you definitely don't want to use them get new tires next you want to check the tread depth and a little trick is using a quarter so with George Washington upside down push the quarter all the way into the tread and if you can see right to the tip of his head like this you only have 4 30 seconds of tread left which is almost not safe but in this case you can see we have basically new tires with tons of tread and it's important to check all the way across the tire the deeper the tread the more space there is for water to go in and prevent hydroplaning so this is pretty important and the last thing to check is the wear pattern across the width of the tire you don't want to see it worn down on one end or worn down on the other end you want to see a nice even wear across the middle and these tires are so new they look great so they're good to go all right so all the pads and rotors were replaced the brake fluid was flushed so the brakes are completely done and we check the tread and pressure on the tires and we check the spare tire so the tires are good to go last up is checking your car for recalls and to do that you want to go to this website right here so I'll put a link to this website in the description it's free to use and a great way to check for recalls just type in your VIN hit submit and you can see it says we have two open recalls the first one is the door latch which is defective and the door might not close properly so as you drive it could open up and well that wouldn't be good and then scrolling down the second recall you could see it says the bushing on the shifter could be damaged or missing and then when you put the car in park it might not actually go in park but it'll say it's in park then you could get out and the car might roll away which also wouldn't be very very good and it says this recall is incomplete and you can see the other one is incomplete as well so let's go get this done so you're going to want to take your car to the local dealership in this case Ford and all the recall work is completely free now the text at this dealer are fans and they told me that they'd take some video which is awesome that way you guys get an idea of what's done so Lewis started with getting the shift cable done and popped it off the transmission that way he could remove the old defective bushing then he installed the new safe bushing and then the cable was pressed back onto the shift lever on the transmission and then a cap is installed to secure it that way it won't pop off next he fixed the door latch and the whole lock mechanism had to come out of the door then off camera he replaced the defective latch and then he reinstalled that part back into the car so now the doors won't fly open when you drive and that's all there is to fixing the recalls and now with all the recall work done we are completely done with the maintenance checklist so let's get this car home and get it on the transport so we can send it down to Florida so our car is looking amazing mechanically it's perfect visually it's looking great we're going to clean it when we get down to Florida right before we give it to the family so now all that's left is waiting for the transport and one more surprise I got them a nice toolkit from Tang tools that way they could save some money by working on their own car this video should be a good reference for them and who knows maybe this inspires them to pursue a job in the field of cars or just get a new hobby all right so the trailer is here and this is it the next time we'll see this car is down in Florida surprising a family in need with a new car we also loaded up Old Faithful my pickup truck that way we have a support vehicle down there all right safe travels and see you soon and a day later my buddy Jamie from Jam's garage took delivery of the vehicles for me as I was Landing in Florida now when Jamie drove the car he noticed there was a slight shimmy while driving at highway speeds so he stopped by his shop Elite Motorworks and he got the car up on a lift and Road Force balanced all four tires with Road Force balancing you not only get a normal balance job but there's a roller that pushes on the tires simulating the pressure of the car against the road which gives you the best balance possible possible so he rebalanced all four tires and the computer told him to put each tire in a certain corner to get rid of any pull and I thought that was really neat and just like that the car's Wheels were perfectly balanced so when we took it out for a ride you could see the steering wheel doesn't have a shimmy anymore and it feels nice and smooth so it is time all the work that was put into this car from the tints to the light bulbs cameras fluids spark plugs batteries wipers filters Brakes and Tires all of that is how you get your first car ready so it's perfect and maintained that way it's safe and reliable so I'm getting a little nervous let's head over to the family and they are expecting me they think I'm just going to be doing an interview but they do not know I got them a car all right and the last thing before we go give them the car you can see we have the titanium EcoBoost on that side and we have the escape on that side and now we have the P der is Aon this is officially the first ever chrisfix Edition going to its new home okay so let's surprise the family with their new car all right right here we go hi how's it going my name is Chris how are you nice to meet you come on in thank [Applause] you okay so I'm inside talking to the family right now and they think they're doing an interview for my YouTube channel what they don't know as I'm distracting them their new car is being pulled up into the driveway getting ready for the big surprise so the building homes for heroes team was is getting the car ready we even got a big bat to make it official and I'm just asking everybody a bunch of questions to make the interview seem real and then this happened now right so what what uh what car are you driving now for you said you go to school you also work what car are you using to go to school and work so I did have a Kia Soul that my mom and I had picked out together but unfortunately 2 days ago the engine was shy it's there's a hole in the engine completely undrivable so that oil stand in the driveway was from from 2 days ago where their engine failed and rendered their only car useless if that timing doesn't give you Goosebumps I don't know what will it's like this whole thing was meant to be all right well let's uh go head outside and I got a surprise for you guys okay here we go come on out and I'd like to introduce to you guys your new car no way and uh you guys remember before when I was talking to you how I was saying I like to work on cars well I went through this entire car for you guys got it completely up to spec it's fully maintained so it's got all new fluids new spark plugs it has a new lithium battery air filters wiper blades dash camera new brakes newer tires and uh it's got more stuff than that I just can't think of it all right now but she is good to go for you there's no guys check it out yeah yeah it's yours to start the car you just put your foot on the brake and then press that button not to push the start push the start are you kidding me so like we got heated seats full navigation dual climate control panoramic sunroof no no we got the sun you're excited I love it ready to go oh my God okay now press it one more time cuz it's panoramic so it opens all the way no way we have two keys cuz I know as a first-time driver I know I lost my Keys um let me show you the trunk since you have the key in your pocket you walk up to the car and put your foot underneath just kick underneath real quick yep and it pops right open for you so we have a fully loaded Tang toolbox screwdrivers pliers all the wrenches 1/4 inch 3/8 half in and sockets and the sockets go from 10 m up to 32 mm so like you're you're covered and then you know you got your saws your hammers um tap measure like like all all awesome stuff and then we have space up here for any of your tools that you already have that is awesome so congratulations this right here is officially your car thank you so I hope you guys share I hope you guys use it a lot congratulations be safe okay be safe drive safely have a car to get driven around in and pass down to you start driving okay so that was amazing but we are not done yet so Peak the company that makes any free for cars and trucks heard what I was doing and they wanted to help out even more by donating $10,000 for building homes for Heroes so the next time you guys are buying your antifreeze keep that in mind but wait we're not done yet hey Chris Freddy here you guys might know me as Tavarish and I wanted to help out a really really great cause so I decided to donate another $10,000 to building homes for Heroes to help out people in need and finally I'm personally donating $30,000 to help out more families and I normally don't ask you guys for anything I just try to make videos to try to teach you how to fix your car but if my videos have ever helped save some money if you could spare a couple of bucks and donate to the charity that would be amazing I'll put a QR code up on the screen links in the description and in the comments to make it as easy as possible and so you better understand what you're donating to building homes for Heroes gifts mortgage free homes to severely wounded veterans and First Responders they also modify homes that help the severely wounded live a more comfortable life and finally they help families and Veterans of First Responders who've made the ultimate sacrifice like what you just saw with the Manton family I'm personally very cautious with who I donate to and this charity has a perfect 100% rating I also personally met the CEO and he doesn't take a penny and 95 cents of every dollar donated goes directly to the cause that's rare now if you can't donate something you can do for free that helps is like the video and also comment down below that helps Drive the algorithm so more people could see the video and then hopefully we get more eyeballs which means more donations to help more families the whole point of my channel has always been to help as many people as possible and this is another way to do it so hope you guys enjoyed the video thank you very much and stay tuned because I have some really good videos coming up