1. Care and Feeding of Your Car
Can you answer these questions? How many cylinders does your car have? Does it have fuel injection or carburetion? Do you have disc brakes, drum brakes, or both? What kind of transmission fluid should you use? As a motorist, you need to know this information before starting any maintenance chores.
There are several ways to find out basic info about your car (described in the following pages):
- Read the owner's manual
- Inspect the car
- Use Internet resources
- Ask a trusted mechanic
This course will help free you from car problems by teaching you how to deal with basic maintenance issues.
The Owner's Manual
Your owner's manual, which is often found in the glove compartment, contains the most important information and specifications you need to know. It shows the locations for important lubrication points, maintenance schedules, and manufacturers' recommendations for lubricants. An owner's manual is the single most important book about your car.
If you don't have the original owner's manual, try to buy one at the car dealership parts department; if you have a Ford, call the local Ford dealership parts department.
If the dealer doesn't have a manual for your car, you might search for a car like yours and leave a note with your phone number on the windshield asking to borrow their manual to photocopy. It's worth the trouble.
After-Market Manuals
Another source of written information about particular cars is the secondary, after-market manuals, such as the series published by Chilton or Haynes. These books typically cost under $20 and are widely available at chain stores such as Kragens and Pep Boys. (Amazon.com also carries these titles.) After-market manuals are especially useful if you intend to try your hand at repair work.
Car Inspection
Although much can be learned from reading, the real understanding of your car's problems comes from scientific observation. It's hard to see how many cylinders your car has, but you can easily spot fluid leaks under the car, especially if you spread some newspapers underneath the car after you park. Car problems usually manifest in subtle ways, such as changes in acceleration, poor gas mileage, or barely perceptible vibrations.
This section focuses on how you can detect your car's problems early by making careful observations. If you want to maintain a car, start by using your senses of sound, smell, and sight. Use your brain to organize all the information. All the lessons in this course emphasize a scientific, systematic, organized approach to car maintenance.
Sound
Are any unusual noises coming from your car? If you're not accustomed to listening to your car, you won't have a comparison. Start today. Turn the stereo off, open the windows, and go for a ride -- just to listen to your car. When you get back in the driveway, leave it running and open the hood and listen to the idle. This is a good time to spread some newspapers and check for leaks. Taking time to do these chores is part of intelligent auto maintenance.
Before some component of your car fails, it often warns you by making strange noises. Unfortunately, modern autos are designed to insulate a driver as much as possible from sound, especially from the engine compartment. So, you have to open up the hood and listen.
I think it's hard to locate a noise in the engine compartment, which is cramped and noisy under the best conditions. Try taking a cardboard paper-towel tube and put one end on your ear; then move the free end around the engine compartment. Doing this can help you isolate and discover the location of a troublesome sound. I actually use a medical stethoscope with the cold metal end removed.
Does that troublesome noise only happen when the car is moving? What happens to the sound when you put the car in neutral and coast? Does it go away? If the noise happens both when your car is moving and stopped, does it change as you rev the engine? These types of tests are the basis of scientific car diagnoses.
Smell
It may seem odd, but I can sometimes smell a car problem before it happens. Tiny leaks in the radiator, for example, allow enough coolant to leak out to cause overheating. You might not see a puddle because the leak is so small, but there will be a sickly sweet smell of radiator fluid lingering around the front of your car after a significant drive.
If you don't know what radiator fluid smells like, buy a gallon at a parts store and smell it.
Electrical problems have their own unique smell: ozone. This bitter, metallic smell may indicate a pending electrical meltdown. Likewise, the odor of rotten eggs is a sign that you need a new catalytic converter.
Sight
Perhaps the most intuitive observational tool is vision. One goal of this course is to help you develop what I call car eyes . By this, I mean that your sight can be trained to observe your car more closely.
What's out of place? What's oily when it shouldn't be? What are those metal shavings in the engine compartment?
When you examine those leaks on the newspaper, remember:
- Radiator coolant is yellow-green.
- Transmission fluid is usually red.
- Gasoline has a distinctive odor.
- Air conditioners often cause plain water to condense and drip.
Internet Resources
Just as searching for car manuals on Amazon.com pulls up hundreds of examples, searching for 1989 Volkswagen on Google.com retrieves Volkswagen Auto Parts Store Online, a Web site that has discussion boards, advice, and classified ads with used parts for sale. Try this sort of search for your car year and model and see if you can find a similar forum.
Don't expect much from chat rooms; look for discussion boards, such as AutoFan.com, where you can post questions and search through previous messages.
Auto Mechanics
Certain maintenance issues are most important for the health of your car. These issues include oil, gasoline, and service stations with good auto mechanics.
Motor Oil
Perhaps no single thing is as good for your car's health as frequent motor oil changes. Most manufactures recommend an oil change after about 3,500 miles.
Engine oil becomes dirty because of the following:
- Some of the burning gases inside an engine escape into the oil.
- Condensation (water) forms inside an engine.
- Gummy sludge builds-up in a crankcase where the oil is held.
- Tiny pieces of metal collect together in the sludge.
- Oxidation occurs, breaking down the molecular structure of the oil.
- The oil can't suspend tiny dirt particles because of the chemical breakdown.
- The tiny particles scratch the polished surfaces in the engine.
- The small scratches create more metal particles and more scratching, leading to a cascading increase in engine wear.
Let's examine the different kinds of oil. The most important consideration in selecting oil is its thickness, or viscosity. If the oil is too thick, it drags on the engine parts and requires more power (less gasoline mileage and speed). On very cold mornings, when the oil is especially viscous, the extra drag may require too much energy to turn the engine over, and the car won't start. (Of course, you'll think the battery is dead.) If the oil is too thin, it runs out from under the bearing surfaces too quickly, which leads to excessive wear during starting.
Most engine wear occurs when the car is first started, before the oil has a chance to circulate. When the car is parked, the oil is squished out from under important heavy parts, like the crankshaft. These heavy parts settle under their own weight, maybe one-thousandth of an inch. That's not much, but if the oil is too thin, more oil is squished out faster from the bearing surfaces, the very places it needs to be. When the car starts, these surfaces have no oil; this results in excessive wear and possible damage before new oil is pumped to the surfaces and a hydrodynamic barrier is established.
The hydrodynamic barrier actually floats the heavy, tight-fitting parts on a microscopic film of oil, which virtually eliminates friction. It takes several complete revolutions of an engine before the protective hydrodynamic barrier is established.
Never race your engine when you first start up; wait until the oil is pumped into place and the hydrodynamic barrier is established.
Gasoline
Price and octane rating (which is posted on each pump) are the two major considerations of selecting gasoline.
Octane
Don't use a higher octane than you need. Higher octane is not better, not cleaner, and not more powerful. Higher octane can handle more squeezing in the combustion chamber before it explodes, which translates into more power.
For more on octane, visit http://www.howstuffworks.com/question90.html.
The only problem with using the lower-octane gasoline is engine knocking, which is a metallic, fluttering sound inside an engine that occurs during acceleration. Engine knocking can cause engine damage. It's okay to have a little knocking if you accelerate very hard while going up a hill. But if you have knocking under normal driving conditions, try a higher-octane gasoline. Then ask a mechanic if he can adjust your engine timing to allow you to use the lowest possible octane fuel.
Modern vehicles use computerized ignition systems to adjust engine timing continuously to compensate for the many variables that affect engine timing, such as altitude, temperature, and octane rating. If you have a computerized ignition system, try using the lowest octane available because computer should make the necessary antiknock adjustments.
Prices
Some people prefer to pay more to get their gasoline at name-brand service stations, thinking perhaps that it's of better quality than independent stations. However, major oil companies (Exxon, Standard, Texaco, Shell, Arco, Mobil, and Atlantic Richfield) refine almost all gasoline available in the United States. Convenience stores, gas stations, and small independent stations don't have their own refineries; they buy from these companies. So basically, all the gas is the same, even at lower prices.
Service Stations
Start looking around town for service station where you can get gas and establish a relationship with an owner or mechanic. His name should be on a sign outside. You may pay a few pennies more at a station like this but you'll save it back on advice and extra service.
Moving On
In this lesson, you learned the very basics of car maintenance. In Lesson 2, you find out how to find a mechanic who won't con you.