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- Brad324, on 01/19/2008, -0/+65after reading this list - it's clear that my car is going to fall to pieces any day now.
- i64X, on 01/19/2008, -1/+53>> 70. Seal a leaky radiator
I agree with ALMOST everything in this article until I got to number 70 - which I absolutely disagree with. Putting some of this "radiator stop leak" crap in to your cooling system might be fine on some old truck or something, but there's no way I'd put this gunk in a modern engine. This stuff is made to solidify (to stop leaks) and could damage your water pump ($$$) or your thermostat (not so much $$$ but you could get gouged if you didn't know how to do it yourself). Depending on your car, just getting the water pump replaced would cost more than a new radiator in the first place - they have to remove the timing belt/chain, which sometimes involves removing belts, engine mounts to get the belts off, etc. etc.
Never use this crap, or any other "quick fix in a can" to fix car problems - including Fix a Flat tire repair, unless it's an EXTREME emergency. Cars are expensive, and parts on cars are expensive. If you can't afford to fix a $200 radiator should it fail, you should really consider putting some more money aside for unexpected car repairs should something like that happen, so you don't end up shelling out all kinds of bucks later to fix something that your "quick fix" fixed temporarily. - DeskFlyer, on 01/19/2008, -2/+40The tip listed in the description is retarded. All gas station pumping systems have a ***** of filters installed throughout. Most sediment and other debris that can foul auto fuel filters and injectors comes from the vehicle's own gas tank and fuel system.
- nomadishere, on 01/19/2008, -1/+33Dugg for placing a towel under the baby car seat - wow does it suck if you don't
- brentinkc, on 01/19/2008, -3/+31DO NOT USE ARMOR-ALL
You will have to re-apply it once a month for the life of the car or your interior will crack and split as the armor-all dries.
Meguiar's and Mother's offer much better vinyl and leather protectants. - Fourbin, on 01/19/2008, -8/+34Is this list from 1965? This is ***** retarted. Lighten your keychain? Blow me.
- rarson, on 01/19/2008, -0/+23This is all a ***** list. The common theme is "make your car last longer by driving how I tell you, instead of doing the maintenance that will ensure your car lasts as long as it can." I hate to make a long post, but let's examine some of these "tips."
Easy break-in: Probably sounds good inside your head, but in reality, the piston rings need pressure to seat properly before wearing into the cylinder walls. It just doesn't make any sense not to put the engine under load when breaking it in. Engine builders typically put their engines on a dyno which gives a full range of tests for engines they've just built... what does that tell you about proper break-in?
Don't allow the car to idle: Cars are designed to idle. If you live in the city, your driving is probably a vast majority of idling. What you do want to do, however, is minimize the operation of things like the clutch pedal that place a load on engine parts that need critical oiling, as the oil pressure could be too low to allow proper lubrication. This is utterly exacerbated by the fact that most manual transmission cars require you to disengage the clutch to start them... when the engine has NO lubrication at all! The manufacturers are providing protection against stupidity over longevity, so if you can disable the clutch pedal start-up requirement (usually it's a switch that activates at the bottom of the pedal's travel), it's a good idea.
Keep the rpms low: This suggestion only makes sense if revving the engine is going to cause you to break the speed limits. The author needs to pick a piece of advice and stick to it: Keep the revs low, but don't idle! Cars that still use mechanical water pumps are going to benefit not only from increased oiling, but also increased cooling at high rpms.
Do not race the engine during start-up: Sure, but giving the engine a few revs can help the oil heat up faster and actually reduce engine wear. Wear during warm-up is a significant portion of an engine's wear, but that's because most people never bother to let their car warm up before driving it. Driving a car and idling/revving are two entirely different things. A couple thousand rpm aren't going to make much difference to the engine when there is no load on it. Mazda even did this with the RX-7's cold-start system which revved the engine to 3000 rpm while cold to decrease warm-up times. The reason? Oiling is super-critical on a rotary and Mazda didn't want their customers putting load on the engine before it was warm. Cold oil = bad lubrication.
Accelerate slowly: Again, the reason wear is typically so high is because people don't allow the engine to warm up. Engine wear is not dependent upon arbitrary time requirements; once the engine is warmed up, you are free to drive the piss out of it. The very next tip even suggest NOT to let the engine warm up! What the HELL?
Shift to neutral at stop lights: Utterly pointless. If you know anything about automatic transmissions, then you'll know they include something called a "torque converter" which has a "stall" feature that is designed specifically for the purpose of allowing you to not have to shift the transmission. After all, if you want to shift, then get a manual. That's the ENTIRE POINT of an automatic.
Avoid high-speed driving: The frequency of repairs is not determined by how fast you drive the car. It's how you drive the car. For instance, a person who accelerates quickly might also brake quickly and therefore go through brake pads much quicker. However, someone else who might also accelerate quickly might use engine braking much more frequently, and thus go through *fewer* brake pads than someone who drives slowly. Engine braking is a benefit of manual transmissions. It cools the engine down faster, saves gas (most fuel injectors aren't operating if engine speed is greater than 1500 rpm or so and throttle input is zero, which is usually not the case for an automatic which is basically idling the whole time as you come to a stop), and saves brake pads.
Extend the life of your tires with careful driving: Sure, but extend the life of them even more by checking your tire pressure and rotating them every so often. Obviously you want to avoid poor road conditions like potholes and obviously driving a car harder will increase tire wear, but the most common reason for increased tire wear is that the average idiot doesn't bother to have their alignment checked, doesn't bother to check that their tires are full of air, and doesn't bother to rotate the tires. A slight bit of toe out on your car's alignment can cause the inside of the tires to feather and wear faster than anything else. Overinflating or underinflating tires will cause them to wear in the middle of the tread or on the outsides, respectively. Rotating the tires will help get more life out of them because the front wheels tend to wear faster, as they have to both roll and turn. Most of the tires I've seen people driving on have to be replaced not because they've reached their wear limit, but because the tire wear was so severely abnormal that the tires had to be junked early. - holzp, on 01/19/2008, -2/+24I'll give you the only one you need: find a good honest mechanic and use their services.
- brentinkc, on 01/19/2008, -1/+18Also, do not let bird ***** sit on your car. It's extremely acidic and will eat through your clear coat in a matter of days. I've seen it happen!
Road tar is far easier to remove if you get to it quickly. - asspants, on 01/19/2008, -1/+172# Put less strain on your engine and automatic transmission by shifting to neutral at red lights. Otherwise, the engine is still working to push the car even while it's stopped.
I'm not going to pretend that I understand how an automatic transmission works, but isnt there some sort of clutch that kicks in when you are sitting at a red light with the brakes pressed in?
I mean if I left my manual transmission vehicle in gear while coming to a complete stop the engine dies.
This seems kind of pointless.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, gearheads. - vinblackham, on 01/19/2008, -1/+16#11. Clean the inside, too. Good tip...but not an easy one when you got a 3 year old!
- rarson, on 01/19/2008, -0/+15Don't listen to Metl as he doesn't know what he's talking about.
It's called a torque converter, and it's job is to slip until the engine rpm reaches a certain speed, upon which it stops slipping and begins to propel the car forward. The torque converter is the reason why automatics have that "rubberband" feeling.
The entire point of having the torque converter is to slip, and if it weren't there, the car would indeed stall at a stop like a manual. The whole point of having an automatic transmission is to avoid having to shift. So putting the car in neutral at every stop is not only completely pointless, but retarded, too. - Error601, on 01/19/2008, -1/+16I wouldn't worry about the tanker thing. The fuel filter will catch anything that might get in there.
Their break-in rules are out-dated. These days, all you need to worry about is not run too hot or too cool for an extended period of time. That means no long highway trips, no cruise control, and no towing. If you do need to be on the highway a while, vary your speed on a regular basis. Precision manufacturing has eliminate most of the issues of the past. - petebert, on 01/19/2008, -1/+1266. Run your AC in winter
Dont modern A/C systems have something to prevent them from blowing cold air below 40° or so? Also, running your defrost uses the A/C system to remove moisture. So if you use your defrost your using the A/C. - Error601, on 01/19/2008, -0/+10Completely agree there. A leaky radiator is better than a clogged one. You can always top it off until you can get it replaced but poor flow can overheat the engine and crack the block.
- redmaxx, on 01/19/2008, -0/+9The tip should be to watch how fast the pump goes. If it is slow, the filters are clogged and you should go to a different station.
- frogman54, on 01/19/2008, -1/+10This guy obviously read "1001 Tips on How to Give Too Many Tips."
- brentinkc, on 01/19/2008, -0/+9Yep, totally agreed. I've changed the filters myself on those gas pumps myself. The closest filter to your car is about 8-10 feet down the hose, in the housing of the bottom of the pump.
- MattS, on 01/19/2008, -4/+12While your at it, remember to breathe, eat, sleep, wear clothes...
- rarson, on 01/19/2008, -2/+10People also believe that hitting the rev limiter is a bad thing. They don't understand that there is a reason why the limiter is there in the first place: so that the engine doesn't spin faster than it was designed to. If the engine wasn't designed to handle such high rpms, then... well gee, don't you think they might not have set the damn rev limiter so high?
And yes, it actually does your engine good to rev it high on a regular basis, as it helps get rid of deposits that build up from "granny driving." The absolute worst way you can drive a car is slow and in short bursts. It's usually listed as a selling point for a car ("only driven by a little old lady to and from the store once a week for groceries" or whatever) but it's worse than beating the piss out of the car because deposits build up, wear increases from the engine not even reaching operating temperature, condensation forms in the various engine passageways like the oiling system, and all the rubber hoses and such crack and wear out because she's a little old lady who never does maintenance.
Rotary engines, especially, need to hit the rev limiter on a daily basis.
Regarding break-in, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to break an engine in hard than to try and go easy on it (for the reasons explained in shockeriv's link), but that doesn't preclude warming the engine up. Giving the engine a few revs to help it warm up is probably beneficial, because oil is more viscous and therefore less lubricating when it is cold (that's why you see oils like 5W-30; the W stands for winter and represents that the oil acts as a 5-weight oil when cold and a 30-weight oil when warm, but note that viscosity varies with temperature so a lighter oil is still a lot more viscous at cold temps than a heavier oil when warmed up) and revving the engine a bit will help the oil heat up faster (Mazda did this with their cold start system on the RX-7, which revved the engine up to 3000 rpm until warm, since oiling is extremely critical to both the wear and the balance of a rotary engine). However, revving the engine in park and driving are two completely different things. You never want to put load on the engine (ie, drive) when the engine is cold.
So beat the piss out of it when breaking it in, just don't do it before it's fully warmed up. - techeric, on 01/19/2008, -0/+8Yep, that "some sort of clutch" is the torque converter. Metl was correct by saying that it does take some load off the transmission and brakes. One might argue that the strain on the components is negligible when compared to the stress of shifting between neutral and drive all the time, too.
- nico623, on 01/19/2008, -1/+9Don't live in Wisconsin...I swear the use the most salt on roads then any other state I've been it
- timbo458, on 01/19/2008, -0/+8That would fall under the category "How to keep the driver in good condition".
- tidu, on 01/19/2008, -0/+73 million miles? You're a *****' globetrotter
- Error601, on 01/19/2008, -0/+7That's not so much of a problem in recent year. Most cars have a chemically non-reactive clear coat that can't be dissolved again once it's cured. It's a lot different from the old days where you had to keep a coat of wax on it to prevent the paint from reacting.
- rockchops, on 01/19/2008, -0/+7MUCH easier said than done!
- rizzo2008, on 01/19/2008, -0/+7whether it is a problem or not I still hate pigeons and other city birds which are only useful for existing and ***** all over you and your car.
- jonxblaze, on 01/19/2008, -6/+13Tip #1: Avoid road rage at all cost!
- Chirp08, on 01/19/2008, -2/+9Actually they ***** up on #1 too. If anyone here has built and engine before they would know to break it in you must drive it like you stole it. The reason being is that you are literally breaking it in, the rings are creating what will be their permanent wear pattern on the cylinder walls. If you never take it above 3k rpm, and you just baby it, the rings are going to only seal against that power range, which means that at anything above that power range you aren't going to get a 100% seal, especially down the road. The only thing you shouldn't do during break in is keep the engine at a constant RPM for prolonged periods, you want to keep varying the engine speed, keep varying the load, expose it to everything it will ever see and you will be fine.
- InsaneOni, on 01/19/2008, -1/+7That's true for built motors, but all production engines are pre-broken-in at the factory before they ship out. However, there is no need to baby an engine in a new car. Just drive how you want when you get the car, it's not going to adversely affect it. Driving hard will put more wear on your engine, but if you're like me, you don't care :)
- rarson, on 01/19/2008, -1/+7No sense in worrying about how much crap is in the gas period. The filters and injectors will get clogged eventually. That's why fuel systems (and the injectors themselves) have fuel filters in the first place. Instead of recommending people take a leap of faith on a hunch that "seems to make sense" which won't significantly make a difference, it'd probably be better to check and change these regular maintenance items and not completely ignore them.
www.witchhunter.com will clean and flow test your fuel injectors for only $17 per injector, which is about the cheapest I can find. RC Engineering, by comparison, starts out at $24 per injector. - enclaved, on 01/19/2008, -1/+7YOUR SEW DUM,
- RickyBennett, on 01/19/2008, -2/+73287571 that is how many miles is on my 86 honda right now
- Seaborgium106, on 01/19/2008, -0/+5You must not have been to Minnesota then, it's even worse here.
- rizzo2008, on 01/19/2008, -1/+6leasing is the most useless idea ever. Why would I want to pay hundreds of dollars a month just to literally "rent" a car for a year or two?
- Caspercreep, on 01/19/2008, -1/+6Don't let your roommate drive your car while he's drunk.......*sighs*
- digggggggggg, on 01/19/2008, -3/+7Dibs on the rims.
Or if they're hubcaps, forget about it you cheapskate. - redmaxx, on 01/19/2008, -1/+5There is considerable debate on whether or not you actually can go longer between oil changes. The reason is the oil filter. Even if you use a long life oil filter, you'll still probably have to change it before the oil life is used up.
- DewCrew88, on 01/19/2008, -1/+5#1 is false, you drive your car the way you plan on driving it in the break in.
EX- if you have a sports car, even a sporty hatch back you should look in to a hard break-in it will allow the cylinder ring seals to settle firmly and allow the engine to operate at its maximum power all its life - redmaxx, on 01/19/2008, -0/+4Before following the advice on the fuel filter, find out if your car has a lifetime fuel filter. Many new ones do and the only way to replace it is to replace the entire in-tank fuel pump assembly. That is expensive and defeats the purpose of changing the filter.
- atbnet, on 01/19/2008, -1/+5I would suggest using some lithium grease on your door hinges to help them deal with the wear. I had a 93 Jeep Cherokee that after uses of use, abuse and rust had the driver side door just fell off. I had to hold the damn thing shut all the way home from work and had to use the passenger side door until I could get it welded back on.
- Virgule, on 01/19/2008, -0/+4my car's manual explicitly mention there is no break-in period necessary. No special 'care' required at all.
- akatherder, on 01/19/2008, -0/+4We befriended a mechanic at our local bar who works at the shop down the street. We make it up there about once a week and ran into him every once in a while. We were talking to him and he said how he hates everyone bugging him for car advice and that's all they want to talk about with him. We rarely "talk shop" with him unless we tell him we have a problem and we're bringing the car in tomorrow. Of course, human nature kicks in and we start talking about what's wrong with the car. A couple times he's saved us a trip by telling us what to do to fix it at home.
The disclaimer is that you probably don't want some guy working on your car if he is in there getting drunk EVERY time you go there. The guy we know hangs out at the bar a lot but he only comes in for 2 or 3 beers with his wife after work. If you don't like hanging out at the bar, it's not worth going just to look for a mechanic buddy. But if you grab a beer every once in a while, take a look around and try to befriend a mechanic. - plonk420, on 01/19/2008, -0/+4#2: the Click and Clack brothers from CarTalk say NOT to switch into neutral at lights. according to them the stress put on the transmission when it reengages puts more wear on everything involved than not doing so.
- rarson, on 01/19/2008, -0/+4The injectors themselves contain a mesh that filters gasoline before it goes through the injector nozzle. The fact that the gas gets filtered 3 times before it gets from the tank to the injector nozzle means that it's pretty damn unlikely anything will make it to the nozzle.
Instead of avoiding gas stations at a certain time for absolutely no reason to "keep injectors and filters from clogging," it's probably much more useful just to do the maintenance on those items, since they are filters and will clog anyway, at least if they are doing their job properly. - Nerfdude, on 01/19/2008, -1/+5i've replaced the fuel pump in one of my cars, and yes, there is a filter IN the gas tank before sediment could even get to the pump. if a chunk of anything managed to make its way past that, past the fuel filter, and then into an injector, it would rape said injector. it's not like an injector nozzle looks like something you'd screw onto a garden hose.
- quakerorts, on 01/19/2008, -0/+4Here's the link for it all on one page, without ads:
http://www.rd.com/content/printContent.do?contentI ... - morningmatters, on 01/19/2008, -1/+5Leasing makes great sense for people who wish to switch their cars after a few years, and especially for cars which cannot retain values well. An average car retains less than 50% of its value after 3 years; an average car costing 25k will be lucky to be traded in for more than 12k after 3 years. The depreciation of the car is not so much off the leasing costs.
Also, it can be argued that money freed from leasing can be used to invest elsewhere. The bank typically charge less than 4% interest on leased vehicles, so if you can take the freed up cash and invest in something with a return rate greater than the interest, you can potentially end up saving a lot more. - Davekcon, on 01/19/2008, -0/+4absolutely correct. the torque converter is designed to let the engine idle, and it does this very well. shifting into neutral on a regular basis means that your probably wearing out parts of the transaxle unnecessarily.
- rizzo2008, on 01/19/2008, -1/+4Its a problem with older cars particularly because it rusts the bottom out
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