Here are several things that you can easily do to keep your car, truck or van running safely and conserve money in the long run.
Tires: key to your vehicle’s performance and safety
Acceleration, braking and turning all depend on reliable rubber meeting the road.
Once a month, perhaps after you’ve washed your vehicle, look at the tires and check their air pressures. You may be glad you did. Inspect the tread for damage –chunking from rough roads, uneven wear across the tire from left to right, cupping, or balding. You may even find a screw, nail or other object embedded in the tread! The sidewalls hold up your tires and hence suspend your vehicle. Many of us have bumped curbs with our tires, so look at the sidewalls — inner and outer — for signs of weakness – rippling, bulges, abrasions or small tears.
A tire’s sidewall tells you the maximum air pressure. When the tires ( and the air in them) are not heated from recent driving, use a reliable air pressure gauge on the valve. If your tires are under-inflated, more than 15% below the maximum rated pressure, use a home garage air compressor or go to the nearest service station –or Reservoir Auto– to inflate them properly. Properly-inflated tires have less rolling-resistance, so your vehicle conserves fuel.
For even wear and fuel-efficiency, have your tires rotated (left to right, front to rear) every 5,000 miles. Leave it to a wheel-and-tire expert, as many tires are uni-directional (one-way) and shouldn’t be flipped to roll backward. Tires must be dismounted from wheels and remounted to roll forward on the wheels on the opposite side of the vehicle.
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Wheels:
Brake dust (carbon and metal shavings from pads and rotors) plus road grime (asphalt, mud, motor oil) can damage your wheels if you don’t remove it and the heat from your brakes bakes it onto your wheels. Your wheels will look dirty and possibly be unbalanced. Brake dust normally clings to wheels with static electricity, so it’s not so hard to scrub it off with a sponge and detergent when you wash your vehicle. Leaving brake dust on the wheels provides a textured surface for road grime to adhere.
Unless they’re painted, most aluminum alloy wheels have a clearcoat. So even if you have alot of road grime on your wheels, do not use a harsh solvent to remove it, as the chemicals can eat into the clearcoat. Then your wheels will really be susceptible to corrosion.
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Under the hood:
If you’ve recently washed the engine bay, look at the engine, hood, inner fenders and engine cradle for drips and sprays from radiator hoses, air conditioner lines, leaking head gaskets, nicked steering or brake system lines. You can spot signs of trouble before it’s too serious and expensive.
Look under your vehicle for any drips of antifreeze, motor oil, gear oil or transmission fluid, brake fluid and power steering fluid. You can do a quick leak test by sliding a large piece of cardboard under your vehicle after you’ve driven it to see if any fluids have dripped.
A reddish fluid is either power steering fluid or transmission fluid. Engine oil is amber, brown or black, depending on age. Coolant (anti-freeze) is either pink or yellow-green. Dripped water may be condensation from the air conditioner ( no problem). Clutch or brake fluid may be uncolored. Blue or green thin fluid is windshield washer solvent..
If you have power-assisted steering, pull the dipstick for the fluid reservoir, likely near the firewall, and top it up if necessary.
Check your brake fluid level by looking through the transparent/translucent reservoir.The coolant reservoir for the radiator is on one side of the engine bay or the other, near the radiator. It’s a white and translucent bottle. When the engine is cool, look too see if the coolant (antifreeze) level inside it is between the ‘low’ and ‘high’ markings on the bottle. Add a half-and-half solution of coolant/anti-freeze and water if needed. The radiator will draw coolant from the reservoir when its own level is low.
Engine oil:
Park somewhere level, and when the engine has cooled, pull the dipstick, wipe it clean, then push it into the dipstick tube until the top of it is seated properly again. Wait a moment, then pull it out again. See if the level of the oil on the stick is between the high and low marks –shown by two dots or an ‘H’ for high and ‘L’ for low. Why not just read the level first time around? The first time you pull the dipstick, it will have had oil splashed far up it by the engine’s internal parts. So wipe it clean with a?hop rag, then dip it back into the oil. That’s why it’s called a dipstick.
Add oil as needed, measuring with the dipstick. You’ll keep your engine lubed and cooled. Clean motor oil is light-colored, like honey. If you see that the your engine’s oil is very dark, the oil is holding many particles –carbon and even fine metal shavings from the engine– in suspension, and it should be drained and replaced.
Hoses and belts:
Rubber drive belts that loop around various pulleys, drive everything from the alternator to the a/c compressor. Engine heat degrades them. Are drive belts cracked? Grooves or teeth worn down or missing? Are threads sticking out the sides? Mechanics are the experts, but you can be the first to see signs of wear and tear.
Check hose clamps for looseness or cutting-into hoses if too tight. Look at and squeeze silicon/rubber hoses to check for stiffness and cracks. Too soft is bad, as are bulges which may soon rupture!
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Batteries:
The most common battery type today are maintenance free batteries. Maintenance free batteries have sealed caps and require no checking. But some batteries read maintenance free yet do have removable caps. These should be opened and checked in the usual way. Wear eye protection and rubber gloves to avoid skin contact with corrosive deposits and battery acid. Carefully pry off the battery caps and look inside. The proper electrolyte level covers the lead plates. Top-up with distilled water, if necessary.
If the terminals and cables are covered with powder, remove the cables from the battery (negative one first) then use a small wire brush and a solution of baking soda and water to remove corrosion from the battery posts and cable connections. You can coat the battery posts with petroleum jelly or white lithium grease to protect them from corrosion. Reattach the cables ( positive one first) to the terminals. Note that disconnecting the battery might cause loss of data/codes in some newer vehicles, so check your vehicle’s manual first. Some expensive cars have smaller, supplementary batteries just to serve the onboard computers and entertainment electronics.
If the battery is four or more years old, consider replacing it.
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Air filter:
It keeps your engine from inhaling all the dust and insects in the air. If it’s clogged, the engine has a harder time sucking air through it. To compensate for the reduced air flow, the engine management computer richens the fuel mixture, using more gasoline to keep the engine running smoothly. Replace your air filter when it’s visibly dirty. When your engine breathes freely, its fuel economy will improve.
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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Looking after your vehicle can help you conserve money in the long run!
Brian
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