what to start with when learning to work on cars
Look, at that place's no shame in not knowing everything about cars. I sure don't, and claiming to know everything only proves that y'all don't. Nonetheless, as a discerning possessor, enthusiast, or even basic user of automobiles, there are certain things yous should absolutely know how to do. No excuses.
Let's start with the nuts, then progress to the intermediate and more than advanced levels, shall we?
Modify your own oil
Is it admittedly a requirement that you lot modify your car's oil yourself every single time? No, but when you go to a quick-lube identify, you run the adventure that they'll spiral something up. Go a cheap pair of ramps and do it yourself, unless y'all've got one of those uptight parking-lot security guards staring you down the whole fourth dimension.
Read a dipstick
Dipsticks tell you if your motorcar has enough or too much oil in it, but that's not all. They'll also give you a sense of how bad the oil is, and potentially how poorly the automobile is maintained. If you're checking out a used motorcar, for case, and you find grit in the oil that's on the dipstick... just walk away.
Jack up your car
There's a good style and a bad way to jack up your automobile. Putting a jack under your oil pan, for example, is an excellent way to transfer all of the oil from your engine to the floor of your garage before you lot supercede, well, your oil pan. In that location are several areas where information technology's best to put a jack, but if you're unsure, consult your owner's manual. Information technology'll tell you the all-time spot for your specific auto.
Change a tire
The simple fact is that run-flat tires are making the very being of spare tires more and more rare in today's world. That'southward no excuse to non know how to jack up your car and alter a tire, like the guy in that awful "Handy Man" commercial.
Torque your lug nuts
There are a few points hither. Starting time, don't just cinch your lug nuts as tightly as you can become 'em or you'll want to go back in time and kick yourself for doing then as before long as you need to get them off. Use a torque wrench to get them to your manufacturer's specified range -- no more, no less. If you don't have a torque wrench, become ane, then use it to torque every other lug nut in a star-shaped pattern (diagonally across from each other) until you've done them all.
Jump-start your machine
Expect, it'due south non that difficult. Positive clamp on dead bombardment. Positive clamp on good battery. Negative clench on adept battery. Negative clamp on bare, grounded metal on auto with dead battery. Start proficient machine, expect a couple of minutes, start expressionless motorcar. Unclamp everything in reverse order and do non touch the clamps to each other . Now go bulldoze your car for a while to permit the alternator charge information technology up.
Or, you know, wait a few hours for AAA to send someone.
Change a spark plug
Unless your motorcar is 100% electric (Nissan Leaf, Tesla, etc.), yous've got spark plugs. While they certainly will last an order of magnitude longer than plugs in the olden days, they nevertheless need to exist changed, and dealerships are truly thrilled at the prospect of overcharging you to do something that can be done at dwelling. If y'all don't know what you're doing -- and information technology is a bit more than involved than information technology used to be -- head to YouTube and you'll almost definitely discover someone changing the plugs on a car but like yours.
Change a radiator hose
Some cars today take approximately 947 hoses, and you'll never get to all of them if you're attempting a DIY repair on the side of the highway. A coolant hose, notwithstanding -- the large hose that runs from your radiator -- is the one well-nigh likely to get, but it'due south also the easiest to change, usually.
Place and change a fuse
Chasing electrical problems is the blight of every shade-tree mechanic's beingness. For a given problem -- equally in, your taillights all went out at once -- you should get-go promise that information technology's merely a fuse, and so proceed to track downwards the advisable culprit based on the symptoms. See your manual for a fuse map.
Sympathise the difference between HP and torque
1 is a rotational strength, and the other is a metric based on that rotational forcefulness, multiplied by the measured RPM, divided by 5,280.
Vitrify out pocket-size scratches and swirls
Ane pocket-size scratch might seem like a nuisance, but if y'all don't take care of one, the next affair yous know, your motorcar volition be covered in them. Learning how to use things similar rubbing and polishing compounds with an orbital or random orbital polisher is a skill that takes only a few hours to adequately learn, and one that pays huge dividends for the rest of your life.
Correctly set tire pressure
If you can't figure this one out, you oasis't been paying attending.
Restore headlight lenses
Those foggy, yellow-y headlights on your car are actually kind of a safety hazard, reducing your visibility at night. With less than half an hr of wet sanding with ultra-fine sandpaper and polishing with a rubbing compound, they'll exist crystal articulate, and you won't look like the rookie machine guy who doesn't know a damn affair about polishing.
Change your brake rotors and pads
Companies dearto charge you enough of coin to "exercise a restriction job." Why on Earth would you ever pay for something that's almost as elementary as jacking up the car and removing a few bolts, replacing a few parts, and tightening everything dorsum down?
Drain/flush your brakes
If you ever programme on going to a racetrack, you should flush your brake fluid, and bleed it if y'all've non done so lately, or if your restriction pedal is getting soft. If you accept no idea what I'm talking about, find your brake fluid reservoir. If the fluid is black, that's very bad.
Optimize a grocery cart'due south handling
Cars are all about physics. Dispatch, deceleration, friction, heat transfer... you name it. When it comes to handling, a well-engineered car keeps as much of its mass as close to the middle of the car every bit possible -- think mid-engined Ferrari and yous've got the idea.
With that in mind, whenever I meet someone in the grocery store with a case of beer sitting in the very forepart of the cart, my beginning thought is "not a car person." Try it yourself -- put your heaviest objects in the back of the cart (which, when you include yourself in the equation, is the middle), and you'll see how much easier it is to handle effectually the grocery store. If you take a proper driving line through the shop (which you should, considering it'south fun) it'll requite you a whole new appreciation for engineering science.
Recover from a spin
This really should exist a requirement earlier you get your driver's license. I'm not talking virtually some volume telling you lot to turn into the slide and go along your eyes where you desire the car to end upwards, not what you're afraid you'll hitting. I hateful actually knowing how to do it, using real-earth experience in a relatively safe environment. If yous've never done information technology, become somewhere prophylactic and learn.
Take a set
This is very simple. If you don't know what information technology means to have a set, you've never done it. It'due south the subtle moment when the struts and stupor absorbers accept controlled the oscillations of the jump, mid-corner, or, in English, when your car stabilizes while you're cornering quickly. Information technology'southward a crucial part of high-functioning driving, and something any enthusiast needs to understand at an unconscious level.
Explain basic alignment and interruption terminology
Toe, camber, and pulley are all huge factors in how your car turns, and how information technology feels as you do so. Practise you take a wishbone or MacPherson strut prepare-up? What in the heck is rebound and compression? Ackerman? No, I've non made upwardly whatsoever of these words. Some of them are more advanced than others, but if you want to empathize what's going on with your motorcar at all times, you demand to know them well plenty to explain them.
Recognize alignment issues based on treadwear
Tires tin can tell you many things about a automobile. The wear of a tread pattern tin can tell you lot if the alignment is out of whack, and what's off, and if the tires have been over- or nether-inflated.
Reach anything with zip ties
There are many universal facts that bond car people together, but chief among them is a consummate mastery of the modern marvel known as the ziptie. Yous tin can make wire separators, handcuffs, brackets... really, at that place's no limit to what a creative mind tin can do with them.
Know your chassis and engine codes
In my garage, I take an E30 with its original M20B25, and an F22 with an N20B20. Why does that matter? It doesn't... any more than than you knowing what model of iPhone yous have, or what version of iOS it'due south currently running. Merely put, it'due south a grade of coded communication that lets you know someone is an enthusiast, not merely a regular person with a nice auto.
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Aaron Miller is the Cars editor for Thrillist, and can be found on Twitter and Facebook. He can do amazing things with zip ties.
Source: https://www.thrillist.com/cars/nation/things-car-guys-should-know-basic-automotive-knowledge
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