Getting To Grips With Essential Car Maintenance
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Getting To Grips With Essential Car Maintenance

When I got my first car twenty years ago, I was clueless when it came to maintaining it and keeping it in a roadworthy condition. As a result, I had to pay for costly repairs that could have been avoided if the car had been looked after better. I learned my lesson and started reading everything I could about basic car maintenance. I started this blog to share what I've learned in the hopes it will save other new drivers making costly mistakes. I blog about a variety of topics, such as troubleshooting uneven tyre wear, the benefits of regular servicing and maintaining your car during the winter months. I hope you find my blog useful.

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Getting To Grips With Essential Car Maintenance

Top Signs of Needed Car Repair

Reginald Fox

When a car engine begins to smoke or seizes up while you're on the road, then of course you know you need to take it in for repairs right away. However, there are other signs of needed car repair that many drivers overlook, or they hope that they will simply correct themselves and go away.

This can be very shortsighted thinking, as many problems with your car's components can and will simply get worse over time, causing excessive wear that becomes more expensive to fix. Note a few of the top signs that your car needs checking:

1. Jerking, surging, stalling

Your car's engine should run smoothly at all times, as long as you've given it a few minutes to warm up on cold winter mornings. If it seems to jerk or surge forward or stalls out, this is a sign that you need to take it in for repairs.

There may be clogged fuel lines, bad spark plugs, or a problem with the car's computer that is causing these issues, but they're not likely to go away on their own. They may also cause your car to lose acceleration when on the road or you may continue to stall out while driving.

2. Grinding and popping sounds

A popping sound from your engine could be the pistons combusting prematurely, which in turn puts excessive wear on the chambers. Grinding sounds when you change gears could be the transmission wearing out, and when you hear this sound as you try to start the car, this could be the starter itself that is failing. If the car's engine grinds as you drive, this could be a low oil level. No matter the unusual sound from under your car's hood, have it checked as soon as possible.

3. Burning rubber

The smell of burning rubber from under your car's hood often means that a rubber hose is touching something hot, and in turn it may be melting. This can damage both the hose and whatever it might be touching, and your car could then leak out oil, brake fluid, transmission fluid, and the like.

Belts could also be wearing out and in turn, you may smell them as they struggle to work in between gears and burn against the metal parts. You might also be smelling exhaust coming into your car, which can mean that there is a hole in the muffler or someplace else along the exhaust line; this is very toxic if it collects inside your car, so have this checked and corrected as soon as possible

To learn more, contact a company like Western Suburbs Automatics.


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