This is a follow up to my last post about driving habits. This time, we’re looking at maintenance, performance, and functionality! I’ll start.
Tires. Very few people understand the importance of good tires. Not only that, but the habits for maintaining them. Firstly, your tires are the only thing truly connecting the road to the rest of your vehicle. This extremely important link is overlooked when I comes to just about every category people look for in a car. Generally, Performance, Comfort, and Efficiency are the three focuses consumers have with vehicles, and it heavily affects all three.
Performance is self explanatory. You want to go fast? Good tires are the easiest thing to change for the biggest gains. New tires means as much power as possible your engine puts into spinning those wheels gets delivered into the road, propelling you forward. More grip also improves braking, cornering, and lack of hydroplaning in the rain, or slipping in the snow and dirt.
Comfort. You want a smooth, quiet ride? Get new tires first. This will dampen vibrations coming from road imperfections that travel to the cabin area, and that means you won’t feel the bumps, the rumbles, the texture of the road, meaning you can enjoy your drive in peace.
Efficiency. Want to know what’s efficient? Getting up to speed, maintaining speed, and keeping control. The enemy to all of this is losing grip, and tires play a huge role. Even if you drive easy, the ability to turn at consistent speeds without braking is more efficient, so it not slipping while driving up a hill, so is not sliding around in harsh conditions. Better tires save gas, they save your suspension, they save your money.
What other aspects do you feel are not well understood or are under-appreciated here?
I think the post isnt getting enough… traction
Stay in your lane, all. These jokes are just going in circles around OP’s question.
The importance of regular oil changes.
If times are tight most cars will forgive deferred maintenance but oil is not one of them.
Speaking of oil changes, my GFs SUV is due for one. Spent 30 minutes this afternoon under it trying to take out the drain plug with no luck, because some idiot (me) tightened it too much.
Any ideas on how I can loosen the darn thing?
A long bar.
The handle of my trolley jack fits nicely over my ratchet handle.
Also get a torque wrench. The sump plug torque always feels surprisingly low.
- Get a new bolt
- Use something similar: https://www.amazon.com/Extractor-THINKWORK-Stripped-Remover-Adapter/dp/B0869BR8MG
Turn signals.
As omniscient and omnipotent as you are, being the center of the known universe, if you don’t click the blinky before violent swerving to another lane, there actually is no way anyone can anticipate it.
Car washes for those living in salt prone areas.
I’ve lived in NY. The salt DESTROYS cars. My family and myself had cars ruined by salt. I was amazed at all the older cars I saw when I moved to SoCal. Old beetles, small toyota trucks, 70s American cars, etc.
Yearly oil coating is way more important to keep cars less rusty underneath. Also special attention to rear fenders and grommet holes or exposed bolts.
Source: I restore and maintain cars in New England, near the nice salty ocean air to top it all off.
If it’s not already rotting away too badly there’s still time to coat it this fall.
https://nhoilundercoating.com/ Is pretty good and comes in big buckets.
A youtuber, mustie1, uses bar and chain oil in a sprayer and has shown that the coating lasts for years.
That you shouldn’t wait until the noise from your brakes is louder than the radio to bring it to the shop
