Economechanix

read moreI've tried to write articles on Auto, Car, Truck Repairs: how your car works, and how to diagnose problems. These articles give symptoms, details of how your car's systems work, helps with diagnosis, and gives approximate repair costs. Although I give some detailed repair informaiton, the main purpose of this site is to give you a general idea of how your car's many systems work, and allow you to communicate effectively with your mechanic. When you know basically how your car's many systems work together you can describe your problem better, in terms mechanics understand.

read moreOther lights warn of trouble: a condition you need to take care of. Some lights, like the oil pressure light require immediate attention. Others are less urgent: no need to immediately turn the motor off or get a tow truck or anything. Most of the earliest vehicles with computerized engine controls had an amber light which lit up with the words "CHECK ENGINE". This confused some customers, who thought it meant bad oil pressure, or high temperature, or something as serious. Some manufacturers changed the "wording" on the light to the less urgent sounding "SERVICE ENGINE SOON".

read moreThe most important system to the "health" of your engine is the lubication system. Oils have changed a lot in the past few years, and a lot of confusing information is out there. Hopefully this will help. Oil consumption will increase if cars are driven really fast, or run at high RPM's. If you're changing oil every 3000 miles this "2000 mile" use of a quart won't be a problem, but if you "stretch out" your change interval to 5000 miles or so you might need to add a quart between changes. My customer had knocked a hole in her oil filter and limped home by adding oil she bought at a convenience store.

read moreOne day your car breaks down, and it couldn't be at a worse time. Then the cruelest cut of all! The mechanic at the auto repair shop you go to says it's going to cost hundreds of dollars to fix your car. The modern car should last well in excess of 100,000 miles, with mileages of more than 250,000 being common. This is mileage without MAJOR drivetrain repairs, such as an engine or transmission overhaul. There are a number of parts which do not last as long, however. Know what these parts are and when they are likely to fail, check them regularly, and then fix them before they leave you stranded!

read moreThe gears in a synchronized transmission are all meshed and spinning together all the time. When you shift into a gear, a shift fork moves the shift collar, locking one gear at a time to the mainshaft (output shaft). The power goes from the input pinion to the countershaft to the locked gear on the mainshaft (output shaft). One gear is always a direct drive, where the input shaft is linked directly to the output shaft: a 1 to 1 gear ratio. In the above transmission this is 4th gear: the "gear" labeled 4th is really the backside of the pinion gear which drives the countershaft.

read moreAlthough some repairs can be done without lifting your vehicle, many repairs require you to pick the car up to get access to whatever you are fixing. Probably the most common of these is a basic oil change: you can get under the car to remove the drain plug and filter on some trucks without lifting them, but very few cars have enough clearance to get an oil drain pan under them, much less a mechanic! Most shops have lifts which pick the entire car up over their heads, allowing them to walk under the car and work on it quite easily.

read moreThe down side to glass? IT BREAKS! And when it breaks it can be nasty. Glass can cut like a razor. To counter this potential to injure, a lot of the glass in a car is what is known as "Tempered Safety Glass". The big safety advantage to this is that whentempered safety glass finally breaks all that internal stress is released, and the entire piece of glass crumbles into tiny pieces, no bigger than 1/4 inch square. Thus it can't cut you like regular glass, which will break in long, dagger-like shards!

read moreIf there was a ticking time bomb under your hood, would you keep on driving until it went off? Although a broken timing belt or chain won't kill you, it can certainly strand you in the middle of nowhere. For each cylinder, the camshaft first opens the intake valve to let in fuel and air to be burned. After this, the camshaft opens the exhaust valve to release the burned fuel gasses, which pass out the exhaust pipe. The valve must open at exactly the right time. This coordination of the crankshaft with the opening and closing of the valves via the camshaft is called Valve Timing or Camshaft Timing.