Checking fluids. This
is probably the single scariest item on the checklist, and I'm
starting with it so those of you who aren't serious will drop out.
Just kidding.
All
you have to do is open your hood. If you don't know how to do that,
you're probably gonna need to feel around under the dash on the left
while you're in the driver's seat. Find a lever you don't recognize.
Pull it. If it's not a storage compartment (my dad has one where
the hood latch should be—what?!), you should hear a muffled JINK up
toward the front of the car. Get out of the car. Go to the front of
your car and feel around just under the hood, which should be
slightly lifted. There'll be something there you have to push up
or pull down to open the hood the whole way up. You're on your own
here because it tends to vary widely among vehicles. Once you have
succeeded, push the hood up and find the little stick to prop it up
with. That's a good start.
Now
that you're empowered by that victory, go and get your owner's manual. If
you don't have it, you should order it off the Internet and try all
this again later. Inside the manual, if the manufacturer likes you,
there should be a diagram of your car under the hood. You should
check where the brake fluid is, the radiator is, the oil dipstick,
the automatic transmission fluid, and the battery is. Maybe bring
that manual out in front of your car and point at the things as you
find them. It's nice seeing diagrams match with reality.
Just
look at all those places. Check all the fluid levels—there will be
a “min” and a “max” line on all of them—and freak out if
any of them are below “min.” If they're above “max,” in my
experience, things tend to be just fine. Also, keep note of whether
any fluids are dripping out of your car into parking spaces. I guess
that's kind of more of a homework assignment than a “right now”
sort of thing.
When
you close your hood, don't gently push it down into place. That
won't work. Lift it up about six inches above its final resting
place and let go. The loud clang is very satisfying, and the hood
actually closes.
Check your tires. People
don't see their tires while driving, and in most cars, there aren't
any blinking lights to tell you to freak out about them. So people
usually don't worry. But the thing is, if you don't monitor them
(things like treadwear, pressure, and general condition), they could
just randomly explode and kill you, or at least scare you to death.
Please worry at least a little.
Pressure:
Inside your door jamb on the driver's side (or somewhere hidden deep
within the bowels of your owner's manual), you can find information
on what your tire pressures should be. I usually inflate (HAR HAR)
these by about two PSI because I like a firmer ride. And generally
you're gonna want a little bit of a higher pressure in the front and
a little less in the back. My dad told me it was because inflating
the front more is good for steering and inflating the back less is
good for having a gentler ride, but other folks just say the engine's heavier so
you use more air. Whatever. You
can find some gas stations with air stations outside, but of course
it's always easier if you have a friend with a compressor. (The QT
near the Clifton/Briarcliff intersection has free air outside, FYI.)
The actual mechanics of checking the pressure with the gauge and
putting air in are things I can't easily explain. You want not to
hear air hissing out in either case, and you want a perpendicular
connection to the stem.
In
other news, if you have a new fancy car with a tire air pressure
monitor and it goes off, you don't need to panic. A very sweet
fellow student in college came up to me in a parking lot and asked if
I knew anything about cars. I said, “Um, kind of, what's up?”
and she explained that her car's pressure monitor was on and she
didn't know if she should worry. So we walked back to her car,
looked at the tires, and I said “ehhhhhh, they all look okay. I
wouldn't worry too much, just fill it up when you can.” Your tires
are going to wear more if they have too little air in them since the
wall is going to be flexing more while you're driving, but it doesn't
mean you have a flat or that your tire will explode. So it's
okay...for now.
Tread:
Having nice deep grooves in your tires helps keep you from falling
off the road in a rainstorm. So we see that tire tread is important. I rest my case. I found a cool site that talks about how having
4/32's of an inch halves your stopping distance in rain, compared to
the 2/32's you're legally required to have.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=85
For 2/32's, you can measure with an upside-down penny. (How disrespectful! Sorry
Lincoln!) If the tire reaches up past Lincoln's head, you're
legally good. For 4/32's, which is better, you can use an
upside-down quarter and Washington's head.
When
you do have to get those nice new tires, you're gonna want to put
them on the rear. If your front tires can't deal with water on a wet
road and they begin to hydroplane, it's easier for you to control
than if the rear wheels start hydroplaning and your tail comes out.
So you want the nice tires on the back to make sure that the rear of
the car is solidly capable of handling rainy conditions.
General condition: If your tire is leaking, you know it, because it
keeps going flat overnight. If your tire has a big gouge on the
outside wall of it, you know it. If it has a gouge on the inside, I
guess you're kind of screwed. Generally speaking, holes on the
sidewall are worse because the sidewall flexes with every rotation of
the tire, worsening the hole and increasing the danger. Holes in the
flat part of the tire (the part that meets the road) are less severe given that they flex less.
Change your
oil. How often? Synthetic or
regular? Well, it depends on how much money you want to spend.
Generally you can follow the owner's manual on how often to change
it. (I don't though—I usually change every 5,000 miles as opposed
to 7,500 in my owner's manual.) And if you've got extra money,
synthetic is better—there aren't any impurities and you can run
that oil longer in your engine. (Folks who advocate changing regular
oil every 3,000 miles say you could go 5,000 with synthetic. My
guess is that if you're changing regular every 7,500 miles, you could
do 10,000 with synthetic. But I wouldn't.) Also, when you're
checking fluids, see if you're losing oil—if you drive a rotary,
that's okay. If you don't, it's not. (Dear Mazda: Why did you stop
producing the RX-8? Are you going to abandon manual transmissions
the same way you abandoned the rotary engine? With remorse and
reproach, Allison)
A point about octane. Follow
what's in the manual. For most folks who aren't running on turbos
and who don't drive sports cars, it'll be 87. Putting 89 in your
Corolla doesn't make it go faster or run smoother. It actually
negatively impacts performance since the engine is optimized for use
of 87.
When to pay attention to your check
engine light. Always! What I
do is I at least go to Autozone or Advance Auto and have them read
it. I try to do that the same day the light comes on. They can tell
you if it's something not so bad like an emissions problem (Pepper's
light is on right now for that), or something kind of scary like a
misfire (if you remember Birdy...yeah that happened). You can ask
the nice folks there if your car will die if you wait until tomorrow
to fix it.
I
would say that if the light is accompanied by a noticeable change in
the handling or ride, or any weird noises, I would go to a mechanic
immediately. Not that that's ever happened to me with a light on,
and not that it necessarily would. And remember I know nothing about
mechanical things. I just know what I do, and that the average
person can't drop everything and run to the mechanic. Keep in mind
that I killed Birdy; take heed of the warning. (In my defense: she
was 13 years old and treated poorly before me and had 183,000 miles
on the clock. May she rest in peace.)
When your oil light comes on*. Pull
over RIGHT NOW. Turn OFF the car. Do not pass go (in fact, do not
go at all) and do not collect $200. Or you will potentially be
paying upwards of $2,000 for engine replacement. Quick note: I had a
friend whose engine seized after he took it to Jiffy Lube for an oil
change and they didn't screw the oil cap on all the way. My word of
advice is never to take your car to a crappy mechanic (that $5 you
save is never worth the destruction, lies, and woe), and if your
light comes on, heaven forbid, pull to the side of the road and make
everything stop right now.
*Here's
what you're ACTUALLY supposed to do.
http://voices.yahoo.com/what-oil-light-comes-car-281127.html?cat=27
What's a lifter again?! I am so unqualified for this!
