To protect what is probably the second-largest single investment you’ll ever make, it is worth some effort to familiarize yourself with the basic systems that make a car run. In this way, you should be able to identify and correct problems before they become costly and possibly dangerous.
But even when you cannot make a repair yourself, your knowledge may help you get better service or lower repair charges, or both, from a professional because the quality of information you are able to provide will help him in diagnosing the source of the problem quickly and accurately.
The aim of this chapter, then, is to explain in non-technical language how a modern family car works. Your car is composed of a variety of systems, each with many oper- ating parts. Through normal usage, many of the 15,000 total parts in your car gradually deteriorate. Some wear out sooner than others be- cause they work harder (spark plugs, for example), while many can last the lifetime of the car.
The performance of each system, such as brakes, steering, suspension, ignition, and carburetion, depends not only on the condition of all of its own parts, but also on the proper functioning of other related systems.
If, for example, a hose breaks in the cooling system, the overheating that results can damage the en- gine, electrical, and lubrication systems. Fr safety’s sake, you should become sensitive to the earliest warnings in each system and check them out immediately. As systems begin to fail, your driving attitude probably changes. Most drivers tend unconsciously to adjust th~ir driving habits. When the brakes show signs of going soft, do you begin to pump them? Or, if the car is pulling to one side, are you correcting for it by steering differently? Keep in mind that you are dealing with a potentially haz- ardous condition that needs to be corrected by adjustments to the car, not by adjusting your driving habits.
Some trouble signs are visible; others give warning through changes in sound, sudden or gradual, or can be detected by the way the car handles.
After reading this chapter, you will be better able to tune your senses to symptoms of failure and locate the problem.
You can then decide whether to do your own troubleshooting or to take your car in for service, If you do nothing else, just following the regu- lar maintenance procedures as prescribed in this website will not only help you achieve maximum car performance and safety, but may also spare you the expense of avoidable repairs.
If you can afford to buy a new car every year and take it to a mechan- ic every time it hiccups, you don’t even have to know how it works, much less be able to fix it.
But if you are trying to get the most out of the transportation you already own, it pays to find out what makes your two-ton, mile-a-minute investment tick. Even if you don’t make most repairs yourself, it doesn’t hurt to know what is making all those mysterious ticking sounds, clunks, roars, hums, and squeals; to know where they are coming from; and to know whether they are telling you to make an adjustment or not. At the very least, if you know how to perform simple maintenance checks, you can prevent or delay breakdowns.
Also, if you understand something about how a car works you can describe a problem to a professional mechanic in a way that may save some high-priced time while he tries to trace it.
The big pay-off, though, comes in doing the kind of repair jobs your- self that can be handled safely in your spare time.
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