I'm an auto technician (I'm a mechanic that also deals with computers. 's good branding really) by trade, so figured I could use my knowledge to help out. Ask me stuff.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Auto Technician: Automotive Advice
- Thread starter Mister Mumbler
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Driving itself shouldn't be too difficult, though it may take a little bit to get comfortable with how the vehicle drives/handles. The hardest part is going to be getting used to where your car resides spacially; where the lane lines are in relation to your straight ahead view, mirrors and their fields of view and the fact that they mirrored images, how the car angles through turns, where the front of your car ends, that sort of thing.
- Nov 27, 2009
- 5,792
- 712
- 118
- Country
- The Dreamlands
- Gender
- Lose 1d20 sanity points.
Oh man, even when I had a license I was bad at it, I'm pretty sure it won't turn out well, if I don't come back it's because I crashed and my dad killed me for damaging his car or for running over his grill again.
As someone who actually knows how cars work, what is your opinion on such a use of negative camber?
Blegh. Car is gonna handle extremely poorly in every possible way you can imagine: the suspension has to be pretty rigid to make sure the wheels don't move around too much (remember, even at those ridiculous angles they still rotate around the flat plane of the rim), the tires are getting little to no traction, and will wear weirdly. I don't mind it in general, if done tastefully or for a specific purpose (the whole "less traction" thing is why you usually see drift cars cambered negatively) but that is terrible.
Mostly just nonsense terms and actions being out of place, that sort of thing.
I drive an old Camry, should I be concerned if my 'brake' notice light comes on in my dashboard but I don't feel any slower? Is it more likely I'm somehow brakeing just a little or that my dashboard light is simply malfunctioning?
It'd suck if I'm wasting petrol and chewing away my brake pads since I drive 20 minutes on the highway to work out at a farm lol.
It'd suck if I'm wasting petrol and chewing away my brake pads since I drive 20 minutes on the highway to work out at a farm lol.
On the armrest between the front seats of my car, below my gear stick, is a switch button. It has a green circle on it and is styled differently than all the other buttons on the dash. When I switch it on, it lights up, so it's at least wired into the electrical, but it doesn't seem to do anything beside that. It's also not mentioned anywhere in the car manual.
How afraid should I be that I'm erasing alternate realities with every press? Tho seriously, any idea what green circle on a button might mean?
How afraid should I be that I'm erasing alternate realities with every press? Tho seriously, any idea what green circle on a button might mean?
I have a similar one on mine (Vauxhall Insignia) that doesn't appear to do anything (though it's on the dash, not by the gears). It's an eco function so the engine turns off if I'm stationary for a few moments (e.g. at traffic lights), but comes back on if I dip the clutch. Not a huge fan of the feature tbh, but just not used to it probably.
Maybe you found the NOS switch some hoon past owner installed but you're outta the gas lol.
The red Brake warning light is used for both the parking brake and for fluid sensing (both low level and sometimes having to great of a difference between the different fluid circuits on ABS). Since it's not on all the time, your Brake fluid reservoir might be a little bit low (as your Brake pads become worn out, the calipers need to stick further and further out, which in turn lowers the level of brake fluid you have in the reservoir), and when you come to a stop (I'm assuming it comes on during stopping/had acceleration, yes?) can cause the fluid to shift enough to set off the differential switch. Check your reservoir to see how much fluid you have left in it, though depending on how long your car has gone since it was done last, you may just want to have the fluid flushed and replaced anyway.
So you say the switch isn't mentioned in your owner's manual, and it looks different from your others switches...did you buy your car used? It could be the remnants of an auxiliary light system put in by the previous owner if so. I would check your front bumper/roof for any signs of "things look like they were once here but no longer", unused connectors, open holes, ect., though it could also be,
Yeah, nowadays vehicle manufacturers, in order to hit certain MPG ratings will have your engine shutoff automatically when stationary, though you should (most of the time) be able to shut this feature off.
What Baffle said about FWD cars (though if you did have a rear engined vehicle, it would most likely be RWD or AWD as the reason for the push to FWD vehicles was to streamline the drivetrain (transmission/driveshaft/rear differential) into one package, the transaxle and are a bit easier to handle than RWD), and also the fact that rear engined cars have a bit harder time with engine cooling (the best place for radiators to get maximum airflow to cool off the coolant is up front, and this means having to circulate the fluid from the rear to the front of the vehicle). It should also be noted that rear engined cars are vehicles like most Porches and the old school Beetles; the engine needs to physically sit behind the rear axle of the vehicle (most exotic/supercars are of the mid-engined variety IE engine behind driver but forward of the rear axle).
Personally, of the three big German brands, I like the style of Audi the best. The other two have gone in for a lot of harsh, aggressive lines while Audi has kept their luxury sedans pretty subdued. As far as Caddilac is concerned, I'm not too big of a fan of GM (their engineering dept seems to smoke more crack than Ford's), however the new Navigators have been pretty nice, if you're into SUVs.
Already am.
Lots of people don't understand the size of their car for their entire lives. If I had a [insert coin of your choice] every time someone wouldn't "squeeze" past a car to turn right on red, I'd have more money than I do now. This one time there was a law service parked on the curb (with their trailer, wider than a standard car obviously) and all these people would not continue going until the oncoming lane was clear because they couldn't fathom that there was enough room that they could proceed without needing to veer into the oncoming lane of traffic. When I got my turn I immediately continued on because there's plenty of room and this car behind me wouldn't just continue on and follow behind (I completely demonstrated there's plenty of room). It totally reminded me of those dog videos where the dog won't go down/up the stairs because a cat is sitting on a step, they want to go but just can't do it. A coworker is so bad at judging the width of his car that he parked not so great (decently close to the next car), backed up and parked again getting even closer to the car. He's like "you don't understand how wide my car is!!!" And, my eyesight isn't even very good or anything, I had to cheat on my driving eye test to pass and I can easily tell if I can make it between something.
For questions...
-What's the best and worst brands of cars in your opinion?
-What's the most important or overlooked maintenance service to get regularly?
-What's the most overdone/unneeded maintenance service (or something not really needed as often as they say)?
-Do you agree that blindspot indicators are stupid and people just need to learn how to set their mirrors properly?
It took me about a year and a half or so, though a bit of that was doing the extra program setup by Ford (their program had a lot more time devoted to electrical theory and testing, as well as working with full sized, actual cars instead of the cut apart trainers the rest of the school was basically).
Yeah, getting used to the size of the car I'm driving is pretty much the one thing that makes me nervous when driving unfamiliar vehicles (I'll usually angle the mirrors down far enough to see the lane lines in relation to the car while still being able to see properly).
-Worst car brands that are actually cars (otherwise it would go to any one of those awful, tiny little Chinese/Indian "cars" with all the accident protection of a tin foil lasagna pan) would probably be Hyundai. Best is much trickier, as I have always been more of a classic car guy, and a lot of car companies these days are moving towards a bland, crossover singularity and seem determined to kill small/medium sized cars.For questions...
-What's the best and worst brands of cars in your opinion?
-What's the most important or overlooked maintenance service to get regularly?
-What's the most overdone/unneeded maintenance service (or something not really needed as often as they say)?
-Do you agree that blindspot indicators are stupid and people just need to learn how to set their mirrors properly?
-Most important is probably going to be brake fluid. While it doesn't need to be done regularly (about every three years, depending on the climate), due to it's properties it does go bad and lose it's ability to withstand the heat bleed off from the brake pads. Air filters, both the one for the engine, and (if you have one in your vehicle) the one for the AC system. Also worth noting, if you have a car that has a GDI engine (gasoline, direct injected) you will need to clean off your air intake valves as they will build up carbon on them. This is because, for emission control reasons, unburnt vapors from the combustion chamber are vented back into the air charge for the next cycle. Normally, most vehicles mix the gasoline and air charge before it enters the cylinder through the valve, but GDI engines work similarly to diesel engines and spray the fuel right into the cylinder. Also, check your tire pressure. Running them too low (tire sags, wears out the outer edge or "shoulder", and damages the sidewall) or too high (tire bulges out, inner portion of tire wears faster than outer) can cause extra wear/damage to the tire.
-Unneeded? Tire slime/fix-a-flat. Never use it. Not only will it ruin the TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System) sensor inside the tire, it will leave a horrible mess for us to clean up once you bring it in. Transmission fluid should be able to go about 100k miles before needing to be flushed, but always check your owner's manual for the vehicle for the maintenance schedule (and check which climate/usage schedule it is, a car driven sparingly in farm country midwest will need maintenance less often than one driven in stop and go traffic in 110+ degree weather in Los Angeles).
-Eh, on the one hand I kind of agree that people need to learn to use their mirrors properly (and remember they can look around too), on the other I have seen some rather small and poorly shaped mirrors that made it real awkward to look out of, not to mention times such as glare from the sun making it difficult to actually see.