20 Things Only Stupid People Do to Their Car

Rev your engines now, the first thing is to never start your car backwards, learn which terminal is positive and which is negative. This Toyota is pretty easy. It has a great advantage in the positive. I need to get back to this. You can see that there is also an advantage in the battery here it says further, you know that it is positive and the opposite side is negative and it has a negative in the battery, they are not that simple, that's why you need to learn which one is positive and which one is negative and here is while you jump start it backwards can really cause problems using this voltmeter you can see how many volts the car battery has now in this case it's almost 12 volts this battery is a little low it's 11.68 and like all Modern cars, positive wiring goes to all wires and switches. and the negative goes to the body of the car to the engine, all the metal in the car is negative electricity and that is 12 volt negative electricity, unfortunately since all cars are computerized many of those sensors work off a reference signal of 5 volts, so many of the electronics and especially the counting trigger runs on five volts, now it's five volts on the power side.

If you jump start a battery backwards and put positive and negative and negative on positive, you are making the ground go to Power, so instead of the ground. Being negative electricity, now you have positive 12 volts going through there that will feed directly through any of those parts of the computer in the ground circuit and go directly to the computer with 12 volts instead of five and fry the computer, so never jump. turn a car on backwards and there is a coral area on that, if you are working on the electronics make sure you know that the voltage of what you are working on is a normal 12 volts or the computer circuit is five volts and you should never you put more than five volts into that circuit now the next thing i don't recommend doing is adding fuel additives to your fuel now this won't hurt anything except your wallet you're wasting money in most cases modern fuel at least the US has a lot of additives acquired by law.

Cars run perfectly fine on what comes out of the pump. If you buy good fuel, take care of your cars. You don't need additives. Now I know some

people

will say, "Well." Scotty, those GDI gasoline direct engine cars carbonize, don't they need fuel tank cleaners? And the answer is no, because if you put them in the fuel tank of a GDI, the GDI injectors spray them directly into the engine. don't go over the intake valves so the intake valves still get dirty and not cleaned because the inside of them

only

has air and oil from the PCV valve system.

The

only

way to clean them is to either spray it at the inlet where the air comes in or paint a mechanic like me who has pressurized cleaning machines to clean them now the next thing you shouldn't do is put a heavier oil in an old engine that it could start to burn. a little bit of oil and you think, well, I'll put heavy oil in it and it'll make it better. You really don't want to do it on any modern engine and here's why you can see this is a 12 year old Matrix and it claims to use 5W30. and some moderns say that even using w20 zero oil is a very light oil and you don't want to make it heavier.

Most have these variable valve systems and they have to have diluted oil so that the oil flows very quickly and reaches the VVT ​​System, if you put a heavier oil when you start the engine, it will not flow correctly, you will reach that VVT system and if it is too heavy, it will not flow directly through the VVT ​​system and the variable system will win. It doesn't run well, it doesn't accelerate well, the check engine light doesn't come on. I see a lot of

people

put too heavy oil in the modern car so don't do it and stick to what it was made for and the next thing you shouldn't do is don't waste your money filling your tires with nitrogen.

A few years ago they were pushing that and they're trying to sell nitrogen concentration machines because they realize that the air we breathe now is like 80 percent. nitrogen already, so all these companies are trying to sell guys like me nitrogen boosting machines that could turn that 80 nitrogen into almost 100 nitrogen to fill the tires and yes, nitrogen is an inert gas and I think it maintains its pressure a little better. They use them on big airplanes because they're in the air where it's very cold and then they have to land very quickly and they want the pressure to stabilize exactly, but for normal cars that just drive down the street you're wasting your money paying someone. fill your tires with nitrogen because of course over time most tires lose a little bit of air so you would have to go back and pay them to add some air you couldn't just add it yourself and all that is doing. you are removing 20 percent of the nitrogen that is there, it is a waste of money, don't waste your money, fill your tires with nitrogen and the fifth and last thing you shouldn't do is don't forget to change the coolant every once in a while, If you keep your cars for a long time, this is an old car and it has old green coolant, you should change it once every three years, but more modern cars use long life antifreeze as possible. look here 150,000 miles or five years now if you don't keep your cars five years or 150,000 miles you don't have to worry and there are even more modern ones that last seven years so it's not something you should do all of them very often, but yes you are cheap like me and you drive your cars for 30 years, 20 years, 15 years, you will want to change the coolant when necessary, if you don't have it, it can ruin the water pump, it can ruin the engine head and with these modern computerized cars , it actually creates a battery voltage when it is low inside the coolant and that can destroy the electronics, the computer sensors cause the charging to go crazy.

I've had customers with cars like this, I put my gauge on

their

coolant and on the other end. at the battery terminal and discover that there is voltage flowing through the coolant that destroys

things

. It is not that difficult to change the coolant. You can change it yourself, but you have to do it if you keep the car for a long time to avoid all kinds. of electrolysis that will occur inside and damage your car when you cold start a turbocharged engine, do not rev the engines, allow the engine to warm up for five to ten seconds so that the oil in the engine begins to flow through the Turbo Charge Please note that your engine oil in most turbocharged designs is also the oil that lubricates the turbocharger, so you want to start the engine at full throttle for five to ten seconds before revving the engine because you don't want speed up the turbocharger when it is not.

Fully oil lubricated is very simple and a coral area of ​​this is to not scrub the engine and give it full RPM until the engine oil warms up so you want to drive it a few minutes before revving it to full power. you know you start it, you go somewhere, don't leave it on the ground, you can go as fast as you can after, say, four or five minutes, the engine has warmed up enough for the oil to be the right consistency and then you can continue. maximum power and the third thing is also related to the oil, use high quality oil and change it a lot this is where full synthetic oil is better full synthetic oil Runs at higher temperatures.

Guess what your turbocharger does? The turbocharger uses high exhaust gases to spin. super hot, this is where synthetic oil is best. You have a turbocharged car. Definitely uses full synthetic oil and changes it frequently. I change it every five to seven thousand miles and I find that if you drive at high speeds, very fast with the turbo. Actually some turbos almost start to glow from the heat, they get so hot, so if you are driving hard make sure that when you stop and go to turn off the engine, wait about 30 seconds so the oil can flow through. of it and some of them are also water cooled so that the coolant can flow through it to prevent the built up heat from damaging the turbocharger years ago, before turning them off, let them turn on for 30 seconds to a minute, the energy of the metal it's better than when I was a younger mechanic but you still drive it hard before turning it off wait about 30 seconds with the engine idling so they can get rid of the excessive heat that might have gone away when you drove it hard and talking .

To cool it down you have a good turbocharged system that has an intercooler like this one. Volvo makes sure the intercooler works properly. In fact, the intercoolers inside are volatile. What will happen if you drive through the countryside at night all the time? you're going in there or if you're in town plastic bags could get in there, you want to make sure it's clean, wash it with water if there are bugs and there are no plastic bags or anything restricting the flow. the intercooler and always check the intercooler line. This is plastic they can crack then when you get to the bottom it's rubber down there and on the other side it's also plastic and there's rubber on the front check all the rubber and clamps now overall If the plastic cracks or the rubber comes loose or it just falls off or rots and has holes in it, it's not going to work well because that's where the turbocharger goes and that's going to mess up the air/fuel mixture if it leaks. air, it is a good idea to check them from time to time, anyway, it is a simple thing you can do yourself and since many modern turbochargers are also water cooled, make sure you have clean coolant, these turbochargers spin thousands and thousands of RPM, if water cooled, have water seals and oil lubricated and oil cooled have oil seals.

If you have dirty coolant for dirty engine oil, the dirt is friction, it will cause the seals to be replaced, it can cost thousands of dollars, it can also be a real pain in the rear end. Because they are bolted to the exhaust system all that heat a lot of times that metal is practically welded and rusted and when you start to take it apart the pieces often break and then you have to end up changing the exhaust parts if they rot and crack . when you take them apart you want the system to last as long as possible without having to take it apart and replace it by keeping the coolant and oil clean and of course if you want to get better gas mileage with the turbocharged vehicle.

You don't want to accelerate hard all the time, turbocharged engines get better gas mileage than a non-turbocharged engine, but this advantage is completely negated if you are always accelerating and the turbo is running at full force and the engine revs as fast. fast. If possible, you will get much worse gasoline mods. I've had little old ladies get phenomenal gas mods with turbocharged cars and I've seen young teenagers get horrendous gas mileage, as low as five miles per gallon in a turbocharged car. because they drove it like crazy, they realize that in turbocharged cars the power is there if you really need it when you accelerate, but if you drive more conservatively you get better gas mileage and of course the turbocharged one will last longer of two if it is not forced.

As much as you now never want to drive an automatic car through deep water and this is the reason you see that little black piece right there, well, this black piece right here that I'm touching is a vent. You have to have vents in automatic transmissions like fluid. it heats up and it expands and contracts to release pressure and if it runs through water that will suck water into the transmission and let's just say water and automatic transmissions don't go together if water gets into your automatic transmission sometimes you get lucky and it runs off the job but will often destroy the entire transmission you will need a new one and the second thing you should never do is never accidentally put your car into reverse while the car is moving now the sound is a better design of the shift levers Shifting the dash is a little difficult to do, but a lot of cars have them down here, so if yours is like this, make sure you don't accidentally hit it and put it in reverse while driving down the road because it will destroy the transmission.

I have had more than one of my clients. Teenage kids when they learn to drive and have fun with

their

friends, they hit reverse and just destroy the transmission and if they were older cars, they just end up. Let's stop throwing them away now, the next thing you shouldn't do with a car with an automatic transmission is to get out and drive if it's sitting idle for a really long period of time, because leaving the unit if it's sitting there for a long time can cause it to overheat. inside the transmission, if you're going to be sitting there for a long time, just turn the car off or at least put it in parkBecause when parking it is not connected directly, the torque converter does not send much power. so it won't be as hot in the parking lot as it will be and drive now, that's a bad thing you can't do with your automatic transmission is not running around burning out all the time, thanks, burning out is one of the worst

things

you can do. do it for an automatic transmission and of course the car isn't that good for any car, now you'll say oh Scotty it always has burnout photos, well those are standard transmission cars it's not that good for them but oh well , you're just going to end up burning out the clutch which is a lot cheaper than replacing the entire transmission if you have a lighter model car, don't listen to this nonsense, it says you don't need to replace the ATF under normal driving conditions, that's a Lots of nonsense, no, I've done it.

I covered that in a recent video which basically says oh the fluids are good for transmission life but then transmission life is getting shorter and shorter because you don't want dirty fluid and you want to change it regularly and yes modern cars use synthetic liquid that can withstand heat better and break down less, but eventually breaks down. tell you to change your transmission fluid every 60 to 80,000 miles, regardless of what these ridiculous instructions say, understand that if you take care of your transmission it can take care of you, this Honda has been taken care of, it has 195,000 miles on it and even though the Honda have relatively weak automatic transmission and it is still shifting well, don't downshift all the time from fourth to third, second to first like a racing driver.

Now racing drivers drive the road for a reason: they have a limited power band, let's say horsepower. The band is 8,000 RPM, they always want to keep the engine at about 8,000 RPM, so if they are decelerating they will put it in the next lower gear or the next lower gear until they get to the maximum power band and then They keep shifting to keep you in the power band, but if you just drive normally you don't need to do that, it will wear out the engine and transmission faster and let's face it, brakes are a lot cheaper than clutches of course.

In an emergency situation, make sure to downshift to a lower gear, apply the brakes to stop the car faster, but for normal driving, downshifting is not a smart thing to do if you want things to last now, so The next thing you should not do is Don't drive down the road with your foot on the clutch the entire time you drive. Keep your foot on the clock. Pick it up and when you're done, set it aside. Don't drive with your foot. on the clutch or you will wear it out. I had a client years ago with a standard transmission BMW.

He kept wearing out the clutches and I thought, I wonder why he's wearing them out, so I said, let's go for a walk, so we went for a walk. ride so I told him what do you have one foot on the clutch and one foot on the accelerator all the time? He said well, the driving instructors told me to do that with one foot on the clutch and the other on the accelerator. I told that person. an idiot, don't listen to them, don't hit the clutch now, the next thing you shouldn't do is if you're parking on a hill, don't turn the car off, then put it in gear and drive away.

I see more cars rolling. going down hills because they got out of gear or the engine wasn't strong enough to hold on and it just started slowly rolling backwards. What you want to do is have one foot on the clutch pushed down and one on the brake, then put it in drive and hit the emergency brake on that one, you turn the car off, guess what it's not going to roll anywhere now, the clutches Modern clutches need very little maintenance, but you don't want to forget how little maintenance a modern clutch system needs now, when I had it for a kid, most clutches were manually adjusted like my motorcycle.

Here you want to have half a quarter of an inch of play before it starts to seize, that was simply adjusted by turning the star adjuster as they actually got tighter and you have to loosen them a little. bit, it's a very simple thing and if you have a car like that, to adjust it from time to time when it's too tight, now most modern vehicles use hydraulic clutches that have brake fluid, you don't need to adjust it and they adjust. but the fluid gets dirty over time, so it's a good idea to change it and rinse it every two, three, four years, it's not a big deal, but if you don't, the dirty fluid inside can ruin the seals and some of these.

Clutch systems cost a lot of money to change the master or slave cylinders, for example on some Ford trucks with standard transmission the slave cylinder is built into the housing so you have to remove the transmission to change the slave cylinder. It may cost you much more. thousand dollars, so you have to keep the liquid clean and it's not a big deal to wash it every two, three or four years, it's not that hard to use the turkey base to suck it up and then bleed the bottom, the last thing I do. I'm going to talk about replacing the clutch, I realize that eventually they wear out and have to be replaced, but when they wear out and the clutch disc just won't replace the clutch disc, get a complete kit with all the parts when a The clutch disc becomes thin, it will start to slip, then you will have to change it, but do not buy just the disc, you have to remove the transmission, it is a gigantic job, get a clutch kit that has all the parts of the clutch, the disc . the plate pulls the bearings and this one, hey, even has a nice alignment tool so you can line it up and fit it correctly.

It's downright difficult to take a transmission out of a car and guess that the other parts will last much longer. Everything changes then. You don't have to think about it for long, so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring the bell, thank you.