Underhood Automotive

09/12/2025

04/17/2023

Tip of the day!
As driving instructors stress, your hands tend to follow where your eyes are looking. Adjusting the radio dial takes 5.5 seconds—and that's 5.5 seconds when his eyes may not be on the road and both hands may not be on the wheel. Dialing a phone triples your risk of a crash. Reaching for a moving object increases it nine times. Worst of all is texting, which makes you 23 times more likely to crash. "Avoid the temptation to multitask behind the wheel altogether and put your cell phone in the glove compartment every time you get in the car," says Ray Lahood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

04/14/2023

Tip of the day!
When outside temperatures drop or soar, tires tend to lose pressure. A drop of 10 degrees F (6 degrees C), in fact, will decrease a tire’s air pressure by 1 or 2 pounds. Tires can lose even more air in hot weather. Under-inflated tires can result in accelerated wear and poor driving performance. If you live in a place where temperatures vary a lot, check your tire pressure often and add air as needed.

04/13/2023

Tip of the day!
The fuel filter sieves unwanted contaminants when the fuel is processed through the engine. Unfortunately, the fuel filter can get overwhelmed after a period of constant functioning. Be sure to read your manual to know after how long you should replace the filter – every type of car is different.

04/12/2023

Tip of the day!
Got a rock chip, crack, or ding in your windshield? Bring your car to a windshield repair shop. For far less cost than replacing the windshield, they can fix chips and cracks, even quite long ones. The repairs not only keep the chips and cracks from spreading and restore structural integrity, they also improve clarity.

04/11/2023

Tip of the day!
Don’t add water to the windshield washer reservoir. It won’t clean as well as washer fluid, and it may freeze in cold weather and damage the system. Don’t try to run your windshield washer system once you suspect there’s no more fluid in the tank, or you may damage the washer fluid pump.

04/10/2023

Tip of the day!
Check tires for uneven wear. If you’ve maintained tire inflation properly, uneven wear may indicate the need for a wheel realignment. It can also mean improperly operating brakes or shocks, a bent wheel, internal tire damage, or worn bushings.

03/31/2023

Tip of the day!
When the weatherstripping around your car doors starts to fail, so does its protection against the elements. Fortunately, you can put off replacing seals by lubricating with WD-40 once a month to counteract the drying and cracking that happens in extreme temperatures.

03/30/2023

Tip of the day!
Your car’s engine has either a rubber composite timing belt or timing chain. The device connects the crankshaft to the camshaft, which is synchronized with the opening and closing of the engine’s valves. If your car has a timing belt, follow the owner’s manual to determine when the belt should be replaced. “Rubber belts break and when they do that’s the end of the engine, it is catastrophic, you are done,” . To avoid disaster, the timing belt should be replaced at intervals recommended by the automaker, usually between 50,000 and 110,000 miles. The cost to replace the timing belt isn’t cheap but it is thousands less than rebuilding the engine.