Taking Care Of Your Car's Transmission

In order to maintain you car in a good shape, to offer you the safety as well the performances it was designed for in the first place, taking care of your vehicle's transmission is a vital thing you should take care of. Modern cars have very complex drive trains, and the transmission being one of the most important elements of it, repairing it because of the in-proper use can be very costly. The most serious operations on a car's drive train can only be executed in specialized shops, but the casual maintenance operations you can make them yourself.

The biggest enemy of the vehicle's transmission is heat. There are many causes for the heating of the transmission's elements, and many are related to operating your car under difficult conditions. Racing with your vehicle, towing a load, or repeatedly putting it in drive and reverse for exiting heavy snow or mud can contribute to the overheating of its ensembles.

If you often are forced to operate your car under these circumstances, you can benefit greatly from adding additional cooling to your transmission. Such a cooler will be mounted on the radiator and it will cool the transmission fluid. Because many SUV owners use them to tow heavy vehicles, they came equipped from the factory with such auxiliary transmission coolers.

In the following paragraph you will find a series of tips about properly maintaining your car's transmission. The most important aspect is to have your transmission fluid checked on a regular basis. Also check for its color. It should be red. If it had turned brown or it has a burnt smell should be changed at once. Before buying transmission fluid, check with your car's owner's manual to se the exact type the manufacturer recommends. Never mix two different types of fluid of fluids coming from different manufacturers. The recommended period to replace it is every 2 years or every 24,000 miles, which ever condition occurs first. When you want to put your car in reverse, come to a complete stop first. Changing from drive to reverse while the vehicle is still moving will harm your transmission. In order to protect vital transmission elements, put the cark into park after you have pressed the brake pedal and pull the emergency brake. By doing this, less stress is applied to the drive train. Always change gears from park to drive only when your engine is at idle.

When towing a very heavy load or when you are climbing abrupt terrain, be sure to disengage the overdrive feature, if your car is equipped with such a option, as it will prevent the car from repeatedly changing gears from and to overdrive. Overdrive is the highest gear in the transmission and it used to allow that vehicle to run at highway cruising speeds with a reduced revs, in order to mainly save fuel and reduce noise. If the automatic gear in your car has a 4-speed transmission with overdrive, the overdrive refers to the 4th gear. The same is with cars with 5-gear automated transmission with overdrive. There is the possibility to have a smaller car, with a 4 or 5 way automated transmission, but without the overdrive function.

By Dennis J James

Anti-Lock Braking and its importance

By Dennis James

The ABS (Anti-Lock Braking) in one of the most important elements of a modern vehicle’s braking system. It works by a specialized computer activating the brake pumps so that during a powerful deceleration the wheels will not lock-up and you will be able to steer the car under such a circumstance. The situation was different before this system’s introduction. When you used to press powerfully the brake pedal, the system was fully activated permanently and the wheels blocked. This resulted in very numerous crashes, and a popular method among drivers to avoid brake lock-up was to pump the brakes.

With the introduction of ABS however these problems were solved, because the electronics does everything. An ABS fitted braking system will pump the brakes up to 15 times per second. You have to admit that no driver could match this performance.

You might ask yourself how ABS works.
Each wheel is fitted with sensors. They scan continuously the movement of each wheel and when they sense that a wheel has stopped, which is the case with a powerful braking, this sensor will transmit the ABS computer a signal. The computer will regulate the pressure in the braking system for all four wheels accordingly and this way wheel lock-up is reduced.
The computer will direct the braking pump to increase and reduce pressure in the system a few dozen times per second all the time the brake pedal is pressed. The driver can steer the car almost normally, because he will have control of the wheels in avoiding an obstacle, for example.
You can hear and feel the ABS when it enters the scene, you will feel some short movements in the brake pedal and you will hear a distinct sound.

Your breaking distances will not be reduced if your car is fitted with ABS. It has other purposes, to allow you to handle the car in a case when a powerful brake is necessary. There may be situations when ABS braking will actually increase the braking distance of the vehicle. If you have to brake forcefully and an obstacle appears in front of you, you will be able to drive around it and not crush into it.

The entire job is done by specialized computers and sensors. The driver is not obliged to do anything special, just to use the brakes in the normal way, braking and keeping the brake pedal pushed. Do not use the pumping technique when driving an ABS fitted car, because the actual pumping is being done by the system.

The early systems were rear-wheel ABS, which pumped only the rear wheels. They have been used quite some time ago in SUVs and pick-up trucks and are no longer produced. Today almost all cars are manufactured with four-wheel ABS as standard equipment. In this case, the system uses the sensors at each wheel to pump them all, individually, according to the situation. It is the most efficient system, the more precise, but it is the most expensive one to implement. Some less expensive cars are fitted with a three-channel system.

Dennis runs Car Dealer Check a website dedicated to providing honest car dealer ratings and providing a consumer car dealer survey service.

How To Change Your Car's Motor Oil in 3 Steps

By Rex Freiberger

SUMMARY: 3 Simple Steps to Changing YOur Car's Motor Oil.

Ideally, you should change your motor oil every three months or after every 3,000 miles. If you often drive around in hot or dusty conditions, you might even want to change oil more often than that.

The process is pretty simple, and as easy as one-two-three. Step one is getting ready, step two is draining the oil and changing the oil filter while step three is installing the new oil.

1) Getting Ready
When getting ready, it is important to have the right tools and materials on hand, such as jack stands, a socket set and an oil drain pan. Let your car engine run for 10 minutes before you drain the oil since warm oil is easier to drain than cold. Make sure you park on a level surface or, if your car has a low clearance, jack it up or drive it onto a ramp. If youre jacking up the car, use two jack stands instead of one. (An additional jack costs about $20 and that is a small price to pay to spare your face from being squished by a badly balanced car.) You might want to check your cars manual about the weight of oil and type of oil filter you need to use.

2) Draining the Oil and Changing the Oil Filter
To drain the oil, crawl under the car and look for the oil drain plug under the engine near the front of the car. Position your pan beneath the plug then use a socket wrench to loosen the plug, turning counterclockwise. Once loosened, you can use your hand to remove the plug and the hot oil starts pouring out. Make sure all the old oil is drained into the pan. Once its completely drained, wipe the drain plug and the plug opening. Now replace the drain plug gasket and use a wrench to reinstall the plug but dont make it too tight.

Next, look for the oil filter. They are usually at the side of the engine. Place the oil pan beneath the filter in case any oil remains. Unscrew the oil filter (use gloves if it is too hot) and wipe the filter area clean, especially where it mounts to the engine. Dab a bit of your new oil on the rubber seal of the new filter and then screw it in by hand. You dont have to use a wrench to tighten the oil filter.

3) Installing New Oil
Remove the oil filler cap thats located at the top of the engine. Position the funnel at the opening and slowly start pouring in the new oil You might want to check your manual for the proper oil capacity but, typically, you will need four or five quarts of oil. Once youre done, put back the oil filler cap. Start the engine, let it run for a minute and then check the dipstick. If you need to, add more oil. Now check for any leaks near the oil drain plug and the filter. If you do find leaks, simply tighten the plug or oil filter.

Youre done. But dont forget to clean up. Carefully wipe away any excess oil and put the old oil into a plastic container then dispose of it. Dont just pour it anywhere, though. Better to take it to the recycle center or other authorized locations.