Girls Auto Clinic Glove Box Guide Read online

  One of the most important auto maintenance tasks happens to be one of the cheapest and simplest: getting your oil changed regularly and promptly. It’s so important that I’m gonna say it again. Getting your oil changed promptly when it is due is the single most important thing you can do for your car. But there are also other parts of your car that must be maintained.

  If you can’t find your maintenance schedule in your owner’s manual (or you can’t find your owner’s manual), do an online search for the owner’s manual for the year, make, and model of your car, and then print it out, or download it and save a baby tree.

  Maintenance charts can be confusing, so take some time with yours. I’ve provided some basic rules of thumb in this chapter, but your particular chart should still be your primary guide.

  In general, cars require some form of maintenance at least every six months. Many charts break tasks down in miles, but most of us don’t think in miles and aren’t in the habit of tracking our mileage. So I use months in my timetables—though if you’re someone who drives a lot, mileage will be a better cue. If you’re using months, go ahead and enter a recurring biannual reminder into your digital calendar. Between your dash, the dated sticker your PCT will put on your windshield after a service appointment, and your automated reminders, you’ll be sure to get the message.

  ITEM

  CHECK

  SERVICE

  PRICE

  Engine Oil

  Every month for cars with over 50,000 miles; every gas fill-up for cars with over 100,000 miles

  Every 3–6 months

  $35–$80, depending on oil type and engine size

  Other Essential Fluids

  Every oil change or every 6 months

  Varies, as recommended by your owner’s manual

  $60–$150, depending on fluid type. Oil is inexpensive compared to transmission fluid

  Hoses and Drive Belts

  Every year for rotting, cracks, and flexibility

  As needed, but usually within 5 years

  $100 or less

  Battery

  Every oil change check for corrosion

  Lasts 4–5 years

  $150 or less

  Air Filter

  Every oil change

  Every 1–2 years

  $40 or less for most cars

  Tires

  Check for tread wear and rotting every month; rotate tires once a year

  If you rotate tires every year and maintain tire pressure and alignment angles, tires can last 5 years or more

  $95 and up per tire on smaller cars, $150 and up per tire on larger cars

  Brakes

  Every oil change check for wear and leaks

  Average is 2–3 years for disc, 5 years for drums; really depends on how you drive

  $150–$400 per axle (front or rear)

  Steering Parts

  Every year check for looseness, wear, and leaks

  As needed; normally start to wear after 80,000 miles

  Varies greatly

  Suspension Parts

  Every year check for looseness, wear, and leaks

  As needed; normally start to wear after 80,000 miles

  Varies greatly

  Wipers

  Every oil change check for wear and tear

  As needed

  $15–$30

  Lights

  Every oil change check for blown lights

  As needed

  Varies from $10 to $150, depending on car design

  Timing Belt

  n/a

  100,000 miles

  More than $650

  Car Wash, Wax, Vac

  n/a

  Every 3 months; wash undercarriage after every snowstorm

  $15–$50 for a quick wash or DIY; $100–$200 for detail

  Is It a Tune-up or a Checkup?

  A checkup is a simple check on your car’s vital signs. Like a doctor, your PCT will check over your car and recommend any necessary repairs or service. This involves a test drive, during which your PCT will listen and feel for any issues with your engine, transmission, brakes, and suspension. Next, your PCT will put the car on a lift and check the undercarriage for issues such as fluid leaks, suspension damage, steering damage, tire wear, or brake wear. Last, your PCT will check all fluids and filters. All of this costs only $35, and should be done once a year or before a long road trip.

  A tune-up happens around 80,000 to 100,000 miles. It requires replacing spark plugs and any of the following if needed: wires and coils, fuel and air filters, and the PCV valve. The cost should be anywhere from $250 to $500. If your car is in dire need of a tune-up, the check-engine light will illuminate.

  Don’t Forget to Wash Your Car!

  If you’re like me, car washes happen to your car every time it rains. But seriously, it’s important to keep up with regular cleanings if you want your car to last—and to fetch the highest possible resale price. Just like our clothes, our cars need to be properly laundered in order to attain optimal longevity. It’s a good idea to give your car a thorough cleaning (inside, outside, and underneath) at least once a year, ideally twice. If you get snow where you live, you’ll want to wash your car and its undercarriage as soon as the winter season is over, as well as every two weeks during frequent snowy conditions; if you get infrequent or light snow, within five days of snowfall.

  Salt sprinkled on roads to melt ice and snow during winter creates safer driving conditions, but it also causes rust or corrosion on your car as it is kicked up from the road and sticks to the car’s undercarriage and body. As salt builds up, it will rust frames, metal brake lines, suspension parts, bolts, and more. This will cause expensive repairs as your car ages and/or decrease the resale price, so prevent rust and corrosion damage by regularly washing your car during winter months at an establishment that offers undercar, undercarriage, or underspray services.

  Normal Use vs. Severe Use

  There are two types of “use” patterns for your car or motor vehicle—regular or normal use and severe or harsh use. Your owner’s manual will recommend maintenance intervals based on which one you fall under. Severe use can involve towing, hauling, and a lot of stop-and-go traffic. Most of us belong in the normal category, but the chart on the following page explains the difference. One thing that might surprise you is that short trips are actually harder on a car than long ones—so if you mostly use your car to run errands in your neighborhood, you may fall under the severe use category.

  NORMAL USE

  SEVERE USE

  Most trips over 10 miles

  Most trips fewer than 4 to 10 miles

  Driving in temperatures above freezing (32°F)

  Driving in temperatures below freezing (32°F)

  Most trips are not stop and go

  Most trips are stop and go

  No towing or carrying heavy loads

  Towing or carrying heavy loads

  Driving on roads or conditions that are not dusty

  Driving on dusty roads or in dusty conditions

  Car has fewer than 100,000 miles on it

  Car has more than 100,000 miles on it

  Maintenance and Your Dashboard

  Listen up, your car is talking.

  Remember those dashboard lights we learned all about a couple of chapters ago? Modern cars are outfitted with dedicated dashboard lights and sometimes even message centers that will let you know when maintenance is needed. Based on the manufacturer’s recommended mileage benchmarks, the signal will usually tell you that general maintenance is required but won’t get specific about what kind of maintenance that might be. A symbol may simply become illuminated, or you could get a message like “change oil now” or “maintenance due.” If you want to get a sense of what you’re in for, check your owner’s manual to see what maintenance is recommended at your current mileage milestone.

  Oil Life Monitors

  Some cars come equipped with oil life monitors that give specific feedback about the state of your oi
l. These work several ways:

  1. By tracking the vehicle’s miles. As you get closer to the number of miles required for an oil change, a “change oil” message or symbol on the dash will light up. This mileage amount corresponds to the recommendations in your owner’s manual.

  2. By electronically tracking the efficiency of the oil over time, measuring miles driven, the number of times the engine was started, and other determining factors. Highway miles are easier on oil than shorter city drives, so the number of times you start an engine or drive in stop-and-go traffic will significantly affect the condition of your oil.

  3. By measuring the oil’s acidity, contaminants, and viscosity via a sensor (usually a luxury feature).

  On most cars, maintenance and/or oil change lights will need to be manually reset after maintenance is performed—something auto techs may forget to do. Without a reset, many oil life monitors won’t give accurate readings. So make sure yours has gone dark again before you leave the shop. Or check your owner’s manual, or google “maintenance reset” for the year, make, and model of your car for directions on how to reset the light yourself. On some cars, it’s done via a button on the dash. On others, it’s a complicated maneuver, like pumping the brakes five times with the ignition off.

  Your Wheels, Your $$$: Don’t Procrastinate!

  The golden rule of maintenance? Don’t put it off. That applies double to the most important maintenance item on the list: the oil change, which also happens to be the most frequent maintenance task of all. If your maintenance schedule recommends an oil change every 5,000 miles, that doesn’t mean take your car in at 5,001 miles or 5,482 miles. Take care of business at mile 4,999 or before. Why? Frequently checking up on your car’s health is the only way to predict and affect its long-term behavior. If you’re tired of high-priced, unexpected repairs that can financially set you back months or years and create added stress in your life, you must change the way you view car maintenance. Discipline equals freedom. Do you pay less now or pay more later? A #shecanic knows the answer. So get in the habit of prompt oil changes. Unless you like to blow your cash.

  I’d rather spend mine on tacos and margaritas.

  DIY #1: Under the Hood

  My childhood fear of peeking under the bed turned into an adult pattern of avoidance—as an auto airhead I acted like there really were monsters lurking under my hood. I just knew the car monsters were going to get me and my wallet. And anytime something wasn’t quite right, I was afraid to lift the hood.

  But now we’re going to pop the latch, get the lay of the land, and confront those icky monsters once and for all. We’ll learn which parts are safe to touch and work on ourselves, and which ones we can monitor but should outsource to a professional. We’ll locate the reservoirs that sometimes get thirsty for oil and fluids. Then, later on, we’ll put that knowledge into action by tackling a few simple DIY techniques that every driver should be able to conquer.

  All of this learning comes with one simple condition: Instead of just following along, I want you to grab a rag and some gloves, bring this book out to your car—and then actually, physically open up your hood and take a look at what’s going on under there.

  Yup. Things are about to get just a little bit dirty.

  That maze of dirt, grease, metal parts, wires, and hoses is going to make a lot more sense once we’ve gotten through this. Let’s get ready to shine a light onto that scary dark spot full of vehicular monsters. (Spoiler alert: They’re not so scary after all.)

  Pop That Hood

  More often than not, the women who attend my Girls Auto Clinic workshops share a dirty little secret: They don’t know how to open the hoods of their cars. Do you?

  Like I said, there’s no place for shame in my workshops. So what we’re going to do now is start at the very beginning.

  The hood of a modern car can be opened and propped by various means, but there are usually three steps involved: pulling a cable to pop the hood, releasing the hood from the safety catch, and propping the hood open. The only tricky part is locating the various parts involved. If you’re still having a hard time, check your owner’s manual or ask your PCT to show you next time you’re at the shop.

  1. Pop the hood. Designated by a symbol of a car with its hood open or the word hood, a lever inside your car that’s attached to the hood latch cable will be your first stop. The lever will most commonly be found on the driver’s side, by your left leg or foot, but it may also be on the steering column or under the steering wheel—or, much more rarely, on the front of the car. Grab the lever and pull it hard, and your hood will pop up slightly.

  Find the latch commonly located by the driver’s left foot to unlock your hood.

  2. Release the hood. At this point the hood will be popped but still locked. To open or raise it, you’ll have to release the hood from a latch on the front of the car, and finding the latch may take some doing. Look and feel for it under the still-closed, popped hood by getting down to eye level. The latch should be located right in the center of the hood, and usually needs to be pushed up or to the left to unlatch.

  3. Prop the hood. Once you’ve released the hood from its latch, you’ll be able to raise it. Because the hood is heavy, it will also need to be propped to stay open, via either a hydraulic strut (i.e., a self-propping mechanism) or a prop rod. (See dotted red lines on image, above, for possible locations.)

  If your hood doesn’t stay propped on its own, look around for a metal rod under the hood, near the latch, on the underside of the hood, or off to the side. Stick the rod into a hole on the bottom or belly of the hood. (The spot might be marked by an arrow.) Make sure the hood is securely propped before getting to work. Again, consult your owner’s manual for instructions on propping it open safely. Or better yet, find a video online!

  A Note on Directions

  To avoid confusion when working on cars, mechanics use the perspective of a seated driver to describe the location of a part or issue. So though a part may be to the left from the perspective of a PCT standing at the front of the car and working on that part under the hood, they will refer to the part as being to the right. When you’re describing a problem to your PCT, you’ll always refer to the part from the perspective of a seated driver—e.g., “right front tire” means the front tire on the passenger side.

  But to keep things simple as we take our tour under the hood, I’ve described the location of parts from the perspective of a person facing the front of the car.

  The Monsters Under the Hood

  We’ll be taking a detailed monster tour in a bit, but here’s a quick breakdown of the four major categories of stuff you’ll find under your hood:

  Your Car’s Essential Fluids. With the exception of gas, which is held in the back of the car, all of your car’s essential fluids—engine oil, coolant, transmission fluid, power steering fluid, brake fluid, and window washing fluid.

  Your Car’s Electrical Center. The battery, starter, and alternator—the parts that get the car up and running and then feed the car’s electrical components.

  The Engine and Her Friends. The workhorse at the center of it all, along with the accessories that help her do her job—think air filter, dipstick, oil filler cap, spark plugs, radiator, and belts.

  The AC System. We aren’t going to talk much about the AC system, since it doesn’t require maintenance, aside from occasional repairs.

  In luxury vehicles, you’ll often see a hard-shell plastic covering protecting most of the parts under the hood from dirt and moisture. If that’s the case for you, you won’t be able to see the engine or most related parts without removing this cover, but you’ll still be able to add fluids and check certain parts for wear and tear—both of which we’re going to learn to do later in this book.

  A Tour of the Essential Fluids Under the Hood

  If you’ve popped open your hood, you’re already farther into the monster zone than some car owners ever venture. Nice work, #shecanic. Now let’s take a look at the reserv
oirs that store your car’s essential fluids. Follow along on the diagram and through this section to locate them on your car. The engine, radiator, and brake fluid placement are invariable, but the rest of the parts pictured will move around depending on the make and model. Essential fluids often have identifying labels on the their caps; I’ve also designated each part with a touch or don’t touch icon to help keep you safe. Now let’s get ready to get our hands dirty.

  The master plan—a look at what’s going on under the hood.

  Engine Oil. Remember, oil is your vehicle’s lifeline. Would you prefer to spend $5 on a quart of oil, or $3,000 to replace your engine?

  Thought so.

  Located front and center under the hood, the engine sits over the oil pan—where engine oil is stored. We pour oil into the engine by unscrewing the oil filler cap located right on top of the engine and typically marked with an oilcan symbol or words identifying the type of oil. See instructions on how to check and refill your oil on page 109.

  Power Steering Fluid. Normally sitting to the left of the engine, the power steering reservoir is filled with a reddish or pinkish fluid that turns dark brown over time—a signal that the system is in need of a flush. Not a DIY but a task for your PCT, a flush should take place every three to five years, or as recommended by your owner’s manual. Checking your power steering fluid level yourself, however, is totally doable, and we’ll learn how on page 173. It’s a good idea to check your fluid level before any trip longer than two hours, or as needed when you suspect a steering issue. Signs include grinding noises while turning the steering wheel, or a steering wheel that feels tighter or looser than normal.