Teaching you how to maintain the easily damaged parts of your car

by langrentoh1 on 2012-02-21 09:16:25

Teaching you how to maintain the easily damaged parts of your car - Electrical connectors. Apart from a few important electrical connectors on the car that use gold contacts, the rest mostly use copper-zinc alloys. Under normal circumstances, their reliability is assured. However, if the vehicle runs for a long time in high-temperature, high-humidity, and bumpy environments, these connectors may develop problems such as loosening, rusting, and poor contact, leading to some strange electrical failures.

11 small tips for car maintenance: A good rider needs to know how to ride well, easily passing through the rainy season. Common knowledge of car maintenance during rainy days. Just like bathing keeps your skin healthy, knowing advanced car maintenance is essential. Therefore, during routine maintenance, particular attention should be paid to checking the connectors of components such as the car's computer, sensors, and injectors.

Chassis components: From a practical perspective, chassis components are actually more prone to problems than the engine. However, during routine maintenance, many people often neglect checking the chassis components. The parts of the chassis that are prone to failure mainly include:

1. Shock absorbers: Oil leakage is a sign of shock absorber damage. Additionally, significantly increased bumpiness on rough roads or longer braking distances are also signs of shock absorber damage.

2. Suspension control arm rubber bushings: Damage to the rubber bushings will cause the vehicle to pull or wobble, and even a four-wheel alignment won't help. Carefully inspecting the chassis can easily reveal damaged rubber bushings.

3. Tie rods: Loose tie rods pose a serious safety hazard. Therefore, during routine maintenance, this part must be carefully inspected. It’s simple: hold the tie rod and shake it forcefully; if there’s no movement, everything is fine. Otherwise, the ball joint or tie rod assembly should be replaced.

4. Exhaust pipe: The exhaust pipe is one of the most easily damaged components under the car. Don’t forget to take a look during inspections, especially the exhaust pipe with a three-way catalytic converter, which should be checked more thoroughly.

5. Universal joint dust cover: Don’t underestimate the dust cover outside the universal joint. It not only prevents dust but also stops the lubricating grease around the universal joint from leaking. Once the dust cover is damaged, the lubricating grease will quickly be lost, and due to dry friction, the universal joint will easily be damaged.

Tires: Regularly replacing tires is important. No matter how durable a set of tires is, they cannot last forever. Some people use their cars infrequently, and after a few years, the tire tread appears intact, but in reality, the performance of the tires deteriorates with age, and quality gradually decreases. If you don't recognize this point, thinking that "it looks fine" means there's no problem with the tires is a wrong view. When maintaining tires, first remove stones and other debris embedded in the tire treads, and check for issues such as bubbling, layering, cracking, aging, etc., on the outer tire. Secondly, when removing the tires, remove rust from the wheel rims, check for any damage or creases on the inner tube and lining band, inflate according to the specified pressure, and rotate or swap the tires. Additionally, check for any friction or interference between the tires and the fenders, truck bed floor, leaf springs, and mudguards.

Battery: The battery is key in the electrical system. In cars, numerous electrical devices are used, and if the battery doesn't function properly, it will affect the performance of many devices. For example, in automatic transmission vehicles, if the battery isn't functioning correctly, the car won't start. Therefore, stable power supply must always be ensured.

When checking the battery fluid level, if the level is between the upper and lower two lines, it is considered appropriate. You should also check the difference in liquid levels across different cells. If the fluid level is insufficient, you can unscrew the cap on top of the battery and add distilled water to bring the fluid level up to the standard.

Check the battery terminals and use an iron brush to clean off accumulated dirt. If the terminal clamps are severely dirty, you can use sandpaper to rub along the inner walls and remove dirt.

Brake pads: We usually judge whether the brake pads need replacement based on whether the brake warning light on the dashboard is on, but this is the last line of defense. If you wait until then to replace them, it is already quite dangerous.

It is worth noting that although all vehicles have this warning system, some directly sense the thickness of the brake pads, while others only trigger the warning light when the brake pads are completely worn out, causing the brake fluid to drop drastically. If it's the latter case, by the time the warning light comes on, the metal base of the brake pad and the brake disc are already in a metal-on-metal state. At this point, you will see shiny iron filings near the edge of the tire close to the wheel rim. Therefore, every time you go in for maintenance, check if the brake pads can still be used and replace those approaching their lifespan limit earlier rather than relying solely on the warning light.