Quick Cash Auto Blog

With a little effort and time spent on taking care of your car, your prized possession can be the subject of envy amongst your friends. It’s not very difficult to keep your vehicle looking good, though most would not have it believed. With regular care, a car as old as even 15 years would look just out of the showroom, whereas, one that is barely 3, can be in mutilated shambles with no care at all. The point to drive home is to invest in as much care with the car exterior, as you would with the car interiors/engine or transmission, if you are planning to keep your car longer and in good shape for years to come.

The basics to begin with taking care of car body would include:

• Car Washing – Things like bugs, bird droppings, etc, can play havoc with your car paint, leaving permanent damages on the car body. When the car is dirty, moisture accumulates in dirty areas, causing corrosion. It is recommended that you use pressure wash at least once in a month, which helps to remove the dirt from difficult-to-reach places. Regular washing lends a squeaky clean look to your car, besides preventing damage. Washing is the quickest way to get rid of dirt, salt and sand which, when left unattended can leave scratches on the car body surface.

• Polishing and Waxing – Waxing shields car paint from harsh environment, protects it from fading, and gives it a shiny look at the same time. A good quality car wax usually stays on the car body for a good three to four months, and then needs to be reapplied. It takes about 30 minutes to wax a whole car.

• Rustproofing – Rustproofing and undercoating help protect the car body from corrosion when driving is common in ‘rust belts’ with high humidity and lots of salt on the roads, especially in winters. Corrosion of important car components can lead to mishaps and accidents, if not corrected in time.

• Repairing stone chips – Cars tend to accumulate stones and chips on the road, which later get embedded on the car surface and require immediate removal to prevent corrosions. It is best done with car spray paint and a long tapering stick, which needs to be dipped into the paint. To repair stone chips, one needs to carefully fill up the chip without damaging the paint.

• Removing marks – Marks and scratches are best treated with ultra-fine grit or waterproof sandpaper, polishing compound containing mild abrasive, and car wax. Polishing compound is used where the clearcoat loses sheen due to sandpaper rubbing. The car wax helps to wash out all the polishing compound and buffs the area. Post the treatment, dents/scratches and marks are only barely visible.

Everyone yearns to be the owner of a car that is in good shape and condition even after years of rugged use. One can enjoy the luxury of boasting of a well-maintained car if he chooses to spare some thought, time and effort on the car-care tips mentioned above.

Quite a few inexperienced individuals have some difficulty in knowing what the right tires are for their vehicle when it comes time to replace them. There are many ratings and acronyms thrown around the automotive industry of agencies assigning safety and operational ratings.

On the inside of the driver’s side door jamb is a sticker with a variety of information on it. This placard of information is the place to start to locate the proper tire size and specifications for your automobile. Information for proper inflation and appropriate load limits will also be on this placard. Do not use the information that is physically on the tire itself.

A traction grade provides a measure of how well the tire is able to stop on wet pavement. A higher grade for a tire indicates that it will stop in a shorter distance on wet pavement than a different tire with a lower grade. The traction grades are ranked from highest to lowest as follows: AA, A, B, C.

The relative wear rate of a tire is gauged by the tread wear grade. A higher tread wear grade indicates that the tire will take the tread a longer time to wear down. A control tire is used in the testing which is rated at 100. Tested tires are rated in comparison to the control tire. A rating of 200 indicates the tread will last twice as long, 300 thrice as long, and so forth.

The final statistic of note is the temperature grade. The temperature grade indicates the intensity of the heat that the tire can withstand before becoming compromised. This scale is rated from highest to lowest as: A, B, C.

The choice in tires for your automobile is an important one. They are one of the most vital components since they are at the end of control of the vehicle. Using appropriately graded tires for the conditions you drive in will help lengthen the life of your tires and keep the occupants of the vehicle safe.

One should check the air levels of their tires often to ensure they are not under or overinflated. Inspecting the tread wear on the tire can help shed some light on how the vehicle might be performing with those tires. Alignment may be off if either the inside or outside of the tire is wearing unevenly. Under-inflated tires and bad alignment can cause the tires to wear unevenly and fail much sooner than they normally would. Check your tires before any lengthy excursions and periodically if your driving is only local.

There are many automobiles that were gone before their time because the body became compromised. Their mechanical function and engine still ran well but rampant rust made the body unsafe. Repairing rust spots as they are found can help extend the life of your automobile.

Different climates will affect the body of an automobile in a variety of ways. Areas with heavy moisture and snow are clearly the worst culprits. Even worse are areas that still use salt instead of sand on their roads to combat ice. Salt should be washed off an automobile often; once a week if possible.

Climates that do not have severe snow or ice can still see degradation thanks to rust. Flooded and vehicles left to sit through the course of bad weather seasons are most prone to undercarriage rusting. There really is not a lot that can be done for undercarriage rusting other than replacing the affected components. Generally it is more cost efficient just to buy a new car at that point.

Surface rust spots on the body of an automobile can be fairly easily repaired. Bubbles in the paint are an indicator that rust is forming. Do not ignore this tell-tale warning sign. For every bit of rust you can see there is generally three times as much that you cannot. Repairing the surface rust spots will help prevent it from taking hold and spreading through the body of the automobile.

How to Treat Rust Spots
Gather materials: razorblade, car soap and warm water, primer with a metal conditioner, touch up paint.
*Note: Follow directional usage of paint, primer, and car soap to ensure the area is prepared before continuing to the next step. Failure to do so may compromise additional applications.

1. Scrape loose rust away from the spots with a razorblade, being careful to not knick undamaged areas.
2. Wash the rusted areas with the car soap and warm water. The car soap will ensure any wax or build up comes off.
3. Once dried, apply a primer with a metal conditioner. A local auto parts store will be able to recommend a primer.
4. Once the primer has dried, coat the area using touch up paint.

Prevent rusting from destroying the body by washing your automobile regularly. Take care of rust spots as they appear. If they are left alone, the rust will run rampant and degrade the body before the mechanical workings of the vehicle fail.

The advancement in technology has changed the way automobile maintenance is handled in a major way. Regular replacement of many parts used to be a consistent need to maintain the integrity of a vehicle. Parts such as ignition wires, spark plugs, distributor caps, and much more now have a much longer life than they once did.

Some areas of the vehicle’s maintenance have similar circumstances and schedules. They are generally performed together with any other regular maintenance done on the vehicle.

Tune-Ups
The traditional tune-up is steadily becoming a thing of the past. Many parts that needed regular replacement have been replaced with higher technology parts with a much longer life. While many automobiles on the road still have these wearable parts, they are being fazed out of use with great regularity to make way for more efficient technological advances.

The tune-up of today is more of a general part of maintenance. Older automobiles were treated with a much more specific tune-up that was a separate automotive service in itself. The schedule for replacing these parts is noted as the maintenance schedule in the vehicle’s manual. If ever there is a concern over when maintenance should be occurring, that is where to look.

The tune-up of today really only touches on four areas.

-Air Filters
-Fuel Filters
-Cabin Filters (also HVAC, or Dust Filters)
-Spark Plugs

Even still, many of these objects are engineered to last a long while. Platinum spark plugs can last upwards of 100,000 miles. Fuel filters are regularly rated for anything from 60,000 miles to the life of the car. Air filters can live with the same performance or even longer.

These “auto extended maintenance” parts give the driver a lot more leeway and freedom in when they need to have these parts replaced. The replacement should not be neglected when the time comes to prevent further compounding difficulties that come with a lack of attention.

Other maintenance procedures will be done with more regularity. Things such as fluid changes, gear box services, and oil services are performed with greater frequency to ensure the automobile maintains a high degree of efficient functionality.