15145 NE 90th Street RedmondLuke's Car Tips & Auto Maintenance Advice
Luke's posts regular blogs to offer you great information and advice about your car maintenance. Check back often for new posts. Search for a specific topic!
Luke Shaff
Hydroplaning
This represents the loss of traction and skidding when the road is wet. Wet road surfaces can cause tires to hydroplane. This could result in loss of control and steering ability as your tires may lose contact with the pavement.
Jumpstart
Jumpstart is also called as Boost. This is a method or process of starting a dead or discharged battery. A temporary connection is made with other active battery through a cable which makes the battery work instantly.
Lane Departure Warning (LDW)
This is designed to help the driver to avoid crashes due to drifting or departing your lane (traveling lane). This detector detects the lane markers and alert the driver when a tire touches a lane marker. This warning is usually flashing indicator or it beeps from the corresponding side.
LoJack
An anti-theft device that works as a recovery system for stolen cars. Allows a car to be tracked by the police, with the aim of recovering them in case of theft. The manufacturer claims 90% recovery rate.
Mileage
Amount of distance a vehicle can travel with a specific amount of fuel. Common notations for mileage are MPG (miles per gallon) and KMPL (kilometers per liter). 20mpg means the vehicle can travel 20 miles for a gallon of fuel.
Pounds Per Square Inch (PSI)
It is a unit to measure air pressure in a closed chamber containing gas. PSI is used to denote tire pressure in our cars. Generally, the optimum tire pressure for your car is available in owner’s manual or a sticker in the door jam. Recommended tire pressure can vary between the front and back wheels.
RPM
Revolutions Per Minute, the gauge indicating RPM or r/min tells the driver how fast the car’s crankshaft is spinning. Each number on the gauge corresponds to roughly 1,000 revolutions per minute, so if your gauge’s needle is pointing at 3, your engine is spinning at about 3,000 revolutions per minute. Why is RPM Important in Cars? RPM is a good indicator for when to upshift or downshift when driving a manual transmission car. When the RPM is high it is a good time to upshift and when the RPM is low it is time to downshift. High and low can vary from car to car. Check out “Avoiding Transmission Troubles" for more insight and tips
Tire Rotation
Means swapping or moving wheels and tires of your car from one position to another to ensure uniform tire wear. Generally, the weight in the front and rear tires are uneven because the engine usually sits on the front tires. This will help us to retain tire life. For more insight on tire life check out “How & Why You Should Rotate Your Tires“ . Is it time for a tire rotation or are you in need of new car tires? Luke's Automotive can help with all your tire needs so you can feel safer on the road and keep your car driving longer.
Vehicle Identification Number (VIN)
Do you know your car has an identification number? Yes. VIN is a unique code for every car used in the automotive industry to address each and every individual car. Which is a series of serial number. And it was first used in the United States. Vin is like a social security number for your car embedded with all the details about that particular car.
Wheel Alignment
This is the process of aligning the car wheel's angle (proposed by the car manufacturer) to ensure car travels in a straight line or desired path without pulling in one direction. It is important to take your car to its doctor if it is pulling in one direction.
Wheel Balancing
Do you think your wheel wobble? Then it's important to know about wheel balancing. It is a process of distribution of mass within tires or the entire wheel (including the rim) to the axis it is attached.
Antilock Braking System - (ABS)
When you press the brake pedal, brake pads come in contact with the discs attached to the wheels and stops the rotation of the wheels which will cause a frictional force between wheel and surface. During emergency braking, the wheels may get locked up and skid. When ABS is installed in the car, it detects when the wheels are going to lock up and uses a series of hydraulic valves to limit or reduce the braking on that wheel. This prevents skidding and allows you to maintain steering control.
Blind Spot
When you are driving a car, the area in either side of your car that cannot be seen in your rear mirror or side mirror is defined as a blind spot. To make sure these spots are clear before changing lanes driver must physically turn their head to the respective side and ensure the safety.
Braking Distance
The distance required for a car moving at a particular velocity to come to a complete stop after activating the brake pedal. Better to check your brake system to an expert in our area. check out “Seven Signs That You Should to Get Your Brakes Checked” for signs of brake system malfunction.
Coasting
Driving your car in a higher speed than the idle speed for your engine and then disengaging the engine from the wheels by setting the transmission or gearbox to the neutral position or disengaging through clutch, maintaining the engine in idle mode. You will have less control over your car while coasting and can lead to an accident.
Cornering
When you drive in a straight road the motion of the car is stable, but when it comes to driving in a sharp turn you must overcome a centrifugal force which you will handle by little oversteering in the apex part (middle area of a curve) and predicting the steering angle.
Cruise Control (CC) & Adaptive cruise control (ACC)
Cruise Control is an electronic device in your car that can be opted to maintain a selected constant speed by locking accelerator and take your foot off the pedal. You can use this control when it’s not necessary to stop frequently, turnings or other driving maneuvers. ACC an advanced technology to cruise control, which is also called as Autonomous cruise control or traffic aware cruise control. This automatically adjusts the car speed to maintain a safe distance from the car ahead.
Cubic Centimeters (CC)
Unit of Volume indicated to represent the volumetric size of the engine, i.e. volume covered by the stroke of the piston multiplied by the number of cylinders in the engine. 1200cc is essentially 1.2 liters engine.
Dual Zone Climate Control
Climate Control is a sophisticated form of air conditioning in the car which allows the temperature inside the car to be set accurately and in a controlled manner. Dual zone climate control allows a different temperature to be set on the driver and passenger sides of the car. Similarly, triple zone climate control has separate controls for driver side, passenger side and the 2nd row seats of the car.
Electronic Steering
Modern steering technique in most of the new cars which are very efficient in fuel consumption and accurate. This has an electric motor connected to the steering gear or column. A computer module gives direction accordance to the detected sensor torque and position of the steering column.
Horse Power (HP or BHP) and Torque
HP is unit of measurement for engine power. the higher the horsepower, the higher the vehicle's acceleration.
Torque is unit of measure of an engine power that indicates how efficiently/forcefully the crankshaft can rotate at a given speed. In other words it can be called as the pulling power of the car.
BHP vs Torque
Torque matters as much as horsepower because it’s the force you feel when you accelerate. If you regularly tow a trailer or carry a fully-loaded car, then having plenty of torque is important because it helps you pull your load onwards.
