POST CATEGORY : Maintenance

How to Remove Egg from Car

How to Remove Egg from Car

I don’t really know how it gets to your car, but if it happens, you need to remove egg from your car! Some tricky bird may lay an egg on a tree that somehow lands onto your car. Or you may have become clumsy and end up breaking eggs onto your car when you’re taking the groceries out of your car.

If it happens in the middle of the day, the heat on the car surface could cook the egg. You would have a sunny side up, except that it’s not on a table and it’s definitely not for breakfast!

Here are some ideas on how to remove egg from car.

First off, you should be careful so as not to damage the paint of your car. If you park outside most of the time, consider buying a car cover or a frost guard. Make it a point to cover your car with a layer of wax, especially if your car is white.

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51 Ways to Save Money on Your Car

51 Ways to Save Money on Your Car

Just a quick disclaimer, I am not a financial adviser and this blog post is for educational purposes only. If you need financial advice, please consult a professional. I am not a lawyer and this does not constitute legal advice.

We cannot live without cars–at least not yet! We need to go to work, drop off kids to school, run errands, and so much more. There are multiple ways to save money on car. It takes some research and planning. More importantly, it takes action! We have compiled 51 ways to save money on your car!

If you act on even a handful of the money-saving tips below, you’ll end up with extra hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in your wallet!

Buying a Car

1. Change your mindset. A car is a great tool! It feels good to have a nice car. But remember that you are not what you drive! Your identity is so much more than that. It means that you don’t need the most expensive car to feel good or confident.

2. Don’t buy a new car! The moment you drive it out of the dealership, it will have started losing its value. In fact, it loses 25-35% of its total value just in the first year!

3. Buy almost new cars — the ones that about 1-3 years old and still has the latest features of your favorite car. As long as you choose a car that has low mileage, you are still fairly confident that it will last for a long time.

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How to Care for Your Car Transmission

How to Care for Your Car Transmission

The best way to prevent car transmission problems is to take good care of your transmission. Manual transmissions are pretty rare in the USA these days. Most cars are now sold equipped with automatic transmission. Either way, you need to take good care of your transmission to ensure that your ride lasts for a long time. You don’t want to be stuck somewhere because your transmission conked out on you.

A transmission uses the power generated by your car’s engines to rotate the wheels and make the car move efficiently. Through its different gears, you can climb a hill or speed through the highway. Without a good transmission, your car won’t move at all!

Watch the video below to understand how automatic transmission works.

 

Here’s how to maintain your car’s transmission

Check your owner’s manual for the maintenance schedule for your transmission.

Don’t rely on what your dealership or mechanic tells you. You need to be active in ensuring that the transmission fluid is at the right level. Most car manufacturers recommend transmission fluids to be changed every 30,000 to 60,000 miles. It is easy to neglect this. But if you consult your manual, you should be able to schedule this type of maintenance without a glitch.

You also need to make sure that you are using the correct transmission fluid for your car. Consult your owner’s manual to check the right fluid. If you want to do things the DIY way, don’t let your transmission fluid go beyond the line that indicates the maximum amount of fluid.

Your car’s transmission fluid’s color should be bright red. If your car has a dipstick for your transmission fluid, check it out and wipe the dipstick on a light-colored or white piece of cloth. It should also smell a little bit sweet. If you are not the DIY-type, please consult a professional if you want to drain and replace your transmission fluid.

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30 Must Have Car Accessories

30 Must Have Car Accessories

Owning a car isn’t just about getting from Point A to Point B, it’s an extension of your personality. It can even feel like a temporary home while you’re driving. If you want your driving to be comfy and hassle-free, get these 30 must have car accessories.

30 Must Have Car Accessories:

Most of the accessories we chose below are less than $100, but if not, we indicate how much they cost. You probably don’t need every single one of them, but over time, you can build up the accessories you use and get all of them.

Jump Starter

For those times when your car won’t start because of battery problems. This is particularly useful during the cold season, and for older cars that may have weak batteries. Older cars also don’t automatically turn off your headlights when you turn the engine off.

The good thing is, a lot of jump starters now have additional accessories that will let you include other accessories listed below. Saving money and getting extra perks is always good!

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What to Do When Your Car Battery is Dead?

What to Do When Your Car Battery is Dead?

There are several factors that lead to a car battery’s death.

For one, you battery might be too old and it has reached the end of its life span. Most car batteries last for about 2-3 years. If you take care of it well, you may be able to extend the life of your battery for another year or two.

On top of that, other factors may also come into play when it comes to the demise of a battery: Continue reading →

Buying a Jump Starter: Look for Peak Amps or Cold Cranking Amps?

Buying a Jump Starter: Look for Peak Amps or Cold Cranking Amps?

Buying a jump starter could be a confusing affair. When buying a jump starter: do you look for peak amps or cold cranking amps? What’s the difference? Which one should be your basis in buying a jump starter?

Peak Amps or Cold Cranking Amps?

cold-cranking-amps

Some jump starters will put 900 peak amps like the JNC300XL, 2200 Peak Amps for the Schumacher PSJ-2212 and everything in between. Most buyers will be attracted to the products with the highest peak amps, but you should avoid that temptation. That is a bad criteria to assess your options.

What you should look for, instead is the jump starter’s Cranking Amps and Cold Cranking Amps. This is the actual power that the jump starter will supply to your car’s battery.

What if you have several vehicles with different engines? Say you have a 4-, 6-, or 8-cylinder car, will you need separate jump starters?

The good news is NO. You just need to choose the jump starter with the highest Cold Cranking Amps that you can afford. This way, if the battery of your car is totally dead, your jumpstarter has enough juice to bring it back from the dead. Just make sure to keep the jump starter, either at home, or in the trunk of the vehicle with the weakest or deadest battery.

What is Cold Cranking Amps

If you’re wondering, a battery’s Cranking Amps (CA) refers to the amount of power that a battery can discharge for 30 seconds at 32° F (0° C). It really is the amount of power you need to start your engine on any weather except winter.

On the other hand, Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) refers to the number of amps that a battery can push out for 30 seconds at 0° F without dropping under 7.2 Volts. Remember that a jump starter is really another battery supplying power to your car’s battery. It’s more difficult to start an engine during cold weather, that’s why batteries tend to have both the CA and CCA ratings.

If your battery reads 660 CCA, that doesn’t automatically mean that you need a jumpstarter with the same CCA rating. A product with a lower rating can power it up. A jump starter with at least 500 CCA can power up a car equipped with a 660-CCA battery.

But remember: if your battery is dead, a jump starter with high Cold Cranking Amps has better chances of reviving it and starting your engine.

This also does not mean that a battery with a lower CCA rating will be damaged by a jump starter with a higher CCA rating. Keep in mind that whenever you use a jump starter, it will only provide the power needed to start a battery. So even if your jumpstarter has 2200 Peak Amps, and you power up a 660 CCA rating battery, you won’t overload the car’s electrical system.

 

So here’s the bottom line…

Be more discerning in buying a jump starter. While peak amps may be a good measure of the maximum power output of a product, you should be considering Cranking Amps (CA) and Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) primarily.

 

image credit: Flickr

How to Remove Smoke Smell from Car

How to Remove Smoke Smell from Car

I made a big mistake in buying my 2012 Kia Forte LX. It used to be a smoker’s car. When I was signing the paperwork, I thought that I could easily get rid of the smoke smells. But I was wrong! Don’t ever make my mistake. If you’re not a smoker and are looking to buy a used car, run away as far as you can the moment you smell even the faintest traces of smoke smell in the car. If you’re a smoker, anyway, then you can probably just get on with buying it.

Just a quick disclaimer: Proceed at your own risk. I’m detailing how I did things in my own car. You are responsible for anything that happens in your car resulting to any activity or task. So, make sure to test and be mindful of potential damage of any chemical or mechanical things that you do in your car.

How to remove smoke smell from car

It sucks to have a car that used to belong to a smoker. The smell grew too overpowering that I felt gagged while driving. Thankfully, my office is just 11 miles out from home. I searched online for information on how to remove the nasty smoke smell.

But after spending two weeks of cleaning it up, let me just say that IT IS VERY DIFFICULT to remove the smoke smell from the interior of the car. You can brush and clean up the fabric of the seats, clean the floor carpets of your floor, and the smell might still linger.

smoking_car

I can still smell the smoke inside my car, but it is no longer as overpowering as it used to be. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, and I will keep trying until the smoke smell is totally gone.

Get a professional detailing shop to remove the smoke smell for you.

If you have the money, and don’t have the time to worry about doing this yourself, go to the professionals and let them do it for you. It could cost a lot, I don’t know how much since I didn’t do this, but a quick phone call should do the trick for you. I won’t be surprised if it costs more than $100 though.

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