What is car tuning?

We often talk about car tuning without really defining what we mean. A few years ago it was little used apart to describe what a garage would do to ensure peak engine efficiency. Usually the car is put on a diagnosis computer which reads engine codes and helps the mechanic set the optimum timing for the engine.

Today car tuning involves much more than just setting the car up to its peak operating efficiency. Tuning will have the aim of maximising the power delivery of the engine far and above what the original manufacturer designed it to be.

This is acheived through the addition of aftermarket parts. Induction kits, performance exhausts, uprated suspension and even modifications like adding on a turbo or supercharger or doing an engine swap can be considered tuning in the purest sense.

Have a look at the tuning articles in the car tuning section of this site to get a deeper understanding of what car tuning involves. The best candidates for power gains are usually turbo charged vehicles which through a new computer timing map will offer power gains to the order of 30% or even more in some cases.

The general rule of thumb remains that the more you start with the bigger your return on ivestment will be. So tuning a small engined car will cost as much as the same modifications to a larger engined car but the power gain will hardly be noticed.

You will also need to keep in mind that performance tuning has hidden costs and shows up weaknesses elsewhere in a car. At the least you will be decreasing your servicing schedule intervals and at the worst you may break down more often.

Reliability issues when to scrap the car.

One of the most annoying things about car ownership is unreliability. When it comes to breaking down I think I have to be a gold medal holder and got to be on first name terms with the AA recovery call center staff. This goes back to the time I owned a Rover 220 Gti, a car which I greatly loved and my first real hot hatch.

The previous owner had neglected servicing. Actually he thought servicing entails topping up the oil when the oil light comes on. Needless to say after a few weeks the engine went. I replaced this and within 200 miles the new engine had gone as well! A garage diagnosed a serious drive shaft wobble in the gearbox which I likely to have caused the engine to fail. So next time round I got the replacement engine stripped down and sources a stronger gearbox from a 220 Turbo which had a torsion diff and lower gear ratios.

Even after this I had trouble with oil leaks, and minor electrical component failures. Starter motor, rear washer, split core plug, exhaust failure due to a speed bump.

I got into the trap of throwing good money after bad in the hope that there was nothing else that could go wrong! In the end the car cost me £1000's in repair bills. It would be far simpler if there was a simple formula we could use to determine if a car is worth repairing. So here is my philosophy which I will now set in stone (or type at least)

Repair the car if:

• The total cost of the repair is lower than 30% of the value of the car and the total mileage the car has covered is under 70,000.
• If a car is over 7 years old and the repair cost is lower than 50% of the value of the car and the car is under 80,000 miles.
  If the car is over 15 years old and the repair costs less than 80% of its market value (we are getting into collectors car territory here.)

Do not repair the car if:

• The mileage is over 100,000 and the repair cost will exceed 50% of the market value of the car. Or if the total cost of repairs exceed 60% of the value of the car.

Each time you repair the car deduct 50% of the cost of repair from its market value for the next calculation. (That way if a car become unreliable you will only lose a certain amount of money rather than need to finance it with a bottomless pit.)

Make a business decision and dump the car before it sucks all of your money and time and cut your losses and invest in a newer car.

Breakdown personality types.

I've noticed that when people break down in a car they tend to fall into 2 camps. One knows about cars and tries to fix the problem the other knows nothing about cars. The interesting thing though is that both drivers will open the bonnet. The first will also tend to get on the ground and whip out his emergency toolkit and start hammering and banging - the second will just stare and prod things at random.

Why do people do this? Staring at an engine you know nothing about will not fix it? Are these people hoping for some inspiration? A piece of pipe flapping around in the engine bay and a hole to poke it back in is probably the best they can hope for as even they stand a change of fixing it. Perhaps the whole lifting of the bonnet and staring at the engine is a way to prevent appearing helpless and somehow they imagine that passing motorists are quietly impressed at their mechanical skill?

"Whats wrong?" The passengers ask, Mr clueless replies, "its probably an air flow sensor problem!" basing his assumption on the conversation he had with his garage about how his air flow sensor was sticking! A little knowledge is also a dangerous thing, don't poke things in the engine or undo screws unless you know what they do. If a TV breaks down people will get in an expert - they will not just open it up and stare at the internals? Why when a complex piece of machinery like a car breaks down why do they open the bonnet?

Please note that when your engine breaks kicking the tyres will not fix it. So many people kick a cars tyre - it really tells you nothing about the car. When people buy cars they will often kick or prod the tyre with their foot? Why? Tyre pressures are not measured by the bounce or the thud sound? You can't tell about the state of the steering or how frequently a car is serviced from a quick kick of the tyre! If tyre pressures are really low then a visual inspection is all that is required. Torquecars have a wide range of articles aimed at helping newbies find there way around the engine bay and covers the practical aspects of car ownership such as servicing.