The pitfalls of car tuning.

Car tuning has become more than a popular hobby it has become a multi $1,000,000 industry. There is no shortage of parts available for every conceivable make and model of car. Sadly though many of the manufacturers' claims are far from the truth. A common ruse used by the car manufacturers is to show the performance gains of their products fitted to a high performance engine. On a 300 BHP car the parts may well deliver a power increase of 30 BHP but on a much smaller engine car producing just 76 BHP you would not be able to see a power gain in excess of a few BHP.

The problem there is more serious than this as some performance parts can actually reduce the performance of a car. At the very least the car ceases to become usable into normal everyday driving conditions. Tuning a car for the use on track is very different to tune in a car that is going to be a daily run around.

In everyday use you need a good balance of economy and reliability along with the performance gain. Four track use, reliability is not so much of an issue, as the car will typically be stripped down and rebuilt after each race, or a few times in each race season. The track car will also spend most of its life in the upper Rev band where most of the power gains are. An everyday car will spend most of its time in the low power band and will be moving slowly so heat buildup is to be avoided.

It's for these reasons that I started writing car tuning articles and posted them on TorqueCars. Having spent a lot of money tuning up a car I quickly learned that many performance parts were not performance enhancing and actually reduced my enjoyment of the car. TorqueCars take a look at the many advantages, disadvantages and benefits of each type of modification. Before buying a performance parts or modifying your car I would strongly recommend that you read some of the articles on TorqueCars and at least be a well informed purchaser.

Cars don't like sitting around in storage.

One thing I have noticed with all of the cars I have owned is that they like it when you use them regularly. Having owned 2 cars for much of my driving career there was generally a daily runaround and a fun car for the weekends and summertime. Of all the cars I have owned as weekend only cars there were problems attributable to not using it often enough.

Silly things like corrosion acceleration where the rust seems to accelerate quicker, pipes start to split and crack and even quick deterioration of brake disks. When a car is used often it seems to keep all of these things at bay.

Tyre pressure also mysteriously decreases when a car is left standing. Fuel tanks empty. Fuel pumps fail. Doors get stiff and creaky. Electric windows seize up. Air-conditioning systems just refuse to reactivate themselves.

The list goes on and on. I can only conclude that cars are meant to be driven. Now I am running just 1 car my servicing and maintenance costs for the year are less than 30% of what they were for 2 cars.

If you are storing a car. Leave it in a dry garage with the brakes off and chock up the wheels. Running the car once a week and revving the engine to simulate road use rather than letting it idle will help to keep the car in a good condition.

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.

The self repairing car strikes again.

Well it passed the MOT with flying colours. The front tyres were near the minimum tread depth so I have ordered some Dunlop SP Sports to match the rears. I would never have chosen them but they were all I could get on the rears and since they have been fitted I really like them.
They cope well in all weathers and are pretty hard wearing consider the abuse I give them!
A small fault developed though after the car had been returned which I noticed the following day. When using the starter the engine would start and then the starter would grind and clank.

I suspect that the release solenoid is sticking causing the starter to remain engaged in the starting ring longer than necessary. After about 10 starts though after the weekend it seems to have sorted itself out. When we first got our Audi A3 the door sensor was playing up causing the interior light to stay on and the digital dash computer display would flicker on and off. Both of those problems went away so I must take my hat off to German engineering having produced a car that repairs itself!

Bills and repairs so far in the 3 years of ownership other than standard service items totals £0.00! (Unless you count the tyres at £65 each but I'm prepared to put them in as a service item!) I'm very pleased with this car, especially since my last car, a Rover 220 GTi cost me around £200-£300 per month in repairs with repaired items failing a few months later with alarming regularity!

Vorsprung Durk Technik!