Take Better Care of Your Car by Learning about the Signals It can Send You

Owning a car is not as difficult as it has been in the past, but once you bring the car home, you'll still be concerned about costs associated with maintenance and repair. We know that you're interested in taking the best possible care of your car, so this article will look at how we can be alert and identify the signals our car is sending us. Here are a few tips.

• Carpet odors: if you smell a musty odor due to water trapped inside the car, you need to dry the carpet.
• Fuel odors: If the fuel tank venting becomes obstructed, you may experience a fuel smell in the car.
• Sparking, arcing, or electrical smell: damage to the alternator or wiring system can produce an electrical "burning wire" smell, which also may be accompanied by dimming lights or an electrical system warning light.
• Hot rubber smell during braking or normal driving: overheated tires or damage to brakes can generate the smell of burning rubber and affect the car performance.
• Hot oil smell: engine oil leaking on hot components has a distinctive odor. Excessive smoke from the exhaust can indicate worn piston rings or valves. Excessive oil consumption is also a clue here.
• Acrid, smoky smell: a smoky smell can be experienced when the heatproof lining of the engine firewall breaks down or is missing.

In all these situations except the first, you need to call for professional help as soon as possible.

• Clicking or popping from the front end when turning: as soon you hear this from the front wheels while taking a turn, you need to get the drive shafts or constant velocity joints fixed to prevent a dangerous condition. Constant clicking from the wheels while driving can indicate defective bearings (or small stones trapped in the tread pattern).
• Knocking or pinging sound from engine: the stuttering sound of preignition or knocking under light engine loads and moderate acceleration will be present at higher speeds, too, although you may not be able to hear it then. Trying a higher octane rating fuel may help, or the car's ignition timing may need to be checked and adjusted. Metallic clunking or knocking sounds from the engine that vary with engine speed are often indicative of internal engine problems. You should check the oil level if you hear this, and, if the car is overheating, shut it down until you can discover the problem and address it.
• Squealing sound: the fan belt should be replaced as soon as possible.
• Backfiring: never a good sign, backfiring is indicative of a too-lean engine air-fuel mixture or severely worn valves. You should have the car checked to determine what is causing this problem.

• Faulty fuel injector or poor quality fuel can result in hiccups or "misses" while driving.
• One can experience a pull or vibration while braking if there are unequal values of tire pressure.
• A problem in the suspension can also be experienced in the form of shudders while braking.

So, you can find that there are easy to follow car maintenance tips for different car systems and componentss, provided that you behave as an informed car user on the road. Apart from this, you can reduce car maintenance costs by performing regular checkups of different parts of the car.