Do you often go to your mechanic for a routine preventive maintenance? Or you always depend on them whenever there’s an issue with your car? Don’t worry, you’re not alone as we are always at their mercy!
Mechanics are quite an indispensable job as most people nowadays have combustion engine cars that needs proper maintenance and service. And not all car owners know how to repair their wheels.
So most of us look for the most trusted mechanics to fix our cars. But what if I tell you that there are some things that mechanics don’t tell us?
In this short but detailed post, I’ll share to you some of the secrets that mechanics quite don’t share with their customers.
4 Things Mechanics Don’t Share to You
What I am about to share with you is just the first part of a blog series. So you may want to stay tune to this website so you don’t miss any of my daily blog posts.
So without further ado, here are four things that mechanics don’t tell you.
Turbocharger Oil Baking
One such issue if your vehicle is a turbocharged engine is oil baking. This issue is when your turbo experience failure due to excessive oil being “cooked” inside which causes problems.
Driving a turbocharged car is a fun and enjoyable experience as they are much more faster and powerful machines. The turbo helps compress the air that is being pass inside the combustion chamber.
As your turbo functions while you drive, it also gets too hot especially in high boost. That’s why turbochargers have this heat shield to protect the engine from too much heat. And turbochargers do have oil inside to help lubricate the bearings of oil seals.
Mechanics never tell their customers not to turn off their engines right after driving, especially if you just came from a long trip.
Turning off your engine while the turbocharger is still hot will “cook” or bake the oil inside your turbo. This will be disastrous to your turbocharger as it will lead to turbo failure.
What you need to do is to wait 30 seconds up to a minute before you shut down your engine. This allows the oil to go back to the oil pan and avoid getting cooked inside the turbo. Some owners even install a turbo timer to help prevent any damage to their turbochargers.
Low Oil Level Warning Light On
As our car gets old, you will experience a lot of performance issues that requires repair. One such problem is when your oil level warning light turns on.
There are several reasons why oil warning light is on and the most common simple reason is that, your engine is running low of oil. This is caused by too much blowby gasses that are emitted by your engine or you simply refilled the engine with less amount of oil than what is recommended by your manufacturer.
So you go ahead ang you top up your engine with oil and still, the oil level warning light is still lit? What should you do?
Well, mechanics do tell their customers that oil amount is the common culprit for this issue. However, they often don’t talk about another reason why this warning light is triggered – oil pressure switch.
Oil pressure switch or sometimes called as oil pressure sending unit, is one of the many sensors in your engine bay that specifically monitors the oil pressure inside your engine. Low pressure means that your sensor detects abnormalities inside your engine which include low oil level.
So to be able to turn off that oil warning light, you need to diagnose and replace if possible, your oil pressure switch. Here is a detailed post about this issue so you’ll know how to fix this yourself!
Engine Not Starting
If the engine won’t start, we often believe that the main fault is a weak battery right? Well, most of the time yes but what if you have a practically new battery and your engine still won’t start?
Well, there are many other factors why an engine fails to start. Learn most of the culprits in my previous post here and see if your car have these symptoms.
But aside from the list that I gave you on the aforementioned post, there are still two reasons why your engine won’t start and mechanics usually are tight lipped about these.
One reasons is insufficient liquid/oil flow in the system. Yes, if a single engine component doesn’t have enough lubrication due to lack of oil, then your engine will simply not start. Liquids that are essential for ignition are of course fuel, motor oil and transmission oil.
First you will need to pump the fuel housing until it goes stiff and hard to pump. This allows the fuel to get into your injectors and into your combustion chambers, which fuels ignition. If that’s don’t work, then you have a good fuel system.
Another tip is to have your gears shifted before start up. Switch you key to ON position to have your transmission gears unlock. Then while the pump is on, switch from Park, to Reverse, Neutral to Drive and vice versa, for about 3 seconds each.
This allows the transmission oil to completely flow to the entire transmission system. You will be amaze once your engine starts up after doing this trick!
Another reason why your engine won’t start that mechanics don’t tell you, is the fact that your key fob’s transponder is faulty or needs replacement.
This issue is commonly overlooked especially if most possible reasons are already diagnosed. And mechanics are fully aware of this and they just want you to ask for their service to help your vehicle run again.
Overheating Issue
What will you do when you suddenly see your temperature gauge going above the normal range while driving? Your answer would probably be go straight at the side of the road, park the car for a little while and shut off the engine. Am I right?
If yes, then you are not alone as this is the best way to prevent catastrophic damage to your engine due to overheating issue. Shutting your engine will help lower your engine’s temperature so you can drive the car again after it cools down.
But what if your engine gets easily hot and you are in a highway with no room to park on? What will you do?
Well, one way to fight overheating that most mechanics won’t tell you is to turn on your heater!
This might sound counter-intuitive as most of us will shut off the AC when the engine overheats. But turning on your heater will do good for your engine especially when overheating occurs.
While driving in an overheating engine, turning the heater on full blast (open your windows of course) will help reduce your engine’s temperature through the heater core’s main function – transferring that engine heat into the cabin.
This helps fight the rising temperature in your engine which helps you to drive more kilometers until you reach a parking bay where you can shut the engine off. So this trick will buy you some time and a cool way to keep the engine from excessive overheating.
Summary
So there you have it guy! Above are some of the things that mechanics don’t tell you. Of course, I’ll be writing more about this topic soon so make sure that you are always tuned in to my Youtube channel and my blogsite.
Below is my video explaining these in detail. The video is in Tagalog but has English subtitle. Enjoy!
