Mechanical sympathy

BrianD3

Most people here know a fair bit about cars and probably make an effort to drive with as much mechanical sympathy as possibele. So, what sort of things do you do in an effort to maximise the reliability and longevity of your car. Simple things like not revving the bollox out of a cold engine, not using the clutch to hold the car on hills (it's amazing how many eejits do this, extemely bad for the clutch)

seamus

I (now) do both of what you said there, along with anything else that occurs to me. I've also managed to break out the habit of clutch braking that I picked up when I first started driving. Should save me a few thousand in new clutches.

Boggle

Simple things like using the right gear when driving (so as not to over-rev your engine), driving steady (not accelerating and breaking every 2 seconds)...

...pity i don't have my car anymore!!:( Miss my baby....!! (now look what you did - I'm off for a cry...)

BrianD3

What prompted this thread was yesterday i was stuck in roadworks behind another car. Yer man in front was stationary for ~10 minutes and had his foot plonked on the brake pedal all the time. As well as annoying my eyes with his brake lights (it was dark so they were very bright) I was thinking that he could be risking warping his brake disks and possibly increasing wear on other parts of the brake system such as seals etc.? Now I'm not sure if hogging the brake pedal has much/any effect but it'd be no harm and good driving to just engage the bloody handbrake.

Another related thing - many people sit in traffic with their foot plonked on the clutch pedal and the car in gear. Apparently this increases wear on the clutch release bearing. If you are going to be stationary for a while put the car in neutral, take you foot off the cluth and brake and engage the handbrake

seamus

Aye, especially in cold weather, leaving your foot on the brake pedal could begin to warp the discs. In heavy stationary traffic I tend to handbrake and neutral and take the opportunity rest my feet.

mike65

I hate abrupt motoring (blame it on creeping middle age) so drive in as silky a fashion as possible putting little strain on belts/chains/steering/drivetrain/brakes as possible. That does'nt mean I'm slow just smooth.

Mike.

el tel

Even just having you foot just lightly resting on the cluch pedal can cause undue wear in the linkage or pedal mechanism so that's a habit best avoided,
as is resting your hand on the gear lever for similar reasons.
As you all probably know, as well as avoiding over-revving in a high gear it's best not to labour the engine by driving in too low a gear.

jayok

Yer man in front was stationary for ~10 minutes and had his foot plonked on the brake pedal all the time.

May be it was an automatic?

De Hipster

I tend to use the gear selection to assist in slowing my vehicle down...too much time spent in rally circles I fear.

Ratchet

seamus wrote:

....In heavy stationary traffic I tend to handbrake and neutral and take the opportunity rest my feet.

yeah brake with without brake light , how smart

bp_me

jayok wrote:

May be it was an automatic?

I hope not....automatics have a neutral as well......you arent supposed to hold them on the breaks for long periods.

De Hipster

very nice quattro there BP

seamus

Ratchet wrote:

yeah brake with without brake light , how smart

Em, what use are brake lights to the guy who's been sitting behind me in traffic for the last five minutes? :rolleyes:

lomb

used cars dont last long in ireland anyway, everyone wants new (probably because they are in such bad condition:D )

AMurphy

Don't anything special. just drive them.
I don't tend to overrev generally or even boot it even to normal revs on a cold engine, but given a mile or two to heat up...
I often have to boot it to out-accelerate an oncoming car on an exit/entry merging lane, which I will do. I have caught myself doing about 65 in 3rd.
Keep the fluids topped up, even if it leaks.
Don't brake unless you have to.
If you have to take off on a hill, do so at the lowest RPM and as quickly as possible, easier on a large engine, than a tiny one.

AMurphy

BrianD3 wrote:

....Yer man in front was stationary for ~10 minutes and had his foot plonked on the brake pedal all the time. As well as annoying my eyes with his brake lights (it was dark so they were very bright) I was thinking that he could be risking warping his brake disks and possibly increasing wear on other parts of the brake system such as seals etc.? Now I'm not sure if hogging the brake pedal has much/any effect but it'd be no harm and good driving to just engage the bloody handbrake.

Another related thing - many people sit in traffic with their foot plonked on the clutch pedal and the car in gear. .....

Sitting with your foot on the brake pedal stopped, won't do diddly squat of damage to them. I drive that way. Everyone around here drives or rather stops/holds at lights that way. After 500K combined vehicle \mileage, it would have become apparent by now, it were a problem.
Lights never bother me... Read the paper or something, make use of the megawats being pumped out by the SUV behind you.actually it is good to hold the brakes on here, as it may be misunderstood if you were not, and some car coming up from the rear, NOT seeing the brake lights might think you were going to move and accelerate/drive into the back of you.
Sometimes If there is a hole or dip in the road, I just let a wheel sit in the hole and hold me with no brakes of any kind applied.

Sure, I agree with you on item 2, plus, depending on the vehicle, engine and what you and it happen to be doing at the time, if you were to have sudden cable failure, it may run forward into something in front of you.

seamus

AMurphy wrote:

Sitting with your foot on the brake pedal stopped, won't do diddly squat of damage to them. I drive that way. Everyone around here drives or rather stops/holds at lights that way.

You're in California though. The main issue with keeping your foot on the brakes (particularly in the Irish winter) is that the rest of the brake disc will cool at a faster rate than the section between the pressed brake pads, eventually leading to warping of the disc.

bp_me

De Hipster wrote:

very nice quattro there BP

tis....sadly not mine :cool:

AMurphy

seamus wrote:

You're in California though. The main issue with keeping your foot on the brakes (particularly in the Irish winter) is that the rest of the brake disc will cool at a faster rate than the section between the pressed brake pads, eventually leading to warping of the disc.

Yes.. but, 2/3 of the US probably have winters far colder than Wicklow in a blizzard.... and they drive or stop exactly the same and I have not heard of any rash of warped disks in Minnesota or Oklahoma in winter, where the winchill could crack your face in a few minutes.
Sure the the disk will cool at a different rate, but if you consider, when you are stopped with the brakes off, thus leaving approx 0.25 ~0.5mm air gap between the disk and the pads, and air being a really poor conductor of heat and the gap being to small to support any degree of convection, your exposed disk would cool faster than that between the pads, they should warp equally well, but they don't. Reason being good disks are temp stabilized and then machined.
And if your rear disks use the same pads for the HB, then such cars as Maxima should suffer from permanently warped rear disks.. if you drive one, brake hard and use the park/hand brake to hold it at lights, I've not heard any complaints there either. Camry is different to the Maxima at the back.

No, to warp disks, you really have to heat the carp out of those things, every time you use the brakes.

Ratchet

seamus wrote:

Em, what use are brake lights to the guy who's been sitting behind me in traffic for the last five minutes? :rolleyes:

To tell frustrated guy behind you that you are stopping after you are on the move again. If somebody runs into your back , you just going to generate more traffic.

Anyway, it will be very hard to warp cold discs in cold weather. So except wearing you handbrake you are not actually preventing anything

lomb

brake discs are a consumable anyway like pads, they are pretty cheap.

seamus

Ratchet wrote:

To tell frustrated guy behind you that you are stopping after you are on the move again. If somebody runs into your back , you just going to generate more traffic.

I'm confused. Clearly I use the foot brake to bring the vehicle to a stop. If I look like I'm going to be there for a while, I apply the handbrake. Before I move off again, I press the footbrake, disengage the handbrake and move off.

Ratchet

seamus wrote:

I'm confused. .

no i was confused ,just had picture in my head of you braking with only handbrake....sorry my fault

Silvera

My tips........

- Don't rev a cold engine too much, give the oil a chance to circulate first, or better still- give it a chance to warm up a little.

- Drive smoothly, using the gears and easing off the accelerator in order to help the car slow down .........rather than braking heavily as a lot of people seem to do.

- Service it on time - every time.

- Check fluid levels and tyre pressures regularly.

.....and I always find that I'm that bit more careful with my car when it is kept clean and polished regularly


As for keeping the brakes applies when stationary ......

I doubt that this would cause brake discs to warp to any degree - heavy braking is what causes warping to discs.


However, keeping your foot on the pedal when stopped at traffic lights, etc can be annoying to drivers behind you. It is a regular topic/grievance in UK mags, websites.

Lately I have become more conscious of this and have made an effort to use my handbrake whenever possible.
(It's just one less little stress on other drivers).

Capt'n Midnight

Originally Posted by seamus
....In heavy stationary traffic I tend to handbrake and neutral and take the opportunity rest my feet.

Ratchet wrote:

yeah brake with without brake light , how smart

If you park on a hill can you let the car roll forward a little while in gear to get it oiled up before you start the engine - or will that kill the cat ?

AMurphy

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Originally Posted by seamus
....In heavy stationary .....
If you park on a hill can you let the car roll forward a little while in gear to get it oiled up before you start the engine - or will that kill the cat ?

I doubt you are preoiling anything that matters. Just start the engine and wait a few sec before starting off. Start engine, and let it idle while you are attaching the belt and tuning the radio, then drive off.

jayok

I had heard all the "keeping your foot on the brakes will cause disc warping" stuff before, indeed, I had to get a set replaced once and that was the reason I was given. However, like other posters, I don't think keeping your foot on the brake will cause this for the simple reason that I would imagine the ABS system (when activated) will give the discs are far greater hammering that keeping your foot on them. I would imagine that if the discs are designed to take this pounding them my foot at lights won't make much of a difference.

unkel

Driving as smoothly as possible. I never go over 2000rpm before the engine is fully warmed up. Anything at all wrong with the car and it will tell me, so I never need to check anything myself - great! Always serviced on time (again the car tells me when it needs to be serviced)

AMurphy

unkel wrote:

Driving as smoothly as possible. I never go over 2000rpm before the engine is fully warmed up. ....)

At what point do you determine the car is "fully warmed up", when hot air comes out he air vents or when the needle gets to the normal position.?

It takes about 1 mile to get hot air in mine, but about 5 miles for the temp gauge to get to the usual position. No way I'm gong to wait for 5 miles before revving up the engine.

unkel

AMurphy wrote:

At what point do you determine the car is "fully warmed up", when hot air comes out he air vents or when the needle gets to the normal position.?

It takes about 1 mile to get hot air in mine, but about 5 miles for the temp gauge to get to the usual position. No way I'm gong to wait for 5 miles before revving up the engine.

About just under a mile and 2 miles respectively for me. And yes, I do wait until the temp gauge reaches normal before revving

AMurphy

Hmm, OK.
Probably less than 5 miles to fully heat up on mine.
Yours Diesel or petrol?.

maybe in a diesel, just maybe, and if it were very cold... but If I had a diesel in CA, and It were very cold, I'd fit a block heater and a timer, so it's ready to go on startup.

Just observing, since you mentioned it... I'm most always over 2K rpm, mostly in the 2.5 to 4K region on acceleration, hitting 5K on the odd occasion... or if I forget to change gear again... Creeping OFS.