A Driver's Guide to Car Maintenance - For Beginners - Part 1

1. A Driver's Guide Intro Video: Welcome to a driver's guide to car maintenance. How much do you know about the car that you drive? This course is designed for those drivers that don't know much about how to maintain their course. Hi, my name's Holly, correct. And more qualified mechanical 20 years with mainly the experience. So this course is designed to give you the knowledge and confidence to look at the areas of your vehicle which help to maintain your vehicle. No tools required, non-mechanical required. So the areas that we're going to look at is going to be split into four different parts. The introduction, assessment, common issues, and advice. After that, I would like for everyone who's taking part in this course is to, and take advantage of the PDF who designed that are looking at those specific areas on their vehicle. You can either print it out and take that breath out to your vehicle and fill out the areas that you can look at on your car or you can obviously digitally look at it via phone and fill it out if you have the ability to do so as a PDF, That's going to be the best part of this course. We actually go to your car and then you look at those areas that we've been studying in the course. So that literary look at your car and see how you can keep good maintenance of a vehicle where we're exchanging apart or taken into the garage, or at least knowing that it's in good shape. So without further ado, let's get started. 2. Engine Oil: The engine or lubricates the inner part of your engine. Or you need to know as a driver, is that you have sufficient engine oil in your engine. It's always good to have a spare ball of engine oil in your car. As a driver, you need to know what grade of engine all you need to keep in your call. This information will be in your driver's manual. Okay. So you've looked at your owner's manual and you found out what type of oil you need for your call. The main thing you need to look out for is the numbers before W and after the W. The W stands for winter. In the most simplest form, the first number is to do with the code starts in temperature. And the number that comes off the W is to do with the hots operating temperature. But there's nothing really to worry about as long as the top-up oil that is matching what the manufacturer has specified. How to check your engine oil level. This is done via dipstick. The dipstick is found somewhere around the engine. It could be on the left side, the front, although right-hand side, normally it has a handle, a colored handle, possibly yellow, where you can identify the dipstick, especially check your engine or when you're parked on flat ground. And when you're engineers code, this is to get a true reading of your engine oil level. Okay, now what we've got is the dipstick which is quite visible, Scala yellow handle, and it's between the codon and the brake fluid. So yet, make sure you got tissue handy for the typical first thing you have to do is give you a good wife. Okay? And then you put it back in with the engine. Off? Can be a bit fiddly, so you might have to wiggle around for the inventory goes all the way in, give it a second or two, and then put it back up. And this is where we're looking for the level. Now, in this case you can you have to house your minimum. And the maximum. The reason why you notice minimum because it's close to the edge. And the maximum is the focus away from the edge to oil. As you can see, there's a residue of oil going all the way up to this point here. And this will be your maximum level. So it's just below maximum, which is good. And the actual oil itself, as you can see, it doesn't look grimy, It's looking good. It's not sludgy. And you're all level is good. In this case. In most cars, you'll find between the minimum and a maximum is one liters worth of oil. So bear that in mind when you're topping up. If you're like halfway, then you probably need only half a liter. If you're right on minimum of minimum to maximum, you probably need a liters worth of oil. So bear that in mind. Okay, So that's done. Common issues of engine all is that the engine always too low. When this happens, you just need to top up your engine oil and we'll show you how to do that. Okay, So this is what an all caps looks like. In this case, it has the grade of the engine oil required for this car, which is five W 20 is and it has a icon over oil canister. Again, which is clear indication that this is the right place to top up your oil. Remove the cap, make sure there's no grungy oil or residue on the cap. If you have done joy, then that's an indication that the oil and water is mixed on that needs to be seen to stray away. Make sure you don't spill any oil around the filling area. If you do so Any, make sure you give it a good clean. That's it. Simple as that. Common issues with engine or is that the engine always too low? How do you know is too low or you check your on a dipstick. If it's below halfway is recommended that you top it up. If the engine all is dark and grimy. This indicates that the engine oil is old and it's recommend that you change it. Engine only x is quite common as well. The unweighted Tilda is if you have an old patch on the ground orifice noticed in your service intervals when you're checking your O level. If you notice that the oil on the dipstick is sludgy and brown, this is not good. This is an indication that the oil and water has mixed. I do not recommend that you drive your car. You should get your Carlo tab by a professional mechanic and it is recommended that you get your car recovered to a workshop. It's good to check your oil every now and again, whether it's once a month or before long journey, or if you spotted a leak underneath, you can always change your oil according to your manufacturer's required specification. This will keep your engine where I is minimum. 3. Tyres: Clients come in different sizes and brands. The brand of tires is essentially down to the quality of materials being used. There are some benefits of buying brand tires, for example, you will save on fuel because there's less resistance between the car and the road. Also premium ties lost longer stopping distance is shorter because of the materials being used. Also more traction on the road equals better road handling. What about cheap ties? What does nothing wrong with buying cheap tires? You probably want to tell the difference between the brand names and the cheap ties when you're driving on a road in normal conditions. So the difference really is quality wrote handling. And basically your ties will last a lot longer with premium tires. So if you need to change your tire for some reason, you can see the size and the brand of the tire on the sidewall of desire. So let's just briefly talk about what the numbers on your side will actually mean. So the first number that indicates the width of the tyre in millimeters from sidewalk, sidewalk. Second number represents the tread heights aspect ratio. So the lower the number, the thinner it will appear on the sidewalk. And that's all represents the radio construction of the tire, which is the most common type of construction. And finally, the last number is the rim size, inches. And that's basically one common issue with ties is tire pressures are low. There's a simple way of checking your tire pressures, which is a visual inspection. If you look around your car, you can see that tire pressures of fine if they all fine. But if they're low, normally can tell the difference between an a low pressure tire and a normal pressure tire. You can see if one type or she is low compared to the advertised on the road. If you're not sure, it's always good to get a tire pressure gauge if you've got one and check the tire pressures of the car. Now how are you supposed to know what tire pressures your tires should have? The three ways of doing this. One of them is to look in your owner's manual and it will be there on the title of tires the other way on most costs, if you open your door, there's a sticker on the inside panel. We've got a tie at size and your tire pressures. If it's not on a door panel, it could be on a B posts which is where the door closes. There should be a sticker that the other way to check your tire pressures is to do a Google search and hopefully it will guide you to the right tire pressures for your car. Okay. So there's a few reasons why a tire pressure could be low. One of them is that your Cosby NEF for a long time. For example, you've gone on holiday and you left your car for about a month or two, your tire pressures will eventually decrease. Now there's nothing wrong with that. You can just pump up your tire and get back on the road with no issues. If you drive your car regularly and you find that it's higher pressures, low desert possibility that you've got a punch or in your tire. This could be done to a nail or screw or something similar. The best thing to do is take your car to a workshop and gay looked at, now is your cost safe to drive when you've got low tire pressure? Not really. What you should do is pump up the tire and then take it to the workshop. If you can't pump up the time because you don't have a tire pump, then you can put your spare tire on and drive it to the workshop. Do not drive your car. If your tire pressure is very low, this will not only be dangerous, but you're also damage the tire and it will take away the possibility of you repair in attire. Should you need to repair the tire? Anyone can check for where on tires. The front tires are probably the easiest because you can just turn the serum or left or the right to check the full surface of the tire. So what to look out for when it comes to tie aware. If you have where on the edges of the tire, the inner edge or the outer edge, that means that you have a problem with trucking or suspension that needs to be looked into. If you have where in the middle of the tire, that means your tire has been over inflated and you need to check your tire pressures. If your tire has cracks in it, like wrinkles or lines that indicates that your tie is old and it should be replaced. There could also be side with damage wherever the inner or the outer is more common to have side would damage from the outside from where you parked your car or if you will, a porthole. So if there's rips or cuts on the sidewalk and integrate looked at in a workshop just to make sure that that is safe. Or if you're Thai needs to be replaced regularly, do a visual inspection of its high. So whenever we jump into your car, you can have a quick look around. This doesn't mean you do it every single time you drove your car, but every so often have located tires and see if the type versus a low with regards to tire wear, if you're regularly service in your car, it will be reported in the inspection. So there's not really much to worry about. We can check it whenever you feel like it's totally up to you. 4. The Battery: You need your engine start every time you want to drive your car, right? For this to be possible, your battery needs to be in good condition. It's always good for a driver to know exactly where the car batteries is normally located under the front body, either on the left or the right hand side. But some manufacturers do decide to put them in a book or underneath the drivers or the passenger sea. If you're not sure, you can always check your driver's manual. Okay. Now we're going to have a closer look at the battery and the vehicle will start by looking at the terminals. You have your positive and your negative terminals. And the positive terminal has a red color in this case, and in most cases, and is indicated with a plus sign. If you remove the cover, you can have access to the terminal itself. On the opposite side, I have a minus sign that indicates the negative terminal, and that is normally clear on most batteries. Also, you have almost batteries. A battery health indicator. That's a nice quick view on, on what the condition of the health of your barriers or took a little bit more about this later on. Also, you should have a sticker on the top one side of the battery that will tell you more information about the power of the battery. As you can imagine, there's different sizes of engines and as different sizes of batteries, the power of the battery that has been put into your vehicle is suitable for your engine. So if you do need to change a battery, you need to make sure that the battery that you're going to buy it is suitable for the engine and the vehicle that you're using. Another thing you can do is check the terminals that they're not lose by wiggling them. If you hold on to each terminal and see if you can wiggle it. If it moves, then that's an indication that your terminals are loose and needs to be tightened. Also, you can have a look at the terminals to see if there's any corrosion. Corrosion. The terminals will need to be removed and clean and lubricate it. This is more of a job for mechanic. Ok, now we're going to have a look at the battery health indicator, which should be green. Green indicates that they hopefully Barry is in good condition. The sticker of the battery, it does show you that if it's green, it's good. If it's black, it needs to be recharged. And if it's quite the battery needs to be replaced. Also, it's got other information regarding the bearing capacity and the amperage of the battery itself. Okay. The most common issues with a battery is that you have a flat battery. This means that you don't have sufficient charge in the battery to start the vehicle, could be that your alternator is not charging a battery. That means that a loss few time you drove your vehicle, your batteries charge was not being replenished. It could also be that your battery is just an old diary and hasn't been changed for a long time and it just needs to be renewed. It's also possible that the interior or the exterior lights have been left on for some reason and that has taken away the charge of the battery if the vehicle hasn't been used for a long time, for example, if you've gone on holiday or just haven't used a vehicle for a long time, possibly a month or so. This is another reason for you to have a flat data. Another common reason for having a flat battery is if your battery terminals are loose or corroded. So as you can see, there's many possibilities why you could have a flat battery on your vehicle. It's not very easy for a driver to determine why they had a flat Barry unless it was an obvious light being left on. So I might just be a case of jumpstart your battery and take it to local garage and let the mechanic determine what calls the flat battery before you jump start your vehicle is very important that you do it in the correct procedure. Because if you don't do it the correct way, there is a possibility that you could damage some of you are electrical components. Therefore, if you're not sure, just call a mechanic someone that's qualified to do it for you or just check your owner's manual and see if there is a correct procedure on how to carry out Jumpstart for your vehicle.