rev up your engines, today I'm gonna show you things you can easily do yourself to
make your car run better, now when I was a young mechanic in the the sixties hey
there was all kinds of stuff you could do to keep your car running cars needed
tune ups and the carburetors adjusted points set but these days hey most
things are computerized that still doesn't mean that things don't need to
be clean yeah cars don't have carburetors in the cleaning but they
have throttle plates inside here is the throttle plate they get dirty they can
clog up so you can get some spray cleaner and clean them and the same
thing goes for mass airflow sensors they can get dirt and crud need cleaner every
once in a while you just unplug the sensor
and then wiggle it and pull it out and as you can see in there since apart
there's a lot of dirt on it there's also dirt inside so you just spray it clean
you just spread it till all the goop gets off of it and also spray the inside
on one side then turn it over and spray the inside of the other side to back
flush it and now you can see nice and shiny the chrome is here all the
dirt is off of it and the inside is clean too
then let it air dry about 15-20 minutes before you put it back on so we'll clean
the throttle while we're waiting for it now the air box is in the way to get to
the throttle so we got to take the air box out of the way then we loosen the
clamps or the other part and pull it off
that's all out of the way there's the throttle or you want to clean you can
see it's all dirty inside good stuck spring on the crud out and you want
to push it with your fingers so you can get inside and clean and also have a rag
to wipe it all clean just looking on the crud that it's cleaned off and just like
the mat cleaner when you use the throttle cleaner let it air dry for 15
minutes or so so it gets all the vapors out now you don't need to do this all
that often maybe once every 30 40 thousand miles or something it's not
that big of a deal but if you don't do it you get carbon buildup it can run
wrong the computer gets wrong data because either the mass airflow sensor
is dirty or if the throttle is dirty it'll be sticking open a little and then
the throttle position sensor will give inaccurate information to the computer
and it won't run right sometimes something as simple as spray cleaning it
can fix them and don't forget your air filter I have seen more problems being
created by clogged up air filters over the last 51 years because the computer
and everything was set up for a certain octane of gas now if you're going in the
reverse direction a modern car that's set up for high test gas most of them
will run perfectly fine and any gasoline you put in them like that Ford Mustang
with the four-cylinder EcoBoost engine that puts over 300 horsepower out they
even say if you use high test gas it puts out 300 something horsepower but if
you use the lower test gas then it only puts out 200 something horsepower it'll
still run perfectly fine but it won't have the power but if you have a car
like this Toyota that was made for regular octane gas not only are you
throwing your money away putting higher octane gas in it it can actually ruin
worse so don't throw away your money at the pump do what your manual says for
your car whatever octane rating it says don't buy any higher you just throwing
your money away now the next thing to check especially in the summers and make
sure your cooling fans are working right so turn the a/c on full blast put it on
full speed then check the cooling fans this one is blowing and that one is blowing
over the years I've had many customers have one or both
of the fans stopped working now the insidious thing is if one doesn't work
in the other does the temperature gauge might stay pretty much near the normal
on your dash but you're not getting correct airflow so you want to make sure
that both fans are working correctly because if you don't have full airflow
that wears things out fast you want highway of course does make any
difference you got 60 mile an hour wind when you're going 60 but and stop and go
traffic it's very important that all the fans are working correctly so check them
every once in a while if you got an older car now in the summer you want to
make sure that your cooling system is working right in conjunction with air
conditioning system it takes heat out of the cabin so you don't get hot under the
collar when you're driving and hot summer weather now cooling systems are
sealed systems but take the condenser right here that's in front of the
radiator looks like a radiator but it's the AC condenser the AC condenser is
here it's in front of the radiator and if those fins get any kind of bugs or
goop on them you want to make sure that they're clean you can easily hydrate
them garden hose you can hold off base on dead bugs which can restrict the
airflow to the condenser and since the radiators behind that restricts the flow
to the radiator and things just won't work right now talks a good idea every
once a while to glance at your temperature gauge you want it to run
where it normally runs most cars run halfway or a little bit over halfway and
there's a reason for that because car engines run on a double-edged sword here
you want them to dissipate the heat that the engine creates because if it doesn't
the engine will blow up but - you don't want an engine running too cool
they don't work right then let's say your car normally runs halfway if you
find the temperature gauge is running like one third of the way instead of
half it's actually running too cool which can damage the engine bearings
over time and you'll get worse gas mileage which
some counterintuitive but it isn't you don't want an engine that runs too cold
holder is not better although on the other side if an engine runs too hot
once the coolant starts to boil then it's no longer dissipating the heat from
the engine so basically these things are set up so that the coolant doesn't boil
but they're running pretty hot and the reason they all boil it's because
they're pressurized systems now water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit if you
notice you open the radiator cap on a hot engine a lot of times it starts
bubbling all over the place that's because it's running at over 212 degrees
Fahrenheit but the pressure makes the boiling temperature go up even higher
because it's pressurized but once you release that pressure then it starts to
boil and that's I said once it starts boiling it's no longer dissipating the
heat the engine crates and the engine will blow a head gasket or break your
internal parts so you got sitting on the fence situation with you don't want an
engine to run too cool but you don't want it to run too hot now the next
thing you can do to make your car run better is keep the right tire pressure
in your tires you might just think I'll just tire pressure but if the pressure
is wrong let's say it slow the tire rides flatter has more friction that
creates more friction and both the transmission that drives it and the
engine that has to put out more energy to make it go the same speed so
something as dumb as heaven the wrong amount of air pressure in your tire can
make your car run bad over time and of course it's unsafe anyways just remember
you want to check your tire pressure when a car is cold first thing in the
morning once you start driving them they heat up the pressure goes up the
pressure ratings are for a cold tire so check them first thing in the morning
and really I was little pumps you get those little pumps cheap enough I've got
a good one now it cost about 100 bucks but if you get a cheap one you use it
every once in a while it'll still work it just won't last for years and years
and years this is the one I use it's fantastic and as you can see I modified
it myself and put longer leads and bigger battery clamps on it because the
ones you plug into cigarette lighters out I can burn out and not work that
well this has got giant clamps are going to battery long leads that I reach any
tire and look solid freaking metal this isn't some
plastic piece of crap I've had this thing for over 10 years it still works
like new and of course lastly and most obviously change your engine oil
regularly and don't go by this nonsense that you can change it every 20,000
miles of these fancy oils and the old conventional stuff I changed it every
three to five thousand miles if you got synthetic oil maybe you can push it to
seven or eight thousand miles but do change it regularly
don't let sludge build up and ruin a $5,000 engine because you didn't want to
spend 50 bucks on an oil change so now you know things that you can easily do
yourself to make your car run its best for as long as possible, so if you never
want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell