rev up your engine today I'm gonna show you the forgotten maintenance items that
I've seen people over the years forget to do and then it ended up costing them
a small fortune in many cases because they didn't do them now one of the most
forgotten things that's easy to do is to keep clean power steering fluid in your
car it lasts a long time but it's a good idea every four or five years to replace
because if you don't you can end up like this Honda van it's a power steering
rack that's leaking and broken as you can see it is an insane job to replace
this thing because they built it by putting a rack on then putting the
engine and transmission in the motor mount on top of this power steering rack
now here's the new one going on but as you can see I got Jack's all over the
place I got a jack up the engine the transaxle and even had to drop the
subframe in the front down some to get enough clearance all because the idiots
who designed it this is the bottom of the back motor mount it goes over the
power steering rack and to get that off you got to drop the subframe you got a
jack the engine and transmission around it is a royal pain in the rear end the
power steering racks use power steering fluid some of them are upwards of
fifteen hundred pounds per square inch if the fluid gets dirty it becomes like
a cutting fluid high-pressure dirt friction and it can cut through the
seals to make it leak all you need is a turkey baster like this suck the
reservoir out tolls empty then pour in power steering fluid in this case it's
genuine Honda power steering fluid Honda's are very particular about what
they use you want to use Honda stuff and Honda fill it up drive it around five
minutes then suck it out again to the reservoir do that five or six times
you'll get most of the fluid out and it'll be clean fluid because you don't
want to have to replace a leaking power steering rack because a dirty fluid
fluid doesn't cost that much it's an easy job you can do yourself just do it
every four or five years or so if you keep your car's a long time now the next
thing that's all forgotten is your air filter
how does saying go out of sight out of mind
air filters are hidden you don't see them but they get dirty I'm gonna get
dirty you don't suck enough air in the engine cars burn thousands and thousands
and thousands of square feet of air burning gasoline if that filters clogged
up you're not gonna suck enough air in you're gonna use more gas let's go to
run poor too quite a few times I've had customers
bring me cars cuz they failed the state inspection and the only thing that kept
them from passing was a clogged air filter when I took it out it was just
covered in black so check it every once in a while if you live in an area where
it's really dusty you can take it out you can whack it on a bumper you can
suck it with a vacuum cleaner to get the dirt out and use it over I'll make sure
that you got it clean my advice is stick a spare one in your truck just in case
you don't want to wear your engine out because you got a dirty air filter yes
you can't see it it's hidden away but check it every once in a while
especially if you live in a dusty area like we get these dust storms that blow
in from Africa here in Houston they got a whole way over the Gulf come over here
they clog on my big time with little particles of sand and Dawson so you want
to check your air filter yeah at least once every five six months it's no big
deal on most cars no nice forgotten maintenance item is the cabin air filter
yes many cars have cabin air filters this one's hiding down in here it's easy
to get to watch this will just squeeze this squeeze that side it comes inside
here is the cabin air filter it's just gum top you take the cover off and you
pull it out and lo and behold it's full of crap and why is it full of crap
because Scotty's been a bad boy he doesn't check it plus he parks owner
this tree Chinese Tree of Life those little meals are always falling off and
they end up here so you can whack them off later I'm gonna vacuum this off with
a shop vac get the crud out it's a charcoal one which filters better get
sort of smells and it's really reusable because you can keep cleaning and using
it over a lot of these companies charge a fortune for these stupid little things
because it's a cabinet your filter it's special probably cost a nickel to make
you think so you might just buy a can and you can use it over and over again
and clean it versus buying a fifteen twenty dollar paper one it's gonna wear
out faster then you got to keep buying them yeah these costs more but in the
long run you're making out just make sure you put them in the same way this
was the dirty part so it's the top it just slides inside this one's a
different size each angle so you gotta find the right one just make sure that
ends point it up down you get the clip that fits in here and snap it in place
now the next maintenance item people often forget about is your wiper blades
what am on forget about them when it rains they use them and half the time
they won't work you just need to clean them every once in a while so that they
last longer and wipe right and it's real easy just got a glass with a little bit
of water in it then pour the same amount of alcohol in there just about the same
amount pour it in there you go they got a clean shop towel like this should I get
up below wipe it a bunch of times look at all the crap that came off then
wipe all that off and you got a nice clean blade it's gonna last longer now I
used to use pure alcohol but I learned my lesson I talked to a detailing expert
and he says you want to mix half water and half alcohol the alcohol can
actually do too much damage to the rubber on the blade well when you mix
them it cleans it and it doesn't really take off too much
so half water half alcohol and the next forgotten thing is tire price you check
your tire pressure every once a while cold first thing in the morning your car
is riding on air if you get low on air you can have problems you where's gas
smudge it's dangerous you can get flat you can get blowouts simple things get a
good gauge stick it in your glove box and check it maybe once a month or
something in a ver now if you got a nail or something's going on just check on
baby want some wants it's no big deal but do it cold first thing in the
morning that's the truest reading now the next item is like beating a dead
horse but it's got to be said change your engine oil change it regularly
engines costs sometimes over ten thousand dollars oil is a lot cheaper
friction will ruin your engine just make sure you change it regularly and if you
don't drive much change it once a year I've got videos on the whole thing but
if you don't do any maintenance on your car except for one thing
change the engine oil and the same thing is true ru transmission all if you have
an automatic transmission well you can easily change the fluid yourself change
it every forty fifty thousand miles I don't care if they say it's a lifetime
fluid now if you do have one of those transmissions where it's a real job to
change it pay a mechanic to change for the little amount of money you pay to
change it you find out that a modern computer controlled transmission I've
seen some of them cost five or six thousand dollars to either rebuild or
replace with a rebuilt unit that your trust was rebuilt correctly who knows
but you want to change that fluid to just get a little book write it down
make sure that you're not going to forget this and your brakes they stopped
your car they saved you well do not even think about them check them every once
in a while if they're getting too thin replace the pads you can see on these their
still really thick that's the pad part here that's the backing and the rotors
that they squeeze sometimes it will warp how do you check that it's simple dived
on aha we're going 65 when hardly anybody's around then firmly apply your
brakes if your steering wheel starts to shake generally that means your rotors
are warped and it makes us doing a little shake because it's pushing in and
out it's only a few thousands of an inch but when you're going 65 miles an hour
now if you find that you hit the brakes and the steering wheel doesn't shake but
the brake pedal pulsates that just means that your rear rotors are warped and
they need replacing if you got a really old car check the
rubber brake hoses if they're starting to crack and flake changing before it's
too late now they're well-made and they can take a lot of pressure but when they
do start the crack before they start leaking replace them if you look at them
and they're all wet they definitely need replacing now this thing's got a little
surface for us cuz it came from up north but the hose itself is fine
you see cracks or if it's all wet from leaking brake fluid change them out
right away no yeah I don't know they forgot maintenance item is the coolant
in your radiator if you keep your car a long time you need to change your
coolant now let's say you got a modern Toyota it comes with the hope that can
last seven years or 150,000 miles so you don't have to change it all that often
but you keep them longer than that you want to change them you can easily
change it out yourself it's also better to take out the thermostat and then you
can hose it through and get everything out and then replace it with the longest
life coolant you can buy for your car because then you won't have to think
about a problem ever again I mean if you got 150,000
coolant you changed it before 150,000, most cars are not gonna go 300 thousand
miles anyways read your car's coolant to make sure what yours has cuz there's all
kinds of different ones out there now yes most batteries these days are sealed
batteries like this you can't add water so you never have to worry about that
you want to check for corrosion if you see corrosion on the terminals you want
to clean it off and in this case you can see they're naked there's nothing under
the terminal what I advise getting those green and red fiber washes that go under
there and they absorb the acid comes out so it doesn't corrode anything this
particular battery is so good it isn't leaking acid vapor so he hasn't curled
it at all but most batteries are gonna leak a little so if you put those little
washers on it'll keep it from corroding all your electronics because any
corrosion they'll inhibit the voltage flow that'll cause problems a little
overheat stuff things want to work right and of course batteries just wear out
over time so once every year to just have a guy like me or a good auto parts
store check your battery it takes one minute they just hook them up and turn
them on watch out faster test this it's a 640 cranking amp battery there we go
this is live in real time good bad or it's got 636 called cranking amps 100%
state of charge simple test everything runs by computers your battery voltage
is low you can get all kinds of problems the alternator can work too hard
it can cause shorts if the battery is really shorting out if you smell sulfur
under the hood you know the battery sulfate and it's time for new one but
just checking every once in a while they don't last forever and you do need to
test them every so often so now you know the most commonly forgotten simple
maintenance items that can keep your car from having serious expensive problems
down the road with just a little of your time and a tiny amount of your money, so
if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to
ring that Bell