Keeping It Cool
As most of us are still driving a vehicle with an internal combustion engine (ICE), and since the cost of motoring has gone up over the last few years, it is good to think about what things we can do as preventative measures to ensure that our ICE vehicles continue to run smoothly, efficiently, and reliably without any major repairs. An essential part of service maintenance on any ICE vehicle is the need to regularly change the engine’s coolant.
One of the things I love about ICE vehicles is that they always come standard with a heater that usually works really well to keep you nice and warm inside the vehicle when the temperatures outside are low and cold. This warm air coming through the heater vents is from the ICE block (not to be confused with an iceblock!), fundamentally from the friction that comes as the mechanical components inside the ICE are whizzing around like clockwork. Inside the engine block are small tubes and cavities where the water coolant (the stuff you put into the radiator) circulates through in order to take heat from the metal surfaces inside the engine to cool the ICE block down to a sufficient operating temperature. The added bonus of this is that the warm coolant passes through your cabin heating system, which fans the warm air inside the cabin of the vehicle as much as you want it to, to keep you nice and toasty.
Silly Features That Never Made It
In most modern cars, you can find a selection of neat features to make the task of driving easier and more pleasant. Some of the ones I particularly like include active cruise control, ambient lighting, steering wheel mounted audio controls, reversing cameras and Bluetooth connectivity so my phone and car talk to each other. I guess most of us have our favourite driver aids.
However, over the over 100 years that the car has been around, manufacturers and designers have come up with some features that flopped, mostly because they were plain silly ideas. We’re not talking about things that have been phased out because they are no longer in high demand, such as cigarette lighters (which have morphed into 12-volt power outlets), or because they were a bit iffy in terms of safety (such as bench seats). Instead, we’re talking about ideas that were totally nuts. Here’s the looniest ones that were put forward by designers with a straight face.
Engine Oil 101
Most of us are still driving vehicles with an internal combustion engine (ICE) as the main source of power for propelling our vehicle down the road. In order for the ICE to run smoothly – in fact, to run at all – the engine needs oil to travel all around the engine’s working parts to lubricate them so that they can move freely within their confines without overheating from too much friction and to prevent the engine from imploding on itself, or exploding, whichever way you like to think of it.
As well as lubricating the motor, oil helps to keep the ICE cool and retards any corrosion. Most modern oils also contain a bit of detergent. The detergent helps to flush any gunk that comes from wear and tear on the engine components and any older oil compounds that have formed through to the oil filter where these unwanted bits will be captured and removed altogether when the old oil filter is changed with a new one come next time the ICE oil gets changed as part of the vehicle’s regular servicing regime.
I Locked My Keys Inside The Car!
According to the Royal Automobile Association of South Australia Inc (RAA), there are plenty of reasons why motorists reach out for roadside help or assistance. The obvious reasons might be having a flat battery, the car not starting, or just plain running out of fuel (or battery charge). But there is one other quite common reason for requiring roadside assistance from an experienced technician and that is you’ve locked the keys in the car! For me – and I can vouch from experience – this is the reason that tops the list of the most embarrassing reasons for a call-out.
If you make a habit of leaving the keys in the car as a fairly common occurrence, one thing that might make life a little less stressful is to hide an extra key somewhere on the outside of the vehicle’s body. You can buy a little magnetic box that’s big enough to accommodate a spare car key for the car, though not so huge you’ll be drawing a load of attention to it. For obvious reasons, it’s probably best not to have the box painted pink or some other bright colour either. The great thing about these boxes is that they can stick themselves magnetically to any metal surface which is part of the vehicle’s bodywork. One excellent area would be the vehicle’s underbody framework.
Level 2, 9 Help Street