How to Maintain your Car Engine | Car Engine Care Guide

• Car Advice,
• Oct 14, 2019

 

Acquiring a car is a pretty general thing. Many of the people in this world have a vehicle as their daily lives demand the usage of an automobile to drive them around. However, think to yourself for one moment, how often is it that people who own the vehicles also know how to properly take care of their vehicles? If you think you have figured out an answer, well, think again, because the numbers will be pretty off from what they are. Kudos if they aren’t though.

 

According to research, 67% of the people do not know how to maintain their cars properly and often visit their local car mechanics and auto-care workshops for even the smallest of issues with their car. So, with the statistics in your mind, you might ask, how to maintain your car engine, or your car entirely? The answer is pretty simple, to be honest, you just have to perform a series of checks and your car service will be finished.

 

Before we dig right into the car maintenance and car engine care section of our article, let’s first review what a car engine is and how it actually works along with plenty of other important questions and things you should necessarily know before you learn about car engine maintenance tips.

 

What makes an engine run?

First of all, let’s first clarify what a car engine actually is. A car engine is that part of your vehicle which is responsible for all the mobility and proper flow of your car. To put simply, the car engine makes your car run.

 

But what makes an engine run? Ever thought about it? Of course, you have, that’s why you pump in the fuel you spend so much money on. The fuel is basically the heart and soul of the engine and it is impossible to operate a vehicle without fuel.

 

A regular car, with a combustion engine, uses the process of internal combustion to conduct the movement of the vehicle. Inside combustion, the 4 strokes; namely intake, compression, combustion, and exhaust, work together in a defined order to generate power to move the car. The intake stroke is the first one in the process and it basically “intakes” the air and gases.

 

The compression stroke compresses the taken in gases to a smaller, confined space to perform a better explosion. The combustion stroke uses the spark plug to ignite the compressed gases which force the piston to move back down. The last part, exhaust stroke, releases the excess gases through the exhaust pipe into the air and the process is repeated over and over again to move the vehicle with the explosions that provide energy to propel the vehicle.

 

That’s basically how the car engine works and it creates several hundreds and thousands of small explosions in such a small time that the energy collected is enough to move the car.

 

What is regular maintenance on a car?

So, now that we know that what a car engine is and how it works, it’s time to move to what car maintenance is all about. As explained in the introductory paragraph, a vehicle is easy to drive, but to take care of it is the whole deal. A dysfunctional vehicle, which serves no purpose and barely moves a hundred meters is nobody’s choice. Everyone wants their vehicle to be the best and in order to make it the best, they have to take care of it.

 

We will focus on the details of the processes of automobile maintenance like how to maintain your car engine, etc. later on, but first, we need to understand the definition of car maintenance. Car maintenance means to perform a series of regular checks on your vehicle to ensure its proper working.

 

These include a number of checks ranging from car engine check, fuel check, tyres check, body and exterior check, etc. However, our main focus is on the maintenance of car engines.

 

Car Engine Maintenance Tips:

Since we have transitioned from the step of “what” to “how”, it is the right time to discuss the actual steps involved in the car maintenance. Be advised, the “engine” word in the car engine maintenance does not necessarily mean the care of only the engine. It means how to take care of your car as a whole, but especially the engine.

Without further ado, let’s start. The basic car maintenance can be categorized as follows:

 

 1- Fuel:

The fuel of any car is its food. Just like humans can not do any work without food, the same is the case with cars. Cars can not work without fuel. Although some of the vehicles have recently switched to electrical power, the electricity itself is a fuel in that case. Since you would not eat rotten food or food that is bad for your health, do the same for your car. Your car would get into serious issues if you use bad or low-quality fuel and the health could deteriorate rapidly. Therefore, ensure that you insert only the best of the fuels in your vehicle.

 

 2- Oils: 

Oil and fuel are two different things. Fuel can include petrol, diesel, or other types of gasoline; however, oil is a completely different story. Oil is not used in your car engine to make it run but instead, it is used in many different parts of your vehicle to act as a lubricant to ensure smooth flow, as a coolant to cool things down when they become too hot, and even as a source of hydraulics controls e.g. in brakes.

 

Therefore, it is necessary to check your engine oil, brake oil, mobile oil, and all other types of oil in your vehicle about every month or two to ensure safe and smooth driving.

 

 3- Engine and related components:

The engine of your vehicle is a very sensitive thing and while it can bear a heavy load, minor inconveniences can cause it to crash if continued for a long amount of time. Ensure that you perform the following steps to keep your engine running smoothly:

 

 1- Check the spark plugs regularly (in a defined interval).

 2- Change the filters.

 3- Do not overheat the engine.

 4- Change the oil every four or five thousand kilometers. 

 5- Do not drive the car over and over again for shorter distances without cooling it down.

 

 4- Battery:

The battery of your vehicle is also one of the most important things and needs to be monitored constantly. Ensure that the battery is in good health and the liquid you’re using inside of your battery is up to the minimum limit. It is always a good practice to check your battery every day before you take your car out for a drive.

 

 5- Suspension:

Keep an eye on your suspension system, i.e., tyres, springs, shocks, etc. They are necessary for a smooth flow of your vehicle and need constant monitoring to work properly. Once a month, take your car out for a test drive and see if your brakes, tyres, shocks, etc. are working just fine and not making any irregular sounds or interrupts while they are used.

 

Conclusion:

That was all on car maintenance and we hope that you have learned everything you wanted about how to maintain your car engine. If you still have any more questions or queries, be sure to send us a message. If you want to know how you can check a vehicle’s history and perform revs check, you can always head over to QuickREVs for easy and efficient output.