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MT 21 May 2017

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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 21 MAY 2017 VIII Motoring & Boating 1. The owner's manual con- tains valuable information. You should read it – at least once – from cover to cover, and keep a note of important information. Get to know what it says about seat belts, airbags, parking on dry grass, driving technique or starting the engine when the remote's battery is dead. 2. Always supervise topping up the fuel tank as well as checking the oil and water levels. Try to keep at least six or seven litres of fuel in the tank. A low fuel level is likely to allow some of the dirt that always accumulates in a tank to be sucked-up by the pump. This will block the fuel filter and may even cause the pump to wear out prematurely. 3. When filling-up, make sure the pump attendant stops filling when the pump's au- tomatic cut-off kicks in. This will ensure there's an air-gap of about 12% of the tank's capacity. This is needed to ensure the tank doesn't burst when you have an accident. 4. Don't let your engine idle in the morning to warm up be- fore driving. An idling engine needs a rich fuel mixture and the excess fuel will contami- nate the oil. Instead, drive off immediately but slowly for the first few kilometres. This will allow the engine, gearbox and final drive to warm up together and fast in order to reduce wear. On a journey of 1 000 kilometres more than 90 percent of the wear takes place during the first 40 km. 5. Avoid lugging the engine. This refers to the practice of using large throttle openings in a high gear at low engine speeds. This will cause the engine's crankshaft to start vibrating torsionally (shake itself like a wet dog). In the long run this will damage the engine and drive-train. 6. You won't save fuel by buying some fancy gadget or additive. Instead, you save fuel by: • Accelerating at half-throttle instead of full-throttle. • Avoiding unnecessary brak- ing. Watch the cars in front of you carefully so that you can anticipate what they're going to do. Remember that every time you brake you're destroy- ing energy that was created by burning the fuel that you bought. In other words, brak- ing costs just as much money as going fast. • Coasting to save fuel. This should be done in the highest gear, not in neutral, unless you have a car that still has a carburettor. In the latter case it should be done in neutral, but this practice cannot be recommended. 7. Have your tyre pressures checked regularly. Soft tyres are amongst the leading causes of blow-outs. 8. Have your car serviced at the intervals recommended in the owner's manual. Do not listen to workshop foremen or other so-called experts that advise otherwise. 9. Be precise whenever you deal with a workshop. Don't give vague instructions, and insist on a quote before agreeing to any work being done. 10. Keeping the clutch pedal down for more than a few sec- onds when the car is forced to stop will shorten the intervals between clutch replacements. It's better to select neutral. 10 things every motorist should know 10 things every motorist should know A little knowledge is usually worse than knowing nothing about a particular subject. This is certainly true in the automotive world, and explains why people often jump to the wrong conclusion with great alacrity. Here's a list of some of the things that you should NOT do: • Top of the list must be removing a thermostat when an engine overheats. This is the correct thing to do if the thermostat has failed in the closed position, but most of the time it makes more sense to first find out why the engine is overheating. Remov- ing the thermostat will cause the engine to take longer to warm-up as well as cause the engine temperature to fluctu- ate as more or less power is demanded by the driver. This will increase the possibility of the engine wearing out prema- turely. • When overheating occurs most people suspect the radia- tor fan. It's important to know that this fan is only needed at speeds below about 80 km/h, so that if the engine overheats at cruising speeds the fault must lie somewhere else. Most modern fans are electrically driven so that they don't rob the engine of power while cruising but are available at low speeds and even after parking, if the engine needs cooling down. • If the gears start to grate while changing it's natural to suspect the gearbox. Most of the time you will be wrong, because it's usually a sign that the clutch pedal play is in need of adjustment. • People often fit bigger wheels and tyres because this will cause the engine to rotate slower at any given vehicle speed than before the change. Theoretically this is sup- posed to result in better fuel consumption, and it occasion- ally does. Most of the time it doesn't. The result will depend on the gear ratios cho- sen by the manufacturer. In most cases the change will be so small that you can hardly measure it. • Many motorists, especially the older ones, tend to stay in the highest gear as much as possible while driving. Engines don't like that; they feel just as much stress if forced to oper- ate in a high gear as you would feel if you attempt to go up a hill on your bicycle in a high gear. When the car's speed drops because of the gradient, the best (and kind) thing to do is to change to a lower gear. That is what an automatic transmission would do. The lower gears should be used freely in town traffic. • Most people think that an idling engine cannot overheat or wear out because it carries no load. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let- ting an engine idle for a long time is one of the severe tests that manufacturers put their engines through. An engine can only idle reliably if it gets a slightly richer than normal mixture. Some of this extra fuel does not combust but migrates past the piston rings into the sump where it con- taminates the oil. Over time this will increase an engine's rate of wear. Many motorists, especially the older ones, tend to stay in the highest gear as much as possible while driving

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