Top 10 vehicle maintenance myths- INPUT NEEDED

[elwesso]

So I am working on an article for the home page, and I have come up with a list of 20 fairly common "vehicle maintenance myths".. My intention is to write a little bit about each one with an article, but I need everyone's help here voting on the order.. So, in no specific order, here is the list:

PICK YOUR TOP 3

Tires are tires, get the cheapest ones you can find
Nitrogen inflated tires give you better fuel economy
You will void your new car warranty if you take it somewhere other than a dealer
Using synthetic oil in a high mileage engine
Wider tires gain you more traction
Optima batteries are worth the extra money
Tire Pressure- what the mfg. recommends, and what to do if you change tire size
“Lifetime” fluids are bogus
Car washes in winter driving/rust prevention techniques
Oil Change Intervals
Rubber parts wear out with mileage.
Chassis lubrication
Using the A/C will hurt your fuel economy
Premium gas is better for your car
Using Fuel Additives are good
For cars that are stored for long term, it’s good to periodically start them
After a jump start, the alternator will quickly recharge your battery
The tune up
Driving with a truck with the tailgate down increases fuel economy
You should warm up your car before driving

If you have any additional ones you'd like to add, let me know! I don't really want to discuss these topics individually, what I do want to know is everyone's TOP 3 PICKS

[numbnuts240]

you shouldn't change your transmission fluid.
you can't switch back and forth between conventional and synthetic oil.

[2_Liter_Turbo]

1. Oil Change Intervals
2. Using synthetic oil in a high mileage engine
3. For cars that are stored for long term, it’s good to periodically start them

These are the three I'd be interested in the most, and curious as to what your arguments are "for or against". I'd be open for a discussion on them as well, lol.

[Bubba1]

So I am working on an article for the home page, and I have come up with a list of 20 fairly common "vehicle maintenance myths".. My intention is to write a little bit about each one with an article, but I need everyone's help here voting on the order.. So, in no specific order, here is the list:

PICK YOUR TOP 3

Tires are tires, get the cheapest ones you can find
Nitrogen inflated tires give you better fuel economy
You will void your new car warranty if you take it somewhere other than a dealer
Using synthetic oil in a high mileage engine
Wider tires gain you more traction
Optima batteries are worth the extra money
Tire Pressure- what the mfg. recommends, and what to do if you change tire size
“Lifetime” fluids are bogus
Car washes in winter driving/rust prevention techniques
Oil Change Intervals
Rubber parts wear out with mileage.
Chassis lubrication
Using the A/C will hurt your fuel economy
Premium gas is better for your car
Using Fuel Additives are good
For cars that are stored for long term, it’s good to periodically start them
After a jump start, the alternator will quickly recharge your battery
The tune up
Driving with a truck with the tailgate down increases fuel economy
You should warm up your car before driving

If you have any additional ones you'd like to add, let me know! I don't really want to discuss these topics individually, what I do want to know is everyone's TOP 3 PICKS

I think all of your suggested topics are good. My top 3:
premium gas
oil change intervals
tires are tires

[flohtingPoint]

Wider tires is a dual edged sword. Some do, some do not, conditions come into play here too as smaller tires are actually better as youre placing more weight on the contact patch. Street tires work better if they fit the wheel they are put on, while rcomps 275 on a 5.5 inch wheel (ITR) is common stuffing.

[dre1507]

1. tires are tires
2. you should warm up your car before driving
3. premium gas is better for your car

[Rogue One]

1. tires are tires
2. you should warm up your car before driving
3. premium gas is better for your car

I second this set!

[Jesda]

Unnecessary warm-ups [for modern cars] are a leading cause of auto thefts and air pollution. That's a great topic.

Does anyone know if modern turbos still benefit from idling before shutdown?

[elwesso]

Does anyone know if modern turbos still benefit from idling before shutdown?

For ball bearing turbos it's less important. It all has to do with heat buildup, so if you idle the car a little bit regardless it will help remove some of that residual heat. Also using synthetic oil helps that too..

30 seconds - 1 minute is probably adequate for most applications... Just don't shut off the car before you turn down your Ace of Base cassette and grab your man purse...

[frapjap]

So I am working on an article for the home page, and I have come up with a list of 20 fairly common "vehicle maintenance myths".. My intention is to write a little bit about each one with an article, but I need everyone's help here voting on the order.. So, in no specific order, here is the list:

PICK YOUR TOP 3

Tires are tires, get the cheapest ones you can find
Nitrogen inflated tires give you better fuel economy
You will void your new car warranty if you take it somewhere other than a dealer
Using synthetic oil in a high mileage engine
Wider tires gain you more traction
Optima batteries are worth the extra money
Tire Pressure- what the mfg. recommends, and what to do if you change tire size
“Lifetime” fluids are bogus
Car washes in winter driving/rust prevention techniques
Oil Change Intervals
Rubber parts wear out with mileage.
Chassis lubrication
Using the A/C will hurt your fuel economy
Premium gas is better for your car
Using Fuel Additives are good
For cars that are stored for long term, it’s good to periodically start them
After a jump start, the alternator will quickly recharge your battery
The tune up
Driving with a truck with the tailgate down increases fuel economy
You should warm up your car before driving

If you have any additional ones you'd like to add, let me know! I don't really want to discuss these topics individually, what I do want to know is everyone's TOP 3 PICKS

Using synthetic oil in a high mileage engine- I feel like this helps keeping my engine from breaking down and burning the oil as quickly as conventional.

For cars that are stored for long term, it’s good to periodically start them- this. I do it, but others recommend against it saying condensation can end up in your engine oil and cylinders.

Rubber parts wear out with mileage.- especially end links. Some cars do, some don't. curious as to why/how.

[Jesda]

Does anyone know if modern turbos still benefit from idling before shutdown?

For ball bearing turbos it's less important. It all has to do with heat buildup, so if you idle the car a little bit regardless it will help remove some of that residual heat. Also using synthetic oil helps that too..

30 seconds - 1 minute is probably adequate for most applications... Just don't shut off the car before you turn down your Ace of Base cassette and grab your man purse...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlN2G0ytanY[/youtube]

[MinisterofDOOM]

I love tire myths.

These are my picks:

Tires are tires, get the cheapest ones you can find
Nitrogen inflated tires give you better fuel economy
Wider tires gain you more traction
Tire Pressure- what the mfg. recommends, and what to do if you change tire size
“Lifetime” fluids are bogus
Car washes in winter driving/rust prevention techniques
Oil Change Intervals
Using the A/C will hurt your fuel economy
Premium gas is better for your car
Using Fuel Additives are good
For cars that are stored for long term, it’s good to periodically start them
After a jump start, the alternator will quickly recharge your battery

Another one I'd like to add:
Ethanolized gasoline is useful for anything at all ever.
If it's not E85 and my car's not specifically built for it, get it the @#$% out of my sight. Asking me to pay the same price for less gasoline while sacrificing performance AND fuel economy and also risking damage to my fuel system doesn't count as a "good idea" in my book. If you have an E85/flex-fuel/E100 vehicle, that's great. I don't. My car runs on gasoline. Keep your alcohol away from it.

Most fuel additives are nothing more than fancily-packaged naphtha which does basically nothing useful aside from maybe absorb a tiny amount of water from the fuel system.

Lifetime fluids is a great one. Automotive fluids tend to be either petroleum- or alcohol-based--both of which are hygroscopic which means periodic changes are a necessity.

Premium fuel is another good one. There actually tends to be a minor but inverse relationship between energy content and octane in gasoline. Premium only helps if needed to accomodate high compression or hot combustion chamber temps under aggressive use, and is rarely needed outside of high-performance engines. And of course direct injection is making that even less of an issue as we can use injection stratification to control combustion chamber temps.

The jump start/alternator one is something I encounter a lot. Pretty much every time I've ever jump started a car for someone, they were shocked when I recommended that they either drive around for a while or let the thing idle for a while before shutting it off again.
Even without jump-starts, the extremely-short-distance driving I do most days (2 miles or less, barely enough time for the engine to hit normal operating temp) tends to do a number on the battery charge-wise. I'll notice starts getting harder after a few of these with no real driving in between. So I'll usually try to take a longer drive periodically to keep myself out of trouble. Add a weak charge to -15 degree weather and suddenly you're not going anywhere fast.

When I had my Q stored, I did have to start it periodically because otherwise the battery would crap itself. BUT it needed a new battery, I was just too lazy to fix it until I sold the car. A good battery would have maintained a charge without issue.

I'm curious what you have to say about car washes in the winter and rust prevention. Fortunately, eastern Idaho doesn't use salt, so I don't have to worry about rust. Utah used salt pretty liberally, but I never had rust problems there either, even on my Maxima, which had a recall for rust in the wheel wells. Hell, my signature picture is my car PARKED on top of wet, muddy salt, with the tires coated in the stuff. No rust. Granted a lot of the underparts are aluminum, but even the other parts are still perfectly clean.

[Looneybomber]

Warm ups
(my roommate warms up his car for 10-12min, for the 1.5mi drive to school)

Lifetime fluids
(Not an issue for those who buy new cars all the time or lease, but I keep my vehicles for a while and there's no way a fluid is lasting forever)

Using the AC will hurt fuel economy
(There's truth to this and was exemplified more in my '89 bronco II, than in my '02 Explorer, most notably the drag you could feel/hear the moment the compressor was kicked on)

[the converted]

I'm going to pick voiding warranties, oil changes, and premium fuel are probably the ones that I would pick. I know that they have been covered elsewhere, but still seem to be the ones that I get the most questions about. The periodically starting a stored car as far as I'm concerned is a good thing as long as you let it run up to full operating temperatures.

[nissangirl74]

1) Oil Change Intervals - many cars can go 5,000 miles or more between changes. If you do it sooner, it's not really a benefit to the car and it's a drain on your pocketbook.
2) Stored Vehicles - we do this but we also take them for a drive
3) Rubber parts wear out with mileage. Might be good to mention weather conditions if you use this one. This is ABSOLUTELY true out here. The rubber doesn't stand up to well to our 115* summers. They will deteriorate much more rapidly here than Florida, or California.

others:

- a big topic in TN was "the wintertime debate of what to run in your radiator. Some said 100% coolant, some said 50/50, some said screw it and just ran straight water". Answer why one does better than the other.

- "You should resurface your rotors every time you change the brake pads". Argue yay / nay or give examples to support different situations.

[elwesso]

others:

- a big topic in TN was "the wintertime debate of what to run in your radiator. Some said 100% coolant, some said 50/50, some said screw it and just ran straight water". Answer why one does better than the other.

That's a good one. I actually just researched that a few days ago, the lowest freezing point you can achieve with ethelyne glycol (anti-freeze) is with a 70% AF, 30% water.. Any more anti-freeze and the freezing point goes up.

[breadbox]

Seems like you could do a small series of myths I.E. Tire myths, Alt myths, oil myths, ...

I think from the list I like tire inflation myths as one. Proper pressure, rotation and nitrogen fills in one.
Warm up myths and include something about long term storage.
Also I like the rust prevention myths.

[nissangirl74]

^ I like the series idea if it wouldn't be too much of a PITA to keep up with. You could do seasonal updates.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

I'd like to hear about Optima batteries.
Can I just blow all 3 of my votes on that one? :p

[Extreme Dimensions]

1) Oil Change Intervals - many cars can go 5,000 miles or more between changes. If you do it sooner, it's not really a benefit to the car and it's a drain on your pocketbook.
2) Stored Vehicles - we do this but we also take them for a drive
3) Rubber parts wear out with mileage. Might be good to mention weather conditions if you use this one. This is ABSOLUTELY true out here. The rubber doesn't stand up to well to our 115* summers. They will deteriorate much more rapidly here than Florida, or California.

others:

- a big topic in TN was "the wintertime debate of what to run in your radiator. Some said 100% coolant, some said 50/50, some said screw it and just ran straight water". Answer why one does better than the other.

- "You should resurface your rotors every time you change the brake pads". Argue yay / nay or give examples to support different situations.

1.Oil changes is a good one, and can be very large. how many miles in between oil changes, synthetic vs conventional, switching between the two, storage effects (" I let my car sit for 8 months with the same oil, is it ok"), etc.

2. Fuel additives. Because no one really knows what the hell they are talking about.

3. The tune up. So many different variations of what a "tune up" actually is.


I think a lot of the suggestions on this list aren't actually myths, as many are just misunderstood/misinformed statements.
For example, off the list it seems to me the op thinks that needing to warm up your car is a myth. my old block (i think....two or three blocks ago?) can verify that you do indeed need to let a car warm up before putting load on it, otherwise i would piston slap up the waazoo. So depending on your clearances,age of the motor, aluminum vs steel internals, etc etc....

The reason I quoted you Nissan girl is in regards to coolant. For maximum cooling I run 80%water, a bottle of water wetter, and 20% coolant. For maximum freezing protection I run 70% coolant, 30% water.

[Bubba1]

I was under the impression water wetter was designed to be used with distilled water, and not meant to be mixed with antifreeze. Is that wrong?

[Extreme Dimensions]

I was under the impression water wetter was designed to be used with distilled water, and not meant to be mixed with antifreeze. Is that wrong?

Add it to the Myth list!

http://www.redlineoil.com/content/files ... 20Info.pdf

[krash]

I think a lot of the suggestions on this list aren't actually myths, as many are just misunderstood/misinformed statements.
For example, off the list it seems to me the op thinks that needing to warm up your car is a myth. my old block (i think....two or three blocks ago?) can verify that you do indeed need to let a car warm up before putting load on it, otherwise i would piston slap up the waazoo. So depending on your clearances,age of the motor, aluminum vs steel internals, etc etc....

Yup. After I got forged pistons on my KA, it MUST be warmed up before I beat on it or else I'll get a round of applause from the pistons.

[elwesso]

Yup. After I got forged pistons on my KA, it MUST be warmed up before I beat on it or else I'll get a round of applause from the pistons.

Remember here we're talking about the most common case, which is going to be a stock car. Obviously if you have an engine that's modified or "built" then the rules change...

[krash]

Yea for sure. I still wouldn't beat the crap out of a car thats not warmed up, but theres no need to let it sit for 10 mins just to go to the grocery store.

[float_6969]

Tire Pressure- what the mfg. recommends, and what to do if you change tire size
For cars that are stored for long term, it’s good to periodically start them
After a jump start, the alternator will quickly recharge your battery

[flohtingPoint]

Yea for sure. I still wouldn't beat the crap out of a car thats not warmed up, but theres no need to let it sit for 10 mins just to go to the grocery store.

Very good practice. All of us Vette drivers wont touch the throttle in naughty places if the oil temp is not proper.