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3 Easy Steps to Know When to Replace Your Muffler

January 31, 2011 By

We’ve already given you a full article on the 3 signs of a faulty muffler, but to stress its importance on your car and not to mention your safety, we’re giving you 3 easy steps to know when to replace your muffler. Your muffler is an integral part of your car’s exhaust system, and a faulty muffler can turn service engine lights on modern cars on. This special light is the computer’s way of telling you that something isn’t working properly and you need to get it checked soon.

There can be a myriad of reason as to why this little light is up, including excessive emissions, fouled spark plugs, bad or watery gas and more. You can go to any automotive part suppliers and have them check it out for you, sometimes for a small fee and sometimes for no fee at all. But you don’t need to have a special little light tell you what’s up, you can find out for yourself by listening closely to what your car is telling you. Loud noise coming from your car’s behind sure is sign that your muffler ain’t doing its job no more.

Loud noise could mean any of the following:

  • Holes in your muffler. If this is so, you should just go ahead and buy a new one.
  • Clogged up. This too should need replacing. Trying to pour acid to melt all those bad stuff away is not only dangerous, it’s also stupid. You might end up burning holes on your beloved muffler.

Loud noise isn’t the only symptom that you should be looking for. You should also look out for a loud booming noise, a rattling noise or a hissing noise. And no, that is not the work of some snazzy built-in sound system.

If you happen to find any of the aforementioned symptoms, don’t fret, this is not the end of your car. You can easily buy a new muffler and replace it yourself. Just remember, buying a new one is better than buying second- hand. You might just be buying from a carnapper. No one wants to support this trade, buy only from trusted and authorized dealers.

7 Easy Steps to Remove and Replace a Muffler

January 30, 2011 By

You just found out that you’ve got a faulty muffler! Never fret because you can easily replace that one with a brand-new high performance muffler.

Removing the Old Muffler

    1. Raise your car using the car lift. Never get under the car with only the car jack as your support. If you can find a drive- on lift, so much the better.
    2.  Examine the muffler setup. Try to understand where bolts and nuts go. The muffler should be connected to the rest of your car’s exhaust system by three or four bolts per pipe, and should be attached to the body of the car with rubber muffler hangers.
    3. Liberally spray lubricant, like WD-40, all over the bolts. Tap the joints that hold the bolts a few times with a hammer or wrench to get the lubricant to start working its way into the rust. If you should notice that the bolts are severely rusted then you should spray it heavily with the lubricant and let it sit for up to 24 hours.
    4. Grab the floor jack and use it to hold the muffler, raise it enough to take the tension on the muffler hangers. Then use your gloved hands to pull the hangers off.
    5. Unbolt the muffler with a box wrench or a crow’s foot wrench. If the lubricant’s magic is not enough, you might have to use a propane torch or hacksaw to separate the muffler bolts. Using propane torches is not advisable due to the hazards it poses. You might get burned with more than you’ve bargained for.
    6. You can now lower the muffler with the floor jack, but be sure that it is balanced so it will not fall on you. Get someone to assist you on this one to avoid getting conked out of service by the muffler. The gaskets that used to seal the two sections of exhaust should fall away. If it does not, use your tapping prowess to remove them.

      A gasket is a mechanical seal that prevents leakage between two objects while under compression

    7. Clean the surfaces of the exhaust with a rag. Loosen the muffler hanger brackets by looseninng the bolt that holds them to the main part of your car.

 

Replacing the Muffler

  1. We’re going to use the floor jack again in installing the new muffler by balancing it on the floor jack. Raise it until you can fasten it to the forward sections of the exhaust system.
  2. When in place, attach the new bolts and nuts to the new muffler with the wrenches to the forward section. Make sure that the replacement gaskets are also in between the two sections of the exhaust system.
  3. Hang the replacement muffler from the body with the new exhaust hangers by raising the muffler to the highest level you can with the floor jack. (Just don’t crush it to the bottom of the car.) Slip the new hangers over the mounting brackets of the muffler and on the car body.

    The muffler is attached to the body of the car with rubber muffler hangers

  4. Lower the floor jack until the muffler is at the desired height. Retighten the bolts you loosened in “Removing the Muffler” Step 4. The muffler will now be firmly attached to your car.
  5. Remove the floor jack and start your car so that you can check the joints for any leaks. Carefully move your hand around the attached joints and feel for pulsating air. If you have a leak, check the tension on the bolts. If the bolts are firm, then you may have neglected to reinstall the gaskets properly. Separate the exhaust and try again.
  6. Turn the engine off and carefully lower your vehicle to the ground, you are now officially done!

Congratulations! You have successfully replaced your faulty muffler with a new one.  Don’t be fazed by the number of steps enumerated in this article. If this is the first time you are to do this, you can always ask a friend to help you out. Happy driving!

Be Safer on the Road with Anti-Lock Brakes

January 26, 2011 By

Hook your car up with ALB

How many times have we heard of a car accident wherein the driver lost control upon suddenly braking? Such accidents happen because during sudden breaks, the wheels stop rotating and the car starts to skid. This becomes even more dangerous on slippery surfaces as the car would only stop when it rams into a bigger object. You might ask: “these accidents have been happening for a very long time. Haven’t car manufacturers developed something to prevent this?”

Stop right there!

Ever heard of an anti-lock brake (ALB)? The anti-lock brake is a safety feature installed on motor vehicles that basically help prevent the vehicle from skidding upon sudden brake. At the same time, it allows the driver to still have control of the vehicle on sudden break scenarios. The brakes are timed to lock the wheels on short intervals instead of one full long break, thereby allowing the wheel to keep on spinning and, at the same time, slowing it down. This safety feature is very helpful especially on slippery and loose surfaces such as rocky roads on mountain trips.

Not all cars have this feature and some anti-lock brakes are more advanced than others. More advanced ALB systems can even control when to engage the break in the front and rear wheels of the car.

Sounds great right? There’s more.

More advanced anti-lock brakes can even determine if your tires have deflated to the point that they need to be inflated again. What this system would do is to look at the spinning rate of the wheel during brakes. When one of the wheels is spinning faster than the others, then that could be a sign that one of the tires is already flat. Flat wheels have a higher average spin rate than inflated wheels. Now, you have two safety features on check with one  anti-lock brake system: the brake and the tire inflation level.

Make sure to have the necessary precautions in place before you drive – because when it comes to your safety on the road, it’s certainly better to be safe than sorry.

Engine of Choice: Gas or Diesel

January 24, 2011 By

Gas or diesel engine? Is there really such a big difference between the two? For newbies, the difference probably won’t even be that noticeable. For those more experienced with cars however, the difference will definitely be evident.

Gas vs. Diesel - What's your verdict?

Go the distance

For long distance driving or even just driving across the highway, it’s always diesel engine that has become the weapon of choice because of its higher compression ratio and more efficient combustion system that gas engines cannot match. One can’t also discard the fact that diesel is cheaper than gas; and with today’s ever increasing price of fuel, practicality plays a big key for the choice of engine.

The average thermodynamic efficiency (the amount of work the engine produces from the fuel) of diesel engine is 15% percent higher than gas engines. Sure, the diesel engine is less environmental friendly than gas engine but the efficiency gains of the engine itself is much more distinguishable for these engines.

Don’t dismiss gas engines just yet

But just when you think choosing the diesel engine is a no-brainer choice, think again. With the help of technology, the efficiency difference between gas and diesel engine is now shrinking. Improvements in engine parts such as camshaft timing, direct fuel injection, and turbo chargers have helped made the gas engine become more efficient.

Research today are pitting the gas engine to become more efficient than diesel engine by 10% in the next 10 years. With the way technology is advancing, gas engine could overtake diesel engine in terms of efficiency soon – this is great news, not only for the market but for the environment as well.

But then again, don’t expect diesel engine manufacturers to just do nothing. Although there is little left to improve on the efficiency of diesel engine, diesel engine will still have some advantage over the fact that diesel fuels contains 14% more energy by volume than gasoline. With oil in the world starting to become scarce, it’s really a matter of who has the better research on efficiency.

Financing Options in Buying Your Dream Car

January 21, 2011 By

Happy New Year guys! Hope you had a merry Christmas and have started the year by deciding to be proactive! If you’ve been dreaming of getting that dream car, then what are you waiting for? The key to achieving goals is to take the first, albeit baby steps. You could do the usual and save up, or you can opt for bank car financing or go down the easy route by signing up for a lease-to-own. Whatever option you choose, here are some tips and notes to keep in mind:

If you’re familiar with the board game Monopoly, then you’d know that when you don’t have any cash on hand, you can put your properties up for mortgage to get cash. Chattel mortgage is the same, it’s just that “Chattel” is a term for moveable personal property.

1. Lease-to-own. I just found out that Toyota Motor Philippines is the only company, as of press time, that offers this kind of financing option for its vehicles. With this option, you get to choose to pay from terms of 24 months to a maximum of 72 months. Which is 2 to 6 years, and a lot can happen in between. Once the payment is completed the title of ownership will be then transferred to you. You don’t get the luxury of being fickle with this kind of option because once you’ve realized that you’ve had enough of the vehicle, you can’t just sell it off. Also, you have to pay for premiums such as chattel mortgage fee and vehicle registration which you’d normally get for free when you purchase a brand new car.

2. Trade-in. Simply have your vehicle appraised by your trusted dealer. They usually give you the lowest possible value so it’s good to ask around first and be in the know if you plan on visiting a non- exclusive dealer.

 

3. Buy now, pay later. This kind of promo is usually just that. You get to drive the vehicle around for a couple of months, after which, you have to start paying up. What this does is simply give you more time to save up. A friendly reminder from your friends here at Automotive Parts Suppliers is to keep in mind that although these kinds of schemes are tempting, we have to be wise to live within our means.

4. Low down payment. You get to pay low down payment but higher monthly instalment fees. Depending on the vehicle of your choice, down payments can be less than Php100,000. When you encounter flyers with mind-boggling low amounts highlighted beside a vehicle, it is safe to assume that it is just the down payment. With long instalment plans (maximum is set at 60 months – that’s 5 years my dears) comes cheaper rates but higher interest fees that can spell Php250,000 on interest alone. Shorter instalment plans like 12 months or 24 months, however, sets you up at about P50,000 to Php200,000 every month.

5. Low instalment. This is the opposite of the “low down payment scheme”. You pay a bigger amount for your down payment but pay lesser amount on your monthly dues.

Don’t be afraid to speak up! Raise questions to your dealer if there’s something you don’t understand, and just a friendly reminder to be honest to yourself and to the dealer on how much you can afford to shell out every month. We wouldn’t want you to swim in financial worries just to attain that dream car of yours. Happy shopping!

How Car Airbags Keep You Safe

January 7, 2011 By

Since the year 1987, white bags designed to be filled with air – aptly named the airbag – have saved over 25,000 lives. That’s a lot of lives, which is why the U.S. government has made it a requirement for airbags to be included in all vehicles. Regular maintenance of your car and its parts such as the radiator, leafsprings and so on certainly contribute  to your safety on the road, but airbag systems provide you protection in case of collisions.  Here is a short video for the sake of show and tell and the awesomeness of stuff in slow motion:

From the video, you may think that the airbag doesn’t seem like much of a safety device. But believe the 25,000 and more people, those things are life-savers. And every driver, no matter how experienced they are, should acknowledge that their car can never be completely safe without an airbag.

An airbag, as good ol’ Wikipedia defines it, “is a vehicle safety device that consists of a flexible envelope designed to inflate rapidly during an automobile collision, to prevent occupants from striking interior objects such as the steering wheel or a window.” Now we could go deeper than that and plunge into the complex science of airbags and car collisions, but in the final analysis, it’s important to know that the combination of a seatbelt and an airbag would largely decrease the chance of an injury during collision. When it comes to your safety, two precautions are definitely better than one.

But of course, I won’t leave you with that. The reason why I didn’t go to the specifics because the video featured below already has. Here are experts who know exactly what they’re doing and talking about when it comes to airbags. And a special shout out of course, to the crash test dummies that are always ready to sacrifice their fake organs for the safety of our real ones. Come on, let us live curious and learn more about airbags together.