المقالات — كيف تعمل أنظمة السيارة

OBD-II: what the standard actually guarantees, and what it does not

Almost every disappointment people have with a scan tool comes from the same misunderstanding: OBD-II is an emissions regulation that turned...

@cargeek منذ 4 أسابيع

مقال Whine that changes when you turn the steering wheel

Hydraulic power steering: the pump, the rack, and the noise on full lock

A hydraulic power steering system spends its whole life telling you how it is doing, and the noise it makes is the most specific thing it sa...

@cargeek منذ 4 أسابيع

مقال Increased fuel consumption

Why fuel consumption rises, and which causes are worth chasing

Fuel consumption is the most useful number a car gives you, and almost nobody writes it down. That is the whole argument of this article, an...

@cargeek منذ 4 أسابيع

مقال Engine Oil

Engine oil: grades, synthetic versus mineral, and what the numbers mean

There are two questions you can ask about a bottle of engine oil. The first is whether it is synthetic or mineral. The second is whether it...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال

Inspecting a used car: what to check, in what order, and what ends the viewing

Most guides to inspecting a used car are written in the order that sets the price. This one is written in the order that ends the viewing. T...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Vibration felt through the vehicle

Engine and gearbox mounts: the vibration that appears at idle

An engine mount has two jobs that pull in opposite directions, and everything about it is a compromise between them. It must be stiff enough...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Glow Plug

How a diesel differs: compression ignition, and what that changes about diagnosis

One difference produces all the others, and the source states it twice — once wrongly and once correctly, three paragraphs apart. The wrong...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال

CNG conversions: how the system works, and the faults specific to it

Very little is written in English about running a car on compressed natural gas, and a great deal of the world does it. This is a merge of f...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال

The carburettor: how it meters fuel, and why it needs adjusting when injection does not

A carburettor is a remarkable piece of engineering that solves a hard problem with no electricity, no sensors and no moving decisions: it me...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Brake lights not working

Lighting circuits: headlamps, indicators, and finding the one that is out

Car lighting is the one system where you cannot see your own failure. Every other fault announces itself to the driver; a dead brake light a...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال ECM Power Relay

Relays: reading the numbers on top, and testing one in the car

A relay is a switch operated by a magnet instead of a finger, and its whole purpose is to keep heavy current away from places heavy current...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال

Tyres: sidewall markings, tread patterns, and what pressure actually changes

Everything a car does — accelerating, braking, steering, staying on the road — happens through four patches of rubber roughly the size of a...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Turbocharger

Turbocharger failure: what kills one, and what the damage tells you

The corpus opens its page on the turbocharger by saying they are blamed for far more faults than they cause, and that is the right place to...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Brake pedal feels soft or spongy

Brake hydraulics: bleeding, and why the pedal goes soft

The whole braking system rests on one property of liquids: they do not compress. Push on a column of fluid at one end and the far end moves...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال

Wheel alignment: camber, caster, toe, and reading a tyre that is wearing wrong

Three angles decide how a car tracks, how it steers and how long its tyres last, and the useful thing about them is that the tyre keeps a re...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Grinding or scraping noise when braking

Brake pads and discs: material, wear, and the noises that mean something

A brake does one thing: it turns the car's motion into heat and throws the heat away. The original opens with the arithmetic and it is worth...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال

Springs and dampers: what each one does, and how a tired damper hides

A spring and a damper are fitted together, replaced together and usually talked about as one thing. They do opposite jobs, and the differenc...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Transmission slipping

The CVT: why it feels wrong, and whether that means anything is wrong

The corpus describes transmission slip as engine speed rising without a matching increase in road speed, and says to treat it as a fault. On...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Transfer Case

4WD, AWD and the difference that matters when one wheel is on ice

"Does it have four-wheel drive?" is close to the wrong question. Two vehicles can both answer yes and behave completely differentl...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال

The differential, and the several ways one can be locked

Both sources for this article describe the differential as intelligent. One calls it a smart distribution box that works out which wheel can...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Grinding when changing gear

The manual gearbox: what is happening when you change gear

Move the lever and a gear engages, silently, in about a fifth of a second. That is a much harder thing than it looks, and understanding why...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Transmission Fluid

The AL4 automatic: how it works and what goes wrong with it

The AL4 — sold as the DP0 by Renault — is in a very large number of cars: the automatic 206 and Pars, the 307 and 407, the Xsara and Xantia,...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Unusual engine noise

Diagnosing engine noises: what each one is telling you

A noise carries four pieces of information, and people reach for them in almost exactly the wrong order. What it sounds like — tick, knock,...

@cargeek منذ شهر

مقال Clutch

The clutch: how it works, how it wears, and what slipping actually feels like

A clutch exists because an engine cannot start from rest and a gearbox cannot change ratio under load. Everything else about it follows from...

@cargeek منذ شهر