Whether you drive a car, truck, crossover, or SUV, your vehicle’s engine parts have limited life-spans. This includes the fluids. Factory maintenance schedules tell you and automotive service professionals when to service engine components and fluids, so your vehicle always runs as if it were brand new. If this maintenance schedule is ignored, you may find yourself with common engine problems that we here at Ideal Automotive fix regularly. Here’s what they are.
Coolant Loss
If your vehicle is running hotter than it should be, or if you leak into the cooling system, your engine might be losing coolant while you’re driving it without you even knowing it. Even if your vehicle gets too hot but doesn’t overheat, the radiator coolant expands and seeps out of the overflow. You might have a tiny radiator hose leak, too, or coolant could be seeping out of the radiator cap.
Compression Problems
Your car, truck, or UV uses compression and combustion to fire up the engine. The ignition system uses air and gasoline to light sparks generated from the spark plugs to get the whole thing going. If your air and fuel mixture is off, either lean because there’s too much air or rich because there’s too much gas, you’ll end up with poor compression, which translates into engine problems.
Knocking and/or Pinging
Your engine can also knock or ping if you have too much heat or pressure building up inside it. The problem could originate in the carburetor if it isn’t mixing the air and fuel properly and then spread into the combustion chamber and the rest of your engine. You might also hear knocking from your transmission if the fluid is too low or the system has another problem.
Spark Plug Problems
Finally, check your owner’s manual to see when you need to have your spark plugs changed. It used to be that this should be done every 30,000 miles, but today’s automobiles can go as long as 100,000 miles between plug changes. You want to make sure you have the plugs changed when they need it. Otherwise, you’ll engine up with engine performance trouble because the plugs are misfiring.
We are Ideal Automotive, and our shop is located in Blaine, MN. Give us a call to discuss your vehicle’s service schedule or if you need automobile repair. We’ll schedule an appointment that is convenient for you, so you aren’t spending the whole day at the service shop.
