20 Things Only Stupid People Do to Their Car

**Don't Abuse Your Transmission and Clutch**

When it comes to driving a vehicle with an automatic transmission, there are several things you should avoid doing to ensure that your car lasts for a long time. One common mistake is downshifting excessively, such as shifting from fourth to third to second to first gear like a race car driver would. While this may seem like a good idea, it can put unnecessary wear on the transmission and ultimately lead to premature failure. Hondas, in particular, have been known to have relatively weak automatic transmissions, so it's especially important to avoid putting excessive stress on yours.

**Riding the Clutch**

Another common mistake is riding the clutch with your foot on the pedal for an extended period of time. This can cause wear and tear on the clutch itself, leading to premature failure. It's also worth noting that this type of driving can be especially damaging to standard transmission vehicles, as the constant friction between the clutch disc and the flywheel can lead to uneven wear and tear. To avoid this, make sure to use the clutch pedal only when necessary, and try to avoid riding it for extended periods.

**Parking on Hills**

When parking on hills, it's also important to be careful not to let your car roll away. One common mistake is simply shutting off the engine and leaving the car in gear, with no attempt to engage the brakes or secure the vehicle. This can lead to the car rolling down the hill, especially if the engine was not strong enough to hold it in place. To avoid this, make sure to always engage the brake pedal firmly, put the transmission in park, and apply the emergency brake when parking on hills.

**Maintaining Your Clutch**

Modern clutches require very little maintenance, but they do need occasional upkeep to keep them running smoothly. One important thing is to change the fluid in your clutch system regularly - most manufacturers recommend changing it every two or three years. This will help keep the seals and other components clean and prevent premature wear. It's also worth noting that many modern vehicles use hydraulic clutches, which don't require adjustment like older models did. However, even if you're not responsible for maintaining your clutch system yourself, it's still a good idea to make sure that the fluid is changed regularly.

**Replacing Your Clutch**

Eventually, a clutch will wear out and need to be replaced. When this happens, it's tempting to just buy a new clutch disc or plate, but this can often lead to problems down the road. A complete clutch kit, which includes all of the necessary parts such as the disc, plate, throw-out bearings, and alignment tool, is generally recommended for replacement. This ensures that everything is properly aligned and fitted together correctly, reducing the risk of premature wear or failure.

**Important Tips**

If you want to make sure your car lasts for a long time, there are several things you can do to avoid common mistakes. Always be mindful of your driving habits, avoiding excessive downshifting and riding the clutch pedal unnecessarily. When parking on hills, take the necessary precautions to secure your vehicle and prevent it from rolling away. Regular maintenance of your clutch system, including changing the fluid every two or three years, can also help extend its lifespan.

**Hardy's Takeaway**

If you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, be sure to ring that bell! And remember: a little bit of knowledge and common sense can go a long way in keeping your car running smoothly and prolonging its lifespan.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enrev up your engines now the first thing is never jump start your car backwards learn which terminal is positive and which negative this Toyota is pretty easy it's got a big Plus on the positive I need to pick this up you can see there's also a Plus on the battery right here it says plus you know that's positive and the opposite side is negative and it's got a negative on the battery they're not all this simple that's why you need to learn which is positive which is negative and here's while jump starting it backwards can really cause problems using this voltmeter you can see how many volts the car battery has now in this case it's almost 12 volts this battery is a little bit low it's 11.68 and like all modern cars the positive wiring goes to all the wires and switches and the negative goes to the body of the car into the engine all the metal in the car is negative electricity and that's 12 volts negative electricity unfortunately since cars are all computerized many of those sensors work on a 5 volt reference signal so a lot of the electronics and especially the compute shooter itself runs on five volts now that's five volts on the power side if you jump start a battery backwards and put positive and negative and negative on positive you're making the ground now go to Power so instead of the ground being negative electricity you're now having positive 12 volts going through there that will feed right through any of those computer parts on the ground circuit and go right to the computer with 12 volts instead of five and it'll fry the computer so never jump start a car backwards and there's a coral area to that if you're working on the electronic system make sure you know the voltage of what you're working on is it regular 12 volts or is the computer circuit that has five volts and you should never put more than five volts into that circuit now the next thing I don't advise to do is to add fuel additives to your fuel now this isn't going to hurt anything except your wallet you're wasting money in most cases modern fuel at least the United States has many additives acquired by law cars run perfectly fine with the stuff you get out of the pump if you buy good fuel take care of your cars you don't need additives now I know some people are going to say well Scotty those GDI gasoline direct engine cars they get carboned up don't they need cleaners in the fuel tank and the answer to that is no because if you put them in a fuel tank of a GDI the GDI injectors spray them right into the engine they don't go over the intake valves so the intake valves still get crud on them and they don't get clean because the inside of them only have air and oil from the PCV valve system going in the only way you can clean those is by either spraying it into the intake where the air goes in or paint a mechanic like me who has pressurized cleaning machines to clean them now the next thing not to do is to put a heavier weight oil in an older engine that might start to be burning a little oil and you think well I'll put heavy oil and it'll make it better you really don't want to do it in any modern engine and here's why you can see this is a 12 year old Matrix and it says use 5W30 oil and some modern ones say even to use zero w20 oil it's very light oil and you don't want to make that light oil heavier most have these variable valve systems and they have to have thin oil so the oil flows really fast gets into the VVT system if you put a heavier oil in when you start the engine up it won't flow right you'll get where in that VVT system and if it's really heavy it won't flow right through the VVT system and the variable system won't work right it won't accelerate right right it won't put the check engine light I see that a lot of people put too heavy oil in the modern car so don't do that stick to what it was made for and the next thing not to do is don't waste your money filling your tires with nitrogen a few years back they were pushing that and they're trying to sell guys nitrogen concentration machines because realize the air we're breathing in now that's like 80 percent nitrogen already so all these companies are trying to sell guys like me nitrogen enhancing machines that could turn that 80 nitrogen into almost 100 nitrogen to fill the tires with and yes nitrogen is an inert gas ass and it keeps its pressure a little bit better I believe they use them in big jets because they're up in the air where it's really cold and then they gotta land really fast and they want the pressure to stabilize exactly but for normal cars just driving down the street you're wasting your money paying somebody to fill your tires with nitrogen because of course over time most tires lose a little bit of air so you'd have to keep going back and paying them to add a little air you couldn't be adding it yourself and all you're doing is knocking out 20 percent of the non-nitrogen that's in there it's a waste of money don't throw your money away fill in your tires with nitrogen and the fifth and last thing not to do is don't forget to change your coolant every once in a while if you keep your cars a long time now this is an old car and it has an old-fashioned green coolant in it you need to change it once every three years but more modern cars they use extended life antifreeze as you can see here 150 000 miles or five years now if you don't keep your cars five years or 150 000 miles you don't have to care and there are even more modern ones that are seven years so it's not something you need to do all that often but if you're cheap like me and drive your cars 30 years 20 years 15 years you want to change the coolant when it's required if you don't own it can ruin the water pump it can ruin the head of the engine and with these modern computerized cars it actually creates a battery voltage when it's low inside the coolant and that can destroy the electronic system the computer sensors make the cargo Haywire I've had customers with cars like that I stick my meter in their coolant and another end on the battery terminal and find out that there's voltage flowing through the coolant that destroys stuff it's not that hard to change the coolant out you can change it out yourself but you have to do it if you keep the car a long time to prevent all kinds of electrolysis that's going to occur inside and damage your car when you start a turbocharged engine cold do not race the engines up allow the engine to warm up for five to ten seconds so that the oil in the engine starts flowing through the Turbo Charge realize that your engine oil on most turbocharged designs is also the oil that lubricates the turbocharger so you want to start the engine up the runner five to ten seconds before you ever rev the engine up because you don't want to rev up the turbocharger when it's not fully lubricated with oil very simple and a coral area of this is do not rub the engine up and give it full powerful RPMs until the engine oil is warmed up so you want to drive it around a few minutes before you rev it to full power you know you start it up you're going someplace don't get it in floor it can go as fast as you can after say four or five minutes the engine's warmed up enough that the oil has got its consistency just right and then you can go full power and the third thing is also oil related use high quality oil and change it a lot here's where full synthetic oil is best full synthetic oil Works under hotter temperatures guess what your turbo charge does the turbocharger uses high exhaust gas to spin itself it gets super hot this is where synthetic oil is best you got a turbocharged car definitely use full synthetic oil and change it a lot me I changed it every five to seven thousand miles and realize that if you're driving at high speeds really fast with the turbo some turbos will actually almost start to glow from the heat they get so hot so if you're driving it hard make sure when you come to a stop and you're going to shut the engine off wait about 30 seconds so that the oil can flow through it and some of them are also water cooled so the coolant can flow through it to stop any built up heat from damaging the turbocharger now years ago before he shut them off let them light up for 30 seconds to a minute the metal energy is better than it was when I was a younger mechanic but still you're driving it hard before you shut it off wait 30 seconds or so with it idling so they can get rid of excessive heat that might have gone when you drove it hard and speaking of cooling it down you got a good turbocharged system that has an intercooler like this Volvo makes sure the intercooler is working correctly in fact it's volatile the intercoolers inside here what's going to happen if you drive out in the country at night all the time bugs are going to get in there or if you're in the city plastic bags could get in there you want to make sure that it's clean hose it down with water if there's bugs on it and that there's no plastic bags or anything that are restricting flow to the intercooler and always check the intercooler Line This Is plastic they can crack then when you get on the bottom it's rubber down there and on the other side that's plastic too and there's rubber in the front check all the rubber and the clamps now generally if the plastic cracks or the rubber comes loose or just falls off or rots and has holes in it it's not going to run right because that's where the turbocharger there is going and that's going to mess with the air fuel mixture if it's got air leaks on it's a good idea to check them every once in a while anyway it's a simple thing you can do yourself and since many modern turbochargers are also water cooled make sure you have clean coolant this turbochargers spinning thousands and thousands of RPMs if they're water cooled they got water seals and the oil lubricated and the oil cooled ones have oil seals if you have dirty coolant for dirty engine oil dirt is friction it will lead up the seals replacing it can cost thousands of dollars it can also be a royal pain in the rear end because they're bolted onto the exhaust system all that heat a lot of times that metal is practically welded on and rusted and when you start taking it apart pieces often break and then you gotta end up changing exhaust parts if they're rotting and crack when you take them apart you want to make that system last as long as you can without having to take it apart and replace it by keeping the coolant and the oil clean and of course if you do want to get better gas mileage with the turbocharged vehicle you don't want to accelerate harshly all the time turbocharged engines get better gas mileage than a non-turbocharged engine but this Advantage is totally negated if you're always flooring it and the Turbo is kicking in full force and the engine's accelerating as fast as it can then you're going to get much worse gas mods I have had little old ladies get phenomenal gas mods with turbocharged cars and I've seen young teenage guys get horrendous gas mileage as low as five miles a gallon in a turbocharged car because they were driving it like a lunatic realize the turbocharged cars the power is there if you really need it when you floor it but if you drive more conservatively get better gas mileage and of course the turbocharge yourself will last longer than two if it's not strained as much now you never want to drive an automatic car through deep water and here's why you see that little black piece right there well this black piece right here that I'm tapping that's a vent you have to have vents on automatic transmissions as the fluid gets hot and expands and contracts to release pressure and if you go through water that will suck water into the transmission and let's just say water and automatic transmissions do not go together if you get water in your automatic transmission sometimes you get lucky and flushed out of the work but often it will destroy the entire transmission you'll need a new one and the second thing never to do is never accidentally have your car go from drive into reverse while the car is moving now the sound is a better design the shifters on the dash that's kind of hard to do but a lot of cars have them down on the bottom down here so if yours is like this make sure you don't accidentally hit it and rip it into reverse while you're driving down the road because it will destroy the transmission I've had more than one of my customers teenage kids when they learn how to drive and screwing around with their friends do do that hit in reverse and they just destroyed the transmission and if they were older cars they just ended up junking them now the next thing not to do with an automatic transmission car is leaving and drive if you're idling for a really long period of time because leaving the drive if you're on there for a long time that can lead to overheating of the inside of the transmission if you're going to be sitting there for a really long time just shut the car off or at least put it into park because in park it's not directly connected the torque converter isn't sending a lot of power so it won't get quite as hot in park as it will and drive now that's bad thing not to do with your automatic transmission is don't go around doing burnouts all the time thank you doing burnouts is one of the worst things you can do for an automatic transmission and of course the car is not that good for any car now you're going to say oh Scotty always having pictures of burnouts well those are standard transmission cars it's not that great for them but hey you're just gonna end up burning out the clutch which is a lot cheaper than replacing the whole transmission if you have a lighter model car don't listen to this nonsense this says no need to replace ATF under normal driving conditions that's a bunch of nonsense no I've dealt with that in a recent video it just basically says oh the fluids good for the lifetime of the transmission but then the lifetime of the transmission is less and less and less because you don't want dirty fluid and you want to change it regularly and yes modern cars use synthetic fluid that can handle heat better and break down less but eventually it does break down I still say change your transmission fluid every 60 to 80 000 miles regardless of what these ridiculous directions say realize if you take care of your transmission it can take care of you this Honda has been taken care of it's got 195 000 miles and even though Hondas have relatively weak automatic transmission and this one is still shifting fine don't downshift all the time from fourth to third to second to first like a race car driver now race car drivers drive the way for a reason they have a limited Power Band let's say the power band is 8 000 RPMs they always want to keep the engine about 8 000 RPM so if they're slowing down they'll put it in the next lower gear or the next lower gear until they get to the maximum power band and then they keep shifting to keep it in the power band but if you're just driving normally you don't need to do that you're going to wear out the engine and the transmission faster and let's face it brakes are a lot cheaper than clutches of course in an emergency situation sure downshift to a lower gear slam the brakes on that'll stop the car the fastest but for normal driving down shifting isn't a smart thing to do if you want things to last now the next thing not to do is don't drive down the road riding the clutch with your foot on the clutch the whole time you're driving have your foot on the clock pick it up and then when you're done put it to the side do not drive with your foot on the clutch or you will wear it out I had a customer years ago with a standard transmission BMW he kept wearing the clutches out and I thought I wonder why he's wearing the clutches out so I said let's go for a ride so we went for a ride so I said to him what do you have one foot on the clutch and one foot on the gas all the time he said well the driver's instructors told me to do that one foot on the clutch and one foot on the gas I said that person's an idiot don't listen to them do not ride the clutch now the next thing not to do is if you're parking on a hill don't just shut the car off and then put in gear and walk away I see more cars roll down Hills because they either came out of gear or the engine wasn't strong enough to hold and it just started slowly rolling backwards what you want to do is have one foot on the clutch pushed down one on the brake then put it in gear and pull the emergency brake on that one you shut the car off guess what it's not going to roll anywhere now modern clutches need very little maintenance but you don't want to forget the tiny bit of Maintenance that a modern clutch system needs now when I was a kid most clutches were manually adjustable like my motorcycle here you want to have oh half quarter inch of play before it starts to grab that was just adjusted by turning the star adjuster as they were they actually got Tighter and you have to loosen them up a little it's a very simple thing and if you have a car like that to adjust it every once in a while when it gets too tight now most modern vehicles use hydraulic clutches that have brake fluid in them you don't need to adjust and they adjust themselves but the fluid does get dirty over time so you want to change the fluid and flush it out every ah two three four years it's no big deal to do but if you don't the dirty fluid inside can ruin the seals and some of these clutch systems cost a lot of money to change the master or slave cylinders for example some Ford pickup trucks with standard transmission the slave cylinder is built inside the housing so you have to pull the transmission off to change the slave cylinder it can cost you well over a thousand bucks so you want to keep the fluid clean and it's no big deal flushing it out every two or three or four years it's not that hard to use the turkey base to suck it out and then bleed the bottom part now the last thing I'm going to talk about is clutch replacement realize eventually cuts his wear out and you have to replace them but when they do wear out and the clutch discus thing just don't replace the clutch disc get a whole kit with all the parts when a clutch disc gets thin it'll start to slip then you need to change it but don't just buy the disc you got to pull the transmission off it's a gigantic job get a clutch set that's got all the clutch parts in it the disc the plate throw out bearings and this one hey it's even got a nice alignment tool so you can align it and fit it in right it's full Hardy to pull a transmission off a car and guess that the other parts will last for a lot longer change everything then you don't have to think about it for a long time so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that Bell thank you\n"