Car enthusiasts are a weird bunch. Each of us has a system of beliefs, fears, desires, kinks, and habits. Our weirdness is what makes us such fun! I want to know how you apply your habits to your habits to your cars and motorcycles. What’s your weird automotive habit?
You may recall Jason asked a somewhat similar question back in November, wherein he wondered about involuntary stuff like slapping the shifter to confirm it’s in neutral. For this Autopian Asks, I’m talking about deliberate automotive habits.
My habits seemingly revolve around my “full send” mentality. Working from home means I no longer have a work commute. A side effect of this is I technically don’t have a daily driver anymore. All of my cars can be unreliable because I rarely need them for more than a quarterly doctor appointment or for fun.
I’ve long been a fan of stretching an engine’s legs (if not its connecting rods) by matting the accelerator and sending the tach to redline, sometimes called the “Italian Tune-Up.” I’ve purchased cars with seemingly weak engines that have spent their entire lives slowly driving around Chicago or Milwaukee, never seeing a highway or any spirited driving. One of the first things I do after some basic maintenance is put the pedal to the floor and run the car as hard as I can (within legal constraints, of course) to blow out the metaphorical and ocassionally literal cobwebs.
The topic of the “Italian Tune-Up” and its effectiveness remains a contentious one, but in my experience it seems to work with some cars and not so much with others.
Perhaps it’s a bad habit, but I put the pedal to the metal (or twist the throttle to the stop) with everything I own, and I do it with some regularity. I’ve redlined everything from every one of my Smarts to the Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI. The sole exception is my Nova Bus RTS-06 since the Series 50 engine won’t rev higher than 2,100 RPM. Apparently Detroit Diesel had the foresight to prevent people like me from getting too crazy.
Anecdotally, some of my cars have run much better after being run hard. Maybe all I’m experiencing is a placebo effect and maybe my penchant for redlining is a bad habit, but it’s one I keep doing. Besides, it’s just too fun to redline a Smart. It’s like an angry chihuahua!
My wife, Sheryl, has a habit of her own. She purchased an all-you-can-wash subscription at the local car wash and golly, she made use of it. She used to wash her BMW every single day, even if it wasn’t dirty. To the local wash’s credit, the car somehow isn’t covered in swirls, but now the Scion is the one getting hit with brushes on a near-daily basis.
What about you? Are you the kind of person who changes their oil every 3,000 miles no matter what? Do you redline your car? Do you never redline your car? Do you never go to touch-based car washes? What’s your weird habit?
Top graphic: Виталий Сова/stock.adobe.com
Putting high temp brake grease on the mating surfaces of rotors, hubs, and wheels. Handles temperature better than antiseize and means changing a flat, even after thirty thousand miles, isn’t a problem
It took me a day to think of anything y’all would appreciate… Over the last few years, during my routine oil change and tire rotations, I’ve been rolling all the wheels out to the driveway and wash the inside of them. This started from “accidentally” ending up with 2 vehicles that don’t see snow and go less than 3k per year, so they must be extra clean.
Yes, I change the oil in 5 out of our 6 vehicles every 3,000 miles, or once a year, whichever comes first. I also manually turn my headlights on whenever I drive any vehicle. There are so many accidents not so much in my town but in a nearby community that I figure every bit of visibility helps. I’m amazed at how many other people drive at early dawn or late dusk (almost dark out) with no lights on.
Edit: for vehicles with two different trip odometers, I set #1 to when I filled the tank so I can check the MPG. If the vehicle has a 2nd trip odometer, I reset it after every oil change so I can see if it’s getting close without looking it up in the owner’s manual log.
Going way back to when manual transmissions didn’t have synchro into first gear, I always shift into second and then into first, before setting off. And, yes I still give my car a pat and talk to it.
I’m weirdly obsessed with making sure my cars get thoroughly warmed up whenever I drive them. Just moving a car from the driveway to the street requires a good 20 minute loop to make sure the thermometers cracked and the fluids are all up to temperature.
I’ve spent hours driving cars around in circles, warming them up, then parking them 20 feet from where I started. That is just what it takes to rearrange the driveway.
I hate it, but that is the way it has to be. has to be. has to be.
one two three. one two three. one two three.
Are you familiar with the effects of engine warm-up on engine wear? I used to be very reluctant to go on short drives because of the elevated wear associated with cold-starts. I never tried to quantify the cost of a cold start, but I’ve talked myself out of running many errands using this trap of thinking.
I’ll give you bad habit. My DD has a nice, easy to use place to hold the fuel cap when I am adding gas. I use it maybe 1/3 of the time and otherwise let it dangle against the side of the car. This is a habit from years of cars that did not have a holder option. It doesn’t help there isn’t a holder for the cap on my fun car. Still, I’m trying to break the habit but it’s so hard.
I firmly stick to 3,000 mile oil changes in my ’97 ZJ. I’ll stretch it a bit with the ’09 WK, but it just doesn’t feel right to go beyond 3500 or so. I’ve gotten better about it with the ’21 Wrangler, which has always used synthetic, but I won’t let it go much beyond 5000 miles. And my mom’s ’03 TJ gets yearly oil changes, since it doesn’t do road trips or excessive commuting.
The ’97 and ’03 are hand-wash only; the ’09 needs to be detailed by hand, but the many trips through various car washes haven’t caused too much damage.
No stickers on the metal! The glass is fair game though (but only if I’m applying the stickers…it’s rude bordering on vandalism for a stranger to slap a sticker on someone else’s car!).
Even though the whole fleet is automatic, I still set the parking brake on even slight inclines, based on ‘Dad Advice.’
And I thank my vehicles at the end of each trip, whether it was just a commute or a lengthy road trip. 🙂
I always set the parking brake on every car, thats literally what it is for, ha. Reason one is why would I rest all that weight on that tiny piece of metal called the park pawl. Second is if you keep the cable system moving it will be less likely to ever get stuck, but this comes from growing up in a rust prone area.
After i check or change the oil, i’ll check dipstick and cap, and it’ll all be back together as it should be.
I’ll close the hood, then the verification circuit in the brain noodle pipes up and says “Is everything REALLY ok? remember that mechanic you knew in massachusetts who left the oil cap off just that one time and it ruined someones car? And he was a good mechanic! people make mistakes!”
Pop the hood again, recheck everything to appease the verification circuit, close hood and get on with life.
It is my only stupidstition in this world, and it is quite annoying. I cant imagine what having more of them feels like!
Ah, where do I begin?
Before I drive off, I:
In the first couple of kilometres, I keep an ear out for any new and scary sounds, and then I unpause my music.
When I park, I:
OCD, much?
My kids thought I was weird but I find them thanking the car after a drive, too.
The 7! Pray for me and the other specially. Boy, I would be retired if I earned a dime for each idiot I stumble upon daily.
2 stroke road bikes really respond well to the Italian tuneup, because really wringing it out gets the exhausts hot enough to burn out accumulated carbon, and doing it at night is even more fun, because 6 foot long sheets of sparks and burning carbon chunks look spectacular coming out of the exhausts!
I always redlined my little Fiat 850 Sport Coupe in every gear, simply because it sounded so good doing it!
And I used to have a Datsun 510 with a single muffler on the back with a hanger at both ends – I deliberately left the clamp where it fitted to the exhaust just loose enough that I could pull the muffler off by hand, and carried a pair of old gloves in the boot so I could remove it quickly by the side of the road. My regular habit when coming home, often around 2 or 3 am was to stop at the end of the street some friends were living in, pop off the muffler and throw it in the boot, then do a high speed run down their street to wake them up.
RE: the Italian Tune-up: When my car (DC5 Integra-R) had to sit around doing nothing for two whole months, I then drove it to find it had a hunting idle – quite embarrassing as I had to pick my brother and his GF up from a train station and the car kept revving itself with my foot off the throttle, which made me look like an awful show-off against my will.
I looked-up possible causes and it was likely to be a clogged Idle Air Control Valve. Some owners club commenters said that in their experience a dose of full VTEC cleared its throat, so I tried it. Sure enough, it cured the IACV problem for free! Well, for the cost of a couple of strong squirts of petrol.
I do also try to floor it at least once per non-urban drive, partly to exercise the engine and partly (mostly) because it’s fun.
Regardless of the car’s age, regardless of whether it’s a hot or cold start, regardless of whether it’s a diesel, liquid natural gas, or gasoline engine, whenever I start the car I wait one minute before putting it into gear, turning on the headlights, or turning on the air conditioning. This lets the engine’s coolant start flowing (if it’s liquid cooled), lets it properly lubricate itself with oil, and lets the alternator level out the battery a bit. With modern cars and their stupid always on features the stereo turns on the moment the car is on and the headlights will automatically turn on if I’m some place dark like a parking garage, and the annoyance at this subversion of my habit is the only time I ever actually think of my habit. This waiting is annoying to some, but I’d rather deal with a short delay over having some horrific failure later in ownership from thrashing the car on startup, especially with modern zero weight oils.
I always affectionately pat my car on the roof after getting out of it, as if to say “Good job! You made it!”
Hey, my cars are old, sometimes they need the encouragement 😉
I also sometimes pray for safe travels. Kind of like how some people pray before meals or before bed. Again, my cars are old, a little supernatural protection is welcome when I can’t rely on airbags or crumple zones to keep me safe.