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
When I park my manual car, I only pull up on the parking brake until I feel it catch. Never further.
Bugs the ever-lovin’ shit out of me when the techs at my dealership yank it up all the way after servicing it. No matter how many times I make mention of it, in through one ear and out the other. The lot where I work is almost perfectly flat. WTF, guys? The car ain’t going anywhere!!!
Sounds like a formula for burning up the parking brake. Put it on to effect, or don’t bother. It might turn off the DRLs, but otherwise seems useless.
Most parking brakes don’t really hold the car if you don’t yank it up pretty hard. It sounds to me like you are pulling the handle for literally no reason.
Apparently this is unusual around here, but I never use parking brakes if I can help it.
I do not like fixing parking brake cables and springs. And using the parking brake is just unnecessary when you have a parking pawl or first gear. I use it if I need to leave a manual transmission car running, or never in an automatic.
I also don’t let a car warm up for more than a few seconds before taking off. Some of you guys are probably not going to like that. I also slam doors.
Mercedes, what makes you think that 2100rpm is not redlining the bus? Banging off the limiter is banging off the limiter, no matter what rpm that happens to be.
Funny things, parking brake cables. If you never use them, they’ll rust up and stick on the rare occasion you do use it (my automatic transmission cars). If you use the parking brake religiously, they’ll work flawlessly and never stick (my manual transmission cars).
My old Civic w/250,000 miles didn’t have enough compression to hold the car on my driveway in 1st or reverse. Always used the parking brake, a habit I’ve retained to this day, even tho my cars don’t have 3 pedals anymore.
I’ve never had to repair or replace any parking brake components.
Up until recently I would always open my car doors slow like.
And peek in the back seat to make sure OJ wasn’t sitting there.
Not gonna take him to see his fish anymore.
Learned lesson the first time. YMMV
My weird one is wipers. I pretty much never use the intermittent wipers. I use the momentary activation until I need enough wiper to justify low or high speed. Intermittent just never hits at the frequency I want. It’s either wiping too soon or waiting too long.
A college roommate saw that as a Washington thing, but I don’t think that’s true. I lived there for over half my life and I don’t remember many others doing things my way.
That’s probably because you’ve only ever used the intermittent wipers in most cars, which only have one or two intermittent speeds and never match the needed frequency.
90s Fords like my 95 f150 have like 15 intermittent settings, and they legitimately run at ang speed you want, for any situation. They’re great.
I learned recently that some VW’s have an intermittent wiper that you flick on-off, wait however long you want, flick on again and it keeps that interval moving forward. Apparently that relay is plug-and-play with my Boxster and many other VAG vehicles.
I drove a 99 Explorer for a long time, so I’m not sure that’s the issue. I’m sure some of it is a lack of patience on my part. I know I can bump the stalk when I need it, so I’m not going to try many settings before I give up.
As the current owner of a ’99 Explorer, the intermittent settings are not even and it sort of drives me nuts. The first notch is slow enough that it isn’t worth using, but then it is like each subsequent notch is the previous speed squared.
The preset intervals just never seem to hit the spot. Only in a downpour I let them loose to move as fast as they can but every other time I trigger them manually.
I will say my old 2013 BMW probably had the best auto sensing wipers out of anything else I’ve driven, it was pretty spot on for what I like and never got fart noises from a wiper dragging glass that’s too dry
I apply the parking brake before shifting to park (sadly my current cars are automatic or DCT), even in the garage. I never take the key fob out of my pocket, (so called “Comfort Access). I shut the doors gently as possible. I change my own oil, hand wash the cars (unless I use a quick detailed spray). I will mat the pedal, but only after the oil is up to temperature. I don’t do it often, because is sucks too much go juice. I put my hand on the seat back bolster and hang onto the steering wheel to avoid wearing out the bolster like I did on my first Civic SI.
I thought of another one. This is going to sound ridiculous.
Every time I get in and out of my Jeep, I use the A-pillar grab handle and my right leg to lift myself over the outer bolster of the seat to avoid destroying the seat cover and foam underneath.
If you know, you know.
That’s not ridiculous at all! I take so much care with how I enter and exit cars because I keep them forever, and all I can think about is how little repetitive wear events add up over time. I even try to situate myself upon entry on grippy cloth seats in a way where I’m not twisting the fabric too much by having to adjust.
I have an ’89 Firebird on the original cloth seats and even despite my anal-retentive ways they are finally now starting to show some wear.
I wish the previous owner of my G37 Sport did that. The outside bolster on the driver’s seat is squashed.
My first car was a Fiat X1/9 and I kept that car immaculate except for that outer driver’s seat bolster. It was crappy fabric, but I’m sooo careful now because of that.
This sounds so OCD, but it drives me nuts when my dual HVAC temps aren’t sync’d . Sure, if my passenger wants to adjust, that’s fine, but it’s going right back to matching the drivers side once they’re done.
I tend to hit sync if there’s no one in the car, but the one that bothers me is when my passenger just closes the vents. You have your own HVAC control, don’t close the vents and make me reach over to reopen them to get the HVAC balance feeling right.
My car’s HVAC only does even numbers. 70 is too hot and 68 is just frivolous use of AC.
I had to think for a minute, but I always open the door slowly when in parking lots. I may be in a space with no car for hundreds of feet, but I still open in slowly, worried about dinging the door. But my partner does not have this fear, and there are dings on the door.
I don’t use cruise control. Like ever.
This is a deeply imprinted thing for me. When I was 19 I bought a 1998 Grand Prix GTP part way between my college and my parents’ house. When I got on the freeway and turned the cruise on, the car kept on accelerating past the set point as if the throttle was stuck open. It didn’t shut off with a brake application or the cruise OFF button. I fought the car to the next exit and under full braking power managed to get it to a stop. I put it into park and the engine pegs at redline. Shut the key off, catch my breath, restart, and drive the other 400 miles home never touching cruise again. And since I had that car for 4 years and a lot of road trips, I got in the habit of just driving without it. Which I keep to this day.
I wouldn’t say I never use cruise, but I would say very, very rarely. I once drove a Dodge Spirit that had somewhat flaky cruise and the lack of control it made me feel was uncomfortable. Since then, I only use it a few times a year when I’m on long interstate trips.
I’ve used it a couple times, always to avoid getting ticketed on clear roads with unreasonably low speed limits in those weird, foreign countries like Canada and Ohio. I just don’t have the self-control to hold 60 kilometers per hour on a deserted 4-lane highway on a clear Sunday morning.
It’s funny I was going to say the exact opposite is my quirk.
Sometimes if I’m just cruising without cruise control, I have a tendency to drift toward whatever speed “feels right”. Sometimes that means in my Shelby I catch myself cruising 60 in a 45. Sometimes that means I’m driving my ’93 Bronco on a cool summer night with the windows down and find I’m going 30 in a 50.
So now, basically any time I’m on a straight stretch of road for more than a mile or so, I’m usually in cruise control.
I’m with you; I’ve never touched it in any of my cars. I’ve driven cross county even. At this point, I have no idea if it even works in my older stuff.
I love cruise control, but it was reliable in my ’97 van and the other couple vehicles that have had it. I sympathize with your plight.
Reminds me of a college professor who got stuck in an elevator, and after many years was convinced to use an elevator again…only to get stuck in the first one he rode.
Exactly opposite here; constantly use cruise to help with gas mileage and keep from matching those going too fast.
From my experience, too many people are just matching their speed to traffic without paying attention to their speedometers these days.
Digital speedometer readouts do play havoc with my OCD though as I try to keep the cruise at an exact speed…
I’m fully with you on this.
I used to frequently drive from San Antonio to Seattle, and I never turned the cruise on in any of the cars or trucks that I used for that run. I really like to feel I’m controlling the car, not just being carried along blindly. It also forces you to pay closer attention to road conditions, and makes you more aware if your tired and your concentration is slipping.
No matter what car I am driving, whether manual or automatic, I always set the parking brake with the brake pedal depressed and I don’t take my foot off of the brake pedal until I turn off the car.
This led to a moment when a friend of mine was driving my car (she was designated driver). She put the car in park and shut it off and I’m all “BUT THE PARKING BRAKE”.
You people are weird.
As an add-on/similar tendency, I set the parking brake absolutely any time I park anywhere ever.
As a result, the expected life of my parking brakes is a lot lower because I happen to have a wife who could be parked on the steepest hill in the road and wouldn’t set the brake and therefore doesn’t always check if it’s on or not before taking off. Had one time she called “Something smells kind of funny I think the car has a problem” because she had driven several miles with the park brake engaged.
When I set the brake, it’s gonna take an unreasonable amount of throttle to move. My wife has complained that I set the brake in her VW so tight she couldn’t pull it up to release it (makes me want to figure out how to make it a fly-off brake).
My mom left the parking brake applied on her Austin Marina once and caught hell from her wrenching sons. Spent the rest of her life constantly checking the parking brake as she drove…
Probably not neccesary, but gives me peace of mind- When I get a used vehicle, I change all the fluids of course, but the engine oil I do twice. Drain, new filter, fill, start it up and put a few miles on it, and then while its good and hot, pour a bottle of engine flush in it (a cup of kerosene works too) run it 5 more minutes and then drain, new filter, and new oil.
It sounds silly, but more than a few times ive drained that oil out after maybe 20 miles and that kerosene, and a LOT of dark oil comes out.
Whereas I on the other hand MIGHT do an oil change when I pick up a “new” used vehicle. I most assuredly will only otherwise add fluids if they are leaking or I replaced a part which was full of those fluids. But I’ve never blown a transmission, T Case or differential. I have definitely blown engines though.
I don’t know if it’s weird, but I drive with the windows down and the AC off most of the time. I have a 4 cylinder, so I get a little extra power, and I enjoy taking in the smells like a dog. The downside is that I live in Florida, so I try to use the AC when I don’t want to get sweaty.
As for my wife, she has an automatic AC that lets her set the desired temp, but she prefers to crank the temp to the minimum and set the blower on high all the time. I always chuckle to myself when she does it, and I’ve explained to her that it will automatically turn the blower to high if she has the setpoint low enough.
My grandparents lived in Miami, and there was only one setting used for the car’s AC – MAX, full cold, with the blower on high. She got a car with automatic temp control and I showed her she could move the temp to the same one in her house, and the car would automatically change from full blast mode when she got into the car to keeping the car at a comfortable temp without freezing everyone else solid.
I have a convertible and drive w/ the top down and AC or heater on, depending on the weather.
My understanding is that around 40-45 mph there’s a convenient aerodynamic and aural crossover–above that point, it’s more fuel efficient to use A/C rather than have the windows down, and the wind noise above that point can be damaging to your ears over time.
I prefer to drive with the windows down. Driving on city streets with the windows up feels weird to me. If it is a little warm I’ll drive with the windows down and the AC on. If it is hot or I’m driving on the freeway/highway (70mph) I usually put the windows up.
My wife claimed she could smell the difference when the dog and I were driving around with windows down.
I do get hot and sweaty, but I feel so sorry for all those people who never experience the sounds, smells, weather outside. I also believe the heat/cold is more bearable if you aren’t constantly isolating yourself from it.
I try to close the doors as gently as possible, as in only slightly above the force required for the latch to function. My family operates on the opposite philosophy, slamming the doors as hard as possible at every opportunity, so I think I subconsciously began the gentle closure to somehow try to balance out the wear and tear they inflict. I hadn’t even realized I did it until one of my kids pointed it out to me a few weeks ago as I was testing out the door latch I had just replaced.
I don’t think I’ve ever redlined a car I’ve owned. I’m not saying I should or shouldn’t have, but I have too much mechanical sympathy to try it.
In the same vein, I absolutely will not start driving my Jeep until it drops from the warm up RPM of 1200-1400 down to at least 900 or cold idle RPM at ~700. The shock load that you get throwing it from park to reverse or drive at the higher range of RPM saddens me. I feel that avoiding that is still less harm than the increased idle time.
The shock load may be slightly hard on the drive bands in your transmission, but it’s not hurting the engine even a little
I always put my manual cars in reverse when I park them. I like leaving them in gear incase the park brake fails, but why reverse, I’ve no idea.
This did lead to a funny situation one time in college. A buddy of mine was over and he parked his Altima behind my Volvo 245. We needed to go pick up some drinks and snacks for the night and somehow I had convinced him the drive my car. It was a 4 speed manual and he had never driven stick but it seemed like a good idea at the time. He gets in and before I’m able to give any instructions just cranks the ignition. No clutch in, no foot on the brake. I learned that day that my car did not have a shift interlock. He backed my car into his with the starter motor. Neither of us really cared, there wasn’t much if any damage. The Volvo had big beefy bumpers, and his Altima, in typical Altima fashion was basically existing on death’s doorstep.
If I’m not mistaken, certain years of manual Saabs (I know 9-3 Viggen applies, not sure what else) would beep at you if you parked the car and left it in any gear other than reverse, because I guess Saab decided reverse is best.
Up till a few years into GM ownership, you couldn’t remove the keys from a SAAB except in reverse.
If I park on an incline I’ll leave my cars on gear but in the garage at home since it is level I leave them in neutral. But my dad is someone who will leave the car in gear and he did that with my truck and me not knowing went to start the truck and it lurched forward, hit a shelf and smashed some plastic bits on the front. So yeah my truck also starts with out the clutch being down. I made sure when doing the manual swap on my firebird that the clutch pedal switch to start was installed.
Reverse typically has the one of the highest gear ratios in the gearbox numerically, so has the most resistance to the car moving theoretically if the parking break were to fail.
I do the same thing, in particular with my track car since it has no parking brake.
Once I was headed into a Best Buy and a kid in the Best Buy shirt comes walking out to his Miata, he hits the remote start and the thing drove straight into a pole. I didn’t have the heart to ask him if he’d installed it himself or one of his coworkers in the back. It was definitely done aftermarket since it was a first-gen Miata.
First gear is almost always a little shorter/higher number than reverse. Reverse is second best, after 1st. 1st is also typically significantly stronger than reverse.
This is true, to me though reverse always feels more solid to me. My first manual car was the Muncie and for whatever reason first has always felt to me to have a less solid engagement to it than reverse (click vs. clunk), and thus a stronger hold. I can’t shake it so that’s why I use reverse. 🙂
I can even tell you why it felt like that; that transmission is a constant mesh transmission, where all gears are meshed at all times, and when you engage a gear, you’re just using a dog clutch to lock that gear to its shaft. The dog clutch does not require a very long shifter travel to engage, and makes for fast and smooth shifting.
Except reverse. For reverse, the gears are not touching each other and are not spinning, until you put it in reverse and literally slide the gear teeth together. This is called sliding mesh. This requires a noticeably longer shifter travel, and so you literally push it further into reverse than you do into 1st.
…which makes it a stronger hold, right?
I need this to be true to justify my doing it. 😉
Yep. I watched a kid total a late-aughts Civic Si that way. He used his self-installed remote start, and it buzzed to life, reversed some distance and hit a tree.
Reverse has the most gear ratio multiplication, I.e. most likely to hold the car.
Whether I put my truck in Reverse or Low depends on the direction of slope the vehicle is on. If gravity wants to make it move forward in goes in Low, if gravity wants to make it go backwards then it gets put in reverse. That way the truck rolling wants to turn the engine in the normal direction. On really flat ground I’ll usually do Low.
When you say “weird”, do you mean “Autopians will think it’s weird” or “Non-Autopians will think it’s weird”?
Those answers could be very different. 🙂
COTD
For me, incorporating some hypermiling techniques such as turning the engine off at read lights and following large trucks at a safe distance on the highway to reduce wind drag would be considered weird by at least some people.
I have one friend who used to make fun of me for turning the engine off. He believed the old BS line of “it uses more gas when you restart the car”… which might have been true for old cars with carbs. But that’s not true for modern fuel injected vehicles and I had the fuel economy to prove it.
But he still didn’t believe me.
But then he got a new Audi that had an automatic stop-start system that essentially did the same thing I was already doing.
Only after getting that new Audi did he actually believe that turning the engine off saves fuel.
When I drive a car with carburetor, I give her a little rev before shutting it off.
Every toy I drive home, right before I shut it off I give it a little celebratory rev. Because why not, they sound cool. Doesn’t matter if it’s carbed or not. I’m sure my neighbors roll their eyes at me but whatever, engine sounds are fun.
I still do it—and haven’t had a carbureted car for almost 15 years. I used to do it because the muscle-memory from a shitbox that liked to diesel hung on. Now it’s more me telling my car it can rest awhile.
I have a lot of automotive habits, including specific oil change intervals, waiting until the oil pressure indicator drops so the oil is warm before revving the engine, etc, but I don’t think of those as ‘weird’. My weird habits include:
Don’t buy a new Volvo. Unless you’re on the metric screens, climate temps are only even numbers, and adjust by two degrees.
And when you’re on the metric screens, it still only adjusts by 2 degrees (well, 1.8) F because that’s how the C to F conversion works. That’s why I don’t like C for temps – not enough fine control.
Just as there are an infinite number of rational numbers between 0 and 1, so, too, are there an infinite number of rational numbers between 22 and 23. Your problem is that they don’t allow for half-degree control.
I believe my last statement covered that – not enough fine control.
Hah, there’s little danger of that happening: 740 or bust!
Well… or a P1800… or a 240… or a V70R…
Do yourself a favor and try driving the S60/V60 Recharge. 450+ combined horsepower. Guaranteed giggles.
I won’t put any stickers on my car. none, not even if my kid makes honor roll.
No Calvin, no “salt life” whateverTF that means, no “insert politician” is a pedophile political stickers, not even one of those Star Wars family sticker sets that lets the world know that in addition to my Luke and Leia I have 3 cats and apparently a wampa. And the first thing I do when I buy a car is take off the dealership sticker that they put on there (yes, they even put those mfrs on their used cars).
Not on my car.
If I put on a sticker it is always on glass for easy razor blade removal.
I just can’t. But on the glass makes me cringe less.
this is the way
I generally don’t do stickers either, but when I do one temporarily (out of whimsy or for an occasion) I’ll put the sticker on essentially a big fridge magnet.
The magnet material is available in sheets like paper and at some of the same places (Amazon, office supply stores).
As long as the car is clean, I can pop them on and off without worrying about damage.
for the record, i like stickers on other people’s cars, some of them are funny. Just not mine.
I had a Corvair Greenbrier van with surf shop and such stickers on the windows. The only thing that stayed was “Vote Howard The Duck ’76”.
Damn right: a Howard the Duck sticker is worth saving!
We always remove the dealership stickers on anything we buy,we hate advertising for someone for free.If we could remove the manufacturer name without devaluing the car we’d do that also. ( we meaning my significant other and myself)
The only sticker I have it the vinyl ones (no glue) for oil changes. If the Autopian had those, I’d put on on the back window. Other than that, no sticker for me either
never in my life have I ever considered it, but you, you have found the one sticker I would consider. I would put an Autopian sticker on my car. Just the stylized A with circle. And I would put it on the rear glass of my truck. But that would be the first and probably last sticker ever.
Thank you friend.
Only sticker any of my vehicles have is my Cummins and it is just a reminder on the inside of the fuel door for.my additive I put in
Besides that yeah I do not like stickers any where on my vehicles. I put my stickers on tool boxes, gun safes and windows in the garage I work on vehicles in. I am not getting paid to advertise for those companies so yeah no stickers for free ad space on my cars hah.
I have a fair share of stickers on my tool boxes.
Tool boxes and the garage fridge are where stickers belong.
Same — I will only put those vinyl magnets on since they just come right off.
I have one sticker “on” my car. It says “Tell your cat I said pspspsps”. I couldn’t bring myself to put it anywhere on the car, so I put it on the license plate frame.
Edit: Another comment made me realize there are two stickers on my car. The one above, and the one inside my fuel door of Snake saying “She needs premium dude! PREMIUM!!!”. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/66EAAOSwJ2dh0o6J/s-l1600.jpg
Keep stickers off cars and guitars.
I had two stickers on my first car. I have put no stickers on subsequent cars.
I got really annoyed when I was going through a Dutch Bros line for a grand opening and the girl announced that she had a sticker that matched my car and promptly stuck it on. At least she put it on the glass, but it feels like a real violation to put a sticker on a car without permission.
Stickers are for laptops and water bottles.
I have never put stickers on my cars. But I just found an old one that will have to go on a car. “Journey Before Destination”
Unfortunately, my car is the i3, so plastic everything and I can’t use the magnet backing like A. Barth.
Only sticker that goes on my car is my own logo. And on the glass for easy removal. No dealer branding.
While I have had some fun/personal stickers on cars before, I hard agree with dealer crap. I also never run a license plate frame, I just bolt the plate to the car. I’ve heard of dealers that used to DRILL badges into the back of cars. The horror is too much to fathom.
With ya there. But our roof box – with us on every adventure – is festooned.
I would totally do that.
Same. If you search “What information are you driving around” you’ll also get mild paranoia about ever putting literally anything on your car.
I grin every time I start a car and the steering column tilts and telescopes into my hands. I particularly like Lexus’ implementation, which is quick and high-tech-looking (and the original LS 400 might have been the first such car).
I really like “animatronic-style” stuff like that. Like the seatbelt presenters in my S Coupe that hand you the seatbelt, which Mercedes-Benz has been doing since the 80s.
I have a rule I’ve been following for decades, with great success-
If the keys are inside the car, then they can only be-
In the ignition, with the engine running, and if I get out, I roll the window down part way.
Or, in my hand.
I haven’t locked keys inside a car in a very long time.
I’ve locked my keys in my car exactly once. That was maybe 20-ish years ago. I now follow this exact procedure. Seems to irritate the kids if it’s freezing temperatures…or extremely hot with either the heat or A/C on.
Yep, I locked the keys in my first car twice – once while it was still running. After that I learned to do what you do and stuck with it ever since. If the car is running and I get out, the window is down at least enough to get my arm in (usually all the way down). I don’t close the door without physically confirming they keys are with me (I used to make sure I *looked* at them in my hand before I closed the door, but now I’ve mellowed back to ‘are they in my hand or can I feel them in my pocket’).
on my older (non remote lock) vehicles, I make a habit of locking the doors with the key from the outside.
All of the German cars used to do that- since you could only lock with the key, you couldn’t possibly lock them in the car.
Big proponent of Italian tuneups, but of course when things are fully up to temp, which leads to a habit that will probably more odd: my short trips are very rare. I try to group stops with other things I need to do so I’m not making separate trips and will take a convoluted way home rather than have the car not reach full temps.
Just make sure you shoot up the throttle linkage with lube so the secondaries don’t stick open.
I’ve had nothing but a mix of MPFI and DI since the late ’90s and that didn’t have secondaries.
Well sure, but I once bought a ’70 Newport from an old man, first chance on the way home I punched it and the secs froze completely open. That 440 sounded like it was gonna blow.
At least you had those drum brakes to slow you down.
Yeah barely!
I say a little prayer to the Wolfsburg gods before started my VW so no more dashboard lights come on.
I may have to try that to see if it works for the gods in Coventry as well.
I’m going to answer on behalf of my partner, since weird habits of my own aren’t immediately coming to mind. She always turns the HVAC blower off before she shuts a car off. I do not understand it. I asked her why she did it and she seemed to have the idea that it made the car easier to start. I explained to her that this was not the case, but it’s a quirk she can’t kick. I’ll get in her Prius with her driving and wonder why it feels stuffy a few minutes later – of course, it’s becuase the fan isn’t moving any air. I’ll get in *my own* car (well, the JSW – she can’t decipher the ventilation controls on the 911) and wonder the same thing until I realized the had turned it off last time. I file this in the folder of bizarre but ultimately endearing quirks.
My wife does this too!! I tried to explain to her as well, but it’s so ingrained now, I don’t think she’ll ever stop.
I turn the blower off (most of the time) and the stereo down because I hate being blasted with wind and noise when I just get in. Speaking of stuffy, though, the damn GR86 has some kind of algorithm it uses to selectively turn on interior air recirculation. It’s not always on when the car starts (though usually) and it will switch to it whenever it reaches whatever mystery thresholds the typical moron programmers set, so that I’m driving along—outside air switched on manually—and it will all of a sudden feel stuffy AF. Look over and recirc is on again and, with a small interior volume, it’s a bigger annoyance than it should be.
Constantly resetting that; drives me crazy…
This probably comes from a misunderstanding of the instructions with old AC systems where the AC compressor clutch was controlled by just the “AC” button on the dash and thus would be engaged when trying to start the car if it was left on the previous time driving. Since old AC compressors could have a LOT of internal friction in addition to having to pump the refrigerant, this could indeed make starting the engine a lot harder especially if the battery was cold or not in the best shape.
On my 90s cars, the starter cut relay disengages the compressor during cranking, but immediately engages it again as soon as I let off the starter. In my mind, this isn’t much better.
My sweetie is 0.0% car person, so I can’t imagine her thinking of something like this. Before her Prius (the Toaster), she had a Saturn SL1, and in high school I think she drove a beater Fox-body Mustang that was unlikely to have working AC.
Neither is my father, whom I heard this from for the first time decades ago. I think it was just one of those random dad recommendations that were somewhat based in reality but only really pertained to a specific era of the technology
Like letting your car warm up for six hours before driving away (LOL).
It’s what modern steam boilers need!
Same here. Everything gets turned off before the car does.
“She always turns the HVAC blower off before she shuts a car off. I do not understand it. I asked her why she did it and she seemed to have the idea that it made the car easier to start. I explained to her that this was not the case”
It might if the battery is weak.
I’m pretty sure my mother thinks the same thing. I wonder if this just goes back to her being old enough that this could have been true at one time? My mom is 85.
Batteries still die so if it was true then its probably still true.
Well, modern cars have the HVAC blower and really all non essential electrical loads on a circuit that is turned off when the starter is energized, so they don’t make a difference when the current draw for the starter is happening. Older cars before the 80s did not necessarily do this, making the advice more sound for them
That may be true; however if you’re taking your sweet time running the blower without the engine on is a strong drain on the battery. Even a few moments may drain a weak battery enough to make starting a problem.
Or at least it was in some of the shitboxes of my youth.