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
Since my second car (maybe my first, can’t remember) I have kept records at every gas stop. Curent mileage, gas used, cost, and then calculated the MPG and marked it down. I have a leather circular MPG calculator hanging on the wall in my office that I used to use back in the day. I still record the data for my current Prius AWD. Since we got our ’24 Rav4 Prime I have been recording the EV range after every charge.
All I can think of is that I have sort of a good OCD habit that every object in the car has a place it goes and after I park everything has to be in it’s place; especially anything that needs to go inside…mainly to keep the car clean, the interior empty looking of valuables and it’s a refreshing feeling knowing that things are tidy. Also, after parking double checking a few important things fast: In park? Ebrake on? Windows up? Keys in hand?
I always leave my driver’s side window open a few inches.
I can’t stand driving or riding in a car with all the “hatches battened down”. I need outside airflow no matter the weather.
No matter how much the wind noise drowns out conversation or music on the highway, I’ve gotta have it cracked.
Cold and wet or hot and dry outside. Window is open.
I don’t know why, but I know I can’t be the only one that does this.
Same. It has to be raining a lot or hot enough to need the AC before I roll up my window completely.
Without fail, when starting from a stop in a car with a manual transmission, I will blip the gas pedal two times (not one…not three…four is right out) before I begin to let the clutch out.
I think I developed this habit with my 1974 beetle (which was prone to stalling if the revs weren’t just so), and held onto it over the ensuing 34 years.
Reminds me of my T-bird’s throttle fussiness after a cold start. Idles fine, revs okay, but give it throttle under load and it starts to cut out, or “get fluttery” as I describe it. At that point I’ve learned it’s best to let off the gas, wait one second, then floor it.
Somehow, that process seems to get enough fuel through the engine for it not to stall when cold. I don’t know why it’s like this, but I imagine letting off the gas creates a brief moment where fuel is entering the intake manifold by velocity, and then when I floor it that extra bit of gas plus all the new gas being sucked into the engine is enough for it to get past the rev range where it wants to stall.
The symbol on the volume knob on my GTI must be upright. So after my wife – otherwise a rather detail-oriented person – drives it, I fiddle with the knob and the volume controls on the steering wheel to return things to their proper orientation.
I cannot tolerate a messy windscreen. I even clean the edges after using the window washers.
Unless I’m at home, I always set the parking brake. Always! I turn off the radio before shutting down the car. Before automatic climate control I used to turn off the A/C also.
I always set the parking brake, but always. And I’m in flat as a pancake Florida.
Used to be a parking brake setter too, but quit when my parking brake broke. . .and I drive an automatic now (it was a holdover habit)
I always set mine, every time.
I turn off the radio too, and always turn volume down to 5 before I shut it off.
I think the parking brake thing is just normal. People who don’t do that seem weird to me.
I share your redline each drive thing, and even insist if someone borrows my car that they take it to the redline preferably 5-10 minutes before they turn it off. This rule only applies to my rx8 though.
I always run the engine while I roll up power windows after I arrive at my destination.
I used to but not anymore. Instead I’ve picked up the habit of getting upset at the car if they don’t give you 30 seconds to operate the windows after you shut it off.
Me too, figure it is better for the motor to operate at the higher voltage 14V verse 12V.
So many, it’s hard to choose. I have extreme mechanical sympathy and must always take the cars out for a drive to achieve full operating temperature, even when I only need to move it a few feet in the driveway or switch garage bays.
My family would probably say it’s my intensively detailed maintenance spreadsheets (both history and upcoming), but I argue this is just the basics of an organized life.
Mee too. . .had an issue one winter from not bringing car up to temp once (wouldn’t start). . . since then, always take the car down the road a bit to move it 10 feet.
So many things but I’ll keep it brief. If there are no holes underneath I’ll de badge all the emblems, model, trim level, etc. Keeps em guessing and easier to keep things clean.
This isn’t strange at all! Badges are ugly clutter that trap filth. Plus, it’s helpful for identifying the tribe.
Ramen!
I will always thank my car for dinging when I forget my keys in the ignition. It’s a great service and if I stop showing my appreciation the car will lock my keys inside. Gotta keep them happy (I’ve never locked my keys in a car so I will not be stopping this practice any time soon).
Mine won’t lock if the keys are inside it and it’s a feature that I really need unfortunately.
You should thank it for doing that too
Not if it’s a Ford with a keypad!
I try not to fix what ain’t broken.
… Yet.
I turn the A/C (button/switch) off before I power down the engine, and will usually wait a few seconds to let the cold air finish being cold before shutting the blower off.
Why? Hell if I know. Maybe it started as a way to reduce strain on restart with the old ven which had hard-wired A/C control circuitry, but modern cars all phase it in automatically so there’s no point.
And yet…. I do it anyways.
I do too
I turn my AC off a few minutes before I arrive and let the evaporator dry out before shutting the car off. Helps prevent mold and mildew.
My mother always turns off the AC and the fan when she parks her car.
Hmm, that’s a good point. BTW, any products you or anyone else enjoy that I can sublimate into the intake path to relieve some of that mildewy smell?
I very much wouldn’t recommend bleach!
Borax is a good known mold killer so maybe make a spray a solution of borax in rubbing alcohol but make sure to completely dry the system out before going anywhere. I’ve never done this so use at your own risk.
There is also this line of products that claims to be good at getting grid of such smells. I’ve never used them though:
https://www.dwd2cleanair.com
Good luck.
I don’t know how weird it is, but I don’t let fuel gauges drop below 1/4 if I can help it. Never ever below 1/8. I don’t have any idea where the low fuel light is on the Chrysler, because I’ve never seen it. My truck has a 34 (!) gallon fuel tank, and I’ve never put more than 25 gallons in it. I just don’t like to chance it.
I do this with the old ven because Ford gauges are as informative as a paper written in Ionic Greek, plus with the diesel fuel system I don’t want to risk aerating the system such as by stopping on a hill or off-kilter with low fuel.
The OBS Fords had dual tanks available, just flip the switch and hope you had a full tank. Maybe use a magnet to keep track.
That’s the problem half the time ⊙﹏⊙
I had one of the ven experience a fuel switchover valve failure so weird that it drained one tank (fuel pump out to engine) while filling up the other (return to tank from injector rail). It was hilarious and the cause of me rooting out the dual fuel when I performed the diesel swap. I moved to the single 40-gallon cutaway cab tank.
Worked as a maintenance supervisor in steel mill. It was always a crapshoot as to whether one or both tanks were empty on our issued truck. The odds were usually not in your favor when a tank went dry.
I used to do just the opposite. When I was younger and poorer (not by much), I was used to buying only enough gas to get me by. Later, I became afraid there was rust above the $5 line and never filled up.
The Five Dollar Line
Man I feel like there’s a beautiful soft rock/alternative song to be made from this.
Do you know you have a metal tank? I think a lot of modernish gas tanks are plastic or lined with plastic.
Pretty certain I’ve looked at the underside of every vehicle I owned. Didn’t expect to get fact checked on hyperbole.
Ah, you must be new here.
Welcome to Autopian!
Was taught that by my dad, who claimed it was to prevent sludge in the bottom of the tank from going through the fuel system. I guess it made sense if you didn’t have a fuel filter, or it made the filter last longer.
I thought the thinking on this was to keep gas in the tank, submersible the fuel pump, thus keeping it cooler. . .my dad does this.
I bought one of those all you can wash deals and used it once a week. I was not so lucky. Despite the carwash being pretty new and nice, I could tell after a couple months that my clearcoat was taking a beating so I stopped.
My weirdest auto-related kink? I guess the old-fashioned butt glide against the car after a fresh coat of wax. So smooth, so satisfying, and oh so strange to my family.
I hit redline at least once a day, but I drive turbo diesel in the city so it’s scientifically confirmed it needs it.
Also I’m very anal about keeping sun visors up if they’re not in use. My GF uses vanity mirror and leaves it down and I always gotta put it up when I leave the car.
I release my seat belt before I put the vehicle into Park.
( I have no idea why I do this!!) (⊙_☉)
I’m mean, I’m not afraid of taking racing lines in my Compass like I’m also not afraid of redlining it…. Or using Autostick so I can control the gears while I do both things, of which it usually skips 2nd so I have to shift up, then immediately shift down so the car just doesn’t go to 3rd.
Ughh – Autostick. Used it once or twice and never touched it again.
Was responsible for the death of my 300M though. Wife accidently put it in Autostick on a back road, at the lone stop sign the car returned to first, then held first at 55 mph until the engine blew. “It was making a lot of noise up until it quit running.” You didn’t see the tach bouncing at redline for 5 miles? Car is too stupid to upshift to save itself? It puked out all the coolant and oil and siezed the crank.
That sucks. My Autostick seems to shift at lower gears quickly but wait a bit at higher gears, from the couple times I didn’t shift early enough.
It’s the only thing I think could have happened. It was programmed not to upshift come hell or high water.
I spray down my seat with leather cleaner after every drive, or at end of day if with company. The leather Lexus uses is stupidly soft and absorbs dyes very easily.
RE: Italian tune up
My friend works as a tech at a local exotic car repair shop. He has confirmed that he does a non-zero number of Italian tune-up each month on customer cars. He’s not beating on them or abusing them, but a fur runs to the upper 1/3 of the tach does wonders some times.
Ford actually issued a TSB regarding the PowerShit DCT in the focus/fiesta. An exceedingly common complaint/issue is a shuddering when setting off and stop/go traffic. It’s ultimately due to shitty logic that tries to make a mechanically manual transmission feel like a conventional automatic- so it deliberately slips the dry clutch a lot. If you just toe the gas pedal all the time, it glazes over the clutches and results in the slip/shudder.
Ford’s “solution” was to tell techs to take the car out back and mash the gas pedal down until it grabs 2nd, stop, repeat 10 times. If you slam it WOT the computer effectively just dumps the clutch and this will “scrub in” the clutch and greatly reduce the issue, for a while at least.
I have a Focus as my company car and can confirm this does work. I also have 135k, tow dirtbikes and golf carts with it semi-regularly (towing is explicitly not recommended at all with the DCT), and it’s honestly fine. I largely credit it’s surprisingly long life (a lot of these transmissions pack up well before 50k miles) with flooring it on a regular basis.
My mom’s fiesta DCT just died after 110k very light kms. Most shops won’t touch it, a used non-refurbished trans costs $2000. On the flip side, so many are totaled due to transmission that entire engines are only $700.
I do those with my two sporty vintage MBs. They rarely go out on the road and a little stretching seems to make them happier. Probably all in my head, but it’s fun, so why not.
I’ve built a habit of heel-toeing every single downshift, and now it feels wrong to just brake without downshifting. For a while, I built a left-foot-braking habit for fun, it was a good exercise in coordination and made me feel like Walter Rohrl without actually having to go fast. It really paid off later in iRacing where I found Formula Vee extremely intuitive. In fact, I haven’t done it much since I sold the Audi, maybe I’ll try it again on the way home today. It’s fun to dance around on the pedals.
I drove a car that seemed to always be capable of going from working perfectly to something catastrophic going wrong, so I got in the habit of driving with no music just to be able to monitor the car sounds. Several reliable cars later, I’m still doing that, even though my girlfriend thinks I’m crazy
Did it for years in the metro & now in the civic with the manual: shut the engine off while it’s still rolling into a parking spot.
I do that with my truck, almost every time.
Before shifting into 1st from neutral to take off from a stop, I shift into 2nd.
Seemingly a habit I picked up from my SN95 Mustang and its gravel-y gear box, I do it all the time in my others now.
same.
With the exception of my jeep, which is a 3-speed.
Yeah I normally daily my 5-speed Cummins and 1st gear is useless besides putt putting around my property. So when I get in my firebird that actually has a first gear that can go faster then 5mph I forget that and will sometimes try and shift into 2nd when at a stop hah.
I always shift to 5th before reverse for the same reason, although reverse isn’t syncronized. Thanks, T5 transmission.
I heard this was published in early Corvette owner’s manual.
Definitely required in my first Spitfire; just a habit now.