Be prepared for emergencies.
With winter just around the corner, now is the time to get your car ready for the possible dangers of running a car in the cold of winter. If your car shuts off and you find yourself stuck in the snow for a certain period of time, you'll need to make sure your basic needs are taken care of. You can do this by building a winter car kit. Here's how.
Have a way to contact the outside world. Always carry your cell phone with you into a car when you go driving, as you're never sure what might happen, and have some phone numbers of local authorities and AAA help programmed into your contacts list. You'll also want some way of contacting the outside world for help, which can include emergency lights - be sure you have emergency lights packed and that you'll be able to power them (this might include having the right batteries handy). Always have a flashlight with batteries handy, as well.
Keep a cooler full of food freshly stocked. Every month or so during the winter, include a "winter car kit" section on your groceries list - foods like nuts, granola, and dried fruit are calorically dense and don't take up a lot of space. After a month, buy the replacements for this food, and move the old food into your house so that you can eat them like any other food.
Keep plenty of water stocked. Water is also key - you can live a lot longer without food than you can with water, so be sure you have clean water ready to drink, and plenty of it stored somewhere in your car. You can keep it in a large cooler.
Have warm blankets and insulating materials handy. Sleeping bags are made for insulation, so include at least one in your car at all times during the winter. It won't hurt to have a couple of extra blankets - blankets that are designed to trap in serious heat, not blankets that are comfortable only around the home.
That should get you started for a winter car emergency. Remember that this article is about fixing an emergency before it happens - this is also know as prevention. In order to prevent your car from breaking down, keep it full of fuel, fresh oil when needed, and well-maintained. This will help your car function well in the winter.
Photo Credits: Joaaso
This post involves:
... and focuses on:
Posted by Fix Handyman on November 17, 2009 in
Car, How to Fix, Mechanic
Potentially increase resale value on your car by taking care of that rust!
Now one enjoys the sight of rust on their car, especially if they ever have plans to re-sell it as a used car. The better your car looks, the more value it has, and doing away with rust can actually help you earn more money on re-sale. But how do you get rid of this rust, and if it was easy, wouldn't everyone be doing it? Fortunately, fixing car rust simply takes a little education and initiative. We'll supply the education; the initiative is up to you.
First, you'll need the right tools. An effective way to prep a rust area for re-painting is to sand it down. This is difficult to do by hand, so a sanding wheel will be most effective - use 150 grit. Don't necessarily aim to get rid of all of the rust at this stage of the game; instead, simply work to make the surface consistent with the rest of the car. You'll want to notice the change in level as little as possible. While you're using the sanding wheel, don't try to do too much work at once. Instead, work in small increments so that you avoid large mistakes that will be difficult to go back and fix.
After using a power sanding wheel, it's time to use sandpaper by hand - again, using 150 grit. You'll use this sandpaper to wear down any of the stubborn rust spots that still seem to be hanging on. Make sure that the area is now fully smoothened out and ready for a new paint application.
Using painter's tape (that doesn't leave behind much adhesive) to corner off the section of rust, you're going to be applying some primer next. Apply a few coats of primer but make sure to focus on thoroughness rather than thickness. You want the primer to get in as many little areas as possible so that the layer of paint you apply afterwords will be complete.
After applying a few coats of primer, let it dry overnight. When you're ready to paint, use your color-matched paint and apply in thin coats similar to the way you applied primer. When you apply one coat, wait a few hours for it to dry before applying another one, and once you're finished, let the area dry overnight.
If you already had a power sander handy, this repair probably didn't cost you much money at all - it's a great way to keep your car looking fresh and new, and possibly increase the re-sale value.
Photo Credits: OpenSkyMedia
This post involves:
... and focuses on:
Posted by Fix Handyman on September 18, 2009 in
Car, How to Fix, Mechanic
Broken door lock?
Having a broken car door lock might not be the most serious situation your car's ever encountered, but it can make you feel "out of commission" nonetheless. After all, your car's lock is vital to feeling safe, and at least erasing the feeling that some one may steal one of your possessions or - worse yet - your car itself. If you need to fix your car door lock in a hurry, this article will be your guide.
First, you'll want to make sure that everything is working well - not just the car lock itself. If you're having trouble using your remote locking mechanism attached to your keychain, then you may want to check the batteries. Believe it or not, this can actually be a relatively common problem with an easy fix: simply replace the batteries in your remote mechanism and give it a test. If your car locks still aren't budging, it's time to move on to the next step.
What is that next step? You'll want to check all of the door locks in your car and see how they're working. If they're all not functioning, then you likely have a problem with a blown fuse. If only one car door lock isn't functioning, then the problem may be with that door lock's solenoid. Now you know where to go in order to fix your locking problem: the answer should lie either with the individual lock or the fuse that is connected to every power lock on your car.
If you're looking at a problem with an individual lock, you'll need to determine what the problem exactly is - it will most likely lie with the wires or the lock mechanism itself. If you can open the door and take a look at the lock, making sure to move it up and down if you can, you should try to see if the lock makes "attempts" at locking. If this is the case, then you're looking at a frozen lock mechanism. If not, you may want to look at the wiring of your lock; this will often call for a replacement.
The car door lock is an important and sometimes tricky thing to figure out. If you have too many doubts about what the problem is, simply contact a professional who can make the right diagnosis. At the very least, see if you can get in touch with a friend who's interested in cars.
Photo Credits: Paul Kehrer
This post involves:
... and focuses on:
Posted by Fix Handyman on September 4, 2009 in
Car, How to Fix, Locks, Locksmith, Mechanic, doors
There's the chip.
If you've been driving behind a truck carrying stones, looking for a way to drive through traffic and get out of harm's way, you're definitely irritated when one of the rocks slips out and comes down on your windshield, chipping it slightly. Even if you know a lot about cars, this inconvenience seems like a waste of time and money to get fixed, especially since it feels like it never should have happened. But thinking about the problem won't fix the chip. Here's how a chip in your windshield can be fixed.
First, remember that fixing chips in your windshield is usually best left to professionals. Unless you've fixed chips before, this article will only serve as a demonstration of how chips are fixed by technicians who know how to work with glass. Even though glass is all around us in our daily lives, it is still a highly fragile and brittle material that can easily form into sharp edges that can do a lot of damage to someone who's not being cautious.
Glass professionals will be able to drill into your glass windshield and apply some sort of vacuum pressure to prepare the area. The professional will then inject resin into the windshield, which will work to fill the affected area as if the glass was always there. Once this has been injected, it is cured by ultraviolet light and then scraped smooth.
This is ideally what happens, but not always how it goes down. A chip present in a windshield means that there's a strong possibility the glass can crack, causing further damage to the windshield and making a total replacement necessary. That's why your chip repair costs can be higher than you expected - not because anyone is ripping you off, but because of the fragile nature of glass. If you could work with glass, you would probably understand the complications that often arise in glass repair. It's often best to simply replace glass instead of repairing it.
Now that you know a little more about the chip in your windshield, you should try to strive for better prevention. Stay clear of debris-stirring or carrying trucks that might drop a stone on your windshield. If you're careful about how you drive, you should be able to avoid a chip in your windshield.
Once you do notice a chip in your windshield, be sure to have it taken care of as quickly as you can. Be sure to ask professionals for advice about what to do before you take the car in for treatment.
Photo Credits: Lee Bennett
This post involves:
... and focuses on:
Posted by Fix Handyman on August 3, 2009 in
Car, How to Fix, Mechanic
Auto Repair at Home vs. The Car Shop
If you've ever looked under the hood of your car and thought "I think I can learn this," then you might be the kind of do-it-yourself-er who enjoys a good challenge. But does that mean you should always take your auto repairs into your own hands, or will you still want to check out a good local auto repair shop that can handle your problems with less trouble? The answer to that question will depend on your car, its problems, and yourself. Let's take a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of repairing your car at home.
First, repairing a car at home can be a great learning experience. It's one thing to look at a book that supposedly teaches you how to repair cars, but if you really want to build experience, there's no substitute for the real thing. Minor repairs that can be easily fixed can give you a great introduction to auto maintenance - and you couldn't learn these things if you took your car to the shop every single time there was a minor problem. Remember that learning should be a proactive experience, and in order for that to be the case, you'll have to sometimes take matters into your own hands.
This, of course, doesn't guarantee immediate success. Maybe you stay at home and keep your car over the weekend to try to fix a minor running problem, but when you make no progress, you find that Monday has rolled around again and you've made no progress. At this point, will you wished you'd have gone to the auto repair shop? If so, then you probably should have taken it to the shop in the first place.
But even when you're met with short-term obstacles, your attitude will largely determine your degree of success with your car. If your failure is just another reason for you to give up on something you wanted to learn, then that's what you'll treat it as, and that will become the reality. But if you want to really learn cars inside and out, you might be fine getting a taxi to work for a few days or bumming a ride off of someone else until you can figure things out on your own. Sometimes an education is worth that kind of price.
Remember that even when you want to challenge yourself, it's not always recommended that you try to fix your car problems yourself. If you think that a problem is beyond your skills and simply would be too time-consuming to take care of, there's plenty of reason to bring it in to the auto repair shop. You can ask plenty of questions if you still want to learn about auto repair and ask them what they did to improve your car's performance.
Photo Credits: Teosaurio
This post involves:
... and focuses on:
Posted by Fix Handyman on July 28, 2009 in
Car, How to Fix
How to Fix Almost Anything with Duct Tape
If you're an aspiring handyman but you don't know about the value of duct tape, you probably have a lot to learn. Anyone who's ever been interested in modern home repair soon learned the value of duct tape and its various uses around the house. Not only does it apply a durable adhesive to problematic areas, but it can also make a strong cover or repair when no other material seems to work. Let's take a look at five strong uses for duct tape - hopefully you'll learn why you should buy a roll or two at your next trip to the hardware store.
- Use #1: Repairing tears on difficult materials.
If you have a camping tent, for example, that has a tear in it and allows to much moisture from the outside in - or, worse yet, bugs - then duct tape can make an excellent substitute material. Because of its strong adhesive, it will cling to the material you're repairing while providing a very small amount of change in flexibility. This can also apply as short-term solutions for shower curtains and other materials that you don't want to leak.
- Use #2: Repairing vacuum cleaners.
If you've ever used a vacuum cleaner hose or a vacuum that has a vacuum bag, then you know how difficult it can be to work with them if there's a tear. That's why duct tape can help a lot, extending the life of your vacuum cleaner. A bonus here is that many people simply don't care about how their vacuum cleaner looks - most of the time, it will be sitting in a closet anyway.
- Use #3: Temporarily repairing glass.
Cracks in glass - such as in a car window - can mean some danger if you don't do something to repair it temporarily. That's why using duct tape can be extremely beneficial in these situations, covering up the glass and making sure that it doesn't shatter all over the place. Just make sure that this is a temporary solution, as nothing looks worse than duct tape on a car. Sure, it can work, but that doesn't mean you'll want to keep it as a permanent fixture.
- Use #4: Covering tools.
Sometimes, a tool can do just as much damage as it does repair - at least to the aesthetics of something you're trying to fix. If you cover up a tool with duct tape, you can prevent scratches and other problems that you'll usually face with using metal tools.
- Use #5: Fixing outdoor chairs.
If your chair is broken or cracked, duct tape can help keep it together - this is especially effective if you have a beach chair or similar item that doesn't need to look good in order to work well.
Photo Credits: sneakums
This post involves:
... and focuses on:
Posted by Fix Handyman on July 22, 2009 in
Car, Handyman, How to Fix
How to Fix a Flat Tire
Whump. Hiss. Those familiar movie-like sound effects can only mean one thing: you've punctured a tire, and unless you know how to change your tire from flat to spare, you probably won't be getting to your destination on time. Even if you don't hear those familiar sounds, a wobbly car will let you know that something is wrong. These moments can come at the worst times possible, so unless you're ready for them, they can ruin your day. That's why you'll want to learn these essential steps for fixing a flat tire.
- First, pull over and find a safe place to change the tire.
Without a safe place to change the tire, you won't even be able to accomplish the change, let alone feel secure about it. Pull well over to the shoulder of the road or if it's busy, try to find some space to pull over into a side street. If this isn't possible, don't try to force it; simply get out of harm's way so that you can make the change.
- Set the car in park and apply the emergency break when applicable.
You don't want to let the car roll away from you or into traffic, so make sure that the car is safely in park when you leave it. If you're on an incline, set the emergency break so that you'll have added protection against the possibility of the car rolling. There's not much you can do with a rolling car once you're outside it, so make sure this is on your mental checklist while you're still inside.
- Get your equipment.
Every car should have a jack, a spare tire, and a wrench (a cross wrench works) for these kinds of emergencies. Make sure that you have this equipment out.
- Jack the car up.
Put the jack under the car so that it is moving straight up and down, and then put enough lift under the car to support it but not necessarily bring it up from the ground.
- Remove the hub cap and loosen the nuts.
The reason the wheel will still be on the ground is so that it doesn't move as you loosen the nuts and remove the hub cap. Once you have the hub cap free and the nuts loosened, you can then jack the car up higher for removing the flat tire.
- Remove the nuts and then remove the tire.
After jacking up the car, you're ready to remove the nuts, followed by the tire.
- Put on the new tire.
Now you can put the new tire over the hub, replacing the flat one. Make sure everything is aligned, and then tighten the nuts with your hand followed by the wrench. Lower the car to the ground a little, and continue tightening the nuts.
- Lower the car back to the ground.
Remove the jack and replace the hubcap; your new spare tire should be firmly and tightly attached now. Put everything in your trunk, including the flat tire, and you should be ready to drive off.
Photo Credits: Mr.Thomas
This post involves:
... and focuses on:
Posted by Fix Handyman on July 21, 2009 in
Car, How to Fix
How To Fix a Car
When it comes to fixing a car, most people face a common decision: fix the car yourself or taking it down to the shop. Either choice has its advantages and drawbacks - while the shop can easily have your car faixed without stress for you, it can also be heavy on your wallet. Manual car repair - car repair you undertake at home - will be much cheaper but there's no guarantee that you'll be able to fix everything properly. So what is a car owner to do?
You're going to want to follow these rules of thumb. Car repair isn't only about lifting the hood and hoping for the best; it means knowing what your car needs, what it's made of, and how you can proceed. Here are some rules of thumb for fixing a car.
Fixing car dents. One of the major car repair questions people have doesn't relate to the engine or the breaks, but something far more aesthetic: dents and dings on the body of the car itself. Because these aren't serious problems, a lot of people would prefer to stay at home and fix the scratch or ding by themselves. But is it really that easy?
The rule of thumb here is, the worse it is, the more it will cost you money. If you have a small scratch to repair, there's no reason to bring your car into the shop. But if you are looking at a more serious dent and haven't been able to make any headway in repairing it, you'll want to take it to the shop before you spend too much of your own money on it. Auto body fillers can be used on the smaller stuff; anything beyond that and you might want to consider driving in to the shop.
Tune ups. Another aspect of car repair that people enjoy doing themselves is the standard tune up - checking spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributor caps, and rotors. For many people, they're not even sure where to find the spark plug, let alone check its condition. If you're one of these people, you might want to take your car in to the shop for its tune up.
This doesn't mean that you should never learn about how your car operates. But trusting yourself before you're ready for a car tune up and lead to an ineffective tuneup: at the very least, use your first time taking the car into the shop as an opportunity to learn a little bit more about what they did. If they're not willing to answer your questions, you know not to use them next time.
Photo Credits: akeg
This post involves:
... and focuses on:
Posted by Fix Handyman on July 15, 2009 in
Car, Handyman, How to Fix
Stumble
Reddit
Digg
Del.icio.us
