With the recent rises in costs due to the VAT increase and inflation, you may be looking to save as much money as you can throughout your day.

One of the areas that can potentially cause a major financial headache for you is looking after your prized vehicle, especially when it comes to that time again to have your car checked and serviced.

Servicing your vehicle is a very important part of any motorist’s schedule, to ensure their car is safe and running to its optimum.

The car service is a check throughout the vehicle for various problems that may have gone unforeseen, and prevent future high costs if they are not tackled early.

There are a lot of different packages available for motorists depending on the time gap since the previous car service.

These service plans, will look at various adjustments and checks around your vehicle, the amount of these checks dependent on which package you go with.

For example if you choose to go with a 6 month car service, the service won’t cover as many adjustments or checks that could be received with a 24 month car service.

The best way to determine how often you should be booking in your vehicle for its car service is to look in the owner’s handbook that should guide you to how long the gap should be between car servicing.

The costs of a service can range anywhere from just under one hundred pounds anywhere up to around three hundred pounds, so finding any methods of keeping the costs down is essential.

Before you panic however, there are methods that you can use in order to lower the costs and save as much as you can.

Firstly, ensure that you are paying the right amount by checking what is the recommended time for your next service, in your owner’s handbook.

This can mean that you are not booking your car at the wrong time and in turn your car is being kept to its highest quality.

One method is combining your MOT and your car service into one package, meaning you can save time and money booking in your motor for both at the same time.

This can mean that the costs of both are kept down when combined in a package rather than being booked separately incurring higher charges.

This is due to the labour costs being combined into one package rather than incurring two separate costs when you have booked the MOT and car service as two separate bookings.

In turn, you will be saving a lot when it comes to checking your car in for its yearly check-up.

It is essential that you shop around also when looking to car service or MOT your vehicle, as it is important to find the right deal that can save those all-important pounds.

If you are looking for a service then or are unsure whether you should be booking one, firstly check your cars handbook to discover the a recommendation, make sure your shop around for the best deal and have a look to see if you could save by booking your MOT and car service together.

Finding your car vandalized with a can of spray pain is one sure way to put a damper on your day. This is specially true if, like any proud car owner, you take pains to maintain its appearance and luster. More so if the car that happens to have been victimized is your weekend toy or project car.

Depending on the toughness of your car’s paint (urethane paint is extremely hardy), the amount of paint that has been sprayed on and where, and the time the spray paint has been left on your car’s paint, the time you will need to restore your car’s finish will take from an hour or so to up to half a day. In case you have discovered the vandalism pretty early, the spray paint may still be drying and a wash and soap job may be all you need to solve your problem quickly.

If this is not the case, there are many solvents or materials that can be used but if the car’s finish is a bit sensitive, or the spray paint has been left to dry for some time. Extra car must be taken to make sure that you don’t take out your car’s paint too. Various chemicals like WD-40, nail polish remover, acetone, rubbing compound, gasoline or spray-on brake parts cleaner can all be used. For car show type paint jobs or finishes, Meguiar’s Clay is oftentimes used to make sure that only the spray paint is taken off. However, use of this specialty product is best left to the hands of experts who are familiar with its use. Fine rubbing compound can also be used but, again, care must be exercised as this is an abrasive compound that can take off the car’s paint if used improperly.

Remember that all cars have clear coats to protect the actual paint and the chemicals that were mentioned can remove all but the most stubborn or thickly laid-on spray paint. The basic method is to apply a small amount of the compound of your choice (say, acetone) on a clean rag and use a rubbing motion to try to remove the paint. If it is working, the rag will begin to show signs of the color of the spray paint that was used. If your car’s paint color starts rubbing off on the rag, this is a clear indicator that you have gone through your car’s top coat and are already taking off the car’s paint.

If the spray paint is thick in a certain place, try using a plastic scraper to remove the stubborn paint and then use the chemical solution of your choice to remove the rest of the paint. If the spray paint has gotten to the window or windshield glass, acetone would be one of the best chemicals to use and you will be able to remove the paint from the glass easily.

Take care not to use acetone on moulding or rubber seals that have been spray painted as this will soften the rubber which might destroy it prematurely. Strong soap used with a stiff-bristled plastic brush would be a better choice in this case.

The finishing touch after all that work would be to wash your car, or at least the affected area, using car soap liberally on the area you have worked on. Take the car to a body shop to see if you need to have the affected area sprayed with clear coat to protect the underlying paint. By doing the hard work of removing the paint yourself, you will have saved yourself some considerable expense, instead of having the entire job worked on by the body shop.

Your car is often your main mode of transportation around your local area. Naturally you want to take care of it or adjust certain problems as they arise, but that’s only half the battle. To stay in the lead you need to be able to upgrade cap accessories when they become outdated or modify the vehicle to be more reasonable for certain conditions in weather or location. Car tuning is the way to stay ahead of the curve and ensure your vehicle is always top of the line, even if the actual vehicle isn’t top of the line.

Variety of tuning

There are a lot of different variations of tuning your vehicle. However, in the engine zone you’re main source of car tuning will be the performance chips. Replacing these with newer and better models is the only thing you can do short of mechanical tuning to greatly increase the overall speed and ability of the vehicle. A performance chip can increase an engine’s performance by 10% at times and turbo engines by as much as 30HP. An alternative is the mechanical, performance cam which adds another 12HP to the engine-boost. You can replace other misc. things under the hood and slowly note an increase in your vehicle’s ability.

Brakes

Once you’ve crossed the above point and increased the driving power, you can begin toying with other available modifications with the vehicle’s stopping power through brake-performance tuning. Actually, it’s best to do things in the other order and upgrade the braking system before the power modifications are installed on the vehicle. It is not technically considered a performance tuning upgrade, but the braking system does effect the car’s ability to drive and its safety on the road. A more direct way to enhance braking is by fitting high-performance brake pads/disks which can stand extreme heat and braking conditions on the road.

Air Filters

Another notch down the latter is car tuning that revolves around the air filter. It’s pretty much the simplest job in tuning your vehicle. You can substitute all the factory filters and related products with high performance filters, etc. for a decent power jump in the engine performance. You may also make use of the popular Induction kits and increase the airflow between a fuel injection system and air box. It also has other filters that can be installed, but is still an easy process that even beginners can handle.

Exhaust

Finally, you can toy with the exhaust system, which means less byproduct produced and a smaller carbon footprint left on the world around us. They do also play their part in engine performance. These are other simple car tuning methods and won’t pose a problem until you move into a level where you’re completely lowering the profile of your car. At that point you may need to seek a professional if you are unsure with what you’re doing. Always make sure you’re safe with any work you do around the vehicle and don’t be afraid to ask if you don’t quite understand.

During these challenging financial times many people are searching for bargains, whether it’s on household goods or cars. If you want to be a smart consumer you should carefully check all the options, particularly when it comes to large purchases like a motor vehicle. Unfortunately, when most people decide to buy used cars, quite often they will disregard the salvage options, simply because they have no knowledge about these cars or even what the title signifies. Although salvage cars never have the ideal reputation, knowing more about them could give you a great option to consider.

Cars which have been assigned the salvage title or named as rebuildable are usually the ones that an insurance firm has declared to be more expensive to repair compared to its value. However, most of the time this is not the case, since those figures are generally determined by estimated values given by sources which normally undervalue the real prices and exaggerate the cost to repair.

The damage on many salvage cars on sale is basically superficial and may call for body work and a bit of repainting, which could be repaired in few days by a professional mechanic shop. Salvage car dealers can recommend reputable specialist who deal with repairable cars. When you add the price of the car and repair work it is easy to observe that investing in a salvage car and fixing it is always less expensive than acquiring a similar vehicle from a used car dealers.

A car priced at about $15,000 to $20,000 at a used car dealership could easily be acquired and fixed for about $10,000. If you have limited funds or just shopping for a bargain, whether you are buying your first car, a different one for your family or simply hunting for a bargain, always consider the salvage car options. The best thing is to always educated yourself in the product prior to purchasing it. Therefore, to find the best deal on a car, look at salvage car listings and compare their prices to those found at used car dealerships.

In my many years of working on Vehicles I have found that there is no magic in Spark plugs. With Plugs that have multiple electrodes all those extra electrodes end up shrouding the spark and in my opinion do the exact opposite of the claims they make. The best plug for power or mileage would be a side or surface gap plug because the spark is almost completely unshrouded from any electrode. I am sure the power difference is minimal if any but some modified cars require a side gaped and indexed plug because of possible interference with the Dome on High compression pistons. I have used about every Spark plug known to man. At one time I owned an old Toyota pickup that I was trying to increase the power and mileage on and can tell you that none of them made a difference.

On to material. Are expensive Platinum or Iridium plugs worth the money? Well, Copper is more conductive the either of those materials so it should produce a better spark. Now if the plugs are hard to change like a 5+ hour job then it might be worth it but the copper plugs in my Wifes car have over 40,000 miles on them and the electrodes still look good so that one is very debatable even if a plug change is a big job. How to tell if a spark plug is still in good shape. What wears on plugs is the electrodes, as long as the edges on the electrodes are not rounded and the plug is still firing then they are good.

To finish I will talk about special ignition systems like MSD or other aftermarket boxes. MSD means Multiple spark Discharge and honestly it only produces multiple sparks up to 3000 RPM where it is needed the least but the reality of it is that multiple sparks would not work at all at higher RPM, Just not enough time to create more than one spark. In my opinion Multiple sparks are kind of a waste because once you have ignition the air fuel mixture will burn. I don’t believe multiple sparks will create a more complete burn but these boxes do create a much hotter spark and that is good for ignition but could cause an increase in wear on parts like the cap, rotor and plugs, probably not what you want on your daily driver. As long as you keep your factory ignition system in good working order it will give you many years of dependable service, the only time you will need something better is if you have very high compression, Nitrous or large amounts of boost. BTW, I run a standard GM HEI in my race car. There are good aftermarket modules and coils available that will allow it to operate over 7000 RPM without a problem but the physical size of the unit can cause interference in some applications. I have run an MSD and it did make the car sound different and I had to change the timing curve so chances are I could be wrong about this but it didn’t do a thing about mileage.

Spark plug Wires? Most computer controlled vehicles will need resister ignition wires. Again there is no magic but look for something that is durable. I have found that the OEM wires are the most durable but can be somewhat expensive. As long as your car is not computer controlled you can run solid wires but be prepared for the possibility of interference with your radio.

So that is my opinion on ignition system. In theory, for the best performance and economy, use standard (Copper) plugs that are side gaped and an aftermarket ignition box but chances are that you won’t feel or see a difference in mileage or performance unless you have a heavily modified vehicle or your factory parts are in bad shape. Bottom line, keep your factory ignition parts in good shape and they will give you everything that you can hope for.