Ricky The Car Mechanic

As a mechanic, I seem to encounter people a lot that should have come to see me earlier.

As I’m not a main dealer, I mainly deal with people with cars aged 3 years or more – in other words once they’re out of warranty.

Generally speaking, people are coming to me when their vehicle already has a problem, and some of them are quite serious. I’ve encountered cars that are just over three years old with blow head gaskets, which can be one of the most difficult and costly things to remedy.

In fact, the most reliable way to get past a head gasket that’s gone south is to replace the entire engine. Of course, that’s a sledgehammer to crack a nut kind of solution, but it’s not uncommon to find problem after problem with a vehicle if you try to fix them as they crop up.

In most cases, simply booking your annual service is enough to avoid these disasters – the one I was referring to hadn’t been serviced at all. It’s crazy when you think about it – spending almost £20,000 on a new car then trying to save yourself money by refusing to pay £150 to £200 for an annual service.

The most important single element of the servicing checks are replacing the oil as and when required. Without that being done it gradually gets thicker and thicker over time, and might even be gradually leaking away if the car isn’t being looked after properly.

If you take a parallel situation that we’ve just posted about, if you notice you’ve got a flat tyre, you don’t keep driving around on it until the tyre disintegrates and eventually the wheel itself becomes a mangled mess. You’d either head straight for your local Kwik Fit if possible or if not get the recovery truck out to help. The difference is you can see the tyre, whereas the oil problem is invisible until it’s too late. While you might invest in a tyre inflator to solve the problem yourself, you’re unlikely to do the oil change unless you know what you’re doing.

So, there’s the reason why servicing on time is critical to your vehicle’s health. Whether you’re a customer of mine or take it elsewhere isn’t important – just make sure you get your car booked in early so the work gets done on time!

It’s coming up to summertime so what better to do than to get out and about as much as possible.  This year I’ve decided that I want to do everything from visiting theme parks, to camping and on top of all that getting a festival weekend in there. 

So, with that in mind I decided to research what would be the most handy things for me to have.  I plan to make sure that I’ve got everything I might possibly need, both for in the car and out of it.  Waterproof coat; obvious.  You never know what the weather is likely to be like so being prepared for it chucking it down not matter what I’m doing is always a saviour.  There are loads of options out there so my advice would be to shop around, read the reviews and pick the one that suits you best. 

Another sensible thing is getting sun cream.  Essential.  I definitely want to avoid getting sunburnt and aging faster than I need to.  Again, like I’m sure you all know there are loads of different brands of sun cream out there and places you can pick it up from on and off the high street.  My only advice if you have sensitive skin, is not overbuy if you’re yet to try a different brand to one you’ve had before.  Find out if it works for you first before stocking up on it.

Next, sunglasses.  Whether you need prescription glasses or not, wearing sunglasses is so helpful to protect your eyes from the direct sunlight when you’re shifting around outside.  As well as that, if you’re driving, you’re hopefully going to be able to see better and drive more safely.  Don’t forgot, if you usually wear glasses with prescription lenses in them, get to the glasses shop and pick your sunglasses up there; they’ll be created specifically for you based on your lens needs. 

Now that’s great options specifically for me and my body but there’s loads of other stuff I need to think about as well.  I mean, although I love walking and hiking in the middle of nowhere, generally I need to drive me car to get me out and about.  Last year I ended up driving around loads of places, I was even going through fields!  I seemed to discover that my cars tyres didn’t appear to want to avoid changing and, in all honesty, to summaries what the outcome was, I discovered that the air pressure in my tyres had got a bit low.  Thankfully, I was on a campsite with someone who told me that they had a tyre inflator.  Odd though I thought it was when they started telling me about it, I fell in love with it once I saw and used it!  Not only can you plug them in in the car to power them, it tells you how much pressure is in the tyres and can pump them up if the pressures too low!  On top of that, I also uncovered that it could be used to blow your airbed up for the tent, inflate the float for the swimming pool and so many other things I could go on and on!  Blow up tent here I come.  I’ve now got my own version, but when I ordered it I did find out that there are lots of different options available.  Some focus specifically on pumping tyres but other can do all sorts, so my advice, do some research! Tents.  I’d like to tell you about them but to be fair, I don’t actually know so much about them.  All I can say is that the staff in camping shops are really, really handy to help you work out what you need and try and test some of the ones they’ve got up.  My latest obsession is the inflatable tents, but at the minute I’m waiting to see what they’re like a bit more before I swap the one I currently know how to use!

Hey guys, Ricky Lion here!

Keeping on top of your tyres means you don’t have to worry about whether it is safe to drive your vehicle in relation to them.  One of the many simple features that is always in use is the tyres.   The types of tyres available varies massively based on a range of reasons, from the style of vehicle to the time of year.   In addition to this, each vehicle requires a specific size of tyre to ensure driving safely. 

Tyres can vary hugely in price depending on their style, their size and their provider.  All season tyres can remain on vehicles throughout the year not requiring to be changed from season to season.  This style of tyre offers benefits during all four seasons and appears to be the style of tyre owned by many drivers.  In contrast to this, summer and winter tyres are available which are specifically created to cope with the conditions likely to occur at these times of the year.  Designed to withstand hot or cold temperatures, which create various adaptations to the common features of roads, season specific tyres each have several values.  The price of each type of tyre varies, often related to producer and provider, and obviously those of us deciding to alternate between summer and winter tyres will require to spend additional amounts of money.

As well as having the option to change the type of tyre your vehicle uses, its essential to have a handle on the current wear and tear of your tyres.  The thickness of tyres has a regulation attached to it.  Imposed by the law, the depth of the tyre tread must be a minimum of 1.6mm covering over three-quarters of the tyre.   Frequently measuring the depth of the tread will ensure that you are able to chose to replace each tyre when required.  This will add to maintaining the safety of your vehicle.  If you are not sure how deep the tread of your tyre is, there are various tools you can buy and items you can use to support you.

Finally, the pressure of your tyres also has an impact on your driving.  Checking that your tyre pressure is in line with the manufacturer’s recommendation will support your vehicles safety.  There are a number of different ways you can do this.  One is to drive to a petrol station or garage that offers an air pressure machine that you can use to identify the pressure and increase it where necessary.  Another option, that has a number of benefits, is purchasing a tyre inflator, many of which can be plugged in inside the car.  Owning this item allows you to regularly check and correct your tyre pressure no matter where you are.  It will also help to highlight if there are any issue with your tyres including slow air release punctures.  Finally, in addition to allowing you to pump up your tyres, many tyre inflators also come with various sized adaptors you can apply meaning it has the ability to inflate a number of items from bike tyres to footballs and even inflatable seats for outdoors.