Driving on Potholes

A pothole is one of the most common causes of alignment problems. Going through one with your wheels slightly turned can throw off your alignment enough to make the car pull to one side. If you feel a bump as you go through it, that’s usually a sign that your car was not aligned properly when it went into the pothole.

These are some of the ways driving on potholes damage your car:

• Cracked or broken rims
• Damaged suspension components like shocks and struts
• Bent steering and suspension parts, including control arms and tie rods
• Excessive tire wear that can shorten their life span temporarily or permanently

It’s important to get your vehicle checked out by a professional if you hit a pothole. If left unchecked, something as simple as a bent rim could start wearing down tires unevenly, which will destroy them in no time flat. That’s not even mentioning what might happen if you have damaged suspension parts (which could affect handling) or cracked rims (which could cause the tire to deflate).

Aggressive Acceleration

An alarming number of drivers these days are treating their vehicles like weapons instead of cars. As a result, they’re wreaking havoc on the roadways. Just as smacking another person can cause damage to both parties, aggressive acceleration causes damage to the tires and everything else around the vehicle.

To check for aggressive acceleration, follow these three steps:

• Do a slow speed maneuver (no more than 30 km/hr). If you see your car shudder or shake, check to make sure it’s safe before continuing further.
• Once it’s safe, repeat step 1 at a faster speed (not exceeding 40 km/hr). If you see any of the above behaviors at this speed, then you have aggressive acceleration problems that need to be fixed ASAP. You should also try reducing your weight load if possible for now (you can reduce weight with carpooling and other methods).
• Continue checking your vehicle for aggressive acceleration until such time that you can drive without issue without needing special equipment or training in order to drive safely and safely in heavy traffic conditions

Tailgating Other Vehicles

Tailgating is a real issue that causes thousands of injuries every year. Driving too close to the vehicle in front of you is both dangerous and unnecessary. If you find yourself getting frustrated with other drivers, slow down and leave plenty of space between your car and the others on the road. Driving dangerously not only increases your risk for being involved in an accident, but it also contributes to road rage, which can threaten everyone’s safety.

Harsh Braking

When you’re driving and you need to brake suddenly, don’t panic — just tap the brake pedal gently. Harsh braking wears down your tires and can cause damage to your car. When it comes to braking, slow and steady wins the race!

One way to tell if your driving is causing a damage is if you’ve recently been involved in a collision or accident. If so, take your car in for an inspection by an expert mechanic as soon as possible. Many people have concerns about their aggressive driving style but are unsure of how it’s affecting their vehicle’s performance overall.

In addition to harsh braking, there are other ways that you can tell if your obsessive driving is causing a damage:

• You notice unusual noises when turning left or right while making sure they know when they make the turn whether they want green tea or black tea (that’s me).

Frequent Short Trips

Not surprisingly, the less often you drive, the longer your engine oil lasts before it needs to be changed. The more you drive, the faster that oil deteriorates. Frequent short trips take their toll on motor oil in a number of ways. First of all, when you start up a cold engine, it uses its oil differently than when it’s warm. Oil is thicker and harder to pump when it’s cold. If you don’t stay out long enough for the engine to get up to full operating temperature and burn off condensation in the crankcase, then each trip will cause a build-up of water contamination in your oil.

Another problem with frequent short trips is that they allow carbon deposits to form inside your engine. This happens because engines typically run inefficiently until they reach normal operating temperature — which may not happen on short trips around town.”

Excessive Idling

Idling is bad:

• For the environment. Your car’s engine isn’t designed to produce power while idling; thus, it produces an excessive amount of air pollutants. In fact, leaving your car idling for two minutes actually produces more emissions than restarting your car after shutting it off.
• For your car. The largest reason we tell people not to idle their cars is that the engine can get damaged by idling for long periods of time. Excessive and continuous idle time can cause serious damage to parts of your vehicle such as spark plugs, pistons and cylinders, causing them to break down completely or lose some level of functionality permanently.
• For your wallet. Idling will burn through almost a gallon of gas per hour — a waste of money that could be saved simply by turning off the ignition when you don’t need power from the engine. This is especially true in older vehicles like trucks and SUVs where gas mileage can be half that or less!
• For your health and safety. Air pollution can result in asthma attacks, respiratory problems, heart disease and even cancer — all because of something as simple as unnecessarily idling your vehicle! Plus, keeping yourself exposed to unnecessary exhaust fumes can have negative effects on both you and those around you (especially if they are children).

Not Using Cruise Control

Cruise control is not just for highways or long trips. It can come in handy for stop-and-go traffic on city streets as well, since it eliminates the need to keep your foot on the gas pedal and driving speed varies less.

Using cruise control may help you improve fuel efficiency, especially by reducing the need for rapid acceleration when you’re stuck at a red light or dealing with sudden changes in traffic flow. It can also help you avoid speeding tickets; if there’s no one behind you, it’s easy to creep over the speed limit without noticing.

Unnecessary Tire Spins

Spinning tires can cause wheel slip, which is a loss of traction between the tire and road. If you’re accelerating too quickly, your wheels might lose contact with the ground altogether, causing wheel hop. The excessive torque will make your car go airborne.

When it comes to controlling a vehicle’s speed, it’s important to remember that the driver must always be in control of the situation. This means avoiding unnecessary tire spins at all costs.

Speeding

When you’re late for work, or if you’re on a road trip and need to get to the next city before it gets too dark, it’s tempting to put the pedal to the metal and speed. But speeding is a lot more dangerous than it seems — and here are some of the ways that speeding can damage your life.

• Speeding increases your chances of being in an accident. It’s not just about risk taking — when you drive faster than the speed limit, you don’t have as much time to react to changing conditions on the road. If another vehicle stops quickly in front of you, or if an animal runs into your path, then someone who is speeding has less time to stop safely compared with someone who is driving at or below the speed limit.
• Speeding makes collisions more likely to be fatal by increasing collision severity. The force that impacts bodies involved in a collision depends on how fast they were going before hitting against each other. At lower speeds, safety features like airbags and seatbelts mitigate injury by absorbing some of this impact force between them and your body; at higher speeds, however, this force can exceed what these protective features are engineered for.
• Speeding may increase insurance costs. Insurance companies expect their clients to obey all traffic laws (excepting those regarding turn signals). If you have an accident while driving over the speed limit, then your insurance company may deem that this accident was “preventable” and thus deny any coverage for damages related to it.

If you observe any of these behaviors in your driving habits, take a little time to figure out how to cure yourself.

If you observe any of these behaviors in your driving habits, take a little time to figure out how to cure yourself. The best way to improve your driving is to improve your habits. Your first step should be recognizing them.

One easy way to do this is by using a driving app that monitors your habits while you’re on the road. Once you’ve identified the bad ones, you can start taking steps toward becoming a better driver today!Do you think of your car as an extension of yourself? Do you change the radio station when a certain song comes on? Do you name your cars? (We don’t judge.)

If so, you might be a little obsessive about your auto. And that’s okay—as long as that obsession isn’t causing damage to your vehicle or someone else’s.

So how can you tell if, in your haste to protect and maintain your car, you’re actually doing harm? Here are a few signs that some of your driving habits might be hurting, not helping.

1. You keep it too clean.

Your car doesn’t need to be washed every single week, and some parts don’t need to be cleaned at all (i.e., the underside). Washing/waxing too often can strip away paint and expose the metal beneath—not good! The same goes for interior cleaning: dusting and vacuuming are fine, but you don’t want to scrub surfaces with overly wet towels and cleaning solutions; this can cause warping, rusting, and premature aging.

2. You move the seat around constantly.

Always finding the perfect seat position? That’s great! But if you’re making abrupt, jerky movements as

It’s a beautiful day, and you’re cruising down the street. Your favorite podcast is playing, and the windows are rolled down—what could be better?

Well… maybe not driving so much and giving your car some time to rest.

Is it possible that your driving habits are harming your car? Absolutely.

And if you’ve noticed that something is not quite right with how your car is running lately, one of these obsessive driving behaviors might be to blame.

1. Driving too much in general.

If you’re racking up serious mileage every week and not giving your car a break from all that wear and tear, you could be doing some damage to your engine.

2. 5-mph starts and stops

You may think you’re protecting your vehicle from wear and tear by starting super slow or stopping when you’re already at a crawl, but that can actually harm the transmission system of your car in the long run.

3. Riding the clutch on hills.

If you have a manual transmission car, rolling on the downhills with your clutch pedal depressed can cause serious damage to your clutch plate over time—plus it’ll wear out faster than it should—so just relax and let the engine do its thing!

You’re a careful driver. You never speed, you always keep your eyes on the road, and you avoid slamming on the brakes at all costs. But if you still find yourself scratching your head when you get that inevitable “check engine” light, you might want to rethink your driving habits.

We all know that our driving styles affect our cars’ mileage and ultimately the performance of our engines, but if you haven’t been addressing the problem areas in your driving style, it could be causing some major damage to your car. Here’s our guide to three common driving habits that can wreak havoc on your car over time—and how to fix them.

Consistent Acceleration and Braking

We’ve all been stuck behind someone who is constantly accelerating and braking every few seconds in stop-and-go traffic, or worse yet, someone who accelerates slowly. While this may seem annoying in the moment, it’s actually a surefire way to wear down your engine way faster than normal. Why? Imagine riding a bike down a hill—your momentum keeps going even after you stop pedaling. The same thing is true for your car—when you accelerate quickly, it builds up momentum that will help keep your engine going even after you’ve stopped pressing

Do you have a tendency to be a little overzealous about your driving habits?

We know, we’re guilty of it too.

When you’re behind the wheel, it can be tough to resist the urge to race through traffic and make quick turns—or to resist the urge to show off those brand-new brakes when you’re stopped at a light.

But have you ever thought about how this might be affecting your car? Your tires? Your wheels? Your brakes?

Below are some of your most common bad driving habits—and how they may be negatively impacting your ride.

Are you letting your driving habits get out of hand?

Did you know that you could be causing damage to your car by doing something as simple as making a left turn on a regular basis? It might sound crazy, but it’s true: the way you drive has a huge impact on the health of your vehicle, and if you’re not careful, it can cause some pretty serious problems.

Here are a few things to look out for, and how to deal with them:

If you’re like most people, you spend a lot of time behind the wheel. You may not even realize how much time you spend in your car until it breaks down unexpectedly—and then you have to call a tow truck to take it in for repairs.

You can reduce the risk of needing costly repairs by paying attention to your driving habits and avoiding those that can cause wear and tear on your car.

Causes of Damage from Driving

The road is full of hazards that can affect your car’s condition, from potholes to sharp turns. Your driving habits also play a part in wear and tear. If you tend to do any of the following, your car could be at risk:

* Accelerating too quickly

* Braking suddenly or aggressively

* Turning hard or fast

* Failing to properly maintain your car

Accelerating quickly can harm several components of your vehicle: the clutch, drive shafts, joints, and gearbox. When you brake suddenly or aggressively, you wear down the brakes more quickly than normal. Hard cornering strains steering components as well as suspension components, including shock absorbers and struts. Finally, failing to regularly check tire pressure and fluid levels can lead to problems with those parts of the car.

So you’re driving to work, and you notice that the speed limit is 25 miles per hour. But guess what? The traffic is terrible and you’re running late, so you push it up to 50. It’s fine, right? Everyone does it.

But that’s where your car starts to get angry. And if you’re not careful, she’ll start talking back to you in ways that can be very expensive.

At first, your car might just mutter something under her breath about how you never appreciate her and how fast she can go when you need her. You might brush it off as a funny quirk of your old car, but don’t be fooled—this is a subtle way she’s trying to tell you something isn’t right with the way you drive.

Next comes the passive-aggressive notes: “You left me on again!” or “I’m lonely.” Don’t fall for this trap! The car is trying to manipulate you into feeling sorry for her so that you’ll stop driving like a maniac. In reality, there’s nothing wrong with leaving your car on when you run into a store—it’s normal wear and tear that happens over time, no matter how well (or poorly) you take care of your vehicle.