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12 Bonehead Basics of Car Maintenance
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You know, That Guy who thinks that the best way to keep a car from overheating is to roll down the window. That Guy who hires the neighborhood kid to wash his car 'cause he’s allergic to “going outside and doing things.” There are lots of ways to be That Guy, but only one way not

to be: by regaining your self-sufficiency and learning the basics about car care. Using STP® is a good first step. And while we can’t do the rest for you, we'll give you a few pointers. Check out the tutorials. Take a look at the videos. And get under your hood. Good luck, and Don't Be That Guy.

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  • Feb
    09
    0 Comments

    DON’T BE THAT WASTEFUL GUY

    Posted in: This Guy Wisdom
    Shaq Diesel
    Pure Evil

    Gas. Car insurance. Parking tickets.
    Ejector seats.
    Let’s face it chief, owning and maintaining a car is expensive enough without adding to the bonfire of mucho dinero needlessly. Let’s talk about a few easy ways to save a little money maintaining your vehicle.

    1) Inflate your own tires. Inflating your own tires regularly is one of the easiest car maintenance tasks there is. Not only are you risking a flat tire by driving around town on the deflated side, but you’re also wearing out your treads and burning more fuel than you need to be. You should check your tire pressure once a month or whenever you notice your tires looking a little deflated. And while you’re at it, if you ever notice any person looking a little deflated, maybe check on them, too.

    B) Be a smooth operator behind the wheel. A lot of fuel is burned driving around town, speeding up and slowing down. The constant back and forth between stopping and going is the main reason highway cruisers have so much better gas mileage than city cars. To save money driving around town, accelerate gently after each stop, then decelerate slowly and smoothly by scanning ahead for red lights and the like — which for the most part just involves PAYING ATTENTION. Pretty easy, right? For example, if you noticed that I’m alternating between letters and numbers at the beginning of each of these paragraphs, you’re ahead of the game.

    3) Avoid plastic bags. Caught you off guard with this one, didn’t I? Intrigued? Good. Read on.
    Far from the most beautiful thing in the world — like that weird kid from American Beauty described it — a plastic bag is, in fact, evil. First off, they’re made of plastic, and that stuff never decomposes. Secondly, when you drive over them they can get caught in the engine and start to slowly burn away. Now, usually it’s a good idea to take your car into the shop when you smell something burning EXCEPT in the event of a plastic bag. The mechanic will charge $50 or so to clean the remnants of the plastic off, even though the plastic would’ve burned away itself within a week (for free). So the moral of the story is, don’t pay good money to remove harmless plastic bag remnants. Clean it yourself if you’re so inclined, or just let that sucker burn away. In other words, do nothing. What’s easier than that?

    Well, I could go on but I’m about outta words for this here blog, chief. We’ll do this again some time.* Drive safe.

    STV, STP® Blogger

    *Click here for more.

 

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