Tips on Keeping Your Car Running

Did you know that you can extend the life of your car and avoid costly and unexpected problems down the road by taking your car’s oil change seriously? You probably don’t think much about the type of oil you are putting into your car or even the time frame that you have your oil change done on your car but you should.

Oil does two important things for your car. First it keeps your cars metal parts from rubbing against each other by providing a lubricant. Secondly it transfers heat away from the combustion cycle so your engine doesn’t overheat every time you turn the key.

And most people know that if you run your car low on oil you risk your engine seizing up, but did you know that if you run your car with dirty oil you also run the chance of your car engine being damaged? When you put oil in your car, it is actually a golden color not black. Black oil means your car’s oil is full of dirt and contaminates and that is not good for your car. That dirty oil can move through your engine and stay there building up into sludge that has to be chipped out of your engine. 

If you understand nothing else about your car, understand that oil is an extremely important component to your vehicle’s life expectancy and it is the easiest aspect of your car to control and maintain.

How often you need to change your oil depends on a few different factors one of which is what your car manufacture suggests. The type of oil you use, the age of your car and how many miles are on your car will all affect when you need to do an oil change. Older cars simply need more regular oil change maintenance than newer cars do. And by the same token, newer cars with high mileage will need more frequent changes than old cars do with low mileage.

The final factor that determines how much you need to change your oil is the type of oil you use and this is the one factor you can control. There are three different types of oil you can put in your car, synthetic, a blend of synthetic and mineral and straight mineral. 

Synthetic oil offers fuel saving efficiency, enhanced engine performance, moves quickly through the engine at start up and helps to fight against mineral build ups. 

A synthetic blend of oil is a combination of man-made and mineral oil that is better at protecting against engine wear than synthetic or mineral oil and it doesn’t need to be changed as often.

Finally mineral oil is more high maintenance oil that requires more maintenance and only provides basic protection for your engine and is probably the least used of all of the oil types available to put in your car.
Regardless of the type of oil you do select, the important thing is to maintain it with regular oil changes on your car.