Automotive Blog

Car tuning has been more than a hobby but a way of life for some people. For those of us who have no idea what tuned cars are, think of the movie “Fast and the Furious”. The idea is to take a regular car and modify it to make it something special. It can be simply changing parts to have better fuel economy. Though many tuned cars are so changed they barely resemble the car they started out as.

The idea of car tuning is to improve performance and handling of the car to suit a specific driving style. This may involve installing new turbochargers. Modifying a car’s engine cooling unit is common as well. Though some people have ripped out the entire engine and installed a more powerful engine. Changing up the suspension will change how a car handles. Often springs, shock absorbers, and sway bars will be modified. Using shorter springs give the car a lower look but also lowers the center of gravity. With shorter it is important to also change to shorter internals to stop from bottoming out. Going with stiffer shock absorbers improves the dynamic weight shifting when cornering. Stiffer sway bard improves handling response.

Continue reading ‘Car Tuning Changes a Car From the Ordinary to the Extraordinary’ »

I couldn’t believe that Quixx Paint Scratch Remover can do as it promises. I bought a brand new car a year ago, a Toyota Prius. I was very proud of it because it was the first car that I bought from years of working hard. The last car that I had was a graduation gift from my Dad. On the first day that I brought my new car to the office, I had to park it on the roadside. When I came back to check on it during lunch time, I was so pissed off when I found a long white line from the front bumper to the back fender of the left side of my brand new car. It looked like a little child has scratched a coin while he or she’s walking. It was a very ugly scratch.

I researched the internet for the best scratch remover. I was close to finding the auto shop when my friend advised me to get Quixx. I didn’t believe that it will do that work but since I was desperate, I bought it. When I applied it the first time, it didn’t work. It didn’t make any difference with the scratch.

Continue reading ‘Quixx Paint Scratch Remover Review’ »

The Plymouth division was created by Chrysler in 1928. The original emblem featured a view of the Mayflower landing at Plymouth Rock, however the name was actually chosen for the Plymouth Binder twine, which was quite popular with farmers, one of the segments of the population Chrysler was hoping to attract. Early in the history of Chrysler, of which Plymouth is a division, the founder of Chrysler Corporation Walter P. Chrysler had taken control of the financially ailing Maxwell-Chalmers car company.

The Maxwell automobile was a part of this package. In a stroke of genius, Chrysler decided to put the Maxwell car to good use. He had been toying with the idea of creating an economy class of vehicles with very attractive priced. The Maxwell car fit in with this plan. The car was soon reworked and renamed the Chrysler 52 model. The low-end market had been previously dominated by Chevrolet and Ford.

Continue reading ‘The Rise and Fall of Plymouth’ »

Looking for some cheap performance upgrades for your VW, well read on. Here are the two of the cheapest performance parts that you can do yourself and will make the biggest impact for the least amount of money.

The first item to tackle is the air intake system, and this is a very easy do it yourself job. So if your wanting a better throttle response and a nice growl under the bonnet, then you’ve found your first cheap performance upgrade and you can tackle this upgrade in two ways.

1. The easiest and cheapest way will be to change just the stock air filter to an aftermarket one. This is a very easy task of removing the stock air filter from your VW air box and replacing it with the aftermarket one, simple!

Continue reading ‘Two Cheap VW Performance Upgrades You Can Do Yourself’ »

Volvo is a Swedish car manufacture that was founded in 1927. Because Sweden is known to produce high quality iron ore, company founders chose to use the ancient sign for ore as the company logo. The circle and arrow, the sign of mars is also considered to symbolize iron. Both symbols were incorporated and registered as Volvo trademarks.

Volvo has earned several distinctive reputations over the years; probably one of the best is the one it has earned for safety. Volvo engineers have come up with several innovative safety features that have eventually been adopted by most car manufacturers around the world. The concept for safety glass belongs to Volvo. In 1944, laminated glass was introduced in the PV Volvo. By 1958, another standard safety features was introduced by Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin who invented and patented the modern three-point safety belt. This was a standard feature in all Volvo’s by 1959. The company produced cars with the first padded dashboards including them in the 1956 version of the Amazon. The next safety feature pioneered by Volvo was the first rear facing child safety seat in 1964 and introduced the booster seat for children too big for the car seat but still small enough to slip out of the seat belt. Continue reading ‘Volvo – Always Put Safety First’ »

I have the laziness gene. I’ll admit it. The idea of taking apart a section of my car just to see if there is a problem is not my idea of a good time, particularly when it is going to take some time. With this in mind, I offer you a lazy way to check whether the bearings in your wheels are in need of attention.

Let’s start with the basics. What is a wheel bearing? It is the metal device that sits between your wheel and the spindle they sit around. They are heavily greased to create a slippery surface. Basically, this is what allows the wheel to turn independently from the car. If wheel bearings didn’t exist, neither would cars.

Continue reading ‘The Lazy Way to Check Wheel Bearings on Your Car’ »

The first thing that comes to mind when one hears the name Porsche is usually sleek, fast beautiful cars. And the reality is not that far off the mark. The company is owned by the Porsche and Piech families and has been a solid solvent company since it was founded in 1931 by Ferdinand Porsche.

Porsche has been a financially stable and independent company, seeming never to suffer hard times even when most car manufacturers appeared at the brink of financial ruin. It has been able to maintain its headquarters and manufacturing facilities within Germany, even when most other automakers were heading overseas and to Eastern Europe to cut production costs. It has been so successful in fact, that it is able to offer consulting services to other automakers. Audi, Studebaker, Daewoo and Subaru have all come to ask the advice of Porsche in some capacity or another.

Continue reading ‘The Porsche Trip to Beetle Land’ »

Audi R8 tuning is about taking a car that is already extreme and changing it to meet an individual drives needs. The Audi R8 is used in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Master racing series as a safety car. It already comes with the same transmission used on the Lamborghini Gallardo. The transmission is either a manual gearbox or an R-tronic gearbox. The Audi R8 has a dry weight of 3439 lbs. Audi R8 tuning is going be more about changing to parts that you are partial to.

With a car so well designed and built it is about making small changes that alter how the car runs and handles. The suspension already used in magneto rheological dampers. There is a Bosch ESP 8.0 Electronic Stability Programme to work with. Even the sound system in the Audi R8 is high quality. Audi R8 tuning for the exterior and the interior is the best way to make your car stand out. It already has a sleek fast look. It will not take much to give it the stop and stare effect.

Continue reading ‘Tuning Only Adds to the Audi R8 Or Audi TT’ »

The Peugeot Family has been in business in some form or another since the seventeen hundreds. From the production of coffee to bicycles in the early part of the twentieth century, automobiles would be the next big thing to come along.

The company produced its first automobile in 1889. The car was steam powered and had three wheels. However, steam proved to be unwieldy and cumbersome for use in any personal passenger vehicles. After meeting with Gottlieb Daimler, Armand Peugeot decided that the gasoline internal combustion engine was much more suited to what he had in mind. Peugeot acquired a license from Daimler to use their engines in Peugeot vehicles. Cars produced by the French company would remain powered by Daimler engines until the first Peugeot engines were developed in 1896.

Just as it had always been, Peugeot continued to produce a variety of products up through the turn of the twentieth century when Armand Peugeot formed his own company to focus exclusively on automobile manufacturing.

Continue reading ‘Peugeot – From Coffee to Cars’ »