11 Subtle Everyday Habits That DESTROY Your Car

You probably think you're taking great care of your car with regular oil changes and service intervals, but there's a handful of things that you're probably doing every day without thinking about it that's slowly destroying your car and costing you thousands of dollars in the long run. Because it's not just the things that you're doing, it's the things that you're not doing as well. So today in this video I'm going to take you through 11 of the most common bad habits that drivers have, starting with one that almost everyone gets wrong. I'm Josh. I've been working on cars since I was 16, now I'm 40, so that I didn't have to pay money to a shop. And that's what this channel is all about, sharing my experience with you so that you can work on your own car and save money too. Now the first one I want to talk about is one I see almost everyone do, and mechanics actually love it when you do this because it leads to really expensive brake repairs, and that is riding your brakes downhills. So why do we ride our brakes downhills? Well, usually we're not even thinking about it because we're just trying to maintain the speed limit or not crash into the car in front of us. So the simplest thing to do is keep your foot on the brake. The problem with this is that if you go down a long hill and you're just holding that brake down, it's using friction to slow you down and it's creating a ton of heat. And heat and brakes equals expensive because you get heat in your rotors, which causes them to warp, and then your steering wheel starts shaking and the car starts shuddering when you're stopping. It hardens and cracks your brake pads, leads to squeaking and grinding sounds, which prematurely wears out your rotors. It can boil the brake fluid or at least break down the brake fluid in your calipers much faster, so then your brake fluid is getting dirty and burned, has to be flushed. So what are you supposed to do when you're trying to slow down on long steep hills then? Well, that's where this shifter comes in. On every car, you have the ability to downshift or shift to a lower gear, whether that's going into some kind of manual mode or a sport mode where you can select gears, or sometimes there's an overdrive off button. Essentially, downshifting causes the transmission to go into lower gear and then the engine actually is being turned faster by the wheels. So because of all that extra resistance of turning the engine, it slows your wheels down and your brakes don't have to work as hard. Now, when I'm talking about downshifting, I get a lot of comments on videos, people saying, you're going to destroy your transmission. It's much cheaper to replace brakes than it is transmissions, to which I always reply, that's actually not true. They designed transmissions to do this for this purpose. So you're not going to hurt your transmission. Furthermore, it only takes maybe two or three descents down really long, steep hills before you fry your brakes. You're going to have vibrating steering wheels, smoke brakes, and you're going to be replacing all those brake components. So if you have a long, steep descent in your daily commute, you could be replacing brakes every month or two, which is extremely expensive. Now, this one, I still can't believe people are neglecting, and it has to do with tires. Now, most cars' tires are inflated to 35, 45 PSI. And what people don't realize still, after I've told them so many times, is that air is constantly leaking out of tires. Even good tires, even new tires, are slowly losing air pressure. So the thing people neglect to do is refill their tires, check their tires and top them off. Because if you don't, eventually the air leaks out of your tires enough that you start running into expensive problems. Now, I know a lot of people depend on the tire light to go on their dash to tell them when it's time to refill their tires, but that doesn't usually go on until the tires are down to 20 PSI. So essentially what's happening when your tires are underinflated is it's creating more drag. So that's where you get your reduced fuel economy because your car's having to work harder to push it forward. As well, you run into all the same problems that we just talked about with that tire scrubbing. You wear out your tires faster, have to replace them sooner, and you put more strain on your power steering and steering elements and you have to replace those prematurely. So how do we avoid this? It's very simple. You keep an eye on your tire pressures. A lot of modern cars, you can actually access that information right from the dash because there's sensors inside your tires. If not, you get a 99 cent tire gauge and you can check what your tire pressures are. I usually say do this every couple, three weeks. Doesn't have to be that often. Then if you find out that your tires are 5-10 PSI low, then you want to refill them. Now, if you want to fill up the tires yourself, there's lots of options out there. You can even get little pumps that plug into your cigarette lighter or you can get battery operated ones like this. Just remember, different tires require different pressures. So you want to check your manual or check inside the door jam pressure to go to. If we're helping you save any time and money fixing your own car, the best way to say thank you is hitting that subscribe button. Now the next habit I see a lot of drivers have, and they don't realize it's so bad, is driving with an empty or near empty tank on a regular basis. The reason it's so bad is because doing that can easily damage a part that's really expensive to repair. I mean, we all know how it goes. The gas light comes on your dashboard and you're like, uh, I'll just finish this drive and I'll fill it up later. And then if you're like my wife, you're like, oh, that light means I can go another three days before I have to fill up the tank. Problem is if you keep doing that, you run such a low fuel level in your tank that the fuel pump actually starts to suck air as the, as the gas sloshes around. And what a lot of people don't realize is that the fuel pump in your fuel tank is lubricated and cooled by the gas itself. So if you consistently run it at such a low level that there's not enough gas touching it around it, it'll overheat and it'll start to break down a lot faster. Fuel pumps are usually inside the fuel tanks themselves. So in order to replace one, you often have to drop the fuel tank to get to that part, which makes fuel pumps a really expensive part to get replaced. It can easily be a thousand dollars or even 2000 or more, depending on the model of car that you have. So simple rule, when the gas gauge gets to E or the fuel light comes on, don't put it off, just fill up the tank and you're going to avoid an expensive repair in the future. Now, just like you don't want to be driving around regularly with an empty gas tank, the opposite is also really bad for your car. Now people love to top off their gas tank. So after the nozzle clicks, they run it some more, it clicks again, they keep going until fuel is practically spilling out of the filler hole. And I guess people feel like the more gas they can get in, the less often they have to come back to the gas station and they'll be able to drive longer. That is not a good idea. So what people don't know about their fuel systems is that there's the liquid part in the tank, but there's also a whole system called the EVAP system, which deals with the fuel vapor and it traps the fuel vapor and it recycles it and it cuts down on emissions and increases fuel economy. But it's meant to deal with gas vapor. When you overfill the tank, there's a chance that when the fuel is sloshing around, that it actually splashes up into the passages or the charcoal filter, which is meant to only handle fuel vapor. And it gets soaked with gas and it breaks it down. It messes with the sensors and you start breaking that whole system. Now the charcoal canister alone, which is a part that most often gets damaged by overfilling, can be $200 to $800 to replace. So there's a reason that the fuel nozzle at the gas station clicks and shuts off. It's to prevent you from overfilling your tank. So the quarter gallon or whatever you get by multiple times topping off is going to do a lot more damage than good. So when it clicks, you're done. Okay, so the last couple habits definitely will cost you some cash over time. But this next one is a doozy. This is where you spend some serious cash. And that is the habit that a lot of people have of not fully stopping before they shift gears. And there's three scenarios that I see drivers do this and all three of them put a ton of strain on your transmission. The first one is when drivers are in a hurry, late for work, they back out of their parking spot into the street, slam it into drive, and go before the car is actually finished stopping. So the car is essentially still rolling backwards when they slam it into drive. And it just puts a ton of strain on the transmission because the entire weight of the car is still moving in the opposite direction that the engine is now trying to force the wheels to go. So you're talking about clutch packs and all kinds of other internal components of the transmission that are getting strained. It's very similar to just like stomping on the gas pedal. It's where suddenly all the power is applied all at once and all that weight has to be shifted using friction in the transmission. All right, the next thing that drivers do again, probably because they're in a hurry, is they come to stop and they slam it into park while the car isn't quite stopped. So they're still rolling a little bit. This is actually really hard in your transmission because the parking gear is this little tooth that sits inside of a gear. So it's a moving gear and the little parking pawl, it's called, is supposed to rest inside one of the teeth. But if you're still moving, that thing's going to grind on the gears. And then when it finally catches and the car is still moving, it's going to be a sudden hit. It's just a bunch of strain that doesn't need to be there. So you've got to make sure that you're fully stopped before you put it into park. And there's actually another thing I want to talk about later in this video about the parking pawl, which people mess up all the time. The third bad habit I see is when people put it into gear and immediately hit the gas before the transmission has fully engaged. These automatic transmissions, they don't engage instantly. So you put it into drive or reverse or whatever, it takes a split second for them to actually shift and engage. And if you're on the gas by the time they're doing that, that leads to more slipping and more friction internally, which leads to heat and premature failure. So again, if you're doing that once or twice a year, not a big deal. But if you're making a regular unconscious habit of revving the engine before it's fully engaged, you're going to make your transmission fail prematurely. I don't need to tell you getting a transmission fixed or repaired is one of the most expensive things you can do on a car. Thousands of dollars that often is worth more than the car itself. So it's really worth it just to start making sure that you have good habits of stopping before you shift. Now, the next habit that I see people do all the time happens in cold climates as well as really hot climates. And it's something that people do even before they get in their car to drive. Now, what am I talking about? It's that morning warm up. A lot of people are still under the impression that you have to warm up your car before you drive it. And the other side of that is people often want to warm up or cool down the inside of their car so that it's more comfortable when they get in and drive. And it's leading people to let their car running for 15, 20 minutes, half an hour before they get in and actually drive the car down the road. Now, I know what you're thinking, Josh, isn't it bad for an engine to be run while it's cold of that oil not circulating properly? Yes, an engine is designed to run at operating temperature so that oil is fully circulating. But what people don't realize is that with modern cars being so efficient, it actually takes them a really long time to warm up to operating temperature when they're just sitting there idling. If you let your car sit there for 20 minutes idling, waiting to get up to operating temperature, that's 20 minutes where the engine's running cold. Another couple things happen when the car is warming up. Usually the computer of the car puts it into like a warm up cycle where it's running rich. And when you have a rich condition, you can get things like carbon buildup on your top end, you know, that sludgy stuff on your valves, as well as sometimes you can get more gas in your cylinders than normal. So you can get cylinder wash. So you get a little bit more wear on your cylinders. So again, the longer that you stay in that warm up phase, the more these things happen, the more they build up. Obviously, the first time you start your car up in the day, it's going to be cold. But the key is to minimize that time that the engine's running cold. And the best way to minimize that is to start it up and start driving. Now, obviously, you don't want to jump in your car and smash that gas and drive like a maniac. But after 10, 15, 30 seconds of letting the car run, you want to get on the road and start driving lightly. That's the quickest way to bring the engine up to operating temperature. And by doing so, you avoid unnecessary wear and tear that could lead to costly engine repairs in the future. Now, this next habit is like the previous one. It happens before you actually drive the car, but it burns up your tires prematurely. And as you know, tires ain't cheap. What the heck am I talking about? It's dry steering. Now, all dry steering is, is when you're turning the steering wheel and the car's not moving. Now, you may be thinking, I definitely don't do this, but I guarantee you most of you do. And I get it. Like if you're in a tight parking spot, you want to make sure that the wheels are pointed the direction that you want to take off in. But what people don't realize is that when the wheel isn't rolling and you crank on the steering wheel, the power steering has to work extra hard to force the rubber to turn. And that puts a lot of strain right on one spot of the tire. Think about like grinding your hand on the pavement. It's exactly what's happening to one spot on your tire. So how do we avoid dry steering? Well, it's by making sure that the car is rolling just a little bit before we turn the steering wheel. It doesn't mean you have to like go fast and shoot the car in the wrong direction. You just have to be rolling ever so slightly. If you do that, you can avoid wearing flat spots in your tires and wearing out these tires prematurely, which can be six, $800 to replace. You also avoid putting all that stress on your steering system, especially your power steering pump, which can be hundreds of dollars to replace. Now this next one, a lot of people would say is just cosmetic, but actually if left ignored, it can cause really actually serious and expensive damage to your car. And what we're talking about here is allowing dirt and grime to build up on the car, especially underneath. So when dirt is allowed to stick to the car, it can keep moisture and in areas where they salt the roads, or like I'm here in Hawaii, where there's salt in the air, salt sticks to it as well. Now, water and salt, if they're allowed to stick to metal and paint, cause corrosion very quickly. Some of the more expensive stuff that corrodes is your exhaust system, which is made up of primarily really thin metal, which rusts through really fast. Also your whole suspension system, which is down near the road, gets a lot of dirt on it. And when suspension components get rusty, all the nuts get stuck. And if you end up working on them yourself, it's a nightmare. Now there's another thing that can grow into your car, which if it happens can be really dangerous. And that's where one of your brake lines, which runs underneath your car, getting splattered with water and salt and whatever. It can actually corrode to the point where your brake fluid can escape. And I've seen it before where someone goes to step on their brake and it actually blasts brake fluid out the side of the brake lines. And then their brakes don't work, which is a serious problem. Another kind of buildup that you can get on your car that a lot of people don't think about is water spots. So if you wash your car with the hose, or maybe your car gets hit by a sprinkler or something with hard water, mineral deposits, you can get the water spots, which is somewhat normal. But if you just ignore those and let them ride, they will eventually actually eat into your paint. They'll etch the paint and the clear coat and permanently damage it. And anything to do with repairing paint is always going to be expensive. So how do we avoid all this expensive damage? Well, it's very simple. Even if you don't have a fancy show car, you want to wash your car often, especially if you live in a place with salty air or salt on the roads. And this is especially true for the underside of the car because that's what gets the most plastered. It can be as simple as taking a hose and rinsing the underside of your car every once in a while to cut down on the dirt and the salt that gets stuck to it. And then when it comes to the water spots, you want to keep your car out of that hard water as much as possible. And if you do get the water spots, you want to get them off using some kind of water spot remover. Now, if you're my favorite product for removing water spots from glass or the paint, put a link in the description. We actually did a video testing it against all these other popular water spot removers, and it's by far my favorite. Now, this next bad habit may seem a little funny, but it's when people don't listen to their car. Here's the honest truth. There are plenty of noises that your engine starts making that if you address them right away, you can save thousands of dollars. So here's a few examples for you. If a belt starts squealing, you replace it before it breaks. If you hear your power steering pump start whining, you can catch that low fluid before you completely destroy the pump and have to replace it. If you hear a hissing noise or a whining sound coming from your water pump, you can catch that before you run your car out of coolant and you overheat it and blow the head gasket. If you hear that low pad indicator start squeaking on your brakes and replace them before you start digging into the rotors, you save yourself a couple hundred bucks there. And that's just to name a few. So sounds that your engine makes can be early warning signs of expensive problems coming. So don't ignore them. If you're hearing a sound and you want to know what it is, check out this amazing video we just made on a whole library of sounds that your car can make so that you can figure out how to fix it yourself. Now the next thing that people don't do is another bad one for the transmission. I know I say this a lot, but I'm constantly amazed at how many people don't know or don't use their parking brake. Drivers will pull up into their parking spot, throw it in a park, and hop out of their car. What happens when they do that, if there's any incline at all, which there usually always is, the car rolls back against the parking pawl, that little parking gear, and the weight of the car rests on that tiny little gear. And then when it comes time to shift out of park, there's all kinds of pressure on that gear and all kinds of resistance in the shifter. It'll slam out of gear and it's just in general harder on your transmission than it needs to be, which is why they install the parking brake on your car. The parking brake takes the pressure, takes the weight of the car off of that parking gear and holds it by holding the wheels. Now I can hear you already. You're saying, Josh, I live in Nebraska. I live in Kansas. It's totally flat here. I don't need the emergency brake, except for doing power slides in the gravel roads. It's not actually true. That's not the point. Here's the thing. Even if you live in a flat place where you don't use the e-brake to hold your car on a steep hill, if you don't use the parking brake system, it just sits there. It can run the risk of seizing up because it's a cable in a sleeve and it has a pivot point. It's a mechanical thing. It can seize up. And then when you do go to use it, you know, for the first time in three years, you can snap the cables. It may not even work properly or worse. It can activate and then not release properly. So it's just one of those things that you want to keep using so that it stays functional. So what am I really saying? Use it or lose it, baby. This is how you set your parking brake properly. You come to a stop with the foot brake, you shift into park like normal. But before you let off your foot brake, you set the parking brake. Then you can take your foot off the foot brake. And the weight of the car is primarily on the parking brake, not on the little tiny Paul gear in your transmission. Now, we've been talking about bad habits that wear your car out faster than necessary. But this last one might surprise you because it happens when you're not driving the car at all. And that is letting the car sit for a really long time. And it's not just about the gas. Now, whether you're a snowbird and you're only driving the car half of the year or it's your kid's car and they're gone to school, you may actually think it's good for it to be sitting because it's not getting any wear and tear. But that's where you're wrong. Now, usually the first thing to go bad is a battery. It only takes a few weeks to a month for a battery to go flat on its own. And then you basically ruined a good battery. Next thing that happens when your car sits for a long time, all that oil cleaning to the top of the motor and all the valves and everything drains off slowly. So the next time you started, there's very little oil at top of the engine, which is really hard on it. Another thing that happens is tires. If left long enough can get flat spots. If it's sitting outside, they can get dry rotted. And then your tires are essentially ruined. Same is true for your rotors. When your pads aren't being used and scrubbing the rust off every day, you can develop pits in your rotors, which then the next time you drive destroys your pads and you got a full break job you got to do. Also on the wheels, your wheel bearings can actually get rust on them and go bad. I've had that happen personally to me. I got back from a long trip and all of a sudden both my front wheel bearings were roaring down the highway, had to replace them. Then yes, your fuel goes bad, right? We all kind of know that, especially ethanol gas sits in the tank, goes bad over time, and then you run the risk of ruining fuel pumps, injectors in your fuel system. Also in especially cold climates, if you have a partially full fuel tank, when you leave it sitting, you can get condensation in there and that actually rusts the fuel tank from the inside and contaminates your gas. So if you're going to leave it, the best thing that you can do is have someone else drive it every few weeks, run it, drive it around the block and park it again. That's going to really increase the lifespan of that sitting car. Hey, if you got a kick out of this video, then you're definitely going to want to check out this one we made on the top mistakes that DIY mechanics make in their backyard.