Your engine needs just a little TLC to keep on keeping on

Maybe you don’t exactly love you car’s engine. You may start the car and start driving while hardly considering your engine at all. But, if your engine stops doing what it’s expected to do, you may develop strong emotions about your engine in a hurry.

“Your oil is the lifeblood of your engine,” said Denny Norton of Ringwood based Performance Unlimited. If you shortchange your engine oil you’re liable to pay in the long run.”

If that happens; if your engine ceases to run or runs so poorly that you can’t help but take notice, before you blame your engine, you may want to consider if you have any blame for its sickly condition. Ask yourself, while your engine started and ran day after day, good weather and bad, did you reciprocate in any way? Did you show your appreciation by ensuring your engine had all that it needed to keep performing its work-horse duties?

It’s amazing how quickly an engine will seize up and stop running without motor oil. And, if the motor oil isn’t replaced at regular and prescribed intervals, it’s amazing how much life it will tear out of the heart of an engine.

Motor oil carries away dirt and particles that can scratch at an engine’s parts. The oil itself will breakdown and loose its degrees of its cooling and lubricating qualities after time. It’s a good idea to change the oil every three months or 3,000 miles, whichever comes first.

Another vital fluid that you and your engine rely on is coolant/antifreeze. Coolant carries heat out of the engine and into the radiator. In the radiator, as the fan pulls air through, the coolant releases the heat and prepares for a fresh run through the engine. But, if you don’t have enough coolant, or if it is too old and tired to do its job effectively, heat will start building up higher in the engine.

An engine that runs too hot experiences more strain on its parts and metals. A crisis situation occurs when an engine overheats. It’s no fun for the engine and it’s no fun for you sitting on the side of the road with the hood up on a 90-plus summer day when you have somewhere to go, maybe even the beach for some relaxing fun in the sun.

If an engine gets too hot, however, a crisis becomes a catastrophe as an engine seizes up. Instead of having engine parts, you have an engine block in the literal sense – one block of fused iron. Or, maybe the engine block will crack letting the oil, coolant and compression out where it makes a mess and does you no good at all.

So, if you haven’t thought about your car’s engine lately, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to give it a little thought now and then. A tiny bit of TLC now could prevent untold headaches down the road.

For more information, call Performance Unlimited at 815-728-0343 or visit: www.4performanceunlimited.com.

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