Performance Unlimited Blog

You see that car sitting on the side of the road on a cold winter night. There’s a good chance, whatever caused that car to pull over it wasn’t something the driver planned for. No one plans for their car to breakdown, especially not in the middle of winter. But, if it happens, the trick is to have a plan. If you have a plan for such an occasion, you’ll know what to do. You’ll be prepared. Preparation means having the knowledge and implements to deal with such a situation. A plan is especially essential when temperatures dip dangerously low. The first part of a plan is to have an emergency kit in your car. Unlike an emergency medical kit, which isn’t a bad idea either, your roadside, winter emergency kit should include the following: • One or more blankets • Gloves, hat, boots, scarf and dry socks • A small snow shovel • A flashlight with fresh batteries • Emergency reflectors • A charged cell phone • Jumper cables • A bottle of water If you have these items in ...

Tic, tic, tic, tic, tic – no, that’s not the sound of a clock; that’s the sound of someone trying to start a car with an almost-dead battery. Instead of turning the engine over and initiating the chain reaction known as internal combustion, a nearly dead battery falls short and, when this happens, all you’ll often hear is a discouraging tic, tic, tic sound. Imagine you were out doing holiday shopping at the mall. It’s closing time and the parking lot is almost empty. It’s also frigid outside. This is no time to discover you can’t start the car. Earlier, you might have asked someone if they had jumper cables but, now, there’s no one around to ask. Assuming your cell phone is charged, you can call someone to come help – a friend, family member of a motor club. And then you can sit and wait – alone – in the dark – in the cold. Rather than chance the scenario above, or some similar outcome, you can be proactive now and all but avoid that as a possible outcome. The key is to make sur...

Winter can reach bitterly cold temperatures here in McHenry County. With wind chills, winter carries potentially fatal consequences across the barren landscape. Traveling on such days is a challenge – a challenge to safe and warm even in your car. But, when you turn on the heat in your car the heated air pours out of the vents and warms you to the bone, right? It all depends on whether your car’s heater works. The heat in the inside of the car is provided, ironically enough, by the car’s cooling system. We call the fluid inside that system coolant in the summer and anti-freeze in the winter. But, whatever season, it still fulfills a crucial role in an automobile. Coolant keeps the engine from overheating. Even in the coldest weather, without adequate coolant, your car will quickly overheat. On the other hand, in the winter, when the car isn’t running, the anti-freeze has the capacity to remain in a liquid, non-frozen state even when temperatures are terribly cold. When the cooli...

In the summer, it’s not a big deal if fueling the car is an afterthought, as long as you don’t run out of gas. Here in Northern Illinois, however, it’s not such a good idea to let the gas tank run low in the winter time. Gasoline won’t freeze until it hits 97-degrees below zero. However, that big cavity above the gasoline in a near-empty tank is an invitation to humidity laden air. Water freezes at 32-degrees above zero. If that humid air works its way into your fuel lines, when the moisture freezes, the lines are clogged. Along with keeping the fuel level from going to low, you can also improve your odds in the winter time by occasionally using a fuel additive that removes moisture. Some additives are designed to clean a car’s fuel lines and carburetor or fuel injectors. Others are specifically designed to get the moisture out of your fuel system. While many of the manufacturers of these additives like to claim that their products will make your car run better and improve gasoli...

Have you ever seen someone trying to drive while looking through a small patch of window they’ve scraped clean of snow and frost? You watch them cautiously trying to drive by touch and you shake your head at the insanity. You want to shake them and tell them to just take the time and clear their windows properly. Not only can they receive a ticket driving that way, they also are at risk of having an accident. If their semi-blind driving leads to an accident, they may hit a tree or a parked car. Unfortunately, they could also hit your car or a child running to the bus stop in the morning. Driving with clear, clean windows is a great way to decrease your odds of an accident. It’s also far less frustrating. Certainly, that driver leaning down and squinting through the window isn’t enjoying the process of driving that way. At the very least, that driver will probably wind up with a major headache for the effort. To ensure your windows are ready, a little preparation is recommended. ...

This WWII B-17 landing at Chicago Executive Airport has four air-cooled engines. The cars on the road below, however, must have quality coolant and cooling systems. Some piston-engine aircraft are air cooled. The engines have oil to reduce friction within but no coolant. That’s not a problem for the aircraft as aircraft don’t get caught in stop-and-go traffic while flying. The air is constantly rushing in and around the engine. Even the propeller helps to pull the air through. As the air goes by it carries much of the heat with it. Your car, on the other hand, can’t get away with an air-cooled engine. Your car engine is water cooled. A car engine produces a lot of heat. Even though your engine has oil to reduce heat-inducing friction, the moving parts moving rapidly against each other produce tremendous amounts of heat. Without the coolant, an engine will rapidly overheat and the parts could fuse together. When you stop at a red light, go through the drive-up window of a ...