A full inspection means a mechanic looks over the whole car, not just one problem area. The goal is to find anything that could cause trouble before you drive a lot.
Tire pressure is how much air is in your tires. Hot weather makes tires run hotter, so the pressure can change—low pressure can make tires overheat faster.
The contact patch is the portion of the tire tread that actually touches the road. If the tire is underinflated, the shape of the tread changes, reducing effective contact and leading to uneven wear.
Hydroplaning is when your tires lose grip because there’s too much water on the road. Worn tread can’t push water out as well, so the car can start to skid.
Tire age means how old the tire rubber is, not just how much tread it has left. Older tires can get less grippy and more likely to fail, especially in hot weather.
Wiper blades have a rubber part that actually touches your windshield. That rubber wears out, so the podcast is saying you may need to replace that rubber piece (not necessarily the whole blade). Doing it after winter and after summer helps keep the wipe quality good.
Your car battery connects to the rest of the car through metal clamps called battery terminals. If those connections get dirty or corroded, the car may have trouble starting. Cleaning them can improve the connection.
That yellow/white crust on the battery connections is corrosion. It can make it harder for electricity to flow, which can cause starting problems. It can happen if the battery leaks a little acid or if the connection isn’t making good contact.
A battery acid leak means the battery is leaking fluid. That fluid can cause corrosion on the connections and can be dangerous. If you suspect a leak, you should have the battery checked.
Sometimes two different metals touching can cause corrosion faster than normal. On a car, that can happen around the battery connections and lead to crusty buildup. Keeping connections clean helps prevent it.
A spare tire is the backup tire you can use if one of your tires goes flat. The podcast is reminding you to know where it is and whether you have the tools to change it. That way you’re not stuck waiting for help.
A jack is the tool that lifts your car so you can change a tire. It’s usually stored near the spare tire. The podcast is saying you should know where it is before you need it.
Lug nuts are the bolts that hold your wheel onto the car. When a tire is flat, you have to loosen them to remove the wheel. The podcast is warning that the wrench that comes with the car might not be strong enough to loosen them easily.
A lug wrench is the tool you use to loosen the bolts (lug nuts) on your wheel. Some cars include a small, simple wrench that may not work well if the nuts are really tight. Practicing helps you know what to expect.
It’s a thorough inspection where the shop looks at a bunch of different parts of your car, not just one thing. It helps find problems before they turn into a breakdown—like before you drive far.
Refrigerant is the stuff inside your car’s A/C that makes it blow cold air. If it leaks out, the air won’t get cold enough, and the shop may need to refill it and fix the leak.
“Recharged” means the A/C system is refilled with the cooling fluid it needs. Shops usually check for a leak too, so you don’t just have to refill it again soon.
Right after rain starts, the road can be extra slippery because it mixes water with oil and dirt on the pavement. Your tires don’t grip as well at first, so you need to slow down.
Term
Oil rises from the pavement.
When rain starts, it can wash up oil that was already on the road. That makes the pavement slippery for a short time, so braking and turning are riskier.
Sunlight has invisible rays (UV) that slowly break down materials in your car. That’s why dashboards can crack and colors can fade after a lot of hot, sunny days.
These are covers you put on your windshield or dashboard to block the sun. They help keep the inside cooler and can reduce sun damage to the dashboard and seats.
Ceramic coating is a protective layer you apply to your car’s paint. It helps water bead up and can make dirt easier to wash off, but it’s still not a cheap or instant fix.
Paint protection film is a clear sheet that you stick on the car’s paint. It helps protect the paint from small scratches and road debris, and it can make the car easier to clean.
Wax is a protective coating you put on your car’s paint. It helps protect the paint from dirt and sun and can make the car easier to clean, but you have to reapply it regularly.
“Strapped down” means tying items firmly so they can’t slide around. If they aren’t secured, they can shift or fall during driving and become a safety hazard.
Drum brakes are a different brake design than discs. If your car has rear drum brakes, you should check the brake shoes are still thick enough, especially before towing.
If your trailer has its own brakes, you need a controller to coordinate them with your truck or SUV’s brakes. It helps the trailer slow down when you brake, especially with heavy loads.
The Ford Maverick is a small truck, and this example is set up to tow. It includes towing parts like a hitch and a trailer brake controller so you can connect a trailer and brake more safely.
The receiver hitch is the part on your vehicle that lets you attach towing gear. The “2-inch” size is the standard opening size for many trailer and hitch accessories.
That “4,500 pounds” is the maximum trailer weight they’re saying you should not go over. Exceeding it can make the truck work too hard and stop less safely.
A panic stop is when you have to brake really hard and fast to avoid hitting something. The key question is whether your brakes can slow everything down safely, especially if you’re towing.
Braking capacity is how well your vehicle’s brakes can slow down and stop when you’re carrying or towing weight. If the trailer is too heavy or not properly controlled, your brakes may not be able to stop in time.
Tongue weight is how much weight the trailer is pushing down on the hitch. If it’s too high or too low, the trailer can feel unstable and harder to stop safely.
The Nissan Frontier is a pickup truck people use for towing. The point here is that even if it can tow a trailer’s total weight, you still have to check the trailer’s tongue weight so the hitch isn’t overloaded.
The Ford F-150 is a pickup truck people often use for both normal driving and towing. Here, the point is that it can tow a camper for shorter trips, but for long cross-country towing the host prefers something bigger.
The Ford F-250 is a bigger, stronger pickup than the F-150. In this segment, the host says it’s better for long trips pulling a camper because it can handle the weight more comfortably.
Airbags are safety cushions that pop out during a crash. They inflate very quickly to help protect your head and chest.
Term
antilunk brakes
This sounds like anti-lock brakes (ABS). When you brake hard, ABS helps stop the wheels from locking up so you can steer more safely, especially on wet or icy roads.
Gateway Nissan is another dealership they mention for getting a printed guidebook. It’s just a place to call, not a car feature.
LIVE
Hey folks, Lenny Lawson, the CarGuru, and it's summertime, wait a minute, it is probably
not summertime yet.
Hey Siri, when does summer begin?
Summer begins June 21st and ends September 22nd.
Okay, so I guess it's not summertime yet, but now's a great time to get your vehicle
ready for summertime driving because it's different.
It really is, it puts totally different demands on your vehicle.
We're going to talk about that.
Summer is actually harder on your vehicle than most people realize.
I mean, heat affects everything on your car, pretty much.
The batteries, the tires, the cooling system, visibility even, you ever noticed how the
film develops on your windshield on the inside, that greasy film?
That's coming off your seats.
You're breathing that stuff, by the way.
The road surfaces change.
Fuel economy goes down in some cases, especially when the cars get hot, they don't like it.
Even driver patience gets thinner, especially when you're trying to get on Hilton Head Island
at about four o'clock in the afternoon after driving seven hours from Greenville, Tennessee.
My patience gets pretty thin at that point, and every single shortcut that I try to take
is a failure.
Why did you go that way?
Well, I thought it would be faster.
Well, I guess it wasn't.
We're hungry.
We need to pee.
You know, it's just all of that, and I'm just done.
I want to get to the house, and once I get on the island, I still have to go about 15
miles.
I can't win.
But anyway, this is what happens when you are on vacation, and it's summertime.
Things happen.
Let's talk about your car here just a second, because we don't want to make matters even
worse, do we, with car trouble.
I mean, you're almost there, and you have a blowout, where you see steam rising from
the engine compartment.
That's going to make a bad day even worse.
So your cooling system, it's your engine's lifeline.
Modern engines run hot already.
There's a lot of extra demands on them, and summer heat, plus, if you're driving through
the mountains, or you're just in really, like you're in the midst of South Carolina, and
it's 95 degrees outside, it causes problems, and one weak hose, old coolant.
A fan that fails, all of them, can leave you stranded.
So, you know, your radiator, your thermostat, your water pump, your cooling fans, your overflow
tank, all those things need to be checked by whoever is servicing your car before you
go out of town.
And if you just go to an oil change, you know, one of those fast places, they're not checking
all that stuff.
Many times, you have to request it, and that's not their expertise.
They drain oil, screw on a new filter, and fill oil.
That's about it, and charge you too much for that.
So go to the dealership that sells the brand of your car, tell them you want a full inspection
done on your vehicle.
You're getting ready to go on a vacation, and you don't want any breakdowns, especially
in the cooling system.
So, that's something you definitely need to pay attention to.
Also, your tires in summer heat.
Hot pavement dramatically increases tire pressure.
That's why you see a lot of blowouts along interstates and places like that.
For every 10 degrees of temperature increase, the tire pressure increases a couple pounds.
So, you want to make sure that your tires are not underinflated, because that makes them
get hotter.
The center of the tread doesn't touch the road as well.
You don't have as good of a contact patch, and it wears your tires out on the outside
edges when you have underinflation.
Warned tires are more subject to hydroplaning in these summer storms, and you know, when
the road is hot, and all of a sudden here comes this rainstorm, then you've got a mixture
of fresh oil that's on the road, and it makes it slicker.
You knew that, didn't you?
Of course you did.
You may have forgotten.
That's why tire tread depth matters.
Tire age matters.
If your tires are over seven years old, you're riding on borrowed time, especially when it
gets really hot.
Let's see.
What else?
A summer travel checklist.
I wrote this down.
I thought these were some things you just need to make sure are right.
You know, I don't care if you had your oil changed a thousand miles ago.
Don't you think it would be wise to raise the hood and pull out that dipstick, wipe
it off, put it back in, pull it back out again, and check the oil level before you go on your
trip?
It should be at the full mark.
Not half full, and definitely not low.
If so, you need to add some.
Check your tire pressures.
This is why everybody should have a digital tire gauge, and everybody should have one
of those small air compressors, so that you can do that yourself and do it accurately.
Coolant?
I don't know.
I don't know if you can check that or not.
You can look at your coolant overflow tank, and there is a low and a high mark, or low
and a full mark on it.
It's basically, the only time you can really read that is when the vehicle is cold, and
if it's on the full mark, you're good.
If it's on the low mark, you need to add coolant.
Something else that people don't think about is the quality of their wiper blades.
When was the last time you changed those?
You know how often you're supposed to change them?
This isn't from the wiper blade industry.
I should call it actually the wiper blade insert.
It's the rubber part.
You should change those two times a year, after winter and after summer.
Does that make sense?
Winter's pretty hard on wiper blades, especially when they get stuck, but in the summer, you're
using them more because of the rain and so forth.
So just change them on a periodic level.
Also, make sure your battery terminals are clean and not coated with a yellow or a white
crusty buildup on the car battery.
It could be from a battery acid leak, or just dissimilar metals coming in contact with one
another.
And don't forget your spare tire.
If you have one, do you know where the jack is?
Do you have the tire tools to change a spare tire?
Or are you just hoping that you're within range of, well, cell phone range, so you can
call somebody to come to the rescue?
What if you're not?
Can you change a spare tire?
Have you ever tried to loosen a lug nut on a vehicle with a regular lug wrench, these
ones that are included with the vehicle?
Probably not.
And very possibly, unless you're pretty stout, you may not be able to budge them.
It's something you ought to practice on.
And let's see.
Also, your brake condition.
Have you had them checked?
All of this would be checked on a multi-point checklist at the dealership.
They call it multi-point because they go over pretty much everything on your car.
And they will identify any areas that need attention, especially before you go on a trip.
Okay, I'm going to take my first break.
I'll be back in just one minute.
Okay, I am back.
You know, one thing I want to make sure of, especially going to Hilton Head, South Carolina,
is the air conditioning is going to work.
If you've noticed that throughout the spring that your air just isn't quite as cold as
it normally was, what is probably because the refrigerant that they use has seeped out
of the system.
You could have a slow leak and you need to take it in and get that recharged.
They can check that when you go in for service to make sure that your system is full of refrigerant.
They used to call it freon and now it has just a bunch of letters and numbers.
But air conditioning is quite important when it gets really hot, especially for the passengers,
the complainers in the backseat.
You know, when it comes to driving, some of those storms are pretty wicked in the summer.
The first 15 to 30 minutes of a downpour are the most dangerous times because that's
when the road surface is the slickest.
Oil rises from the pavement.
So definitely slow down when you see a storm.
I just can't believe how fast some of these people will blow by you, even 18-wheel trucks
when you're on the interstate and it just started raining.
You know, I don't know whether they have a death wish or they just don't care or don't
think about it, but it's a problem.
Now, as far as long-term care of your vehicle, UV damage is one of the biggest causes of
dashes to crack and interiors to fade.
And I've got a good friend who uses one of those windshield covers or dash covers to
protect the interior.
He says it keeps it cooler during the day, maybe it does, but this will also protect
your interior.
And you know, if you've got expensive leather seats in your car, once a year you should
probably put some type of conditioner on those seats to make sure that they are nice and
moisturized so that they don't start cracking.
As far as your paint, paint protection film is a good way to protect it as well as ceramic
coating.
These also make the car easier to wash, but they are not cheap.
So there are different grades of that as well.
So sunshades, wind attempt, wax protection, where you park, parking in the shade is important,
and conditioning that leather can really make a difference.
Now if you are towing, which a lot of people do, with their campers and their trailers
pulling lawn mowers all over the place, that's how a guy pulled on a lawn mower the other
day.
I passed him.
He had, well, it was two lawn mowers in the back, you know, on his trailer, neither one
of them were strapped down.
Now I know that that is against the law, but he's probably going around mowing a bunch
of yards, and he doesn't have time to do that.
Just imagine if he were to hit somebody, and they tend to drive pretty fast too because
they're trying to get from one yard to the other, and if he were to hit somebody, those
lawn mowers become very heavy projectiles.
I've never seen that happen, but I can imagine it, and how bad that would be.
So if you're in the lawn mowing business or you're towing something, you know, maybe
a lawn mower or something heavy, strap it down, please.
Now when it comes to towing, the same things apply.
One of the things about towing, though, is it can be very stressful on the transmission,
and a lot of people put transmission coolers, which takes the fluid out of the transmission,
not totally, but some of it.
It circulates through a tube that goes in front of the radiator, then cools, then comes back
to the transmission.
It's a good idea if you're going to be doing a lot of towing.
And get your brakes inspected.
Make sure you have adequate thickness of the pads and the shoes if you have rear drum brakes.
But you need a trailer brake controller on your vehicle, especially if you have a trailer
that has trailer brakes, because it makes a huge difference when it comes to stopping
a very heavy load.
We've got a Ford Maverick out here on the showroom floor.
It's the larger engine, 2.0 liters.
It is not a hybrid, but it has a special trailering package on it, which includes a 2-inch receiver
hitch, and it's got a trailer brake controller mounted on the dash.
It's already pre-wired for all of that.
So all you have to do is buy a trailer that has trailer brakes and plug it in.
Make sure it doesn't weigh more than 4,500 pounds, however.
You know, I've always thought about the fact that it doesn't matter as much how much you
can pull.
What really matters is how much can you stop.
Because if you have a panic stop situation, let's assume that you've got your lawnmowers
tied down, then you're going to be able to stop if you're not pulling too much weight
and you have adequate braking capacity.
Too many people will go out and buy some type of utility trailer, load it down with
too much, it could be mulch for that matter, and then hook it up behind their small vehicle,
their small little SUV, not looking up the trailer and capacity of the vehicle, which
is only 1,500 pounds, they're trying to tow 4,000 pounds, and then they hit their brakes
and they don't realize why they can't stop.
That problem is easily solved by knowing what your trailer and capacity is of your vehicle,
and in order to meet that trailer and capacity, do you have to have a brake controller?
And then you have to be concerned about what the maximum tongue weight is that your hitch
can stand.
Like, for example, I know that a Nissan Frontier has the capacity to pull my big 30, 34 foot
long travel trailer, it can pull it.
The towing capacity states that it can handle that much weight, but how much tongue weight
does my trailer have?
How much weight does it bear down on the hitch itself?
I looked at it on the hitch, it's 850 pounds.
I looked on the truck, what's the maximum tongue weight that it can handle, 650 pounds.
I'm not using a Nissan Frontier to pull my travel trailer.
Okay, so what about my F-150?
What's its towing capacity?
10,500 pounds.
The trailer weighs 7,500 pounds empty, probably 8,500 pounds with all the stuff that I have
in it when I go camping.
If I fill up the water tank, it's probably closer to 9,000 pounds.
Should I use my F-150?
Well, according to the trailer and capacity, I can.
But the general rule of thumb is this, you should never tow more than 70 to 80% of your
maximum towing capacity.
The maximum towing capacity should be viewed as an occasional use.
So if you have the right kind of hitch, you might consider 85%.
But if I were going on a long camping trip, like I was going to be pulling cross country,
I would not pull it with my F-150, I'd use an F-250.
I'd borrow one off the lot.
I don't want to drive an F-250 every day just because the ride quality isn't near as good
and it sits a little higher than my F-150 does.
And so the F-150 is perfect for me from an everyday use and it will tow my camper if
I want to go 80 to 100 miles, it's fine.
But if I'm going cross country, I'm getting a 250 or I'm getting a lighter camper.
One or the other.
Okay, I'm going to take my last break.
I'll be back in just one minute.
Let me ask you a personal question.
What behaviors are you demonstrating to your children and your grandchildren when you are
behind the wheel of a car?
That if you were to sit them down and just have a conversation with them, you would discourage
them from doing.
I think everybody needs to think about that.
I've got a granddaughter.
I've mentioned this before.
She's always watching my speed.
I've even thought about putting her directly behind me instead of over behind the passenger
so she couldn't see my speedometer.
Why don't I just slow down?
That would be appropriate.
She doesn't really like it when I exceed the speed limit by more than five miles per hour.
I say, Ivy, 10 miles per hour is okay.
The police won't pull you over in most circumstances if you're going less than 10 miles per hour
over the speed limit.
Of course, she says, Pop, Pop, why would you go over the speed limit?
I thought that was the law.
Ouch.
You know, what are we doing when we use our phone in the car and the teenagers are back
there?
We tell them to get out of your phone.
Quit using the phone.
We're going down the road texting, looking at our phone.
Just looking for just a minute, you know.
I know what I'm doing.
I can control the car and do this, but you can't.
You're too young, really?
Is that the way we should approach it?
Demonstrate the behaviors that you want them to repeat, not the ones that you don't want
them to repeat, don't want them to imitate.
And it's all of us.
All of us have the responsibility.
Any adult that is driving a car shouldn't have a cell phone anywhere near them.
It should be in the control of our spouse.
She does all the texting.
She does all the phone call answering unless you have hands-free and even a hands-free
system can cause you to be distracted.
I mean, I've been going down the road many times and going around curves and everything.
And if you ask me, do you remember that you just passed a red barn or somebody, some kids
on the side of the road?
I was concentrating so hard on the phone call or the song that I was listening to that
I didn't even see those people.
I mean, that's the danger.
You can be distracted and have your eyes glued to the road, but you're just not seeing the
road.
Have you ever done that?
I have.
The My Car Guru Teen Driver Guidebook has been popular lately.
I've been sending out a lot of copies, PDF form.
If you want one, it's free.
It's 42 pages.
It's from the seminar that we did at the dealership at My Four Dealership in Greenville, Tennessee.
Four teen drivers.
No, we didn't get out in cars and drive a bunch of cars.
We talked and we demonstrated how cars work, you know, what to do in a lot of different
emergency situations, how to handle the inevitable situation when you get pulled over, you know,
what does the police or the state trooper in our example was here and he demonstrated
what he's thinking as he approaches a vehicle and what he wants to see, what he has to see
in order to be able to let you continue on down the road, either with or without a ticket.
And what your attitude or how your attitude determines whether you get a ticket or not.
And of course, when he gets back to his vehicle, when he looks up your driving history, that's
going to have a large bearing on what kind of ticket you get or if you get one at all.
So the teen driver seminar was very valuable to a lot of people.
You know, it's funny, the kids acted at first like they were in prison.
They had just been arrested.
We were getting ready to book them to snap their pictures.
I mean, they were not willing participants.
But once we got rolling, they became engaged and definitely love that.
So we put together this guidebook so they would, well, they could follow along with us
and so they could take it home and so they could share it with other people.
And I did it in a way in a format.
It's it's pretty straightforward.
Well, it's extremely straightforward.
And we talk about everything about what to do during a traffic stop to how to handle
certain roadside and emergency breakdowns.
We talked about airbags and antelunk brakes and how they work and how you have to participate
in ensuring that they work properly.
There's certain things that you need to do and not do in a vehicle to make sure that
your airbags in the car protect you.
I mean, if you're not sitting right, if you don't have your seatbelts on right, if you
got your legs up on the dash, these are all things that can make airbags kind of dangerous.
And as far as antelunk brakes, you don't hear people talking about them anymore.
They've been around for almost 30 years now.
It is just an assumed safety item and people don't understand it because they've never
had to use them.
They've never slammed on their brakes and felt the feedback that you get through the
pedal, which can be alarming if you've never experienced that.
So we talk about that in person and through the guidebook.
If you want a copy of the guidebook, text your email address to this number, 423-552-2020.
I'll repeat it like they do on all the other commercials, 423-552-2020.
And if you don't have a smartphone, you're still using a flip phone or you don't have any phone,
maybe still using a rotary phone in your house, call the dealership, my dealership,
Gateway Ford and Gateway Nissan, 423-639-5151.
That's 423-639-5151.
And I'll print one out for you.
Make sure you give Mia your address, your mailing address, name and mailing address.
And then it's up to the US Postal Service, isn't it?
And I think it's important that you have this in your hands.
Do your teenagers want to read it?
Probably not.
And do they want to read anything that you give them?
I didn't want to read anything my dad gave me, unless it was a sports illustrated.
But you know, sometimes we just have to do things that they don't want us to do.
And they don't want to follow directions very well.
So you sit down at the table and you force the situation and you go over it together
and you sit in a car in your driveway and you show them where everything is,
where the jack is, where the spare tire is.
You show them how to inflate their tires to the proper air pressure and where you get that number.
You know, you show them how to jump start a battery the right way.
This guidebook will tell you how to do all that.
So if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me.
423-552-2020.
That's my cell phone, the only one I have.
Well, thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.
About this episode
Summer can feel great, but it puts extra strain on your car—and on you. Heat can affect “everything on your car,” from cooling to visibility and fuel economy, while hot pavement raises tire pressure and increases blowout risk. Rain adds traction problems, especially early in a downpour. The host walks through a pre-trip checklist (oil, tires, coolant, wipers) and roadside prep (battery terminals, spare-tire practice). Later, towing guidance covers brake controllers, transmission cooling, and safe weight limits.
