Drive with care everyday

Being car considerate shouldn’t stop after the break-in. Drive with care every day and your car will reward you with longer intervals without repair.

• Do not race your car’s engine during start-up.This is a quick way to add years of wear to your engine, especially if it’s cold outside.
• Accelerate slowly when you begin your drive.The most wear to the engine and drive train occurs in the first ten to twenty minutes of operation.
• Warming the engine by letting it idle in the driveway is not a smart idea.The engine doesn’t operate at its peak temperature, resulting in incomplete fuel combustion, soot deposits on cylinder walls, oil contamination, and ultimately damaged components.
• Put less strain on your engine and automatic transmission by shifting to neutral at red lights. Otherwise, the engine is still working to push the car even while it’s stopped.
• Avoid driving at high speeds and accelerating quickly, especially when it’s very hot or very cold outside. Such driving behavior will result in more frequent repairs.
• Extend the life of your tires with careful driving. Observe posted speed limits. Avoid fast starts, stops, and turns. Avoid potholes and objects on the road. Don’t run over curbs or hit the tire against the curb when parking. And, of course, don’t burn rubber.
• When turning your steering wheel, don’t hold it in an extreme right or left position for more than a few seconds. Doing so can damage the power-steering pump.
• Consolidate your short driving trips. Most of the wear and tear — as well as the pollution your car generates — takes place in the first few minutes of driving. Doing several errands at once, during low traffic hours if possible, will keep your engine happier longer.

Be patient during the break-in period

You’ve bought your dream car and now you want to make it last at long as possible in top condition. Here are some things to remember as you pull it out of the dealer’s lot:

• During the break-in period, typically the first 1,000 miles (1,600 km), keep your speed under 55 mph (88 kpm) or to the speed recommended by your car’s manufacturer.
• Avoid heavy loads on the drive train, such as towing trailers, and loading the roof rack or trunk with heavy construction materials.
• Do not allow your new car to idle for long periods — this is good advice for the life of your car, but especially during breakin. The oil pressure generated by doing so may not be sending oil to every part of your engine.
• Use only light to medium acceleration, keeping the engine rpms below 3,000 for the first few hours of driving.

Trivia

A black hole is, some theories predict, infinitely dense. So can one ever be detected?

Yes, from its effects on nearby things. Yes, the immense gravitational fields surrounding black holes deflect electromagnetic radiation (such as light) passing nearby. This is the only obvious way, as looking straight at one would not reveal it (hence the term 'black'). Anything getting close enough to a black hole to detect it directly would be unable to send any details back to us, as they would be drawn in to the black hole.

Random Car Fact

The first self-propelled car was invented by Nicolas Cugnot in 1769. It was designed with three wheels and an engine in the front along with the boiler. The car was able to run at a speed of 6 km/h. The first self-propelled car was first used by French Army to move cannons.

Trivia

Finally, which great mathematician's work do modern concepts of infinity stem from?

Georg Cantor. The Russian Georg Cantor (1845 - 1918) revolutionised maths by overcoming resistance to investigating infinity. His concepts were so novel that he famously said "I see it, but I don't believe it".

Trivia

One googol is 1 with 100 zeroes after it (10^100). One with one googol zeroes after it (10^[10^100]) is termed a 'googolplex'. So is a googolplex closer in value to infinity than one is?

n. No, it isn't. A googolplex is a very, very big number. But it is different in concept to infinity, which is not a number. The remaining numbers can still be put in a one-to-one correspondance with the 'set' of all whole numbers. So you can't be any closer to infinity, as you've still got just as many numbers left to go.

Random Car Fact

Windshield wipers were introduced by a woman.