Common Car Maintenance Mistakes Car Owners Make When Diagnosing Engine Problems
Did you notice the mistake in the engine picture above? This is a sign of a common car maintenance mistake car owners make when addressing engine problems. Read on to find out if you are right and find out what the unusual and mysterious cause of this real problem behind the engine is that some owners of Toyota and other car brands are facing.
Common mistakes made by inexperienced mechanics
As a car owner, we have all experienced this at some point in our lives. Your car or truck no longer runs as well as it used to, so you decide to read a Haynes or similar auto repair manual to diagnose the problem of poor engine performance. Check your local auto parts chain to find out what the engine problem is.
Anyway, armed with the manual and troubleshooting list, you check which parts you think are causing the problem and start replacing them one by one with new parts, thinking that this will solve your engine problems.
But after three trips to the auto parts store and maybe a few hundred dollars worse, your engine starts to run bad and you start to doubt the value of the repair manual… but never your car handling skills.
This is a very common but understandable scenario, and it’s also the subject of the next video. Beginners end up going down the wrong path to engine diagnosis because they neglected to check the most basic maintenance components of the engine before diagnosing the actual problem.
In the case of the Toyota engine pictured above, the sign of failure was a very dusty engine with brand new spark plug wires (and maybe new spark plugs) that the vehicle owner replaced to solve the engine problem. But nothing else seemed to have been touched. Actually, that’s okay because it’s part of the learning process. After you’ve spent some money replacing unnecessary parts, you’ll see how valuable it is to learn how to properly diagnose your engine.
This is one of the first things to check before doing anything to your engine.