Category Archives: Maintenance

Do The Shake: Why Your Car is Juddering…

A judder is a jerking motion or shaking feeling you get behind the wheel. For example, you put your foot down and expect to move forward in a continual motion, but instead you jerk and stop. This can be a frightening experience, and your passengers won’t thank you for it either. Juddering can be caused by a number of issues and in several scenarios and should never be ignored; it’s often a sign other problems could develop in your vehicle if left unchecked. What are the various symptoms and how can you complete a little amateur diagnosis yourself?

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Brake Smoke: Causes and Cures

Smoke coming out of the brakes? It might be funny in cartoons, but it’s never a laughing matter when it’s your car. In fact, if you do notice a burning smell, or worse still, start seeing smoke floating around your vehicle cabin, it can be a more than unsettling experience.

Brake smoke is one of those situations where you need to act immediately. Even if you have put on new brake pads that can in rare cases smoke when you wear them in – it’s still something that you need to check. So what are the causes (and some of the fixes) of smoking brakes?

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Why Does Your Car’s Engine Stall?

Unless you are still a novice driver, you should not really be stalling your vehicle (save for the occasional moment where your motoring skills suddenly go on holiday). But if your car starts regularly stalling, then you may have an underlying problem with the air flow, fuel system or electrics.

And when stalls happen on the open road they can be downright dangerous. What’s worse is that they’re always unexpected; stalls come with no warning signs. The check engine light doesn’t illuminate on the dash board and no signs come out of the engine. You could even be motoring on quite dandily and then bang out of nowhere, the stall happens.

If you are experiencing stalls on a regular basis when you’re on the road, then you may want to get the car checked out.

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Oil Myths – What’s True and What’s Not…

You know oil is essential for your car. It’s right up there with water and coolant. And getting your oil management wrong can be fatal to various parts of the engine. If you leave it too long, then you could be looking at all manner of problems from early fatigue to at worst, total engine failure. However, as with many things in life, if you’re relying on anecdotal information from friends and family, without mechanical experience, you could come a real cropper.

Fortunately, the team at BreakerLink has put our heads together, and come up with a quick breakdown (see what we did there) of what’s right, and what’s not so right, about some of the common oil myths you might hear doing the rounds.

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Pooch Proof the Peugeot – Ensuring Your Dog doesn’t Wreck your Car

Man’s best friend. Dogs equal great walks in the countryside. And they can travel in the back of the car. Of course, if you’re a long time follower of our blog, you’ll know we love our animals and have given you advice in the past about protecting both you and your hound in transit. But with muddy feet, smelly dogs and even water finding their way into your car, after a good romp out down a National trust park or at the beach – how can you better protect the other essential best friend in your life – your vehicle?

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Look after the motor – storing your car over the winter months

The winter is hard on all of us. Reduced energy. Less happiness. And of course you may find you’re using your car less frequently than in the warm months. If you’re considering putting it into storage, then you’ll need to do it properly to avoid issues with fuel, batteries and even paintwork, and this is especially true in winter when snow can damage the car.

So whether your ride is a convenient car or a collectable classic, use the following tips to keep it fresh over the colder months, when it’s not being used…

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Keep Your Car Looking Good – Inside and Out with these Fast and Simple Cleaning Hacks

You can spend a lot of time in your car. Long road trips, mornings in heavy traffic and taking the kids to school. Don’t you deserve to sit in a decent motor that feels good? Remember how nice it is to get into a freshly made bed? Well, doesn’t it feel every bit as relaxing to lean back in a similarly nicely cleaned car cabin?

And we’re not talking about picking up the crisp packets and chocolate wrappers hiding in the footwells. We’re talking the kind of beauty that’s more than skin deep. If you want the kind of car that doesn’t just look, but feels and smells good as you travel round, then you need to think about the outside too. All that you need next then, are the tips to make that cleaning job fast and simple:

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Why Won’t My Car Start?

There is nothing worse than getting in the driver’s seat, sticking the key in the ignition, only to find your car won’t start. There are lots of reasons why this can happen, and unfortunately it’s a very common occurrence, happening to hundreds, if not thousands of motorists on a daily basis. From simple issues like forgetting to put fuel in the car, to more complex electrical faults – our quick guide should help you contend with some of the causes…

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Don’t Ignore these Six Signs of Radiator Cap Issues

You car’s radiator cap. A small piece of the overall mechanical setup, which can cause a lot of problems if it goes wrong. At worst, you could even be left sitting by the side of the road, waiting for a recovery vehicle. Fortunately however, as with most problems, there are some early warning signs that will give you an inkling that all is not well with this part. Use a little observation and vigilance and you could swerve any issues (and the costs associated with them) before they occur.

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Are You Suffering from Spark Plug Failure?

Spark plugs are an integral part of the engine. Each one sends a little high voltage spark between the terminals, which is used to ignite fuel in the engine. When spark plugs fail, this means that your engine will stop running efficiently.

Over time spark plugs can become dirty, picking up a residue from the burned fuel, coating the electrodes with carbon. Additionally, repeated sparking of the metal components can simply wear them down, increasing the distance the spark has to jump between electrodes, requiring additional charge from the battery which is not always available. In short, spark plugs will wear out.

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