Archive for November, 2009
How To Correctly Install Your Car Seat
The first step is to become familiar with the locations of the airbags within your vehicle. All new automobiles are installed with driver and passenger air bags for the front seats. With the combination of seats belts air bags are very effective in preventing major injury or even death from a car accident. However air bags can be very dangerous to little children especially those sitting in rearfacing car safety seats and to children who are not properly positioned within their seat belt. If your automobile with active front passenger air bags children riding in rearfacing car seats only should ride in the rear seat. Tests of shown that ven in a relatively lowspeed crash an air bag can deploy striking the car seat and causing brain and neck injury or even death for the child.
Automobiles without a rear seat are not the best choice for traveling with children in car seats. But some cars do have the option to deactivate the front passenger air bag for the use of car seats in the front seat of the automobile. It’s highly recommend to review your vehicle owner’s manual for complete information.
Additionally many new automobiles have side air bags for improved safely during a sideimpact crash. If you automobile has side air bags review both your vehicle owners manual and the car seat manual for instructions on proper car seat placement.
The second step is proper latching or attaching the car seat to the vehicle. Many vehicles have a LATCH system that eliminates the need to use seat belts to secure the car safety seat. Vehicles with a LATCH system have anchors located in the back seat. Car safety seats that come with LATCH have attachments that fasten to these anchors. Nearly all passenger vehicles and all car safety seats made on or after September 1 2002 come with LATCH. However unless both your vehicle and the car safety seat have this anchor system you will still need to use seat belts to install the car safety seat.
If you have questions or need help installing your car safety seat find a certified CPS Technician. A list of certified CPS Technicians is available by state or ZIP code on the NHTSA Web site. A list inspection stations where you can go to learn how to correctly install a car safety seat is available in English and Spanish at Seat Check’s Web Site.
It only takes a few minutes to properly install a car seat and only a few second to safely buckle up your child. It’s a small effort to ensure your child is safe.
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Will Smith is an avid ecommerce strategist and promotes consumer awareness within the online market place. Increase your awareness of theTaby Tray by visiting http://www.tabytray.com
Hoses And Belts: Monthly Automotive Maintenance Part 8
All of those fluids that we learned about in the previous editions of our automotive maintenance how to series they travel to their designated engine destinations through hoses and most of the engine parts have a belt that assists them to do what they are supposed to do. During the times between regular tuneups you need to make sure that all of your hoses and belts are in good condition and are securely connected to the parts of your engine that they need to be connected to.
Accidents and breakdowns can occur if a hose is leaking a vital fluid or comes loose and also if a belt that powers an engine part snaps or slips off. Checking to make sure that none of these things are likely to happen is an easy task and one that could save you from being stranded somewhere or least save you some money on repairs.
How to check your hoses
1. Open up the hood while the engine is off and cold. Never try to touch any hose in your engine while the engine is running or hot you could easily be burned.
2. Not all cars have the same number of hoses or use hoses for the same parts. But every car will have at least three the upper radiator hose the lower radiator hose and the heater hose these are the coolant hoses.
3. These hose provide a flow conduit between the engine and the heating block and the radiator and the engine.
4. Visually scrutinize each hose for any noticeable cracks rips and loose connections.
5. Squeeze each hose if the hose feels spongy brittle or lumpy the hose needs to be replaced.
6. If any of the hoses are coming disconnected tighten the clamp or the connector. You can tell if they are loose by pulling lightly on the ends or if you can see that the hose is wet or leaking where it is attached.
There are various belts for different parts of your engine not all cars will need the same type for the same component. Knowing what types of belts are in your engine will help you know where and what to look for when performing this maintenance check.
Timing belt/Gilmer belt/Camshaft belt
A notched rubber belt that allows the crankshaft to turn the camshaft. If the timing belt snaps or slips your engine will stop working completely. A damaged or stripped timing belt causes a great deal of costly repair work.
Serpentine belts/Drive belts
These belts provide the power to the power steering pump the air conditioning compressor pump the air injection pump the cooling fan the clutch the brakes and other engine parts as well depending on the make and model of vehicle. Any engine part that uses a belt will stop functioning if its belt slips or breaks
To check the condition of your belts.
1. While the engine is off and cool do a visual and a touch test to check the condition of the belts. Trying to check a belt while the engine is running could cost you a finger or your entire hand.
2. Look carefully at all of the belts that you can see check for any sign of stripping cracking fraying and slipping.
3. To check the tension of the belts refer to your owners manual in most cases no belt should have a give of over an inch. Pull or push lightly on the belt to judge the amount of give.
4. Any belt that feels spongy fragile or brittle should be replaced.
That is the last bit of monthly maintenance knowledge that the average car owner should have to keep their car running smoothly between recommended tuneups. You are now ready to give your car a very thorough maintenance check.
http://www.juble.com/articles/a300hosesandbeltsmonthlyautomotivemaintenancepart8.html
About the writer: Welcome to Juble.com where you make friends share ideas get a FREE website Promote yourself or your business gain knowledge make money and so on….
Honda Upgrades Its In-car Telematics System
Tokyo Japans Yuri Kageyama writing for the AP reported that Honda’s car navigation system already takes the fastest route to a destination through avoiding traffic jams. Now drivers will get information with regard earthquakes and warnings of heavy rainfall ahead on roads.
Shown to reporters in Wednesday Honda Motor Co.’s service will be offered beginning with the redesigned Fit subcompact which is set to go on sale in Japan later this year. Executive Manabu Nishimae said that there are no plans so far to offer it overseas. He told the reporters that their company believes that information services are an essential part of a quality of a car.
Drivers pay mobile phone bills for relaying data though the service is for free. For frequent users data transmission cards for a set monthly fee of about 8 are available. Over 530000 drivers use the current navigation service in Japan and that figure is nearly 40 percent of Honda owners.
Email warnings with the latest upgrade will be sent to a preassigned address when car with the system is in an area of a strong earthquake. It is handy in a quakeprone nation like Japan. Icons of exclamation marks pop up on the monitor if heavy rain is forecast on a planned route.
Japan’s No. 2 auto manufacturer and Honda Civic parts maker also upgraded its map system so that updates take just a few minutes to be downloaded. Disks with map data had to be changed up to now.
Based in Tokyo Honda said that it found a way to compress data so that portions of a map such as new roads get relayed piecemeal. Furthermore it said that driving time is cut on the average by 20 percent.
All the major automakers in the world offer car navigation services that include some that give guides to nearby restaurants. Not only that some automatically calls ambulances in cases of accidents and connect to human operators.
One of the featured capabilities of Honda’s system is that it collects information from individual Honda cars on the road. In the new earthquake notification service for example the system will be able to show which roads have been shut down.
General Manager Takeshi Imai said that this kind of detailed information could even tell drivers exactly which lane of a freeway is congested. He further said that Honda’s telematics is already moving toward its next level.
About the writer: Rain Stockton is an engineer by profession. He is a motorsports fanatic especially F1 and NASCAR. He seldom fails to attend major car racing events. A frustrated race car driver he spends some of his free time working in one of the largest automotive shops in Indianapolis.