Tips and Tricks for Tuning Up Your Car

If you’re a do-it-yourselfer and prefer to save those extra few dollars changing your own oil, swapping out your own air filters and rotating your own tires, you’re more of a car guy than most drivers on the road. If it’s time to up the ante and start getting a little more oil under those finger nails, there are a few tricks you may want to know to make your DIY job go off without a hitch.
If you’ve changed your own oil, you can easily change out your sparkplugs. Typically called for every 35,000 miles, your plugs generate the combustion needed to fire your pistons. With every single drivetrain revolution, the sparkplugs are needed to consistently fire on the cylinder heads. As time and use wears on the plugs, they begin to misfire. And when they start to misfire, you experience a rougher ride because your drivetrain isn’t being driven by smooth-firing pistons.
Replacing your sparkplugs for the first time does require a few tips. First off, it may seem obvious, remove your engine cover. Also you will want to purchase the number of sparkplugs that coincide with the number of cylinders your engine has. So if your car is a 4 cylinder buy four spark plugs, and if it’s a 6 cylinder buy six, and so on. You may also want to buy an extra plug in case you break one while replacing.
So you have the right number of plugs and the engine cover is removed. Next, when you remove your sparkplugs with your sparkplug socket, remember you will be exposing your cylinder heads and the inside of your engine to dust and the elements. So having an air-gun or canned air handy to blow off the area around the top of the sparkplugs is imperative. This will prevent debris from falling into your cylinder heads as you are working.
When you crank your sparkplug wrench onto your sparkplugs, be careful to not crank too hard to avoid breaking them. They are ceramic and can break relatively easily, especially if there wasn’t any thread grease applied during the previous plug change. When the old plugs are removed and you’re ready to install the replacements, be sure to grease the threads of your replacement plugs. Then carefully and slowly hand-cranking the replacements in place before securing them with your sparkplug wrench.
Replace the engine cover, if applicable, and start up the engine. If the engine is running rougher than it was before you changed your plugs, immediately turn the engine off and check your work, making sure all your plugs are standing straight. Also make sure your compartment components are all back in place, including any filters and lines.