Engine Performance for Dummies (Cars Week 1)

Does your car lose power on hills?

Consider that a car, van or truck is the second most costly item most people will ever own, after a house, and it becomes obvious why people so often ask for help keeping them running. If people are asking for help, then penny-hungry internet freelancers are perfectly happy to offer up "solutions"; solutions that – you guessed it – aren't worth the electrons they're printed on. This week, in honor of the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, we'll be featuring some of the stupid and occasionally dangerous advice you can find out there about keeping your cars running. We'll start with eHow.com's Micah McDunnigan, found attempting to explain to someone, "Why Does My Car Hesitate When I Go Up a Hill?" (now found at ItStillRuns.com)

We talked to someone who might know the answer. Well, actually, we just listened to Click and Clack¹ on a "classic edition" of The Car Guys. As we already knew and the Magliozzi brothers confirmed, hesitation when climbing a hill is a symptom of overall loss of power. It's just that on the flats or going downhill, the driver doesn't notice the power loss. Try pulling a trailer or hard acceleration, and the hesitation will probably show up then. Of course, diagnosing loss of power is a matter of troubleshooting the vehicle's major systems. Believe it or not, McDunnigan actually gets that more or less right, although his introduction to the process is a bit... understated:

"A car's engine provides the power for a car to overcome inertia and maintain speed. The work required by the engine to keep a car moving when going up a hill increases, and problems in this situation can indicate engine problems." Presumably, the OQ already knew he or she had "engine problems," and wanted help in figuring out just what they might be. Did Micah provide that help? We think not, but see for yourself: here's what he said... If your air filter is clogged, the engine might not get enough air to work properly. If your [fuel] filter is clogged, then the engine might not get enough fuel... If your engine's spark plugs are not adjusted properly or worn out, then it might not produce sparks at the interval your engine is telling them to.

Well, the first two are possibilities, although both filters are supposed to be replaced during the normal maintenance of the vehicle. As for the third, has anyone ever said you have to "adjust" spark plugs? Does that mean to gap them, or what? and this bullshit about "the interval your engine is telling them to" is the kind of gobbledygook used to pretend you know what you're talking about when you don't.

No, there are a lot of reasons a car would hesitate when climbing a hill: poor compression (worn rings), any of dozens of sensor problems in the emission control system, a weak coil (not on electronic ignition), vacuum leaks, fuel-injection or carburetion problems, and even bad fuel come to mind. That driver needs to sit down with a troubleshooting manual and perform some tests.

Whatever the case, we would certainly prefer that anyone offering "advice" (and we hesitate to use that word for what McDunnigan has written here) also provide troubleshooting procedures. Of course, doing so might actually require that the author know what he or she is doing; and Micah clearly doesn't. For his automotive hubris, he collects his second Dumbass of the Day award in just one week!

¹ "Click and Clack" were the Magliozzi brothers, Tom and Ray

copyright © 2016-2023 scmrak

SE - AUTOMOTIVE