Chapter 1: What are the common motor maintenance tasks that every driver should know?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance.
Joey Donnelly is here of Crofton Motors to answer your motoring questions. Hello, Joey.
Hello, how are you?
How busy is it at the moment?
It's incredibly so, yeah. A lot of the independent shops like ourselves are very, very busy. Yeah, it's a busy time of the year.
It's busy all year round. What takes up most of the time? Is it pre-NCT, post-NCT or just general business?
Probably a mixture of all. We would be primarily a body shop in the insurance sector. So repairing crashes when you're claiming off your insurance, that would be a lot of our work. And then also on the mechanical side, we have a full service centre then as well. Repairing from regular maintenance, changing filters and brakes and tyres and NCT work. So a bit of everything.
Well, we have been asking for questions all morning and I have so many of them to get through. So I think the best thing to do is just let's just hit them now and we'll start. Right. So this listener has been told that they need a new timing belt. And they say, apparently, like everyone's always sus, aren't they?
I was a little bit on the defensive about the timing belt because it's a recommended part. It's always difficult to say, you know, when you're when you're selling a timing belt for want of a better expression. The manufacturers distribute repair manuals to say it should be done at 100,000 kilometres or five years or 200,000 kilometres or 10 years, depending on certain driving conditions.
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Chapter 2: How often should you change your timing belt and what are the signs of wear?
And the reality is, is no. It's a heavy regulated industry. And if they're selling a plus or an advanced or a miles plus in all the different brands, because every petrol station has it these days, there is a difference. And the mix of additives they put in are more advanced brands. They run the car a little bit cleaner. They can increase your fuel mileage.
Would it be something I'd be doing every time? No. I drive a diesel and because I do relatively low mileage for every second or third tank of diesel I fill, I would actually put the diesel plus in. So fuel regulation is changing, European regulation in terms of our reach for it by 2030. They want to have 30% biofuels mixed in with the diesel. So they're trying to...
change the blends and mixes and vehicles run differently depending on what sort of blended diesel they get. So in this kind of reach to clean up the diesel market, a lot of the manufacturers or fuel stations are selling these plus products and they are genuinely effective to a point. Would I be doing it every time I fill up my diesel? Possibly not.
Every couple of times though, you're saying.
Yeah, I think it's a good thing to do.
Okay, Brian is in Santry and he has a 03 Mini Cooper. It's all in great condition, but in recent months, if Brian doesn't drive it for a day or two, the battery dies. He's checked the lights, see if there's anything left on. Nothing seems to be a problem there. Is there any way that I can find out what's draining the battery?
Absolutely. There's loads of ways. So he could be, hopefully he's engaged with a good mechanic who looks after the maintenance of his car. Vehicle electronics is almost a trade and an industry in itself. So there's auto electricians who just specialise in just wiring electricians. What he's potentially got there is what's called a parasitic draw.
So you leave the car overnight and something is sucking a little bit of life out of the battery. He could also just have a pretty bad battery or a weak battery that can also be tested as well. So a little bit of context there. If the battery is more than three to five years old, anything more than three to five years old in a battery.
That's 23 years old.
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Chapter 3: What should you consider when choosing diesel fuel options?
If you're selling it privately... the difficulty in selling private cars using one of the online websites, there's loads of them available out there, is that anything above a certain amount of money, it becomes a little bit more difficult to sell because who would want to spend 15,000 euros on the side of the road and hand Clairburn with no sale guarantee, with no warranty, no anything. So,
Selling a car on the side of the road becomes more and more difficult the more value there is in the vehicle. So again, preparing the vehicle as best as you can and giving the other person who you're selling it to as much confidence in what you're giving them is a way of getting as much value as possible.
Let's go to this one about charging the phone in the car. This listener wants to know, does it wear down the car battery at all? Sometimes this listener leaves it in on long journeys. Are they doing the right thing? Does it make any difference?
Short answer is no, wouldn't really make a noticeable or a dot of a difference.
In an electric vehicle, electric vehicles where you might have a 300 kilometre range battery, if you're driving in the summer and you're heading down doing a 250 kilometre journey, if you have your aircon and the radio and the carplay and the phone charged in, that will actually, in EVs and electric vehicles, that can actually affect the long range performance of vehicle batteries because the more electrical items you're using, the more drain on the battery.
In a combustion engine where it's self-charging and it's always recharging, no is the short answer.
Okay, my son has a 2010 Ford Focus. When he starts the engine, he gets a strong smell of petrol. What could this be, says Brian?
It could be liable to get onto a tow truck and go into a mechanic very quickly. I mean, anything with the smell of fuel, you just don't mess around with. So I can't answer that and say, I'll drive it on or do anything. If there's a smell of fuel and it is a genuine smell of fuel, I would say bring it straight to.
As well, people's confusion over the smell of fuel versus the smell of fumes, if he's getting an exhaust or a smoky smell. If it's a Ford Focus and it's a diesel, they're prone to leaking injectors. The injector seats go in them and they actually, a bit of kind of exhaust fumes get in the engine bay and it can start to ingress into the cabin of the car.
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