Our cars are highly complex machines, and only getting more intricate with time. Unfortunately, no matter how advanced or intelligent they get, that doesn’t change the fact that there’s always quite a lot that can potentially go wrong. Recent research by a car recycling company, in which their research team analyzed the most common car maintenance searches entered into Google, has revealed more details about the issues British car owners most frequently have to contend with. In most cases, average drivers won’t be able to carry out repairs themselves, but they may be able to identify the possible underlying causes (which is always helpful information for a mechanic!).
The car is losing power
This is one of the single most common car issues. Not everyone knows that the symptom it is actually an intentional design feature – if a problem develops with the engine, the system automatically limits the speed at which the car can be driven, enabling drivers to maintain maximum control and thereby limiting the chances of potential accidents. The underlying causes can vary widely, but most can be traced to the engine’s fuel/air mixture.
The car is making a beeping noise
This generally means one of two things: either the car is trying to warn you of something, or there’s a fault with the sensor that’s designed to do so. In many cases, the car is working just as it’s supposed to, and the ‘fix’ just involves working out what it’s trying to tell you. This can vary from something as simple as an unsecured seatbelt all the way to something as critical as a nearly-dead car battery. If it’s beeping at random intervals with no apparent cause, though, it may well need a professional mechanic’s intervention.
Juddering from the car
Again, this can have a broad range of causes, some of which may overlap with the losing power issue above. Drivers can sometimes narrow down the underlying causes by paying attention to where and when the juddering occurs. It may be the air/fuel mixture, or if it’s only happening at high speeds, it could be the CV (constant velocity) axles, which wear down over time. If it’s ‘brake juddering’, it could mean corrosion of the brake callipers. They’re not necessarily catastrophic developments, but they’re not to be ignored.
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The car isn’t starting
Some Mercedes cars are known to suffer from this issue in particular. Often, it’s because a fuse has blown in the Signal Acquisition and Actuation Module (SAM), which essentially controls all electronic functions in the car. It can sometimes be fixed by simply replacing the fuse. With other cars, the cause could be down to the ignition connector, or simply a dead car battery.
Losing coolant or other fluids
It’s usually easy to tell if there’s a leak somewhere in a car, just by parking it for an extended period and checking for a growing puddle underneath it. If the coolant is disappearing without any sign of a leak, however, it might be being evaporated by a faulty head gasket, or a cracked cylinder head. The symptoms, causes and fixes can all vary widely between circumstances.
If your own vehicle is suffering from any of these issues, it might be encouraging to know that any one of them alone might not necessarily spell the end of your car. However, if it’s a particularly expensive repair, or you’re fixing up your car on a notably frequent basis, sometimes you may find it ultimately makes more financial sense to scrap it, and replace it with a newer model. Here’s where Scrap Car Network can help – as one of the UK’s biggest partnerships of scrap car dealers, it can guarantee the best price when you scrap your car, and that the shell will be disposed of in a safe, environmentally-friendly way.
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