The most basic thing about engines is the oil change. This should be done at a regular interval and this depends on the kind of oil used. When using the natural engine oils (those are the common ones), it should be done either every 3000 miles or 5000 km or 3 months (whichever scenario comes first) and the oil filter also should be changed at every service.
It should become a practice to check the mileage of the car when the oil is changed. With this, you can calculate the respective miles or kilometer so as to know when next the oil change should be done. Most cars nowadays require low weight oils i.e. 30 and below. But unfortunately, the lowest you can find commercially available in Nigeria is weight 40. Therefore, I’ll recommend you use any engine oil that has SAE 40 or lower written on it, for example, 5W40 or 5W30 alike. The required oil for each car can be seen on the engine oil cover under the hood. (5W40 means that it acts as a 5 weight oil during winter, which we don’t have here and a 40 weight during summer).
Another important, yet overlooked maintenance practice by car owners and Nigerian mechanics is the change of air filters. The air filter is a very vital part and can cause a lot of headaches on the long run if overlooked. Its job from its name is to filter the air entering into the engine for the combustion process. So it prevents dust particles, stones and even insects getting in. The usual practice is to change it at every other service, i.e. either every 6 months or 6000 miles. But here in Nigeria, they usually go bad (dirty) before changed. If not changed, it could negatively affect the fuel economy of the car, cause the car to run poorly, damage the engine on the long run...
Warning **
**No matter what your mechanic tells you, NEVER WASH THE AIR FILTER AND RETURN TO THE ENGINE. This is because it is made up of paper and we all know what happens when paper and water mix.
The timing belt of the car should be changed every 100000 miles. This is to prevent it from breaking or cutting due to wear. If this happens when the car is running, it could damage your engine valves and might lead to replacing your engine head.
Spark plug and spark plug wires should also be changed about every 30000 miles (depending on what the manual of the car says). They can go a long way in determining the performance of the engine. It is very important to put the type of spark plugs and the spark plug gap recommended for the car. An example from my experience is a 2001 model camry which needed double platinum spark plugs and single platinum plugs were put in and it ran like crap. Another example is a Mercedes ML320 which didn’t have the right plug gap and didn’t idle well at all. It sounded like an old diesel generator.
All cars produced from 2000 above have reminders on that pop up telling us when to do the changes. Let us use Honda as an example here. Some appear as just ‘Maint Reqd’ or have some codes accompanying them with oil life, e.g. A1 service, A2, B4 and co. The A means replace the engine oil while the B means replace the oil and also inspect other stuff in the car e.g. the belts, tie rod ends. Brake lines etc. The 1 means rotate tyres (we will get to that), 2 means air filter, 3 means transmission fluid, 4 spark plugs and 5 engine coolant. It varies in each car model and this can be seen in the user manual.
We will talk about taking care of the transmission (gear) of a car in detail in a bit.
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