We all love to drive our automobiles and keep them in their best shapes for the longest time. Maintaining a car can be interesting but still, give a tough time to some.
Luckily, there are numerous help-guides all over the web using which you can start fixing the problems that are related to your vehicles.
All that you need to know to follow the suggestions are some technical terms used in these guides.
Misunderstanding a term and ending up using wrong instruction on your car can damage it.
Through this post, we tell you some of these common terms that people often confuse.
Table of Contents
1. Limited Slip Differential
Limited Slip Differential is the kind of differential that can rotate its two output shafts at different speeds.
While allowing this rotation, this differential limits the maximum difference that exists between the two axles. What is the significance of Limited Slip Differential?
It can prevent skidding of your vehicle in a much better way compared to the standard differential in situations where one side the tires is over a rough surface, and the other is on a slippery one.
It also means that the tires you use with Limited Slip Differential experience less wear and tear. Having 4×4 wheels and tires also helps in preventing damage to them.
2. Turbochargers
Turbochargers are the devices used in automobiles to produce more power from the engine by supplying air to it at a higher pressure than the atmospheric pressure.
Understand it this way: To produce more power through the engine, a car needs to combust more fuel in it. To be able to perform combustion of more fuel, more air is required by the engine which is done with the help of turbochargers. One can say that turbochargers work similar to air compressors.
Turbochargers eliminate the need for changing the size of the engine to produce more power. There are a lot of technicalities involved in the working of these devices.
To understand it better, you must only know that the turbochargers utilize the energy of exhaust gases of your car to boost the power of your engine adding to the efficiency of it.
3. Four-Wheel Drive
Older cars used to work on two-wheel drive systems where the power of the engine was transmitted to the front axle of a car which meant that the wheels on the rear axle only roll along where the front ones directed them to.
On the other hand, the four-wheel drive allows the engine to drive all the four-wheel of the automobile.
There are modes in the car that can be used to switch from two-wheel drive to four-wheel when needed. Being able to easily switch from two-wheel-drive to four-wheel-drive is all thanks to the invention of the transfer case. Transfer cases are components that are bolted to the transmission and connected to the differential of the front wheels. During two-wheel-drive motoring the transfer case is disengaged and does nothing; however, when engaged, it transfers a certain amount of power to the front wheels while the driveshaft that comes out of the transmission powers the rear wheels. As you can imagine, as with anything performance-related, off-roading enthusiasts are always searching for the best transfer cases for sale.
Four-wheel drive modes are useful in situations in tough terrain where the other tires can use the power to pull out the car with a wheel stuck in a place.
It is also important to understand that one must choose good quality off-road rims and wheels for better performance of the cars in such terrains.
4. Air Drag
Air drag or the aerodynamic drag is a phenomenon that is not only limited to vehicles but every moving body.
For cars, air drag results in decreased efficiency and performance. Air drag is the resistance offered by the air to the movement of an object.
Depending on the design of a car, the drag can be decreased on it. The term called Drag Coefficient is often used to determine the amount of a drag which a car would experience.
A reduced drag coefficient means that the vehicle will encounter lower resistance from the air. Hatchback cars suffer more air drag compared to the sedan.
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5. Overdrive
Overdrive gears are the kind of gears that come with a very high and positive gear ratio. A positive gear ratio means that the engine running the transmission is at lower speeds compared to the transmission.
Overdrive allows the car to run at higher rates even when the engine is running at low rpm which gives it better mileage.
6. Double-Clutching
In the older times, the drivers had to pull the clutch into neutral gear to allow the engine to run at appropriate speeds before switching to their desired gears; this technique was called double clutching.
Double clutching is a method of achieving smoother transitions. It promotes better transmission life and riding experience to the driver.
Double clutching was used in older cars, but now it is no longer needed as synchronizers are used to help the sifting of gears by matching the speeds of meshing parts.
It is now used in racing cars for better performance.
7. Wheel Balancing
When you drive your vehicle at higher rates, you want the wheels to run evenly, the process of doing so is called wheel balancing.
The main reason to achieve is so is to have equally distributed weight on each wheel which is the base of the vehicle. It ensures that the wheels run smoothly and the passengers in the car have smooth and safe riding experience.
These are some common car-related terms which we believe you should know. We hope that they are informative to you and that you find them interesting.
If you want us to explain more terms and concepts regarding automobiles, then reach out to us with your requests, We would love to add to your knowledge with our posts.
