Hack or Wack: 5 Popular Car Hacks Get Busted
If you’ve searched for a quick fix for your car, you’ve probably come across some post promising that you can mend nearly anything with some duct tape, bailing wire, and an unflappable constitution. We’ve always wondered if those hacks really worked, but since MacGyver was unavailable and we’re not about to toss an uncooked egg into our radiator, we found the next best thing: Freddy Hernandez.
You might know Freddy as “Tavarish,” a contributor to Jalopnik’s The Garage and founder of APiDA Online, which is chock-full of auto DIY projects.
Tavarish has been wrenching on cars for more than a decade now, but has no formal training. That could be seen as a liability, but it also means he’s well versed in the ways of DIY wrenching and doesn’t have the biases and misinformation your great Uncle Larry keeps spouting off at the family’s annual BBQ.
“My first big job was a manual transmission swap on my 1998 Nissan Maxima when I was 18,” Freddy tells us. “I did this with a $30 set of Chinese tools from Pep Boys, which mostly all broke by the end of the job. I also buy, fix and sell interesting used cars in an article series called Art Of The Flip. I’ve also completely disassembled and reassembled the entire interior of my Mercedes-Benz S-Class for fun.”
For fun. Sounds like we found our man, so we asked Tavarish to prove or dispel his favorite myths, and a couple of ours.
Myth: If you’re stuck with a radiator leak and an overheating car, you can crack open an egg, pour the yolk into the radiator, and it should solidify and stop the leak enough for you to limp home.
Tavarish: Depending on where the leak is and the size of the leak, this hack may be ineffective, or may make things worse.
It could plug up your heater core, which means no heat in the car and a backup of coolant. It could plug up your radiator, making cooling much less efficient, leading to your engine overheating. It can also not solidify and just shoot out all over your engine bay.
When radiators were made of different materials that were prone to corrosion and had cores that were much larger, it may have worked in a pinch.Most leaks now come from plastic end tank expansion and contraction, not the aluminum cores, and on modern-day cars with their tiny-finned radiators — it does more harm than good.
Verdict: Busted. Don’t do it. Eggs may not clog your heart, but they’ll clog your engine.
Myth: You can pee in your radiator to cool your engine down.
Tavarish: I’m not sure that peeing in a radiator is one I’ve heard of, but with its high water content, I wouldn’t doubt that it would cool your engine at least somewhat. Lord help you if it leaks and makes your car smell like hot piss.
Verdict: True. Still gross.
Myth: You can swap water with anti-freeze and be just fine.
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Tavarish: Water and coolant are interchangeable, but you’d run the risk of boiling over, since the glycol in traditional coolant keeps it from happening. You’ll also run the risk of corroding any metal parts in the coolant stream and building up sediment deposits if the water isn’t distilled. If it’s all you have, it’s fine to do. If you have access to proper coolant, then there’s no reason why you’d go with water.
Verdict: True. Not ideal, but possible.
Myth: You can use pantyhose to replace your drive belt.
Tavarish: Yes, if you’re ever somewhere remote and your drive belt (also known as serpentine belt) breaks, you can use a length of pantyhose tied in a knot as a makeshift belt.
Verdict: True. Keep some spare pantyhose in the glove box! (Granted, easier for ladies than men.)
Myth: You can clean your hazard and foggy plastic headlights with toothpaste.
Tavarish: Absolutely. Grab a rag and toothpaste and clean. It works wonders.
Verdict: True. Nine out of 10 denti-, er, mechanics approve.
Tavarish shares other quick tips.
One of the best quick mods you can do is a simple kill switch on your fuel pump, which involves some wire and a single pole switch. Just wire it inline with the ground on your fuel pump’s relay and hide the switch somewhere, and no thief will be able to start your car and drive off with it.
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Brian Brushwood safely breaking a window on his show Hacking the System, on NatGeo.[/caption]
As far as cobbling something together on the spot, carry a spark plug in the glove box. If you’re ever in an accident with the door pinched, you can throw the business end of the spark plug at the window to shatter it.
If you apply a quick fix, it’s always best to replace that part as soon as humanly possible because you’re now running a mechanical system with a component that it was never designed to accommodate. Sooner is always better.
For example: driving on a space-saver spare isn’t optimal, but you can do it for quite a while since it is actually a properly inflated tire. The issue comes in the fact that it’s much thinner than a regular tire, reducing your usable grip on the road. That’s why they don’t advise you to exceed a certain mile per hour, because of the tire’s less than predictable handling characteristics.
We’ll be back with Tavarish next week when we look at what he keeps in his emergency roadside kit. Stay tuned!
