The great George Carlin once said, “Every time you step on the brakes, your life is in your foot’s hands.” That’s not only funny, it’s true. Making sure your brakes are in good condition should be a regular part of your car-care routine.

Every time you change the oil, take a look at the brakes while you’re under the car removing the drain plug. Check the rotors for scoring, and the pads for wear. Some pads squeal loudly when they’re getting near the end of their useful life, but others don’t give you any warning until the pad material wears off and the metal backing plates start grinding through your rotors.

Check the hoses and lines for leaks or signs of abrasion. If you spot any brake fluid, don’t drive the car again until you find out where it’s coming from and stop it. Check the fluid reservoir under the hood for leaks or cracks, and make sure the cap is on tight. If the fluid appears murky or dirty, have it flushed and replaced with new fluid. If there are no leaks but the fluid level is low, it usually means your pads are wearing out and will need to be replaced soon.

You can make your brakes last longer by changing the way you drive. Start braking earlier, and don’t make hard, sudden stops. Be more aware of what’s going on several cars in front of you and you won’t need to slam on the brakes as often as you used to.

Keeping your car clean is hard enough without it generating its own dirt, like a puppy that hasn’t yet learned there are some things it shouldn’t do inside the house. And yet that’s what your car’s brake pads do. That fine, sooty dust you find on your expensive alloy wheels is brake dust, thrown off by the brake pads as they wear. That dust not only looks bad, it can eventually eat through the paint or clear coat on your wheels and pit the metal underneath.

One way to stop brake dust is to change to low-dust pads, such as those made of a ceramic compound, that don’t throw off as much dust. That’s tricky, though, because sometimes a change of compound can have consequences you might not like. Make sure the compound in the pads you’re looking at is suitable for your car and the type of driving you do.

Another fix is to install brake-dust shields between the wheel and the hub. While not a total solution, they can prevent a lot of the dusting you get now. But while they’re keeping brake dust in, they might also be trapping heat around your calipers and rotors. The hotter the brakes get, the less efficient they are, and dust on the wheels will seem like a minor irritation compared to the brake pedal going all the way to the floor at the bottom of a long grade. Vented dust shields can let some of the heat out––and some of the dust, as well. More...

Some cars you really don’t have to worry about. Case-in-point: the bland, silver four-door rental. But the car you own and count on is different. After all, you have a capital investment in the thing. It wasn’t exactly cheap to buy, so it’s a no-brainer to protect it. But falling into a maintenance rut can be expensive (in some situations, really expensive). Let’s face it: Lazy never works. But here are 10 easy ways to ruin your car’s reliability by being auto-maintenance lethargic:

1. Too Little Tire Pressure

Upwards of 90 percent of all the vehicles on the road are driven with improperly inflated tires, and the majority are under-inflated. Tire pressure changes constantly. Should tire pressure be too low, friction between the road and the tire increases, overheating the tire (which usually ends in catastrophic failure). It also wastes gas.

2. Not Checking Engine Oil Level

Checking oil level should be a no-brainer. If it’s down, the engine is burning oil or leaks. Checking oil level isn’t difficult and barely takes a couple of minutes. How much trouble can it be? You’ll find it if you ignore this simple step.

3. Neglecting Fluid and Filter Changes

How many people postpone fluid and filter changes (we’re talking engine oil, engine oil filters and coolant as well)? Plenty, we’ll bet. When it comes to oil filters, the words cheap and good usually cannot be used in the same sentence. Ditto with coolant. Coolant, does, in fact, wear out. 

4. Putting Off Brake Pad Replacement

Once worn, brake pads emit constant squawks and squeals. That’s your notice to getting the pads replaced ASAP. If you don’t then the rotors will eventually be destroyed (read that as expensive. Way more expensive.

5. Running the Wrong Tires During the Wrong Season

Unlike the fortunate fair-weather folks, many of us live in snow country. Proper tires are mandatory—or you won’t go far. The same applies to summer driving. Tires engineered for cold-weather use don’t last long in the summer and wear out in a heartbeat, which also translates into wasted money.

6. Burned Out Lamps

How many times do you take a walk around your car or truck and check the lights? You’re not alone. Plenty of folks neglect vehicle lights. If any bulbs are burned out, replace them immediately. Keep in mind repairs are usually easy and cheap and they could save you from an accident.

7. Overloading Your Ride

Drive down any road, in any part of the country and you’ll see an overwhelmed car or truck filled to the brim with someone’s “load” and/or yanking a trailer. All vehicles have a load placard. Check it—and if the load is too big, reduce the size or rent something more capable of handling it.

8. Forgetting Fresh Wiper Blades

Sunlight, ozone, cold weather and other factors contribute to wiper blade deterioration. Once the deterioration begins, wiper blades lose the ability to flex and flip over during use. They also crack. There’s only one fix: Replace the blades on a regular basis.

9. Driving with a Damaged Windshield

Driving with a cracked windshield is an invitation for trouble. Little cracks soon become big cracks and, before long, it’s difficult to see out of the thing. Chips can be fixed. Cracks can’t and only get bigger with time.

10. Running the Wrong Octane Gas

Plenty of drivers OD on octane. The reality is higher-than-required octane doesn’t improve mileage nor does it yield more power. It only costs you more money. Using poor quality fuel in a vehicle that calls for high-octane gas isn’t a good idea either. It can lead to outright engine failure. Use the right gas—the one your model’s manufacturer recommends. Your engine will be happier.

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There’s a huge misunderstanding about hybrid vehicles among the general public. (I’m sure you’re shocked, shocked, mind you, to discover technical illiteracy among the masses!) Carefully phrased advertising and marketing feed this misunderstanding. (Automakers also do this to prolong the fantasy that all-wheel drive helps vehicles handle better. It doesn’t.)

The misunderstanding: Electricity is “made” when you step on the brake pedal of a hybrid. The truth: Energy that would otherwise escape as heat is recaptured as a very little bit of electricity. That electricity refreshes the batteries, assuming the battery isn’t “fully” charged. To prolong battery life, hybrid and electric car batteries are not charged beyond about three-quarters of their true capacity.

For automotive illiterates, conventional car brakes stop the vehicle by turning the kinetic energy of the car moving down the road into heat. To further your knowledge: A hybrid’s kinetic energy comes from the potential energy in gasoline. And about 70 percent of the kinetic energy in electric vehicles comes largely from burning coal and natural gas.

In a hybrid, when the driver touches the brakes or the car thinks you want to slow down, the car’s computer switches the vehicle’s electric motor into an electric generator. This isn’t magic, but if you want to believe that, it’s okay with me. Rotating the motor-turned-generator reduces the work the brakes must do. It also captures a little bit of energy that would have been wasted as heat.

How much energy is recaptured? It varies from “not very much” to “none.” If you get on a wide-open freeway and drive, say, 10 miles without touching the brake, you’ve recaptured exactly zero energy. If you coast a bit to slow for the off ramp before touching the brakes, you recapture a very small amount. If, however, you’re on a slow-and-really-go L.A. freeway, where traffic suddenly slows from 75 mph or more to 25 or less (without an apparent reason) and then returns to 75 (without an apparent reason), then you’re recapturing a fairly useful amount of energy. Understand this: To an automaker “a fairly useful amount of energy” can be a single mile per gallon (or much less) on the government’s highway driving cycle.

The bottom line: Regenerative braking is arguably a better marketing tool than it is an energy saver. But save a little bit of energy it does.

When you find a story that makes you think, it’s not always the story that matters. In this case, a brief overview of the confluence of Toyota and Honda recalls spurs some serious manufacturing and OEM thoughts that affect anyone who buys a new car.

The article is titled “Honda Joins Toyota in Brake System Recall. 472K Cars Affected.” Read it for yourself. Its nothing special, describing a Honda recall of about a half-million cars and minivans, and how the same simple brake system part – a seal in the master cylinder being broken down by brake fluid – just caused a mill-five recall for Toyota.

There are questions and thinking left after flitting through this story. Honda says, “Certain types of brake fluid could affect the seal” – what does “affect” mean? What kind of fluid? If it wasn’t an approved brake fluid, then it would void parts warranties, and Honda (and Toyota) wouldn’t bother with a recall, which means this seal (probably part of the plunger in the master cylinder), is being destroyed by brake fluids that the manufacturer has recommended. Whoops. More...