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Inspired by a recent bout of frustration with my car prominently exhibiting Behavior Number 4 below, here are some other potentially irritating things your car does that you don’t need to worry about:

1. A/C water. Ever come back to your car on a hot summer day after a quick run into the store and spy a puddle of some kind of liquid under the passenger side? Could your car be hemorrhaging some kind of precious bodily fluid? Is it terminal, doc? Relax—it’s just water vapor condensing on the cold A/C evaporator behind the dashboard, the same way sweat droplets form on a cold glass of Coke on a hot day. The condensation builds up and drains through built-in channels onto the ground. Major traffic intersections around busy shopping centers, where cars idle for a few minutes at a time waiting for the lights, often look like scenes of recent rain, what with all the puddles left behind as cars drive away.
2. Fan whir. Speaking of idling at intersections on hot days, ever drive away and hear a whooshing noise from under the hood, like someone bolted a box fan to your front bumper? The noise makes you feel like you’re driving a Mack Truck, doesn’t it? Breaker one-niner? Again, assuming your engine temperature needle is still holding steady, it’s nothing to worry about. The heat of the idling engine is being transferred to the fan clutch, coupling it more directly to the engine—as it’s designed to do—pulling more air through the radiator to help cool the engine. And for those of us without engine-driven fans (most of the FWD set), hearing the electrical engine or auxiliary fan motor kicking in behind the grille should be a welcome, if still occasionally annoying, sound.
3. Squeaks and rattles. This one we’re all familiar with—at least those of us who own mid-range cars older than, say, 5 years. They’re often the littlest things, but they can drive us bonkers, like the incessant drip of Chinese water torture. I should make a distinction between interior squeaks and rattles and those coming from underneath the car. The former are benign; the latter should definitely be investigated. But in the case of interior trim rattles, if I can’t screw or tape down the offending panel or clip immediately, I can at least reassure myself that it’s not harming the car in the long run.
4. Lifter tick. Hear an annoying *tick tick tick* from your engine when it’s warm? Chances are it’s nothing more than lifter tick, something my car is currently suffering from. Everything in the engine is being properly lubricated, but a passageway in an oil gallery to a lifter in the cylinder head is a little clogged, with the result that the camshaft lobe slaps the lifter surface instead of smoothly pushing it as it rotates around, creating the audible ticking sound. There are inexpensive partial fixes to mitigate the noise, but no, it’s not the sound of a Goldfinger-style dirty bomb under the hood.
5. Squat. I’ve owned a rash of cars that do this, from my current BMW to my old Supra Turbo and Audi 4000 “squattro.” With a full tank of fuel (and even without), in profile, the car appears to be sitting on its haunches, with the fender-lip-to-tire gap noticeably greater in the front than in the back. Fortunately, other than looking like you’re carrying a few bags of cement or a dead body—possibly both—in the trunk, this is another aggravating yet benign “feature” of many cars.
6. Rusty brake discs. Your car is parked outside. There was a thunderstorm last night. Come out to it in the morning, and what’s this? Brake discs dalmatian-ed with rust? What gives? Oxidation; that’s what. The metal on the brake disc isn’t rust-proofed; it can’t be, since the most minute layer of material is scraped away by the brake pads every time you squeeze the pedal, and any coating would be swiftly stripped from the disc. Put a big ring of raw metal in contact with moisture-laden air and presto: Rust spots on the brake disc. Since I wouldn’t be including it in this list if the phenomenon were harmful, you know it isn’t. Bonus activity: Check your brake discs again after the first couple of stops of the day; chances are the brake pads have scoured the discs, rendering them completely clean and shiny again.

If you can’t join ’em, detail their cars.

Although, at the going rate of around $16,000 for the full treatment, Dubai’s Frederick Faidhi may well be able to “join ’em” sooner rather than later.

He runs Monza Ultimate Detailing and Protection, a money-no-object detailing company based in the UAE. His well-off customers, frequently younger men, shell out anywhere from $10,000 to $16,000 for the outfit’s services, which include microscopically-inspected paint care and restoration as well as fanatically fastidious upholstery maintenance. The object of the 25-30 hour treatments is for the cars to drive away in better-than-new condition. Faidhi says,

“Ten cars are in my work shop right now and it’s spectacular to come in in the morning and enjoy spending time with these incredible cars.”

I guess there’s more than one way to hang out with cars you lust after.

Say what you will about Ralph Lauren; the man has great taste in cars.

Currently showing through August 28 at Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris, L’Art De L’Automobile showcases select cars from his extensive collection of precious metal.

Many of the all-time greats are present: Lauren’s Bugatti 57 Atlantic; his Alfa Romeo 8C 2900; his Jaguar D-Type; multiple historic Ferraris, from the 375 Plus to the 250 Testa Rossa and GTO; and his McLaren F1 LM, among many others. Thumbing through the exhibit catalog is like strolling through a who’s who of automotive all-stars.

The photography is rich and vibrant, but it’s the sound clips of the engines that make the link above especially worthwhile. Listen to the sound of the Ferrari 250 GTO’s V12 to hear one of the most thrilling mechanical symphonies in the automotive world. Dare you not to smile as you listen.

Instrument clusters. Countless design hours go into the look and feel of these things, and yet, among the pantheon of automakers, their styles diverge so wildly. Every company seems to have its own interpretation of the way the car’s vital statistics should be displayed, and each one strikes its own balance between style and substance. It takes a deft touch to combine clarity with a dash of visual appeal, and it’s the area of car design where the tug-of-war between sober functionality and trendy graphics is perhaps most clearly on display (pun intended).

As something of an ergonomics nerd (if such a thing exists), they fascinate me. They’re the area of the car we observe most often while driving, so it stands to reason their layout and readabilty would weigh pretty heavily on our impression of the car we’re driving. And in the midst of my observations of an admittedly-limited cross section of the instrument cluster universe, I’ve developed a running list of preferences, a subjective and objective wish list of things I like to see when I glance down from the road:

1. Pale or green lighting. BMW supposedly did a study in early in their modern life as a global company where they determined that amber lighting was optimal for the cluster, in that it allows the eye to transition most easily between the world outside and the information displayed on the instruments. Be that as it may, I’ve always held to the color theory that red or amber lighting simultaneously conveys either an angry/intense emotional tone, or a warm/sleepy one—neither of which are emotions I want to pick up on when I look at my car’s gauges. So as much as I’ve liked other aspects of my current BMW or my old Audi, I could have done without the color of their lighting. Conversely, I’ve found that pale or green instrument lighting has a couple of significant advantages when it comes to cluster illumination. Observe that most street signs or store lights are lit with a pale shade, or green hue, and lighting the instruments with a similar color range makes them feel like natural extensions of the outside environment. My mind switches effortlessly between outside and inside, without having to re-compute for color. Also, the impressions given by the color are cool, alert, precise and calm—exactly what I want to feel behind the wheel.
2. A tachometer at least as prominent as the speedometer. This is especially important in cars equipped with a manual transmission. The relative size of the instruments communicate pretty clearly the car’s priorities—if the speedo dwarfs the tach, it’s evident the designers felt having a handle on the engine speed was something of a lesser priority to their target audience than knowing if they’re doing, say, 17 over on I-95. And given that the more connected one feels with one’s car, the more important it is to know just how fast the contraption under the hood in spinning, I just can’t relate to the slice of the buying public, or the designers who cater to them, who think that’s irrelevant information. A wonderful example of an automaker prioritizing in the right direction has been Mazda, with their RX-7, who for all but two years (’84-’85) placed the oversize tach front and center in the instrument cluster. Nicely done.
3. Thin needles. This one is a bit nit-picky, perhaps, but few will argue that thin needles just makes the cluster feel more precise. It’s easier to tell at a glance if the needle is pointing at, say, 57 mph rather than the range from 55-59 mph, as would be the case with a chunkier needle. The angle of the a thin needle is slightly more apparent as well, which is often all we see when we glance quickly at the cluster.
4. Lots of increments between numbers. This dovetails a bit with the previous preference in that it’s one of those things that just makes a given gauge feel more precise. With lots of hash marks between numbers, the gauges look like precision Swiss watches as opposed to cartoony wall clocks. The ’86-’92 Toyota Supra actually took a step backward in this regard during its mid-cycle refresh: The ’89-’92 cluster eliminated the gradations between numbers that were present on the instruments of the ’86-’88 cars, and as a result the later cars’ gauges feel more empty, arbitrary, cheap. One hash mark per 2 mph or 100 rpm minimum, please.
5. Lots of instrumentation. Give me lots of information; the more gauges the better. Porsche has been an admirable example of this for ages—their 911 has long had oil pressure, oil temperature and a voltmeter in addition to the standard tach, speedo and water temp dials. As far as I’m concerned, you can never be too informed about your car’s mechanical state.
6. Linear gauges. What do I mean by this? Let me give you a negative example: Most engine temperature gauges these days are little more than idiot lights—they rise with engine temperature to a predetermined position and stay there through all the engine’s actual temperature fluctuations, short of truly overheating. They’re weighted, in effect, to stay in a particular position, and as such communicate less information to the driver about what the engine is actually doing. I really do want to know whether the engine is 185° or 189°; it informs the way I treat the car; it helps in diagnosing running issues; and again, it makes me feel more connected to the car.

What say you? What instrument cluster features have you come to appreciate?

Let’s get these out of the way, right up front.

Below are some common mishandled car terms that can provoke a raised eyebrow when they pop up on the car boards. Yes, I know, several of them are colloquial terms for the actual parts they’re referring to, and I recognize the intent behind their use, in many cases, is not deliberate inaccuracy, but lack of knowledge or just laziness. But there’s no harm in a friendly re-alignment every now in then, is there? Besides, I’d rather the incorrect term not become the “correct” one though frequent misuse, as has happened with far too many words in our language already.

So behold, the convergence of car and grammar nerd-ery:

1. Unless you’re interested in a set of three-piece CCWs or BBS LMs, you don’t want a set of aftermarket rims. Nope. You want wheels. Rims are the edge of the wheel that makes contact with the tire bead; wheels are the whole thing. No, you do not want some phat 19″ rims for your sweet ride, you want some killer 19″ wheels. Or, even better, some 17-inchers.
2. What’s under the hood of your car isn’t a motor. It’s an engine. A device which internally converts heat energy into motion is an engine; a device which takes energy (such as electricity) from an external source and converts it into motion is a motor. If you drive a Nissan Leaf, you’re exempt from this one. And I pity you.
3. Before you come on the boards and announce to everyone that you want to add an aftermarket cold-air intake (or CAI) to your car, you might want to check your stock airbox. Chances are that it already draws cold air via a snorkel from behind the bumper or one of the headlights. What you most likely mean to say is that you want to replace your factory air filter with a cone filter, because that’s what your buddy who works at Pep Boys said was the first thing to do and would get you “into the 15s.” And because you think the chrome on that Weapon-R intake would look crazy tight under your hood, broceratops. Have fun sucking hot engine bay air through a less-than optimized intact tract.
4. Better men than me have railed against this one for years, but the damage is done: The components at all four corners of your car that attenuate the up-and-down motion transferred to the car body after the wheel contacts a road imperfection and the spring transmits the energy are not shock absorbers. Yes, they’re almost universally called that, but it doesn’t accurately describe their function. They don’t absorb the shock of impact; the tire and spring do. A better moniker would be dampers, in that they dampen the unibody’s movement in response to a bump on the road. But as I said, this one’s a lost cause; 99.9% of the automotive crowd is stuck on shock absorber. So I’ll just roll with this one and bow to the will of the masses.

Not giving up on the other ones, though. Stand with me!

Peace.