E3 Spark Plugs News

April is National Car Care Month - A great time to check your spark plugs, gas caps, air filters and tires.

Did you know that April is National Car Care Month? It’s a great time to give your car a once-over with a good mechanic. Four simple-but-effective items to focus on: spark plugs, air filters, gas caps and tires.

American auto owners skip more than $62 billion of recommended vehicle maintenance and repair annually, according to the Car Care Council. As a result, those owners eventually face even pricier repairs or irreparable damage to their cars. Plus, thousands of poorly maintained vehicles can take a toll on the environment.

In keeping with the goal of National Car Care Month, auto experts recommend a quick check of four primary items that are simple fixes with big impacts:

Gas Caps: “Nearly 150 million gallons of gas vaporizes into the air every year because of damaged or missing gas caps,” says Car Care Council Executive Director Rich White. “This wasted gas not only has an effect on the environment but also has people spending more money at the gas pump.”

Car Spark Plugs: A vehicle can have four, six or eight spark plugs, each of which fire as many as 3 million times every 1,000 miles. That’s a lot of heat, electrical and chemical erosion going on. Resulting dirty spark plugs can cause misfiring – another fuel waster. For optimal performance replace yours with new E3 Spark Plugs, featuring the patented DiamondFire technology that delivers a faster, stronger, cleaner burn.

Air Filters: An air filter clogged with dirt, dust and bugs chokes off the clean air and creates what mechanics call a “rich” mixture – and that’s not “rich” in the good sense. It means that excessive gas is being burned off, causing the engine to lose power. Replacing a clogged filter can boost your gas mileage by up to 10 percent, saving as much as 15 cents a gallon.

Tires: If your tires are under-inflated, you’re not only wasting gas at a rate of up to two miles per gallon, you’re also putting yourself, your passengers and others on the road in danger. Under-inflated tires contributed to more than 600 accident-related fatalities and more than 30,000 injuries each year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Yet, surveys show that upwards of 55% of vehicles on U.S. roadways have at least one underinflated tire.

We here at E3 Spark Plugs want to help keep our clients, friends and supporters safe on the roadways, racetracks and off-road trails. We hope you’ll take a few minutes each month (not just National Car Care Month) to make sure all the critical parts of your vehicle are in prime running condition.

Every young teen is anxious to get behind the wheel and experience that sense of unbridled freedom. But it’s the “unbridled” part that hast parents anxious in a whole ‘nother way. E3 Spark Plugs offers tips to help make sure your teen is really ready for the road and to keep teens safe once they’re licensed and on their way.

Singer Jordin Sparks of "American Idol" fame is the face of Allstate's "X the TXT" campaign, which encourages teens to designate a passenger to text messages while on the road.

Most states license drivers at age 16. But that doesn’t mean that every 16-year-old is magically mature enough or experienced enough to properly handle driving on their own. While they have great reflexes, they have no frame of reference for making quick judgments behind the wheel. You know your teen better than anyone at the DMV, so only you can make the decision whether and when to allow your teen to be licensed.

The time during which your teenager has a learner’s permit is the perfect opportunity to help your teen learn the rules of the road, judge his or her abilities and know whether he or she is ready at 16. Have your teen log at least 30 minutes to an hour of practice each week, riding along on after-school activities and errands. If you live in an area that gets snow and iced-over roads each winter, this practice is critical. Locate an open, snow- or ice-covered parking lot and have your teen practice slow-speed maneuvers, hard breaking and steering in skidding situations.

Be clear that even after your teen is licensed to drive, the parental monitoring continues and that teens must abide by your rules or lose their driving privileges. Recommended rules include:

• A limited number of passengers in the car. It’s tough enough to keep eyes and mind on the road without all the laughter, chatter, music, food and other distractions that a carload of teens brings.
• Seatbelts for your teen and all passengers – no exceptions.
• No cell phone use or texting while driving. Driver distraction contributes to a full 25 percent of all police-reported traffic crashes, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and teens report texting as the number one distraction behind the wheel. Check out Allstate and singer Jordin  Sparks’ “X the TXT: DSGN8 Before You Drive” campaign.
• Limited driving during high-risk times, including Friday and Saturday nights and early Saturday and Sunday mornings. Statistics show that the highest numbers of crashes occur during these peak times.
• No tolerance for drugs or alcohol. Legal ramifications aside, this should be a non-negotiable cause for any parent to revoke their teens’ driving privileges.

Many of us here at E3 Spark Plugs are parents too, so we can assure you that you’ll get some flak on a few of these issues. But keeping your teen safe is worth it. Do you have other advice for fellow parents? Leave a comment on our E3 Spark Plugs blog or Facebook fan page.