Car Smarts: Garage-ese 101

After reading the following excerpt from Mary Jackson's best-selling book, Car Smarts, you'll be able to speak in terms your mechanic understands — and understand him when he's using these terms with you!

Performance Terms

Afterfire - the engine continues to fire after the vehicle has been turned off
Backfire - loud popping sound from the engine or tail pipe
Cut out - irregular and complete loss of power
Dieseling - see Afterfire
Engine run on - see Afterfire
Fast idle - engine runs too fast
Hesitation - a pause or momentary lack of power
Miss - engine runs at speed erratically and unevenly
Power loss - engine continues to run but at dramatically reduced speed
Rough idle - slight engine vibration to severe shaking, at a stop
Sluggish - power is less than normal, acceleration not as crisp as usual
Stall - engine dies completely
Stumble - engine starts to die and kicks back in before stalling
Surge - vehicle speeds up and slows down with no change in accelerator pedal pressure

Handling Terms

Bottoming - bottom of car scrapes the ground
Brake drag - brakes do not release completely
Brake fade - brakes take longer to stop the vehicle
Pitch - vehicle dives forward upon braking or sideways upon cornering
Play - too much looseness in the steering wheel
Pull - vehicle strains to one side when braking
Shimmy - tires and steering wheel shake
Sway - vehicle continues to bounce after going over bump
Vibrate - vehicle shakes
Wander - vehicle drifts from side to side

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