Best Driving Instructor Guides

With the new year and summer in the distance, many people start to think about learning to drive. If you can’t get a recommendation from a friend, the internet and phone books are normally the next in line

Choose a driving instructor who is fully qualified

Firstly, they will have a certificate/badge displayed on the front windscreen of their tuition vehicle (this is a legal requirement, not doing it while charging for driving lessons is illegal). It will either be a green octagon if the instructor is fully qualified, or a red triangle if the person is a trainee instructor (valid for 6 months). Trainee driving instructors are not always worse, but they haven’t completed their full training, and if their licence runs out, they can no longer by paid for teaching.

All registered driving instructors have to undergo rigorous training and examinations , they are also Criminal Records Bureau checked at the enhanced level to ensure the safety of you the pupil. Fully qualified ADIs ( approved driving instructors ) have regular checks by the Driving Standards Agency to ensure their level of instruction is up to the required standard. Unregistered illegal instructors do not have any of this.

Don’t be afraid to ask about your instructor qualifications, if they’re genuine, they will be more than happy to provide you with the information you require. If you are still not sure, the DSA have a database of all registered instructors, so a phone call should clear it up.

Also, don’t be afraid to change instructors if you don’t feel happy. Learning to drive should be enjoyable and relaxed, if your instructor shouts or gets impatient with you, they’re not being professional.

Happy Learning!!

Car Dealer Tricks to Watch For

We know. Not all car dealers are unscrupulous, and not all are going to take you to the cleaners. Among all the “Honest Bobs” out there walking the lots, many really are trustworthy. But there is a simple reason so many people dread buying a new car: the potential for rip-off is astronomical, and common practices over the years have often justified consumers’ fears. If you catch a whiff of any of the scams below, be on alert.

Juggling the Four-Square

This isn’t really a trick, but awareness here is important for a buyer. When you sit down to negotiate, the salesman will pull out a “four-square” worksheet on which to work out the terms of the deal. In the four quadrants of the sheet the salesman will record purchase price, down payment, monthly payments, and trade-in value. He will fill in the sheet as you talk, working the deal like a shell game—if he thinks you are preoccupied with getting a fair deal on your trade in, he might give you a good price for that and then nudge your new-car purchase price north. Take it slow, focus on one item at a time, and be sure you are comfortable with each individual aspect of your purchase.

Profiting from Rebates

Rebates bring a lot of customers into a showroom, but the discounts can hide several tricks dealers employ to suck a few bucks from a buyer. First, don’t let a salesman tell you that you are getting a good deal because of a rebate; rebates come from the manufacturer and usually apply regardless of the price you negotiate with the individual dealer. Negotiate as if there are no rebates. Second, make sure the rebates are deducted from the purchase price. If you allow the dealer to mail you a check after the sale, you end up paying taxes and interest on the rebate. And never let an incentive like a low APR or a rebate rush you into a purchase you aren’t ready to make. If there’s an incentive on a car today, odds are there will be incentives on it again. Salesmen will often tell you there are strings attached to incentives, such as that you have to buy a certain trim, engine, or option package in order to qualify. This is not always true. Do your homework.

Inflating Payments

Talking monthly payments at the car dealership can be as dangerous as saying “bomb” at the airport. A salesman asks how much you are willing to pay each month, and you throw out a number—say, $450 a month. He asks how much more you could afford—just getting a feel for you. You tack on another 50 bucks. In your mind, you were just theorizing, but to the salesman, you just committed to a $500 minimum monthly payment. Instead, when a salesman asks how much you can pay each month, tell him you will not discuss monthly payments and only want to talk purchase price; you’ll decide on monthly payments after you’ve settled on a fair price.

Fees and Extras

Delivery charges, titling fees, and a few other closing costs are inevitable extras associated with buying a new car. But aside from a few essential add-ons, most fees or extra-cost items are either inflated or altogether unnecessary. Negotiate fees down, or outright refuse to pay them. And deny any extras offered by the finance and insurance manager. Basically, if it’s anything he offers you after you’ve negotiated your sales price, you don’t need it and you shouldn’t pay for it. Particularly egregious are paint protection and fabric guard, essentially wax and Scotch Guard dealerships often charge hundreds of dollars for.

Interest-Rate Bumping

You should always shop for your own financing before you head to the dealer. Maybe you’ll get a better rate; maybe you’ll just get a better idea of what rate you qualify for so you can police the finance manager. It is not uncommon for the dealer to secure financing for you at one APR but offer you a rate one percentage point higher—and then pocket the difference.

Altering the Bill of Sale

Never sign a bill of sale with blanks or terms that are “subject to bank approval” or have similar wording. Some dealerships will let a customer sign such a document and release the new car to its happy owner, only to call the buyer back a few days later to say that the loan fell through and they need to come back in to sign some new paperwork, which just happens to cost the buyer more than the negotiated price. Never drive your car off a lot until all the paperwork is filled out completely.

The following four are the most underhanded and childish dealer tricks. Fortunately, they don’t happen very often anymore. But if a dealer pulls any of these stunts on you, they don’t deserve your business. Walk away.

Ransoming Your Check

The sales manager gets cast as the villain in a good cop/bad cop routine some salesmen play with buyers. You’ll negotiate a price, and the salesman will leave to get approval from his sales manager, painting the salesman as your ally and the manager as a common enemy. Be wary if the salesman asks for a check to prove to the manager you are serious. Sometimes, your offer will be rejected, but your check won’t be returned right away—it’s been “misplaced” or some similar nonsense. Now they’ve got your money, and you feel pressured to concede to their terms. Remember that you can always walk away and cancel the check later.

Eavesdropping

While it’s a good idea to bring a friend or family member shopping with you—someone else to watch the deal, question the terms, and help keep your emotions in check—this opens additional avenues for nefarious dealers to use the wingman against the buyer. When the salesman leaves the cube, people drop their guard and feel comfortable discussing the aspects of the deal they wouldn’t mention in front of the salesman. With just a couple subtle pokes at their phones, salespeople can leave the intercom open with the sales manager’s office, where they will go not to seek approval on your terms, but to eavesdrop on your conversation, harvesting information to use against the customer. There are even stories of salespeople hiding baby monitors in their offices. When the salesman leaves to talk to the sales manager, that’s your cue to leave and get a cup of coffee.

Lying About Your Credit Score

In addition to shopping around for financing, you should take a look at your credit report and strongly consider spending the few bucks to learn your credit score before you go to a dealership. Many of the best offers to be had on new cars are contingent on the buyer having qualifying credit, and dealers occasionally have been known to lie to customers about their credit scores and the financing for which they qualify.

Misplacing Trade-In Keys

If you are thinking of trading in your old car when you buy a new one, someone may borrow your keys to evaluate your ride. If negotiations stall and you try to leave, you might find that they’ve been “misplaced” in order to prevent you from leaving and entice you to make a deal you aren’t comfortable with. If you bring two sets of keys with you, this won’t be a problem.

Not every dealership is guilty of these tricks. Which is all the more reason to stick with a good one when you find it.

Drivers’ Education: Things Every Driver Should Know How to Do

The owner’s manual of any car will tell you—in the most excruciatingly simplistic step-by-step manner possible—how to operate everything from the seatbelts to the trunk lock and how to finely tune the rear headrests with ferocious, compulsive precision. And on virtually every page there will be a yellow box screaming at you not to do something stupid like lick the brake discs or serve the radiator water as an after-dinner digestif. After all, based on the advice of their attorneys, manufacturers have to assume that anyone who buys their cars must be a total moron.
Although the average owner’s manual overdoes it, that doesn’t mean we can’t all use an occasional refresher course in automotive common sense. And, don’t take this wrong, but we know there are plenty of you out there who won’t admit to the simple things you flat never learned.
So here is our unabashed (but slightly bashed) guide to the most elementary challenges of automotive operation. This is the stuff you didn’t necessarily learn in drivers’ education and your father just assumed you learned through transgenerational osmosis.

How to Change a Tire
It used to be that blowouts were a regular motoring event—right up there with thumping the occasional headlight-mesmerized raccoon and being forced to use a gnarly gas-station restroom. Thankfully, modern tires rarely shed a tread or spontaneously deteriorate. But guaranteed there will come a time when you’ll be forced to change a tire.
If a tire blows, don’t try to save it or its wheel by stopping immediately in a lousy situation; the shoulder of a busy freeway counts as a lousy situation. If possible, find a level, solid, well-lit surface and park, even if that means driving a mile at low speed with your hazard lights on. And for God’s sake, don’t stop in traffic. Ever. Then make sure the car can’t roll. The parking brake should be on, and the transmission in park (in an automatic) or in gear (in a manual).
Grab the spare, lug wrench, and jack. Most newer cars use scissors-type jacks that raise the car up at a predefined point on the car’s structure. All the info on where the tools and jacking points are is in the owner’s manual.
Now, lift the car using the jacking point nearest the disabled wheel so that the weight of the car is on the jack but the tire is still in contact with the road. If there’s a hubcap, that will need to be removed so the lug nuts can be accessed.
With the tire still in contact with the road, the lug nuts should be cracked loose (counterclockwise) but not removed. The car can then be jacked up farther and the lugs removed. With the nuts off, the tire and wheel assembly can be removed.
Put the spare on, and hand-tighten the lug nuts (clockwise). The car can now be lowered so the tire is touching the ground, although the car’s weight should remain on the jack. The lug nuts should then be tightened further using a star pattern (around the wheel, skipping every other lug) to ensure that they snug down evenly on the wheel.
Lower the car all the way onto the ground. Tighten the lug nuts down as snugly as possible. Hit the road.
Alternatively: Call the auto club.

How to Jump-Start a Car
First, make sure it’s the battery that’s really the problem. If the car’s lights come on brightly and the starter motor churns with its usual ferocity, the battery is likely heaving out plenty of amps.
Second, make sure you have a good set of jumper cables—robust, rubber-coated cables that can handle the amperage. Virtually all jumper cables should be color-coded with the red clamp intended for the positive pole on the battery and the black clamp for the negative.
Ideally, the car with the bum battery and the jump car should be parked on a clean, dry surface. And they should be parked so that the cars’ batteries are accessible and close enough to each other that the cables can comfortably span the space between them without being taut.
With both cars off, attach one of the red clamps to the positive (+) terminal on the battery that’s presumed bad. Be careful of the other red clamp—it’s now live. Then connect that other red clamp to the positive terminal on the jump car’s battery. After that, one black clamp goes to the negative (-) terminal on the good battery while the other black clamp should go to an unpainted steel surface on the stalled car, to be grounded.
Start the car with the good battery. Routing the cables this way uses the battery on the live car to start the disabled car, so there is no need to wait for the dead battery to charge. Start the dead car. Remove the cables in reverse order, close the respective hoods, and operate the two cars as usual.
If the electrical system in the car with the drained battery is otherwise okay, the battery should be recharged after about 15 minutes of driving and the whole thing should be okey-dokey.
Alternatively: If the car with the dead battery has a manual transmission, there’s always bump-starting the car, too. With the key turned on, the car in first gear, and the clutch pushed in, get the car rolling forward (by pushing it or by rolling down a conveniently located hill), and once up to jogging speed, quickly release the clutch. The car should jerk, then start.

How to Check Your Tire Pressure
Everything any car does depends on the four rubber donuts on which it sits. Making sure those tires are properly inflated is the best way to guarantee your car performs at its best from a handling and fuel-efficiency standpoint.
There are fancy tire gauges and straightforward tire gauges, but they all work pretty much the same way. Simply take the gauge to each tire, remove the valve-stem cap (and put it in your pocket so you don’t lose it on the ground), press the gauge flat against the valve stem, and the gauge will read the pressure. If you hear air hissing out of the valve alongside the gauge, you don’t have a complete seal and will get an inaccurate reading. What that reading should be is usually listed on a sticker in one of the front doorjambs. Or it’s in the owner’s manual. The proper pressure is not the maximum listed on the tire itself; that’s often far too high.
After that, it’s a matter of adding air and rechecking the pressure until the tires are at their correct inflation. But be careful not to overinflate, because that leaves the car riding on smaller, less stable contact patches.
Remember, it’s best to measure your tire pressure when the tires are cold—after the car has been parked for the night is ideal. Tires that are warm after running all day will have a higher pressure from the additional heat. Tire pressures should be checked at least once a month.
Alternatively: When tires shred, steel wheels make beautiful sparks against the pavement.

How to Check Your Oil
The oil in your car’s engine is there to lubricate, not burn. So checking your oil is a way to determine if there’s enough of the stuff aboard and if the engine has developed an appetite for it. First, look in the owner’s manual and determine where the oil dipstick is. In most cars it’s alongside the engine block and marked with a brightly colored handle and an oil-can icon.
Take your car for a spin to warm the oil to normal operating temperature. Then park the car on a level surface and let it sit with the engine off for at least five or ten minutes. Open the hood, find the dipstick, and pull it out by the handle. The long shaft of metal that makes up the majority of the stick should be covered in engine oil. Wipe that off with a clean rag.
Reinsert the dipstick, and then pull it out again. At the bottom of the stick will be markings showing where the normal oil level should be. If there’s oil on those markings, you’re good. If it’s below them, add a half a quart of oil at a time until you reach the appropriate level. If there’s no oil on the stick at all, you have a problem.
Don’t run your engine on a measly oil supply. Add the appropriate type of motor oil (that’s in the owner’s manual, too) as soon as possible to an engine that’s low. Even if it’s only been a few hundred miles since the oil sump was filled, you could have serious problems.
Alternatively: Throwing a bearing is destructive and dramatic.

How to Get Unstuck
You just drove into muck, and the car is stuck. What to do?
From snow: It’s critical to keep a light foot on the gas, because too much throttle merely spins the tires, heating them up and melting the snow around them, which will refreeze into ice.
First, get out and see how bad you are stuck. If it is just your drive wheels that are blocked, the process will be much simpler. But if you tried to plow through a drift and the whole car is angled on a mound of snow, you’re going to have to do some digging first to get the car back on solid ground.
If you can move at all, “rock” the vehicle back and forth by shifting between drive and reverse and going as far as you can in either direction. Be careful not to step on the gas before the gear engages, or you could do serious damage to the transmission. Sometimes it helps to clear a little space around your front tires by cranking the steering wheel back and forth. You can get a little extra traction by putting cardboard under the drive wheels, too. If there’s no cardboard around and the situation is desperate, the car’s floor mats might also work. If that fails, keep shoveling.
From mud or sand: Whatever you do, don’t spin the tires. That will just dig a deeper hole. Instead, put something in the intended path of the drive wheels—palm fronds, branches, beach towels, wood blocks, your kid brother, anything—and proceed slowly.
Ideally, if you’re wandering off-road, you should bring a mud ladder or sand ladder with you. Mud and sand ladders are basically small bridges made of steel, rope, or wood that can be placed before the drive wheels and driven across. Of course, anyone so well prepared as to have a sand or mud ladder along is also more likely to have a buddy with a winch nearby.
Alternatively: Abandon the vehicle in place and buy a new one.