Good Practices for car's health

Some of the things that came out after a discussion with my colleague, Sachin KC.
Thanks to Sachin for sharing the good practices that he follows.

* Don't jump start the vehicle. Most of the damages happen during engine startups. Keep the engine idle for about 30-45 seconds before you start moving. You can notice the difference yourself about the engine performance. ( Though it is not needed for mpfi engines, it is still a good practice ).

* Keep watch on the battery acid level. Don't rely on servicing people, they don't even bother to check it sometimes. ONLY use distilled water for topping up ( no acid ). Level should be till the
indicator in every cell.

* Keep checking the coolent container regularly, may be every fortnight. Sometimes they dry up very quickly and damage radiator. The coolent level should be as indicated on the container.

* DONOT turn on AC when it is raining. This could generate carbon-monoxide known as "Silent Killer". Lower the windows by 2 inches or use just the blower. Found this in an article.

* Avoid resting your left leg on the clutch. Even little push, engine drinks considerable amount of fuel and the mileage drops. My car's mileage increased by around 1Km when I avoided this. ( There will be a resting pad to the left of clutch which you can use )

* You can skip one gear shift in forward direction when you feel that the vehicle is moving fast. Say, for example, your vehicle crosses 35 and u change the gear from 2 to 3, drive till it reaches 55 or 60, then you can shift gear directly to 5. This avoids fuel flow as you don’t have to use clutch one more time. This is similar to downshifting from 5 to 3rd or 2nd gear when you deaccelerate.

* He uses the following gear shift strategy.
0 -> 20 : first gear
20 -> 35 : second gear
35 -> 55,60 : third gear
55 -> 65,70 : fourth
Above 65,70 : fifth

* Most importantly, get the engine De-Carbonized. This removes the carbon layer that gets formed inside the engine. After you have got this done, you will feel that your engine is brand
new!! He is doing it for every 25,000 KM and his Santro is doing great even after having run for about 1,38,000 KMs!!! Hyundai charges around 1400 rupees for DeCarbonizing alone!