It’s Hard to Put a Brake on an Old Habit
Question: My husband drives his automatic-transmission automobile with his left foot on the brake and his right foot on the gas at the same time. I maintain that in addition to sending confusing signals to other motorists, he is also damaging the car. Your comments, please.--V.W.
Answer: If you’re trying to change your husband’s driving habit, I doubt anything I say will have much of an effect. Something as basic as whether he uses both feet when driving can be pretty deeply ingrained.
Although driving instructors teach student motorists to use one foot, there is nothing inherently damaging to the car or confusing to other motorists in using two feet. The important thing is to make sure the left foot is not depressing the brake pedal while the right foot is on the accelerator.
If your husband is “riding the brake” by putting mild pressure on the brake pedal at all times, he is indeed confusing motorists behind him by having his brake light on. In addition, he will certainly wear out the brakes at a rapid rate, and he could potentially damage the transmission if he really rides the brakes hard.
Of course, none of this applies to the safety issue of how quickly he can apply the brakes in an emergency stop. Automobile manufacturers go to a lot of trouble to design the accelerator and brake pedal positions to reduce to a minimum the reaction time to apply the brakes. By braking with the left foot, a person may react more quickly or more slowly, depending on a lot of human variables.
Q: I own a Ford Fairmont. It has 70,000 miles on it and burns one quart of oil every 260 miles. I had new valve seals installed, but that did not help the oil consumption. I don’t see any smoke coming out the tailpipe. Where does the oil go?--T.B.
A: Diagnosing excessive oil consumption can be tricky, but a good mechanic should be able to tell you what the problem is. You should look for leaks by checking for oil dripping on your driveway and by inspecting the lower engine area. An engine smeared with fresh oil indicates a fairly healthy leak rate.
Even though you don’t see any smoke out of the tailpipe, you could still be burning oil. With engines running hotter these days, oil burns up more completely and doesn’t show as much. If the engine is burning oil, the oil is entering the combustion chamber either through the rings or valve stems. The new seals should have fixed the problem if the valves were at fault.
One final bit of advice is that your mechanic should inspect the spark plugs to see if they have oil fouling. That could indicate which cylinders have the potential leakage problem.
Follow-Up
In response to many letters I received about where motorists can buy the Kryptonite car lock that was mentioned in this column, the company can be contacted at (800) 822-5625.
