OMG!! See What Vulcanizers Do To Your Tyres

IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO ALL VEHICLE USERS!

Compiled by Jude Obinna Success Ihemeje

*Vulcanizers in Nigeria are killing people*

Many people have been wondering what could be the cause of the incessant tyre burst accidents on Nigerian roads. 

The major cause is that we put too much pressure in our tyres. 

How did I know?

I was preparing for a journey, I changed some of my tyres and I asked the vulcanizer that 'what is the recommended tyre pressure?' He said 50. I said alright, he should inflate it to 50 all round.

When I got to where I was going, I was discussing with some people on the issue of the Minister of State for Labour  that died on the road due to a burst tyre and wonder what could have happened because nobody could imagine a minister would be traveling with expired tyres as many would think is the major cause of tyre bursts.

A man (lived in US for many years) said that the major cause of tyre burst in Nigeria is that we put too much pressure in our tyres and that each car has recommended tyre size and pressure clearly written on it by the manufacturer.

*I was surprised and begged him to come and show me where it's written on my car. 

To my greatest surprise, it's by the drivers door which I enter everyday without noticing it.*

By the time we checked, the recommended pressure for my tyres is 32! and I just traveled with tyres on a pressure of 50! 

He took me round his compound and showed me that of the cars (which includes a jeep and a sienna) there, the highest was 32. Some were even 29!

He further explained that tyres are made of rubber and expand at high temperature. So, when you are travelling in the afternoon when the asphalt on the road is hot, the tyre will want to expand. If the pressure in the tyre is too much and wouldn't accommodate the expansion, a burst is likely to happen at that time.

Please check the recommended tyre pressure for your vehicle and others you know.

As many Nigerians as possible need to read this.

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Kia and Hyundai Show Improvement in J.D. Power Quality Study

 South Korean automakers, originally seen as laggards in quality, are quickly closing the gap with their competitors, a major study shows.

In the initial quality study released this week by the market research firm J.D. Power, Kia ranked second and Hyundai fourth. It was the first time since the study was started 29 years ago that Kia led nonpremium brands in initial quality.

And, although Lexus, Toyota and Honda were above the industry average in initial quality, when all Japanese brands were combined, they fell below the industry average, 112, for the first time.

“The astonishing thing is the improvement rate of the Koreans,” said Renee Stephens, vice president for United States automotive quality at J.D. Power, in a telephone interview. While the industry over all improved by 3 percent, the South Korean automakers improved 11 percent.

“It’s a clear shift in the quality landscape,” Ms. Stephens said. “It’s changing the pace that you need to be at in order to be ahead.”

Japanese brands as a whole improved at a rate of 1 percent, while the domestic automakers and European automakers improved by 3 percent, Ms. Stephens said.

The initial quality study measures problems experienced by buyers and lessees of new vehicles in the first 90 days of possession.

J.D. Power then ranks brands by the number of problems reported per 100 vehicles; the lower the number of problems, the higher the ranking. This year’s study included 215 models and 33 brand rankings. More than one problem can be recorded per vehicle.

South Korean brands led the industry in initial quality by the widest margin ever, averaging a score of 90 problems per 100 vehicles. For the first time in the study, European brands, with a score of 113 per 100, surpassed Japanese brands, with 114. Domestic makes, with 114, equaled the Japanese for only a second time.

Communications technology continues to be the biggest problem category, with voice recognition remaining No. 1. The majority of models in the study that had voice recognition systems had 10 or more problems related to that feature per 100 vehicles. And the number of owners who said they had voice recognition has increased to 67 percent in 2015 from 57 percent in 2013.

Porsche was ranked the most reliable brand for the third consecutive year with a score of 80 problems per 100.

After Porsche, brands that rounded out the top 10 were Kia, 86 problems per 100; Jaguar, 93; Hyundai, 95; Infiniti, 97; BMW, 99; Chevrolet, 101; Lincoln, 103; Lexus, 104; and Toyota, 104.

The bottom five were Jeep, 141; Subaru, 142; Chrysler, 143; Smart, 154; and, in last place, Fiat, 161.

The vehicle with the fewest problems was the Lexus LS, 61 per 100. It was followed by the Porsche 911, 65; and the Chrysler 300, 66. The Chrysler 300 was the nonluxury model and the domestic model with the fewest problems.

This year’s study is based on responses from 84,000 owners or lessees of 2015 vehicles.

The survey covers 233 questions about possible problems, which include mechanical defects and malfunctions as well as design issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/business/international/kia-and-hyundai-show-improvement-in-jd-power-quality-study.html

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Toyota Is Developing An Engine Without A Crankshaft

It's the most radical alteration to combustion-engine design yet.

 you haven’t noticed, internal-combustion engines are kind of big – even the three-cylinder unit on the new Ford Fiesta SFE is too large to carry around in your arms.

However, what if you drive a car that doesn’t necessarily need an engine that big, or an engine that contains all the standard rotating parts?

What if your electric car just needs a simple range-extending generator?

Well, Toyota has you covered with the FPEG.

FPEG stands for Free Piston Engine Linear Generator (FPELG didn’t have the same ring to it), and it could very well be the first seriously major change to the standard internal-combustion engine in its century-long history.

All Toyota had to do was take a look at an older engine design, incorporate a long-standing law of physics, and spend measureless time and money to make everything work. Easy, right?

The big change between the FPEG and a standard car engine is the removal of both the crankshaft and the connecting rods.

When it comes to providing juice for electric-car batteries, you don’t need the rotational motion of the crankshaft – all it does is add weight and complication.

So Toyota ditched the crankshaft (and, by proxy, the connecting rods, since they bolt to the crankshaft).

However, that leaves us with an engine and a piston that lacks the ability to move back and forth in the cylinder; the power stroke will push the piston down, but without the crankshaft and con rods, what will push it back up?

To remedy that issue, Toyota created a gas-filled chamber underneath the piston.

As the piston moves downwards in the cylinder, it compresses that gas, which acts as a spring to launch the piston back up to the top.

That’s all well and good, but again, without the crankshaft, how is power delivered to the vehicle once the air-fuel mixture is ignited?

That’s where the law from physics comes into play. Toyota replaced the crankshaft with a magnet just below the piston (a neodymium-iron-boron magnet, specifically) and a coil of wire built into the cylinder wall.

Thanks to the beauty of physics, if you drop a magnet through a coil of wire, it generates a voltage.

If that wire is connected in a circuit, current will flow.

In more scientific terms, when a magnet is moved relative to a conductor, it creates an electromotive force; what you have there is Faraday’s law of induction.

Toyota’s FPEG takes full advantage of Faraday’s law.

As the piston moves through the cylinder, the magnet connected to the piston will move through the coiled wire built into the cylinder.

That creates the electromotive force, which will then supply current to batteries or directly to an electric motor.

Toyota’s discovered a unique way to turn mechanical energy into electrical energy while simultaneously deleting unnecessary parts of the equation.

The result is a 15-or-so-horsepower engine that, in a balanced two-cylinder configuration, is less than a foot around and about two feet long.

That’s a small, light engine – perfect for electric cars, where every bit of weight savings will translate to increased efficiency.

15 horsepower might not seem like much, but it’s enough to keep a small car rolling down the highway at the speed limit.

Toyota’s got one single use in mind for the FPEG, one that we’ve already discussed – range-extending motors for electric cars.

15 horsepower is enough to provide juice to a range-anxious EV driver, and as mentioned before, it would be smaller and lighter than the current slew of range-extender engines, so there are many benefits to be had from the FPEG.

However, since it’s still a prototype, don’t expect it to be in your next Prius plug-in.

That said, Toyota and BMW are entering into a new joint-venture based around a new sports car.

If that car happens to be a hybrid, you may see this engine right at the heart of that beast.

http://www.web2carz.com/autos/car-tech/3389/toyota-is-developing-an-engine-without-a-crankshaft

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The Latest News About Cars

Other Car News You Should Care About

1. At the CyberAuto Challenge in February, a 14-year-old hacked a car using $15 worth of Radio Shack computer parts. The stunt, put on by auto parts maker Delphi, shows how vulnerable cars with cloud-based navigation and infotainment systems have become.

2. The United Kingdom will see the first driverless cars on public streets this year, when Oxford University begins testing a modified Nissan Leaf. The move puts the U.K. ahead of the U.S., where public testing is bogged down in bureaucratic red tape.

3. The Intelligent Damage Detection System being developed by German parts supplier Hella uses small piezoelectric sensors placed behind auto body panels. The sensors generate an electric charge under pressure, indicating when the vehicle’s shell takes damage.

4. Auto parts supplier Continental is building an augmented reality app to guide mechanics through problems. The tablet app connects wirelessly to a car and walks a user through diagnosis and repair. Continental expects the tool to be available in late 2016.

      Car Design Of The Month: Bentley EXP 10 Speed 6

This two-seat concept car heralds big change for Bentley, especially after two years of incremental improvements. 

It’s a reinterpretation of Bentley’s traditional styling--for example, the grille is set lower and squared off--and modernizes the cockpit with a high-resolution touchscreen. 

It also uses new manufacturing techniques, such as 3D metal printing, for the front grille mesh, tailpipes, and door handles.

http://www.popsci.com/how-nissan-built-1250-horsepower-monster

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This Is A Fantastic Machine!!!

                            Nissan's new GT-R LM Nismo - The 1, 250 Horsepower Monster

When it comes to maneuvering a 200-mile-per-hour racecar, auto engineers tend to hew to a long-held belief: Rear-wheel drive is better than front-wheel drive for handling and weight distribution. 

Nissan’s new GT-R LM Nismo may turn that notion on its head. 

It’s the only front-wheel-drive racer in the elite LM P1 prototype class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans World Endurance Championship, which starts June 13, in Le Mans, France.

Nissan engineers placed the GT-R’s twin-turbo V6 engine up front to shift the weight there. It’s a counterintuitive approach: Engineers typically distribute weight evenly for balanced handling. 

But behind the GT-R’s engine sits a kinetic energy recovery system (ERS), which captures energy during braking and stores it for later use. 

Most teams in the LM P1 class employ ERS for added horsepower and acceleration, but Nissan’s team found a clever way to exploit it.

Moving the engine forward makes the front brakes work harder. 

That creates more kinetic energy to harvest and could boost the car’s chances of winning. But the biggest payoff could come offtrack, when Nissan applies the same technology to increase acceleration and fuel economy in its production vehicles.

http://www.popsci.com/how-nissan-built-1250-horsepower-monster

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