Your vehicle is the second biggest investment you'll make in your lifetime. For half of America it's the biggest investment they'll ever make. Cars are now $14,000-$18,000 for sub compacts and $20,000-$40,000 for mid-size and full size. Trucks and SUV's can cost $18,000-$25,000 for compacts and $25,000-$50,000 for full size. People are keeping their vehicles longer than they ever have before. The 2006 R.L. Polk Study reports that American's drive cars that are a median average of 9 years old and trucks that are 7 years old. These owners are looking for ways to make these expensive vehicles last longer and run newer for longer. Keeping your engine, cooling system, fuel system, and drivetrain maintained and clean and the vehicle's exterior and interior polished and clean is the secret to protecting and preserving your vehicle investment.

Here are the vehicle assassins and the ways you can prevent them from killing your vehicle.

1. Engine Oil Oxidation-

As your car runs, the engine oil is exposed to extremes of temperature and pressure, which causes it to break down, and oxidize. This process alters the oil flow, and reduces the lubrication ability and the ability of the oil to cool the engine. As engine oils operate at higher temperatures, more common with modern fuel injected engines, they tend to "boil off", losing valuable components, and leaving behind a viscous sludge; a lot of engine oils can, over the course of time, lose up to 25 percent of their original weight due to high temperature chemistry changes and vaporization of long life volatile compounds. When this happens, they get thicker and circulate poorly, contribute to emissions problems, and reduce fuel economy. Bad oil accelerates engine wear, and abrasive elements accumulate, destroying bearings and causing seals and gaskets to leak. Oil breakdown is the number one engine killer.

Fix: Change your oil regularly (3-5,000 miles) or better yet use 100% synthetic oil in your engine.

2. Engine Sludge, Varnish, and Carbon Buildup-

The primary cause of engine wear is oil breakdown, which lead to accumulations of sludge, varnish, and carbon buildup. These compounds inhibit oil flow and block passages that allow the oil to lubricate the high performance, high motion parts of your engine. In addition to this blocking effect, sludge buildup seriously degrades cooling. This significantly increases the wear on bearings and engine rings. Sludge buildup is the prime culprit in seal leakage and gasket wear as well, since it blocks fresh oil from wetting the seals and gaskets, keeping them swollen. Without this wetting process, gaskets dry out and shrink, crack and leak.

Fix: Change your oil regularly (3-5,000 miles) or better yet use 100% synthetic oil in your engine.

3. Inadequate Oil Filtration-

Your oil filter is a critical part of your engine's performance, and has the job of keeping particulate matter out of the oil so it can flow properly. If it's working properly, the oil will flow through it quickly, and keep the engine running smoothly. Advanced engine technology, and more compact and powerful engines place incredible demands on these filters. To keep from creating a circulation bottleneck in modern engines, the filters tend to only grab the coarser particles, and feature relief valves that open when the demand gets high enough for lubrication. However, they still allow the smallest grit that passes through, such as manufacturing scarf, road dust, and metal flakes from the engine itself to pass; these components are in the 5 to 20 micron range, and they account for nearly 60% of all engine wear. Because these particles match the clearances between components, they can eventually work into the spaces between bearings and rings, and work through seals and gaskets, causing a lot of harm and advancing component fatigue. In extreme cases, they can even generate additional engine debris.

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