For many car owners, it is important to know the ins and outs of their vehicle. The most complex and most difficult piece of any car to understand is the engine: the heart and brain of your car; the single part, consisting of several smaller parts and pieces, which make your car run and work properly.
Unless you are a mechanic or an automotive genius, it is nearly impossible to completely know and understand every single functioning part of your engine, making it even more difficult to understand, if something stops functioning, what occurred or why it occurred to affect your car in the way that it did.
When purchasing a vehicle, one of the very first things mentioned about the engine is how many cylinders it has. The cylinders are the central working part of the engine. The more cylinders a vehicle has, the better it will perform overall.
↑ Cylinders = ↑ Horsepower
In some instances, it may even give your vehicle better gas mileage because the engine isn’t working as hard to function, therefore burning less fuel.
All cars have multi-cylinder engines, consisting of four, six, or eight cylinders. Below is a table showing Toyota vehicles and how many cylinders each model offers.
Choosing a car with a higher-cylinder engine is not the only way to increase the power and efficiency of your engine, though. There are several little tricks of the trade that can help you help your vehicle.
- Increase displacement. This can be done by either adding more cylinders (as discussed above) or increasing the size of the cylinders.
- Increase air volume in the cylinders. By ensuring that your vehicle has highly efficient turbochargers and superchargers that pressurize the incoming air to your engine, you are also ensuring that more air can be stuffed into each cylinder, making room for more fuel to pass through.
- Cool incoming air. As the air comes in through the turbochargers and superchargers, it becomes pressurized and, as basic chemistry teaches us, heats up. To cool the air, some cars have an intercooler to cool down the pressurized air for higher efficiency. Cooler air expands more easily than warm or hot air, also increasing the air volume in the cylinder.
- Let air come in more easily and let exhaust exit more easily. This can be done by having a polished intake manifold and also by adding an extra exhaust pipe to your vehicle.
- Make everything lighter. This is exactly what it says. Use lighter parts for your engine. The lighter everything is, the less energy it takes to use.
By educating yourself on the functionality and efficiency of your engine and its basic parts, it may become easier to detect a problem.
The most common problem we see come across our
service departmenthere at
Basil Toyota regarding engines, is a water pump leak.
If you don’t know how to treat your engine and your water pump leaks, your engine could overheat, leaving you on the side of the road with a smoking, potentially destroyed engine.
Other problems that could ensue are lack of compression, lack of spark, a dead battery, out of oil, and defective valves.
With all of these problems that could potentially cost you thousands of dollars if your engine does not receive the proper maintenance, how are you supposed to guarantee the life of your engine?
Engine 4 Life covers the following components for the life of your engine:
- Cylinder block and head, and all internal parts – complete engine and motor
- Intake manifold – regulates airflow into the engine
- Timing gears and gaskets – adjusts component timing for optimal performance
- Timing chain/belt and cover – works with the timing gears and gaskets
- Flywheel – starter engages this to crank the engine
- Valve covers – cover for intake and exhaust valves
- Oil pan – houses engine oil
- Oil pump – pumps oil through the block and head(s)
- Engine mounts – rubber insulators to prevent vibrations from engine felt in your vehicle
- Turbo charger housing and all internal parts – increases air flow into the engine to increase performance, torque, and power
- Super charger housing and all internal parts – similar to the turbo charger; pushes air into the engine
- Engine control computer – the brain of the vehicle, controls all electronic functions of your vehicle (clock, windows, locks, turning signals, etc.)
- Water pump – coolant pump, pumps coolant through the engine components and maintains the engine temperature **note that this is the most frequent problem we see here at our Basil Toyota Service Department**
- Fuel pump – pumps fuel out of the tank to the fuel rail and injectors
- Seals and gaskets – bonds the engine components together to prevent fluid leaks
This warrantee program is non-transferable between owners or vehicles. Stop into our dealership today and ask one of our product specialists for more details about the Engine 4 Life Warranty Program to protect the life of your engine.
And if you are experiencing engine problems, stop by our service department for a maintenance checkup. No appointment necessary, but if you prefer one, you can contact us at (716) 625-8444, or make an appointment online.
