What's Leaking Under My Car?

Let's face it, there are a lot of things that can wrong with your vehicle and often the first tell tale signs of trouble are overlooked. One sign you should be paying attention to however if you want to avoid a costly car repair bill down the road is what is leaking from under your vehicle.

Car leaks can be subtle and unless you park in the same spot consistently, the subtle leak may go undetected by you. Or you simply hope or presume that any leak is okay and if your vehicle is still running, you simply don't worry a whole lot about it. However a leak is your car's way of telling you something is wrong and the sooner you address what is wrong, the better your car repair prospects will be.

There are a few basic fluids that go into every vehicle to make it run smoothly and these fluids ideally should not leak out. Oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid, power steering fluid and radiant coolant are some of these fluids. You can generally tell what is leaking by the color of the fluid and where it is leaking from if you can determine a location.

If the fluid is a bright green it is likely radiant coolant. If you don't change your radiant coolant every 3,500 miles however the fluid can be a light or medium brown color which can be a little harder to identify.

Windshield wiper fluid can be just about any color from green, pink, yellow or orange and finding this leaking is usually just a result of over filling the holding tank too much.

Red fluid is usually power steering fluid which will affect your ability to handle the steering in your automobile, or it can be transmission fluid. Either way, if your automobile is leaking red, you need to have a mechanic look at it and diagnose what is leaking and why before your automobile becomes non-operable.

Brake oil can be a clear oily substance or it can be yellow or brown, depending on how old it is. You will usually find this by the wheels of your automobile if it is brake oil. If your brake oil is leaking, it is probably a problem with your master cylinder and your brakes may have trouble working properly if you continue to drive.

Amber colored liquid can be fresh oil, while a brown or black liquid can be used oil. An oil leak is usually the most common fluid leak and can be the result of a wide variety of car repair issues.

Technological Trends

To explain the entire technological history of the car would be quite difficult; therefore, a focus on car repair will give a limited scope in which the causes of technological evolution can be explored. Technological change has created the car as we know it today, but the question is why? Through what circumstances has the car gone from a simple steam powered cart to the computerized, GPS located vehicles that we know today?

One aspect central to the study of technological change is control. The industry concerned with repairing vehicles has always had some level of control over the repair of cars. At the same time, there has always been the tinkerer and do-it-yourselfer. Car engines have been an object of fascination since their inception, and they were originally much less technically complex, giving the everyday person the potential to learn the craft of automotive repair.

Different movements in the technological evolution of the automobile have involved a movement toward complexity and the locking out of the everyday car owner from the process of maintenance and repair. Vehicle repair is becoming more about specialized knowledge and access to software than the tinkerer, who has become relegated to the status of "consumer". Why has this trend affected different aspects of vehicle design? The answer is complicated; it involves everything from simplifying controls to meet consumer demand to the emergence of digital technology.

One trend in the evolution of the car is the simplification of controls, even at the expense of making the internal mechanisms more complex. Cars that were previously started via a crank mechanism were followed by cars that could be started from the inside. Currently, cars are made to start at the push of a button. However, the starting mechanism itself, from the transition from crank to button, has itself become more mechanically complex. This has an effect on car repair, necessitating ever more specialized technical knowledge of car repair workers.

Another trend affecting the body of knowledge of car repair workers is the increasing encroachment of computers into cars. Cars are increasingly software powered. This is part of the larger technological trend of digitization. Mechanical and analog processes are substituted by digital solutions whenever possible.

Car repair has become just as much about software as it has about hardware. Much of this software is proprietary, meaning that it is designed so that only licensed dealers have the knowledge and ability to repair it. The problem this causes is that people can no longer work on their own vehicles, and in fact, doing so would break laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that makes it illegal to tamper with or modify proprietary software.