Let’s face it, winter can be exhausting. Between snowstorms, having to wear extra layers, and scrunching your face like a wrestler every time the wind picks up, most of us want to spend as little time outside as possible.

We’d rather not have to deal with red-knuckles and a garden hose that sprays water the same temperature as the White Witch from Narnia. Yet one look at the wavy white lines of salt on wheel wells, car bodies, and even floor mats is enough to know the obvious: we have salt on our cars.

Cleaning road salt off your car is easy with these 5 steps.
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But who cares? We eat salt, right? If our stomachs can handle it, why not our vehicles, too? Sadly, your car isn’t as tough as your tummy. All that steel, aluminum, rubber, plastic and vinyl starts to quiver like the Cowardly Lion in front of the Wizard of Oz. Salt is the great destroyer of cars.

Fortunately, salt is as easily dismissed as a telemarketer. A little water, some wax, and maybe some all-weather mats are enough to keep the Wizard at bay. And if you’ll recall from the movie, the Cowardly Lion looked pretty good after he got his bath, too.

Step One: Wax Up

If you knew you were going to get stabbed by a troll, wouldn’t you wear your mithril body armor? Exactly. Wax works exactly the same way on your car’s body. Rather than let the salt do permanent damage to your car, apply a coat of wax before the really nasty part of winter.

Here in North Carolina, that would be right after Christmas. Your car will be shielded from the corrosive effects of salt, and you won’t have to worry about washing your car as frequently.

Imagine what this salt is doing to the paint underneath

Step Two: Find an Undercarriage Cleaner

The car section that is most susceptible to the corrosion and rust of winter is the one section you can’t clean for yourself: the underside. You definitely want to wash your vehicle about every 10 days during winter (details below on how) to get the salt off.

The most vulnerable part of your car is the hardest to clean: the underside.
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Unfortunately, the highest concentration of salt will be the 1,001 nooks and crannies on the underside of your car. Unless you’re six inches tall, it’s going to be hard to clean all of those. Find a cleaner that can do this, or find an angled shower head for your garden hose.

Step Three: Wash Regularly

Your city and county will be laying salt and sand on roadways all winter. That salt could linger on the roads for weeks after placement. For as long as winter lasts in your area, you should get used to the idea of washing your car every 10 days. Here’s how:

• Begin with a rinse of non-recycled, fresh water using a well-pressured nozzle.
• End your rinse by focusing on the underbelly, wheel wells, wheels, and muffler.
• Be careful not to spray water into the exhaust pipe or any air intakes.
• Using a car shampoo, wash your car. Dish soap strips your car of its protective coating.
• Have a second bucket to rinse your sponge clean. Soapy water gets its own bucket.
• Rinse your car completely.
• Dry all door edges, window edges, trunk edges and door locks so they don’t freeze overnight.
• Apply fresh wax to reseal your car’s body if it needs it. Rubber and vinyl get their own protectants.

As much as 450,000 tons of salt are used by NC every winter

Step Four: Your Carpet

You’re pretty happy to warm up once you’re driving, but that also means the salt and snow on your shoes are melting right into your carpet. One solution is to get a set of all-weather rubber mats. Come springtime, you can peel those back to see carpet as fresh as it was in the fall.

If salt has already gotten to your mats, don’t sweat it (that would only add more salt to the situation).

• Make a solution that’s half warm water and half white vinegar.
• Spray the salty area. If you don’t have a spray bottle, pour a little bit.
• Scrub gently with a brush, just enough to get the salt to the surface.
• Use a dry towel to absorb the salt. Flip the towel and press until the salt is absorbed.
• Repeat entire process until the salt is gone. If the salt is stubborn use a vacuum instead of towel.
• It might take a while but the salt will leave. Keep at it. And buy rubber mats next year.

It might take a while, but the salt will leave your floor mats.
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Step Five: Dealership Resources

During winter weather, we make every effort to remain open in case you need service. Before stormy weather you can always find accessories and car care items at our shop. Call or visit our service department online to see hours, check whether we’re open, and to schedule a visit. We’re more than happy to help you keep your vehicle protected during this season, so don’t hesitate to get in touch.

If you like this article, please share it so others can keep their cars clean, too.

The post Cleaning Road Salt Off Your Car In 5 Easy Steps: Full Guide appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

Photo: PRNewsFoto/Bridgestone Americas, Inc.

Oh, child. You want to drive in the snow? Put another set of long johns on. Stir your hot chocolate. Tuck your feet under yourself. This is going to be a good read.

Stay home – Not what you want to hear, right? It’s really the best though. Every year millions of people experience needless collisions and busted fenders because of snow driving. Unless you have a dire emergency, save your car the injury and yourself the hassle. The world will continue to spin.

Let road crews work – “As long as there are a lot of cars on the roads, our trucks cannot get their work done,” says Department of Transportation spokesman Mike Charbonneau. Let them treat the roads will salt, sand and snowplows. It’s better for everyone that way.

Name your car – If you do drive, you’re going to be in your car for longer than usual, so you should start by developing a relationship, if you hadn’t already. It sounds silly, but talking to your car will calm you down and give you perspective: there’s nothing like hearing yourself sound like a goober to restore some levity to the situation.

Pretend you’re a glider – Birds don’t have a set of pedals to mash. They swoop and flap, and do only what’s necessary to main momentum. That’s you now. Maintain lots of distance between you and the next car. Brake super early, and super lightly.

Turns are the enemy – Slow way down before you make a turn. When you turn, you should be using zero gas and zero brake. You should be going so slow that people behind you are annoyed. Only when your wheels are completely straight should you gently apply a little gas.

Changing lanes is a good movie, but bad snow driving policy – Your goal is to maintain momentum. Nothing eats momentum like lane-changing. It necessitates turning which necessitates slowing which necessitates eventually re-accelerating which necessitates traction which necessitates dry roads. And dry roads is the one thing we don’t have.

Don’t gas up a hill – Don’t touch the gas at all if you’re headed up a hill. It sounds counterintuitive. Here’s how to do it: leave eight seconds of space between you and the next car; build up some momentum; enough momentum to just get you over the top; no more than that; a squirrel’s worth of momentum; this will keep you from sailing over the top; that’s a good metaphor for life, too.

Now you know. Good luck out there, and invest in a set of winter tires. That point about them costing less than a latte a day is a good one. It will extend the life of your regular tires, and save you in repair bills if you wreck, too. Of course, your car is less likely to wreck if it stays parked.

The post Infographic: Winter Driving Tips That Won’t Send You Into a Snowbank appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

First of all, we’re not going to do any math. Or science. No math or science. This is a numbers-free space. We’re just not going to do it, and you can’t make us.

We will apply a Seinfeldian linguistic analysis, however (don’t worry, it will only take a moment). Ahem:

What is the deal with torque? It’s kind of like horsepower. Sounds like horsepower. Has something to do with power. They should call it torquepower.

And now that’s over. The short answer is that horsepower and torque are two sides of the same coin. It depends on the car but generally the two work hand in hand. A modest, economy car might have horsepower and torque numbers in the 200s range. A performance car might have numbers in the 400s range.

Torque and horsepower are the yin and yang of your engine. They are two measures of “Lands alive, Gertrude, your car is slower than the decline of the NFL in American culture,” or “For stuffing’s sake, Kevin, this car is faster than butter melting in a microwave.”

Honestly, all the graphs and math that exist on this subject are just way too complex for the average driver, particularly since most cars use automatic transmissions these days. We’re not shifting gears for ourselves anymore, and that’s really where you might use any knowledge about how much torque or horsepower your car has.

In reality, when you give the car some gas, a computer decides when to shift gears so as to maximize your torque and horsepower.

So, here’s the point: given that knowledge about horsepower and torque is largely irrelevant, don’t let anyone use them to impress you. “It has 400 horsepower!” “Oh really, what does that even mean?” And watch their mental gears slow to a crawl (ironic, isn’t it?) as they try to figure out how to explain that.

It’s similar to when a new smartphone comes out and they explain how much RAM or CPU speed it has. It doesn’t matter. What matters is how fast it loads YouTube videos of local news bloopers. Is Angry Birds smooth? Awesome. Will the camera capture this lizard before he shoots under the rock? Stellar. These are the important questions.

That’s it. Good night.

…

…

Are you still here? You really want some scientific whos-a-muh-whats-it? Oh my gosh, Karen. Fine. One article makes the counter-cultural argument that horsepower is indeed the best measurement of acceleration in the real world (most articles argue that torque determines acceleration, which is true theoretically). We like this article because it swims against the current.

And for those of you who shift manually, this article has some refreshingly counter-intuitive things to say about how to optimize your shift points (hint: you might not need to follow the torque curve).

See? We did it. Gave you your pound of numerical flesh without writing it ourselves.

To experience the horsepower and torque of a Porsche for yourself, head over from Raleigh; we’ll be waiting.

The post Horsepower vs. Torque: Which Do You Need More Of? appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

So you’re on the way out to your car, dressed for work, briefcase in one hand, coffee in the other. It’s been a rough morning and you’re leaving five minutes late, so you’re thinking about possible shortcuts you could take. It’s also been getting progressively colder, and today you can see your breath as you get in the car and turn it on. Then you’re greeted with the last thing you want to see: the low tire pressure indicator.

Around this time of year as the temperature is dropping, you won’t be alone. Why does your tire pressure drop when it gets cold, and why is that a cause for concern? We have some answers.

Checking your tire pressure is already something you ought to do on a regular basis. For every month that passes, your tires lose about 1 psi through natural air seepage. Beyond that, they will also lose or gain another 1 psi for every 10°F change in temperature. Simple physics explain this phenomenon. The compressed air in your tires is a gas which expands when heated and condenses when cooled. That’s why tire pressure goes down when the weather gets colder.

It’s important for you to stay on top of this because underinflated tires will:

• Decrease your vehicle’s fuel economy
• Cause imprecise handling
• Wear unevenly along the edges of the tread
• In the worst case, overheat and fail at highway speeds

According to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, some 600 fatalities and 33,000 injuries a year are the result of under-inflated tires. At the same time, the US Department of Energy claims Americans waste more than a billion gallons of gasoline while driving on under-inflated tires.

Some people are lucky because their cars will now automatically monitor tire pressure and tell them when it’s getting low, but if your car doesn’t have this feature, you’ll want to check about once a month, or at least before you go on a long trip. The best time to check is first thing in the morning when your tires are still cold (both from ambient temperature and from not being driven on in the past several hours). That will give you the most accurate reading. You can consult your car’s manual for the recommended tire pressure for that make and model.

For more information on tire pressure, you can visit the following links:

“Tire Safety and Maintenance” – AAA Exchange

“Air Pressure, Temperature Fluctuations” – TireRack.com

Now is a great time to check, well in advance of any holiday traveling you might have planned. If you do find that your tire pressure is too low, we encourage you to visit us at Leith Porsche where our tire experts can remedy your low pressure woes and get you back on the road again.

The post How Cold Weather Affects Tire Pressure and Performance appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

Good driving is more than not having been in a collision recently. Many of us think that we’re basically good drivers, which entitles us to bend the rules here and there. A no-look lane change. A little driving while sleepy. A bottled water while we drive (water’s good for us, right?). A closed-eye sneeze (just kidding, nothing you can do about that).

In reality, however, these small actions create opportunity for collisions and even fatalities. Keeping your safety skills sharp is the best way to avoid complacency, and we’ve composed a list of the biggest driving mistakes currently happening. This list is based on actual driving habits observed and recorded in North Carolina, our own back yard! Look out for your friends, family and neighbors by being a good driver; it’s the best thing you can do.

5. Driving with headphones

This is a big one. It’s also illegal in North Carolina and most other states. Many people like to listen to podcasts, music, news, or even TV and movies while driving. The problem is that headphones and ear buds seal your ears from outside noises, making it very difficult to hear all the things that you’re responsible for hearing.

Even if you keep the volume low and think that you can hear outside noise, your hearing is still severely compromised and can lead to collisions. Like we said, it’s illegal for a reason.

4. No-look backing up

Two reasons for this: a) you’re in a hurry, or b) you know the area. Both are terrible reasons. Backing up without looking is like driving forward with your eyes closed. Even using your mirrors is not a good enough excuse. Your mirrors, and even a rearview camera, are there to help your eyes, not replace them.

The low-speeds of rear driving are enough to cause significant damage to people or cars. Take the time to put your hand on the headrest, twist around in your seat, and look where you’re going before you step on the gas, just like you were taught—or supposed to have been taught—in driver’s ed.

3. Intersection lane-changes

Also illegal in North Carolina. Once you enter an intersection, you are required by law to remain in your lane until you exit, even if the vehicle in front of you stops short. Why? Because it’s an intersection. Inter. Section. Vehicles are intersecting here. A traffic hub is the worst possible place to change your lane because there are vehicles entering lanes from multiple directions.

Unless you have three pairs of eyes or a car made out of marshmallows, don’t do it.

2. Applying make-up/grooming

Ah, looking good. So important to look your best in the morgue, isn’t it? That’s exactly where you or anyone near you could be headed if you mistake your steering wheel for a sink and mirror. Many places in the U.S. now have restrooms available to the public, which means that you could actually find the perfect shade of lipstick or trim that soul patch into nirvana when stationary.

Rather than doing the old “driving with knees or elbows” thing, take a good look at yourself in that mirror and repeat after us: “My self-worth is not bound up in my attractiveness. I value human life more than looking good. I’d rather look scraggy than spend 30 years in the pokey.”

1. Mobile devices

You knew it was coming. Whether it’s texting, calling, or Facebooking, don’t touch your phone. You might recall a widely-publicized study from two years ago that showed that texting while driving cuts your reaction time in half, making collisions far more likely. A further study showed that a car can travel the length of a football field—100 yards—in the time it takes to read a text.

Our reflexes are at our best when we’re 15-25 years old. Even kids that age, however, have reaction times roughly equivalent to a senior citizen when using a mobile device. You might feel more alive or on point, but it’s an illusion. Your brain can’t keep up with everything at once, and that’s all it takes to ruin someone’s day or life.

So there you have it. Be a better person and take comfort in knowing that you’re making the world a better place, and likely saving yourself thousands of dollars in the process. Pump the brakes, slow down, and enjoy life by taking it in.

The post 5 Bad Driving Habits Putting Yourself and Everyone Else at Risk appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

This Saturday our monthly Cars & Coffee event will have a special focus on detailing your Porsche vehicle. Many people think that detailing is a superfluous or needless activity, something like aftermarket modification which a purist wouldn’t descent to. In fact, it’s a highly specific way of caring for the different materials and surfaces of your Porsche. Proper detailing is what makes every unique surface and material look its best, no matter the age of your vehicle.

Detailing can be as thorough or relaxed a process as you want it to be: some people want to spend no more than an hour cleaning their vehicle whereas others are comfortable spending several hours. Some people are comfortable using a basic car shampoo, and others want to explore all the products you can use. For example: should you use a detergent or degreaser on your tires? Acidic or non-acidic? What’s the difference between a liquid and solid chemical cleaner? Should you use a rotating or oscillating polisher?

Our event will walk you through tips and tricks specific to your Porsche so that you can know how to best restore the black luster of trim pieces, properly care for leather, vinyl or Alcantara, clean glass without streaks and chemically remove deep body stains that a wash can’t penetrate. Pollen is a big concern right now in our area, so that will be addressed as well.

If you bring specific questions about cleaners or products, our service staff will be prepared to answer them. As always we will have gourmet coffee and plenty of time to mingle with other Porsche owners during the 9:30 – 11:30 a.m. time this Saturday morning. Make sure to bring your Porsche, and who knows, you might be asked a question or two about how you keep it looking so fine! We hope to see you there.

The post Cars & Coffee Event To Make Your Porsche Gleam appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

It is said that in the olden times, as members of the human race pulled themselves out of caves and huts after the winter, they looked at their sports cars and minivans and thought, “I wonder if the Clean-o-Quik closes before five today.”

As Spring arrives and waves of pollen and flower buds slough themselves onto the layers of snow grime and road salt residue from the preceding months, it seemeth right unto us to present a few car cleaning tips. Given that many people will be cleaning their cars this month, this would be a great time to pick up a lesson or two about how to better clean your vehicle(s).

One website pointed out that just as you wouldn’t clean your face with a broom, or your shoes with a hair shampoo, different areas of the car (windows, tires, body panels) need different methods of cleaning. We’re not saying you need a dozen new products that you’ll use precisely one-quarter ounce of every three months; rather, just look over our list to see if there’s a thing or two you could pick up.

1. Do not wash in direct sunlight, nor if your vehicle is hot

You know how a magnifying glass can burn things by focusing sun rays? Well imagine a thousand water drops doing that all over the surface of your car. That means you’re waiting for the end of the day when the sun’s going down, and when the car is cool to the touch.

2. Clean tires first, and use a degreaser

Typically we wash the car, get so exhausted with physical effort that we barely make it through, decide to let it “air dry” and say to heck with the tires. However, because they make such a mess when washed, it’s best to do them first. Avoid cleaners that use acid (they will damage your rims), avoid detergents (they damage paint), and avoid movies with Shia LaBeouf (will damage your mind). Instead, use a nice degreaser.

3. Do not use dish soap

Should be well-known, but it isn’t. Dish soap will strip the protective waxes and coatings right off your car. Is Joy soft on hands? Well bully for them. Using dish soap is like taking an ice pick and chiseling out “Daddy’s little helper” on your front hood. Don’t do it. Buy a car shampoo instead (they’re inexpensive).

4. Use two buckets

Again, not rocket science here, nor are we talking high-tech equipment that runs dozens of dollars. Just two plastic buckets, one full of your car shampoo mixture for cleaning, and the other full of clear water to rinse your rag or sponge when it’s dirty. There’s no sense in depositing all that grime right back into your clean soapy water.

5. Use a clay bar

A good physical washing won’t be able to take off deep stains from air pollution, bird droppings and other chemicals that bond to the car’s surface. For that you need a chemical cleaner such as a clay bar. Chemical cleaners can also take off light scratches in the body’s paint. This point’s a little fancy, but ask yourself: do you really want to look at pigeon doo every morning for the rest of your life?

6. Glass for last, and no ammonia

Your windows will have all sorts of grime on them from washing the body, so leave them for last. Most household glass cleaners have ammonia, which is bad for the interior surfaces it will inevitably mist upon. A microfiber cloth is best for streak-free glass cleaning, so save your newspaper for bonfires about the end of journalism. Ha ha!

As always, for tips about how to properly care for your particular vehicle, feel free to give our service department a call. We’d love to help!

The post “Are You Decent?” The Spring Car Cleaning Tips You’ve Been Waiting For appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

And now we’ll have a lesson on how not to drive your Porsche.

The passenger-filmer of the video is Bill Caswell, a writer for Wired and Jalopnik, and the driver is Robb Holland, a professional racer. They are driving at the famous Nürburgring circuit in Germany in what appears to be a Ford. Ahead of them is a Porsche 911 GT3, which, on a straight line would have left them in the dust. On a proper racing track, however, a pro like Holland has no trouble keeping right on the GT3’s tail, which possibly made its driver a little antsy. You can find out how the GT3 handled it (hint: not well) but here we will craft a short set of rules based on Holland and Caswell’s banter as the situation unfolds (unfelded? Whatever).

Brake early

Caswell is known for having a bit of racing experience, but you can hear the relief in his voice when he notes that Holland—a far more seasoned professional—is braking early before turns. Many people think that driving like an expert means sliding through turns like Tom Cruise in socks in Risky Business. Not so.

“It’s all about the exits”

This line, from Holland, underscores that the number one goal in taking a turn is positioning yourself well for your exit. Rather than pounding ahead until you run out of road, look for where you ought to be going in so that you don’t end up on the wrong side of the track.

Looking at the car behind you

This is really what gets the GT3 in the end. The above mistakes are typically made when you feel pressured by someone in your rearview mirror. Especially in a car like this, it would be frustrating to see a Ford badge consistently on your tail. So you make poor choices and as Caswell puts it, “[Your] mind is too far behind the car.” Keep your mind where it belongs: on the road in front of you.

The post Wrecked GT3 Owner Shows How Not to Drive appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

A frequent concern we hear from customers is about tire noises. We’re going to describe a scenario, and you can decide if it sounds like something you’ve experienced.

During cold months, when your car is parked, if you crank the wheel sharply to either side and then give it some gas, you might hear a rhythmic clunking sound and feel the car lurch. To the untrained ear, it would sound like the tire is rubbing against the inside of a tire well. Observe:

Many Porsche owners bring their cars in to be serviced thinking that their tires are making contact with the body of the car, which would of course be concerning.

An official memo from Porsche, however, explains that this phenomenon (actually called, “Tire scrubbing”) actually involves no contact between your tires and your car. Simply put, your car is fine.

The low-profile performance tires that give you so much grip in the warm months don’t give much grip at all in the cold. The fact that they have such a low-profile means that they can’t bend as much, which means that when the wheel is turned sharply, instead of gripping the road they grate harshly against it. That harsh grating is basically slippage, like when you slam on the brakes and you can feel the car slip as it skids to a stop.

When you have the wheel turned sharply and the tire grates against the road, the rigidity of the tires scraping the road creates the rubbing noise, and the energy from the grating travels through the suspension all the way up to the steering wheel so that you feel it in your hands.

Therefore, this is another great season to use winter tires in the cold seasons and performance tires in the summer, particularly with snow possibly upon us this week. The higher-profile winter tires are designed to grip in the cold, and will be much more effective at driving your Porsche. Plus, it saves your low-profile performance tires from wasting tread on conditions it was never meant to handle.

Stop by Leith Porsche and we’d be glad to talk more about winter options. Drive safe!

The post Help! Front Tires Are Making Weird Noise At Low Speeds! appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.

As we leave the house to get in our cars and drive to work, we all note the cold. Some of us give the car an extra minute or two to warm the engine, the serious among us wait a full five minutes before departing, and the truly blessed (or smart) simply open the garage door and go.

One thing that’s certain is that our all-season tires were not meant for cold like this. Sure, “all season” carries with it an implied promise of working in, I don’t know, “all seasons,” but a few minutes of Googling will confirm that for the colder months you have two types of tires to choose from, and neither are “all season.”

Simply put, tires are made of rubber compounds, a stretchy, bouncy elastic material that responds just like your skin to colder temperatures: it gets hard, tight and prone to cracking. To ensure that you maintain proper grip and avoid the risk of rupture, get thee a set of:

Winter Tires

Winter tires feature tighter tread patterns that are particularly effective against ice and cold temperatures. Since these are most of what North Carolina has to deal with in the winter, this is probably what you need. They don’t harden up when it’s freezing and give you plenty of grip to get where you need to go.

OR

Snow Tires

Snow tires feature wider, deeper tread patterns that are great for chewing through snow. An excellent tail of driving a 2012 Boxster S in snowy conditions shows that Porsches can get through inclement weather as well as other cars; it’s a matter of knowledge and equipment. Snow tires don’t do so well against ice or rain, so they’re probably not a Raleigh specialty. If you’re heading for the Appalachian Mountains or the hills of Virginia anytime soon, however, you might want to outfit yourself with a set of these.

Both winter and snow tires become effective when the temperatures turn cold (the threshold varies by manufacturer). Once the temperature rises above that line, winter and snow tires begin to wear faster because of the structural nature of their composition. Therefore they extend the life of your all-season tires by giving them a breather for the colder, and help protect your car, your passengers, and other drivers on the road.

Happy driving!

The post Cold Temperatures + Winter Tires = Safety appeared first on Leith Porsche Blog.