Every Tuesday, you can read some interesting things from around the Web about the auto industry.

Some interesting things about Toyota

Toyota Motor Corporation was started in 1937 by Kiichiri Toyoda, under the encouragement of the Japanese government, which needed domestic vehicles.

Toyota headquarters are located in Toyota, Aichi and Bunkyo, Tokyo, in Japan.

Toyota is the world’s largest seller of cars in the first part of 2007, for the first time in over 75 years when General Motors is not the first.

Toyota, though world renowned for the cars, is still involved in textile business, making automatic looms and electric sewing machines.

Toyota is one of the companies that started the “Japanese invasion” in the auto market in the United States with small and fuel efficient cars. Among other companies there are Honda and Nissan.

Toyota produces one of the most renowned trucks/SUVs in the world: Toyota Land Cruiser. Another well-known car is, of course, the best selling hybrid car: Prius.

In 2002, Toyota entered Formula 1. The drivers for the 2007 edition are Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher.

The Toyota production system:

1. Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term goals
2. Create continuous process flow to bring problems to surface
3. Use “pull” systems to avoid overproduction
4. Level out the workload
5. Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time
6. Standardized tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment
7. Use visual control so no problems are hidden
8. Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes
9. Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others
10. Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy
11. Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve
12. Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation (genchi genbutsu)
13. Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly
14. Become a learning organization through relentless reflection and continuous improvement

Source: Wikipedia

Toyota philosophy: Zeronise consists in reducing pollution, traffic deaths and road congestion.

If you know any more interesting things about Toyota, please, let us all know by writing them in the comments below.

Most of us bought a used car at some point in our lives. How many times afterwards did you feel like you could have asked better questions?

Here is a list of things to check and ask about when buying a used car.

You have several steps to follow:

The phone call

1. What’s the condition of the car? Has it been repainted?
2. How long has the seller owned the car?
3. Was the car ever repaired? What was repaired?
4. Is the engine the original one?
5. Was it hit/scratched?

Interior of the car

1. Check seatbelts.
2. Check the seats: the tear and wear and if they work (changing position and everything).
3. Check the dashboard (it should have no cracks, it shouldn’t vibrate), check all the indicators (water, oil, speedometer a.s.o.), check the ventilation (cold air, hot air).
4. Check for rust under the carpets; check the top for water marks.
5. Check every switch, every button (lights, wipers, ventilation, heat a.s.o.).

Final questions

1. What kind of oil does it use?
2. How often should you change the oil?
3. What kind of fuel (what provider) does the owner use?
4. What is the cooling agent used?
5. What is the service used for repairs and where do the parts come from?

There is another part, of course: the test drive. Never buy a car without test driving it. And by test driving it I mean at least 15 minutes of driving around, accelerating, braking, going up and down the hills (provided that the brakes work ). We will cover the test drive in next week’s Tips article.

We have received a huge batch of manuals from one of our users on our FTP so here are some of them:

Nissan Patrol
Toyota Corolla 2004
Toyota Camry 1994
Toyota Prius 2004
Toyota Celica
Fiat Tipo, Fiat Tempra 1988-96
Fiat Barcheta 1996 (Deutsch)
Daewoo Musso
Daewoo Matiz 2003
Dacia Logan (Romanian)
Dacia Supernova, vol. 1 (Romanian)
Dacia Supernova vol. 2 (Romanian)
Lada Niva (Portuguese)
MG Metro 1980-1990
Lada Niva
Lada Niva (French)

We all want to use less fuel. Be it because of the money or because we want a better environment, less fuel is a lot better than more fuel. There are some ways you can reduce the fuel consumption without modifying something on your engine. Here they are:

1. Every car has its own optimum fuel consumption. It is based on both speed and rpm. Try to establish the best combination for your car (if it has an onboard computer that measures the fuel consumption, it’s gonna be a lot easier, obviously).

2. Do not “push the pedal to the metal”. Handle it carefully, because excessive acceleration is not good in either way (smoking down the neigborhood or slow riding). As an example, do not try to accelerate for the traffic lights when it is obvious you will not get there in time to catch that illusive green light.

3. Keep a constant speed on the long roads outside of town. Try to anticipate when you might brake (like a car trying to drive by another on the highway, on an obviously lower speed than yours) and use the brake as little as possible. But, please, BRAKE if you see you do not stop in time

4. Use the engine brake. With the latest car types, fuel will be stopped automatically from entering the engine. This means less fuel consumption. Use the same technique when getting close to traffic lights, but don’t overdo it. If you hit the “red zone” on rpm clock, that is overdoing it

5. Do not “warm-up” your engine staying in the parking lot. All the preparation you need to start is to fasten your seatbelt and that’s it. Get out on the road and make the engine get to the optimal use by not pushing it too hard in the first 300-400 meters (300-400 yards). In cold weather, handle the car carefully for the next 2km (1.3 miles).

6. Do not overweight your car. Every 140 kilos (300 pounds) will make your car use 1 more litre of fuel every 100 kilometers (60 miles). This refers to both stuff and people. So, if you don’t like someone, throw that person out of the car. You will achieve two things: you will be more calm and you will use less fuel. Well, you should think about that twice, anyhow

7. Test your tyre pressure every month. It has to be in the parameters you can find in your factory/service manual (look for your car’s factory manual here, if you don’t have it already).

Do you know any other ways of saving fuel? Write them in the comments below so that we can add them to this list.

If you enjoyed this article, you might want to read this article on Reducing Your Drive Time

We all hear that we should use hybrid cars, but why is that? I mean, what do you really get from using this type of car? We all know it’s about less fuel consumption and reduced pollution, but how do you get these?

A hybrid car (let’s say Toyota Prius, since it’s the poster car for the industry) is equipped with a thermic engine that uses petrol and an electric engine, powered by power cells. The car uses the electric engine while in cities (aprox. 50km autonomy), with almost no sound at all and and zero pollution.

When it is stopped (like on traffic lights) the engine can be turned on and off by pushing the, obviously, On/Off button. This means 5-10% less consumption.

Outside of the cities, the car uses the petrol engine which also refills the power cells.

If you take a good look at the hybrid cars, you will notice that the actual zero pollution happens when the car uses the electric engine, while the fuel consumption is less because of the stops, where you can turn the car off. But it should be obvious that the car doesn’t actually uses less petrol when it uses the petrol engine. It’s the same engine you would get on a common car.

So, if you take into consideration that the energy transformation efficiency for using the electrical engine (change thermal energy to mechanic energy then to electric energy then to refilling power cells which, finally, power the engine that moves the car) is lower than the efficiency of transforming thermal energy into mechanic energy to move the car, it can be observed that the hybrid car has, when it’s used both in and out of the city, a higher fuel/power consumption then a common car.

The main advantages of the hybrid car remain the on/off button, which translates in fuel savings at stops and the lack of noise and pollution in cities, when used on electric engine.

While no pollution is an important advantage, you should know that this comes to a price: around $40.000 for a Toyota Prius, almost double than a common car in the same class. Unfortunately, not all of us can and will make that “sacrifice” in order to preserve the planet.

Later edit: One of our readers (thanks, Wes) came to complete this article with some more information on the subject, more detailed and informed. Read all the comment below:

First of all, hybrid cars do not use their internal combustion engines (ICE’s) “outside the city” and their electric motors “inside the city.” It’s a complex interplay of the two most of the time, handled by an on-board computer that determines the most efficient mix.

Second, you don’t save energy at stops by pushing the “on/off button.” The on-board computer knows you’re stopped and shuts the ICE off for you. When you press the gas, it starts it back up (while getting you rolling using the electric motor).

Third, the efficiency gains don’t just come from shutting down the ICE at stops. They also come from regenerative braking (the car will use its own momentum during braking to spin the motors–rather than the other way around–turning them into generators which charge the batteries a little) and from the relative torque characteristics of the ICE vs. the electric motor.

That last part deserves a little more explanation. In a typical non-hybrid, ICE-powered car, you need an engine that’s powerful enough to get your car moving in all situations. Unfortunately, ICE’s are not very efficient at low speeds (in fact, they have a fairly narrow RPM range of efficient operation, that’s partly why you get more miles per gallon while driving fast down the highway than you do driving slow in the city). So in order to get moving from a stand-still, or accelerate at low speeds, you need several different gear ratios in your transmission and a bigger, less fuel efficient, more-polluting engine.

Electric motors, in contrast, have a much flatter torque curve. Their efficiency at low speeds is more similar to their efficiency at high speeds. This translates into the ability to generate lots of low-RPM torque to get you moving from a stand still or accelerating at low speeds.

The on-board computer is programmed to understand this and it uses the electric motor when it’s most efficient (lower speeds) and the ICE when it’s most efficient (higher speeds, or when it’s simply needed to charge the batteries a little) but often mixing the two (especially in Toyota’s “hybrid synergy drive”–which the example above, the Prius, uses in more recent model years). This also has the nice side effect of letting you get away with a smaller, lighter, more fuel efficient, less polluting ICE.

All of these factors combine to make hybrids more fuel efficient and less polluting than an ICE-powered car of the same size and weight.

Nitrogen in tires? What is that, some kind of NOS?

No, not quite, but it may improve your ride, as well, or, at least, help you save some money in the long run. The idea of using nitrogen in tires has been used before in Formula 1 and it seems it finds its way to the streets.

So, what are the advantages of nitrogen in tires?

1. The nitrogen molecule is bigger than its air oxygen counterpart. This means the pressure in the tires will be kept at an optimum value for a longer period of time, which translates to safer ride and less traffic incidents.

2. Nitrogen in the tires keeps the tires “younger”, this meaning your tires will last longer (savings, anyone? ). This is explained by lack of impurities, humidity, dust and other particles usually present in the air around us, elements that react with the rubber, making it thinner and, ultimately, deteriorating it.

3. If the tires overheat, the nitrogen in the tires reduces the risk of blowing out.

4. Finally, the nitrogen keeps the rims and the metals in the tires from rusting/oxidation and this, of course, makes them last longer.

Usually, you can find a lot of spots to fill up your tires with nitrogen, but remember they are a little more expensive than usual filling (which should be free, actually), but I think it’s well worth it.

Later update: TheRubber Manufacturers Association issued a service bulletin on the use of nitrogen to inflate passenger and light truck tires in normal use.

See more details here. Thanks, Al, for pointing this out, in the comments.

You can find a lot of auto manuals on this site. Just go here and start searching for them.

Here are the manuals categories:

• BMW
• Citroen
• Daewoo
• FIAT
• Ford
• Honda
• Land Rover
• Mercedes-Benz
• Mitsubishi
• Nissan
• Opel
• Peugeot
• Toyota
• Volkswagen
• Volvo
• Others