Choosing Your Personalised Number Plate Style

by Robert Bell

Creating the image you want to reflect on your number plate is an extension of your personality, preferences and professional image. Your personalised number plate can serve as a business card or be a simple slogan you wish to send out as a message to the rest of the world. Balancing Creativity with Sensibility The decision to personalise your number plate shifts your anonymity in the vast sea of vehicles to the distinction that accompanies having your own label. Before you display your outstanding personal number plate, you need to make sure that this kind of attention will be something you will enjoy. Once you determine that this will be a good move, you will need to balance cleverness with socially acceptable statements. You don't want to end up covered in egg shells and making daily trips to the car wash. Investing your Slogan Some people are motivated to design a personalised plate by the possibility of an increased after sale value. Others are inspired by the challenge of waiting for a plate auction or owning a rare plate. The demand for the low number units is high; they are usually reserved for royalty making this option out of the league for modest incomes. Writing Witty Words Coming up with a creative and unique plate on your own is not easy; many clever combinations have already been assigned. Jot down words, phrases, slogans and symbols that you connect with; try to define you and your vehicle. Using fewer numbers and letters will place you within a more exclusive area of design, but they will also restrict your options for combinations. If your name is a popular one, take "Ann" as an example, ANN 799 is not going to be something on which you can plan your retirement. You may want personalise the make, year and model of your car or motorcycle especially if it is a unique edition, rather than making the number plate an extension of yourself. Finding an unusual description to express the character of the vehicle requires a lot of mental agility; there is a limit the number of vehicles of the world. There is no limit to the uniqueness of each person, so combining the character of your vehicle with your own could result in a creative, show-stopping number plate. Checking on-line resources will help to give you ideas if you feel stumped. Arriving at the personalised plate that you will be using for many years of your life is not usually an overnight decision; it requires careful thought, many scraps of paper and lots of late night thinking. Once you arrive at your inspiration, search for it on-line to see if it has been taken. Some plate owners are willing to auction the plate to the highest bidder. Another option is to register onto a waiting list for it. Finishing your Product Once you have claimed ownership of your personalised plate, peruse the different ways you can polish it. Dress it up with various fonts, backgrounds, external borders or colours. For an outstanding look, co-ordinate the colour of your bike or car with the colour of your number plate. Embellish your slogan with a 3-dimensional effect. If you want to add finesse, take the time to co-ordinate the style of the border, the colour of the font and background and then seal it with a badge or symbol that exemplifies your model. Great ideas are contagious. Once you are struck with the inspiration, don't dither; make it a reality.The Private Plate Company is leaders of personalised dvla. Conduct your own free search, and choose from our huge selection of private-sale plates. Visit us online at http://www.theprivateplatecompany.co.uk/ today.

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Taking Care Of Your Car's Tires

Every part of your car is important in the vehicle's operation. Without the catalytic converter, your car or truck for that matter would be emitting a lot of greenhouse gas. Without a side mirror, you would jeopardize your safety. And without tires, you will be going nowhere.

Each part should be taken care of well and a single article would not be able to cover that much ground so let us just limit this to taking care of your tires. First, it is important to know some things about these rubber donuts.

We all know that tires come in only one color and that is black although back in the days there are white-walled tires. The reason why it is black is because tire manufacturers add carbon black to tires. This material acts as pigmenting agent but its primary purpose is to make the rubber tougher in the sense that it cancels the effect of ultraviolet rays on the rubber.

UV light is one of the foremost foes of rubber. It targets the long hydrocarbon chains in rubber. When these bonds are shortened, loss of elasticity is expected. What the carbon black does is it absorbs UV rays and turns it to heat. This process turns carbon black to gray thus old tires takes a dull gray color. Therefore, when out looking for a tire cleaner or tire shine, you should keep in mind that your tire needs UV protection.

Another thing you can do to prolong the service of your tires is to observe tire rotation. This is the process of moving tires from one position to another following a pattern. This is done to insure that your tires will wear out evenly. This also prolongs the life of tires. Tire wear could be uneven due to a lot of reasons one of which is the weight of the car.

There are cases when the rear tires will wear out faster than the front ones or vice versa granted they are all properly inflated. By rotating the tires, you can prolong the life of the tires which wear out faster. This is by no means true to all vehicles as other automakers do not recommend doing it. Examples of such automakers are BMW and MINI.

Keeping your tires inflated is another thing you can do to protect your tire. An under inflated tire would have a lot of contact with the road which means it would wear out faster. On the other hand, an overinflated tire would be dangerous to drive on. As the vehicle runs, the tire would heat up and since air expands when heated, you could blow out a tire especially if you are driving on a hot day. This could be more dangerous as blowing out a tire when driving at high speed could make one lose control of the car.

From keeping UV rays off your tires to rotating them to even out the wear and checking how it is inflated, you can do a lot of things to make sure that they have a good life. After all, the longer you have a serviceable tire, the more you will save in the long run just like taking care of your lights could save you on replacement.

Six Tips To Save Gas

No matter what state of the economy the country is in, no one would want to pay three dollars for a liter of gas. But if that is the price to pay one would have to pay at the pump in the future, it is of course necessary that one make sure that the amount of gas paid for will be worth every penny. That is where gas saving techniques will come in handy.

Since saving gas is all about cutting excess, one should know what octane rating is recommended for his or her vehicle. It can be easily checked by consulting the manual. If a vehicle's engine can run efficiently on a lower-octane fuel, it is not necessary for one to buy the pricy premium gas as it would have no effect whatsoever in the performance of the engine.

Second thing you should always remember is to tighten that gas cap after refilling. Gasoline is volatile and not tightening that gas cap means you are wasting fuel. It is not a hard thing to do but it can go a long way towards saving your money on gas consumption.

Third, park in the shade. If you are going to park your car outside under the heat of the sun, evaporative emissions takes place. Another reason why you should not park your car under the sun is that heat is trapped inside your vehicle. This means you would have to turn on the air conditioning unit after starting the car just to get rid of that heat. Turning on the air conditioner means burning up more gas so that should be avoided if you want to save gas.

If you have a garage but you are not using it, you better think twice. The fourth tip on the list is to make good use of your garage. By parking a car in the garage, you are making sure that it stays warm enough during winter and cool enough during summer. That means you do not need to depend too much on your air conditioning unit with its AC condenser or your heater.

Fifth, check your tires. It may sound a little too elementary but studies show that an underinflated tire could cost you a lot of fuel in the long run. If it has less air than it should have, a tire has more contact with the road than it should. That means more resistance and more energy needed for the car to be pushed along. Another reason why you should always check if your tire is properly inflated is that an underinflated tire will wear out faster.

Sixth, always make sure that your car's engine is finely tuned. The manual that came with your car lists the different things that should be done to your car in order to keep it running smoothly. For example, changing the oil should be religiously followed as dirty oil could negatively affect the performance of an engine.

These six steps are easy to follow and should be observed if you want to cut down your car's gas consumption. Start today.

Jeep AC Condenser

If you like to go beyond the limits of driving, then off-road driving is for you. As such, the perfect vehicle choice for you would have to be a Jeep. The marque owned by Chrysler is known all around the world for their wide offering of off-road vehicles and SUVs. Jeep trucks and SUVs though are not only known for their ability to tackle rugged road conditions. They also come with consumer-friendly features like the air-conditioning system which makes use of a reliable Jeep AC condenser.

You can see what a Jeep AC condenser looks like by opening the hood of a Jeep. If no customization has been done on the engine bay, you can usually find the AC condenser right behind the bumper or the grille and in front of the radiator. The air-conditioning system component looks like the radiator albeit smaller. The AC condenser also has that same air fins found on the radiator. This is because they basically share the same function which is to cool things inside them. For the radiator, it is the engine coolant while for the AC condenser it is the refrigerant circulating in the air-conditioning system.

The refrigerant which is commonly Freon is very effective in what it does because it cools rapidly when allowed to expand. The refrigerant is first compressed by the compressor turning the refrigerant into high pressure and hot gas. This is then passed on to the Jeep AC condenser where it is cooled by the air flowing outside. The air fins increases the surface area of the AC condenser meaning more air will be in contact with it making cooling the refrigerant faster. The gas refrigerant is then transformed into liquid as it condenses. This liquid refrigerant is then passed through an expansion valve which cools the refrigerant further changing it into gas. This is what absorbs the heat from the air inside the vehicle thus keeping the temperature down.

With this function, it is easy to see that the AC condenser is very important for the car AC system. Thus, it makes sense that you replace it if it looks like it is about to fail. This way, you can save yourself from inconvenience if the AC condenser fails unexpectedly while you are driving during one of those super hot summer days.