I am not a big fan on the Idiot and Dummy books, but this is a wonderful introduction to car care, but is a little limited. After reading this book, I learned about how my car works, how to maintain it, and do some basic repairs. Mr. Ramsey does a wonderful job with each of these areas. While you can not go to this book and expect to repair everything on your car, he gives you the basics.



The most important item in the book is the "Car Care Card" which goes over thing you need to know such as Year, Make, and Model of car, and certain specification on your car such as tire pressure, part numbers etc. The "Car Care Card" also has a maintenance schedule for Weekly, Three months, six months, every year, and every two years; which helps thwart the need for costly expense later down the road. These are items I wish my mechanic would have told me about when I bought my car or when I hav it serviced. This card is meant to placed in you car for quick reference. Most other manuals rarely give you a proper schedule for maintaining your automobile.



The remainder of the book helps you understand your car better to keep it on the road. There a plenty of pictures and diagrams to show you what basic parts look like. He advocates, getting a Haynes or Chilton book for your specific make model and year of car to help with the bigger jobs. That way when a specific issue arises, you have a more concise book to give you greater details. While the book is not 100% complete with every issue or meant to be a all inclusive how to fix your car, Mr. Ramsey gives you the basic, the rest is up to you.



I recommend this for anyone who wants to start fixing their own vehicles or want to prolong the life of their cars. It is a good referance manuel to take to your car mechanic also. This book has helped keep my repair bills down and have my car last over 250.000 miles and 12 years.



Enjoy