How Cars Work

I changed jobs and became a parts delivery person. The knowledge I have received from the book as helped me in knowing what my customers are talking about and thus can relate messages to the sales staff. For my job and personally, I like knowing what the function of the parts are and where they are located. I am so glad to have the book. It was well written and made learning easy.

The diagrams in the book where nice, but man this guy isn't an author. You can tell he knows what he is talking about but he just uses a lot of lingo. Thankfully, there is a glossary, but it takes too long to look up every word. He just tells you the different parts in mechanisms. He doesn't really explain how anything works. By the way, he has like 5 nicknames for every part. If you are a beginner too complex, if your an expert you probably know this stuff. If you have the money and your an amateur go ahead. If none of the above I wouldn't suggest this book.

The author is an owner and operator of a tutoring center. He is not an expert in auto mechanics. As he points out on the back cover the pictures and the concepts were for teenage boys and the accompanying graphics are of poor quality.

If you actually want to learn anything substative of autos this is a poor poor choice. You are better of visiting the automotive section of www.howstuffworks.com or some similar website to learn more with better graphics and for free.

I bought this book long time ago and finally had the time to look at it and I regret it.

I have always wanted to getting learn more about how a car works but never could find a reliable source of information that put the whole picture together. If you already know the basics of how a combustible engine works and how the basic systems of a car work such as steering, brakes, etc, then you don't need this really basic guide. But if you are like me and needed a place to get started at the beginning then this book will be a real enlightening experience.

For a non-mechanic, this book gives the simplest guide to understanding how cars work with excellent illustrations. The book is broken down into short sections giving you a very basic understanding of the engine to the electrical to all parts of a car. The book covers it all. The language is very simple as it breaks down the various car parts into understandable terminology and by the end if you didn't know what "twin cams" mean, you will now. You won't be able to rebuild a car after but that's not the purpose. For a mechanic it may seem like a comic book but for the uninformed its very enlightening.