You might have just passed your driving test and are now preparing to buy your first car. As a first-time driver, you might be working on a tight budget, even though you’d probably love to splash out on something you’d find in a celebrity’s garage. However, there’s no point spending tonnes of cash on a car until you’ve perfected driving alone and built confidence in your skills, but it’s not always easy to make sure your money is well spent if you’re looking at second-hand vehicles. Most people know about brands and models, but they don’t usually know what makes a car tick.
Of course, we all know that a car needs an engine and may be vaguely familiar with terms such as pistons and cylinders, but if you took your car to a mechanic and were told you needed a cylinder head replacement, would you know what they were talking about? In reality, as long as you find a reputable provider of car parts and a dependable mechanic who will give honest advice, you don’t really need to know exactly how an engine works. However, finding an honest mechanic isn’t always as easy as you’d like it to be.
You should buy diesel engine parts from a reputable company if you want to know you’re not being overcharged, but at this stage, you might not be so worried about finding a dependable part provider if you haven’t even chosen which car to buy. Nevertheless, it’s a good idea to have the contact details for a trustworthy mechanic saved because you can never predict what will go wrong. However, with regards to actually buying a vehicle, should you aim for more horsepower or torque?
How Important is Horsepower?
Explaining what horsepower and torque are isn’t very simple, but broadly speaking, horsepower is what gets your car moving and torque is what keeps it at speed. Of course, it’s much more complicated than that, but here’s how to decide whether you need more horsepower or torque.
When you need more horsepower – In theory, the more horsepower your car has, the faster it will go, but the weight and other factors will affect the total speed. However, if all you want to do is accelerate hard and fast, finding a car with a lot of horsepower might be your best option. Remember that driving fast constantly will damage your car, and you could need to pay for engine reconditioning in the near future.
When you need more torque – If all you want to do is sustain low speeds and are not so bothered about being a boy racer, then you might benefit from looking for a car with a lot of torque.
The Verdict
Let’s face it, the rules of the road dictate how fast you can drive, and you should abide by them if you want to be safe. If you’re about to buy your first car, you probably don’t need to concern yourself with the amount of horsepower it has. However, if you’re an experienced driver and fancy taking your car to the track, you’ll be eating other drivers’ dust without a car with a lot of horsepower.
