About the author

If you are reading this page, you must be curious who writes this site and why he is so categorical on many points - especially opinions that do not quite match what you usually hear in a shop, a tyre centre or a garage.

So, my name is Serhii. I am well past 30, and for the last 15 years I have driven my own car nearly every day, with rare exceptions. It is hard to say what my total personal mileage is, but it is fairly large, given that besides the daily commute I also love travelling with my family - mountains, the sea, forests, historic places (including in Europe). I do not always get to travel on perfect roads, and I am far from an oligarch, so the technical condition of the car has always mattered a great deal to me. Having changed a fairly large number of cars (different makes, models, fuel types, years and classes) I have built up quite rich experience, both of technical maintenance directly (I haven’t picked up a spanner myself for years, of course, but I am almost always there when the work is done) and simply of running a car. The one gap in my “car” biography is that I have never owned a car made in Russia.

My first degree is in economics, and I have worked in that field for many years. Oddly enough, my job has nothing whatsoever to do with cars, with the tyre and wheel trade, with engine oils, or with anything else directly or indirectly connected with maintaining cars. My sites are a hobby that has nothing to do with my profession or my job.

Why do I write with such confidence about things that are not entirely obvious?

First, I have had the “pleasure” of living through many of the conclusions I draw in my articles myself, and afterwards, with hindsight, I have had to work out the answer to the question “why did that happen?”.

Second, I know quite a few people in the car maintenance trade, so I try to check every statement several times against different sources. I stress - independent, or rather, relatively disinterested sources.

Third, in every specific case I try to assess the processes I write about from the point of view of physics, mechanics and so on. My reasoning is always laid out in full in the article - whether you agree with me or not is up to you.

How reliable is the information on this site?

You need to understand that when I write about something in general terms (general recommendations), I am, in any case, relying first of all on my own experience, on the views of people who have direct experience of the subject, and, of course, on general theory - physics, mechanics and so on. But in any case I am keeping something specific in mind while doing so, and I try to give advice and recommendations that are as safe as possible for all motorists, regardless of their age, driving style, conditions of use, or the make, model and age of their car.

As a result, some of my statements may sound like empty “scare stories”. Even so, I think you have to agree that, given the general trend towards lower quality in modern cars, this “medical” approach (do no harm) is fairly sound and universal.

Does what is written here always hold up in practice?

Here is a simple example - the article on wheel offset. Wheel sellers insist that offset can differ from the standard figure (by how much depends on who you ask). Many motorists (especially owners of not-so-new off-roaders and other “unkillable” cars, which, sadly, are barely made any more) confirm that driving for a long time on wheels with a non-standard offset has little effect on the technical condition of the car.

But a mechanic I know, who has serviced my cars for more than five years, confirms that cars with a “non-standard” offset come in for wheel bearing replacement far more often, and not only for the bearings themselves. The thing is, he (the mechanic) is a good mechanic with regular customers, whose cars (and often their conditions of use) he knows fairly well, and that is exactly why I trust him.

My own experience also fully confirms that a non-standard offset inevitably leads to premature bearing replacement. Theory shows that changing the offset changes the moment on the wheel bearing. It would be illogical to assume that the engineer who designs the suspension did not calculate the minimum load on one of the key parts of the running gear. And now the main point - why, from what looks at first glance like simply increased wheel bearing wear, do I conclude that driving with a non-standard offset is dangerous? Because, with good sound insulation, after a good pothole and at high speed, the chance of suddenly losing a wheel because the wheel bearing has failed on a wheel with a non-standard offset does not just exist - it is many times higher than the chance of the same outcome where every part of the suspension meets the loads the car’s engineer designed for. Disagree? Well, that is your right. In any case, I do not consider it acceptable or even appropriate for me to claim that changing a wheel’s offset is completely safe.

My real surname, where I live, what I do for a living, and other personal questions

There are people who happily put all their information online, and there are those who do not. Both groups have every right to decide how to handle their personal data, and I am convinced that both are entirely within their rights in their decision.

The fact that I belong to the second group does not mean that I am afraid of something or that I doubt I am right. Everything from my biography that genuinely has a bearing on my sites and on the information they contain is on this page.

I deliberately try, in my articles, not to “lean on authority” but to back up my judgements with one argument or another. Once again - whether you agree with me or not is up to you. Nothing written on my sites is, or can be treated as, a guide to action; it is purely informational in nature.

With best wishes,

Serhii Maslov, author of several small sites on protecting consumers’ rights and interests in car maintenance.