Your Car Revs Up and Down While Driving? Here’s What To Do
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When driving your car, there are tons of things that can go wrong. From things on the inside to things on the outside, things can happen suddenly or over time, which is why it’s important to note subtle changes.
If your car revs up and down while driving, you might be wondering why and what you can do it fix it. Below, we’ll discuss the reasons why and tell you what you can do if your car starts acting up.
What is RPM?
When you speed up and slow down, you’re changing your RPMs. RPS is revolutions per minute and is specifically talking about the number of times that the crankshaft rotates around an axis per minute. As you speed up or slow down, all of the turning and churning slows down and will rotate fewer times around per minute.
The faster you go and the higher your RPMs, the more work will be required of your engine and the more fuel you’ll burn. All of this is a quick process that has a lot of parts involved, which is why it’s important to catch issues early on. One issue could arise where your car starts to rev up on its own, something that you should catch and fix before it gets worse.
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Car Revs Up and Down Causes
As you’re driving along the highway, you can feel as your car maintains speed. Sometimes, you might feel it speeding up or slowing down on its own, which could come from a number of causes.
- Transmission Fluid
Transmission fluid is exclusive to automatic vehicles. It’s the necessary element in carrying power from the engine to the transmission, something that makes your car move. As you speed up, this fluid starts to flow faster, lubricating different parts as it moves along.
Any kind of leak in the line will make your car start to pick up RPMs, making it rev up as your driving.
- Clutch Issues
Issues with revving up and down while driving are not only found with automatic vehicles. Manual vehicles can have this issue as well. With manual vehicles, the clutch is what interacts with the transmission system, which is responsible for changing gears and speeding up or down.
If your clutch slips for is worn out, it won’t be able to work as well as before and won’t do its job effectively. This will mean that your car needs much more pressure to work correctly and will likely result in your car slowing down in the process.
- Speed Sensor Issues
Another feature with automatic vehicles is the speed sensor. This works to trigger the car to shift when a certain speed is reached.
If this sensor is not working correctly, your car might not shift gears properly, which can make be the reason why your car revs up and down while driving. Most of the time, you’ll notice your car speeding up faster, which is directly caused by your engine working harder.
- Idle Valve Issue
There is a small valve on the inside of your car that works to help you maintain a steady speed. This little valve can blow and, when it does, will stop working altogether. You’ll notice that your car starts to speed up faster without you pushing on the gas or that your car will not maintain a speed even if you’re not accelerating.
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What to Do When Car Revs Up and Down
Because there are a number of things that can cause your car to rev up and down, you’ll first have to figure out the reason. Getting down to what gets in the way of your car, maintaining a good speed can be tricky, especially because there’s so much involved.
While most of the other issues have to do with small parts and pieces that you can replace, there is one that will require attention immediately, transmission issues. You might be able to replace transmission fluid and get it back up and running well. If not, you might have to replace your transmission, something that can be costly and time-consuming.
Cost of Replacing or Repairing Transmission
You have two options when dealing with your transmission. You can either replace it or repair it. Repairing it comes with an average cost of somewhere between $300 and $1,400. The fluctuation with cost has to do with the cost of the parts and the cost of labor, two things that make car repairs expensive.
For a full replacement, you should expect to shell out much more, as you’ll have to not only purchase a whole new transmission but also pay for someone to replace it for you. In this situation, you can expect to pay anywhere from $1,300 to $3,400. The fluctuation here has to do with the transmission type, which could be:
- Remanufactured
- Used or Salvaged
- Rebuilt
Driving While Car Revs Up and Down
When your car starts to fluctuate speed, you might not think it’s too big of an issue. While it might not be at first, this is not something that you want to leave alone for a long time. Over time, more things can wear down, and you may have a much higher cost than if you had taken care of it before.
Not only will it possibly drive up the cost but, it might also be dangerous. On the road, if you can’t control your speed, you risk getting pulled over or going an unsafe speed that’s impossible to keep up with.
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Keep Yourself Safe
Anytime you’re on the road, you should pay attention to subtle changes in your car so that you can catch issues before they get bigger. Some issues can cause further damage and wind up driving up the cost and time it takes to repair. Pay attention and if you start to feel fluctuations in your speed, take your car in to see what’s happening, taking care of issues right when they start.
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