A tune up is part of a regular maintenance routine. Your car has three major systems that require regular maintenance. It has an air intake system, an electrical/ignition system, and a fuel system. A tune up addresses these three systems to ensure proper operation of your car's engine.

Your car needs clean, filtered, unrestricted air flow at all times. This air aids the engine's combustion process inside the cylinders. In order to tune up the air intake system of your car, you'll need a professional mechanic or technician to install a clean air filter and to clean the throttle body of any carbon deposits and oil residue.

The engine of your car needs an unrestricted path for electricity to flow through the ignition system in order to properly ignite the air and fuel mixture in the cylinders. In order to tune up the electrical/ignition system of your car, you'll need a good ignition module, a good ignition coil, a quality cap/rotor, good spark plug wires, and properly gapped spark plugs.

Your car also needs proper fuel pressure from the fuel pump in order to deliver a filtered, unrestricted flow of fuel to the fuel pressure regulator and the fuel injectors. Professionally-cleaned injectors, combined with the correct amount of fuel pressure, will deliver the proper atomization of fuel to be mixed with the incoming air inside the cylinder. This is necessary for optimum combustion to occur. When you tune up your vehicle's fuel system, have your fuel pressure checked, your fuel filter replaced, and your fuel injectors cleaned by a professional mechanic or technician.

What are the symptoms that indicate your car needs a tune up? Your car may become difficult to start, may run rough, or may have the check engine light come on while you are driving. The car may also stumble, hesitate, stall, fail emissions tests, have poor fuel economy, and/or have black smoke coming from the exhaust pipe. Any or all of these symptoms may occur, leaving you with a feeling that your vehicle has become unreliable or undependable.