Posted on 8/18/2024
When you start your vehicle’s engine, there’s another motor that makes that whole process possible. It’s called the starter, and it’s a small electric motor that gets your vehicle running. As you can imagine, it’s quite a chore for a little electric motor to turn over the big engine that powers your vehicle. And after hundreds of successful starting missions, after a while, it will start to give out. You’ll know the starter is starting to give up the ghost when it turns too slowly or sometimes doesn’t do anything when you turn on the ignition. Maybe it makes funny noises like grinding when you try to start your vehicle or maybe there’s just a click. Those are all reasons to get your vehicle over to us so we can see what’s going on. A technician will make sure the problem is the starter and not in the battery, a switch, or other electrical component or connections. If all of those are ruled out, y ... read more
Posted on 8/11/2024
Maybe your vehicle feels like Breaking Bad. In other words, when you brake, things are bad. You may find it takes you a longer distance to stop, you feel a vibration, or it’s pulsating when you depress the brake pedal, or perhaps your vehicle pulls to one side. Those can be symptoms of failing brake drums. While a lot more vehicles these days have disc brakes, many vehicles still have brake drums, almost always in the rear wheels. The drum is a cast iron shallow cylinder that surrounds the other parts, including curved brake shoes that press pads against the drum to slow you down or stop the vehicle. Any time you have things going wrong with your brakes, you should get them fixed soon. Safely operating any vehicle depends on having the brakes be able to slow and stop you dependably. It can make the difference between avoiding a collision and having one. When you bring your vehicle in, a technician will inspect your braking system. Depending on ... read more
Posted on 8/4/2024
You’ve probably already heard that regular oil changes are extremely important for the health of your vehicle’s engine. That’s sound advice. But what you might not know is when it comes to motor oil, the real thing may not be the best thing for your engine. There are different types of motor oil:
• Conventional oil, extracted from the ground and refined.
• Synthetic oil, manufactured from high-quality base oils and artificially-made chemical compounds.
• Synthetic oil blend, a mixture of conventional and synthetic oils. The first thing you need to know is that most new engines require synthetic oil. If synthetic oil is recommended for your car – you MUST use it. For the rest, there are many advantages to using synthetic oil over conventional oil. • Synthetic oil provides better protection for your engine while helping it to perform better.
• Co ... read more
Posted on 7/28/2024
Tires are so reliable these days that few drivers pay much attention to them. But tires wear out. They have a tough job since they are the only point of contact between your vehicle and the road. They have to get your vehicle going from a stop, keep it going, make sure it is headed in the direction you want it to go, and –importantly – slow and stop it. The only time many drivers think about their tires is when there's a problem, such as a flat. Or, they may lose control when they find their vehicle isn't stopping or steering like it used to. One major safety organization estimates that 1 out of every 11 crashes is related to a tire issue. Many of those problems are caused by tire tread wearing out. The rubber is worn off by friction after hours and hours on roads. The sidewalls can also be damaged by your tires hitting curbs, potholes, or other debris. Plus, rubber ages as time passes. We recommend you let us in ... read more
Posted on 7/21/2024
As you know, today’s vehicles rely on a lot of computers in them to keep them running clean and efficiently. Those computers depend on information delivered by several sensors throughout the engine and exhaust system. And one of the most important is the oxygen sensor. Known as the O2 sensor for short, it looks for too much unburned oxygen that has made it into the exhaust. That signals something isn’t right with the engine’s air-fuel mixture. The sensor sends signals to the engine’s computers, which can then make adjustments to make sure the engine is running as it was designed to. Some vehicles can have several O2 sensors, and since they can measure oxygen at various points in the combustion/exhaust process, the computers can pinpoint where the problems lie. For example, an O2 sensor can detect how much oxygen is coming out of the engine’s combustion chamber, and another one can measure oxygen coming out of the catalytic co ... read more
Posted on 7/14/2024
Talk about exquisite choreography; it happens under the hood of your vehicle every time you take a drive. Your engine’s many complex parts must work exactly together. One key is a part called a timing belt, which enables the synchronizing of two of your engine’s components, the camshaft, and the crankshaft. The timing belt coordinates the valves in your engine to open and close at the appropriate time to get exhaust out of the engine’s cylinders. Timing belts may also power the water pump and the oil pump. The belt is made of rubber. Some engines use a timing chain (made of metal). Your vehicle’s manufacturer recommends an interval after which you should have your timing belt or chain replaced, and that service should be part of your vehicle’s regular maintenance. It’s always better to replace it before it breaks rather than after. After all, if your timing belt breaks while you’re driving down t ... read more
Posted on 7/7/2024
For most drivers, at some point you’re going to have a flat tire. Depending on how it was damaged, it may have to be replaced. But sometimes, a repair will do the trick, as long as the puncture isn’t on the sidewall and the hole is smaller than ¼ inch/6.35mm in diameter. Here are the three common ways your tire can be fixed. One way is to put a plug in the hole. Since most tires are damaged by running over sharp objects such as screws and nails, the small hole from which the air is escaping is on the part of the tire that touches the road. If it’s in the sidewall, it most likely can’t be fixed. In the plug method, a technician inserets a rubber plug. It is covered with some sticky, gluey stuff, and is pushed into the hole from the outside. That plugs the hole and stays in place, thanks to the glue. Friction from driving heats it up and seals the deal. Another method is to patch the hole. For this, your tire has to fir ... read more
Posted on 6/30/2024
Ever wonder how your vehicle’s engine is able to take the 12-volts from its battery and ramp that up to as high as the tens of thousands of volts it takes to fire its spark plugs? The secret is something called an ignition coil. Most newer vehicles have an ignition coil at each cylinder, but older ones have a coil that serves all of the spark plugs. There are telltale signs that you have an ignition coil problem. As you might expect, one symptom is it’s hard to start your engine or it won’t start at all. If your engine is misfiring or not running smoothly or you see the Check Engine light come on, those all could point to an ignition coil failure. Several things can contribute to ignition coil trouble in addition to normal wear and tear. Moisture and dirt may have gotten inside the coil, plus the heat and vibration of your engine over time can contribute to them going bad. Bad spark plugs or plug wires can also be a cause. While ig ... read more
Posted on 6/23/2024
The internal combustion engine in your vehicle counts on two things that mix together to be burned in the engine for power: fuel and air. Both are important, of course. If you run out of fuel, your engine won’t run at all. Since there’s plenty of air around, you won’t run out of air, but you could feel your vehicle’s performance suffer if the engine air filter starts to get clogged. It's important that the air that enters your engine be free of dirt, dust, and debris to prevent damage to internal components. That’s where the engine air filter comes in. It prevents those particles from entering the engine, an important job that most people just take for granted. After a while, your air filter will get dirty, which results in less air reaching the engine. Modern fuel injected engines can adjust the amount of gas to mix with the air that is getting in, so your fuel economy won’t change significantly. What ... read more
Posted on 6/16/2024
Ever wonder how your vehicle is able to move over bumps, potholes and other irregularities in the road and you hardly feel a vibration in the cabin? It’s your shocks and struts doing the hard work along with the rest of your suspension and tires. They keep the ride smooth and are important for your vehicle’s safe operation. So, how do you know when your shocks and struts are wearing out? One way is to look at the surface of your tire (where the rubber meets the road—where the tread is). You might see some little indentations in certain spots, known as tire cupping. If your vehicle takes longer to stop than it used to, takes a dive when you hit the brake pedal or bottoms out (scrapes) on a big bump in the road, that’s another sign, as are loud, odd noises. You may also notice your vehicle sways more than it used to. Every once in a while, look around at your shocks to see what shape things are in. If you see the rubber cover cracked ... read more