Automotive Specialists Maintenance & More Blog
Latest Scam and How to Beat It I just find the whole concept of scamming somebody abhorrent but I hear the stories every day. This story recently came up and I thought I would share this lady's solution to it. Any reputable shop will perform a basic inspection of the vehicle when doing an oil change. Unfortunately some of our Quicker service br...
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Posted September 30, 2011 at 02:13 PM
Many folks think that modern car diagnostics should be a snap. Just hook up a code reader to the port under the steering wheel and it tells you which part to replace to fix the car. That’s it right? Even a monkey could do it. What is the big deal? I am sorry to report that nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that modern internal combustion engines are a m...
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Posted August 18, 2011 at 09:12 AM
This has definitely been the summer from hell based on the amount of overheating damage we have witnessed in our shops. In just this past month we have seen no less than six, multi thousand dollar head gasket failures directly caused by overheating the engine. The sad truth is that every one of these was preventable. Poor folks driving these cars just did not understand enough about how their vehicle functioned or what exactly was happ...
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Posted August 12, 2011 at 05:26 PM
Did you know that lead melts at 621 degrees Fahrenheit? Magnesium melts at 1200 degrees. Silver turns liquid around 1760 degrees. And iron begins to run at 2797 degrees. Why do I tell you all this? Well I wanted to discuss just how hot your engine gets. Especially on a summer day where we routinely top 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Now you may say, “I know how hot my e...
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Posted June 29, 2011 at 07:35 AM
I have been getting this question a lot lately so I̢۪ll talk about it here. st the pros. Nitrogen has been used for years on aircraft and race car tires. Nitrogen is a larger molecule than just plain old air and therefore it does not pass through the rubber as easily. This allows for much more stabile air pressure and less fluctuation in air pressure due to ambient air temperature or local air pressure. What this means to you is you will not have to worry about the air...
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Posted June 14, 2011 at 09:45 AM
Well they are if you are like most people and have a bunch of keys, key tags and other stuff hanging off of your vehicle’s ignition key. Yes, having anything other than just the ignition key in the key slot on your dash or steering column can and will cost you big time, later. Take that big wad of keys for just a moment and hold them by the ignition key. Feel the weight. That weight is causing your k...
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Posted May 31, 2011 at 07:09 PM
Just How Fast Is Your Engine Moving? Understanding Your Tachometer Ever look at your tachometer (if you have one on your car) and think about what it is really telling you? What the numbers really mean. Think about it for a second. RPM means Revolutions Per Second or how many times one of the spark plugs fire. This is a measure of how fast your engi...
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Posted May 24, 2011 at 06:13 PM
Here is something that has plagued me over the past couple of years. I had a 2007 Ford Taurus that got itself towed to my shop. The complaint was that the engine started fine but the transmission would not budge from Park. No check engine lights and no problems were evident before this suddenly happened. Very frustrating. Turns out it the brake lights were dead. Specifically, it was a brake light fuse that was unpowering the brake pedal switch. Ever try to shift from Park without stepp...
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Posted March 14, 2011 at 02:49 PM
Engines hate heat. In fact most things really do not like heat. Computers, batteries, our bodies even have systems to control heat. And anytime a machine is in use, it is creating heat, somewhere. Engines especially need to control heat because the temperature of the combustion chamber is usually 1400 to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. That is seriously hot. In fact if your engine eve...
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Posted January 25, 2011 at 03:05 PM
As the baby boomers head en masse into their senior years, they have more options than ever to help them stay on the road longer and safer. It's not just about protecting drivers, either: Other drivers and pedestrians are also at risk. Auto insurance premiums will also be affected adversely if a senior driver has a crash. Here are ten tips that can make a real difference: Rate yourself. Are you as road-ready as you think you are? The American Automobile Association Foundation (AAAF)...
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Posted September 03, 2010 at 10:05 AM
