If you read my column often, you will know I’m a gadget person.  My home is very automated, turning on and off lights with motion detectors and timers, setting the heat, controlling bathroom floor heat with inputs such as outside/inside temps, time of day and motion in the home. My shades also go up and down on time and temp.  It’s makes my home friendly and inviting. It’s fun to figure it out, wire it and then program it. It’s like a crossword puzzle for a nerd. A modern vehicle is so complex now, the most complex item that folks own. Some of the more complex vehicles have more lines of programing code then the newer Boeing 787 or Dreamliner! I have just bought a 2018 vehicle with more “bells and whistles” than any other vehicle I have ever bought. Nice things like heated seats and steering wheel! Oh, so nice in this cold weather. Keyless entry and start, no more digging around in pocket or purse to find your key,  love it. Automati ... read more

Winter is fast approaching and the Holidays are just around the corner. Many of us will be out traveling and enjoying the winter weather. Now is the time to start thinking about preparing your vehicle for possible emergencies while you are on the road.    I would start with getting a plastic storage container designed to fit in your vehicle and big enough to pack the following list of items: a flashlight with extra batteries, a gallon of drinking water, nonperishable easy opening food, flares, a lighter, a pair of gloves for all occupants, a change of clothes, a first aid kit, a blanket, jumper cables, a tarp, sand or kitty litter and a small shovel. These items are all easy to find at any local hardware store or a big box store. A few additional items to consider may be: a charged disposable cell phone, a charged battery jump box and a solar phone charger. Just think about what you would need if you were stranded overnight in the cold weather in your car. And, that leads us ... read more

As vehicles get more advanced, incredible high tech changes are happening  for safety, drives enjoyment, better performance, improved fuel mileage and lower emissions.  Most technical advances start on high end vehicles and work into the common, lower priced vehicles. Three of these are ABS Brakes, (anti-lock brakes), SRS, (Air bag systems) and ESC or ESP, (computerized technology that improves a vehicle's stability by detecting and reducing loss of traction (skidding). All three of these started on high end vehicles but now are required on all newer vehicles. Some of the high tech items that are in upper end cars include radar that map out the road surfaces in front, looking for pavement irregularities such as pot holes and then do adjustment to the suspension for a smoother ride. Yes, it can ever “see” under the vehicles in front of you. LED headlights are now coming into popularity now. They use less power and can be controlled extensively. No longer do y ... read more

Hard to believe that fall is right around the corner; time to get prepared for the rains and winter. Rain, snow, and ice all come with fall and winter. Your tires are your first line of defense between you and the road. Poor tires are just plain dangerous for you and the other people on the road. Make sure your tires are in good condition and are wearing evenly.   Check your tire pressure, the pressure is determined by the automobile manufacturer, not the tire company. You will find your recommended tire pressure on the driver’s door jamb, glove box lid or in your owner’s manual. Coolant check, 50-50 mixture of antifreeze/water. That will bring it down to -34 the recommended level for winter and so the cooling system doesn’t corrode and rust. Battery check. A battery receives its electric energy from chemical reactions. The colder it is, the less power a battery has. And on top of this, a cold engine requires more power to crank it over. Cold weather is a ... read more

One of the most difficult jobs in the automotive repair business is calling the customer with the news. It’s the same for people in the medical, legal, accounting and even funeral fields. We all have one thing in common: We give you news, and often it is not good news. We don’t make any of the news; it’s just the facts. But this is how we make our living, on the news. I don't know how Bob the attorney (not his real name) did it to me, but every time I call him, I feel guilty for what his car needs. After doing this for 30 years, I am usually pretty good at not feeling bad about what a customer's car needs. There is a joke in the business called the 3 Bs: "I didn't build it, buy it or break it." I had a cup of coffee and worked up in my mind how I was going to call Bob with "the news." I reviewed his car’s records for the past five years and found that the BMW had been very good to him -- very few repairs, mostly routine mainte ... read more

The “check engine” or “service engine soon” light is a very important part of your vehicle’s performance, dependability and capability for lowering emissions. Early vehicles required a tune-up every 5,000 to 15,000 miles. But tuning a vehicle made in the last 20 years is just not done anymore. It’s a “past” term. Tuning a vehicle used to be like being the conductor of an orchestra, making sure that each and every instrument was played at the correct instant, right volume and length of time -- timing being critical. In the tuning of engines, it was making sure that every cylinder was doing its part, and that the spark of each spark plug was delivered at precisely the correct time with the proper intensity. Checking all this on a scope – firing times, voltage potential, fuel delivery -- was a very difficult job. Few knew how to do it thoroughly. The modern vehicle is an incredible piece of equipment, and is the most advanced techn ... read more

The future of the automobile in the next few years is going to be very exciting, even incredible.  As electronics, computers and great designs get more refined and less expensive; they enter the automotive world more often. Electronic systems and motors are so dependable now, cars are chock full of them. Vehicles now operate with more than 100 million lines of software code, and that number is predicted to go to 300 million lines of code. (More than the Boeing 787 Dreamliner) Some newer high-end cars have up to 100 electronic control units (ECU) with 25 to 200 microprocessors. To keep all these communications working, vehicles are using FlexRay, CAN Bus and LIN (motor control) systems.  Basic vehicles have about 1,350 wires for about 1.5 miles in length: high-end vehicles have up to 2,300 wires adding up to about 2.6 miles of wires.  Plus, modern vehicles can contain up to 100 electric motors and solenoids.  That’s a far cry from the 1960s cars. We have all ... read more

As vehicles get more complicated, new twists and more advanced multiplexing and technology only add to the challenges of diagnosing automotive problems. Yet in the world of auto repair, some customers don’t always perceive the valve in the cost of diagnosis. Throw in the fear of unknown and lack of trust into this equation, and some people start looking elsewhere for answers. The results most times are questionable. Our shop technicians spend weekends and evening in classes to learn about the new technology. Newer vehicles are the most complex object that most people own and it is time consuming for technicians just to learn how to use new scanners and understand all of their capabilities.  In the past two weeks, four of techs spent Saturday and Sunday in classes.   Recently, we had a customer bring in his European import with a check engine light on and running poorly. We hooked up a specialty scan tool, scanned the vehicle and found a P0301 code, misfire #1 cyl ... read more

Your vehicle is one of the most expensive objects you own and it loses value every year. Vehicles just about always fall in value as you “use” them for your day to day travels. To call them an investment would be a poor choice of words unless you calculated time saving.  A vehicle gets you to your destination quickly, saving your un-renewable asset called time. Over the past 43 years of maintaining vehicles I have my own theory of how to minimize the expenses of owning a car. This theory includes the top three reasons people buy new cars. The first is the same reason you buy new clothes. Your old clothes are not worn out; you just need a new “fashion” statement. The second reason for buying a new car is your old one is worn out, undependable, needs a lot of repair, has too many dents, lack of shine. The third reason is it doesn’t fit your life style anymore, family expanding or contracting, and you need for larger or smaller vehicle. When I buy ... read more