Whether you are trying to catch up with some long overdue maintenance or trying to ready a used car purchase for use there are times when corrosion buildup in your cooling system can effect its performance and place a burden on the engine, water pump, radiator, thermostat and heater core. This type of service is not for normal changing of old coolant it is for a system that has a significant amount of Rust.
What …
Recently a friend had their 2010 Nisan Altima serviced at a shop. The work they had performed was a partial general tuneup and oil change. This is really something that most people can do if they have the place and can do the work themselves. In this How To we will go over what they experienced and paid for the work and what it might take for you to do the work …
Unfortunately sometimes engines fail and if you have an older vehicle that is in relatively good condition and it is a desirable vehicle you will want to replace the engine the correct way so that it lasts for many years to come.
In this How To we will go over some of the parts that you should should change when installing your replacement engine. Although you paid a good amount of money for your engine …
If you own or are repairing a vehicle with a carburetor which includes most gasoline powered vehicles prior to about 1990 then diagnosing a no start problem is not quite as difficult as a modern computer controlled fuel injection system. The difference is that engines with carburetors don’t have as many sensors that can go wrong and this is in your favor.
The first thing to do when faced with a no start condition is …
It happens to everyone you go out to your car in the morning ready to go to work and the car won’t start. It was running fine the previous day or just hours before but now it won’t start.
We will try to step through some of the most basic things that you can check in a few minutes to see if you can get your car running or if you need a mechanic’s help.
First …
A friend contacted us today with a question about his six year old vehicle that has been eating an alternator a year for the past three years. In the times with more complexity being built into automotive electrical systems your car’s alternator is one of the few things that should either work or not work. They normally have a life expectancy of at least 10 years or maybe much more and they are actually …
There has been a variety of conversations by owners and mechanics about the servicing of automatic transmissions that have seen high mileage. Some of these thoughts on service are really not good practice although they may seem to be safeguarding the owner they can lead to problems and should be addressed.
When a vehicle has not seen perfect maintenance over a long period or when a new owner assumes a used vehicle there is a …
A friend contacts us today about their vehicle because they are having problems with their exhaust system. It seems that the tail pipe has rusted so bad that it finally broke free from the muffler. They need to get it repaired and are wondering if it is something that they can do themselves or if they need to take it into a shop.
As you can imagine when a pipe is rusting this bad you …
A friend asks us about his 1998 Chevy Truck saying that it is not starting and died in the street out in front of their home. This is not only a no start problem but it is a situation where the vehicle stopped running pretty much out of nowhere. Luckily he was very near his home so it didn’t require a tow back to their house or to a garage.
This is a problem that …
A number of people have been asking about performance air filters and after Cold Air Induction Systems and which one is best for their vehicle. I have to say right off I have never been a fan of aftermarket filters of this type and we will go into some detail about why you probably shouldn’t use one but the primary thing is that engineers at these large car makers know what they are doing. …