I Hate When That Happens

Aren’t cars great these days? With proper care, they start up in almost any weather-without having to plug them in. They are comfortable to drive. They have a lot more power than they used to, and they get better fuel economy than in the past. The bodies don’t rust out and the paint even stays looking better than just a few years ago. These are all great things. My concern is that with all the technological advancement our vehicles have made, we may take things for granted.

I have been in the car fixing trade for over 30 years. And over these years, I have witnessed the “morphing” of our vehicles that we drive along with the driving public as well. It used to be that every winter people were in for a “winter tune-up”. This was a common thing and people knew that they would have problems if they did not take care of this each fall. Now, with the great improvements in our vehicle, I see some people just expect their car to go without care. This last week I have a couple cases in point:

We had a very nice young person in that needed their vehicles brake system repaired. The vehicle had about 80K on it. The repair needed was in the hundreds of dollars. This, of course, was a much unexpected surprise for this individual. We also had another client that dropped off their vehicle saying that it ran poorly. We asked if the check engine light was on and they responded that it has been on for over a year. After testing this vehicle, we found that the catalytic converter was plugged up not allowing the exhaust to get out of the tailpipe, causing an extremely low power situation. We found a code set in the computer for the ineffective catalyst. More importantly, we found a code relating to a fuel system running lean (not enough gas). Upon further testing, we found the front Oxygen sensor was relaying to the computer that the engine needed more fuel. The engine computer responded by giving it more fuel. The problem is that the sensor did not recognize that the amount of fuel had increased and it still thought that the system was running lean. So the engine computer increased the fuel to a point that, according to its programming, was excessive. When the computer realized this, it turned on the check engine light. The vehicle still ran OK (however, I am sure the fuel economy suffered) so they continued to drive the vehicle. Well, now we had it and the repair to get it back on the road was way more than the customer had anticipated. The point is, in both of these cases if action had been taken sooner, the problems could have been minimized and the cost could have been between 2/3rds and ½ less.

The lesson of course is, don’t take your vehicle for granted. If a light comes on, that is telling you that there is a problem. We hear this often that the check engine light has been on for a long time. It may be true that the first issue may not have been significant, however, if something else would happen you would not know it because the check engine light was already on. The point is, if the light is on, it needs to be fixed. And back to the individual with the unexpected brake problem. There are many things on our vehicles that wear out gradually. The best policy is to have periodic inspections. If you check the vehicle maintenance schedule, you will find the inspections recommended. I still feel that every vehicle should have an annual “once over”. This way, things can be caught before they become unexpected and more expensive. I Hate When That Happens!

No comments

There has been an old adage in the car repair world for many years, it goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Well, these days that saying is getting less and less relevant. Today’s vehicles last so much longer. Years ago when a vehicle had 100,000 miles on it, many people thought that it was ready for the scrap yard. These days, we consider that mileage as low. My son is driving around a vehicle with close to 300,000 miles on it. I drove it the other day, and you know, it still drives great. The power windows, locks’ and mirrors still all work, it starts, runs and shifts perfectly. He said that the car still gets about 22 mpg. Not bad for a 15 year old vehicle. We did not buy it new, but got it when it had about 150,000 miles on it and each of my 3 son’s have driven it. It has never broken down (except for a flat tire) but we have done our duty and maintained the vehicle. We basically have followed the manufacture recommended service schedule. If we saw a need during the regular oil change, we did it. So anyway, we did not wait for it to break before we fixed it, we maintained it. This is the same rationality that our doctors and health community keeps preaching at us, regarding our own bodies. Eat right, exercise, get enough sleep and maintain healthy relationships and you will feel better, have lower blood pressure etc, and ultimately will live longer. If we waited with our own bodies until we “broke down” ,that would not be very wise, and it certainly would be much more expensive.

The same is true with our vehicles. If we never changed our oil, or serviced our transmissions, or checked our tires, they would last for a while, but we certainly would not get the life out of these items and ultimately that would cost us more money for a major repair and certainly would be a hassle for us when it broke down. I know I am probably as guilty as many when it comes to taking care of stuff. Life is just so busy. There is always something to do, or somewhere to be. My doctor tells me every time I see him that I need to be at the gym 2-3 per week and watch my fat intake. I know what is best for me but it seems time just slips away. I know this happens with my car as well. I recently looked at my oil change sticker and I was a 1,000 miles over. (That is one of the reasons I use synthetic oil) So I needed to make an appointment-even at my own shop-and get it taken care of. Of course when we serviced it, we found it also needed some overdue maintenance. So we carved out some time and got it done. This car has only 174,000 miles on it, so of course I feel it’s like new and it still performs as good as the day we got it.

We are seeing more and more people with over 200,000 miles on there vehicles and they are still are very nice cars and trucks. Of course they have taken care of them. We also see vehicles that have been neglected, even though we make recommendation to help people get the maximum life out of there vehicle. It is still up to the individual. Of course they may think that they are saving money or somehow cheating the system, but it will catch up with them. It’s like eating fast food or cheap frozen pizzas. They may be less expensive than healthier fruits and vegetables, or eating leaner meat or fish. But they will get you in the end. I Hate When That Happens!

No comments

Frequently our phone rings and a motorist says, “my car is running lousy, how much is a tune-up?” Years ago, that was a quickly answerable question. We did numerous tune-ups. They would consist of spark plugs, spark plug wires, ignition points and condenser, a distributor cap and rotor, and a fuel filter. We would adjust the ignition timing and the carburetor. Back in the 1970’s and early 1980’s that was common. We used to perform this service every 12-15,000 miles. Then came along electronic Ignition. This eliminated the ignition points and condenser and replaced them with solid state components that would not wear, thus ensuring consistent ignition timing. This, along with other component improvements, increased the time between tune-ups to about 30,000 miles. And even then, they usually only required replacement of the spark plugs and fuel filter. Then carburetors were eliminated in the mid 80’s in favor of fuel injection. Of course, this ushered in a computer controlled vehicle with numerous sensors and actuators that control the operation of the engine. Still, theses vehicle required spark plug replacement at about 30,000 miles. Ignition wires usually lasted about 60,000 miles.

These days, things are drastically different. Gas engines still do have spark plugs, but they usually are of a double platinum or iridium design. These plugs usually last about 100,000 miles. There still are cases in which newer vehicles require spark plugs replacement at 30,000 miles. So now when someone calls and asked this question about how much does a tune-up cost, the answer can be shocking. The new design spark plugs can cost 8-15 dollars each. A fuel filter for a high pressure fuel injection system can run from 15-80 dollars, just for the filter! And if you have looked under the hood of a late model vehicle, you can understand that replacing these items on certain vehicles can be a very complex job. So when you consider these factors, replacing spark plugs and a fuel filter can run into the hundreds of dollars depending on how many cylinders your engine has and what is required to replace them. And if you would require spark plug wires or in some cases spark plug boot kits it even adds up to more. You talk about sticker shock.

The good news is, we used to do this every 30k or so. Now we have tripled the mileage that these components last. So in the long run it now probably costs less overall compared to having this service done 3 or more times in the first 100,000 miles. One other consideration, I still recommend replacing the external fuel filter every 30K, this protects the fuel injectors and the fuel pump. Experience has also taught us that spark plugs should be changed between 80-90K miles. We have seen problems with the spark plug getting corroded into the cylinder head and the plug breaking off inside the head. This can be a huge problem with added expense. We had a vehicle in recently with over 110K miles on it that one of the spark plugs actually blew out of the engine. It stripped out the threads in the head and broke the ignition coil. Now that was an expensive repair. If the spark plugs had been changed around 80k miles, this scenario could have been totally avoided. It was also a big hassle for the motorist because of this unplanned repair and the added expense.

Of course it is important to remember that a tune-up is not the cure all for all drivability problems. It is always more important to get to the root cause of an issue and address that. You would not want to have a tune up done that costs hundreds of dollars and then find out that your vehicle still runs lousy. I Hate When That Happens!

No comments

Like most things on our vehicles, we do not think of them until they don’t work. This is especially true of our braking systems. Over the years I have been forced to drive vehicles with little or no brakes, that is one scary ride. The automotive brake has been around for as long as the car has been driven. If you think of it, it is quite a task to get a couple thousand pound vehicle to go from 60mph to a dead stop in a matter of seconds. That is where science and engineering meet.

Most modern vehicles use two different types of brakes, the drum brake and the disc brake. The drum brake uses two half moon looking “shoes” that are forced into the inside of a round metal drum. The disc brake uses a rectangular brake “pad”, mounted in a clamping device called a caliper that fits over a round metal disc, when the driver puts their foot on the brake, the caliper clamps down on the disc and this friction will stop the vehicle. Most vehicles these days are equipped with disc brakes on all four wheels. This for a lot of reason, but generally disc brakes work better. Brake engineers sometimes refer to brakes as “heat machines” because they take the energy of motion and transfer it into heat. Then of course the heat has to be dissipated.

The first thing you should know is that all brakes are designed to wear out. The brake pad is made up of a complex compound that will cause just the right amount of friction on the disc rotor to stop the car. It has to do this over and over without overheating and coming apart; it must stop your vehicle quickly, quietly and smoothly, and last a reasonable amount of miles. It is really a tall order. Again brake friction material is designed to wear out.

If you look in a brake parts book you will see many different brake pad numbers for each application. The reason for so many different part numbers has mainly to do with the cost of the materials used. There are cheaper pads, but generally they will not last as long, take longer to stop your vehicle and can be noisier. And on the other end of the scale there are high performance brakes, that are more expensive, for use in taxi cabs and police car applications that are designed for the excessive heat of these uses. So for the most part, you should use the specific type of brake pad that is designed for your vehicle, even if it costs a few more dollars, it is worth it in the long run. It also may be a waste of money to put a taxi cab type of brake on your regular vehicle.

For many years, car manufacture would put a small metal tab on the brake pad. This tab was used as a warning device. When the brake material was worn to a certain point, this tab would ride on the rotor and make a squeaking noise to alert the driver that the brake lining needed service. However, for a number of reasons, the manufacture have not been using this tab. The problem is that there is no advance warning to the driver of service needed. Generally speaking we hear that all of a sudden the brakes are grinding metal to metal. This is unfortunate in my opinion. The only way around this is to have your brakes inspected periodically and keep track of there condition. Because when they are worn out, sometime it is to late and there may be damage done to other parts of the system, mainly the disc rotors. I Hate When That Happens!

No comments

We read everyday in the news about the tough economic times, and indeed they are. I was talking to a long time customer about his 2003 Ford F150 that has 163,000 miles on it. He was picking it up after really what I would call a major repair of around $600.00 which included a 20 mile tow. One would think that he would be somewhat upset. But he was just the opposite. He said he has had this vehicle since it was a year old and he had driven it about 140,000 mile of its life and this was the first real major thing that he has done to it. We got talking about how the vehicles now days are so much better than they were 15 years ago. We spoke about the quality of the bodies and how they don’t rust like they used to. We talked about how he takes care of his vehicles and does what the owners’ manual says. He paid his bill and went on his way.

A couple days later he stopped back in and gave me an article he had just read from his AARP magazine. The name of the article from the Aug 2009 edition is “A Keeper is Cheaper”. This article was talking about the same things that we had talked about a few days before. It had many examples of people having cars with 200,000, 300,000, and even 400,000 miles on them and that they were still good dependable transportation. There was a quote in the article that I have been saying for a long time. It reads” The secret to automotive longevity turns out to be no secret at all: it’s maintenance.” There are many testimonials in the article about how people have payed attention to there fluids, changed them when needed, done needed inspections and taking care of things before there become an issue, and it’s all cheaper in the long run.

They gave a great illustration of someone who had a vehicle and drove about 22,500 miles a year, which is about 50% more miles per year than average. In 5 years they would have done about 30 oil changes for about $1,200.00. Miscellaneous services, filters, hoses, tire rotation etc. would be an additional $1,200.00. They had a couple more major things like a timing belts, shocks and struts for another $1,100.00. This adds up to about $3,500.00 or about $700.00 per year. The article supposes that you bought a new $20,000.00 car and finance $18,000.00 at 7% for 48 months. The payment would be about $430.00 per month or $5,160.00 per year. The point is that a new car really can pay havoc on your budget. And remember that your new vehicle still need its oil changed, tires rotated, etc. It also supposed that the maintenance cost were twice a high at $1,400 per year, it still beats those car payments by $3,800 per year. In addition we have not considered the additional cost of insurance for a new vehicle.

In their analogy, if you’re annual maintenance cost were $1,400 per year and you kept your car for 5 years after it was paid for. This savings would be about $19,000.00 compared to buying a new car every 5 years. Isn’t that interesting? Also remember that in the example this person drove 50% more miles per year than the average, being about 12,000 miles per year. There are other things that also can help prolong the life of your vehicle, like washing it and keeping it clean. This is especially the case here in Minnesota which uses a lot of salt/chemicals on the roads in the winter. If you have misplaced your owners manual, pick one up or ask your shop you go to, to print out a maintenance schedule for you. Get your vehicle back on track and get it in proper shape. Something that we have seen lately is people not replacing their timing belt at the recommended interval. If this belt breaks, it usually does major damage to your engine. The old adage again is true: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this case it is worth a TON of cure. I Hate When That Happens!

No comments