Gerdin Auto - Napa Auto Care Center - St. Francis, MN -- I Hate When That Happens!

The Spare?

Written by Randy Gerdin on August 1, 2011

The trouble with trouble is that when trouble occurs you usually are not expecting it. And that is trouble. Some trouble is preventable; some is totally “out of the blue”. Such is the case with a flat tire. We have seen a bunch of flat tires recently. Tires with nails, screws, knife blades, rocks and even a piece of wood stuck in the tire. In most cases we can remove the tire from the wheel and apply a patch inside the tire. In some cases we have to put a plug patch in the tire. A plug patch is a patch with a round rubber plug affixed to the center of the patch, this unit is install from the inside, pulling the plug through the hole made by the projectile. Of course, the injury to the tire has to be in the tread area, not in the sidewall. The sidewall area cannot be repaired safely. And of course we would never use a plug as they are not recommended by any tire manufacture as a safe permanent repair. In fact, tire plugs can actually damage the tire. Again, they are not recommended.

Of course, having a flat tire never comes at a convenient time. It usually involves filling with air and taking it in to be repaired and in some cases, if it is totally flat, putting on the spare tire. Remember, never drive on a low or flat tire, this will destroy the tire. Some tires have road hazard warranties on them. This is for a non repairable injury to a tire. If you pick up a nail, then a regular repair is in order. So if you pick up a nail and continue to drive on the low tire and the tire is destroyed, this is not a warranty issue. Many vehicles these days are equipped with Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems. This will alert the driver of a low tire. If that should occur, please do not ignore this warning; it may save you from wrecking a tire or worse, from a blow-out. Most blow-outs occur when a tire is driven with not enough pressure in the tire, the tire overheats, and then will blow out.

Now if you have to put your spare on, the first thing is to find it. These days they put them in all kinds of places. I have seen them in the engine compartment, some in the trunk, and many are located under the vehicle. This is where the owner’s manual comes in handy. The first thing to do in case you have to change a tire on the road, is to get the owners manual and find out where everything is you will need to change the tire. On my pick-up truck, the jack is under the seat, the jack handle is under the hood and the spare tire in under the box. The jack handle also acts as the tool needed to lower down the spare from under the box. There is a small hole to put the jack handle into and “crank” down the spare tire. The spare tire is held up with a small “hoist” that lowers and raises the spare. These hoists can be and are another source of trouble. Here in Minnesota, all the salt and slush will rust up this hoist and sometime they will not come down when you need it. We have actually had to cut the spare out of the vehicle because of the rust. A good rule is to annually lower and raise the spare, so you know it will come down when you need it. This will also familiarize yourself where all the parts and the procedure of getting the spare out. Some newer vans are really a challenge because the spare tire is located under the vehicle, between the two front seats. There is a small hole in the carpet to install the special tool and lower the spare to the ground. I still am not sure how fun this will be if one is all dressed up and they have a flat while in a snow storm. I Hate When That Happens!

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Customer Detective Work In Saint Francis MN 55070

Written by NAPA Auto Care on July 29, 2011

One might say the most challenging part of being an automotive service technician in Saint Francis is diagnosing a problem before it can be fixed.

Cars in Saint Francis are made up of a bunch of complex systems. There usually could be a number of reasons for any given symptom. So it’s challenging to track down the actual cause of the problem. And it can be frustrating for the Saint Francis vehicle owner because it can take time and money to get to the bottom of a problem.

If it’s not something obvious, it’s easy for the customer to focus on the fixing and not the diagnosing.

Let us at Gerdin Auto & Tire introduce you to something we’ll call ‘Customer Detective Work‘ – that is helping the technician find clues to what’s wrong.

We start with the detective basics: What, Where and When. Play along with me; You come in to Gerdin Auto & Tire and your car is making a funny sound…

Where’s the sound? – ‘Around the right front wheel’.

What kind of sound? – ‘Kind of a clunk, clunk sound’.

When do you hear the sound? – ‘When I turn and accelerate.

Right and left? Forwards and back?’

You see where we’re going. You’re gathering additional information to help your Saint Francis technician at Gerdin Auto & Tire know where to start. Based on your car and the tech’s experience, we’ll know where to look on you sedan and can start with the obvious suspects.

You can see how that would be more helpful than dropping the car off with a note that says “making a funny noise“.

When you think you need to bring your sedan in, make some notes about the problem it’s having. Rather than just saying “it’s leaking”, tell the tech the color of the fluid, and approximately where under the car you see the puddle.

Things like ‘the car is stalling or sputtering’ are often very hard to diagnose because they’re intermittent. They may not happen every time you drive and may not be happening when you actually bring the car in. So, it is a big help for you to describe what’s happening in as much detail as possible.

Your Saint Francis technician at Gerdin Auto & Tire will need to be able to duplicate the problem if possible so he needs to know details, like “It stalls after it’s been driven for about 20 minutes and I go over 50 miles an hour”.

If your Saint Francis technician at Gerdin Auto & Tire can experience the problem personally, he’s better able to make a diagnosis and repair. And, then test to see if the repair solved the problem.

Give us a call if you need to do some customer detective work in Saint Francis MN 55070!

Gerdin Auto & Tire
3128 Northwest Bridge Street
Saint Francis, MN 55070

At Gerdin Auto & Tire we install quality NAPA replacement parts. To learn more about NAPA AutoCare, visit www.NAPAAutoCare.com.

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Budgeting for Auto Maintenance In Saint Francis MN

Written by NAPA Auto Care on July 20, 2011

Everyone in Saint Francis MN does our best to budget for scheduled vehicle maintenance.

What’s hard is planning for unexpected sedan repairs.

The truth is that our vehicles can stay on our MN roads longer than ever before with proper maintenance. That’s because of improved vehicle design and manufacturing quality. But some of those same improvements also lead to higher repairs costs for every sedan or vehicle.

There’s a tool that can be found on Edmunds.com that you can use to prepare your Saint Francis MN service and repair budget.

Let’s suppose you have a used Toyota Camry – a very popular car in the Bethel area…

It’s now paid for and you’d like to keep it running for the next three years. You can go to Edmunds’ True Cost to Own calculator and enter your vehicle’s data. The calculator will provide estimates of what it’ll cost to service and repair your vehicle in Bethel over the next five years. The estimate’s based on where you live in MN, manufacturers’ recommendations and repair experience for your particular model.

Of course these are just estimates – there’s no way to predict what’ll actually happen to the car in your driveway, but it’s a good starting point. The calculator also has estimates for depreciation, financing, insurance, MN taxes and fuel costs.

Let’s focus on maintenance and repair in the MN area: This table at Edmonds.com shows that the average monthly cost of maintenance and repairs for our example in MN is about eighty-three dollars. That may sound like a lot, but compare it to a new car payment.

So if you set aside eighty-three dollars a month, you’d go a long ways towards taking care of routine maintenance and being prepared for the unexpected repairs that arise.

Some folks in the 55070 zip code area are afraid of what can go wrong with their older car so they buy a new one. That’s fine if you really want a new car, but if you properly maintain your older vehicle, you’ll save a lot of money on new car payments and insurance. It just makes good economic sense when times are tight in Saint Francis.

Give us a call for additional advice on how to keep your sedan running on a budget.

Gerdin Auto & Tire
3128 Northwest Bridge Street
Saint Francis, MN 55070