Repairing Auto

Reading the headline of this post probably had your eyes rolling. Of course a hurricane can be bad for your car. But it might affect your car or truck in more ways than you think. Even a small amount of water sneaking into the crevices of your engine can cause damage. Don’t worry, you’re fine driving in rain, no matter how hard it’s coming down. But when hurricane weather is present, there will be lots of standing water, sometimes quite deep. Drivers seem to feel dared into crossing a flooded area of road. Some don’t even make it to the other side, but those that do aren’t in the clear yet. When you drive through deep water the force and volume of the water can drench areas of your engine that don’t usually even get wet, and aren’t designed to. This flood of water can cause lots of electrical damage, and if it manages to get sucked into your engine you could see catastrophic damage to your engine’s internal components. The message is this: if you see deep water in the road, turn around and find a different way home. It’s not worth the risk.

Suspension. All of the springs shocks, links, arms, and bars that keep your car rolling smoothly down the road. Your car’s suspension is a symphony of cushiony firmness, or at least you hope it is. When your suspension is out of whack, things can go downhill quickly. The first things to go are usually your tires. If your suspension is bad, your tires will wear prematurely and unevenly, and this costs you money. It’s important to keep your car or truck’s suspension in good shape for safety reasons, too. A car with bad shocks will not be able to avoid a collision or stop nearly as well as it should. Give your suspension a check with this suspension troubleshooting primer.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard somebody say “a tire is a tire.” What? My stomach turns when I hear this. A tire is most certainly not a tire when it sucks! Ask anybody who lives in a truly snowy region who has tried to use their “all season” tires in snow. They find out the hard way that if you put their tires in slippery white stuff, they are not tires at all, more like skates.
A race last weekend at Mid-Ohio Raceway seems to prove this theory for warm weather, too. The Falken team, driving their Porsche 911 race car, made some very important decisions regarding rain tires halfway through the race. As the weather worsened, they moved up in placement, until at the end of the race they found themselves on the podium! All because they had the right tire for the right conditions.
If you’re shopping for tires, be sure you brush up on your tire knowledge so you buy the right tire for your lifestyle.

Just because a car hit a curb does not mean a front wheel alignment is needed. See what to do after a curb hit and determine if front end damage exists.

If you’ve bought a car from a dealership recently, especially a used car,  chances are you were handed something that was described to you as a great way to keep a major car repair from sending you to the poor house — the service contract. These service contracts run the gamut of coverage, from insuring every system and aspect of your car or truck to paying you only if a total detonation of your engine occurs. I’m of the opinion that these contracts are almost never worth the money. The chances of an extremely high dollar repair becoming necessary aren’t high enough to warrant the cost of the coverage. But don’t take it from me, check out this article from the Better Business Bureau that will let you know exactly how wasteful these service contracts can be to your budget.