Albany Auto Repair

How Do You Drive Safe in Winter?   We have discussed getting your car ready for winter, snow chains, ensuring the heat works, and general maintenance. What about driving in that snow, ice, or heavy rain? The first step is having your vehicle inspected and resolving any issues we may find. Next is driving in the cold temperatures with all of the other drivers on the road!   We can’t help anyone's driving habits, but we can help you be prepared for issues you may encounter.   No matter what time of the year or what the temperature is outside, you should have a quality roadside emergency kit. In winter, adding an extra jacket, a warm blanket, and some heavier footwear is a good idea. You may end up stopping for a long time due to an accident, breakdown, or bad weather; especially, if you are traveling somewhere without a lot of traffic. Most importantly, an ice scraper, snow brush, and keeping your fuel tank as full as possible during winter is essential ... read more

Why Doesn’t My Heater Work? It’s getting cool in the morning again. What a bad time to find out the heater in your car isn’t working anymore.    If you have been driving for any amount of time, then you know it takes a few minutes for your vehicle to warm up in the cold weather. But what about when the vents never warm up? There's a problem! We will touch on a few of the basics.   The heater in your car works off the coolant that the engine uses to stay at the proper temperature. If the engine thermostat isn't functioning properly, the coolant may just not be warm enough to blow warm air into the interior.    Also, that coolant flow could be blocked in your heater core, which brings the warm coolant into the vehicle's interior. Or it could be low on coolant as well, which will reduce flow as well.   Another possible issue could be the controls on the dash; if the computer that controls heat and air conditioning malfunc ... read more

Why Is My Engine Squealing?   A belt squeal can be an awful noise. It can be scary too, if you haven’t experienced it before.   A squeal from under the hood is never a good thing, sometimes; it can be something simple. Often, it's an indication of a bigger problem.  The belt that runs all the accessories of your engine is called the drive belt or serpentine belt. That drive belt can sometimes get wet if you are driving in heavy rain or hit a large puddle. That can cause a squeak or squeal that goes away quickly.    Otherwise, if you hear a squeaky noise from your car, you need to get it checked out. The belt itself does age and wear out over time, but it could possibly be that an engine leak has developed and is getting the belt and pulleys wet. Or one of the accessories the belt runs on is starting to fail and isn’t spinning as freely as it should. There are several things that could be causing the squeal, so getting it looked at quickly ... read more

How Do I Get My Diesel Ready For Winter? Diesel engines are known for being more powerful and effective than their gasoline counterparts. An unfortunate thing they are known for is being harder to start in the winter. This is different for modern diesel engines. Because of the way older diesel engines operate, if they have not been very well maintained, there may be some trouble starting when the weather cools down for the winter.   Like modern gasoline engines, diesels have grown in complexity to enable them to produce more power and less emissions at the same time.    Diesel engines use glow plugs or intake heaters to warm the inside of the engine upon starting to help burn the diesel fuel. Since diesels don’t use spark plugs, but instead use heat and pressure to ignite the fuel. On a cold day, the engine needs to be warmed to help them start faster.   That is why in winter, especially on really cold days, you will see big semi trucks and even pickup t ... read more

Why Is My Car Bouncing When I Hit A Bump   No matter where you live, I bet you have experienced rough roads. The United States isn’t known for having perfect roads!   Hitting potholes, bumps, dips, and any other sort of imperfection in the road is a normal part of driving. We try our best to avoid them, but it happens. That’s why automobiles have rubber tires and suspension with shocks and springs in them.   That suspension is what makes your car comfortable to drive on less than perfect roads. Those bumps and holes get smoothed out by the springs your tires are attached to and the shocks help control those springs.    Shocks typically use fluid, compressed nitrogen, or air to dampen the movement of the springs in your suspension. The springs carry the weight of your car and allow it to “float” over most road issues. Large potholes or debris in the road will still cause a rough ride because your suspension is only designed to han ... read more

Why Is My Tire Light On, But I Don’t Have A Flat Tire?   New cars with all their technology are great, but a light on the dash can be annoying if it looks like nothing is wrong. Although, there might be a good reason it’s on. As the temperatures outside start to drop every year, we have increased calls and visits from people with a low tire light on the dash. Without getting too “sciencey”, hot or warm air expands, and cool or cold air contracts. So for a tire, that means the pressure can increase and decrease based on temperature.   The monitoring system in automobiles has a range of pressures it considers safe, so during normal day-to-day conditions, your warning light isn't going to go on and off. A tire that was checked or filled in the middle of summer to the correct pressure on a cold winter day could be just low enough to set the warning light. Nothing is wrong, it just needs to be topped off.   When summer comes back around, you ... read more

How Do I Get My Car Ready For Winter?   Here in Oregon, the weather is already starting to change; like it or not, winter is coming. Before winter, we do have a fall. Here, that means rain, rain, and more rain. Rain means a few things for drivers: you need good wiper blades and good tires, which we check during inspection here at Crabtree.    Once winter arrives and the cold sets in, there are a few more things to be mindful of. Like Fall, Winter requires more of your tires and wipers than summer. Also, if you live in a place where you have to deal with snow, you may want to change your tires to dedicated snow tires.    The difference between snow tires and regular tires is traction. Snow tires are designed for maximum grip on slippery surfaces. That is accomplished in a few ways. The rubber on a snow tire is much softer. Since snow is typically soft and fluffy, a snow tire can be softer than a normal tire without wearing out quickly. You can run a snow t ... read more

Why Do I Have To Change My Oil?   The reason oil changes are required is pretty simple: friction. An engine is a complex machine with a lot of moving parts. The internal parts of your engine are made of various types of metal, and when metal moves against metal, friction causes issues. As a kid, do you remember rug burns? That's friction. Without oil to lubricate your engine, the bearings, and other moving parts would seize up almost immediately. So now we know what the oil does in an engine: it lubricates and helps keep things cool.   The oil itself breaks down with age and time. Also, even though oil helps lubricate your engine, there is still normal wear that occurs. That wear causes small metal fragments to be deposited into the oil. That is why there is also an oil filter on your engine to catch those fragments before they get into a bearing or other small oil passage.   So, since we know that oil breaks down and engines naturally wear over time, then we s ... read more