Albany Auto Repair

Has anyone seen the fuel prices lately? We need all the help we can get with saving money! One place you could save some money is improving your vehicle's fuel economy. There are several components that contribute to your fuel economy.  Keeping up on the normal maintenance, making sure there is not a Check Engine Light on, and your car running smoothly are all factors that contribute to the fuel economy.. Also, a proper alignment is helpful so the car isn’t pulling to one side or the other driving down the road. Something as simple as tire pressure can also make a massive difference in MPG (mile per gallon). And make your tires last longer!   Maintenance on your vehicle includes oil change with an oil filter, air filter and fuel filter replacements. Also, transmission and differential fluid exchange, spark plugs and spark plug wire replacement.   Another contributor is the body of your vehicle. If you have damage that can affect airflow around the body, it ... read more

Why does my car get hot?   Summertime, Bring on the fun and the sun! Some of the best things about summer can give your car the most trouble.   Heat! As we come into the summer months, the warmer temperatures can wreak havoc on your car or truck. It’s already getting warm out there; Texas is melting as we speak! With higher temps, your car's cooling system has to work harder than ever to keep the engine cool and keep you cool inside.    We have gone over the cooling system before, but with summer here now, it's a good time to go over a few things. When your car starts to warm up, your cooling fan will engage, the thermostat opens up, and your water pump may increase its speed.   Usually, that’s enough to keep things under control. But if you have a coolant leak and don’t have enough coolant in your car, then all those things won’t be enough. Or if your fan fails to turn on, the radiator is clogged, or your thermostat gets ... read more

Why Does My Car Shake When I Brake? Usually that's caused by an issue in the brake system, which we discussed earlier in THIS BLOG. Warped brake rotors are usually the cause for a shake while braking. The reason a brake rotor becomes warped can be a few things. Holding your foot on the brakes for long periods of time, pushing very hard on your brakes, or even overloading your car or truck's weight rating can all cause excessive heat in your brake pads and rotors, which in turn warp your steel rotors.  What does warped mean? Normally a brake rotor is a nice flat surface that allows your brake pad to clamp down smoothly when braking. When excessive heat builds up on the rotor, the flat surface starts to form waves. Those waves are what we refer to when we say, “warped” rotors. Now when you step on the brake, the pads and rotors start to shake because the surface isn’t flat anymore.&n ... read more

New automobiles have so much technology in them, that it is very hard to find out what is wrong without needing some special tools. One of the tools commonly used is a scanner. As cars have advanced, so have the tools used to repair them. Before computers and advanced circuitry made its way into cars and trucks, a simple multimeter and a test light took care of most electrical issues in a vehicle.   Those days are long gone! Multimeters and test lights are still valuable tools, but they aren’t going to help with any computer issue. The nice thing about having so many computers in automobiles is when a scanner is used it can help speed up the diagnostic process.    When something goes wrong with the electrical system of a modern car, sometimes it will send an error message to the dash, but sometimes it won’t. That's where a scanner comes in. Scanners will help read error codes, clear error codes, and help a technician pinpoint a faulty sensor, wiring i ... read more

There are a lot of components that may cause your car to run poorly. It can be something simple or something deep within your engine. The heart of every car and truck is the engine.    The engine is what everything else in your car depends on to get from point A to point B. It is what makes the power to turn your wheels and send you down the road. Engine performance is measured by horsepower and torque.    Horsepower measures how quickly power is created, and torque measures how much power is made. And no, one horsepower is not equal to one horse.    Some people purchase their car based on those two performance numbers and usually enjoy their vehicle for more than just a mode of transportation. But even if you don’t care about the performance of your engine, you still need it to run properly; that’s why maintenance is important.    Oil, air, and fuel filters, along with fluid changes, are vital to keeping your engine running fo ... read more

A transmission is what makes your car move down the road. Like the electrical system in modern cars the transmission is very complex, but we can break it down some.   There are a few types of transmissions, the most common is the Automatic transmission, then there is the Manual Transmission. Finally, the CVT transmission is not as common in trucks, but heavily used in powersports like ATVs, snowmobiles, and UTVs.   There are many variations of each type, but we will go over the most popular of each. They all take the power that is produced by the engine and send it to the wheels through gears, fluid, or belts depending on the design of the transmission.   An Automatic Transmission, as the name suggests, automatically shifts the gears in the transmission for you as you travel down the road. You do have to shift the car from park to drive, reverse, or neutral. Once in drive, the transmission will start in the lowest gear and shift up a gear depending on speed and sev ... read more

There are few feelings in this life worse then jumping in your car early in the morning to head to work, turn the key, and CLICK, nothing. Dead battery!   Maybe that is a bit dramatic but it’s not fun at all. Modern car’s and truck’s have so much technology packed into them these days the electrical system is easily the most complicated part of the whole car.   There’s not much in the electrical system that is easly user serviceable, except for batteries, fuses, and some light bulbs. Electronics are involved in nearly every function of a modern automobile. So its safe to say we have invested heavily into our electrical diagnostic equipment and training here at Crabtree Auto.   All that said there are a few key components. Battery, starter, and alternator. When you start your car the battery sends power to your starter which spins the engine and gets it running. Once your engine is running the alternator recharges the battery and supplies the ... read more

Your car may run great, but you have to slow down and stop at some point. That's where brakes come in!   When you step on the brake pedal in your car or truck, you expect your vehicle to slow down and eventually come to a complete stop, but do you know how that process works?    In your car or truck, brakes work off something called hydraulic pressure. Your brake pedal is attached to a booster that takes the pressure you apply to the pedal and amplifies it.    The booster then takes that increased pressure and compresses the fluid in your brake system, which sends that pressure into your brake calipers or drums.   A caliper uses hydraulic pressure to drive a piston that squeezes a brake pad into the rotor to slow it and the wheel down. The brake pads are mounted into the caliper and sit on each side of the rotor so that it can clamp onto both sides evenly.   The rotor is a large disc that sits behind your wheel and is connected to the wh ... read more

Why Do Cars Need Antifreeze in the Summer?   Your vehicle’s cooling system uses a mixture of water and antifreeze to be able to operate in all weather conditions. Antifreeze is also referred to as coolant because of its chemical composition. It allows the water in the cooling system to work below freezing and above boiling temperatures.   Coolant is pumped through your engine and into the radiator, where a fan is used to pull air through the radiator, lowering the temperature of the coolant inside the radiator. It’s the same process used to heat or cool the inside of your car or home just in reverse.   Your cooling system has a few main components: a pump, radiator, thermostat, and the hoses that connect all these components together.    The Thermostat is what keeps the whole system at the correct temperature, too cold and it keeps the coolant from entering the radiator. Too warm and the thermostat opens, sending all the coolant into the rad ... read more

What is an alignment? Well, it's getting your car or truck lined up… but what does that mean exactly.    When we talk about Alignments what we are talking about is getting all 4 wheels pointed in the same direction and rolling smoothly down the road. We talked last week about tires and tire wear. A big factor in tire wear is a bad alignment. Besides improper tire wear a bad alignment will cause your car or truck to pull to one side going down the road. It can also have poor handling in general.   There are a lot of adjustments to be made on a typical modern car, that's why we have a computer and laser system to help make these changes. Pictured is a car on our rack with the sensors on each wheel and the computer screen displaying the desired alignment numbers and current numbers so our technicians know how much adjustment is needed.   Why do alignments need to be checked? Because your alignment involves your car’s suspension, steering, whee ... read more