Albany Auto Repair

Have you ever been driving, hit the brakes, and heard just an awful sound?    It could be something simple like a small rock getting stuck between the brake parts, or it could be time for a brake service. Brakes work off friction; a brake pad or shoe is made of very rough material and is pressed against the brake rotor or drum, and that is what stops your vehicle.    Under normal conditions, brakes aren't going to make noise, but sometimes, small rocks or other road debris can get in there and make noise. Or when a brake pad wears down on some models, they have a part designed to squeal on purpose to alert you that the pads have reached the end of their lifetime and need to be replaced. Most European cars have sensors in the pad or caliper that will warn you on the dash that the pads need to be replaced instead of making a noise.    If you ignore these warnings or if your automobile doesn't have either of these features and you wear completel ... 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

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